Posted on 12/29/2007 8:34:35 AM PST by greyfoxx39
Anti-Mormon literature tends to recycle the same themes. Some ministries are using a series of fifty questions, which they believe will help "cultists" like the Mormons. One ministry seems to suggest that such questions are a good way to deceive Latter-day Saints, since the questions "give...them hope that you are genuinely interested in learning more about their religion."
This ministry tells its readers what their real intent should be with their Mormon friend: "to get them thinking about things they may have never thought about and researching into the false teachings of their church." Thus, the questions are not sincere attempts to understand what the Latter-day Saints believe, but are a smokescreen or diversionary tactic to introduce anti-Mormon material.[1]
The questions are not difficult to answer, nor are they new. This page provides links to answers to the questions. It should be noted that the questions virtually all do at least one of the following:
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This was not a prophecy, but a command from God to build the temple. There's a difference. Jesus said people should repent; just because many didn't doesn't make Him a false messenger, simply a messenger that fallible people didn't heed.
Learn more here: Independence temple to be built "in this generation"
In Brigham (and Joseph's) day, there had been newspaper articles reporting that a famous astronomer had reported that there were men on the moon and elsewhere. This was published in LDS areas; the retraction of this famous hoax never was publicized, and so they may not have even heard about it.
Brigham and others were most likely repeating what had been told them by the science of the day. (Lots of Biblical prophets talked about the earth being flat, the sky being a dome, etc.—it is inconsistent for conservative Protestants to complain that a false belief about the physical world shared by others in their culture condemns Brigham and Joseph, but does not condemn Bible prophets.)
In any case, Brigham made it clear that he was expressing his opinion: "Do you think it is inhabited? I rather think it is." Prophets are entitled to their opinions; in fact, the point of Brigham's discourse is that the only fanatic is one who insists upon clinging to a false idea.
The problem with "Adam-God" is that we don't understand what Brigham meant. All of his statements cannot be reconciled with each other. In any case, Latter-day Saints are not inerrantists—they believe prophets can have their own opinions. Only the united voice of the First Presidency and the Twelve can establish official LDS doctrine. That never happened with any variety of "Adam-God" doctrine. Since Brigham seemed to also agree with statements like Mormon 9:12, and the Biblical record, it seems likely that we do not entirely understand how he fit all of these ideas together.
Peter and the other apostles likewise misunderstood the timing of gospel blessings to non-Israelites. Even following a revelation to Peter, many members of the early Christian Church continued to fight about this point and how to implement it—even Peter and Paul had disagreements. Yet, Bible-believing Christians, such as the Latter-day Saints, continue to consider both as prophets. Critics should be careful that they do not have a double standard, or they will condemn Bible prophets as well.
The Latter-day Saints are not scriptural or prophetic inerrantists. They are not troubled when prophets have personal opinions which turn out to be incorrect. In the case of the priesthood ban, members of the modern Church accepted the change with more joy and obedience than many first century members accepted the extension of the gospel to the Gentiles without the need for keeping the Mosaic Law.
Believing Christians should be careful. Unless they want to be guilty of a double standard, they will end up condemning many Biblical prophets by this standard.
Most "contradictions" are actually misunderstandings or misrepresentations of LDS doctrine and teachings by critics. The LDS standard for doctrine is the scriptures, and united statements of the First Presidency and the Twelve.
The Saints believe they must be led by revelation, adapted to the circumstances in which they now find themselves. Noah was told to build an ark, but not all people required that message. Moses told them to put the Passover lamb’s blood on their door; that was changed with the coming of Christ, etc.
No member is expected to follow prophetic advice "just because the prophet said so." Each member is to receive his or her own revelatory witness from the Holy Ghost. We cannot be led astray in matters of importance if we always appeal to God for His direction.
The First Vision accounts are not contradictory. No early member of the Church claimed that Joseph changed his story, or contradicted himself. Critics of the Church have not been familiar with the data on this point.
The shortest answer is that the Saints believe the First Vision not because of textual evidence, but because of personal revelation.
The Church didn't really "choose" one of many accounts; many of the accounts we have today were in diaries, some of which were not known till recently (1832; 1835 (2); Richards, Neibaur). The 1840 (Orson Pratt) and 1842 (Orson Hyde) accounts were secondary recitals of what happened to the Prophet; the Wentworth letter and interview for the Pittsburgh paper were synopsis accounts (at best). The account which the Church uses in the Pearl of Great Price (written in 1838) was published in 1842 by Joseph Smith as part of his personal history. As new accounts were discovered they were widely published in places like BYU Studies.
This is a misunderstanding and caricature of LDS doctrine. There is, however, the Biblical doctrine that the apostles will help judge Israel:
Since the saints believe in modern apostles, they believe that those modern apostles (including Joseph) will have a role in judgment appointed to them by Jesus.
Those who condemn Joseph on these grounds must also condemn Peter and the rest of the Twelve.
This question is based on the mistaken assumption that the Bible message that Jesus is Christ and Lord is somehow "proved" by archeology, which is not true. It also ignores differences between Old and New World archeology. For example, since we don't know how to pronounce the names of ANY Nephite-era city in the American archeological record, how would we know if we had found a Nephite city or not?
The term "familiar spirit," quoted in the often-poetic Isaiah (and used by Nephi to prophesy about the modern publication of the Book of Mormon) is a metaphor, not a description of any text or its origin.
The critics need to read the next verses. The Book of Mormon says that God may command polygamy, just a few verses later. (Jac. 2:30).
Many Biblical prophets had more than one wife, and there is no indication that God condemned them. And, the Law of Moses had laws about plural wives—why not just forbid them if it was evil, instead of telling people how they were to conduct it?
And, many early Christians didn't think polygamy was inherently evil:
The critics have their history wrong. The change dates to 1837. The change was made by Joseph Smith in the 1837 edition of the Book of Mormon, though it was not carried through in some other editions, which mistakenly followed the 1830 instead of Joseph’s change. It was restored in the 1981 edition, but that was nearly 150 years after the change was made by Joseph.
This issue has been discussed extensively in the Church's magazines (e.g. the Ensign), and the scholarly publication BYU Studies.
In Alma, the reference is to Jesus Christ, who before His birth did not have a physical body.
John 4:24 does not say God is "a" spirit, but says "God is spirit." There is no "a" in the Greek. The Bible also says "God is truth" or "God is light." Those things are true, but we don't presume God is JUST truth, or JUST light—or JUST spirit.
As one non-LDS commentary puts it:
In the Bible, there are accounts of God commanding or approving less than complete disclosure. These examples seem to involve the protection of the innocent from the wicked, which fits the case of Abraham and his wife nicely.
The Bible also says that Bethlehem ("the city of David") is at Jerusalem. (2_Kings 14:20) Was the Bible wrong? (Bethlehem is in the direct area of Jerusalem, being only about seven miles apart.)
I know this sounds dumb, but pinging someone the same as including them in the “To” when posting.
Or is there a special ping icon? Would be more than happy to ping Jim. I just had never pinged anyone before.
I found what it said about spiritual matters to be true. Because of that, I can trust it as a historical document. I don’t think it would be true in one regard and false in the other.
To be honest with you, I rather doubt anyone is going to come up with a more verifiable answer. I believe in omnipotent God. He can do anything. Therefore, I do not find the Biblical account to be far-fetched. Lacking a video of the whole thing, I take it on faith.
I’m sure a scientist can explain how a ball of spinning molten rock ended up leading to the building of an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 3.0GHz LGA 775 130W Processor but I have trouble making that connection. If they can take it on faith, more power to them.
Yes, you did it correctly. I assume that you will now ping Jim when you make your remarks about how dissatisfied you are with FR?
Well at least you are honest :) Happy New Year!
I have never studied any doctrine taught by her, so I am unaware of it, and cannot comment on it.
She also has her agency, and can believe what she wants.
That may be true, but I will not hold my breath waiting for it to happen.
I don't know and neither does anyone in the Church that I know of. The church does not keep track of that.
Look at Harry Reid. He has not been excommunicated for his liberal political beliefs and actions.
We can agree though, he is all screwed up in his political beliefs.
****The question that I am asking and that you keep avoiding is whether you believe that it happened the way the Bible said it did?****
Why should I avoid it. I wasn’t there. I could have been the sun, the GLORY of the Lord (which you don’t believe in), a brilliant comet, an extra brite sun dog. To those on the ground it appeared that the sun had stood still and wrote it as so. The point is they won the battle.
Even today there is great discussion on what the star of Bethlehem was. Star? comet? Glory of the Lord?
I could show you several things from the secular histories of Herodotus which may get you to call him a liar, but that is another story.
You aint my mommy, so don't lecture me.
I happen to like FR. It's the narrow-minded bomb-throwing zealots on here that I don't care for.
***I happen to like FR. It’s the narrow-minded bomb-throwing zealots on here that I don’t care for,***
The “narrow-minded bomb=throwing zealots” are not the ones trying to hijack Christianity.
My first computer that spoke BASIC (Ohio Scientific) had an ENORMUS 4K of ram
When I left the Navy Department behind, I was on a PDP system that had a 350 megabyte hard drive the size of a washing machine, with a disk platter that looked like an oversized cake carrier.
Now we can get an Ipod with HOW much memory? Wow!
Now YOU are telling ME what my belief is!
Religious ones, too...
Ya post dumb stuff: ya get lectured.
That's how it works around here.
Dang!!
I might be eating pizza in an FR cafe and one of these dudes'll drive by!
What or WHO should I look for so I can avoid gettin' BLOWN TO BITS?
Elsie has repeatedly said that her beliefs are those espoused by the Pagan Lawyer Tertulian from about 150AD.
Don't try to mix her up.
Then YOU should be able to point to ONE of these.
Failing that, you WILL be considered to be a liar.
How can they believe in the Bible and the Book of Mormon, when the two contradict one another? Also, what’s the deal on their elders voting to change the BOM hundreds of times? If it’s holy, why should man change it?
His teachings were radically different than had been taught by others such as the Bishop of Rome.
Since his doctrines were adopted, and not the doctrines of the Bible, Tertulian became the most influential writer.
Those who adopted his doctrines are actually his followers.
But, you already knew all that.
Ha!!
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