1. Being asked “How many wives do you have?”
2. Being asked if we have horns (seriously people, are we living in the 1500’s?)
3. Being asked “Why we worship Joseph Smith?”
4. Being asked “Why do you guys hate the Bible?”
5. Being told it must “suck being a Mormon because there are so many things you can’t do.”
6. Dispelling a myth just to be told “well you’re in the minority, the rest of your church still believes ____” when in fact they don’t.
7. Being lectured on what we believe (when we in fact don’t believe in those things).
8. Being asked if “We’re a Christian Church?”
9. Being asked the follow up question of “Ok but seriously, why don’t you guys believe in Christ?”
Just a different Christ. Remember, God let the Bible get so messed up, they had to fix it with more dogma.
No, it’s pretty much the same Christ. The Book of Mormon is simply another Testament of Christ. We’re not trying to “fix” the Bible.
That’s true. You can look at the Joseph Smith translation. There are really very few errors that needed clarification. A slight shift in wording or the order of the verses. The fact that the Bible survived so many translations as intact as it is is testament to God’s care.
The purpose of the Bible was to keep Christianity as pure as possible during the Apostasy. It couldn’t do that if it testified of a different Jesus. That’s a point that seminaries and Sunday School teachers need to make more clear, or the misunderstandings about our beliefs that this article mocks will get worse, not better.
Lets flip it. If mormons are christians then are christians mormons? No…would you like it if I took your terms and meanings and interpreted them differently and called myself mormon wouldnt you be doing the same thing to me saying Im not mormon? A christian believes in the biblical christ who wa God in the flesh not the spiritual brother of satan. There are so many doctrinal and theological issues about who God and Jesus are in these two faiths. You are free to believe what you believe but a christian us also free to defend against someone or an organization that takes their terms and their beliefs and twists them or changes them. Read and research the bible. Nothing has been corrupted. You will find that christ of the bible is the visible image of almighty God. All over the new testament Jesus is God…not a god as part of your lds godhead but God. The bible is emphatic that there is only one God. Read isaiah….there is only one true God. And God is manifested to us as God the father God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. One God shown to us in different ways. Its like a person serves different role. You might be a dad, you might also be a husband, and you might also be a teacher, yet you are you..one person but functioning as different roles or identies, yet while you are a husband that doesnt mean youre also not a fathet and a teacher….you dont stop being one identity…you are always all three but you might manifest your other roles at different times. This is my attempt to try to demonstrate but fail in all actuality of the amazing God christians believe. And so….its not rude or mean to say mormons arent christian because theyre not based on theur viewbof who christ is thanks to joseph smith changing who God and Jesus are. Were not saying youre no nice devoted people to their faith but you wouldnt call me mormon just like I wont call you christian. Get over it and look at it from our perspective….we dont believe in the same Christ so how can we be jumbled and heaped together in the same pile? Who we believe Christ is is the foundation of Christianity. You cant just say we believe in Christ because a Muslim could make the same claim. And you cant use Christian creeds to prove youre Christian because according to Joseph Smith God told him all the Christian creeds were an abomination to him so…..just accept the facts..mormons are mormons. we are simply defending our faith, our terms, and our Christ when we say mormons arent christians and you do the same thing when you say the rlds or the flds arent part of your church.
We’re not saying that the Bible is corrupted. And we don’t believe that Christ isn’t flesh and blood. However, according to the Bible, Jesus Christ and God the Father are two physically separate beings. Christ Himself calls God the Father “my Father which is in Heaven” (Matthew 7:21). Matthew 10:32-33 are especially interesting because Christ has said that He will confess one way or another before His Father. If Christ, God, and the Holy Ghost are all the same being, why would Christ have to confess to Himself if He already knows?
Another witness in the Bible of the godhead being three separate beings lies within Jesus’s baptism. After he rises from the river, the skies open and a voice is heard saying, “Behold my beloved Sin, in whom I am well pleased.” Then, the Holy Ghost descends like a dose. This is God not only proving that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, but also that the godhead is separate in body, but one in purpose.
As for the creeds being an abomination, Christ gave this reasoning: “they draw near to me with their lips but their hearts are far from me”. He’s referring to the fact that at that time, preachers were more concerned about building up a congregation than actually practicing what they taught. As it says in James 2, “Faith without works is dead.”
When you compare what is said in the Book of Mormon to what is said in the Bible, you’ll see that a lot of it links together. It is by this connection, among other things, that we testify that we believe in the Christ who was first mentioned in the Bible.
I think it is really sad that people of various religions think it’s all right to tear down and criticize someone who is not of their religious beliefs. And especially how many think there’s nothing wrong with criticizing the Mormons. This statement by a Baptist pastor, Rev. Dennis LaFleur, is powerful: “We’ve
wasted so many hours criticizing other denominations and preaching sermons and
writing books against each other, and we’ve lost the real battle. It’s never
been and it never will be a Christian activity to write books and articles or
make speeches against other Christians. It will never, ever be from God. We
seem to get into savage theological controversies that neither side will ever
win. Is it wrong to fight issues? No, it’s not wrong to fight issues. But you don’t
fight the people behind the issues. You don’t fight the person but you fight
the sin he is committing. We can never win if we battle other human beings. It
never comes out good.” The key we can gain from this statement is that everybody can teach and declare their beliefs without criticism against another religion–in other words, learning to live with peace toward each other. Just go about teaching or declaring your church’s beliefs. Were there sermons at the LDS General Conference which were anti-Baptist sermons, anti-Catholic sermons, anti-Methodist sermons, anti-Presbyterian sermons? Not at all. There was not any tearing down of other religions. The way some people act, with their criticism, it’s as if they think they will bring about conversions to their church through criticism of other religions. As Rev. LaFleur said, it does not result in any good. I would not have numerous friends of many different religious backgrounds if I carried on with an attitude of criticism toward them just because they were of a different religion. In contrast, I seek the good in other people’s religions, including the great insights and inspirational messages that have been written or spoken in various religions–including the above quotation from Rev. LaFleur.
Wow…you should really hear what brigham young, john taylor, and even joseph smith said about christianity. These early “prophets called christianity hatched in hell. Didnt joseph smith claim God told him all christian churches and their creeds were an abomination? And your saying christians who are defending their faith are wrong when your own prophet threw the first stone? There are quotes from the 80s and 90s where mormon prophets and apostles hace torn down christianity….it has been said and done by mormon leaders for years. you simply haven’t heard it for a while but that doesnt mean theyre innocent…doesnt the lds faith basically tear down other churches just by the premise that theyre the only true church? How is that not obviously an insult to all christians and yet the lds church can make that claim but were the bad ones when we say we dont agree on major huge doctrinal points when we say youre not christian and dont believe in the biblical jesus?
It is interesting when you ask people of different religions, “Do you believe that the church you belong to is the true church?” Some people respond by saying, “I don’t know,” and others respond by saying, “I don’t think anyone should say their church is the true church.” As my friend some the southern states, David Chisholm (who has passed on now from his earthly life) said to others who responded to him in the ways noted, “If you do not believe that your church is the true church, then why are you a member of it?” It is not offensive to me to have someone of a different religion say that their church is true. I would expect that from them, seeing it the same as David Chisholm said. It is not criticism toward others to believe that the church you belong to is the true church. It is criticism when you say negative things about somebody else’s religion and criticize them because they are not of the same faith as you. Gordon B. Hinckley did not criticize people of other religions, but he did testify regarding the concept of a true church. Again, just because LDS leaders testify of a true church, it is not criticism of other religions. There has been hundreds and thousands of times more criticism directed from people of other religions toward the LDS church over the years compared to what you seem to think is LDS leaders criticizing other religions. In the late 1800s, a minister of a church known as the Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York, Thomas DeWitt Talmage, said, “The Mormons should be killed off the face of the land.” That prompted LDS leader Charles W. Penrose to say, in similar words at this, “How can that man, who claims to be a minister of the gospel of Christ (the gospel of peace), advocate the murder of a group of people?”
The worst was when I was planning my wedding to my now husband and informed one of my best friends at the time and her mother that not only were we getting married but I had joined the church, only to have her mom ask me “Are you going to be wife number one or two?”
More realistically, people would be asking why they even believe in that religious bullshit in the first place and flaunt it out as if it were their new Lamborghini.
Mormonism is as stupid as christianity, Judaism, Islamists, etc
If you thoroughly believe there’s an invisible all watching all powerful man who if we make a mistake will throw us into an oblivion of fire and death and torture for all eternity…but he loves us….right…ill go back to scientific facts and logic any day. Imo religious people are cancerous to the human race, wasting days upon days of pointless praying and church going that could have been put towards something of actual value to society, like working or inventing or at the very least learning something of value instead of fairy tales from thousands of years ago. Its these kinds of people that prolong the human evolution.
Good idea. let me know when you get your religious holocaust organized.
Speeking of scientific “facts”
http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2010/11/the-top-10-most-spectacularly-wrong-widely-held-scientific-theories/
science is great, but you will never be able to accept it as hard fact. Scientific doctrine is constantly changing as we make new discoveries and disprove old beliefs. And in my book it doesn’t conflict with religion unless you want it to.
Or they could follow your great example of adding value to society by going onto a random site talking about Mormons when you don’t believe the same things they do, for the sole purpose of tearing other people and their ideas down. Judging by the attitude of your comment, its likely this is not an isolated instance of your expressing these ideas. People that refuse to show respect for others and their beliefs are the real cancer to our society.
I’m assuming you live in the United States? Ask yourself if you or this country would even be here were it not for religion. Also, you had mentioned that religion is “cancerous” but fail to realize the ideals and values religions teach. “Love one another…., do unto others…forgive thy brethren…”. Are these the “cancerous values” of which you spoke? Perhaps you should reconsider.
We don’t believe in an invisible man. We believe in a living God, who is our Father, and His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ. They are as real and alive as you and I are. Just because we don’t know where they are doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. By that logic, I would have to say that you don’t exist, since I don’t know where you are. But you speak, and thus I know you exist.
Also, accepting science discovery as fact takes as much faith as it does for religion. Have you ever actually seen your brain? No, but you have faith in scientific professionals that it is there. You weren’t there to see the evolution of all creations, and yet you trust the evidence that has been provided to you as proof that all things evolve.
The thing is that these “fairytales” from years ago are a part of history. Saying that they’re not real is like saying there’s no such thing as evolution. But, like evolution, we have proof in the things around us today. You just have to go digging for them.