Stones? WTF?
From the link:
“Seeing” and “seers” were part of the American and family culture in which Joseph Smith grew up. Steeped in the language of the Bible and a mixture of Anglo-European cultures brought over by immigrants to North America, some people in the early 19th century believed it was possible for gifted individuals to “see,” or receive spiritual manifestations, through material objects such as seer stones.
Wrong group. Mormons don’t believe in the Rapture.
http://en.fairmormon.org/Mormonism_and_doctrine/Rapture_and_LDS_theology
If you use NDS, you are a beneficiary of the LDS genealogical software. If you use Microsoft Active Directory, you are indirectly a beneficiary, since AD was created as a reaction to NDS.
Of course OpenLDAP scales past either of the last two mentioned, but it’s only for the Annointed who are Strong and Mighty in the Lord.
That’s pretty. Maybe a yellow Jasper?
ETA - You know, honestly, even though I find the modern mythos the Mormons created ridiculous (Some might say the same thing about Christ), they honestly have their shit together more than most religions. I find their believes a bit… odd, but I also know they do a lot of charity work. Though I disagree with some of their morality pushes.
The other thing I find odd is how quickly it splintered. I mean almost the day after it formed it broke apart.
So I read the stuff about the golden plates available on wikipedia:
Smith said he found the plates on September 22, 1823, at a hill near his home in Manchester, New York, after the angel Moroni directed him to a buried stone box.
Then I continued to Theorized origin of the name of the angel Moroni
Commenting on the name of the angel Moroni, another figure in the Book of Mormon who shared the same name, historian D. Michael Quinn suggested several possible origins for the name “Moroni”:
If Smith saw a Salamander on a hill, rather than a toad, this was consistent with magic associations concerning the name Moroni and occult traditions concerning the salamander. For early nineteenth-century Americans, the messenger’s name Moroni has several echoes. A simple anagram of Moroni, “Imoron” was a widely published word for a being which poisons, while a poisonous salamander was “Moron” in scientific texts.
snicker
Honestly, I’d be extremely surprised if there were any shocking revelations here. Maybe it reveals some corruption or sleaziness at the top levels but what religion doesn’t have this? There’s lots of very smart people in LDS – they are very media savvy and financially savvy (they run most of Las Vegas now). Yeah, their evangelicalism can be a turn off and there’s some real darkness in their past (racism, sexism, etc.) but these days I consider them as a group to be Mostly Harmless.
I’ve known many Mormons through my life and with few exceptions they are some of the most kind, caring, and helpful people I’ve ever interacted with. They would give the shirt off their back to help a stranger in need. For being considered a weird fringe group of Christianity, they are some of the most “Christian” people that I have ever met. Hell, even Trey Parker and Matt Stone frequently lampoon the beliefs of Mormonism and poke fun at them (Orgazmo, South Park, The Book of Mormon) but if you look between the lines you can see a subtle reverence in their portrayal of its adherents.
Scientology on the other hand, now those people fucking scare me. Not because of their beliefs (hey, believe what you want, it’s not my place to judge) but because of how they operate.
This is the consensus so far with the r/exmo crowd over there.
All this stuff shows so far is that the Church works like a big business and it has a bunch of executives who are very well taken care of. Some of them live a little bit like rock stars, but there aren’t going to be any hookers and blow in the Church’s records.
They’re old guys who really do believe, and for the most part they act like it.
I actually find this oddly comforting to know. I can’t say that I’ve ever had any interaction with any LDS that was in a position of authority or leadership (best I can say is brief conversation with a bishop or two) so I’m glad to see that those running the show are still largely acting in a manner consistent with their beliefs.
Would that include lists of all the Jews who died in the holocaust?
Looks like a bit of soapstone. He gets a huge magical golden alien artifact notebook and a bit of soapstone deciphers it?
I once fought off a dragon, maybe three, I lost the corpses but I can show you the oaken stave I used as proof.
I kid, people like their stories, whatever gets them through the day is okay.
The Money and the Power by Sally Denton and Roger Morris documents (among other things) how Mormon bankers secretly funded the construction of Las Vegas casinos.
Secretly, because Mormons are supposed to shun gambling, and not do business with non-Mormons (let alone get into bed with organized crime).
Highly recommended reading.
This is bunk. There is no prohibition on members doing business with non-members, and the Church does business with outside entities as a matter of course. A glance at today’s leaked Temple outfitting doc shows that.
The casino funding probably isn’t bunk though.
When we were there for grad school, we found it troubling to read in the paper that this bill or that had been approved by the church leadership before being passed by the state legislature. Here’s a new example I found just by searching Google. I think it’s a separation of church and state issue, at least in the state level.
Not sure what would have happened had Mitt won the presidency.
I don’t know much about Mormonism, perhaps I overstated or misstated the case.
What I recall from the book is the assertion that, historically, Mormons have a preference for doing business with other Mormons – and that this preference tends to make them successful in business.
The book is very clear that Mormon money was invested secretly, through front companies, to avoid the shame of association with gambling.
There were a couple of famous boycotts in the Pioneer days, you can learn about them here.
I can’t find the quote just now, but I recall a Brigham Young quote about doing business with their brothers, the Gentiles. He specifically approved of the practice, as it was after all a frontier town and a healthy selection of goods and services available to all would be crucial.
Vegas was founded by Mormons, like many other towns of the American West, and the ties there run deep. Fun stuff. 
This is pretty normal. I never understood why people claimed it was such a terrible thing for Jews to prefer to do business with other Jews, Catholics with Catholics, etc. I see it as a reasonably harmless human failing, to want to hang out with people who think and believe like you do - there’s no problem until you refuse to do business with non-believers, and even that’s only a big deal if you’re part of an extremely dominant majority.
Not sure why dominant isn’t sufficient on its face.
Well, I live in an area where the dominant majority is Christian, and I am quite openly not, and some people are uncomfortable with that and don’t want to do business with the likes of me. But since they aren’t extremists it’s rarely an issue, I just have to tolerate them putting biblical passages on their shopping carts and sales receipts and stuff.
Hopefuly you see what I mean? Words is slippery, sometimes I get them wrong.
