Well I made the case that lying is involved. Just look at least #1, #2, and #4 as I responded in post #77. Instead of five this time, I'll cover three...and I'll add to the last one something I didn't include before.
Proofs addressing points #1, #2, and #4 'making the case' that confirms what this ex-Lds missionary has said -- that the Mormon church and its missionaries openly lie:
#1
Premise: If, before I come to your house, sitetest, I have written to many others of my faith that I consider you a potential "proselyte" and I tell others I am going over to your house to "proselytize"...
Actual presentation... for me to then say to your face that "I am not trying to convert you"... Conclusion: = a lie.
Now even you recognized this to some degree in your initial comment on this thread. You said then "except for possibly #1" they weren't lying. Even your-out-of-whack falsehood radar picked that one up...you just apparently lacked candidness to go beyond the "possibly" hesitant expression.
So now your "radar" is waffling and defending #1 as pure truth? Really?
#2
Reality: Mormon radio & TV ads have long presented the King James Bible as sufficient. It's been the ONE thing offered for free in those ads going back over 20 years. Therefore...
Choice A: ...either the Mormon church lied then, PR-wise if they presented it as "sufficient" yet in many other venues they conveyed it wasn't sufficient.
Or Choice B: Or, they've lied in presenting the MANY arguments they've made that it's insufficient.
I don't even have to quote you those quotes where Mormon leaders have torn down the trustworthiness of the Bible. Elsie certainly could post the Articles of Faith where Mormonism does that...but just knowing that Joseph Smith alone said that the KJV Bible needed to be "re-translated" from English to English due to "corrections" supposedly needed (he called it a "translation" not a paraphrase) is enough to tell you that Smith repeatedly conveyed that the KJV was inadequate as it was.
So...if you listened to the LDS PR people, the KJV was sufficient; if you listed to their general authorities, it was insufficient. Given the sheer hierarchical nature of the Mormon church, where you have a heavily controlled top-down structure, somebody wasn't telling the truth.
Skipping #3 let's move to #4:
Mormonism claims in its scriptures to be the only "true and living church on the face of the earth." (D&C 1:30) In order to substantiate this claim, they needed a simultaneous claim that the historic Christian church stopped existing legimately at a point approximately 1600-1700 years before the Mormon church was started, saying the church started by Jesus Christ fell into total apostasy.
It won't do any good for the Mormon church to allow for any other church to legitimately exist. (Otherwise, they are not necessary as a "restoration") So their claim hangs or falls ALL on the claims below lining up in perfect alignment in a tightrope I haven't seen beyond the Mormon church...
(a) The claim that Christian churches are 100% apostate...IOW, if they acknowledge even one true church that's been in existence between the alleged time of apostasy and their jumpstart, that alone proves two-faced deception...keep this one in mind for point (e) below;
(b) The claim that Jesus Christ either lied or was mistaken when Jesus claimed that the gates of Hades would not prevail or overcome His Church (Matt. 16:18)...meaning either Jesus was wrong -- or they were. Now you might say, "Well, saying Jesus was merely wrong isn't a lie." And yes, that is true. But Mormons go the extra step here and claim they are not calling Jesus either a liar or false prophet re: Matt. 16:18. They can't have their cake and eat it, too. They need to confess they are contradicting Jesus -- and if they are not they are hiding reality...
(c) The claim that the apostle Paul's prophesy of continuous glory given to God "in the church...in all generations forever and ever" was either a false prophesy -- or their contention that it stopped was...(Paul and the Mormon church cannot both be true in their claims)
(d) The Book of Mormon makes this claim in 2 Nephi 8:8, and it rings a bit similar to what was just covered in Eph. 3:21: For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool. But my righteousness shall be forever, and my salvation from generation to generation. (2 Nephi 8:8)
Now, you need to know that Mormons claim 2 Nephi was written in B.C. times. So tell us, Mormon “restorationists”: If...
...Nephi prophesied that salvation would occur sequentially from generation to generation...was Nephi a false prophet about this? You mean, the "generation to generation" salvation stopped for 1700 years? Really?
Therefore, when Mormon missionaries who are aware of 2 Nephi 8:8 -- OR, certainly their leaders who know this verse -- talk about the "universal apostasy" all in the same breath as claiming salvation has historically occurred "generation to generation," one of those two truth commitments has "to give" in that tug-of-war for truth.
(e) Remember here the backdrop for this consideration is that the Mormon church claims that the church on earth was in apostasy for umpteen hundred years before 1830.
In this consideration, we simply need to review the Mormon "scriptural" presentation of authoritative continuity.
Joseph Smith prophesied Sept. 22-23, 1832 that the “priesthood continueth in the church of God in ALL GENERATIONS, and is WITHOUT BEGINNING OF DAYS OR END OF YEARS. And the Lord confirmed a priesthood also upon Aaron and his seed, THROUGHOUT ALL GENERATIONS, WHICH PRIESTHOOD ALSO CONTINUETH FOREVER WITH THE PRIESTHOOD which is after the holiest order of God.” (D&C 84:17-18)
Therefore, if you take this coupled with Smith also prophesying in 1832 to 1832 Mormons that this “priesthood hath continued through the lineage of your fathers” (D&C 86:8) — and since almost all of the “fathers” of these 1832 Mormons were either Christian or pagan or deceased or whatever — but certainly were NOT Mormons...
...Then tell, us dear Mormons: On what grounds do you exclude the Christian Church from your dear exclusive priesthood club?
On what grounds, dear Mormons: Do you exclude us from being the true church (according to D&C 1:30)?
On what grounds, dear Mormons: Do you call us “apostates” who triggered a needy “restoration” of the gospel and the true Church?
n what grounds, dear Mormons: Did you claim that the “light of the gospel leading to salvation” was lost for a long period of time on earth?
By labeling us all as such, you openly consign Nephi, the apostle Paul and Joseph Smith to the garbage bin of false prophets!
Therefore, either Mormons are internally lying/covering up that they believe Smith is a false prophet, or more likely, they believe Smith was telling the truth in D&C 84:17-18; 86:8...which means they believe that the priesthood was rec'd via "the lineage of their fathers" (86:8) and this was a continuous priesthood passed down "throughout all generations" (84:17-18).
But if this was passed down to them by a faulty generational apostate priesthood, how are they legit? If they believe these D&C passages, therefore, then they are forced to conclude the Christian church was NOT "apostate" after all pre 1830 -- and their claims that we are apostates as the Christian church is a lie!
I am not a Mormon, and I think their theology is goofy.
I'm just sick of the bullcrap that permeates this forum, including all the charges that so-and-so is lying.
I believe that sitetest is not a Mormon, either ... I believe that he is Catholic (same as me). I'll defer to him as to his motivations.
“Even your-out-of-whack falsehood radar picked that one up...you just apparently lacked candidness to go beyond the ‘possibly’ hesitant expression.”
Now you have spoken falsely. Have you lied?
It isn't any lack of candor on my part that I said what I said. Rather, it is a lack of knowledge on my part on what motivates folks to say what they say, especially when what they say is sorta vague.
Straightforwardly, if I were to be the proximate cause of someone’s coming to the True Church of Jesus Christ, the Holy Catholic Church, and they were to say, “You converted me!”, I'd recoil in horror. I DID NO SUCH THING! If someone is converted, that's the work of the Holy Spirit. If I was somehow involved, that makes me happy, but I want no credit for such a thing.
That doesn't mean that there aren't folks that I think are likely candidates for conversion to the true faith.
Thus, knowing how I think about conversion, I can credit that someone else might think in ways about conversion where they could simultaneously see someone as a candidate for conversion, hope for that person's conversion, yet honestly say that they aren't trying to convert the person.
But perhaps in the case of this author, pride got the better of him, and he actually thought that he was doing the converting, in which case, he may well have been lying on point one.
In any case, your statement that I "just apparently lacked candidness to go beyond the 'possibly' hesitant expression," is false. You posted a falsehood. Are you now a liar?
As to the rest of your post, ho hum. You're making arguments why their theology is false. I already agree with you that their theology is false, at least where it differs with the objective truth of Catholic faith.
Perhaps you're trying to say that the falsity of LDS teaching is so apparent that it can't be sincerely believed.
Well, I feel the same way about non-Catholics/non-Orthodox who don't believe that the Eucharist is literally the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, that it is no longer bread and wine, but the Lord, Himself. It's pretty plain what the Bible says, and the Bible doesn't need hundreds of words to say it.
Nonetheless, no matter how obvious the truth is (and it is quite obvious), I believe that most non-Catholics/non-Orthodox, in fact, the overwhelming majority who refuse to believe this objective truth are, nonetheless, folks of good will and good faith, and genuinely believe their false beliefs. Sincerely.
I don't call them liars for believing what is false, and I don't say that their false beliefs are lies.
Even though the evidence against their false beliefs is overwhelming and irrefutable (so says I), and even though any devout, believing Catholic would agree with me.
Just ask ArrogantBustard whether he agrees with me that it is plainly true that in the Eucharist at the Catholic Mass (and Orthodox Divine Liturgy), Jesus is made present, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, on the altar, and that what appears like bread and wine is no longer at all bread and wine.
sitetest
TarBaby time...