You should have posted an LDS caucus thread like the other mormons do, LOL! 
Posted on 12/28/2009 11:26:45 AM PST by urroner
For the sake of a discussion, let's assume that I am a brand new neighbor of yours. We have only met each other in passing. You play the part of the Christian and I will play the part of the agnostic. (BTW, none of the below is true about me. Upfront, I am Mormon, but I have tried to get into this discussion on this forum for some time, but haven't been able to do so.)
(I also realize that there are some of you who are more than eager to post anti-Mormon material on this thread and I request that you don't do so. I don't even want Mormonism mentioned in this thread beyond this point.)
Let's assume that I'm out trimming the hedges between your house and mine and that you are working in a garden close to the hedges.
My wife and three kids, ages 3, 8, and 13, are all out with me. My wife keeps telling me I need to paint the house before it gets colder, my younger children are throwing little rocks at me to get my attention and laughing and giggling, and the oldest is pestering me about buying her a cellphone and about the promise I made a year ago about letting her pierce her ears for earrings.
In a calm moment, my wife and I get into a neighborly chat, well would be my wife, I'm a science/math teacher at the local community college and it's very hard for me to just sit down and chitchat and you tell us you are Christian.
My wife tells you she is a Christian also, but doesn't go to any denomination and hasn't been to church in several years, since marrying me, but that I am always peppering her with questions that she doesn't know the answers to. She says that one of the reasons she has stopped going to church is because she likes to spend Sundays with me since we don't get a lot of lone time together. I spend a lot of time helping students at the college and when I'm home, I have to spend a lot of time with the kids. We do have a date night every week, but that's just not enough.
She also says that she is also tired of seeing so much hypocrisy among the church members and the preacher is always asking for money, that she had decided to stop going. She says that her preacher, when she was little, told her she was saved as did her parents, so her salvation was guaranteed.
You see me roll my eyes when my wife says that.
I tell you that I really don't go to any denomination, but I have read the Bible, the Koran, the Tao Te Ching, the Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, some of the writings of Marx, and some New Age books. I tell you that I don't know what the right way is or even if there is a right way?
I tell you that I tend toward Uniterianism, but Buddhism has some attraction to me also, but it's a little too esoteric for me. I tell you that I also have some problems with life after death, reincarnation, or any supernatural miracles.
I tell you my parents were Catholics before they died, but they died when I was very young and I have been to church only a couple of times since their funeral, but the people who adopted me were strong agnostics and never directed me to follow any particular path. I'm thinking about going back to the RCC, but haven't made any decision yet.
You realize that I am fairly knowledgeable of the Bible when it comes to knowing where what is, but you realize that I don't interpret them at all as you do. In fact, I have a very shallow understanding of them. I think the Bible is good literature and can help a person do a lot of good in this life, but I don't know anything about being saved and what that means.
I ask you what you believe and how I can find the happiness and joy you have in your life.
What are you going to say or do?
I started out by saying that Jesus never did like the religious types either. That Jesus was totally involved in personal relationships, one on one with people. Then I said that if he (the neighbor) wanted to know more about my personal relationship with Jesus Christ, we could talk over coffee or breakfast.
I tend to agree with the guy who commented on how to be neighborly without constantly trying to convert your neighbors. You get more flies with honey than vinegar.
You said you have a new neighbor you barely know — trying to convert him is not a good way to start and cultivate a relationship.
Eventually, you may test the waters, but even then just very gently — even most Christians don’t want to engage in a “my religion is better than yours and you should convert to mine” discussion.
I intend not to discuss Mormonism in this thread. In real life, I am an engineer and ask all sorts of logical questions and hope to get logical responses back. Sometime I realize that there is no logical response, only answers based strictly of faith. If the question doesn’t have a logical answer, then the answer I would love to hear is “I don’t have a logical answer, but here is my belief and this is why I believe it.” Sometimes the best and only answer is “Because I believe it and I can’t give any evidence why I believe it.” That’s why faith is call “faith.”
I believe in God, but I can’t provide any evidence of His existence that science can’t explain away.
Being a father of five children, I realize that sometimes the only answer is simply “just because” or “I really don’t know.”
If somebody says “I believe X,” than I should be able to ask “Why do you believe X” without being told that I shouldn’t ask those questions.
The blue pill or the red pill. Which ever you choose, do it because it’s what you want to do and do it with gusto.
I would tell you what my Jesus has done for me.
Then I would tell you that God wants a relationship with you more than you want one with Him.
Then I would ask if I could pray right now for you to know Him.
MissDairyGoodnessTV said:
You should think of your kids first and set the example because you are the parent and just pick a church & go ... teach your children.
I ask (not trying to be obnoxious, honestly):
Which church should I pick? I know there is a Catholic church, a Southern Baptist congregation, a Muslism mosque, a JW Kingdom Hall, and a Hindu temple all within forty minutes from here. Why should I pick one over the others?
I'd like to ask you something...
Where is the physical evidence that you have a brain?
I mean has anyone ever actually seen your brain? Touched it? Examined it under a microscope to be sure there are actual brain cells?
No.
No physical evidence has ever been presented that you really have a brain.
And, so, by your own logic, you don't have a brain.
The only thing that might...MIGHT... possibly be presented, is some debatable shallow anecdotal hearsay that you might have a brain, but no real physical proof. For that matter, even an x-ray or an MRI may only show a mass with blood flow, but that really could be anything from a brain sized pimple, to an ingrown hair that just LOOKS like a brain. No PHYSICAL EVIDENCE though.
So, as soon as you can physically prove that you have a brain, then I'm sure someone will jump right in to show you the physical evidence for the Bible passages that you ask about. Until then, hopefully you'll just accept the same reasoning for the Biblical evidence as you ask us to accept for the fact that you really do have a brain. Which, for now stands as unproven by any PHYSICAL EVIDENCE.
After all you should find it fair enough to have to live by the same requirements that you impose upon others. right?
=)
colorcountry asked:
Are you willing to lose your life?
I ask:
As an agnostic,I tell you that I don’t know what you mean by “lose your life” and what I would lose it for. The radical Muslims say that, but I don’t want to die in their way. The Taoists and Buddhists also say that in order for one to find his life, he must lose it.” What do you mean? I have even heard some Native Americans who practice the old religion say that, as well as many New Agers.
Have you considered the claims of Jesus in the Bible?
Some folks tend to think that he was GOD in the flesh.
It will be revealed.
Actually, it already has been: Upfront, I am Mormon...
Okay, let’s suppose there is a God and that He is perfect an all-loving, these are the honest questions I, as a logical agnostic, would ask:
Why would He create imperfection?
Why would He create beings that He knew would spend an eternity rotting and being tormented in Hell when He didn’t have to?
How does God choose who goes to Heaven and who to goes to Hell?
What is God’s purpose? Does He even have a purpose?
Why did God even create us? Does we fulfill some emotional lack that He has or provide Him some necessary external stimulation?
What is the purpose of life if it’s not necessary for it for God to decide whether we go to Heaven or to Hell? Why did He create us in this life when He already knows our final destination?
Why would God want to punish somebody forever? Does He get pleasure out of it?
If God created everything, why did He create evil?
(Remember, I am a logical agnostic and these are some of the questions I have been asking my wife and she doesn’t know the answer to them. I would like a logical answer, but if there is none, then there isn’t any, but I would like to be told that.)
Well, if THAT'S the case, then I would recommend you consider becoming a mormon!
So God knows my needs before I ask Him? Why does He make me ask.
Suppose I have prayed to God, as an agnostic, so I not sure whether there is a God, many gods, or nothing out there out there, and I have done it for several years and God hasn’t answer my prayer yet. From a lack of an answer to any of my prayers, it could be because there is no god, that God doesn’t love me or is ignoring me, or that I might be praying to the wrong god?
How do I know when one on my prayers gets answered? Maybe I have had a prayer answered, but I didn’t know how the response was going to be, so I just missed it or ignored it.
You should have posted an LDS caucus thread like the other mormons do, LOL!
Christ often spoke in parables.
For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’
Thomas Jefferson was a Deist, not a Theist. I know a scholar who was very strong in the Protestant world and said the very same thing that who said about coming to the conclusion of the Protestant faith, who later rescinded what he said and he became Roman Catholic priest.
If you say that if I truly was opened minded and studied faithfully, why would I find Protestantism as the truth? Any particular branch of Protestantism and if so, which branch, or all of it?
Why wouldn’t that study lead me to the RCC or becoming a Muslim or even a Buddhist or Taoist?
if you can’t make up your mind about what church to pick then you don’t have a religion/church problem you have another kind of problem & with that problem I’d recommend
a shrink. Pick out a shrink you’ll feel better
Sounds like something a Mormon would do.
Ha haaaa! Just kidding.
(snicker)
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