Any Mormons on here read the CES Letter?

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Curious question. Are we to suppose you have the gift of discernment? Perhaps then you could describe to me how the spirit relayed to you that it is true?
 
rIz0 said:
Are we to suppose you have the gift of discernment?
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I’m no expert, but I suppose that God gives spiritual gifts to His children according to His will. Some receive this, others receive that. Are you to suppose that I have the gift of discernment? I wouldn’t say that. I would say that some are blessed with it. Others are blessed with other spiritual gifts. Just my opinion.
rIz0 said:
Perhaps then you could describe to me how the spirit relayed to you that it is true?
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Perhaps I could.
 
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Ruth it was a tongue in cheek post directed at Gazelam not you. Hope this clears things up.
 
In much the same way God gives us the ability to know right from wrong. We are all blessed with free will and most of us use this gift to follow the will of God and not subject our will to a false & tyrannical god such as Joseph Smith’s fantasy of what a god should be.

Our true God would never shame any of his children into following Him. Our true God would never put a woman’s chance of salvation into the hands of a mere man, He loves us too much for that. Our true God wants us to know the good, the true, the beautiful and He doesn’t put any conditions on how we are to receive this.

That is how we know.
 
Right. Through use of reason we can delineate between that which is defensible and that which is indefensible. Like how one ought to prefer simplicity in explanatory power when considering competing theories. Coincidently this principle is why it is so easily recognizable, to those of us who have not a dog in the fight, to see that Mormonism is simply indefensible in light of its many intellectual inconsistencies. However the question remains… how does Gazelam receive confirmation from the spirit. I want to know exactly how that manifests itself. My guess is that I won’t get an answer or that he’ll move the goal post in some way shape or form.
 
I looked up ces letter and quite frankly, most of that is Greek to me but I came across a video about the state of the Mormon church by a gentleman named John Dehlin and I found that to be fascinating.
 
gazelam said:
Please share the teachings from the Book of Mormon that contradict Latter-day Saint belief.
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“2 Nephi 26:29”: 29 He commandeth that there shall be no priestcrafts; for, behold priestcrafts are that men preach and set themselves up for a light unto the world, that they may get gain and praise of the
world; but they seek not the welfare of Zion.
 
gazelam said:
How did God relay this information to you?
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He gave her a brain to use to think for herself rather than fall into the false-premise trap used by Mormon missionaries.
 
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Chris-Wa1 said:
He gave her a brain to use to think for herself
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That’s what I’m saying. When I read it, I felt like it was a nice tale but totally fiction and most of the stories totally parallel stories in the Bible. In fact some chapters literally use the Bible. 2 Nephi I believe it is uses Isaiah word for word in like half that book.
 
I am well of this and have not a concern or worry at all.

30 plus years of membership and my continued recognition that something will come to challenge folks like with, I submit, the church is X Y Z, etc etc. Religion in general worldwide has some part of it that gives some heartburn etc,etc - effects their loyalty or remaining membership.

The “drumbeat never ends our to end or get” has been my view for years and years.

Kind regards to all.
 
Heretics exist in every age, and its a constant struggle to protect the flock. But the Catholic Church has preserved that knowledge as proven by the fact we believe the same doctrines as the early church fathers believed in their writings.

" Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church."
St. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Smyraens (A.D. 110)

“[God hath set ] all the other means through which the Spirit works; … For where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God; and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church, and every kind of grace; but the Spirit is truth."
St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies (A.D. 180)

“But they, safeguarding the true tradition of the blessed teaching, which comes straight from the Apostles Peter, James, John and Paul and transmitted from father to son have come down to us with the help of God to deposit in us those ancestral and apostolic seeds”
St. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata (A.D. 205)

“But if there be any (heresies) which are bold enough to plant themselves in the midst Of the apostolic age, that they may thereby seem to have been handed down by the apostles, because they existed in the time of the apostles, we can say: Let them produce the original records of their churches; let them unfold the roll of their bishops, running down in due succession from the beginning in such a manner that [that first bishop of theirs] bishop shall be able to show for his ordainer and predecessor some one of the apostles or of apostolic men,–a man, moreover, who continued steadfast with the apostles. …To this test, therefore will they be submitted for proof by those churches, who, although they derive not their founder from apostles or apostolic men (as being of much later date, for they are in fact being founded daily), yet, since they agree in the same faith, they are accounted as not less apostolic because they are akin in doctrine…Then let all the heresies, when challenged to these two tests by our apostolic church, offer their proof of how they deem themselves to be apostolic. But in truth they neither are so, nor are they able to prove themselves to be what they are not. Nor are they admitted to peaceful relations and communion by such churches as are in any way connected with apostles, inasmuch as they are in no sense themselves apostolic because of their diversity as to the mysteries of the faith.”
Tertullian, Prescription against the Heretics - 33 (~200 AD)

“We are not to credit these men, nor go out from the first and the ecclesiastical tradition; nor to believe otherwise than as the churches of God have by succession transmitted to us.”
Origen Commentary on Matthew (~244 AD)
 
irenaeuslyons said:
Heretics exist in every age, and its a constant struggle to protect the flock. But the Catholic Church has preserved that knowledge as proven by the fact we believe the same doctrines as the early church fathers believed in their writings.
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Two points/questions:
  1. Shouldn’t the doctrines of the Church be measured against Jesus and the Apostles, instead of later believers?
  2. Some early church fathers contradicted each other. I’ll give two examples.
First example: Justin Martyr taught creation ex-materia, but Tatian taught Creation ex-nihilo.

Martyr:
And we have been taught that He in the beginning did of His goodness, for man’s sake, create all things out of unformed matter ; and if men by their works show themselves worthy of this His design, they are deemed worthy, and so we have received–of reigning in company with Him, being delivered from corruption and suffering. (First Apology X [ANF: 1:165])

Tatian:
“For matter is not, like God, without beginning, nor, as having no beginning, is of equal power with God; it is begotten, and not produced by any other being, but brought into existence by the Framer of all things alone.” ( Address to the Greeks 5 )

“The case stands thus: we can see that the whole structure of the world, and the whole creation, has been produced from matter, and the matter itself brought into existence by God; …” ( Address to the Greeks 12 )

2 Peter 3:5 teaches that the Earth was created from water, not nothing.

They deliberately ignore the fact that the heavens existed of old and earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God

Second Example:
The Synod of Elvira forbid the use of images in churches. However, the Second Council of Nicaea allowed the use of such images.

Which bishops were following the Apostles?
 
That does not matter to me much. The BOM is lame. Seriously lame. I could have written better than that without stealing so much from the Bible and other works. In 3 Nephi I remember being somewhat excited because that is the climax where Jesus appears. What does he say? Everything I already knew he said in the Gospels 😂. Everything Christ says is a complete distortion of His words. Like he didn’t come for the Gentiles the first time? Why do Mormons even accept Paul’s letters then? Also how ridiculous before he came God just destroyed cities by fire and flood and just moving mountains over them. Makes for a nice cover up that none of those cities ever existed to begin with. It was a good read I admit. Not scripture. More like some fan fare. There are about 100 works of literature I would believe are inspired by the Holy Spirit before that one.
 
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gazelam said:
Shouldn’t the doctrines of the Church be measured against Jesus and the Apostles, instead of later believers?
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They are. Through the deposit of faith that was passed down by them which the church fathers write about. It is very affirming to see they believe what I believe almost 2 millenia later.
gazelam said:
Some early church fathers contradicted each other. I’ll give two examples.
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I don’t deny there were differences at times. Sure that happened. i.e. Paul disagreed with Peter right from the get go. But these things were worked out, just as it was in the first council at Jerusalem in Acts. Every ecumenical council was called to address some question about the faith. And they codified what was passed down through tradition and scripture to address concerns as they presented themselves. Your example with an interpretation of creation is a pretty small thing. One person is speaking about platonic forms with philosophy, Peter is referencing God creating the land out amidst the waters (Genesis), and destroying it again though water (Flood), not about the world being made from water. I would say a better example would be the controversy over the nature of Christ in the early church. That was a serious disagreement. That was a significant difference amongst some churches. The truth offered by the Petrine See of Rome preserved the true faith just as Jesus promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church founded on Peter. The fact is, what we believe can be traced back through our bishops back to the apostles and ultimately to Christ. I can read the early church fathers and see familiar writing because they were Catholics and I believe what they believed. We don’t read the writings of those who supported Arianism for instance, because they are false, but at the same time as the controversy, there were Catholic writings that reflect exactly what we believe. So while there were heretics and schismatics in every age, there was also the true church persevering in the world at the same time.
gazelam said:
The Synod of Elvira forbid the use of images in churches. However, the Second Council of Nicaea allowed the use of such images.
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The synod of Elvira is not an ecumenical council, but Nicaea was.
 
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Being a CAFer has nothing to do with whether you read the Bible, I don’t understand that comment? However if you did read the creation events in the Bible and in original Hebrew you would note that there are two ways of looking at the formation of the earth
 
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