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Are they just outright lying, or decieved at lower levels?
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A little bit of both. They are told that they are Christians (the only true Christians) and that their Jesus is the Biblical one. What they don’t say is that they don’t believe anyone outside of the Mormon church is Christian - only them.

Most LDS just repeat what they are told and don’t think for themselves a quote from one of their manuals states “when the prophet speaks, the thinking has been done”.

There is also a pattern of lying to make the LDS church look good. This shows up when you ask point blank questions that may be embarrassing. Part of the justification for this lying is the ‘milk before meat’ doctrine, that you need to learn and understand certain things and then are told the ‘meat’ doctrines only after you are LDS. This extends to giving ‘gentiles’ (all non Mormons even Jews) the barest of milk.

Elsie has a video that is well worth watching of one of their leaders explaining how they shouldn’t answer.

Here is something I have posted before about just how the LDS lie to people to make them sound like just another Christian denomination.

Every member is expected to find ‘investigators’ (people who would be interested in converting who take the missionary discussions - similar to RCIA). There is also a lot of people who hear things about beliefs but don’t know enough to know what the LDS are saying, that they use different meanings for terms, even though the LDS usually know that Christians mean different things. A typical exchange could go like this...

non - LDS - “I have a lot of Mormon friends, and they are nice people, but don’t Mormons believe Jesus and Satan are brothers?”

LDS - No! We don’t believe that at all! Jesus is the only begotten Son of God! Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and they said that all other churches had some problems and Joseph needed to start a Church that was the same as the one when Jesus Christ was on the Earth. Why don’t you come over for dinner and we will have the missionaries talk to you? There is a set of 6 discussions that they give that shows what we believe.

non-LDS - “Well, ok, but I read somewhere that Mormons believe they will become Gods”

LDS - “That was probably written by someone who has a grudge against the Church. They probably are one of the ones who gets paid to badmouth the Church or someone who couldn’t live by the principles of the Church so they left or they were offended by someone in their ward.

Ok, lets parse this. Notice how many times “the Church” is used. For the LDS it is all about “the Church”. LDS ‘testimonies’ often start out with “I know the Church is true”.

Then there is the automatic denial that Jesus and Satan are brothers. We saw it on this a thread the other day even. Now, all LDS know that their church teaches Jesus and Satan are spirit brothers. So why would you get a resounding “NO”? Because it makes their theology look silly. By stating “No” the LDS are lying to you, but they are thinking “Well they aren’t flesh brothers, just spirit brothers like we all are, Jesus is our Elder brother”.

The other day an LDS came on one of these threads and stated “Jesus and Lucifer aren’t brothers, as if by Mary!”. Notice the subtlety of it. “As if by Mary” implying they aren’t physical brothers (which no one claimed). But they left out That Lucifer was the second born and Jesus was the firstborn of the spirit children.

Next we come to what would appear to be a rebuttal to the claim Jesus and Satan are brothers. “Jesus is the only begotten Son of God!” what they are not telling you is that they mean it in a literal sense. Jesus and Satan are SPIRIT brothers (like all of us) but Jesus is God’s physical son, God came down, had sex with Mary and conceived Jesus. So it isn’t a rebuttal at all and the LDS know that. They are intentionally twisting words to make you think they don’t believe Jesus and Satan are Spirit brothers.

Next Phrase - “Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and they said that all other churches had some problems and Joseph needed to start a Church that was the same as the one when Jesus Christ was on the Earth.” This is referring to the “First Vision” (of which there are several contradictory accounts) and the Great Apostasy. The LDS will tone down things said about other Christians. In the first vision account, Smith isn’t told that other churches ‘had problems’ he was told “I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt http://lds.org/library/display/0,4945,104-1-3-4,00.html

“All wrong”, “Corrupt” and Creeds an abomination are not the same as “some problems” and the LDS know that. But they will soften it in order to not scare people off or to put the LDS church in a ‘better light’.

Next - about becoming Gods. Notice the LDS response is to go down a rabbit hole, rather than addressing the comment. Instead they lead the person to believe that the source was unreliable, or written by someone who had something to gain (money) or a former Mormon with a grudge. The question itself isn’t even addressed (lying by omission). It also causes the person to think that they might be wrong and that the LDS don’t believe that, even though the LDS person knows they do.

Finally, the invitation to meet with the missionaries. There is an assumption by many that these are people who know more about Mormonism than the average member and that isn’t true either. Most men and quite a few women serve LDS missions (I nearly did). They don’t have special knowledge. They also don’t tell you is the goal of those 6 discussions is to get you baptized Mormon and there is pressure put on you to read the Book of Mormon, pray about it, make commitments and convert. Those 6 discussions aren’t just a summary of LDS beliefs, they are the requirements for conversion and that is their goal. But they don’t tell you that, they make it sound like this is just a friendly way of talking to knowledgeable people about what the LDS believe.

Also, there is the doctrine of ‘line upon line, precept upon precept’ or “milk before meat”, that coverts are only told doctrines when they are spiritually ready to hear them. The missionary discussions are the barest of milk. You learn one set of things in them, and then after you convert you start to learn the rest of LDS theology. Then after a year of faithful membership (sometimes more) you get to go to the LDS temple and learn the ‘meat’ doctrines and are sworn to secrecy (used to have to swear blood oaths).

Hope this helps.