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MelanieAnne
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Good question.
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Arandur
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I did ask. Thanks for answering. It seems like your objection is with individual teachings. Well, Catholic Answers and its forums are a good place to start to learn about those.
But you’re going to have to be more honest in your pursuit of truth than this:
…because if you’ve bothered to look around at all, you can’t honestly suggest that there is not “one Biblical evidence for any of it.” CA provides typically dozens of Biblical evidences for each of the Church’s teachings. Even the Catechism, which does not focus on apologetics, gives references.
Hah, and Mormonism is? Please. Smith’s “translations” (boy did he re-define that word!); seeing stones, hats, fanciful stories lacking any historical basis, “reformed Egyptian,” buried gold plates, etc. etc. Mormonism is only slightly less ridiculous than Scientology, and you call Catholic beliefs unbelievable? What drugs are you on? You could make a heck of a profit with those–oh yeah, as El Ron Hubbard and Joseph Smith recognized, your church is.
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Arandur
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As I said, “change” is a term that is relative only to time. If He is outside time, then “change” is an irrelevant term.
Does not the LDS church preach that God is unchanging, the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow? I can’t count how many times I’ve heard that from Smithians.
And there are no “God particles.” Unless He wants to manifest Himself that way, as in Christ.
He doesn’t, or He would not be God. Do we need to make a painting, or have a child? We want to. So did He want us.
Sure, but He doesn’t violate our uniqueness and our difference by absorbing us. When a father welcomes his children into their inheritance, do they not have access to all that he has, and enjoy all its fruits? Do they then have all the same powers and authorities of the living father, or do they still honor his position as their father? How much moreso with a King sharing his kingdom with his faithful subjects?
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Arandur
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You didn’t ask that question to me. Now that you have, I will answer.
I have heard many different explanations and disagreements among Mormons. None have had a clear teaching to appeal to, like the Catholic Church provides.
Some have gone in for the full multiplicity, others have rejected the possibility of other gods.
What Smith seems to have been doing and what most Mormons seem to say is that God the Father is the only God we’re supposed to care about here, so the other gods are irrelevant to us at this time in our existence. But there are other gods.
This admits more than one, and further, Smith garbles the situation by talking about other gods having a part in creation and in our world in a way that would make them much more relevant and less open to simple dismissal.
Now, get over yourself and realize that your quote works in reverse:
“Are Catholics just plain stupid to not see these conflicts, or is there another explanation? What do you honestly think? Do you think that I was not aware of those quotes, or that I was lying? Or just stupid? Which is it? And all those theologians are intentionally misleading people, or do you think there is something here you are not understanding?”
Stephen168
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mfbukowski
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Are you kidding me? Conversion requires dialogue not bashing. That is why I laugh at those who say I am here to convert people to Mormonism. It is not possible to even have a conversation here.
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Arandur
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Thank you Rebecca. This is important, mski. Now I’m not saying here that truth is a democracy or properly determined by popularity, so don’t discount what I’m going to say here on that basis: Most Christians and even many Smithians (CoC, Remnant, Restorationists, etc.) look at Smiths works and see a very marked change and major development in what he was preaching. They see even the BoM contradicting a lot of his later teachings pretty directly.
Now, Mormons rationalize and justify and attempt to reconcile these. And there’s theoretically a possibility that you could be correct.
But if you are going to take that approach, you must be honest and realize that at best what you are doing is no better than what the Catholic Church has done. For you accuse the Catholic Church of inventing things or having teachings unreconcileable with earlier works. And yet that exists in a much, much more condensed time period in your own church, and among far fewer people (greater numbers meaning more viewpoints and ways of explaining things, which inherently explains some of the differences in explanation within the Catholic Church).
This is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, mski. Again the LDS can only justify their own teachings by similar methods by which they wish to condemn the Catholic Church.
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mfbukowski
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Brigham Young wrote a fair amount that can be seen as sympathetic to real presence. I personally believe in a spiritual real presence. I think He is really there spiritually.
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mfbukowski
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Of course you are not sympathetic to anything but your own point of view
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mfbukowski
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We have been through this before. So explain the trinity to me then. Ask a muslim if Catholics are polytheists. They will tell you that no true worshipper of one God could possibly believe in the trinity.
So Catholics are not monotheists from their pov.
I guess Muslims are just stupid to to see it that way.
One in being means nothing. What exactly is being? Shall we deconstruct that word a bit?
All it really means is “existence”. It is a form of the verb “to be”.
So now you have three persons who co-exist. And oneholy catholic will tell you that cannot happen if all of them are perfect. Because perfect beings cannot co exist
“To me, it is a mass of confusion”
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mfbukowski
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No we interpret them differently. Correctly. You don’t have a monopoly on scriptural interpretation. Oh I forgot. You burned heretics. Good thing you stopped that. I don’t like the heat.
Watch someone now give me a comment about hell. I dare you.
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MelanieAnne
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It’s funny that you say that Bukowski. If conversion requires dialogue not bashing, are you saying that you are bashing and not trying to have a conversation?
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mfbukowski
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Well said. Forgive them Lord for they know not what they do.
And I am a “drama queen.”
We had protesters in drag shaking the gates of the LA temple and screaming obscenities.
I must admit it gave me a new perspective on the gates of hell not prevailing
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Arandur
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Let’s take this long thread for instance, then. Right here we disprove your assertion time and time again, because we keep trying to explain, over and over again, using different examples and approaches to try to get a message across that you will understand, what the Church’s teachings on Revelation are.(snort)
I think that any look at my very short…but very busy…history here will disprove that one.
You wanted to know about the Catholic Church’s teachings, and we explained. We practically wrote a book explaining it to you. This thread alone has absolutely and conclusively disproven your assertion that Catholics will not explain their beliefs to you.
And yet how much have you done by comparison to educate us about Mormon beliefs? Comparatively very, very little. We can’t even get definitions of “revelation” out of you, much less an explanation of the assumptions, premises, and conclusions of your arguments, or even much about your church’s teachings except denials of what we have said we thought they were!
Open your eyes and try to be more honest!
As I said above, we disproved that right here. I could pull up about 10,000 threads going into clear detail about Catholic teachings and the bases for them.
Aside from all this, how is that a refutation of the simple existence of the Catechism? That alone refutes your assertion that Catholics will not share their teachings honestly. Catholic.com has plenty of summary tracts that delve deeper into these.
Your assertion that this information is not available and is obfuscated is just absolutely ridiculous.
I’ve never heard of this in either direction. Have Catholics picketed your meetings and cathedrals? If so, did they give a reason?
Are pamphlets needed when your Book of Mormon, and the interpretations of the relevant passages by your presidencies, call every other Christian church (or at least specifically the Catholic Church) the “Great and Abominable Church of Satan?” Doesn’t that just say it all?
Says what, that we are the “Great and Abominable Church of Satan?” Do you really doubt that?
I’ve never claimed that there weren’t anti-Mormons who are unreasonable and disingenuous. I and many here even went after one who posted here who may have been a Catholic. We’ve dealt with plenty of anti-Catholics, so we know what that’s like. But be sure that you are distinguishing between hateful attacks and honest arguments, or the type of apologetic refutation of your beliefs that Catholic Answers does. There’s a HUGE difference.
I’m sorry you’ve had those experiences. Mormons are far from alone in getting such pamphlets or having been accused of things. Heck, for centuries whole denominations have been saying that we Catholics worship the antichrist. Smithians are often a part of that group, by the way. JS himself was.
Any organized, sanctioned demonstrations by Catholics? Somehow I doubt it.
Where did I ever claim that there wasn’t malice out there? I was refuting your implications that basically anyone who disagrees with Mormons or at least who doesn’t believe “Christian” is the proper term for them has malice towards you. That’s just false.
What I referred to about your church, aside from the institutionalized condemnation of all other Christian churches by calling them churches of Satan, is the shunning and exclusion other people here have talked about. I have known many instances of Mormon converts to Catholicism, including those sponsored by my mother, who have gone through terrible emotional hardship in making their choice because of the extreme shunning by sometimes everyone they knew. People who have been disowned by their families. Mormons who cut off all contact with these people. Mormons who harassed these people for great lengths of time about their doubts and who condemned them, saying they were going to hell as “sons of perdition” and so forth.
And it’s not just former Mormons. I’ve known people who have lived in Utah who speak of the blatant discrimination against them by Mormons who favor only other Mormons. I have a good Catholic friend whose family left Salt Lake in part because of this.
So don’t you dare pretend that your church doesn’t participate in this, or absolve them of unrepentant actions.
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Arandur
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Aside from apparently having to expose the ugly side of your religion to you (and yes, I’ve seen mine and acknowledge it; I don’t try to pretend that it doesn’t exist like you have been doing), my point is to say that while there is, yes, malicious and unreasonable persecution of Mormons, not all opposition to your church is based on that. In fact, I’d wager that most of the opposition is just based on what we all observe as grave error and false teachings that should be corrected.
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mfbukowski
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There is no problem. Why don’t you state it instead of giving your stupid one liners?
How am I supposed to respond to a problem that exists in your mind if you don’t state it?
But I guess you get writers cramp if you write more than 25 words. I don’t think you have ever written one post over 50 words max.
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mfbukowski
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So I guess you disagree with RebeccaJ that we are persecuting Catholics? It’s hard to be mainstream when you persecute the largest Christian denomination
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Arandur
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You really ought to slow down and try to read things in context and not make more out of statements than they actually say.
My point, in context, was that there are people who try to teach you what they believe in the hopes of converting you. Whether they are going about their attempts to convert the right way or not was not the subject of my statement and didn’t matter to my point.
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dianaiad
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Define “some Mormons,” please.
We still do. We are not Catholic. We are not Protestant. We are us…and we are Christian. .
The problem with that is…we need the quotes, Melanie. Quotes or stuff ‘that I remember from TV, etc.,’ tend to be misremembered or misinterpreted.
Two reactions to that occur to me:
The first is sarcastic: How DARE we reach out and attempt to work with people of other faiths and get to know our neighbors; how…presumptive of us.
The second is resignation. The larger Christian world has been putting us in a physical and metaphorical ghetto since 1830. But y’know what? We have reached a point where we simply aren’t going to fade away, or go away, or whatever it is y’all want us to do. We aren’t enemies, we aren’t out to get you…
Ok, strike that, we ARE out to get you, but only in terms of getting you to join us.
What we are NOT, is out to alienate you, or force you to admit that you are lesser, or ‘other,’ or different enough to justify contempt.
Would that I could say that of the larger Christian world in regard to any faith that isn’t specifically theirs.
I realize that because I’m LDS, and am personally familiar with how anti’s view LDS, it looks like I am being paranoid, drama queen, whatever. But it’s not about being LDS–it’s about fighting the techniques of the anti. Anti’s do not target Mormons exclusively; they target anybody who isn’t ‘them.’ Catholics are vilified equally–sometimes worse–than Mormons are. In fact, I don’t much see a religion that is NOT the target of some anti out there.
It’s a feud.
And these tactics do not work.
And I can’t help but wonder why, when people are the TARGETS of such stuff, that they turn around and dish it out to someone else. It makes absolutely no sense to me.
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mfbukowski
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