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The wording that is used is straight copy and pasts, or remembered and wrote.
The way it is worded is close, but the way it is said, it is just far enough to be misleading enough to create negative ideas about God's teachings.
The way it is worded is close, but the way it is said, it is just far enough to be misleading enough to create negative ideas about God's teachings.
Excellent bob, weave, duck and dodge....Fredrest!!
You should be a boxer in your next life....
Either “cut and paste” or “remembered and wrote”?
Ummm...pardon me, but in all candidness, WHAT ELSE IS THERE?
Well, regardless, that seems a backhanded way of admitting that it is fundamentally correct.
Telling the truth about those different beliefs (strange to many, when compared to mainstream, actual Christianity - the image which LDS marketing has sought to portray as their own in their TV PR campaign) has a strange effect of creating negative ideas about those beliefs.
The “negative” ideas, as you have characterized them here are simply people forming their own inward belief those teachings are TOO strange, TOO different...to really stem from G_d
Proxy baptism of the deceased? C’mon, that cannot be what He intended - especially not the way it is employed.
Planet Kolob? Well, that makes no sense whatsoever - I mean everyone knows that modern astronomy has found and catalogued/categorized all the planets in our solar system.
None of them are named Kolob, none of them fit Smith’s description, there is no evidence tht humans ever dwelt on ANY of them whatsoever, and none of them possess an atmosphere which would make them hospitable for (a return of) human life.
Humans become gods and goddesses. Well there certainly are a lot of folks out there who bellieve in such a concept, but the majority are pagans/pantheists/Gaia worshippers, wiccans, etc..who reject the G_d of Israel as supreme from “everlasting to everlasting”.
We are not perfectable.. The only perfection we may ever be allowed to attain will be granted by our becoming one with Christ. Only in Him will our joy be made complete.
With respect to just HOW one packages up and presents the whole set of “different” beliefs embraced and espoused by the mormon system, it matters little whether one slants the narrative one way or another, they still are what they are.
It is analogous to examining a far more extreme example - satanism. Oh, sure it substitutes in the devil in G_d’s place, and the operative principle is selfishness, rather than selflessness. The guiding belief is that you look out for your self first, last, and always...
Nobody is ultimately trustworthy in this life, but that really does not matter so much, since this life is all there is - afterward just comes an extended dirt nap.
Extended only a little further, the outcomes of most situations in this life matter not much, since in the end defining the whole dynamic of the interaction between good and evil is a futile pursuit.
I am definitively NOT saying mormonism believes those things, nor am I suggesting that the LDS system is futile or so utterly far off base in every way as is satanism.
But there is a clear distinction between (non-Arian/non gnostic) Christianity, and mormonism which does have specific elements of Arianism and gnosticism.
Traditional Christianity had an 1800 year head start in establishing itself, and it began with people who walked and talked with Jesus Himself, and therefore knew and understood of what he spoke and taught. Mormonism lacks that history, that firm fundament.
Therefore, the basic tenets of proper Christianity, built upon the foundational relationship established by Judaism, have had all those centuries to become part of the “collective consciousness” of Western civilization across a wide swath of Europe and into the “New World”, as well as being writ large in Byzantine culture.
Although Arianism survived in scattered pockets and enclaves for about 300 years, and Gnosticism maintained a secretive hold on a minority who valued power and influence above principle, both were for the most part, vanquished.
Popularity has something to do with it, and Christianity has had the durability of appeal to the downtrodden and wealthy, the earnest seeker, and the spiritually bankrupt alike.
I grant that mormonism has garnered a large number of adherents in a short period of time, but I do not see those numbers as validating that belief system, any more than I see Islam and its 1.2 billion that way.
We likely disagree on that and other points.
However, I am glad for your participation in these discussions, your contributions can be instructive, and I always welcome your right to “throw” your thoughts into the “arena of ideas”, right next to those of everyone else.
A.A.C.