stupid anti-mormons.
Posted by sam at April 29th, 2005
While searching around the net, I found this:
“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) claims to be the true Christian church. The LDS church does not like being referred to as a cult, but they are a cult because their teachings differ significantly from historic Christian theology.“
and then it offers this footnote:
The term “cult” can have many different meanings. However, in this page “cult” refers to a religious group that has broken off from another religion - differing significantly in theology and/or practice.
Ha - by their definition all of christianity is a cult except for catholicism, since they all broke away from it in the first place. In fact, by their definition, mormons are the ONLY religion that is NOT a cult, since it’s the only religions besides catholicism that does not claim to be broken off from something else.
Their definition of “cult” should have been: The term “cult” can have many meanings. However, in this page “cult” is used as a scary word that we are counting on nobody knowing the meaning of. When people think of “cults” they think of Indiana Jones and the temple of doom, and as long as they don’t look up the damn definition, we’d like to let them continue with these false notions, and then relate them to mormonism since we don’t really have any actual good arguments against it anyway.
I would like to know how we differ from “historic chirstian theology” more than anybody else. I guess it depends on your definition of historic. Do you mean old testement historic, time of Christ historic, dark ages historic, or pre-mormonism historic? Histroically, christianity has never been very consistant at all, so I wonder what standard mormons are being held to?
Fact of the matter is, I don’t care what the world calls me. I don’t care if the catholics or protestants see me as a christian. I don’t care about the labels that unlearned men place upon me.
What I care about is that I know I worship Christ. I feel sorry for anyone who adheres to a version of christianity that does anything else. If you say I’m so different, than I’d like to know who it is you have been worshiping all along.
What to say… what to say..
I would like to say a lot but I just can’t seem to find the right words to express. I think you are wonderful Sam. Plain and simple.
Oh, how in the hell do you find the things you do online? I never find anything interesting.
aroundthebend
if you check it out… I’ll bet you find they think that the Catholic church is a cult too. It’s just the term they use to scare people away from other churches.
swampfaye
Found your journal entry here randomly doing LDS research. I am an ex-mormon who has spent years combatting the mind control I feel I experienced from the religion. Christianity might have changed through the years, but mormonism hasn’t been consistant either. The Book of Mormon has been revised dozens of times, each time excluding doctrine that was too controversial. Your church used to teach that black people were evil and that men should marry more than one woman (Joseph Smith had 30 something wives, as young as 14!!).
Here’s what I believe. God said in the Bible that all we need to know is right there. And that there would be no more prophets, and if you encounter anyone who says they are, they are wrong. And that there’d be many false prophets that would deceive a great number of people. Another reason people argue against the LDS faith.
God said that marriage was for this life only. He certainly never said we’d keep multiplying after death, or that there were different levels of heaven, or that we’d get our own planet if we are righteous enough.
Noteworthy: there are websites, livejournal communities, etc for “ex mormons” and “recovering mormons”. You do NOT find websites for “ex baptists”, “recovering Methodists”, or the like. Any religion that has enough mind control that there has to be support groups for those questioning the church or who have left cannot be the church Jesus established.
I do commend the mormon religion for their tremendous faith, their modesty, and their dedication to living by the principles set forth in their doctrine. But I feel in my heart that it is scripturally incorrect. I prolly sound crazy for writing in a stranger’s journal, but I just want as many as possible to know God’s plan doesn’t include what the LDS church teaches.
Nowhere in God’s plan for salvation did he say we should do secret, ritualistic temple ceremonies with special hand grips, passwords, and be given a new name. Nowhere in God’s word did he ever say we were to wear special underwear that would protect us from harm.
Just a few thoughts.
anonymous
I will try to address what you said one by one. Certainly you are entitled to believe what you believe, but for the benefit of everyone else (this is a community journal) I will try to offer an opposing viewpoint.
BOOK OF MORMON REVISION:
You are correct that the book of mormon has been revised many many times, and many changes have been made. You can buy a “reprint” of the original book of mormon in most lds bookstores, and some mormom scholars even prefer it to the newest revision (Nibley comes to mind).
However, the fact that the printing of the book of mormon has been changed does not show that it was incorrect. A extreme anti-mormon gave me a photocopy of the entire original book of mormon, with every change circled. While I didn’t pour over it - I did take a look at it. You know what? Most of the changes (i think there was a total of 3,000 or so) were spelling, grammar, slight wording (for clarification). I did not see once instance of the overall meaning of a verse changing.
YOu have to remember that A. Joseph Smith had very little formal education, and B. back then the english language did not have the rules it has today. You can’t expect anyone without a formal education to translate perfectly or be 100% clear in the translation.
fact is, the bible has mispellings errors, and depending on what version you’re reading some versus have entirely different meanings or have been taken out alltogether. That doesn’t make the book incorrect, it just makes it the word of God passed through human hands.
TEACHING AGAINST BLACKS
You say that the church used to teach that black people are evil. I don’t believe this is the case. Joseph Smith certainly never taught it. He was friends with and went out of his way to support those around him who were black. He realized that the blacks were lesser than white people, but only because white people had placed them there, not because they were created that way. Joseph Smith himself gave the priesthood to a black man, Elijah Able, and all his posterity had it since.
PLURAL WIVES
You only mention that Joseph had as many as 30 wives as young as 14. I think you would be hard pressed to find that he was married around 14. You might find it in some old anti-mormon literature, but I seriously doubt it holds any water. As far as having multiple wives, we know he had multiple wives and don’t deny it. It fits into our doctrine.
BIBLE IS ALL YOU NEED
Where did God say the bible that it was all we needed? If you are reffering to the verse at the end of Revelation that says “no man shall add unto these words,” etc. than a lesson in how the bible came to be is in order.
Firstly, God did not say that, John did. Second, and more importantly, Revelation is not the last book in the bible, at least not chronologically. If you are to take that verse to mean what you are saying, than you would have to throw out much of the new testement that was written after revelation.
“The bible” as we know it is a collection of ancient books. The bible actualy translated “te biblia” means “the books.” So when John says no one should add or take away he is talking about the book he was writing at the time, which was the book of revleation.
Unless you’re talking about another verse, I would like to see it.
gthing
NO MORE PROPHETS
You would be hard pressed to find a verse in the bible that supports this as well. God said many times things like “surely the lord god will do noting but he first reveal his secret unto his servants, the prophets.”
More importantly, look at it logically. Why would God make a blanket “I will never talk to you again” statement? What if we all got out of line? What if he needed to communicate something? God does not change, and has always communicated what the people needed to know through prophets. He certainly has the power, why wouldn’t he use it? why would he say goodbye, you’re on your own. Figure it out from the bible, a single witness, that has been translated and retranslated, and argued over for cwnturies. The bible cannot bring you to a full understanding of the gospel because it is a point of contention and has been since the day it was penned.
RECOVERING MORMONS
I don’t have much to say on this, except that if the world fights against something so strongly, it should generally be evidence that it is a good thing. The world fights against God. Period.
If you consider for a moment that maybe the LDS faith is true, than you replace your word “brainswasing” with “faith,” you understand quickly how the adversary can make you believe the opposite of what is true. People don’t need to recover from other religions, because those religions don’t hold any water. You don’t need to recover from something with no depth.
THE TEMPLE
Where did he say we shouldn’t? There are temples all throughout the old testement, and surely if they contained sacred teachings, those teachings would not have been shared in general letters to the public like most of the new testement is made up of.
It all comes back to prophets. Thats why we need prophets, to set the world straight on all these things. You listen to the prophet and you have dozens of witnesses of Christ. Otherwise, you have one - the bible. Which is just as strong as the one witness of any other non-christian religion. Of course you have the spirit too, but the spirit will lead you to find even more witnesses (the book of mormon).
We can argue bible all day. What it says, and what it doesn’t say, and blah blah blah. But the fact of the matter is that the bible is not the common ground we think it is - it is battle ground and has been since day 1. Arguing over versus will get us the same place it got the jews at the time of Christ. It will divide us, and take our focus off of the real message.
The ground we need to be on in sacred ground. It is the sacred grove where Joseph Smith knelt at the age of 14 and prayed to his God because the ministers of his day introduced so much confusion about the bible - so muc hconfusion about your “final and absolute answer.” You can listen to the bible, and what people teach you about it, but I will seek my own direct link. The bible only suplements my faith, but I do expressly believe in it.
I have received my own witness that the gospel was resotred in all it’s glory through Joseph Smith. He may not have been perfect, and neither has anyone else in the church been perfect. But God is perfect, and his message is perfect. Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. True, many false prophets will lead people astray - but these people wont necesarily call themselves prophets. They are the anti-mormon teachers, they are the world.
It’s true.
The saddest thing about the man who gave me the photocopied book of mormon was that he had a testimony of it too. He said when he was originally investigating the church that when he prayed about the book of mormon that “something told [him] in [his] heart and in [his] mind that it was true.” He fell away because the doctrines of men taught him that it was the devil talking. After that, his God only taught hate and destruction. He spent the rest of his (short) days fighting against God and what he had been told was true.
gthing
I would to have a conversation with the person who said that God would reveal his secrets through prophets. Show me that verse. Any organization (religion) that counts on works for salvation hasn’t read the bible. Isiah 64:6 says” our righteous is as fithly rags”. James 2:10 says”if we try to keep the law and stumble at one point has become guilty of all”. The law is put entact to show us that we need a saviour. Read Ephesians 2:8,9. I don’t debate or argue the Word of God because his Word has power to change your life. Ther last question is this why is every other religion trying to disprove the bible and not other religions? The fact of the matter is because the devil knows who has the power. The bible is all about a relationship not a religion. God bless you!
Marcus M. Nelson