Could The Mormon Church Be The "true Church" Of Christ

[Arandur]

Great analogy. I like it. But there was no such room.

They were out in the world preaching in different places and different people heard different messages. And they all died martyrs in different parts of the world. It would have been great if there had been such a room though. It would have worked with email and cell phones too. They could have been in constant contact and deciding which guy to put in and what guy was starting to get dotty and what guy was adding his own interpretations in etc.

Instead, one was in Greece and the other was in Jerusalem and maybe even somebody was in India. And the student in Greece added in some philosophy, and the student in India added in prayer beads etc.

Unfortunately most of them probably were illiterate, and communication was… well, not great!

Too bad there wasn’t such a room!

How nice that God saw the difficulties and sent the Spirit to take care of us.

What, He didn’t do that? God’s not much a leader, father, shepherd, lover, king, or builder, then. How stupid and heartless of Him to give these guys delusions of grandeur and shove them off without support and knowing they would come to naught, sending them to die for nothing that would last.

Oh, look, 1800 years later God changes His mind or decides He’s had enough amusement watching people flounder helplessly without Him. This time He’s going to start over. Never mind His Son couldn’t keep anything together. Now He’s got this little kid Joseph Smith. Now, without His own Son and with only one guy instead of 12, now He’s gonna get started, and set off the end times so that His special city could be built–not in Jerusalem where He’s been focusing all His time and attention up until 2000 years ago, but in the geographical middle of a new land in a country that prides itself on independence–oh, is that the name of the township where this will happen? How much the better! The people will rally in a sense of patriotic manifest destiny! And this time He’ll call everything that came before “Great and Abominable” and start up something that He’ll have Smith call “plain and precious” and “most correct”–then, just to mess with 'em, make it complex, wordy and repetitive; correct it a bunch of times; and make it really not seem like it’s got its facts right in the scientific realm. Heck, revise everything He wrote before, too–but then tell them not to accept that version Smith did for Him as their primary. And string 'em on, telling them that they’ve got to always have a guy to speak for Him, that they’ll never hear all they need to know to do right by Him because it has to keep getting Revealed.

Oh, I forgot, this little guy Joseph isn’t just going to fix one of God’s earlier mistakes/morbid exercises in sending fanatics off in futile suicide missions. He’s got to fix two! The other one failed even worse than the first–over here, God watched with amusement while His faithful people were wholly exterminated! Odd that God’s ventures fail worse after He sends His Son than ever before; at least in the past He had Noah and folks like Melchizedek keeping things going, and His Son said the Pharisees still sat in Moses’ seat. Maybe He’ll have to reprimand His Son for doing such a poor job and making things worse. Or maybe it’s that unreliable Spirit, the gift of Whom sure doesn’t seem to have done much of anything useful.

Uh oh, Smith’s stuff doesn’t seem to be working out so hot, either. Splits off in major apostasies pretty quick, too; looks no better than those efforts before, anyway. Well, screw it all, how many times is God going to have to do this thing? Maybe next time He’ll send a daughter. The culture might like that.

I hope this thought exercise will show you, mski, why I and many others find Smith’s concepts so insulting and blasphemous against God, and very obviously so. And why it seems you worship a different God, one who is heartless and unfaithful.

 

[Arandur]

I think this is a bad address. Doesn’t work for me anyway.

Sorry, it was peterkreeft.com

 

[MelanieAnne]

Arandur,

I can relate to your frustration. This experience you have had should be a lesson to all of us about making sure every Catholic ~ from the oldest to the youngest ~ needs to learn the Catholic Faith and learn it well.

Bukowski was a Catholic in his younger years. But (obviously) he was never properly Catechized in the Catholic Faith. He rejected something he never actually understood, or perhaps wasn’t even properly instructed in, for something that he believed had “all the answers”. He has rejected Catholic doctrines for reasons, explained in his posts, that demonstrate he often doesn’t understand those doctrines. Explaining them to him now is difficult because it is going through the “filter” in place from decades of Mormonism.

I’m not criticizing Bukowski. He is a big boy and this is a free country. He can make his own decisions and live with the consequences. But he could be a poster child for the result of poor Catholic catechesis. As such, this isn’t really about him, he’s just a living example.

Those of us familiar with both faiths might understand why someone would be attracted to Mormonism because of the “families are forever” business, or the family values we see there, but the last thing we expect is that someone is attracted to Mormonism because it “makes sense”. The doctrines are incoherent and it goes downhill from there. This is what happens when a young person, raised as a Catholic, goes out into the world looking for answers without being properly grounded in the Catholic faith.

We can pray for those in this sort of situation, and we can do our best to help them learn the truth. But we also need to pay attention to the ones still sitting in the pews.

 

[Stephen168]

Holy Cow dude-- read Hebrews chapter 7. Whole chapter please. Dang you guys gotta read your bibles. That’s the whole problem here. Whole chapter is about the Melchizedek priesthood.

Verses 1-4 Tells us Melchizedek had no mother and no father, no beginning and no end just like Christ.
Verses 5-10 Tells us that the Priesthood of Aaron is subordinate to Melchizedek
Verses 11 Tells us if the Levitical priesthood was perfect we would not need a Priest like Melchizedek.
Verses 12-13 Tells us when there is a change in priesthood there is a change in the law.
Verses 14-17 Tells us Christ was from the tribe of Judah which did not have the priesthood. But it doesn’t matter because he is a priest like Melchizedek. See verses 1-4.
Verses18-26 Tells us the ‘Law’ is set aside because Jesus is the priest.
Verses 27- Tells we have no need for the Levitcal priesthood because we have Christ who is perfect.

Chapter seven doesn’t say anything about a Melchizedek Priesthood. It compares Christ to Melchizedek and tells us the law have been replaced with Christ. And verses 1-4 would disqualify any human being.

And polygamy of course is in the OT. Can you tell me why Abraham had many wives and was favored by the Lord? Can you tell me please why he wasn’t condemned as an adulterer? And David? And Solomon?
You guys definitely need to dust off those bibles. I think those qualifiy as “first century” for our purposes, though scholars may differ.

Abraham, David, Solomon lived before the first century and were not Christian.

 

[Stephen168]

Great analogy. I like it. But there was no such room.

Thanks. It was an analogy, so there was no actual room. But they wrote letters. Some of them we still have along with the true teachings of Christ.

 

[LAMBOFGODGIRLY]

Of course we know that. But you don’t understand our doctrine, of course. But if Mary was born without original sin then, what good was that? Do you mean that had she not been assumed, she would never die? She never got sick, or had any afflictions of humanity? I guess Jesus would be another case since he voluntarily gave up his life, but what about Mary? So her “nature” whatever that means, was not like the rest of humanity?

See I am looking for coherent doctrine – a consistent theory if you will. The fact that no one answers these questions shows me that the doctrine is deficient. No, we cannot know the boundlesness of God, but if we should be able to answer all human questions consistently. I don’t expect to know how to resurrect someone, but if questions I CAN ask with my limited puny brain are not answerable, how do I know you have the answer to questions I haven’t even though of?

I find these answers in the LDS church. It is consistent.

The doctrine of the Assumption says that at the end of her life on earth Mary was assumed, body and soul, into heaven, just as Enoch, Elijah, and perhaps others had been before her. It’s also necessary to keep in mind what the Assumption is not. Some people think Catholics believe Mary “ascended” into heaven. That’s not correct. Christ, by his own power, ascended into heaven. Mary was assumed or taken up into heaven by God. She didn’t do it under her own power.
The possibility of a bodily assumption before the Second Coming is suggested by Matthew 27:52–53: “[T]he tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.” Did all these Old Testament saints die and have to be buried all over again? There is no record of that, but it is recorded by early Church writers that they were assumed into heaven, or at least into that temporary state of rest and happiness often called “paradise,” where the righteous people from the Old Testament era waited until Christ’s resurrection (cf. Luke 16:22, 23:43; Heb. 11:1–40; 1 Pet. 4:6), after which they were brought into the eternal bliss of heaven.
There is also what might be called the negative historical proof for Mary’s Assumption. It is easy to document that, from the first, Christians gave homage to saints, including many about whom we now know little or nothing. Cities vied for the title of the last resting place of the most famous saints. Rome, for example, houses the tombs of Peter and Paul, Peter’s tomb being under the high altar of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. In the early Christian centuries relics of saints were zealously guarded and highly prized. The bones of those martyred in the Coliseum, for instance, were quickly gathered up and preserved—there are many accounts of this in the biographies of those who gave their lives for the faith.

It is agreed upon that Mary ended her life in Jerusalem, or perhaps in Ephesus. However, neither those cities nor any other claimed her remains, though there are claims about possessing her (temporary) tomb. And why did no city claim the bones of Mary? Apparently because there weren’t any bones to claim, and people knew it. Here was Mary, certainly the most privileged of all the saints, certainly the most saintly, but we have no record of her bodily remains being venerated anywhere.

this is all from catholic.com/library/immaculate_conception_and_assum.asp

 

[LAMBOFGODGIRLY]

Of course we know that. But you don’t understand our doctrine, of course. But if Mary was born without original sin then, what good was that? Do you mean that had she not been assumed, she would never die? She never got sick, or had any afflictions of humanity? I guess Jesus would be another case since he voluntarily gave up his life, but what about Mary? So her “nature” whatever that means, was not like the rest of humanity?

See I am looking for coherent doctrine – a consistent theory if you will. The fact that no one answers these questions shows me that the doctrine is deficient. No, we cannot know the boundlesness of God, but if we should be able to answer all human questions consistently. I don’t expect to know how to resurrect someone, but if questions I CAN ask with my limited puny brain are not answerable, how do I know you have the answer to questions I haven’t even though of?

I find these answers in the LDS church. It is consistent.

What do you think this means?
"And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, 13 and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
19
I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. 14 Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

 

[ricko]

A few quotes of Joseph Smith from his diary

PROPHECY OF CHRIST’S RETURN: “I have no doubt of the truth. Were I going to prophecy I would prophecy the end will not come in 1844 or 5 or 6 or 40 years more (“more” is lined through)…I prophecy in the name of the Lord God, and let it be written, that the Son of Man will not come in the heavens till I am 85 years old, 48 years hence or about 1890.” (April 6, 1843, p. 349)

NOTE: As we know, 1890 has come and gone; and Joseph Smith never made it to age 85. He died at the age of 38.

VOICE SPEAKING TO JOSEPH, PROPHECY OF CHRIST’S RETURN: “I earnestly desired to know concerning the coming of the Son of Man and prayed, when a voice Said to me, ‘Joseph my son, if thou livest until thou art 85 years old thou shall see the face of the Son of Man. Therefore let this suffice and trouble me no more on this matter.’” (April 2, 1843, p. 349)

Now of course this is a false prophecy not different than the many times the JWs have predicted the end of the world all being false and ignoring what the bible says “that only the Father knows”. Even though this is a “red flag” about Joseph Smith, many were still led into his teaching showing lack of sound reasoning.

 

[LAMBOFGODGIRLY]

A few quotes of Joseph Smith from his diary

PROPHECY OF CHRIST’S RETURN: “I have no doubt of the truth. Were I going to prophecy I would prophecy the end will not come in 1844 or 5 or 6 or 40 years more (“more” is lined through)…I prophecy in the name of the Lord God, and let it be written, that the Son of Man will not come in the heavens till I am 85 years old, 48 years hence or about 1890.” (April 6, 1843, p. 349)

NOTE: As we know, 1890 has come and gone; and Joseph Smith never made it to age 85. He died at the age of 38.

VOICE SPEAKING TO JOSEPH, PROPHECY OF CHRIST’S RETURN: “I earnestly desired to know concerning the coming of the Son of Man and prayed, when a voice Said to me, ‘Joseph my son, if thou livest until thou art 85 years old thou shall see the face of the Son of Man. Therefore let this suffice and trouble me no more on this matter.’” (April 2, 1843, p. 349)

Now of course this is a false prophecy not different than the many times the JWs have predicted the end of the world all being false and ignoring what the bible says “that only the Father knows”. Even though this is a “red flag” about Joseph Smith, many were still led into his teaching showing lack of sound reasoning.

Rick, this is very interesting! Where did you find it? You know, I don’t understand how someone could believe him to be a prophet. It really blows my mind. My husband is Mormon, but at the same time, he is so smart! I don’t know what happened in order for him to fall for this religion. Maybe it’s the very attractive idea that they will be a God of their own universe and get to have multiple wives. And in order for people to be apart of that, and not looked down upon like they were perverts, they try and back it up with misinterpreting scripture. All I know is the God I worship and the God they worship is not the same. My husband was brought into this as a young child (8 or 9) and when I tell you they gave him every kind of weapon he would ever need in order to back up his beliefs, I am not kidding. I was raised very strict Catholic, but I never remember my church, or the Nuns teaching us how to defend our religion. We just learned about our faith. There was no, “if someone says this to you, then you say this to them,” and so on. We weren’t taught what to say if a Mormon approached us. I don’t know if they are taught what to say if a Catholic approaches them, but my husband has never been Catholic, but he sure does know everything to say in order to try and stump you and make you think twice about your faith. He could have only been taught that from someone. And I’m guessing it was the leaders of his church because no one in his entire family is Catholic.

 

[mfbukowski]

How nice that God saw the difficulties and sent the Spirit to take care of us.

What, He didn’t do that? God’s not much a leader, father, shepherd, lover, king, or builder, then. How stupid and heartless of Him to give these guys delusions of grandeur and shove them off without support and knowing they would come to naught, sending them to die for nothing that would last.

Oh, look, 1800 years later God changes His mind or decides He’s had enough amusement watching people flounder helplessly without Him. This time He’s going to start over. Never mind His Son couldn’t keep anything together. Now He’s got this little kid Joseph Smith. Now, without His own Son and with only one guy instead of 12, now He’s gonna get started, and set off the end times so that His special city could be built–not in Jerusalem where He’s been focusing all His time and attention up until 2000 years ago, but in the geographical middle of a new land in a country that prides itself on independence–oh, is that the name of the township where this will happen? How much the better! The people will rally in a sense of patriotic manifest destiny! And this time He’ll call everything that came before “Great and Abominable” and start up something that He’ll have Smith call “plain and precious” and “most correct”–then, just to mess with 'em, make it complex, wordy and repetitive; correct it a bunch of times; and make it really not seem like it’s got its facts right in the scientific realm. Heck, revise everything He wrote before, too–but then tell them not to accept that version Smith did for Him as their primary. And string 'em on, telling them that they’ve got to always have a guy to speak for Him, that they’ll never hear all they need to know to do right by Him because it has to keep getting Revealed.

Oh, I forgot, this little guy Joseph isn’t just going to fix one of God’s earlier mistakes/morbid exercises in sending fanatics off in futile suicide missions. He’s got to fix two! The other one failed even worse than the first–over here, God watched with amusement while His faithful people were wholly exterminated! Odd that God’s ventures fail worse after He sends His Son than ever before; at least in the past He had Noah and folks like Melchizedek keeping things going, and His Son said the Pharisees still sat in Moses’ seat. Maybe He’ll have to reprimand His Son for doing such a poor job and making things worse. Or maybe it’s that unreliable Spirit, the gift of Whom sure doesn’t seem to have done much of anything useful.

Uh oh, Smith’s stuff doesn’t seem to be working out so hot, either. Splits off in major apostasies pretty quick, too; looks no better than those efforts before, anyway. Well, screw it all, how many times is God going to have to do this thing? Maybe next time He’ll send a daughter. The culture might like that.

I hope this thought exercise will show you, mski, why I and many others find Smith’s concepts so insulting and blasphemous against God, and very obviously so. And why it seems you worship a different God, one who is heartless and unfaithful.

My my. A little testy I see today. Maybe I am hitting too close to home.

Not quite. First he had to set up a country with freedom of religion so that miserable cult member heretics like me could practice their religion in peace without being burned at the stake as was done in Europe by … some other church. As long as there were ignorant people in power and an illiterate population who couldn’t take the truth…for whatever reason… it could not be restored.

I’m sorry if something I said earlier offended you.

 

[ricko]

Alisha your entire post is right on the money. With the Mormons, it’s got nothing to do with intelligence or reason, that is all out of the window (with the baby also). It’s all about that feeling in the bosom. I’ve asked many questions to them and PROVED that the teachings in the BOM are different than the bible. But they believe that the BOM trumps the bible. They are actually very much like the JW’s in trying to reason or show facts. The JW’s are taught that everyone showing them the “truth” is actually lying to them, doing the work of the devil without knowing it so they won’t believe anything you show them. In the case of the LDS the “burning in the bosom” is ALL they need and won’t believe anything else. There was a case where a professor gave a very good argument against the BOM to two young college kids. One of them said this "Professor, even if a resurrected Joseph Smith walked into the room and told me the BOM was false I would not believe it because,(he put his hand over his heart) I have a greater testimony here."

 

[mfbukowski]

The doctrine of the Assumption says that at the end of her life on earth Mary was assumed, body and soul, into heaven, just as Enoch, Elijah, and perhaps others had been before her. It’s also necessary to keep in mind what the Assumption is not. Some people think Catholics believe Mary “ascended” into heaven. That’s not correct. Christ, by his own power, ascended into heaven. Mary was assumed or taken up into heaven by God. She didn’t do it under her own power.
The possibility of a bodily assumption before the Second Coming is suggested by Matthew 27:52–53: “[T]he tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.” Did all these Old Testament saints die and have to be buried all over again? There is no record of that, but it is recorded by early Church writers that they were assumed into heaven, or at least into that temporary state of rest and happiness often called “paradise,” where the righteous people from the Old Testament era waited until Christ’s resurrection (cf. Luke 16:22, 23:43; Heb. 11:1–40; 1 Pet. 4:6), after which they were brought into the eternal bliss of heaven.
There is also what might be called the negative historical proof for Mary’s Assumption. It is easy to document that, from the first, Christians gave homage to saints, including many about whom we now know little or nothing. Cities vied for the title of the last resting place of the most famous saints. Rome, for example, houses the tombs of Peter and Paul, Peter’s tomb being under the high altar of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. In the early Christian centuries relics of saints were zealously guarded and highly prized. The bones of those martyred in the Coliseum, for instance, were quickly gathered up and preserved—there are many accounts of this in the biographies of those who gave their lives for the faith.

It is agreed upon that Mary ended her life in Jerusalem, or perhaps in Ephesus. However, neither those cities nor any other claimed her remains, though there are claims about possessing her (temporary) tomb. And why did no city claim the bones of Mary? Apparently because there weren’t any bones to claim, and people knew it. Here was Mary, certainly the most privileged of all the saints, certainly the most saintly, but we have no record of her bodily remains being venerated anywhere.

this is all from catholic.com/library/immaculate_conception_and_assum.asp

Hey, welcome. My son went to Biloxi on his mission and knocked on every door in ocean springs – if I got the name right. Glad you obviously survived Katrina. Hope you are doing well.

You seem to be acquainted with Mormonism from the way you speak. No Southern accent, but a pronounced Mormon accent? We believe those folks were resurrected after the “first fruits” of the resurrection, Jesus.

 

[mfbukowski]

What do you think this means?
"And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, 13 and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
19
I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. 14 Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

Dang, I never thought of that— where’s that confessional?

 

[mfbukowski]

Rick, this is very interesting! Where did you find it? You know, I don’t understand how someone could believe him to be a prophet. It really blows my mind. My husband is Mormon, but at the same time, he is so smart! I don’t know what happened in order for him to fall for this religion. Maybe it’s the very attractive idea that they will be a God of their own universe and get to have multiple wives. And in order for people to be apart of that, and not looked down upon like they were perverts, they try and back it up with misinterpreting scripture. All I know is the God I worship and the God they worship is not the same. My husband was brought into this as a young child (8 or 9) and when I tell you they gave him every kind of weapon he would ever need in order to back up his beliefs, I am not kidding. I was raised very strict Catholic, but I never remember my church, or the Nuns teaching us how to defend our religion. We just learned about our faith. There was no, “if someone says this to you, then you say this to them,” and so on. We weren’t taught what to say if a Mormon approached us. I don’t know if they are taught what to say if a Catholic approaches them, but my husband has never been Catholic, but he sure does know everything to say in order to try and stump you and make you think twice about your faith. He could have only been taught that from someone. And I’m guessing it was the leaders of his church because no one in his entire family is Catholic.

SEE? I knew it!

 

[Arandur]

My my. A little testy I see today. Maybe I am hitting too close to home.

Not quite. First he had to set up a country with freedom of religion so that miserable cult member heretics like me could …

I did get a little carried away there with my tone. Sorry. I think what I pointed out was fairly accurate, though, as a bird’s eye view of the pattern that Smith wants people to buy into.

Why would God have to set up a country with freedom of religion? Few ever had it before. The Jews were persecuted much and yet survived. The Christians too–they were willing to die for their faith. I guess God was calling Smith and his followers to a more milktoast religion? They could only handle being called names and occasionally shot at, not organized slaughter that would force them underground and into secrecy on the scale that the early Christians faced?

Christianity thrives under persecution. I’ve heard Mormons claim the same. So that’s not it.

practice their religion in peace without being burned at the stake as was done in Europe by … some other church.

As far as burnings, you seem to suffer under a vastly exaggerated delusion of the Inquisition, and perhaps also of the good intentions and comparative benevolence of the Protestants.

As long as there were ignorant people in power and an illiterate population who couldn’t take the truth…for whatever reason… it could not be restored.

So it takes wisdom and wise or learned people who can read and write? But JS was none of these things, as many Mormons will proudly proclaim, while they also cite the Scriptures against “learned men.” 1830 was not a time of great literacy, either, nor were the educated men who were indeed in power likely at all to fall in with Smith. So it can’t be these things, for they work against your position as well

Further, when has God not reached out to the “illiterate population” and made His Truth known among them? What has He ever really cared for earthly people in power, ignorant or brilliant and educated?

 

[Arandur]

Arandur,

I can relate to your frustration. This experience you have had should be a lesson to all of us about making sure every Catholic ~ from the oldest to the youngest ~ needs to learn the Catholic Faith and learn it well.

Bukowski was a Catholic in his younger years. But (obviously) he was never properly Catechized in the Catholic Faith. He rejected something he never actually understood, or perhaps wasn’t even properly instructed in, for something that he believed had “all the answers”. He has rejected Catholic doctrines for reasons, explained in his posts, that demonstrate he often doesn’t understand those doctrines. Explaining them to him now is difficult because it is going through the “filter” in place from decades of Mormonism.

I’m not criticizing Bukowski. He is a big boy and this is a free country. He can make his own decisions and live with the consequences. But he could be a poster child for the result of poor Catholic catechesis. As such, this isn’t really about him, he’s just a living example.

Those of us familiar with both faiths might understand why someone would be attracted to Mormonism because of the “families are forever” business, or the family values we see there, but the last thing we expect is that someone is attracted to Mormonism because it “makes sense”. The doctrines are incoherent and it goes downhill from there. This is what happens when a young person, raised as a Catholic, goes out into the world looking for answers without being properly grounded in the Catholic faith.

We can pray for those in this sort of situation, and we can do our best to help them learn the truth. But we also need to pay attention to the ones still sitting in the pews.

I agree that Catholics in this country (as well as many others) have failed at evangelizing and catechizing our own to the degree that we should. There are many reasons for that, but that doesn’t excuse it.

I also believe that people should seek to understand something before they leave it or tear it down (the whole fence in the field analogy), and if they find that they misunderstood something they had decided on in the past, to be willing to revisit it (rebuild the fence). While it is first a parent’s responsibility to teach their children, individuals then have a responsibility to the truth, and that requires that honest seeking, even beyond the best that a parent was able to pass on.

I wouldn’t begrudge someone from being very careful about leaving the faith of their childhood at all for these reasons (for instance, in the case of a Protestant or Mormon), but I still do wonder why the Catholic Church is not given the greatest consideration of any Christian religion due to its unique and well-supported claim to be the only Church founded directly by Christ.

To relate back to my last few posts, what about the Catholic Church appears to make blasphemous claims about the nature of God? I’ll grant for Muslims that the Trinity sounds polytheistic to them and the idea of us as children rather than slaves also sounds blasphemous, but to anyone else, even in the context of their own perspective…?

Turn that around, then. What about other religions’ claims about God appear blasphemous? Since most non-Catholic Christian religions make God into an unfaithful fool, quite a bit. You don’t even have to look at it from a Catholic perspective to see that.

 

[jean8]

A few quotes of Joseph Smith from his diary

PROPHECY OF CHRIST’S RETURN: “I have no doubt of the truth. Were I going to prophecy I would prophecy the end will not come in 1844 or 5 or 6 or 40 years more (“more” is lined through)…I prophecy in the name of the Lord God, and let it be written, that the Son of Man will not come in the heavens till I am 85 years old, 48 years hence or about 1890.” (April 6, 1843, p. 349)

NOTE: As we know, 1890 has come and gone; and Joseph Smith never made it to age 85. He died at the age of 38.

VOICE SPEAKING TO JOSEPH, PROPHECY OF CHRIST’S RETURN: “I earnestly desired to know concerning the coming of the Son of Man and prayed, when a voice Said to me, ‘Joseph my son, if thou livest until thou art 85 years old thou shall see the face of the Son of Man. Therefore let this suffice and trouble me no more on this matter.’” (April 2, 1843, p. 349)

Now of course this is a false prophecy not different than the many times the JWs have predicted the end of the world all being false and ignoring what the bible says “that only the Father knows”. Even though this is a “red flag” about Joseph Smith, many were still led into his teaching showing lack of sound reasoning.

"Could the Mormon church be the church of Christ?
The Mormon church is the largest cult in the world.
Does that answer your question.

jean8

 

[dianaiad]

The Bible came out of Sacred Tradition.

(regarding the question whether there is any Catholic doctrine that does not come from the bible)

You make a distinction where there is none. Doctrine is all that is passed on, orally, written, liturgically, Sacramentally, etc. Sola scriptura is an error of the reformation.

There is a very big distinction, it seems to me…it is as if you have just said–sola scriptura is an error, but that if it’s not in the bible, it’s not doctrine.

Could you clarify, please?

 

[RebeccaJ]

There is a very big distinction, it seems to me…it is as if you have just said–sola scriptura is an error, but that if it’s not in the bible, it’s not doctrine.

Could you clarify, please?

The Bible came out of Sacred Tradition.

 

[MelanieAnne]

I agree that Catholics in this country (as well as many others) have failed at evangelizing and catechizing our own to the degree that we should. There are many reasons for that, but that doesn’t excuse it.

I also believe that people should seek to understand something before they leave it or tear it down (the whole fence in the field analogy), and if they find that they misunderstood something they had decided on in the past, to be willing to revisit it (rebuild the fence). While it is first a parent’s responsibility to teach their children, individuals then have a responsibility to the truth, and that requires that honest seeking, even beyond the best that a parent was able to pass on.

I wouldn’t begrudge someone from being very careful about leaving the faith of their childhood at all for these reasons (for instance, in the case of a Protestant or Mormon), but I still do wonder why the Catholic Church is not given the greatest consideration of any Christian religion due to its unique and well-supported claim to be the only Church founded directly by Christ.

To relate back to my last few posts, what about the Catholic Church appears to make blasphemous claims about the nature of God? I’ll grant for Muslims that the Trinity sounds polytheistic to them and the idea of us as children rather than slaves also sounds blasphemous, but to anyone else, even in the context of their own perspective…?

Turn that around, then. What about other religions’ claims about God appear blasphemous? Since most non-Catholic Christian religions make God into an unfaithful fool, quite a bit. You don’t even have to look at it from a Catholic perspective to see that.

Arandur, you’re missing one key component in your analysis ~ “teenager/young adult”

In the case I cited, the Catholic-to-Mormon convert was in their late teens/early 20’s (and, as a Grandmother now, my experience is that there is little difference in the maturity between 18-24 & much more maturity is attained 25-30.) Persons in the 18-24 age group mostly have little, if any, “real world” experience, many have yet to pay their own bills (at least not the big ones!) or take care of any need beyond their own (and that in only a very limited sense.) Actually as a result of this, they often are very idealistic & have a strong, sometimes even exaggerated, sense of “justice”, and it is fascinating that their interest is in having others adopt their values and plans for justice, never the reverse.

The above is actually a nice way of saying “they’re young and they really don’t have a clue about life, but they THINK they do and so they go around telling everyone else how to improve themselves and SHARE and it’s just so convenient that THEY have nothing to SHARE but YOU do!” To quote Rebecca (forgive me Rebecca) “DID I JUST SAY THAT?”

(I’m a musician so I’m fond of cymbal crashes, please insert one, musically, here!)

OK, back to the exposition ~ At the same time, these idealistic 18-24 year olds are seeking answers to questions about LIFE, often, in the process, rejecting things of their childhood/youth. (As a side note, I have found that many in my own generation have a spotty record of maturing beyond that point. Now, I’m not saying that the CITED EXAMPLE is in that category, but, FULL DISCLOSURE ~ He is, at least, in the age group, and SO AM I!)

This is the thing. We cannot undo history. The people that left the Church are gone. Should they have gone? Of course not, but they didn’t know that. If they knew the faith, they would have never left. THAT’S THE POINT. And maybe, if they ever learn, they will return. We just don’t know.

That’s the problem ~ people do not know the Catholic faith so they are seduced by something else. Check out the resources right here at CAF ~ a lot of Mormon converts were originally CATHOLIC. I can’t but wonder if the Mormons on this forum aren’t here to just to “up” that number ~ and I’m sure a LOT of them are, but perhaps not all of them, who knows?

But as for the Catholics ~ why would any Catholic, who truly knows and understands the faith, ever be seduced by the incoherence of Mormonism? One answer ~ they never truly understood their Catholic faith.

Your idealism is laudable (“people should seek to understand something before they leave”) but the fact is, they don’t do that. When they don’t know & understand their faith, they leave for a faith that makes “more sense” to them. There are SO MANY to chose from now. (Not faiths that make “more sense” but just “faiths” in general!) And people are very vulnerable at the age of 18-24 because that is such a difficult time for them anyway.

I can’t answer your question about blasphemous claims. I’ll only suggest that you not “buy in” to the definitions of others. To me Mormonism (which is NOT Christian in any traditional understanding of the term despite their claims) Islam & all of Protestantism (from which I am an Episcopal convert) is a basket of heresy.