Not trying to read your mind, just trying not to write a missive that will never be read by anyone because it's too long.
God is. Whatever his true nature is, our understanding or misunderstanding of it will not change that nature. If I try to explain the trinity to a Chinese person who is not familiar with God as you or I understand him, I get the responses I listed before , Trinitarians break the laws of physics, Modalists break the recorded bible and LDS have a god with one mind and three physical presences. This is not my definition, but was what I was told by a Chinese man we were teaching, and he's right. Yep, God may well break the laws of physics as we know them, heck, the history of science is the history of saying, “We were wrong about that!”
Regardless, that is the crux of our differences, a difference in interpretation.
The bible contains the Gospel IE, Jesus was born, suffered for our sins, died on the cross, resurrected which constitutes the only way for men to be reconciled to God, AKA the atonement.
The bible is not everything God said, nor does it completely agree with itself. (Judas’ death for example)
The Catholics and Protestants have added dogma to the Scriptures.
The Mormons took a bit of a different route, but give it a couple hundred years and all this “You're not a Christian stuff will die out)
B “The substance of what we believe is the real test of whether our testimony is in agreement, not the names or outward forms we adopt.”
Agreed, and Mormons do not worship Joseph Smith any more than the Jews worship Moses, Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, beside him there is no other, and that makes us Christian, Un-Orthodox to be sure, but Christian none the less.
Delph
From Delphi User:
The bible is not everything God said, nor does it completely agree with itself. (Judas’ death for example)
The Catholics and Protestants have added dogma to the Scriptures.
The Mormons took a bit of a different route, but give it a couple hundred years and all this “You're not a Christian stuff will die out)
It only takes a few days for the FR mormons to start defaming the Bible.
Why is it that the fall-back position for mormons when faced with the lies of Joseph Smith is to start making ridiculous comments like, "The bible is not everything God said, nor does it completely agree with itself. (Judas’ death for example)".
The Bible is the cornerstone of Christianity and attempts to twist that around to include the fiction of the book of mormon will not change that.
The statement "The Mormons took a bit of a different route, but give it a couple hundred years and all this “You're not a Christian stuff will die out)" is very telling....just keep harping on the lie and the truth supposedly will go away. That's why there are 55,000 mormon missionaries out there attempting to kill the truth in the minds of others.
How much longer are FReepers to be exposed to this kind of misinformation/disinformation/outright lying?
And Elsie the Fifth will STILL be posting this:
Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).Orson Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses, vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).
Hardly, Truth doesn't have an expiration date...
“The Mormons took a bit of a different route, but give it a couple hundred years and all this “You’re not a Christian stuff will die out)”
Hey, you’re getting off easy since we mostly stopped burning people at the stake before you guys showed up!
“Agreed, and Mormons do not worship Joseph Smith any more than the Jews worship Moses, Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, beside him there is no other, and that makes us Christian, Un-Orthodox to be sure, but Christian none the less.”
Well, I look at it this way. Perhaps it’s true that the LDS religion is transmitting the gospel faithfully enough that people are coming to a belief in Jesus and being saved. For the sake of argument, let’s say that it is. However, let’s also say, for the sake of argument, that Joseph Smith wasn’t a prophet, but just a talented story teller who managed to mix that gospel in with some of his own stories, and get people to believe the whole lot.
Now, if I know people are coming to Jesus because they got involved with the LDS, I might be happy, but I still wouldn’t advise anyone to join that church, and I would still try to convince people that were in that church of their errors. Otherwise, if they became disillusioned with the stories that Joseph Smith told, they might become disillusioned with Christ too, and throw the baby out with the bathwater. It would still be better for them to base their beliefs on the untainted gospel, and not the gospel along with the demonstrably tainted works of men.
Maybe not but according to your leaders (lds) jesus is secondary to Joseph Smith.
Joseph Smith: “I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam... Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such 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, 6:408–409
Joseph Fielding Smith, Mormonism's tenth president, "no salvation without Joseph Smith." (Doctrine of Salvation 1:189).
LDS Prophet Brigham Young, in 1859, stated, "From the day that the priesthood was taken from the earth to the winding up things 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 7:238).
Brigham Young taught, "How are you going to get your resurrection? You will get it by the President of the resurrection pertaining to this generation, and that is Joseph Smith. Hear it all ye ends of the earth; if ever you enter into the kingdom of God it is because Joseph Smith let you go there. This will apply to Jews and Gentiles, to the bond, and the free; to friends and foes; no man or woman in this generation will get a resurrection and be crowned, without Joseph Smith saying so. Discourse given October 8, 1854
George Q. Cannon, member of the First Presidency, said that Joseph Smith plays a pivotal role in the salvation plan. "If we get our salvation, we shall have to pass by him; if we enter into our glory, it will be through the authority that he has received" (Gospel Truth, pp. 199, 200).
LDS President Harold B. Lee who said, "Many have belittled Joseph Smith, but those who have will be forgotten in the remains of mother earth, and the odor of their infamy will ever be with them, but honor, majesty, and fidelity to God, exemplified by Joseph Smith and attached to his name, will never die" (ibid., pg. 23).
July 13, 1862, Young declared, "...he that confesseth not that Jesus has come in the flesh and sent Joseph Smith with the fulness of the Gospel to this generation, is not of God, but is anti-christ" (JOD 9:312).