THE MORMONS AREN'T TAKING OVER THE PLANET QUITE AS FAST AS WE ONCE THOUGHT

This morning's Salt Lake Tribune has an intriguing news item about the real versus perceived growth-rate of the Mormon Church. For decades, Mormons have touted their Church's rapid growth as a sort of implicit evidence that it is the True Church. Gordon B. Hinkley, the man at the top of the Mormon Church, echoes what many Mormons will tell you: that theirs is the "fastest-growing" Church in the world. Not so, says David Stewart, a Mormon researcher who has compiled the statistics and shows that, far from being the fastest-growing, Mormonism actually ranks 23rd among 149 Churches and Protestant denominations ranked in the U.S.

Stewart's detailed analysis of the growth trends of the Mormon Church is fascinating but unsettling. Let's not forget that a large percentage of those who go into Mormonism are former Catholics. What a good reminder for us to redouble our efforts to explain our Faith more intelligently, defend it more charitably, and share it more effectively.

Do you reject and rebuke the Snow Couplet? That is what I was quoting

“As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may be.”

Can you show me in the bible...The father has wives? Can you show me in the bible that Jesus is a seperate person from the father? Can you show me in the bible that God the father had a father or he lives on Kolab?

Ed said the Mormonism could not be disproved by the Bible..That is .it does not say god was not a man or that God does not have a wife ..by that standard mabe God is really a space alien as the bible does not address that either

It is an example of why 80% of new converts leave..half truths and distortions . The bible does not DIRECTLY contradict LDS doctrine.. But it does not teach it either...so it was a disengenous statement

The First Presidency issued some new questions last Spring. It's so hard to keep up with knowing what God wants us to know in order to attend his temple. Here they are. I should know since I have been through them approx 100 times this past year:

1 Do you have faith in and a testimony of God the Eternal Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost?

2 Do you have a testimony of the Atonement of Christ and of His role as Savior and Redeemer?

3 Do you have a testimony of the restoration of the gospel in these the latter days?

4 Do you sustain the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as the Prophet, Seer, and Revelator and as the only person on the earth who possesses and is authorized to exercise all priesthood keys? Do you sustain members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as prophets, seers, and revelators? Do you sustain the other General Authorities and local authorities of the Church?

5 Do you live the law of chastity?

6 Is there anything in your conduct relating to members of your family that is not in harmony with the teachings of the Church?

7 Do you support, affiliate with, or agree with any group or individual whose teachings or practices are contrary to or oppose those accepted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

8 Do you strive to keep the covenants you have made, to attend your sacrament and other meetings, and to keep your life in harmony with the laws and commandments of the gospel?

9 Are you honest in your dealings with your fellowmen?

10 Are you a full-tithe payer?

11 Do your keep the Word of Wisdom?

12 Do you have financial or other oblgations to a former spouse or children? If yes, are you current in meeting those obligations?

13 If you have previously received your temple endowment:

Do you keep the covenants that you made in the temple?
Do you wear the garment both night and day as instructed in the endowment and in accordance with the covenant you made in the temple?

14 Have there been any sins or misdeeds in your life that should have been resolved with priesthood authorities but have not been?

15 Do you consider yourself worthy to enter the Lord's house and participate in temple ordinances?

I would like to add also that I don't get what the fuss is over...

Considering there are inactive LDS, what does that matter? Its always been so. The Corintians were at each other's throats.

There are a whole lot of Mormons that I don't like (not a BYU fan at all). No one dislikes a self righteous know it all more than me. A person does not have to be a Mormon to be a self righteous know it all. This thread proves it.

What is so up with the taking of the weakest of all and basing the judgement on that person?

Being baptized (alone) qualifies you for not much.

If I enroll in college but never go to class... then I complain after getting an F..."But I AM ENROLLED"...

I also know this: the LDS church started with a hand-full of people meeting in an old log cabin. Now we have 10 million people... but then again we have people complaining because things have slacked off over the past 6 months. It seems kind of irrelevant.

Aside from that, popularity rarely equates to truth. Truthfulness tends to often be in the minority. Straight is the gate and narrow is the way.

Can you show me in the bible that Jesus is a seperate person from the father?

St. John 14:(emphasis verse 28)

Aside from that, we do not believe that the Bible alone is all there ever is or ever was written about God. What is there, yeah, we read it, but its not everything.

If there were 12 apostles and each one preached for 10 years... That is 120 combined years of preaching. You mean to tell me that the New Testament is all that was ever written in 120 years? I reject it. Not the Bible, but the reasoning behind thinking that for some reason you have the authority to tell God he can't talk to anyone anymore.

“As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may be.”

Do I reject it? Absolutely NOT. You can't prove it either way, so it looks as though we are gonna have to wait until we go to find out for sure.

I did not realize I was asking you to handle anything other than to answer what you imagine!

Hopefully, religious leaders (of any stripe) have learned from the recent scandals in the Catholic church, and get rid of these types of priests, pastors, etc. before they do much more damage.

***

So the questions have gotten a little tighter is to make sure one is keeping the their worldly obligations, and are morally clean and honest in all their dealing with their followman!

These questions prick one mind to always remember who they are, a child of God and to live their life to be as honest as one is capable!

Maybe some prefer to imagine the worst instead of the truth!

Let me jump in if I may. I believe in the 'couplet.' Yes, I believe God used to be a mortal entity who resided on a world in an ancestral universe prior to exaltation and creating our universe. And yes, I also believe we too have the divine potential within ourselves to become what God currently is.

I really don't have a problem with either of these doctrines. The first half "as man now is, God once was" is focused on cosmology. It explains where God came from. After all, if I put to you the question of, "Where did God come from before he created the universe?" what would your answer be?

Ah, a nice dilemma, no? If God is aseitically dynamic as God, what then did he do for all of eternity prior to the Big Bang 12-16 billion years ago? Twiddle his thumbs for all infinity? If he created earlier universes, ours then isn't unique, being only one out of an infinite number and we then aren't special. OTOH, if you emulate Traditional Theism's adoption of Aristotle's Unmoved Mover, God is then aseitically static. You then face two very unpleasant problems, (1) Something static can never ever change into something dynamic since a change, by definition is dynamic. IOW, a static God would then need to be dynamic in order to be dynamic. Tsk, tsk, no can do. (2) Something static can only have its state changed to something dynamic ONLY if an EXTERNAL force exerts influence upon it. Something external would then need to influence a static deity in order for him to become dynamic and create the universe.

Mormonism avoids the two fatal flaws of the Unmoved Mover by disregarding the entire notion of the First Cause. Instead of a static --> dynamic causal effect, we have a dynamic --> dynamic causal effect. Thus, an infinitely long chain of universes, an infinitely long chain of Gods, into the beginningless recesses of multiversal reality.

Where then did Heavenly Father come from? From his father. Where did his Father come from? From his Father ... ad infinitum.

It is freely conceded this belief is absent and foreign to the Bible - it only states God created the heavens and the earth - it never describes his ontological state prior to creation. Besides biblical absence alone isn't grounds for rejecting such a belief. After all, there are literally billions of items not found in the Bible but are nonetheless true (e.g. there's a planet called Venus, for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction, 2 + 2 = 4).

Is the Mormon belief true? I believe so by process of elimination since the only alternative - the Unmoved Mover contains two very fatal flaws that proves it can never be true (e.g. can a perfectly static billiard ball move BY ITSELF and influence the other balls? NEVER!)

When one studies modern theistic philosophy, one realizes theists, whether Jewish, Christian or Moslem, have consistently been defeated by atheistic philosophers over the past half century. Why? Because their usage of the Unmoved Mover has been a disaster - it is logically incoherent. Secular cosmologists have adopted the Multiverse (infinite number of universes) as the logical explanation for the origin of the universe (spawned by an ancestral universe or as one of an infinity), and the earlier Big Bang out of static singularity is by and large disregarded as illogical. Perhaps it is time theistic philosophers emulate them in utilizing the no First Cause concept that Mormonism pioneered in the 19th century.

As for the second half of the couplet "as God now is, man may be" this is the central soteriological concept of the New Testament, believed by the early Catholic Church and most Church Fathers until gradually moving away from it (theosis). Today, AFAIK, it is only Eastern Orthodoxy which still maintains theosis as the end state of the Sanctified. Fortunately, I've done quite a bit of work on the issue. See http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/bicycleroad/21/id33.htm . The references and scriptural justifications are all there.

Good luck and I hope you come to the realization there's a heck of a lot more to Lorenzo Snow's 'couplet' than first meets the eye.

Your statement, "little if anything taught to me by the LDS had any basis in fact" is precisely why I don't find you credible. I've spent so much time studying the Scriptures, Mormon doctrine, history, the early Christian Church, I've even read the entire ANF and the N&PNF; to know just how vacuous such claims are.

After all, if I were to challenge you to put up or shut up - you'd gleefully cite numerous doctrinal objections UNTIL I thrash you in my response - and then you'll just pretend my answers never happened and continue on your merry way in demonizing the LDS Church. I remember your earlier claim last year that we weren't Christian - after I provided evidence indisputably proving we are, you resorted to bigoted remarks without evidence backing up your claim. For you, a former Mormon, to claim Mormonism isn't Christian is appallingly deceitful. Didn't you listen to the baptism prayer? Didn't you ever listen to the words of the Sacrament prayer? Didn't you ever sing the hymns or read the Book of Mormon, a book that says right in the very first page, that it is written for "the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the eternal God"?

Now the truth comes out. You couldn't live the commandments of the LDS Church. Instead of striving to live up to the requirements, you chose coffee over the Bride of Christ. Hey, it's your choice. I and millions of other members seem to survive just fine without coffee or tea. Does this offend you, that we can live without those addictive harmful substances and you couldn't thus explaining why you turned away from the Church and now oppose and demonize it whenever you can?

I'm not someone you can try to intimidate with doctrinal arguments - I'm much too knowledgeable and experienced in Mormon theology. After all, I have written what many consider as the most comprehensive work ever done on LDS theology, namely, the book, MORMONISM. The Faith of the Twenty-first Century. Vol 1 [622-page hardcover] see an on-line copy at http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/bicycleroad/21/id22.htm if you don't believe me.

Now be a good gal and put up or shut up. I won't berate you for apostatizing from the True Church if you drop the bigoted hostility against Mormonism. Deal?

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