I receive an impression at that beganning you were not as sincere as you posed to be.
an it is attitude if one truly desires to know the Lord or argue with his fellowman.
After all these same request was made by Jesus in the NT but you seemed to found a way to TRY to dilute the whole subject..
Good day!
Restornu:
I’m not a potential convert to LDS, if that’s what you mean, and I apologize if you implicitly understood my curiosity to stem from such a potential.
As the thread states, LDS asserts itself to be a Christian denomination, and, like any sincere belief system, its inherents believe it to be the most correct (which is why I find the brouhaha about Pope Benedict’s recent assertions to be so preposterous).
Here’s my agenda: Are LDS followers inherently anti-rational? Is there any point to ecumenical dialog? Can I trust a Mormon president to think rationally? As I pointed out much earlier, the LDS seems nonsensical, but appealingly nice. Part of me has wanted to say “well, maybe it doesn’t make any sense to them either, but some part of them figures that a naive trusting in kindness is a requirement for salvation” After all, Jesus *did* say that “unless you become as these children, you shall not inherit the kingdom.” But, gosh, that seems awfully condescending of me.
If there’s a case to be made that LDS is sensical, even if I don’t subscribe to their beliefs, I can accept a Mormon as President as easily as I can accept a Protestant. If LDS is nonsensical, but y’all don’t claim rationalism as a means of wisdom, then I can accept y’all are capable of reason, but focus on love more, so that you don’t let intellectualism stifle love. I don’t believe those two should be at cross purposes, but I can respect the Mormon resolution of the apparent but nonexisting dilemma far more readily than I can accept the Marxists’, Rationalists’, Utilitarians’, and Objectivists’ resolution.
But the third option, frankly, scares me: that Mormons do value rationalism, but refuse to acknowledge that their faith is not rationalist, and thus are incapable of rational thought. The gentleness of most Mormons, while not being inconsistent with this, does not support this conclusion. (Many others in this categorically are decidedly non-gentle: Soviets, Nazis, Islamofascists, Maoists; others are gentle while conditions are favorable, at least: neopagans, deconstructionists, etc.). But there are other slight hints: the unusually high suicide rates among Mormons, for instance. (And please let me emphasize that Mormons are far more virtuous than the others I’ve placed into this category!!!)
I’ve been trying to see if anyone will accept being nudged from Category 3 into Category 2. It seems Colorcountry is arguing that Mormons should accept this nudge, but is regarded as a heretic. It seems that Elsie might also accept this. But at least several of you seem stridently resistant, firmly believing you are in fact in the first category.