Mormon beliefs that bug me

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Robert H
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Mormon beliefs that bug me

Post #1

Post by Robert H »

We all laugh at Mormons because they have some crazy beliefs. The more I read the Bible, the more I get upset at the Mormons because they think they can just waltz in 1800 years after Jesus started His church and claim divine authority. They sure do a great job at emulating His church though... and everything in the Bible. It makes me wonder what are we as Christians really doing?

Things that we laugh at about the Mormons -

- The idea of prophets and apostles who run and govern the church of Christ with divine authority.
- Now this is just crazy talk. We know it happened in the Bible, in fact, we know it ALWAYS happened in the Bible. Why would God ever need to do that today though? That is just silly. No, I for one am for the rationale that God had some of his prophets write a little of their stories, then hand it down through many corrupt generations to come to us as confusing as it is, where millions would argue over it and form hundreds of different Christian sects.

- The concept of the Godhead, where three individuals acting in unison run the program for the eternal life of the Father's children.
- NONSENCE! Though the word godhead is repeatedly taught in the Bible, I won't fall for that now. I prefer the 3rd century doctrine of the trinity made up by power-hungry rulers of the emperor. Their concept of one essence conglomerate that comes and goes in a human body suit when it wants to appear as Jesus really sits deep in my heart.

- Polygamy
- Now this one I really laugh and laugh about. Who in their right mind would want to have more than one wife?! Hahahahaha! Then again, maybe there are lots and lots of chores to be done when running a farming community? I wouldn't know though, our country has made it illegal because they consider it gross and wrong. Sort of the same way the country felt about gay sex and interracial marriage. But I know Mormons didn't invent the idea, maybe Father Abraham or Jacob paved the way. Ah, in fact, the whole house of Israel, the sacred and blessed people of the Lord all practiced polygamy. The very blood line of the Savior Himself comes from a polygamist family. Without Jacob marrying his 4 wives and having his 12 sons, the line of Judah would have never existed and the Messiah would have never been born. But no, I must stick with modern western culture's concept of marriage and conclude that polygamy is evil and anyone from Old Testament times that did such a thing was evil. I personally think we should take steps to erase that terrible polygamist culture of the Hebrews from the Bible.

- Baptism for the Dead and Three levels of existence in the resurrection
- Now, this is nuts. Anyone who reads all of 1 Corinthians chapter 15 could have just copied these doctrines right out of it. The Mormons certainly did just that. Celestial and Terrestrial existences when we become resurrected.... Paul was just out of his mind when he wrote that chapter. Again, this chapter needs to be removed from the New Testament because it directly contradicts the modern Christian ideas of a heaven and hell and that you cant earn either.

Anyway, that is just a couple things I despise about the Mormons. They are just Bible copiers and they refuse to go along with modern Christianity that seems to have derailed form the Biblical teachings and formed their own Western doctrines. They just need to play nice.

postroad
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Post #11

Post by postroad »

dianaiad wrote:
postroad wrote: Which Mormons are we talking about. I thought the official LDS had abandoned polygamy?
We no longer practice it, true, and one of the fastest ways to get excommunicated is to start practicing it. We do not, however, disavow ever having practiced it, or claim that those who did (when it was a part of church life) were in any way sinful.
Does this mean that what constitutes sinful behavior is based on revelation and not conscience?

ReallyGod
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Post #12

Post by ReallyGod »

Robert why are you attacking Mormons when the roots of any religion could just as easily be questioned

Guardiands
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Post #13

Post by Guardiands »

Robert, the weirdest thing about Mormons is that they believe the bible. Sure, throw your JST in there, but you still are treating the writings of some guy named Paul as canonical scripture. That's like taking the words of Bruce R. McConkie as canonical scripture.

D+C was cool cause it was supposed to be revelation, sourced by god. But then you turn around and embrace that silly book of the bible. JST should have just flushed most of that.

From the intro of D+C
Beginning with the 1835 edition, a series of seven theological lessons was also included; these were titled the Lectures on Faith. These had been prepared for use in the School of the Prophets in Kirtland, Ohio, from 1834 to 1835. Although profitable for doctrine and instruction, these lectures have been omitted from the Doctrine and Covenants since the 1921 edition because they were not given or presented as revelations to the whole Church.
You guys should flush most of the bible as well for the same reason. Especially Paul. That's what I find about mormon beliefs that bug me and are silly.

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Nickman
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Re: Mormon beliefs that bug me

Post #14

Post by Nickman »

Robert H wrote: We all laugh at Mormons because they have some crazy beliefs. The more I read the Bible, the more I get upset at the Mormons because they think they can just waltz in 1800 years after Jesus started His church and claim divine authority. They sure do a great job at emulating His church though... and everything in the Bible. It makes me wonder what are we as Christians really doing?

Things that we laugh at about the Mormons -

- The idea of prophets and apostles who run and govern the church of Christ with divine authority.
- Now this is just crazy talk. We know it happened in the Bible, in fact, we know it ALWAYS happened in the Bible. Why would God ever need to do that today though? That is just silly. No, I for one am for the rationale that God had some of his prophets write a little of their stories, then hand it down through many corrupt generations to come to us as confusing as it is, where millions would argue over it and form hundreds of different Christian sects.

- The concept of the Godhead, where three individuals acting in unison run the program for the eternal life of the Father's children.
- NONSENCE! Though the word godhead is repeatedly taught in the Bible, I won't fall for that now. I prefer the 3rd century doctrine of the trinity made up by power-hungry rulers of the emperor. Their concept of one essence conglomerate that comes and goes in a human body suit when it wants to appear as Jesus really sits deep in my heart.

- Polygamy
- Now this one I really laugh and laugh about. Who in their right mind would want to have more than one wife?! Hahahahaha! Then again, maybe there are lots and lots of chores to be done when running a farming community? I wouldn't know though, our country has made it illegal because they consider it gross and wrong. Sort of the same way the country felt about gay sex and interracial marriage. But I know Mormons didn't invent the idea, maybe Father Abraham or Jacob paved the way. Ah, in fact, the whole house of Israel, the sacred and blessed people of the Lord all practiced polygamy. The very blood line of the Savior Himself comes from a polygamist family. Without Jacob marrying his 4 wives and having his 12 sons, the line of Judah would have never existed and the Messiah would have never been born. But no, I must stick with modern western culture's concept of marriage and conclude that polygamy is evil and anyone from Old Testament times that did such a thing was evil. I personally think we should take steps to erase that terrible polygamist culture of the Hebrews from the Bible.

- Baptism for the Dead and Three levels of existence in the resurrection
- Now, this is nuts. Anyone who reads all of 1 Corinthians chapter 15 could have just copied these doctrines right out of it. The Mormons certainly did just that. Celestial and Terrestrial existences when we become resurrected.... Paul was just out of his mind when he wrote that chapter. Again, this chapter needs to be removed from the New Testament because it directly contradicts the modern Christian ideas of a heaven and hell and that you cant earn either.

Anyway, that is just a couple things I despise about the Mormons. They are just Bible copiers and they refuse to go along with modern Christianity that seems to have derailed form the Biblical teachings and formed their own Western doctrines. They just need to play nice.
And your beliefs are not crazy? Resurrection, walking on water, going into space without a suit, human sacrifice, baptism, sin, global floods? Those are normal right?

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dianaiad
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Post #15

Post by dianaiad »

Guardiands wrote: Robert, the weirdest thing about Mormons is that they believe the bible. Sure, throw your JST in there, but you still are treating the writings of some guy named Paul as canonical scripture. That's like taking the words of Bruce R. McConkie as canonical scripture.

D+C was cool cause it was supposed to be revelation, sourced by god. But then you turn around and embrace that silly book of the bible. JST should have just flushed most of that.

From the intro of D+C
Beginning with the 1835 edition, a series of seven theological lessons was also included; these were titled the Lectures on Faith. These had been prepared for use in the School of the Prophets in Kirtland, Ohio, from 1834 to 1835. Although profitable for doctrine and instruction, these lectures have been omitted from the Doctrine and Covenants since the 1921 edition because they were not given or presented as revelations to the whole Church.
You guys should flush most of the bible as well for the same reason. Especially Paul. That's what I find about mormon beliefs that bug me and are silly.
Yes, we do believe in the bible...and we do "believe the bible." However, we are not biblical literalists nor do we believe that the bible is without error. Dunno if that means anything to you or your argument or not: I'm just mentioning it.

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Post #16

Post by Guardiands »

[Replying to post 15 by dianaiad]

There is no rational reason for Mormons to have the epistles of Paul as part of the canon. Like the lectures on faith, those letters were not given as revelations for the whole church. I feel like they are just left in so the LDS church will fit in. JST should have just purged it all for consistency sake.

I get the eighth article of faith, and George Q. Cannon's view that interprets that article as meaning we don't care where something is found, we just care if it is true (paraphrase). Beautiful. But not much in the way of guidance. For me the Mormon church tries too hard to adopt traditional biblical views (especially as to what books are in the bible.) and in doing so lose what makes them unique, a more direct revelatory doctrinal scheme (of course the Book of Mormon suffers from the same problem, who cares what Alma thinks, but since Joseph Smith did not speak "reformed egyptian" the entire book of mormon is just one big revelation anyway (allegedly).

The biggest flaw with mormonism is its desire to embrace the bulk of the bible. JST was a great start, too bad it didn't go far enough.

Simply put, why on earth would Paul's letters be included in LDS theology?

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dianaiad
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Post #17

Post by dianaiad »

Guardiands wrote: [Replying to post 15 by dianaiad]

...

Simply put, why on earth would Paul's letters be included in LDS theology?
For the same reason we still include stuff from Brigham Young. Imperfect, loud-mouthed men may still have great things to teach us, and if God had to wait for perfection in order to choose a prophet, none would ever be called.

Indeed, if you look closely at all the stories of all the prophets mentioned in the bible, you'll see that every single one of them (that had more than one verse or two dedicated to them, at any rate) had flaws. Those flaws, I think, were mentioned for a reason.

As for Paul, well....

yeah.

You mention the 8th article of faith: it does say that we believe the bible only insofar as it is 'translated correctly.' You realize that if we were all THAT interested in 'fitting in,' (like the current members of the Church of Christ managed, finally) that we would have still been happily owning a good portion of the eastern bank of the Mississippi? That 'as far as it is translated correctly" really makes the biblical inerrentist's blood boil, right? BTW, we don't think that the Book of Mormon is error free, either; check out the title page.

You are correct: we are appreciative of truth wherever it is found: why, there's 'Truth' in the Quran, the Vedas, in the mythology of all cultures, and even in "just so" stories. The trick is to sift through the sand to get the gold.

We just think it's a lot easier to find gold if one is looking in a jewelry store than in Home Depot. Not that you can't fid gold at Home Depot, and not everything in the jewelry store is gold: it's just a lot more concentrated there. So I remain a Mormon, for that reason. This, I believe, is where most of the 'gold' is.

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Post #18

Post by Guardiands »

[Replying to dianaiad]

There aren't any teachings of Brigham Young included. There are revelations for the church, and two declarations which were not revelations for the church, but institutional positions presented to the church for a sustaining vote. Sure, much of it could be scripture, and I guess Paul could. But the beauty of the D+C was that it wasn't supposed to be just higher concentration of scripture mixed in with fluff....it was supposed to be pure straight revelation.

Whereas the bible...I mean Luke just goes around decades later and interviews people and now that is in LDS canon? Blah. The bible makes so little sense. I mean Mormons could be far ahead in the game, but they ruin it by adopting essentially all of the bible, which means they are just as flawed as mainstream christianity.

I get that the JST and 8th article of faith are efforts to resolve the obvious problems with the origin of the bible, but it just stops way short, and so essentially because Mormonism is so closely interlinked with biblical teachings, it fails for the same reason christianity fails, most of its teachings aren't even claimed to be of divine origin.

And I get that at the end of the day you have LDS who have positions like Henry Eyring (not the apostle, his dad) George Q Canon, B H Roberts who essentially say it doesn't matter where something is found, bible, book of mormon, D+C, all that matters is if something is true or not. And if it is accept it, if it isn't, reject it. But a few members saying that and the church embracing it aren't the same thing.

But I digress, really, I just feel that the LDS church loses credibility because in adopting so much of the bible (JST should have gutted it) they adopt so many of the same criticisms that just destroy traditional christianity.

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Post #19

Post by sleepyhead »

dianaiad wrote:
You are correct: we are appreciative of truth wherever it is found: why, there's 'Truth' in the Quran, the Vedas, in the mythology of all cultures, and even in "just so" stories. The trick is to sift through the sand to get the gold.

We just think it's a lot easier to find gold if one is looking in a jewelry store than in Home Depot. Not that you can't fid gold at Home Depot, and not everything in the jewelry store is gold: it's just a lot more concentrated there. So I remain a Mormon, for that reason. This, I believe, is where most of the 'gold' is.
Hello Diana,

Thus far, my experience with Mormons is there preoccupied with the question of the historicity of the Book of Mormon and whether JS and there present leaders are really prophets. For this reason I would like you to define exactly what you mean by gold. Does gold mean that the reading of your scripture, your attendance at church functions, Etc. provided a value to your life greater than you would have gained at another religious or secular event? Does it mean that it is gold because the BOM is historically accurate, and because the leaders are saying what God tells them regardless of whether you receive anything of value?
May all your naps be joyous occasions.

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SkyChief
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Post #20

Post by SkyChief »

Mormons do have some "unusual" beliefs.

To me, the most questionable are the beliefs that;

• Jesus visited America after His resurrection, and that he will visit Independence, Missouri when he returns for the Second Coming.

• All Mormons will become Gods.

That's kinda weird.

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