Mormon Beliefs

[wademann]

Hey wademann ! Do you mean these goofy, contradictory beliefs?

What a Mormon Believes:

1.God was a man like us and he wasn’t a man like us :banghead:

**2.While on Earth Jesus wasn’t like us humans but “he experienced the world in such a manner that he can associate with our travails in a very real manner.” **
:banghead:
I don’t make 'em up folks, I just copy them as they are !

**3. God has a wife, “an eternal companion.” ****:banghead: **

**4.Satan and Jesus were brothers. :banghead: **

5. “Satan was a son of God.” :banghead:

6. Mormon Doctrine can change even after being approved by a “Prophet” of the church. :banghead:

If God wanted to, he could prove the truth to all of us, but I think in my case he wanted me to work for it. He didn’t reveal truth to me until I was willing to act on it. I left the church for 20 years, it took me 6 years of investigating, until the truth was revealed to me, and it was only after I made a commitment to live the word of wisdom, that the truth was revealed to me. It doesn’t matter what I would say, you would have an answer for it. Your mind is made up, as is mine. I know my church is true, through the power of the Holy Ghost. I have experienced first hand miracles, in my life and others, including healings by the priesthood blessings including terminal cancer, that I can’t deny. You call my testimony “warm fuzzies”, but explaining the experience of the spirit testifying of the truth of the BOM is like trying to explain what salt tastes like, to someone who has never tasted it. Why do you think most Mormons have such a stong testimony? Once you’ve truly tasted it, you can’t deny it. I have no desire to debate back and forth, mostly because I can’t type and it would take forever and I don’t have the time, but I do enjoy watching the debate, and making a comment here and there. I will leave the heavy lifting to those that are more capable. I am learning a lot!!!

 

[Tonks40]

If God wanted to, he could prove the truth to all of us, but I think in my case he wanted me to work for it. He didn’t reveal truth to me until I was willing to act on it. I left the church for 20 years, it took me 6 years of investigating, until the truth was revealed to me, and it was only after I made a commitment to live the word of wisdom, that the truth was revealed to me. It doesn’t matter what I would say, you would have an answer for it. Your mind is made up, as is mine. I know my church is true, through the power of the Holy Ghost. I have experienced first hand miracles, in my life and others, including healings by the priesthood blessings including terminal cancer, that I can’t deny. You call my testimony “warm fuzzies”, but explaining the experience of the spirit testifying of the truth of the BOM is like trying to explain what salt tastes like, to someone who has never tasted it. Why do you think most Mormons have such a stong testimony? Once you’ve truly tasted it, you can’t deny it. I have no desire to debate back and forth, mostly because I can’t type and it would take forever and I don’t have the time, but I do enjoy watching the debate, and making a comment here and there. I will leave the heavy lifting to those that are more capable. I am learning a lot!!!

Matthew 7:21-23

"***Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’ Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.’ ***

 

[kellie]

All that this proves is that the Bible appears to contradict itself. Some passages of the Bible say that God can be seen and indeed has been seen, and other passages seem to be saying that He can’t be! Well, I will stick with the ones which says He can be!—not least because they include eyewitness accounts that He indeed has been.

zerinus

So you will only believe parts of the Bible which you want to believe?

 

[zerinus]

Why?? Have you done the biblical scholarship that is involved? Or just submit to your idea that what Joseph Smith said is true (who, btw, did not have an iota of biblical scholarship in his background before coming up with your sect)…

If you want people to really see what Mormons actually believe and if you truly want more people to join the LDS, I suggest you don’t make comments like this. It is extremely (I can’t stress this enough) transparent and is a hit and hide strategy, one that never works. Jesus never said this, nor do we. This comment is just another example of the mormons being the slaves of the devil. Good day Zerinus

Well said by someone who can’t defend their beliefs.

All that he has said in his lengthy posts is that all those scriptural passages that I had cited were not meant to be taken literally. Well I don’t agree. The context implies that they were meant to be taken literally. There is nothing more to be said about that.

zerinus

 

[zerinus]

Then, you are among the many hundreds of sects, each with a different “way of interpreting the Bible.” What makes the LDS “way of interpreting the Bible” any better than the Jehovah’s Witnesses way? Or the Baptist way? The Moonie way? The Christian Scientist way? The Warren Jeffs way? I could go on listing the sects, but would run out of space here.

Wrong! The LDS position is not the same as any of those. Our position is not based on an “interpretation” of the Bible. Our position is based on current revelation, which none of the others claim. We know that the Father and the Son are two separate personages in the human form, and have physical bodies, because the Lord has revealed it to us that that is the case. Joseph Smith saw them as two separate personages:

JS-History 1:17: “When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!”

Once you know that, what is taught in the Bible falls into place, and it is not difficult to argue that position from Bible—which only serves to confirm the truth of what Joseph Smith taught.

The proliferation of varying biblical interpretations argues against any of them, outside Catholicism, being correct. The Protestants decided on sola scriptura as a way of cutting the Catholic Church out. They decided that every man was his own interpretor of Scripture. The fruit of this has been the sects and cults. Immediately, the Protestants began fragmenting and arguing, mostly about interpretations of Scripture.

I agree that that is true of Protestantism and other denominations (including Catholicism, I might add); but no so of LDS. The LDS position is unique in that it is based on continuing revelation, which even the Catholic Church does not claim.

zerinus

 

[zerinus]

So you will only believe parts of the Bible which you want to believe?

I could ask the same question from you.

zerinus

 

[kellie]

I could ask the same question from you.

zerinus

I believe all of it as it has been taught to me through oral tradition, for it wasn’t in print when my Church was founded, but oral stories, the Truth, from eyewitnesses, were passed down to me from previous generations.
All of the Bible is interpreted as literal or symbolic through these teachings.
I don’t read it myself and believe which parts I want to believe so that it fits in to some idea I have.

 

[zerinus]

I believe all of it as it has been taught to me through oral tradition, for it wasn’t in print when my Church was founded, but oral stories, the Truth, from eyewitnesses, were passed down to me from previous generations.
All of the Bible is interpreted as literal or symbolic through these teachings.
I don’t read it myself and believe which parts I want to believe so that it fits in to some idea I have.

Thanks for your comments. I don’t do that either. You follow the traditions of your church, and I follow the traditions and practices of my Church. Unlike your church, we believe that the canon of scripture is not closed, but that God has and will continue to reveal more of His word and divine truth to His Church. The way we interpret the Bible is influenced considerably by that additional light and knowledge that we have received. The Book of Mormon and other books of modern scripture that we have received give us a deeper insight into biblical texts that enables us to understand and interpret them in a unique way that other Christian churches do not and cannot have. That is the source of our interpretations of the Bible.

zerinus

 

[christianley]

signaturebooks.com/Insider’s.htm

amazon.com/Insiders-View-Mormon-Origins/dp/1560851570

 

[Allweather]

I agree that that is true of Protestantism and other denominations (including Catholicism, I might add); but no so of LDS. The LDS position is unique in that it is based on continuing revelation, which even the Catholic Church does not claim.

zerinus

Well, then, what about the fragmentation of Mormonism? The main body in Salt Lake City isn’t the only one, and you know it. There are other bodies, here and there, and if one includes what I understand are the hundreds of very small family-unit sects of polygamists, then there are hundreds. Mormonism began fracturing even before Joseph Smith died, and the pace accelerated after his death. Apparently there were disagreements over competing revelations, scriptural interpretations, as well as over authority.

 

[zerinus]

Well, then, what about the fragmentation of Mormonism? The main body in Salt Lake City isn’t the only one, and you know it. There are other bodies, here and there, and if one includes what I understand are the hundreds of very small family-unit sects of polygamists, then there are hundreds. Mormonism began fracturing even before Joseph Smith died, and the pace accelerated after his death. Apparently there were disagreements over competing revelations, scriptural interpretations, as well as over authority.

Whenever God has had a true Church in the world, there have been those that have apostatized from it and formed their own sects or groups. That was the case in the early days of the Christianity, and it is so today. That is neither here nor there. These apostate groups have never prospered, and they don’t do so now. It is the main body of the Saints, headquartered in Salt Lake City, that is calling the shots, and expanding at a phenomenal rate, not the apostates groups.

zerinus

 

[christianley]

Whenever God has had a true Church in the world, there have been those that have apostatized from it and formed their own sects or groups. That was the case in the early days of the Christianity, and it is so today. That is neither here nor there. These apostate groups have never prospered, and they don’t do so now. It is the main body of the Saints, headquartered in Salt Lake City, that is calling the shots, and expanding at a phenomenal rate, not the apostates groups.

zerinus

Actually, that was the case when all of those early apostates left the Catholic Church. As for apostate groups prospering you obviously haven’t heard of the Catholic Church which still stands as the Rock with over a billion members almost 2000 years after it was organized. You are right though – those who have left the Catholic Church have eventually failed to defeat it.

 

[Allweather]

Whenever God has had a true Church in the world, there have been those that have apostatized from it and formed their own sects or groups. That was the case in the early days of the Christianity, and it is so today. That is neither here nor there. These apostate groups have never prospered, and they don’t do so now. It is the main body of the Saints, headquartered in Salt Lake City, that is calling the shots, and expanding at a phenomenal rate, not the apostates groups.

zerinus

According to a couple of fairly lengthy documentary reports I’ve seen on TV the past few months, one within the past month, some of these polygamous groups are prospering fabulously, if by “prosper” one means financially. These people in northern AZ live in really unbelievably opulent mansions. They are well organized among themselves, and have a history that goes way, way back. The subject of the recent story told of a gov’t persecution of their sect back in the 40’s (I think) in which many polygamists were arrested and jailed in an attempt to crush the sect. Unsuccessfully. They band together as a strong community, barn-building, etc.

Another, the FLDS, whose current “prophet” is now behind bars on charges of child abuse, is another very old Mormons sect, going back to the early statehood years of Utah. They are extremely wealthy by any measure, have built an enormous new temple down in Texas.

This is just a couple of examples that have been in the “news” lately.

The point is, they do “prosper” and they do have longevity. That is, they do have a succession of prophets, and they do survive the authority transfers, and they DO reject the Salt Lake City sect as being apostate. The main bone of contention appears to be polygamy. Heck, there is even a group or groups of Mormons who reject polygamy and work to make a case that Joseph Smith was falsely accused of it. This one came up recently in another thread.

 

[Erich]

You have wasted a lot of your time and spent too many words to tell me very little. The Bible shows that God has appeared in numerous instances to man in the past as a real, physical, corporeal MAN, with all the physical attributes of a man. Even one instance would be sufficient to refute all your claims, and put paid to all your arguments; but there is more than one instance recorded in the Bible. Here are some that readily comes to my mind. There may be more that I can’t think of offhand.

I noticed you didn’t think of Ps. 91:4 – “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge.”

Or John 4:24 – “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Or Luke 24:39 – “a spirit has not flesh and bones.”

The Church Fathers, of course, agreed, and loudly declared the fact that God is an unchangeable, immaterial spirit who has an entirely simple (“incomposite”) nature—that is, a nature containing no parts. Since all bodies extend through space and thus can be divided into parts, it is clear that God cannot have a body.

But, don’t take my word for it… check out “God Has No Body” to see what Tatian the Syrian, Athenagoras, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius, Didymus the Blind, Hilary of Poitiers, Basil the Great, Ambrose of Milan, Evagrius of Pontus, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Augustine, and Cyril of Alexandria had to say.

 

[zerinus]

According to a couple of fairly lengthy documentary reports I’ve seen on TV the past few months, one within the past month, some of these polygamous groups are prospering fabulously, if by “prosper” one means financially. These people in northern AZ live in really unbelievably opulent mansions. They are well organized among themselves, and have a history that goes way, way back. The subject of the recent story told of a gov’t persecution of their sect back in the 40’s (I think) in which many polygamists were arrested and jailed in an attempt to crush the sect. Unsuccessfully. They band together as a strong community, barn-building, etc.

Another, the FLDS, whose current “prophet” is now behind bars on charges of child abuse, is another very old Mormons sect, going back to the early statehood years of Utah. They are extremely wealthy by any measure, have built an enormous new temple down in Texas.

This is just a couple of examples that have been in the “news” lately.

The point is, they do “prosper” and they do have longevity. That is, they do have a succession of prophets, and they do survive the authority transfers, and they DO reject the Salt Lake City sect as being apostate. The main bone of contention appears to be polygamy. Heck, there is even a group or groups of Mormons who reject polygamy and work to make a case that Joseph Smith was falsely accused of it. This one came up recently in another thread.

When I said “prospered” I didn’t mean making money.

zerinus

 

[zerinus]

I noticed you didn’t think of Ps. 91:4 – “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge.”

Or John 4:24 – “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Or Luke 24:39 – “a spirit has not flesh and bones.”

The Church Fathers, of course, agreed, and loudly declared the fact that God is an unchangeable, immaterial spirit who has an entirely simple (“incomposite”) nature—that is, a nature containing no parts. Since all bodies extend through space and thus can be divided into parts, it is clear that God cannot have a body.

But, don’t take my word for it… check out “God Has No Body” to see what Tatian the Syrian, Athenagoras, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius, Didymus the Blind, Hilary of Poitiers, Basil the Great, Ambrose of Milan, Evagrius of Pontus, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Augustine, and Cyril of Alexandria had to say.

Those people didn’t know. The mystery was not revealed to the people at that time. Check out the Bible and it says that God has a body.

zerinus

 

[Allweather]

When I said “prospered” I didn’t mean making money.

zerinus

OK. In the modern sense, where money is the normal exchange medium, “prosper” generally means “money” unless otherwise noted, which you did not. Still, it needs saying that the reports I am referring to do not specifically mention money, but they do mention a strong community togetherness. For instance, when a resident needs a barn or a home expansion done, the others in the community gather together to contribute their various and rather substantial skills to the task, just like in the old days of barn-raisings. One could definitely say that this is a type of “prosperity” couldn’t one?

I was using money as equivalent to prosperity, because the homes these people live in are lavish beyond anything I am accustomed to, except among the very rich and famous. We are talking 10k sq ft. mansions, very modern in every respect.

Also, the report spends a lot of time with the people in these sects on-camera, being interviewed. They look great. Healthy. Well-adjusted. Normal. The one family they focused on was a 33 y/o husband with two wives, one his own age, the original, and another 20 y/o girl that was his former student in the Mormon school where he teaches math. He’d had children with both women, and aimed to have more, and also aimed to acquire more wives along the way.

In one lengthy segment, there is an on-camera interview with some 20 teenagers from the community. They mostly look terrific. Very healthy, attractive, atheletic, clean-cut, energetic, happy. The boys all expressed a desire to have many wives, and the girls all expressed a desire to cooperate with this polygamous lifestyle.

So. It is prosperity, no matter how you want to guage the term “prosperity.” Therefore, I am wondering what other argument you might devise to suggest that these so-called apostate Mormon sects are NOT prospering.

 

[adrift]

Those people didn’t know. The mystery was not revealed to the people at that time. Check out the Bible and it says that God has a body.

zerinus

Only as a misinterpretation as it has been explained to you since the bible, also states that God the Father does not have a body. You call it a contradiction but it is not just a misinterpretation to uphold a preconceived idea.

 

[zerinus]

Only as a misinterpretation as it has been explained to you. Since the bible, also states that God the Father does not have a body.

The Bible does not say that God the Father does not have a body.

You call it a contradiction but it is not just a misinterpretation to uphold a preconceived idea.

I didn’t call it a contradiction. It is a misinterpretation, but on your part, not on our part.

zerinus

 

[adrift]

I didn’t call it a contradiction. It is a misinterpretation, but on your part, not on our part

Post 113 All that this proves is that the Bible appears to contradict itself. Some passages of the Bible say that God can be seen and indeed has been seen, and other passages seem to be saying that He can’t be!

The Bible does not say that God the Father does not have a body.

Did you miss post 151

John 4:24 – “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Or Luke 24:39 – “a spirit has not flesh and bones.”