Posted on 05/08/2009 7:31:47 AM PDT by Colofornian
Now THAT would be a story!
You err in your interpretation of our beliefs - as usual.
We can TRUMP any other 'religion' by the FACT that OURS is CORRECT!!
--MormonDupe(I hope this finally settles this argument)
And be a little careful of Paul, he never even met met Jesus. Its ok to be skeptical of some of his words.
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And he (Paul) said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. Acts 9:5
All of us fell to the ground, and I heard a voice asking me in the Hebrew language, “Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me? It is hurting you to keep on kicking against the pricks.”
I asked, “Who are you, Lord?”
The Lord answered, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for the very purpose of appointing you to be my servant and witness of what you have seen and of what I will show you.” Acts 24:14-16
Not at all. You're the one who initiated conversation about the appearance of cities in Utah -- not me. I was merely addressing what their actual appearance is -- not your Donnie Osmond version of them.
Perhaps, what you don't realize is that half of SLC isn't even Mormon! The estimates for Utah itself is that it's down now to only 56-60% LDS. And SLC is a lot lower than that! So, the "realities" of SLC -- is that all LDS fault? (No!) But again, I'm not the one who was raising the appearance of these cities as some sort of "proof" about the LDS religion, you were.
So just as any given cities' appearance of cleanliness doesn't bestow "Christianity" or "purity" upon it, likewise, the reverse is also true: The presence of the homeless doesn't mean there's not a vibrant religious presence there.
And this feel crazy for me, having to defend mormons. Im defending their works, not their theology.
Hey, if you were applying for the position of godhood with a lifetime audition, you'd put forth your best face and walk, too. Come on, DR, surely if you knew all your good works would "boomerang" back on to you in earning your godhood, that'd be quite self-motivating, wouldn't it?
(Or did you not know that one of their "beliefs" is that they are gods-in-embryo -- part of the "Future Gods of the Universe Club?" Do they "live their godhood" more than other religions living their manhood? For I'd say that's an entirely distinct line of standard-measuring!!!)
As an ex-Mormon FREEPER, Reaganaut, quoted to me: I do good works to bring glory to God. I do them BECAUSE I AM SAVED not in order to be. The LDS do good works to earn their salvation (exaltation), they do good works to earn glory for themselves (progression even unto godhood).
By any sane measure the mormon church is good for people here.
OK, let's look @ just one "sane" measurement, suicide...and please especially note the final graph below -- and the a/b conclusions before that:
Source No. 1: KSL.com [Isn't KSL-TV owned by the LDS church?], July 26, 1999: "Utah has the 10th highest suicide rate in the country, and state health officials want to know why. Suicide is the leading cause of death for Utah males between the ages of 15 and 44."
Source No. 2: The Daily Utah Chronicle, April 9, 2003: "In 2002, Utah ranked ninth highest in the nation in suicide rates, according to a study published by the American Association of Suicidology. The association reports that Utah is consistently hovering around nearly 300 suicide-related deaths yearly. And things are not getting better, according to John McIntosh, a professor of psychology at Indiana University South Bend. McIntosh says that Utah has been in the top 10 states for instances of suicide for several years. McIntosh reports that in 1999, Utah had a suicide rate of 13.2 cases per 100,000 people, a rate substantially higher than the national average of 10.7."
Source No. 3: [Note that this source has some positive reflections upon the LDS faith]: American Journal of Epidemiology 2002;155:413-419. Write-up in: "High Religious Commitment Linked to Less Suicide", by Charnicia E. Huggins (Reuters Health), Daily News (6 March 2002). Here is the citation from source No. 3 at length: "NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Young Mormon men living in Utah who closely adhere to the dictates of their faith are less likely to commit suicide than their peers who are less active in the church, study findings show. The Mormon Church is known formally as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). For more than 10 years, 15- to 34-year-old males in Utah have had suicide rates markedly higher than those seen nationally. In fact, in the early to mid-1990s, suicide was the number one cause of death among 25- to 44-year-old men in the state and the second-leading cause of death among men aged 15 to 24. "These results provide evidence that a low level of religious commitment is a potential risk factor for suicide," Dr. Sterling C. Hilton of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and his colleagues write in the March 1st issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology. "If the observed association is real, then it gives us another piece of information that helps us understand suicide... which might help efforts to reduce it," Hilton told Reuters Health. Hilton and his colleagues investigated the relationship between suicide and religiosity in an analysis of 1991-1995 state death records from the Utah State Department of Health, as well as data from the LDS church and the US Census Bureau. Roughly 27,740 male deaths occurred during the study period, including 551 suicides among 15 to 34 year olds, the investigators report. About 6 in 10 of these suicides were committed by male members of the LDS church. Suicide rates in each of the four age categories studied--15 to 19 years, 20 to 24 years, 25 to 29 years, and 30 to 34 years--were lower among active members of the LDS church than among less active LDS church members, nonmembers and males in the general US population, the report indicates. For example, the suicide rate among less active LDS church members aged 25 to 29 was seven times higher than among their active church peers. Nationally, the suicide rate among 20- to 34-year old males was 2.5 to 3 times higher than among active LDS church members of the same age. Suicide risk was also 3 to 6 times higher among nonmembers in comparison to active members of the LDS church."
If you have only a tunnel viewpoint (in other words, if you read only the opening sentence of the third source & stop there), you would conclude that the LDS faith has a fully positive impact on young people when it comes to measuring suicide & faith life. But read on. How do the following statistics (stats I didn't make up)--were they to represent any church body, make for a positive reflection of it?
(a) "About 6 in 10 of these suicides were committed by male members of the LDS church." Is this a positive "fact" or "statistic"?
(b) "Young Mormon men living in Utah who closely adhere to the dictates of their faith are less likely to commit suicide than their peers who are less active in the church, study findings show." Is this a positive "fact" or "statistic"? Yes, you might say, and I'm sure LDS apologists cite it. But what does this tightly controlled qualifier then say about young Mormen men living in Utah who do not closely adhere to the dictates of their faith? [The study answers that question...see next quote]
"...the suicide rate among less active LDS church members aged 25 to 29 was seven times higher than among their active church peers." Is there a correlation between spiritual pressure to conform & suicide? (I can't answer that, but it's a question worth raising).
"Suicide risk was also 3 to 6 times higher among nonmembers in comparison to active members of the LDS church." [among 20 to 34 age group]. Whereas the suicide risk was 7 times higher among less active members in comparison to active members of the LDS church aged 25-29].
In other words, at least for those males aged 25-29, you greatly increase your chance for suicide if you are a member of the LDS church and you don't closely adhere to the dictates of your faith (vs. simply not belonging at all).
I already addressed this in the previous post -- if you look I said in brackets [at that time the OT].
And surely you arent suggesting that Paul merely kept preaching the teaching of Jesus from when he walked alive with the 12 Disciples?? He clearly made radical departures.
Like what? (When you make accusations, ya gotta be specific)
Dez, this is what I'm talking about...you've gotta get into the book of Acts:
3So Paul asked, "Then what baptism did you receive?" "John's baptism," they replied. 4Paul said, "John's baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus." 5On hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. (Acts 19:3-5)
So the answer to your query is "no." Paul and other early leaders made a distinction between John's baptism (for purposes of repentance) and being baptized into Jesus. (Otherwise, Paul wouldn't have baptized them again)
And of course its symbol, ritual,,lovely and useful, but you dont have to be baptised. You simply have to accept Jesus sacrifice in your heart.
Well, that was good enough -- the trust of the thief -- for the thief. But don't you believe people have a need for God to cleanse them inwardly (John 13:8) -- and also to fully identify with the death of Christ? (Rom. 6:3-4). Just as the body of Christ was fully immersed in the tomb, we, too are fully immersed within baptism...and both are linked to His death.
I will have to think on this and your post is insightful. However, my current understanding is that Baptism is a ritual signifying the cleansing and an exhibitionism of your choice to follow God.
It can’t be that you must be baptized otherwise there would be no place for those who do not baptize themselves. Here I might think of last minute conversions, prisoners, natives, etc.
How would should one be baptized and what is that definition?
If it were an imperative, shouldn’t it be defined in nature and ritual?
Thank you for your thoughts and I will have to read up on this.
I think it’s funny though that people get so offended by this posthumous baptism thing. Either it’s a silly exercise that means nothing and has no real effect on the deceased person (my view), or it really does give them a chance to be saved. If the former, it deserves merely ridicule, and if the latter, it deserves thanks. Nowhere in there is there a reason for anyone to get upset.
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I disagree. What is upsetting to me is the whole “holier than thou” aspect. Doing these things without familial permission is a slap in the face both to the dead and the living family members.
It reeks of typical Mormon superiority by saying no matter what a person did in life, no matter how faithful, no matter what their relationship to God, it wasn’t “good enough”.
The LDS nullify Christ’s work on the Cross by saying it wasn’t enough, that what is required for Salvation is “Jesus PLUS” many other things (including temple work). And then they turn around and impose these views on the relatives of the deceased. It is the attitude behind it that bothers me.
Let the dead bury their dead. Leave my dead relatives alone.
I guess the Mormons are in the business of posthumously baptising atheists?
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And everyone else they can get their hands on.
When I was LDS, the favorite “faith promoting rumor” at BYU was “so and so was able to trace their geneology all the way back to Adam (as in Adam and Eve)”.
Even as a True Believing Mormon I rolled my eyes at it, but you would be surprised the number of people who believed it.
Yep, Mormons are "holier than thou" in this case. Again, so what?
Doing these things without familial permission is a slap in the face both to the dead and the living family members.
The dead don't care; they're dead. The living shouldn't care, because the "baptisms" aren't in any sense real.
It reeks of typical Mormon superiority by saying no matter what a person did in life, no matter how faithful, no matter what their relationship to God, it wasn’t “good enough”.
Yep. So what? Why should it bother you that they think they're better than you? Who cares what they think?
The LDS nullify Christ’s work on the Cross by saying it wasn’t enough, that what is required for Salvation is “Jesus PLUS” many other things (including temple work).
Only for themselves; they don't nullify Christ's work on the Cross for me.
And then they turn around and impose these views on the relatives of the deceased.
They don't "impose" anything on anyone - nobody has to take them seriously or adopt their views. If they want to have some silly ceremony and use my name, why do I care, unless they come find me and drag me into the ceremony?
It is the attitude behind it that bothers me.
So ignore it.
Let the dead bury their dead. Leave my dead relatives alone.
Unless they're digging up graves, they are leaving your dead relatives alone, because their "baptism" isn't real - it isn't anything.
He does define it -- and gives us of sorts natural parallels.
Let's look at John 3:5: Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of WATER and the Spirit.
So, when you couple this with other verses like Rom. 6:3-4, we see that baptism is in sorts...
(1)... a burial of the old man -- where we die -- and that death is linked with the death of Jesus Christ.
(2)In its place is a new life that emerges (a spiritual likeness to the resurrection) -- what Jesus in John 3 describes as a new birth from above...and what is a new birth other than life that has emerged?
(3) And just as water from the amniotic sack is where we breathe in new life while in the womb, God chooses to give us spiritual oxygen and spiritual feeding within the Power of His Word operating within baptism.
So, #1: Is an "imperative" involved? (Yes, He says "no one can enter the kingdom of God unless...")
(2) Does Jesus tie water to this second-birth imperative? [Yes. Obviously it's not water only, He also mentions the Spirit...which is also highlighted in Titus 3:5: He saved us through the WASHING OF REBIRTH and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior... (Titus 3:5-6)]
So, it's obvious from both John 3 & Titus 3 that there's a washing involved that utilizes water and results in a rebirth -- which Titus 3 links to salvation. Our salvation is the act of Jesus Christ dying on the cross for us -- which is linked to Romans 6 and can be received thru our trust/faith (Eph. 2:8-9) & our open identification in Him (Rom. 6:3-4; Titus 3:5-6). All of it is His doing -- His mercy & grace (Eph. 2:8-9; Titus 3:6) -- it's not our ritualistic work.
I think people reject God's work in baptism primarily because they think it's a work or ordinance man is doing. But the man is merely a passive recipient -- a receiver.
Would you just stop it. Even if she was baptised into the LDS faith by her choice while alive it does NOT make her son LDS nor make him the first LDS President.
Families are forever
In to the next world and on to your own planet, evidentialy!
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