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Can over 1,000 versions of Christianity co-exist in peace? Usually not, but hopefully we'll learn to do so?
Agreed, there are many denominations out there but they all have the Bible as its sole source of doctrine. Are the differences between them minor or major? As with any differences between the LDS church or any others, one has to search, read, learn and listen, in addition to some introspection to determine which church to follow.
wow. gone for a few days and all of a sudden i have a lot of catching up to do.
preterist.
mormons argue against the whole christian-not-christian thing because we see that you are telling us that we don't believe in Christ. that is the reason it is of importance to us. Christ is THE head of the church. there is no other. prophets, bishops, teachers, etc all come after.
correct me if i am wrong, but i seem to see two different reasons commonly used as to why mormons are not christians: faith vs. works, and the divinity of Christ.
i suppose that if you decide that my Christ is different than your Christ, that is your own liberty, and your own opinion. i can accept that. it is irksome that you feel the need to bring it up like an assault all of the time.
i believe in Christ. i believe in the Christ of the New Testament, the same being as Jehovah of the Old Testament. i know that many of you are shaking your heads now. but it it true. i believe in the same being.
the scriptures have been translated and interpreted so many times by so many people that no one can agree on who Christ is and what He is. even in the Nicene council, they could barely agree on a definition of what God was.
i believe that Jesus is the Son of God. i have read a lot of misconceptions about mormon religion, and one of those assumes that because we believe that man become like unto God, that Jesus is somehow just a cool dude according to 'real' mormon belief. that is not the case. Jesus was created and chosen from the very beginning. remember when Jehovah told Jeremiah that he had been chosen even before he was born? If jeremiah, then all the more so Christ. i promise you that Christ was set apart to be our Savior before any of us even existed. that is the stance that the mormon church takes.
we believe that God the Father held a council in heaven, where lucifer volunteered to come down here and make us follow God's plan. his plan was rejected in favor of the perfect plan. who came up with the perfect plan?
why Christ, of course. He and the Father were one.
lucifer rebelled, became the devil, turned a third of the hosts of heaven, and you all know the rest.
but the point is in the council. just because God held a council does not mean that He did not know what was going to happen, or should happen. God already knew the perfect route, the route of a Savior. that was what Christ had been created for, in the very beginning. Christ played His role perfectly. He was given every chance to back out, as would only be just. He didn't back out, He, God's only begotten Son, played His role perfectly, and with His perfect existence and then His death and resurrection, He atoned for our sins.
it is only through faith in the savior that we can be saved. mormons do believe that. there is no other way to find salvation and exaltation.
faith comes in different quantities. i certainly don't have the faith that moses or joseph smith had before they were called as prophets. i hope one day to get there. faith grows (or should, depending on our choices) throughout our lives.
only the minutest amount of faith is required for salvation. there is salvation to be found then even for murderers and liars, provided that they believe that Christ died for them. mormons believe in three degrees of glory, and the telestial, the glory of the stars, is where the dishonorable will go, the liars, the adulterers, the murderers. some might equate that to hell, though to do so is erroneous. the telestial kingdom is still a degree of glory, is still a reward of salvation that is greater than what would await a soul had Christ never atoned for our sins.
however, there are greater glories, greater degrees of salvation. we said that there are different degrees of faith. we also said that faith grows throughout our lives. a man cannot be saved in ignorance. knowledge of the truth sets us free. why? because the more truth we have, the greater our faith, and the greater our relationship with God.
throughout our lives, if we are lucky, we hear of Christ. we have the opportunity to acquire faith in that knowledge. but that knowledge is not yet perfect, therefore neither is our faith. but as we live, we make choices. God judges us based on the knowledge that we have (parable of the talents). that is why the heathen nations (those who never knew Christ) will still have the opportunity to learn of Him, and to accept His sacrifice. so, with our little bit of fledgling faith, we make choices. when we follow the Spirit and make correct choices, we are blessed with more of a relationship with that Spirit, and that leads to more faith. it is science. mathematic.
throughout our lives, we have the opportunity to develop a much stronger faith than what we started with. again, that requires choices. it requires that we strive to better ourselves. that is why God created commandments, rules, written in the scriptures. they are not arbitrary. they are there to help us increase our faith, and therefore our proximity to the Lord.
i do not have to obey the commandments if i choose not to. but in so choosing, i limit the amount of faith-promoting experiences that i will be exposed to, and the choices for good that i can make. i limit my own proximity to and understanding of the Lord. with less truth in my life, i have the opposite of freedom. i have spiritual bondage (har har har. keep your jokes to yourselves...). i have a lessened relationship with Christ. and what that menas in the eternities, is that i will not be the kind of person that will feel comfortable in the direct presence of God. i will find, sadly enough, the telestial or the terrestrial kingdom more comfortable, more bearable than i would the celestial, the highest degree of glory. it is said that the sinners will wish that the mountains themselves would fall upon them to hide them and their imperfections from the Lord when He coems again. the lesser kindgoms are the eternal manifestations of wanting to be far from the Lord. it is based off of choices that we make in life, choices that turn us into the kind of people that we are now, that we are becoming.
that is why powerful faith is not just a one-time assertion that Christ is our Savior. again, it can be merely that, for a lessened relationship with God for the rest of eternity.
so, faith vs works. definitely faith. i cannot *make* my way to heaven at all. only through faith in Christ.
and Christ, my Savior, the Son of God, the divine being who was set up before the foundation of the world to die for my sins.
that is my testimony. questions? comments? i'll be around till my next round of tests again...
aaron out.
stycotl: I am sorry that you find my debate as an assault. That is not my intent. But you must remember that it was and still is Mormonism that accused Christian churches of not having the gospel and of being apostate. And if they are in hearty agreement with Joseph Smith, their founder, Mormons must still believe that we are ALL apostate. My point is this, stycotl--we did not begin this debate!
There are fundamentals which support a person or group's claim to Christianity. That God the Father is a Supreme Being who is so much OTHER than we are that even a comparison to Him is immeasurably inadequate is nonnegotiable. No man will ever become God of any kind. It is not in his nature to do so. He was created a man and a man he will always be. To teach that God was once a man is to clearly place one's self far outside the parameters of Christianity.
Furthermore, the entire deity of Christ is what gave His sacrifice its efficacy. The penalty of sin is death. Only the God of the universe could pay it. In order to pay it, the Son of God who had been and will always be ETERNALLY with the Father, entered the world of men becoming the God-Man. As the God-Man, He was able to die and as the God-Man, He was able to satisfy the just demands of God's wrath against sin. No mere man, no matter how "perfect," could ever meet those demands.
Again, I tell Mormons that Jesus is not my Jesus or the Jesus of the Bible not in order to alienate or to win an argument but because it is ESSENTIAL that a person believe on the true Jesus else He is still outside the faith and still in his sins.
Perhaps you get a burning in your bosom to know whether your faith is real. As for me, I am filled with the love of Christ in my heart and a gratitude words cannot express when I think that the Lord of glory, the righteous, perfect, holy, Eternal Son of God who spoke the world into being, loved those hopelessly lost in their sins so much that in order to save them He humbled Himself and condescended to a depth we will never understand. This was not a mere man giving his life for other men--this was God in the flesh becoming a member of His own creation in order to redeem those who would believe on Him. The God of the Universe, without beginning and without end, all-knowing, all-powerful became a fetus in the womb of a woman He Himself created! He passed through the birth canal--the holy, righteous, immutable, perfect, everlasting, all-powerful God of the universe was born of woman. Then He suckled at her breasts in total reliance upon her. That is condescension, my friend. I could say that it is similar to a man becoming an ant and living among them. But that would not be adequate because that would be only like taking one step in all the steps possible if a man could walk throughout the millions of galaxies that we know of. We cannot measure it--we must not measure it.
And that same great span exists between your Jesus and the biblical Jesus.
The Jesus of the Bible willingly allowed Himself to go to that cross. As the song goes--"He could have called ten thousand angels to destroy the world and set Him free; He could have called ten thousand angels, but He died alone for you and me." It was not the pain He dreaded in the Garden of Gethsemane. Many others had suffered similar fates. His suffering was unique--no man has or ever will endure what He endured. Because it was while He hung on that cross of shame that God the Father, with whom the Son had enjoyed eternal fellowship, placed upon the Son of His love the vile sins of the world and poured out His full unrestrained wrath upon Him. It was then that Christ "became sin for us"--He Who knew no sin! And the Father turned His back on Him, not able to look upon sin or have fellowship with a sinner. No one has ever been nor ever will be as alone as our Lord when He hung there forsaken by His Father and deserted by His friends. That is why Christians can find such comfort in Him--He knows our sorrows; He knows our pain; He knows our loneliness. He has endured it all!
It is not the Mormon Jesus that inspires such words as these: "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, there's just something about that Name. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, like the fragrance after the rain. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, let all heaven and earth proclaim. Kings and Kingdoms will all fade away, but there's something about that Name." When was the last time such words tore your heart in two because of your guilt that required His sacrifice? When was the last time the mere mention of His name brought uncontrollable tears to your eyes because of the great thankful love that welled up within you? "Jesus paid it ALL. ALL to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, HE washed it white as snow." We can do NOTHING to earn our salvation. We do good works our of gratitude for what He has done for us and because such works are the natural behavior of those born again from above! We are saved--therefore we work. We do not and cannot work in order to be saved.
"Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! Sweetest name I know. Fills my every longing. Keeps me singing as I go!" Do you know that Jesus? "Repent and believe in the Name of [the true] Jesus, and be saved!"
Preterist, I think you need to take everything you just said and apply the following verse of scripture to it: "Sayest this thing thyself, or did others tell it thee." Do you actually know why you are saying what you are saying? Or are you simply accepting the "facts" that were spoon-fed to you by other people?
One thing that seems completely and thoroughly incomprehensible to me. IT IS DEEPLY OFFENSIVE TO MORMONS TO BE TOLD THEY ARE NOT CHRISTIANS. And the rest of Christianity just doesn't seem to be able to comprehend why. Worse yet, they simple DO NOT CARE.
Why is it so offensive? For exactly the same reasons that any other Christian religion would find it offensive. Mormons, just like every other Christian faith believe very strongly in the same Jesus of Nazareth that everybody else does. They devote their lives to him. They try to live up to his perfect example. They rely on His sacrifice to obtain forgiveness of their sins.
And the rest of Christianity is calling them liars.
OF COURSE their offended and they have every right to be.
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Originally Posted by Preterist
stycotl: I am sorry that you find my debate as an assault. That is not my intent. But you must remember that it was and still is Mormonism that accused Christian churches of not having the gospel and of being apostate. And if they are in hearty agreement with Joseph Smith, their founder, Mormons must still believe that we are ALL apostate. My point is this, stycotl--we did not begin this debate!
Actually, if we're being honest, the Catholics beat them to it by several centuries. Unless you are Catholic, you are heretics and Apostates from the true and living Church of Christ -- from a Catholic point of view. Thankfully, they've toned their rhetoric down within the last couple hundred years and are not trying to re-convert everybody by killing them. This doesn't change that fact that, according to Catholic Dogma, all Baptists, Methodists, Charismatics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Greek Orthodox and every other sect other than themselves are heretical and false.
Protestant "Christians" have improved in their expression of their contempt for Mormonism greatly. They no longer murder them, rape their women, incite mob violence upon them nor do they drive them from place to place. Nope. These days, they're content to just call them names.
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There are fundamentals which support a person or group's claim to Christianity. That God the Father is a Supreme Being who is so much OTHER than we are that even a comparison to Him is immeasurably inadequate is nonnegotiable. No man will ever become God of any kind. It is not in his nature to do so. He was created a man and a man he will always be. To teach that God was once a man is to clearly place one's self far outside the parameters of Christianity.
None of these "facts" about the nature of God were ever specifically enumerated in the Bible. They are based upon councils and creeds that occurred many hundreds of years after the Bible was written. These creeds were enforced by the massacre of all who would not accept them. As I've already stated, Mormonism has most certainly not postulated any new doctrine on these matters. They have simply unwittingly found themselves on the wrong end of an almost 2000 year old argument within Christian Theology. The debate over the nature of God.
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Furthermore, the entire deity of Christ is what gave His sacrifice its efficacy. The penalty of sin is death. Only the God of the universe could pay it. In order to pay it, the Son of God who had been and will always be ETERNALLY with the Father, entered the world of men becoming the God-Man. As the God-Man, He was able to die and as the God-Man, He was able to satisfy the just demands of God's wrath against sin. No mere man, no matter how "perfect," could ever meet those demands.
This too is nowhere to be found in the Bible. There are verses in the Bible that are used to debate in favor of this theory. Mormons are not going to disagree with some of this. From their perspective, Christ was an Omniscient and Omnipotent being. He was an infinite being and nothing short of an infinite being would suffice. On that matter, Mormonism does not differ from Christian Dogma.
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Again, I tell Mormons that Jesus is not my Jesus or the Jesus of the Bible not in order to alienate or to win an argument but because it is ESSENTIAL that a person believe on the true Jesus else He is still outside the faith and still in his sins.
There once was a woman named Mary who was a virgin. She was wrought upon by the Holy Spirit, conceived and gave birth to a son named Jesus. This Jesus was the Son of God. Jesus taught many things in his life, lived a perfect life, established the truth and condemned the false doctrines of mankind. He was a man of peace and his teachings were for all mankind to love one another and to do good. He said "Come follow me."
I believe in that Jesus. I think you do too. As it turns out, so do Mormons.
Any other nitpicking falls into the category of theological debate between Christians. The debate over the nature of God is very old. Do a little research and you might learn something.
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Perhaps you get a burning in your bosom to know whether your faith is real.
Belittling the Spiritual experiences of others does not make you better than them.
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As for me, I am filled with the love of Christ in my heart and a gratitude words cannot express when I think that the Lord of glory, the righteous, perfect, holy, Eternal Son of God who spoke the world into being, loved those hopelessly lost in their sins so much that in order to save them He humbled Himself and condescended to a depth we will never understand. This was not a mere man giving his life for other men--this was God in the flesh becoming a member of His own creation in order to redeem those who would believe on Him. The God of the Universe, without beginning and without end, all-knowing, all-powerful became a fetus in the womb of a woman He Himself created! He passed through the birth canal--the holy, righteous, immutable, perfect, everlasting, all-powerful God of the universe was born of woman. Then He suckled at her breasts in total reliance upon her. That is condescension, my friend. I could say that it is similar to a man becoming an ant and living among them. But that would not be adequate because that would be only like taking one step in all the steps possible if a man could walk throughout the millions of galaxies that we know of. We cannot measure it--we must not measure it.
Wow, that's cramming a lot of non-Biblical postulation and Biblical interpretation into a single paragraph. Unfortunately, 99% of what you just said is based upon denominational dogma and is not explicitly stated in Scripture. Don't get me wrong, you're coming to a lot of excellent conclusions, but if you are going to attempt to somehow prove that somebody else has no right to call themselves Christians, please check your own denomination's dogmas at the door and stick things that are actually contained in the Bible.
Mormon doctrine would not differ too greatly with your statements regarding the condescension of God. Any dedicated Mormon can also say, "As for me, I am filled with the love of Christ in my heart and a gratitude words cannot express" Are you inferring that they're lying about it?
By the way, it so happens that no all Christians accept the idea that "God spoke the world into existence." There are other viewpoints. And again, there is no verse of scripture that ever says, "God spoke the world into existence." That is just yet another example of scriptural interpretation favored by some denominations.
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And that same great span exists between your Jesus and the biblical Jesus.
And yet it's still the same Jesus. How wacky is that?
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The Jesus of the Bible willingly allowed Himself to go to that cross. As the song goes--"He could have called ten thousand angels to destroy the world and set Him free; He could have called ten thousand angels, but He died alone for you and me." It was not the pain He dreaded in the Garden of Gethsemane. Many others had suffered similar fates. His suffering was unique--no man has or ever will endure what He endured.
Yep, that's the Jesus that Mormons believe in all right. If I'm wrong, some Mormon please let me know.
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Because it was while He hung on that cross of shame that God the Father, with whom the Son had enjoyed eternal fellowship, placed upon the Son of His love the vile sins of the world and poured out His full unrestrained wrath upon Him. It was then that Christ "became sin for us"--He Who knew no sin! And the Father turned His back on Him, not able to look upon sin or have fellowship with a sinner. No one has ever been nor ever will be as alone as our Lord when He hung there forsaken by His Father and deserted by His friends. That is why Christians can find such comfort in Him--He knows our sorrows; He knows our pain; He knows our loneliness. He has endured it all!
Only slightly embellished. Almost completely scriptural. Not bad.
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It is not the Mormon Jesus that inspires such words as these: "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, there's just something about that Name. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, like the fragrance after the rain. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, let all heaven and earth proclaim. Kings and Kingdoms will all fade away, but there's something about that Name." When was the last time such words tore your heart in two because of your guilt that required His sacrifice? When was the last time the mere mention of His name brought uncontrollable tears to your eyes because of the great thankful love that welled up within you? "Jesus paid it ALL. ALL to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, HE washed it white as snow." We can do NOTHING to earn our salvation. We do good works our of gratitude for what He has done for us and because such works are the natural behavior of those born again from above! We are saved--therefore we work. We do not and cannot work in order to be saved. "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! Sweetest name I know. Fills my every longing. Keeps me singing as I go!" Do you know that Jesus? "Repent and believe in the Name of [the true] Jesus, and be saved!&quot Preterist
Okay, this bit has confused me greatly. Are you quoting song from your church to try to prove a point here? I don't get it. Or are you now calling everyone who is not of the "Born Again Christian" persuasion a bunch of non-Christians now?
Preterist, I sincerely hope that God will one day forgive you for your self-righteous bigotry against others. I've little doubt that it is not entirely your fault. You were taught to believe that they were not Christian and heretical. You've clearly accepted that teaching. You're not alone there. Most Protestant faiths seem to have engaged themselves quite heavily in attacking the Mormon religion. A tremendous amount of time and church money has been thrown into this misguided obsession of tearing down the cherished faiths of others. The Mormon religion is not the only victim of this very un-Christian behavior, but they appear to be the favorite target.
The most ridiculous part of this: Most Christians have no idea how their own sect came into being nor how it's own doctrines developed. The majority of Protestant Christianity knows more about what is wrong with Mormonism and it's history than they know about the history of their own denomination.
Sure, Mormons believe some pretty unusual things. They're not alone in that. Plenty of mainstream Christian denominations believe some things others would consider very strange. That doesn't damn them to an eternity in hell, in my opinion. I've yet to come up with anything within Mormon beliefs that would keep them from the Kingdom of God. I've also yet to come up with anything that they believe that is expressly contrary to the Bible. They believe in Jesus Christ and rely upon him for their salvation. They are Christians. Don't be too shocked when you bumb into a bunch of Mormons in Heaven.
It is quite interesting to me that they seem to be one of the first religions to come up with a way to claim their doctrine and set of beliefs are the correct ones (just like everyone else has) without damning everyone else to hell for eternity.
Last edited by godofthunder; 01-24-2008 at 06:55 PM..
And that same great span exists between your Jesus and the biblical Jesus.
The Jesus of the Bible willingly allowed Himself to go to that cross. As the song goes--"He could have called ten thousand angels to destroy the world and set Him free; He could have called ten thousand angels, but He died alone for you and me." ... That is why Christians can find such comfort in Him--He knows our sorrows; He knows our pain; He knows our loneliness. He has endured it all!
Preterist
Preterist -- once again you smugly assume that your understanding has a monopoly on those beliefs. I don't have the time or energy to go rounds with you (again), but after one minute of searching the LDS General Conference talks, I found the following. I address it not so much to Preterist, who will not be swayed, but to other readers who would like the perspective from an LDS apostle.
thunder puts things a little more direct than i would, but that does not take away from his point. you are tending to ignore, or misunderstand, or reject the fact that almost all of the points that you use to define divinity, mormons believe.
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Originally Posted by Preterist
stycotl: I am sorry that you find my debate as an assault. That is not my intent. But you must remember that it was and still is Mormonism that accused Christian churches of not having the gospel and of being apostate. And if they are in hearty agreement with Joseph Smith, their founder, Mormons must still believe that we are ALL apostate. My point is this, stycotl--we did not begin this debate!
i realize that it is not your intent, and i am not offended. i have been answering these qurstions for too long to be offended, especially in the net.
you are presuming that what our church teaches is an accusation, an attack. it is not. we do not claim that nonmormons are going to hell. we do not claim that they are misguided fools or anything. as i mentioned earlier, we owe a great deal to the reformationist movement, and without those inspired men and women, joe smith never would have had an english bible to read and explore. i believe that we can disagree with your doctrine without calling you names, telling you that you are unaware of what you say you believe in, or even implying as much.
There are fundamentals which support a person or group's claim to Christianity. That God the Father is a Supreme Being who is so much OTHER than we are that even a comparison to Him is immeasurably inadequate is nonnegotiable (incidentally, 100% agreement there too, except as far as we were made in His image goes...). No man will ever become God of any kind. It is not in his nature to do so. He was created a man and a man he will always be. To teach that God was once a man is to clearly place one's self far outside the parameters of Christianity.
i can understand your rejection of the idea here. however, i am unaware of any scriptural reference that denies us our christianity because we believe such a thing.
Furthermore, the entire deity of Christ is what gave His sacrifice its efficacy. The penalty of sin is death. Only the God of the universe could pay it. In order to pay it, the Son of God who had been and will always be ETERNALLY with the Father, entered the world of men becoming the God-Man. As the God-Man, He was able to die and as the God-Man, He was able to satisfy the just demands of God's wrath against sin. No mere man, no matter how "perfect," could ever meet those demands.
100% agreement here. mormon doctrine. perhaps you misunderstood that part of my last post. mormons believe that Christ is not a decent man, a perfect human. mormons believe that Christ is the Son of God, deity made corporeal.
Again, I tell Mormons that Jesus is not my Jesus or the Jesus of the Bible not in order to alienate or to win an argument but because it is ESSENTIAL that a person believe on the true Jesus else He is still outside the faith and still in his sins.
i understand and agree wth you. but where do you, preterist, draw the line? if you believe that in order to follow Christ you need to be baptized by immersion, but your neighbor believes that baptism is unnecessary, and your cousin believes that baptism is good, but you only have to sprinkle water, does that mean that they are not christian? baptism is a basic ordinance of the gospel, so important that Christ Himself, the blameless, was baptized. so where is the line drawn? and where in scripture does it tell you, preterist, to draw that line? where in the bible does it say that you can still be considered a follower of Christ if you believe ______ about Him, and _____, but if you believe _____, you are not a christian, and are doomed to hellfire?
Perhaps you get a burning in your bosom to know whether your faith is real. As for me, I am filled with the love of Christ in my heart and a gratitude words cannot express when I think that the Lord of glory, the righteous, perfect, holy, Eternal Son of God who spoke the world into being, loved those hopelessly lost in their sins so much that in order to save them He humbled Himself and condescended to a depth we will never understand. This was not a mere man giving his life for other men--this was God in the flesh becoming a member of His own creation in order to redeem those who would believe on Him. The God of the Universe, without beginning and without end, all-knowing, all-powerful became a fetus in the womb of a woman He Himself created! He passed through the birth canal--the holy, righteous, immutable, perfect, everlasting, all-powerful God of the universe was born of woman. Then He suckled at her breasts in total reliance upon her. That is condescension, my friend. I could say that it is similar to a man becoming an ant and living among them. But that would not be adequate because that would be only like taking one step in all the steps possible if a man could walk throughout the millions of galaxies that we know of. We cannot measure it--we must not measure it.
sounds a little condescending (i think you believe us ignorant of what the Spirit should feel like), but again, no mormon is going to argue. we believe the same.
And that same great span exists between your Jesus and the biblical Jesus. The Jesus of the Bible willingly allowed Himself to go to that cross. As the song goes--"He could have called ten thousand angels to destroy the world and set Him free; He could have called ten thousand angels, but He died alone for you and me." It was not the pain He dreaded in the Garden of Gethsemane. Many others had suffered similar fates. His suffering was unique--no man has or ever will endure what He endured. Because it was while He hung on that cross of shame that God the Father, with whom the Son had enjoyed eternal fellowship, placed upon the Son of His love the vile sins of the world and poured out His full unrestrained wrath upon Him. It was then that Christ "became sin for us"--He Who knew no sin! And the Father turned His back on Him, not able to look upon sin or have fellowship with a sinner. No one has ever been nor ever will be as alone as our Lord when He hung there forsaken by His Father and deserted by His friends. That is why Christians can find such comfort in Him--He knows our sorrows; He knows our pain; He knows our loneliness. He has endured it all!
you are again making the assumption that Christ is merely a 'nice man' to the mormons. we know that He chose this path. we know that He gave up the ghost--it was not forced from Him. that is all mormon doctrine.
It is not the Mormon Jesus that inspires such words as these: "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, there's just something about that Name. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, like the fragrance after the rain. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, let all heaven and earth proclaim. Kings and Kingdoms will all fade away, but there's something about that Name." When was the last time such words tore your heart in two because of your guilt that required His sacrifice? When was the last time the mere mention of His name brought uncontrollable tears to your eyes because of the great thankful love that welled up within you? "Jesus paid it ALL. ALL to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, HE washed it white as snow." We can do NOTHING to earn our salvation. We do good works our of gratitude for what He has done for us and because such works are the natural behavior of those born again from above! We are saved--therefore we work. We do not and cannot work in order to be saved.
this too sounds a little condescending. i realize that my faith is not inspiring to you. but you cannot argue, with any chance of logic or success, that the faith has not inspired others. i myself am one of them who have been inspired--through the mormon faith--to seek out my Savior, and yes that includes biblical accounts. and i have known many others as well.
"Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! Sweetest name I know. Fills my every longing. Keeps me singing as I go!" Do you know that Jesus? "Repent and believe in the Name of [the true] Jesus, and be saved!"
Preterist
so, to recap, i know my Savior to be the Son of God. I know Him to have been chosen since before my creation. i know Him to have been born in the flesh, the Son of God, divinity incarnate. i know that He lived a perfect life, not because He was such a swell guy, though He was, but because He was the chosen Redeemer of His people, those who He bought with His own blood. He is our Creator, our Savior, and our Judge before the Father. it is by Him alone that man will find acceptance in heaven.
i know this. i have studied it. i have learned it. i have felt it.
Help me understand something here. godofthunder and others, you state that because the Bible was compiled by a group of men who made up a council, that Bible doctrine is incorrect as a result? Is this why the mormon church believes in the Bible as far as it is translated correctly?(AOF?) Even though the Bible is a collection of writings from Moses to Paul, the Bible is not entirely accurate just because men assembled it? Is is not possible that the men of that council were as divinely inspired to assemble those books just as mormons believe Joseph Smith was when he assembled the BOM?
Agreed, there are many denominations out there but they all have the Bible as its sole source of doctrine. Are the differences between them minor or major? As with any differences between the LDS church or any others, one has to search, read, learn and listen, in addition to some introspection to determine which church to follow.
The differences between the various sects of Christianity differ a great deal, depending on which one we're talking about.
Catholicism prays to Saints and worship Mary (whether they admit it is worship or not is immaterial in my opinion.)
Presbyterians believe in Predestination. You were either born to be saved or you were not.
Baptists, and affiliated religions, believe that once you are Born Again, you are not accountable for any sins for the rest of your life. In some peoples view, "Sin isn't sin anymore."
Charismatic religions believe in the gifts of the Spirit to a much greater extent than most other denominations -- some believe only after you have manifested gifts of the Spirit can you be sure that God has accepted you.
I could venture to religions that are less common or virtually nonexistent within the United States, but that sampling alone is sufficient for my purposes. There are all manner of doctrines that are not explicitly and definitively explained within the Bible's text. On some matters, the Mormon faith does a better job of lining up with the Biblical text than many of these religions. On some matters they stray from the Biblical text. The end result: They're not all that different from the rest of the Christian denominations out there.
Regarding their added scriptures, it is a simple matter of reading them. They don't really add any doctrine that some group somewhere hasn't come up with on their own from purely Biblical study. One can either damn them to hell for eternity for their supposed audacity, or you can take the less judgemental path. Mormonism actually manages to put much it's non-Biblical theology into something they feel is more official. The rest of Christianity says they don't believe in anything outside the Bible, but draw wild and unfounded conclusions and theories -- but they stop short and do not make a "book of scripture" out if it all. It doesn't mean that they are not guilty of making unfounded speculations and theologies based upon Biblical texts, thereafter announcing these theories as "absolutely true and factual."
While I agree that there are differences in some points of doctrine among the various denominations, I would venture to say that if one were to ask a Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, etc., they would all agree on one description of God and the underlying basic in Christ and His salvation message. Would you agree?
Help me understand something here. godofthunder and others, you state that because the Bible was compiled by a group of men who made up a council, that Bible doctrine is incorrect as a result? Is this why the mormon church believes in the Bible as far as it is translated correctly?(AOF?) Even though the Bible is a collection of writings from Moses to Paul, the Bible is not entirely accurate just because men assembled it? Is is not possible that the men of that council were as divinely inspired to assemble those books just as mormons believe Joseph Smith was when he assembled the BOM?
As well, the books of the Old Testament are also inspired text.
But all the books contained in the New Testament were not compiled into one single library of books until 397A.D. That was the work of the Councils of Carthage and if you're saying that they were inspired and working with the full authority from God, you're in danger of calling the Catholic Church the true Church of God. Now, as long as you do not have a problem with that, then I don't have a problem with that. You probably need to change religions if you are not already Catholic. After you have been baptized and become a Catholic, they you'll have to come face to face with the fact that the Canon of Scripture is not unnanimously accepted and a closed case. There are many canonized books that some experts feel should be excluded. There are many non-canonized books that many experts feel should be included.
The Mormon opinion on the matter is the Mormon opinion. I keep and open mind and do my very best to study the facts and the History.
The thing that baffles me is the tendency of so many supposed Christian experts to unquestioningly accept Christian tradition just because "that's the way it's always been done, so it must be true." And where they came up with the silly notion that the Bible teaches that there can never be anymore written scripture is absurd. The Bible never teaches that.
In my encounters with Evangelical Christianity, I get the impression they believe that the Bible just dropped out of the sky one day, whole and complete, accompanied by thunder and the voice of God from the skys saying, "This is my only true word! This is all you're ever going to get! Goodbye!"
Personally, I feel it is extremely arrogant to limit God in this way, especially since no such event ever occurred. Not ever remotely close.
As far as the correctness or incorrectness of the Bible as currently constituted, which translation is right? Old King James? New King James? New International Version? I feel that if translated correctly and if no mistakes were made, then what we have in our Bible today is all inspired by God. It's a little difficult to call it perfect because, very often, one translation will come up with something very nearly opposite to the other translation from the same verse.
The nature of God is not subject to popular opinion. It doesn't really matter if the whole Christian world believes one particular way. That doesn't make it true. Thunder has given a very nice description of the genesis of the Nicene Creed. It does not sound like inspiration to me. But you and others can believe as you wish. But if you are going to claim inspiration on the part of Constantine and others (a very off-the-wall claim in my opinion), then you are really talking about the spirit of prophecy and revelation 225 years after the close of the apostolic period.
So did the Lord call prophets and apostles under the aegis of Emperor Constantine? That is what you are saying if you claim the Nicene Creed was crafted under the inspiration of God. And if you say that, then you cannot dismiss Joseph Smith as prophet on the arguement that the Heavens are closed and God has done his work and all prophecy and apostolic work ended with the apostles. Nor can you fix your doctrine to the notion that the Bible is the end of God's word to man, since you now have intoduced new "revelation" in the form of the Nicene Creed. Remember that the Trinitarian concept is not defined in the Bible-- according to most non-Mormon scholars as I have pointed out and as Thunder has pointed out.
So you are in a quandary. You can't have you cake and eat it too.
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