1) Roman Catholicism
Posted on 02/27/2011 8:35:02 AM PST by Colofornian
America has probably supplied the world with more new religions than any other nation...the country's atmosphere of religious experimentation has produced dozens of movements, from Mormonism to a wide range of nature-based practices grouped under the name Wicca.
...how do we tell when a religious movement ceases to be novel or unusual and becomes a cult?
...Hollywood writer-director Paul Haggis...left the Church of Scientology and has accused it of abusive practices, including demands that members disconnect from their families...
In the early 19th century, the "Burned-over District" of central New York state—so named for the religious passions of those who settled there following the Revolutionary War—gave rise to a wave of new movements, including Mormonism, Seventh-Day Adventism and Spiritualism (or talking to the dead). It was an era, as historian Sydney E. Ahlstrom wrote, when "Farmers became theologians, offbeat village youths became bishops, odd girls became prophets."
SNIP
Many academics and observers of cult phenomena, such as psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo of Stanford, agree on four criteria to define a cult. The first is behavior control...monitoring of where you go and what you do. The second is information control, such as discouraging members from reading criticism of the group. The third is thought control, placing sharp limits on doctrinal questioning. The fourth is emotional control—using humiliation or guilt...I would add two more categories: financial control and extreme leadership.
Financial control translates into levying ruinous dues or fees...
Yet every coercive religious group harbors one telltale trait: untoward secrecy. As opposed to a cult, a religious culture ought to be as simple to enter or exit...the group's finances should be reasonably transparent. Its doctrine need not be conventional—but it should be knowable to outsiders. Absent those qualities, an unorthodox religion can descend into something darker.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Have you not been following your own words and read your links?
Perhaps you should...
Otherwise you just contradicted the work of your own Church...
http://www.fairlds.org/Book_of_Mormon/Archaeological_Evidence_and_the_Book_of_Mormon.html
http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_BMEvidence.shtml
Read, you aren't afraid of the truth right?
Thanks for the invite...if you ever make your way to the Apple let me know...I give a killer three-five hour walking tour...done it for a couple of freepers...
I do come there very frequently. Daughter is a Jazz Singer living in Brooklyn and I love driving up the Hudson to Nyack where the Edward Hopper home is.
Great times in your neck of the woods!
Back in the early-mid seventies I was bouncer/bartender at one of the last jazz clubs on West 52nd Street. It was an after hours joint in the basement of a brownstone down the street from Jimmy Ryan's.
We didn't open until midnite. Any of the guys who were in town would swing by sometime between three and six, maybe jam maybe just hang. I got to see Davis, Monk, Pepper, Brubeck, a hundred of the greats and near greats (now almost all dead).
The whole block was demolished decades ago...all the good stuff...the real NY is gone.
We were there last Thanksgiving and went to Birdland. Wish we were there all year long.
What’s with this ‘not you’ crap, Kevin? Show me where I’ve told you whose individual soul/spirit IS saved. If you don’t like religious discussion, what the heck are you doing on religion threads?
Three hour walking tour? pffft When I was in my early thirties, I was in a group of sales reps who did a pub crawl through ‘The Village’ ... we started Friday evening and just barely got showered and dressed for work Monday morning. That Monday was the longest day I have ever spent on this planet!
<<< Snort! >>> He gotcha there Col :-)
____________________________________________________
I guage the time to my guest's schedule...three hours is the minimum...we can and have gone all day.
btw...pub-runs are a spoty in NY...they are actual races that cover a specific distance with designated bar-stops along the way. The idea is just to finish standing up.
Cause I’m sick of you so called Christians who are acting like Muslims. I’m just calling you on that..
Ditto here - IT'S JUST LIKE TYPING IN ALL CAPS. I just scroll past it without bothering to read.
If it bothers you so much, you could skip the thread.
Are you aware that the LDS "church" has 60,000 missionaries in the field assigned almost exclusively to areas where Christian churches already exist? Does that qualify as "acting like Muslims" or does only answering their false charges count as "acting like Muslims" in your book?
You speak of freedom of religion in your post as well as indicate some belief in God though no specifics of what faith that stems from. But let us take that as a basis to work from here.
For Christians defending the faith and saving souls are two of our greatest tasks. Sadly many modern American Christians have fallen into the Oprah Winfrey “all paths are valid” school and are very quick to worry about offending people.
What makes this odd is that as followers of the Christian faith they know the fate that befalls those outside the fold yet even while in the same breath calling them “good people” or “friends” they are “loving” them into eternal darkness.
I am glad I was not shown such love.
Kevin, as people of faith we know the consequence of not being faithful, of being on the wrong path. Eternal death is the same be it from a Muslim hand or a Mormon Book.
Yes Muslims are more deadly to the physical body than the LDS, but so are buses, heart attacks and random shootings. But again, as people of faith we know this world is not the end, but a critical point on a journey, the point we decide how far we go and how that journey will continue, in the light or in the darkness.
One other point specific to the LDS. As Christians we are commanded to defend the faith. I will not bore you with the instruction, the scriptures straight from the Bible, they have been posted many times. The LDS is a DIRECT assault on the Christian faith. Jews don't pretend to be Christians to gain converts, Muslims don't put Christ's name on their Mosques to lure in the unwitting.
Your “Christians acting like Muslims” is quaint hyperbole but little else, and has no bearing or resemblance to what is being done here and else where in defeating the false teachings of not just the LDS, but of other cults as well.
You speak of “religious freedom” yet while you will not find a SINGLE instance where any one of us has by force or coercion stopped a Mormon from being a Mormon, from entering their temple or practicing their faith etc. YOU want Christians to stop practicing what we hold dear and what our faith demands, none of which blows up a building, cuts off a head or any such nonsense that even remotely resembles “acting Muslim”.
Interesting dichotomy.
IF you ever learn what it is to BE a Christian, we may take up this discussion again. Some hear the command to expose heresies and blasphemies against God and Christ. That obviously makes you very uncomfortable. ... You could think about what that might mean as regarding your immortal soul/spirit.
It’s a temporal vs. eternal thing that based on your comment, is not understood.
Mormons are good people, following a pederast deceiver who created the religion out of whole cloth. Much like islam, only a few hundred centuries later.
Your choice/opinion, but you don’t get to tell the rest of us how we get to view it.
1) Roman Catholicism
Taking comments out of context again? What an insightful and prescient comment.
The comment was quite specific in nature and cutting it is poor form.
What is so damn offensive about people speaking their minds? Is it that they don't drink the mormon kool-aid and bow down to how "good" mormons are and ignore the rest of the crap that goes with it?
How about I pray for you so you can call me names as well?
Temporal vs. Eternal.
That is the point here, one that is being overlooked due to ignorance or deceitful intent by many folks, mormons included.
1) Roman Catholicism
(Sorry, that didn't work the first time)
But I can't find any reference to; temple sealings, endowments, Jesus going through a temple to take out his endowments and then being "sealed" so that He can "earn" His "exaltation", baptisms for the dead except for a pagan reference, etc. Just can't find this in your "list-o-links®", nor in the BoM.
Why then are the purported mormon prophets and apostles on record stating such?
Where can I find this "proof" spoken of by a mormon apostle, original quorom of the 12 member? I'd like to see where God and Jesus were both married and polygamists.
Orson Pratt - Jesus a polygamist, God the Father had a plurality of wives.
"We have also proved that both God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ inherit their wives in eternity as well as in time." The Seer, p. 172 (1853)
Or did Orson get tossed under the bus as well? How many is that now? Must suck to have to keep up with all of the lies and blasphemies of previous mormon prophets and apostles.
I wonder, is that a full-time job in SLC looking for this stuff so it can be scrubbed and erased with "new revelation"? How about changing the "curse of Cain" from being about skin color [the blacks, negroes, etc.] to meaning bad behavior?
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