Posted on 09/29/2010 3:05:05 PM PDT by zippythepinhead
Atheists and agnostics know more about major world religions than many people of faith, while Mormons can answer more Bible questions than their Catholic and mainline Protestant counterparts.
Those are among the somewhat startling conclusions about religious literacy in America the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life drew after surveying 3,412 Americans.
Some of the multiple-choice questions were relatively simple: Where was Jesus born and who led the exodus from Egypt? What religion was Mother Teresa, what day does the Jewish Sabbath begin and what is the name of Islam’s holy book?
Others were more obscure: What is Indonesia’s dominant religion? Which Christians teach that salvation comes through faith alone?
About half the Protestants (53 percent) couldn’t correctly identify Martin Luther as the person whose writings and actions inspired the Protestant Reformation. Fewer than half of Americans (47 percent) knew the Dalai Lama is Buddhist and only 38 percent correctly associated Vishnu and Shiva with Hinduism.
John Morehead, director of the Western Institute for Intercultural Studies in Salt Lake City, had already noted religious illiteracy in the general population as well as in the evangelical community. But he did not expect Mormons to top them in their biblical fluency.
“Mormons tend to emphasize Mormon scriptures like the Book of Mormon rather than the Bible in their devotional life,” Morehead said in an e-mail.
Even some LDS scholars were surprised to find Mormons at the top.
(Excerpt) Read more at sltrib.com ...
Free will means you get to choose your actions. Justice means you don't get to choose the result.
Trying jumping off a cliff and tell the rocks at the bottom that you choose not to get hurt...
Good luck with that...
Delph
I want you to read this in the most sarcastic tone you can muster.........OH K! (roll eyes).
If you really can not see the difference between jumping off a cliff and an Eternal choice...........no wonder you are lds.
Your name does not show up in the Bible under special permission to judge. You did not have Jesus lay his hands on you and give you the priesthood, you can't assume the authority by yourself. This is all Biblical, I do not recognize your authority to judge me against your corrupted interpretation of the gospel.
Delph
Apparently not...
Delph
Second, if you claim to be a Christian you might want to ask a Mormon about the concept of 'eternal progression' since their religion is based upon the notion that something material that their god was born into as a man on a planet and progressed through to achieve the exaltation of becoming 'God' existed before God. The Bible is very clear in several places that 'in the beginning God' and that The Word was with God and was God in that beginning, the beginning before there was anything, only God.
Mormonism is not Christianity. It cannot be Christian with the beliefs they have reagrding Whom God is, Whom God was and Whom Jesus IS. They will lie to you without believing they are lying to you. They will tell you untruths about their own religion and their religion's history. But they will not awaken to see their own deceits so long as the spirit of thier religion binds them. When people on this forum expose the facts about Mormonism using LDS sources, the apologists for this cult will flatly assert that we do not know what they believe. Ask any 'honest' Mormon to explain in detail the Mormon term 'eternal progression'. If they are honest with you, they will eventually tell you the father of Jesus went throuygh a physical existence as a mere mortal and achieved godhood via exaltation. The god of Mormonism is not The One God Whose name is I AM.
Oh, I forgot you have that priesthood thing that us lowly gentiles lack...
BTW It takes no “priesthood authority” to judge false teachers and doctrine, to point out false gospels, just a sound mind and a spirit guided heart IN UNISON and SVCW is right, as have been all of use for months, the right to judge false teachings and the efforts of those presenting them is well with in our purview and that is not only Biblical but a REQUIRMENT of all those in the family of Christ, as it is to guide those who go astray into such deception and snatching from the fire those locked in their grasp...
Read the book of Jude for example, and we have all be well versed recently on the other such passages...
As it is SVCW nor any of us have a desire to judge you, but what you represent, say and promote we have every right to do in defense of our faith and savior. It can seem to create a very thin line when it comes to defending the faith, especially against those seeking to subvert it through imitation and such and most of all those who appear to be in the family of Christ or wear it as a guise, for it would look like we are going against our Saviors admonitions to those caught unaware, but it is a line we have to walk all the same lest our brothers and sisters as well as others get lead astray.
Second, you saying anything abut a religious “test” is ironic...
http://www.freerepublic.com/~delphiuser/#The_Test
BTW there is no test in regard to my post, it's like a light switch, its on or its off...
And context is everything, for example the term Brother in the bible when Jesus or the apostles were teaching...
But it is that well trained and practiced presentation that we don't have, the arrogance turn to poor little put upon us routine they turn to when they get us riled up a little, because we know what they stand or and say about Christ, that they use against use in their act for the unsuspecting...
Though to be honest I have to think that in North America at least that pool has dwindled considerably. Even looking at many non Inman responses here on FR I realize that the gig is getting very close to being up for the LDS outside of the odd searcher drifting by...
If we could just counter the damage done by Oprah Christianity it would even be more impressive...
lol
So if I “set you straight” You pinched a nerve. If I don't respond then I have been “dumbfounded” by you.
Rotflol!
Antis are so “all about me”...
Think you got that wrong “it is all about me mentality” is lds after all its lds who think they will be a god.
BTW, AMPU, wonder why Momronism Apologists never mentiuon the godhood wives of their god of Mormonism, you know, the women god from whom all those spirit children were born before coming to earth for mortal bodies? ... And I wonder whom was the father and mother gods of the Mormonism god, since the Mormonism god reached exaltation from a mortal body, before becoming the father of Jesus and Lucifer?
Actually, IIRC, their take on Christ shedding his blood for us as an atonement is when he went through so much agony in the Garden of Gethsemane (sp?) that he sweated blood. THAT is the blood they talk about.
“Um, first, you could not have had Mormon ancestors who fought int he Revolution because the religion wasn’t conceived of until the 1830.”
Um, first, I knew that. The point was that they were Americans who emigrated here, settled, fought in the revolution, migrated again, and adopted Mormonism, etc.
So my interest in Mormonism lies in its relationship to our country’s history. Like the Mormon Battalion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_Battalion
Second, I am not in the slightest bit interested in arguing over who is and is not a Christian. I will leave that to those who think God has delegated the judging job to them.
I admire Mormons for their values, patriotism and conservatism. Their religious beliefs are none of my business, nor are my religious beliefs any of theirs.
I have three cousins who were raised Mormon. One stayed strongly with it, one left it entirely, and I don’t even know about the third—probably more out than in.
They are still my family, are good self supporting parents and grandparents. And fine people, two with careers in the military.
Tell it to the Flds folks, Heretic!
Which 'revolution?
There were NO mormons around in 1776.
My experince has shown that you say nothing to hear.
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