Mormons
not Christian,
just Mormon
Re: Opinion Nov. 27, 2011 - "Isn't it about honesty and leadership?"
What it means to be a "Christian" is for an individual to believe God and in particular God the Son without adding to or deleting what God has said, what He has revealed in His word, the Bible. To intentionally add to or delete from the Bible is to remove oneself from the fellowship of the Christian community. God needs no help from man to save people from their sins outside of the completed work of what his Son Jesus did on the cross- as described in the Bible. Mormon doctrine recognizes a person referred to as Jesus Christ and who they call the Son of God but they do not admit to his sharing the deity of God as indeed the Jesus of the Bible does. Thus, the Mormon is not a Christian at all, only a Mormon. Mormons want to be perceived as being "Christian" so as to be accepted by the general public and obviously your article, "Isn't it about honesty and leadership" indicates they have fooled the author as well.
A qualified, experienced mature Mormon should be able to be President of the U.S. Likewise an atheist. Being President isn't about religion, it's about governing. And yet, a day is coming soon when the only government will be God and only those who believe him now will share his eternity then. Does that include you?
David Henry
MESA
Rich posted at 7:39 pm on Thu, Dec 8, 2011.
Actually, I think that if there is an afterlife, some little Jewish guy is embarrassed as the devil over what is done in his name.
Dale Whiting posted at 8:05 am on Fri, Dec 9, 2011.
David,
I was not surprised to learn that a professor of religion, quite a conscientious man, a man given to intense study and contemplation in his position with Trinity College, Cambridge University in England, came to the conclusion that the Nicean Creed was a compromise. Rich knows the background to that controversy.
I have heard Christians dismiss the problematic references in the New Testament which troubled this man. But after the Council at Nicea, the controversy ended. None of those at that council claimed to be anything other than men arguing over what scripture meant. The winners prevailed but the truth lost!
This man lost faith in his faith, but did not loose faith in God, nor in God's Son, Jesus Christ, nor in the Holy Ghost. Instead, he recorded these private thoughts in his diary and keep it quiet, this to be able to keep his chair at Trinity College, that in order to do other work on the side lines and after hours on other controversial topics.
His name? Well he was the Father of modern day physics and mathematics. Isaac Newton. I guess he does not fit your definition of being a Christian either! There is a more excellent way. And in the sixteenth century, Newton found it!
bookbinder posted at 10:00 am on Fri, Dec 9, 2011.
How is it some council of unknowns has the authority to determine who is a Christian and who isn’t? How is it that they are the only ones authorized to determine what the Bible says or means? It seems that even theologians and biblical scholars don’t seem to agree on what it says or means some of the time.
Mormons are already accepted by the general public other than some that persist in believing the misrepresentations that this article typifies.
To say that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints does not recognize the deity of Jesus Christ is a misrepresentation of fact. LDS believe that Jesus created the earth. They believe that all salvation stems from the events surrounding his life and death as taught in the Bible. Mr. H admits that Mormons believe Jesus is the Son of God. Wouldn’t a son share the deity of his Father if his Father is God? Mr. H is contradicting himself.
What LDS theology doesn’t recognize is the non-biblical doctrine of the trinity formed in councils of old that most modern theologians promote in their teachings. Mormons believe that man is created in the image of God as it states in the book of Genesis and in other places throughout the Bible.
Because of its incomprehensible nature, the non-biblical doctrine of the trinity allows man to fashion God however he wishes in order to suit his own preaching as it did for the councils that formed it. So I guess they can even say who is Christian and who isn't as they feel the need?
Accuracy posted at 11:11 am on Fri, Dec 9, 2011.
English physicist Isaac Newton was the greatest English mathematician of his generation (1643-1727). Newton saw God as the masterful creator and that the solar system could not have been created without God. Newton held close to the Orthodox Catholic Church (commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church) and the views of Trinity. But this year, it was British physicist Stephen Hawking, a world-renowned scientist, who in his latest book, "The Grand Design," challenged Isaac Newton's theory that the solar system could not have been created without God.
Jesus believed in heaven, and He encouraged His disciples to look forward to their eternal home. In (John 14:2): "In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also."
Rich posted at 12:51 pm on Fri, Dec 9, 2011.
Hawking simply begs the question. If the universe is as we observe a small portion of it, in it's entirety, then the matter and forces we observe can create a solar system. The assumptions are that there is a 'natural' something that remains a constant and that what we observe, which we can only know as an idea in our mind, is an accurate depiction of reality. If these things are true then a possibility, maybe even an outside probability, exists that God, defined as 'supernatural', had no hand in creating the solar system. Of course if 'God' is a natural phenomenon even that falls apart.
A scientist uses 'probability" like non-scientists use 'God.' Both are catch-all terms for what we don't understand, and/or have yet to discover. And in both cases, they are greater than what we do know. Mr. Hawking advances what we do know, but in the words of Harry Callahan: "Man's got to know his limitations." To put it in another way, we have a law of gravity. Who passed it?
A 'Christian' is what? A follower of Yeshua Ben Joseph? Hardly, he was a pacifist, and most 'Christians' are demonstrably not. In fact, unless you quote hearsay, recorded a couple centuries after his death, you really haven't a clue as to what he said or believed. Scripture? Whose? Marcion's (the original actually)? Anselm's? Or maybe Nag Hammedi? If 'Christian' means following the man in myth and legend called 'Jesus Christ' the only rational conclusion is Neitzsche's that the last of those died on the cross. That being the case, and with the freedom to quote fragments out of context from a myriad of documents, up to and including more modern 'revelations' like the Book of Mormon, the term 'Christian' has lost all meaning and context, except to satisfy an obscure desire to be 'right' and call other people 'wrong' which while personally satisfying, is hardly constructive.
abimopectore posted at 3:08 pm on Fri, Dec 9, 2011.
"If the universe is as we observe a small portion of it, in it's entirety, then the matter and forces we observe can create a solar system."
I believe that is what physics is trying to "explain/answer," but has yet been able to do so. Yet if an answer was ever given and proven satisfactorily, it wouldn't necessarily preclude the "possibility" of something that existed outside our physical reality. Given that we live in the "physical" world, it would be probably difficult to ascertain and explain how something (i.e., meaning God in this case) that didn't belong to the "natural" order interacted in the "natural/physical" world, since this is a perspective that would by its very "reality" circumscribe our ability to analyze it.
"A scientist uses 'probability" like non-scientists use 'God.' Both are catch-all terms for what we don't understand, and/or have yet to discover. And in both cases, they are greater than what we do know."
Probability is used to capture the possibility of something and often like you say an at best attempt to understand something that is evading our current ability to understand some phenomenon/reality that we really don't have a grasp on.
"In fact, unless you quote hearsay, recorded a couple centuries after his death, you really haven't a clue as to what he said or believed. Scripture? Whose? Marcion's (the original actually)? Anselm's? Or maybe Nag Hammedi? If 'Christian' means following the man in myth and legend called 'Jesus Christ' the only rational conclusion is Neitzsche's that the last of those died on the cross."
We could say that about lots of history since we have received much of it through the testimony of other people, usually the conquering civilizations. There are poor, good, and better analyses of the past. You can choose which ones to believe more than others depending on what you want to base your fact-finding on. An intelligent analysis will take what you're saying into consideration and try to find balance and appreciation for what was said, how it was said, who said it, etc...
"more modern 'revelations' like the Book of Mormon, the term 'Christian' has lost all meaning and context, except to satisfy an obscure desire to be 'right' and call other people 'wrong' which while personally satisfying, is hardly constructive."
This is the problem with modern analysis/revelation that writes off whole parts of previous testimony or history in general. You can't just invent these things while being thousands of years away from the initial events. Interpreting initial events without the testimony that has occurred through time is truly intellectually disingenuous. A steady but meticulous analysis of history would put to rest many of the misconceptions that prevail today; but if it were easy, everybody would be doing it.
Dale Whiting posted at 6:59 am on Sat, Dec 10, 2011.
David,
Not one of the above commenters agree with your conclusion. That's not to say that they agree with eachother, either. But none support you. However if there is anything near a concensous, it's that Mormons are as Christian if not more so that are you. But were we all of sinned, Rich's point that today's Christians, Mormons included, displaying war like tendencies, cannot claim to be followers the Son of Man has much merit. Christ would have upset the money changer's tables in the Pentagon before allowing us to invade Babylon and would not hear of talk about bombing Persia!
Rich posted at 12:26 pm on Sat, Dec 10, 2011.
Dale,
Love the money changer analogy, it actually makes more sense than my pacifist statement. Until about the 15th century Usury was a major sin in Christianity, which is why, as late a Shakespeare, it was confined in Europe to Jews and Moslems. The Merchant of Venice, in fact, uses it as a central theme. I've always wondered, if you cut a banker, does he bleed?
Dale Whiting posted at 2:12 pm on Sat, Dec 10, 2011.
Rich,
The only two times Jesus lost his cool were in the temple dealing with money changers. Yet his theme was clearly one of peace, not war. War will come again and again, but true disciples of Christ must not get caught up in it. I find it odd that Christ could honor His Father by loosing His cool with those who made their living profiting from worshiping Him, and yet Christians get so set on the notion that Christ was in fact honoring Himself. We've heard the phrase "like Father, like Son" but the notion that there is no distinguishing the two seems non-sensical. It took a bunch of money changers [those who made their livelihoods off of religion] at Nicea to come up with that notion.
Rich posted at 7:07 pm on Sat, Dec 10, 2011.
Dale,
You're missing the entire world before Nicea. Constantine basically adopted a mystery religion based on a resurrected man to unite his army, Based on the fact that they were adherents of the Mithraic Mysteries, Cult of Isis and the Eleusinian Mysteries (though the resurrection was female), and the Dionysian Mysteries where the blood of Dionysus is wine and communion with the God is achieved by drinking it, as well as the Christian Mysteries. After he had won, he was faced with several different traditions and ideas. Those that came from what was basically the heirs of St. Paul and Simon Magus, roving preachers with what might be called a Chautauqua show. But mostly the Eastern Empire where Christianity had become the heirs of Hellenistic philosophy. It had dueling scriptures, beginning with Marcion, the Bishop of Sinope about 140 CE, and the take of numerous writers, translators etc, through a contemporary of his, Arius of Alexandria. He needed to unify what lay in pieces and had developed for almost four centuries.
He had problems. his power lay in Mysteries, he could not abandon the faith of his legions in the resurrected man(Mithras, Osiris), the Great Mother(Asarte, Isis. Demeter) and the blood of Dionysis. Nor could he turn away from the roving preachers as they held sway in the hinterlands that bordered the empire. And especially he had to include the majority of the 'Christians' at the time, who accepted a Hellenistic scholasticism. Hence, Nicea. Of those disparate pieces, some of the Hellenistic and Chautauqua elements, mostly those of Gnostic origin accepted usuary, the rest did not.
Both the 'democratic' creed of Nicea, and those who were in the minority have affected history. The Goths were Arians, and the 'Inquisition' was first formed in opposition to Gnostic Abigenses and Cathari. Usury belongs with the heretics. But then, having read the Book of Mormon, along with a great many commentaries, I can't make out the Mormons to be in the 'Christian' camp, but rather in the 'Heretical' camp. As a Gnostic, it sort of makes them my allies, though I decline the Arabic maxim that the enemy of my enemy is a friend. As I said before, Nicea defines 'Christian,' not right and wrong, truth or falsity, just 'Christianity'.
samkat posted at 9:13 pm on Sat, Dec 10, 2011.
Mormons are free to practice their religion in their restricted temples but I object to them trying to baptise me by proxy after my death. Since I have no desire to belong to the LDS church during my lifetime, I certainly am not going to make any changes in my afterlife if there is one.
Rich posted at 10:33 pm on Sat, Dec 10, 2011.
samkat,
I seriously doubt that after the fact of your demise you'll actually care.
sockratties posted at 7:25 am on Mon, Dec 12, 2011.
There are few groups more divisive and antagonistic than those who declare themselves to be in judgment of others. It sounds so unlike what Christ might say. But of course, each of you are free to interpret what He allegedly said. Choosing to disparage the beliefs of others and to declare one’s own understanding of scripture, history and the Bible superior is the epitome of hubris. Isn’t that one of the 7 deadly sins?
GoldDot posted at 6:04 am on Tue, Dec 20, 2011.
Mormons ARE Christians...just in case you didn't know...
MrNirom posted at 11:28 am on Sat, Dec 24, 2011.
@samkat I think there is a misconception here on the doctrine of Baptism for the Dead. The key word here is "for". Baptism for the Dead.. not Baptism of the Dead.
In life.. when one is baptized.. they normally choose it. All except those who baptize babies.. they have no choice. Baptism by proxy for the dead is offering those who have died, an opportunity to accept the baptism if they so choose to. Since you believe that you could NEVER change your mind.. neither in this life nor the next.. one must still ask the question.. what if you do?
Once you are dead.. if you were to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ.. and baptism being one of the requirements.. you could not be baptized. Therefore.. a way must be provided for one who is dead.. to either accept or reject a baptism that was done for them. Just because a person is baptized by proxy does not mean that the ordinance done is forced upon them. They must choose to accept it.. or it has no meaning. Just as if I currently baptized someone else in your name.. does that mean you are forced to accept the baptism I preformed? Certainly not! And so it is with those who it is being done for who have crossed to the other side. In the end.. they must chose.. yes they accept it.. or no.. no thank you. The choice is always theirs.