tkdnick:
I’m not sure what you took my tone to be, but it was not meant to come across as derogatory or argumentative or negative or anything like that I assure you! It was an honest question about whether or not you agree with a previous statement. Maybe I should have worded it differently. mormon fool placed some quotes that stated that those who committ murder would “go to hell” (I don’t think that’s exactly what it said, but that’s what I got from it). I was merely inquiring as to whether you believe that or not, which you answered. Thanks.
Sorry I mistook your tone. Written communication makes it difficult to really get a sense for the tone that was intended. I’m really sorry.
As for the “go to hell” quotes, the answer is yes: more or less. It’s just like the so many scriptures that seem at a glance to contradict each other. Those who sin go to hell. Those who repent are forgiven. Murder is a terrible sin, but God has at times commanded his children to murder. We should be tolerant, and always forgive our enemies. It can all seem very confusing. If we only look at one verse, or even a handful of verses, the message of the scriptures can sound really weird. I mean, if you take a look at some of the anti-Catholic stuff out there, you’ll see what I mean. People take scripture out of context and paraphrase it until it’s unrecognizable as a Christian teaching. Or they try to use scripture to prove that your teachings are wrong. Someone who grows up being taught in the ways and understanding of the church realizes that these people are just trying to skew reality. Taken as a whole, and with thoughtful study and prayer, we come to hold a deeper understanding of what Christ and ancient prophets meant by what they said.
The Catholic church has a significant advantage in that they have thousands of years of councils, essays, and such to clarify their beliefs. They also have a billion members worldwide, and so people generally realize that their teachings can’t be
that weird, and if they have any questions about it, it’s a lot easier to find somebody that can clarify. The significant influence that the Roman Catholic church has played in worldwide (and especially western) politics is profound, and has earned it significant recognition as a legitimate religion pretty much worldwide.
The LDS church, by comparison, is for all practical purposes a relatively new addition to the world of organized religion. (Some would argue that it’s older than I suggest because it is merely a “restoration” of Christ’s church as he originally organized it, but I won’t go into that right now). Although it’s growing fairly rapidly, the LDS church only has about 12 million members, making it a lot easier for people to speak untruthfully (or just with midunderstanding) against us and have nobody around to speak in our defense. Since it’s relatively new, we are vulnerable to the claim of illegitimacy; we rely more on personal testimonies and newly-discovered (i.e. largly unaccepted) scripture to show the authority that our church has, rather than on age-old documents showing that important councils have given this authority.
We have additional scripture which mostly clarifies and reaffirms most Christian teachings but (predictably) also raises new questions. Since this scripture has only been available since the 19th Century, we are (in terms of age) at a point well before the first Ecumenical Council (Nicaea). Since we live in such different times, and we use the Bible also, it’s hardly a fair comparison, but you can see the idea. There are still many pieces of scripture that haven’t been topics of numerous essays, talks, etc.
We also believe in modern prophets and revelation, and we stress the importance of listening to the Holy Spirit in all things. This has obvious advantages and disadvantages.
Obviously, there is a significant benefit if you can point to ages-old statement of doctrine and show that your doctrine has not changed since that point in time; that means your way of doing things has worked historically. It also provides some degree of protection from people who would claim some kind of divine revelation that justifies something really terrible. There is still, of course, the opportunity to interpret the current doctrine to try to justify terrible things like the Inquisition, but you aren’t going to see some group of Catholics go and pull a mass suicide like the Heaven’s Gate’s cult. It’s very nice to be able to say, “God told us that doing [insert practice here] was [wrong/forgivable/unforgivable/whatever] already; we don’t even have to consider the matter.”
