The modern Thai alphabet contains no written vowels either, merely diacritical marks on the consonents. And, the letters all run together when written.
Sample text
Posted on 12/21/2003 4:41:40 AM PST by Pharmboy
Jewish group says it is considering legal action in an effort to stop the Mormon Church from posthumously baptizing many Jews, especially Holocaust victims.
Under the practice, known by Mormons as vicarious baptism — a significant rite of the church — the dead are baptized by living church members who stand in as proxies.
But in 1995, after evidence emerged that at least 380,000 names of Jewish Holocaust victims were on baptismal lists in the church's extensive archives in Salt Lake City, the church agreed to end vicarious baptism without consent from the descendants of the dead. Church officials also said the church would remove the names of Holocaust victims placed on the lists before 1995.
"For the last seven years, we've had entirely cordial relations with the Mormons," said Ernest Michel, who negotiated the agreement on behalf of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, which is based in New York and claims 180,000 members. "But the agreement is clear and they have not held up their end."
Last year, Helen Radkey, an independent researcher in Salt Lake City, gave Mr. Michel evidence that the Mormon lists still included the names of at least 20,000 Jews, many of them Holocaust victims and prominent figures like the philosopher Theodor Herzl and David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel. Ms. Radkey also provided Mr. Michel with evidence that many of these Jews had been baptized after the 1995 agreement.
But Mormon officials say they remain in full compliance with the 1995 agreement.
"We have actually gone above and beyond," said D. Todd Christofferson, a church official involved with the negotiations. The church removed the names of Holocaust victims listed before 1995 and continues to instruct its members to avoid baptizing Jews who are not directly related to living Mormons or whose immediate family has not given written consent, Mr. Christofferson said.
But he said it was not the church's responsibility to monitor the archives to ensure that no new Jewish names appear. "We never had in mind that we would, on a continual basis, go in and ferret out the Jewish names," Mr. Christofferson said, adding that the labor involved in constantly sifting through an ever-expanding archive, which contains more than 400 million names, would represent an "intolerable burden."
"When the church is made aware of documented concerns, action is taken in compliance with the agreement," he said.
Some Jewish genealogists agree with the Mormon interpretation of the agreement. "I have a copy of the agreement," said Gary Mokotoff, the publisher of Avotaynu, the International Review of Jewish Genealogy. "The wording is vague in some places, but it definitely does not obligate the Mormons to scour their own archives on an ongoing basis."
But Mr. Michel, who said he became involved in the issue after reading about posthumous baptisms in the Jewish newspaper The Forward, contends that the agreement obliges the Mormon Church to monitor the post-1995 lists and remove the names of Jews that appear.
"They put the names in there, they should have to take them out, and the agreement says as much," he said. "Why should we have to do their job for them?" He said the group was considering legal action but would not provide details.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom Mr. Michel contacted, said she planned to take up the matter with Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, a Republican and a Mormon. "Senator Hatch was immensely helpful in brokering the 1995 agreement, so we're hoping he can get involved again now," she said in a telephone interview.
With approximately 11 million members worldwide, the Mormon Church, known formally as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is one of the fastest-growing in the world, partly because of a strong missionary effort. The importance of the family structure is central to church doctrine and is a reason for the extensive archives kept by the International Genealogical Index in Salt Lake City. The archives include detailed biographical information of 400 million people going back centuries. The names of those to be posthumously baptized are drawn from the archives.
According to Mormon theology, all people, living or dead, possess "free agency," and posthumous baptisms provide only an option, not an obligation, to join the religion in the afterlife. Church membership numbers do not include those baptized after death, Mr. Christofferson said.
Originally, the practice was reserved for ancestors of church members, but over the years many other people have been baptized posthumously. "There is no way to prevent overzealous members doing mission work from submitting names that don't belong," Mr. Christofferson said.
Ms. Radkey, an Australian-born Christian, said she began researching the Mormon practice in 1999 after discovering that the teenage diarist Anne Frank had been posthumously baptized.
Scripter, the vast majority of chr*stians are evolutionists and higher critics of the Bible. Only someone whose experience of chr*stianity is limited to Fundamentalist Protestantism could not see this. Fundamentalist Protestantism is a very recent, very a-historical interpretation of chr*stianity. You may think that the only alternative to Protestantism is Roman Catholicism but you are wrong.
There is an entire chr*stian world out there that traces its roots directly to the apostles and the "first century," yet most American chr*stians know nothing about them. These are the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, and the Nestorian Church. These churches trace themselves to the 37 churches founded by the apostles themselves, and I am afraid that they share "all that Catholic stuff" which you associate with the Church of Rome. And I am afraid that you cannot blame "all that Catholic stuff" on Constantine (as I once did). Many of these ancient churches (such as the Assyrian, the Armenian, the Indian, and the Ethiopian) were never part of the Roman Empire at all, and Constantine had nothing to do with them. Do you actually believe Constantine imposed "catholicism" on the ancient Indian church (allegedly founded by the apostle Thomas in the year "52")? And the Nestorian Church was located within the Persian Empire and was so isolated from the other churches that it never participated in any of the "ecumenical councils."
At any rate, all these ancient churches are eaten up with evolutionism, Biblical criticism, and ecumenism. They are also quite prejudiced against and quite hostile to Fundamentalist Protestants and often attack them for being creationists and inerrantists.
There is more to this story, but I don't have time to elucidate it here. But aside from Biblical liberalism, these ancient churches claim the Fundamentalist Protestant understanding of "the redemption" is flawed and at variance with the "ancient" understanding. If you investigate the theologies of these churches you will find that every reason you ever had to be a chr*stian (ie, the individual is so inherently sinful that his only hope lies in the vicarious damnation of J*sus as the divine scapegoat) is pulled out from under you. Have you ever noticed that these ancient churches (founded by the apostles) demand a great deal of effort of their members for their salvation? You know, fasting, confessions, rituals, good works, etc.? Now in all honesty . . . this being the case, what was the point of starting a new religion 2000 years ago in the first place??? People could do all this stuff as Jews or Noachides just as well. What was the point of J*sus' sacrifice if it requires so much human effort to do anyone any good????? What does this do to your "chr*stians depend on G-d's mercy while you folks think you can bribe Him with your own goodness" line? The vast majority of chr*stians spend their lives praying for mercy so that they don't have to go to Hell (just read Catholic/Orthodox prayers to see!) and they seem to have no notion that they are "eternally saved." So if it comes down to praying to J*sus for forgiveness and mercy and praying to HaShem, I'll take the latter, thank you very much!!!
All these ancient churches have websites. I recommend you study the authentic versions of "your" chr*stian religion.
As for the Bible needing an authoritative Oral interpretation, that fact should be self-evident. Unfortunately, most Fundamentalist Protestants have only heard the Catholic arguments for their traditions (which are very poor), and thus have been "vaccinated" against giving the Jewish claims a hearing.
I will make only the following observations. First, the printing press has not always existed. You are familiar with a book that comes from a machine and it seems to you self created and self-interpreting. But for millenia the Bible had to be written by hand, and since it was the very Word of G-d it had to be written according to very strict rules. The altering of even a single letter invalidated the entire scroll. Were it not for these rules, the Bible would not have existed when the printing press was invented. I hope you can see that the strictest rules were necessary to preserve the Sacred Text exactly, yet these rules for writing Biblical scrolls are not contained in the Bible itself!!! Now you are in a bit of a quandary. You have to either acknowledge the legitimacy of these oral laws for copying the Torah (and thus acknowledge the Oral Law) or else claim that these strict laws which preserved the Pure Word of G-d for millenia (before a machine was invented to do this) were "the doctrine and commandments of men," which means that the very reason the Biblical text was faithfully preserved for you was because of a false doctrine! Do you actually believe without these strict rules (from the Oral Law) that there would be a Single Authentic Biblical Text for your people to translate and print???
And finally, there is one thing about Jewish claims that Catholicism can never claim. The Written Torah consists of consonants only, having neither vowels nor punctuation. Do you know where the vowels and punctuation come from? That's right . . . the Oral Law! In other words, without this "false doctrine of men" the Biblical text would consist only of a string of consonants without either vowels or punctuation, and I'd like to see even a Protestant claim that such a text would be "all sufficient!"
PS: It is true that printed Hebrew Bibles (printed by machine) containe both vowels and punctuation, but these are still part of the Oral Tradition and not found in the actual Holy Scrolls. Their appearance in printed Hebrew Bibles is no different from the Rabbinic commentaries that often accompany the Biblical text in these books.
One more, from Wikipedia
The travellers were attacked for four days, after which the Mormons reportedly promised safe passage if the migrants would surrender their weapons whereupon all but 17 young children were slaughtered. ........John D. Lee a leader of the ambush, was excommunicated and later executed for his actions. While Lee admitted his complicity, he claimed he was a scapegoat for the many Mormon leaders who approved of the killings.
Shall I continue? I have tons more. BTW, any sources refuting this story that originate from inside the LDS are invalid, since even you must admit they might be just a tad biased. ;-)
Can we have a tight, definitive answer from the LDS members responding on this thread?
After all, if the JEWS are upset just because their names are being mentioned in the LDS temples, the rest of us should find out just which buttons the LDS do not want pressed here in the open at FRland.
The modern Thai alphabet contains no written vowels either, merely diacritical marks on the consonents. And, the letters all run together when written.
Sample text
Well, they obviously don't want to talk about how Mary was involved in a physical relationship with God the Father, which resulted in the birth of Jesus.
We've asked about that several times with no reply, so I assume that's one of their beliefs that they don't like to discuss.
Too bad, because I really want to hear about that. Does that mean Jesus wasn't born from a virgin? Did God rape her, or did she consent? Did God take human form, or was this some sort of alien, extraterrestrial affair?
He rose from the dead, thus assuring the eventual resurrection of all mankind. Through Jesus’ atonement and resurrection, those who repent of their sins and obey God’s commandments can live eternally with Jesus and the Father (2 Ne. 9: 10-12; 21-22; D&C 76: 50-53, 62).
From here --> http://scriptures.lds.org/gsj/jsschrst
Abr. 1 - 5). We also learn from latter-day revelation that because of Abraham’s faithfulness he is now exalted and sits upon a throne in eternity (D&C 132: 29, 37).*Latter-day revelation has clarified the significance of the Abrahamic covenant and other aspects of Abraham’s life and ministry. We learn that he was greatly blessed with divine revelation concerning the planetary system, the creation of the earth, and the premortal activities of the spirits of mankind. One of the most valiant spirits in the premortal life, he was chosen to be a leader in the kingdom of God before he was born into this world (
Abraham received aconcubines•, and they bore him children; and it was accounted unto him for righteousness, because they were given unto him, and he abode in my law; as Isaac also and bJacob• did none other things than that which they were commanded; and because they did none other things than that which they were commanded, they have entered into their cexaltation, according to the promises, and sit upon thrones, and are not angels but are gods. |
DISCLAIMER: This post is in no way intended to cast disparaging remarks on those who are members of the LDS church. It is merely a commentary on the few who would give the LDS a bad name with their "natural man" behavior.
The last line in my post to you said: "So if you're referring to protestant churches then I definitely disagree." I still believe that. I'm also familiar with churches who disagree with what I've said, but to claim a vast majority is, IMO, wrong, although I agree with some of what you've said.
Anybody who still believes the documentary hypothesis is even remotely true probably hasn't read work beyond 19th century scholarship. Or if they have, no matter who or where they are, their reading is very limited.
I'm not sure what I said that hinted or implied anything that warranted most of your response. I certainly don't blame anybody and don't subscribe to many of the things you list. It's almost as if you have me confused with somebody else or perhaps you felt the need to rant which, at times, I certainly understand as many folks would do themselves a huge service to better understand why they believe what they believe.
I encourage you to start your own threads as it would take a great deal of time to respond to each of your points, many of which could be their own large threads.
........And any story that originate outside of the LDS is not invalid or a a tad biased!
Did God take human form
From what I understand of Mormonism, they state God the Father has flesh and bones but cannot support that belief with specific quotes from Bible. I went around and around with one particular Mormon a while ago and he insisted I was wrong; yet he never provided direct Biblical evidence to support his statement despite his many claims to the contrary.
Then the whole God the Father has a heavenly father concept found in Mormonism really grieves my spirit. As I see it, we first must confront bad theology with time spent on our knees before heading into battle. Of course I'm talking about myself and not trying to imply anything. I hope nobody considers this bashing of any kind.
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