Re: If you think the Book of Mormon was well-written, there is really little left to discuss.
CaptainHammer Send a noteboard - 04/10/2011 07:24:27 AM
I will strive to ignore the taste of having thrown up in my mouth and continue, however.
Let's stick to some of the major disputes I have with what you wrote:
1. The fundamental, baseline requirement for being Christian is generally a belief in the Trinity, that God is one being in three Persons - Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and that Christ is God made man, who suffered, died and rose from the dead in an act of salvation. If you do not believe that, YOU ARE NOT CHRISTIANS. You can talk about Jesus and feel he's important, but Muslims, Baha'i and other groups like Jehovah's Witnesses do that. It doesn't make you Christian.
Let's stick to some of the major disputes I have with what you wrote:
1. The fundamental, baseline requirement for being Christian is generally a belief in the Trinity, that God is one being in three Persons - Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and that Christ is God made man, who suffered, died and rose from the dead in an act of salvation. If you do not believe that, YOU ARE NOT CHRISTIANS. You can talk about Jesus and feel he's important, but Muslims, Baha'i and other groups like Jehovah's Witnesses do that. It doesn't make you Christian.
A1) Read this article. http://lds.org/general-conference/2007/10/the-only-true-god-and-jesus-christ-whom-he-hath-sent?lang=eng&query=need+latter+day+prophets This should clear things up on this matter.
2. You believe that God was as man is, and man will be as God is. This directly contradicts Isaiah, where God says there are no other gods. This is a rejection of the Trinity and a rejection of the Bible.
A2) Once again, we believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost. 1 Nephi 10:19 tells us that the time of the Lord is one eternal round. I don't think we have the capacity to understand this, just as we can't truly understand how God is without beginning or end. And about what Isaiah said, I think that God is saying that He is the only God for our world and that there is no other God for our world.
3. You ask where prophecy has been made obsolete. Hebrews 1:1. Furthermore, the Bible tells us to be on watch for false prophets and antichrists, and Joe Smith was definitely a false prophet. False prophets and antichrists deny Jesus is the Christ (1 John 2:22). We know a false prophet in two ways: (1) he asks us to follow gods other than God (Deuteronomy 13:1) or (2) if any prophecy he makes does not come true (Deuteronomy 18:21). Joe Smith said the US government would collapse before 1900, he said that there were people on the moon and a whole bunch of other things that were lies. He presumed to translate an Egyptian funerary scroll as a "Book of Moses", which was a lie and a fabrication. He also preaches polytheism in a convenient veil of "the Godhead", which is not the same as God the Father, who is not the only God in Joe Smith's little fantasy world. By either of those standards he would have been stoned to death under Biblical law.
A3) If God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, then why in these times would he just put an end to any prophecies? When Christ established His church in His mortal ministry, he called people to be prophets and apostles (Ephesians 4:11-12). If Christ had prophets and apostles in His church when he lived, then why would he decide that they are no longer necessary? Joseph Smith taught that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and that He was sent down to earth to atone for the sins of men. Is that not the same Christ in whom other Christians believe? Joseph Smith prophesied that a war would soon begin, starting with rebellions in South Carolina, that the South would divide itself from the North and that the South would call on many nations, Great Britain among these, to come help them. These all happened. As for the collapse of the United States government before the 1900s and people living on the moon? I have never heard of either of these. He would have been a martyr, as many prophets in old and new testament times also were martyrs.
4. Your baptism is not a baptism for the forgiveness of sins, which is what the Biblical baptism is all about: "Confessing their sins, they were baptized by [John] in the Jordan River" (Matthew 3:6).
A4) Article of Faith 4- We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost. How is that not being baptized and our sins forgiven?
5. The Book of Mormon is a direct contradiction of Galatians 1:9. Not only that, but you have refuted or ignored so much of the Bible that there is almost no point in having it sit next to the Book of Mormon. You should try reading the entire Bible, if only to realize that you are violating almost everything that it says.
A5) We believe that we have the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. This would be the same gospel that Christ taught in his mortal ministry.
6. Joe Smith was dim-witted. His Book of Mormon is a terrible farce of a book, written with no skill, repeating phrases from the King James Bible and garbling nearly all of them, and so riddled with errors and sentence fragments that it's been revised and revised and revised. It doesn't take a genius to write the Book of Mormon. Here, let me show you:
And it came to pass, that Jophim said to Jophiriah, his son, "Take thee thine oxen and scrumbles and cattle and goest thou unto the land of the Morriphi, and when thou arrivest, tell them that the LORD sends His wrath upon them, and take thou then their land from them. And it came to pass that Jophiriah took his oxen and scrumbles and cattle and went up to the land of the Morriphi, and he found there Cordiah, high priest of the Morriphi...
The entire book is bad copies of Jewish names with no etymology underlying them, made-up place names and a history that is a bad copy of some of the "historical" books of the Bible. Seriously, white people in North America with wheeled carts, cows, metal implements and a whole lot of other things that the Indians never had? There is no complexity to the Book of Mor(m)on. It's an awful parody of the Bible, made up by someone who had heard virtually nothing else in his sad life.
And it came to pass, that Jophim said to Jophiriah, his son, "Take thee thine oxen and scrumbles and cattle and goest thou unto the land of the Morriphi, and when thou arrivest, tell them that the LORD sends His wrath upon them, and take thou then their land from them. And it came to pass that Jophiriah took his oxen and scrumbles and cattle and went up to the land of the Morriphi, and he found there Cordiah, high priest of the Morriphi...
The entire book is bad copies of Jewish names with no etymology underlying them, made-up place names and a history that is a bad copy of some of the "historical" books of the Bible. Seriously, white people in North America with wheeled carts, cows, metal implements and a whole lot of other things that the Indians never had? There is no complexity to the Book of Mor(m)on. It's an awful parody of the Bible, made up by someone who had heard virtually nothing else in his sad life.
A6) The only thing I can say to this is that your haven't read the Book of Mormon with real intend to find out if these things are true. To me, I don't care if you can't find wheels of cows, I know that these teachings are true and that The Book of Mormon is true. But as for the white people in North America, we know that when the people became wicked, a curse of dark skin was placed upon them. If they were dark skinned before then whats the point of the curse?
7. Joe Smith was a con man, and he did try to make money. He went around with a dowsing rod and a "seeing glass" and told people that he'd find treasure on their property if they paid him money. Later on, he started a bank that was a pyramid scheme. All the way up until a rightly angry mob took justice into their own hands (I think he should have been tried and thrown in jail to rot), he was trying to get rich. He took money from his followers, he took their wives and he lived on other peoples' money. He was a true parasite. You would do well to read Fawn Brodie's No Man Knows My History, which is the biography that all non-Mormons generally agree to be accurate (Mormons usually stick their fingers in their ears and hum loudly to avoid hearing the truth). I also highly recommend The Mormon Mirage, which would confront you with just how far the Mormons have strayed from Christianity.
A7) These things you have clearly heard from people who know nothing of this church and of the prophet Joseph Smith.
Mormons
- 03/10/2011 05:46:10 AM
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Questions.
- 03/10/2011 11:13:25 AM
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Re: Questions.
- 03/10/2011 01:28:28 PM
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I don't understand why they would be called drinks, if they were not meant to be drunk.
- 03/10/2011 03:28:48 PM
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Why did I look up what Quorn is? I didn't need to know that. *NM*
- 03/10/2011 02:04:20 PM
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....did we just get door-to-door'd...ONLINE?!?! *NM*
- 03/10/2011 11:34:19 AM
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Nope.
- 04/10/2011 01:32:43 AM
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there's no real point to it 
- 04/10/2011 02:37:24 AM
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- 04/10/2011 02:37:24 AM
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We could use an evil cackling smilie, we do have some other evil ones 
- 04/10/2011 02:49:12 AM
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- 04/10/2011 02:49:12 AM
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Do you ever giggle at the name "Moroni?"
- 03/10/2011 11:39:55 AM
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There are Mormon literalists? Seriously? *NM*
- 03/10/2011 03:02:18 PM
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In fairness, I wonder the same about Christian literalists. *NM*
- 03/10/2011 07:57:19 PM
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*NM*
- 03/10/2011 07:57:19 PM
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Yeah, but if you're gonna believe absurdities...
- 03/10/2011 09:02:32 PM
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Are you trying to suggest that "Reformed" or some other brand of scientology is plausible? 
- 04/10/2011 04:28:40 PM
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- 04/10/2011 04:28:40 PM
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Actually, no. It'd be like laughing at... Hosea. Or Nemeiah. It's just an old name.
- 04/10/2011 12:30:57 AM
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I know they don't have multiple wives anymore, so no misconception there
- 03/10/2011 01:23:50 PM
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Question: Why are you such a faggot? *NM*
- 03/10/2011 02:23:45 PM
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Answer: because it's the only way he could return your burning love for him.
- 03/10/2011 03:24:23 PM
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Better a faggot than a fuckwad. Cheers fuckwad! 
*NM*
- 04/10/2011 01:27:20 AM
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*NM*
- 04/10/2011 01:27:20 AM
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Re: You embarrass yourself. *NM*
- 04/10/2011 01:56:02 AM
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I'll tell you whats embarresing...
- 04/10/2011 02:08:02 AM
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That is hilarious.
- 04/10/2011 03:10:50 AM
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Goodness..
- 04/10/2011 03:20:30 AM
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Re:
- 04/10/2011 03:28:25 AM
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OK, you need to delete the "Re:" You're using it incorrectly
- 04/10/2011 01:55:53 PM
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Re: Also.
- 04/10/2011 02:08:15 PM
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you are still using it incorrectly. *NM*
- 04/10/2011 02:09:48 PM
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He's doing it on purpose though.
- 04/10/2011 03:31:39 PM
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Considering that "CaptainHammer" is LDS, I'd rather doubt he's gay.
- 04/10/2011 02:32:56 AM
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Re: Considering that "CaptainHammer" is LDS, I'd rather doubt he's gay.
- 04/10/2011 02:37:41 AM
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*sigh* to all of you above....
- 04/10/2011 03:06:21 AM
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Please explain why you think we should consider you Christians.
- 03/10/2011 04:33:06 PM
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you know, that does make me wonder though
- 03/10/2011 04:58:21 PM
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We're not as immovable as we are sometimes portrayed.
- 03/10/2011 05:27:17 PM
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That concept is alien to the Christian theological understanding, however.
- 03/10/2011 10:18:55 PM
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I understand what both you and Danny are saying
- 04/10/2011 12:19:57 AM
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The absolute best part about your post (plus the best thing about Mo's/LDS's)
- 03/10/2011 09:02:17 PM
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We believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior of all mankind, and the only way back to God.
- 04/10/2011 01:29:30 AM
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If you think the Book of Mormon was well-written, there is really little left to discuss.
- 04/10/2011 03:57:08 AM
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Re: If you think the Book of Mormon was well-written, there is really little left to discuss.
- 04/10/2011 07:24:27 AM
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Woah nelly.
- 04/10/2011 10:04:33 AM
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I have to "Wow" as well... racist much?
- 04/10/2011 01:52:48 PM
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Re: I have to "Wow" as well... racist much?
- 04/10/2011 04:42:47 PM
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oh well that makes it all better...
- 04/10/2011 04:54:14 PM
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Yikes. Even for religion, that's more than a little crazy.
- 04/10/2011 03:47:56 PM
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I don't think there's much of a difference in crazy as opposed to other more mainstream religions.
- 04/10/2011 07:08:06 PM
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A difference exists if only in continued unabashed affirmation of a rather distasteful doctrine.
- 04/10/2011 11:06:51 PM
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Then why can't women be priests? Or enter the altar? The curse on Eve is very much in place. *NM*
- 05/10/2011 12:27:04 AM
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Right now I am not making an absolute statement but a relative one.
- 05/10/2011 08:37:50 PM
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Oh, you didn't know? Joe Smith said black people are cursed for following Satan.
- 05/10/2011 01:10:35 AM
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I guess this is a variation on Hams punishment; Ghav, at least should know better than to be shocked
- 04/10/2011 04:13:59 PM
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it's not that we're surprised because it's "novel"
- 04/10/2011 04:19:16 PM
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It is not NECESSARILY racist.
- 04/10/2011 04:39:33 PM
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Sure, except ...
- 04/10/2011 04:50:53 PM
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Well, the funny thing is Christian doctrine presupposes everyone, along with their ancestors...
- 04/10/2011 06:31:13 PM
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It it is nigh impossible to be a "non-Nicene Christian."
- 04/10/2011 03:12:06 PM
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I think we've had this discussion before.
- 06/10/2011 05:54:39 PM
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Arianism is a bad comparison for arguing LDS=Christian.
- 06/10/2011 11:45:36 PM
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- 06/10/2011 11:45:36 PM
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Wikipedia confirms what I already thought: you're off base with the monophysitism.
- 07/10/2011 12:06:40 AM
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I had not realized it was that late, but used it only as an example of multitudinous controversies.
- 07/10/2011 01:03:56 AM
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Monophysites, miaphysites, monothelites, etc. certainly accept the consubstantiality of God/Christ
- 07/10/2011 11:58:05 AM
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Virtually everyone has a more sound Christology than Mormons.
- 07/10/2011 06:45:45 PM
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Your ideas intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
- 08/10/2011 05:30:38 PM
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I can see that with the Monothelites (can see their appeal, in fact,) but not Monophysites.
- 07/10/2011 09:43:27 PM
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Tempting as it is to prove Joel wrong (since he so frequently is), I need to take issue with this.
- 07/10/2011 06:59:13 PM
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I was just saying there were competing views.
- 07/10/2011 07:49:26 PM
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Oh, there were definitely competing views, just not competing Christian views.
- 07/10/2011 09:26:22 PM
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That sounds really nice.
- 04/10/2011 06:38:29 PM
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Why wait though?
- 05/10/2011 12:12:21 AM
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So that Vivien can avoid reading and thinking about the stuff that you just wrote. *NM*
- 05/10/2011 12:28:23 AM
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I really want an answer from a mormon.
- 05/10/2011 08:48:49 PM
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Good luck with that; just because I can see no explanation save that I offered does not preclude one
- 06/10/2011 07:03:50 AM
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Yeah, that's what I thought.
- 06/10/2011 05:43:57 PM
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Oh no you idn't... *waves finger and weaves head*
- 04/10/2011 03:53:07 AM
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....i don't know what you look like
- 04/10/2011 03:54:56 AM
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Shoot, my Mick Jagger strut is way better than my angry hispanic girl head/finger bob and weave. 
*NM*
- 05/10/2011 04:58:53 AM
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*NM*
- 05/10/2011 04:58:53 AM
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Off-Topic
- 05/10/2011 01:14:16 AM
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Hmm
- 05/10/2011 02:03:13 AM
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True
- 05/10/2011 02:13:00 AM
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I think of Protestantism in terms similar to a Xerox copy.
- 05/10/2011 04:57:42 AM
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Re: Off-Topic
- 05/10/2011 02:56:50 AM
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Uhh...
- 05/10/2011 03:08:49 AM
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The people at the Nicene Council and the other councils were not prophets.
- 05/10/2011 04:59:50 AM
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Danny is right, it is a pretty tough crowd, but better tough than weak and whitewashed.
- 04/10/2011 04:02:16 AM
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