The vicarious baptism will be performed regardless, but the dead person has the option to accept or decline this. Mormons don’t claim that all the people they’ve baptized posthumously are Mormons, simply that they’ve been given the possibility of becoming Mormons eventually.
I am not sure who is getting whooshed here, but in my world dead people never say “No” to anything.
You’ve reversed the order. The physical baptism takes place. And then the dead person gets to choose to accept it or not. Until the dead person accepts, it isn’t valid. At least that’s the doctrine.
As a member I would occasionally hear stories of people who would tell me that they felt another presence in the baptismal font with them. And they knewthat person they were doing the proxy baptism for had accepted. I never felt that. These kinds of experiences were highly treasured by those members. But they were rare. Normally the members aren’t expecting any feedback.
How come nobody gets to see the alleged “golden plates”?
My experience is the same. I spent 15 years working as a sales rep for a Mormon owned company and I spent many pleasant hours discussing Mormonism with the young executives of the company…they were, for the most part, intelligent with a good grasp of comparative religio and no one ever tried to prostelize or convert me, they did not feel it was appropriate in a business situation.
But over the years I had many coversations regarding the tradition of polygamy, the church attitudes towards blacks and who gets into heaven and who doesn’t. I learned a lot and my friends had no problems discussing their religion candidly.
They were allegedly taken back into heaven by an angel. You know, because it would be too easy to believe in Mormonism if there was actual proof. God wanted to make his One True Religion as unbelievable as possible.
Thread title edited. Also moving to Great Debates as a thread about religion.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
He always does . . .
And this is stupendously different from non-Mormons… how?
MOST people, Mormon, Christian, other religion, non-religious, etc. are frequently less than candid with their truth and evade hard questions. Maybe I don’t expect Mormons to be saints (regardless of the official name of their church) nor do I hold them to a higher standard than others display.
I’ve had some interesting interactions with Mormons in regards to both long-term food storage and emergency planning, as well as genealogy. Of course, religion is intertwined with both for Mormons, and I don’t expect them to never mention it, but for the most part they don’t seem to have issues with interacting with me on the subjects and simultaneously NOT beating me over the head with the proselytizing stick. I agree with the above poster - Mormon missionaries are some of the the LEAST obnoxious and intrusive proselytizers I’ve had to deal with.
Only Christ can say what’s Christian definitively, I guess. But, if you look at the LDS cosmology, I think any reasonable person would have to agree that it sets them apart – i.e., you’ve got Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants over here, and Mormons over there. (While the Adventists and Witnesses are just kinda hovering . . .)
No, that’s the Scientologists.
Also Amway.
How about Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, and Tim Drake all being Robin?
Yes, I know that doesn’t work either. I’ve decided the Trinity is one of those things you just accept as an axiom and stop worrying about.
You know you have just destroyed the Martin Luther reference
I recall one religion historian suggested that the “3-in-1 trinity” doctrine was one of those tenets adopted in the early Roman Empire to attract converts who were fascinated by occult mysteries. Competing with mystical cults like Isis(?) they had a doctrine that they could describe as “it’s a mystery, you can’t understand it, only the truly enlightened can…”
I think it is more likely that it is/was a convoluted attempt to maintain a claim to be monotheistic while adding additional god figures.
Did Jack Chick ever make a track on Mormons?
Several, plus a full-length comic book. (Not one of his best. Where’s the third act?! After the historical exposition, the Crusaders should do something to bring the poor man’s killer to justice. And, somewhere along the way, some good-hearted but benighted Mormon should be shown his or her errors and get saved – by the real Jesus, not that ZCMI store-brand knockoff!)
I’ve mellowed on this with other Mormons but years ago, I was infuriated that an acquaintance was ready to be baptized an LDS & had no idea about the doctrine of Exaltation & God the Father having been a mortal man who achieved Deification. And when I asked his LDS fiance’s brother why Dan was never told this, the brother responded “We just don’t think it’s important enough to tell.” I about spazzed -“You turn the Christian doctrine of an Eternal God on its head & it’s not that important?” It took me a while to realize that not all LDS missionaries are that deceptive. In fact, I’ve developed more respect for them over the years, and lots more respect for the LDS people here- as this is pretty much a lion’s den for any believer.
This is news to me. Are you saying that the LDS considers something like the Infancy Gospel of Thomas to be canon? Or something else?
Well, mate, most things in the sort of cosmology we’re talking about here don’t occur in your world. It’s kind of like getting turned into an incredibly strong creature by gamma radiation instead of just getting thyroid cancer.
This would be an adequate summary of my position. If one uses anything resembling the common standards that all the major Christian churches have used to define Christianity over the centuries, then Mormons fall very far outside the definition. They claim to believe in Jesus Christ and they import a few other words and phrases commonly associate with Christianity, but they have built an entire theology that has virtually nothing to do with Christian theology.
I also am largely in agreement with the thread’s consensus on missionaries. Missionaries at your door will only tell you things that they believe to be the truth. Most of them have received an education in the topics of theology and history that focuses on certain things, telling the truth whenever possible, while eliding around many of the troubling topics. Certainly those high up in the the church hierarchy are fully aware of the truth about these topics, and certainly they hope that most of their members never find out the truth. I believe that rank-and-file Mormons, including missionaries, are generally wonderful people and that the higher-ups are scum. The latter judgement arises not because I disagree with their theology, nor even because of their attempts to rewrite history, but rather because they take so much money from rank-and-file believers and then use it to enrich themselves and their allies, as through the famous mall in Salt Lake City and numerous other projects around the world.
Most Lutherans do know about the existence of On the Jews and their Lies, however they also know that (1) not even by a great stretch of the imagination could it be classified as Luther’s second most influential book (2) Luther was a fierce defender of the Jews for most of his life, and (3) in the final years of his life he was suffering from many illnesses and in intense pain, living with constant threats on his life, struggling with extraordinary stresses, and may not even have been lucid when he wrote that book. The situation of the Lutheran churches regarding that book is not at all similar to Mormonism, in that they neither formally deny nor try to informally hide the truth about it.