Mormon Scholars Testify

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soren1,

I appreciate dialogue. I don’t appreciate propaganda nor proselytizing. I also appreciate healthy clean debates. I don’t appreciate debates mannerisms, as one I currently witnessed, inwhere some poster’s integrity is put to question to belittle their objections. That to me is not honest dialogue. Neither do I appreciate a sneaky in of a criticism, done very casually and with a charm, of the Catholic Church which was totally out of context and out of the topic. Keep in mind that Catholics well educated and not may come to this site for answers and may be questioning their conversion to this sect and I think, things should be made cleared here.

Based on what I shared here, please understand that for some of us it is not intellectual matter that is once removed. This does not mean that people are not open to dialogue.

I am VERY interested in learning about the Mormons. I even went through the seven meetings and have visited their chapesls and temples in europe, latin america and the caribbean. I would love the opportunity to learn. I am also interested in learning about other religions. This is not the matter.
 
if only that were possible but mormons deliberately hold back someof their most important beliefs as being “too sacred” to discuss. they also have a history of “milk before meat” in which they dont teach the same thing to the newbie as they do to the long term members. they have also an open canon in which doctrines and even scripture can change…significantly. much of their beliefs and practices are based on things which are hard to pin down in “offical” public formats and so they will avoid contrversial subjects by claiing those aren’t “officil” and are just individual interpretations. They will also try to tell you not to lsiten to any former mormons just because they are “apostates” …this restricts the discussion to a mormon missionary forum…
 
MormonHero said:
Are you certain about your argument that Mormon doctrines are completely in sync with Enlightenment materialism? For instance, doesn’t LDS hold to the existence of spirit beings in pre-mortal existence?
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The premortal spirits are themselves made of matter:

There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes. We cannot see it, but when our bodies are purified, we shall see that it is all matter. D&C 131:7-8

Traditionally, Mormons leaders have characterized the Christian God as a “non-being” because he is immaterial, and McConkie’s Mormon Doctrine goes to far as to categorize “immaterialism” as a form atheism.
But, more to the point, I can see Christians in general arguing that God’s existence cannot be known simply from the observation of the universe;
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I know, and it is a shame because God’s creation glorifies him precisely because it declares his existence and reveals at least some part of his glory: “The heavens are telling the glory of God” (Ps 19:1) and “the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead” (Rom 1:20). The loss of this conviction is one of the eroding effects that the classroom I mentioned is having on Christianity.
but to say that God cannot be said to exist at all if God is comprehensible via reason and materialism, seems to be not only non-Christian in general, but non-Mormon specifically.
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The primary criticism that Mormonsim has always directed at classical Christianity is that is claims God is incomprehensible. Mockery of that divine attribute is historically an element in Mormon temple worship, and can be traced to the influence of Freemasonry, which is a quintessentially Enlightenment movement. It was criticized again as recently as the October 2007 General Conference, in which Elder Jeffrey Holland took a cheap shot at it. After presenting a gross and self-contradictory misrepresentation of the Trinity he ironically quipped, “We agree with our critics on at least that point—that such a formulation for divinity is truly incomprehensible.”
 
Abba said:
soren1,

I appreciate dialogue. I don’t appreciate propaganda nor proselytizing. I also appreciate healthy clean debates. I don’t appreciate debates mannerisms, as one I currently witnessed, inwhere some poster’s integrity is put to question to belittle their objections. That to me is not honest dialogue.

Based on what I shared here, please understand that for some of us it is not intellectual matter that is once removed. This does not mean that people are not open to dialogue.

I am VERY interested in learning about the Mormons. I even went through the seven meetings and have visited their chapesls and temples in europe, latin america and the caribbean. I would love the opportunity to learn. I am also interested in learning about other religions. This is not the matter.
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ok
 
Allow me to clarify the purposes of the original post, purposes that were discerned by several others. The problematic status of the Book of Mormon and other Mormon scriptures, in the eyes of traditional Christians, has often raised the issue of whether Mormons are sufficiently intellectually perspicacious, or just abysmally naive. The existence of a Mormon academic culture, as shown in the website, would suggest otherwise, that many Mormons do have the ability to reason with a proper impetus and cogent nisus. This would complicate and enrich our understanding of the phenomenon that is the Mormon Church.
 
majick275 said:
They will also try to tell you not to lsiten to any former mormons just because they are “apostates” …this restricts the discussion to a mormon missionary forum…
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The same goes with ex-Catholics. There are many ex-Catholics who are strong anti-Catholics, and as it usually turns out ex-Mormons are like some ex-Catholics, they hate their original religion and a lot of what they say is a misinterpretation of their religion’s teachings and lies. Just look at this former Catholic priest.

youtube.com/watch?v=XJOGGRbLeEM
youtube.com/watch?v=JW4BvxzTauU

I don’t post these links because I think he is right, no I think he couldn’t be more wrong, but just to make a point. If you say listen to ex-Mormons, why not listen to ex-Catholics too?

This is just how I see it.
 
Interesting site but essentially meaningless. It’s basically a bunch of LDS academics telling us why they’re Mormon. The point (I assume) of having academics do this is because their stature as academics should mean something and their opinions should have more weight. What’s funny is they don’t use their education to defend Mormonsim, they use their feelings (testimony), just like any other LDS person would whether brilliant professer or high school dropout. I find this delightfully ironic. The obvious irony here absolutely escapes these otherwise very bright people.

I pulled this gem from Richard Lyman Bushman’s testimony (he wrote Rough Stone Rolling, a good book and a surprisingly candid and unflattering history of Joseph Smith).

“Coming at last to something slightly more philosophical, I admire the empiricism of Mormon belief. By that I mean that it is open to empirical testing, using concrete evidence. I once gave a talk to a group of evangelicals about confirming one’s beliefs by a spiritual witness.”

Get that? “spiritual witness” = “concrete evidence”.

This nonsensical cognitive dissonance is why I left the LDS Church when I was 22 years old.
 
soren1 said:
The premortal spirits are themselves made of matter:

There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes. We cannot see it, but when our bodies are purified, we shall see that it is all matter. D&C 131:7-8

Traditionally, Mormons leaders have characterized the Christian God as a “non-being” because he is immaterial, and McConkie’s Mormon Doctrine goes to far as to categorize “immaterialism” as a form atheism.
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That’s an interesting point.

What I see the Mormons doing, in this specific instance, is taking seriously the idea that spiritual beings exist. These spiritual beings are composed of “spirit”, or finely composed forms of matter. This sort of finely composed matter is what is denied by Enlightenment materialism, which argues only for that type of matter that is measurable by scientific instruments and that is observable by humans of whatever level of spiritual purity. An example of this “fine matter” might be the spiritual form seen when someone see, say, a ghost or the spirit of a deceased person. The persons who have died and who exist in the realm of the dead (sheol; hades), before receiving their resurrected physical bodies, would have bodies composed of this fine matter.

What Mormons seem to be saying is that every intelligent being has a body, whether a mortal physical body, a fine material body, or an immortal physical body. This would be different from traditional Christianity, which argues that God the Father has no body at all, whether physical, fine, or immortal. So Mormonism would certainly deny that such a totally bodilless God could ever exist. But I would suggest that that denial is different from the denial that Enlightenment materialism makes, a materialism that denies fine matter, and only acknowledges physical matter.
 
Just saying to God it doesn’t matter whether your the smartest most educated man in the world or a simple fisherman, he will touch you. I think that is the point of testimonies of different kinds of people in the LDS church. Again, I could be wrong.
 
SalesianSDB said:
Just saying to God it doesn’t matter whether your the smartest most educated man in the world or a simple fisherman, he will touch you. I think that is the point of testimonies of different kinds of people in the LDS church. Again, I could be wrong.
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You missed the entire point of that statement as well as the point of the entire post.
 
soren1 said:
One fallacious point that the authors of that book and this website want to drive home, however, is not just that Mormons are indeed educated, but that Mormons tends to be involved in their Church at higher rates corresponding to higher levels of education, whereas in other Churches education tends to corresponds to lowered belief and lower involvement. This suggests that Mormonism is probably more intellectually robust than other religions.
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I disagree that that is the point the website tries to drive home. In Mormonism there is only one basis of faith for everyone, and that is the testimony of the Holy Ghost. Whether you are a brain surgeon or a brick layer, that is the ultimate basis on which your faith in the truthfulness of the Church will rest. It is the equalizing factor which brings all Mormons on the same level. If that website proves anything at all, it demonstrates that that testimony is not inconsistent with intellectual attainment.
 
Though perhaps MH has some merit to his thinking in posting this, the thread is far too broad to be an effective and viable discussion and has therefore been closed.

It does not actually appear to fall under the ban on proselytizing, so that complaint fails.

MH, this source might have some value in specific Mormon apologetics if you can locate article that relate to a current or future thread topic. Sorry guys…
 
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