Mormonism: is it a cult?

[Aeson]

This is where the baptise dead people who weren't mormon. That's another thing.

It's completely optional whether the dead person accepts it. So they aren't so much baptizing the dead person as reserving a baptism for them if they ever do choose it.

[Tuberski]

This is the Salt Lake Mormon temple:



ACK!

[Ben Kenobi]

Interesting discussion so far!

1. The Book of Mormon is needed, because the Catholic church, for example, changed the original Bible in many, unknown, ways.

Dead Sea Scrolls corroborates just the opposite that the OT versions in the Vulgate are very similar to those written by Jews before the time of Christ. The manuscript evidence we do have goes back to the early 4th century for the entirety, and pieces back to the mid 2nd.

No evidence for significant textual corruption has been found.

The BoM doesn't teach anything greatly different than the Bible. It's, supposedly, all the little things that had been... lost, from the original Teachings of Christ. Note I said teachings, not actual history.

Unfortunately, there's no records of those teachings prior to Mormon times. If they were truly what the Church taught in antiquity, then we would find these things. But we haven't. That's the problem. There's nothing to indicate their origin prior to Joseph Smith.

2. What do we have to corroborate the claims made by the bible?

There are non-Christian written parts of Scripture, such as the Masoretic texts. The differences between the Catholic church official versions in the Latin Vulgate and the Hebrew Masoretic texts are insignificant.

As for Christian claims, archaeology for one. References to places people and things that have other traces to confirm what is taught in the bible. Christianity doesn't claim that God brought down golden tablets and that the only one who ever saw them was Joseph Smith. Apostle Paul talks about how the resurrected Christ appeared to the 500.

Then you have Pentecost. It was widely known in Jerusalem at the time, and the Christians taught openly to everyone. It wasn't until later that they wrote down Christ's teachings. Very different approach.

3.Vampires can't go into catholic churches.

No, but a Lich can. Lichs are way more resistant to Holy things.

4. Man can become a God over time. Not the God.

Which violates the first commandment right there.

[Ben Kenobi]

It's completely optional whether the dead person accepts it. So they aren't so much baptizing the dead person as reserving a baptism for them if they ever do choose it.

Except that they are dead, and you don't baptise the dead. You baptise the living. The dead can't object.

Weren't one tribe only allowed in the temple

Levites were assigned to be the priests, and certain parts of the Temple were for the priests, living quarters etc. The holy of holies was a section of the temple where even the priests could only go once a year.

One of the Roman Emperors actually violated the Temple and walked into the Holy of Holies and gives us the only secular description of it. There was nothing there at all. No ornamentation, anything.

Beyond that we don't really know what it was like. There's not been a Temple for nearly 2 thousand years.

[Aeson]

You don't believe in an afterlife Ben?

[Ben Kenobi]

You don't believe in an afterlife Ben?

Where did you get that idea?

Those who are alive in heaven are beyond our reach. Baptising their dead bodies isn't going to do anything. It's too late. They have to accept baptism while they are alive.

[Ben Kenobi]

Edit, tried to PM you, Aeson but you don't take PMs!

[Aeson]

Of course I don't take PMs... "Those who are alive in heaven are beyond [y]our reach."

As for the baptisms for the dead, if you are correct then that the person who is dead is not actually baptized. If the LDS are correct, then that person can choose whether they are baptized or not. In neither case is the dead person actually baptized against their wishes.

[Ben Kenobi]

Well I was going to ask, why did you leave, Aeson? I find that is usually fascinating.

"Those who are alive in heaven are beyond [y]our reach."

I ascended quite some time ago.

Welcome to the club.

[Al B. Sure!]

So you can 'ascend' to heaven without first dying in Mormonism?

[giblets]

Who knows. Religious people say some pretty weird stuff.

[Aeson]

I thought you went down... to Texas?

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I left because I didn't believe in it. The only way I could imagine still being Mormon is if they didn't build temples (at least not lavish ones, simple functional buildings are ok) and there wasn't completely useless suffering in the world. (My main problem with any concept of an omnipotent and omni-benevolent being. I know what the response is, but there's simply no way to ever justify letting children be molested... among a great many other things.)

[Ben Kenobi]

I thought you went down... to Texas?

Texas is the closest thing to heaven on earth.

I left because I didn't believe in it. The only way I could imagine still being Mormon is if they didn't build temples (at least not lavish ones, simple functional buildings are ok) and there wasn't completely useless suffering in the world. (My main problem with any concept of an omnipotent and omni-benevolent being. I know what the response is, but there's simply no way to ever justify letting children be molested... among a great many other things.)

I guess I always find it intriguing because I didn't grow up with it or have it in my family, and came to it later on, to hear why people leave.

Looking back I think the most influential was CS Lewis when he talks about not being made for *this* world. Having an ache and a hunger for something else beyond. He was the first person I ever read who talked about that, who seemed to get me.

Think of it as a waystation, we are not meant to stay here, and it is suffering that we remain here on this earth. Suffering doesn't always have a purpose, because we are not made or meant to suffer.

For many people the thing that relieves their suffering is a chance to get to make something beautiful. To touch into that other world and bring it down, even if it's just for a moment. Even if when we try to put it down it's not quite right or off.

[Aeson]

I understand that about suffering. Just there is suffering with a potential point... like hey, I've been through some tough times in my life and came out stronger... and there sadistic suffering where nothing good can possibly come of it... such as a child being beaten and raped... to spend the rest of their life in a mental hospital to keep them from killing themselves.

There's way too much of the later type of suffering in this world for it to have been the plan of an omni-benevolent being.

[Ben Kenobi]

There's way too much of the later type of suffering in this world for it to have been the plan of an omni-benevolent being.

You're quite right. It was never his plan for any of this.