Mormonism - is it Christianity?

[Bill the Cat]

Isn't it possible for a person to be both?

Sure, but I don't think Alan possesses the experience or age (IMHO) to be a true bigot.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Despite any abrasiveness, I think Alan's point on the Virgin Mary was fair and it hasn't been addressed. Modern Mormons may wish to whitewash their historic doctrine, but it remains.

[Raphael]

Despite any abrasiveness, I think Alan's point on the Virgin Mary was fair and it hasn't been addressed. Modern Mormons may wish to whitewash their historic doctrine, but it remains.

Indeed, I agree.

Removing Alan's abrasiveness, I would also like to know how McConkie's statements quoted below tie up with Jeff's statement that Mary was definitely a virgin until after she gave birth to Jesus and that Joseph was the only person to have sex with her.
Have McConkie's statements been retracted at some point?
Or is Jeff simply in disagreement with McConkie (which is fine by me. I think he's flat out wrong and agree with Jeff's previous statement on the subject)
Are McConkie's statements on this topic official LDS doctrine?

Mormon apostle Bruce McConkie, in perhaps the most explicit denial of the virgin birth, wrote
Christ was begotten by an immortal Father in the same way that mortal men are begotten by mortal fathers physical sexual intercourse." (Mormon Doctrine, 1966, p. 547)

Bruce McConkie wrote,
"Our Lord is the only mortal person ever born to a virgin, because he is the only person who ever had an immortal Father (albeit just a man)." (Mormon Doctrine, 2nd ed., p. 822)

[Bill the Cat]

Indeed, I agree.

Removing Alan's abrasiveness, I would also like to know how McConkie's statements quoted below tie up with Jeff's statement that Mary was definitely a virgin until after she gave birth to Jesus and that Joseph was the only person to have sex with her.
Have McConkie's statements been retracted at some point?
Or is Jeff simply in disagreement with McConkie (which is fine by me. I think he's flat out wrong and agree with Jeff's previous statement on the subject)
Are McConkie's statements on this topic official LDS doctrine?

Mormon Doctrine was written several years (1959) before McConkie became an Apostle (1972), so it is a bit misleading to claim "Mormon Apostle Bruce McConkie" wrote it. Mormon Doctrine has never been endorsed by the Mormon leadership as doctrinally accurate. So, any doctrine expanded in its pages is McConkie's speculation alone.

http://www.mormonwiki.com/Mormon_Doctrine_by_Bruce_R._McConkie

The book was written without review or guidance from church leaders, and included a notation from him that he was entirely responsible for its content. The book has never been an official source for church doctrine.

© source where applicable

[Raphael]

Mormon Doctrine was written several years (1959) before McConkie became an Apostle (1972), so it is a bit misleading to claim "Mormon Apostle Bruce McConkie" wrote it. Mormon Doctrine has never been endorsed by the Mormon leadership as doctrinally accurate. So, any doctrine expanded in its pages is McConkie's speculation alone.

http://www.mormonwiki.com/Mormon_Doctrine_by_Bruce_R._McConkie

The book was written without review or guidance from church leaders, and included a notation from him that he was entirely responsible for its content. The book has never been an official source for church doctrine.

© source where applicable

Thanks Bill.

I would assume then that Jeff (rightly in my opinion) disagrees with McConkie's speculations on the topic.

[Bill the Cat]

Thanks Bill.

I would assume then that Jeff (rightly in my opinion) disagrees with McConkie's speculations on the topic.

As much as I hate defending Mormonism (and I do...), this kind of argument is fruitless because it is so easily deflected by them. Better to let Alan know what good and bad arguments are up front than let the others shoot fish in a barrell.

[nrajeff]

Originally posted by Alan McDougall View Post
Mormon apostle Bruce McConkie, in perhaps the most explicit denial of the virgin birth, wrote
Christ was begotten by an immortal Father in the same way that mortal men are begotten by mortal fathers physical sexual intercourse." (Mormon Doctrine, 1966, p. 547)

Well, let's check out the reference, and make sure the quote is accurate:

I just dug my 2nd Edition (1966) out of my bookshelves, and am turning to p. 547.

From the bottom of p. 546 to the the top of the page it says: "Only means only. Begotten means begotten; and Son means son. Christ was begotten by an immortal Father in the same way that mortal men are begotten by mortal fathers."

Period. End of entry.
Looks like someone got duped by fake info.

BTC is correct, of course, about the disclaimers regarding McConkie and the publication of the book. Regardless what people interpret the statement I just quoted to mean, the church's official doctrine is an affirmation of Jesus' Virgin Birth--that through the POWER of the Holy Spirit, Mary became miraculously pregnant and remained a virgin until after Jesus' birth, and Jesus is literally the Son of the Most High, aka the Person of the Father.

[Alan McDougall]

I was under the impression that one multiple-choice question still counts as one question.
And it's amusing to see someone ask me a question and, after I give my answer, tell me that I am lying.

Maybe Xru's comment in post 31 isn't so far-fetched.

Why dont you answer my questions? I quoted direct from your doctrine and yes either you are lying or avoiding an obvious contradition of LDS DOCTRINE. I am not a bigot just a person seeking truth about any topic.

Another question? (Please dont side track the debate again?)

If god is a man of flesh and bone, then who created the universe?...............................?

That is just one question to respond to, give it a shot?. I dont hate Mormons they are nice people that I have had considerable interaction with including attending church meetings and debating with Mormon missionaries in my country. I have read the book of Mormom more than once and know about things such as the Pearl of Great Price etc

[Raphael]

Why dont you answer my questions? I quoted direct from your doctrine and yes either you are lying or avoiding an obvious contradition of LDS DOCTRINE. I am not a bigot just a person seeking truth about any topic.

Alan, if you read BillTheCat's post you would notice that although McConkie's book is called Doctrine, it was 1.) his own speculations and not official LDS Doctrine 2.) at the time of writing he was not in the position of authority he later held.

While I think Mormons are wrong on a great deal of items that are official doctrine, attacking them on something that isn't their official doctrine is not going to be that successful.

If god is a man of flesh and bone, then who created the universe?

I too would like to hear a clear answer to this question as the previous answers I've seen I feel are less than satisfactory explanations.

[nrajeff]

Why dont you answer my questions?

I did answer one. Did you forget? Seeing as how the quotes you're relying on have been sabotaged by someone, it's gonna be hard to fix all your incorrect conclusions. Maybe you should just get as many answers as possible from mormon.org first. That way, you will have reliable, official doctrinal statements and I won't have to put up with being called a liar by you.

I quoted direct from your doctrine

Did you, now? Really? Post #52 says otherwise.

and yes either you are lying or avoiding an obvious contradition of LDS DOCTRINE.

There you go again, making it hard for me to take you seriously.

I am not a bigot just a person seeking truth about any topic.

Prove you are open-minded by finding as many answers to your questions as you can over at mormon.org. Then, if you still have unanswered ones that aren't fallacious and that it's possible for me or the other pro-LDS to answer, maybe we will give it a shot.
But if you ask highly speculative metaphysics-related questions that no one here knows the answer to, guess what you're gonna get for an answer?

Another question? (Please dont side track the debate again?)

Please don't ask stupid questions, and I won't feel the need to point out the problems in them.

If god is a man of flesh and bone, then who created the universe?...............................?

God, I guess. Who else would have done it?

I dont hate Mormons they are nice people

You sure don't come across as treating them like a very nice person would treat them.

that I have had considerable interaction with including attending church meetings and debating with Mormon missionaries in my country. I have read the book of Mormom more than once and know about things such as the Pearl of Great Price etc

Marvelous. Keep learning about their beliefs, and try to get the info from more reliable sources in the future.

[Alan McDougall]

I did answer one. Did you forget? Seeing as how the quotes you're relying on have been sabotaged by someone, it's gonna be hard to fix all your incorrect conclusions. Maybe you should just get as many answers as possible from mormon.org first. That way, you will have reliable, official doctrinal statements and I won't have to put up with being called a liar by you.

I went to the official Mormon Website and again you dont seem to know what is going on in your own church go to the your own official website and see if you can find the Official Doctrinal Statements you mention. By the way I now dont think you are lying , you are just ignorant of how your organiztion really works.

Mormons have no present official doctrine because it is being constantly altered by so called prophets of the organization.

What constitutes Mormon doctrine?

"The Church has a relatively small body of truly official doctrine, augmented by a large body of authorative pronouncements accorded varying doctrinal weight. Precariously balanced between these two poles is an enormous body of folk doctrine and unofficial exegesis." - Kristine Haglund Harris[10]

There is no clear, formal definition of what constitutes official doctrine in Mormonism. Laymen usually assume that most anything taught by a prophet or published by the Church organization (such as church magazines or manuals) should be taken as trustworthy. Owing much to their familiarity with the embarrassing panorama and diversity of statements made by LDS leadership, Mormon apologists and academics tend to steer toward the idea that only that which is in the standard works (the canon) can be considered doctrine, and that material from older prophets is disposable. Depending on how steeped one is in the knowledge of Mormon history, there are varying degrees of nuance to this, such as the requirement that the prophet preface a teaching with "thus saith the Lord" [11].

Mormons pride themselves in having no formal creeds or catechisms, and in having a modern-day prophet who gives modern revelation and doctrinal clarity, which more or less free them up from having to worry about old teachings. Mormons belief is shaped by a variety of practical influences: the standard works, church manuals, customs (like temple worthiness interviews or temple ceremonies), and popular teachings promoted by BYU professors or regular laymen are all examples of that which help influence the landscape of Mormon belief.

Here, however is the core of Mormon belief for us to read carefully and comment on!

The fourteen fundamental articles or beliefs of Mormons

The reason this is here is because many have written to me wanting to know what do Mormons really believe. There are a lot of pro-Mormon propaganda sites and they all say the same thing - family unity, they are Christian, the Book of Mormon is true and on and on. These other sites still do not say what they really believe. What Mormons actually believe is not normally taught by the Mormon missionaries or shown on the TV commercials. Mormon doctrine is quite fluid.

The Mormon church has the 13 articles of faith that missionaries and members like to hand out, but it does not contain most of the doctrines that make the Mormon Church unique. Also, when the original "13" articles of faith were written it was 14. So being true to the idea of original version, I decided to have the 14 fundamental beliefs of Mormons. I listed these in order of importance to a Mormon. There may be some variance in the order of importance depending on the Mormon you may talk to. This list does not follow the original 14 except in number. I use the term "we" to refer to Mormons. I used to believe these things. I have included at least one reference on some points where Mormons have written to me saying they don't believe those things. They apparently do not know their own doctrines.

1 - God was once a man who lived on another planet

This is the most important teaching of Mormonism. Nothing else comes close to it. We believe that God was once a mortal man on another planet who progressed by living in obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel he had on his world, then he died. He became a resurrected man and evolved to become a god. He is still married now (some early leaders say he is a polygamist) and created this world. We worship only the one true god, which is really one god among millions or billions or more. We believe that we will follow in God's footsteps by becoming perfect and we too will become Gods and Goddesses creating spirit children and peopling other worlds. The Mormon TV commercials showing family togetherness is the foundation for life in the next world - as a family - as gods.

Reference: Journal of Discourses Vol. 6 Page 4, 1844. Joseph Smith speaking:
"...you have to learn to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done before you, - namely, by going from one small degree to another..."

Reference: Journal of Discourses Vol. 6 Page 275, 1852. Brighan Young speaking:
"After men have got their exaltations and their crowns - have become Gods..."

2 - We are co-eternal with God

We believe we have all existed for all eternity. First we existed as "intelligences", which has never been defined, then we were given spirit bodies in a heaven by our eternal parents. Our "intelligences" have existed forever just like the our God's has and we have been around him in one form or another forever. He has just simply progressed ahead of us.

Reference: Journal of Discourses Vol. 6 Page 7, 1844. Joseph Smith speaking:
"God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a priviledge to advance like himself"

3 - The origin of Jesus Christ

Jesus was begotten by physical union of God and Mary. Since God has a body of flesh and bones, he really had literal sex with Mary. The product of this union was Jesus, part man and part God. We believe Jesus was the first born in heaven by heavenly father and mother who created his spirit and our spirits using our "intelligences" as a foundation for our spirits. Our "intelligences" were floating around in the universe and needed to be organized into spirits. Since he was the first born spirit, and according to the Book of Abraham, his "intelligence" was better than the other "intelligences" out there, he is the most important spirit creation. When Jesus received his physical body by the union of God and Mary, his spirit was put into his body like our spirits were put into our bodies. His body was special though because his father was a god. The rest of us have only regular dads.

Again, a few Mormons wrote saying they do not believe this and I am misrepresenting the church's position. Actually the quotes from the early leaders are stranger than I could create from my imagination. Here are a few references:

Brigham Young speaking in the Journal of Discourses Vo1 1, Page 51 1852, "Jesus our Elder Brother was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the garden of Eden, and who is our Father in Heaven."

Brigham Young speaking in the Journal of Discourses Vo1 15, Page 770 1853, "Now remember from this time forth, and for ever, that Jesus Christ was not begotten by the Holy Ghost... if the Son was begotten by the Holy Ghost, it would be a very dangerous to baptize and confirm females, and give the Holy Ghost to them, lest he should beget children..."

4 - Truth is determined by feelings

We believe we know the truth by our feelings. We do not rely on and we will disregard any facts that contradict what our feelings tell us is true. If something feels bad, like someone telling us that Joseph Smith was a fraud, then we know that Smith must of been a prophet since falsehoods create bad feelings and it feels bad when someone tells us that we have been duped. In other words, if we get a bad feeling, we are hearing bad things which must be lies. We feel good when we read the Book of Mormon, therefore it is true. Archeology, genetics, science, metallurgy, agriculture and animal studies are irrelevant since our feelings tell us it is a true book revealed by God. This good feeling applies to all aspects of our lives. We determine if we should do something or know the truth of something if we have prayed about it and have a good feeling about it.

5 - What a Prophet said can be revised depending on the circumstances

We believe that when the Prophet, the head of our church, says something that is definitely wrong he was not being inspired at that time. He was only speaking as a man. We believe that the newer Prophets can override the older Prophets. We believe we have a prophet on earth today even though he never prophecies anything.

Reference: Ezra Taft Benson '14 Fundamentals in Following the Prophets' pgs 1-16, 1980:
"Beware of those who would pit the dead prophets against the living prophets, for the living prophets always take precedence."

6 - Saving our dead ancestors shows we are the only Christian church

We believe we have temples where we get the handshakes and passwords that allow us to become gods. We also baptize by proxy dead people so they too can become Mormons.

7 - Ex-Mormons or apostates had sin in their life or never had a testimony

We believe apostates, if they had a testimony, will be cast into outer darkness. The others who leave Mormonism must never had a testimony.

8 - We will only read church approved materials

Any literature which is critical of the church is Satanic and/or written by disgruntled apostates or others who do not know the truth. They can be ignored and any reasonable arguments they have are unimportant since they oppose the gospel of Mormonism.

9 - We need to convert the whole world to Mormonism

We believe we must send all our young men from ages 19-22 on missions throughout the world and many of our unmarried daughters. We must also save our money so that when we are older we can go on a mission as a married couple.

10 - By being Mormons we are assured of salvation - even if we are wrong

We believe that even if we are wrong about Mormonism, God will forgive us since we believed in Christ just like the Christians said we should. If we are right, and we know we are, then we will be together forever with our families as gods. Why should we want to be anything other than Mormons since we have all our bases covered?

11 - Since we have the name of Christ in our church - our church is the only true one.

Only the true church would have Christ's name in it. We ignore the fact that the Doctrine and Covenants and other books were published by the church when Joseph Smith had the church renamed for several years as the Church of the Latter-day Saints.

12 - We believe in the Book of Mormon

We believe in a book which has no archeological support whatsoever and claim it is a religious record of various peoples who populated the Americas for over 2600 years from around 2200 BC to 420 AD. We believe that the second group of people who occupied the Americas were Jewish and spoke Hebrew and kept their records in reformed Egyptian. These people also numbered in the millions and somehow they left no tangible proof of their existence. Some Mormons believe that in the near future the leaders of the church will admit that the peoples the book describes are fictional, but maintain that the book still contains religious truths.

13 - The fruits of Mormonism prove it is the true church

We believe by manipulating statistics we can show we have a superior belief system. We disregard statistics which are embarrassing to our position such as the high divorce rate in Utah.

14 Since there are people who oppose our beliefs - our beliefs must be true

We believe that those who write against us and assail our beliefs are proof that we are the only true church. Only the true church would have anything bad said about it. The Devil fights against the truth.

I asked you who created the universe.......................?

God, "I guess" Who else would have done it?

Almighty God, God is not a man God is SPIRIT GET IT YET??

You Guess???? Not your Mormon little finite previously "man"-demigod

How the heck can a man of flesh and bone from within the universe create it, that is just nonsense. Also please answer the below especially in the light that god is just a god amongst coutless other billions of god?

Who is the Author or cause of all Existence.............................????

The real Infinite Eternal Almighty God of the whole universe is trying to get into your understanding that you are deceived. You Mormons say your god is the god of this planet, Jesus said the GOD OF THIS WORLD IS THE DEVIL


Devil is the Deceiver and your are deceived badly .

What does a deceiver do best?

He mimics the truth as close as he can. Think???


YOU ARE UNDER DECEPTION THE TRUE GOD IS TRYING TO MAKE YOU FREE

[Bill the Cat]

BTC is correct, of course...

There! This entire forum can now be closed on that comment...

[Sparko]

I went to the official Mormon Website and again you dont seem to know what is going on in your own church go to the your own official website and see if you can find the Official Doctrinal Statements you mention. By the way I now dont think you are lying , you are just ignorant of how your organiztion really works.

Mormons have no present official doctrine because it is being constantly altered by so called prophets of the organization.



Here, however is the core of Mormon belief for us to read carefully and comment on!



I asked you who created the universe.......................?




Almighty God, God is not a man God is SPIRIT GET IT YET??

You Guess???? Not your Mormon little finite previously "man"-demigod

How the heck can a man of flesh and bone from within the universe create it, that is just nonsense. Also please answer the below especially in the light that god is just a god amongst coutless other billions of god?

Who is the Author or cause of all Existence.............................????

The real Infinite Eternal Almighty God of the whole universe is trying to get into your understanding that you are deceived. You Mormons say your god is the god of this planet, Jesus said the GOD OF THIS WORLD IS THE DEVIL


Devil is the Deceiver and your are deceived badly .

What does a deceiver do best?

He mimics the truth as close as he can. Think???


YOU ARE UNDER DECEPTION THE TRUE GOD IS TRYING TO MAKE YOU FREE

Again, Alan...

Stick to one or two points per thread. Don't try to cover all the bases at once. it is against our rules to do so. Please go read the decorum again, that you agreed to when you signed up.

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/fa...campus_decorum

The maximum post length is 24K characters not including quoted material. Do not use multiple posts to circumvent this restriction. Please keep your points concise and limit the number of major points made in a debate/discussion to 1 or 2 per post max as this encourages discourse. Rebuttal posts get undesirably lengthy from both a writer's and a reader's perspective when there are too many points to address. Additionally, please allow the other person to respond to your post before making additional substantive posts and points directed towards that same person (i.e. back-to-back responses to a single post are not allowed.)

You have been told this twice now.

[Dee Dee Warren]

At the risk of defending the boorish, I disagree on the usefulness of the McConkie question. It has been dodged in this thread and remains.

However, Alan, you are shaming the true God with your behavior. You act as if you hate Mormons. I hope you don't, but that is how you are coming across. And though it isn't against the rules to hate anyone, as one of the owners of this forum, I can tell you, that we never created this forum for a platform to hate people. If you don't love the Mormon people and have some level of respect for them as human beings created in the image of God, you have no business in this work. If you do have those things start showing it please.

Presently I am giving you the benefit of the doubt, that you despise the doctrines (I do too) and you are letting that cross over into how you are perceived as feeling about the people. I understand it can be hard. I hate hyperpreterism. I have to work hard not to present myself as hating hyperpreterists, which I don't.

[Alan McDougall]

At the risk of defending the boorish, I disagree on the usefulness of the McConkie question. It has been dodged in this thread and remains.

However, Alan, you are shaming the true God with your behavior. You act as if you hate Mormons. I hope you don't, but that is how you are coming across. And though it isn't against the rules to hate anyone, as one of the owners of this forum, I can tell you, that we never created this forum for a platform to hate people. If you don't love the Mormon people and have some level of respect for them as human beings created in the image of God, you have no business in this work. If you do have those things start showing it please.

Presently I am giving you the benefit of the doubt, that you despise the doctrines (I do too) and you are letting that cross over into how you are perceived as feeling about the people. I understand it can be hard. I hate hyperpreterism. I have to work hard not to present myself as hating hyperpreterists, which I don't.

HI Dee,

I absolutly dont hate Mormons I hate the doctrine of deception they are trapped into.
I promise to become more loving and polite, my purpose was to try and get the Mormon members to think about just how illogical their belief is in the light of reality staring them in the face every day.I will in future tone down my retotic.

All I want from them is to reply point by point my detailed my question about their faith and to somehow rationalise it to me, something they have not done, by saying I have posed stupid questions or evading my questions or side tracking the topic because in reality they simply cannot explain their own doctrine and beliefs to me and the forum.

I would like them to state just one so called stupid question I have asked?

I want them to leave their god of flesh and bone and accept the truth about the true Infinite Eternal God that created all of reality. I am not trying to convert hem to Christianity, just accept that their idea of God is wrong, then we can have a really meaningful debate.

Love

Alan