Moroni's Premise

Perhaps the biggest issue that puzzled me while I was in the Church was related to what I would term theological drift. I don't believe in these scriptures or this set of Theology any more, but let me give an overview of what it was, and what the Scriptures actually say.  Finding contradictions allows us to illumine or minds with light, dispelling shadows of error, and is an important tool to hone our grasp on the truth of things.  I don't think it is a waste of time to study these things, even today, in order to exercise critical thinking skills and learn to identify errors. The Drifting Ideas of Mormon Theology Period I: Trinity & Modalism Joseph Smith started out teaching a Trinitarian version of God which was expressed with Modalist tendencies - in other words, holding very common views for people in his place and time. This is the Theology of the first edition of the Book of Mormon.  At this point in Mormon Theology, the LORD God (Jehovah Elohim) of the Old Testa...

Now, in 2022, I'm nearly 41 years old.  I grew up in a partly religious home. My parents often sent me with my grandparents to attend a non-denominational community church when I was a child. As I got to being a young adult, I started considering things more seriously, and I started wondering about baptism and about communion (what Latter-day Saints call "the sacrament") and how I would know when I was supposed to participate in it. Around that time, I became aware of friends from school who were "Mormons" (what Latter-day Saints called themselves as a nickname at the time.) The church I went to had never taught me specific negative things about Mormons, but I did have some vague idea that it was a dangerous cult that I should stay away from. That's really all I knew. I loved my friends and I was very concerned for them, so I asked one of them about it, I got a copy of the Book of Mormon, and I started to learn about it and read about it online as well (i...