Stunning Ignorance...or is it something worse?

The BBQ Pit
21

clairobscur, I want to say that you are wrong, but without any cites, I will leave that alone. I am sure someone more knowledgeable will have something to say on that.

HenrySpencer is correct. Judaism does not require that everyone be a Jew to go to heaven. Judaism has, at best, a very fuzzy idea of what happens after death, anyway, so the whole idea of needing to believe in the Jewish faith to “go to heaven” might be moot anyway. Judaism is a tribal faith. If you’re a Jew, you should follow the rules. If you’re not a Jew, no one should care whether you follow the rules or not. In fact, a non-Jew keeping Shabbat or kosher would be looked at as kind of…well, weird, from a Jewish POV.

22

That is one of the things that I like about Unity Church. It is Christian, but very open.

http://www.unity.org Click on “About Us” and then click on “More About Unity.” The question section is particularly interesting.

I don’t know if this is “sufficiently large” – but it is widespread.

23

Hey, wow, this is the first time I’ve seen my name in a Pit thread.

That’s all. Carry on.

24

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Monty *

Last I checked, I was presented with two facts:
[ol][li]The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is, in fact, a Christian denomination.[/li][li]You’re not the arbiter of which denominations are or are not Christian denominations.[/ol][/li][/QUOTE]

Lets look at a few principles that Christians believe:

  1. Christians are monotheistic ( believe in ** ONE ** God )
    ——•Joseph Smith said “The head of the gods appointed one god for us.” —June 1844, Millenial Star, p.108
    ——•Brigham Young, successor to Smith, said “How many gods there are I do not know, but there never was a time when there was no gods and worlds.” —Journal of Discourses, vol.7, p.33
    ——•In “Pearl of Great Price” we are told 49 times that the “gods” did this and that.
    ——•“As man is now, God once was; As God is now, man may become.” —Snow, 5th Prophet of the Mormon Church (Ensign 2-82)

The Bible Says:
——•In Exodus 8:10 Moses said, "Be it as you say, that you may know that there is no one like the LORD our God.
——•In Isaiah 44:8 “And you are my witnesses! Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any.”
——•In Isaiah 45:5 “I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God”
——•In 1 Corinthians 8:4 “and that ‘there is no God but one’.”

  1. Mormonism teach that to obtain salvation you must believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet:
    ——•Brigham Young declared: “Every spirit that confesses that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that he lived and died a prophet, and that the Book of Mormon is true, is of God and every spirit that does not is of anti-Christ” —Millenial Story vol. 5, p.118
    ——•“No salvation without accepting Joseph Smith” —Doctrines os Salvation 1:189
    ——•Early Mormon leader Heber Kimball said of Joseph Smith: “He has passed behind the veil, but there never will be a person in this dispensation enter into the celestial glory without his approbation.” —Journal of Discourses 4:119

While the Bible says faith and good works are needed for salvation:
——•“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” —1 John 4:1 (pointing finger at Joseph Smith)
——•“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God” —Ephesians 2:8
——•" What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. —James 2:14-17
——•"You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. " —James 2:24
——•Even Jesus talked about the importance of works in Matthew 7:16-20 ending “you will know them by their fruits.”

  1. Mormons claim that Joseph Smith was visited by God the Father and Jesus Christ near his home in New York in 1820. Joseph Smith relates that he is told that the world has been living in a total apostasy from the gospel, and that he would restore the Church of Jesus Christ.
    The Bible says :
    ——•"…which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth." 1 Timothy 3:15
    And what church is this? Maybe this one:
    ——•Jesus said "And I tell you, you are Peter [in Greek petra=rock], and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. " Matthew 16:18
    ——•“And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’.” —John 20:22
    ——•“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.” —John 16:13
    Where was this “total apostacy”?

No… Jesus said "If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. " —Mark 3:24,25
I know your going to say that it’s out of context but can certainly be applied to Protestant denominations and Eastern Orthodox enthnic divisions. Orthodox congregations include Greek, Russian, Polish, Yugoslavian, Serbian, and Syrian, among others.

25

Orbytal wrote:

Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are gods’ [Psalm 82:6]? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came — and the Scripture cannot be broken — what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’?” — (John 10:34-36)

“God loved the world so much that he sent his only Son so that whoever believes in him will never die, but will have eternal life.” — (John 3:16)

“Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” — (John 21:25)

“All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” — (Matthew 25:32)

26

That’s a brilliant job refuting #2 on Monty’s list, there, orbytal.

Or rather, a handy job of ignoring it. I don’t see anything in your “points” re: Monty’s correct assertation that you do not decide who is and is not a Christian that refutes that. So you’ve basically wasted five minutes quoting a whole bunch of nothing. Here’s a shocker for you: go look at the various things you have to believe/rules you must follow to be accepted by various flavors of Christianity and see which of them require different beliefs, both dogmatic and historical. You might be surprised.

27

Got any proof we worship more than one god, Orb?

28

Forgot to do something.

Lib: Thanks for the admirable job of refuting Orb’s laughable “refutation” of my point #1.

29

Libertarian wrote:

If you look at Psalm 82:6 you will see it is “An exhortation to judges and men in power.”—Douay-Rheims Version
Notice how ‘gods’ is not capitalized and ‘God’ is, showing the difference between a deity and one who “oversees” men.

A common passage used to attempt to validate that one needs ONLY to believe in Jesus for salvation. Au contraire, it does NOT say “that whoever only believes in him will never die” - which would indicate that while it is necessary to believe that Jesus is the Messiah for salvation, but that is not all.

notice the word “did” and not “will do”. This shows that the apostles tried to document as much as they could but there was so much that jesus did to prove He is the Son of God, that they could not document it all. It does not validate Joseph Smith’s “vision”.

This passage is talking about separating those who did good works in their life from those who did not. If you review the verse directly preceeding 32 it says “When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne:” —meaning after his death and resurrection He will separate those who, as the verses following your quote state

did and did not do good works.

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Monty said:

I never said you worship more than one God. I said you believe there is more than one God, and that the Bible states in many places that there is only one God.

31

As a Catholic, I fail to see your point regarding who gets to call others Christian. Even if you want to claim (in direct opposition to the Catechism of the Catholic Church) that Protestants are somehow not Christians, your “house divided” works equally well from the position of the Orthodox looking at Catholicism.

32

As opposed to the Roman Catholic Church’s Byzantine, Melchite, Malekite, Ukrainian, etc. Rites?

33

At the moment, the Roman Catholic Church is divided on some issues. But both the Church of the Latter Day Saints and the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant Churches are Christ-centered.

Is anyone here old enough to remember Pope John and the Ecumenical Counsel?

My grandchildren are Catholic. I am a Protestant. Yet I was asked to make the sign of the cross on their foreheads at their baptisms. That priest seemed to recognize that I am a Christian.

34

You’re basing your argument on capitalization? That’s hilar…er, interesting. Hebrew does not have capital letters. Now how are you going to modify your “argument?”

35

No, you were right the first time.

If the Douay-Rheims version was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for you too.

36

A Pitting morphs into a religious debate complete with citations to Bible passages…and His4Ever isn’t involved? Certainly this must be a sign of the coming apocalypse, I must meditate on this…now where did I leave those danged magical seeing stones?

Seriously though, what is supposed to happen when a Pit thread directed against an individual (which by definition could not appear in GD) turns into a religious discussion (which by rule must be in GD)? Does the universe and time itself collapse under the weight of this horrifying convergence of rules? Will cats and dogs dance merrily in the streets together, will gobear and JerseyDiamond share a loving embrace on the streets of San Francisco, will december declare allegiance to the Palestinian Liberation Army?

37

Will Miller add something substantive to the debate instead of posting another a smart-alecky one liner?

Apparently, not.

38

Orbytal wrote:

Your interpretation of the Psalm seems much different from that of Jesus. He actually used the Psalm to corroborate His own divinity.

When you have studied grammar (one of the tools used by those who translate the scriptures you read), you will learn that capitalized references to God are proper names. Names like God, Lord, Jehovah, etc. Orbytal, for example, is a proper name. When not capitalized, it merely references nonspecific deities.

And so you place burdens upon the backs of men that you yourself are not willing to bear?

You do not write the way you say the verse is written. You did not say, for example, that it is necessary to believe that ONLY Jesus is the Messiah. Should we assume that you think, say, Al Sharpton might also be the Messiah?

Notice that Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am”. If you believe that He is bound by temporalily, you are mistaken. For Him, the universe is simultaneously not yet begun, ongoing, and finished. He is eternal.

Let me assist you in coming back to the point, namely that your bigotry regarding nations is specious, arbitrary, and frankly evil.

39

Libertarian: I noticed that ol’ Orb didn’t bother to mention the words that both Latin & English had to add into their translations of the Hebrew & Greek scriptures to make sense in Latin & English, what with those two languages being, well, being NOT Hebrew & Greek.

You apparently also left out “and other faith groups” after “nations.”

40

Hey 0rbytal, what’s with all the little sperms in your list up there?