Mormons, what are they?

[Evanescence]

Hello, I have been looking into Jehovah’s Witnesses, but I am curious, what are these mormons? i’ve noticed they also go door to door (I don’t get them in my area)

Mormons, what are their basic beliefs and why are they called LDS?

Some call them a Cult, what is cultish about them?

And are there any good mormon sites and forums?

Thanks

Evanescence

 

[ben_dy]

Agency: God lies, Satan’s the Hero?

Evanescence:

Hello, I have been looking into Jehovah’s Witnesses, but I am curious, what are these mormons? i’ve noticed they also go door to door (I don’t get them in my area)

Mormons, what are their basic beliefs and why are they called LDS?

Some call them a Cult, what is cultish about them?

And are there any good mormon sites and forums?

Thanks

Evanescence

Wow - I just looked up the Mormon population in Australia and it just barely registers down there! It’s a fairly large group in the states which is as it should be, I suppose, as the church (officially known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints - that “Latter-Day Saints” is where the LDS comes from) was not only founded in the states but their “bible”, The Book of Mormon, tells the tale of Jews and Jesus being in the area of Latin America (and up to New York somehow) thousands of years ago.

There’s not really anything like a Mormon catechism where you can get a sense of what the beliefs and doctrines actually are. And while their “standard works” (those writings that they considered inspired) include the King James Version of the Bible (at least that’s the version that the missionaries will hand out when they visit) it also includes “The Book of Mormon”, “Doctrine and Covenants” and the “Pearl of Great Price”.

It’s really impossible to say exactly what they believe because there’s really no common reference that you can use when comparing them to Catholicism or other religions that are commonly thought of as ‘Christian’,

You have to read A LOT to get even a basic grasp of the LDS theology - I can’t really think of a single doctrine with which LDS and the Catholic Church could agree upon. And the difficult thing, particularly, is that while you might read a revelation made from God directly to Joseph Smith, the LDS founder, you’ll find that doctrine may or may not actually be believed today. I did see one of those “Mormonism for Dummies” books at the bookstore the other day but there’s so much on the web that after reading 40+ books I’ve found a great deal of info on the web. There a couple of ‘official’ Mormons websites -

mormon.org/welcome/0,6929,403-1,00.html

but there are probably far more websites run by ex-Mormons that are ‘anti-Mormon’ but many of them have their own drums to beat. One of the very best that I’ve found - and one that doesn’t seem to be out to draw blood is -

helpingmormons.org/

-click on the “Resources” button and you’ll find tons of information. The ‘official’ site is sort of short on content and takes a lot of theological shortcuts and a number of sentences that you really have to dissect to get to the meaning.

Are they a cult - I’ve come to think that, as a church, yes, but that some individuals may not know enough of doctrine so that they are able, with complete confidence, to call themselves Christian.

It’s a difficult religion to understand even on the surface. Even reading documents produced by scholars and theologians at the church’s university (BYU in Utah) seem to be drastically at odds with each other at times and what was taken as “gospel” as recently as 30 years ago is no longer accepted as doctrine and is vehemently now denied.

So it’s a slippery slope you’re headed down if you start to look into the LDS church - some messages here are helpful but they really don’t give you an overview: lots of confusion.

But good luck and God bless!

Ben

 

[Tmaque]

Evanescence:

Hello, I have been looking into Jehovah’s Witnesses, but I am curious, what are these mormons? i’ve noticed they also go door to door (I don’t get them in my area)

Mormons, what are their basic beliefs and why are they called LDS?

Some call them a Cult, what is cultish about them?

And are there any good mormon sites and forums?

Thanks

Evanescence

I’ll leave it to the LDS on this forum to describe their basic beliefs. I just want to say that there is nothing cultish about the modern LDS Church. I also want to say that there is nothing wrong with a Catholic investigating another religion as long as you understand your own well. I believe that If you understand Catholicism well you will never abandon it.

 

[amgid]

Tmaque:

I’ll leave it to the LDS on this forum to describe their basic beliefs. I just want to say that there is nothing cultish about the modern LDS Church. I also want to say that there is nothing wrong with a Catholic investigating another religion as long as you understand your own well. I believe that If you understand Catholicism well you will never abandon it.

Now I like that!

amgid

 

[majick275]

Last Night my LDS wife attended her first RCIA class. Life is good.
Thanks be to God.

 

[flameburns623]

Evanescence:

Hello, I have been looking into Jehovah’s Witnesses, but I am curious, what are these mormons? i’ve noticed they also go door to door (I don’t get them in my area)

Mormons, what are their basic beliefs and why are they called LDS?

Some call them a Cult, what is cultish about them?

And are there any good mormon sites and forums?

Thanks

Evanescence

Some basic links:

lds.org/

mormon.org/

fairlds.org/

whyprophets.com/index.htm

And my booklist, which follows in the next post.

 

[flameburns623]

By non-LDS:

Mormon America: Power and Promise, Richard K. Ostling and Joan K. Ostling, Harper, 1999. Very impartial, much better than some explicitly anti-Mormon books or even most books by investigative journalists–the latter tend mainly to be irreligious/secular.

Joseph Smith’s Response to Skepticism, Robert N. Hullinger, Signature Books, 1992

Religious Seekers and the Advent of Mormonism, Dan Vogel, Signature Books, 1989.

Two which I recommend only for the evidence which their research uncovered, NOT the interpretations and ‘spin’ which the Tanners put on that evidence:

The Changing World of Mormonism, Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Moody Press, 1980.

Mormonism–Shadow or Reality?, Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Modern Microfilm Company, 1972.

Several from LDS sources. I really advise people NOT to spend too much time only reading anti-LDS stuff–it is difficult to find material which doesn’t include at least some mistakes or which is tainted by the author’s biases against the LDS Church. If you read anti-LDS material–try to read at least two books by Mormons on the same subject for every ONE book by an ‘Anti’–it will help you keep perspective. Not every pro-LDS book has to be apologetic in nature, but it should help you gain a better grasp of how the same ideas look from ‘inside the head’ of practicing LDS, which is always a help in dialoguing with members of other faith-traditions.

The Articles of Faith by James Talmage

Jesus the Christ, by James Talmage

**A Marvelous Work and a Wonder **by LeGrand Richards

The House of the Lord by James Talmage (Talmage is a classic LDS writer, greatly revered).

You May Claim the Blessings of The Holy Temple, (alternative title: The Holy Temple), Boyd K. Packer, Bookcraft, 1980

**Church History in the Fulness of Times **distributed by the LDS Church (Church Distribution)

Gospel Principles Church Distribution

An Approach to the Book of Mormon by Hugh Nibley

The Mormon Doctrine of Deity by B.H Roberts (another much-revered classic LDS apologist–who is rumored to have suffered doubts about his Mormon faith in his declining years, btw).

Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism, Robert L. Bushman, University of Illinois Press, 1984

Encylopedia of Mormonism (Not suggesting anyone read the whole set but selected articles as needed)

**The Work and the Glory **Gerald Lund (9-volume fictional account of Joseph Smith–good intro to LDS history).

Church magazines:

Ensign: Also available for reading on-line at: lds.org/gospellibrary/pdfmagazine/0,7779,592-6-1,00.html

Meridian Magazine: An on-line magazine and excellent way to stay current on happenings in the LDS Church. NOT an official LDS-sponsored magazine to my knowledge but very conservative and faith-affirming. See the following URL: meridianmagazine.com/

Videos (for those who prefer to learn by watching and listening rather than by reading–all of these are basically LDS-church sponsored so will be faith-affirming, not controversial or challenging):

The Work and the Glory: Video retelling of Lund’s series of novels.

The Mountain of the Lord: Very enjoyable if rather heavy-handed acount of the building of the SLC temple. Told as if through the eyes of the presiding LDS prophet at the time the temple was completed, Wilford Woodruff. Ducks the issue of polygamy–very tear-jerking to see Woodruff grieve over the loss of his first wife but he neve mentions that he had four OTHER wives.

Come Unto Me: Touches on some central LDS doctrines and themes. Not one video but several, and of varying quality.

How Rare a Possession: On the Book of Mormon. Also a compendium of several short videos.

**Legacy: **At one time, this was shown in LDS Visitor’s Centers and is very well done. Is a ‘composite’ of several people but mainly the life of one early LDS woman. Manages to tell the story of one of Smith’s polygamous wives while somehow never mentioning that she was in fact once married to Smith.

You’ll find many of these in a public library or available there via inter-library loan. A local LDS Ward library may also lend you some of them as well. (A ‘Ward’ is roughly equivalent to a Catholic parish). And offer to lend you gobs of others. No need to buy them all nor to read them all: you simply want to gain real insight into the mind and spirituality of Mormonism. These, plus the LDS ‘Standard Works’ (Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, along with the King James Bible) will give you plenty of grasp of basic Mormonism.

 

[blueadept]

majick275:

Last Night my LDS wife attended her first RCIA class. Life is good.
Thanks be to God.

Okay, I’m curious how you encouraged her to do that. I was a weak Catholic when I met my devout LDS wife. I took the six canned lessons of the missionaries, went to gospel indoctrination for a year and essentially told my wife I needed to figure out what I was leaving before I could consider joining the LDS church. I took RCIA last year and I agree with Tmaque about the more I learn, the more I’m thankful for being a Catholic.

My goal isn’t to try to convert my wife (only the Holy Spirit could do that), but I wouldn’t mind in her putting the effort to understand my faith as I have in trying to understand hers. Is this a pipe-dream or what? She is convert of 22 years now.

 

[flameburns623]

Evanescence:

Mormons, what are their basic beliefs and why are they called LDS?

Their official name is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. They are nicknamed "Mormons’, “LDS”, “Latter-Day Saints” or even just “Saints” for convenience.

They were established in the early 1800’s when a young man named Joseph Smith claimed to have received a number of visions, by which he then was led by an angel to some plates of gold, hidden in a hillside near his home. These plates were supposedly an account of several groups of refugees from the Old World, who had been led at different times to the American continent by the hand of God. Smith was enabled to translate these plates by miraculous power, after which the plates were taken away by the angel. The translation, known as the Book of Mormon, is the first of three additional tests of Scripture used by the Latter-Day Saints in addition to the King James Bible.

After the publication of the Book of Mormon, Smith established the LDS Church and continued to receive personal revelations, which he published as the Doctrine and Covenants. He also came into possession of some Egyptian papyri, which he translated as the Book of Abraham. This along with some other works of Smith, were compiled into the Pearl of Great Price.

Smith and his followers were fiercely persecuted at tiimes, partly because of Smith’s claim to be a modern prophet of God but also because of the content of some of Smith’s revelations. At times, Smith seemed to be foretelling doom upon all who opposed him; in addition, there were widespread rumors (later established to be true) that Smith had reinstituted polygamy. The early Mormons were driven from New York to Ohio to Missouri to Illinois, where Smith was killed by a mob. Brigham Young took control of the LDS Church thereafter and led the Saints to Utah, which is their stronghold to this day.

Some call them a Cult, what is cultish about them?

Mormons deny many essential doctrines of the historic Christian faith: they teach that God has a physical body, that there are multiple gods, that human bengs can become gods themselves by right living, and so forth. The LDS Church has been engaged in a long effort to make itself be and seem more mainstream; a number of LDS posting on these boards tend to want to deny some of the more egregious errors of the LDS Church. However, those of us who have been LDS can attest to the fact that many such false things have been taught. As I stressed in my booklist–there ARE also a lot of things said about the LDS which are not accurate, so it is best to read anti-LDS literature with care and discretion. But it is NOT difficult to find a great number of things still taught by Mormons which clearly contradict mainstream Christian teaching.

 

[majick275]

blueadept:

Okay, I’m curious how you encouraged her to do that. I was a weak Catholic when I met my devout LDS wife. I took the six canned lessons of the missionaries, went to gospel indoctrination for a year and essentially told my wife I needed to figure out what I was leaving before I could consider joining the LDS church. I took RCIA last year and I agree with Tmaque about the more I learn, the more I’m thankful for being a Catholic.

My goal isn’t to try to convert my wife (only the Holy Spirit could do that), but I wouldn’t mind in her putting the effort to understand my faith as I have in trying to understand hers. Is this a pipe-dream or what? She is convert of 22 years now.

The greatness of Catholic Schools. Our children are now in their third year at a Catholic School. (great academics got her to go with this) She is in her second year working there. (was already teaching, this made transportation and scheduling easier) Our favorite teacher there is her sponsor and everyone has assured her that the classes are informative and do not incur obligation, she will still be loved even she doesn’t “convert” and there is no pressure. She has many problems with LDS practices (she especially dislikes the temple) so was open to change somewhat already. Her experience with the wonderful folks at our catholic school have been a true testimony that has helped more than anything. She sees that you can have a well defined, understandable doctrine based on the teachings of Christ. She also feels the spirit at mass much more so than any LDS service. (including temple).

 

[Demosthenes]

majick275:

The greatness of Catholic Schools. Our children are now in their third year at a Catholic School. (great academics got her to go with this) She is in her second year working there. (was already teaching, this made transportation and scheduling easier) Our favorite teacher there is her sponsor and everyone has assured her that the classes are informative and do not incur obligation, she will still be loved even she doesn’t “convert” and there is no pressure. She has many problems with LDS practices (she especially dislikes the temple) so was open to change somewhat already. Her experience with the wonderful folks at our catholic school have been a true testimony that has helped more than anything. She sees that you can have a well defined, understandable doctrine based on the teachings of Christ. She also feels the spirit at mass much more so than any LDS service. (including temple).

Just adding an opinion;

I married a Catholic wife and although I was raised LDS our children have attended Catholic school since kindergarten (they are now in Catholic high school). The experience has been wonderful and I believe over the years this has slowly drawn me towards the Catholic faith. The schools are a wonderful experience and add a layer of humanity to life that I did not experience as a child. Over the past year, I have started to study the Catholic faith with increasing intensity (which is one reason I am following this discussion) however I have not started RCIA.

Thanks to Catholic schools and the impact they have had on my children.

 

[Evanescence]

Thanks guys for your replies

This LDS religion is way to complicated lol!
Sounds way to bizarre to me

Who are the active-Mormons on this forum?

Evanescence

 

[flameburns623]

Evanescence:

Thanks guys for your replies

This LDS religion is way to complicated lol!
Sounds way to bizarre to me

Who are the active-Mormons on this forum?

Evanescence

The links I posted in post # 6 of this thread can carry you to a site where things get boiled down somewhat better. You need to get a good grasp on what Mormonism says about itself before launching into what critics say against it.

DON’T try to learn about Mormonism or any other off-beat group, however, if you haven’t spent a good deal of time getting down the very basic concepts of the Christian faith. Can you do a fair job of apprehending the doctrine of the Trinity and explaining it in your own words? Do you have a good idea of how the Trinity differs from things like modalism, tritheism, henotheism, etcetera. What about the Incarnation–can you explain, fairly succinctly and in your own words, what the Christian teaching is on this? And so on all the way through the major Creeds (Apostle’s Creed, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed, etcetera). I’m not saying you have to be able defend these ideas in a doctoral dissertation, just be able to talk about them in a conversational way, in a manner relatively faithful to the essence of what the Christian Church has always understood them to say. If you have the basics clear in your head, any sort of counterfeit Christianity will reverberate in your mind as such in fairly short order, even if you can’t quite put your finger at a given moment on why their doctrine sounds off-kilter.

I keep hoping other folks will promote a bibliography of some good basic books on theology not too far removed from the sort of thing I keep posting on Mormonism. The only one that I can think of–apart from the Catechism of the Catholic Church–is “Theology For Beginners” by Frank Sheed or Sheen–can’t keep that straight. I think it was ‘Frank Sheed’ and ‘Bishop Fulton Sheen’ but don’t really recollect. I did read it some years ago, and can’t even recollect that I thought that much of it but I’ve seen others mention it as a great primer. Everyone raves about GK Chesterton’s ‘Orthodoxy’ but I never did catch on to the point of that book. Someday I’ll pick it up and try again. Anything else I’d recommend would be more Protestant that Catholic and likely as not would get blasted on this forum for that reason.

Keep waiting. The active LDS will make themselves known if this thread survives long enough.

 

[flameburns623]

Evanescence:

This LDS religion is way to complicated lol! Sounds way to bizarre to me

One last thought. ‘Bizarre’ is a very loaded term which suggests you have yet to really make the effort to understand. Or to put it a bit diferently: if a single individual, clearly plagued by immaturity or mental illness, proposes an off-beat idea, it is fairly easy to reject the idea as ‘bizarre’, as faulty in some respect. If one or two seemingly-mature persons propose an off-beat idea but quickly abandon it, one can assume the same sort of thing. When an idea takes hold among a relatively significant group of fairly reasonable people, who shape their lives around that idea–well they may be wrong-headed, the central idea may be mistaken, and the idea may be unfamiliar to you. It is even possible that you must let the idea pass you by simply because you haven’t enough time to spend studying every off-beat idea or belief-system that exists. But it is unfair to characterize ideas which other people take very seriously as simply ‘bizarre’.

Since some people can indeed live their lives dedicated to MISTAKEN ideas which they believe to be true–it is well worthwhile to have some standard by which to guage the reliability of new or unfamiliar ideas. Most of us here agree that historic Christianity is a good and reliable standard, even if we disagree to some degree on just how to define ‘historic Christianity’. I think you are one who agrees with the majority in this regard. Hence my strong suggestion that you make certain you have the basics of Christian belief down pat.

 

[ben_dy]

flameburns623:

One last thought. ‘Bizarre’ is a very loaded term which suggests you have yet to really make the effort to understand… But it is unfair to characterize ideas which other people take very seriously as simply ‘bizarre’.

Flame-

I’m not so certain that I agree and my reasoning is thus: the more I learn of the LDS church, it’s founding, etc., the more I find that (mentally, at least) I utter the word ‘bizarre’ to myself.

Several years ago when I went through the six missionary lessons with a couple of terrific young men, and had conversations that went beyond the ‘canned’ presentations, and also read the 3 standard works with which I was unfamiliar, my mental utterance was along the line of ‘different’. But in the past couple of months, as I came here and just stumbled across the LDS sub-forum, re-reading the standard works, and now have read almost 50 books in that time, ‘bizarre’ is the term that comes to mind frequently.

Now I realize that I can’t be completely objective - I’m a cradle Catholic, well and continually catechized. Having lived (off and on, admittedly) the majority of my life in the southern U.S. I’ve lived next door to those who handle poisonous snakes as a measure of their faith, who have explained to me why they believe that one must be completely submerged in a river of running water in order to be legitimately baptized, etc. A host of beliefs that I don’t share but which I can understand. I’ve Hindu friends, Muslim friends, Buddhist friends, etc. I’ve read a bit about those beliefs and I understand why my friends believe what they do.

However, the more I read about the LDS church, the less able I am to understand, the more bizarre it seems to me. Generally, the more you learn about something (the Boer war, as an example) the more you understand it (although, as in my example, you might decide that you would have been opposed to the war as a British citizen). I find that the opposite is true with the LDS church - the more I read, the less I understand: the more I read in order to clarify that which I do not understand, the more ‘bizarre’ the explanations become.

As an example - in my explanation of the ‘Trinity’ to an Hindu friend I use the same simple example that my father used in his explanation to me, that I used in my explanation to my son, etc. It’s simple and not theologically sound, but it makes sense and - if one is interested - further discussion and reading can lead to a much clearer and much more theologically sound explanation. And yet, to take an example of LDS beliefs, if I want to understand not the number of doctrines found in the Book of Abraham but simply how the book of Abraham came to be, I can read a variety of explanations by Hugh Nibley (who, until his recent death, was certainly regarded as ‘the’ LDS apologist since 1946) and I find a wide variety of explanations that are increasingly bizarre until I come to his ‘final’ explanation - which is no explanation at all - and his later (and maybe last - as I don’t recall the year that he made the comment) statement that he would take no responsibility for what he wrote on subject save for his very last work (which is so convoluted - bizarre - that he was ridiculed even by some of his colleagues and fellow apologists).

(continued…)

 

[ben_dy]

(…continued from #15)

Now lest I be accused of having a short amount of time and a rather short list of reading and discussion with LDS theology and theologians let me plead guilty to that charge. Yet this is just one example - and not the greatest, simply one that is most ‘obvious’ (as an explanation of the Trinity is obvious, to me, as a basic Christian belief) - of a long, long list that I’ve compiled both in writing notes to myself, margin notes, pdf notes, etc. Statements made, facts presented, doctrine given, revelations revealed, etc., that are questionable but have no answers that are understandable: the very best answer is that these things can only be understood by those who have a good testimony - taken on a sort of super-gnostic faith, not as “Mystery of Faith” in the Catholic sense but rather a mystery wholly inexplicable even among the LDS gods who formed the earth.

So - admitting my limited scholarship I would say that I have made a great “effort to understand” (to the point where this study of LDS beliefs and history has become quite a hobby - yet not at all a challenge to my faith! (Quite the opposite, in fact)) and I find that I can only “characterize ideas which other people take very seriously as simply ‘bizarre’.” What I have learned, though, is: 1) that many Mormons are either totally unaware of some of the doctrines of their church; 2) that some who ARE aware of that which I find bizarre think likewise and don’t, in fact, believe those particular doctrines or accept the history, revelations, etc., 3) that there are those who believe that the moon men of Brigham Young do in fact exist and that if we haven’t found them it is simply because they exist in the spirit world, which is made of matter as solid as any visible lead yet invisible to those who lack the grace and purity to see, and; 4) that there are many - most maybe (and this may be the same for many, many Catholics, as well) - who just go along, try to live a good life, wear their garments out of tradition and obligation. That is not to say that there are only 4 types of Mormons, of course. A ‘lukewarm’ Mormon may yet wear the garments but I doubt that there are many lukewarm Catholics who wear a scapular.

I’m sticking by my “right” (he said with a gentle laugh) which entitles me to call what knowingly seems bizarre to me I may call bizarre.

Yet, having said that I realize that I also think transvestitism bizarre and yet I have never dressed as a woman nor read any work on transvestitism, so I MAY be called a hypocrite…

 

[majick275]

Actually there are 5 kinds of Mormons:

bare.users.netlink.co.uk/5kinds.html

 

[Casen]

I’d like to jump in here…

ben_dy:

What I have learned, though, is: 1) that many Mormons are either totally unaware of some of the doctrines of their church;

No offense, but this statement doesn’t reveal anything as it could apply to any church in the world. Are there any Catholics out there that are “totally unaware of some of the doctrines of their church”?? I’m guessing there are a few…

ben_dy:

1. that some who ARE aware of that which I find bizarre think likewise and don’t, in fact, believe those particular doctrines or accept the history, revelations, etc.,

I think this is pretty rare though I don’t disagree that this does exist in rare cases. In my experience those that have problems with particular doctrines or revelations are on the sure road to apostasy and eventually kick themselves out of the church. If you don’t believe in the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith for examply it doesn’t take long for the whole thing to come crashing down and you won’t remain a member for long.

ben_dy:

1. that there are those who believe that the moon men of Brigham Young do in fact exist and that if we haven’t found them it is simply because they exist in the spirit world, which is made of matter as solid as any visible lead yet invisible to those who lack the grace and purity to see,

You lost me with this one.

ben_dy:

1. that there are many - most maybe (and this may be the same for many, many Catholics, as well) - who just go along, try to live a good life, wear their garments out of tradition and obligation.

You’re wrong here too. The LDS church requires a lot more out of its members than most churches, particularly those that attend the temple and hence wear garments. Do you really believe these people are giving 10% of their incomes to the church, attending weekly, serving in church callings, doing their home teaching, etc. “out of tradition”? No, most of these people wear their garments because they firmly believe their church to be the restored church of Jesus Christ.

 

[majick275]

Casen:

I’d like to jump in here…

No offense, but this statement doesn’t reveal anything as it could apply to any church in the world. Are there any Catholics out there that are “totally unaware of some of the doctrines of their church”?? I’m guessing there are a few…

True for all churches… BUT… the difference here is that most churches can refer toa catechism to get a definitive answer.

Casen:

I think this is pretty rare though I don’t disagree that this does exist in rare cases. In my experience those that have problems with particular doctrines or revelations are on the sure road to apostasy and eventually kick themselves out of the church. If you don’t believe in the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith for examply it doesn’t take long for the whole thing to come crashing down and you won’t remain a member for long.

Maybe but be careful because yesterdays faithful could be tomorrows apostate without ever changing belief/practices. (see “fundamentalists” Mormons as but one example)

Casen:

You lost me with this one.

a somewhat “extreme” example (based on BY talk in the JoD) of “mysteries”/“deep doctrine” being believed but not openly discussed.

Casen:

You’re wrong here too. The LDS church requires a lot more out of its members than most churches, particularly those that attend the temple and hence wear garments. Do you really believe these people are giving 10% of their incomes to the church, attending weekly, serving in church callings, doing their home teaching, etc. “out of tradition”? No, most of these people wear their garments because they firmly believe their church to be the restored church of Jesus Christ.

Well now, let’s be realistic here… there are varying degrees of “leeway” on all of these (depending on one’s bishop). Some do these things out of sincere belief but there are many who do so out of “habit”. (just like ALL churches…Catholics too)

 

[mormon_fool]

majick275:

Actually there are 5 kinds of Mormons:

bare.users.netlink.co.uk/5kinds.html

It is funny because it is true!