Conflicted Mormon

[StLawrenceFan]

I think it’s more precise to say that according to the Catholic Church, Protestants are Christians because they believe in the same God as us (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Three separate Persons, one in purpose, will, intent, AND consubstantial). They don’t adhere to all of Christian doctrine sadly, otherwise they’d be Catholic. And of course some people define “Christian” differently, such as one that believes in and worships Jesus, which is how the Mormons do it, and why they get all annoyed when we say they aren’t Christian. Everyone has a different definition of “Christian”.

–I agree with where you’re going with this. Mormons, however, are so far out and away from being Christians even if they say they believe in Jesus. (and they love to say that), but the “Jesus” they say they believe in is not the Jesus of the Bible. And they are easily defined as a Cult by their worship of Joe Smith and his contrived words in the two books he helped publish.

Your post was against forum rules because it shows disrespect for another faith. Are you sure you are catholic? A devout catholic would not post such a post.

–I’ve been a Catholic for 50 years, and of course a devout Catholic would post exactly as I have. It’s just the truth. Where does it say in the rulebook of religious life that one must respect any faith that comes along? If you were to create a religion that prays to loungechairs and calls itself “Christian”, am I forced to respect it and not speak out against it? I’m just excercising my free speech and perpetuating the truth of Christian doctrinal faith.

MEANWHILE
There is another wonderful site composed by former mormoms who are now Christians.
They write some very interesting articles, including the commentary below.
It is quoted from their site HERE.

**“It is interesting to note that while people have a healthy distrust of institutions, they find the internet credible. Already there are far more hits on anti-Mormon websites than there are on pro-Mormon ones. Testimonies of those who left the church abound and are hugely popular. For example, the bulletin board on “Exmormon.org” receives an average of 1 million hits a month, or around 30,000 a day. It maintains email newsgroups that swell in subscription, even from Mormon “lurkers” who are curious to exit the church.”

“In religious America, we find that the LDS church is losing significant market share. According to Saints Alive (July 2000), there are some 1 million local Mormons who have renounced their church — a huge clip off the 5 million on record. This might sound somewhat sensational, but bear in mind that opposition towards the LDS church has greatly intensified in the past few decades.”**

from the article "Rise and Fall of the LDS church

utlm.org/

 

[StLawrenceFan]

Any mormon who questions mormonism should read this, too. (just another of a zillion articles on the web).

"Are you interested in joining the Mormon church? Are you curious about it? Maybe you are taking or have taken the missionary lessons. Perhaps you even think that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a good Christian church that is family-oriented and filled with godly people. If so, there are some things you need to know before you sign on the dotted line.

Mormonism is considered a non-Christian cult by all of Christianity. All you need to do is go to any Christian bookstore and look in the cult section; you will see books on Mormonism there. Now, are we “anti-Mormons” simply people who have a grudge against the LDS church? I can’t speak for all who oppose Mormonism, but I have no grudge against it at all. I was never a Mormon and no Mormon injured me in the past. They are nice people. The problem isn’t with them. It is with what they teach. It simply isn’t Christian".
Basic truth…quoted from here…

 

[Tweedle_Dee]

Wow, lots of activity over the weekend.

I must say that your interpretation of the reasoning behind the contemporary understanding of the Word of Wisdom is rather queer to me. I have never once heard any Mormon describe the Word of Wisdom as a more arbitrary matter of discipline (tantamount to the Catholic abstinence of meat on Fridays). To the contrary, it had always been my experience as a Mormon that the Word of Wisdom inherently carried with it the weight of doctrine. I have never before heard a talk by any LDS at church speaking about the Word of Wisdom as a separatory mechanism, rather always as a significant health code with its central purpose to bring “strength to the navel and marrow to the bones”. We abstained from the prohibited substances not necessarily because we covenanted to do so, but because it was revealed to be wrong.

This has been my experience also having grown up in the Mormon church.

It is a star. Nobody says it is a planet except people who get their information about Mormonism from anti-Mormon sources, and who do not pay attention to what Mormons actually tell them they believe. And we don’t know where it is.

I thought it was a planet also. Guess I never payed enough attention to that hymn. Also, this is kind of a taboo subject to speak about in church. No one comes out and says it, but it’s a little too “contraversial” to discuss openly has been my experience. Thus, many Mormons who are not well read, like myself, won’t know much about the specifics of that teaching I suspect.

BTW, in that ward in Burley, ID, I completed my home teaching every month that I was there. I was the only one in the ward who did.

I recall stopping there on a motorcycle trip a number of years ago. What a god-forsaken place LOL.

 

[why_me]

–I’ve been a Catholic for 50 years, and of course a devout Catholic would post exactly as I have. It’s just the truth. Where does it say in the rulebook of religious life that one must respect any faith that comes along? If you were to create a religion that prays to loungechairs and calls itself “Christian”, am I forced to respect it and not speak out against it? I’m just excercising my free speech and perpetuating the truth of Christian doctrinal faith.

I doubt it. If devout catholics would post like you, the catholic church would be false because it creates such mean spirited people. But I know better. Devout catholics would not be so mean spirited and insulting to mormons. It is even against catholic teaching to dialogue the way you dialogue. I see no mercy or love in your posts…only hate. And hate is not being a devout catholic. And I may add, your posts are far from being christian regardless of free speech. If we go back in time to the year 1844, you probably could be with the mob storming the jail to murder Joseph Smith. Am I right? Who knows. Lucky for us, we live in a different time.

 

[why_me]

Any mormon who questions mormonism should read this, too. (just another of a zillion articles on the web).

"Are you interested in joining the Mormon church? Are you curious about it? Maybe you are taking or have taken the missionary lessons. Perhaps you even think that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a good Christian church that is family-oriented and filled with godly people. If so, there are some things you need to know before you sign on the dotted line.

Mormonism is considered a non-Christian cult by all of Christianity. All you need to do is go to any Christian bookstore and look in the cult section; you will see books on Mormonism there. Now, are we “anti-Mormons” simply people who have a grudge against the LDS church? I can’t speak for all who oppose Mormonism, but I have no grudge against it at all. I was never a Mormon and no Mormon injured me in the past. They are nice people. The problem isn’t with them. It is with what they teach. It simply isn’t Christian".

]

‘Mormons are nice people…The problem isn’t with them. It is with what they teach. It simply isn’t christian’…
Oh well at least they are nice people. Yes, lets christianize the mormons so they can be mean spirited too.

 

[why_me]

–I agree with where you’re going with this. Mormons, however, are so far out and away from being Christians even if they say they believe in Jesus. (and they love to say that), but the “Jesus” they say they believe in is not the Jesus of the Bible. And they are easily defined as a Cult by their worship of Joe Smith and his contrived words in the two books he helped publish.

“In religious America, we find that the LDS church is losing significant market share. According to Saints Alive (July 2000), there are some 1 million local Mormons who have renounced their church — a huge clip off the 5 million on record. This might sound somewhat sensational, but bear in mind that opposition towards the LDS church has greatly intensified in the past few decades.”

from the article "Rise and Fall of the LDS church

utlm.org/

Such hate is unbecoming to a catholic. You are certainly no representative of the catholic church. By the way, utlm.org would not respect the catholic church at all. And there counterpart Carm is rather anticatholic. You have too much hate toward the lds church to be a good catholic.

Do you want to be a good catholic? Show mercy and love and pray for the mormons.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Only relatively, sir.

The ‘damnation’ Young spoke of involved a place that, quite frankly, sounds a great deal like the heaven others tell me about.

Even the place where murderers and liars go is a better place than here…what makes it hell is the company.

And there’s the crux of it. For any Christian, hell is hell because one is not with God.

 

[why_me]

from the article "Rise and Fall of the LDS church

utlm.org/

By the way, here is the anticatholic article from your friends at Utlm. Do you agree with this article?

utlm.org/onlineresources/truechurch_jcryle.htm

1. It is a Church WHICH IS DEPENDENT UPON NO MINISTERS UPON EARTH, however much it values those who preach the gospel to its members. The life of its members does not hang upon Church-membership, or baptism, or the Lord’s Supper — although they highly value these things when they are to be had. But it has only one Great Head — one Shepherd, one chief Bishop — and that is Jesus Christ. He alone, **By His Spirit, admits the members of this Church, though ministers may show the door. Till He opens the door no man on earth can open it — neither bishops, nor presbyters, nor convocations, nor synods. **Once let a man repent and believe the gospel, and that moment he becomes a member of this Church. Like the penitent thief, he may have no opportunity of being baptized; but he has that which is far better than any water-baptism — the baptism of the Spirit. He may not be able to receive the bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper;but he eats Christ’s body and drinks Christ’s blood by faith every day he lives, and no minister on earth can prevent him. He may be ex-communicated by ordained men, and cut off from the outward ordinances of the professing Church; but all the ordained men in the world cannot shut him out of the true Church. *It is a Church whose existence does not depend on forms, ceremonies, cathedrals, churches, chapels, pulpits, fonts, vestments, organs, endowments, money, kings, governments, magistrates or any act of favor whatsoever from the hand of man. *It has often lived on and continued when all these things have been taken from it. It has often been driven into the wilderness, or into dens and caves of the earth, by those who ought to have been its friends. Its existence depends on nothing but the presence of Christ and His Spirit; and they being ever with it, the Church cannot die.

 

[ThuriferAcolyte]

is it just me, or is it logically dishonest to claim or imply that a source can’t be right on one area and wrong on others…Even the Book of Mormon gets some things right, so do the Koran, Bhagavad Gita, and the Vedas. That doesn’t mean they are actually from God. Likewise, a source can be right about one area (or we can cite it as evidence for our own views on an issue), and wrong on another area.

Is that too complicated to understand?

 

[why_me]

And there’s the crux of it. For any Christian, hell is hell because one is not with God.

And yet, I have never been to a catholic funeral where the dead is going to hell. It is quite amazing. The guy or women could have been the most miserable person that ever lived, they were still going to heaven. Have you ever been to a catholic funeral where the people in attendance would say: Old pete, he is in hell for sure… Or…poor jane was a terrible person…she is in hell for sure.

Everyone seems to go to heaven…

 

[ThuriferAcolyte]

And there’s the crux of it. For any Christian, hell is hell because one is not with God.

Excellent! This is true.

 

[RebeccaJ]

why me: I see nothing in there to disagree with. What is it that you disagree with?

 

[RebeccaJ]

And yet, I have never been to a catholic funeral where the dead is going to hell. It is quite amazing. The guy or women could have been the most miserable person that ever lived, they were still going to heaven. Have you ever been to a catholic funeral where the people in attendance would say: Old pete, he is in hell for sure… Or…poor jane was a terrible person…she is in hell for sure.

Everyone seems to go to heaven…

why me, our hope is Jesus Christ and it is He who judges us. There is nothing wrong with being respectful of the dead and commending their souls to His care.

 

[why_me]

is it just me, or is it logically dishonest to claim or imply that a source can’t be right on one area and wrong on others…Even the Book of Mormon gets some things right, so do the Koran, Bhagavad Gita, and the Vedas. That doesn’t mean they are actually from God. Likewise, a source can be right about one area (or we can cite it as evidence for our own views on an issue), and wrong on another area.

Is that too complicated to understand?

Who knows. I just know one thing: the book of mormon has not been proven false no matter how many people wish it were so. And that is a fact.

Now our friend st. lawerence posted from utlm which was founded by Jerald and Sandra Tanner. These people have/had a fetish with mormonism. They are/were obsessed with it. And yet, they think that they are/were christians. Mormonism has survived one Tanner and it will survive the other Tanner. And in the end, both would have wasted their lives trying to destroy something they couldn’t destroy.

 

[ThuriferAcolyte]

And yet, I have never been to a catholic funeral where the dead is going to hell. It is quite amazing. The guy or women could have been the most miserable person that ever lived, they were still going to heaven. Have you ever been to a catholic funeral where the people in attendance would say: Old pete, he is in hell for sure… Or…poor jane was a terrible person…she is in hell for sure.

Everyone seems to go to heaven…

The Catholic Church never says that someone is “in Hell for sure”. We always pray for all souls (no matter who they are) that God has mercy. Funerals don’t “send” someone to Heaven, this is a very irregular understanding. In contrast, we know that the canonized saints are in Heaven, not only due to the fruits of their lives from living the Catholic faith, but various miracles that occurred due to their intercession. There is no equivalent for saying that someone is in Hell. This is explicit in the reasoning behind prayer for the dead in the Eastern Churches, since we can always pray for someone, no matter what. We always hope that God will have mercy on us, and this is clear at funerals. I don’t think you understand Catholic funerals.

The Terrestrial and Telestial Kingdoms in Mormonism are Hell to Catholics because the Father is not ministering to them (neither is Jesus in the Telestial Kingdom). Eternity without the Father, and/or the Son is one of the definitions of Hell of the Catholic Church (more appropriately, since we believe the three Persons are one God, eternity without God is Hell).

 

[ThuriferAcolyte]

Who knows. I just know one thing: the book of mormon has not been proven false no matter how many people wish it were so. And that is a fact.

Now our friend st. lawerence posted from utlm which was founded by Jerald and Sandra Tanner. These people have/had a fetish with mormonism. They are/were obsessed with it. And yet, they think that they are/were christians. Mormonism has survived one Tanner and it will survive the other Tanner. And in the end, both would have wasted their lives trying to destroy something they couldn’t destroy.

Obviously it has survived. Scientology has survived despite all the issues and revelations about its leader. It also claims millions of people. You’re missing the point of why people write against the beliefs of other religions, that they see as false.

Also, for us, the Book of Mormon has been proven false, from our perspective. From our perspective, there is no way at all that the Book of Mormon is true, and any evidence found within it or against it just corroborates that. Mormons obviously don’t believe so, and they can go on and believing that. For us, it is not scripture from God.

 

[why_me]

why me, our hope is Jesus Christ and it is He who judges us. There is nothing wrong with being respectful of the dead and commending their souls to His care.

And yet, someone has gone to hell. Now the mormons have different degrees of glory. I can’t say that I have been to a mormon funeral where it was assumed that the person is now somewhere in the terrestial kingdom either.

 

[ThuriferAcolyte]

And yet, someone has gone to hell. Now the mormons have different degrees of glory. I can’t say that I have been to a mormon funeral where it was assumed that the person is now somewhere in the terrestial kingdom either.

whether someone goes to Hell, we don’t know!

Also, a mormon funeral wouldn’t say that someone is in the terrestrial kingdom, because at this point, everyone goes to either Spirit Prison or Paradise according to Mormonism.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Who knows. I just know one thing: the book of mormon has not been proven false no matter how many people wish it were so. And that is a fact.

Now our friend st. lawerence posted from utlm which was founded by Jerald and Sandra Tanner. These people have/had a fetish with mormonism. They are/were obsessed with it. And yet, they think that they are/were christians. Mormonism has survived one Tanner and it will survive the other Tanner. And in the end, both would have wasted their lives trying to destroy something they couldn’t destroy.

I’d say the Tanners have been very effective in providing truthful and correct information. One does not have to agree with everything they have said about anything, mormon or Catholic. But to dismiss their work as “fetish” shows only one thing, a fear of what they have to say.

 

[why_me]

Obviously it has survived. Scientology has survived despite all the issues and revelations about its leader. It also claims millions of people. You’re missing the point of why people write against the beliefs of other religions, that they see as false.

Much depends on tone in the post. Nothing wrong with being critical. But when there is bashing or mocking or mean spiritedness, that person who posts such posts can not claim to be christian and certainly not catholic.

Our friend posted an article from Utlm. These people are born again christians and they have no love for the catholic church. Lucky for the catholic church they have a fetish for mormonism and not for catholicism.