“culling our doctrine for “Gotchas” and saying things designed to destroy faith.”
I consider it more an attempt to cut out the cancerous part of an otherwise healthy body. Had Joseph Smith never existed, would you be an atheist? I don’t think so, I think you would have been a Christian. So we are by no means trying to destroy faith, only cut out a false faith that we view as cancerous.
Here’s your problem DU, to be a Mormon you must effectively condemn the rest of us to hell. Otherwise, if the Old and New Testament were sufficient, what need would there be for Joseph Smith [except to introduce inconsequential polygamy and baptism of the dead]? In other words, you believe the rest of us are failed Mormons (not failed Christians).
If the Joseph Smith myth collapses, you are left with traditional Christianity, so the only reason you would defend the JS fabrications is if you thought traditional Christianity was insufficient to get a human to heaven. Therefore you aren’t really a Christian, you are a Joseph Smithian.
I Said: “culling our doctrine for “Gotchas” and saying things designed to destroy faith.”
You Said: I consider it more an attempt to cut out the cancerous part of an otherwise healthy body. Had Joseph Smith never existed, would you be an atheist? I don’t think so, I think you would have been a Christian. So we are by no means trying to destroy faith, only cut out a false faith that we view as cancerous.
Actually, if Mormonism never existed, I would probably be Buddhist, the philosophy is great, the logic is irrefutable, and Christianity has way to many contradictions without the Book of Mormon to add it's testimony and clear up some things.
But hey, that's just my opinion of what i would do, I am sure many here are convinced they know far better than I what I would do for they are "Christians"
You Said: Here’s your problem DU,
Right here Most anti's would be screaming bloody murder and asking for my post to be pulled, LOL Antis are such pansies about that., well, go on
You Said: to be a Mormon you must effectively condemn the rest of us to hell.
Bzzt Wrong Again!
Mormon "Hell" or outer darkness is reserved for those who know without a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is the savior, and then rebel against him any way. Please do not take this the "Wrong way" you just don't qualify, and frankly, neither do I.
You Said: Otherwise, if the Old and New Testament were sufficient, what need would there be for Joseph Smith [except to introduce inconsequential polygamy and baptism of the dead]? In other words, you believe the rest of us are failed Mormons (not failed Christians).
Actually, you have to try to fail, and Antis who are not Ex Mormons are not "Failed Mormons", Ex Mormons are "Failed Momrons" simply because they no longer are Mormon, even if they don't go anti.
You Said: If the Joseph Smith myth collapses, you are left with traditional Christianity, so the only reason you would defend the JS fabrications is if you thought traditional Christianity was insufficient to get a human to heaven. Therefore you aren’t really a Christian, you are a Joseph Smithian.
That was an amazing exercise in building theory on theory to arrive at a conclusion of unmistakably questionable accuracy.
I am a christian for I believe in Jesus Christ. Period. I also believe Joseph Smith was a prophet who served Jesus Christ and did his bidding. Traditional Christianity is not magic, it's tradition, traditional Buddhism is not magic it's tradition.
It boils down to this, was there a falling away as was predicted in the Bible?
2 Thes. 2:3 3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
My logic on this is simple:
If there was no falling away, then the Catholic church is still the True church of God and all protestants will be damned to hell right along side the Mormons.
IF there was a falling away, then reform is not enough, for once the authority to act in God's name is lost, regaining it takes God or angels he has sent giving it to men to restore it to the earth. The protestant churches do not claim such an event, thus they are not God's church.
Either there was, or there was not fall, and in either case the protestants are wrong. The catholics in my opinion, have way too many unexplained inconsistencies, like the Nicene creed suddenly appearing in 325 AD when the Apostles never said half of what they are assuming in the Council of Nicea.
Either which way, I tell you of a truth, if you do manage in destroying my testimony of The Book of Mormon you will also have destroyed the credibility of the testimony I bear of Jesus Christ.
Let me give you an example, IF you have a Born again and you manage to convince them that the Bible is a sinful book, they will cease to believe in Jesus Christ.
Similarly, if you convince a Mormon that the Book of Mormon isn't true, and that is how they received their testimony of Jesus, you have just created yet another Atheist. I don't think the antis have thought this approach through.