Posted on 12/25/2008 9:13:44 PM PST by restornu
In Joseph Smith's day some of the most prominent Americans were disgusted with the creeds of Christendom. Thomas Jefferson said:
I [Jefferson] am a real Christian, that is to say a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the preachers . . of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said or did.
They have compounded from the heathen mysteries a system beyond the comprehension of man of which Jesus, were he to return on earth, would not recognize one feature. . . . It is the speculations of crazy theologians which have made a Babel out of religion (Saul K. Padover, Thomas Jefferson on Democracy, 1939, pp. 122-123).
Writing to S. Hales in 1818, Jefferson wrote: "The truth is that Calvinism has introduced into the Christian religion more new absurdities than its leaders had purged it of old ones" (Ibid., p. 219).
On Jefferson's monument in Washington, D.C., is inscribed: "I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." If his complete quotation were on the monument it would bring out the fact that Jefferson was speaking against the dergy of his day (Ibid., p. 119).
Benjamin Franklin, replying to a letter from Ezra Styles, president of Yale, said shortly before his death:
As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion, as he left it to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupt changes (Carl Van Doren, Benjamin Franklin, 1941, p. 777).
The first great work expressing the deistic feeling in America was Thomas Paine's Age of Reason, considered to have generated the greatest stir of any book of its day. It made clear that Paine was not an atheist as some claimed, but a deist because of the tyranny and bigotry he found in the existing churches (Thomas Paine, Age of Reason, 1793, p. 287).
Speaking of the period in America between 1670 and 1830, renowned theologian Paul Tillich has said, "First among the educated classes, then increasingly in the mass of industrial workers, religion lost its 'immediacy,' and it ceased to offer an unquestioned sense of direction and relevance to human living" (Roland N. Stromberg, Religious Liberalism, 1954, p. 1).
Carlyle has said of the Colonial Period: "An age fallen languid and destitute of faith and terrified of skepticism" (Ibid., p. ix).
Of this time Carl L. Becker has said, "What we have to realize is that in those years God was on trial" (Ibid., p. 1).
On another occasion, Thomas Jefferson said:
The impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who being themselves but fallible and uninspired men have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, have established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the earth (Peter H. Odegard, Religion and Politics, 1960, p. 110).
It is also true that in Colonial America only about 5 percent of the population belonged to any church and that those who did come to America for religious reasons did not come here initially to seek freedom of religion except for themselves. This is certainly an indictment against religion in Joseph Smith's day.
Peter Odegard also maintains this position:
Nowhere in the old world at the beginning of American colonization was there anything like religious toleration. . . . It is sad but not surprising to recall that even the religious dissenters who found refuge in America were, with notable exceptions, no more disposed toward toleration than the oppressors of the old world Obid., p. 9).
Historian William Warren Sweet says, "The rise of an intense anticlericalism was another cause of opposition to the churches." Further he relates: "The United States began as a free and independent nation with organized religion at a low ebb" (William Warren Sweet, Religion in the Development of American Culture, 1952, p. 92.).
You still haven’t backed up your statement!
but it won’t change the FACTS.
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Exactly...
The false profit Joseph Smith couldnt change the FACTS of the Bible...
And nor can any of his followers...
regardless of whatever they want to believe...
Some people will hate any religion and any people who follow that religion simply because it differs from their own.
Personally, I wouldn’t want to carry such a burden in my heart. I accept that you believe that what you are saying is the truth.
The Bible plainly states that Jesus is the only Begotten Son of God and that he was visited by the Holy Spirit after his baptism by John the Baptist. ~ Monkey face
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~ Tennessee Nana say NO it doesnt.....
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Luke 3 states
21 Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened,
22 And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.
You still have backed up you statement!
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Yes, that statement is backed up...
But we are still waiting for back up to the statement...
“I have learned for myself that Presbyterianism is not true”
And an explanation.....
The Bible plainly states that Jesus is the only Begotten Son of God and that he was visited by the Holy Spirit after his baptism by John the Baptist. ~ Monkey face
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~ Tennessee Nana say NO it doesnt.....
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Because it doesnt...
Amen.
The statements from both JS and BY have been posted and reposted on FR hundreds of times.
Direct quotes from their speeches, writings, etc.
Give us a list of them...
You’re not a christian. why bother
There may be lurkers here that will be deceived by those ‘churchs’.
It’s your Christian duty to help them avoid the error; don’t you think?
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It is not the churches but rather the heresies that are making the 19th famous for bad theology. The reason for this is that the churches the embraced the heresies of 19th century — died or are dying. That’s why Christianity has shrunk to a remnant in Europe.
But I understand you’re dead and you’re lonely for fellowship of corpses. So these are matters of indifference to you.
As Jesus was dying on the cross, he asked his Father to release him from the suffered ~ Monkey face
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Tennessee Nana says NO He didnt...
Alright we are into using right words here but due to the fact MF has CF it is not always easy to have the energy to bring to mind the right words, I should know I have good days and bad days.
Mark 14
36 And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.
Matt 27
33 And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull,
34 ¶ They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink.
But the concept is the same
That spirit which is harbor in some when they know what the other person met but refuse to assist [do you mean this] is not a spirit that comes from God
The statements from both JS and BY have been posted and reposted on FR hundreds of times.
Direct quotes from their speeches, writings, etc.
****
So out of thousands and thousands of post on RF from the contrary I am now suppose to mind read!
Alright we are into using right words here
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Yes, Resty we are...
You need to actually READ The Bible, not just cut and post...
Words mean things...
And especially the words in The Bible...
And you have which translation of the Bible?
So out of thousands and thousands of post on RF from the contrary I am now suppose to mind read!
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You have already demonstrated previously that you are able to read the mind of Monkey Face...
That is an insult to both of us.
Shame on you.
That is an insult to both of us.
Shame on you.
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Eh ?????????
YOU just read OUR minds, did you not?
You KNOW what we feel and think?
Don’t assume by second-guessing either of us. Stick to the topic.
Eh ?????
Intelligent rejoinder.
You never did answer my question. Which translation of the Bible do you read?
Alright we are into using right words here
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Yes, Resty we are...
You need to actually READ The Bible, not just cut and post...
Words mean things...
And especially the words in The Bible...
***
Of course they do but so does it reveal when one knows what the other was trying to say and refuses to “Do unto others as they would want them to do unto them!”
when one is so caught up in the letter of the law they leaving out the spirit of the Lord.
That is what being a Christian is all about.
Monkey face I love this talk I have learn so much from it.
excerpt from;
Beware of Pride
President Ezra Taft Benson
http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=d8ff27cd3f37b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____
The proud make every man their adversary by pitting their intellects, opinions, works, wealth, talents, or any other worldly measuring device against others. In the words of C. S. Lewis: “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. … It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone.” (Mere Christianity, New York: Macmillan, 1952, pp. 109–10.)
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