To Mormons: Did the gates of Hell prevail against the 'Church' when your president taught false doctrine?

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I don’t think I can have a constructive conversation with one who replies only to comments in which he thinks he can refute.
 
BrotherofJared said:
I don’t believe in a local person born 160 years ago. I believe in Jesus Christ who was from eternity to all eternity. What I believe is that he spoke to Joseph Smith face to face and gave him commandments which he fulfilled to his own determent just like all the prophets and apostles before him.

I really don’t know what anti-Catholic principles you are talking about. As far as I’m concerned either you are the one true church or we are. All the rest in Christianity who branched off from you can’t possibly be it. If they broke off, then they changed the truth if indeed you are the truth. I’ve asked God and He has told me that I’m on the right path.

I hope that answers your question.
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If you really believe in Jesus then you wouldn’t be a Mormon. You would know that when He said “It is finished” then you would understand that no further revelation is needed and Christ fulfilled all He said He would. Why wouldn’t have Jesus just preached on all these commandments while on earth? Fact is He didn’t because there are no new commandments to give. Do you see Catholics saying “either you are the true church or we are?” I think not. We know that Christ would not lead us into sin by leaving His Church alone. He sent the Holy Spirit to guide His Church.
 
Precisely.

We focus on Christ. Our churches and parishes never discuss Mormonism or any other religion at all.

It is not about competition or one upmanship. Again that is human passion, not the Holy Spirit at work.
 
zaffiroborant said:
If you have a document with missing parts, but you know that document has other copies available elsewhere then it’s quite easy to fill in the blanks correctly. That’s the case with the facsimile, it’s Smith who filled in the blanks wrong, not all the Egyptologists.
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You have no proof of that. But I still maintain that the fragments we have are not the Book of Abraham. You are arguing about a fragment that Joseph Smith addressed and is present in all of our scriptures. You have Egyptologists that say he was wrong from the fragments that remain even though those are incomplete. That’s entirely up to you, but it is not a representation of the Book of Abraham. The only FACT here is that we don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle. That’s called counting your chickens before the eggs hatch. But even if you had the entire vignette, it’s still not the Book of Abraham.
 
kimg901 said:
If you really believe in Jesus then you wouldn’t be a Mormon. You would know that when He said “It is finished” then you would understand that no further revelation is needed and Christ fulfilled all He said He would. Why wouldn’t have Jesus just preached on all these commandments while on earth? Fact is He didn’t because there are no new commandments to give. Do you see Catholics saying “either you are the true church or we are?” I think not. We know that Christ would not lead us into sin by leaving His Church alone. He sent the Holy Spirit to guide His Church.
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I disagree with your interpretation of “it is finished” I don’t understand why God would talk to his people all the way up to his death and then stop. I believe he is resurrected and perfectly capable of speaking to day. I believe he speaks to anyone who asks, leads those who seek to find and opens the way to anyone who knocks. It’s not commandments we are looking for, it guidance to know the truth. You say that he would not leave his church alone but doesn’t speak to man. It seems to be a contradiction in terms.

You claim your authority to administer the Gospel of Jesus Christ comes through Peter. All who have broken off from the Pope cannot possibly have that same claim, thus my statement, either you are right or we are. I do see Catholics say it. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also claims it’s authority to administer the Gospel through Peter and James and John.
 
KathleenGee said:
Precisely.

We focus on Christ. Our churches and parishes never discuss Mormonism or any other religion at all.

It is not about competition or one upmanship. Again that is human passion, not the Holy Spirit at work.
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As do Mormons. We never discuss any other religions at all in church either. I obtain my understanding from Caholics that I know or who were Catholic, but aren’t anymore. I didn’t intend any upmanship my statements about who has authority. If you don’t believe that Catholics are the one true church, then that’s fine. Mormons believe that all religions have some truth, but we know they can’t all be true since they all teach things so radically different. Catholics teach baptism by sprinkling (I suppose that evolved since it would seem insanely cruel the submerse a baby for baptism), Baptists believe in a full immersion baptism, many Christian religions don’t believe in baptism at all. So, are they all right? Or is there one true church?
 
PaulDupre1 said:
Each book was translated by its own team of ancient language/bible scholars from a variety of Christian backgrounds, including Catholic, then each draft was independently reviewed by another team who made suggestions for renderings of difficult passages, etc. and then the final draft was approved by a team of editors, also made up of well-known and accomplished bible scholars and ancient language linguists.

Translations are made and updated as the target language evolves. Groups that are bound to very old translations (like the KJV) are prone to misinterpret passages because the English we use has changed so much from King James times (@ 500 years ago). And the KJV just plain tedious to read in some places, especially in the OT. Making the bible accessible to modern readers is a good thing, no?

The NLT is a wonderful translation. It’s rendering of the OT is especially enjoyable and useful. They even change the Hebrew calendar date references, which few people comprehend, into modern calendar-style dates that everyone can understand. And the Catholic Reference Edition that I own has extensive footnotes, cross-references, verse-finder and indexes. It is just a great bible for pleasure-reading and for use in comparing to other translations for study.

I don’t know about you, but I own 7 different bible translations, including the KJV (LDS Missionary Edition). I always check several translations when trying to fully understand a passage of scripture. I find it very helpful.

Don’t criticize what you don’t know about.

BoJ, your desperate grasping at any straw to defend Joseph Smith’s immorality sounds just like me about a year before I left the LDS faith. Whether you realize it or not, you are here to find the courage to leave what you have come to know is false.

I can see your house of cards falling down around you. Let it fall and enter into the freedom and joy that is the Catholic faith.

You won’t have to expend so much energy trying to defend the indefensible, and all that cognitive dissonance you are carrying around will melt away. You will feel as if the weight of the world has been lifted from your shoulders. I know - I experienced it for myself.

Paul (formerly LDS, now happily Catholic)
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I’m not criticizing. I use these versions too. My point is that it is hypocritical to claim fallacy because we edit the Book of Mormon for clarity when there are so many different versions of the Bible due to the same efforts. You claim the right because of the scholars involved? How can that be when there is no secular path to heaven? No Egyptologist, Anthropologist or Doctor of Theology is going to get anyone to heaven. All the new versions are really only for those who already believe. They will not convince anyone of the truth and so to an atheist they are useless. Same for the Book of Mormon. You don’t believe it came from God, so any editing will not prove anything to you, but editing it does not make it false because if it did, then the Bible, on the same premise, is false.
 
BrotherofJared said:
You have no proof of that. But I still maintain that the fragments we have are not the Book of Abraham. You are arguing about a fragment that Joseph Smith addressed and is present in all of our scriptures. You have Egyptologists that say he was wrong from the fragments that remain even though those are incomplete. That’s entirely up to you, but it is not a representation of the Book of Abraham. The only FACT here is that we don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle. That’s called counting your chickens before the eggs hatch. But even if you had the entire vignette, it’s still not the Book of Abraham.
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The entire vignette is available through other copies, and it is the BoA because that’s what Joseph Smith said it was and it is included in your scriptures as what Smith said it was. All Egyptologists know this, and it’s why your desperate apologists are starting with a catalyst theory.
 
BrotherofJared said:
Catholics teach baptism by sprinkling (I suppose that evolved since it would seem insanely cruel the submerse a baby for baptism), Baptists believe in a full immersion baptism, many Christian religions don’t believe in baptism at all. So, are they all right? Or is there one true church?
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  1. Catholics teach baptism by immersion and pouring. Both modes of baptism are performed in our Church. Infants can be baptized by immersion as well, as we see in the Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.
  2. Catholics believe there is only one true Church, the Catholic Church.
 
BrotherofJared said:
You claim your authority to administer the Gospel of Jesus Christ comes through Peter. All who have broken off from the Pope cannot possibly have that same claim, thus my statement, either you are right or we are. I do see Catholics say it. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also claims it’s authority to administer the Gospel through Peter and James and John.
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This seems to be a common idea that LDS have (probably because of that story told in A Marvelous Work and a Wonder), but it doesn’t square with the reality of the situation. No, it is not either Catholics or Mormons who are right. If Catholicism is wrong, the true church could very well be the Orthodox Church, which is the second largest Christian church (250 million members), which claims apostolic succession and valid sacraments (and which the Catholic Church acknowledges as a fact). Or maybe one of the other ancient Churches still in existence today, such as the Oriental Orthodox (i.e. Coptic Orthodox). Or, if there was indeed a total apostasy and a subsequent restoration, that doesn’t automatically mean Mormonism. Mormonism is merely one of many religions claiming to restore the lost truth and authority, and it could be the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Churches of Christ, etc. So no, it is not a situation of either Catholics are right or Mormons are right. Such a statement misses the reality of the situation.
 
BrotherofJared said:
As do Mormons. We never discuss any other religions at all in church either.
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Are you sure? If that is true, than why was a Christian minister a character in the LDS temple endowment prior to 1990? On more than one occasion while I was still LDS, we discussed how the Catholic Church was the great and abominable church of the devil in Sunday School and seminary. Protestant reformers and the churches they founded were also not uncommon topics of discussion in Sunday School. One of the LDS apostles even discussed the Protestant reformers at great length in General Conference 2 years ago. After that GC talk, my Relief Society presidency decided to teach a lesson on it, and the entire lesson was filled with praise of Martin Luther and other reformers and how bad the Catholic Church was and is.
Catholics teach baptism by sprinkling (I suppose that evolved since it would seem insanely cruel the submerse a baby for baptism), Baptists believe in a full immersion baptism, many Christian religions don’t believe in baptism at all. So, are they all right? Or is there one true church?
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Where did you learn that Catholics teach baptism by “sprinkling”? Have you read the Didache? It is a document dated from the late 1st to the early 2nd century, and it outlines how to baptize. Or was this after the “great apostasy”?

newadvent.org/fathers/0714.htm
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Didache:
And concerning baptism, baptize this way: Having first said all these things, baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water. But if you have no living water, baptize into other water; and if you cannot do so in cold water, do so in warm. But if you have neither, pour out water three times upon the head into the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. But before the baptism let the baptizer fast, and the baptized, and whoever else can; but you shall order the baptized to fast one or two days before.
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The ancient Christian churches (Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox) still baptize by either immersion or pouring. The Eastern churches typically baptize by immersion. My husband was baptized by immersion as an infant and does not find it cruel in the least.

Take into consideration the climate of where Christianity originated. Large sources of water for baptism by immersion were not always available, depending on the time of year or if there was drought.

I don’t see how the LDS can criticize the two methods of baptism used by the ancient Christian churches or call them apostate because they baptize by pouring in addition to immersion. The LDS church has changed the ordinances performed in the temples several times. Does that mean that the LDS church is now apostate because they changed God’s unchanging temple ordinances? Are the changes to the temple initiatory and endowment a sign that the gates of Hell prevailed against the LDS church?
 
BrotherofJared said:
I didn’t get my reasoning from Mormon apologetic resources. I’m able to see that in order to come up with the interpretation that you have, you have to fill in the blanks. That’s common sense since the information is missing. If you fill in the blanks wrong, then you have the wrong answer.
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It isn’t a matter of filing in the blanks.
What has been proven about the “Book of Abraham” :
  1. The fragments we have were the fragments that Joseph Smith had.
  2. We have about 1/3 of the fragments that Smith had.
  3. The fragments we have are dated 1700 years after the time of Abraham.
  4. The fragments we have are proven to be as a funeral text.
    So for the Book of Abraham to be a translation as Joseph Smith claims; 1/3 of it would have to be a funeral text and it could not have been written by Abraham. My understanding is the Book of Abraham claims to be written by Abraham and none of it is a funeral text.
BrotherofJared said:
If Smith made it up off the top of his head, he did a pretty good job of it. Personally, I don’t care where he got it from. I think the Book of Abraham is an awesome book. It’s obvious that Abraham was not just some nomad tending sheep that God happened to like. I like knowing the reason Abraham left his father’s house. I think it’s important to know why Abraham was favored of God, because knowing it makes it something we can emulate expecting similar results.
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Actual you don’t KNOW any of these things because science has proven that Joseph Smith made it up. Whether it was good fiction or bad fiction would be a matter of taste but the fact is the Book of Abraham is not a translation as Joseph Smith claimed it to be.
 
Christ was anointed with the baptismal waters of the River Jordan…meaning from the top of His head.

My babies were baptized with the baptismal water over their foreheads.

Either way is proper…

I think it is not justified in baptizing dead as they already had made their choice at their last dying moment…

And I don’t see any justification for Mormons to get into Catholic sacramental records to get names of priests, religious, and lay to baptize them…I think that very bad…how would Mormons like it if we got into their records and did the same to them…re baptize them into Christianity???

I wish the Mormons would just draw on Joseph Smith and his books and leave Catholics and our church alone.
 
I have said this before, and I will say it again.

For ANY total Apostasy to have occurred where a “restoration” was needed, three things would have to be true:
  1. Jesus would have to be incredibly weak. This is because it would mean that man could undo what Jesus set up. Further, it would mean Satan won, even if for only 1800 years. I could not follow a Jesus that weak.
  2. Jesus would have to be dishonest. Jesus was clear that the gates of hell would NEVER prevail. Further, Jesus said He would be with us ALWAYS. Not for a short time and then, again, in 1800 years. ALWAYS. I could not follow a Jesus who was dishonest.
  3. Jesus would have to be incredibly cruel. Jesus knew the future (assuming He was God, which I do). So, Jesus knew the fate of the Apostles. Now, assume there was a total Apostasy (which I don’t). That would mean that Jesus, KNOWING there would be an Apostasy, STILL sent his very best friends out to die incredibly horrible deaths for a Church that would die within a few years and be gone for 1800 years. That is the cruelest thing I have ever heard. I could never follow a Jesus that cruel.
 
TexanKnight said:
I have said this before, and I will say it again.

For ANY total Apostasy to have occurred where a “restoration” was needed, three things would have to be true:
  1. Jesus would have to be incredibly weak. This is because it would mean that man could undo what Jesus set up. Further, it would mean Satan won, even if for only 1800 years. I could not follow a Jesus that weak.
  2. Jesus would have to be dishonest. Jesus was clear that the gates of hell would NEVER prevail. Further, Jesus said He would be with us ALWAYS. Not for a short time and then, again, in 1800 years. ALWAYS. I could not follow a Jesus who was dishonest.
  3. Jesus would have to be incredibly cruel. Jesus knew the future (assuming He was God, which I do). So, Jesus knew the fate of the Apostles. Now, assume there was a total Apostasy (which I don’t). That would mean that Jesus, KNOWING there would be an Apostasy, STILL sent his very best friends out to die incredibly horrible deaths for a Church that would die within a few years and be gone for 1800 years. That is the cruelest thing I have ever heard. I could never follow a Jesus that cruel.
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👍 What he said!
 
BrotherofJared said:
As do Mormons. We never discuss any other religions at all in church either.
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Any former LDS will testify that that is simply untrue. We have all heard Catholic-bashing sacrament meeting talks, Sunday school lessons, General Conference talks and BYU Forum addresses by GAs. We have also read anti-Catholic polemical books by LDS prophets and apostles like “A Marvelous Work and a Wonder” by LeGrand Richards, “The Great Apostasy” by James Talmage and many others.

There was an anti-Catholic talk in one of your recent General Conferences. What a short memory you have.

The fact that my BoM professor at BYU declared plainly that the Catholic Church is the great and abominable church described by Nephi shows how deeply engrained in LDS thought anti-Catholicism really is. When I was LDS, everyone knew that the Catholic Church is the G&A church.

Mormonism defines itself by its not-being Catholicism. Without an apostasy of the Catholic Church, Mormonism loses its reason for existing, your playing nice not withstanding.

Paul (formerly LDS, now happily Catholic)
 
PaulDupre1 said:
Any former LDS will testify that that is simply untrue. We have all heard Catholic-bashing sacrament meeting talks, Sunday school lessons, General Conference talks and BYU Forum addresses by GAs. We have also read anti-Catholic polemical books by LDS prophets and apostles like “A Marvelous Work and a Wonder” by LeGrand Richards, “The Great Apostasy” by James Talmage and many others.

There was an anti-Catholic talk in one of your recent General Conferences. What a short memory you have.

The fact that my BoM professor at BYU declared plainly that the Catholic Church is the great and abominable church described by Nephi shows how deeply engrained in LDS thought anti-Catholicism really is. When I was LDS, everyone knew that the Catholic Church is the G&A church.

Mormonism defines itself by its not-being Catholicism. Without an apostasy of the Catholic Church, Mormonism loses its reason for existing, your playing nice not withstanding.

Paul (formerly LDS, now happily Catholic)
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PaulDupre1 said:
Any former LDS will testify that that is simply untrue. We have all heard Catholic-bashing sacrament meeting talks, Sunday school lessons, General Conference talks and BYU Forum addresses by GAs. We have also read anti-Catholic polemical books by LDS prophets and apostles like “A Marvelous Work and a Wonder” by LeGrand Richards, “The Great Apostasy” by James Talmage and many others.

There was an anti-Catholic talk in one of your recent General Conferences. What a short memory you have.

The fact that my BoM professor at BYU declared plainly that the Catholic Church is the great and abominable church described by Nephi shows how deeply engrained in LDS thought anti-Catholicism really is. When I was LDS, everyone knew that the Catholic Church is the G&A church.

Mormonism defines itself by its not-being Catholicism. Without an apostasy of the Catholic Church, Mormonism loses its reason for existing, your playing nice not withstanding.

Paul (formerly LDS, now happily Catholic)
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You are correct, but this is more out of history than doctrine. It is a historical fact that the Catholic Church is the mother of all other Christian churches and if an apostasy took place, it had to have happened after the apostles were killed and before the council around 300 AD that established the Catholic Church. We do not discuss how to deal with any religion or their beliefs, at least not in the forums you mentioned above. Any discussion on doctrine would be what we believe the primitive church held as doctrine which disappeared in the apostasy and is now restored in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Namely, apostles and prophets, the correct mode of baptism. baptism for the dead, pre-existence and the nature of the godhead.

You are also correct in that if there was no apostasy, then there would be no reason for the Mormon church to exist. Thus, it is either the Catholic church that is the one true church or it is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that is the one true church.
 
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