LDS - Why do you have farms and fairlds websites?

mike...the reason for negative comments, even though they arent that negative is because of your phrasing...and I dont think you can play innocent with this.

"Looking for evidence is frowned upon"?!!

that kind of BS will get a negative response every time. You really need to do some better research into the LDS faith if you think that we are supposed to just 'get a nice feeling from the Holy Ghost' without putting forth the effort to find it!!

If you look at it fairly, the LDS community studies the Bible way above the average Christian. We are taught to be educated all around.

Also Mike, you've said plenty of offensive things, so I dont blame anyone here for not taking you for sincere. You can defend your opinion without being rude, so maybe take this as a cue to rebuild your reputation.

In any case, I have no real beef with you and to answer your question, Farms does research and Fair defends doctrine. They are pretty straight forward and both serve their purpose well. Does the church need them? no, but the people running them enjoy it and they are self sustaining so I dont get your confusion about them. Hope this helped

"The game is that LDS ask questions to other Christians, we reply, then we get thumbs down and are called anti-Mormon and stuff. I'm OK with that."

Certainly you don't mean here at Y/A. Very seldom do you see any of the well over 200 LDS R&S regulars asking questions to other Christians. Yet you have directed exclusively EVERY question you have posted toward LDS. So the game being played here at least is mostly one-sided. If you look at other troll accounts who visit here daily and ALSO direct EVERY question toward LDS, but with some seriously vile content, you would better understand the responses you may be getting.

To the substance of your question:

An important doctrine in the church is contained in one of the 13 articles of faith:

"We Believe in Being, Honest, True, Chaste, Benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say we follow the admonition of Paul- We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things."

Searching and inquiring is a means of coming to a knowledge of all truth, whether that truth be spiritual, scientific, or moral truth.

Prayer is taken very serious by the LDS. John 17 is a good example of what prayer is all about.

http://scriptures.lds.org/john/17

As a means of corning to the truth, young people in our church are encouraged by their leaders to think and find out truth for themselves. They are encouraged to ponder, to search, to evaluate, and thereby come to such knowledge of the truth as their own consciences, by the Spirit of God, lead them to.

This however is closely tied to prayer. LDS believe that the heavens are open, unlike most other denominations.

Those sites exist because they guys who run them think they should exist.

We're told to seek out of the best books words words of wisdom and learning. We're not told to avoid anti-mormon sites but we find them lacking credibility just as you seem to find FARMS and FairLDS as lacking in credibility. You rarely get a good idea of something from a one sided point of view.

The spirit can show us truth from any source. I have read all of the popular books in the apocrypha and found some beautiful words of truth (however I don't buy the notion of the birds made out of mud coming to life and flying away nor the animals converting the other animals).

So the Holy Ghost CONFIRMS truth which can be found in any source under the right circumstances if one looks for it.

That's different than looking for evidence and here's why. If your goal is to prove the Book of Mormon genuine then you will likely search it's origins and come to it's translation. Then the question of the Golden Plates arises, but if you had them in front of you how do you know that the translation is true or that the mere existence of plates that look like gold validates their message. You'd have to go back and research the historicity of the ancient prophets which is impossible being that history makes their existence plausible but nothing states that men like Nephi and Moroni existed outside of their record.

So the deeper you go the only proof one could have is about the validity of their message; which you can get now by prayer.

Most LDS don't read FARMS, but they don't read anti stuff either.

Looking for evidence and looking for alternative ways to understand LDS doctrine and LDS standards are fine - except that won't get you anywhere.

There is a knowledge of the truth (the searching of evidence) and then there's a confirmation of the truth (the Spirit testifying that it is true).

As a convert to the LDS church - I spent 5 years after I was baptized, researching evidence and trying to understand this "truth," that LDS spoke as being the only ones that had it.

It wasn't until I did get on my knees, truly WANTED to know if I was getting the true message of religion that I got my answer.

I was never satisfied with just evidence, it wasn't until the Spirit of God confirmed it to me.

Therefore LDS always ALWAYS and ALWAYS will encourage you to ask God to find out if the church is true. You can do whatever you want - no one can control that, you can research and find any kind of evidence that you understand - but the only evidence that will satisfy your "thirst" for knowledge and truth is God's confirmation of it.

Edit:

I forgot to mention - that doing research for evidence IS an active way of practicing/building faith. You believe/hope that every time you click on a website or read a scripture that something will make sense and will make everything clear. That's why there are many websites in the LDS faith to promote this faith-building exercise. Still, it is expected that people will not just simply rely on this knowledge as the sole source of spiritual support for themselves, but they need also to pray to God to get a confirmation of it as well.

The apologist sites do not speak for the LDS church in any official capacity.

Their purpose is to provide plausible (no matter how unlikely or illogical) explanations for the difficult historical and doctrinal inconsistencies which trouble LDS members who begin to study beyond the proscribed Sunday School lessons.

Since they are not official spokesmen, the LDS leadership can disavow their statements whenever they find them embarrassing or when they have been soundly disproved (Native American DNA). Which is what they do with the statements from past Prophets that go against LDS doctrine as it is taught today (Brigham Young's teaching of the Adam is God doctrine for example) or which are just embarrasing (Curse of Cain).

Their basic purpose can be summed up like this: "See smarter people than you have examined these issues and still believe. So should you. Don't look behind the curtain."

1 Oliver Cowdery, verily, verily, I say unto you, that assuredly as the Lord liveth, who is your God and your Redeemer, even so surely shall you receive a knowledge of whatsoever things you shall ask in faith, with an honest heart, believing that you shall receive a knowledge concerning the engravings of old records, which are ancient, which contain those parts of my scripture of which has been spoken by the manifestation of my Spirit.

2 Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart.

This is from DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS section 8. As you can read in verse 2 that the spirit not only speaks to the heart but also speaks to the mind. When the Spirit speaks to use to give us information it first gives us that info to our minds then it gives us a feeling of Love, Joy, and Peace (Galatians 5:22-23) to confirm to us what we received is from God. When I prayed to know if Jesus was my Savior, first I heard this voice in my head saying yes and then I was filled with a peace that I had never felt before and a Joy that seemed to cover me. The Spirit itself gives us checks and balances because it doesn't just confirm truth through the heart but also to the mind.

in america of a, while someone is on trial for against the regulation, does purely the prosecutor get to communicate? Or are they allowed to have somebody talk to shelter them? The prosecutor will purely instruct the info that condemns the defendant. The protection lawyer will purely instruct the info the exonerates the defendant. The jury and/or decide ought to sift in the direction of the help and ensure what's proper and genuine. it is the coolest comparable element. web pages like fairld are the defenders of the LDS faith. web pages like exmormon are the prosecutors. we are the jury in this situation, God is the suited decide.

Most people who have researched the 'LDS' religion, which members are not allowed to do, have found it to be a cult started by an inebriated man who spoke with a salamander in the forest of New York, and then named him Moroni. I lived in Utah for a spell, spooky spooky stuff.

Farms and FAIR are organizations that spin official doctrine into something easier to swallow.

Their whole point is to obscure hard questions and bamboozle with big words. It seems to work.

I would respond to you with this question. Why is it that X-Mormons can leave the church , but never leave it alone?

( insert your B.S. response here to prove my point.)