Posted on 11/20/2001 11:55:03 AM PST by freedomcrusader
I've dealt with alot of angry people in my life, and IMHO, his post sounds very bitter. I figured that he just wanted to direct all his anger toward the first Mormon to enter his crosshairs. I can't say that I'm right about that, but posting on the Internet tends to bring out feelings you didn't intend to show.
Hating Mormons because they're Mormons (or Jews because they're Jews, etc.) is just a hairsbreadth from goose-stepping.
If the NFL would pick some other day of the week for the vast majority of its game schedule, they might get some support in Utah. But football gets bashed on a semi-regular basis among the LDS leaders, because of the fear that Monday Night Football is causing some members to shirk their Family Home Evening duties. I would think that just about any sports franchise would have trepidations about going to Utah, for fear of the Sunday attendance dropoff.
The problem with determining who's a Christian and who isn't is that defining "Christian" is such a wide-open game.
Is a Christian simply someone who accepts Jesus Christ as their savior and who accepts his teachings as found in the Bible, or is a Christian required to believe a bunch of other things as well?
The biggest sticking point, it seems to me, has not so much to do with Christ, but with Joseph Smith's views on God the Father: the idea that God might have a physical body just drives most non-LDS Christians into a frenzy. Yet, they really have no explanation as to why God, a spirit being (in their view), would bother Himself with the apparent necessity of creating a physical universe. If we all end up as spirits (which at least some non-LDS Christians seem to believe is the case, despite the Bible's emphasis on a physical resurrection), why would God have to bother with this crude, corruptible matter at all? Couldn't an all-knowing God find some way to accomplish whatever it is mortality is supposed to accomplish without having to get "down in the dirt", so to speak? The LDS have an answer to that, but the non-LDS just can't accept it. They want to believe in an all-powerful God, but somehow they can't imagine God retaining his omnipotence as a physical being. The LDS accept Paul's teachings about post-resurrection bodies being raised in incorruption, which is what we LDS usually term as a "glorified and perfected" body.
If one is going to believe in an all-knowing, all-powerful Being who is responsible for creating the entire universe (rational minds might consider this to be quite a stretch of the imagination as it is) and who focuses what would seem to be an inordinate amount of attention on the people who inhabit this little speck of dust that orbits one star out of the "billions and billions" (thank you, Carl Sagan) of stars that He supposedly created, how much more of a stretch is it to imagine that this Being might have a physical body?
You might even look at it this way: sure, any incorporeal Being who occupies the immensity of space could create a universe and populate it with creatures that He wants to eventually turn into angels, who would spend the rest of eternity dancing around His throne (why an incoporeal Being would be interesting in occupying a throne is a little hard to comprehend, but I digress), but to imagine a physical being who created everything in the universe, and who wants to exalt the lowly creatures who inhabit His planets and bring them up to His level of ability and knowledge, well, now, that is what I would call a truly all-powerful Being.
But "Christians" call that heresy. Go figure.
The thought occurred to me, but I wasn't sure whether Mormons believed int the deity of Christ, or whether, like Muslims, they believed him to be an entirely human prophet.
Given the responses on this thread from a number of Mormons, I now know the answer, and believe my ignorance has not offended anyone.
I would go into depth, but I think that I've said enough to help pull this thread well away from the original topic.
Excellent! That's the best kind of crime! ;-)
I'd like to think so. ;-)
Everybody wants to pick on the Mormons for our theology, but I've pretty much decided that to do so is really pretty stupid. They don't like our theology simply because it's not their theology, when the real bottom line about what determines our future exaltation, whether one is LDS or Buddhist or mainstream Christian or athiest or agnostic or follower of Confuscius or the Dalai Lama or whatever, is how we treat our fellow man while we're here: if we say we're so dang interested in finding out what heaven is going to be like, then why are we so darn happy to make everyone's life a living hell on earth? If there's anything God would like to see in the way of proof that we want to live in heaven, it would be our determination to make this earth as heaven-like as possible before we actually get there. That's what the LDS emphasis on Zion is all about. Everybody else shrinks back in horror from the idea that somebody might attempt to create "utopia", since it will (based on all historical attempts in the past) inevitably fail. Even the Book of Mormon makes that point about inevitable failure. So, since we're doomed to failure, let's not even think about trying, OK?
If the theology helps us with our behavior towards our fellow man by giving some kind of understanding about how we fit into the Big Picture, then great, but I would imagine that there has been many a human being who has inhabited this earth at some point in its history who hasn't had clue one about any kind of theology but has been a wonderful, kind, just, fair, patient, tolerant and caring individual that will earn far better rewards in the afterlife than will the small-minded individuals who are interested in pointing out how "wrong" everybody else's viewpoint on God is.
"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whome we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner -- no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment."
--C. S. Lewis, From The Weight of Glory.
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