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TexanKnight
Guest
Please give us your cite. Other posters have, in the past, given references that the LDS Church has the most people fleeing its ranks
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SteveVH
Guest
Except that you both reject the Trinity and therefore have invalid baptisms which are not recognized by the Church. Both claim to be a restoration of the early Church. Both apply external pressures on their members through various forms and degrees of shunning members who choose to leave. Both are known for their “door knocking”; its either the JW’s or the Mormons. So there are some very apparent similarities, at least on the surface. I would agree that there is a fairly wide difference in your doctrines.
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kimg901
Guest
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TexanKnight
Guest
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TexanKnight
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TexanKnight
Guest
yes…they made the same claims you make…
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TexanKnight
Guest
Absurd? We believe in an Eternal God. LDS believe in a god who was once a sinful man…are those the same?
We believe God is the ONLY God…as God says…LDS believe in a god who is one among many gods…are those the same?
We believe God does not change His mind for money…the lds god changes His mind all the time…are those the same?
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kimg901
Guest
I can give witness to this (RebeccaJ might be able to too!) because I help teach RCIA and the vast majority are lds.
2 years ago our RCIA class had 23 people in it. 17 were lds. 1 lds member quit and didnt continue. Last years class had 18 people, 11 were lds. So 41 people in 2 years. 27 were lds ( i didnt count the 1 that left ). Thats a little more than half that were lds (and I didnt count the RCIC class (children) that were converting with their parents in a state the is mostly lds because the WHOLE family doesnt count
) Now this is just 1 parish in Utah and we have 70. So imagine the numbers in a lds state.
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SteveVH
Guest
Then why are you taught this:
"When the Virgin Mary conceived the child Jesus, the Father had begotten him in his own likeness. He was not begotten by the Holy Ghost. And who is the Father?..Now remember from this time forth, and forever, that Jesus Christ was not begotten by the Holy Ghost. I will repeat a little anecdote. I was in conversation with a certain learned professor upon this subject, when I replied, to this idea–“if the Son was begotten by the Holy Ghost, it would be very dangerous to baptize and confirm females, and give the Holy Ghost to them, lest he should beget children, to be palmed upon the Elders by the people, bringing the Elders into great difficulties.” (Journal of Discourses, Brigham Young, 1:51-52, April 9, 1852)
Gotta love his logic. The poor women folk would all be running around getting impregnated by the Holy Spirit and then the children would be “palmed upon the Elders…” What a burden! All these little Sons of God running around. What is one to do?
Stephen168
New member
Mormons are polytheist. They believe in many gods. They believe they will become gods; just like the father was once a man who became a god.
Logic would tell us that if all Mormons became gods, there are millions of gods.
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DelsonJacobs
Guest
I’m a Catholic today (born into a Catholic family), but I became one of Jehovah’s Witnesses for a short time in the 1980s.
I became one of Jehovah’s Witnesses because I was quite attracted to what they offered, their “reasons” for joining them… things as a then-18-year-old didn’t know were not reasons enough for joining or staying with a religion.
They offered answers to everything. There had a simple formula too: For them the Bible is God’s complete and final revelation, and one could use it like a Magic 8 Ball and get any answer to any puzzle. To them it is God’s final word on everything.
Joining them gave you the key to unlock all the answers you wanted and gain everlasting life (which includes never having to experience death because they believe the world can and will end any moment now.) Peace of mind and security now were possible ***if ***you joined the only ‘God-sanctioned, God-approved’ organization for receiving answers, namely their religion.
It was the 1980s, I was a teenager and I was afraid the world was going to be destroyed in a nuclear holocaust between the USA and the no-longer existing Soviet Union (remember those days?). The Witnesses taught that if Armageddon included this nuclear exchange, Witnesses would be unharmed. I found comfort in that thought.
They taught (back in the 1980s) that this world was to end before the 20th century came to an end (yep, we shouldn’t be in the year 2000 according to their teachings). Afraid of the alternative, however, I found relief in the promises of this group.
Oh, one last thing, and it’s the most important: the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses (the leaders of that religion).
You see back then I had the need to compartmentalize everything into “black and white,” right-or-wrong categories (i.e., either I was in the right religion or the wrong one, either there was an answer to a particular question or there were no answers to anything, etc.). It seemed that everyone else who belonged to the religion or who joined was similar. We all had little tolerance for anything ambiguous or the mysterious, saw things and people in terms of “with God” or “with Satan,” and believed all answers about God had to be capable of fitting into the scope of human reason or out they went (there goes the concept of the Trinity).
And we liked that there was this group, the leaders of the Watchtower, who kept patting our backs and telling us it was okay to be this way.
In order to get this approval and constant praise from their Governing Body (who we believed made up a composite “prophet,” the only-channel of truth being used by God—and who wouldn’t want approval from God’s only prophet?) we had to stay in the confines of the religion. Nobody on the outside approved of us judging things as either righteous or wicked (there is no in-between for person, place, or thing).
The doctrines did not matter, not many of them anyway. They could and would change regularly. We even looked forward to tossing away beliefs of yesterday for new ones because we saw this as “proof” that God was leading us (where would the Governing Body get new answers from otherwise if it weren’t from God? thought a “black-and-white-only” mind). As long as they kept telling us that the end of the world was right around the corner and that we were wise for choosing the only true religion, all the other details were unimportant.
I can’t speak for others, but that’s why I joined. I liked being told I was “more right” than the rest of the world by choosing the “one true religion” of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I liked all the “answers” they gave me to parrot off (we were taught to memorize ways to answer anybody by going to our Kingdom Halls five times a week for school meetings that would often last two hours or more). I liked feeling like I was going to be saved for “knowing the Truth.”
Of course this didn’t last long. I was a teenager when I joined. After a few years it got old, and by my mid-20s I realized this selfish approach couldn’t possibly be right.
I also came to realize that God’s final word and complete revelation was not merely the Bible but a Person, Jesus Christ. No book alone and in itself could give me all the answers, and it wasn’t answers that were going to save me.
Only a God could do that.
I became one of Jehovah’s Witnesses because I was quite attracted to what they offered, their “reasons” for joining them… things as a then-18-year-old didn’t know were not reasons enough for joining or staying with a religion.
They offered answers to everything. There had a simple formula too: For them the Bible is God’s complete and final revelation, and one could use it like a Magic 8 Ball and get any answer to any puzzle. To them it is God’s final word on everything.
Joining them gave you the key to unlock all the answers you wanted and gain everlasting life (which includes never having to experience death because they believe the world can and will end any moment now.) Peace of mind and security now were possible ***if ***you joined the only ‘God-sanctioned, God-approved’ organization for receiving answers, namely their religion.
It was the 1980s, I was a teenager and I was afraid the world was going to be destroyed in a nuclear holocaust between the USA and the no-longer existing Soviet Union (remember those days?). The Witnesses taught that if Armageddon included this nuclear exchange, Witnesses would be unharmed. I found comfort in that thought.
They taught (back in the 1980s) that this world was to end before the 20th century came to an end (yep, we shouldn’t be in the year 2000 according to their teachings). Afraid of the alternative, however, I found relief in the promises of this group.
Oh, one last thing, and it’s the most important: the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses (the leaders of that religion).
You see back then I had the need to compartmentalize everything into “black and white,” right-or-wrong categories (i.e., either I was in the right religion or the wrong one, either there was an answer to a particular question or there were no answers to anything, etc.). It seemed that everyone else who belonged to the religion or who joined was similar. We all had little tolerance for anything ambiguous or the mysterious, saw things and people in terms of “with God” or “with Satan,” and believed all answers about God had to be capable of fitting into the scope of human reason or out they went (there goes the concept of the Trinity).
And we liked that there was this group, the leaders of the Watchtower, who kept patting our backs and telling us it was okay to be this way.
In order to get this approval and constant praise from their Governing Body (who we believed made up a composite “prophet,” the only-channel of truth being used by God—and who wouldn’t want approval from God’s only prophet?) we had to stay in the confines of the religion. Nobody on the outside approved of us judging things as either righteous or wicked (there is no in-between for person, place, or thing).
The doctrines did not matter, not many of them anyway. They could and would change regularly. We even looked forward to tossing away beliefs of yesterday for new ones because we saw this as “proof” that God was leading us (where would the Governing Body get new answers from otherwise if it weren’t from God? thought a “black-and-white-only” mind). As long as they kept telling us that the end of the world was right around the corner and that we were wise for choosing the only true religion, all the other details were unimportant.
I can’t speak for others, but that’s why I joined. I liked being told I was “more right” than the rest of the world by choosing the “one true religion” of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I liked all the “answers” they gave me to parrot off (we were taught to memorize ways to answer anybody by going to our Kingdom Halls five times a week for school meetings that would often last two hours or more). I liked feeling like I was going to be saved for “knowing the Truth.”
Of course this didn’t last long. I was a teenager when I joined. After a few years it got old, and by my mid-20s I realized this selfish approach couldn’t possibly be right.
I also came to realize that God’s final word and complete revelation was not merely the Bible but a Person, Jesus Christ. No book alone and in itself could give me all the answers, and it wasn’t answers that were going to save me.
Only a God could do that.
Stephen168
New member
Using DNA, science has proven Joseph Smith to have laid.
No, You have not been able to answer the OP’s question.
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kimg901
Guest
Stephen lets skip DNA and just go off what their prophets claimed would happen and didnt. Like dark skinned people becoming white. Did it happen? Nope, false. Lets look at hill cumorah. No evidence found there either of early battles where hundreds of thousands, maybe millions were killed with steel weapons. Did it happen? Nope, false. I could continue.
Stephen168
New member
Is each Witness allowed to read the magic 8 ball or were you told what it meant by the leadership?
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mathonihah
Guest
I have to leave my computer right now, and continue at some other time.
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twopekinguys
Guest
At what point in the Gospel does Jesus say this is symbolic in nature? I’ll help you out, it doesn’t.
If you remember, he provided no clarification for this teaching. It freaked some disciples out, and they left, saying it was too hard. He didn’t go after them. He let them go.
So, as you can see, it is not symbolic. You are simply distorting scripture to support your view.
Stephen168
New member
This is why we rely on ex-mormons here at Catholic Answers Forum. Mormons are either unable or unwilling is answer the most simple question.
Stephen168
New member
This is how we know the Mormon Church is not the true church of Christ. The real presence was taught by Christ, The Twelve, his Catholic Church to this day.
It was rejected by Protestants and Mormons just followed in their foot steps until Joseph Smith led them into total apostasy in 1844.
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Nicea325
Guest
Wrong! And here is where Mormons truly lack any understanding of the Jewish faith. I’ve got news for you. The Seder meal consisted of CONSUMING an actual tangent lamb who been sacrificed and accompanied by other tangible foods.
Or…
Did they eat symbols (cookie cut-outs) only representing those tangible items?
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Nicea325
Guest
Sorry…but Mormonism has entire god separate from the True Eternal God.
BTW: A Mormon also told me all humans are ETERNAL. Really? How can finite creatures be ETERNAL? Oh that is right, I forgot…no reason is required…faith will say otherwise…:whacky:
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