“…if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you…” The Bible calls God’s grace a gift; but Mormonism claims it must be merited: “…it is only after a person has so performed a lifetime of works and faithfulness—only after he has come to deny himself of all ungodliness and every worldly lust—that the grace of God, that spiritual increment of power, is efficacious” (Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon 1:295. Also, compare 2 Ne 25:23 and Eph 2:8-10).
“Keep my commandments continually,…except thou do this, where I am you cannot come.” The Bible tells us we are all under sin, unrighteous and unworthy of God’s favor. The apostle Paul even lamented that he desired to do what is right, but was unable to carry it out (Rom 3:9-20; 7:18-19). What Mormonism says God demands is impossible to achieve (see 1 Ne 3:7).
“…go your ways and sin no more; but unto that soul who sinneth shall the former sins return…” True repentance and forgiveness, according to Mormonism, is only achieved when we completely and forever abandon sin. As shown above (#5, #4), this is impossible–hopeless. But the Bible offers great hope: “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities….so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Ps 103:10-12).
“And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true;…he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.” This is unbiblical. The Bible never tells us to pray to know whether something is true; rather, we are to prayerfully search the revealed Word of God, asking for wisdom and guidance. Truth is brought to light by testing truth claims against God’s Word (1 Jn 4:1, 6; 2 Tim 3:16-17; 1 Thess 5:21. See Jer 17:9, Prov 14:12, 28:26).
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with thy soul, and with all thy might.” This confession of true faith, known as the Shema, confirms the uniqueness of the Lord (Jehovah) and asserts that He alone is God (Elohim). It is a call for God’s people to stay true to Him.
The words from the Shema are echoed in Deuteronomy 13 when God directly addressed the problem of false prophets. God told the Israelites they were not to be deceived by miraculous signs or fulfilled prophecy; these things were not the standard by which to ultimately judge the dreamer of dreams. Instead, a foundational question was (and is) to be asked: Who is the God the prophet proclaims? Is He the one true God the people have always known? Or a different God? (“We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity, I will refute that idea…” see #6)
Deuteronomy 13 is a test—not only to be applied to those claiming to speak for God, but also to determine the faithfulness of those who claim to follow God. “You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deut 13:3).
I am not a Mormon—because I have committed to be faithful to the Lord my God, and to love Him with all my heart and with all my soul.
Mick´s comments are terribly disturbing. Mick, you´ve revealed your true face – you hate the Bible. Let me make you aware of something extremely important mormons constantly overlook. To demean and mock the Bible is the same as shooting yourself in the foot. Your prophets have stated the Bible to be the Word of God, haven´t they? What supposedly prompted the restoration, wasn´t Joseph reading the Bible? For goodness sake, didn´t he do an “inspired” translation of it? Does that Bible also contains all the contradictions? And speaking of that, i´m so sorry for you, you´re so desperate that you have the guts to put the Bible down while being aware of the absurdly ridiculous contradictions between your very own books of scripture and your living “prophets”. Also, the BoM has entire chapters from Isaiah copied from the KJV, and God tells Nephi that he shouldn´t write about the events of the end and the return of Jesus because John was going to write it already and we´d have it available! I mean, you´ve got to be very desperate to say the things you´re saying. You´ve also proven to us that you´re fully aware the Bible proves your religion completely false, and you know the only way to validate mormonism is to take the Bible out of the way! Otherwise you wouldn´t talk about it the way you did.
Wow! So, again, how do you decide what words of your prophets are inspired and what words are their opinion? And those crazy statements were neatly closed down? Are you joking me? You just dismiss them like that? Man, you´re fooling yourself saying that you actually end up with a consistent set devoid of contradictions. If i wanted that i could do what your church does – just rip off pages from the Bible and pretend they never existed! Easy, right? Oh, Jesus was mean to the judaizers and that´s not politically corrects nowadays? No problem, let´s do like the mormons do, rip it off and pretend it never existed, and if someone finds out, tell them those were just Jesus´opinions, he really didn´t know what crazy things he was talking about!
I honestly can´t believe i read that – i´m keeping this to show my friends how messed up some mormons can get.
Just clarifying something, i wasn´t saying the Bible is full of contradictions because it isn´t, there are many scholarly works out there that deal with them. I was saying that if i wanted to solve all of the difficult parts of the Bible, i could act like a mormon “prophet”, rip it off the cannon and pretend it never existed, like they did with the lectures on faith! BTW, Mick, why aren´t they part of D&C anymore?
Mick,
Since we were talking privatly via email before you came here, I goota say, I really had high hopes you were really honest about wanting serious debate and would really deal with the issues and look at the facts. Now since you seem to not answer questions and not give anything more than mere pat answers that all mormons seem to do, I am wondering if you really are open to honest debate. I guess time will tell.
I want to address the issue you had said about our churchs allowing some sins while over looking others. First off, no christain can play holy spirit or sin police. We can certinly ask someone to leave if they clearly are doing something wrong, Like robbing banks, Or asking a child molester to leave.
The way my church works is like this, We teach the Bible, chapter by chapter, verse by verse every book, from Genesis, to Revelation. My pastors says, ALL are welcome, he does not care if you are a drunk, or cheating on your wife, or any sin you are living in, Jesus offers eternal life to all who will call upon His name. My pastor has said many times, If you are living in sin, then either you will give your life to Jesus and change your ways, Or you will choose to leave on your own since you will be able to only handle so much of the word of God before being so convicted you cannot handle it and will simply leave.
Now yes we also have rules, If your a child molester, you must be up front and tell the pastor, then we will not put you around Children and in any kids ministry. And yes this has happend. (Cont).
(cont)
If you start fights with people in church you will be escorted out, or if your a single guy and all you are their for is picking up the ladies, you will be asked to leave, We are not a singles bar. Other wise, everyone has sin, we must deal with it. Now Mormons are quick to say, well what about all the Denomanations, Thats not of God or found in the Bible, thats shows massive problems. Helen was one of many LDS to mention this. Yet LDS are not honest enough to mention they have church splits and LDS demnonations. Then when I mention it, or others mention it, they run away and never answer, Much like Helen did.
So please think seriously before you try and tell us, we have all these problems, yet you have the same ones. Then the minor sin issue, Your prophets tell us that a cup of Tea can keep us out of Heaven, so you point to us and say, I cannot believe you guys, You worry about little sines but us LDS do not do that, Yet you really do. A cup of tea and salvation as J.F.S spoke about.
Also you dont understand, one reason churchs split into denomanations is becasue they argue over these stupid things, It’s from man and of Man, you wont find this stuff taught in the Bible. Some of these Denomanations say, in order to join with us, You cannot smoke, or drink or go to the Movies. These things are not taught in the Bible. Yet the LDS church does something like this with their Temple recamend, are you following the WoW? I think you know these things, you just refuse to admit it.
Hey everyone.
I was trying to reach this blog for a while now, but I couldn’t get any responded any MRM site. Tried it on multiple machines, just loading signed and white screens. Was it just me or did any others experience access difficulties?
Anyway it’s 2 am where I am now so I won’t be posting tonight, but I just wanted to explain that I hadn’t went anywhere and I will be writing a few replies soon.
Ps. Rick, I’ve been waiting a while now for you to reply to my latest round in our email discussion, can I expect a response from you soon, or are you waiting for a reply from me on this board?
Also, I’m really sorry about the poor grammar in some of my previous posts. Normally I’m much more careful to get it right. I guess the autocorrect on my IPad really won’t cut it. Anyway, be back soon.
Personal revelation is perhaps the most unreliable method/means by which to prove if a message purportedly from God is a reflection of truth or a means of guidance. Now how can I, a full gospel guy, who is not a strict dispensationalist but someone who believes all of the gifts of the Holy Spirit are available today, make such an assertion?
First of all, everything we do as people of faith must be supported by God’s revealed Word, the Holy Bible.
This is where religions like Mormonism go hay-wire. It’s very easy to believe/feel/know/think that God is speaking to us personally giving us direction for our lives and revealing deep spiritual truths to us. All religions, regardless of who they claim as God, make claims like this. Folks “sense” the spiritual presence of a god.
I’ve spent time around native Americans who have a deep sense of the spirit in rocks, trees and all sorts of inanimate objects. They’ll wear a leather pouch with tobacco in it around their necks and think their prayers are being taken by majestic birds and delivered to the great spirit.
Can any of this be supported by the Word of God or the traditions of the historical Christian Church? No!
Now if someone doesn’t have a high view of the Bible or respect for the traditions of the NT church, then anything goes. That includes revelations, visions, dreams, spirit apperations and religious dogma.
I was just reading an article in USA Today about a shrine in Champion, WI near Green Bay that has been certified by the Bishop. A woman back in the 1850s claimed three appearances/visions of the Virgin Mary on the spot where a shrine now stands. People interviewed all talked about the special feeling they get inside the shrine.
So if someone denies the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, then what we end up with is a religious free-for-all. That’s basically what Mormonism is. A recent Mormon poster here claimed the option of accepting or rejection the utterances of Mormon prophets past and present. I find that very interesting since the Mormon major brag is that they have a prophet that speaks for the Mormon god. And yet these prophets can be rejected regarding what they say the Mormon god told them. Mormon doctrine is a fit of starts and stops, zigs and zags. No wonder Mormons feel that they can accept or reject what the prophets say.
And yet one of the major mantras of Mormonism is that when the leaders speak the thinking has been done. It is always said that Mormons are to follow the leaders because they will never lead the flock astray.
Am I the only one seeing the contradictions here.
Joseph Smith got away with what he did precisely because the rank and file Mormons didn’t follow the Word of God and confront him when he changed the Mormon doctrine of the nature of God, the doctrine of salvation and began marrying already married women and adolescent girls.
It doesn’t take a whole lot to see through Smith’s claims of spirit visitations, gold plates and the spirit power of his magic rock.
Mormons don’t have a whole lot of respect even for the BoM in that whole sale changes have been made in the original text many of which have a direct effect on the basic doctrines expressed there. Joseph Smith didn’t even have much respect for his original Book of Commandments since he significantly changed that when he wrote the D&C.
Mick said
Mick, He is a problem, Giving people evidence is easy to do, the evidence is so over whelming it’s not funny, providing evidence is easier than falling off a chair. The problem is, no matter how much evidence you give, if a person simply does not want to believe they wont.
Here are examples. Jesus had Lazuras come back frome the dead. What did the religious say? Lets Kill Lazuras. Judas walked with Jesus, He rejected everything He saw. Jesus rose from the dead, The solidars reported this to the Jews in Charge, what did they say. Lie about it and we will pay you to do so. I have had more athiets than I can count tell me, Even if they put the Ark on display for the world to see, I still wont believe. People as the Bible say, choose to live in darkness rather than light.
So it’s not a matter of what we can show you, we can show Mormons enough contrdictions and problems to sink a battle ship, Yet, what do LDS do? They try and justify these problems. And Dont care about these problems.
There are facts about the accuracy of the Bible that can be listed, if someone is interested. That doesn’t prove the Bible is true, just that its been accurately copied. One of the ways that the accuracy is tested is by comparing copies of the manuscripts. When the scribes of the OT were copying the manuscripts they would encounter the letters representing the name of God. They would put down their writing instrument, ceremoniously wash and then write the letters. Also when the copying was being done it was letter by letter. In-other-words, they wouldn’t copy words, phrases or sentences but letter by letter.
What is meant by the “inspiration of the Bible” is that the initial breathing of God upon the authors of Scripture, to produce a copy of His thoughts for man are inspired. The original text of Scripture, revealed by God and faithfully recorded by His servants, is what the Christian church claims infallibility.
So the question is, how accurate are the copies? There have been literally thousands of copies and fragments preserved over the centuries of the initial manuscripts with only minor transmissional mistakes. The thing about the minor transmission errors is that it doesn’t effect the basic doctrines of the Church. In the NT we are looking at questionable material that makes up 1/2 of 1 percent about what we do not yet have enough data to properly evaluate and understand.
What I have presented here can be found in “Essential Christianity” by Dr. Walter Martin. There are other books written specifically concerning the accuracy of the Biblical text. Among these is “Evidence That Deserves a Verdict” by Josh McDowell.
Again, this doesn’t prove that the Bible is true. It just supports the accuracy of the text. Christian doctrine is based on what is revealed in the Bible.
Falcon, Rick, This idea of trying to prove that the Bible is a reliable record of God’s
dealing with the human race and His desire to make His will known to man by preserving
that record is very important . But in relation to trying to have our LDS guests see this
fact when some of them seem to go to great lengths to disparage the Bible , is silly . Why ?
Because the Mormon prophet carries a Bible to Church every Sunday like the vast
majority of LDS ! He calls it God’s Word , he quotes from it practically as much as he does
the other Mormon scriptures . Did’nt even Brigham Young at one point ask anyone to take
up the Bible and compare the religion of the Latter-Day Saints with it ? Mormons need to
realize that if they indeed have the true church of Jesus Christ then we should be able to
look in the Bible to see a significant amount of evidence for this claim . To try and do an end
run around the Bible by casting doubts as to it’s testimony, is not a very productive way to
convince non LDS , in my opinion. When I see what the New Testament teaches concerning
living morally, and what it teaches about Jesus/God , and how a man being a sinful creature
can be reconciled to God I don’t see any deficiency . I would hope any Mormon would see
that also , after all they claim to be followers of Christ .
Mike,
If there is no standard by which to judge revelation, then any body can have one (revelation) and claim legitimacy for it. What strikes me about early Mormonism is the sheer amateurism of Smith and his cronies. The only thing I can figure out is that Mormons are truly ignorant of the high jinks that went on with these people.
Little do Mormons realize that Smith’s witnesses to the gold plates didn’t really “see”, in the natural sense, any plates. They saw them in a “vision” created by Smith’s own skill using the power of suggestion and second sight vision. Smith had honed his craft at creating illusion when he marched his friends around the countryside at night seeking for buried treasure that he would “see” in the ground with his magic rock. The LDS church buries these facts deeper than the well that Smith was digging when he found his precious seer stone.
So without the Bible on which to build a firm foundation, anyone can spin a yarn about a vision, or a dream, or spiritual beings appearing to them bringing a new message from God. There are people around today who are pulling the same ruse. I saw a documentary on the Geography Channel highlighting modern day revelators. It’s the same old scam but there are people just looking to be seduced by religious charletons.
It frustrates me that people don’t spend more time checking things out before they jump into some religious group.
Falcon, I echo your concern about people being influenced by religious groups without
checking their claims out thoroughly . For a long time I thought that most people were
concerned with knowing if a religion’s major doctrine was true or not, but I remember
reading something not to long ago that said that really is’nt the case. People want a place
of community , a atmosphere of friendship etc. The Mormon church with it’s message of
family and also the way Mormons seem have a successful program of helping others , this
all meets an inner need for people seeking a religion . When someone who is a new convert
finds out later of some of the doctrines by their spiritual leaders, they to often simply ignore
these figuring as they do that since they’re doing so much good things for others that this then
covers over any thought of their leaders being guilty of false doctrine . After all, how could a
false prophet constantly stress the importance for his followers to be good moral people ?
This is the trap many Mormons, I believe, fall into . I was reading the testimony of Agusta
Harting, a former Mormon. She tells of how it was difficult for her to believe that Mormonism
( not Mormons) was wrong : ” As Mormons I believe we mistook the physical reality of
Mormonism for true spiritual reality. The physical presence of Mormonism is so enormous
and overwhelmingly present….” She mentions the magnificant Temples , visitors centers
members in Congress , in sports , entertainment etc. , she asks , ” so how can it be wrong ? ”
It’s hard for Mormons to see this .
Mike,
I hate to say it but some folks are just plain lazy when it comes to doing some serious study and research regarding religious matters. There’s also a certain comfort level that many do not want to disturb. If someone is naturally curious and is even a little fed-up with the status quo, they are more likely to start asking questions.
We can’t ignore, however, that mysterious occurrence of the move of the Holy Spirit on someone’s life. I look at my own journey of spiritual discovery and it’s amazing how God saw fit to move me physically a great distance to put me in a place at a time and with the right people to lead me to my conversion. This whole topic of “election” can get pretty hairy but I do know that He chose me in Him before the foundation of time. The first chapter of Ephesians explains it all. At one time I went through that chapter taking different colored highlighters and trying to identify when Paul is talking about the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The pronouns “He” and “Him” can get past us if we don’t stop and think about what is being revealed there about the Godhead.
I have so much respect for the early Church Fathers and reading what they wrote blows my hair back when it comes to the topic of the nature of God. And then I read what was written and said by these early Mormon dufusses like Joseph Smith and the other Mormon leaders and it’s obvious that Mormonism is absolutely fools gold.
But here’s were we get back to the “presentation”. It’s like food presented beautifully on a plate that has no nutritional value. In fact the food on the Mormon plate isn’t even food.
First up, I’m sorry I took so long to reply. I’ve just been really busy this past week and a half. A couple of times I looked at this page and thought ‘Wow that’s a lot to reply to’ and left it for later.
Grindael
I’m not really familiar with Luther, and when I saw his letter to Melanchthon I assumed that he was a consistent person- and that given how clear the quote was on what he believed, I could use it as a guide to what he believed. Your obviously much more familiar with Luther than I am and I’m glad you called me out on that.
4fivesolas
Your summary of your view on Faith Alone makes a lot of sense to me and strikes me as very reasonable. If I may ask, do you think you have to be baptised to be saved? What did Luther believe about this? (I would really appreciate a quote on this)
“Also, I found it refreshing that you admitted that Mormonism is not Biblical”
Whenever somebody asks me if what I believe is Biblical, I immediately ask; The Bible according to whom? The 66 Book Protestant Bible, the 73 Book Roman Catholic Bible, the 78 book Greek Orthodox Bible, or the Bible as the first and second century Christians had it?
Mormonism claims to follow the Bible as it was, not as you have it now. Just read any Early Church theologian to see just how different the books they use are. I’m happy to give examples of some such books if you want, and to point out the Mormon theology contained in them.
F_melo
In your second post to me you try to contradict my claim that God can reveal religious truths via the Holy Spirit with 2 Timothy 2:13. Are you sure that’s the
quote you were looking for? All that verse says is that God is faithful even to those who deny him, which is in no way synonymous with the claim that God does not reveal religious truths via the Holy Spirit.
In your third you say
“Do you know how God supernaturally proved His Word? By raising Jesus from the dead. By creating the nation of Israel, and many other miracles we see attested to in the Bible.”
So how do we know the Bible is true? All the miracles that God did in it. How do we know the Miracles actually happened? The Bible says it did… If you can’t see why that is circular reasoning, perhaps you shouldn’t be trying to argue with me.
You then assume my conversion to Mormonism was based on prayer, asking me why I didn’t study it out instead. Actually, I did study it out. I think the thing that finally converted me was reading Origins On first Principles Book II 1:4-5, particularly the part where he, while trying to explain basic theology to his students, complains that he “cannot understand how so many distinguished men have been (note the past tense) of opinion that this matter, which is so great, and possesses such properties as to enable it to be sufficient for all the bodies in the world which God willed to exist,… receiving into itself whatever qualities He desired to bestow upon it, was uncreated”
You then accuse me of hating, demeaning, mocking, and putting the Bible down. I don’t think I’m doing this at all, rather I’m showing you what the Bible actually is, including the bits you refuse to see due to your instance on Biblical inerrancy. It being a generally good record of many of Gods appointed leaders in the Middle east throughout
the Ages, showing the their actions, the things God did through them etc, and their perceptions and theologies of God – Contradictions and all.
You say that there are contradictions between my Scripture and my prophets, and you’re quite right. As far as I can tell, LDS Scripture contradicts LDS Scripture, the Prophets contradict the prophets, and the Bible contradicts the Bible, and they all contradict each other. The difference between me and you is that I apply the same standard to all m scripture and to other religions (I.E. Koran), whereas you hypocritically use two very different standards, one for the Bible and one for other peoples Scripture, insisting that one my Scripture has “Absurdly ridiculous contradictions” and yours “Has many Scholarly works dealing with them”
F_Melo, if you really believe this than I challenge you. Give a definition of the word ‘Contradiction’, and some criteria for working out if two statements contradict, such that Mormon is contradictory and the Bible isn’t. If LDs Scripture really is so much worse, then this should be pretty easy, right?
Kate
You ask me how I converted to Mormonism. It’s pretty simple. The Protestants said that the Early Christians carried their theology and their Bible (or at least a set of scripture not too far removed doctrine wise) . Ditto for Roman Catholics. Ditto for Greek Orthodox. The Mormons claimed that the early Church had most (not quite all) of their theology, and a Bible that had different books with their doctrines in it. Almost all churches everywhere claim that their theology is the one Jesus and the disciples taught. These claims are not matters of faith that one can choose to believe at will, they are matters of historical fact.
I turned up to my local ward without ever having seen a missionary, just
just with a mental checklist of what I was expecting them to believe. I asked, they matched (not perfectly, but far closer than anybody else), and I joined. The Missionaries insisted on taking me through the lessons, lol, I taught them more than they taught me (their own words). Got baptised a month later.
You asked if they told me that we believe we are gods in embryo. Actually, every early church theologian with major surviving works explicitly believed in some form of Theosis/deification. I won’t tell you that what they believed was identical to what Mormons today believe, but it certainly was much closer to Mormonism than it is to what you believe:
Justin Martyr (103-165) First Apology (150-155) Chapter 21
And we have learned that those only are deified who have lived near to God in holiness and virtue
Clement of Alexandria (150-215) stromata (185) Book VII, chapter 10.
Then become pure in heart, and near to the Lord, there awaits them restoration to everlasting contemplation; and they are called by the appellation of gods, being destined to sit on thrones with the other gods that have been first put in their places by the Saviour.
Hippolytus (170-235) The Refutation of All Heresies X, 30.
For thou hast become God: for whatever sufferings thou didst undergo while being a man, these He gave to thee, because thou wast of mortal mould, but whatever it is consistent with God to impart, these God has promised to bestow upon thee, because thou hast been deified, and begotten unto immortality. This constitutes the import of the proverb, “Know thyself;” i.e., discover God within thyself, for He has formed thee after His own image.…
For the Deity, (by condescension,) does not diminish aught of the divinity of His divine perfection; having made thee even God unto His glory
Athanasius (297-273), De Incarnatione (318-335) 54:3
For He was made man that we might be made God
(Note: I’m well aware that the other end of the equation, the Theogeny, that God was once a man, isn’t present at all in early church literature. But this doesn’t bother me; Joseph explicitly said he was revealing said doctrine for the first time ever, so it is not a prediction of Mormonism that the early church should believe this)
If anyone wants more examples or thinks I’ve misrepresented them somehow, I’ll answer any query you make, but these word limits get in the way so I would prefer it if you emailed me at mick dot garrone at gmail dot com
Rick B
You claim that the Method JS translated the BoM should result in an error free book, which is obviously income partible with it being changed later (Mosiah to Benjamin etc), but you have badly misunderstood the LDs claim here. The claim is that by the power of God JS translated the book perfectly, including any flaws the original had. The original never claimed to be perfect, on the contrary, the authors were quite aware that their work was subject to error.
“We are not making up liea about your religion, we tell it like we see it…”
You did just before when you implied the BoM claimed to be perfect.
“Yet things the LDS church leaders do and say, do not line up with the Bible and these people are being exposed as the false prophets they really are”
You have told me plenty of times that various leaders said inaccurate things. Each time, I have agreed, saying that God is not obligated to reveal the whole truth to any of his servants at any one time. I have asked you how you can believe ‘saying inaccurate
inaccurate things’ disqualifies one from being a prophet of God, and given you examples of what I allege are inaccurate or contradictory things in the Bible. Not once so far have you replied to me. You just run away from the question and repeat your accusation and I’m rather sick of it. Stop behaving like a broken record Rick. Either go back to any of the examples of inaccuracies in the Bible I’ve given you and explain why I’m wrong, or accept that your argument is based on unbelievable premises.
“would you please state to everyone here the issue with the Prophets”
I’m not sure which issue and which set of Prophets we are talking about- we’ve been talking about prophets a lot. But Feel free to quote here anything I have sent you except personal information.
Later on you say that I “do not seem to answer questions”. Rick, we have been sending rather large chunks of text discussing a lot of questions and argument by email for a while now, and I’ve been waiting for you to reply for two weeks. In my replies I would pick up and discuss practically every argument you made, you regularly ignore arguments or counterarguments I have made to you. You are not in a position to make this complaint to me.
Falcon.
I’ve just reached my post limit, and there is so much I want to discuss with you. If you have some spare time and are up for defending some of your statements, could you email me at mick dot garrone at gmail dot com 🙂
Mick, I dont think your being all to honest with everyone about me, You said you were busy and you would post later, but then 4 topics come and go, with over 200 replies or close to it, no word from you. Then around the same time two weeks ago or so, I wrote you, gave great detail about how busy I am and that I would reply to you as I can. Then I gave a little bit of a reply to you. You never wrote me back and about two weeks passed, you never even wrote to simply say, I got your letter, I understand your busy and I will wait as the replys come.
Then you write me, you said in so many words you felt I was avoiding you, I told you what I just said again, about how you never wrote me even simply saying, I understand, I will wait. So as I said, You seemed to drop off the earth and I felt you were simply done here and with me. So to be fair and honest, You knew this, and to “call me out” As it were on this blog saying what you did, when you knew what I said, really comes across as your not ever to to be treating me honeslty and you yourself said, You know your church is so full of contrdictions and problems, that why bother talking to you, since you really cannot know the truth and dont care about truth.
Mick said
I agree that God might not tell us everything at once, but the Bible does tell us that God is not the author of confusion. So you really believe that God would tell one of His so called LDS prophets one thing, then later tell another something different to the point that after talking to 3 or 4 or more prophets it looks as if they are all contrdicting one another? This is confusion and God is not the author of confusion.
Then you mention the Bible and say quoting from the Bible is circular reasoning, This is not true, the Bible is 66 books written by 40 different authors over 1,000’s of years. I would agree with you if it was one book written by one author. We as people can and do all the time check and compare multiple sources for truth, this is one of those times. JS on the on the other hand, wrote about himself and wrote himself into His scriptures. God Did not say that stuff about JS, JS said that stuff about himself.
Rick
It appreciate that your actually reacting to my argument in some manner, rather than just pretending it isn’t there as you seem to have been doing this far. Do I believe that God will let his servants believe inaccurate things? I have to believe that, and if you really believe the Bible so do you:
One account of Moses writings states that Children will be punished for their great grandfathers sins Exodus 20:5 Exodus 34:7 Jesus according to the Gospels thought he would return while his adversaries where still alive Mark 14:62 Matthew 26:64.
Jacob believes swearing Oaths is OK genesis 47:29-31, God through Isaiah says it is OK in Isaiah 45:23 Jesus says it isn’t in Matthew 5:34.
Solomon believes that the dead “don’t know anything at all” Ecclesiastes 9:5 and Job believes they are “no more” Job 14:10-12, whereas Jesus insists they are aware and can talk and feel Luke 16:19-31 and Peter says they were even preached to post mortem 1 Peter 3:18-20
You say God is not the author of confusion. Well perhaps God is not so much deliberately deceiving as merely lying by omission, simply handing out truth as his people can handle it and letting them make inaccurate assumptions in the meantime.
“Then you mention the Bible and say quoting from the Bible is circular reasoning,”
Trying to show that any X is true simply because X says it is true is circular reasoning. If it somehow did work, it would back up the Koran as much as the Bible. How does the Bible’s being composed by multiple authors enter into it? if X says Y is true and Y says X is true, using those statements to establish the truth of X and Y is still circular.
“Then around the same time two weeks ago or so, I wrote you, gave great detail about how busy I am and that I would reply to you as I can. Then I gave a little bit of a reply to you. “
I was pretty busy two. So I just waited a while, wondering how much of it you would reply to, how much you would just skip over , and how much you would just assert to me was wrong without offering a reason this time around. A while stretched into a week and I just figured you must be preparing large block of text, a thorough reply, to send to me, and just waited some more. It took me a while to realise that you weren’t about to respond, so then I came back to the blog here.
You say that it wasn’t honest of me to call you out for taking so long to reply when you had given me had already given me an email explaining yourself. That would be an accurate assessment if I had that explanatory email prior to my posting, but I didn’t. I put my post up about 4 hours before. May I suggest you be a bit more observant before you accuse me of dishonesty?
Mick
Your a typical mormon, You say, well if the BoM is wrong or has errors, then so does the Bible. You guys thorw the Bible under the bus at every turn. I really feel sorry for you.
All those issues you have with the Bible really are not issues as you claim, they are easy to solve but you cannot solve them if you keep throwing the Bible under the bus.
Also I did tell you already, I wrote you and said I will reply as I can, you never wrote back just simply stating, Ok, I got your message, I will wait for your next reply. How hard is it to simply acknowledge that you recived my email stating I was busy? Then besides not doing that, you said you would reply more, then disapper for a long time to the point for topics come and go, and close to 200 replies between all the topics. So I figured as I said you were done with me. Since your not, thats fine, but like I said, how hard was it to at least say, I got your email, I will wait?
Rick, all of these verses I have given here I have given to you before, but even though you said you said they had solutions you never gave them, instead opting to ignore the point entirely and jump argument to something else. Looking back on our email exchange so far, most of our conversation consists of arguments you gave me that you then abandoned, or arguments I gave you that you just ignored. If my issues with Biblical infallibility “are easy to solve” as you say, then why haven’t you been able to solve them? Rick, seriously, if you don’t have answers you don’t have to keep pretending like you do. If you really do insist you have answers here, well how many times am I going to have to put this argument to you before I get a reply?
Mick,
As I said before, You want me to add to the word of God, If you reject the word of God and you do, thats on you. Like I said, You deny the trinity, You said it is impossible for God and Jesus to be One. You tried to prove they are not by giving some human computer Code to say, see, this is a math problem that cannot be solved, it is impossible, therefore that proves the trinity cannot exist.
I told you Jesus said, I AM, God the Father told Moses I AM sends you. They are the same, you deny that, Thats Fine, But then You keep wanting me to give you more, and I keep telling you I can only say what scripture says. If Their are no more verses to give then I cannot help you. So You insist I am not a good debater or cannot think since you want me to add to the word of God to answer you. I told you I cannot.
Then God the Father says, I know of no other Gods, none are before me, none after me. Then you claim, well the Bible speaks of other gods. I told you either God the father Lied, or they are not real, they are man made with out any power, You seem to insist they are real gods with power. So again, you want me to add to the word of God. It’s not that I cannot answer you or have not. Yes some questions I have not yet, and told you I am busy, I have a wife and 3 kids, all home schooled, my family is living with friends till we can get our own place, I am getting ready to go to Israel, (Cont)
(Cont),
I am really busy, yet sometimes I only reply to a small part of what you said since I am running out the door. You know that and to act like I am dodging you, knowing all this is less than honest of you. I also notice you dont seem to be jumping in and reply to every question asked of you by Mike or Johnny, Or others. I also work in a restaurant, You might not be aware of this, but our busiest months are Nov and Dec. So I will have even less time as we ramp up for a busy season. So I have told you over and over, I will reply to more as I get time and you will simply need to wait, otherwise if it bothers you, then feel free to stop writing me. Remember, You wrote me first and sought me out, not the other way around. One last thing, On top of being busy and telling you some of what I have going on, that is only about 50 percent, I still have more going on that I did not add to. So yes to say the least I am really busy. I figure since you reject scripture, admit as much and dont even fully believe your own church, then since I dont figure anything I say to you will effect you, I dont believe you will repent and turn to Jesus, then you not high on my list of priority’s. People who really want to hear the truth and family are.
Rick, I am well aware that your very busy, so am I. So far as you give an argument and I give a counter argument and you don;t bring that argument up again until you have time to deal with said counterargument, that’s fine by me.
What I have a problem with is when you produce an argument, I refute it so thoroughly you can’t think of a reply and then choose to ignore what I wrote and repeat your argument as though it didn’t exist. take your instance of the Isaiah verses you gave me “Then God the Father says, I know of no other Gods, none are before me, none after me.”
I refuted your claim that they proved your position the first time you gave it. Or perhaps I haven’t and my attempted refutation fails. Either way, the response I expect from your is to either say ‘OK, you’ve got a point, I won’t use that anymore’ or ‘I don’t have time to respond, I’ll get back to you later’ or ‘Your wrong and here is why’.
But instead you have just repeated the argument again and again. I think that’s the sixth time you claimed those verses proved your view. Are you really gong to try and tell me you have the time to repeat the argument five times over, but you can’t reply to my attempted refutation due to lack of time? Get real Rick.
Mick, I am done debating you on this, I have told you over and over, I will not do as your false prophets do and add to the word of God. I will not do as your false prophets do and lie to you, I will not do as your false prophets do and tell you what you want to hear.
I can only tell you what the word of God says and cannot go any further, You clearly reject scripture, You even said, in another post, God cannot lie, to good people. Well your adding to the word of God by saying that, and the Bible says, No one is Good. Even Jesus said that. That shows you dont know or understand the Bible and could care less about the truth.