The Living Son of the Living God

I’d prefer reading in my native language, because my knowledge of your languange is no so well. But it was interesting! Look for some my links:

I’d prefer reading in my native language, because my knowledge of your languange is no so well. But it was interesting! Look for some my links:

Thanks for sharing

mogby nhuqefs xewzd edtwgprsh fdrvg tlchbg kgnrqy

THE REVELATION
OF ST JOHN THE DIVINE
CHAPTER 20

12 And I saw the adead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

We believe that according to the scriptures, we are saved by the grace of Jesus Christ but also by works. In revelations, you will be judged from the Book of Life according to your works. It will not be only by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ but also from good works.

Many people read the Bible and even earn the reputation as a Bible “scholar” because of their study and writings about what they have studied. But it is actually not the reading of the Bible that is the loving Him but the doing of it as James says in chp 1:22-25.

The apostle John also tells us in his first letter, chp 2:3-5 that knowing God is about doing what He tells us to do, or obeying His commands. If we do obey His commands His love is truly made complete in us. John goes on to say that another way we demonstrate our love for Jesus is to love our brothers. In fact, this is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in His presence when our hearts condemn us.

Knowing and loving God is all about doing as He lovingly commands His children. What are His commands? To believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as He commanded us.

Finally, Jesus commanded us in the “Great Commission” to go and make disciples of all nations… and teach them to obey everything He commanded us. A disciple is a student who carries his role much further than the typical student of today. He is one who not only learns the teachings of his master but also works to become like his master. The commands of our Master are actually few; believe and love.

Fortunately He does not order us to somehow develop emotional responses, as we are prone to define love, He simply says, I love you, I will only command you to do what is good for you and for others and I will consider it love if you will just do your best to obey what I have commanded you. Believe in Me and love as I love. Know Me, love Me.

I just wanted to make a statement. I believe there's a god, though i admit i am not sure. I do know that i have felt some type of overwhelming loving presense many times in my life. I know that when i read the scriptures and pray i feel more peace in my life and i feel closer to this presense. I know that when i haved asked to be forgiven from my sins i have felt the cleansing affect of a savior.

what does all this mean, guess im still trying to figure it out.

Health in the navel, marrow in the bones, strength in the loins and the sinews. Power in the priesthood be upon me and upon my posterity through all generations of time and throughout all eternity.

John D wrote:

"I think Mormon epistemology and ontology provides one of the best answers to this question. I'll respond with a post in a few days."

{Rather than go on about my thoughts on Mormon epistemology and ontology, I decided to take my response to Pheadrus a different route. If any one is interested in hearing my thoughts on the subject of Mormon ontology and epistemology (which I doubt) let me know and I'll post them too.}

Pheadrus wrote:

"would you please explain why any Mormon would then place any weight whatsoever in what any of the church's prophets say?"

Before I begin my response, I would like to tie it back to the theme of this thread so not to get too off the subject. When Latter Day Saints say that Jesus is “living” they mean more than that he is just alive somewhere--they mean that he is actively interacting with human kind in same way he did in Biblical times. We believe that Jesus is Yahweh of the Old Testament- he is one who calls Prophets to speak in his name, and establishes a covenant people guided and held together by the ministry of these prophets. The “Good News” of what we call the Restored Gospel of Christ is both that Christ lived and died to save us from the inevitable consequences of our sins, but also that the grand narrative of God found in the Bible continues in our day. Prophets and apostles commune with God and speak in His name, angels visit the earth, miracles occur and the scriptural cannon is expanded.

These Modern Day Prophets have been inspiring people to be disciples of Christ and maintaining a unified covenant people of the Lord for nearly two hundred years. They have said many things and practically been followed around with a stenographer everywhere they’ve gone. This vast and rich record has been exploited by those who are attempting to demonstrate that the claim that God has called Prophets today are false.

There are within this records occasional statements which injure modern sentiment, Mormon and non-Mormon alike. This is inevitable when you have people who are from different times and places, and who, consequently, have absorbed different assumptions about the nature of reality.

The point I wish to make is that non-believers expect more from these men than their mantel affords them. These are not embodied gods, but rather Prophets and Apostles after the Biblical tradition. The Biblical record demonstrates that God did not culturally reprogram His Prophets and Apostles into children of the enlightenment. For example Moses, Abraham, Peter and Paul did not share our modern abhorrence to slavery, and patriarchal dominance. Because I personally believe that God does abhor these things, I must explain how God speaks through these individuals while at the same time looking past their cultural baggage.

In Social Work discourse there is a saying ‘start where the client is.’ Which is what the Lord must do with us, he cannot give us all truth at once:

“For precept must be upon precept…line upon line…here a little, and there a little” (Isaiah 28:10).

In our day Jesus has said:

“these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding.” (D&C 1:24).

The Lord must work within our weakness (opinions, lame brained ideas, personality defects, limited intelligence) and language (which necessarily includes our categories of thought and taken for granted assumptions) to even communicate with us.

This is a large part of the Prophetic fallibility I was talking about.

So why should we give any weight to what the Prophets say? Because despite this limitation, the Lord still speaks to His people through them.

Followers of Paul and Peter perhaps did not become enlightened with regards to slavery, but that did not prevent them from learning many principles of Christian discipleship and the only name under which they could enter the Kingdom of God.

Modern Prophet’s role is to point the way to Christ. It is their calling prepare and sanctify the covenant people of the Lord for blessings in Eternity.

The Lord calls other people to fulfill other missions. God’s work extends beyond the church and He has servants outside of it. I believe He called people like Martin Luther King Jr., George Washington, John Wesley, Charles Darwin etc., to fulfill different missions than that of a Prophet after the Biblical tradition.

I, for one, am not bothered that a Prophet’s role is so limited. Their words and teachings have given me the abundant life. Life following their counsel is radiant and beautiful. The Holy Spirit bears witness to my Spirit that they speak for Jesus. Their words bring me to Him and I thus partake of His peace.

“If there are faults they are the mistakes of men; wherefore, condemn not the things of God, that ye may be found spotless at the judgment-seat of Christ”

(Mormon, Title page of the Book of Mormon).

I used to believe the same things the evangelical Christians are saying on this website. That the Latter Day Saints were not Christian, and that they meant to deceive by pointing out the things we all agree upon and hiding the things that are more unusual to evangelicals in order to be more mainstream. I was raised in a Christian home, went to baptist and community churches my whole life, was born again, accepting Christ as my Savior. I went to a Bible college for a year. My father and mother were missionaries with the General Baptist Conference in the Philippines for 8 years, and then became pastors in their older age. They set a very good example for me of what it meant to serve the Lord. I, however, reached a low point in my life about 7 years ago and no Christian came forward to help me. The missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints came. They took me in. Invited me to their church to investigate and gave me a Book of Mormon. I read it with a closed mind at first, then an amazing thing happened one day as I was reading. I started to cry. I was believing it. I then read all I could to understand this book. I started going to the LDS church and noticed the families together sitting. The children were well behaved, the teenagers were dressed appropriately and all had a sweetness I had not ever seen in my growing up years in church. I watched "Special Witnesses of Christ" and listened to the Quorum of the Twelve give their testimonies, and I knew these were men of God leading this Church! I was baptised in 2001 and you know what happened? Our Heavenly Father and his Son are still with me, only now I have the gospel in all its fullness, wheras before the light was dim and I had no idea that it was until someone showed me it could be brighter. I have also learned Latter Day Saints don't strive to be mainstream. They are very different and unusual. Their family life is anything but mainstream, and that is why their lives stood out from the rest for me. It was this testimony of the Savior by faith and love that led me ever closer to Him. I went to the LDS Easter production in Arizona and Christian people were holding up picket signs protesting the performance. I was outraged at first, but the people my husband and I went with were at peace. Being members their whole lives, they were used to it. Didn't say a word about it or comment. They just passed by, anxious to get a seat to see the wonderful performance. Yes, these are the peculiar people, called out of darkness into his marvelous light, and I love their God and their Savior. Thank you for the encouraging column. The fact that Jesus has risen brings forgiveness and hope of eternal life to all who believe on Him!

"It has served us well. This myth of Christ"

-Pope Leo X

I have grown up a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I believe Christ to be our Redeemer and Savior. He lived and died so that we might live again with Him and our Father. Do I believe they are separate? Of course I do. To me, it is much less confusing to believe in God the Father, and His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost as 3 separate individuals. Yes, the bible explicitly states that Christ and The Father are one. Sects can argue all they want on whether that is in a physical nature or not. I believe as Jesus taught in John 17 during his great intecessory prayer. He prayed that his disciples, those who did and would believe on Him would be "one" as He and His Father are one. I do not believe that means that we are all going to congeal together anytime during this life or the life to come. We are individuals, as was Christ and His Father. If they are not separate, how could Christ have asked for a separate way to save us of the Father? Nevertheless he followed his Fathers will. How could he claim His Father had forsaken Him? Was he in fact praying just to Himself? Of course not, the thought not only is illogical but confusing. Obviously His prayer was not for show, but a true cry from the anguish which He was feeling. Christ when He was ressurrected told Mary to relay to his disciples that He would go to His God and their God. That sounds separate to me. Yes, Christ told one of the Apostles that If they had seen Him they had seen the Father. In Hebrews Chapter one it says he was "made" and had the express image of His Father. Would God the Father be made? Those who attack our beliefs and then try to make out that they know more than those who profess the faith are quite misguided.

Do we believe that God is literally the Father of Jesus Christ? Yes! Any claims on how this was accomplished are pure speculation, I can attest that because there is no teaching that I have heard that says, "this is how it happened." God is not confined to the same mode of creation that we are limited to. In His way and abiding some eternal law that would allow Him to Father Jesus, yet for mary to still be a virgin, Christ was formed. The scriptures say in Luke 1:35 that yes, the Holy Ghost would come upon her, and the "Power of the Highest" would overshadow her. Last I checked, the Holy Ghost was considered the 3rd part of the trinity or Godhead in most any religion that believes in them. It is not the "Highest" for that is our Heavenly Father. And for those who have any argument about saying who the father is, if they believe in the 3 in 1 doctrine, it wouldn't make a difference! Christ would then be the Son of God the Father, himself, and the Holy Ghost all at once!

Christ lives. God does as well as does the Holy Ghost. They live separately and independently of eachother as concerned to their physical nature and their spirits. But the oneness that is so often spoken of, is that they are always 100% in harmony in their purpose, which is helping us to achieve eternal life.

Also, for those who claim that the words outside of the Bible are unfounded and should not be a source of faith, I ask this. Why then should we place faith in what the apostles wrote after the time of Christ based on inspiration? How do we know that they all kept the faith and did not slide in subtle yet false teachings? How do we even know that our interpretations are correct? Through faith of course! In fact, the only known revelation in our day and time coming directly from God, claiming that the Bible as we have it does in fact contain the word of God, is found in revelation from a Mormon Prophet. Quite honestly, without a direct statement from God, it is just faith believing that correct scriptures were included in the bible.

Christ himself did not come down and compile the bible, but it was voted on by men of faith as most of us here are. Of course none of us is perfect, nor anyone but Christ will be while we live on this earth. So we rely that they were guided by faith. In no place in the bible, does it state that God would never speak to his children again. In fact, in the book of Revelations, it speaks of Prophets in the last days helping in Jerusalem. If they were to discourse to the people there, would not their words be worthy of being recorded? The only thing remotely close to saying that nothing should be added or taken away, comes at the end of the Book of Revelation, and refers only to the Book of Revelation. The Bible was not yet compiled, nor was it ever compiled in exact chronological order. Most experts believe that Revelations was written before most of Johns other books.

But those who choose to believe differently, will continue to believe differently. The reason is because you can't prove faith based on fact. God prepared it that way so that we would need to be "believers" to be saved. He never said, those who are able to prove every jot and tittle of the scriptures by scientific evidence and historical evidence will be saved. No, he makes it simpler, so that all who will hear and can understand, might be saved. I hope not to have offended anyone, nor was my intention to try to sway anyone or convince them of differently. My statements are to note that though others find our beliefs completely unfounded by scriptural analysis, there are in fact scriptures that give us basis to our faith. The rest is as I said. Faith.

Dear Pheadrus,

"Ignoring the circularity of this statement for now, would you please explain why any Mormon would then place any weight whatsoever in what any of the church's prophets say?"

Thanks for your response to my quote. I think it was helpful, as it expressed what many were probably thinking of as they read my post. First, I will give it to you, my statement is quite circular. It’s charitable of you to "ignore...[it] for now." I also found your tongue and cheek interpretation of the principle of ongoing revelation to be food for thought.

Your question is poignant and it deserves a well thought out answer. I think, as you suggested, it's not just a Mormon problem, but it plagues all revelatory religions. How does one respect the integrity of divine communication while at the same time avoiding dogmatism and inflexibility? I think Mormon epistemology and ontology provides one of the best answers to this question. I'll respond with a post in a few days. I hope you have a great Christmas.

After reading all the fighting and trolling here, I take comfort in the words of the Savior as recorded in the testimony of Matthew:

11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
13 ¶ Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

http://scriptures.lds.org/en/matt/5/11-16

Pardon me, I meant to say "mapped by science," as opposed to "aped."

And as for Eliot, Mary, geat poet/poor cosmologist.

"I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas." Truth is, we were.

To Mary:
You write:

"The universe is not rational. The universe is not even very knowable. And what we do know will probably be revised in, say, ten years time."

If mankind had followed this mindset throughout history we would, indeed, know nothing of the universe. History proves you wrong, although those who think like you apparently do, have acted in ways to greatly retard man's quest for knowledge throughout recorded history. The universe is quite clearly rational, and we have come to understand it, progressively so, through rationality itself.

You are correct in your supposition that much of what is currently thought correct about the nature of the univese will be revised over the next ten years. But, that is the beauty of the rational, scientific method. In an honest search for truth, actual regard for that which is sought trumps the narcissistic need to hang onto ideas which have been discredited. Such cannot be said for religion, in its view of nature, painting itself into a corner by clinging to the supposed accuracy of ancient thought, which, bit by bit, has been exposed as primitive indeed. Thus, religion does truly fear the encroachment of scientific understanding, as Jefferson so famously said, "like witches fear the coming of dawn." The domain of te supernatral is merely territory not yet aped by science. But, we are working on that, and bit by bit, that corner religion has painted itself into is getting smaller.

I don't believe in any of the crap being posted here.
I was just a carpenter and was killed for expressing a different opinion. I never claimed to anything but ... However, if want to get killed and beome a legend like me get on the wrong side of George. All those have been victims of George may become Gods or Sons of Gods one day.
You too can achieve this status of god if you are not a Republican.

May Grorge grant you your wish.

Dear David,

The universe is not rational. The universe is not even very knowable. And what we do know will probably be revised in, say, ten years time.

Religion is simpler and its form more beautiful than mathematics, if only because the very advanced math necessary to understand even basic cosmological pricipals is not amenable to most, while the beauty of the music and art and poetry--and is not religion celebrated with music and art and poetry?--are available to all.

St Augustine of Hippo wrote that time and the universe were brought forth together, that God--who is timeless--created time itself along with the universe. Did He then enter time--the timeless entering time--through the person of Jesus? These mysterious words are understandable to us, although maybe not comprehesive, what the Buddhist call a koan.

Anyway,we can talk ourselves into circles on the matter. The poets were better. Here is some Eliot on time:

Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now. Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension.....
Decay with imprecision will not stay in place,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scolding,mocking, or merely charrering,
Always assail them. The Word in the desert
Is most attacked by voices of temptation...
...............................................
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiry
Except in the aspect of time
.................................
Sudden in a shaft of unlight
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always--
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.

TS Eliot, "Burnt Norton", V.

To Jan, who "doesn't care a thing about history and/or facts"

OK--we differ a lot here, I believe that the history of a person or entity comprises the person him/her/itself. However, you err when CITING history you haven't even bothered to learn.

What happened was that after the fall of the Roman Empire in the West (it would continue for another millennium in the East as Byzantium), Christianity--as imposed by the uninvited Roman occupiers--in Celtic, Frankish and Anglo Saxon lands crumbled even more quickly than did the sumptuous Roman villas. The idea bouncing around these forums that after the fall of Rome the Christianity of Western Europe was spread by the sword is worse than ignorant: it is laughably, palpably false. Whose sword, pray tell, was it? Rome was gone. Byzantium was satisfied with its empire in the east. The Scandinavians were pagan, as were the Franks, as were the Saxons, as were the Celts.

The story of its rebirth by peaceful means,the story of those early missionaries--Sts Benedict, Columba and Patrick--is to me quite wonderful (I first wrote miraculous but I won;'t use that word). And strange, very strange.

"He is our King, our Lord, our Master, the living Christ, who stands on the right hand of His Father."

This is a very clear statement, which is not surprising, as it was delivered by a living prophet.

How convenient.

Eat all you want and vomit afterwards to avoid the consequence.

And sin all you want and someone who suffered has paid the price.

Jesus Christ had a message from God, doubt - but those who are too weak to follow it have distorted that message to avoid personal responsibility, including practicing polytheism unknowingly by confusing the worship of God with the worship of man.

Sin all you want and your sins have been accounted for.Eat all you want and vomit afterwards.

Wake up and take accountability for your actions before it's too late, and do yourself a favor.
Thank you.

Apparently the Washington Post has established itself as another religious (christian) newspaper, along with Rev. Moon's Times. My God! Is the New York Times next? The religious hypothesis on the nature of the universe and human existence is not worthy of serious consideration. Yet the religious far outnumber atheists, especially in these United States, a product of the Enlightenment (which could be called "The Enlightenment that Failed"). Why? The answer lies in the evolution of human psychology and in the evolution of religion itself. Religion evolved, along with government with which it is closely allied, as a method of societal developement and control. My guess is that it arose along with male dominance among our long-gone pre-sapient ancestors. Tribal leaders, for practical, political reasons, were probably the first gods. Religion has no doubt survived as a mechanism to serve some tribal purpose. Perhaps it provided, and still provides, motivation to keep up the struggle to survive in a hard world. There is infinitely more truth and beauty in rational explanations of the universe, than religious mumbo-jumbo can offer. I wish you all a Merry Christmas!

Mercy - all you fellow bloggers:
First: A high handed salute to the Washington Post, to the creation of On Faith and to the moderators that do such a splendid job.
Second: The diversity of panelists commenting on weekly topics
offers a most candid and literal look at religious/spiritual/secular views. I use to pay money to get Karen Armstrong's commentary - this when I bought her books. The same re other authors. I view it as a privileged opportunity to scan this site.
Third: For a minute I assumed Otteson was the target of naysayers galore and then I noted Susan Joacoby had a mere 342 responses. Energy for and against secularists trumps that of Mormon bashing?
Fourth: Otteson and Cal Thomas (mercy) offer the same New Testament, Matthew 16:13-16 commentary in their remark. Cal Thomas - his political commentary - in my view - often has an air of moral superiority - but I'll not use this site to malign or mix political with seasonal religious tone.
Fifth: Faith - humans often use the term Hope, some use Faith in describing circumstance surrounding relationships with other humans, partners, children, healing, nature, sun, and stars. Some humans offer the term Faith in a religious or spiritual setting. If use of the term in one setting is so easy and accepted, why such castigation and outright hostility by so many if some humbly offer that faith is also part and parcel of their religious/spiritual view?
Sixth: Diversity and pluarality of religious views. Folk seem to be so cloistered and caught, and self-absorbed in their own private view on religious/spiritual matter. What is so strange and absurd to one is apparantly natural and normal to another?
Seventh: Deadly Sins; casting the first stone; folk like Ottenson, or Jacoby for that matter, take the time and effort to cast a reasoned response and then BAM, the naysayers and malcontents start tossing stone after stone; and then in Ottenson's case, disregard the tenor and tone of his piece and launch a frontal attack against his aligned religious organization.
Amazing the ease that so many have in casting these stones.
Civil critical dialouge is approppriate, but mean spirited and vitriolic attacks - cause for wonder - where and why the voracious negative energy?
Last: To those of us cast in the Christian theater, remembrance of the birth of Christ -whether Dec 25 matches a close approximation or not - is a most sacred event. What's sacred and special to you naysayers, secularists (or Mormon bashers)? Whatever it be - I won't mock it, and so take care, as so many of you seek/wish to torture those that claim a "faithful" belief in a God and/or Jesus Christ.

Anyone who followed the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels would live a beautiful and good life, very similar to a life based on the words of the Buddha.

But anyone who followed the preachings of most "Christian" churches throughout most of history would practice slavery, violently oppress women and children, persecute people of other religions, and fight wars that were blessed (and often fomented) by the church of his choice.

Christians have this incredible God of love and forgiveness whom they believe walked among us and left magnificent words to live by. Why can't they concentrate on his one consistent message, of love and kindness and forgiveness? When many Americans still see George Bush as God's annointed leader of a righteous nation, you know that they need to get back to the heart of the Gospels and leave the rest of the (often weird, scary and contradictory) Bible behind.

To combine the words of two great letter-writers, St. Paul & Keats: faith, hope and charity--that is all ye know, and all ye need to know.

A line of thought is the non-existence of a historical Jesus Christ. I believe this idea best fits the evidence, of which an important facet is the totally lacking contemporary documentation from the time during which Jesus Christ is said to have lived. The Gospels describe events which had to have taken place two and three generations previously.

16. Relate in the Book (the story of) Mary, when she withdrew from her family to a place in the East.
17. She placed a screen (to screen herself) from them; then We sent her our angel, and he appeared before her as a man in all respects.
18. She said: "I seek refuge from thee to ((Allah)) Most Gracious: (come not near) if thou dost fear Allah."
19. He said: "Nay, I am only a messenger from thy Lord, (to announce) to thee the gift of a holy son.
20. She said: "How shall I have a son, seeing that no man has touched me, and I am not unchaste?"
21. He said: "So (it will be): Thy Lord saith, 'that is easy for Me: and (We wish) to appoint him as a Sign unto men and a Mercy from Us':It is a matter (so) decreed."
22. So she conceived him, and she retired with him to a remote place.
23. And the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm-tree: She cried (in her anguish): "Ah! would that I had died before this! would that I had been a thing forgotten and out of sight!"
24. But (a voice) cried to her from beneath the (palm-tree): "Grieve not! for thy Lord hath provided a rivulet beneath thee;
25. "And shake towards thyself the trunk of the palm-tree: It will let fall fresh ripe dates upon thee.
26. "So eat and drink and cool (thine) eye. And if thou dost see any man, say, 'I have vowed a fast to ((Allah)) Most Gracious, and this day will I enter into not talk with any human being'"
27. At length she brought the (babe) to her people, carrying him (in her arms). They said: "O Mary! truly an amazing thing hast thou brought!
28. "O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not a man of evil, nor thy mother a woman unchaste!"
29. But she pointed to the babe. They said: "How can we talk to one who is a child in the cradle?"
30. He said: "I am indeed a servant of Allah. He hath given me revelation and made me a prophet;
31. "And He hath made me blessed wheresoever I be, and hath enjoined on me Prayer and Charity as long as I live;
32. "(He) hath made me kind to my mother, and not overbearing or miserable;
33. "So peace is on me the day I was born, the day that I die, and the day that I shall be raised up to life (again)"!
34. Such (was) Jesus the son of Mary: (it is) a statement of truth, about which they (vainly) dispute.
35. It is not befitting to (the majesty of) Allah that He should beget a son. Glory be to Him! when He determines a matter, He only says to it, "Be", and it is.
36. Verily Allah is my Lord and your Lord: Him therefore serve ye: this is a Way that is straight.
Quran: chapter Mary

1. Say: He is God,the One.
2. God is He on Whom all depend.
3. He begets not, nor was He begotten.
4. And there is none co-equal or comparable unto him.

Quran :112

Strange religion this LDS: lots of talk about how many wifes, how old they should be, who is the leader, new explanations about Jesus, etc. Religion is always created by the believers and never the other way around (there is no "God"). As such I'm always nervous when talking to these LDSers. They are weird even though they fake being normal.

Somebody here talked about Babel as the biblical example of failure. I spent several months in Hilla, Iraq (formerly Babylon) and ofcourse saw the Tower Of Babel. I liked the place, still in good shape - in fact everything around it pretty well destroyed including people being blown up by other people. As such I think the Tower of Babel should be a symbol of success: still standing while surrounded by misery.

Reading the multitude of comments inspired by Michael Otterson's column, "The Living Son of the Living God," only confirms my belief: THE VERY IDEA OF GOD STEMS FROM THE MIND OF MAN.

You have your idea, I have mine. Thank God we are still free to choose. I hope this will always remain so.

The LDS talk about the grace of Christ as if they demonstrate it. The two case examples are racism and physical torture of homosexuals. The Mormon prophet, Spencer Kimball, referred to light skinned Navajo kids taken from the reservation to live in Momon homes in Utah. The infallable prophet of God mentioned how "white and delightsome" the kids had become since they had converted to Mormonism demonstrating the racism of the church's curse of god dogma. The second example is past church treatment of their gay members, some under age. The curing process included the showing of homosexual and hetrosexual pornography at a lab in the basement of the student union at BYU and administering painful and tissue destroying electroshock therapy for what was deemed as an innappropriate erectile response measured by a sensor applied to the Brother in question. These examples are not the kind of grace Christ yearns for to be demonstrated in his name.

Christianity sounds like magic to me.

So...God created us and the world so he could test us, mess with us, then kill everyone of us? Like a game where he's the only player and everyone else is a pawn? Is he just really really bored? Vasillating between being fed up with his toys and micromanaging each and every life? No other Gods to hang out with?

Imagine how contantly peaceful the world would be if all Christians traded in their submission to magic and legend for just the Golden Rule.

Mr. Simenson:

I don't know who you are attempting to put on with this "evidence for the BOM thing." There are NO reputable archaeologists who support the bulk of what is written in the BOM, none. And at BYU, when you challenge the church's sanitized account of its history enough, you get fired for it. Ask D. Michael Quinn, former professor what happens when you write the truth about Joseph Smith's fascination with occult practices and symbols, etc. And that is just one example. There are many many others. This does not make Mormonism any worse than other religions, just no different.

Anyone who wants to get an unbiased account of J Smith's life, read "No Man Knows My History," by Fawn Brody.

For all the thousands of words prompted by "On Faith" in this and other collections of commments on "Big Questions," we still have not seen a "believer" of any stripe state why she/he is a "believer." This can not be for any lack of reasons; they populate a large literature that has been with us for a long long time.

To date, we have the atheists and agnostics who seem to unite around the dictum: "show me the money." Then we have the believers who shout out, "It all is written in the Bible," without saying why they believe the Bible is a reliable source of facts. Maybe we'll get there if these discussion go on for a few years and folks become tired of the current exchanges.

So, carry on with my hope that for each of you 2007 is better than 2006, however you may choose to weigh the two.

Yes Jesus Lives. Just like Elvis lives.
Just like Santa lives.And the Easter Bunny.
They're all part of our culture and live on
as IDEAS. But puhlease get real. Jesus has been
dead for 2000 years,assuming he lived in the first place.

My father was raised as a Protestant Christian. He forced us to go to Sunday bible schools, christian Elementary and Highschools, later Church every sunday, etc. He was a religious dictator knowing "right from wrong." My mother came from a non-believing middle class family and her parents were shocked when she married this man. She tried hard to become a believer, first accepted the "fact" that Jesus mother Mary was a virgin, then later accepted the Minister saying that actually Mary was married to Joseph. As time progressed over the many years of their unhappy marriage she lost all faith and told my father to go to Church by himself. Me and my brothers and sister quit religion the moment we left home. Also, my father, throughout his entire life, happened to be frightened about dying first. We did not understand why because he believed in Heaven. My mother then died suddenly at age 65 (my father then being 70). Three months later he committed suicide. He was suddenly frightened of life. All these years he had never grown up. He truly was a child but that of his wife and not of some god. His Church refused to bury him.

Duhhh...that some people wrote and said the book of Mormon was true makes it so. When Jesus was upon this earth, America was populated by human beings, the people who lived there before the white man came. I don't know who this Adam Smith was, and Dan I don't know what you're smoking to write what you did...but whatever it was, I want some, and trust me I wouldn't be writing anything.

Or Visit this website:
http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=354

Also see the following books if you really want to know where Mormon's are coming from:

1) 1000 evidences for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: 500 evidences in support of the Book of Mormon by Allen H Richardson

2) In Search of Cumorah: New Evidences for the Book of Mormon From Ancient Mexico
by David A Palmer

3)The Book Of Mormon Vindicated: Scriptural Evidences Of The Divine Authenticity Of The Book Of Mormon by Elder I. M. Smith

4) Lehi in the Wilderness: 81 New Documented Evidences That the Book of Mormon Is a True History by George Potter and Richard Wellington

Mormons are not deemphasising the Book of Mormon, and there is evidence for it. Joseph Smith was not a pedophile. If you want to know about him then go to 1st hand accounts not the many lies about him on the internet. You may find somethings that are disturbing, but you may also find that he did a lot of good things in his life. He helped others in need, loaned money that he needed for food, gave away a horse to a stranger who needed it, and other things including healing the sick etc. He walked for miles in the rain to repay a debt he had promised to repay by midnight. He forgave others readily. He was a polygamist, but for what it is worth, it tore him up inside. He felt guilty for it, but truly believed it was God's command. Please see "Rough Stone Rolling" and "The Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt" (Pratt was well acquainted with Joseph Smith).
About the Book of Mormon. If you want to evaluate the evidence for it rather than just the evidence that is against it (which I admit does exist) please read Refuting the Critics: Evidences of the Book of Mormon's Authenticity by Michael T. Griffith OR read
Little known evidences of the Book of Mormon by Brenton G Yorgason. They are on Amazon.com.

@WashingtonPost
Something doesn't make sense here to put this subject in the newspaper. Hard to explain, but something ain't clicking.

the washington post has done us a peculiar favor in providing this venue to create a discourse. and what an artifact it is! a mirror for us to know ourselves a little better. the legacy our religions have deposited in us bear peculiar fruit indeed. after all these years, all the exhortations, all the spilled ink and blood, we still squabble and quibble and nitpick and hate each other with all the vigor of children in the schoolyard, crowds around the gallows, uniformed fanatics marching to their doom. could one be mistaken in concluding that the curse of babel lives on in our religious tongues? could one not wish we'd ALL shut up?

There is a difference between religion and faith. Faith is the belief in something, without necessarily having seen or touched it physically. I have faith that my family will be there for me in times of need, for example. I base my faith on what my parents taught me, what I have learned as I have lived in this world, what I seen and read from history, and what I have come to conclude from all those factors. My personal faith is based on knowing, without seeing, but also experience. I know my family will be there for me, because they have in the past. I personally believe in God and Jesus, because in my experience, there is simply too much reason to believe otherwise. Faith is personal, to me, and not subject to be changed by debate from those who disagree, simply because they disagree. Likewise, I don't expect others to change simply because I believe the way I do. Thus, it is, in my humble opinion, wrong to debase and diminish others because they don't believe as I do -- and it is wrong for them to do the same to me.
Religion on the other hand is the organized practice of faith. Because it is organized and operates under human hands, it is subject to human frailties -- hate, greed, envy, lust -- you name it. Those in religion who use it to further their own human interests don't have faith in my mind, they simply use it to further their needs. Religion can do that -- unfortunately it is all too human. On the other hand, religion can also help the poor by feeding and clothing them, visit the sick and shut ins, see that children are cared for, comfort others in time of need and the like. Once again, it simply reveals the human part of religion - there is good too.
I always try to remember the warning from our Lord -- Judge not, lest yeah be judged. I believe, so I do -- if you do not, OK. Thats your choice. Simply extend to me the same courtesy.

Despite our significant differences of opinion, I want to wish each of you a very Merry Christmas. May we all love one another.

AA..your initials tell it all. Ass'oles anonymous.

jesus was some moron who got himself killed at a young age. get over it we should all move on and focu on false messaiahs who are living rather than flase messaiahs who have died.

Jan, I know you not, but what I do know, is that I love you. You understand what Jesus was all about.

About 3 years ago did some work in Hilla and Najaf, Iraq. Still safe then. Worked right in between the Eufrat and Tigris Rivers and ofcourse kept my eyes out for Adam and Eve (or rather just Eve). Didn't see them (her), at least not that I know of - the women there were overly dressed and I only knew if I saw their front or back when they moved (explained this to my wife by email and she felt bad for these ladies and, yes, even for me somewhat). When back here in the US I tried to explain that to some lovy-dovy Christians down the street. They got angry and said that paradise place is not in Iraq but somewhere in the Carolinas (I'm not joking). What I'm trying to say is religion is fine and so is Disneyland. Got it!?

To all you non-believers:

Not everyone who believes that Jesus is God knows Jesus is God, but there is nothing inherent to the notion of that belief that makes it impossible for someone to know Jesus is God.

To say no one knows Jesus is God presupposes that it has been proven that Jesus is not God, for if Jesus is God then it is possible that he has revealed this fact to men and women in the past and to individuals that now live on the earth today.

Furthermore, someone does know whether Jesus is the Son of God - God knows. And if Jesus is God, Jesus knows and if Jesus is God then St. Paul knows and every deceased saint knows as well. Most likely all saints living today know as well. In fact there may be people who are not saints that know that Jesus is God. It may no longer be a matter of faith. Anyone who has seen the incorruptible bodies of some of the saints in France may suspect that Jesus may be God.

If Jesus is God then everyone in heaven, hell, and purgatory knows that Jesus is the Son of God and since that's probably around 100 billion people then far more know than those who don't know.

Knowing the truth is good, but it won't get you to heaven. The key is to know that Jesus is Lord, Adonai, Yahweh, Allah, and then change your life based on his witness of the Father's abiding love. Even the devil knows that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God who came to redeem us all.

It is up to us to accept the gift and live out our lives in order to be saved - but Jesus has redeemed every man, woman, and child as well as those that were never born.

God has provided each us with the law of charity which he has written in our hearts - if we act according to that we can be saved. Every person on the face of the earth some day will come to know whether Jesus Christ is God.

Merry Christmas

to Jim, who wrote: "For those of us who believe in Jesus Christ, there is no greater sadness than to observe those who profess not to believe in the savior."

For those of us that actually use our brains to figure stuff out in the world, there is no greater sadness than those who believe in religion with blind faith.

I'm not professing(in the sense of insincerity) - I'm telling you I don't believe in your religion, your alleged savior, etc. It's your faith, it's your view of the world - believe it or not, I put more faith in my understanding of the world than a carpenter from 2000+ years ago.

Pathetic that adults in this day in age can claim such absolutes based on blind faith.

Why is The Washington Post publishing religious propaganda?

To repeat, Vic:
Christians promise us, in the face of three major divisions and about 50 Protestant denominations, that they (and ONLY they) have The Truth.
It's all absolutely LAUGHABLE, and you've just made my point brilliantly.

Here's what it sounds like to adults--
Mormon: I'm a Christian
Christian: No you're not!
Mormon: Yes I am.

Don't y'all have better things to do?

For Vic -

I'm not a mormon, but my understanding is that the special underwear is worn only by married people, under their regular clothing. They also select private names for spouses, so they can find each other in heaven.

I don't get it, but then again, I don't get the whole god thing anyways...

Let us not forget that God is an imaginary friend for adults.

HAS GOD DIED ?.....IF NOT, HAS HIS SON USURPED HIS POWERS AND GLORIES ?....IF YOU BELIEVE IN GOD..THE FATHER LIVES. WHO NEEDS A DYNAMIC DUO OR HOLY TRINITY. THE MANY INTERPRETATIONS OF RELIGION HAVE PRODUCED HAVOC THOUGHOUT RECORDED HISTORY. BELIEVE WHAT YOU WISH, BUT BE WARY OF BLIND FAITH. REASON IS MAN'S GREATEST ATTRIBUTE.

Lately there's been a lot of talk about HEAVEN. Those of Mormon faith, please answer the following question (and be specific): how does marriage fit into the Mormon understanding of the afterlife, and why so many children?
Oh yes, and didn't I once hear something about holy underwear necessary for men? Please clarify details. Thanks.

The reason Christ was born Dec. 24 was to attract the European hedoists (3 gods, etc.) to christianity (around year 550 after-christ and about the same time that the French Emparur stated that Christianity would be official - those not in favor would be beheaded). The European hedoists also had this tradition to burn evergreens for heat and lights in December (try Scandinavia this time of the year). So some kind of deal was made between the various beliefs including the birthday of this Christ including the Christmas tree (I like it). Also the fact that Jesus only hang from the cross one day is nonsense. A strong man could hang there for about 3 weeks straight (no picnic). Also no clear evidence exist that Jesus ever really existed. All-in-all lots of nonsense. Allthough I'm a non-believer the Moslim tradition makes more sense, the two main religious buildings really are a man's penis and a woman's womb (exactly - creation of a child and future of life). The Christion view of looking at death as the place to be, rather than life, is rather scary. So, Merry Xmas and please let's move on.

it's all humbug

What crap!

Anybody for entering the 21st Century?

what a crock of BS

just like the other great BS Artist, Joseph Smith

but if you want multiple wives, and who doesn't?

He's/Their your man!

"I believe in the Divinity of Jesus Christ, and that He died for the sins of all men, who in Adam had fallen."

"The Lamb of God hath brought to pass the resurrection, so that all shall rise from the dead."

"Salvation could not come into the world without the mediation of Jesus Christ."

"The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it."

"None were ever perfect but Jesus; and why was He perfect? Because he was the Son of God, and had the fullness of the Spirit, and greater power than any man."

All of the foregoing were said by Joseph Smith, first prophet and founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

And, by the way, I did not mean to give the more traditional christians a pass. We could talk for a long time about the many perversions of the equally infallible papacy.

To John D:
You write: "You might counter my post with a quote by Ezra Benson, or Boyd K. Packer, or Brigham Young which imply the infallibility of LDS Prophets. Such statements are simply a product of their fallibility, and their fallible thinking at the time they made them."

Ignoring the circularity of this statement for now, would you please explain why any Mormon would then place any weight whatsoever in what any of the church's prophets say?

What a wonderful tool, this "divine inspiration" thingie. You can use it to justify any claim, excuse any behavior, and if things go badly for you, then just change your mind and tell em god told you to! Heck, it worked for Joseph Smith almost as well as it did for Muhammed. Want a harem, particularly those luscious 7 year olds? Presto, god's will! Want to eliminate your competition for power? Shazam!, god says to destroy that printing press, or "kill the unbelievers wherever you find them." Having a little PR problem because you deny the priesthood to blacks because they are the dark-skinned descendants of a cursed individual? Whammo, god now says that it is cool for them to join the club! And, hey it's even Ok if you get caught in an obvious lie. You can claim to be able to translate ancient Egyptian papyrii just like you did the Book of Mormon, and then when it is proven that you were an absolute fraud, it is all well and good because you are suddenly "fallible." Except when you are not, and you will tell us when that is! Of course this is only necessary when you cannot claim that the proof of your wrongdoing is not the work of the "devil." Need to make a little deal with the Meccans while you consolidate your power? How about you tell them that allah now will allow a couple of the old pagan goddesses to be worshipped as well. Then, when you have things going your way at last, you can claim that this part of the koran was actually inspired by satan!

Folks, at what point do you begin to smell this stuff out for what it is?

Jim wrote:
> For those of us who believe in Jesus Christ, there > is no greater sadness than to observe those who
> profess not to believe in the savior.

Jim, your professed sadness is hardly a reason for me to believe in any kind of god. Perhaps you have evidence you would care to share? Do you believe in the Easter Bunny, too? (If not, why not?)

I think everyone should believe in whatever he or she feels they should, but it should be clear that belief in God is not a sufficient condition for a person to be a good and moral human being, as the destruction of so many human lives in a war based on false pretexts by the current occupant of the White House should convince anyone.

I find it very mean-spirited and unkind for all the so-called "Christian" e-mailers who use this space to attack Mormonism. Why don't you show that your truly believe in Jesus Christ and the spirit of Christmas by putting down your poison pens and showing some kindness? Would Jesus Christ be happy to see his followers attacking others in the manner you do? Let's show some compassion, tolerance, love, and understanding one to another, even if we don't agree on everything.

Or how the Catholic Church 'fixed' the divorce problem afterward by annulling the marriage thereby getting around the Bible's declaration of divorce as a sin. Annulment means there was no marriage to start out with, hence there is no sin to worry about. Very resourceful wouldn't you say?

Jim, I believe in Jesus.
There is no greater sadness to me than the truly ugly stuff Christians do, compared to Jesus and what he taught his followers to do.
Christians appear to only actually care about being "saved" by some "savior" -- not care about following the teaching of Jesus.

Mary, thanks for your facts. I actually find the history of Christianity a total bore, but you go girl, if this makes some difference to you.

Mary Cunningham,

You forgot the part about how the emperor Constantine converted to Christianity because Jesus in the form of the cross helped lead him to victory in battle. And what a Roman subject to do once the emperor has converted?

And the part the protestants in Britain also often fail to mention about how they all became protestants because Henry the VIII wanted another wife and the pope would not let him. So he became protestant, divorced his first wife, married five more, two of whom he divorced by execution.

Interesting yes?

For those of us who believe in Jesus Christ, there is no greater sadness than to observe those who profess not to believe in the savior.

On Early Christianity (about 37-313 AD)

To Jan: Re: "Nothing against Jesus, but Christianity after Christ was literally dying (they were all being martyred) until they sold their souls to become a part of the Holy Roman Empire."

Is the history of a thing the thing itself? Is the history of Christianity Christianity? Well then, Jan needs to get her (his?) facts right.

Here goes: Christians suffered martyrdom almost as soon as the little faith became established during the reign of Caligula (AD 37-41) Nero (AD 41-68), mostly because Christians refused to acknowledge Roman gods, but also because both emperors were psychopaths who killed freely (his teacher the philosopher Seneca was one of Nero’s victims). Most of the time Christianity was tolerated, although every once and a while there were persecutions, sometimes savage. Undeterred by sporadic persecutions (spurred on maybe?) the new faith continued to grow in numbers. It was definitely not on its deathbed (whatever that means, how can a religion die?), when in 313 the Edict of Milan removed most of the penalties for professing Christianity.

The Roman Empire in the West (NOT the Holy Roman Empire, a different entity entirely) fell in 476, and, with it, most of the Christian faith in countries north of Italy. Conversions to Christianity, however, continued in lands never occupied by Rome. In the case of my country, Ireland, the conversion (by none other than the blessed—you guessed it—St Patrick) was both peaceful and extremely enthusiastic, and took place during the last days of the Roman Empire. Within three generations enthusiastic Irish missionaries sailed forth to convert Scotland, and to re-Christianize parts of the Frankish empire, what is now France and Switzerland. At about the same time the order of St Benedict and other monastic orders were founded with the same purpose of re-Christianizing Europe. It was all peaceably done—believe me, Benedictine monks were never (and are not now) noted for their military prowess!

The conversion of Frankish, Celtic & Anglo Saxon Europe to Christianity was effected peacefully—and held. The legacy of the Roman Empire, in contrast, was far more fragile and faded very rapidly in these same lands.

I hope this is helpful—the story of early Christianity is interesting, even (especially?) if you are not Christian.

As a Mormon, all of this discussion about whether Mormons are "Christians" and about how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is supposedly trying to work its way into the "mainstream" of Christian churches is completely baffling.

The “PR” efforts of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are aimed at sharing information about the Church and its doctrine to those that are interested. They are not an effort to gain “mainstream” acceptance or to obscure our doctrine (the comment that the Church is trying to distance itself from the Book of Mormon was news to me.)

The Articles of Faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints lay out the fundamental tenants of our beliefs. The first one states:

“We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.”

and the 11th article states:

“We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.”

(all of the Articles of Faith can be found here, if anyone's interested:) http://scriptures.lds.org/en/a_of_f/1

We Mormons believe that we are Christians because we worship Jesus Christ as our Savior. Our worship of God and Jesus is based on our own doctrine, beliefs, and personal witnesses.
If another denomination deems that we worship in error, so be it. We worship according to the dictates of OUR conscience, and we respect that you worship according to the dictates of yours, even in your conscience dictates that Mormons are all doomed to hell.

In the darkest caves of my heart, I believe, O Lord, that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. I believe that you are compassion, mercy and love, I believe that you do not judge but that you simply let your beacon shine for us. I don't need nor do I have the talent to explain my faith in and my love for you. You have been here for me all through my long life. I see you present in the lives of others. I believe that whether your brothers and sisters are Jews, Muslims, Buddhists Christians or Atheists makes no difference to you provided that they earnestly try to remain open to the mystery of the Other. Thank you, my Lord.

The virgin birth is not that hard to believe any more. Why just last week another Mary conceived and is now with child. And she had never been with a man before. Her esteemed father can testify to that. And her esteemed father's boss too.

If those folks back then could build the great pyramid, no telling what else they could do.

I disagree with the CS Lewis quote, oft repeated in this forum. "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say."

Why? Can we not learn from part of a person's philosophy? We must embrace it all? I have learned a great deal about forgiveness, love and service from the teachings of Jesus. But I believe his divinity is no greater than yours or mine. I find this a perfectly reasonable and logical approach, not as Lewis calls it "foolish".

Lewis' all or nothing approach is common in Chrisianity. Consider the Nicene creed (one God, only son of God, one holy Church). This is where I lost my faith in Christianity.

I respect Christians and their beliefs. But I believe that religious authority rests within the individual, not a particular book or a religious leader (past or present). And I believe that reason and conscience (given to me by God) must guide my search for truth and meaning in the world. That is why I am a Unitarian Universalist.

What living son and living God?
Were this world better off, more lives saved without the bologna son and god, killing civilians thru inquistion and slavary and colonilism vis-a-vis 5 millions bombed and killed by Christian(president and War criminal Dr.K) 3 millions in Korean War, one millionn in Irak. And the genocides of Mayan and Incan's culture and population.
Allah and other religions,particularly Buddist had never killed and enslaveed that many human beings.
Only the Furer of the Deutchland killed that many innocent civilians.

In thousands of years no one has put forth the slightest iota of evidence that god exists. This essay continues the trend.

I say there, Otterson ol' boy, what say you do some of your PR hackery by giving us a snow job--blame it on the Indians!~-- about the Mountain Meadows Massacre of Sept 11, 1857? (See Larry McMurtry's Oh, What a Slaughter, p. 63ff.) Poor Mormons are still pathetically and disgustingly trying to cover up this massacre of 400 people (men, women, children, plus rape). How about the 2,605 bone fragments encountered in 1999? And Mormon effort to cover up forensic investigation?

B. Young ordered the slaughter? He admitted he was an accessory after the fact (McMurtry, p. 86).

And 75% of Utah voted for Bush last election; Mormon state loves Bush more than any other. War, death, propgaganda, fascism, environmental destruction....the Bush corporate oligarchic plutocracy and war mongering is most loved by Mormons. My moral standards are too high to
allow me to be a Christian. Mormon, gag, worse.

From my point of view any and all professions of faith don't mean a thing when people are killing people, when people are unjustly imprisoned and ill-treated, when people are allowed to starve, sicken and die while other people put their left-overs in the garbage.

Journey of the Magicians

It is late, and I am sitting alone by the window, watching the snow fall on a midnight shift at the Children's Home. The kids are all in bed and sleeping. The other night I dreamed I taught one of them how to hold fire in his hand.

Winter and darkness bring solitude, strange thoughts. The psalmist writes that night with night shares its knowledge. Above the obscuring clouds and the drifting snow the stars might appear to turn in hand with wandering travelers of long ago. At night we still wonder, what can it mean? What signify, the half-heard music above the hillside? To what destination might the lights make their way in the sky?

Winter's darkness has fallen again. The earth on its axis is turned. In the fastness of night we remember the magi, imagine them murmuring to themselves while they poke about in their dens, kneeling at the hearth side, stirring the embers and smiling in memory of another time when, on a foreign plain and in the company of shepherds, expending much enchantment, they drew themselves together before the child. The obscurities of prophecy had been made plain then in the skies breathing auroras over them, the air beat with wings on fire. And the stillness of it, the unearthly calm that had given voice to the question, so that we said aloud to one another, what have we done? What are we that we should be taken notice of so?

Snow is falling, fluttering on the air, a bright nimbus falling through darkness and silence to layer down over trees, fields, houses and lawns, framing halos for street lights, the choir on the church porch singing holy, holy, holy, lifting up the night in a drifting veil of white.

I sit alone by the window, grateful for a moment's peace, listening for the sounds of those in my care. Some of the children have nowhere to go for the holidays. I wish I could tell them, in words they would understand, that we are their family, that we could not love them more and that, come what may, there is nothing of which they should be afraid.

But they are all in bed and sleeping and so we are free to go through night and the mind's darkness toward Bethlehem and the one who waits for us there, nearer than breath yet far from the centers of power as mankind understands power. We must weave a path within the reach of fearsome sentinels who stand watch within the forest of dreams—unconscionable chimerae, they take no heed of us but gape at the air like bewildered things, compelled in their distraction by insubstantial images conjured for our benefit by the sorcerers in our midst.

Deep under cover of night we must go, following a beacon ablaze among the stars, a lantern carried there among the lesser lights—a solitary gem set there so to pierce the soul. So intent a purity commands a great price, a gift for a bride—but who is the bridegroom, and who is the bride?

The shepherds, that simple and garrulous people (though keeping their own ways, their sturdy wisdom) are oddly quiet tonight, shy of company, given over to contemplation. The curious thing, the remarkable thing: When one of their number fell to the ground, weeping and so disconsolate that the animals fell silent, the man crying aloud to his God for forgiveness, the others went to him and spoke in low tones of courage and faith to their fallen brother. When we asked them, what is the matter? they only smiled at us quizzically, nodding toward where the star led. They took us by the arm and would have had us incline our ears toward the arc of heaven, as if they could truly hear the music of which the old ones tell, the silent perpetual hymn of the circling spheres, ever present, ever silent.

Then, at journey's end, the child—what was the lesson, what were we to have known by the humility of his birth? No room for them in the city, and yet it seemed with so much affection that his eyes held ours, and compassion. Or do we only read there what we most love in one another?

Mother and father, their newborn infant son... against all evil, the iniquity of men, doomed to corruption... this: In the very death of winter's night, in the midst of dark... the birth of light.

The magi nod to one another, comprehending. They ask to hold the child for a moment, no longer melancholy in their learning. They want no art to enchant now yet move the third heaven by their understanding. In time they turn to their respective provinces to go. We ask them to stay with us yet a while, to instruct us in the meaning of these events—the birth of the child and the deaths of so many that are innocent. They say they must go: There is much to be considered, the king's minions to be deterred. They tell us after their mysterious fashion that the abyss calls forth to the abyss, that the light informs the darkness and is not comprehended, and much else that we do not understand. But here is the child. Listen to the child, they say, and are gone.

Dawn, and I am still by the window, wondering what I have done here. The morning shift will be here soon. Time for me to go home, to leave the little ones in others' care. Awake, they would only shrug off my concern, and yet it may be that, while dreaming, they grow strong under the burden of our concern. I think I'll make a cup of coffee and pass the time, watch the news, until they awaken when I can tell them good morning.

Jay@CIA, "But if you want an even better mainstream (though perhaps non-evangelical) formulation I suggest the DOXOLOGY"

You suggest the doxology? Puh-leez.
More "rules of men" while "honoring Jesus with your lips"?

Instead of following what the Sadduccess, Pharisees and Teachers of the Law have forced you to memorize, have you done what JESUS actually asked you to do to gain eternal life?

Have you had the FAITH to sell all your possessions, given the money to the poor, and only THEN proclaimed to follow Jesus?
Have you had the FAITH to love your enemies, to be kind to those who actually want to hurt you?

I must say, I doubt it.
I admit, the "magic words" from men are much easier to "suggest" Christians believe, than the real words of Jesus.

Re: Mormon and christian position. It is easy to continuously say "I believe" without the slightest shred of real proof. Please tell me, you who know so much about Jesus; when was he born and when did he die. Not the day - can you even tell me the year? What did he do for about thirty years until he began to preach?
In what language did Jesus speak, and in what language were the gospels written? How long after his death were the gospels written? Did he ever fulfill his promise (repeated twice in the gospels), to return during the lifetimes of some of the people listening to him then? You can believe all the doctrine you want, but it is no more true than any wild speculation that may come from an irrational thought process.

The Living Son of the Living God has got an "orthodox" and mainstream Christian sound to it, but personally, I'm more moved by TRINITARIAN formulations.
The Christ Event is what God accomplishes through Christ with the power of the Holy Spirit...something that at least as we've hammered out from as early as Genesis onward was embedded in the very destiny of creation and humanity bestowed from its creator (from the promise to Eve fulfilled in Mary, for example).
But if you want an even better mainstream (though perhaps non-evangelical) formulation I suggest the DOXOLOGY:
"Through Him, with Him and in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, All Glory and Honors is yours Almighty Father forever and ever."
Or perhaps even more literally from the proclamation of the mystery of faith:
"Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again."
LEX CREDENDI, LEX ORANDI

Often times the incessant, dogmatic drumbeat of Christians is barely audible over the drone of their environment-raping SUVs or the din of the murderous wars they incite and promote. I prefer life and peace before death.

Greg, if numbers are what prove "truth" to you, what do you think about the fact that Islam is the second largest religion in the world, and is, by far, the fastest growing?

Nothing against Jesus, but Christianity after Christ was literally dying (they were all being martyred) until they sold their souls to become a part of the Holy Roman Empire.

Perhaps they ment the 'living son of god'? Anyway I am not a native English speaker, so I may be missing something. Living god does not make much sense to me. Is he of flesh and blood? Or maybe its ment that hes still believed in. Obviously, it was not a question at the time of Christ, so the meaning had to be different.

I am an atheist and for me, obviously, the meaning of the life of Christ is different from you, Michael. To me Christ was a person who died for his ideas. He is a visionary, who transfromed our lives and lives of many generations. I do not think that western civilization could make the advances that it did without the influence of his ideas. For that and for his sacrifice, that made many ppl believe in him, I admire him.

This celebration of the return of the Sun to ever longer days, is at least 35,000 years old. Whether the metaphor you use is the Lord Krishna, or the Rabbi Jesus, or Osiris brought back to life by Isis, it all works out to the same thing: Life goes on. That is all that is truly important.

Whether Jesus is the Son of the Great Lady Ariadne/Athena/Arianrhod is not of consequence for most of the fifteen billion people that have ever lived. All that is of consequence is that we are Her children. Every single one of us. And that when we harm each other we harm the soul of the universe. Even Jesus said "what you do to the least of my brethren you do to me." I wonder if the Mormons think of that when they deliberately hurt gay people politically. I wonder why so many western religions emphasis negative things and obsess on people's sexuality. Isn't that behaviour something that should be between them and their god?

And islam does believe in Jesus, though not the jesus you believe in. And I don't believe any of you are even mildly close to the historic figure, Yeshua, Rabbi, teaacher, and revolutionary. But all that matters is rising above all these ridiculous arguments over details. Life is complicated and simple. Life is a gift and a burden. Do not judge others. Judge yourself, honestly.

btw, Charles, you do not have to go to the gospel of Thomas.
Luke 17:21 -- Jesus replied, "... because the kingdom of God is within you."

For me, this sums up today's American Christians:
Jesus (Matt 15:8-9), "These people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but RULES TAUGHT BY MEN."

Christians bicker about whether Mormons are Christians or nor, based on a Creed TAUGHT BY MEN (and a creed that men made up over three CENTURIES after Jesus's death).

What Christian, in order to gain eternal life, has instead followed the Creed laid out by the guy they say they have complete faith in?

What Christian blogging here has sold all their goods and given the money to the poor, and THEN proclaimed to be a follower of Christ?

Speak up! We'd all be fascinated to hear from any Christian who actually has the guts and FAITH to follow the teachings of JESUS, instead of the rules your denomination has ordained as "truth."

Or, keep bickering about whether you judge Mormons to be true Christians or not. It's very entertaining.

The Mormon Church is an enormous corporate empire. How does this square with the humble lifestyle of Jesus?

He was a single man, who never strayed more than 90 miles from his home. He lived 2000 years ago. By all accounts He lived the simple life of a carpenter, and was executed by the government. If He was nothing but a man, then how do you explain His disciples walking the world, spreading His word, risking death, being martyred, all while living simple, worthy lives. They obviously saw and knew something. Otherwise, why would they accept stoning and crucifiction for simply refusing to deny Him? If He was dead, and not the Son of Man, why would they act in such a way? How do you explain this simple man's ideas becoming the basis for the beliefs of 2 Billion people. I saw a nonbeliever scientist interviewed one day, and he said it all -- something certainly happened to make so many believe so deeply -- and given the length of time they were with Him and followed Him, and there willingness to risk it all for Him -- there must be something to it all. For those who won't believe, there is no convincing, yet for me, at least, I do believe.

I think it is commendable for the Mormons to try to make a shift towards the mainstream even if they started out as something otherwise. With all they have accrued in terms of property and followers over time, if God wants to convert them to true believers in Jesus Christ I think that is great. The doctrines will follow, accordingly. Imagine Islam suddenly trying to convince the world they believe in Jesus too. It wouldn't fly. But maybe God will convert all Muslims some day. It takes time. The Mormons seem to be moving in a positive direction. Their doctrines will follow.

A couple of questions for BOTH my Mormon and more Evangelical Christian brethren:

You speak a great deal of "Atonement" and you often emphasize that this is the central tenet and concept of Christianity. How does this atonement or "reconciliation" work exactly? Exactly what does the expression "Christ died for our sins" mean?

To which of the seven possible theories of atonement do you subscribe? See: http://www.radicalcongruency.com/20060423-7-theories-of-atonement
You did know that Christianity embraces no less than seven possible (but not necessarily logically congruent) theories of atonement, did you not?

In this day and age, and the flooding of authritarian and political might of the evangalica Christianity, I believe the Frankie Graham is the living son of the living God, his senior.

If you believe JC is the living son of a living god, why don't you believe what he said about giving up your life and your wealth and following him?

I am not part of the talking snake cult, but every time I hear a rcih man profess his faith, I want to throw up. What the US needs is less faith and more charity.

MARY CUNNINGHAN,

A couple of days ago in another thread you called me an atheist, which I'm not. I replied that "Your bad manners and mixed-up history mark you down in my book as most probably a "Christian."

I'm glad to see that my surmise was correct. An English Christian too! You must be lonely - there are so few of you. Perhaps that explains your irritability. The Gospels are said to be Good News. You don't act as if you've had much lately.

Merry Solstice to you.

It is interesting to note that in your testimony,the extracts from the New Testament,and as far as I am aware, at no time did Jesus say "I am the son of God." This title was given him by Simon Peter and others. Pilot tried to trap him with the question and his answer was "You say I'm the son of God."
We should be careful when accepting as Gospel, the words of those who denied him and went into hiding for fear of their lives. Not included in the Bible is the Gospel of Thomas, wherein these words ascribed to Jesus are to be found: "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you and all around you. It not to be found in any building made of wood and stone. Split a piece of wood and you will find me,lift a rock and I am there." We are all children of God to whom we shall return at the moment we call death.
It would be better if we emulate the life of Christ and do unto others as we would have them do unto us, and make this world a better place. Peace!

You say so. I say no.

This is a wonderful message at Christmas but it does contain an error in the last paragraph. Jesus did not want to be called "master" He plainly states that we should call no man master or father because we all have the same father and master, even the Christ.
He also states that we should be his fellow servants. These misunderstandings about his message have done nothing but misrepresent the teachings of Jesus. He was not God, he called himself the "son of man" and he said "no man has seen God, not even the son". He was the embodiment of what we should all strive for, to be one.

Phil, you said this: "If there really is no God and all these people are wasting there time then who have they hurt? they may have actualy helped mankind by helping people in need. food, clothing, shelter and a sholder to cry on.."

We don't see Christians helping mankind.

We see Christians fighting among themselves about trivia, scared of Muslims, supportive of war and violence as a means to solve problems between human beings; and we also see people in our own country, nevermind the world, dying of cold, heat, starvation, thirst, and curable diseases.

Christians seem more afraid of death than any group I know (ie Terri Sciavo).

Christians want to recite some creed, argue over Bible verses, and tell us how much good they do for the world. Look at the world!

Virgil Goode brags about swearing in on a Bible instead of a Koran and does that Bible make him brave and open and loving? No, it makes him small and scared and insulting.

Read the judgement by the know-it-alls who have posted here -- Mormons are or aren't Christians, like they get to decide!

The comments on this blog are unworthy of Jesus's teachings, which I find few Christians actually follow anyway.
And please don't use "We're not perfect" as your excuse. YOUR JESUS TOLD YOU TO BE PERFECT!

I have to agree with the few posts who are not exchanging "well said brother" or arguing about the relity of the virgin birth or original sin.

Stop and think for a moment - while it is extremely comforting, why should any of this be true?? Because a book tells you so? Because nothing makes sense to you without daddy ( father of jesus or not ) will make everything all right?

What if this is all that there is? No heaven or hell, no pearly gates, no 72 virgins, nada? Is that all that bad? If to ever find that all the biblical claptrap is just that, you may discover that there are reasons to do right by your fellow man, that you can indeed distinguish right from wrong, and your life is full and rewarding all without a religion.

Finally, if god answers prayers, why does he/she/it hate amputees?

Merry Christmas to all, including the skeptics and deniers.

Talking of virgin birth.....

One is about to happen in a London Zoo.
It could be the second coming.

Do you all realize how laughable it is to hear Christians tell us they have "The Truth" while we sit around and watch you fight among yourselves about who has "The Truth"?
Rather than worrying about whether Jesus's mother was a virgin, I'd like to know which group of Christians believes this about eternal life--

Rich American: "Teacher, what must I do to get eternal life?"
Jesus: "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. THEN, come, follow me."

How many of you who want eternal life DO what Jesus asks you to DO, and THEN follow him?

Fighting over the virgin birth is an embarassing public display of utter pettiness.

To all the people that have no belife in jesus,I know where your coming from.
human beings need constant reassurance about there own self, we need proof dont we??
a number of times I have been told by people that they will only believe if they see the real deal for themselves.
well maybe I have a simplistic view of it all
and it goes like this..
If there really is no God and all these people are wasting there time then who have they hurt?
they may have actualy helped mankind by helping people in need.food,clothing,shelter and a sholder to cry on..
then again....on the other hand,what if there really is a God, and the possibility is there.
just how much better off are they..
I know religen has a lot to answer for, pedophiles everywhere..ripping off the vuleranable and also they started the odd war or two, so, as you see it"s a really tough question to believe or not to believe.
all we can do as a human race is to go by your own gut feeling,by your own experiance of life.
I am 52 years old and I'v seen some crazy things in life, and by what I have experianced I can honestly say that I truly believe in jesus. but saying that doesnt mean i dont still get doubts, I am human after all.

one of the most commen themes in all of the quoted texts is how to treat a fellow man-do this and go in peace

Nice try Brother Ottersen. Getting the "world" to accept Mormon doctrine as truly mainline Christian has been one of the major pursuits of the LDS for the last ten years or so. In order to do that, the Mormons have had to completely de-emphasize the Book of Mormon, because, although, the BofM is supposedly another "testimory" for Jesus Christ, it has become a major embarrassment for the church because they have not been able to find a single iota of evidence that proves the existence of the great civilizations told of in its pages. This after a hundred years of desperate searching in meso-america. New genetic evidence puts another nail in the coffin of the Book of Mormon and in the veracity of Joseph Smith.
Its tough being a believer in the age of modern science.

What has this to do with the living Son of the living God? Oh! He was there yesterday. He was there amidst his faithful. And I remembered the CS Lewis quote about his divinity, because if he was not God, then none of it hangs together.

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

CS Lewis, “Mere Christianity”

A blessed Christmas to you all.

On Faith: The Living Son of the Living God

I went to Mass at Westminster Cathedral yesterday—nothing special about the date. It is advent season, the four weeks where Christians prepare for Christmas. The priest wore purple, the alter was draped in red.

Westminster Cathedral is the seat of Roman Catholicism in England and Wales, built around 1870 in a Byzantine style; it is unfinished because—typically—English Catholics ran out of money about two thirds of the way through. It feels a holy place. There is the tomb of the last English martyr, hung (drawn and quartered) at Tyburn in 1650-- about the time the Puritans began colonizing America--a memorial for all the English martyrs, a plaque commemorating the Archbishops of England back to about 1100. The beautiful marble artwork runs about halfway up the church, above it is dark stone..like I said before they ran out of funds. The Church had more pressing needs.

The laity at the Cathedral reflects Catholics in London, and they were all there: English civil servants (Westminster is nearby) in their neat, dark suits, elderly English and Irish worshippers, young Eastern Europeans—blonde, broad faced Slavs--dressed in faded jeans and with rapt expressions on their faces, Filipinos, Latinos (the memorial mass for the Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes was held at the Cathedral). And the Africans—about a third of the worshippers were either from the West Indies (distinguishable by the lilt with which they recited the liturgy) or West Africa (the memorial mass for the Nigerian Anthony Fatawy-Williams was held at the Cathedral). There was a bag lady with about three bags; her clothes were clean and she looked happy.

The priest was a tall, young American. Under his vestments he wore trainers.

I believe the truth of Jesus, of God, is deeper than words, thus I appreciate the comment of angels dancing on a pin.

The Word of God and the Good News must be lived to be understood. The Holy Spirit belongs to the heart, not the American Bar Association. Which specific english sentence, translated from the Greek, states the truth best cannot be decided by committee.

Thus, I am an optimist. I believe God's love and the holy spirit is available without discrimination to all people, which includes Mormons. Which sentence of Scripture is their personal, or institution's favorite, is no more important than how many angels can dance on a pin. Merry Christmas.

I believe that Joseph Smith was a delusional, meglomaniacal, racist, pedophile .I have much more evidence to support my belief than you have to support yours. People who believe what they are told by people like you are sad. There is a good reason they are called sheep. If I told you that some guy walked on Salt Lake an hour ago you would want to see evidence. You would be skeptical. Yet you accept blindly whatever people tell you in a book that was written and edited and contains conflicting versions of the same events. You have turned in your brain for a promise of a condo in the sky with a view. The difference between you people and the Muslims who blow people up in the name of Alah and for the promise of 72 versions, is negligible.

Wes' comparrison between the LDS Church and Goebbels comments, no matter how remote, are innappropriate and uncalled for. As a Catholic, I too, I have always believed that the blood of Christ covers all of humanity.

I don't know if Jesus is the Son of God or not. No one does. It is a matter of Belief, not science. If He is the Son of God, then He has the Power of the Son of God. If he is not the Son of God, then he has no power whatsoever to act in human affairs. He is simply a name from the past among millions. Now, the REAL test...

Pray to God the Father in His Name and make a heartfelt and Godly request for the greater glory of God. Make it selfless, devoid of any personal gain and completely for the good of another human being. It will either come to pass OR it will not. A simple test. YOU be the judge.

Jesus the Christ, Yeshua ben Yossef, the Son of God? Let me know what you decide...but make the request of God. You are not testing Him...you are simply following clear directions as laid down in the New Testament.

Quoting the Bible to support your belief in Jesus is well and good. But what do I say to the Muslim who quotes the Koran to support his belief in Mohammed? Or the Blogger who quotes from the Book of Truthiness to support his belief in unicorns.

Does the LDS accept the Nicene Creed as doctrine?

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

That's all well and good..but why do you believe? Do you have any experience that supports that belief? Do you have any basis for this great belief, or is it just wishful thinking? And what difference does this belief make? Are you working hard to be like Jesus or do you think he did all the work and you can just coast on his coattails? I just can not imagine good ole Jawveh ever forgiving mankind for killing "his Son"; human sacrifice is the way to GOD? What an odd notion of GOD!

Someone remind me how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

There was never a Jesus. There is only the idea of s Jesus. That idea, held by those who think there was a Jesus, differs from person to person, from religious group to religious group.

I have to agree with Wes. He is right about the LDS organization often attracting Christians with their orthodox-sounding vocabulary, when in fact their doctrines are anything but orthodox.

I, like Wes, am sorry to have to tell LDS members that the Jesus they worship is not the Jesus of the Bible.

Mormons reject the fact that Jesus is one and the same with the Father.
- John 14:9 - "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father."
- John 1:1 - In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
- John 5:18 - For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

Mormons teach that Jesus was created by God. They refuse to pray to Jesus. This is contrary to scripture.
- John 8:58 - "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I AM!"
- John 20:28 - Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"
- John 14:14 - "You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it."

As you see in Mr. Otterson's comments, Jesus' death brings salvation to the whole world, not just to those who believe in Him. That is contrary to scripture as well:
- John 3:18 - Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.
- John 3:36 - Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him.
- John 5:24 - "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life."
- John 6:47 - "I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life."

Additionally, Mormons believe there are many works one must accomplish in order to work one's way to perfection. This is also non-scriptural, and it diminishes Christ's finished work on the Cross.

I am not saying that every Mormon is trying to deceive Christians. I think they just use many of the same words Christians use, but they use them in very different ways. Christians need to know that LDS doctrines are not in keeping with the Bible.

I want to thank Wes for making the first step in sharing this discrepancy. My hope and prayer is that all Mormons would come to know the one true Jesus, who is God Himself in the flesh.

Wes, you take issue with the quote ". . . no man or woman in this dispensation will ever enter into the celestial kingdom of God without the consent of Joseph Smith..." How many Christians believe that St. Peter admits people through the pearly gates of heaven? How is this any different?

I bet this guy believes all that stuff in the Book of Mormon, too. Sheesh.

Thank you for your words on the Savior. I add my witness as well that He lives. I felt the spirit as I read your post (Galatians 5:22) and know that your words are truth. For this, Christmas is definitely a cause for celebration!

Thank you.

I just realized that Mormons should be encouraged by what http://www.hoax-buster.org/sex says about human reproduction. You're half way there with poligamy. Need to upgrade that to include an equal number of males or thereabouts. No more sex starved wives.

Mr Otterson wrote:
"I believe in the Jesus whose voluntary suffering and death in Gethsemane and on the cross at Calvary atoned for the sins of all who have ever lived, and whose free gift is resurrection and immortality for all humanity"

But Jesus said:
"ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?" that is, "MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?" Matthew 27:46

I wouldn't use the word "voluntary" here. Jesus sounded like a man who is in real trouble and is looking for help. To his credit, Jesus never claimed to have done any of the miracles on his own.

"I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me." (John 5:30)

Can you please reflect on that verse a bit?!!!

Even the bedrock of chritianity, Peter, have something to say here:

"Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know" (Acts 2:22)

Again! "a MAN" "APPROVED" "by him" .. etc Does these words mean anything to you?

People get angry when the word "brainwashing" is used!!! I say, this is Otter-nonsense!

I readily confess to not having read all the posts to this article. Neither do I understand all the discussion pro and con of the Morman theological questions noted; I am no Morman.

My thoughts and comments go beyond that: If I were not be believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, what basis do I have for religious faith. If the claims that the Scriptures make are not so [cf. Matt 16:16ff, John 4:26, Acts 4:10,12, Acts 2:38 --the Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that salvation is only available to man thru. Him, and a description of what man must do]; if I do not believe them valid what basis is there to believe anything within the Word, Gensis to Revelation. Either it is all true and factual OR it is all subject to question and of questionable value.

Because I do believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God [cf. Acts 8:37 et al], because I have submitted myself in obedience to Him as I understand the Word, by inspiration, to reveal I have confidence to one day stand before the Father, not because I or any man can earn --but because of the grace of God to those who submit and obey.

TJ, but of course I can name the dead son of a dead God, Hirohito. The Japanese genlteman in his broken english intimated to me, "old God broke. Got new God, MacArfur." What did I say to that? Bring this man another dodad of saki. No time at all before that blessed event we were trying out best to kill each other. What a wonderful world there is after Gods die. MacArthur is dead isn't he?

Brother Otterson

Thank you for sharing your testimony with us and reminding us what this Season is truly about.

Thank you for your response. The Church would never deny that these statements were actually made by Prophets of God. But I think your insistence that they therefore must reflect LDS beliefs is where your claims are perhaps ill-informed. Official LDS doctrine does not assert the infallibility of Prophets, nor does the Bible. I think if you had access to everything said by Paul and Peter in both formal and informal contexts you would not accept it all as part of the Christian cannon. Prophets have opinions; many of those opinions are wrong. It might be natural for a Fundamentalist Christian to assume that a statement in the Journal of Discourses by Brigham Young should have equal weight to Mormons as a statement of Paul in Romans has to Christians. Mormon epistemology just does not work that way!

The church is completely honest in not including them in public statements of its beliefs however; to do otherwise would paint an inaccurate picture of them.

Though we do not include these statements in our cannon, they have not been suppressed by the church. You can find them in historical works in church owed bookstores.
I learned most of the controversies that you think are part of a Nazie-like suppression at church owned Brigham Young University, including, the Adam-God, Polyandry, racist statements, Blood-Atonement etc. These only pose a problem to LDS beliefs for a fundamentalist who believes that every statement and every action must fit tightly into easily understood categories of thought. But life is much more complex and nuanced than that.

You might counter my post with a quote by Ezra Benson, or Boyd K. Packer, or Brigham Young which imply the infallibility of LDS Prophets. Such statements are simply a product of their fallibility, and their fallible thinking at the time they made them.

Much of what is said can be understood as tentative until Christ comes again and reveals all things.

Stick to the Cannon and current statements by leaders in General Conference, then your criticisms of LDS positions will be more honest and accurate. Is there anything about Jesus in the D&C or the Book of Mormon you think contradicts what Mr. Otterson has said? If there is, I’d like to discuss it.

The Living Son of the Living God

A question..

The above statement shows that there's also a dead son of a dead God.. can someone name them pls?

Whoops! I accidentally copied Mr. Otterson in the name field of my comment above and didn't realize it.

Well said, Mr. Otterson! Best response at providing context around the implications of question as well as answering the question itself. Thank you!

Thanks for your comments John. I respectfully disagree. The words I quoted are directly from the mouths of self-proclaimed propehts of God. These are not "unofficial" statements. The fact of the matter is the LDS church is trying to distance itself from embarrassing doctrines and cast itself as something it is not - A mainstream Christian religion. The LDS church has an effective PR apparatus which Mr. Otterson is a part of. What I am suggesting is that the church follow their own beliefs about being honest with their fellow man and come clean with its history and beliefs. The days of being able to hide the truth are over with the availability of information that is easily accessible. John, I know it is painful to hear and face the truth, but the LDS church should be honest, open, and frank about its beliefs instead of trying to be deceptive about its true doctrine. Lives should not be built on deception. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda once said "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." The LDS church has proven Mr. Goebbels statement true.

Mr. Otterson described the Christ that best reflects the core of LDS orthodoxy as reflected in its cannon. It is the Jesus that I have always been taught within the LDS church. What Wes quotes are unofficial statements from past church leaders that are not currently recognized as authoritative. Though I have heard the quote about Joseph Smith authorizing entrance into the Celestial Kingdom is quoted in LDS meetings once or twice. Its meaning has been maligned by the implication that in precludes Christ as the only means to Salvation. It simply refers to a delegation of authority. It implies a similar role for Joseph Smith that Jesus claimed for his apostles when he said, "ye shall judge this people" (I paraphrase). Therefore I think deception lies Wes's post not Mr Otterson's.

Sorry for the typo in the last sentence. It should read "Latter Day Saints."

Mr. Otterson,

Thank you for your comments. To the unsuspecting man on the street your comments on Christ sound orthodox and in line with mainstream Christianity. It pains me to have to point this out, but the campaign of mass deception perpetrated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints needs to be brought to the attention of people. You speak of Christ in Christian terms but the Mormon Church's view of Christ is anything but Christian. Does the Mormon Church believe in the Immaculate Conception? No, Brigham Young taught that Christ was conceived by God the Father and Mary in the same way mortals conceive a child. Does the Mormon Church teach that salvation comes only through Christ? No, it teaches that men will have to have Joseph Smith's consent to enter into God's kingdom. Brigham Young taught ". . . no man or woman in this dispensation will ever enter into the celestial kingdom of God without the consent of Joseph Smith..." Joseph Smith himself went further in his statement "I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him, but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet." (History of the Church, vol. 6, pp. 408-9)

Mr. Otterson, please be honest in your presentation of the beliefs of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Daints. Thanks.

There's three things I can't stand, unnatural food, heavy beer and dead Gods. Thank's for bringing us a LIVING God.

Sorry for the accidental double post :)

Thank you Brother Otterson for highlighting the unique Latter Day Saint viewpoint that Jesus' grace is universal and truly free. The power of his Atonement is so strong that it will ultimately save all from Eternal Hell regardless of their cultural or religious worldview in this life. This is the glorious, loving and merciful Christ in which I believe. This is the gentle and ever caring being who has made himself known to me through sacred communications and, most importantly, through effecting a new creature within the inner parts of my soul. Jesus yearns to endow us with more of his grace, with its accompanying peace and expansion of soul; all we have to do is accept it by having enough faith in Him to obey His voice, and make covenants with Him to keep His commandments. The more we cooperate with His grace, the more of His grace we can receive.

Brother Otterson,

Thank you for highlighting the uniquely Latter Day Saint viewpoint that Jesus' grace is universal and truly free. The power of his Atonement is so strong that it will ultimately save all from Eternal Hell regardless of their cultural or religious worldview in this life. This is the glorious, loving and merciful Christ in which I believe. This is the gentle and ever caring being who has made himself known to me through sacred communications and, most importantly, through effecting a new creature within the inner parts of my soul. Jesus yearns to endow us with more of his grace, with its accompanying peace and expansion of soul; all we have to do is accept it by having enough faith in Him to obey His voice, and make covenants with Him to keep His commandments. The more we cooperate with His grace, the more of His grace we can receive.

The one thing that comes atleast to my mind after reading this is, for you sir, Ignorance truly is bliss!

I know part of what I am going to say, and I have lamented this fact before, is that Newsweek has not hired a "True Believer" Evangelical Christian (Protestant or Catholic) to represent their viewpoint. This is the most forward and uncomplicating answer of any panelist on this question. The others squirm, hem, or deny what that means to most Christians of faith. This answer is the only one saying The Son of God is who the Scriptures say he is.

Thank you for your testimony of Christ. I wish to also share that I love Jesus Chirst and that I know he lives! The Holy Ghost has given me this witness. The hymn I Know That My Redeemer Lives puts it so perfectly: "Oh, sweet the joy this sentence gives:
'I know that my Redeemer lives!'"

Thanks, Brother Otterson, for that testimony. I, too, believe in Jesus Christ, the son of the living God---our Savior and Redeemer.

Reminders like this that He lives, just make my heart want to sing.

Merry Christmas!