Posted on 11/05/2009 11:23:12 AM PST by Colofornian
A recent convert recounted a conversation he had in his shop. It went something like this:
A friend came in and said, "Hey, I hear you're a Mormon now."
"Yep."
"So, you worship Joseph Smith?"
"Nope."
"But other Mormons do, right?"
"Nope. Not a one of 'em." The convert explained that Joseph needed a Savior like the rest of us do. He was "just a prophet."
"Just a prophet?"
"Yep. But a really great one."
"How so?"
"Had a big job on hand, putting things back that were lost for, like, centuries. Had to do it all before he died at, like, 38 years old."
When time started getting short for Joseph in Nauvoo, he testified that "the Lord Almighty ... will continue to preserve me ... until I have fully accomplished my mission in this life."
Then he described that mission: to so firmly establish God's kingdom in this dispensation "that all the powers of earth and hell can never prevail against it" (Teaching of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, 531).
He was not just to maintain and grow the kingdom, as all prophets must do. In addition, he was to dig the footings, lay the concrete, raise the building and enclose it against the hurricane winds of hell. After completing that mission in a crescendo of martyrdom, Joseph continues to preside, defending and enriching this dispensation in the power of his office.
Latter-day Saints don't even consider worshiping Joseph Smith. But it does make perfect sense to honor him, and to worship the God who supported him.
An observer of human history once warned, "There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things" (Niccolo Machiavelli, "The Prince").
Joseph's adventures certainly verify that warning. Restoring a long-lost order of things was patient work. Intense shafts of light, scheduled for the last few years of his ministry, were a bit shocking for eyes accustomed to centuries of deep shade.
Decayed traditions are useless for judging fresh revelation. Or, as Jesus suggested, brittle old wineskins can't be trusted to hold new wine (see Matthew 9:17).
A few of Joseph's hearers would "fly to pieces like glass as soon as anything comes that is contrary to their traditions" (TPCJS520). To minimize the broken glass, he added line upon line -- fitting each new unfamiliar truth to a former truth that was already proven and understood.
But such careful teaching takes time. And in the early 1840s, time was running out on Joseph and his unique mission.
However, his teachings did have a special ingredient that could speed things up.
In one of the Nauvoo groves, just before his death, before an audience estimated at 16,000-20,000 people, Joseph used a metaphor for that ingredient: "You say that honey is sweet, and so do I." Like the commonly accepted sweetness of honey, the saving doctrines that taste good to one honest soul also taste good to another.
So, that very day he presented something entirely new -- new, but magnificent, and sweet to the taste: God had a transcendent plan to enable "weaker intelligences" to become "exalted with himself" (TPCJS210).
Joseph spent more than an hour unfolding that one doctrine alone. It now colors many other principles of the restored gospel.
And he added, "This is good doctrine. It tastes good. ... When I tell you these words of eternal life as they are given to me, you taste them, and I know that you believe them" (TPCJS525).
"So, you worship Joseph Smith?" "Nope." "But other Mormons do, right?" "Nope. Not a one of 'em."
(Well, that's funny. Who wrote the hymn in the Lds hymnbook, "Praise to the Man?" And who sings it, then, during their services? Here's the lyrics:
PRAISE TO THE MAN [Now is this a hymn about Jesus Christ? (No!!!)]: Praise to the man who communed with Jehovah! Jesus annointed that Prophet and Seer. Blessed to open the last dispensation, Kings shall extol him, and nations revere. Chorus: Hail to the Prophet, ascended to heaven! Traitors and tyrants now fight him in vain. Mingling with Gods, he can plan for his brethren; Death cannot conquer the hero again. Second verse excerpt: ...Honored and blest be his ever great name! Third verse excerpt: Great is his glory and endless his priesthood: Ever and ever the keys he will hold. Faithful and true, he will enter his kingdom, Crowned in the midst of the prophets of old. Fourth verse excerpt: Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven; Earth must atone for the blood of that man. Wake up the world for the conflict of justice. Millions shall know "brother Joseph" again.)
From the column: Decayed traditions are useless for judging fresh revelation. Or, as Jesus suggested, brittle old wineskins can't be trusted to hold new wine (see Matthew 9:17).
That's not what disciple Luke said in Acts 17: Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. (Acts 17:11)
Sorry, but Scripture even trumps "traditions" & was/is the basis for evaluating new supposed revelations from God.
From the column: In one of the Nauvoo groves, just before his death, before an audience estimated at 16,000-20,000...So, that very day he presented something entirely new...God had a transcendent plan to enable "weaker intelligences" to become "exalted with himself" Joseph spent more than an hour unfolding that one doctrine alone. It now colors many other principles of the restored gospel.
What "Brother Brickey" is saying is that even though Smith "scripturized" that the Book of Mormon was the "fulness of the everlasting gospel," it wasn't "full" at all -- because the 1830 Book of Mormon later became "colorized" by what Smith told 16,000 to 20,000 folks at a funeral message shortly before his own death: That Lds could become "exalted" gods themselves. He told them you've "have go to learn how to become gods yourselves".
Surprisingly, this "revelation" -- which has henceforth been taught within Lds curricula -- never got placed as canonized Mormon "scripture" anywhere. (That would be like a Christian teaching something very prominently that was NEVER in the Bible!)
What else did Joseph Smith have to say about this topic? "I have more to boast of than any man had. I am the only man that has been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter NOR JESUS ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from him, but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet." ("History of the Church", Vol. 6, pp. 408-409)
So here we have Lds columnists still boasting about how somehow the gates of ”hell can NEVER prevail against” the Mormon church. Why? Because perfect Joe Smith said so. BUT…according to Smith, Jesus falsely prophesied when Jesus made the same forecast: And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18)
Tell us: Why does the word of an imperfect man, Smith, trump the word of the perfect man-God, Jesus Christ? (Answer: Because Mormons have been taught to implicitly trust Smith more than either Jesus Christ or the Bible!)
You’d think that if Smith had “fully accomplished his mission”, the LDS church wouldn’t have had to make all those revisions to LDS scriptures.
Then again, I think Smith’s real mission was to marry as many women as he could and fool people into thinking he was a prophet to be obeyed. He accomplished that for a short time, until the Lord allowed him to be shot dead and required an accounting.
Indeed.
Mat 22:30 For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.
Mar 12:25 For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven.
snip....”That would be like a Christian teaching something very prominently that was NEVER in the Bible!”
You mean like: Christmas, Easter, & Halloween?
1. I didn't know Halloween was a "sacred teaching" of the church these days?
2. Have you ever noticed the date of Easter roams? Christians don't celebrate Easter on any particular day as if it was "THE" anniversary date of Christ's resurrection...and, the apostle Paul said if Christ was not risen, our faith is in vain (so yes -- 1 Cor. 15 IS in the Bible!)
3. Christmas just means the coming of Christ. He came as a child. It's taught in the Bible. I guess if you want to target the churches for picking Dec. 25 as a specific date to recognize his birth each year, I guess you being half-right on one out of three points at least gives you a grade of 16.6% accuracy on your attempted comeback. (Otherwise, 83.4% failure in your "comeback" doesn't speak well of your rhetoric. Remedial training for you).
Related thread:
'Praise to the Man' [LDS OPEN]
When he was running his hotel in Nauvoo he married (secretly) three of his female staff who actually lived in the hotel as well. When his wife found out she said divorce them or the kids and I are out of here. Later he and his group trashed a local newspaper office breaking the presses in response to their criticism of him, his Nauvoo army and other accesses. He went to Carthage, IL to answer for his crime when he went out in a blaze of gunfire ... some martyr.
1. No one said Halloween is a “sacred teaching”, but most christian denominations accept and promote it. All hallow’s Eve is canon for most denominations though. Where did it come from? “The Eve Before All Hallows’ Day,” the latter referring to the fact that saints of Christianity were “hallowed” individuals. All Hallows’ Day originated in the 7th century when the Pantheon at Rome was wrested from the barbarians, made into a cathedral, and renamed the Church of the Blessed Virgin and All Martyrs. Thus, from honoring all gods (which is the meaning of the Greek word “pantheon”) the Pantheon became the center for glorifying all saints. Originally the celebration is rooted in The ancient Druidic (Irish/Scottish/Welsh Celts) festival called Samhain. Samhain was the New Year’s day of the pagan Celts. The day was officially sanctioned in 835 by Pope Gregory IV after it was moved to November 1 to coincide with Samhain. It began on the evening of October 31, which was called All Hallows Eve.
Thus, without forcing the pagans to drop their heathen practices and accept Christianity, the Roman church merely made room to accommodate the barbarians. Just as it confiscated the pagan Pantheon for its own uses, the Roman church incorporated the customs of Samhain to further its mission to convert the known world.
2. Okay…. but let’s not forget the pagan/druidic spring worship of Eostre, Eastre, Astarte, or Ashtaroth (al the same pagan fertility god). See Church Adoption above or below-
3. Christmas doesn’t “just mean the coming of Christ”. It’s also rooted in the pagan worship of the winter solstice. It, like Easter, is a holiday created by man. Nowhere in the bible does it mention Easter of Christmas.
What “church” am I attacking directly? (except all of them) Just because all three of those “holidays” are creations of man and not God makes me 100% right.
Go ahead and quote me the scripture that commands us to directly celebrate EASTER & CHRISTMAS…..show me exactly where the named holidays of EASTER & CHRISTMAS are in the bible. Also show me in the bible where it’s OK for man to create random “holidays” not decreed by G-d.
The one truth about these holidays, is that they were created centuries after Christianity became an accepted religion. These holidays were created by “The Church” to “meet paganism half-way” because The Church believed it increased the chances that pagans would more readily assimilate into the fold of Christianity.
When time started getting short for Joseph in Nauvoo, he testified that “the Lord Almighty ... will continue to preserve me ... until I have fully accomplished my mission in this life.”
______________________________________________
Actually the so called “prophet” never knew that his time was short...
Fancy that...
In fact he prophecised that his mormon god would keep him alive into his 80s..
Oh golly gosh...
the mormon god lied to Joey Smith...
About worshiping joey Smith rather than Jesus...
I notice that the mormons are more likely to go crazy over the facts on the pedophile Joey Smith andf his home made religion of sex, robbery, murder and insurrection against the government of the United states...
Than anything said against Jesus and the Bible...
What’s that about ???
ROTFL where did you get that idea?
My point of adding to this posting was to point out that your assumption that just one sect of Christianity has bastardized it’s beliefs is a patent fallacy.
Christianity today is rife with the belief that “since we have good intentions, then that makes it OK”. Now if that isn’t bastardized then I don’t know what is.
Believing that one brand of Christianity is supreme to all others is quite hypocritical when you don’t ignore history.
I think Smith’s real mission was to marry as many women as he could
___________________________________________
Actually Joey Smith was a skirt chaser...
He only pretended to marry them if he couldnt get his way with them any other way...
most of them were just one night stands...
He didnt support any of them...
and he had an abortionist on call...Dr Bennett...
He used other abusive, manipulating tricks to have sex with young girls...
One of his lines was that “an angel with a big flaming sword would kill him” and that the poor ignorant kid would have been responsible for the death of the “prophet”...
The answer should have been “Hey Joey...I’d like to see that”
Al Hallow’s Eve, Halloween, Easter, Christmas, Valentine’s Day—
None of those are on your calendar?
Whoops:
All Hallow’s Eve -also known as- All Saints Day
I forgot to add that.
You're really batting 1.000 here! FWIW, I usually get my calendars from my insurance agent, and he's hardly considered a canonical source in my denomination.
Was my denomination supposed to send me a canonical calendar?
I apologize for my poor choice in one word. My bad.
I do not however apologize for my point points being lost on anyone.
But, I guess you can continue to misdirect this discussion based on the fact that I should’ve used the word ‘majority’ instead of ‘canon’.
(No, it's not. Denominational "canon" is Scripture in the Christian church at-large).
...the latter referring to the fact that saints of Christianity were “hallowed” individuals.
So what? "Hallow" is just another word for "holy" -- similar to the Biblical word "saint" -- and holy and saint are both biblical words!
All Hallows’ Day originated in the 7th century when the Pantheon at Rome was wrested from the barbarians, made into a cathedral, and renamed the Church of the Blessed Virgin and All Martyrs.
(So you're saying that because one 7th century church decided to establish a new tradition, that describes even SOME of Christianity? (Let alone not even most or ALL of it?)
Thus, without forcing the pagans to drop their heathen practices and accept Christianity, the Roman church merely made room to accommodate the barbarians.
We're just talking venues, now. I mean, when 1950s and 1960s churches started using drive-in theaters for church services, is that what you mean as being "unbiblical traditions?" (or how about modern churches putting their sermons online...obviously drive-in theaters & computers, both of which are not in the Bible, are also utilized to "accommodate" modern "barbarians.")
I forgot to add that.
Wha...? You're saying Halloween and All Saints Day are one and the same?
Your gaffe here serves to show the great depth of the sources for the rest of your assertions. All Saints Day is November 1. All Hallow's Eve means "the day before All Saints Day." All Hallow's Eve, or Halloween, has no particular significance in the Catholic Church's liturgical calendar, and its only connection to the feastday of November 1 is that it derives a name from being adjacent to it in any calendar, religious or secular. If your sources can't even get this much right, the rest of the stuff in your post 9 can be shown to have equally dubious reliability.
“You’re really batting 1.000 here!”
WHAT are you talking about? I walk into my kitchen, look at the calendar I got from my bank and all 5 of those holidays are plainly listed on their dates.
Soooo...yes, I am batting a thousand.
Well, if that's the case, the word "trinity" isn't in the Bible, either. But God the tri-une God is celebrated by Christians. Likewise, the word "Bible" isn't in the Bible, either, but the technical title for God's revealed word is the Bible.
(So, now you're going to lambast Christians for using unbiblical words like Trinity & Bible, too? -- in your sad attempt to show inconsistency?)
So the celebration of Halloween IS explicitly condemned each year by the Catholic Church?
The Catholic Church condemns all Day of the Dead Celebrations in Mexico?
Hey 16.6 percent accuracy is pretty good by LDS standards...
See post #13. There ARE all kinds of inconsistencies. It would be nice if christians recognized all christian sects inconsistencies instead of just picking on one or two different sects, denominations, or belief systems.
Let's re-play post #9 and see how that substitution works out:
No one said Halloween is a “sacred teaching”, but most christian denominations accept and promote it. All hallow’s Eve isNope. No sale again. Your points can't be "lost" on anyone if your points were never valid. Then the next homerun comes to us via your post #21:canonmajority for most denominations though.
I walk into my kitchen, look at the calendar I got from my bank and all 5 of those holidays are plainly listed on their dates.
So you're basing post #9's "most christian denominations accept and promote [Halloween] as canon/majority" based on a bank calendar?
Do you believe that "most christian denominations" do business at your bank?
From the long held tradition of making up facts as you go along of course...
....who need imagination, so long as you have a hat and a rock!
LOL
It just gets better and better...
Those inconsistencies which do not lead people from Jesus Christ I will be more than happy to overlook.
I think a lot of this is pulled out of an area on the opposite end of where one wears a hat...
No stones needed except to be brave enough to post such drivel with a straight face...
Oh golly gosh...
the mormon god lied to Joey Smith...
|
THE
DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS SECTION 132
51–57, Emma Smith is counseled (commanded) to be faithful and true; 58–66, Laws governing the plurality of wives are set forth.
51 Verily, I say unto you: A commandment I give unto mine handmaid, Emma Smith, your wife, whom I have given unto you, that she stay herself and partake not of that which I commanded you to offer unto her; for I did it, saith the Lord, to aprove you all, as I did Abraham, and that I might require an offering at your hand, by covenant and sacrifice.
52 And let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, areceive all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph, and who are virtuous and pure before me; and those who are not pure, and have said they were pure, shall be destroyed, saith the Lord God.
53 For I am the Lord thy God, and ye shall obey my voice; and I give unto my servant Joseph that he shall be made ruler over many things; for he hath been afaithful over a few things, and from henceforth I will strengthen him.
55 But if she will not abide this commandment, then shall my servant Joseph do all things for her, even as he hath said; and I will bless him and multiply him and give unto him an ahundredfold in this world, of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, houses and lands, wives and children, and crowns of beternal lives in the eternal worlds.
|
| The Official Scriptures of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints © 2006 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved. |
HOW do you get CONDEMNED out of the ABOVE??
So the celebration of Halloween IS explicitly condemned each year by the Catholic Church? The Catholic Church condemns all Day of the Dead Celebrations in Mexico?
All Hallow’s Eve, Oct 31st and All Saints Day, Nov 1st have never had anything to do with witches and witchcraft ...
They were always days set aside by the Christian Church...
Something “hallow” is something holy, etc...
Our Father who art in heaven HALLOWED be thy name...Matthew 6:9. Luke 11:2
Hallow, hallowed..from the Greek...
hagos, hagios...sacred, (physically) pure, (morally) blameless or religious, consecrated, (most) holy, (one, thing) saint...
Hagiazo...to make holy, ie to purify or consecrate, (mentally) to venerate, hallow, be holy, sanctify...
hagiasmos...purification, purtify, a purifier, holiness, snctification...
hagnos...(properly) clean, ie (figuratively) innocent, modest, perfect, chaste, clean pure...
Halloween is mostly an American invention and tradition...
“e’en” being short for “evening” or “eve” meaning the evening before the event...
Like “Christmas Eve”...
“All Hallow’s Eve” became “Hallow e’en”...
It would be nice if christians recognized all christian sects
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As far as I know all Christians do...
and of course the mormons recognize all mormon sects ...
the LDS buddy up with the FLDS etc...
AHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I guess they dont....
Gee I guess I would have to say in that case...
“It would be nice if mormons recognized all mormon sects” ...
Why it would is beyond me...but I’ll bite...
What’s it all mean ???
Where have I ever said that only one cult fall-out group from Christianity has distorted/twisted faith content? (I haven't; so don't put words in my mouth by assuming what you think I'm assuming...)
And, if you only take what I said in post #1 -- which you claimed was ALL that you were responding to ("My ONLY point of adding to this posting...") -- the only two key false points of Mormonism was (a) how we are to judge "fresh revelation" -- and (b) whether we can become gods. None of those points are comprehensive claims that comes anywhere near your outlandish conclusion that "just one sect of Christianity has bastardized it's beliefs".
Christianity today is rife with the belief that “since we have good intentions, then that makes it OK”. Now if that isn’t bastardized then I don’t know what is.
That makes "what" OK? (What's the "it" referenced?) All you then proceeded to do was to get "technical" on us and say that Easter and Christmas should be renamed to some other holy day reference. And now--if you're still referencing these holidays--now you're calling Easter & Christmas "bastardized" days? (Does your family know each Christmas that you reference it as a "bastardized" holiday?)
Listen, if someone prefers calling this celebration "Resurrection Day" over "Easter" tis fine with me; but don't go implying that Christians have treated "Resurrection Day" anything less than the celebration of the resurrection of Christ. (It's not "bastardized" anything!)
Believing that one brand of Christianity is supreme to all others is quite hypocritical when you don’t ignore history.
What? Are you now claiming gnostic "Christianity" is Christianity? How about Jim Jones "Christianity?" (Jones originally came from orthodox Christian roots.) Are you going to claim that if we proclaim that "one brand of Christianity" -- namely the universal Christian church -- is "supreme to" 'Koolaid 'Christianity,' that we're being "quite hypocritical?"
How consistent are you?
Glory be to the Prophet!
Let us all break into a chorus of “Praise to the Man (you know the one we don't really worship but obviously by our doctrine would have Godly powers by now though we don't aklnowledge that logical assumption and does sit in judgment on us according to Brigham Young and others who tells us he must “certify” us into glory”
It's good to see you've got Smith's "exalted job description" down pat:
Exaltation passport checker ,/ [Lds keyword: Smith has the "keys"]
judge ,/
a god who is worshipped ,/ [not that lds are polytheistic or anything]
***Like the commonly accepted sweetness of honey, the saving doctrines that taste good to one honest soul also taste good to another. ***
Like the perverts’ commonly accepted sweetness of child rape, the little girls that are so attractive to one pedophile are also attractive to another. If it was good enough for Muhammed, it was good enough for Joseph Smith.
See bold-faced quotes below from minor Helen Mar Kimball below:
source: http://www.mrm.org/amorous-advances
"Amorous Advances by the Mormon Prophet" (By Bill McKeever)
Mormon historian Richard Van Wagoner paints anything but a flattering picture of Joseph Smith in his book Sidney Rigdon, Portrait of Religious Excess. In his chapter titled "Between Friends and Family," he notes that "perhaps the most scandalous manifestation of Smith's lust for manly achievement was his inclination toward extra-martial romantic liaisons, which he believed were licensed by the Old Testament and countenanced by God's modern revelation" (pp.290-291).
Van Wagoner recounts the story of how the 37-year-old Smith attempted to persuade 15-year-old Helen Mar Kimball (the daughter of Heber C. Kimball) to be sealed to him as his wife. The young Kimball stated that Smith told her, "If you will take this step, it will insure your eternal salvation and exaltation and that of your father's household and all of your kindred" (p.293). Helen would later regret that she acquiesced to Smith's proposal. "I would never have been sealed to Joseph had I known it was anything more than ceremony. I was young and they deceived me by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it" (p.294).
Smith certainly proved himself an opportunist when he took Nancy Mirinda Hyde as a plural wife. Van Wagoner feels that Nancy was "a clandestine facilitator for spiritual wifery" as a means to "amend for her husband's 1838 apostasy." He notes that the "conditions imposed on Orson Hyde to obtain his former standing, according to one account, were to relinquish his money and his wife to Joseph Smith 'as a ransom for his transgression'" (p.294). Orson Hyde was on a mission in the Holy Land when Smith took Nancy to be his wife in April, 1842.
Smith also attempted to seduce Nancy Rigdon, the young daughter of Sidney Rigdon. Ushering her into a "private room," Smith locked the door and proceeded to tell Nancy of his "affection for her" and that "the Lord was well pleased with the matter." Writes Van Wagoner, "Despite her tender age, she did not hesitate to express herself. The prophet's seductive behavior shocked her; she rebuffed him in a flurry of anger" (p.295).
Not willing to take no for an answer, Smith later had a letter delivered to Nancy that insisted, "That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another.…Everything that God gives us is lawful and right; and it is proper that we should enjoy His gifts and blessings.… Blessings offered, but rejected, are no longer blessings.… Our Heavenly Father is more liberal in his views, and boundless in his mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive" (p.295).
When Nancy's father Sidney confronted Smith with the note, he at first tried to deny it. Van Wagoner quotes George W. Robinson, who wrote that Nancy "'told the facts with so much earnestness, and the fact of a letter being present, which he had caused to be written to her, on the same subject, the day after the attempt made on her virtue,' that ultimately 'he could not withstand the testimony; he then and there acknowledged that every word of Miss Rigdon's testimony was true'" (p.296).
There ya have it: Smith trying to impress upon a "target" of his seduction with a note that read, in part, "Our Heavenly Father is more liberal in his views...thatn we are ready to believe or receive."
Digusting in his personal life, was ol’ Joe.
Also rather pathetic was Sidney Rigdon. Ol’ Sid was a Baptist preacher (1819)who became enamoured of the Campbells and became a Campbellite (forerunner of the Churches of Christ and their lunatic doctrines of music) two years later (still preaching as a Baptist) and then in 1830, converted over to Joe Smith’s lunatic crowd.
He went through the Ohio, Illinois and Missouri years, but had a falling out with Smith. When Joe was killed in 1844, he was serving as a local church president in Pittsburgh, PA. He gathered together a bunch of Mormons and called himself the true successor. By 1847, most of his crowd had deserted him.
He died 20 years later in New York, still maintaining that he was the real heir of Smith.
Fascinating biography, in which a man was willing to prostitute his daughter to advance his own career.
It is not so much condemned as officially ignored. It doesn’t have any real standing, and whatever people choose to do or not do to “celebrate” the day has nothing to do with the liturgical celebrations of the Church. That many individual Catholics have no problems with it is undeniable. So do many non-Catholic Christians. So what? Your take on this seems to be that the day called Halloween has massive - and official - importance as a conspiratorial intrusion into properly functioning Christianity. It has no such thing.
To the extent that the macabre aspects of the dead are laughed at even while they can also provide sober reminders of our mortality, what’s the harm in that? That aspect, driving much of the Day of the Dead observance in Mexico, has been co-opted by occultists and greedy costume makers in this country as much as anything else. But your quotes make the whole business out to be a deliberate scheme of the Church to allow the infiltration of the satanic into official liturgical usages. That is simply absurd. The Catholic liturgical calendar that I’m looking at right now makes no mention of Halloween - or All Hallow’s Eve, for that matter - for October 31.
The biggest celebration of Halloween is right here in the US, which is culturally more of a Protestant than Catholic country. If conclusions are supposed to be drawn from that, they would undermine the obvious intent of the quotes you cite. These shrill attempts to find connections with ancient mystery religions in all things Catholic are historically ignorant and make all people who hold to them look like snake-handling Neanderthals. By derivation, that, in turn, tends to make Christianity in general - of Protestant, Catholic or other varieties - look ridiculous in the eyes of the secular culture. It does all of us a disservice.
Halloween, as we see it unfold here in America every year, is hardly even known in most parts of Europe - Catholic or Protestant. Its alleged pedigree, as your sources chart it out, is insignificant to European culture and thus unlikely to have ever had enough importance to warrant all of the overwrought concern and horror you and your sources seem to have about its “dark and seedy” origins. If it is now often a vehicle for occultic, satanic or otherwise nefarious world views, those views are of recent vintage and have nothing to do with the “history” you cite.
Your comment here is wrong on its premise. It assumes that Mormonism is one of many sects of Christianity, which it is not. It is a heresy and therefore has no legitimate claim to that characterization. It denies the eternality of Christ by insisting He is a created being, created through the act of sexual congress between Elohim and Mary. It denies key scriptures like “It is appointed for a man once to die, and then the judgment,” by establishing heretical doctrines like “soul prison” and baptism by proxy. Mormonism was founded by a convicted confidence man who didn’t want his cult to be one of many holy SECTS, he merely wanted many wives for the unholy SEX.
"I know that Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God, that this is the Gospel of salvation, and if you do not believe it you will be damned, every one of you"
(Journal of Discourses 4:298, March 29, 1857).
On October 9, 1859, Young said,
"From the day that the Priesthood was taken from the earth to the winding-up scene of all things, every man and woman must have the certificate of Joseph Smith, junior, as a passport to their entrance into the mansion where God and Christ are -- I with you and you with me. I cannot go there without his consent"
(Journal of Discourses 7:289).
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