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2towers
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Former Mormons becoming Catholic in my church have always had to include a Baptism as part of the conversion, so yes, 1ke is correct.
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Raxus
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No, they are not.
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Lemuel
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I had to be baptized when I joined the Catholic Church and I was happy I did.
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TOmNossor
Guest
Hello SnoopSword,TOmNossor:
When I studied into cults (and I consider almost ALL non-Creedal ‘Christian’ ‘churches/religions/faiths’ to be a cults), I noticed that they all have a common foundation in which they build from; LIES (specifically: false history, fake news, fabricated myths, and various fables).
Your argument seem to rest on these things.
Since we have not dialogued in the past that I remember, I will hope that you are interested in learning about what is being claimed and not just blindly condemning. I must admit quoting a statement made by me and then declaring that my church is built upon LIES and my argument rests upon such is an inauspicious start. But here goes anyway.
Let me quote Origin in two places:
It would seem that Origin does not consider this question to be “clearly indicated” in the teachings of the church. This is as I said a witness that embodiment was believed during Origin’s time.
Both Jews and Christians believed in an embodied God. If you read Origin, you will see that he rejects this, but his position is that scripture does not demand one believe in an embodied God and it is only reasonable that God is not embodied.
I think this has been discussed on this thread already. I will note that there were certainly some philosophically minded Christians who believed in an embodied God and MAY have sited philosophy to support such a view. But most scholars recognized that less philosophically minded Christians naturally believed in an embodied God because that is the message of scripture.
St. Augustine refused to become a Christian for many years because Christians believed in an embodied God and this offended Augustine’s sensibilities. It was not until much later in his life when St. Ambrose taught him that it was not proper to believe God had a body. St. Augustine’s mother was St. Monica and we know Augustine explains his view was that Christians believed in an embodied God.
So, what I said is true. Origin and Augustine witness to the fact that many Christians believed in an embodied God for quite some time.
Why other than your embrace of the Catholic Church do you believe that God is not embodied?
Charity, TOm
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Theo520
Guest
In fact, any religious group fits the definition of cult, you just choose to exclude yours.
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RebeccaJ
Guest
You are making assumptions which you know, is never good.
It is a foundation. The Constitution of the USA came from the USA. Is the authoritative interpretation of the Constitution, the USA? Or is it TOm?
Do you find that the authoritative interpretation is found in the USA, to be circular or rational and reasonable?
Indeed, the LDS teaching that men are gods and divinely investured as such in this life, I found to be self evidently false. Perhaps you would worship, or imagine others without number worshipping, your father, or brother, or male neighbor as a god? Maybe even yourself?! Mormon men are kind of enamored of themselves…but I digress.
I find this profoundly irrational. I was atheist for far longer than I was LDS or have been Catholic. When I finally read Catholic authors, such as Thomas Aquinas, I was struck by the rational thinking and conclusions. I never heard of Thomas Aquinas, and found it another reason to be angry at my Mormon upbringing. What a treasure, ignored by Mormonism as inconsequential!
So don’t be all Mormon speaking to me about ignorance. Mormonism has a hold on its people, keeping them in ignorance. The hubris.
Mormonism is irrational and confusing, and you tirelessly seek to impose that irrationality and confusion on the Early Church.
Sometimes, when I can ignore the arrogance, I pity all Mormons.
As a Catholic, I learned to let God reveal Himself. He is revealed in Scripture and Tradition. God has revealed Himself as One. God has revealed Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
For the life of me, I will never understand why this revelation can’t be accepted by Mormons. I tend to think, it’s because it is difficult to do as St. Paul taught us…to die to oneself. Mormonism and atheism both have an aversion, to placing complete, and utter trust, in God.
That is why Mormons become atheists, so easily, IMO.
It is a foundation. The Constitution of the USA came from the USA. Is the authoritative interpretation of the Constitution, the USA? Or is it TOm?
Do you find that the authoritative interpretation is found in the USA, to be circular or rational and reasonable?
Indeed, the LDS teaching that men are gods and divinely investured as such in this life, I found to be self evidently false. Perhaps you would worship, or imagine others without number worshipping, your father, or brother, or male neighbor as a god? Maybe even yourself?! Mormon men are kind of enamored of themselves…but I digress.
I find this profoundly irrational. I was atheist for far longer than I was LDS or have been Catholic. When I finally read Catholic authors, such as Thomas Aquinas, I was struck by the rational thinking and conclusions. I never heard of Thomas Aquinas, and found it another reason to be angry at my Mormon upbringing. What a treasure, ignored by Mormonism as inconsequential!
So don’t be all Mormon speaking to me about ignorance. Mormonism has a hold on its people, keeping them in ignorance. The hubris.
Mormonism is irrational and confusing, and you tirelessly seek to impose that irrationality and confusion on the Early Church.
Sometimes, when I can ignore the arrogance, I pity all Mormons.
As a Catholic, I learned to let God reveal Himself. He is revealed in Scripture and Tradition. God has revealed Himself as One. God has revealed Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
For the life of me, I will never understand why this revelation can’t be accepted by Mormons. I tend to think, it’s because it is difficult to do as St. Paul taught us…to die to oneself. Mormonism and atheism both have an aversion, to placing complete, and utter trust, in God.
That is why Mormons become atheists, so easily, IMO.
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RebeccaJ
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Almost all converts struggle with some doctrine or another. The struggles of converts, is not an indicator of something being foisted on everyone.
A pagan struggling with an incorporeal God, is not shocking or new. We all have our idols. Mormonism has this struggle, encapsulated into a religion.
A pagan struggling with an incorporeal God, is not shocking or new. We all have our idols. Mormonism has this struggle, encapsulated into a religion.
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Horton
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Bingo. This is one more reason the LDS are not Christian. They do not submit to the will of God. They rely on their own (false) interpretation of scripture. What they couldn’t find there to support their position they made up after the fact.
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lilypadrees
Guest
Not just according to me, according to every Christian who knows the truth about Mormon beliefs. Your Jesus is the brother of Lucifer (Satan) which either elevates Lucifer (Satan) to being God just as Jesus is God or demotes Jesus to being an angel, a fallen angel at that.
Have you ever read the Mormon version of the Fall, Tom? If not, you need to.
The Mormon version of God the Father was a human being who became a god after dying and being voted into the Godhood (not Godhead) by the gods who were there before Him.
Mormon baptism is not valid. Therefore, not Christian.
Having the name “Jesus Christ” in the title of your church does not make you Christians. Nor does it make your church the church Jesus founded. Your church, your whole religion, is the church and religion Joseph Smith founded.
I have stated all of the above and many other reasons Mormons aren’t Christians before. The only way Mormons are going to become Christians is to leave Mormonism and all its false beliefs and teachings behind and come to the real Jesus not the Mormon version.
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TOmNossor
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I am a constitutional originalist through and through. You are using an example that proves my point and you do not know it.
The USA has a group of Justices of the Supreme Court who are the final arbitrators concerning what is Constitutional and what is not Constitutional.
Virtually no Constitutional scholars believe that the writers of the constitution believed that Abortion was a right, but in 1973 the USA declared that laws against Abortion (virtually on demand) were in violation of the U.S. Constitution. This was a product of reading the constitution for the purpose of making just laws in the minds of the majority of Supreme Court Justices NOT as a product of the “original intent” of those who wrote the U.S. Constitution.
Your position is PRECISLY analogous to this. It does not matter to you what St. Justin meant when he wrote, he was a Catholic (in your opinion) and the Catholic Church is the one who decides what Justin meant.
You, Rebecca, claim you do not need to read St. Justin. You only need to have blind faith in what your church tells you and then assume that St. Justin believed the same.
St. Justin was not a modern Catholic. He just was not. When I tell you he was not a Trinitarian, I am correct. Of course, the Catholic Church doesn’t claim St. Justin was a Trinitarian, but that is another issue.
I have read Aquinas and I find him to be eminently rational. He presupposed certain non-negotiable truths and from their reasoned to many things you have rejected in our past discussion. Aquinas is clear that God is impassible. Aquinas is clear the unbaptized infants go to hell. Aquinas struggles with God’s knowledge because God is immutable and thus does not know what we do because we choose to do it.
And of course months before Aquinas died he met God and declared that everything he had written was “Straw.” He said this multiple times and he never unwound it for us. Just “straw.” He met a loving God and then claimed his writings about God being impassible were straw. I think that makes a lot of sense.
I reason about the CoJCoLDS regularly. When I teach, when I ponder, when I read, …. I am sorry you felt like that was not available to you as a LDS.
Charity, TOm
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TOmNossor
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Rebecca, I am not the one who claims that Justin’s words are in alignment with modern Catholicism because the Catholic Church preserved them. I read his words so I wouldn’t be ignorant about what he said. I have asked you if you read all of the Dialogue with Trypho as you counseled Gazelam to do. You have not answered. But I did read all.
I hope I am not as full of hubris as the words I say to you might convey. I just think it important to point to the flaws in what you are asserting. It is not because of my brilliance, it is because you analogizing with the U.S. Constitution that supposedly has a right to abortion is easy to refute. You are stating that ancient documents support modern Catholicism because the Catholic Church preserved them (didn’t burn them and destroy them like they did with other documents) is not a strong case. You citing Aquinas as rational is quite solid, but as one who defines what you believe or what one who has met God could believe, I think not so solid.
I would hope if you actual believe the things about me you claim about me that you ALWAYS pity me. I just hope you are wrong about me.
One of the things I find so freeing is that I do not think a lived Catholic life is bad or a recipe for anything but the best relationship with God available to any of His children. So I am not worried about your soul. I long ago recognized that a modified Pascal’s Wager suggest I should be a Catholic and leave behind Mormonism.
That being said, the ignorance you embraced as your Mormonism is not my CoJCoLDS. I don’t disbelieve you, I just don’t see what you once embraced. If I thought about the CoJCoLDS what you did, I would probably leave too.
Mormonism does not have an aversion to placing complete and utter trust in God. That is its foundation. It is Augustine who wouldn’t embrace a God who was embodied so he refused to be a Christian. It is Aquinas who taught God was impassible. It is Joseph Smith who said he would not be bound by creeds because he wanted to come into the full presence of God and not be restricted by manmade limits on what God is and is not.
It is the type of thinking anti-Mormons and indeed society invites God fearing individuals to embrace that makes LDS become atheists instead of other types of theists.
I truly do not understand how you can claim that St. Justin’s writings conform to Catholic truth because the Catholic Church preserved his writings. This is blind faith. Such faith would have preserved you as a LDS.
Charity, TOm
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TOmNossor
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Rebecca, I have gone back to make sure I didn’t drop a word or something, but I was very clear and you read very poorly. Here is the post:
Augustine was not a convert who struggled with a doctrine. Augustine REFUSED to join what you call Christianity because Christianity believed that God was embodied. He didn’t struggle. He rejected the faith of his mother, St. Monica and would not be a Christian.
Then, later in Augustine’s life, St. Ambrose explained to Augustine the BETTER truth that God was not embodied at all and Augustine joined this version of Christianity.
This is the story as Augustine tells it. He is not struggling. He will not join St. Monica’s church. He lacks the faith or the conviction to join a church that believes in an embodied God because that is too ridiculous. You know ridiculous like the CoJCoLDS or ridiculous like the mark of a true church according to Newman. That ridiculous. But never fear, real Christians according to you and the Catholic Church do not believe in an embodied God any more.
Rebecca, I don’t know what to say. I think there is great reason and power in the Catholic Church. One can read and ponder scripture and the ECF (and posts by LDS on message boards) and still be a Catholic. I am a fan of reason and I suspect you are also. I hope that you can someday see that many LDS are fans of reason too.
Charity, TOm
Stephen168
New member
This common Mormon partial cherry picked quote from Origen is saying in the preface what he is going to talk about later. I wonder what he tells us about God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit later in “The Principles.”
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TOmNossor
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Stephen,TOmNossor:
This common Mormon partial cherry picked quote from Origen is saying in the preface what he is going to talk about later. I wonder what he tells us about God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit later in “The Principles.”
Origin says later on exactly what I claimed he said.
There is no cherry picking or hiding. Origin and Augustine witness to the exact thing I claimed they witnessed to. For centuries (at least until the 4th century) it was a common Christian belief that God was embodied. Origin rejected this. Augustine refused to be Christian until he found out he could continue to reject it.
I am only guilty of thinking (or perhaps hoping) that people read what I write not what they hope I write so they can accuse me of dishonesty.
Charity, TOm
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gazelam
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The 4th Century monk John Cassian lived in Egypt from 385-400AD in the monastic communities there. Although Cassian believed that God is incorporeal, he nonetheless made it clear that in the late 4th century for Egyptian monks an anthropomorphic God was the long-established norm and that incorporealism was the innovation. German Coptologist Otto Meinardus concludes “that anthropomorphists appear to have out-numbered the liberal party [the origenists who preferred allegorical interpretations of the scriptures] by at least three to one.” Monks and Monasteries of the Egyptian Deserts, rev. ed. (Cairo: American University of Cairo Press, 1989) 53
Cassian also records that Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, sent a letter in 399 to the Egyptian churches to set the dates of Lent and Easter. In that letter, Theophilus included a condemnation of anthropomorphism. which…
"was received very bitterly by almost every sort of monk throughout all Egypt… Indeed, the majority of the older men among the brethren asserted that in fact the bishop was to be condemned as someone corrupted by the most serious heresy, someone opposing the ideas of holy Scripture, someone who denied that almighty God was of human shape–and this despite the clear scriptural evidence that Adam was created in His image. (Colm Luibheid, trans., John Cassian: Conferences (New York: Paulist, 1985) 125-26
Cassian also records that Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, sent a letter in 399 to the Egyptian churches to set the dates of Lent and Easter. In that letter, Theophilus included a condemnation of anthropomorphism. which…
"was received very bitterly by almost every sort of monk throughout all Egypt… Indeed, the majority of the older men among the brethren asserted that in fact the bishop was to be condemned as someone corrupted by the most serious heresy, someone opposing the ideas of holy Scripture, someone who denied that almighty God was of human shape–and this despite the clear scriptural evidence that Adam was created in His image. (Colm Luibheid, trans., John Cassian: Conferences (New York: Paulist, 1985) 125-26
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RebeccaJ
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You’re doing that Mormon condescending thing: building straw men and then saying sorry that I’m not as awesome as yourself. Number 2 reason for leaving Mormonism, are the endless layers of deceptions, and delivered in a sophistry stink bomb.Your position is PRECISLY analogous to this. It does not matter to you what St. Justin meant when he wrote, he was a Catholic (in your opinion) and the Catholic Church is the one who decides what Justin meant.
You, Rebecca, claim you do not need to read St. Justin. You only need to have blind faith in what your church tells you and then assume that St. Justin believed the same.
St. Justin was not a modern Catholic. He just was not. When I tell you he was not a Trinitarian, I am correct. Of course, the Catholic Church doesn’t claim St. Justin was a Trinitarian, but that is another issue.
RebeccaJ:
I have read Aquinas and I find him to be eminently rational. He presupposed certain non-negotiable truths and from their reasoned to many things you have rejected in our past discussion. Aquinas is clear that God is impassible. Aquinas is clear the unbaptized infants go to hell. Aquinas struggles with God’s knowledge because God is immutable and thus does not know what we do because we choose to do it.
And of course months before Aquinas died he met God and declared that everything he had written was “Straw.” He said this multiple times and he never unwound it for us. Just “straw.” He met a loving God and then claimed his writings about God being impassible were straw. I think that makes a lot of sense.
I reason about the CoJCoLDS regularly. When I teach, when I ponder, when I read, …. I am sorry you felt like that was not available to you as a LDS.
Charity, TOm
Maybe you’ll fool some of the people some of the time. I think you are in good company with Joseph Smith in that regard.
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Stephen168
New member
Yes, your quote (a fraction of sentence) is commonly used by Mormons to try and make a case that early Christians believed that God has a body. And like all Mormon quotes of the Early Church Fathers, it does not mean what you suggested it meant. This gives weight to SnoopSword’s claim.
After you get done proving your claims about the Council of Nicaea from primary sources, I’d like to see the actual quotes from the writings of St. Augustine which prove that as a Christian he believed that God had a body. Unless you mean that St. Augustine never believed God had a body, then I would wonder what the point was to say what you said about Origen and St. Augustine.
It also seems odd to quote yourself saying something you never said until now. Maybe more weight to SnoopSword’s claim.
Stephen168
New member
Yes, there have always been heretics. I once had a beer with a Mormon in Seattle, but I know that he wasn’t following the teachings of the Mormon Church.
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Stephen168
New member
To Summarize
St. Augustine mistakenly believed that Christians believed God was made of flesh and bone. St. Ambrose told him he was wrong, so he became a Christian.
I wonder if just maybe St. Augustine was misinformed by rumors about Christians in regard to the Eucharist.
I’m sure you have quotes from primary sources to clear this up.
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Horton
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Wouldn’t it be nice for once if the LDS here used their own knowledge & teaching to prove the LDS are correct rather than using Catholic teaching to prove Catholicism is wrong.
It appears here on CAF they are unable to prove they are right so they attempt to prove Catholics don’t know the “real” teachings of the Church.
It appears here on CAF they are unable to prove they are right so they attempt to prove Catholics don’t know the “real” teachings of the Church.
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