Sunday, August 9, 2015

The just several sentences short of 14 Articles of Faith

This was too good not to repost. User stratiform from Reddit made these (not me), but I have altered them slightly with suggestions from the comment thread about them and added links to relevant material.


·         1. We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His wives who are nameless and numberless, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost . . . . or at least we do after the 1837 edition of the Book of Mormon was published.

·         2. We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression, but there was a time where we believed men would be punished for Cain's sins. He was pretty bad, so all his descendants were black. Many of our infallible prophets preached this, but they were wrong. But women are still totally going to be punished for Eve's transgression. 5 Nov 2015 UPDATE: Also, if your parents are gay, you're outta luck too. 

·         3. We believe that through faith in Joseph Smith, the current prophet and Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of our slightly modified version of Joseph's Gospel.

·         4. We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the current prophet and his apostles; second, Repentance by confession to your middle-aged male neighbor; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for everything; fifth, temple rituals in which you dedicate your life and possessions to the church; sixth, having your immortal calling and election made by mortals, if you are well connected.

·         5. We believe that a prophet is determined by gathering a group of well connected Mormons with good bloodlines, and by observing who outlives the others of the group, he will then preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof. This is deemed correct by God and it is His way.

·         6. We believe in a pretty unique organization not seen in the Primitive Church, namely, prophets by succession, apostles, seventies, stake presidents, bishops, and so forth. We do agree with primitive churches that women cannot become any of these.

·         7. We literally believe that Joseph Smith placed a rock into a hat and God made words glow upon them. He would then repeat these aloud and this is how the Book of Mormon was written. We call it a translation. We also believe "translation" can mean when one uses a historical document for inspiration in writing about the cosmos and various ordinances.

·         8. We believe the Bible and Book of Mormon to be the words of God as far as they are translated correctly; we also believe listening to what our prophets and apostles require of us is more important than either of these.

·         9. We believe all that God revealed a sword bearing angel to Joseph Smith. The angel commanded Joseph Smith that he must wed little girls and other men's wives, and that he should keep it secret from his legal wife, Emma.

·         10. We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent in Jackson County, Missouri, the same place Adam and Eve existed; that Christ and his prophets will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisaical glory.

·         11. We claim to be followers of Christ, but in reality we follow the Almighty President Newsroom which dictates our own conscience and political stances, and request all Mormons take the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what we tell them to.

·         12. We believe in being subject to the current prophet and his apostles. Kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates are known for their wicked desires of us to obey, honor, and sustain their laws, but we will only obey them as far as legally required of us. We do not honor or sustain them unless they go along with our religious beliefs.


·         13. We believe in being deceptive, misleading, chaste, complete dicks to former members, subjectively virtuous, and publishing apologetic essays; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Brigham—We believe ridiculous things, many of us hope things end soon, for we have endured many things that we bring upon ourselves, and hope to be able to endure more of these things. If there is a down and out person desperate for friendship or potential exposure to good media, we seek after these things.