Yes it can.
Posted on 06/23/2007 1:28:02 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
(AP) SALT LAKE CITY -- Mitt Romney said Saturday that criticism of his Mormon religion by rival GOP presidential campaigns is happening too frequently.
“Clearly, any derogatory comments about anyone’s faith—those comments are troubling. The fact they keep on coming up is even more troubling,” Romney said during a fundraising trip in the home state of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Mormon church is one of the fastest-growing religions and claims about 12.5 million members worldwide. But many evangelical Christians in crucial primary states such as Iowa and South Carolina consider the faith a cult.
Romney’s remarks follow an apology from GOP rival John McCain’s campaign for comments about the Mormon church allegedly made this year by a volunteer.
Also recently, Republican presidential hopeful, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, issued a similar apology for a campaign worker’s e-mail to Iowa Republican leaders that was an apparent attempt to draw unfavorable scrutiny of Romney’s religion. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani apologized after the New York Sun noted that a campaign aide had forwarded to a blogger a story about unofficial Mormon lore. Legend has it that a Mormon would save the Constitution, the story said. The campaign aide passed the story along with a note: “Thought you’d find this interesting.”
Romney said in a large presidential race there always will be some volunteers or workers who cannot be controlled. But he said the difference between derogatory comments that originated from the McCain campaign and others is that the Arizona senator has not personally apologized to him.
“In the case of Senator Brownback and Mayor Giuliani ... they called immediately. They each spoke with me personally. I don’t have any issue with that at all,” Romney said.
He said McCain “can do whatever he feels is the right thing. There’s no need for me to suggest how people respond to things that go on in the campaign.”
Tucker Bounds, a McCain campaign spokesman, said the McCain campaign has already apologized.
“It’s a very sincere apology. There is absolutely no place for those type of comments in our campaign,” he said.
Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, said he had not spoken with McCain since the last presidential debate, on June 5.
Romney used a fundraiser hosted by Utah Jazz owner Larry Miller to criticize the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. It banned unregulated, unlimited contributions from corporations, unions and wealthy individuals to national political parties and federal candidates.
“The bill ought to be repealed,” he said. “It’s been the wrong course for American campaigns.”
Romney said he favors unlimited donations as long as they are immediately disclosed on the Internet.
Romney was attending fundraisers in Salt Lake City and in Logan on Saturday.
Most of them with agendas - and "Googling" isn't data. Additionally, dispensationalist Christianity has been a whole series of false predictions of the End Times (ever read Hal Lindsay's Late Great Planet Earth or someone else's 88 Reasons why Jesus will Return in 1988?) - so Evangelical Christians aren't in a particularly good position to make that argument.
Don't buy into the worldly view that all religions are the same because they are all poppycock.
Never said that. All I said is your presuppositions determine your conclusions - and those presuppositions are rooted in faith, not objective empiricism.
Contemporary historians wrote of Christ
Name one. Josephus' entry on Christ is suspect (widely believed to be a pious forgery). There are a couple of cryptic remarks Seutonius in the early second century - but 75 years after Christ died is hardly a "contemporary historical account." The New Testament and the early Gnostic literature isn't "historical" material, but material by Christian partisans.
Ultimately, Christians believe that Jesus Christ existed based on the authority of the Church, and the witness of Scripture. Those are presuppositions, not conclusions - and the result of faith, not empiricism.
Now - don't get me wrong - I'm not Mormon. But that doesn't mean that I can **prove** Mormonism is wrong. I can demonstrate that Mormonism is inconsistent with historically orthodox Christianity, but that only matters if we assume historically orthodox Christianity is correct.
That’s one reason I am not thumping for Thompson anymore! :)
Thanks!
Catholics and Protestants have many important differences, but at least they both agree about the nature of God, the person and work of Christ and the canonicity of the Scriptures.
I know that was sarcasm, but let me stick up for Mormons for once.
"Satan's minions" - that's "Allah's" dupes. You Mormon types are, IMHO, just delusional, not Satanic by any means.
Living a moral life is not equivalent to being a christian.
It is YOU who believes that SATAN is equal to GOD, because you don’t believe he was created!!!!! It amazes me that you can’t rationally explain his origins, but then at the you infer Mormon somehow think highly of Satan, which to me is the most hurtful disgusting accussation I have heard in a long time!!! We believe as it said in the C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters that the Devil became truly evil because he was a creation of God who willfully fell from grace. His evil was empowered because he rejected the good.
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3. I believe in Jesus Christ.
No, you believe Jesus Christ is the brother of Satan, me, and you
Gee. It sounds as though you are privy to details about Fred Thompson that we don’t know about.
Also, are you taking it upon yourself to dishonor Fred Thompson’s marriage because of the way you think it appears? You’ve determined that she’s too young to meet your specs? You make these judgments from afar. Did you intend to sound like sanctimonious hypocrite?
Absolutely! From a political viewpoint, the issue must be addressed, and the sooner the better. Romney will want this issue to be so overcovered that voter’s eyes will glaze over when it comes up. Most voters won’t spend time looking up the Mormons on the internet, they will just go on what they are fed by the MSM.
Huh? Catholics believe in the Apocrapha? They believe Mary is divine on the level of Jesus? You guys are not consistent in your arguments.
Unitarians don’t believe in Jesus Christ’s fullness of divinity. But we had six of them. Lincoln didn’t believe man was deprived but had an equal station in the fate of the country with God. So by you definition, only 36 of the presidents were valid.
In the New Testament it says one Faith, one Church, one baptism. Based on the scriptures, one of you (or both) are not following Jesus to the fullest.
According to Strongs Concordance, the word for angel is #4397 in the O.T.
Malak
to dispatch as a deputy
a messenger
spec of God
i.e. an Angel (also a prophet, priest, teacher)
And the word ANGEL first appears in Genesis 16:7
So, what is this about Children of God being angels?
you quoted me
accurately,t oo
YOU believe Jesus, Satan, Me, and YOU are brothers, sons of Elohim.
The Bible says Satan is a created creature, seperately created just like all the other angels.
Your own words condemn you.
First four references to angels is not Malak but
bene ha-elohim’
Do your research please.
But you can prove that Joseph Smith was a false prophet. I gave you two examples. You can examine them to your ability if it’s important to you to determine the truth of Smith as a prophet. What you said is that you can’t disprove someone is a prophet — I say you can with very little work in Joseph Smith’s case.
You are smart enough to know that there is a difference between prophecy in scripture and some random preacher’s comments. The scripture of the Mormon church from Joseph
Smith demonstrably has false prophecies and inaccuracies in it. Demonstrate this to me with prophecy in the Bible; something as clearly false as Joseph Smith’s prophesy that a man would go on a mission who died before he ever left on that mission.
You say that Josephus was “pious” — he wasn’t a Christian at all Jude. Look it up. Simple mention of Jesus in a contemporary document by a non-Christian. Show me something like that for the Mormon idea that Christ visited the indians and that the indians were Jewish.
I said Josephus's passage on Christ is believed to be a pious forgery. Many scholars (with some good arguments) believe that the statement was forged by well-meaning Christians.
What you said is that you can’t disprove someone is a prophet — I say you can with very little work in Joseph Smith’s case.
No; what I said is that Mormonism is a matter of faith, and faith can't really be disproved. At best, you can challenge assumptions and expose internal inconsistencies - but those are generally convincing only to those already convinced of your own presuppositions.
No, open up your Bible and read Genesis 6 again, because Ben He Elohim is translated SONS, not Angels, and the word BEN has multiple translations, most all ferring to sonship, but also acting in the place of a son, or a builder of a family
I wonder where you get your information, it is always wrong
Boy, that's true. One only need to look at the typical televangelist to see that.
Yes it can.
At the end of the day, it all comes back to faith, which is not something you can objectively prove or disprove - despite the American Christian's penchant for proof-texting.
Are you God? Where did you get the idea that God is a person? God is Spirit, and that is in the Bible, God is not flesh, and that is in the Bible.
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Gen. 1: 27 God created man in his own image.
Gen. 5: 1 God created man, in the likeness of God made he him.
Gen. 9: 6 in the image of God made he man.
Gen. 18: 33 Lord went his way, as soon as he had left communing.
Gen. 32: 30 I have seen God face to face.
Ex. 24: 10 they saw the God of Israel, there was under his feet.
Ex. 31: 18 (Deut. 9: 10) written with the finger of God.
Ex. 33: 11 Lord spake unto Moses face to face.
Ex. 33: 23 thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not.
Num. 12: 8 With him will I speak mouth to mouth.
Matt. 3: 17 a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son.
Matt. 4: 4 every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Matt. 17: 5 a voice out of the cloud.
Luke 24: 39 for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.
John 14: 9 he that hath seen me hath seen the Father.
Acts 7: 56 the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
Rom. 8: 29 predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.
2 Cor. 4: 4 Christ, who is the image of God.
Philip. 2: 6 who, being in the form of God.
Philip. 3: 21 our vile body . . . fashioned like unto his glorious body.
Col. 1: 15 Who is the image of the invisible God.
Heb. 1: 3 the express image of his person.
James 3: 9 men which are made after the similitude of God.
1 Jn. 3: 2 when he shall appear, we shall be like him.
Rev. 22: 4 they shall see his face.
As you noticed when God is described physical features are mentioned. When God is referenced as a spirit it is always attached to a principle or a theory. I believe that God has a physical body, because I believe that Jesus has a physical body. Jesus states he does nothing unless the Father has done it.
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