I agree that their views on the afterlife are “deviant.”
What exactly are they deviating from?
Well when you trot around in magic underpants and believe that you will become a God and have your own planet someday, you have no response. The bigotry is well known. The suppression of women has been part of the church for generations. So I really don’t see Mormons as starting from a higher point. I see them as a joke and a believer as a person who absorbs teaching without thinking. That is not a characteristic I admire in a political candidate.
snerk
The RCC is a sexist organization peopled with child molesters and molestation abettors and Holocaust deniers. I demand that all RC politicians denounce the RCC.
I shall wait right here!
Shodan’s mild threadshitting does not entitle you to make personal jabs at him.
Knock it off.
[ /Moderating ]
This is called the Johannine Comma. It’s not really in the Bible. It was inserted into a Latin text (probably from an accidental incorporation of a marginal note by a copyist) in the middle ages. From there it got back-translated into a few Greek manuscript copies, and eventually into English in the KJV, but it’s not original to the text and does not exist in any of the earliest Greek manuscripts, or even most of the manuscripts contemporaneous with the Vulgate. It is no longer even included in more modern and accurate translations (made from earlier and more accurate Greek manuscripts).
No, it’s Philonic Judaism, and it’s not Trinitarian.
The “with is a ghost?” Are you kidding me? No, that’s not what it means.
The Logos (“the Word”) comes from Greek philosophy, and Philo used it to refer to the interaction of God with (or “presence in”) the physical world. He meant it metaphorically. he did not think there was actually a guy called the Word, and he didn’t think there was a ghost involved.
The author of the Gospel of John interpreted Jesus as a literal manifestation of the Logos in human form, but still did not think a ghost was involved. After trinitarian theology was invented later, people went back to the New Testament (and still do) to try to find ways to interpret or extropolate a trinity, but they’re working backwards and tendentiously. It isn’t in there.
So logically I shouldn’t criticize anyone’s religious belief. For instance you probably wouldn’t mind me condemning Fred Phelps.
No love for John McCain? 
Actually Catholics do believe in “born-again” only it happens during baptism (from what I’ve seen in Catholic Answers).
What about Unitarian Universalists or Deists?
Because that’s what the Bible says.
From the Bible which speaks of the “flames of Hell (or Hades)”
Actually, I think you’re exactly like Phelps in your pronouncements on others’ religious beliefs. Criticize them all you want but it really would make you less like Phelps, IMHO, if you were to identify your theological criticisms as your opinion, not as absolute fact.
See how I identified both sentences as my opinion?
I did not know that. Thanks for the explanation.
Mitt Romney is a fool to tamper with these ideas!
A foray into Trinitarian and various other Christian views of Deity-
I think the idea of “The Word was with God and the Word was God” being Trinitarian with reference to the Holy Spirit in the “was with” may have been explained using Augustine’s (? I’ve heard it attributed to him) explanation that the Trinity is necessary from God’s Eternal Nature as Love- the Father eternally loves, the Son is eternally beloved and returns that love, and the Love generated between Father and Son is the Holy Spirit.
Now, there are lots of other references to Father, Son & Holy Spirit besides the very questionable I John 5:7- the first being Jesus’s baptismal formula given in Matthew 28:19. And one can find references supporting the Deity of the Son and both the Deity & personhood of the Spirit. Henceforth, the Trinity.
On the other hand, it is possible, I will admit, to take the New Testament & interpret it as presenting the Father, the Son & the Spirit as three modes or manifestations of God. That really raises DWMark’s question “Who was Jesus praying to? Was he just talking to himself?” That was why the Church Fathers accepted Trinitarianism instead of Modalism- it maintains a real distinction between Father & Son while retaining the Son’s Deity. The modern group teaching Modalism is the Oneness Pentecostal (also United or Apostolic Pentecostal) churches)
Next is Arianism- in which Bishop Arius of Alexander taught that the Son (and presumably the Spirit) are the Primary Creations of Father God- with & through Whom, the Father created everything else. The main modern group which teaches that is the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the various Bible Students groups which originated with Charles Taze Russell. I will agree that the NT can be interpreted this way except that I believe the NT very clearly shows in the Gospels that Jesus accepts worship from other humans & in The Revelation the heavenly beings giving Jesus the same worship they give the Father. In Russell’s view, btw, the Spirit is not a personage but the Divine Energy flowing from the Eternal Father thru the First-Created Son (whose Angelic name is Michael).
Then there is Binitarianism- the Father & the Son are two distinct Eternal Divine Persons with the Spirit as Their non-personal Divine Energy. This is taught by the
various Armstrongist groups EXCEPT the original Worldwide Church of God which is NOW Trinitarian. Again- I can see how they read the NT to get this, except that I see too many personal attributes of the Holy Spirit in the NT.
So while I believe that Trinitarianism is the most accurate view to derive from the NT, I can see how Modalism, Arianism & Binitarianism can be read from the NT.
HOWEVER, to get that Eternal Intelligence created the Universe & the individualized into personages who became masters of space, time & energy- i.e.- Gods, and that one of these beings became our Father God and that Jesus is literally His Firstborn by Our Mother God. And the Holy Spirit emerged as a Divine Personage also. You have to get that from somewhere else besides just The Bible- OT or NT. And that is why many Christians do not accept the LDS- because their definition of God the Father & the Son is seen as inconsistent with the Bible and based in another source of authority- namely the prophethood of Joseph Smith.
This view is not even in the Book of Mormom- that is basically Trinitarian tho I think a couple of passages sound Modalist.
If I represented LDS theology in the above paragraph, I welcome any corrections.
If you had said that the JWs “deviated” from [your, or common] Christian theology I would have considered your views indirectly heretical, but since you are [almost] citing the bible as your source, then I’d have to say that your views are directly heretical.
The fact is, you’ve almost certainly been misled, and it is you (et al) who is the deviant.
With due regard to your parent, or pastor (both of which may have been misled also) the bible’s use of the [translated from the source languages] word “hell” does not indicate a fiery place of torment.
If you do the research you’ll find theres essentially 2 kinds of hell; one that is a common grave (which appears at Hades/Sheol and a couple spelling variants) and the other which represents total, permanent destruction (Gehenna).
IOW, in the former you have the chance to get out of hell (via resurrection) and the other from which there is no exit.
In any event, in either there is no enduring suffering in either.
I have never seen a comprehensive discussion here on the Trinity, and I’d like to see one. Unfortunately this is the busiest 8 weeks of my year, so it will have to wait a bit (if I’m to participate anyway)
For that to be truly comprehensive I would think that it might take the form of a a few companion threads:
The Holy Trinity, the Bible and the OT Jews.
The Holy Trinity, the Bible and the Gospels.
The Holy Trinity, the Bible and the Paulian NT.
The Holy Trinity, the Bible and Pagan Influences on Christian Theology.
I’ve a question for both ITR champion and Curtis LeMay: What religious groups do you consider to be acceptable faiths for presidential candidates to hold? Maybe you can even inform us of the religious affiliations of the candidates you last voted for in any election. I’m pretty certain I can come up with some “fair” questions for each and every one of those groups.
I already noted my tentative support for Romney, but I will say that if the Latter-day Saints still held to the pre-1978 view excluding the Priesthood to blacks, that would diminish greatly.
Can we all agree that Scientologists & Raelians would probably not get our political support?
Scientology isn’t really a religion, it’s a racket. Raelians I wouldn’t care about.
I was living just up the coast when Clint Eastwood was mayor of Carmel. I thought he did a good job of it. His religious beliefs did not seem to affect his performance in office in any way whatsoever.
Was Clint Raelian? 
I have never heard that he was a Scientologist–it seems that I saw an interview in which he had claimed that he shed his Protestant upbringing for agnosticism, but I would not claim my memory was accurate.
Clint Eastwood is a scientologist?! :eek:
This discussion could count as a reason why I might be disinclined to vote for a Mormon, or anybody whose religion is too front-and-center. Can you imagine 4 years of this conversation? ‘Teaching the controversy’ about the Trinity, or weird arguments about obscure Mormon ideas? On and on, instead of health care and energy policy. Ugh!
Here’s another one, Revelation 22:18
I warn every one who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if any one adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book
I always took that to mean that the Bible is completed and can’t be amended any longer. So… how can Mormons justify the extraneous text that is the Book of Mormon?
“This book” only refers to the book of Revelation itself – the only book the author was aware he was writing. He didn’t know he was writing anything that would be incorporated into a canonized “Bible.” He just didn’t want anybody to alter his own book.
Surely the author of Revelations was referring to his book, and not the entire Bible, right? The Bible as we know it did not exist when Revelations was written.