Posted on 08/04/2007 2:34:44 PM PDT by mmanager
Mitt Romney engaged in a heated discussion about his Mormon faith with a prominent Des Moines talk show host off the air on Thursday morning. The contentious back-and-forth between Romney and WHO's Jan Mickelson began on the air (video link courtesy Breitbart.tv) when the former governor appeared on the popular program that has become a regular stop for GOP presidential hopefuls. But the conversation spilled over to a commercial break and went on after the program ended, where a visibly annoyed Romney spoke in much greater detail about his church's doctrines than he is comfortable doing so in public.
The footage was captured by the station's in-studio camera and posted on its website. But Romney, who is careful to portray a sunny and upbeat public image, clearly did not know he was being recorded. The candidate reveals a private side that is at turns cutting, combative and sarcastic, but most of all agitated at being forced to defend what he and his church stand for.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
As you speak of Mormons unjustly...
I guess you’re entitled of your opinion of what is just or not (and note, those things that could have been said of you that I mentioned could also be said of me). I just tend to open the gates a little wider, as that is my opinion of how Christ generally acted. Perhaps I’m wrong to do such, and perhaps you are.
Whatever the case, a good day to you, as well. And God bless. :)
-—Some times it seems were only good enough to be a vote count for them; else wise get to the back of the bus!
I will never forget one time when I asked about some thing of the LDS that being undermined, and the reply to me was from FR was.
I don’t give a flying “f”! something like that with the F in it.
Well that remark said a lot and hurt a lot!
Things did change later for the better but the way things look to day you wonder if it was political expediency-—
I’m sure if Jim Robinson knew what was happening...
It really doesn’t matter what you, or I think about whether Romney handled himself well. What matters is what Iowa voters think, and that’s what the program host was aiming at...the voters.
“Jesus Christ is my Savior, Redeemer and personal Friend. I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am grateful to Heavenly Father for sending His Son to die for me to save me from my sins. The Holy Ghost tells me it’s true.”
“I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and I wish people would stop telling lies about my faith and my candidate.”
A Mormon is NOT a Christian:
Mormonism says: God is the Supreme Being of the universe, but he has not always held that position. He gradually attained godhood by living a perfectly righteous life.
…We must accept the fact that there was a time when Deity was much less powerful than He is today. Then how did He become glorified and exalted and attain His present status of Godhood? In the first place, aeons ago God undoubtedly took advantage of every opportunity to learn the laws of truth and as He became acquainted with each new verity He righteously obeyed it. From day to day He exerted His will vigorously, and as a result became thoroughly acquainted with the forces lying about Him. As He gained more knowledge through persistent effort and continuous industry, as well as through absolute obedience, His understanding of the universal laws continued to become more complete. Thus He grew in experience and continued to grow until He attained the status of Godhood. In other words, He became God by absolute obedience to all the truth, and thereby became the author of eternal truth. Therefore, the road that the Eternal Father followed to Godhood was one of living at all times a dynamic, industrious, and completely righteous life. There is no other way to exaltation.
—Milton R. Hunter, The Gospel Through the Ages (Salt Lake City: Steven & Wallis, 1945), pp. 114-115 (emphasis added).
Mormonism also teaches that God the Father has a body of flesh and bones.
The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also…
—Doctrine and Covenants, 130:22.
The Bible says: God has existed eternally in perfection, and has never had less of His infinite power and wisdom than He has today. Adam was the first created man of flesh.
Mormonism says: Jesus and Satan, like the rest of us, were spirit brothers and sons of God before the spirit of Jesus was given a body by Mary in Bethlehem. The Mormon “Book of Moses” presents Satan and Jesus as contending for the privilege of taking a body of flesh in order to become the redeemer, with Jesus winning the contest. [See Joseph Smith, Pearl of Great Price, Book of Moses 4:1-4.]
Mormonism also teaches that Jesus was the physical son of God the Father and Mary, and that there is nothing in His life more than what is attainable by anyone else.
When the Virgin Mary conceived the child Jesus… he was not begotten by the Holy Ghost. And who is his Father? He is the first of the human family. …Jesus our elder brother, was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the garden of Eden.
—Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 1:50-51, as cited in Gordon H. Fraser, Is Mormonism Christian? (Chicago: Moody, 1955), p. 58.
His humanity is to be recognized as real and ordinary …whatever happened to him may happen to any one of us. …The divinity of Jesus, and the divinity of all other noble and stately souls, in so far as they, too, have been influenced by a spark of Deity - can be recognized as manifestations of the Divine.
—Parley P. Pratt, Key to the Science of Theology (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1883) (emphasis added).
The Bible says: Jesus Christ has existed eternally as God the second Person of the Trinity, and then took on a human nature at His birth in Bethlehem. Since then He exists eternally as one Person with both divine and human natures.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
No, believe what you wish but you are NOT following Christ or His teachings in the Bible. I refuse to vote for such an OBVIOUS cult that has no bearing to Christianity.
I hope you atleast don’t engage in pologomy as your original prophet required. Thankfully the U.S. Supreme Court struck that DOWN since at THAT time we were a CHRISTIAN nation and that violates Christian principles.
The Iowa voters didn’t even hear 75% of that coversation, since it took place off-air.
ROTFL! So that's why the TV cameras and sound captured it all and it's all over the 'net....I hate to be the one to break this to you, but Iowa has the 'net and Iowa voters have computers.
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-acb/acb-r002a.html
Others are familiar with your “faith” so talking about it shouldn’t be as offensive as YOU find it. Try following Christ! And please don’t fall for believing that polygamy is okay as your “prophet”, your ORIGINAL “prophet” would like you to follow.
Nope won’t EVER vote for a Mormon. We have enough problems ... voting a cult follower into office we don’t need.
“God is fashioning mansions for the believers in His Son, Jesus Christ. Would you be horribly offended if yours came complete with its own planet? Eye has not seen . .”
I’m living in a Mansion down by the River. And this is My Planet. So I guess you are right.
You romneyites try that fib so often: ‘you attack Mormons’. I try my best to oppose Mormonism. I happen to care about Mormons because I believe they are caught in a cult. Why do you romneyites try that same mischaracterization over and over again? Is that the best you got to try and intimidate someone opposed to the cult? I would have thought a med school person could do better.
“The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person’s actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position.”
Hey, at least you tried to force me into the Strawman pigeonhole with a resort to definitions, but you muffed the analysis.
The first proposition was : Religious attacks have no place in this News/Activism forum.
This of course requires the banning of anyone who would break this rule, else it is moot. So we can restate it as:
1) Anyone who makes Religious attacks have no place in this News/Activism forum and should be banned.
Hardly a distortion of the opposition position, the calls for banning have come exclusively from that side.
I proposed the exact opposite (not a distortion)
2) Everyone who believes religion has NO place in politics should be banned.”
A position you claim is a “Straw Man” (though it is the counter to proposition 1) and not something set up to be easily defeated). Perhaps in your confused way you mistook position 1) as the “Straw Man”, because it is so easily disposed of.
If proposition 1) is taken to its conclusion, the only safe people on Free Republic would be Buddhists or atheists. If you cannot “attack” another religion in logical terms, it implies either a) all religions are true as the Buddhists believe, or b) no religion is true and we Should all be atheists.
One man’s attack is another man’s logical inquiry, so banning religious “attacks” (debate) is the same as calling for no religious discussion at all. While everyone could presumably be a Buddhist and live with this, in practice it would mean anyone who believes a moral structure should guide political thought would have no place here - i.e. an atheist. Indeed, this is the tactic of the ACLU.
I do see now that there is a third proposition:
3) No one should be banned who discusses religion in the political sphere (as long as the discussion is within the bounds of comity), since religious mores are the foundation of our political mores.
I believe that has been Jim Robinson’s approach to the matter, and I commend him and his moderators for allowing this contentious area to be discussed.
A Strawman argument would on analysis break down as being specious. I have defended my position quite forthrightly, therefore I believe your portrayl of my argument as a Strawman, is nothing but a RED HERRING :)
Notice how many times the phrase ‘fruit of my loins’ was used?
He really was obsessed.
I read somewhere that the leaders of the Mormon Church thought the letters were real.
One man, Gerald Tanner, didn’t buy it. I’d say HE got a revelation from God that time.
LOL
“You killed off any credibility you had labored to find with the Bible passages that ever so vaguely address Mormonism”
I stated very clearly that the credibility of the Book of Mormon rested on the witness of the Holy Spirit, not on it being mentioned in the Bible. You also have not even attempted to address the substance of the verses I told you of and if your mind is already made up about it, you shouldn’t act like you are seeking to learn.
“The party line was that it was translated from golden plates that John Smith just happened to dig up in his back yard with the aid of a seer stone and a toad and a Moronic angel.”
Your version isn’t quite accurate. Joseph was shown in a vision where it was, it was near his home, but not in his backyard.
“These plates were engraved in something called Reformed Egyptian. (That out to give you pause since Egyptians were Idol worshiping Pagans!)”
If someone handed you a version of the Bible translated into Egyptian, would you reject it as pagan because of language it’s translated into? Sheesh.
Also, they described their language as using characters from the Egyptian language that they had altered over the centuries they were isolated from the Old World. If you look at the facts, you’ll see that Egyptians themselves did the same thing to their language over the centuries so I fail to see any grounds to object here. Aramaic (the language of Jesus) can be written using Egyptian characters and example of this dating back to near the time the BoM starts have been found in the Old World.
“Natives of the Americas had no written language that could in any way be tied to the writings in the B of M”
Because the Nephite civilization was destroyed, systematically wiped out by the primitive and violent Lamanites. Some of their oral traditions however do appear to be related to events described in the BoM and there is a lot of other evidence that supports the BoM.
“So the story gets more fanciful that Egyptians came over the Atlantic and imbued the primitives with their language and writing.”
No, the BoM peoples were Hebrews. They came over and set up their own civilization. I already told you they were descendants of Joseph.
“and the rustic well digger John Smith was able to translate a language he had no acquittance of and put it all into a book.”
Joseph (not John) Smith translated it by the gift and power of God. Do you doubt God could give a man that ability?
“How can anyone with an iota of intelligence take all this as anything but a very tall fairy tale ?”
I wonder what your answer would be to someone who says ‘How does anyone with an iota of intelligence take stories of a man turning water into wine, raising the dead, walking on water, giving sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, feeding thousands with a couple loaves and fishes, then coming back form the dead all on his own sound like anything more than a very tall fairy tale?’
They might seek to verify the source of such claims. When one seeks the background, claims and behaviors of Joe Smith one finds an adulterous, fabricating conman. You might have done better to compare your false prophet to Mohammed. But then you apologists don’t claim to be ‘orthodox christians’ so you can claim whatever you like and ridicule whatever you choose, even God, and claim The Christ is spirit brother to you and satan. But there is eternal destiny involved, so folks like me will continue to risk the ridicule from folks like you in order to point out that Mormonism is a cult and founded in heresies.
I have also seen the power of the Spirit of God testify of the prophet Joseph as I have related his testimony to many people.
Your "research" will not change my mind. In fact, seeing so many negative posts here shows that the Church is closer to the original Christian church, for "it is the weak things of the world that will confound the wise". I do not expect the religion of Luke, James, John and Paul to be accepted as truth by the majority of the world, or by the majority of Americans. Why do you? For truly, many are called, but few are chosen.
Why do you suppose so few are chosen?
This of course requires the banning of anyone who would break this rule, else it is moot. So we can restate it as:
1) Anyone who makes Religious attacks have no place in this News/Activism forum and should be banned.
Another strawman. It "requires" nothing of the sort. It is a statement of opinion, calling for no action. Therefore, your spinning it as a call for banning is a distortion of the initial position.
I proposed the exact opposite (not a distortion) 2) Everyone who believes religion has NO place in politics should be banned.”
Again, a distortion, in that it is NOT an "exact opposite". "No place in politics" is a far cry from "no place in the News/Activism forum." Seeing as there IS a religion forum on this board, that is the proper place. Since there IS a proper place provided, the comparison to removing all place for discussion is a gross distortion of the initial proposition.
A position you claim is a “Straw Man” (though it is the counter to proposition 1) and not something set up to be easily defeated). Perhaps in your confused way you mistook position 1) as the “Straw Man”, because it is so easily disposed of.
Your counterproposal is still a strawman. It is set up as an equivalent opposite, but it is not. Moreover, you did not "easily dispose" of it. You didn't address it. The proposition is that religious attacks don't belong on this forum. Instead, you go on to commit the same logical fallacy again:
If proposition 1) is taken to its conclusion, the only safe people on Free Republic would be Buddhists or atheists. If you cannot “attack” another religion in logical terms, it implies either a) all religions are true as the Buddhists believe, or b) no religion is true and we Should all be atheists. One man’s attack is another man’s logical inquiry, so banning religious “attacks” (debate) is the same as calling for no religious discussion at all. While everyone could presumably be a Buddhist and live with this, in practice it would mean anyone who believes a moral structure should guide political thought would have no place here - i.e. an atheist. Indeed, this is the tactic of the ACLU.
You set up the strawman that putting the religious debates here on FR in the forum set aside for them constitutes banning them. It does not, so your first argument fails.
You then state that it means that if "logical terms" cannot be used to debate religion, only atheists and Buddhist would be immune. Yet, you would seem to reserve the definition as to what a "logical attack" is in your next paragraph, implying that it is up to each man to decide. An argument either is logically valid, or it isn't; you don't get to decide.
What you actually seem to desire to do in these religious discussions is define the axioms, not the "logical terms". It is very handy in a religious argument to place oneself in the position of defining certain items of faith as unassailable, but others as subject to logical testing. Then, those that agree with your premises automatically win.
I do see now that there is a third proposition: 3) No one should be banned who discusses religion in the political sphere (as long as the discussion is within the bounds of comity), since religious mores are the foundation of our political mores.
Again, the proposition was about the appropriate forum, not banning, so your (3) does not address the actual proposition. That aside, define comity. Does it include ridicule? Or does it only extend to respectful, even if fervent, disagreement? Any religion can be attacked by ridicule, but such tactics add nothing to either comity or productive argumentative discussion. In my opinion, having seen your posts across many of these Romney threads, you cross the line. Often.
Whatever a “Romneyite” is.
My point wasn’t that you attacked Mormons.
My point is that you are little more than a heretic yourself in the face of Cathollic or Orthodox doctrine, and frankly, those churches have a much greater foothold on history and the life of Christ than any branch of Protestantism—especially non-denominational American churches. In light of that doctrine, you have rejected the Church that Jesus himself established on Earth through Peter.
But they tend not to accuse you of being a flame-worhty heretic these days, as I think all have come to see God’s kingdom and life itself as a gift. Much as Christ died so that man may gain salvation through His Grace. I take “For whosoever believeth in Me” seriously. I say all of humanity as flawed.
You, on the other hand, insist on defining “whosoever believeth” by some precise lexicon that Christ never did. My point to you is that I think you’re being horribly walled off in a very non-Christian way.
So you can expect more of me as a medical student all you want. But I expect more of you as a Christian. What you are doing is not reflective of Christ’s love for humanity—not the Christ I read of in the Bible.
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