Ask the member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints AKA Interrogate the Mormon — Page 5

walkingdork said:

doubleofive said:

One of my big things with Mormonism is that a lot of the events of the Old and New Testament and most of the places have other historical sources and archaeological evidence to support that they existed at one time. You literally can't throw a rock in the Middle East without breaking a clay pot with some historical document or hit an ancient city in the sands.

But the Book of Mormon seems to be the only record of an entire Jewish civilization that lived in America for thousands(?) of years. How do the leadership explain that no one has ever found their currency, old city walls, etc.?

Speaking of the leadership, one of my other big things is that I find it really hard to believe that Jesus would let the entire salvation of the world fall apart so soon after the Resurrection and would let it continue that way for 1800 years, until He remembered that He made this newer testament and needed to establish a succession of prophets He never mentioned needing. To me, letting the church wander about for 1800 years when they couldn't rebel against things they were never told sounds like one of those moves Tyr was talking about.

I agree. It's hard to believe that anything happened in America when some of the other civilizations they come across, like the Hittites, where around throughout the Bronze Age and are well documented. I know darth_ender mentioned that some groups of people migrated, but the migration from Asia to the Americas took tens of thousands of years, which is longer than some Christians think the earth is.

My only idea is that maybe Noah taught all the animals to row during the flood, but even then it's an impossible trek. Unicorns probably died off because they had to get out and push. :)

I believe the Jewish dietary laws were more for the Israelites of the time. Uncooked pork can have all kinds of bad things in them, and the locals were using them for sacrifices and stuff. Instead of giving the Israelites a cook book, God said to just avoid it completely.

Yeah, you can't eat pigs and snakes all willy nilly.

I know you're teasing and pointing out perceived foibles, but if you do indeed want to poke fun, the religion thread is probably a better place to do it.  As I said, I don't have the answer but rather a few suggested possibilities.  There are entire civilizations that we don't learn about for years and years in spite of their being right under our nose (I've read this before and will try to find my source, but I have to start wrapping up for today though I'm not done answering everyone).  Sometimes we draw absolute conclusions based on minimal archaeological evidence.  Occam's razor suggests we utilize the simplest answer, but it has been demonstrated time and time again that, while there is wisdom in this, the truth is often far more complicated than we presently understand.

doubleofive said:

 

Tyrphanax said:

It just seems odd to me for someone who is intelligent and critical to stop their line of critical questioning at, "Well, because that's what the book says." How would, say, a by-the-book Christian scientist reconcile their latent desire to know things about the Earth with the proven fact that the Earth is much older then the Bible says? And why would they even want or try to reconcile the two opposite lines of thought when one is obviously wrong? Why would someone deny the proven deliciousness of pork products when, in general, they have caused no spiritual harm to anyone over the centuries just because a book says so for really no reason? Doesn't God have better things to do than worry about who ate pork when he supposedly put it here in the first place? Isn't it kind of an un-God-like dick move (yes, I realize he is famous for dick moves) to do that?

I don't have a problem with an old earth. A literal reading of Genesis causes all sorts of problems. Days could be eons, so on and so forth.

I believe the Jewish dietary laws were more for the Israelites of the time. Uncooked pork can have all kinds of bad things in them, and the locals were using them for sacrifices and stuff. Instead of giving the Israelites a cook book, God said to just avoid it completely.

One of my big things with Mormonism is that a lot of the events of the Old and New Testament and most of the places have other historical sources and archaeological evidence to support that they existed at one time. You literally can't throw a rock in the Middle East without breaking a clay pot with some historical document or hit an ancient city in the sands.

But the Book of Mormon seems to be the only record of an entire Jewish civilization that lived in America for thousands(?) of years. How do the leadership explain that no one has ever found their currency, old city walls, etc.?

Speaking of the leadership, one of my other big things is that I find it really hard to believe that Jesus would let the entire salvation of the world fall apart so soon after the Resurrection and would let it continue that way for 1800 years, until He remembered that He made this newer testament and needed to establish a succession of prophets He never mentioned needing. To me, letting the church wander about for 1800 years when they couldn't rebel against things they were never told sounds like one of those moves Tyr was talking about.

 

I realized I didn't answer your question completely.  Unlike most other Christians, we don't believe that God judges all men based on their acceptance of Christ in this life alone.  How many people in the world today know nothing more about Jesus than, "Oh, that guy that the Westerners think is really important"?  We believe that everyone, whether they've heard the name of Christ in this life or not, will have an opportunity to accept him, even those during that big gap without the truth.

timdiggerm said:

Earlier in the thread you said that Christians and Mormons don't really believe very different things. This struck me as odd, as I just read a blog post by Al Mohler, a very conservative Baptist with whom I disagree about a lot (particularly Genesis, age of Earth, etc), in which he went on and on about how Mormons and Christians believe very different things. I'm not particularly interested in his point ("Is it okay to vote for Mitt Romney?!?!?!"), but I was hoping you could respond to his points about the differences, some of which I've quoted below.

Mormonism starts with an understanding of God that rejects both monotheism and the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. The Mormon concept of God includes many gods, not one. Furthermore, Mormonism teaches that we are now what God once was and are becoming what He now is. The Mormon doctrine of sin is not that of biblical Christianity, nor is its teaching concerning salvation. Rather than teaching that the death of Christ is alone sufficient for the forgiveness of sins, Mormonism presents a scheme of salvation that amounts to the progressive deification of the believer. According to Mormonism, sinners are not justified by faith alone, but also by works of righteousness and obedience. Mormonism’s teachings concerning Jesus Christ start with a radically different understanding of the Virgin Birth and proceed to a fundamentally different understanding of Christ’s work of salvation.

So, uh, thoughts?

Accidently almost skipped this one.  I would have stopped already, but I don't want to overlook this.  Unfortunately, this is a topic of lengthy discussion.  Whom do Mormons worship?  God the Father.  One God.  Do you worship the Son also?  Yes, we do.  How can you explain this discrepancy?  Well, we worship the Father in the name of the Son.  That is one way.  We worship the Son as our Savior, but see the Father as even higher.  That is another perspective.  But my favorite answer is that we see the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as separate beings who are united in goals, intents, purpose, and mission.  We believe this to be strongly supported biblically, and even stronger still when examined in light of the ancient languages used to compose the scriptures.  What about other gods?  Well, we believe that God's ultimate purpose is to have his children (very literally his children in our belief system) become like him.  We see Gods, angels, and men as the same "species" so to speak.  We have the potential to be as he is.  We believe this to be supported in the Bible as well, and I will try to provide references at a later point (help me remember, I really have to go).  We believe that he will always be greater than we are, that he will always be God, and that as we become more like him, we will give him even greater glory.  Yes, we also believe God went through what we're going through, as in an eternal cycle of men growing to become gods.  Does this offend many?  Yes, I know it does.  Does this seem weird to those who read your posts?  Oh, probably, but at the same time, it can be seen as quite logical and beautiful when not simply perceived through pre-existent notions.  Do Mormons believe that Christ's atonement is not enough to cover our sins?  Nope.  This is where I said we were not too different.  Christ's atonement is all that covers our sins.  We believe that he expects us to strive for perfection, but no matter how imperfect, Christ can cover all our sins.  Remember, the sinners were the ones Christ said would get to heaven, not those who simply were living more righteous lives and missing the whole point.  See the earlier post for greater depth.  If this brief article is anything like the very nice book of the same title (both entitled Believing Christ by Stephen E. Robinson), you might better understand our similarities.  I think Evangelicals would agree with our position better, and I think more Mormons should understand our position better (yes, I think many Mormons do not understand this very important doctrine).

This is not an argument thread.  This is an informative thread.  Please "prove me wrong" in the religion thread.  Perhaps there I will addess civilizations that came to light far later than anyone could have expected, and the theory that perhaps there are numerous other peoples that once walked right where we are walking, yet we know absolutely nothing about them.

The universe is big enough to account for the possibility of talking snakes and virgin births.

On a universal scale if you can imagine it, it possibly exists somewhere, it's just not necessarily probable you will experience it.

If you were all powerful then you could collapse those probabilities, however small, into certainties.

That doesn't prove God is there and did it but it doesn't provide absolute proof that he doesn't and didn't.

Hawkings is just a myth invented by a impatient Christian with not enough or too many books and friends.

I'd love to believe in Him but the whole business of Lalla Ward leaving Tom Baker (which I can believe) but settling for Him just seems a bit too plausible to me.

Dude, Lalla Ward isn't with Hawkings. She is with Richard Dawkins.

Iceberg, Goldberg they are all the same to me ;-P

Still hoping to get to these questions, but as I've stated many times before, I'm very busy and it's not lightening up until probably Thursday (and that itself is only relatively speaking), but I do intend to answer all questions.

In any case, since I started this thread specifically in response to criticism of Mitt Romney for his religion, I wanted to include a link to this news item.

http://news.yahoo.com/perry-camp-anti-mormon-message-011400919.html

Is Kolob a star, a planet, a star system or all three (depending on the reference)?

CP3S said:

Tyrphanax said: 

The British have been drinking it for literally a billion years and they're alright chaps, mostly. It's just such an inconsequential thing to me; I mean, is God really going to be THAT mad at you for having a nice, hot cup of tea on a cold day?

Look what a billion years of tea drinking has done to their teeth! Clearly God just wants his truly faithful in the Americas to keep their pretty smiles.

The confusing part is cold caffeinated beverages are okay, so it isn't about how unhealthy caffeine is, as Coca-Cola is perfectly acceptable, which has more caffeine than many teas. Well... I guess I have a personal antidote that indicates not all Mormons are okay with drinking Coca-Cola...

I grew up in city that had a large enough Mormon population that we had a massive temple in the middle of it. If you were white and middle-class in that town, there was a very high chance you were Mormon. I once had an elderly woman approach me in the toy section at some department store when I was six or seven and tell me what an adorable young man I was, then asked if I was LDS. When I told her "no" her response was to look away, say "That's ashame." and not say another word to me. Creepy to start with, that just made it creepier. All that to say, the Mormon population was very high. I was one of literally a very small number of kids in my entire school who were not LDS. So much so that I can recall my public school teachers often mentioning Mormon doctrines and teachings in the class room. So, as a result, just about ever friend I ever had as a kid was Mormon. Oh right, this is suppose to be about Coca-Cola...

... so, one time while I was in the fourth grade I had a friend over to my house, I offered him a Coke from the fridge, he crinkled his nose, looked at me funny, and in a slightly insulted tone asked, "Why are you offering me that? If you're going to drink that you might as well be doing drugs." I stared at him over the rim of my Coke can as I gently chugged away, blinked a few times, then pulling the can away from my mouth exclaimed, "Dude, your dad works for Pepsi!

"Yeah, so?"

"Doesn't that make him kind of like a drug dealer?"

Don't really remember his response. Something about it being okay since his dad doesn't drink the crap. So, at least back in the early nineties some Mormons took serious issue with any caffeinated beverage.

 Funny anecdote.  And I know that it's difficult to be a minority in any group, including a minority in religion.  However, caffeine is not the rule per se, though many Mormons even today treat that as such.  The rule is coffee and tea for whatever reasons.  I don't pretend to know exactly why, and as long as I do not, I'm sure I will not provide a satisfying answer for the majority of you. 

doubleofive said:

darth_ender said:

As for succession, I am assuming you are Roman Catholic or something related (such as Orthodox), given your belief that Christ would not have allowed such a fall of his Church shortly after his death.  It should not be terribly surprising, however, given that previously people were quick to reject God's message.  Paul's letters themselves speak of the consistent intrusion of false doctrine among those who had only recently proselyted.  See here for a nice start on our understanding of a Great Apostasy following Christ's and his apostles' deaths, with scriptures to back it up.  It's not of great depth, but as is most of this stuff, it's a starting point for understanding our perspective.

Protestant/non-denominational, actually. I just find it hard to believe that God would let the church wander aimlessly for 1800 years when it had only been around for 40 or so before the end of the New Testament.

 Oooooh, I like how big my name looks when I am trying to quote you.  Wonder why it did that.  Anyway, I find it interesting as well that a Protestant would believe that God did not allow his Church to go into apostasy at whatever timeframe, as the Protestant movement clearly was a response to what was perceived as improper Catholic teachings and lack of authority.  But as Sluggo pointed out, scriptures indeed show signs of apostasy creeping in before most of the New Testament was even written (this based on the belief that the Pauline epistles are the oldest writings in the New Testament.

walkingdork said:

Bingowings said:

The universe is big enough to account for the possibility of talking snakes and virgin births.

On a universal scale if you can imagine it, it possibly exists somewhere, it's just not necessarily probable you will experience it.

If you were all powerful then you could collapse those probabilities, however small, into certainties.

That doesn't prove God is there and did it but it doesn't provide absolute proof that he doesn't and didn't.

I hear what you are saying. I still think it's all made up bullshit, but I hear what you are saying. Like the universe is big enough to account for the possibility that there is a mountain in the sky where gods of many talents toy with the human race. And maybe one of those gods bangs a human chick and the son grows up to fight monsters like a slithery snake chick with snakes for hair.

I know I'm being shitty about it, (and I really do feel what you are saying), but I think there is a difference between infinite possibilities and moral fairy tales/parables told for generations. I do realize however that you were just pointing out the possibility of a talking snake and not advocating for them.

I know there is no absolute proof that a god/creator does or does not exist. We debate about how the universe started but the why is unclear. I could be agnostic but the idea that somehow someone has managed to map out the whole history of creation by a god in fine detail is such a turn off. I might believe in the possibility that some deity flipped the switched and started the universe but (like Hawking and other physicists) the idea that a god temporarily changes the law of physics to create miracles or bring upon his will is too much.

@darth_ender

I know, I know. More conversation that should be in the religion thread. Well it's too late! Click.

 You do indeed have a somewhat...abrasive style.  I think miracles are God's natural laws that are beyond our current understanding.  This means that I'm not sure exactly how something like the parting of the Red Sea came to pass.  How literal was it that the waters rose up on both sides?  Was there wind?  Was there a large sandbar that was briefly exposed?  Was it some other principle that defies our current understanding of events?  I don't know, but I agree, in most cases God does not adjust his own laws just for fun.  That said, God is capable of doing so if he wishes.  It doesn't seem to make sense to me, but it's possible.

walkingdork said:

I thought I was getting off the subject :)

So Mormons...we joke about the "magic underwear," but what is it actually all about?

 Garments are not magical in any sense.  We wear them as a "protection."  Is this a protection like the personal shield in Dune (just read the book, so it's the first reference to come to mind :)?  No.  The protection it provides is spiritual in nature.  And how is that the case?  Well, in temples we make covenants to obey God's commandments.  These covenants are not anything bizarre, and are in fact promises to live Christ-like lives, only we find these covenants more binding.  Garments are worn at all times (except for the three S's: sports, showers, sex), and therefore serve as a constant reminder.  They are no more magical than a crucifex worn by most Christian faiths, and instead are symbolic of our devotion and faithfulness to Christ.

walkingdork said:

In my junior year of high school (1999-2000) I dated an Asian chick who was adopted by a Mormon family. I remember her family refused to drink any beverage with caffeine but that her little brother could drink Caffeine Free Mountain Dew (gross).

I remember she couldn't come to my New Years Eve party because her family was hunkering down for some scary event. Did the Mormons have some sort of end of the world belief for the year 2000? Or was it just Y2K nonsense? I never asked because her quirks were too much for me (although she was damn cute) and we broke up.

 Probably just that family's interest in Y2K.  Definitely not a Church-wide freakout.  I don't think any leaders ever brought it up, and I know I was not concerned in the least.

timdiggerm said:

CP3S said:

I grew up in city that had a large enough Mormon population that we had a massive temple in the middle of it. If you were white and middle-class in that town, there was a very high chance you were Mormon. I once had an elderly woman approach me in the toy section at some department store when I was six or seven and tell me what an adorable young man I was, then asked if I was LDS. When I told her "no" her response was to look away, say "That's ashame." and not say another word to me. Creepy to start with, that just made it creepier.

My guess? She has a granddaughter and was looking for a nice, young, handsome LDS guy for her. Mormons can't marry non-Mormons, so she wasn't interested in your meeting her granddaughter anymore.

I'd be interested in hearing thoughts about the "white and middle-class" bit, though.

 In the US, most Mormons are white, I imagine.  The Church does not keep track of race in its records, but the following information might be useful:

http://www.mormonwiki.com/Demographics

The LDS Church has had quite a bit of success in Latin America, where obviously most are Hispanic.  But the white, middle class thing Im' sure is a reference to its white majority nature in the US (funny, since the US is mostly...white and middle-class).

Mrebo said:

Ultimately, one does just gotta have faith when it comes to religion. The outstanding question for me is always: okay, well why should I have faith in this or that particular set of beliefs?

When it comes to something like the Garden of Eden being in America, such assertions will not make sense to the many of us who are not Mormons. But it is useful to recognize that every religion has such faith-bound elements that are not supported (and sometimes even contradicted by) known facts. I suspect such a critique of Mormonism might be more pronounced because it is a newer religion with an unusually America-centric slant that many construe as a corruption of Christianity, or as you say "weird."

My question is why have you chosen to put your faith into Mormonism?

 I was indeed born into this Church.  On my mission, however, I had a great challenge and had to decide if I was willing to believe what I'd been taught or if I was wasting my time.  This was in large part where I gained much of my interest in Church history, the critiques of my church which were quite popular in Atlanta, GA, and the faith supporting research that was taking place.  As you've said, all religions take a certain amount of faith in spite of what may not seem logical.  As mortals, we often forget that our understanding is limited, and we are often surprised when what was once thought impossible is in fact inevitable.  Sometimes you have to suspend what you don't understand at the present till an answer comes along later.

walkingdork said:

Mrebo said:

My question is why have you chosen to put your faith into Mormonism?

I would assume most Mormons are Mormons because their parents brought them up that way. The same goes for most religions.

Xhonzi may have said it in harsh way (on another thread), but I agree that children should be left alone until they are an age where they can reason for themselves. We are talking about about an age where kids are trusting enough to believe that an old guy lives on the North Pole and delivers gifts to all the children of the world in a single night in a sled pulled by flying reindeer.

 

 

 70% of Mormons were not raised in the Church, though I'm sure this is more common outside the US.

Children should be left alone with regard to religion?  What about dietary beliefs?  What about morals?  Should we leave them alone about everything until they can decide for themselves if it's right?  Believe me, if a child does not want to believe in something, there will come a time when that child will have the opportunity to choose for him/herself.