Mormonism

Good find and you would be correct. If you never attend a formal hearing and avoid going to your court date (in modern terms it's called Failure To Appear or FTA) then you're never formally convicted or acquitted. Since it's so difficult to find facts supporting either end without doubt this seems to be the most likely answer right here.

 

To roll with the false prophet bit let's take a look at the Book of Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 18:21-22: And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? / When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.

It seems like Smith made a lot of prophecies that have never come to pass yet doesn't it? By the very words of the Bible a prophet who makes claims that never come true is a false prophet. Want proof? In 1844 Smith prophesied that in five years Mormons would no longer have to cook their food. How's that working out for you? Still seems like Mormons are cooking 163 years after they were supposedly never needing to ever again. He prophesied his son David would be "the president and king of Israel" but David Smith ended up dying in an insane asylum after spending almost half his life in it. Somehow despite predicting its destruction was "nigh" because they failed to accept Smith's words New York is still around today. This is only a few of the countless prophecies he made that never came to pass.

 

If they are false prophets then there are true prophets as well. Was Joseph Smith not persecuted from town to town as Jesus said his prophets would be?

 

Wow.

I bet you have a 'correlation implies causation' tattoo.

 

1838 was the year of the Mormon war in Missouri. Wiki has an article on that to. The LDS were under violent attack for, among other things, their pro abolitionist sympathies and pro Indian sympathies. I wouldn't be suprised if Joeseph Smith was jailed in Missouri for being an invading Martian from outer space.
Joseph Smith may have taken other wives but Emma was the only one he had children with so obviously sex was not his primary motivation there.

 

Yeah imagine the poor man being persecuted for something as intrinsically innocent as large scale banking fraud.......

 

If he was jailed he was convicted irrespective whether you agree with the charges or not. Certainly you are agreeing that he practised polygamy which again shows that he was breaking laws whether or not he had kids or not.

Just seems that you ignore facts to the contrary if they don't fit with your beliefs.

LFD

 

Prophet comes from the Greek prophetes which means inspired teacher. Scripturally, a prophet is anyone who has a testimony of Jesus Christ and is moved b the Holy Ghost. Joseph Smith said "A prophet is only a prophet when he is acting like one." Modern prophets are like the prophets and apostles of old, called and ordained by God to teach inspired messages from Christ and lead his church.
As for fortelling the future, God has reversed prophesies. Read Jeremiah 18:7-10 and read Ezekiel chapters 26,27 and 28. Also read Jonah chapters 3 and 4.

 

If he was never tried then no, no conviction. He enver stood trial in Missouri, as has already been established here.

 

The polygamy thing is a moral issue, and not one I would take issue with. The fact he was a liar and a fraudster is far more serious.

Throwing everything at Smith undermines the criminality he did engage in. By keeping his personal beliefs (polygamy) separate from his criminal activities (fraud) the accusations of "oh he was just being persecuted" can be avoided.

His whole origin story is clearly horse manure, as are his so-called "witnesses", but that must be weighed against his credibility...of which a fraudster has none. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof - and there is not a shred of it for anything Smith pulled out of his ass

 

Is Fred West a murderer?

 

Obviously. He obviously didn't have sex with any of the others. Because no children resulted.

 

Yep, he just made up a bunch of names that turned out to be authentic Semetic names, including the name Alma, which is a Latin girls name but we now know was male name in ancient Israel. Noone knew that at the time. Boy was he a lucky guesser. And somehow he knew of writing on metal plates being practiced in the ancient world before anyone else did. And he had intimate knowledge of the Arabian Penisula and other places he had never been.
And he knew of the Ancient Josephs prophesy concernng Moses and Aaron and their deliverance of the Hebrews from Egypt. something thats not in the Bible but is found in second century Targumim, documents not available to him. www.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/insights/?vol=21&num=1&id=178
And thats just a few examples. Either this guy was the luckiest guesser in the world, or he had some sort of divine revelation.

 

He was a man (allegedly) therefore sex was most certainly a primary motivation.

 

Well, guys, when someone has gotten to this point, there is no arguing with them. Anything you say which contradicts their belief is just seen as "the devil made it up to stop people knowing the truth". They don't need to provide evidence (which there is none of) because they have convinced themselves it is correct and if the jigsaw doesn't fit, they will force the pieces together. There is no way to win. You can't unwash a brain.

I speak from personal experience after a close family friend became a mormon.

 

End of discussion because your obstinacy will not allow you to see reality.

Your "facts" are laughable and the evidence you present appallingly poor. If you even a had a cursory level of scholarly acumen you would be able to grasp how asinine your above apologetic is.

 

I was brought up a baptist and I remember one of our pastors talking about using bible verses out of context. He then gave an example using 2 verses, sorry I don't remember what the chapter and verse are any more but it really shows the fallacy of doing that.

Verse 1: Judas went out and hanged himself.

Verse 2: Go thou and do likewise.


If you are going to argue using bible verses you need to understand the context of the verse and it's relationship with the other verse if any.

I give you an F for your current effort.

 

This pretty much sums it up... If you can read this and still believe..have fun with that, if it brings you some measure of happiness then I guess who am I to argue. Still, I hate to see people taken advantage of and herded like sheep...:bang:

 

News to me. Sources, other than Mormon sources? Almah is the Hebrew worh for young woman.

You do realize that the Targum is Rabbis riffing on Torah, right? Not prophesy. It tends to be even more fanciful than Midrash.