The differences between Mormonism and Christianity

Wow.  That external link is the most idiotic site I've ever seen.  It gives links for trying to convert people from other religions and the evolution section was laughable!  Honestly, are conservative Christians just messing with the rest of us?  Because it's got to be a joke...no one can be that ignorant...well...a person can, but an entire group?

~Zoo

I was only looking at the Mormonism article. I'm not trying to convert, believe as you will, simply point out that certain statements are incorrect.

When I hear somebody say "Mormonism is Christianity!", my response is "No, it's not!"

I m confused... Mormons do believe in your Christ... isnt that the real baseline of Christianity?

I think a better question is are they a cult... ya know with hidden teachings.... then I d say ya... but nothing wrong with that!

And when people say "Mormonism isn't Christianity", my response is, "I know. Isn't it great that they get to disassociate myself with all the asshats and dickheads that call themselves 'Christian', while still maintaining a god-given correct doctrine on the nature of God and Jesus Christ?"

Thanks for the propaganda, but I prefer to let Christ decide who is and who isn't "really Christian".  So, unless you are implying that you are Christ, you're not fit to decide.  You didn't earn that right. 

As for the parts of your propaganda that is true (all good propaganda being a mixture of truth and errors), I'll be glad to respond.  As long as our discussion stays friendly.  The minute it turns ugly, I will bow out of it.

First of all, yes, we do believe that Our Heavenly Father lived as a human being.  We have no idea if he lived a perfect life or not, however, he would have accepted his savior and had his sins forgiven. 

Actually, even the Holy Bible never denies this.  All it says is that Our Heavenly Father has always existed.  You were merely taught that that means He was always God.  The scriptures cited on your link all say "is not a man".  But nowhere does it say God was never a man.

As for God having flesh and bones, let me ask you this... When the Resurrected Jesus appeared to the Apostles, he showed them the scars on his hands and side.  He ate honeycomb and fish.  He had a body,  In fact, He said:

 39 Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.

You believe that Jesus was God in the flesh, right?  So, even in your belief, God has a body.  If He no longer has a body, then wouldn't that mean the resurrection was just a temporary thing?  I also couln't help but notice that, in your link, they cut the verse to "a spirit hath not flesh and bones" They didn't even include the obligatory "..." to show that the quote was incomplete.  I wonder why the felt the need to leave all the pesky stuff about a body out?

Many gods.  Genesis refers to God in the plural a few times.  Now, some explain that as the "royal we", which I'll admit, is a fair explanation, however when you match that with the Old Testament references to Elohim, which is also plural. Our explanation works just as well.

"Mother in Heaven".  Out of all the words that God could choose to describe His relationship to us, He uses the word "Father" (ab, in the ancient Hebrew of the original writings).  Other terms are used to describe His divinity and power, but no other word is used describe the relationship.

True, there is no known Biblical reference to the Mother of us all, but then again the word "rapture" is never mentioned in the Bible either.  If any ancient references existed, they are lost to antiquity.  So I understand why people who don't recognize modern day prophets or prophecy wouldn't know of Her or even believe She exists.

There is speculation among us LDS folk about why Mother in Heaven isn't mentioned in scripture, but no official explanation has ever been given.  To me (and this is just opinion on my part so there's no need to argue the point.  Besides, you already said what you believe about it.), it goes back to worshipping only 1 God.  To worship anyone other than Our Heavenly Father would be going against His commandments, even if it means His son, or His wife. 

I don't know where you get the idea that we believe that God would cease to exist if we mortals stopped supporting Him as God.  I read the references your link cites about this and neither D&C 93:29, 33, Abraham 3:18-23  and pg 751 in my copy of the book"Mormon Doctrine".  Niether of them make any mention of God ceasing to exist for any reason, much less because we no longer support Him as God.  Feel free to follow the links provided to read what the scriptures cited really say.  As for the book citation,  I looked for an online copy of the full text to link to for you,  but apparently none is available.

"Man in the Beginning with God".  The Book of Revelation talks about Councels in Heaven, and War in Heaven.  It talks about the Hosts of Heaven also.  Apparently God wasn't up there alone.  Now, some people would say that all those beings are the angels, and other individuals, and they have every right to their interpretation of who was up there with God back then.

Ecclesiastes teaches us:

 7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirt shall return unto God who gave it.

We know that we have a spirit within us.  We know that we have bodies made from the dust of the earth.  Our bodies return to the earth after we die, but how can our spirits "return" unto God, if our spirits have never been with God?   

Jeremiah was told by the Lord:

4 Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,  5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sactified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

I doesn't say that the Lord (being all-knowing), knew that Jeremiah would someday exist.  It before Jeremiah was even in his mother's womb, the Lord knew Jeremiah, and even ordained him a prophet.

 

~~~~~

erthoniel, none of what I just wrote tells you that you have to believe any of the teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.   I'm not telling you what, or who to believe at all.  Personally, I don't give much credence to any group whose entire lot in life is to tell you what another group believes.  I'd rather learn from people willing to tell me what they believe and why.

The internet is full of websites that talk about other people's religions.  Yours tries to convince people that the LDS Church is wrong, others try to convince people that Christianity is wrong.  There are even more dedicated to convincing people that all spiritual beliefs are wrong.

Do yourself a favor.  If you want to know what Latter-Day Saints believe, go to LDS websites.  If you want to know what Druids believe, go to Druid websites.  If you want to know what Atheists believe, there are websites run by people who are more than happy to explain.

That way, you can decide for yourself based on actual facts, not half truths and people who cut quotes short because the rest of the verse doesn't fit their propaganda.

There are obviously things taught in the LDS church that you can't accept.  That's fine, but at least you know that you disagree with actual LDS doctrine.  If all you read was websites like that one, you wouldn't even know if your disagreement was based on reality.

I knew Ted would come through, and I could just troll.

We may not agree politically very often, but rock on, Ted, rock on.

SanChonino:

Fortunately the propaganda hasn't changed much since the 80s when I was a missionary. All that's changed is the technology in spewing it.

If I missed anything, feel free to fill in the gaps.

You handled it all well. Props, brother.

Now this is a good article/comments. Interesting discussion, and now I know why I shouldn't bother with the Book of Mormon. I always wondered what could possibly be different from reading the same book, but wow.

The Godhead, three-in-one, consists of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They are joined and independent.

I do know some of the beliefs of the LDS through first-hand experience, and what I have gleaned from my relatives complies perfectly to this stereotype.

I can see the differences between arethoniel's religion and Christianity.

Anyway, three points...

First, Zoologist is right. The site leaves a lot to be desired. I refuse to learn theology from Web sites that display so much ignorance on other subjects.

 

Second, any comparison between Christianity and X (with X being a form of Christianity or some other religion) that relies on the "Old Testamant"'s view of G-d should better be done VERY CAREFULLY and by people with a very deep understanding of the Tanakh, the Hebrew language, Semitic legends and traditions, and history.

Going back a few thousand years the Hebrews, like all other Semites, believed in lots of gods, most prominently Baal (some Phoenician god, the word today means "master" or "husband") and El (a creator god, the word literally means "god").

When Judaism developed the existence of many gods was not denied. Judaism was about the idea that of all those gods out there only one is important and "real". And in fact both statements ("there are no other gods" and "there are other gods but they are not like you") can be found in the Bible and in modern Jewish prayers.

"El" is Aleph Lamed and also exists in the form Aleph Lamed He. The second word appears in the Hebrew Bible mostly in the Plural: "Elohim". In fact, it is the third word of the Bible. The verb associated with it is Singular though because the Plural here is a polite form, similar to English "you" and French "vous". The same Aleph Lamed He root is the base of Arabic "Allah", which is a contraction of Arabic Aleph Lamed (definite article) and Arabic "Ilah" (Aleph Lamed He) meaning "god".

Elohim does address other gods occasionally and teaches His people not to pray to those other gods. Hence those other gods became associated with unimportant things. Baal became "Baal Zevuv" (English "Beelzebub"), literally "the lord of the flies". But the Punic empire still prayed to Baal resulting in famous names like "Hannibal" ("the grace of Baal", "Hanna" means "grace" in Hebrew and Phoenician).

It is an important part of Jewish theology to understand that Jewish monotheism consists of belief in ONE god who is ONE. But that same monotheism has no other specific rules about other gods. Whether they exist or not is not important to Jews. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. The point is that only the creator god "El" (or "Elohim") is of any importance (at least to Jews).

Belief in (only) El became very common in the middle east from around 1000 BCE among the descendants of both of Abraham's children (Jews and arabised Arabs) and among other related tribes (Mandaeans, who reject Moses and Jesus). Christianity grew from that ecosystem.

Taking statements from the Bible literally is not an intelligent way to uncover the truth because the Bible also speaks of the "hand of G-d" (even though G-d is incorporeal) and because Hebrew is, like Arabic, a very poetic language and literal translations (which are usually analysed by Christians) are misleading. (For example, in Hebrew the phrase "hand of G-d" is less likely understood as referring to a real hand. And famous Jewish theologicians didn't read descriptions of angels as physical descriptions of real beings either.)

And the third point is the issue of new testaments. Since Christianity is based on the idea that there is a "New Testamant" which will happily redefine and reexplain things to fix G-d's earlier misguided attempt to tell people the truth by giving them a long text written by the perfect Author, it is difficult for me to accept why the "Book of Mormon" could not equally change (or reexplain) bits of the "New Testamant". Of course, I believe in neither the validity of the "New Testamant" not the "Book of Mormon".

Saying that Mormonism is not Christianity based on not issues about belief in Christ but on details like who doubts what particular part of the Hebrew Bible seems ridiculous to me.

 

 

Good for you....for  telling the truth.

 

Telling a truth is easy.

There are so many.

 

Since I'm a Christian I guess I am who you are describing here?  I take offense SC.  What if I said this about Mormons?  Would you take offense? 

"But Jerusalem which above us is free, which is the mother of us all."  Gal 4:26

Rapture is NOT in scripture but "caught up" is and is where we get our English word Rapture from the Latin. 

Scripture tells us repeatedly that God knew us before the foundation of the world.  I don't believe scripture speaks of us "alive" spiritually anywhere before the womb tho. 

""According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. "  Eph 1:4

I believe you're talking foreknowledge with Jeremiah as with Paul as he said similar words in Gal 1. 

Also read Luke 1 where John's father is being told about his yet unborn son. 

"For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb."  1:15

 

No, friend, I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about all those who say they are Christians, but their actions are so far away from anything that Christ taught.

There are, too, far too many Mormons who are the same way.

Oh, so you mean like me then?

I'm working on it...

Jythier:

Like I said to erathoniel, if you disagree with LDS doctrine, that's fine. But make sure what you disagree with is actual LDS doctrine and not people who misrepresent it (and sometimes outright lie).

erathoniel:

So where is Christ's body now? When He appeared to the Apostles he said that "a Spirit hath not a body, as ye see me have".



I demonstrated where the people who run the website you link misrepresented Luke 24 and outright lied about D&C 23, Abraham 3 and the book "Mormon Doctrine". I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on their dishonesty.

Well, I made sure not to make up my mind. I figured, if your comments indicated he had certain things correct, I would then be able to disagree with true Mormon doctrine.

I always thought we had the same starting point and just a few differences from the BoM and the prophets the Mormon church recognized, but there's a lot of difference there.

I don't know whether the differences will keep you out of heaven. See, you stil believe in a savior who died for your sins. That's the really important part. The rest of it is not as important. I figure, as long as you're reading your Bible and asking God to reveal Himself to you through it, you're going to get to know God.

It just seems odd that because the Bible doesn't say God the Father wasn't a man, you would jump to it that he was a man at some point, and lived a life. I mean, He lived through Jesus Christ, but that's God the son. Same God there. It never said God wasn't a butterfly, either. Maybe He lived a life as a butterfly.



This, at least, makes sense.



This is interesting. Catholics seem to have given Mary the role of 'Mother in Heaven' so it's not quite as out there as one might think.

The reason I can't follow this to where you take it with God having a wife is that the words used to describe God encompass both sexes parental roles. He's the disciplinarian, and He's the comforter. He is all encompassing, and beyond gender roles. Because He is both, he has no need for a wife to be our Mother. He can do it all.

The Trinity is really, really weird. I don't really even understand it when I really try to think about it. I'm working on it, okay? But God said, "Have no other Gods before me." So you're right, worshipping someone besides Him would be against His commandments. So the protestant Christian came up with the concept of God being in three parts, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. I don't know where this comes from in scripture. But it basically says, the Son is the same God, so we can worship both Him and we're still worshipping God. (wouldn't this mean we could worship the Spirit too?) I'm looking at it, and it doesn't make perfect sense from here.

Anyway, there are some out there things and some other things, like how can a spirit return to God when it never was with God? Maybe he created it and sent it right away...

Jythier:

That's the point isn't it. That is why I'm glad it's not my job to decide who is Christian and who isn't.



If that was the only reason we believe that, then yeah, it wouldn't work for me either. Our Doctrine & Covenance and Pearl of Great Price are the scriptures that explain this doctine. So the basic question here is, are those books the word of God or aren't they. Only reading and prayer can answer that for you... or anyone.



That's a decent interpretation too. That one and ours work equally well if all we had was our own reasoning to go by.

Sometimes I wish I could just get a peak at heaven and see who's there, and what kind of people are there, because I seriously want to be with God when I go.

Maybe if I acted that way more often, it would sound better coming out.

I'm not pointing fingers here (index or middle), but I'm merely pointing out that some of the fundamental differences render the two sects incompatible.

Era, you proud of me for staying on topic on this one?

Oh no, I ruined it!

On topic is relative.

Jythier:

Don't we all! I'm just glad God did allow a few people a peek at heaven and told them to write about it. I'm also glad He blessed us with prayer so we can verify things we learn with God.


Jythier:

Fair enough, in your understanding, you believe they are incompatible.

I don't have any problem with anyone telling me why they don't believe the LDS church's doctrines. I do take issue with people who misrepresent us though. Differences in interpretation of scripture is fine, but the least they could do is make sure the references they site are accurate. If they feel secure in their opinion of our doctrine, they should have no problem being honest about it.

I understand very much why people would disagree with some of our doctrines, if all our doctrines and claims were the same as every other Christian teachings, there would have been no reason for the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith or the Restoration.

The bottom line is, truth is truth no matter who accepts or rejects it. While it is interesting and informative to share our beliefs with each other, the only opinion that matters is God's. So we can point out scripture all we want, but unless we take our questions to God himself, we'll never get correct answers.



We also know who it is that tempts us to not pray.