Mormons!
A Christian friend recently mentioned to me that he was intending to try proselytizing some Mormons. Since I generally know the details of the differences between various religous groups, he asked me for some pointers.
Since I really don't have much problem with the various groups trying to convert each other, I told him that the best way to do it is to learn as much about them from their point of view as he can. To that end, a huge amount of Mormon material can be accessed online.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has two main websites. Mormon.org is the site to pull in those that aren't Mormon yet. That's the site that you go to for your free Book of Mormon. Click on "Seen on TV" at the top and pick from the list. If you've already got a Book of Mormon, you can get a King James Bible or one of many fascinating videos.
The other main Mormon site is LDS.org. This one is intended for Church members. This page has links to everything that the Mormons consider to be Scripture. This page has links to online versions of LDS seminary texts. Church History in the Fulness of Time is a good'un. That's one that was lent to me in college by a Mormon missionary trying to convert me and I looked for years for my own copy.
Fun Mormon Things
In case you don't want to pore through all of this yourself but want to read some of the wackier bits, here you go.
- How do you know if a "messenger" is from God or Satan? Shake his hand!
- When God told the Jaredites to build a submarine, he made magic light bulbs so that they could see inside.
- At one point, the Nephites were lost. God took pity on them and gave them a compass.
Here's the original, complete with Joseph Smith's own scribblings of what he thinks belong in the missing areas.
Here's what he turned it into. For a real hoot, click on the picture to see his "translations" of what the parts of the picture mean.
For contrast, here are two images from known Egyptian funerary texts. Kind of like what might be found with a mummy. In each case, the Egyptian god Anubis is preparing the mummies. Note the jars beneath the tables which, contrary to Joseph Smith's "translation" of them as "idolatrous gods", contain the internal organs of the deceased.
