Response to Catholic.com 1

Response to Catholic.com’s “Mormon Stumpers” page - www.catholic.com/library/Mormo…

[Note that this response was originally posted on an internet message board, and so the remarks were addressed to a user who had copied and pasted the contents of this page w/o crediting the material, leading me to believe that it was supposed to have been his own.

“Thou shalt not steal,” folks.]

In your discussions with Mormons, they will most often wish to direct the topics presented into those areas where they feel most informed and comfortable. Whether they are the young missionaries at your door or friends or colleagues, they have all been taught several lines of approach and have been drilled in making their points.

Not quite.

Yes, the missionaries are supposed to follow a set order of lessons. However, they also have the responsibility of finding answers for those questions that they are asked. I myself came close to recommending disciplinary action be taken against a missionary who refused to find answers.

In addition, you have members such as myself who are versed on a wide variety of topics; we can easily go back and forth over different issues, and I'm telling you the truth when I say that I've had to teach many a "good Christian" about the basics of Christianity.

So, if you do offer a question or a criticism, be prepared for this reaction.

Horse hockey.

Only the more sensitive members of the church cry "persecution" at any sort of criticism.

Other members, such as myself, will actually challenge the challengers on their statements.

1. "I was answered that I must join none of them (Christian churches), for they were all wrong…their creeds were an abomination in [God’s] sight; that those professors were all corrupt" (Joseph Smith—History 1:19).

Gee... isn't that what the rest of Christianity says about those faiths they don't agree with?

As it is, that quote also appears in Joseph Smith - History, which is part of the church canon; most any Mormon in the world knows about this statement.

2. "Orthodox Christian views of God are pagan rather than Christian" (Mormon Doctrine of Deity, B. H. Roberts [General Authority], 116).

Here's a little tip, kid.

Just because a church authority says something doesn't automatically make it part of the canon. There is indeed a vetting process that works must undergo.

3. "Are Christians ignorant? Yes, as ignorant of the things of God as the brute beast" (Journal of Discourses, John Taylor [3rd Mormon President], 13:225).

[in reference to an earlier post] You yourself just admitted that much of the violence perpetrated against the church was due to ignorance and fear, kid.

4. "The Roman Catholic, Greek, and Protestant church, is the great corrupt, ecclesiastical power, represented by great Babylon" (Orson Pratt, Writings of an Apostle, Orson Pratt, n. 6, 84).

Orson, in his lifetime, came dangerously close to being branded "heterodox," and was so controversial that some actually wished that he'd been the one lynched instead of his more popular brother Parley.

5. "All the priests who adhere to the sectarian [Christian] religions of the day with all their followers, without one exception, receive their portion with the devil and his angels" (The Elders Journal, Joseph Smith, ed. Vol. 1, n. 4, 60).

The operative phrase is "of the day." Do a little research into what religion was like during the time of Joseph Smith and you'll see just how ugly it could be.

6. [Under the heading, "Church of the Devil," Apostle Bruce R. McConkie lists:] "The Roman Catholic Church specifically—singled out, set apart, described, and designated as being ‘most abominable above all other churches’ (I Ne. 13:5)" (Mormon Doctrine, 1958, 129).

*starts laughing*

The first edition of Mormon Doctrine was yanked from the shelves due to such comments as that.

McConkie was also roundly chastised for what he had done, and the book was not allowed to go back into print until such comments were edited out. I myself have a copy of the 1979 edition in my hands, and page 129 of that edition says no such thing; it's not even the same topic.

7. "Believers in the doctrines of modern Christendom will reap damnation to their souls (Morm. 8; Moro. 8)" (Mormon Doctrine, 1966, Bruce R. McConkie, 177).

Ditto for the last one.

Some contemporary Mormons, embarrassed—at least publicly—by McConkie’s ranting, will respond with, "That’s only his opinion." This is disingenuous at best. Keep in mind that McConkie, who died in 1985, was raised to the level of "apostle" in the Mormon church after he had written all these things. And still today, his Mormon Doctrine is published by a church-owned publishing company and remains one of the church’s bestsellers.

McConkie, as noted above, did indeed get chewed out when it was discovered what he'd written. And while Mormon Doctrine is indeed published by a church-owned printing house, it has been heavily edited and is not considered canon.

Your arguments are, therefore, as old as your quotations.

Indeed, the Mormon church accepts abortion for a number of reasons. The Church Handbook of Instructions, approved in September, 1998, states that abortion may be performed in the following circumstances: pregnancy resulting from rape or incest; a competent physician says the life or health of the mother is in serious jeopardy; or a competent physician says that the "fetus" has severe defects that will not allow the "baby" to survive beyond birth. In any case, the persons responsible must first consult with their church leader and receive God’s approval in prayer (156).

If you'll look around, you'll see that this is actually a "middle-ground" position held by many a person who disagrees with abortion but understands that there are indeed situations wherein it might be a necessary evil.

This same Handbook, the official policies of the Mormon church to be followed by all local church leaders throughout the world, also claims: "It is a fact that a child has life before birth. However, there is no direct revelation on when the spirit enters the body" (156).

In other words, there's no specific date and time where the spirit and the mass of cells merge.

However, that doesn't automatically prevent someone from referring to an unborn child as being alive. Your argument, then, is a non sequitur.

It appears that this "unalterable" position, constantly "affirmed," is just another in a series of doctrinal and moral teachings that Mormons have reworded, reworked, rescinded, or reneged—though never officially renounced. Such is the quality of the Mormon belief in "continuing revelation." Don’t expect dogmatic or ethical consistency. Rather, look for expediency and conformity with "the times."

You're using quotation marks as if your words came from another work.

Mind sharing that work with us?

A further statement in the Handbook says: "The church has not favored or opposed legislative proposals or public demonstrations concerning abortion (156)."

That's because it's up to us, the members, to make up our minds how we want to vote.

1. "The church opposes gambling in any form" (including lotteries). Members are also urged to oppose legislation and government sponsorship of any form of gambling (Handbook, 150).

While the handbook uses the term "urged," I could count on one hand the number of times I've heard a specific condemnation against gambling during a sermon.

2. The church also opposes [correctly, of course] pornography in any form (158).

As with gambling, this is also a fairly cut-and-dried issue.

3. Church members are to reject all efforts to legally authorize or support same-sex unions (158).

Ditto.

A prayerful game of poker, unrepented, will bar the member from the temple and ultimate salvation; a prayerful, by-the-book abortion, unrepented, won’t.

See above, kid. Right now, your batting average is .0000.

1. In an early book of "Scripture" brought forth by Joseph Smith, the creation account consistently refers to the singular when speaking of God and creation: "I, God, caused . . . I, God, created . . . I, God, saw. . . . " The singular is used 50 times in the second and third chapters of the Book of Moses (1831).

Mind giving actual verses, kid?

You know, so that we can actually look up the citations?

You wouldn't want someone to think that you were trying to be deceptive now, would we?

2. In another of Smith’s earlier works, the Book of Mormon (1830), there are no references to a plurality of gods. At best, there is a confusion, at times, between the Father and the Son, leading at times to the extreme of modalism (one divine person who reveals himself sometimes as the Father, sometimes as the Son) or the other extreme of "binitarianism," belief in two persons in God. The Book of Mormon also makes a strong point for God’s spiritual and eternal unity (see Alma 11:44 and 22:10-11, which proclaims that God is the "Great Spirit").

*starts laughing hard*

Alma 18:5 totally refutes that whole "God is the Great Spirit" argument:

5 Now this was the tradition of Lamoni, which he had received from his father, that there was a Great Spirit. Notwithstanding they believed in a Great Spirit, they supposed that whatsoever they did was right; nevertheless, Lamoni began to fear exceedingly, with fear lest he had done wrong in slaying his servants;

"Great Spirit" was a term exclusively used by the Lamanites; it would only make sense that the term be invoked when discussing the gospel with them.

This is a tired, old argument, one that you should be ashamed of using.

3. Another early work of Smith is the Lectures on Faith (1834-35). There is continual evidence that the first Mormon leader taught a form of bitheism: the Father and the Son are separate gods. The Holy Spirit is merely the "mind" of the two.

Got any actual quotations?

4. At about the same time, we begin to see a doctrinal shift. Smith had acquired some mummies and Egyptian papyri. He proclaimed the writings to be those of the patriarch, Abraham, in his own hand, and set out to translate the text. His Book of Abraham records in chapters four and five that "the gods called . . . the gods ordered . . . the gods prepared" some 45 times. Smith thus introduces the notion of a plurality of gods.

Ditto.

5. The clearest exposition of this departure from traditional Christian doctrine is seen in Smith’s tale of a "vision" he had as a boy of 14. Both the Father and the Son appeared to him, he wrote; they were two separate "personages." This story of two gods was not authorized and distributed by the church until 1838, after his Book of Abraham had paved the way for polytheism.

Yet again, you go for a tired old argument.

Why must the concept that Heavenly Father, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are physically separate automatically be construed as polytheism?

Is that any more comprehensible than imagining them as an amorphous, schizophrenic, emotionless blob a la the "3-in-1" theory?

In the King Follett Discourse (a funeral talk he gave in 1844), Joseph Smith left his church with the clearest statement to date on the nature of God:

Note that, due to lack of a transcript, the KFD was never entered into the canon. JS didn't have anyone take an official dictation while he spoke, and if he himself wrote it down then no copy is known to have survived. The KFD transcripts are all taken from those members of the audience who tried to write down what he was saying.

Bits and pieces have been accepted for use in the instructional manuals, but as a whole it's in a definite grey area; you should do additional research before hanging your hat on anything from it.

As such, he retains forever his flesh-and-bones body.

False.

Those who achieve exaltation will have their bodies perfected; flesh and blood will not exist as we know it.

(Orson Pratt said the Holy Ghost was a spiritual fluid that filled the universe;

Again, Orson had a tendency to spout off somewhat heterodox statements.

Brigham Young taught that Adam is the god of this world),

little 'g' = exalted being.

As it is, it was Brigham Young himself who halted further teaching on the concept; he was disgusted by the fact that so many members kept mangling things whenever it did come up.

8. "Thou shalt not have strange gods before me." What is stranger than a God who starts off as a single Spirit, eternal and all-powerful; who then becomes, perhaps, two gods in one, and then three; who never changes, yet was once born a man, lived, sinned, repented, and died; who was made God the Father of this world by his own God; and who will make his own children gods someday of their own worlds?

Methinks you need to take an English lit course.

You're using "strange" in the context of "bizarre," whereas the quote (BTW, what's the source?) appears to have meant it in the context of "foreign."

A similar usage of the latter meaning comes in Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. A handful of zoogs were in the city of Ulthar tormenting a kitten, and in revenge most of the other cats in town descended upon those zoogs and ate them; when Randolph Carter notes that the cats have all gone to bed early after this incident, he refers to those cats being "silent and heavy from strange feasting."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Drea…

That all believing Christians are shocked and disturbed by this blasphemy may—just may—be nudging the Mormon leadership to soften their rhetoric (if not actually change their heresy).

Ah, the old standby.

When in doubt, toss around "blasphemy" and "heresy" and hope it sticks to one's opponents.

A case in point is an interview with current church prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley, published in the San Francisco Chronicle on April 13, 1997. When asked: "[D]on’t Mormons believe that God was once a man?" Hinckley demurred. "I wouldn’t say that. There’s a little couplet coined, ‘As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become.’ Now, that’s more of a couplet than anything else. That gets into some pretty deep theology that we don’t know very much about" (3/Z1).

Exaltation is actually more of a fringe doctrine than a core doctrine, owing to the fact that so little has been revealed about it. The Sunday School manual for investigators and new converts doesn't even go into a discussion of exaltation until the very last chapter.

As such, Hinckley's statement is right on the mark.

www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp…