Laika: Also, doesn’t it bother you that the Mormon website whitewashes Joseph’s history by making out he was a faithful and devoted husband of only one wife?
...you didn't really answer my question...whether or not it bothers you that the Mormon website's biography implies he only had one.
Hi, Laika. Didn’t mean to avoid the question. Actually, I must have missed that implication. If an LDS author or website would make such, I would be critical, but I don’t think it would bother me. We certainly don’t deny the doctrine, and it was a tough one to obey, but we have so many writers and variances of interests that it’s tough to ensure total consistency. If you can cut and paste the part you’re talking about, it will be easier for me to address the point.
Oculos Aperire: Everyone of those Mormons in that vid look like they all have beautiful homes and tons of money... How do they all get so rich??
I wish I knew, OA. I really wish I knew.
Prologos: ...doctrines just as nuts as WT BtS.
I don’t doubt you see it that way. Every doctrine in every religion seems nuts to others.
Return of Parakeet: It’s not helpful or correct to paint all ex-dub atheists with the same brush, as much as you would like to squirrel them all into your convenient little categories. People are just a bit more complicated than that.
Of course they are, but most of our disagreements on this forum stem from the fact that you don’t carefully read what I’m saying. I said: “Some who fall away from the JWs become atheists....”
An excellent book to read about the history of the LDS and the horrifying FLDS sects it spawned is “Under the Banner of Heaven” by Jon Krakauer....
Yeah...take a look at Doing Violence to Journalistic Integrity, a review of Krakauer’s book. A much better book is Prophet’s Prey, by Sam Brower, with a preface by Jon Krakauer. It's the result of seven years of research and is a much better book.
DeWandelaar: Also... like all cults: let them prove they are the persons assigned by God...unlike Jesus and Moses they have no miracles to back them up....
We don’t? Tell me, have you ever even cracked a book (other than an anti-Mormon book) that was written about the LDS church? We don’t have any miracles except for the healing of the sick, the appearance of angels, the casting out of devils, the raising of the dead, deliverance from our enemies, prophecies, speaking in tongues (not the gibberish of today’s Pentecostal sects), visions and, well, other than those, I’m stumped. As for cults, Pliny the elder referred to Christianity as “that wretched cult,” so even there we’re not too different.
Of course, neither Jews nor Christians can “prove” their miracles, though they were witnessed by the people of the times of Moses and Jesus. In like manner, we LDS can’t prove our miracles, either. But we have plenty of witnesses who testified of them, and still testify of them. And there’s not a single miracle in the ancient church that hasn’t also been done in this dispensation in the modern church.
MrFreeze: I know of a couple Mormons that were excommunicated and their Mormon family stopped speaking to them.
Problemaddict: ...while the shunning program Mormons engage in is not as rigid, or as communal, it does exist.
The difference is, the church doesn’t practice shunning, neither does it endorse or recommend it. Ritualistic shunning is wrong, whoever does it, and it goes counter to the gospel of Christ. It’s hard to show love to someone you’re emotionally stoning, isn’t it? Jesus didn’t practice it, and the ancient church didn’t practice it. It actually was popular in the various Baptist sects of the 1800s through probably the early 1960s. They’ve pretty much abandoned it now and even joke about it. The Jehovah's Witnesses are the only folks I know who still do it as official doctrine.
LisaRose: Your attempts to say that Mormons are different and better than the JWs is hilarious. Same meat, different gravy.
I never said we were “better,” but now that you mention it, our meat is organic and freshly ground, and the gravy is freshly made, not canned.
Nugget: ... examine your own belief system with an open mind before trying to win converts here.
Win converts? Moi? Look, I didn’t start this topic. For most of my time on this crazy board, I kept my religion secret. Then people started comparing it to the Jehovah's Witnesses, and I came out of the proverbial closet. And, btw, what makes you think I haven’t examined my own belief system? I became a convert to the church in 1971 when I was 18 years old, and I’ve never regretted it. Now I have people who haven’t read squat about “Mormonism” (except for some incendiary websites on the Internet). So you better watch it, or else I’ll take my converts and make my own forum!
I would never think of becoming a Mormon and certainly have no intention of being controlled by another group of men on a power trip they validate with their own brand of made up scripture.
Ah, well, our loss. I reckon it’s a matter of whose “made up” scriptures are better than other made up scriptures.
Problemaddict: Where you guys I think jump them in wackiness, is the idea that you can become a divine being (God), over your own universe at the higher echelons of heaven. As God is man can become.....I believe is the GBHS phrase of note.
This is actually one of the toughest issues people have with the LDS church, but it shouldn’t be in my view. The Eastern Orthodox have believed in a large part of the doctrine, which is called theosis or deification. In essence, it states that we, as the children of God, who are made in his image, after his likeness, male and female, can become like him. John teaches that because of the atonement of Christ, we all can be made perfect, inheriting all that the Father has. Jesus sits on the right hand of the Father, and those who gain eternal life, as co-inheritors, sit down with him.
But then what? We just sit around and glow with the whiteness of the sun? Forever? And what of those resurrected to lower glories? Paul stated there are varying degrees of glory in the resurrection. He states that there are many different types of flesh on Earth, and that there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. There is one glory of the sun, another of the moon and another of stars, and each one varies in glory. Then he states: “...so also is the resurrection of the dead.”
I don’t have room or time to go further, but one of the main doctrinal differences we have with the Jehovah's Witnesses is that we believe that the earth will become a glorious sphere like the sun, not just a garden. The garden will happen during the Millennium, but after that, Earth will undergo its own “resurrection” to a much higher glory. And it will be the home of those who gain eternal life. Whether people will get their own planet or universe is a speculative matter and no one knows what types of dominions we will oversee and what, exactly, we’ll do. But we will have an eternal progression in which that we will become one with God.
For more, check out The Doctrine of Theosis, or Becoming a God.
