Joseph Smith prophesied, in1843, that the U.S. government would ';be utterly overthrown and wasted'; if they did not ';redress the wrongs'; that it had committed against the mormons (History of the church, Vol. 5, p. 394). This never happened.
There are many more ';prophecies'; that he made that never happened. Interested people can check out http://irr.org/mit/Doubt-LDS-Membership-鈥?/a>
There is also the DNA evidence that shows that the Native Americans are descended from Mongolians/ Northern Asians, not from Israelites as Joseph Smith said.
There is abundant evidence that Joseph Smith was a fraud and a liar. How can you keep your faith (and why would you want to?) in light of all of this overwhelming evidence?For Mormons: How do you resolve the fact that so many of Joseph Smith's prophecies are false?
They don't care for the most part.
Their leaders have told them from day one not to trust facts, just go with their feelings and they tell them over and over to proclaim that ';Their Church is True.'; This starts from the youth on up...
It a religious cult tacit if you ask me.
As a former member (temple and all) I was not told any controversial information. Not one bit. **Crucial information (history and real beliefs) that would have cause me to never join this church.
Mormon history is hidden or sugarcoated to suit the members,and or potential converts, that's for sure.
Joseph Smith was a master manipulator ,and liar if you ask me. He made these prophesies probably knowing that most would ';supposedly'; happen after his death. *Hence the ';after his death.'; He wouldn't have to answer for them.
Plus all the LDS apologetic's can say for his other prophesies is that ';they just haven't come to pass yet.'; (how convenient!)
Strike one against Joseph Smith constitutes a strikeout on his claim of being a prophet. According to the ';bible'; the the LDS church claims to follow.For Mormons: How do you resolve the fact that so many of Joseph Smith's prophecies are false?
I resolve this in two ways
1 there are highly educated Mormons who debate with Anti-Mormons for fun on subjects like this and a quick google search is all that is required to find a decent response from a credible source.
2 Joseph Smith has taught me about Christ, and it was Christ who said wicked men cannot bring forth good fruit.
Since NONE of them are, then I don't worry about it.
And DNA doesn't prove or disprove a thing. There is no DNA evidence available to make any accurate assessments, from what I understand.
Anti-Mormon web sites promote hate.
As for the 2nd coming in 1890? Which was in volume 6, volume 2 of Church History (D%26amp;C 130 more likely.)
http://en.fairmormon.org/Joseph_Smith/Pr鈥?/a>
As for redressings, the state of Missouri overturned the extermination order of Governor Boggs in 1976.
Are all amerindians Lamanites?
http://en.fairmormon.org/Amerindians_as_鈥?/a>
There were people before, during and long after the BOM peoples came and gone.
The vast majority of amerindians aren't related to the BOM or lamanites.
The Lamanites are assimilated with the other populations or died out.
http://www.fairlds.org/The_God_Makers/ta鈥?/a>
Samples of Joseph Smiths prophecies that have come true:
Joseph Smith did make some conditional prophecies. However, when a condition isn't met, the prophecy won't come true. There are similar examples of this in the Bible. The ones that you're claiming ';didn't come true'; were simply conditional prophecies. Research them a bit more and it's very clear.
He did prophecy his own death.
He did prophecy that his church of 6 members would ';fill the earth'; and go to ';every nation';.
He did prophecy that the saints would establish the Utah desert
He did prophecy of the civil war.
He prophesied that the individual running against Abraham Lincoln (can't remember his name) would lose the presidential election (even though he was the favorite at the time).
Actually DNA evidence is inconclusive. We just know too little about the DNA of the Jaredites, the DNA of other inhabitants, the DNA of the Mulekites, and the DNA of the Nephites and Lamanites. Haplogroup X is a Semitic DNA marker that shows up in about 3% of Native Americans and ancient Hebrew writings that pre-date the spanish have been found in the Americas.
I find it interesting that people like yourself completely ignore the hundreds of things that offer supporting evidences to the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith's claims. Each time you're proven wrong, you pretend that it never happened and change the subject. Why is that?
Sounds to me that you are re-interpreting prophecies to prove that they are false in your own mind.
According to the full quote: http://books.google.com/books?id=0C7iJwj鈥?/a>
It states that they should ';prune the vineyard for the last time OR the coming of the Lord';
I can't find anywhere in the verse that it states that the Lord will come, just states that the winding up of the scenes would take place in fifty six years. To me that is very vague, it either means that the Missionary work would end in that time, or Joseph Smith's work might wind up at that time, or that where the Saints were at may end up winding up.
As for your claim that the US Government would be ';utterly overthrown and wasted'; in 1843, you clearly are not a study of US History or of the Civil War. The Civil War changed the way the government was. No longer would States be as Sovereign as they are now. The states in the past had more rights than they do now and were allowed to leave the US. Every State constitution that was written after the Civil War now makes the states subservient to the Federal Government. Gee, sounds like the way things were got overthrown and wasted.
First incident you mention, you are not properly interpreting the prophecy, God made it clear to Joseph that if he were to live to the age of 85 years he would see the face of the ';the Son of Man.'; Joseph made no claim that Christ would come then, only that he knew that God wouldn't come before then...
Here is the context:
'; I was once praying very earnestly to know the time of the coming of the Son of Man, when I heard a voice repeat the following: Joseph, my son, if thou livest until thou art eighty-five years old, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man; therefore let this suffice, and trouble me no more on this matter... I was left thus, without being able to decide whether this coming referred to the beginning of the millennium or to some previous appearing, or whether I should die and thus see his face...
I believe the coming of the Son of Man will not be any sooner than that time.(D%26amp;C 130) ';
Second Incident
First the quote
';I prophecy in the name of the Lord God of Israel, unless the United States redress the wrongs committed upon the Saints in the state of Missouri and punish the crimes committed by her officers that in a few years the government will be utterly overthrown and wasted, and there will not be so much as a potsherd left for their wickedness in permitting the murder of men, women and children, and the wholesale plunder and extermination of thousands of her citizens to go unpunished, thereby perpetrating a foul and corroding blot upon the fair fame of this great republic, the very thought of which would have caused the high-minded and patriotic framers of the Constitution of the United States to hide their faces with shame. Judge [Stephen A. Douglas], you will aspire to the Presidency of the United States; and if you ever turn your hand against me or the Latter-day Saints, you will feel the weight of the hand of the Almighty upon you; and you will live to see and know that I have testified the truth to you; for the conversation of this day will stick to you through life.';
Now outside of the fact that there was no time limit place upon this prophecy, consider this...
';The prophecy as worded is obviously a conditional one. The United States did redress the Latter-day Saints to some extent for wrongs committed against them and thus the harshness of the fate of Missouri (or the United States) was reduced. The United States inviting the Saints to volunteer five hundred men to help in the 1846 war with Mexico might be considered partial redress because it provided desperately needed funds for the Latter-day Saints to finance the pioneer trek to Utah. President Polk at this time also promised Latter-day Saints safety as they travelled through Indian lands to the west. When the personal papers of James K. Polk, the U.S. president who asked Latter-day Saints to form a Mormon Battalion, were recently opened, it was found that he considered his action to help the Latter-day Saints. The granting of territorial status to the Mormons might also be considered a partial redress for wrongs'; See fairlds.org
For all the incidents in your website...which I won't bother to dive into, please balance all opinions against the church with another point of view. May I humbly suggest again...www.fairlds.org
Fourth. I've explained this DNA thing before but may the earnest seeker of truth search for similar questions regarding this topic...and for now let it suffice to say that the expectation that this small set of Jews who escaped Jerusalem's destruction by the hand of God in 600 BC, were the principal ancestors of all Native Americans is now clearly seen as modern invention of reckless assumption drawn from and careless interpretation of details in the Book of Mormon and then printed in a supplementary modern title page. Please note that before this issue came to light it was already being realized that there was internal evidence in the Book of Mormon to prove that the ancient writer of the book made no such assertion, and in fact the Book alludes to the exact opposite. (email me for details).
However based upon modern revelation we know that the blood of this small group of Jews is well mixed into the general population...but judging from the amount of intermarriage that had to occur according to the Book of Mormon itself, it is no surprise at all that the mitochondrial DNA of Jews isn't found...which must be passed from mother to child in an unbroken chain with no other groups of women involved let alone large amounts of intermarriage war and other events that would easily erase such evidence. Also that much mixing would also obscure a great deal of the human DNA as well. Yet despite the blood being thin it doesn't preclude the fact that they are in part decendants of
Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, through Lehi and his family and that many many generations practiced the religion of the Jews and Christianity...thus making them, for all intents and purposes in God's eyes, the decen
here's how I resolve it: Having sat down in christian bookstores after I converted to the LDS church and read the attempts to discredit the church in the books that are sold there, I found that 100% of the time, the claims are either false, distorted, out of context, incomplete, are based off someones interpretation but not can be interpreted another way, or they are just plain lies.
It took several months of checking before I was able to verify this was the case 100% of the time.
So now when I see questions like yours, I already know what it all is and know something's being left out, distorted, omitted, or is just a lie outright and I ignore it. It would require another several hundred questions to your question just to verify that the question its self was not wrong before I could give an answer to it.
I have studied for myself and have recieved my answer from God Himself about this church and I leave it at that.
You might well ask of Mormons: How do you resolve the fact that so many of Joseph Smith's prophecies HAVE BEEN FULFILLED?
It would be an easy matter to dispute your cut/paste excerpts and misinterpretations of facts, but I shall not waste your time nor mine, as I do not believe that you are a sincere seeker of truth. The truth, as I have found for myself by much study and prayer, is that Joseph Smith is a true prophet of God. He is all he claimed to be and his only desire was to do good to all men.
Joseph Smith, a prophet of God, was an instrument in the hands of God. Through his instrumentality the true church of Jesus Christ was restored to the earth in it's fullness, just as Jesus Christ and prophets of old had prophesied that all things would be restored prior to the Lord's Second Coming.
The truth is that ANYONE earnestly seeking the truth can come to a knowledge of these things IF they will but apply the necessary principles of knowing the truth. Such principles do not include searching anti-Mormon sites and cutting/pasting information on Yahoo.
according to whom? and what interpretations, and is the allegation taken in context?
ive been through many of the prophecies that have been allegedly said to bhave been declared by the prophet. and almost verbatim every prophecy is re interpretated or wrongfully referenced and out of context.
what anti mormons often say are often based on what another christians said. and sometimes don't even exist.
to read these cites i would ahve to find them and that would take time to understand what is actually said.
but by and large most accusations have been empy cisterns
p.s. after reading the answers i liked what july moon and bro G said at least in part.
as for what cookies said i too had the experience of hearing people promised to see the 2nd coming of the saviour happen intheir life time.
but i also posted somewhere that if such prophecies existed, they MIGHT be indeed Imaginations of men who do not understand the gifts of prophecy and rather they are following the hopes of their hearts.
i would suspect if anyone acctualy began saying jesus would return in their generation even among josephs own lifetime.
i have read the incorrect assumptions of the first prophecy and i forget the conclusion of that particular prophecy and interpretation thereof or the perceived interpretation thereof.
to echo julymoon, i have always been serious about my studies and no matter what, again, i have always found antimormon literature to be found ';wanting';.
your interpretations of both the prophecies and their results are incorrect. that happens when you just take your thinking from others rather than doing it yourself.
if you were, on the other hand, to review the statements made by JS - it becomes quite clear that he did not prophesy that Christ's second coming would be in fifty-six years. but instead (based on revelation he had received - D%26amp;C130:14-17) it becomes his OPINION that the second coming should be sometime within the next fifty-six years. several times JS explained the ambiguous nature of the revelation he had been given on the subject.
on the government - government does not always mean the entire US set-up.....@times it can mean only one political party - in this case, the whigs, or one political administration, such as stephen douglas, who ran for pres. (and who had every hope for success in this bid) on this background, was completely ruined - received only 12 electoral votes and carried only one state - Missouri. the Whig party was destroyed and in the course of the 50-60's disappeared completely. and who beat him out of the presidency? why Abe Lincoln - who's presidency saw the US government completely wiped out in 11 states thru succession and reformation of their own congress. and implemented order number 11 - which did redress some of the issues against officers of Missouri, the US governement provided protection thru Indian lands, and provided financial support for the move west......a partial redress and a partial destruction. interestingly enough - the tide turned in favor of the north shortly after implementation of order 11.
and if you have read the BoM, and charted the possibilities coursewise - you would have found that it suggests an asian route far before science did....not to mention the wipe-out of entire peoples in the BoM.....
as far as the character of JS - I have not seen ';abundant evidence that he was a fraud [or] a liar';, so your ';overwhelming evidence'; is more an overwhelming opinion than anything else.
really, do some research and you will be able to answer your question yourself.
Not only that, how do they resolve the fact that so many of Joseph Smith's originals ';writings'; were chock full of grammatical and spelling errors and very racist comments?
I reject the idea that the BOM is an ancient work, because of its insurmountable mountains of anachronisms which identify it as a modern effort, placing it squarely in the culture of the 1820s, and plagiarism from other widely available works.
If you need to believe it's true, you'll excuse away any evidence to the contrary. Go to the FAIR or FARMS sites for examples.
their answer: ';Evidence, Smevidence';
Growing up Mormon a long time ago, I was taught my generation would be the last and would see the second coming.
Every generation of Mormons was told that, over and over, since 1835. That's why they are called 'Latter Day' saints.
I think they are de-emphasizing it now. It only took 170 years to figure out it isn't going to happen.
Why would a church that thinks the world is ending build a 3 billion dollar downtown shopping mall in Salt Lake City? It'll take decades to make back their investment. Oh wait, why would ANY church build shopping malls, high end hotels in Hawaii and numerous other commercial projects? How do they explain not spending on the needy instead? Their members in 3rd world countries are still dying from disease and starvation.
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