God Exists, and He's Mormon

"God exists, and he's American" is the judgment of Dr. Milton Glass, fictional nuclear physicist from the acclaimed Alan Moore-Dave Gibbons comic Watchmen, when he learns that Jon Osterman, has come back from the dead. Osterman disputes Glass's judgment, but the new deity's protest rings as hollow as his promise of fealty to his first girlfriend.

In the story, Osterman dies in a freak lab accident that is the stuff of countless superhero origin stories. It utterly obliterates his body but leaves his mind intact and powerful. Osterman then re-creates himself from scratch. He is not just reborn but transfigured and renamed, as the world's oddest crime fighter: Dr. Manhattan. By the end of the tale, Manhattan even talks of Osterman as a different person.

Obviously, Dr. Manhattan looks different. He has the skin of a Smurf, the body of a Greek god. He crackles with energy and can manipulate other matter with the same ease that he reconstructed himself. Less obviously: His changed perceptions bracket him off from the rest of mankind. He can see things at the molecular level but is puzzled by basic human emotions and conventions. His women complain that they can't connect with him and he often walks around in his rebirthday suit. He perceives time differently as well -- the future and the past run together.

Dr. Manhattan is clearly a sort of god. After the mystery at the heart of Watchmen is resolved, he professes a newfound fondness for human life and muses, "perhaps I'll create some" -- elsewhere in the universe. But what sort of a god is he?

Enter: irony. One group that is not likely to come out in great numbers to see the new film Watchmen is members in good standing of the

You know full well what we believe but, here goes:

Baptism is required of us. Jesus Himself set the example for us:

13 ¶ Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.

14 But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?

15 And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all drighteousness. Then he suffered him.

16 And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:

17 And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

Matthew 3:13-17

If we have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we will recognize our sins and seek forgiveness for them. Part of this process is baptism. Baptism is an expression of our desire to be born of Him and to take His name upon us. Earlier in the same chapter we read this:

7 ¶ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

8 Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:

9 And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

Matthew 3:8-9

The Pharisees and the Sadducees claimed that they were Abraham's children and that's all they needed and yet John the Baptist seems to disagree with that idea. He proclaimed that the children of Abraham still needed to "bring forth...fruits meet for repentance" before they could be truly God's children. That fruit, preceded by faith and sincere repentance, is baptism.

So, what is your belief regarding baptism?

Your mind is so immersed in the fraud of mormonism, you are unable to comprehend that you do not use or recognize sound syllogisms thus you cannot deal in truth. When you make broad unfounded statements, then follow them with narrowly confined assertions of a contradictory nature, you display the perfect end to cultish indoctrination. I'll illustrate by dissecting your post.

[[ So we are the poisoners and the poison, not lost sheep. [A false restatement of what I posted. I did not call Mormons--that's people, twit--poison, and did assert that mormonism IS poison being fed as meal to lost sheep.
So the Lord’s love doesn’t apply to us. [Complete non-sequitur in an effort to establish a strawman you will now try to use but cannot because of your confused mental state.]
Its OK to hate us. [You must continue to carry that 'we're different so christians hate us' chip in order to stumble along in your preferred blindness. But you could not even stop there, you had to again twist what God has taught, in order to try and justify the demonic cult to which you have 'plighted your troth'.]
Can any hateful thing enter into the presence of God? [ Son/daughter, God hates. Read about them it the Bible. May God have mercy upon your soul and shatter the dark barrier the demons have erected around the eyes of your soul which is festering in mormonism's heresies.] ]]

There is an outside chance that you will someday understand God's Grace created for you. But if you never accept it, and continue to try and work your way to your mormonism concept of righteousness, you will be damned, not by me or even by God, but by your stubborness in continuously rejecting God's Grace.

It is by this astonishing thing, Grace, that God remains Sovereign and Righteous while delivering from sentence those in tresspasses and sins. God is not a reactive force or a rewarding nanny, He IS God, Perfect in Righteousness, not manipulated by the vagaries of satanic machinations through cults like mormonism. If your deliverance from the unrighteousness of your self were ever your responsibility once you believe and accept the promises of God, satan would end God's sovereignty by reaping for his evil consumption that which God loves and has provided for as His growing family.

Salvation cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. ... For what the law was not able to do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, His own Son having sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, did condemn the sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law may be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For those who are according to the flesh, the things of the flesh do mind [Mormonism is a works based religion, thus 'minding the things of the flesh]. ... If Christ [is] in you, the body, indeed, [is] dead because of sin, and the Spirit [is] life because of righteousness, and if the Spirit of Him who did raise up Jesus out of the dead doth dwell in you, He who did raise up the Christ out of the dead shall quicken also your dying bodies, through His Spirit dwelling in you. So, then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. ... Whom He did foreknow, He also did fore-appoint conformed to the image of His Son, that he might be first-born among many brethren; and whom He did fore-appoint, these also He did call; and whom He did call, these also He declared righteous; and whom He declared righteous, these also He did glorify. What, then, shall we say unto these things? if God [is] for us, who [is] against us? [From Paul's Letter to the Romans]

Reaganesque,

At least you are starting to ask questions about how to correctly “divide the Word of Truth.”

There is a difference between being about you and applying to you. Commandments given to all believers are easy. Commandments given to one believer - Peter - specifically given a role by Christ in the early Church, are more difficult.

Your major failing in quoting that passage was to take that command and argue that it was the totality of what all believers are commanded to do. A logical fallacy.

My response showed you that believers are not only to encourage and strengthen, but to warn and to rebuke. And so I did.

If I did less, I would not be fulfilling God’s commands for believers.

You also assumed His command was for everyone. It wasn’t. It was for Christians.

AMPU

You know full well what we believe but

From the LDS.org Gospel Library, ORDINANCES AND COVENANTS LDS (OPEN) a fuller explanation of what mormons believe:

The ordinances of baptism and the sacrament are bound together inseparably. Through baptism we receive a remission of our sins. Through the sacrament we “retain a remission” of sins. 14 By participating in baptism and the sacrament, we agree, or covenant, that we are willing to take the name of Christ upon us, to keep His commandments, and to always remember Him. In both instances, based upon our obedience to the ordinances, God extends the promise, or covenant, that we would have His Spirit to be with us. Understanding the nature of the covenant and living in accordance with its requirements give life and meaning to the ordinance itself.

The Lord asks this question: “Will I receive at your hands that which I have not appointed?” 15 The appointed authority in performing a sacred gospel ordinance is as essential to the validity of the ordinance as the ordinance itself is to the covenant that accompanies it. The Savior told Joseph in the initial visitation, “ ‘They draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.’ ” 16

The “form of godliness” may have reference to ordinances common to many Christian churches, such as baptism, the sacrament, and marriage. These all may share similarity in their performance, but without the priesthood authority and the accompanying covenant, the power of the ordinance is denied. If we eliminate priesthood authority and the covenant portion of an ordinance, we are left only with the “form of godliness.”

AGAIN, the claim that the ordinance of baptism is denied without the fictional "priesthood authority" of the mormon church.

The Restoration of the Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthoods Part 1(LDS) OPEN

The Restoration of the Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthoods Part 2(LDS) OPEN

John's baptism was for the remission of sin. It was symbolic of a greater baptism. In fact, Christ was baptized by John, not for remission of any sin (for Christ was sinless), but he was baptized to fulfill righteousness

Matthew 3:6 Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him (John)in the Jordan River.

Matthew 3:11 "I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

There is a difference between the baptism of John and the baptism of Jesus. Jesus referred to his test as a baptism. It certainly did not have anything to do with water.

Mark 10:38-39 "You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said. "Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?"
"We can," they answered. Jesus said to them, "You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with,

Here in Mark 16:16 it would appear that baptism has to do with believing (not getting wet):
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

So yes, baptism is required.

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