No, I concede that in the JW sense of the word they don't shun, but I've seen several of thier more notorious excommunicated apostates avoided, but not by family.
Thank you Yeru... as always, you're a class act.
Should I Convert to Become a MORMON??
by Latte 55 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Double Edge
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mizpah
Years ago, I talked with an X Mormon who became a JWs. She told me how her family would have nothing to do with her. She used the example of how she saw some of her former members of the church approach her as she was walking on the sidewalk. They purposely crossed over to the other side to avoid any contact. This sounds like "shunning" to me.
Perhaps, the official policy of the church is different. But I'm sure other X Mormons have experience similar reactions.
It is interesting, though, that Mormons use the same expression (Disfellowship) to describe a person who has left their organization. Doesn't the word denote some sort of breaking from the fellowship of believers?
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refiners fire
Experiences within Mormonism do seem to vary. I, personally, was highly pressurized into taking the step of Mormon baptism very soon after they first met me. Others experience it differently. So its possible that one person can say one thing and another relate a different experience.
Being an "Elder" in the mormon church is no big deal, neither is being in the "Aaronic priesthood" , Far as I understand it every 12 year old is in the "Aaronic" priesthood. The MELCHIZADEK priesthood is a different matter. Thats the real status symbol for rank and file in the church. Being a "bishop" means you are a "presiding overseer".
Mormons have many interesting beliefs.-- Baptism for the dead. Multiple levels of heaven wherein all will be saved but only SOME will reign as gods. A preexistant heavenly existance where you agreed to come to earth in a body. And Adam as "Michael the Archangel". Mormons believe that there was a disagreement in heaven and the council decided that "Michael" would come to earth as Adam,adam would sin and then we could all experience the experience of Sin and Redemption,Apparently, in Mormon lore, Adam was the first man to recieve the Melchizadek priesthood and he passed it on to his righteous posterity while he lived in Missouri USA.That was after he got kicked out of Eden.
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Pistoff
You have an early good impression of the mormons, just like many have good impressions of the witnesses.
KGB said:
becoming anything is better than being addicted to this discussion board. If I were you I would go find a better place to discuss than this one.
I hope you are kidding.
The book of mormon is 1/16 direct copy of the KJ; an old friend was related to Pratt and did an in depth paper on them. They are just as whacked as the witnesses.
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Francois
Not only that, but they have to wear funny underwear, at all times.
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Double Edge
The book of mormon is 1/16 direct copy of the KJ; an old friend was related to Pratt and did an in depth paper on them. They are just as whacked as the witnesses.
Of course that argument could be made by a Muslim about Jews and Christians. The New Testament quotes the Hebrew Bible (O.T.)... Christians are just as whacked as the Jews.
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Yerusalyim
Double Edge,
That's just it, the New Testament QUOTES the Old Testament. The Book of Mormon presents itself as a new and independent work. It's not quoting from the KJV bible it's PLAGERIZING it...BIg Difference.
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Mr. Kim
Good points on all posts. I look at it this way: Why go from one problem (JW) to another new and fresh problem? All of it is still a PROBLEM! Do we as people need any more problems in our lives?---- Gluttons for punishment?
However, a chosen path is exercising free will. The decision is yours---good luck!
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La Capra
As a public high school teacher, I see lots of different religious backgrounds in action "out and about in the world." For the most part Mormon teenagers are well cared for, have a sense of purpose,d uty, community service and a work ethic. I feel bad for them that they have to come to school at 6:30 A.M. for seminary everyday (the school district allows them to use a classroom). However, like with the JWs there are some Mormon kids for whom this religion will be bondage-the kids that are clearly homosexual, and those that just don't buy it and don't know a way. I had a very blunt conversation with a classmate of mine in law school who is an active, devout Mormon, whose husband bailed on her because he finally was tired of not being able to be gay. It was about shunning and excommunication. She gave me the same line that they don't shun former members. It is sort of like the JW line-and then I asked her if she knew of families that shunned their children who had left the faith, and she had to admit that she did, even though it was not the official church policy. When pressed, she admitted it was generally because they were afraid of the fallout from their fellow congregants that motivated it. She admitted that she was impressed that I immediately saw through the veil of official policy to the true practice of most Mormons. I told her that I encourage my Mormon students that are struggling with wanting to be free of their parents' religion, to try to be patient, postpone their missions and try to get as far in their education as possible before formally abandoning their religion. She thought that for the child, it was probably the best way to handle things. They are a bit luckier, Mormons don't deny their children a good education. Shoshana
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Myxomatosis
Hello,
Errr.... If you wish to join another elitist 'club' I s'pose, but not if you're actually searching for G-d.
They're preeeetty whacked. My close friend got her boyfriend to tell her some of the mormon beliefs, and one of them was that you couldn't go swimming while on a mission in the lake, because the devil is there and he will pull you under. That's what he said! I don't know if that's an 'official' belief. Anyways, they're a cult, they are sure they are the one true religion, as evidenced not less than a month ago a very devout mormon who wrote this on a MB, and I saved it.
"Mormons believe that their church is ''the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth' (D&C 1:30), the only organization authorized by the Almight to preach his gospel and administer to ordinances of salvation, the only Church which has the power to save'' (Mormon Doctrine , 1977 ed., p. 136)."
Mormon says:
Yes, this is true. Jesus only set up one church and said let there be no divisions in it and told them to speak the same thing in all the churches. There can therefore be only one true church and it must be consistant teaching the same thing in all the churches.
I believe that is the Mormon Church. You may believe it is another church. Allowing all churchs to be that church is very generous on the part of man, but it is not God's way and all but one church are false churches with out the power to save. That is just the fact of it Whether you wish to belive it our not.
"No church has the power to save. We can only be saved by coming to the Lord Jesus Christ according to John 14:6 and Acts 4:12. The Bible doesn't tell us that we can be saved through a church of any kind"
Mormon says:
"I would have to go through and read the whole Bible looking for scriptures to this effect and by then this discussion would be forgotten. I can say that the Bible says one must have authority to perform saving ordinances and that authority is found in the true church. I can also say that the true gospel is administered through the true church so in order to have the true doctrine you must get it from the true church. The church is the kingdom of God on earth and either you are in it our you are not."
In other words, the mormon church, exactly as the watchtower, is the one true church, and on top of believing in Christ, you must belong to it, for it is the kingdom of G-d on earth. The mormon church is the one with the "authority to perform saving ordinances" (HUUHHHHH?????) and that this is found in "the true church" (LDS) sooo...I don't know... a wee similar to the JW's then?
On top of this, you may be interested to know that even though they don't call it 'old light' if you are to bring up for example the teachings of BRIGHAM YOUNG, they would tell you that that is a lie, not what they believe. In other words it is 'old light' In fact, I was watching dateline or somesuch the other day where an ex-Mormon was in jail for the murder of his sister in law and her baby, because Gawd had told him that they were in the way of their preaching work. You know what? The reason he was ex-communicated was because of his interest in the works of BRIGHAM YOUNG, had read that he COULD BE LIKE G-D, had read that G-d WAS FIRST A MAN LIKE ADAM, on and on, and he was labeled an apostate and df'd for his belief in the Mormons OWN TEACHINGS. It would be like someone in the JW saying that Christ arrived in 1874 today, and to 'beware of organization for it is wholly unnecessary'. The WT of today would not take well to that. Anyways, if you don't know much of their history, here's a bit of interesting things about the mormons that they will not inform you of most likely. Do you know anything of Joseph Smith, the 'prophet'?
It is not that the books he wrote were dropped from heaven, in a nutshell, and this is directly from their own mouths, though I can't find my book with the quotes, Moroni the angel of light visited him and over a four year period every year he would go back to where there were the stone tablets on a mountain or something. He had to prove himself I believe, on the fourth year, he was able to take the tablets, and by the power of Gawd tranlsate them. That's how you got the BOM, which has had over 3,000 edits since it's first edition in 1830.
Now, the Book of Abraham is seriously one of the funniest things I've read about.
here you are from Josh McDowells 'UTC':
Here's something fun about the 'Book of Abraham'
" Most interesting is the recently exposed fraud of the so-called book of Abraham, part of the Mormon scripture known as 'The Pearl of Great Price.' This was assertedly translated from an ancient Egyptian papyrus found in the mummy wrappings of certain mummies which had been acquired by a certain Michael H. Chandler.
In 1835 Joseph Smith became very much interested in these papyrus leaves, which he first saw in Kirtland, Ohio, on July 3, and arranged for the purchase of both mummies and manuscripts. Believing he had divinely received the gift of interpreting ancient Egyptian, he was delighted to find that one of the rolls contained the writings of Abraham himself, whose signature he had personally inscribed in the Egyptian language.
In 1842, Smith published his translation under the title, " The Book of Abraham" in Times and Seasons. He even included three drawings of the pictures or vignettes appearing in the manuscript, and interpreted the meaning of these illustrations: Abraham sitting upon the throne of Pharaoh, the serpent with walking legs who tempted Eve in Eden.
For many years, the collection of papyri was lost, but somehow they (or else a duplicate set of them from ancient times) were presented to the Mormon Church by the Metropolitan Art Museum of New York City on November 27, 1967. This made the translation skill of Joseph Smith susceptible to objective verification.
The unhappy result was that earlier negative verdicts of scholars like Theodule Devaria of the Louvre, and Samul A.B. Mercer of Western Theological Seminary, and James H. Breasted of the Univercity of Chicago, and W.F. Flinders Petrie of London University( who had all been shown Smith's facsimiles) were clearly upheld by a multitude of present-day Egyptologists.
Their finding was that not a SINGLE WORD of Joseph Smith's alleged translation bore ANY resemblance to the contents of this document. It turned out to be a late, eve Ptolemaic, copy in hieratic script of the Sensen Papyrus, which belongs to the same genre as the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
As John A. Wilson, professor of Egyptology at the University of Chicago, described it in a published letter written on March 16, 1966, it contains vignettes familiar from the Book of the Dead. The first illustration shows the god of embalming named Anubis preparing the body of the deceased for burial, with the sould hovering over his head in the form of a bird, and the canopic jars containing the dead man's inwards set beneath his bier.
The third picture shows the deceased led into the presence of Osiris, the infernal deity who judged the sould of the dead. (This is what Smith had identified (by the Power of God) as Abraham sitting on Pharoahs throne!) Figure 2 was a round disc made of cloth and jesso and customarilly placed as a pillow under the head of a corpse in the Late Egyptian period.
The accompanying text, as can be ascertained from other copies of this not uncommon document, deals with the magical spells intended to open the mouth of the deceased and to prepare him for his audience before Osiris in the judgement hall of the dead (as set forth in detail in chap. 125 of the Book of the Dead, the Egyptian title of which is P-r m h-r-w, or 'The Going Forth by Day"). Needless to say, the completely mistaken concept of Joseph Smith as to his competence in ancient Egyptian is now clearly demonstrated beyond debate. "
"Also, The Pearl of Great Price contains the Book of Moses, which is roughly equivalent to the first six chapters of Genesis, and The Book of Abraham, a translation of an Egyptian Papyrus THAT LATER PROVED TO BE FRAUDULENT,,,(see above) so Moroni was being deceitful??? That's not a quality I would attribute to either God or on of His Angels...`
"The Book of Mormon and Archaeology:
Mormon scholars can be frustrated and embarrased understandably when they realize that after all the years of work by Mormon and other archaeologists:
1. NO Book of Mormon cities have been located
2. NO Book of Mormon names have been found in the New World inscriptions
3. NO genuine inscriptions have been found in Hebrew in America
4. NO genuine inscriptions have been found in America in Egyptian or anything similar to Egyptian, which could correspond to Joseph Smith's "reformed Egyptian"
5. NO ancient copies of Book of Mormon scriptures have been found.
6. No ancient inscriptions of any kind in America which indicate that the ancient inhabitants had Hebrew or Christian beliefs have been found.
7. No mention of 'Book of Mormon' persons, nations, or places have been found.
8. NO artifact of any kind which demonstrates the Book of Mormon is true has been found.
9. Rather than finding supportive evidence, Mormon scholars have been forced to retreat from traditional interpretations of Book of Mormon statements (Hal Hougey, Archaeology and the Book of Mormon, p.12)