Wow!
That will teach me to wait a few days before checking back. Thanks for all of the info. I did some research on various sources (including wikipedia) and spoke to some mormons. i will be honest it was difficult to get them to talk to me about some of the more "controversial" if you will teachings. one thing I am sure of is that they hold family and charity in very high regard which is something to be said in this world we live in. Plus...I am one of Jehovah's Witnesses so i know what it is like to sometimes be marginalized or have half truths told to the masses on your behalf. So I really wanted to give the beliefs a fighting chance.
Basically I came to the conclution that everything comes down to basis of faith. Basis of faith in the book of mormon and Joseph Smith's being a prophet. If someone was to believe those things than all of the other things that would be considered "differant" from the bible would not be a problem. ie. no alcohol, "hot drinks", speial priestlike undergarments etc...
But that is where I run into a roadblock. They claim to believe in the bible "as it is acurately translated". This qualifier brings me some trouble since the BoM quotes over 27,000 words from the bible....KJV no less. Not the most acurate translation in history if i may say so. And Joseph Smith had a kind of sketchy history that included shooting into a mob that was coming to get him.
While some of the basic principles in the bible agree with the BoM, the overall doctrine seems to be very differant and takes the place of many things that were written there. I am not big on organized religion to begin with (that may sound weird coming from a JW) but every question that I asked them seemed to put me in front of another one of their writtings either in the BoM, or the Doctrines and Covenants, or even Words of Wisdom etc...
I guess my question for anyone mormon (Jubilee? :) would be what the "basis of faith" is in the BoM and the subsequent writtings of the church leaders. Thanks alot. Look forward to further insight from you guys.
aaron
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