LDS Freedom Forum

What the Future of Mormonism ought to be.

I am new to this LDS freedom forum. I just learned that it existed about three days ago. Some left-leaning person on "by common consent" said some bad things about it, which indicated that it probably was a fruitful forum for my kind of person.

I see many topics here of interest to myself, so perhaps that indicates that I will be talking to the right people. I see there are lots of entries found under a general search for "priestcraft," plus references to the Catholic Church, plus references to the videos of Rob Fotheringham, etc. (I had never heard of Rob before either, but he seems like a smart and serious person), plus I see a recent new post entitled "So what do you predict LDS Corp will do next?" All this kind of information encourages me to make this post, hoping that I will not be considered an irrelevant off-topic troublemaker. I want to suggest what Mormonism ought to become, and this seems like an interesting place to offer some theories. All I am saying is that it ought to go back where it started, but that is much easier said than done.
------------------------------------------------------------
A few days ago I put the following message on my blog and sent this same message to the FAIR Mormon website. I can't imagine that anyone there will actually try to answer me, but it seemed worth a try until I could think of a better avenue to try. I am hoping that the LDS freedom forum will be a good place to try.
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An Appeal to the Modern Day Church

I appeal to the modern-day church, and to its apologetics supporters, to overcome about 120 years of the accumulated "traditions of the fathers" which have moved it backwards in time so that it is now mostly an Old Testament church in concept and operation, and to reform itself into once again being a truly New Testament church.

I have prepared about 500 pages of information, some detailed, and some which contain summaries and advocacy (about 50 pages), which are intended to demonstrate the following:

1. My main published book (about 450 pages) quotes extensively from three different books which are from 200 to 400 years old which demonstrate that the mandatory payment of tithing had no part in the New Testament church, being in complete conflict with the New Testament concept of charity. Today's tithing processes are an indication and a relic of slipping back into an Old Testament mindset which the New Testament church had escaped.

2. That same book of mine demonstrates that all of the FAIR Mormon arguments, about the current day LDS church not being a priestcraft church, prove exactly the opposite if read sensibly and in proper context. And there is much more scriptural information available that could be presented indicating that the Church today is in fact a priestcraft church, but hopefully 64 pages of material will be enough on that point for now.

3. The actual effect of the church organization today is to greatly limit the growth and influence of the gospel, making the church's behavior completely at odds with the hundreds of scriptural evidences that the mission of the church in these latter days is to support the spread of the gospel and its influence, rather than suppress it for the benefit of a relatively small central organization. Look for the graph that succinctly presents that idea.

There is every indication that the decline of the church documented in 4 Nephi, and the ultimate dissolution of the church and the very society of which it was part, will again be our fate today if no vigorous compensating action is taken.


I realize that it is almost inconceivable that a deteriorated church can revive itself to what it should be, pulling itself back up by its bootstraps, so to speak, without some intervening cataclysmic event. Such a spontaneous self-correction process would alone be a miracle. I know of no other case where such a miracle has happened, but that is what I request happen today. We have the interesting historical case of Martin Luther where he objected to the behavior of the prevailing church in his time. He did not ever see a reforming of the prevailing church, but from his beginning efforts arose the Protestant Reformation which offered some much better substitutes, although still imperfect.

The trail through 500 pages of information begins on my blog website at FutureMormonism.blogspot.com. There are about five blog posts on that website which are all relevant, plus a link to the full text of my book. A paper copy of the book can be purchased on Amazon. Links to the full text of a few other books on related church history topics will also be added in the near future.

Leland41-2 wrote: ↑March 21st, 2022, 12:06 pm What the Future of Mormonism ought to be.

I realize that it is almost inconceivable that a deteriorated church can revive itself to what it should be, pulling itself back up by its bootstraps, so to speak, without some intervening cataclysmic event.

I agree with you if you drop the cataclysmic event. The corporation (Church) is exactly where it wants to be. I don't think anything will happen to deter them from the path that they are on.

Well, you’re in the right place. Welcome!

I'll check out your blog, but I think the short answer (for me) for what the future ought to be is:

- outsiders should confuse us with the Amish.

Leland41-2 wrote: ↑March 21st, 2022, 12:06 pm What the Future of Mormonism ought to be.

I am new to this LDS freedom forum. I just learned that it existed about three days ago. Some left-leaning person on "by common consent" said some bad things about it, which indicated that it probably was a fruitful forum for my kind of person.

I see many topics here of interest to myself, so perhaps that indicates that I will be talking to the right people. I see there are lots of entries found under a general search for "priestcraft," plus references to the Catholic Church, plus references to the videos of Rob Fotheringham, etc. (I had never heard of Rob before either, but he seems like a smart and serious person), plus I see a recent new post entitled "So what do you predict LDS Corp will do next?" All this kind of information encourages me to make this post, hoping that I will not be considered an irrelevant off-topic troublemaker. I want to suggest what Mormonism ought to become, and this seems like an interesting place to offer some theories. All I am saying is that it ought to go back where it started, but that is much easier said than done.
------------------------------------------------------------
A few days ago I put the following message on my blog and sent this same message to the FAIR Mormon website. I can't imagine that anyone there will actually try to answer me, but it seemed worth a try until I could think of a better avenue to try. I am hoping that the LDS freedom forum will be a good place to try.
------------------------------------------------------------
An Appeal to the Modern Day Church

I appeal to the modern-day church, and to its apologetics supporters, to overcome about 120 years of the accumulated "traditions of the fathers" which have moved it backwards in time so that it is now mostly an Old Testament church in concept and operation, and to reform itself into once again being a truly New Testament church.

I have prepared about 500 pages of information, some detailed, and some which contain summaries and advocacy (about 50 pages), which are intended to demonstrate the following:

1. My main published book (about 450 pages) quotes extensively from three different books which are from 200 to 400 years old which demonstrate that the mandatory payment of tithing had no part in the New Testament church, being in complete conflict with the New Testament concept of charity. Today's tithing processes are an indication and a relic of slipping back into an Old Testament mindset which the New Testament church had escaped.

2. That same book of mine demonstrates that all of the FAIR Mormon arguments, about the current day LDS church not being a priestcraft church, prove exactly the opposite if read sensibly and in proper context. And there is much more scriptural information available that could be presented indicating that the Church today is in fact a priestcraft church, but hopefully 64 pages of material will be enough on that point for now.

3. The actual effect of the church organization today is to greatly limit the growth and influence of the gospel, making the church's behavior completely at odds with the hundreds of scriptural evidences that the mission of the church in these latter days is to support the spread of the gospel and its influence, rather than suppress it for the benefit of a relatively small central organization. Look for the graph that succinctly presents that idea.

There is every indication that the decline of the church documented in 4 Nephi, and the ultimate dissolution of the church and the very society of which it was part, will again be our fate today if no vigorous compensating action is taken.


I realize that it is almost inconceivable that a deteriorated church can revive itself to what it should be, pulling itself back up by its bootstraps, so to speak, without some intervening cataclysmic event. Such a spontaneous self-correction process would alone be a miracle. I know of no other case where such a miracle has happened, but that is what I request happen today. We have the interesting historical case of Martin Luther where he objected to the behavior of the prevailing church in his time. He did not ever see a reforming of the prevailing church, but from his beginning efforts arose the Protestant Reformation which offered some much better substitutes, although still imperfect.

The trail through 500 pages of information begins on my blog website at FutureMormonism.blogspot.com. There are about five blog posts on that website which are all relevant, plus a link to the full text of my book. A paper copy of the book can be purchased on Amazon. Links to the full text of a few other books on related church history topics will also be added in the near future.

Those are some great thoughts.
You'll fit right in here if you wish to.
Welcome, hermano

Leland41-2 wrote: ↑March 21st, 2022, 12:06 pm What the Future of Mormonism ought to be.

I am new to this LDS freedom forum. I just learned that it existed about three days ago. Some left-leaning person on "by common consent" said some bad things about it, which indicated that it probably was a fruitful forum for my kind of person.

I see many topics here of interest to myself, so perhaps that indicates that I will be talking to the right people. I see there are lots of entries found under a general search for "priestcraft," plus references to the Catholic Church, plus references to the videos of Rob Fotheringham, etc. (I had never heard of Rob before either, but he seems like a smart and serious person), plus I see a recent new post entitled "So what do you predict LDS Corp will do next?" All this kind of information encourages me to make this post, hoping that I will not be considered an irrelevant off-topic troublemaker. I want to suggest what Mormonism ought to become, and this seems like an interesting place to offer some theories. All I am saying is that it ought to go back where it started, but that is much easier said than done.
------------------------------------------------------------
A few days ago I put the following message on my blog and sent this same message to the FAIR Mormon website. I can't imagine that anyone there will actually try to answer me, but it seemed worth a try until I could think of a better avenue to try. I am hoping that the LDS freedom forum will be a good place to try.
------------------------------------------------------------
An Appeal to the Modern Day Church

I appeal to the modern-day church, and to its apologetics supporters, to overcome about 120 years of the accumulated "traditions of the fathers" which have moved it backwards in time so that it is now mostly an Old Testament church in concept and operation, and to reform itself into once again being a truly New Testament church.

I have prepared about 500 pages of information, some detailed, and some which contain summaries and advocacy (about 50 pages), which are intended to demonstrate the following:

1. My main published book (about 450 pages) quotes extensively from three different books which are from 200 to 400 years old which demonstrate that the mandatory payment of tithing had no part in the New Testament church, being in complete conflict with the New Testament concept of charity. Today's tithing processes are an indication and a relic of slipping back into an Old Testament mindset which the New Testament church had escaped.

2. That same book of mine demonstrates that all of the FAIR Mormon arguments, about the current day LDS church not being a priestcraft church, prove exactly the opposite if read sensibly and in proper context. And there is much more scriptural information available that could be presented indicating that the Church today is in fact a priestcraft church, but hopefully 64 pages of material will be enough on that point for now.

3. The actual effect of the church organization today is to greatly limit the growth and influence of the gospel, making the church's behavior completely at odds with the hundreds of scriptural evidences that the mission of the church in these latter days is to support the spread of the gospel and its influence, rather than suppress it for the benefit of a relatively small central organization. Look for the graph that succinctly presents that idea.

There is every indication that the decline of the church documented in 4 Nephi, and the ultimate dissolution of the church and the very society of which it was part, will again be our fate today if no vigorous compensating action is taken.


I realize that it is almost inconceivable that a deteriorated church can revive itself to what it should be, pulling itself back up by its bootstraps, so to speak, without some intervening cataclysmic event. Such a spontaneous self-correction process would alone be a miracle. I know of no other case where such a miracle has happened, but that is what I request happen today. We have the interesting historical case of Martin Luther where he objected to the behavior of the prevailing church in his time. He did not ever see a reforming of the prevailing church, but from his beginning efforts arose the Protestant Reformation which offered some much better substitutes, although still imperfect.

The trail through 500 pages of information begins on my blog website at FutureMormonism.blogspot.com. There are about five blog posts on that website which are all relevant, plus a link to the full text of my book. A paper copy of the book can be purchased on Amazon. Links to the full text of a few other books on related church history topics will also be added in the near future.

Welcome to the board. You bring about many interesting things in your blog. I will continue reading some of the information then bring about what I opine about it.

You will probably have a significant amount of support for what you are saying, as well as some opposition. The more voices we have the better.

but it HAS changed . . .that's what prophets are for to change things . . . ya know modern day revelation . . . for us today (bwahahahahah sarcasm)

Do the contents of the scriptures limit what the prophets can do and change? Apparently not. Past scriptures are mere suggestions. What a lot of trouble people went to in the past to preserve those suggestions.

On the tithing thing, I thought they had the law of consecration in the New Testament. Remember the story of the husband and wife who sold the property and then lied when they told how much they had sold it for and then died on the spot?

Wolfwoman,

I'm glad you asked that question, and the answer is No that is not what happened in the New Testament and No they didn't have the so-called "law of consecration" or any kind of religiously required communalism. That is one of the worst bits of intentional misinformation that has been dropped on us. It is truly fraudulent. It is so twisted that it takes three books to untwist it.

The logic typically presented is that we actually owe the church 100%, and they are doing us a favor to only charge 10%, but the truth is that we don't owe them a penny. Christ canceled tithing and everything like it. The only responsibility was to exercise free-will charity to take care of your family and your neighbors.

I have spent a ridiculous amount of time researching that particular question, and, having written five books on that general topic, I can say unequivocally that Joseph Smith and Brigham Young thought that particular incident was interpreted completely incorrectly. They used the term "common stock" in the time of Joseph Smith to refer to such practices, and Joseph Smith spoke against it until he was blue in the face and wrote articles about that not being church doctrine. Regardless of what you may have heard about Brigham Young and his "United order" language, he also was just as vehement in denying that that had anything to do with the gospel. According to him, adopting such practices would destroy the church. It is really nothing but Marxism by another name, and Marxism never works anywhere.

My blog answers that question specifically if you use this search term, I believe/hope. This is my February 12, 2022 post.

https://futuremormonism.blogspot.com/search?q=rulers

That section of my blog is entitled "The Acts 5 Story of Ananias and Sapphira:"
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In my March 15, 2022 blog post I list the book that contains Joseph Smith's views, and next comes the book which contains Brigham Young's views.
https://futuremormonism.blogspot.com/se ... munalistic

I hope in the next week or so to get the fulltext of those books available on my blog, but until then, you can read the first few chapters for free on Amazon, I believe, if you want to dig in that far.

Wolfwoman:

Your question about "consecration" is a question that never seems to go away and never seems to get settled. Joseph Smith fought the same ideological battle, Brigham Young fought the same ideological battle, and it goes on forever. (In 1896 Wilford Woodruff decided he would take the other track, and we have been messed up ever since.) We have to refight the "counsel in heaven" battle over freedom every day for eternity. The LDS Freedom Forum sounds like the perfect place to further advance toward getting this question settled once and for all.

Joseph Smith United Order, Chapter 2, pp.25-26:
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As used here the word consecration obviously had nothing to do with how one bought, sold, or used property. The phrase "every man enjoys his own property, or can, if he is disposed, consecrate liberally or illiberally to the support of the poor and needy, or the building up of Zion," makes it clear that the term consecration had the same operational meaning then as the word donation has in the church today free will offerings. There is no enforcing mechanism or doctrine, just as there is none now.
Here is another quotation defining the economic relationship of the members to the church:

Tuesday, 8. I spent the day with Elder Rigdon in visiting Elder Cahoon at the place he selected for his residence, and in attending to some of our private, personal affairs; also in the afternoon I answered the questions which were frequently asked me, while on my last journey but one from Kirtland to Missouri, as printed in the Elders Journal, Vol. I, Number II, pages 28 and 29, as follows:
...Sixth "Do the Mormons believe in having all things in common?"
No.
...Twelfth "Do the people have to give up their money when they join his Church?"
No other requirement than to bear their proportion of the expenses of the Church, and support the poor.
...I published the forgoing answers to save myself the trouble of repeating the same a thousand times over and over again.10

The comment "no other requirement than to bear their proportion of the expenses of the church, and support the poor," makes it clear that no complicated joinder of property was required. The "thousand times over" comment shows that the whole topic was one which people tediously refused to understand.
----------------------------
This Chapter 2 contains many similar excerpts from official Church History on this topic.

Here is a link to the entire book:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/f7cbrtcrpimeo ... 9.pdf?dl=0

Wolfwoman:

Here is the same kind of sentiment coming from Brigham Young. Everything else is made up by somebody else.

------------------------------------
Brigham Young’s United Order, Chapter 11, pp.133-4:

CHAPTER 11

Brigham Young Rejected
The Acts "All Things Common" Tradition


Those who are in favor of an equality in property say that that is the doctrine taught in the New Testament. True, the Savior said to the young man, "Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me," in order to try him and prove whether he had faith or not.
In the days of the Apostles, the brethren sold their possessions and laid them at the Apostles' feet. And where did many of those brethren go to? To naught, to confusion and destruction. Could those Apostles keep the Church together, on those principles? No. Could they build up the kingdom on those principles? No, they never could. Many of those persons were good men, but they were filled with enthusiasm, insomuch that if they owned a little possession, they would place it at the feet of the Apostles.
Will such a course sustain the kingdom? No. Did it, in the days of the Apostles? No. Such a policy would be the ruin of this people, and scatter them to the four winds. We are to be guided by superior knowledge, by a higher influence and power.
--------------------------------------
This Chapter 11 contains many similar excerpts from official Church History on this topic.

Here is a link to the entire book:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/u1gunqj2xy01h ... t.pdf?dl=0

Leland41-2 wrote: ↑March 21st, 2022, 6:18 pm Do the contents of the scriptures limit what the prophets can do and change? Apparently not. Past scriptures are mere suggestions. What a lot of trouble people went to in the past to preserve those suggestions.

Depends whether you want to keep squirrel, rabbit, prawn/shrimp and pig on the menu.

mudflap wrote: ↑March 21st, 2022, 12:44 pm I'll check out your blog, but I think the short answer (for me) for what the future ought to be is:

- outsiders should confuse us with the Amish.

Currently, outsiders confuse us with the Jehovah's Witnesses, while our leadership confuses us with the dull end of Methodism. Or a Roman Catholic style of hierarchy, except with more boring clothing, music, art and buildings.

Currently, outsiders confuse us with the Jehovah's Witnesses, while our leadership confuses us with the dull end of Methodism. Or a Roman Catholic style of hierarchy, except with more boring clothing, music, art and buildings.

The LDS seem to have fully adopted the Protestant concept of "grace" which really means that Christ is responsible for absolutely everything we are responsible for absolutely nothing. What could be better?

Leland41-2 wrote: ↑March 24th, 2022, 7:17 pm

Currently, outsiders confuse us with the Jehovah's Witnesses, while our leadership confuses us with the dull end of Methodism. Or a Roman Catholic style of hierarchy, except with more boring clothing, music, art and buildings.

The LDS seem to have fully adopted the Protestant concept of "grace" which really means that Christ is responsible for absolutely everything we are responsible for absolutely nothing. What could be better?

We are responsible for faith and repentance and exercising our free will, or in Mormonspeak "choosing the right".

The LDS version of this seems to be more about obeying the hierarchy and going through the motions.

I've said this before, but Fundamentalist Mormons are a snapshot of what we were 130 years ago, mostly unchanged. If you want to know what we would have been today were it not for the Manifesto, they are a living example.

What's our future? See: RLDS/Community of Christ.

Key point to make: the RLDS never compromised, the Community of Christ compromised radically, and the LDS seem to compromise incrementally.

Leland41-2 wrote: ↑March 23rd, 2022, 7:14 pm Wolfwoman:

Here is the same kind of sentiment coming from Brigham Young. Everything else is made up by somebody else.

------------------------------------
Brigham Young’s United Order, Chapter 11, pp.133-4:

CHAPTER 11

Brigham Young Rejected
The Acts "All Things Common" Tradition


Those who are in favor of an equality in property say that that is the doctrine taught in the New Testament. True, the Savior said to the young man, "Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me," in order to try him and prove whether he had faith or not.
In the days of the Apostles, the brethren sold their possessions and laid them at the Apostles' feet. And where did many of those brethren go to? To naught, to confusion and destruction. Could those Apostles keep the Church together, on those principles? No. Could they build up the kingdom on those principles? No, they never could. Many of those persons were good men, but they were filled with enthusiasm, insomuch that if they owned a little possession, they would place it at the feet of the Apostles.
Will such a course sustain the kingdom? No. Did it, in the days of the Apostles? No. Such a policy would be the ruin of this people, and scatter them to the four winds. We are to be guided by superior knowledge, by a higher influence and power.
--------------------------------------
This Chapter 11 contains many similar excerpts from official Church History on this topic.

Here is a link to the entire book:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/u1gunqj2xy01h ... t.pdf?dl=0

So then, how about give us a quick summary of what is the goal, financially/labor/tithing/economy etc speaking about God's people. Because, inspite of who said what where and when in regards to the new testament "selling all and laying it at the apostles feet" every single rare reference we have, to the conditions of when the people were truly happy and seemed to be pleasing God, the statement used is "there was neither rich nor poor and they had all things common". The "selling all and laying it at the apostles feet" happened because they were truly "born of the spirit". What transpired was a complete new marvelous spiritual birth, that cause them to put off the natural selfish man, and lose their love of material things, to the point of being willing to let go of it all.
Have you read any books upon the "Orderville" Utah, United order? They were the strictest, down to the most exact possible, equality of material things, I've ever read about. But, The end result, before the church shut them down, was financial success. Much more important though, was spiritual success, in that they truly learned to "love one another". And they started out literally dirt, own nothing poor. Some were literally weeping when asked to shut down.
Look at America today, you have extreme, like a very extreme rich few, and masses of poor, all because of the capitalistic system, IMO.
Look at the church today, the very same thing, a prosperity church, a few extremely wealthy and masses of poor. Yet it seems that a great reset is about to happen. The system we have right now is every man financially for himself, sink or swim, yet go to church on Sunday and call each other brother. I say it's all BS.

simpleton wrote: ↑March 25th, 2022, 7:16 am

The system we have right now is every man financially for himself, sink or swim, yet go to church on Sunday and call each other brother. I say it's all BS.

Ouch. What an embarrassingly great point.

The older I get, the less I think about how things ought to be.
It doesn't mean I have no will or desires. But the prominent question, for me, is not even "who should I be?" but "Who AM I?
When I see others who have clearly lost their WAY, yes it can be frustrating, but it is more a cause of sorrow and pity than anything else.

As hard as it is, I love the path I am on. I definitely have many challenges to overcome, but I have laid down the burden of trying to set things right in the world or in the church.

satan readily becomes a member of any new church, and rises swiftly thru its ranks, hes the most pleasant and popular of preachers, has the best of educations and all the money in the world at his disposal...........
Hes bright, intelligent and outwardly friendly in public and before you know it hes taken nigh all the seats of honour in a church..........
Now satan is very jealous of Jesus, does not want Him to be centre stage, the star of the show, the Preacher that leads the way,
And so satan begins to weave a plan to promote himself and to weave a system that leaves Jesus in the shadows, far into the background..........
The very first to be excommunicated from a church is Jesus.........
satan then seeks out those still exercising the sign gifts of the spirit and has them cast out of the church, cant have them having direct communication in his church with Jesus and leading his finely dressed, wealthy working their way to heaven congregation astray ........
And so we have another brand new church set up, just like so many before it, filled with judges, lawyers, High priests, bankers, bussiness men, the academics, the learned, and of course his scripture scholars in their Church funded universities all blinded by the god of this dieing and decaying world by wealth, prestige and honors ..........
And of course satan was lieing saying they were working their way to heaven, earning their salvation, he really meant but kept it from his religious followers that they were working their way to hell and earning their damnation.............

I would suggest reading the New testament in modern english to any man seeking to find Jesus of Nazerath and His simple message of Grace, faith, hope and forgiveness ..........
And when that finely dressed, friendly preacher man called satan comes along and tells you not to read it as its unreliable, mistranslated and contains many errors and seeks to give you one of his finely written manuals by the very best academics and scholars amongst his following...........
Just you go read the New Testament in the english of our times..................
And tell satan to get behind you!

I had a young man from South America tell me recently that "when any church becomes big, it becomes all about the money." Rough translation.

And there is a great deal of truth in that simple statement.
dc

I would like to compose an answer for the last 7 commenters above, incorporating about 4 words: class, slave, Abraham, and priestcraft.

I am a little bit of a radical, but I am trying to anticipate what heaven would be like for those who do well on earth. I am imagining that Abraham is a great model for someone who is to be given godlike powers in heaven. He was completely independent and family oriented. He could wander almost anywhere with his flocks and herds and do just fine. There was no one (except his wife) to tell them what to do.
From this I conclude that any slave mentality would not be a good preparation for heaven. The entire idea there is to be well prepared, independent, and committed to always doing the right thing for other people, often mostly your family.

Most of these comments were referring to priestcraft, as I would define it, where people declare themselves to be of a special class, above the masses, who ought to be given all sorts of money just for their words – telling everyone else what to do, and everyone eats it up. Unfortunately, since the time of Wilford Woodruff, we have had a priestcraft church, where our self-appointed leaders explain to their foolish minions that they were so wonderful that they were entitled to live off the labors of lesser men. That is Old Testament thinking, where a kind of coercion is used to get people into religion-based slave structures. We have the case of the Hindu caste system which is a very sophisticated (and brutal) slavery system. Apparently, Satan has figured out that you can convince people that they are worthless and that their role should be as a slave supplying their labor and their resources to their "betters" who live off the land as a matter of right, where the world owes them a living.

The most outrageous part of that is that these people are willing to take a religion and bend it every which way to support their living off everyone else. In the process, they corrupt everything and turn a religion into a rent-seeking process. That's what they did in the Old Testament, and it was the Levites and priests who refused to give away anything to help anyone else. They kept everything for themselves while they were keeping themselves "pure."

The United States is a wealthy country and, for most people, it is simply foolish to get involved in envy and greed. Yes, there are people who have more and people who have less, but, at least in the past, there was a great deal of mobility, so that a teenager might cook French fries for a job, but end up owning McDonald's in the end. There are these hierarchies, but people can move through those hierarchies, at least as long as there are fair laws and equal protection of those laws.

I believe there are lots of people who simply want someone to tell them what to do, and then they can have someone to complain about if things go wrong. That is part of the slave mentality. From our description of the heavens, we might guess that the majority of people fall in that category, more or less. They really DON'T want to have the responsibility that goes with the power to help other people. They are happy to think about themselves only, and that's where they will stay. For the sake of everyone else, they really should stay where they are.

I think of Zion as nothing more than the operation of the U.S. Constitution and all the proper laws that are derived from it. We're all equal before the law, we get to own property, we get to keep what we earn, etc. There is no imaginable reason why religion or other mind control mechanisms should be used to make us into a class system with lesser and "better" men, simply based on ideology and fraud and manipulation.

At least in religious situations, there's no reason to give people power over us to do these kinds of things. I think the critical point for me is that Jesus NEVER asked anyone to give him any money, certainly he never required it. He was happy to live off the land and made sure that his disciples lived off the land, or accepted totally free-will gifts. There was no authorization whatsoever to build a paid bureaucracy, a religious "standing army," to corrupt and harass church members, or anyone else.

To summarize, what we're seeing in LDS-land is the very sophisticated implementation of priestcraft, and apparently, we are not smart enough to think ourselves out of this wet paper bag, and, and until we do so, things will keep going badly. If we believe all this nonsense about this class system which the church leaders and others teach us, then we will continue to live in a kind of serfdom, and to some extent deserve it, because we are too lazy or uneducated or unwise or fearful to do anything else.

As someone hinted at above, Jesus was killed for the exact reason that he was trying to break up the then-current very profitable priestcraft (money/tithing) system, and make it so that no one would ever even think of another priestcraft system again. He totally ended priestcraft, but now we have it back again in all its glory. It was illegal in Book of Mormon times, and they were very serious about it. That should tell us something important. (But the BOM is only true as far as it is translated correctly, right? )
2 Ne. 26:29, Alma 1:12., 26

Just to make those scriptures easily accessible:
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2 Ne. 26:29 He commandeth that there shall be no priestcrafts; for, behold, priestcrafts are that men preach and set themselves up for a light unto the world, that they may get gain and praise of the world; but they seek not the welfare of Zion.

Alma 1:12 But Alma said unto him: Behold, this is the first time that priestcraft has been introduced among this people. And behold, thou art not only guilty of priestcraft, but hast endeavored to enforce it by the sword; and were priestcraft to be enforced among this people it would prove their entire destruction.

Alma 1:26 And when the priests left their labor to impart the word of God unto the people, the people also left their labors to hear the word of God. And when the priest had imparted unto them the word of God they all returned again diligently unto their labors; and the priest, not esteeming himself above his hearers, for the preacher was no better than the hearer, neither was the teacher any better than the learner; and thus they were all equal, and they did all labor, every man according to his strength.
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This is where board members see it heading.


This is where woke members want it to go


This is where church leadership thinks it will go.


This is probably where it will be in the near future.


This is where it will end up.

What the Future of "Mormonism" ought to be -
what it ought to be, and what the future will be, will be according to what the scriptures say -
and that is - is it won't be.
There won't be a future for Mormonism.
(which we can already see by seeing the signs of the times and where the church is at -
in full apostasy - awaiting God's wrath ! - which comes next )

Being There wrote: ↑March 26th, 2022, 9:13 am What the Future of "Mormonism" ought to be -
what it ought to be, and what the future will be, will be according to what the scriptures say -
and that is - is it wont be.
There won't be a future for Mormonism.
(which we can already see by seeing the signs of the times and where the church is at -
in full apostasy - awaiting God's wrath ! - which comes next )

What will the saints do next?