1:34 It's behind us...
2:12 Don't worry about those little flicks of history...
It's behind us!
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Posted on 05/08/2008 5:04:47 PM PDT by Grig
I am posting this on behalf of many LDS freepers. They will post their own 'signature' to this in the comments below. --- Some of you have noticed lately a lot of LDS (ie: Mormon) threads here on FR. I'm going to tell you why.
For many years there have been several active LDS freepers here. We post to all the forums on relevant issues, and were happy to have a site where conservative values were so openly welcomed.
Those conservative values include faith in God, and freedom of religion. We fully respect the rights of all posters to express their opinions and views on religious matters, even when people choose to use those rights to express criticism of our own faith. We also support the ideas embodied in FR rules against religion bashing. There is no need for hostility and there should be no room for bigotry on FR. Every religion has it's miracles and mysteries. Every faith has things in it that are not or can not be proven, and things that run contrary to what secular science would have us believe. Someone mature and confident in their own faith generally doesn't feel the need to belittle the faith of others.
We have, to the best of our ability, conducted ourselves with civility and dignity. We do not feel that that respect has been returned by some posters (putting it mildly).
When Mormon missionaries were murdered, the moderators were kept busy pulling jubilant posts off the thread. When Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her home, we contended for months with posters who appeared to be motivated by religious bigotry doing all they could to smear the family and accuse the father. Several posters openly admitted their religious motivation in opposing Mitt Romney and confessed that no matter how conservative any Mormon was, they would never vote for one for President of the USA. When the Pope died, I don't think any Mormon poster posted anything unkind, yet the thread about the passing of our President recently needed many comments removed.
Nearly every thread having any connection with Mormons, or Utah winds up being hijacked by anti-Mormon activists who copy and paste the same false accusations over and over even when it has been clearly and factually pointed out to them on multiple occasions that they are bearing false witness against our faith. Everything possible is done by these activists to make FR a hostile place for Mormons, and for at least some of them, bashing Mormonism is all they do here. Their most recent project is trying to blur the fact that the polygamous FLDS is a separate and distinct religion from ours, just as Lutherans are a separate and distinct religion from Catholicism.
In our opinion, such poster do a great disservice to FR and to their fellow freepers by spreading disinformation and promoting hostility towards a people known for walking the walk of conservative values.
Why the moderators here don't see the behavior of these anti-Mormon activists as religion bashing is a mystery to us, but it is the moderators call to make and we respect their right to do so. That doesn't mean we have to be passive however. We have all spent many hours refuting the accusations leveled at our faith, but these wind up buried deep in a flood of comments, effectively shouting us down.
Recently some of us have decided to take a more proactive approach. Rather than try to wrestle the pig into taking a bath, we are just going to hose it down. We will actively define our faith here rather than just respond to accusations.
So expect to see lots of Mormon threads, now and for as long as we see fit to keep posting them (although probably not as many as there are Catholic threads). They will be about our basic doctrines and responses to common accusations. If you want to know what our faith is about, read the articles we post. We will post them as open threads and I encourage you to compare the difference in tone and spirit between what we post and what our critics say.
Actually, I’m not carrying the water for anybody on this thread.
Instead, I am realising why Conservatives couldn’t get a nominee for President, and why we will be crushed in November.
We are too busy throwing people off the boat.
As I have said repeatedly, I don’t read the religion forums, at least not on purpose, because I have plenty of places to argue religion with smart religious people, and don’t need to do so on a conservative political forum.
That I occasionally wander by accident into religious threads doesn’t change my general disdain for them here.
If there are people who joined FR simply to proselytise their religion, in my opinion they are violating the purpose of the site. But that is just my opinion.
Actually, you are.
We are too busy throwing people off the boat.
Why don't you lighten the load and jump ship?
Then you should do yourself a favor and leave the Religion Forum.
You don’t have to reply. Nothing compells you to continue.
You want to save people, in my opinion you don’t do it by casting judgment on those you have never met, on declaring people “christian” or “non-christian” as if God has appointed you his arbitor.
As you stepped into the middle of a conversation, I’ve cut you a lot of slack in your intemperate remarks. Plus, your responses have made me not particularly interested in getting your agreement or understanding.
But history would be your guide to understanding. Some have suggested a littany of things that must be true for a person to be saved. Those littanies appeared to be more than what the Bible literally teaches is necessary for salvation.
People used their criteria to pronounce judgment on people they don’t know, based on the rather useful criteria that those people had joined a church which, while professing to be christian, was not in fact christian.
Oddly, I’ve had the same argument with people who get upset when I claim that people who join the Catholic church could actually be Christians, even though they are members of the Catholic church.
The argument goes a lot like the ones here, and they like you will sometimes suggest that if I like it so much, I should join the Catholic church.
My mormon friends would have a good laugh over the suggestion that I carry the water for their religion.
You may think you are cute with your offers of a free book of Mormon. But if you truly believed what you have spouted off about this past day, you would be condemning yourself by even taken the slim chance someone might take you up on the offer, and by following your link be lead astray into the wrong path.
But if you truly believed what you have spouted off about this past day, you would be condemning yourself by even taken the slim chance someone might take you up on the offer, and by following your link be lead astray into the wrong path.
While this thread is in the religion forum, the topic of “why the LDS posts are being made” was not a religious topic, but a topic of concern to the FR community. As such, I expressed my thought that we didn’t need an increased amount of “pro-Mormon” posts, but that so long as it stayed in the religion forums, I didn’t care.
I did however find it fun to discuss with rational people the minimum criteria necessary for one to be saved. As some were putting a lot of additional burdens on the task, I liked what Jesus said about it better. So I said so.
after that, I’m just answering people who post to my posts. a lot of people want me to hate Mormons because some dead guy said my denomination wasn’t true. Except that my denomination is a very recent one, broken off of the “mainstream” denomination because, shock of shocks, we believed that the mainstream denomination was not “true”.
I am supposed to hate an entire religion, and dispise it’s members, because their founder said something I say all the time.
But that I’m sure there’s plenty of people who don’t find my denomination true, what with the condemnation of people based on God’s whims, and the inability of people to save themselves through their own actions.
LOL
Amazing.
You really don't understand anything about Christ's gift of Salvation, and how we are saved from hell, do you?
Your continuing attacks on my religion and personal beliefs is precisely why I loathe participation in the religion forums.
I love debating religion with people who understand how to debate and argue without making everything a personal attack.
My attempts to delve into what you think the word “true” means have been futile. Instead, you seek only to attack my faith and understanding.
So I will say good day to you.
and how we are saved from hell, do you?
Tell me -- if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus Christ, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, will you be saved? Or do you ALSO have to believe that Jesus is part of a trinity, that he existed from the beginning of time, and that in heaven we are neither married nor given in marriage?
In other words, how much baggage to YOU want to add to the simple gospel message before you accept that a person has done enough to be saved?
“you are supposed to win souls “
I thought Jesus did that. My Bible says we should “proclaim the Gospel”, not “win souls”
“heaven we are neither married nor given in marriage”
I think you missed something. The Mormon belief hinges on the belief we are married in Heaven. It must be true for them.
It isn’t a core belief of the Protestant church.
So you are a Presbyterian? Or are you going to hell?
Here is what I actually said: So you are a Presbyterian? Or are you going to hell? Or do you think there a multiple different denominations with different teachings that are all “true”?
Note that the inclusion of the 3nd sentence renders the purpose of the the first two sentences clear, and makes it plain that I was NOT suggesting people would go to hell if they didn't believe in Presbyterianism, but in fact was saying the opposite.
Rather than discuss the issue civilly, the poster decided to misquote me so as to make a personal attack on my understanding of my beliefs, and Salvation. I have a particular disdain for people who misquote others, especially in a written medium where the words are right there for them to see and paste.
It's not ignorance, it a deliberate attempt to falsely attack a poster.
To all:
I am leaving this thread. So don’t feel bad if I don’t respond to your replies. If I see a reply that truly needs responding, I may come back, but don’t expect it.
For the record I don’t think ANY denomination is “true”. Every denomination that I have ever studied has something I don’t agree with.
Literal body and blood, communion wine for the people, infant baptism, free will to salvation, faith+works, purgatory, salvation of all who die before the age of understanding, no pictures of Jesus, worship on Saturday, confession and absolution through action, no drinking, no dancing, salvation only to the chosen, no swimming (yep, there are churches like that), no dating, speaking in tongues, no music, no hymns, no instruments, no drums, hats for women, women pastors, women elders, 6-day-creation, baptism of believers, wine, grape juice, ....
Every one of those is practiced by at least one “denomination”, and is rejected by at least one other “denomination”. It is unlikely that they are all the “true” dictates of God, unless you believe in a God who is very loose on what is “true, and right, and perfect”.
For example, If one denomination teaches that tongues are a gift from God, and another teaches that tongues are a deception from the Devil, it is hard to see how they can both be “true”.
We could spend our lives focusing on the differences, and attacking each other for them. But that, to me, is rather counterproductive. And on a conservative political forum, it is death to conservatism if we break apart based on religious differences that have nothing to do with our conservative political values.
People who support tax cuts, limited government, a strong military, support for the family, oppose abortion and gay marriage and the corsening of our culture, are our ALLIES — even if they have rediculous religious beliefs.
So I believe it would be beneficial to the conservative cause if the attacks over religion remained firmly in the religion forum, and did not leak out into the political discussions we have elsewhere.
I missed nothing. Do you believe that if a person thinks they will be married to their wife in heaven, that they can’t be saved?
“Do you believe that if a person thinks they will be married to their wife in heaven, that they can’t be saved?”
I’m not a Mormon. Marriage in Heaven is a central tenet of the Mormon belief. It is not a debatable matter to them. It is a debatable matter to us.
Marriage MUST exist in Heaven for Mormons. You cannot be a Mormon and reject marriage in Heaven.
For Protestants, Jesus must be God in order for Salvation to work. You may not understand it but still be Saved. You cannot outright reject the Trinity and still be Saved.
Agreed.
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