Why would anyone want to be a Mormon or Jehovah Witnesses?

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Agreed. When a Mormon gets backed into a corner for lack of facts and truth, his responses always become one of three things:

“Nope, not gonna answer that.”

or,

“Nope, not relevant.”

or,

“Nope, you’re ignoring the evidence.” To which he replies, when pressed for that evidence, with:

“Nope, not gonna answer that.”

:o It’s getting a little painful to watch.
Let’s not forget the three ladies 😃 (misinformed, misunderstood, and mistranslated)

We have already had the persecution card and baring of the testimony.
 
Let’s not forget the three ladies 😃 (misinformed, misunderstood, and mistranslated)

We have already had the persecution card and baring of the testimony.
I had a vision and it told me “personal attacks will come soon”
 
My sister is a JW…brainwashed by her husband. Very sad. When they come to your door, just tell them you will listen to them if they will say the Rosary with you…they never come back.
 
I don’t know why one would want to be one of either, other than if one believes their teachings to be true. Nothing but the conviction that what they teach is true could ever move me in there.
 
I don’t see how this view is any less offensive (if that is your point). ALL the baptized are Christ’s Church, including our clergy.
I am sure it would be offensive to the named clergy etc., but not necessarily to the rank and file membership of the churches. Mormon revelation pronounces dire consequences on those who in the last days “build up churches unto themselves to get gain …” (Mormon 8:33; D&C 10:56). Those were the ones who were being condemned in the First Vision. I am sure they would take offence (unless they were honest enough to acknowledge the truth and repent). But the remarks were not aimed at just anyone who is Christian.
 
Can I pipe in?

Here are the main problems I have with the LDS church:
  1. The fact that we can become god ourselves and eventually have our own planet (that is just too much like the Devil in the beginning when he wanted to be God).
  2. Book of Abraham (people can actually read the hieroglyphs now and it’s not anywhere close to what Joseph Smith said it said)
  3. The temple ceremony (no joke, first time I went through, I was scared. Not fear of the unknown, but fear like cult fear)
  4. The 8 or 9 different versions of the “First Vision” ( which the earliest accounts are much different then the 1838 account that is used).
  5. Garments ( why? Scriptural?)
  6. The apostasy ( the explanation and even reasoning behind it…no idea. why would we even need one in the first place).
  7. Women being subject to men always ( oh sure, you’ll become a goddess someday but you won’t be worshiped like your husband will be. You’ll just have to provide spirit children the whole time.)
  8. Contradictions in the Doctrine. ( Changes of beliefs to fit the day)
  9. Three God’s, One Godhead. Many other gods (Bible makes it very clear, One God)
  10. Joseph Smith’s life ( …i think this is self explanatory)
 
i think we should all accept that most mormons are sincere in their beliefs. facts, reason and logic are not going to sway people fully committed to unsupportable beliefs. there is no sense in taunting or even challenging such people. however, there is good reason to expose the lack of evidence, reason and logic absent from belief systems.

remember, mormons and catholics do not believe in the same God and do not believe in the same Jesus Christ. that is the message we need to send to our fellow catholics who might come under aggressive evangelization by mormons.

the mormon god is finite, mortal and limited in power and knowledge.

catholic’s God is infinite, eternal and unlimited in power and knowledge.

the mormon Jesus is a creature. the catholic Jesus is the Creator of all things, visible and invisible.

the differences between the mormon god and the true God, between the mormon Jesus and the real Jesus cannot be more stark.

so, preface every discussion of mormonism with those simple facts. mormons do not worship the same God that catholics worship. mormons do not follow the same Jesus that catholics follow.

by doing this, we can at least have the beginnings of a fruitful engagement with the mormon proselytizers. in fact, we catholics as well as our priests should regularly educated our fellow catholics on these two simple, but essential, distinctions between the mormon system of belief and catholicism.

this is not to ignore the multitude of unsupportable nonsense promulgated by the mormons. it is simply to save time and energy when confronting the mormon proselytiszers.

if someone needs additional information, it is always useful to point out that the mormons teach that the Church Jesus founded did not succeed but failed despite Jesus’ promise to be with it until the end of time and that the gates of hell would not prevail against it.

the mormons teach that Jesus left millions of His followers without the truth for over 1800 years.

the mormons teach that it makes sense to restore a church that was a failure.

the old rule of KISS, “keep it simple stupid” is useful for catholics when engaging in a discussion of the LDS church.

we can overwhelm people by providing detail after detail and fact after fact about how nonsensical the mormon faith is.

keep in mind that we are not going to dissuade devout mormons. our primary mission is to keep the poison that is mormonism from damaging the Mystical Body of Christ
Not to mention that Mormons* almost* deny that Jesus died on the cross. They seem to want to forget that entirely, while in the Catholic Church the cross is the most important thing of all. Without it there would be no redemption for mankind.

I wonder why Mormons are so anti-cross? Is it just because they are anti-Catholic?
 
There is good reason to be indignant at JS claims. There also is no reason for anyone to accept the private revelation of Smith. Lot’s of reasons to question the veracity of his claims.

There are also good reasons that JS was “persecuted”. He was a grifter. Criminals are “persecuted” every day in the U.S.
People will take offence at whatever they want to take offence. The point I was making was that the Lord’s condemnation in the First Vision was directed primarily to what it calls the “professors of religion,” not the rank and file members of the Churches, or Christianity in general.
 
People will take offence at whatever they want to take offence. The point I was making was that the Lord’s condemnation in the First Vision was directed primarily to what it calls the “professors of religion,” not the rank and file members of the Churches, or Christianity in general.
🤷 You’re interpretation I would guess, since I’ve had other Mormons tell me differently.

“Professors” is a weird word to use anyway. Who has professors? Doesn’t “professor” in this context mean one who professes a belief?

As for “restoration”, you haven’t provided any evidence for something being “lost”, and therefore needs to be “restored”. All you have is a conspiracy theory.
 
What evidence do you have, other than Joseph Smith, who isn’t in my view a trustworthy source?
The evidence is in the testimony of the Holy Spirit of Church members. We use the Bible mainly to demonstrate that there is no contradiction between Mormon revelation and the Bible, not in order to prove the fine points of the Restoration from the Bible. Since our critics like to quote from the Bible to prove Mormonism wrong, we use the same Bible to point out the flaws in their arguments. But the proof of the Restoration is not in the Bible. It is in the testimony of the Holy Ghost.
 
People will take offence at whatever they want to take offence. The point I was making was that the Lord’s condemnation in the First Vision was directed primarily to what it calls the “professors of religion,” not the rank and file members of the Churches, or Christianity in general.
Perhaps you think people are offended for the sake of being offended, just as you believe for the sake of believing?

I said there are reasons to be indignant. There is a long list non-Christian, paganized, immoral teachings coming from JS. NOT being offended by this, as a Christian, would be pretty weird. Teaching God wants you to practice adultery (polygamy) and NOT being offended by this idea, is one example.

You seem to think because Mormonism teaches it, we should all feel normal. Just because it has been normalized for you, doesn’t mean that it should be.
 
The evidence is in the testimony of the Holy Spirit of Church members. We use the Bible mainly to demonstrate that there is no contradiction between Mormon revelation and the Bible, not in order to prove the fine points of the Restoration from the Bible. Since our critics like to quote from the Bible to prove Mormonism wrong, we use the same Bible to point out the flaws in their arguments. But the proof of the Restoration is not in the Bible. It is in the testimony of the Holy Ghost.
We’re back to feelings. Gotcha.

As we’ve already stated, feelings are subjective. I strongly feel Mormonism is a bunch of BS. I can list the reasons why. That you can’t list the reasons for what you believe, makes me think you don’t have any reasons.
 
🤷 You’re interpretation I would guess, since I’ve had other Mormons tell me differently.
Mine and Gordon B. Hinckley’s. He also understood it in the same way, which I can see and agree with.
“Professors” is a weird word to use anyway. Who has professors? Doesn’t “professor” in this context mean one who professes a belief?
I agree that “professor” is a strange word in that context; but it was probably part of the common vocabulary of the time. Joseph would not have invented that word by himself, if it wasn’t a commonly used word at the time to refer to the kind of people given.
As for “restoration”, you haven’t provided any evidence for something being “lost”, and therefore needs to be “restored”. All you have is a conspiracy theory.
As I said, the Restoration is not ultimately “provable” by logical argument, but only by the witness of the Holy Spirit.
 
Perhaps you think people are offended for the sake of being offended, just as you believe for the sake of believing?

I said there are reasons to be indignant. There is a long list non-Christian, paganized, immoral teachings coming from JS. NOT being offended by this, as a Christian, would be pretty weird. Teaching God wants you to practice adultery (polygamy) and NOT being offended by this idea, is one example.

You seem to think because Mormonism teaches it, we should all feel normal. Just because it has been normalized for you, doesn’t mean that it should be.
I stand by what I said. People will take offence at whatever they want to take offence. To you Mormonism may appear non-Christian and paganized etc., but to me it isn’t. What do you want me to do? take offence where no offence is felt?
 
We’re back to feelings. Gotcha.

As we’ve already stated, feelings are subjective. I strongly feel Mormonism is a bunch of BS. I can list the reasons why. That you can’t list the reasons for what you believe, makes me think you don’t have any reasons.
You call it feelings, I call it the testimony of the Holy Ghost.
 
You call it feelings, I call it the testimony of the Holy Ghost.
The difference is, they also claim testimony from the Holy Ghost but can also provide support and proof of why they believe things. The Great Apostasy shouldn’t be a mystery and should easily be taught with scripture. So try proving it with scripture and you might get better understanding from the Catholic faithful. They can prove it didn’t happen with scripture. The LDS, if it is the restored church of Christ, should be able to prove it’s doctrine from scripture only and then receive the full truth of it through the Holy Ghost.
 
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