Originally Posted By utahjosh <<I wonder what the feeling by Mormons would be if my faith told me to dance the funky chicken on the graves of the dead of all other faiths to make sure their souls were right with God.>> Honestly wouldn't bother me. Well, the fact you're standing on the grave site is a "little" annoying, but if you want to dance...dance away.
Originally Posted By utahjosh Do enough so-called "critical thinking" and any belief in God and Jesus Christ becomes silly.
Originally Posted By jdub From the article: <"We don't think any faith group has the right to ask another to change its doctrines," (Mormon church elder Lance B.) Wickman said.> In other words, "your rights end where OURS begin. It's okay to infringe upon you personally; gee, folks--it's only doctrinal!"
Originally Posted By fkurucz <<CMPaley, DLDoug, other highly religious folk...how do you guys all feel about being posthumously baptized into a cult?>> I laugh, mostly because I do not consider their polytheistic baptisms to be valid. If they want to pretend that the dead will accept their bogus baptisms, they can knock themselves out. Its just a bogus as a Satanist claiming my grandmother for Satan. Only she can do that.
Originally Posted By fkurucz <<Amazing that the Catholic church is so amazingly friendly with them...>> Not really. LDS Baptisms are not considered valid by the RCC. An LDS converty to the RCC would need to be rebaptised (unlike Protestant who have valid baptisms). <<I just can't comprehend this, given how important Catholic sacraments are to them.>> That's because LDS sacraments are not Sacraments.
Originally Posted By jdub >>I'm not really sure why Jews are so outraged - if you don't believe in Mormonism then what do you care what they do?<< It's outright, ritualistic disrespect of the deceased's faith (for many people, a HUGE part of their identity). For the Jewish faith? We're talking about Holocaust victims? This is HUGE. They died for their cultural/religious identity, by the thousand. And the LDS claim that disrespecting that is part of their own faith, not to be ended by outsiders--such as, say, JEWS.
Originally Posted By jdub <<...I did see a Scientology Church in a mini-mall, that was weird.>> Did you take a Free Stress Test? These peeps have kiosks at a few malls in my area; I pass by quickly, suddenly quite interested in whatever's in the window opposite.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan The larger concern here is that history is not rewritten. The very valid concern of Jewish family members of Holocaust victims is that over time, the history will be altered and it will become "Millions of Jews AND Mormons were imprisoned and killed because of their religion." And the longer time goes on, it might become "Millions of Mormons and Jews..." Think it can't happen? History can be sanitized quite easily. For example, we no longer say that Japan engineered a "sneak" attack at Pearl Harbor. It has become a "surprise" attack, a phrase which carries a little less "judgement".
Originally Posted By melekalikimaka <<Time and time again Joseph Smith made the common uncommon for his followers>> Of course he did. All good con artists do that.
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< They actually baptize people they KNOW, people they fully understand were devout in other faiths!? Wow, that just takes it to a whole new level in my mind! Amazing that the Catholic church is so amazingly friendly with them... >>> Since the teachings of both churches is that they each have a monopoly on the truth, I guess they can understand where each other is coming from (of course, each knowing that it's THEY that are the ones with the actual, true understanding of things, but why not humor their counterparts if they support you on social issues?).
Originally Posted By fkurucz <<Since the teachings of both churches is that they each have a monopoly on the truth>> Just to be accurate, the RCC teaches that it has the "fullness" of the truth, and that other religions, to a greater or lesser degree have part of the truth. Hence it recognizes Protestant denominations as being truly Christian, even though they position a (very large) subset of the truth. Contrast this with the LDS who consider themselves to be the only true church.
Originally Posted By SuperDry << Hence it [RCC] recognizes Protestant denominations as being truly Christian, even though they position a (very large) subset of the truth. >>> When one of our fellow WE posters was going through conversion to the RCC and had all of the doctrine down by chapter and verse, he was quite adamant in telling us that Protestant churches "weren't even real churches." <<< Contrast this with the LDS who consider themselves to be the only true church. >>> Interestingly, LDS provides that the Bible is the true word of God, but only to the extent that it does not conflict with the subsequent Mormon-specific books, such as the Book of Mormon. Once again, we have LDS and RCC agreeing on something: "Sure, you're religion is true as well, but only to the extent that it doesn't conflict with ours. Whenever there's a conflict, we're right and you're wrong." BTW, not all churches and religions believe this, so it's not a universal defect in religion.
Originally Posted By utahjosh <Contrast this with the LDS who consider themselves to be the only true church.> We also say other churches teach many wonderful truths. We always have.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh How many atheists does it take to change a light bulb? There's no point in changing a bulb, because there's no light. If there was, all light bulbs would be the same.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan Well, that joke and analogy just doesn't work. An atheist would, of course, believe in light bulbs because they are tangible things. He can see the light bulb, so of course it exists. He would believe in light, because light is something that can be measured and seen and emitted from various sources, both natural and man-made. A atheist would simply climb up the latter and replace the bulb. Some religious people might pray that God will make the light bulb work again. Others would pray for the strength to climb the ladder and not fall. An agnostic, meanwhile, would wonder if the lightbulb had truly burned out, what had caused that to happen, and wouldn't rule out the possibility that it might work again.
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< We also say other churches teach many wonderful truths. We always have. >>> Is this only to the extent that those truths don't conflict with LDS teachings, or do you believe that some other church's taught truths are actually true even when they conflict with LDS teachings?
Originally Posted By fkurucz <<When one of our fellow WE posters was going through conversion to the RCC and had all of the doctrine down by chapter and verse, he was quite adamant in telling us that Protestant churches "weren't even real churches.">> That is his opinion. If they were not genuine Christian ecclesial bodies then the RCC would not recognize their baptisms. <<We also say other churches teach many wonderful truths. We always have.>> The RCC also recognizes that Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. contain a subset of the truth, but they are certainly not recognized as Christian churches.
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< That is his opinion. >>> It was quite clear that it was more than that. That was what he was taught. Now, it may have been heavily influenced by his teachers' opinions, but his statements were far more than his lay interpretations of RCC doctrine.
Originally Posted By utahjosh <Is this only to the extent that those truths don't conflict with LDS teachings, or do you believe that some other church's taught truths are actually true even when they conflict with LDS teachings?> Well, two conflicting things can't both be true. We claim to have authority and additional truths than other churches.
