i went to teh FAA acadamy with someone who was devoutly mormon. even read a little of their book. i like to keep an open mind.
as for the religion, like all religons, pretty much the same. alot of "ous is the best, everythign else is corrupt" like you see in the bible, koran, and every other religious book. the mormon book was very carefull not to say the others were lies, but that theirs was "another" story of God interacting with man. an interesting twist from the common bible vs koran crap we are bombbarded with in church.
one thing that their book claims that others deny is that God did interact with more than one group of people. made alot of sence, but i was not lost on the fact that without that basic assumption, there would be no book of mormon. so even as it made sence, it also rang of propaganda. all really good propaganda has a ring of truth to it by basing it loosly on known facts or assumptions that make sence even if taken out of context.
fact or fiction? like all religons, who knows? possible, and yet possibly a fraud.
as for me, i do believe in God. i just dont believe in organized religon. man made religon. man likes to divide and sub divide people into groups so they can squeeze some power out of it for themselves as opposed to allowing for only ONE leader, ONE person of power. its what we do.
God was here before religon, before man. it is man who used God to gain power over the masses. man who subdivided us into differant sects to secure that power. man who kills his brothers to keep that power. not God.
book of mormon, bible, koran, all mans creation along with the rest of them. all with a ring of truth, all based on some facts, all deesigned to subdivide us into differant sects to gain power for more than one man.
man is inherantly evil. anything man touches will be tainted. the only good thing about organized religion is it allows for a gathering of good people who want to learn more about God, weather it is the catholic church, church of the later day saints, the jewish or muslim temples or any other subdenomination of the splitting of Gods power by man for the benifit of a few men. the people are mostly good, irreguardless of how poorly they are led by the few.
take this country for example right now.........