The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

[redy2fiyt]

Originally Posted by Logan

You, on the other hand, are relentlessly devoted to arrogance in so much that you seem to possess some secret knowledge of corruption that you need to warn everyone about and that I may be a corrupter and one to be scrutinized. You serve the master of evils will in your efforts. Your reward of ignorance is already yours.

Logan, there is no doubt in my mind that you are a good person and that you have sacrificed many hours of your life doing works for others. I am not here to boast about my works, but I will tell you that I too am a family man, have sacrificed hours of my time to help others, and yes, I have unloaded more U-hauls in my lifetime than I can count on my fingers.

I commend you for all your generous works and the examples you have set. However, although faith without works is dead, it is not the road to salvation. Faith in Jesus, and Jesus alone is the only way to salvation, according to the bible.

John 3:16
For God so loved the wold that he gave his only begotten son. That he who believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

You are also correct in stating that you cannot persuade me to delve any further into the Mormon scriptures and look for that "burning in my bosom". And I apologize if I come across arogant, for that was not my intention. My intention was to speak the truth. For the record though, I only serve Jesus Christ.

Herein lies the big problem with religous debates. In an attempt for each of us to speak what we know as the truth, allies and friends are lost along the way. It is a shame. Where we both believe that our views are correct, and that we are defending our faith and doing what we have prayerfully considered, we develop a bad taste for each other.

Logan, I have read several of your posts on other topics and your input and information is very valuable. I will do some research and repost here at a later time (after the Christmas break), with specific questions based on biblical scripture and quotes from the Quad. I will re-align my approach in hopes that our next debate can be one that does not offend those involved.

[Logan]

I accept your proposal. I wish you and yours and all warriors of righteousness on suijuris a very merry CHRISTmas and a joyful and hopefully relaxing new year.

[redy2fiyt]

Originally Posted by Logan

I accept your proposal. I wish you and yours and all warriors of righteousness on suijuris a very merry CHRISTmas and a joyful and hopefully relaxing new year.

Right back at'cha! Merry Christmas!

[Rocketman]

I have read Logan’s threads and Redy2fiyt’s response with interest. I am, like Logan, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) faith (mormon is a nickname). I have been reading many of the great ideas shared at the suijuris website for about the last 8 months. This is my first post. I have really enjoyed gregtu’s sermons. I thought I would share a few ideas of my own. First, I don’t think you can argue someone into believing a religion or a set of religious principles. Second, I don’t think you can take things out of context and use it as evidence that a religion is wrong.

Let’s first look at the “givens”. We are all on this planet with a body and a conscience. We can experience a number of things here…like love, hate, pleasure, pain, good, evil, health and sickness (list is not all inclusive). Just the fact that we have a conscience and can experience what was previously mentioned ought to make a person believe in God (my opinion). Another given is that we cannot remember being with God since being born into this world (at least I can’t). So here we are…all different from each other and with different ideas about God. There is a Swedish proverb that says if the map and the territory don’t agree, believe the territory. Each of us has a map that we have constructed of the meaning of life from our sojourn on the earth. The territory is the same for all of us, but not all the maps are the same.

So let’s look at my map. I was taught in the LDS faith. LDS believe that we lived as spirits (finer matter than we can see) previous to this life and we lived with God. We saw him with a physical body like we have…we were created in his image. We saw his attributes and wanted to be like him. He created the earth for us and started the human race (beginning with Adam and Eve). Because Adam and Eve disobeyed our Father in the Garden of Eden, they fell from his presence (called the fall) which necessitated a Savior to pay for sins (think atonement) and return us back to Father. Jesus Christ, our older brother, agreed to be the Savior and redeem us. In the Garden of Eden were two trees as it says in Genesis 1-3...the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. One tree’s fruit gave Adam and Eve the knowledge that God had of good and evil and the other tree allowed them to live forever. They were commanded not to eat of the tree of good and evil…you know the rest of the story. Well according to my map, we are spirits in a physical body experiencing good and evil (a number of opposites (pleasure and pain, love and hate, etc.) Our bodies are natural and there is a carnal pull to indulge the body…sleep in, overeat, seek power and $$, pursue pride/vanity (basically the three temptations of Christ). So our spirit half has to dominate the body…many of the things LDS do goes against this natural body…go to church on Sunday morning when we would rather sleep in, fast once a month, tithe 10% of our income and give it to the church when the body would have us spend all the money on ourselves, help someone move instead of something we want to do, etc. As we go against the natural pull of our bodies long enough, we change from a natural/carnal/animal state to a spiritual state. The danger of being here on the earth is that this natural/carnal body can make us evil if we so choose.

LDS believe that Jesus Christ came to the earth and performed His ministry as recorded in the Bible (as far as it is translated correctly). LDS believe that the Bible contains some errors (that is why we have 1500+ Christian religions all professing belief in Christ and the Bible). LDS believe that Christ died for two reasons…to resurrect from the dead and to atone for the sins of mankind. All men will be resurrected, but the atonement for sins only comes if we repent and are baptized….it is conditional on us. After Christ was crucified, LDS believe that the Apostles/disciples died one at time, which after they were gone, the church and doctrine were corrupted and the authority to act for God was gone. It was the beginning of the dark ages. Finally, in 1820, Joseph Smith was sent and called by God to restore the truth (defined as correct doctrine and authority to act for God) to the earth. That restoration included the Book of Mormon which contains a history of people in the Americas and Jesus Christ’s visit and dealings with those people after his resurrection (remember He said “…other sheep I have which are not of this fold” John 10:16). Also restored were the authority to act for God (called Priesthood power) and covenants and ordinances beyond baptism which are performed in temples. I can’t help but add one little thing about the Book of Mormon. An internet site, Nephiproject.com has information regarding verification of Lehi’s journey through the Saudi Arabian peninsula. Eighty one geographical descriptions of the lay of the land in the beginning of the Book of Mormon were found in consecutive order on a route through the land…what is the chance the relatively uneducated Joseph Smith knowing that in 1825 – 1830 when he translated the Book of Mormon? Another site mormontopics.com also gives evidence of civilizations that lived in the Americas.

Redy2fiyt, we do not tell the world what we do in temples…we hold those things sacred (meaning we don’t talk about them outside of the temple). What we do in the temples has been pretty much exposed by members turned bad…the temple secrets are out there. You may take them out of context if you don’t understand the doctrine behind them. It is like baptism…if you did not know that baptism is an ordinance that is performed after someone makes a covenant with God to be like Jesus Christ in conduct, you would think being immersed in water was strange. It is the same with doctrine behind the things we do in the temple. Some say our temple ordinances/symbols contain some things similar to some of what the masons do…remember that we believe that the truth was corrupted prior to the dark ages and some form of it continued being passed down through time.

I want to mention the importance of having the authority of God or Priesthood power to act for God. Jesus Christ and other prophet’s in the Bible had power to control the elements, perform miracles and bestow the Holy Ghost (Acts 8:15-20). We believe that God the Father, His son Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are separate beings…the Father and the Son with physical bodies and the Holy Ghost being a spirit….the Holy Spirit. After baptism, we believe that by the Priesthood authority, the gift of the Holy Ghost is bestowed on an individual by laying on of hands (like Christ did). The Holy Ghost does a number of things…He testifies of Christ, He comforts, He warns us of danger, He gives us ideas, He gives spiritual gifts, etc. The mission of the Godhead or Holy Trinity, if you wish, is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man…they want to save us…that is their work. God has given us our free agency to choose while here on the earth…we therefore have to participate in the process of becoming like God. Getting back to the Holy Ghost, LDS believe that we progress by study and also by faith (in another book of LDS scripture, D&C 88:118). That means that we can intellectualize the gospel, but much also has to be learned by applying that knowledge by exercising faith and living the gospel of Jesus Christ. If we could just read about God’s plan for us, why come here to this earth…we need to experience it: faith, love, gifts of the Holy Ghost, revelation, peace, kindness, etc. and all those opposites as well. I could sense the frustration in Logan due to the impossibility of communicating how it feels to experience the “map” of the restored gospel as it matches up with the “territory” of God and His plan for us. Each person in the LDS faith is supposed to participate in the gospel…we have a lay ministry…no paid clergy…in our spare time we serve in the church in different callings and gain spiritual dimensions (increases our map). What I find fascinating is that to fill out our maps, we have but one life. There are so many options to choose from here on the earth. In the LDS faith, the humble seeker of truth can feel the truthfulness of the restored gospel through the power of the Holy Ghost and as it feels right you can know for yourself all along the way.

We believe that Satan and a third part of God’s spirit children rebelled against the Father’s plan before in the Spirit World and became adversarial to God and His plan…these spirit entities work with our natural or carnal body to get us to go off course and fail (become evil). Satan is some more of that adversity or opposition I mentioned earlier…not only do we have to overcome the pull of our bodies that are high maintenance (sleep, exercise and sickness), we have Satan trying to derail us by tempting us to give into our carnal nature (appetites, etc), speak ill of others, etc.

A little deeper in the atonement doctrine…LDS believe that as you try and keep the Lord’s commandments, Jesus Christ atones for your sins and makes us perfect so we can receive grace (gifts of faith, hope, charity, knowledge, etc.) from the Holy Ghost. We believe in being saved by grace after all we can do. We need to seek His grace. If we are saved by grace only…killers and thieves would also have an equal chance with the good people. So there in a simple nutshell is the LDS faith. There is my map, the LDS map, of the territory…I can witness to you that as I have lived like I should, I have received grace that helps me not only believe my map but increase in understanding. So Redy2fiyt, how about sharing your map of the territory, the big picture, if you will?

[ezrhythm]

Welcome to the forum "Rocketman"!

[charlesa6]

Rocketman, welcome to the suijuris forum. I agree with you on the comment about gregtu posts. Yes, is a good messenger of god?

[Logan]

I could sense the frustration in Logan due to the impossibility of communicating how it feels to experience the “map” of the restored gospel as it matches up with the “territory” of God and His plan for us.

Hello Rocketman!

I cannot express effectively to you how much I enjoyed your careful and concise "map" description of our shared teachings and personal beliefs.

You have an eloquence that I humbly envy. My frustration over all things which belie pure absurdity hinders my clarity of thought when I desire to communicate the complete and total logic which I see in Gods' plan.

The cunning of the Adversary is truly astonishing and awe inspiring in so much that such a multitude have been misled and caused to believe such contrivances and convolutions concerning the restoration of His gospel and authority on earth.

I truly appreciate the manner by which you focused those topic points.

Welcome to the forum...

Logan

[fuzzi]

I have a question for Logan:

I have read that Joseph Smith was given the book of Mormon from an angel:

according to his own account (Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith - History 1:29-54), he was paid a bedside visit by the angel Moroni in 1823. Moroni, who professed to be the glorified son of a man named Mormon (who had been dead 1400 years), told Joe about a book of golden plates which contained "the fulness of the everlasting Gospel." This book was said to have been buried at Cumorah Hill, near Palmyra, New York, some 1400 years earlier by the man named Mormon. Four years later (1827), Joe supposedly dug up the golden plates along with a gigantic pair of spectacles which he called "the Urim and Thummim." The spectacles were for translating the hieroglyphics on the plates. With the help of his only legal wife and a friend named Oliver Cowdery, Joe translated the plates and published the Book of Mormon in 1830.

If this is correct, how do you reconcile that to Galatians 1:8 and 9?

"But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed."

[charlesa6]

fuzzi, welcome to the suijuris forum.

[fuzzi]

Originally Posted by charlesa6

fuzzi, welcome to the suijuris forum.

Thank you!

I know it's offtopic, but I'd like to ask anyway: which Eastwood movie is your avatar from?