I’m a Mormon, Not a Christian [Mega hit piece on Christians]

New York Times ^ | June 12, 2012 | David V. Mason

[greyfoxx39]

................... Mormons seem to be everywhere.

I want to be on record about this. I’m about as genuine a Mormon as you’ll find — a templegoer with a Utah pedigree and an administrative position in a congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am also emphatically not a Christian.

-SNIP-

In addition, these Christians had to defend their use of additional scripture and their unconventional conception of God and explain why they were following a bumpkin carpenter from some obscure backwater. Early Christianity’s relationship with non-Jews was even worse. Roman writers frequently alluded to rumors about the cannibalistic and hedonistic elements of early Christian rites. One after the other, Christians went to the lions because they found it impossible to defend themselves against such outrageous accusations. They did eat flesh and drink blood every Sunday, after all.

Eventually, Christianity grew up and conceded that it wasn’t authentic Judaism. Lo and behold, once it had given up its claim to Judaism, it became a state religion — cannibalism notwithstanding — and spent the next 1,700 years getting back at all the bullies who had slighted it when it was a child.

-SNIP-

Whatever happens in November, I hope Mormonism eventually realizes that it doesn’t need Christianity’s approval and will get big and beat up all the imperious Christians who tormented it when it was small, weird and painfully self-conscious. Mormons are certainly Christian enough to know how to spitefully abuse their power.

[metmom]

I am also emphatically not a Christian.

Probably the only accurate statement in the whole article.

If Jesus "a bumpkin carpenter from some obscure backwater" and show such contempt and derision for Him, they WHY do they call themselves the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

Why not just disown Him completely and admit that they follow Smith as their savior?

[dragonblustar]

Whatever happens in November, I hope Mormonism eventually realizes that it doesn’t need Christianity’s approval

Sounds like the Devil comforting the wicked.

(Also, a typical godless lib answer to anyone who practices a perversion of some sort..... "I hope --place name or group here----- eventually realizes that it doesn’t need Christianity’s approval )

[RedMonqey]

I’m with Harry Emerson Fosdick... who wrote that he would be “ashamed to live in this generation and not be a heretic.” Being a Christian so often involves such boorish and meanspirited behavior that I marvel that any of my Mormon colleagues are so eager to join the fold.

He has a point there....

[James C. Bennett]

Christians believe 3 Persons; but so intimately connected they are one God. One Nature.

Three is three, and not one.

Otherwise, whom was Jesus talking to, when he prayed? If there was total intimacy as you describe, each one's omniscience would have negated Jesus needing to pray to God.

Sir, — I have to thank you for your pamphlets on the subject of Unitarianism, and to express my gratification with your efforts for the revival of primitive Christianity in your quarter. No historical fact is better established, than that the doctrine of one God, pure and uncompounded, was that of the early ages of Christianity; and was among the efficacious doctrines which gave it triumph over the polytheism of the ancients, sickened with the absurdities of their own theology. Nor was the unity of the Supreme Being ousted from the Christian creed by the force of reason, but by the sword of civil government, wielded at the will of the fanatic Athanasius. The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs. And a strong proof of the solidity of the primitive faith, is its restoration, as soon as a nation arises which vindicates to itself the freedom of religious opinion, and its external divorce from the civil authority. The pure and simple unity of the Creator of the universe, is now all but ascendant in the Eastern States; it is dawning in the West, and advancing towards the South; and I confidently expect that the present generation will see Unitarianism become the general religion of the United States. The Eastern presses are giving us many excellent pieces on the subject, and Priestley's learned writings on it are, or should be, in every hand. In fact, the Athanasian paradox that one is three, and three but one, is so incomprehensible to the human mind, that no candid man can say he has any idea of it, and how can he believe what presents no idea? He who thinks he does, only deceives himself. He proves, also, that man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without a rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck.

I write with freedom, because while I claim a right to believe in one God, if so my reason tells me, I yield as freely to others that of believing in three. Both religions, I find, make honest men, and that is the only point society has any right to look to. Although this mutual freedom should produce mutual indulgence, yet I wish not to be brought in question before the public on this or any other subject, and I pray you to consider me as writing under that trust. I take no part in controversies, religious or political. At the age of eighty, tranquility is the greatest good of life, and the strongest of our desires that of dying in the good will of all mankind. And with the assurance of all my good will to Unitarian and Trinitarian, to Whig and Tory, accept for yourself that of my entire respect.

- Jefferson's letter to Rev. James Smith, December 8, 1822.

[svcw]

The man has a TR, he would be in the 15% or so of the most loyal mormons.
Romney and Reid also have TRs.
Before you defend mormonism, you might want to learn about it, starting with rereading the post.

[greyfoxx39]

Most/many mainline Churches are NON Christian, most/all of NY Times readers that attend Churches are NON Christian, so I do not quite get the point.

Nice job of cherry picking there. "Mainline" doesn't include the growing numbers of Evangelical Christians.

"By the end of the 20th century there were nearly 100 million Americans who identified themselves as "Evangelical Christians," according to a Gallup Poll in 1995."

Conservapedia

[TheThirdRuffian]

1. NYT agenda is clear.

2. Notwithstanding No. 1, Mormons are not Christians. They are nice people misled by a fraud who wanted power, sex, and money and so made up a religion.

[Vigilanteman]

NYT: Hey, let’s find a liberal (pretend) Mormon to write column attacking Mormonism, Romney and Christians all at the same time.

Exactly. Because the New York Slimes will surely find some fool from the "We Hate Mormons Club" to repost it far and wide.

After all, one fool masquerading as a Mormon is more credible than the actual conservative voting behavior and highly functional Mormon majority communities scattered across the Rocky Mountain states. < / sarcasm >

[Colofornian]

Three is three, and not one.

I see you flunked basic multiplication.

If you took 1, 1, 1, you think the answer is always a formula "3", eh?

Well, what is 1 x 1 x 1?

[Buckeye McFrog]

The National Geographic Channel is running this “American Outliers” series about religious minorities (the Amish, the Hutterites, etc.)

I’d bet dinner at Ruths Chris this all culminates in a “Those Wacky Mormons!” series in October.

[muawiyah]

There's a very old Church of the First Born out there with a church membership record that Joseph Smith signed into.

I am far more worried about COFB or COTFB (or the pre-Laestidian Old Apostolic Lutheran Church) (or a dozen other names) than I am any bunch of Mormons, and they do have a lot of bunches.

The COFB tend to believe you should not go to doctors. They end up having the highest infant mortality rate of any group in the Americas.

Joe, for whatever misgivings he might have had about COFB's traditions, took a lot of those COFB tradition with him, as did Swedenborg. Maybe they added some Masonic rituals, but one thing I know is Mormons use doctors, and when one of their numbers decide to runaway to a COFB congregation (see kid who ate only lettuce and watermelon) they go ballistic.

There are Mormons who know all about COFB ~ so I guess folks keep in touch. Maybe they should help guide the COFB faithful out of the shadows where people are allowed to bleed to death or simply dry up.

Joe quit the church ~ time to put an end to the nonsense part.

[muawiyah]

That show hasn’t got a hair if it doesn’t cover COFB.

[Patton@Bastogne]

.


My exact prediction ... three months ago ...


.

[greyfoxx39]

It appears the DNC has issued the order to launch the attacks. Dangerous gambit, given Obama’s own “religious” background, though.

I disagree. Obama's voters could care less about religion, unless "pro-choice" is a religion.

What posters seem to be missing is the fact that "when the NYT leads, all other mainstream media follows".

As we see every day on FR most Christians do not have the faintest idea of what mormon doctrine and beliefs are...yet. The Obama press will provide their education.

[rawcatslyentist]

I wonder how many of us will wake up after the Myth coronation?
How many of us are dreaming of having our gas tank filled, and not having to pay our mortgage because Myth is preezee now? Well, most of us aren't dreaming of that. Most of us are dreaming he's gonna save us from socialism, globalism, and ruin.

Most of us are dreaming.

[Cicero]

Weird. This may be the way a lot of Mormons think, but it certainly isn’t a loyal Mormon thing to say it publicly in The New York Times, because the obvious purpose is to undermine Romney and send people stumbling back to Obama. Or to persuade Evangelicals to stay home and not vote.

Obviously this Mormon is much like the rogue Catholics the Times regularly calls on to undermine the Catholic Church. Maybe a MINO instead of a CINO. The difference being that much of what he says is what a lot a Mormons say privately among themselves. But they certainly aren’t supposed to be saying this in public. It’s a violation of Mormon Takiya, if you’ll pardon the borrowed term.

[James C. Bennett]

One needs to assume 1 = 1 = 1 for that equation to work. That is, they are identical in all respects.

If they were so in the case of the trinity, then why did Jesus pray to God? Being identical would imply that the inherent properties of each entity is identical to the other. There is nothing one of the entities could have possessed, which the other didn’t, which was remedied through one of the entities praying to the other. Each one would have been identical intimately to such an extent, that praying is meaningless.

[Colofornian]

The writer of this article is about as Mormon as Obama is a Christian.

The writer claims to be a temple Mormon; only 15-20% of Mormons seem to want to endure the process to become or remain a temple Mormon...which includes periodic rigorous temple rec questions from a local bishop...tithing...etc.

Temple Mormons are the "elite" Mormons -- the Mormons who tend to think they are "gods in embryo" on their way to full-grown godhood...like Mitt Romney.

You can vote for somebody who thinks they a god. That's our Free Republic.

But you know, take away the Mormonism...and I ask...

If Sarah Palin ran for POTUS in 2016 and previously declared her godhood, do you think a nation of conservatives would give her a 100% pass? (Or even a 90% pass?)

I can just imagine any non-Mormon candidate declaring in all sincerity, "I am a god in embryo. I will one day receive prayer from the people I create -- along with their worship, adoration, and praise. I will be a rival competitor for glory to 'THE' God."

Now why would ANYBODY expect the above to not offend Christians, Jews, and other monotheists?

And why aren't Christians offended by the notion that if they plan on voting for Romney, the temple mormon, that they are elevating a Personality "idol" on a scale not readily seen in this country.

[rawcatslyentist]

>"but they didn't have the courage."

That was their distributor "Comedy Central" that censored mudhamhead (Pigs be inseminating him). They sneak his toon in here and there.

[muawiyah]

We had another prediction on FR that's come true ~ that was when the Mittbots got their boy over the line they'd begin openly equating any criticism of Mitt with criticism of the LDS.

For some strange reason Mormons find it difficult to distinguish between Romney and their church.

Anybody have an explanation for why that's true and how we can suppress the instinct before you lose all the downticket races as well.