Most personally convincing reasons you don't believe.

[emjay]

I didn't know anything about Mormonism until I came here and met you, but it gets more and more interesting with every post you make   I guess it provides them with a sense of legitimacy and tradition to record every change they make... kind of like the Civil Service who - according to Yes Minister - love their red tape and find it gives them meaning   I'd love to read about that though... the Mormon handbook to how to make up a religion as you go along   I guess Catholicism is kind of similar in that regard, but perhaps to a lesser extent?

How many records do the catholics have from 1500 to 2000 years ago ??

They might have been even worse than the Mormons for changing shit, although, just being similar is all I'm claiming. Realizing at least in the early phases, all the religions make it up as they go along.  Another example; even the Lutherans don't have a problem backing off on stuff Luther himself imposed upon them, and the current day Lutherans feel no compulsion to put an asterisk on their signage and some small print at the bottom regardless of what they change.

And the hysterically funny thing about the Mormons publishing all their changes has been their insistence all along nothing has changed at all.  A Mormon can look at the word 'up' originally revealed by Joe Smith and published contemporaneously, and is now in 2016 published Mormon revered dogma as 'down' and all the good Mormons will comment on how amazingly accurate the current version is.

It's the same play book for all of them.  And God bless the Mormons for leaving the play book out where we could find it.

To be honest it really scares me when people do stuff like that... argue the truth of one thing when its contradiction is right there in front of them essentially on the same page. It doesn't even seem like ignorance but rather a wilful act of stubborn defiance... like saying 'I know it's there but I will never admit it'. It just freaks me out.