Is Mormonism Christian ?

[Arandur]

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.

That is interesting. Most Christians believe in a spiritual presence, it seems.

As an exploration of the Catholic teachings on the Eucharist will show (through hundreds of sources readily available to the public to read), we have many reasons to believe that the real presence is physical. In fact, it is one of the most well-supported concepts in Scripture.

Of course you are not sympathetic to anything but your own point of view

Don’t “of course” me and try to claim that you know me.

My wife is a Restorationist. She and her family and almost everyone she grew up with and many people she maintains friendships with believe in the Book of Mormon. They think you Mormons are wacko apostates, and that even the CoC has liberalized (Restorationists have many beliefs like more conservative Protestants, except with beliefs in authority, which the BoM supports but later works of Smith…not so much).

Point is, though, you don’t know me. How can I have married a woman (who is quite devout, by the way) who believes in the BoM and not be sympathetic in various ways? How can I have married her, knowing full well what I was getting into beforehand, and not have some understanding of Smith and his teachings?

Heck, just before her I almost married a Mormon girl, one of the most devout women I knew, who was a missionary. We decided that our beliefs were too irreconcileable to marry, but there was no lack of love, you can be sure.

Now you know a little more about me. Stop insulting me with your presumption of malice.

 

[RebeccaJ]

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”

Yes we have. When are you going to address this without dodging around and going to what Muslims believe? Aren’t we talking about Christianity?

And you still didn’t address the reality that Mormon theology about God resembles a multi-level marketing corporation.

Which, is not Christian belief.

To top it off, you are wandering into religious relativism. It appears to me that you want Catholics to have relative beliefs, while you maintain your convictions.

 

[mfbukowski]

As I said, “change” is a term that is relative only to time. If He is outside time, then “change” is an irrelevant term.

You are begging the question. You defined your terms so that the conclusion follows.

So what was he doing “before” he created time?

Try and answer that one.

 

[RebeccaJ]

You are begging the question. You defined your terms so that the conclusion follows.

So what was he doing “before” he created time?

Try and answer that one.

It’s important for your Salvation to know this?

What was God doing before He created any spirit children?

 

[dianaiad]

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.

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!

I know of at least five times (I stopped counting) that I explained what revelation is to us. You are accusing me if ignoring the subject, but here you are claiming that haven’t written a word regarding what it is.

One more time (makes at least six, by my count) Revelation, public or private, is God speaking to mankind directly. Public revelation is God speaking to mankind directly with a message for the public. A man who receives such public revelation is a prophet, by definition; that is what a prophet IS.

When that prophet writes that revelation down so that the public can access it, it is scripture. By definition, because scripture is the word of God given to us for our edification.

Anyone is entitled to private revelation, anybody. We all have it, when we are in tune with the Holy Ghost/Holy Spirit. It is that private revelation that confirms truth in religious things to us. It is that private revelation that guides our lives if we allow it to do so.

but public revelation?

Any ‘public’ revelation that is not considered ‘good’ enough to be scripture right up there with Paul’s writings is not, by DEFINITION, scripture or revelation, public or other wise. It is consigning God’s words to a lesser plane.

…and this discussion reminds me of a televangelist I saw many years ago, whose words made my hair stand on end. I remember that day the way I remember the day Kennedy was shot, or the day the Challenger exploded, or 9/11.

He was ranting along, and I was getting somewhat amused at his constant harangue combined with invitations to become a ‘prayer warrior’ and send money. Suddenly he stopped, looked right into the camera, picked up his bible (KJV, he made very sure everybody knew THAT) and shouted “And if JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF came down and told me that the words of this book were false, I would turn my back on Him and hold to the book!”

I had been listening long enough to understand the context…and he wasn’t talking about ‘false christs’ here. He was talking about the real One.

I think that this, of all things, illustrates the fundamental difference between Mormonism and some other Christian faiths. If Jesus Christ Himself came down and told ME that the words of the bible are false, I would say “Yes, Lord…and tell me what the true ones are.”

Of course, we all know that the Jesus we both believe in would not do that–at least to any great extent, since our beliefs about Him are informed by the words of the bible. It’s the idea behind the reverence of the book over the Author that stunned me.

 

[look3467]

Didn’t like that? Because it does not fit your theology?

Peace>>>AJ

 

[Arandur]

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.

Do you agree that from their perspective this is accurate?
Then you should agree that from our perspective, it is accurate to say that you do not believe in the same God as we.

One in being means nothing. What exactly is being?

The Creedal example of the concept is “Light from Light,” a description of the nature of light, which is a good physical example of God. As the flames of three candles can join and co-exist as one, so can God. As light is can be split among its wavelengths in a prism and each bear properties of light, so is God. As light can exist simultaneously in two forms (particle and wave), and yet require those two forms to be itself (to be light), so is God. As light can travel in time but yet at the speed of light see a cessation of time, and thus can from its own perspective exist in all the universe simultaneously, so can God.

If all this is possible for observable light, how much moreso is such a thing possible for God?

 

[1holycatholic]

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.

You have never given a coherent response to this:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=4023738&postcount=43

Just saying “I’m a post-Wittgensteinian, you wouldn’t understand.” is a cop out. You have never answered the question. If you think that Wittgenstein has something relevant to say, then state it.

 

[dianaiad]

Dear Steph:

One of the things that I particularly like about this forum is the fact that it is so easy to double check the posts.

So, for this post,
:

mfbukowski:

Show me evidence that anyone cares about being “mainstream” or that Mormonism has been trying to appear mainstream.

you wrote:

wooka64:

Well do Mormonism believe in the Holy Trinty.

dianaiad:

Actually, yes.

.

.

The problem, of course, is that the post you are playing with ACTUALLY read thusly:

wooka64:

Well do Mormonism believe in the Holy Trinty. Do you believe in Christ as the son of god?

dianaiad:

Actually, yes. We do believe that Jesus is the Only Begotten Son of God.

I believe that this settles the question of your credibility.

Y’know, from anybody ELSE I would have seen it as a joke, a rather funny, tongue in cheek poke at the tactics of anti’s in general. Indeed, I may actually use it that way myself in the future; it is so very over-the-top obvious.

But from you?
Something tells me that you were dead serious.

 

[dianaiad]

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.

Y’know something?

When your boss hands you a pink slip, it doesn’t much matter to you what his motives are. You are still fired.

When you are mugged, it doesn’t much matter why the robber wants the money; you are still mugged.

When you are being attacked at all, the motives of the attacker don’t matter at all, if the methods used are the same.

…and for those who are ‘honestly concerned’ about ‘false doctrine,’ well…I’d be more likely to believe that if THEY would accept my word about what my beliefs actually are, y’know?

 

[Arandur]

You are begging the question. You defined your terms so that the conclusion follows.

So what was he doing “before” he created time?

Try and answer that one.

What terms did I define? I just said that your words relied on time and only applied within time.

I said that God was outside of time, not bound by it, not limited by it.

“doing” and “before” are both words that rely on time. If time did not yet exist or if He exists or can exist outside of time, then those words are irrelevant.

I did not beg the question. I told you that your terms don’t apply. Every time you use words that inherently rely on time to address something outside of time, you are simply garbling nonsense, like trying to ask “what did the color ‘blue’ DO before it rained today,” or “what was ‘high’ before it was ‘high’.”

In fact, if you are trying to disprove the idea of God being outside of time by using your words that rely on time to disprove it, it is you who are begging the question. But again, you have not clearly stated your argument.

You have also not explained your position–are you saying that God exists only within time? And then you are concluding that He must change? If so, then answer my question about why your church says that He is unchangeable?

 

[1holycatholic]

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

You are correct that multiple perfect beings cannot exist.

The Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit are of one being - God.

That’s what Christians have always believed. Why is that so hard for you to accept?

 

[Stephen168]

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!

Would you define “bashing” to us to show the difference between challenging/refuting and “bashing?”

I once asked them “What is the Book of Mormon about?” and never got a straight answer.
I really wonder what they are doing here , because honest dialog does not seem to be it.

 

[Arandur]

I know of at least five times (I stopped counting) that I explained what revelation is to us. You are accusing me if ignoring the subject, but here you are claiming that haven’t written a word regarding what it is.

This is the clearest and most complete presentation you’ve given of it. Yes, you’ve referred to it in various other posts, but have not been very clear of its different manifestations. Your post seems to indicate that I was correct in my listing of your 5 uses. We disagree on what the definitions should be, however.

One more time (makes at least six, by my count) Revelation, public or private, is God speaking to mankind directly.

This implies a “how” but explains no purpose of the content, which is what you get into later.

Public revelation is God speaking to mankind directly with a message for the public. A man who receives such public revelation is a prophet, by definition; that is what a prophet IS.

It is not all of what a prophet is. What you have said here suggests that anyone can be a prophet, not necessarily just one with a titular office, and so mski should not have been upset about the children at Fatima receiving revelation when it was not their place.

When that prophet writes that revelation down so that the public can access it, it is scripture. By definition, because scripture is the word of God given to us for our edification.

I have read many things from the titular Smithian prophets that are claimed to be God-guided but not Scripture, and many things by non-titular Smithians who claim to have a revelation from God that are not considered Scripture. Indeed, the Jews viewed the Torah differently from the Prophets, and not all of the words of the Prophets were written and collected in their Scriptures. I think you need a more precise definition.

Anyone is entitled to private revelation, anybody. We all have it, when we are in tune with the Holy Ghost/Holy Spirit. It is that private revelation that confirms truth in religious things to us.

This we call the gift of faith, to be more precise.

It is that private revelation that guides our lives if we allow it to do so.

This we call, in various ways, guidance, to be more precise.

Any ‘public’ revelation that is not considered ‘good’ enough to be scripture right up there with Paul’s writings is not, by DEFINITION, scripture or revelation, public or other wise. It is consigning God’s words to a lesser plane.

You are making an interesting distinction here not unlike the distinction we make between public and private revelation.

We have a further distinction, however, and this is where we really differ. As mski has said, we really believe pretty similarly that all those forms of revelation of continued. Except one. By your definition, the teachings of the Magisterium would be public revelation. By our further distinction, however, we say that those teachings are really just verifications and explanations of our greater understanding of what Christ has already revealed. We also require a consistency in that truth to know it is truth that I haven’t seen much talked about among Mormons, save obliquely.

…and this discussion reminds me of a televangelist I saw many years ago, whose words made my hair stand on end. …

I think that this, of all things, illustrates the fundamental difference between Mormonism and some other Christian faiths. If Jesus Christ Himself came down and told ME that the words of the bible are false, I would say “Yes, Lord…and tell me what the true ones are.”

Why does this discussion remind you of the televangelist? On the one hand, it sounds like you’re claiming that we’re talking like him. On the other, at the end, you seem to agree that we’re not.

In fact, when discussing with Protestants, we Catholics frequently talk about how we put our stock in Jesus over and above the Bible; that is why the Church is so important, because it IS Christ in many senses.

 

[dianaiad]

Any organized, sanctioned demonstrations by Catholics? Somehow I doubt it.

“organized and sanctioned?”

No, the Catholic church knows better. They need our money and our good will too much.

But individual Catholics? Oh, yeah.

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.

I believe that I have given my definition of ‘anti’ several times. In order to rise to that level, a critic (and there are lots of those out there) must be willing to use lies, misstatements, demonstrate a willingness to physical expressions of disapproval (picketing, shouting, blocking entrances, mockery, like that.) Most of the folks in here don’t quite reach that level.

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

Does this happen in families? Yes. Does the church approve of it and recommend it? ABSOLUTELY NOT. it is my experience that for every Mormon family that ‘shuns’ the ex, two or three ex’s are the ones shunning the family.

It is also my experience that when the family DOES ‘shun’ the ex, it is often because the ex is being a royal pain in the behind, all caught up in his or her ‘new’ faith that they HAVE to come in and teach, and condemn, and consign their family members to hell fire and damnation.

For instance, I know a family whose middle daughter married a fundamentalist Christian (non-denominational) and left the church to be with her husband. She was invited to all the get togethers, but she and her husband would show up with crosses and attitudes, behaving as if their parents and siblings were devil’s children. If they weren’t being condemnatory, they were preaching and haranguing. After several years of this, they were simply not invited to any family get togethers other than the obligatory Thanksgiving and Christmas stuff (and the people writing the invitations were hoping really hard that those invitations would be ignored). The ex’s then started complaining about how the Mormons shun people.

There are ALWAYS more than one side to these issues. Always…including the side that shows Mormon families actually shunning their children who leave. When they do that, they get ‘counseled,’ against it, but people are people.

.

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.

I’m certain that there is some of that. Now are you going to tell me that the people leaving aren’t contributing their share of bitterness to this?

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.

The CHURCH does not. Mormons individually? Sometimes do.

And your comments about people in Utah has merit. However, having lived in other one-religion areas (or in areas where one religion has a huge majority) I can tell you that this isn’t a property of religion. It’s a property of culture and people. you get in an all Baptist town, and being a Mormon or a Catholic is going to cause you problems; not because the Baptists (as an organization ) is all that supporting of such behavior, but because people are comfortable with their own. They understand their own.

In the case of Mormons…look. Most of us have been dealing with discrimination against us because of our religion all our lives. There is no place other than Utah where the culture is predominantly LDS, where we don’t have to deal with the probability that around the next corner or post or person we are going to have to deal with some bit of mockery, discrimination or outright stupidity.

So those who live there tend to be insular. They are people.

It is, by the way, one of the reasons I don’t live there.I don’t like living in one dimensional areas, whether that one dimension is yours, theirs…or mine.

 

[Arandur]

When you are being attacked at all, the motives of the attacker don’t matter at all, if the methods used are the same.

You impugned our motives, so I addressed the motives. If you want to backtrack and stop accusing us of certain motives but rather discuss our tactics, that’s fine. We’ll take motivation off the table; you apparently understand my point now.

As for methods, what methods do you think are not proper or permissible? Yes, there have been a couple drive-by’s who have said you are going to hell and stupid things like that. Those of us who have stuck around have joined with you in deflecting that nonsense.

Rather, we have been trying to have arguments about truth here, showing you what we believe and why, and explaining why we do not accept what you believe. What is wrong with those methods?

…and for those who are ‘honestly concerned’ about ‘false doctrine,’ well…I’d be more likely to believe that if THEY would accept my word about what my beliefs actually are, y’know?

We accept what your beliefs are; I’m not sure I heard anyone say differently. We don’t accept when you are trying to speak for all Mormons and make claims that run contrary to things many of us have heard from the mouths of many other Mormons. Why should we not question you when you represent such a small portion of total Mormons that we’ve had experiences with and you claim to speak for them, despite that we’ve heard otherwise from them personally? Why should we accept your word instead of yours? Are you the head of the LDS church? Or can you point to a clear, defined set of teachings on the subject at hand that all Mormons are supposed to believe, and if not, are considered to be rejecting truth?

We can point to such teachings on behalf of Catholics, and we have. While not all truths are fully defined (there is a lot of room for different ideas on many things), Catholics are at least in the position of being able to refer to what truths are defined, so that if a “Catholic” claims something contrary to those, you can be sure that that individual is in error and what he/she says is not what the Church teaches as definitively true.

This is the sort of clarity one would expect from a loving God, from Christ who IS Truth.

 

[Bill_Pick]

Well that may be true, but it isn’t what I am saying here

No, you are misinterpreting what I am saying. I was being sarcastic.

The attitude of the posters here is “ha ha - you believe in the plurality of gods, so you are not Christian” Na na na na!

All I am saying is the picture is much more complex than this simpleminded approach. Yet no one will take a moment to listen to what we actually do believe or why we believe it. Two apparantly opposing postions have been posted – so is there a resolution that no one understands or are we just dumb?

The attitude is that we are just dumb-- and no one wants to hear the resolution. I don’t really care about that. But who would be so dumb as to ask a question and not want a reply?

I want to know about Catholicism so that I can decide if it is true or so I can prove it false. If I don’t understand Catholicism, I will never know if there was something valuable that I missed.

But no one here really wants to know. So that is what makes no sense. Anyway, it’s late I am off to bed

If you don’t want to hear the answer, don’t ask the question.

lets ask a few questions ;what do the mormons believe aboutt the trinity,what you believe about jesus christ do the mormon believe jesus was married and had more the one wife,do you think smith was a martyr

 

[Arandur]

“organized and sanctioned?”

No, the Catholic church knows better. They need our money and our good will too much.

But individual Catholics? Oh, yeah.

Your money and good will? Where does the Church “need” this? Political efforts, maybe, but it’s not like we wouldn’t advocate what we do anyway.

But my point about “organized and sanctioned” will become more apparent below.

Individual “Catholics” I don’t doubt, though I do wonder how you know.

The CHURCH does not. Mormons individually? Sometimes do.

This is the distinction I was making between the Church and the individuals. I see we are in agreement.

Based on the rest of your post, I think we are in agreement that there are bad people and bad actions in all groups, but that the churches themselves cannot be accused of advocating such things unless there is evidence that its leadership is actually doing so, organizing and sanctioning such things.

So lets lay to rest this ugly topic. I ask that you no longer make blanket generalizations about those who disagree with you and take up argument with you, and not accuse us here of such malicious motives.

One other thing. I don’t doubt your experience about how the “shunning” actually often occurs and why, I will note that you made a defense for this in trying to explain the reality of the situation. I note this in case something comes up where people accuse the Catholic Church or even some of its followers of some wrong, so that you will acknowledge that there are often major distortions of reality and not just dismiss when a Catholic tries to explain those deeply-entrenched distortions.

 

[Stephen168]

Dear Steph:

I’m not sure who Steph is but let me respond.

1. Well do Mormonism believe in the Holy Trinity.
   -]2)Do you believe in Christ as the son of god?/-]

1. Actually, yes.
   -]2) We do believe that Jesus is the Only Begotten Son of God./-]

30 years ago I was told by Mormons they did NOT believe in the trinity. Yes, I am serious that your answer proves a desire for Mormonism to appear ‘main stream’ by claiming the word ‘trinity’ as a Mormon belief.

 

[jim1130]

30 years ago I was told by Mormons they did NOT believe in the trinity. Yes, I am serious that your answer proves a desire for Mormonism to appear ‘main stream’ by claiming the word ‘trinity’ as a Mormon belief.

Do not confuse “Trinity” with “Godhead.”