Becoming Gods....

[bryce33]

That sort of thing happens to Catholics a lot too so I understand where you are coming from. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt.

We have the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is available online, and is an exposition of our faith. Do you guys have something similar that explains what the doctrines of the Mormon church specifically are, and what you are required to believe in order to be a member of your church?

Yeah, I’m sure it’s a pretty common thing that all faiths have to deal with.

I would look here for our basic beliefs.

mormon.org

I’d also look at what we call The Articles of Faith listed below that outlines some of our core beliefs.

1 We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.

2 We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.

3 We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.

4 We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.

5 We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.

6 We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth.

7 We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth.

8 We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.

9 We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.

10 We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.

11 We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

12 We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.

13 We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that 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.

 

[bryce33]

That Mormons are unable to answer in the negative the possibility of other Gods - along with Mormonism’s consideration of God’s nature a la the “King Follett Discourse” - demonstrates the vast dissimilarity between Catholicism (with all orthodox Christianity) and Mormonism no matter how much Mormonism tries to play with the same words.

mldb.byu.edu/follett.htm

Yeah, the King Follett Discourse is some pretty heavy stuff, material that I’m sure most members of the church wouldn’t even claim to understand, let alone others who are not members of the church who haven’t been raised in context of the church. It has been the subject of much study and debate by many scholars in and outside of the church. A lot of it deals with ideas related to the creation of the earth and man’s origin and destiny. Though perhaps shocking to the modern, casual reader, its contents are actually derived from a number of ancient Jewish and Christian texts.

People treat this kind of stuff like it’s something that church members are excessively infatuated with or talk about, like it’s something we sit and study and preach over the pulpit. The simple truth is that it’s not. These types of things have no bearing whatsoever regarding our salvation and what we need to worry about in this life. It’s interesting conjecture, but not worth the time to get hung up on it. There are mountains and gobs of papers and resources that go into this stuff and try to explain it, it’s not something you’re ever going to read just once and say, huh, yeah, that totally makes sense.

The truth of it is, like what was said by FCEGM, members of the LDS church can’t answer in the negative the possibility of other Gods, yeah, maybe that makes us different because we admit to that fact, but the reality of it is that it just doesn’t matter, it really makes no difference to us one way or the other. To us there is God the Father, God the Son who is Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, beyond that it doesn’t matter. What matters to us are the things that we need to do in this life to take care of families, to teach our kids right from wrong, to know how to fortify ourselves and protect us from sin and the buffetings of Satan, and to try to do all that we can do to serve others by following the example of Jesus Christ.

From what I hear, people must think that we just sit and talk about all this speculative stuff all the time like it’s church doctrine–we don’t do that–it’s not productive. This year across the entire church everyone has been studying the New Testament; we just finished up the four gospels and are now in the book of Acts, talking about Paul, his conversion, and his missionary efforts in the early church. We do all that we can do to increase our hope and faith in Jesus Christ. We talk about Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we do all that we can to learn of Him and increase our faith in Him that we may know the source of our salvation and where to look for a remission of our sins, that we might be partakers of His love and grace, that we might be worthy of His forgiveness, and that the Atonement of our Savior might have sway in our lives.

It’s not a play of words, we are different, and that’s why there is so much strange, untrue, and confusing stuff about us in the world. That’s why I’m writing you now; to try to help you get a feel for the type of people we are, to bridge an understanding between my faith and the faiths of others. I know it can happen, I work with a wonderful man in the scouting program, a great friend of mine who is Catholic. He is a devout Catholic, attends mass each Sunday, believes strongly in his faith, and I am a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Yet, there are no walls between us, especially when it comes to God, we both rejoice in our faith in God and Jesus Christ, we can have wonderful discussions where the Spirit is felt that strengthens us both and increases of our faith in God, hopefully making us both better people. There’s communication that bridges our religions and that provides understanding for one another.

We know we have differences, but yet we both know that a) we both believe in God, b) we both believe in Christ, c) we both believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Savior and Redeemer of the world and that He will return again someday, d) we both believe in the 10 commandments, e) we both believe in the Bible, and f) we both know that we’re trying to live righteous, good, and Christian lives. Whatever weird doctrinal issues that either faith has is all water under the bridge, yes, differences exist, but so much good can happen when we can focus in on the similarities and the common good that all faiths share, whether Christian, Muslim, Hindu, etc. There are always going to be those things that we believe in that we’ll never budge on or change, and that just makes us who we are, but we should always respect the believes of others and also realize that we don’t know everything ourselves, so much is taken in faith, and we learn and change too as life goes on, that’s just the way of things.

We have an article of faith that says:
We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

Again, let me just point out, my purpose here is not to convince anyone to believe a certain way. Rather, my purpose here is to clarify and correct beliefs in our doctrine with more context.

 

[Contarini]

I live in Utah, and almost everyone I know is LDS. One of the biggest differences we can’t agree on the nature of God. They always say something along the lines of “what kind, loving God wouldn’t want His children to become like Him? What then is the purpose of life?” And no matter what I say about living for God, in His grace, etc., they always come back with something like “why would God have children for the sole purpose of worshiping him? That sounds selfish to me.” I can never put words to my perception of Him. The funny part of it is that I always think to myself, “man, they’re missing out on the entire idea of God by making Him and heaven so… human,” and they tell me “Catholic heaven is boring and you’re selling yourself short to refuse to believe that you are divine.”

Help?

Divinization is an entirely orthodox teaching. More strictly Orthodox: it’s been more explicitly taught in the East than in the West, but it is clearly compatible with Catholicism.

However, orthodox “divinization” is different from the Mormon view because of the different conception of God. The error of Mormons is not to suppose that God wants us to be like Him, but to suppose that God is basically like us to begin with–just wiser and greater.

The Mormon God is our “Father” in a fairly literal sense–we are basically like Him and just need to grow up.

The orthodox Christian God is infinite and transcendent, beyond our capacity even to understand.

And yet God does want us to be united to Him and share in His life. That’s why He united our human nature to His eternal, divine nature in the Incarnation. That’s why we have the Eucharist, in which matter is divinized and transformed into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ. (Well, you Catholics don’t think that we Anglicans have the Eucharist, but that’s not the issue here.)

The Mormons are absolutely right that God wants us to be united to Him and not just to worship Him–in fact, true worship of God is union with God. Western Christians have sometimes lost sight of this–Protestants much worse than Catholics for the most part–and have acted as if God were just our great Master in the sky who issues commands. But the rich, whole, living tradition of orthodox Christianity teaches much more than this–and much more than Mormons believe as well, because their view of God is so terribly limited.

Edwin

 

[bryce33]

That sort of thing happens to Catholics a lot too so I understand where you are coming from. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt.

We have the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is available online, and is an exposition of our faith. Do you guys have something similar that explains what the doctrines of the Mormon church specifically are, and what you are required to believe in order to be a member of your church?

JonathonofOhio, I got to say I really sympathize with you and your church regarding this, I think of all the movies out there, etc. that have the Catholic church in them. I bet you guys are just rolling your eyes at some of the stuff that’s portrayed.

I know that with the LDS church, now that it’s getting bigger, a lot of little references are popping up in mainstream media like movies, TV shows, Broadway, etc. and I just can’t help but laugh at some of the stuff that people do to try and portray our faith. It’s like horrid and funny all at the same time.

Anyways, I know this is stuff that the Catholic church has had to put up with for quite some time so again, my sympathies.

 

[Contarini]

Yeah, the King Follett Discourse is some pretty heavy stuff, material that I’m sure most members of the church wouldn’t even claim to understand, let alone others who are not members of the church who haven’t been raised in context of the church. . . .

People treat this kind of stuff like it’s something that church members are excessively infatuated with or talk about, like it’s something we sit and study and preach over the pulpit. The simple truth is that it’s not. These types of things have no bearing whatsoever regarding our salvation and what we need to worry about in this life. It’s interesting conjecture, but not worth the time to get hung up on it.

I find this response by Mormons rather odd.

As a traditional Christian, I don’t consider the “heavy” stuff to be irrelevant to my salvation. The core of my faith is the mystery of the Incarnation, which is pretty heavy stuff. My understanding of who God is and in what sense God wants me to become divine is central to my faith. And it seems to me that the very different Mormon understanding of God’s nature and divinization is the main reason why Mormonism is a fundamentally different religion from historic Christianity.

I don’t get the argument, which I hear from both Mormons and some orthodox Protestants who accept Mormons as Christians in the fullest sense, that these speculative issues are somehow marginal.

If you aren’t hung up on God, you should be.

To paraphrase Lewis’ famous argument about the Jesus of the Gospels: either the King Follett discourse is appalling heresy, or it’s amazing truth. But either way, it seems really important to figure out which. I think it’s the former. I think it’s muddled nonsense by someone reared in an impoverished caricature of Western Christianity and groping for something richer and deeper. But if I thought it was the latter, I would make it the center of my life, just as I do try (imperfectly) to make the orthodox doctrines taught by the Church Fathers the center of my life.

The truth of it is, like what was said by FCEGM, members of the LDS church can’t answer in the negative the possibility of other Gods, yeah, maybe that makes us different because we admit to that fact, but the reality of it is that it just doesn’t matter, it really makes no difference to us one way or the other.

But it should. As an orthodox Christian I bear witness to you that it should. God is much greater than you imagine. The infinite, eternal, transcendent God in whom all things subsist and on whom all things depend (than whom no other God can possibly be imagined) is the only worthy center of your life. Why settle for anything less? Above all, why dismiss the very issue as somehow irrelevant?

To us there is God the Father, God the Son who is Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, beyond that it doesn’t matter. What matters to us are the things that we need to do in this life to take care of families, to teach our kids right from wrong, to know how to fortify ourselves and protect us from sin and the buffetings of Satan, and to try to do all that we can do to serve others by following the example of Jesus Christ.

At this point I want to turn the OP’s original challenge (that is, the challenge of the OP’s Mormon friends) back on you.

What kind of God just wants you to trot along following the rules instead of making you a sharer in His divine life? The King Follett discourse is heretical nonsense from my perspective, but at least it addresses things that ultimately matter. How do you even know what sin is if you don’t have an orthodox doctrine of God and salvation? Sure, you can live a good moral life, take care of your family, etc., without thinking about this stuff. So can atheists, for that matter.

But you belong to a religion that claims to provide a better narrative than that of Athanasius’s *On the Incarnation *(granted, Smith probably hadn’t read Athanasius, which was one of his problems). Either this is true or it isn’t. But if you have something better than “God became man so that we might become God,” then for heaven’s sake what could be more important? I don’t think there is anything better than that, and therefore nothing more important.

Edwin

 

[PJM]

=bryce33;8225877]I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have if you feel it would help.

Hi, WELCOME to the FORUM!

I don’t actually know any LDS members and I do have a couple of questions.

Is there a difference between “Mormons” and LDS?

Why aren’t you Catholic?

Thank you for your time and considerstion.

God Bless you,
Pat

 

[FCEGM]

Very well said, Edwin; a blasé attitude about divine things doesn’t get one very far in approaching the transcendant majesty of God.

 

[bryce33]

The error of Mormons is not to suppose that God wants us to be like Him, but to suppose that God is basically like us to begin with–just wiser and greater.

The Mormon God is our “Father” in a fairly literal sense–we are basically like Him and just need to grow up.

The orthodox Christian God is infinite and transcendent, beyond our capacity even to understand.
Edwin

I just want to point out that in no way does the LDS faith believe that God is basically like us, we believe that God the Father and Jesus Christ have immortal, glorified bodies, and that definitely makes us different from other religions, but beyond that we don’t know, could we ever possibly comprehend what it means to be God? No. Could we ever place limits on God, God’s authority, God’s priesthood, God’s power? No. Could we even begin to fathom or comprehend what all of what that entails? No. Could we ever begin to glimpse God’s understanding of the universe and of all things and what it means to be perfect? No. Not in our puny blip in what we call mortality.

Do Latter-day Saints believe that thy are the spirit children and offspring of God? Yes. Do we understand what that means in detail? No. Do we really understand what that will mean to us in the afterlife? We’re trying to learn, but we believe that not all things will be revealed to us in this life. Because we say we’re children of God people think that we’re saying that God is like us, as it was said above, “only wiser, and greater.” We do believe that we have the potential within us to become more like God, but let me put it this way, we are like a one celled organism comparing ourselves to the vast complex, multicelled human body. There is no way that little one celled organism could ever comprehend the giant network of cells that comprise the body. If this metaphor was compared to us, if we were the one celled organism, maybe in time we could grow and our understanding could increase, but nothing like that could ever happen overnight and especially not in our lifetimes.

Yes, we believe that God loves us as His children, that we are His children, that He has created family settings in this life to help us gain a glimpse of what that love feels like while we sojourn through mortality, but there is so more to God then we could ever possibly understand in this life. We definitely don’t put limits on God, and we’re given just enough in this life to glimpse what the heavens my be like and what God has in store for us, but ultimately we live by faith, as we believe God intended it to be, and there are just a lot of unknowns that we don’t know and may never know, and that’s okay because God is in charge and we place our trust in Him.

 

[JonathonofOhio]

JonathonofOhio, I got to say I really sympathize with you and your church regarding this, I think of all the movies out there, etc. that have the Catholic church in them. I bet you guys are just rolling your eyes at some of the stuff that’s portrayed.

I know that with the LDS church, now that it’s getting bigger, a lot of little references are popping up in mainstream media like movies, TV shows, Broadway, etc. and I just can’t help but laugh at some of the stuff that people do to try and portray our faith. It’s like horrid and funny all at the same time.

Anyways, I know this is stuff that the Catholic church has had to put up with for quite some time so again, my sympathies.

The frustrating thing is that people will often times tell me what Catholics believe, and when I tell them that it is false they insist that I just don’t know or I must not know anything about my own faith The thing is though I have the Catechism of the Catholic Church to show them that proves they are wrong/misinformed. Unfortunately, even with that some of them will STILL believe the lie and act like I’ve been ‘tricked’ somehow

That said, most of the tracts on Catholic.com that I have read are in reply to accusations, assertions, and public statements made by other church officials either about Catholic beliefs or their own beliefs. So I would imagine that particular article we have been referring to about Mormon beliefs on catholic.com is more than likely based on such statements.

Without some sort of exposition of the Mormon faith that we can read to get an understanding of what the LDS church teaches and believes, we are left to guessing based on what we are told by individuals who claim to be Mormons or who were once Mormons or seem to be knowledgeable of Mormon beliefs.

 

[bryce33]

I find this response by Mormons rather odd.

As a traditional Christian, I don’t consider the “heavy” stuff to be irrelevant to my salvation. The core of my faith is the mystery of the Incarnation, which is pretty heavy stuff. My understanding of who God is and in what sense God wants me to become divine is central to my faith. And it seems to me that the very different Mormon understanding of God’s nature and divinization is the main reason why Mormonism is a fundamentally different religion from historic Christianity.

I don’t get the argument, which I hear from both Mormons and some orthodox Protestants who accept Mormons as Christians in the fullest sense, that these speculative issues are somehow marginal.

If you aren’t hung up on God, you should be.

To paraphrase Lewis’ famous argument about the Jesus of the Gospels: either the King Follett discourse is appalling heresy, or it’s amazing truth. But either way, it seems really important to figure out which. I think it’s the former. I think it’s muddled nonsense by someone reared in an impoverished caricature of Western Christianity and groping for something richer and deeper. But if I thought it was the latter, I would make it the center of my life, just as I do try (imperfectly) to make the orthodox doctrines taught by the Church Fathers the center of my life.

But it should. As an orthodox Christian I bear witness to you that it should. God is much greater than you imagine. The infinite, eternal, transcendent God in whom all things subsist and on whom all things depend (than whom no other God can possibly be imagined) is the only worthy center of your life. Why settle for anything less? Above all, why dismiss the very issue as somehow irrelevant?

At this point I want to turn the OP’s original challenge (that is, the challenge of the OP’s Mormon friends) back on you.

What kind of God just wants you to trot along following the rules instead of making you a sharer in His divine life? The King Follett discourse is heretical nonsense from my perspective, but at least it addresses things that ultimately matter. How do you even know what sin is if you don’t have an orthodox doctrine of God and salvation? Sure, you can live a good moral life, take care of your family, etc., without thinking about this stuff. So can atheists, for that matter.

But you belong to a religion that claims to provide a better narrative than that of Athanasius’s *On the Incarnation *(granted, Smith probably hadn’t read Athanasius, which was one of his problems). Either this is true or it isn’t. But if you have something better than “God became man so that we might become God,” then for heaven’s sake what could be more important? I don’t think there is anything better than that, and therefore nothing more important.

Edwin

It is irrelevant to our salvation, that’s part of the point I was trying to make, it just doesn’t matter, yet a lot of people outside of the church get hung up on it like it’s official church doctrine. I think more people outside of the church worry about this, talk about it, and discuss it more than members of the LDS church do.

 

[bryce33]

I don’t actually know any LDS members and I do have a couple of questions.

Is there a difference between “Mormons” and LDS?

Why aren’t you Catholic?
Pat

LDS = Mormon
Mormon does not necessarily = LDS

There are churches who have broken off of the LDS church much like protestants did from Catholics who identify themselves as Mormon.

Why aren’t I Catholic, I guess meaning why am I here?

Good question, I should bow out and leave people alone with this thread.

Mostly I’m here because I have good Catholic friends and we sit and talk about our religions and faith and this provides me with some an opportunity to learn what people believe. I think I’m in the wrong place though because I find that a lot if this is just talking about other religious beliefs.

It gets a little discouraging because people of other faiths try to tell you what you believe, they say your heretical, that you don’t believe in the core principles of the gospel pertaining to salvation, etc. etc. so I kind of spoke up here to try to correct some of those misperceptions, but I’m not really here to defend my faith. I was just really pointing out that 90% of what most people think they know about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is wrong and I was trying to address some of that, but I’m done.

God bless you all and thanks.

 

[bryce33]

The frustrating thing is that people will often times tell me what Catholics believe, and when I tell them that it is false they insist that I just don’t know or I must not know anything about my own faith The thing is though I have the Catechism of the Catholic Church to show them that proves they are wrong/misinformed. Unfortunately, even with that some of them will STILL believe the lie and act like I’ve been ‘tricked’ somehow

That said, most of the tracts on Catholic.com that I have read are in reply to accusations, assertions, and public statements made by other church officials either about Catholic beliefs or their own beliefs. So I would imagine that particular article we have been referring to about Mormon beliefs on catholic.com is more than likely based on such statements.

Without some sort of exposition of the Mormon faith that we can read to get an understanding of what the LDS church teaches and believes, we are left to guessing based on what we are told by individuals who claim to be Mormons or who were once Mormons or seem to be knowledgeable of Mormon beliefs.

I hear you man, it is frustrating, I know the feeling.

Here is a good source that addresses all these concerns that people come up with.

A lot of time effort has gone into this comprehensive work.

Here is the link.

en.fairmormon.org/Main_Page

The site is called the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research. It provides excellent documented content in a Wikipedia fashion where people can go to have these types of questions explained to them.

Here are a couple of blurbs from their site:

“Who are we? The Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research (FAIR) was formed in late 1997 by a group of Mormons in an attempt to defend their faith from detractors who frequented online message boards. Incorporated as a non-profit organization in November 1997, FAIR put up its first Web site in March 1998 and the FAIR Wiki in 2006.
FAIR is staffed completely by volunteers. It is not owned, controlled by, or affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. All research and opinions provided on this site are the sole responsibility of FAIR and should not be interpreted as official statements of LDS doctrine, belief, or practice.
If you would like to be a part of FAIR, we invite you to support FAIR in any way you are able. FAIR only succeeds through the efforts of our gracious volunteers. For more information about FAIR, visit the FAIR Web site.”

“Why are you apologizing?
We are not apologizing for our beliefs: Our objective is to defend the faith against those who would attempt to destroy it.
An apologist is someone who defends a position or explains it. Apologetics is the branch of theology that defends and explains Christian doctrine.
To learn more: …”

Honestly, people really ought to be directed to this site when they have questions, it addresses both the good and the bad and provides documented, researched, explanations to the reader.

Take care…

 

[PJM]

=bryce33;8237865]LDS = Mormon
Mormon does not necessarily = LDS

There are churches who have broken off of the LDS church much like protestants did from Catholics who identify themselves as Mormon.

Why aren’t I Catholic, I guess meaning why am I here?

Good question, I should bow out and leave people alone with this thread.

Mostly I’m here because I have good Catholic friends and we sit and talk about our religions and faith and this provides me with some an opportunity to learn what people believe. I think I’m in the wrong place though because I find that a lot if this is just talking about other religious beliefs.

It gets a little discouraging because people of other faiths try to tell you what you believe, they say your heretical, that you don’t believe in the core principles of the gospel pertaining to salvation, etc. etc. so I kind of spoke up here to try to correct some of those misperceptions, but I’m not really here to defend my faith. I was just really pointing out that 90% of what most people think they know about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is wrong and I was trying to address some of that, but I’m done.

God bless you all and thanks.

No,no my friend.

You have the same right to be here as me and everyone else.

I’m still not clear on the “differences” in Mormons and LDS. Maybe you can shed some light on the issue?

And my question as to why your not Catholic was {I hoped} going to allow us to enter a disussion of what you belive and WHY, and I do the same. I’d still like to do this if your up to it, but if you’d rather do it it less publically; the FORUM has a “PM” syestem [Private Message] that can be employed or if you’d rather use the internet my e-mail is"
patrickmiron66@yahoo.com.

So lets talk!

God Bless,
Pat

 

[bryce33]

No,no my friend.

You have the same right to be here as me and everyone else.

I’m still not clear on the “differences” in Mormons and LDS. Maybe you can shed some light on the issue?

And my question as to why your not Catholic was {I hoped} going to allow us to enter a disussion of what you belive and WHY, and I do the same. I’d still like to do this if your up to it, but if you’d rather do it it less publically; the FORUM has a “PM” syestem [Private Message] that can be employed or if you’d rather use the internet my e-mail is"
patrickmiron66@yahoo.com.

So lets talk!

God Bless,
Pat

Hey Pat,

Let me try to explain the whole Mormon thing a little differently. The word Mormon, came about because of our belief in the Book of Mormon, and without going into too much detail Mormon is a figure in the Book of Mormon, a prophet historian that lived during the fourth century AD, and is largely responsible for maintaining the records of his people that the Book of Mormon comes from.

In the early days of LDS church history members simply identified themselves as members of the Church of Jesus Christ, and later as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is the official name (LDS church), to distinguish themselves from the early Christian saints that lived at the time of Christ. The word “Mormon” was used by non-members, oftentimes as a derogatory word. In time, the church accepted it because they realized that’s how non-members identified us, and over time it mostly lost it’s derogatory meaning.

In our day, people will oftentimes identify themselves as Mormon who believe in the Book of Mormon. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they are in any way affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Most of these groups comprise of dissenters and apostates who generally disagree with or appose the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, yet claim to be Mormon and still use the Book of Mormon. The church disavows any associations with these groups, their beliefs and dogma, etc.

So referencing my little diagram, yes it’s fair to say that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are Mormons, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that someone who calls themselves a Mormon is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It might be that they are a member of one of these other splinter groups that have come into existence over the years for various reasons.

Does that make sense?

Sure, I’d be happy to have an honest, open, discussion and talk about whatever you like, I have questions too for sure. I’d maybe rather do that in a private forum though. If we could do it here on the public forum that’d be great, but people really just don’t get us and they’re so quick to jump in an make false assumptions and accusations without really knowing what we believe in.

I’ll be honest with you, I read these forums and a lot of time what I hear is po-tay-to po-tah-toe, I’m like we’re talking about the same thing!

But people usually want to tell me what I believe rather than let me tell them what I believe in and already they come into the conversation with all sorts of false assumptions that are usually generated from anti-Mormon tracts and pamphlets that claim to be authoritative and true. Oh, they are horrible, rather than sincerely trying to understand the church they provide content meant to shock and provoke negative responses. And so many of these resources are bases on false assumptions from the beginning, filled with loaded questions, half truths, etc., making it impossible to broach the subject truthfully and sincerely.

So yeah, for sure, I’d be happy to have a discussion if you’d like, I can send you my email when I have more time to talk.

I would love to hear why you believe what you believe, not in context of other faiths or religions and not what you don’t believe, but an honest and sincere testimony of your faith in God, how it has made a difference in your life to be a member of the Catholic faith, who is Jesus Christ to you, and why is He so important? These are seeds of faith that can change lives and overcome the contention and sorrow in this world that Satan thrives on.

Anyways, thanks for writing back.

Take care,
Bryce

 

[PJM]

Originally Posted by Chelsea111
I agree with you completely. However, if you bring this up, any Mormon will tell you that they are monotheistic. They will tell you that they only worship one God–even if there happen to be an infinite number of gods ruling their own worlds. So, I brought up the Ten Commandments–and had my mind blown when I realized that the first commandment never explicitly says “there is only one God” like I’d memorized from CCD in fifth grade. Does anyone have any Bible references that clearly and obviously (meaning not open for interpretation) state the existence of one God?

Thanks for all the replies. And ConstantinePX, believe me–I love LDS people. They inspire me to be better all the time.

ONE GOD:

**Josh.22: 22 ** "The Mighty One, God, the LORD! The Mighty One, God, the LORD! He knows; and let Israel itself know! If it was in rebellion or in breach of faith toward the LORD, spare us not today”

**Exod.3: 6,14-15 **“And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. **God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” **And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.'" God also said to Moses, "Say this to the people of Israel, The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: this is my name for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations”

3Mac.7: 16 “But those who had held fast to God even to death and had received the full enjoyment of deliverance began their departure from the city, crowned with all sorts of very fragrant flowers, joyfully and loudly giving thanks to the one God of their fathers, the eternal Savior of Israel, in words of praise and all kinds of melodious songs.”

**1Cor.8: 6 **“yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.”

Eph.4: 6 “one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all.”

**1Tim.2 5 **“For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,”

 

[RebeccaJ]

For us there is only one God, He will always be our God, and that’s really all we need to know.

This bit is important, as you are attempting to obscure the fact that you believe in more than one god.

 

[RebeccaJ]

There are quite a few misrepresentations in this article. People of other faiths always try to explain what we believe but never quite get it right. Often times these are innocent mistakes that just happen through ignorance, but though some of it is true it’s usually taken out of context or based on false assumptions.

I don’t see any misrepresentations. Perhaps you would like to point them out.

 

[bryce33]

This bit is important, as you are attempting to obscure the fact that you believe in more than one god.

I do? Really? You know what I believe? Oh please, spare me…

 

[RebeccaJ]

I do? Really? You know what I believe? Oh please, spare me…

Please, spare me the act.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Bryce33, Do you believe there was a Council Of Gods and that Council appointed one God over us?