21 Questions Answered About Mormon Faith

I'm not an atheist but I don't really care whether Mormon's believed God had a physical body. There are certainly many things about LDS that I find wierd but there are many things I find about all religions to be wierd. My own view is that while religious views matter in elected leaders they shouldn't be a litmus test. What should matter is who someone governs and treats people. Romney had a good run as governor and generally seems to be decent. I don't agree with him on several issues though and won't be voting for him but out of that religion is near the bottom of the list.

I was musing about this in another thread that as a non-Christian I accept it that there aren't going to be candidates of my faith running so it seems like much less of a deal. It may be different for those who follow mainline Christian denominations that they have taken it for granted that candidates are going to be people who share their faith.

 

weslinder.....

Most of the Mormon people I have met and interacted with are very nice, very caring, and very interesting people.

Sounds like you have had the same experience, by and large.

MadMax makes a good point....common ground can be found in some aspects, but that never means you should compromise your beliefs.

Our small group from church has been tossing around the idea of studying other religions, and even bringing in members from these religions to speak about their beliefs and core doctrines. If we get it going, I'll certainly post some of the conversation.

 

I disagree with most of that. I also don't believe that when I take communion, the bread and wine becomes Christ's literal body and blood. I can take every major branch of Christianity and come up with things that I disagree with. Mormons get the biggest parts right, and they're generally really good people. The rest of it matters less.

 

1. where do you go to church?

2. you should absolutely, positively do this. i did it alongside a pastor who was prepaing for a sermon series on comparative religion. we visited hindu temples, buddhist temples, and a mosque for friday prayers. met some great people. never ever never forget that though religion frames it this way, there is no us vs. them. if you believe in the God revealed through Christ, then you know that God loves those people no less than he loves you....and you should do the same. (sorry for the sermon! )

 

Max...

1. Chase Oaks Church (used to be Fellowship Bible Church North) www.chaseoaks.org

2. I agree. A friend of mine always says, "Jesus died for everyone, not just Christians."

I'd be interested to hear more about your experiences you mention above. If you have some time (without having to type it all up like a term paper), let me know and perhaps you can send or email me some info.

 

i emailed you.

 

Just found this thread. (Don't read the D&D much) As one of the resident Mormon's on the board, I'll try to respond to some of the questions on here when I have time.

 

This one came up a couple of times so I'll comment on that.

People frequently ask why Mormon's believe that Jesus and Satan (Lucifer) are/were brothers. Well, we believe that ALL CHILDREN of God are brothers and sisters. So by definition, since we believe that Jesus was God's son and Lucifer was God's son, they are technically brothers. But also by definition, Jesus and Gandhi would be considered brothers, and so would Hitler and Lucifer. We don't apply any special significance to the fact that Jesus and Satan are brothers, but outsiders at some point along the line decided it would sound damning to imply some kind of blasphemy from drawing the connection.

But we definitely believe that everyone (and everything) was created by God spiritually before we were born. As such, we believe that we existed as spirit children of God in heaven before we came to earth. We also do believe that it was Jesus, as the Firstborn of all creation, who proposed the plan that would allow us to come to Earth and have a Savior and ultimately receive Salvation. We also believe that Lucifer proposed an alternate plan that was rejected and that ultimately lead to his fall from heaven.

 

1) do mormons believe god has a wife?

2) what was lucifers alternate plan?

 

I broke up your comments here, HOOP-T, because this is where things get a little off track.

For one thing, Mormon's absolutely believe that Jesus is Diety eternally: past, present, and future. Alpha and Omega, the Great I Am, the Great Jehovah. While his death on the cross was part of his divine mission, he was already the Lord and Savior. As for "the character and life of Jesus is attainable by anyone who performs at such a righteous level", that's just not true.

We are absolutely dependent on the grace of Jesus Christ to be saved. We believe that we are saved through the grace of Christ, but that you don't just get a "free pass" if you proclaim to be a Christian.

The example that is often given is that of the Mediator. For example, if you borrow $1,000,000 from the bank and you can't make the payment, the bank is going to foreclose on you. But let's say you have a financially responsible friend who has plenty of money saved up. He agrees to pay off your mortgage, but in return he asks for a $25/month payment and maybe you have to go rake his leaves once a month.

Obviously it's not a perfect example, but this is in essence how Mormon's view sin and Jesus' role in our salvation. Since we're all sinners, there's absolutely nothing we can do to get ourselves out of debt with God outside of taking our punishment and going to Hell. However, because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, everyone can be saved through His grace. In return, he asks us covenant with Him to keep His commandments and become baptized in His name and take His name upon us. As such we seek to emulate His life and represent ourselves as Christians by our actions.

Getting baptized and then going out and shooting up a school would be a good example of not keeping those covenants.

 

1) There is no official scripture, statements, "secret code" or anything that says that He does. Mormons do, however, believe that marriages performed in the temple will continue in the life to come if both the husband and the wife remain faithful.

A lot of people will take that a step further and speculate that if God's children are able to have marriage in heaven, then maybe God himself has a wife. But it's just not something that is taught or written anywhere.

My feeling is that even if God does have a wife, if after several thousands of years of revelation and scripture and prophets, he hasn't bothered to bring it up yet, it is obviously not important to my personal salvation.

2) Lucifer's plan basically boiled down to the lack of freewill, where he would act as the enforcer of sorts and ensure that everyone would be saved.

 

Interesting stuff...thanks for the information DarkHorse. Much appreciated.

I suppose that, just as with any religion, there are differences (or variations) in beliefs from church to church and on a personal level as well.

But a lot of what you are saying is in line with what I believe. So what would you say the main differences are between Mormon beliefs (I guess doctrine would be a better choice of words) and Christian, or strictly bible-based doctrine?

Also, can you shed some light on the item regarding receiving your own "planet" based on your stature through works, etc.? I've heard so much of this from a few Mormon church-goers as well as others. What is the true belief there?

 

This is false. The Christian Bible is no more historically reliable than the Book of Mormon.

Besides this point in fact, though, I'm pleasantly surprised that most of the Christians in this thread haven't called the Mormon faith absurd. Often members of one religion impugn another's beleifs when neither have any basis in fact. The posters here seem much more in tune with the teachings of Jesus than their coreligionists.

 

Actually, there is virtually no variation from congregation to congregation, which is one of the great strengths of the church. We believe the Lord has a prophet who receives active revelation from God, and as such no matter where you are in the world, you are literally part of the same global church. Even the Sunday School lessons that are given from week to week are the same everywhere. I've attended nearly a hundred different congregations throughout my life, across the country and across the world, and the teachings of the church are the same everywhere.

But also understand that Latter Day Saints live a principle based lifestyle. There are many things that are very explicitly spelled out. (no smoking and no alcohol for example) But where other things aren't explicitly spelled out you get some variation among individuals. For example, while coffee and tea are explicitly spelled out as things not to consume, caffeine isn't... The principle appears to be to avoid addictive substances, so most Mormons abstain from caffeine. However, since it's not explicitly spelled out, many Mormons DO drink caffeine, and they are considered upstanding members of the church. A lot of the "differences" may stem from people's interpretation into areas of speculation. But really there aren't many. Certainly not that matter.

By far the number one difference between Mormon Christians and other Christians is our claim of a modern day prophet and the restoration of God's priesthood authority on the Earth.

Protestant religions are largely based on the notion that the Catholic church had deviated from the teachings that Jesus established when he was on the earth. As such, people like Martin Luther and Calvin and many others sought a return to the teachings of the Bible. Mormons, on the other hand, do not base their beliefs solely on their interpretation of events in the Bible. We use the Bible, (the King James Version) and we accept it as holy scripture. But we believe that, while the Lord has already revealed everything we need to know about our own salvation collectively, that the heavens are still open and that he continues to give us guidance.

Nearly everything science-fictiony related to Mormon beliefs has been either initiated or perpetuated by the movie "The God Makers", which was made by a guy named Ed Decker back in the early 80's. The fact is that the movie is total hogwash, but at some point along the line people started taking it seriously, which is unfortunate because it has considerably less credibility than Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Here's a kind of funny commentary on it that someone else wrote: http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_SciFi.shtml#scifi

As far as "getting a planet" or whatever? It's not part of the teachings of the church. We believe that God lives in heaven, and that God is an actual physical being, and that heaven is not the same place as earth. We believe that if you follow God's commandments you can go and live in God's presence in heaven. If you chose to interpret that as going to live on another planet when we die, then I guess I see where you're coming from, but I would choose different words.

 

ive heard the same thing about becoming a god of your own planet. that one threw me for a loop.

 

This is quite a stretch. There are a lot of historical and timeline-type issues with the gospels.