BTW before someone gets all hung up on e proxy work done in the temple, every Christan accepts the principle of proxy work for the atonement was a proxy work by Jesus, and what better way to come closer to him than by joining him in the saving work... I guess that's why he commanded us to do so.
This thread is turning out to be....
I find that a really interesting statement. The Catholics and Protestants I know build schools, hospitals, orphanages, farm fields, build hospitals and clinics.......the lds I know just tell me I am a whore of Babylon and if I am not lds I'll not get my own kingdom and world.
I don't think so, but lets say it is, then you add the massive missionary work you just complained about, and the genealogy and temple work to see to it that every man woman and child (not just that live now, but that ever lived) get the opportunity to accept or reject the ordinances needed to save them...Hey ya gotta admit we aren't just saying "everyone else can go to Hell", we are doing something about it, and trying to save as many as will let us.
Well, first of all, Jesus' words to the most prominent religious legalists of his day -- is that they would traverse land & sea to make them "twice the son of hell" as they were. [Yeah, I know, Mormon theology would regard even the most legalistic Pharisees as "brothers of the pre-existence"]
Otherwise, I wouldn't think that the Pharisees trying to do something about their proselyting would get Jesus' endorsement of "Hey, way to give it a college try and 'do something about spreading your religion.'"
Secondly...what do you mean "I don't think so"? What? You don't read your own Doctrine & Covenants? "These are they who received not the gospel of Christ, neither the testimony of Jesus. These are they who deny not the Holy Spirit. These are they who are thrust down to hell...These are they who suffer the vengeance of eternal fire. These are they who are cast down to hell and suffer the wrath of Almighty God..." (D&C 76)
Since you mentioned it; just what did Joseph Smith LEARN that was UNTRUE about the PRESBYTERIANism of his day?
I thought you MORMONs didn't HAVE a 'HELL' to go to???
I don't think so, but lets say it is, then you add the massive missionary work you just complained about, and the genealogy and temple work to see to it that every man woman and child (not just that live now, but that ever lived) get the opportunity to accept or reject the ordinances needed to save them... [DU]
Are you serious? You think pre-Gutenberg printed records will drop out of the sky, or be dug up etched in golden plates in Hill Cumorahs all over the world? You seriously think that the vast records of people in the Dark Ages and before the Dark Ages, down to their very birth name (required for Lds baptisms), will be found? (If not, then drop the silly idealism of whoever has ever lived...It's a false ideal part of a false hope of a false gospel. Lds leaders make this magnanimous appeal to "fairness" that ALL will have the opportunity to receive the gospel in the after-life, except they never talk about the "fine print" of this legal obligation...* "uh, it's kind of dependent upon us finding all their birth records & such...you know B.C...early A.D....dark ages...unliterate people...etc. etc. etc.")
Hey ya gotta admit we aren't just saying "everyone else can go to Hell", we are doing something about it, and trying to save as many as will let us. BTW before someone gets all hung up on e proxy work done in the temple, every Christan accepts the principle of proxy work for the atonement was a proxy work by Jesus, and what better way to come closer to him than by joining him in the saving work... I guess that's why he commanded us to do so. [DU]
Lds believe that "...hell...is a temporary state in which spirits will be taught the gospel & have the opportunity to repent & accept ordinances for them that are performed." (True to the Faith, 2004, official Lds publication, p. 81)
Now what's wrong with this statement?
(1) It negates Hebrews 9:27 "For it is appointed for man to die once, and then the judgement"
(2) It creates a false sense of security for earthly man: "Oh, I can repent AFTER I die"
(3) In light of what I said above -- the vast majority of Dark Ages & before will never have their records found, how can the Lds church turn around and say this is MANDATED for EVERY spirit before they can be judged? Joseph Smith taught that "ALL those who have not had an opportunity of hearing the Gospel, and being administered unto by an inspired man in the flesh, MUST have it hereafter, BEFORE they can be finally judged. (Lds Presidents book on Smith, p. 471)
(4) Lds assume not only can they arrange eternal relationships with God and Jesus Christ post-death, but they can do marital match-making for the deceased. (Someone cue the Halloween Morg music): "In the temple, we can perform ALL the ordinances necessary for the exaltation of those who have died. This includes temple marriage." (Official Lds teaching pub -- Gospel Principles, p. 248) [Yeah, all: Think of The Addams family performing ghoulish eternal wedding rituals for the dead]
(5) It treats mere men as "saviors" -- what Reaganaut just noted in what you said: WOW. Finally an admittance that they consider themselves to be Saviors, just like their prophets taught.
Citations from former lds "prophets" that flesh out what DU & Reaganaut's notation is talking about : ...we are the only people that know how to save our progenitors, how to save ourselves, and how to save our posterity in the celestial kingdom of God;...we in fact are the saviours of the world..." (Lds "prophet" John Taylor, Journal of Discourses, vol.6, p.163).
"... mortals have to be saviors on Mount Zion, acting by proxy for the dead." (LDS "prophet" Joseph Fielding Smith, The Way to Perfection, p. 325)
"We know something about our progenitors, and God has taught us how to be saviors for them by being baptized for them in the flesh, that they may live according to God in the Spirit." (LDS "prophet" John Taylor, March 20,1870, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 14, 3/20/1870)
"...all the priests who adhere to the sectarian religions of the day with all their followers, without one exception, receive their portion with the devil and his angels." - Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr. , The Elders Journal, v. 1, no. 4, p. 60
Nah, not joey specifically targeting a religion to hound. . .
"Christians—those poor, miserable priests brother Brigham was speaking about—some of them are the biggest whoremasters there are on the earth, and at the same time preaching righteousness to the children of men. The poor devils, they could not get up here and preach an oral discourse, to save themselves from hell; they are preaching their fathers' sermons —preaching sermons that were written a hundred years before they were born. ...You may get a Methodist priest to pour water on you, or sprinkle it on you, and baptize you face foremost, or lay you down the other way, and whatever mode you please, and you will be damned with your priest. - Apostle Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses, v. 5, p. 89
What, some other 'christian' group attacking Christians, say it is not so mormons.
“... all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ.... in large part the worship of apostate Christendom is performed in ignorance, as much so as was the worship of the Athenians who bowed the Unknown Gods.” - Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, pp. 269, 374-375. Sorry to info you Elsie - mormonism still calls you an apostate, even though you were never a mormon.