And you simply dismiss my point and don’t bother to answer.

Yes, because your point is trite and has been addressed so many times here that it’s not worth anyone’s time, not even yours.

Along with complaining about my writing style, instead of the content therein…

Sure sign you HAVE no answer.

And you’ve just given a sign that I wasted my time commenting on your style. If you won’t listen to me on something that trivial, why should I talk to you about something as important as my faith?

I can’t convince you I’m right. It isn’t within my abilities. And if you won’t even listen, then really, what’s in it for me? I didn’t start this argument. All I did was comment that there is a very good reason weird “gospels” didn’t make it into the Bible, something which is apparent to all who read those weird “gospels” except for you.

And that’s just another reason why a debate with you is pointless.

Using quotes from a suspect source, to validate that same source?

I haven’t been doing that. I’ve been quoting scripture to explain my theology, which is the only logical way to explain a person’s theology. I haven’t once tried to convince you the Bible is true by quoting the Bible. You must be thinking of someone else.

I’m sure those infidel Moslems and Mormans feal much the same as you, and amazingly, use the exact same arguements…. does that not make you stop and think a bit?

1. Muslims call people infidels, not Christians. If you’re going to arrogantly denounce religious people, you should at least be able to tell us apart.

2. You don’t even know my arguments on the subject since I haven’t argued with you.

I don’t think I’ll ever belong to a religion again, because I’d rather spend my time reading the Bible and formulating my own opinions than researching all the denominations out there to see if there’s any with which I wholly agree.

Gunhaver on February 25, 2008 at 8:14 PM

I don’t mean any offense at all, but you’re still young and may change your mind. It’s great that you’re reading your Bible and figuring things out on your own, but if you can meet with a group of like-minded people to study the Bible with, you’ll likely find you gain so much more.

I’m not currently going to a church either, but I believe that Christians were meant for fellowship with other Christians. We are the body of Christ after all.

If by accepting Christ you mean you understand how much pain God feels from sin, and as a result to humbly accept his sacrifice on your behalf and to henceforth always try to avoid sinning, then yes.

pedestrian on February 25, 2008 at 6:35 PM

That’s what it means to repent and accept Christ’s sacrifice and lordship.

just because you are required to do something to merit grace does not mean you “Work yourself to heaven.”

Vanceone on February 25, 2008 at 5:38 PM

Actually, if you must do something in order to earn grace, then it’s not grace by definition.

The standard Protestant way that the word grace is used is to mean “the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God.”

pedestrian on February 25, 2008 at 6:53 PM

That’s not just the Protestant way. That’s the actual definition of the word. If you go to dictionary.com you’ll find that definition word for word.

Vanceone, believe whatever you want to believe. I’m not trying to convince you otherwise, but if you believe that people can earn grace, then you aren’t understanding what the word “grace” means in English. You’ll just have to use another word.

So far as I understand Romans, the Bible makes it very clear that salvation cannot be earned.

“For all have sinned and fall short…”
“For the wages of sin are death…
but the gift of God is eternal life.”

I don’t know about you, but when my husband gives me a gift, he doesn’t make me do a trick first. It’s just something he wants to give to me because of his love for me and his desire to see me happy.

Unlike the paycheck I receive each week for going to work and doing my job.

See, the “wages of sin” earn you death. You can actually earn death the way you earn a paycheck, but God gives a “gift”, something that cannot be earned.

Why is this a problem?

Legalism is a distortion of that gift, something Jesus fought against while here.

Then of course there are the books of the OT that differed in the early Christian churches. Are the deuterocanonical books Scripture or not? Opinion was divided but it is interesting to note the NT’s heavy reliance upon the Greek Septuagint that included many of these books.

A good book to read on more about this is The Canon Debate.

The admonition in Revelation not to add anything was concerning the prophecy given in that epistle, not for the whole New Testament, since the Bible was obviously not around at the time.

Rose on February 25, 2008 at 10:35 PM

Correct.

1 Peter 4:7 But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.

Peter refers here, not to the end of the world, but to the cataclysmic events of 70 A.D.

The same events to which Christ refers in Matthew 24.

The Temple was destroyed by the “abomination of desolation” (prophesied also by Daniel), the Roman army under Titus, and Judaism, as they knew it, ended.

It was also marked the end of the age of inspired writing. Thus anything written after 70 A.D. is considered apocryphal.

It has been theorized that John was inspired to write the Revelation around 90 A.D. I find this highly unlikely for a few reasons. One being that the Temple and Jerusalem are mentioned numerous times in Revelation, albeit in a symbolic sense, yet no mention of the destruction is ever made.

It’s that type of rigity that will cause the eventual collapse of Islam under its own weight.

Theological differences by themselves should not cause a church to be considered a cult. It becomes a cult when members are told to cut off all relations with an apostate. The Bible talks about sending out members who are in open sin, for their own good. Some churchs go further and do that for challenging church doctrine, which starts to sound like doing it for the benefit of the church rather than the member. In the case of the Mormon church, the allegation is that they keep people in line by threatening the loss of all connections to the community. If true, that is cultish behavior.

pedestrian on February 25, 2008 at 10:22 PM

Cult is thrown out quite a bit as a derogatory term. Like so many other words, it’s been co-opted by those who just cannot state overtly that Mormons are occultists or Satanists. It’s a nicer, PC way of saying that Mormons and other “non-Christian” sects are going to hell.

With regards to excommunication: people don’t lose connection with their community.

If you’re really interested in how Mormons feel on this subject,
go here:
lds.org: A Chance To Start Over

Esthier on February 25, 2008 at 6:19 PM

And you simply dismiss my point and don’t bother to answer.

Along with complaining about my writing style, instead of the content therein…

Sure sign you HAVE no answer.

Using quotes from a suspect source, to validate that same source? Please…. I’m sure those infidel Moslems and Mormans feal much the same as you, and amazingly, use the exact same arguements…. does that not make you stop and think a bit?

Saint Olaf and Mallard aren’t interested in the logic on the discussion. They’re more into stoning infidels…. the true way of bringing people to grace. Details like rational discussion get in the way of bashing. Religiosity which segregates and seeks to stamp out agency is not of Christ. The same individuals who espouse incendiary rhetoric against other faiths have no moral justification. Christ never brow beat people into following Him. Christ never pitted His disciples against each other. Truth sells itself. It does not require force. Christ could have easily waged war when He first came. That’s what many Jews looked in earnest for. Many missed the mark when He taught parables on man’s relationship with God. If you’re feeling inadequate and you feel the need to lash out, take a look inward. See what you need to reconcile yourself to your beliefs.

[...]
It’s very simple…mormons added to the Bible(and believe in a completely different god)and therefore mormonism is a cult.
[...] God has warned us all about adding to the Bible.
[...]Pick up a King James Bible and study it…see for yourself.
SaintOlaf on February 25, 2008 at 9:10 PM

So any religion which adds to the Bible and believes something a-traditional about the nature of God is a cult? The Christians added twenty-odd books to the Bible. Drop by your local synagogue sometime and check their scripture for the book of Matthew—I’d be willing to bet that you won’t find it there. You won’t find anything about a Son of God in there, either.

I, for one, find it rather… convenient that the admonitions against adding and deleting from the Bible come in the last four verses of the last chapter of the last book. It’s almost as though somebody… added them in at the tail end as an afterthought.

Pick up a King James Bible, you say? If only the King James version is valid, then the scripture that Jesus studied was heresy.

Mormonism is a cult in that they do not preach the Trinity and do not accept that God is three in one. [...] I am just stating that trinitarinism is the reason that LDS are considered a cult.

Mallard T. Drake on February 25, 2008 at 7:57 PM

It seems a little strange to me to define any non-trinitarian religion as a cult. By this definition, Abraham, David, and all the other historical (and modern-day) practitioners of Judaism are cultists, because the concept of God the Son was not invented until much later. Further, the pre-pentecostal “Christians” would have been a cult because the concept of “God the Holy Ghost” had not yet been invented. John the Baptist never mentioned the Holy Spirit. By your very broad definition, he was a cultist, too.

SaintOlaf, get back on the meds. The rapture?? HA HA HA HA!!! What a fairy tail. What a buffoon. Dude, you better look both ways when you cross the street, because you are going to that real hot place…you know…HELL. Say hi to Huckabee and his dog hanging son when you get there.

” I am not about to get into an endless discussion about that. I am just stating that trinitarinism is the reason that LDS are considered a cult.”

That strikes me as the kind of comment you would get from somebody named Mallard T. Drake.

This is not Christianity…stop claiming it is.
http://www.carm.org/mormon.htm

SaintOlaf on February 25, 2008 at 9:15 PM

Well I personally agree with you that Mormonism is not orthodox Christianity, but I could care less what the “great” Matthew Slick has to say on the matter. CARM has some of the worst and most pedestrian apologetics articles I’ve ever seen. If Mormons want to call themselves Christian, fine. I don’t agree but I’m certainly not going to stamp my foot about it…

You must be talking about the Prots and poor AP, proud lil’ infidel that he is. I’m Catholic so we take a detour to purgatory and straight on towards morning…er, or something like that. ;-)

(AP: so do you like your red meat rare of more well-done? hehehe)

This is not Christianity…stop claiming it is.
http://www.carm.org/mormon.htm

SaintOlaf on February 25, 2008 at 9:15 PM

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Restored through Joseph Smith, Jr. We believe that Christ is the head of His Church, so logic reasonably follows that we are Christians. So, I’ll repeat the claim and continue to assert. As for your thoughts and believes, that is your choice and your agency, and I won’t presume to force anything otherwise. My only admonition is to seek truth. Don’t limit God: He does answer prayers, and He is continually active in our lives. He also has a plan for you, regardless of whether you embrace it or not. As a follow-up, always remember the axiom: judge not…. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

Before you go slandering someone else beliefs and practices, ensure that you’re dialed into your relationship. Check your foundation before launching attacks.

Mormonism in a Nutshell

Mormonism teaches that God used to be a man on another world and that he became a god by following the laws and ordinances of his god on his home world. He brought his wife to this world, a woman he had married on the other world. She is, essentially a goddess.
In his present god-state, he rules our world. He has a body of flesh and bones. Since god and his wife are both exalted persons, they each possess physical bodies. In their exalted states as deities, they produce spirit children that grow and mature in the spiritual realm. The first spirit born was Jesus. Afterwards Lucifer was born along with the rest of us. So, Mormonism teaches that we all pre-existed in the spirit realm having been produced from the union of god and his goddess wife. Therefore, we all existed in spirit form before coming down down and entering the bodies of human babies that are being born on earth. During this ‘compression’ into the infant state, the memories of their pre-existence is ‘veiled.’
God the father, who is called Elohim, was concerned for the future salvation of the people on earth. In the heavenly realm, the Father had a plan for the salvation of the world. Jesus endorsed the Father’s plan. Lucifer did not. Lucifer became jealous and rebelled. In his rebellion he convinced a large portion of the spirits existing in heaven to side with him and oppose god. God being more powerful then they, cursed these rebellious spirits to become demons. They can never be born in human bodies.
The remaining spirits sided with God. Since they chose the better way, when it comes time for them to live on earth, they have the privilege of being born in races and locations that are relative to their condition and choice made in the spirit realm.1
In the Mormon plan of salvation there needed to be a savior: Jesus. But Jesus was a spirit in heaven. For him to be born on earth, Brigham Young the second prophet of the Mormon church said that instead of letting any other man do it, God the Father did it with Mary. He said that the birth of our savior was as natural as the birth of our parents. Essentially, what this means is that Brigham Young taught that god the father came down and had relations with Mary, his spirit daughter, to produce the body of Jesus. Though many Mormons will not entertain such incestuous thoughts about God and Mary, this is what Brigham Young taught and as far as we know, this has not been denied by the Mormon church.
Nevertheless, Jesus was born, got married, and had children. He died on the cross and paid for sins — but not on the cross only. According to Mormonism, the atonement of Christ was not only on the cross. It began in the Garden of Gethsemane before he went to the cross.
In Mormonism, men and women have the potential of becoming gods. President Lorenzo Snow said, “As god once was, man is. As God is, man may become.” In order to reach this exalted state of godhood, a person must first become a good Mormon, pay a full ten percent tithe to the Mormon church, follow various laws and ordinances of the church, and be found worthy. At this point, they receive a temple recommend whereupon, the Mormon is allowed to enter their sacred temples in order to go through set of secret rituals: baptism for the dead, celestial marriage, and various oaths of secrecy and commitment. Additionally, four secret handshakes are taught so the believing Mormon, upon entering the third level of Mormon heaven, can shake hands with god in a certain pattern. This celestial ritual is for the purpose of permitting entrance into the highest level of heaven. For those who achieve this highest of heavens, exaltation to godhood awaits them. Then, he or she, will be permitted to have his or her own planet and be the god of his own world and the Mormon system will be expanded to other planets.

This is not Christianity…stop claiming it is.
http://www.carm.org/mormon.htm