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Here is what I don’t understand that I honestly hope someone could answer for me.

There are probably lots of false doctrine & scandalous contradictions or pseudo-fraud in every Christian denomination. Church doctrine cannot be perfect as long as man is involved. Men are not perfect in nature, not even the apostles. Through prayer and inspiration maybe their deeds, words, and leadership rises to somewhat better than normal but we all know it can’t be perfect.

So what is so special about Mormonism that it deserves to be singled out for derision? Why do Baptists in particular seem to have a war against the Mormons?

We could probably all post some salacious fact about a former Pope. We could point a finger at the strange ways of the Amish or Mennonites. We might be able to dig up some disgruntled ex-born again evangelicals if desired. SO WHAT IS SO SPECIAL ABOUT MORMONS? Why single them out for threads like these?


40 posted on 03/20/2011 12:26:58 PM PDT by RC51
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To: RC51
So what is so special about Mormonism that it deserves to be singled out for derision? Why do Baptists in particular seem to have a war against the Mormons?

That's an easy one. I'll give you a couple of distinctions between Mormonism and traditional Christianity.

Mormans have a different idea on the nature of God. They do not believe in one eternal God. Traditional Christianity believes in The Trinity. God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all ONE God. Not only do Mormons believe that the Father, (Heavenly Father), Jesus (the begotton son of the Father, and spirit brother of Lucifer), and the Holy Spirit are three different and distinct gods. Not only that, but they also teach that men too can become gods.

Mormons also believe that salvation is based on works along with Jesus's suffering. And they believe that part of their redemption comes not from the shed blood of Christ on the cross, but from tears of blood he wept in the Garden of Gethsemene prior to his crucifixion.

Both are very clear distinctions.

Even PD will agree with the above statements.
41 posted on 03/20/2011 3:18:18 PM PDT by rickomatic
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To: RC51
So what is so special about Mormonism that it deserves to be singled out for derision?

First, you must know where MORMONism comes from...


Joseph Smith continues: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (, p.270).
 
Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (, p. 119).
 
Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" ( 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" ( 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" ( 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (, vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" ( 10:230).
 
Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (, p. 255).
 
Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (, vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (, 18:172).
 
President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (, vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (, 10:127).
James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (, p.182).
 
President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (, vol. 3, p.282).
 
More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (, p.316).
 
President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).
 
President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (, vol. 2, p.196).
 

53 posted on 03/20/2011 6:49:55 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: RC51
Why single them out for threads like these?

It gives them energy.

They LOVE to play 'the victim'!

54 posted on 03/20/2011 6:50:49 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: RC51
We could probably all post some salacious fact about a former Pope. We could point a finger at the strange ways of the Amish or Mennonites. We might be able to dig up some disgruntled ex-born again evangelicals if desired. SO WHAT IS SO SPECIAL ABOUT MORMONS? Why single them out for threads like these?

The Mormon Christ

The following are actual mormon beliefs.


Mormon Teachings on Jesus Christ

The Son Was Made by a Divine Man and Woman

According to Mormons, Jesus Christ is their elder brother, since he was the firstborn in the spirit world. That is, God the Father and one of his heavenly wives begot Christ's spirit at some point in the eternity before earthly creation. This was made possible because the Father, who had previously lived, died, and was resurrected in some other world, had finally attained divinity for himself. As part of the blessings of godhood, he was given an eternal wife or wives with whom to procreate spirit children.

The Son-and All Created Things-Pre-Existed from All Eternity

The Mormon church correctly teaches that the Son exists from all eternity. It makes two mistakes, however. First, it holds that the Son's pre-existence was only as vague, unformed matter until his heavenly parents begot his spirit. Second, Mormons believe that his pre-existence-as they define it-is the pattern for all created beings. Thus, for Mormons, every person has existed from eternity; each spirit came into being in heaven by the union of God the Father and one of his heavenly wives. That spirit is eventually placed into the human body created by earthly parents.

Jesus Christ can be called the "firstborn" only because his was the first "spirit body" formed by his heavenly parents. There then followed the "spirit bodies" of all other rational beings.

Yet Scripture clearly states the Son created all things and is himself uncreated: "For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist" (Col. 1:16-17).

We do well to remember the distinction presented earlier between Christ's divine and human natures. As the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of the Father, Christ exists eternally. There never was a time when he was not. Because God is perfect and therefore changeless (change implying a movement either toward or away from some ideal or perfection), the Son did not undergo a "reformation" of component elements, bringing him into self-awareness or personhood. Jesus possessed both a divine and a human nature from the moment of his earthly conception. He did not grow into divinity either before or while living a mortal life among men.

Mormons admit Christ became God before he took on a mortal estate. Sometimes, though, their terminology is reminiscent of Greek or Roman mythology. One Mormon writer phrased his view this way:

"Mary, heavy with child, traveled all that distance on mule-back, guarded and protected as one about to give birth to a half-Deity. No other man in the history of this world of ours has ever had such an ancestry-God the Father on the one hand and Mary the Virgin on the other. . . . Jesus lived in a lowly home, the only man born to this earth half-Divine and half-mortal" (The Life and Teachings of Jesus and His Apostles, 10).

From Catholic Answers, which is in line with many other Christian's view of the Real Christ and the mormon Christ.

NOW, the mormons have produced a video in which they claim "this seven-part documentary series stands to affirm His divinity by reconciling the historical Christ (read the mormon Christ) with the Christ of religious tradition" (read the Christ of Christian belief)

Behold the Lamb of God is the first documentary that covers all phases of the Savior's life's spanning His premortal existence to the "restoration of the gospel" all told from a mormon perspective."

THAT, is just one reason that mormons, in your words ARE SO SPECIAL. There are many other reasons. If you follow these threads, you will likely see them presented.

66 posted on 03/21/2011 11:00:41 AM PDT by greyfoxx39 (White House war strategy 2011: Sun Tzu meets Barney Fife..H/T Iowahawk)
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