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It appears that being wrong about Mormons is endemic among sectarian Christians. BTW Elsie, I have question for you. What Bible did Peter and the ancient apostles use to lead the Church in their time? What Bible did Jesus preach from?
Which Bible verse told Peter that the gospel should be extended to Cornelius and the Gentiles? What passage witnessed to John the Baptist that he baptized the Lamb of God? What Bible passage told Paul that Jesus is Lord? What Bible verse told Peter that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God? Revelation was the foundation of the Church anciently. Thus it is today in the Restored Church.

If I recall what the Bible says, it was the Pharisees who used their scriptures to try to disprove living oracles of God. That’s an all too familiar situation today as sectarians use their Bible to disprove the living oracles who speak for God today. Jews today use the same scriptures you do to support their position that the Messiah has not yet come. People will interpret the book however they wish.

You have more in common with Annas and Caiaphas than you do with Peter or Paul. It will always be the case that prophets of God will be opposed by people like you who place the written word before the Living Word in precedence.

If you would like to test my knowledge of scripture, I would invite you to debate me at www.spamlds.org. How confident are you? If you’re interested, just contact me and we’ll decide the terms for the debate. I assure you that you’ll be treated fairly and your dignity will be respected. How about it?

Here’s the “shotgun attack” that I referenced, a rapid fire salvo of doctrinal points, none of which were related to the original point in question:

“what has been the latest. . . changing the temple ceremony in 1990? Blacks being allowed the priesthood 1978? Has your prophet finally gotten the translation of the boa figured out yet?”

That’s what I mean by a shotgun attack. All the answers are there on my site for each of those topics. Then you wrote this:

“you better be ready to defend it here and not on a common blog, because here you have to ramp your game up. But that shouldn’t bother you, you have all your answers pre-cooked for cut and paste.”

This is what psychologists call “projection”—in this thread you have already cut-and-pasted from a variety of different web sites. Then you seek to turn your own tactics and make it appear as I’m all prepped for a “cut-and-paste” war. Projection is another classic anti-Mormon tactic. (There are a total of six primary tactics used by anti-Mormons. I’ve already documented them on my blog, also.) So far you’ve used three out of the six.

The last post is a classic anti-Mormon “shotgun attack,” which throws more confusing questions that time or the venue will permit addressing with reasonable detail. It’s intended to throw up a smokescreen of doubt. That’s because the points are thrown out there with no intention of listening to the answers.

The answers to all of those questions you posed are to be found on my web site (www.spamlds.org) for any open-minded person to read at their leisure. There’s no need to rehash them here in FR.

No, the term “mission” might imply that I’m acting under some authority other than my own interest. I’m simply doing research. Thank you all for your participation.

In case you’re trying to make it look like I’m lying about the date I first joined FR, my old screen name was gregwest, which happens to be my real name. You’re welcome to check my conservative bona fides on the old account if you like.

Read my profile, Godzilla. I’ve been on FR since 2004, but I had the mods delete my account in protest of the anti-Mormon trash on FR. Well, I decided to come back and fight the good fight. Besides, I always thought that the idea that new people in a forum have as many rights as anyone else. Good ideas are good, whether a person has been here for a day or for years.

I’m guessing that you really don’t appreciate how offensive your personal display of intolerance are to reasonable people, so I’ll overlook it. I’m not here to debate with sectarian Christians. Frankly, that’s pointless. There are so many internal conflicts among their own ranks and so many doctrinal disagreements that it’s impossible for you guys to put up a unified argument. Once you resolve the disunity and set your own house in order, maybe there will be time for reasonable discussion.

I wouldn’t consider our missionary efforts to be a display of intolerance. We are commissioned to lift up a warning voice. If a tornado was about to strike your neighborhood, wouldn’t you warn others? Modern revelation has given us the information people need to prepare for the calamities that will occur in the last days. If you choose to ignore the message and encourage others do do so, that’s OK. Nevertheless, it is our neighborly duty to warn others. A lot of people ignored Noah’s warning. “As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of Man.”

My purpose here is not to proselyte, but instead to highlight and document anti-Mormon activity for www.spamlds.org. If you wish to bash Mormons, go ahead. You’re just giving me more material.

The overall tone of the article is to demean and to ridicule a belief system of some 13 million people. (There approximately that many Jews in the world.) I suppose it would it be OK to compare their concept of God to an offensive caricature from a comic book. But wait, the author might have to get a strongly worded letter from B’nai B’rith or the ADL, which would be embarrassing.

Bigotry takes on a lot of forms. Smug disrespect is one of them. This article will be used to provide intellectual justification for intolerance.

Again, you’re evading the point. The four questions on baptism are:

1. Is baptism essential to salvation?
2. Who can perform baptism?
3. How is baptism to be performed.
4. At what age is baptism a requirement.

None of your cut-and-paste answers address these fundamental questions. The denominations in question have different answers to them. There is no unity among Christian sects. Some say it is essential to be baptized while others say it isn’t. Some say sprinkling is OK while others say that immersion is the only proper biblical way to baptize. Some baptize infants. As is the case with the other sacraments, there is no agreement among them, yet all of them use the Bible for their guide.

My point is that tolerance would allow for disagreement without rancor. To target Mormons when Christians are unable to come to a unity of the faith is religious bigotry. Anti-Mormonism is intolerance.

Typical anti-Mormon tactic—change the subject.

Let’s get back to the topic of baptism. Let’s see a statement from each one of those denominations on whether baptism is a requirement for salvation, who can perform it, how it is to be performed, and who has authority to perform it.

You will find legitimate differences in the way each one of those denominations interprets the Bible vis-a-vis the doctrine of baptism. That was the point I was making. A doctrinal exclusion of Mormonism must be equally applied across the spectrum of Christian practice. If Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Methodists all have differing doctrines and they all use the Bible, something must be amiss with them. They can’t all correct.

By what means does God save those who die without knowledge of Christ? The following passages deal with this question:

Matthew 5:25
Matthew 5:28-29
1 Peter 4:6
1 Peter 3:18
1 Corinthians 15:29

The apostle Paul used the practice of baptism for the dead as supporting evidence for the reality of Christ’s resurrection. Why would he use a false principle to teach a true one? Doesn’t make sense to see it that way.

There are legitimate doctrinal differences of opinion. People interpret the Bible differently. Some Christians say baptism is necessary. Others say it isn’t essential to salvation. Both use the Bible to support their position.

If one side that believes baptism is essential, then it is up to them to resolve for themselves how God will deal with those who die in ignorance of Christ’s atonement. If one believes that baptism isn’t necessary, then it is a superfluous question.

Mormons believe every person must repent and be baptized. For those who die in ignorance of Christ, they learn of him while they await the resurrection. Christ himself went there as the scriptures above mention to preach the gospel to them.

If baptism is essential, then God must provide away for them to receive it as well as us. Thus, we believe in doing proxy baptisms for those who died without the chance to know the gospel in its fullness.

If other churches have their own solution to the problem of those who die in ignorance, they’re welcome to it. There’s no reason to attack our belief if you believe yours to be true.

The real questions are:

Is baptism necessary?

Who can perform a baptism and have it be valid?

How is baptism to be performed (Immersion vs. sprinkling)

At what age should one be baptized (Infancy? Age of accountability?)

If baptism is essential, then how can it be realized for those who died in ignorance of Christ?

There is no unity among sectarian Christians on these points. Catholics believe one thing, Protestants another. All Protestants don’t agree on these points. All of them use the Bible. How is it you expect to tell Mormons how to believe when there is no unity or consensus on this particular doctrine among the sects of Christianity?

For us, baptism for the dead teaches us that God will judge us all mercifully and with perfect justice. No one is condemned for dying in ignorance. No souls were created for the express purpose of suffering forever.

The principle of baptism for the dead is biblical. The LDS teachings on it resolve the divisions that exist between Christian sects regarding the fate of those who die without knowledge of Christ. You can read my article about it here if you wish to understand our belief.

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Baptism for the Dead

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