On 10 Aug 2005 13:15:29 -0700, "Chris H. Fleming"
<chris_h_fleming@yahoo.com> wrote:

dianaiad@notbloodylikely.com wrote:

On Mon, 08 Aug 2005 23:45:58 +1000, Masked Avenger
<cootey_59@yahoo.com> wrote:

<snip to>

***** .......

"I am now convinced that they were intent on avoiding a council on the
charge of apostasy," Southerton said in his email to the AP.

"I was clearly instructed before the meeting that if I attempted to

about 'DNA' and my apostasy that the council would be immediately shut
down and that it would be completed in my absence."

The Adultery charge was a smoke screen ........ do YOU seriously

Native Americans are really Lost Jews ? Mormons are so stupid ......

Actually, Mormons do not believe that all Native Americans are 'Lost
Jews". (sigh) We are quite aware that the vast majority of them are
not.

That's good, because NO Native Americans are lost Jews. DNA, Molecular
anthropology, morphology, culture, language,... has always shown what
everyone already knew from a basic visual inspection and the given
geography: the Native Americans migrated from Asia (and a miniscule
Siberian population) thousands of years ago, well before Jesus was ever
supposedly prophesized about in the Torah (Jews beg to differ).

Mormon thought is slowly changing. It will happen so slow that nobody
will even notice. Yesterday Mormons believed all Native Americans were
Jews, today Mormons believe a single obliterated Native American tribe
was part Jewish, tommorrow Mormons will believe god knows what, but it
will probably have something to do with Chimpanzee's and Lucy and Jews,
or maybe it will become an allegory.

If that's the way you want to look at it, may you live and be well.

But please, don't let what we actually believe get in the way of a
good bash.

If you change your beliefs slowly enough, then you can pretend they
always made sense. Then you can keep your faith strong.

The critics can't seem to make up their minds; either we are
criticized for what a bunch of us USED to think, or we are yelled at
for no longer believing in something.

On Wed, 10 Aug 2005 14:51:20 -0700, stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:

On Sun, 07 Aug 2005 20:36:49 GMT,

On Sun, 07 Aug 2005 11:30:38 -0700, stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote:

On Fri, 05 Aug 2005 23:39:49 +1000, Masked Avenger
<cootey_59@yahoo.com> wrote:

Mormons excommunicate Australian author

August 5, 2005 - 10:49AM

www.smh.com.au/news/World/Mormons-excommunicate-Australian-author/2005/08/05/1123125884160.html#

An Australian author who wrote that DNA evidence fails to support the
ancestral claims outlined in the Book of Mormon has been excommunicated
by The Church of Jesus of Christ of Latter-day Saints.

[]

The usual theist cowardice and dishonesty.

Stoney, the thing is, the LDS 'spin' on this IS the correct one.

Disagree. It's an excuse and I'll tell you why I say this. I'm sure
you'll also understand why I think you're being disingenius.

He
wouldn't have been excommunicated because he wrote a book; many
Mormons have written books and not been excommunicated for doing so.

Yes, but how many have so definitively removed the supports from the
Mormon religion?

I wouldn't know, since I haven't read HIS book, I can't say whether or
not he did remove any such supports. If, however, it is as has been
advertised here, that it posited that DNA evidence shows that the
native Americans are not Jewish, that doesn't remove any supports.

Since of course not even the Book of Mormon insists that all native
Americans are descended from Jewish immigrants. Sorry about that.

If I wrote a book saying that Mohammad was not a pacifist, does that
remove 'supports' from Islam? No; because I don't know any Muslim who
claims that he was. By the same token, writing a book supporting the
claim that most (if not all) native Americans are descended from other
than Jewish roots does not remove the supports of Mormonism, since
Mormons do not claim that all native Americans are descended from
Lehi. Anybody who has read the Book of Mormon would know this, even
the most critical and anti- of readers.

/quote
The church teaches that Lehi was an ancient seafarer who came to the
New World about 600 BC, according to church founder Joseph Smith's
1830 Book of Mormon. Smith claimed to have translated the text from
inscribed gold plates unearthed from an upstate New York hillside. His
book is viewed by many members as a literal record of God's dealings
with early Americans.
/quote

I don't expect you to understand this, but it's a very important thing
to Mormons.

I'm very aware of this and have no problem with it-as you're very well
aware of.

What is it that you don't have a problem with, Stoney? I know you too
well to think that this snip was deliberate, but just incase anybody
else is reading this thread, the above statement is NOT in reference
to the story of Lehi and the story of Joseph Smith getting the plates.
I was refering to the fact that breaking Temple promises and wedding
vows is considered to be a bigger no-no than writing a book. ;-)

If you have been married in the Temple (as this man was)
and 'separated from his wife' or not (and the thing is, the REASON he
was separated from his wife was because he was fooling around) if you
commit adultery, you are toast. It's not QUITE the dumbest/worst sin
you can commit short of murder, rape or pedophilia, but it's up there.

/article quote
After a three-hour disciplinary council meeting on Sunday in Canberra,
Simon Southerton, author of Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA
and the Book of Mormon, was informed his relationship with his
religion of 30 years would be officially severed, Southerton said in
an email to The Associated Press.

Southerton was charged by church authorities with adultery, but
finally excommunicated for "having an inappropriate relationship with
a woman," he said.

er....that's adultery.

Southerton doesn't deny the relationship, which occurred two years
ago, while he was separated from his wife.
/quote

You'd have a point if the council was held two years ago or before his
book was published. Such is not the case.

Not if the normal time frame of such things wasn't usually that long.
However, it quite often is. Such a delay isn't at all unusual. In
fact, if that council WERE about the book, it wouldn't have been
scheduled even yet. ;-)

I realize that it doesn't sound like much to you, but we really do
believe that breaking a promise that sacred is a little more important
than writing a book that disagrees with church doctrine.

You'd have a point if the council was held two years ago or before his
book was published. Such is not the case.

Not if the normal time frame of such things wasn't usually that long.
However, it quite often is. Such a delay isn't at all unusual. In
fact, if that council WERE about the book, it wouldn't have been
scheduled even yet. ;-)

The thing is, for those who truly regret breaking a promise like that,
and who want to get back into complete fellowship with the church,
excommunication is simply the first step of that process BACK. The ex
communicant is not only NOT 'shunned' or barred from attending Sunday
services, he is actively encouraged to attend.

You'd have a point if the council was held two years ago or before his
book was published. Such is not the case.

Not if the normal time frame of such things wasn't usually that long.
However, it quite often is. Such a delay isn't at all unusual. In
fact, if that council WERE about the book, it wouldn't have been
scheduled even yet. ;-)

The idea is, we want him BACK, not out forever. But actions have
consequences, Stoney, and for me, as well as for most Mormons I know,
his adultery IS the more important problem. Very much the more
important problem. It's all about trust and betraying your family and
yourself. Writing a controversial book doesn't come close to that.

Writing the book is the problem as what the Mormon Church has
demonstrated via the timing of their action.

The timing was actually quite typical of such things. IF, that is, the
claim of the church is accurate and it was about the adultery and not
the book.

/quote
Southerton's excommunication makes him the seventh author from the
Salt Lake City-based Signature Books, a publishing house for Western
and Mormon studies, to be released from the church after publishing a
work critical of Mormon beliefs.
/quote

As I indicated, typical theistic cowardice and dishonesty.

Let us look at the reasons given BY THE CHURCH for the
excommunications of those authors:

Maxine Hanks: Apostacy.
Went along with Lynne Whitesides, claimed that women should hold the
priesthood, became a gnostic clergywoman. You can't BE a member of the
clergy of another church and remain a Mormon, y'know? Not if you are
writing books about Mormonism and claiming that your views are Mormon
doctrine.

Paul Toscano: Apostacy.
Claimed that God has no gender, a position utterly opposed to the
most basic LDS doctrine. It's not horrific, it's simply not MORMON,
and teaching this as if it were Mormon Doctrine is going to get you
ex'd.

D.Michael Quinn:Apostacy.
Notoroious revisionist historian. His reputation as a credible
historian is not good with anybody, frankly. He wrote: Early Mormonism
and the Magic World View", an extremely critical book bluntly
revealing his opinion that the church was a fraud from the beginning.
(shrug) His right, of course, but why would it surprise anybody that
the group he was criticising so heavily would rather not have him in
it?

Lavina Fielding Anderson:Apostacy.
Attends church as a non-member, is on the track back in. Was
excommunicated because of her book "Sisters in Spirit: Mormon Women in
Historical and Cultural Perspective". Evidently she was extremely
critical of the church in regard to women's rights, (which, as you
might be aware, is a ludicrous position, considering history)

David P. Wright: Apostacy: for articles written in Sunstone.

Avraham Gileadi (rebaptised and in full membership) neither the church
nor he has released the reason. There is no reason to think that it
was about his book; he has since written a companion to his first one,
that is published by Deseret Book the official church publishing
house.

Lynne Whitesides was disfellowshiped for Apostacy, preaching about a
"Mother in HEaven' that should be worshiped publically beside God the
Father. She was, and still is, rather strident about this issue,
however, she was not excommunicated. There is a HUGE difference.

Please note: Whether you approve of a group feeling as if it has the
right to boot out people who A: not only don't agree with the beliefs
of the group but B: publically publish those disagreements, that's
what happens. These people not only were excommunicated and
disfellowshiped because of the books they wrote, the church had no
problem with SAYING that's why they were booted.

Therefore, it is not reasonable to suddenly figure that an
excommunication for adultery was because the adulterer wrote a book
rather than because he screwed around. You may not agree with the
Mormon position on apostacy; you may believe that they don't have a
right to remove pains in the ***** when they are such loud pains in the
*****, but you have to agree that they aren't sneaky about doing so.

If an author is going to be excommunicated because he wrote a book the
church didn't like, that's what they are going to tell him at the
council. They aren't going to pretend it's about something else.

.....oh, and I HAVE read the works by those whose names I have given
you. Believe me, 'apostacy' is a mild word. Blessings on all of them,
may they have great lives and lots of goodies now and later, but what
they wrote is so opposed to what the church teaches that I don't see
that there was a choice.

As to the DNA thing, I honestly don't see a problem with that, since
the church does NOT claim that all native Americans descend from Lehi!

....or indeed, that the majority do. Or that any but a very few do.

Sheesh.