So, Jessie, how did it go?

Once you are allowed to wear the temple garments, you buy several pairs and you buy new ones when they wear out.

I guess Joseph Smith and his followers think it will be fun to be gods.

Catholics think theirs is the only true church. Mormons think theirs is the only true church. I don't think any denomination is the only true church.

Heidi and Tibby, I suggest that one of you start a thread on Catholicism so we can discuss Mormonism on this one. Is that okay with you two?

No offense intended, but I hate to start a thread and then have it get way off topic.

The New Yorkermagazine did quite an expose on them in preparation for the winter olympics there, last year, a February issue('02, or was it '03?), I believe.

Wasn't very complimentary.  The polygamy.  Also, Recounts a recent excavation for a new highway in NV desert; remains of a noted wagon train, en route from Arkansas,  massacred by Indians--or so the orignal story went.

Turns out forensics, at least according to the NYer article, demonstrate the men were separated from the train, killed, then the women and children likewise.  The forensics left suspicions it wasn't Indians who did the killing.

That was the Mountain Meadows Massacre.


"O, Lord, my God, receive their spirits: it is for thy kingdom that I do this!" The gun exploded and the bullet killed both men. Samuel McMurdy had surely "kept alive the spirit of the reformation"; he had vindicated his right to hold the "holy" Mormon priesthood, and to be first counselor to Bishop Klingensmith.

According to Nephi Johnson less than three minutes were consumed in the work of death.

During the excitement and confusion attending the massacre, two girls, Rachel and Ruth Dunlap, made a desperate attempt to escape the carnage. From the evidence, and from a careful study of the ground, the girls must have been on the north side of the group of women and children when the attack was made. Running to the east on the north side of Knight and McMurdy's wagons, they turned to the south and sped toward the bench, where clumps of oak bushes seemed to invite them to a temporary refuge. Clambering down the steep side of the gully they crept into the oaks on the opposite brink. They were then about thirty rods from the scene of death, over which the smoke from exploding firearms hung in a hazy cloud from which there no longer issued protesting cries of women and the pitiful screams of children.

During a few brief minutes Rachel and Ruth Dunlap believed they were saved from the white and red butchers. Very likely no thought entered their minds of the fate that awaited them on the desert - the thirst and hunger that surely lurked for them amid the inextricable maze of hills and desert canyons. They dreamed not that if they escaped to some habitation the occupants, under pain of death, must surrender them to the blood atoning priests because, forsooth, they were old enough to tell the story of the massacre. Their only hope was to see the setting of the sun and to feel the sheltering mantle of night descend upon them.

One or more of the assassins must have seen the terrified girls as they raced toward the gully and reported the fact to the chief from Parowan, who found the girls and dragged them from their hiding place. The Indian sent for Lee, and on his arrival asked what should be done with them. When informed that they were beyond the age limit prescribed by Haight, the chief pleaded that they were "too pretty to be killed." Divining the sentence pronounced by Lee, the elder girl dropped to her knees and with clasped hands cried out: "Spare me, and I will love you all my life!" But she died, as her sister had died, and at Lee's hands. (Lee vehemently denied the awful charge.) For pitiful story of attempt by Hamblin's Indian boy to save the girls, see appendix.

Note.- Since the massacre, rumors have been persistent to the effect that prior to their death those girls were outraged by those who murdered them. The charge was so terrible, so diabolical and inhuman that, as a Mormon, and later on an "apostate," I could not believe the rumor - it appeared to be just another Mormon canard to further blacken the memory of John D. Lee. There was, however, something in the terms of the girl's appeal that is inexplicable when considered apart from the rumor. Last winter (1910) I met a devout Mormon woman in southern Utah, who was a girl at the date of the massacre, and she assured me that the rumor is entirely trustworthy; that she remembers hearing the women of St. George discuss the awful fate of the Dunlap girls. "And," the lady concluded "we Mormons have never been accused of charging crimes to our people when the accusations were not true."
.......


"Notwithstanding that the people of southern Utah are familiar with nearly all the incidents of the massacre they have thus far, as a general truth, failed to grasp the central force that was responsible for the devilish act. Their abiding faith in the "divine mission of Joseph Smith," and their certainty that the Mormon "prophets" can do no wrong, blinds them to the forces that unerringly led up to the massacre. But there are scores of young men and women who are now demanding that the truth be told. Their reason teaches them that the assigned causes, or reasons, for the massacre, are insufficient to account for all the facts. They are now asking: "Why did those fifty-five men, professed followers of the merciful Son of God, commit a crime at which the civilized world stood aghast? If it was murder for plunder, why is it that only one assassin was punished for the crime when the name of every one of the murderers was known to the leading religious and civil authorities of Utah at the time of Lee's trial, or could have been obtained had there been any inclination to punish them? 'There is something hidden,' they say, ''something mysterious and inexplicable as to the impelling motive to the crime. What is it?'

" While not complete, the youth of Utah, and the people of the world, may, in the foregoing pages, learn the basic causes that led up to the Mountain Meadows massacre."

http://www.utlm.org/onlinebooks/mea...HE%20EMIGRANTS.

There were two girls one sixteen and, one eighteen, they ran and hid in the oak brush. The Indian chief found the two girls and brought them to John D. Lee and said, that they are to pretty to kill. There names were Rachel, and Ruth Dunlap. It was reported that the girls pled for mercy and told Lee, that they would work for him, and love him all his life, and serve his needs as to whatever he wanted them to do, but the girls were both..... Sexually Abused ....and afterwards there throats cut from ear to ear .... There was personal testimony at the 2ND trial of John D Lee from Jacob Hamblins 15 year old Indian boy, whom Hamblin had adopted, testified that he sat on the hill above where the girls were hiding, and wittinessed the sexual abuse and murder of the Dunlap girls, by John D.Lee.

http://www.mindspring.com/~engineer_my_dna/mormon/mountai2.htm

Another account:

http://asms.k12.ar.us/armem/brondel/archive/rea.htm


 Young Sarah E. Dunlap was a nursing baby and lay cradled in her mother's arms with one tiny arm up to her mother's neck, when her mother was shot, and an arrow pierced Sarah's forearm, shattering a bone.  Powder burns affected her eyes.  Her sisters, Rebecca, age 7, and Louisa, age 4,  were in the wagon with the young children.  Her teenage sisters Rachael and Ruth escaped the massacre and hid in the bushes for a while,  but they were hunted down and murdered.  Being the youngest (age one), her knowledge of the events were, no doubt, only what was related to her by others.   Captain James Lynch brought Sarah and the other children back to Arkansas to live.   When he was released from the army he returned to visit the children and began a whirlwind romance that resulted in a marriage between Captain Lynch and Sarah.

http://www.scsc.k12.ar.us/2002Outwest/NaturalHistory/Projects/JeffersE/newpage1.htm

First, I want you to know that a few Mormons may show up to post here. They will often tell you that you don't know what you're talking about. They'll try to tell me the same thing. If they get frustrated enough, they'll accuse ex-Mormons of not having spent enough time in their church, or not having been obedient to the church, etc.

They refer to all ministries to Mormons as anti-Mormon, and claim that anti-Mormons don't tell the truth and take things out of context. I have been to several sites that they claim are anti-Mormon sites. I haven't found these people posting lies or mis-information about Mormonism.

The Mormons I'm talking about here are from the largest Mormon church with headquarters in Salt Lake City. This group doesn't practice polygamy the way they used to. Some groups claim they never practiced it. The Mormons don't practice it, but they believe it was okay before, and they actually believe it will be practiced in the next life. If a man's first wife dies, he can remarry in the temple and then his second wife will also be sealed to him for eternity. If he outlives his second wife, he can marry a third wife for time and eternity.

The Mormons use the KJV Bible with Mormon footnotes. Their KJV is just like ours except for the footnotes. They may own the Joseph Smith Translation but it was not used at church when I attended. The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints published that book. The Utah Mormons claim Joseph Smith, Jr. never finished translating it. Well, he didn't have the early manuscripts to translate. Evidently, he just sat down with the KJV and started changing the parts he didn't like.

Ex-Mormon, I have been saved by the blood of the Lamb of God!

I'll try to clear up any misconceptions. What do you think Mormons believe that makes them a cult?

What do you know and would you like to know more?

The Word was with God. That is the Son was with the Father.

(1) The Word was God. The Word had the character and nature of God; what God was, the Word was.

(2) The personal pronoun him is applied to the Word, indicating that the Word is a personal being.

(3) The  Word was with God. The term with indicates that the Word was not the same Person as the One with whom he was, One who is also referred to as God.

John 1:14, 17, and 18 further explain the identity of the Word:

“And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we have beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth . . . . For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.”

As we read the rest of the first chapter of John’s gospel, it begins to become clear that God in verse 1 is God the Father, and the Word who was with him is God the Son.

Other passages of Scripture confirm that the Father and the Son are not the same Person -- for example, the Son prays to the Father in Matthew 26:39, calls on his Father as a second witness in addition to himself in John 8:16-18, and sits down with his Father on his throne in Revelation 3:21.

The Scriptures also reveal the existence of a third Divine Person: the Holy Spirit. As Jesus spoke with his disciples in John 14-16, he made it quite clear that the Holy Spirit was not the same Person as himself and not the same Person as the Father. In these chapters, the Holy Spirit is revealed to be personally distinct from the Father and from the Son.


John 14:16: “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever.” Here Jesus says he will ask the Father to give his disciples another Comforter in addition to himself. This passage cannot be an example of the interaction of Jesus’ human nature and his Divine nature because there are three Divine Persons which are referred to.



John 15:26: “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.” This is another passage where three Persons are indicated. “From” is the translation of a Greek word that indicates that the place from which the Spirit of truth starts is alongside of and distinct from the One from whom he was sent -- that he is proceeding from a place at the Father’s side.

the Trinity doctrine affirms the truth of passages like Isaiah 44:24, John 10:30, and John 14:9 . . . and the truth of passages like John 1:1, 17:5, and Hebrews 1:1-9. Once the evidence has been thoroughly examined, it is the Trinity doctrine -- not Modalism -- that best defends the truth of all the Scriptures.

For further explanation, go here:

http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/a63.htm

May the Lord bless those who study His word---the Bible.

Triune God

Each person is a self-aware subject who relates to each of the other two as "another."

All Persons of the Godhead are fully God.

Hebrews 1 : 1, 2, 8 — God the Father calls the Son, "God."
8. Acts 5 : 3-4 --Peter calls the Holy Spirit, "God."
9. John 6 : 27 --Jesus calls the Father, "God."

All three were manifested at the same time at the Son's baptism. Jesus didn't make His voice come from Heaven saying "This is my beloved Son..." That was His Father speaking.

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are personally distinct from one another.

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are able to:

(A) Send or be sent by one another (John 3:17, 10:36, 14:23-26, 15:26, 16:7).

(B) Speak to each other (John 17:1-26, Romans 8:26-27, Hebrews 1:7-8) and about each other (Matthew 17:5, Mark 1:11, John 8:13-18).

(C) The Father and Son love and honor each other (John 3:35, 5:20, 14:31).

The Trinity doctrine -- that there is one God in three Persons -- summarizes these biblical truths without adding or subtracting anything from them.

God bless you as study His word and grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

 

Swedenborg was sooooooooooo wrong!

The Father is not the same person as the Son; the Son is not the same person as the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit is not the same person as Father.  They are not three gods and not three beings.  They are three distinct persons; yet, they are all the one God.  Each has a will, can speak, can love, etc., and these are demonstrations of personhood.  They are in absolute perfect harmony consisting of one substance. They are coeternal, coequal, and copowerful. If any one of the three were removed, there would be no God.

God is one in person and in essence = heresy.

In the unity of the Godhead there are three persons (personae), of one substance, power, and eternity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost."
To speak of three eternal persons in this sense is to recognize relationships among the Three that transcend manifestations in history. That is, each person is a self-aware subject who relates to each of the other two as "another." In our finite world, we are used to encountering only finite beings, and every person we meet is an entity separate from all other persons. However, God is not finite, so it may be that as an infinite being He exists as three distinguishable persons, while remaining one indivisible essence.


The Trinity Revealed in the Resurrection
1. Acts 10 : 39-40 — God raised Christ from the dead.
2. 1 Thessalonians 1 : 10 — God the Father raised the Son from the dead.
3. Romans 8 : 11 — God the Spirit raised the Son from the dead.
4. John 2 : 19-22 — God the Son raised Himself from the dead.
The Trinity Revealed in the Creation

1. The Father: Isaiah 64:8.
2. The Son: Colossians 1:15-17.
3. The Holy Spirit: Job 33:4.

At the baptism of Christ, all three Persons were manifested.

I still say I don't know who becomes a Christian on their deathbed. But I did find a quote:


"I consider myself Hindu, Christian, Moslem, Jew, Budhist, and Confucian."--- Mahatma Gandhi 1869

I thought his name was Mahatma Gandhi. And who here has a list of names of those in hell? Just as humans do not have a list of the names in the Book of Life, neither do they know who goes to hell.

Jesus became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him; and God alone knows what is really fair.

Who knows whether a person in his dying moments sees his own helplessness and cries out for salvation in Jesus Christ?

Sometimes people come to attack the Christian faith and aren't seeking to learn the truth, but rather to promote false teachings. Sometimes people have been deceived by false teachings and want to bring others to what they believe is truth. Modalism is a false teaching.

There is one God who has eternally existed as three persons.

The Father is a Person: We can have fellowship with Him, 1 John 1:3; He knows, Matthew 6:6-8; He teaches, Matthew 16:17; He loves, John 16:27; He is a witness, John 8:18; He has a will, John 5:30.

The Son is a Person: We can have fellowship with Him, 1 John 1:3; He knows, Matthew 11:27; He teaches, John 1:18, Rev. 2:18; He loves, Romans 8:35, Gal. 2:20; He is a witness, John 8:18; He has a will, John 5:30; He can be grieved, John 11:35.

The Holy Spirit is a Person: We can have fellowship with Him, Philippians 2:1, 2 Cor. 13:14; He knows, 1 Cor. 2:11; He teaches, Luke 12:12, 1 Cor. 2:13; He loves, Rom. 15:30; He is a witness, Acts 20:23, Rom. 8:16; He has a will, 1 Cor. 12:11; He can be grieved, Eph. 4:30.

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are personally distinct from one another.

They are able to send or be sent by one another(John 3:17, 10:36, 14:23-26, 15:26, 16:7).

Speak to each other:(John 17:1-26, Rom. 8:26-27, Hebrews 1:7-8) and about each other(Matt. 17:5, Mark 1:11, John 8:13-18).

The Father and Son love and honor each other(John 3:35, 5:20, 14:31).

Please read John 1 : 1.

John 1
1   In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

This verse tells us that not only was the Son God, but He was also with God.

Later Jesus said, in John 20:17, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.

Clearly the Father is separate from the Son.

Other passages of Scripture confirm that the Father and the Son are not the same Person -- for example, the Son prays to the Father in Matthew 26:39, calls on his Father as a second witness in addition to himself in John 8:16-18, and sits down with his Father on his throne in Revelation 3:21.

The Scriptures also reveal the existence of a third Divine Person: the Holy Spirit. As Jesus spoke with his disciples in John, chapters 14-16, he made it quite clear that the Holy Spirit was not the same Person as himself and not the same Person as the Father. In these chapters, the Holy Spirit is revealed to be personally distinct from the Father and from the Son.