Posted on 02/23/2013 1:20:54 PM PST by District13
“Converts drop out sooner and in greater numbers. Missionaries are leaving at a large rate.”
Politely disagree. I think it’s interesting when people throw out their opinions as if they were fact.
“We don’t have the potential to become gods after we die”
So you don’t believe the Holy Bible which states that we can become joint heirs with Christ?
You are free to believe as you will but maybe you should make sure you line up with the Word and you might want to think twice about throwing stones around.
Gamaliel was very wise.
“34 Then stood there up one in the council, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in reputation among all the people, and commanded to put the apostles forth a little space;
35 And said unto them, Ye men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what ye intend to do as touching these men.
36 For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, and brought to nought.
37 After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the taxing, and drew away much people after him: he also perished; and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed.
38 And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought:
39 But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.”
Some folks continue to kick against the pricks.
Hey Resty, hows it going?
Sorry honey, God can not both be eternal and be created.
God not be eternal and a man.
The verse you quoted does not say what you so desperately want it to say.
For those who are interested:
Acts 5
(KJV)
1 But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession,
2 And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.
3 But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?
4 Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.
5 And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things.
6 And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him.
7 And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in.
8 And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much.
9 Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out.
10 Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband.
11 And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things.
12 And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people; (and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch.
13 And of the rest durst no man join himself to them: but the people magnified them.
14 And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.)
15 Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them.
16 There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed every one.
17 Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the sect of the Sadducees,) and were filled with indignation,
18 And laid their hands on the apostles, and put them in the common prison.
19 But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth, and said,
20 Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life.
21 And when they heard that, they entered into the temple early in the morning, and taught. But the high priest came, and they that were with him, and called the council together, and all the senate of the children of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them brought.
22 But when the officers came, and found them not in the prison, they returned and told,
23 Saying, The prison truly found we shut with all safety, and the keepers standing without before the doors: but when we had opened, we found no man within.
24 Now when the high priest and the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these things, they doubted of them whereunto this would grow.
25 Then came one and told them, saying, Behold, the men whom ye put in prison are standing in the temple, and teaching the people.
26 Then went the captain with the officers, and brought them without violence: for they feared the people, lest they should have been stoned.
27 And when they had brought them, they set them before the council: and the high priest asked them,
28 Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.
29 Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.
30 The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.
31 Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.
32 And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him.
33 When they heard that, they were cut to the heart, and took counsel to slay them.
34 Then stood there up one in the council, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in reputation among all the people, and commanded to put the apostles forth a little space;
35 And said unto them, Ye men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what ye intend to do as touching these men.
36 For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, and brought to nought.
37 After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the taxing, and drew away much people after him: he also perished; and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed.
38 And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought:
39 But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.
40 And to him they agreed: and when they had called the apostles, and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.
41 And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.
42 And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.
Now why would you refer to yourself as a prick?
I agree it is interesting that people throw out opinion as though it were fact.
So here are some facts for you:
2011 count 6,144,582 Mormons in the United States in 2011, comprising about 2% of the nation’s population. Church statistics also show a 30% membership increase between 1990 and 2008—a rate double general US population growth.
But recent studies tell a different story—different because whereas LDS Church records count anyone who has ever been baptized, demographers and pollsters count only those who currently identify themselves as Mormon. Those are the parameters for the landmark Trinity College American Religious Identification Survey: a two-decade project that has produced the largest and most accurate database of self-reported religious identification ever compiled, with 100,000 randomly sampled participants. According to Rick Phillips and Ryan Cragun, the authors of a study of Mormons based on ARIS data, self-identified adult Mormons make up not 2% but rather 1.4% of the adult US population—that’s about 4.4 million LDS adults.
Phillips and Cragun also place LDS growth rates not at 30% but at 16%—a rate on par with general US population growth. “Despite a large missionary force and a persistent emphasis on growth,” Phillips and Cragun write, “Mormons are actually treading water with respect to their per capita presence in the U.S.” In fact, additional studies by Cragun and Phillips show that retention rates of young people (young men especially) raised Mormon have dropped substantially in the last decade: from 92.6% in the 1970s–2000s to 64.4% from 2000–2010. Rising rates of disaffiliation go a long way towards explaining the gap between LDS Church records and the ARIS population estimates.
Those who do continue to identify as Mormon, according to data released by the Pew Forum in January, form a confident, cohesive core that is deeply invested in LDS institutional life. The Pew Forum found that 77% of self-identified Mormons reported attending church weekly, and 65% reported regular participation in temple worship, a benchmark of highly observant Mormonism. Those are eye-popping numbers that don’t quite match up to what most Mormons experience week-to-week in their congregations. (The problem may be sample bias: the Pew located many of its Mormon respondents through oversampling in core areas of the Mormon culture region, where attendance rates trend higher.) The Mormons surveyed by Pew also indicate high levels of life satisfaction, as well as a sense that Mormons are misunderstood in the U.S.: 46% said Mormons experience discrimination. Insularity is also strong among Pew-sampled LDS people, with 57% reporting that all or most of their friends are also LDS.
Social insularity as well as familial and kinship ties and feelings of religious certainty contribute to the cohesiveness of the self-identified Mormon core. But taken together the Pew and ARIS numbers suggest that while the highly active LDS core is highly self-assured, it may also be shrinking—a fact not immediately evident in Church membership statistics.
The numbers also suggest that cultural or heritage identity sense of Mormonism may be weakening, especially at the margins of the core and among those who disaffiliate. That may be bad news for twenty-first century Mormonism: other stable American minority faiths like Judaism rely on cultural identity to draw individuals back into religious life throughout the life cycle and across changes in belief and practice. Today, after decades of institutional emphasis on orthodox belief and behavior, it may be difficult for some in the highly observant Mormon core to imagine a cultural Mormonism that enfranchises the less observant. But as the 2012 presidential contest brings increased scrutiny and self-awareness of Mormonism as a culture (complete with its own foodways), perhaps the time is right for Mormons to explore how to nourish and strengthen Mormon identity, even if our twenty-first century numbers don’t live up to the projections.
“1. They are spreading a false gospel.
2. They are teaching a false, created Christ.
3. They are not getting a salary, but believe this mission is part of getting into a false heaven.”
Again, I refer you to the wise counsel of Gamiliel. Furthermore, I direct you to the Lord Jesus Christ who became very upset with the pious judgmental religious folk and hypocrites, and Who met with Saul (Paul) on the Road to Damascus and chose Paul (Chosen Vessel) to preach the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the whole world.
How sad that you actually think you know the heart of another.
Amen to your Post 22!!!
Where did I say someone is headed for hell? Don’t misrepresent my words, please.
If by super-religious, you mean the Pharisees, that’s interesting, because the Gamaliel you quote was a Pharisee, so I don’t see why you would look to him as an authority on anything. If Gamaliel was correct, why has Islam prospered? Or Scientology? Or any false doctrine? I have read, though, that Mormons tend to use Gamaliel’s words as an argument, so maybe you’ve been taught to do so, I don’t know.
I’ll say it again. Your religion teaches that Jesus and Satan are brothers, that God was once a man, that you can have your own planet, and that God had sex with Mary. That is not Christianity; in fact, it contradicts all Christian doctrine.
Politeness is one thing. Disagreeing on a subject that even your leadership has expressed concerns about is another
LDS General Authority Marlin K. Jensen said more members are falling away today than any time in the past 175 years. And that it has accelerated over the past 10 years
"The LDS church claims 14 million members worldwide -- optimistically including nearly every person baptized. But census data from some foreign countries targeted by clean-cut young missionaries show that the retention rate for their converts is as low as 25 percent. In the U.S., only about half of Mormons are active members of the church, said Washington State University emeritus sociologist Armand Mauss, a leading researcher on Mormons."
Sociologists estimate there are as few as 5 million active members worldwide.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/31/us-mormonchurch-idUSTRE80T1CM20120131
Well, let's review some things that occurred from February to November 2012:
OCTOBER 2012 - The Lds church lowers age requirements of its missionaries...males can be age 18 (vs. age 19); and females age 19 (vs. age 20)
Lds Church motivations for this?
I have it on EXCELLENT authority precisely TWO primary reasons (these two may not be the ONLY two reasons):
(Reason A) The Lds Church thought that the years 2013-2020 would be their...
Hence it was of vital import to the G.A.s that they GREATLY increase the # of Lds missionaries to take FULL advantage of this then perceived "opportunity."
Well, so much for Lds General Authority spiritual discernment...
This reason began to be unraveled last February.
Which Lds General Authority (a hierarchy position) tipped his hand?
FEBRUARY 2012 Marlin Jensen -- now ex G.A. -- was speaking with some transparency before a group in Logan Utah. The Lds Gen Authorities were NOT happy to see the following quote appear in a Reuters UK article:
"Not since...the 1837 failure of a church bank in Kirtland, Ohio, have so many left the church, Jensen said. 'Maybe since Kirtland, we've never had a period of - I'll call it apostasy, like we're having now,' he told the group in Logan".
Source:
* Special report -Mormonism besieged by the modern age [Lds church is hemorrhaging in member losses]
The USA Today then picked up on that -- see Why Mormons flee their church -- and mentioned "This year, Elder Marlin Jensen, the Mormon Church's outgoing official historian, acknowledged that members are defecting from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 'in droves' and that the pace is increasing."
Well, guess, what? This apostasy Marlin Jensen referenced includes college students. (And even among those who don't leave the church the first year out of high school, the process is often jumpstarted that very year!)
What Lds sources do we have that this is GREATLY impacting the Lds college-age crowd?
NOVEMBER 2012 This BYU newspaper opinion -- Viewpoint: 'Hold on to what you believe' [Lds: 'Does it feel...everyone you know is falling away?'] -- was published just after Romney's loss:
In this piece, the BYU author, Laura Thomas, jumped right to the point in her opening paragraph:
" A couple of months ago I ran into a dear friend of mine. After exchanging pleasantries and walking along campus, she turned to me and said, “Does it feel that everyone you know is falling away from the church?” Relieved that someone could understand how I feel, I looked at her and sighed. It seems like more and more of my friends are losing their faith in God and leaving the church".
Therefore...
For one thing, if you're on the mission field, you're chances of apostasy are minimal; but of even greater import is that the GAs have found that those who serve missions are of much greater likelihood to become pillar-type stalwarts of their church in later years.
In fact, there are HUNDREDS of districts where these GAs have found little-to-no benefit of having missionaries active within them; but they do see a long-term trend of what they label as internal benefits for these missionaries themselves in "steeling" them within their religion.
“Gamiliel was not a Christian.”
He was a Pharisee and so was Paul a Pharisee - believing in a resurrection of the dead. Be that as it may, your point is off the mark. The point is that wise Gamiliel saved Paul’s life and the lives of others and if Gamiliel hadn’t spoken up, the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ would have suffered. Isn’t it obvious that Heavenly Father used Gamiliel at that perfect specific moment? Heavenly Father often uses men and women from all walks of life and from all persuasions to bless His people!
How is citing Scripture throwing stones? I’m sorry if you don’t like hearing what it says.
Do you really believe that becoming joint heirs with Christ means we become gods? Really?
Becoming joint heirs means that we become eternal children of God, as Jesus is the Son of God. We will never, ever become divine.
OH, thank you for NOT stating that I am going to hell. Whew! I’m glad to know that you believe I’m going to Heaven. Either Heaven or Hell, right?
Gamiliel was a Pharisee and so was Paul a Pharisee - believing in a resurrection of the dead. Be that as it may, your point is off the mark. The point is that wise Gamiliel saved Paul’s life and the lives of others and if Gamiliel hadn’t spoken up, the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ would have suffered. Isn’t it obvious that Heavenly Father used Gamiliel at that perfect specific moment? Heavenly Father often uses men and women from all walks of life and from all persuasions to bless His people!
I can quote Scripture with the best of ‘em. I prefer not to use His Holy Word, however, to beat people over the head with, or to condemn people, or to try to hurt or wound people’s hearts.
Jesus Christ is my Savior and if that’s not good enough for you, how sad for you.
I didn’t say you aren’t going to hell. I also didn’t say you’re not going to heaven. I’m not God, so I don’t know what will happen in your life or where your heart will be. But I do know what Scripture says, and what we have to believe to be saved.
So are we supposed to believe everything the Pharisees said, if they were well-meaning and did good deeds? Gamaliel may have been wise in some things, but he was wrong there. Again, why have Islam, Scientology, etc. prospered? If Gamaliel had been right, they would never have gotten off the ground. So that right there lets me know that no, He wasn’t inspired by God at that moment.
Are you getting agitated for some reason? BTW, I have to get offline for a little while...but I’ll check my posts later.
“Becoming joint heirs means that we become eternal children of God, as Jesus is the Son of God. We will never, ever become divine.”
“. . as Jesus is the Son of God.” Do you realize that you actually stated that Jesus is not divine?
Paul was an ex in his affiliation with Pharisaicalism...show us, if you can, where Gamaliel was "ex"...
The point is that wise Gamiliel saved Paul’s life and the lives of others and if Gamiliel hadn’t spoken up, the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ would have suffered.
Ya know, if the Mormon church didn't impose THREE other "scriptural" books upon you, you might actually have time to read basic books of the Bible and know basic history.
The Gamaliel passage you cite is from Acts 5...and Luke wrote that book in a chronological manner...
As of Acts 7:58-8:1, Paul -- THEN Saul -- approved of Stephen's stoning death...and as of Acts 9:1, he was still breathing out threats in persecuting the Christian church!!!
How could Paul's> life been saved by Gamaliel if he had YET to undergo a conversion? (That didn't occur until Acts 9:4 & following)
...if Gamiliel hadn’t spoken up, the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ would have suffered.
Even here you fail to understand how God was able to use persecution in that time.
If you go to Acts 1:8, where did the resurrected Jesus tell His close disciples to go? Answer: "Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Well, did they (do that)? At first? Answer: NO!!!
How then did this begin to come about? Jump forward to Acts 8:
"1 And Saul approved of their killing him. On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria...4 Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went (Acts 8:1,4)
Here, the disciples had remained huddled in Jerusalem -- even after Jesus told them they were empowered by the Holy Spirit and still after Saul (Paul) led a persecution against them...yet the persecuted went preaching the Gospel to those places Jesus told them to go (Judea and Samaria).
May I suggest you actually put down that Book of Mormon; put down the D&C; put down the Pearl of Great Price and pour over the Bible for the rest of your life???
Why is it that you prefer the counsel of Gamiliel and Joseph Smith to God Almighty?
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