Religion

[Awdz]

Awdz, I got an Advent chocolate calendar. Who says 25 year olds don't get chocolate?

I certainly never said 25 year olds don't get chocolate. My kids know never to come between me and my chocolate, so have at yours! :-)

[zorua9]

I am atheist that is open to listening about other peoples religion, my mothers family is in fact Mormon, and talking to them and learning their religion is just fascinating.

also I really dislike religious people who "force" you into talking to them about their religion and how theirs is the greatest, as much I respect some religions I just hate when I feel forced into talking about it, and also, if you are one of those people who go around the block or something talking about your religion, you are not forcing it, and also, I like making conversation with those people :3

[Shienvien]

When I was asked, "Do you believe in god?" I decided for whatever reason to retort with the counter-question a comedian had once posed to sed' hypothetical inquiry. "Which god? Zeus? Odin? Anubis? Allah? Chronos? (and a bunch of other gods I can't recall right now, all except the one of the bible.)".

Reminds me of what a Buddhist I know answered when a couple of door-by-door people decided to rather persistently tell him how only their religion will get God in his heart: "I have a god in my heart. I ave many gods in me. There is one in my throat, too."

(There is one meditation excercise he did which involves "making" gods in one's body; Buddhists don't worship deities.)

 

I sometimes like asking people what they believe and letting me tell how their beliefs work. It can be interesting. Not so fond of people who force their beliefs onto others, though.

[orrrangeee]

I think a lot of people have a lot of misconceptions about Satanism.. I'm a Christian and I don't "hate" Satanists. And contrary to popular belief, Christianity is not Mormonism.

[Gingehfish]

I think a lot of people have a lot of misconceptions about Satanism.. I'm a Christian and I don't "hate" Satanists. And contrary to popular belief, Christianity is not Mormonism.

Christianity is not necessarily Mormonism but Mormonism is definitely Christianity. Just like a rectangle is not necessarily a square but a square is definitely a rectangle. Mormons are indeed Christians; the full name of their church is "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints", after all~

[Awdz]

Christianity is not necessarily Mormonism but Mormonism is definitely Christianity. Just like a rectangle is not necessarily a square but a square is definitely a rectangle. Mormons are indeed Christians; the full name of their church is "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints", after all~

I'm kind of curious how Mormons see other Christians, as I cannot reconcile the teachings of Joseph Smith & Brigham Young with much of what Jesus taught. For that reason, I have a hard time calling those who believe the BOM is true as Christians.

 

That said, I do respect the culture of clean living with an emphasis on family values. However, anyone can live that way without claiming Christ as Lord.

 

My beliefs which I think are at odds with the Mormon teachings:

- God is the paradox of always having been and always will be; all else came from God. There is no father of God.

- God is not a physical body, though God came to earth in human form (Jesus) to teach us how to live by demonstration from birth to death and beyond. God also is with us as the Holy Spirit. Essentially, three aspects (Creator, Redeemer, Spiritual Guide), one God.

- Jesus is God, not merely a created being. Lucifer was created.

- Humans are creations of God, and cannot become God themselves. There is only one ultimate "I am"; anything less, is not God.

- I do not hold to the idea of "levels" of heaven, for I believe God loves all children equally. Salvation is a gift from God for all who turn to reconcile with God.

- Rituals are useful for helping us to focus on God; God does not need them. They are for our benefit in life, to strengthen the Christian community. After death, we are not exactly part of the living community anymore and so the rituals do not need to be done on our behalf.

- Jesus taught that men and women are equally redeemable; He did not teach any limitations of heavenly standing because of one's sex in life (vs. Melchizedek priesthood requirement of being male).

- Dismissing the authority of other churches seems very self-serving, especially when lack of those other churches would have meant no one knowing about Christ...including Joseph Smith.

- Jesus's ministry was done in the open. There were no hidden books. Jesus used the existing scriptures from which to teach, and humans recorded His teachings.

Edited March 17, 2015 by Awdz Bodkins

[rabbithaver]

Culturally I'm Mormon (my heritage goes all the way back to the founding of the Church, I'm a direct descendant of Orson Hyde) as my parents raised me into it. I love the culture, but politically it has done some things that make me (as a trans and pansexual person) pretty uncomfortable. I haven't ever really believed what the church has taught, though I encourage people to look into it as being a part of the community really brought some good into my life.

 

I actually am still figuring out my spiritual beliefs. I believe in past lives, having recovered some memories of my own. I suppose the technical term is otherkin, but that label has some serious negative implications on the internet (as in, I've recieved death threats from other websites). Unfortunately there's really no other word to describe it, since I have also identified some of my kintypes... :/

[S0ren]

Culturally I'm a far-right Tea Party Christian, and I can see how some of those beliefs might help other people--the rigid structure, the surety or not having to question anything--but it doesn't work for me.

 

I ask 'why' too much. At this point I'm an agnostic pagan. I used to follow Loki as my patron, but in the last few weeks I got probably as close of a "you don't need me anymore, move on, kiddo" as I'll ever get. So right now I'm just kind of floating around spiritually and going to do some experimenting when I'm ready. For now though I think I'm content just kind of being and focusing my attention on my personal needs and how I can better align myself with the natural world.

[Ribombee]

I'm actually atheist (Though I do believe in taking care of the 'spirit' in that I do things such as meditation, etc., and I believe in belief, if that makes any sense at all...). I suppose by some definitions, I might border on agnostic. However, religion absolutely fascinates me. I grew up Southern Baptist, which was definitely not a good fit for my beliefs.

 

As others have mentioned, I hate when people try to force religion on another. I think that it is a deeply personal thing, and that everyone should be allowed to choose what works best for them. That is the wonderful thing about humans; we can have so much individuality and still be capable of great good, so long as we strive for it.

 

Whatever religion a person is, I generally respect them so long as they are true to it. What bothers me is people who profess a religion and act completely against it. Christians who go out and spread hate rather than love, for example, really bother me. True, genuine Christians hold my deep respect. My mum is a great example. She does not agree with people being homosexual, but she understands that it is not her place to judge. Her coworkers (lesbian) got married, and she got them a gift, attended the wedding, and genuinely expressed happiness for them. That sort of loving attitude is what converts people, not enforced conversion.

Edited March 17, 2015 by harlequinraven

[Gingehfish]

I'm kind of curious how Mormons see other Christians, as I cannot reconcile the teachings of Joseph Smith & Brigham Young with much of what Jesus taught.  For that reason, I have a hard time calling those who believe the BOM is true as Christians.

 

That said, I do respect the culture of clean living with an emphasis on family values. However, anyone can live that way without claiming Christ as Lord.

 

My beliefs which I think are at odds with the Mormon teachings:

- God is the paradox of always having been and always will be; all else came from God.  There is no father of God.

- God is not a physical body, though God came to earth in human form (Jesus) to teach us how to live by demonstration from birth to death and beyond. God also is with us as the Holy Spirit.  Essentially, three aspects (Creator, Redeemer, Spiritual Guide), one God.

- Jesus is God, not merely a created being. Lucifer was created.

- Humans are creations of God, and cannot become God themselves. There is only one ultimate "I am"; anything less, is not God.

- I do not hold to the idea of "levels" of heaven, for I believe God loves all children equally. Salvation is a gift from God for all who turn to reconcile with God. 

- Rituals are useful for helping us to focus on God; God does not need them. They are for our benefit in life, to strengthen the Christian community. After death, we are not exactly part of the living community anymore and so the rituals do not need to be done on our behalf.

- Jesus taught that men and women are equally redeemable; He did not teach any limitations of heavenly standing because of one's sex in life (vs. Melchizedek priesthood requirement of being male). 

- Dismissing the authority of other churches seems very self-serving, especially when lack of those other churches would have meant no one knowing about Christ...including Joseph Smith.

- Jesus's ministry was done in the open.  There were no hidden books.  Jesus used the existing scriptures from which to teach, and humans recorded His teachings.

In my opinion, if you believe in Christ and his teachings, then you're a Christian. There are a lot of different types of Christianity - Catholic, Baptist, Protestant, Mormon, etc., and not all of them agree with each other on everything; or some cases, not much at all. That doesn't make any of them any less Christian, though. Mormons believe they are Christian, which makes them Christian in my eyes. Mormons believe that other Christians have much of the truth and are doing good as best they can, but that we have the "whole truth".

 

Before I address your points to further the discussion, I should probably state my own personal beliefs. I was born and raised Mormon, and I went along with those beliefs for a long time. However, recently, I have begun to doubt the Mormon faith (I don't feel comfortable enough to get into the details, though). I'm still very uncertain in my faith, though I still consider myself a Christian, if not maybe a Mormon. However, regardless of my own personal beliefs, I'm not old enough to make my own decisions about my activity in the church, as I am still under my parents roof and will be until I graduate high school, and they will make me to keep going to church. As such I am trying to regain my own testimony and find peace with the church because it is not something I will be able to leave any time soon, if at all. Additionally, I think that the Mormon church has a lot of good doctrine. What frustrates me the most is the fact that the church is run by people, and thus is imperfect. That I don't have a problem with by itself, but since we refuse to acknowledge this imperfection and to strive to become better, we are stuck as we are.

 

Now onto your points! I think the reason we have differing beliefs comes from both personal and doctrinal interpretations of various religious texts, as well as whatever we have felt from God through prayer or another method, and of course what our local religious leaders have taught. Another big thing about Mormonism is that we believe in continuing revelation that has come in the latter days, which we also take as scripture alongside the Bible and the Book of Mormon.

Here I'm just stating what we do and do not believe, if you already know this already, I apologize - you seem to know quite a lot about us already! But it might benefit someone else, you never know.

 

- I don't ever recall being taught that God had a father Himself; if you have, it was probably speculation. What I've heard on this subject is pretty much "We don't know, it will become clear in time".

- That is true, we do not believe in the Trinity, but rather in a Godhead that is three separate beings united in one purpose.

- This falls under the above category as well. We do believe that Lucifer was created, but as another one of God's children who fell away into darkness.

- Here we also have a difference of beliefs. Mormonism teaches that if we are cleansed of sin through the atonement and achieve the highest glory after the second coming of Christ, we can be made like gods ourselves.

- Once again we do not believe this in quite the same way. We also believe that God loves each of his children equally, but alongside that we believe that no unclean thing can live in the presence of God, and thus we must be separated into different levels of glory. With the exception of "outer darkness" which is really only for Lucifer and his original followers, everyone will be in a level of glory. And along with salvation or grace, we believe that we can be saved by grace but only by doing all we can, not simply calling ourselves Christian and a disciple of Christ.

- By rituals I assume you mean baptism, specifically baptism for the dead. We believe that to reach the highest level of glory in the kingdom of god, one must be baptized and made clean. Since dead people who did not receive the gospel in their life cannot be baptized, we believe we must do it for them posthumously as proxies. Whether they accept the ordinance done on their behalf is up to them.

- This is actually an issue I have had with the doctrine myself. I do believe in the equality of the sexes and the concept that only men can receive the priesthood rubs me the wrong way. The people who I have talked to about this issue, however, justify it by saying that all can receive the blessings of the priesthood, just not the actual power itself. This still seems sexist to me, though, and added to the issues I mentioned above with the church claiming to be perfect but not actually being so. I think you might be partially misunderstanding this one, though - not having the priesthood, if you are a woman, will not stop you from achieving the highest degree of glory in the kingdom of God.

- I do not know what you mean by "dismissing the authority of other churches". If you mean that we think that we have the correct beliefs and not the other churches, well, you can say the same for pretty much every church. If you mean that we dismiss them as completely incorrect, that's not true to my knowledge...we believe they have some of the truth, just not as much as we have.

- The Book of Mormon is not exactly a hidden book. Anyone can read it; I'm sure there are some Mormons in your area who would love to give one to you. We believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God to His disciples in the Americas, just that it was not discovered and translated until much after the Bible was.

 

If you have any other questions or thoughts to share, feel free to do so! This is a very thought-provoking discussion and I'm glad to be having it.

 

holy cow this was longer than I thought it would be

[Brotato]

I actually am still figuring out my spiritual beliefs. I believe in past lives, having recovered some memories of my own. I suppose the technical term is otherkin, but that label has some serious negative implications on the internet (as in, I've recieved death threats from other websites). Unfortunately there's really no other word to describe it, since I have also identified some of my kintypes... :/

Welcome to the internet my friend.

It is the sad sad state of things, that there are still people out there willing to kill or even threaten to kill for whatever hokum it is they believe in.

I've experienced it myself as well, but mostly from christian fundies back in my dark ages when I was a christian teen and had the bad habit of asking too many questions. Skepticism didn't win me any answers from the people I once regarded as decent.

Ultimately that's what helped kill off my faith the most.

These days I've recently been following my own religion.

"Dontgiveadamnism".

 

Whenever someone asks me about my faith, I tell them I'm an "Idontgiveadamnist".

I just want to live my life, without having some mystical mumbo jumbo about what could happen after I kick the bucket shoved down my throat. And to those who do try doing that to me, I present with my religion's designated peace sign: The highway salute.

I usually follow it up with our slogan: "Bite me." or something more vulgar depending on how hard they've been shoving their faith into my face.

 

But in all seriousness, I guess you can call me an agnostic atheist.

Edited March 18, 2015 by Brotato

[Akiresa]

Wow this topic is sooo interesting and awesome ^^ i am wiccan my self tho i am in learning process and i dont mind learning other people beliefs ^^

[Awdz]

In my opinion, if you believe in Christ and his teachings, then you're a Christian. There are a lot of different types of Christianity - Catholic, Baptist, Protestant, Mormon, etc., and not all of them agree with each other on everything; or some cases, not much at all. That doesn't make any of them any less Christian, though. Mormons believe they are Christian, which makes them Christian in my eyes. Mormons believe that other Christians have much of the truth and are doing good as best they can, but that we have the "whole truth".

 

Before I address your points to further the discussion, I should probably state my own personal beliefs. I was born and raised Mormon, and I went along with those beliefs for a long time. However, recently, I have begun to doubt the Mormon faith (I don't feel comfortable enough to get into the details, though). I'm still very uncertain in my faith, though I still consider myself a Christian, if not maybe a Mormon. However, regardless of my own personal beliefs, I'm not old enough to make my own decisions about my activity in the church, as I am still under my parents roof and will be until I graduate high school, and they will make me to keep going to church. As such I am trying to regain my own testimony and find peace with the church because it is not something I will be able to leave any time soon, if at all. Additionally, I think that the Mormon church has a lot of good doctrine. What frustrates me the most is the fact that the church is run by people, and thus is imperfect. That I don't have a problem with by itself, but since we refuse to acknowledge this imperfection and to strive to become better, we are stuck as we are.

 

Now onto your points! I think the reason we have differing beliefs comes from both personal and doctrinal interpretations of various religious texts, as well as whatever we have felt from God through prayer or another method, and of course what our local religious leaders have taught. Another big thing about Mormonism is that we believe in continuing revelation that has come in the latter days, which we also take as scripture alongside the Bible and the Book of Mormon.

Here I'm just stating what we do and do not believe, if you already know this already, I apologize - you seem to know quite a lot about us already! But it might benefit someone else, you never know.

*chuckles* Yeah, all churches are the only ones who have it "right".

Thank you for taking the time to speak to my post.

 

- I don't ever recall being taught that God had a father Himself; if you have, it was probably speculation. What I've heard on this subject is pretty much "We don't know, it will become clear in time".

The paradox/no father belief of mine seems at odds with the Mormon concept of the Father having a perfect physical body as well as Jesus having one. The Mormon belief does not fit with my understanding of the triune God.

 

- Once again we do not believe this in quite the same way. We also believe that God loves each of his children equally, but alongside that we believe that no unclean thing can live in the presence of God, and thus we must be separated into different levels of glory. With the exception of "outer darkness" which is really only for Lucifer and his original followers, everyone will be in a level of glory. And along with salvation or grace, we believe that we can be saved by grace but only by doing all we can, not simply calling ourselves Christian and a disciple of Christ.

I believe that only God can truly cleanse our souls, and God does not do it only part-way. We do need to repent (ask for forgiveness, make amends if we can, and try not to sin again) and we often backtrack and need to repent again, but when God forgives, our redemption is complete.

 

- By rituals I assume you mean baptism, specifically baptism for the dead. We believe that to reach the highest level of glory in the kingdom of god, one must be baptized and made clean. Since dead people who did not receive the gospel in their life cannot be baptized, we believe we must do it for them posthumously as proxies. Whether they accept the ordinance done on their behalf is up to them.

God can cleanse the soul of anyone whether or not they are/were baptised; the ritual is for the living community. If the baptism for the dead brings you, the living, closer to God, then I guess there can be some good out of it. I just do not see any actual benefit to the dead with it and do not like the way some people have been driven further away from God by those insistent about doing it against opposition.

 

- This is actually an issue I have had with the doctrine myself. I do believe in the equality of the sexes and the concept that only men can receive the priesthood rubs me the wrong way. The people who I have talked to about this issue, however, justify it by saying that all can receive the blessings of the priesthood, just not the actual power itself. This still seems sexist to me, though, and added to the issues I mentioned above with the church claiming to be perfect but not actually being so. I think you might be partially misunderstanding this one, though - not having the priesthood, if you are a woman, will not stop you from achieving the highest degree of glory in the kingdom of God.

As far as I can tell, being a woman will prevent you from getting there if you do not submit to the right man. A woman cannot get there independently of a man. I believe God created man & woman as partners, equals. Only after sinning was a woman made subservient. Jesus came to restore us to our created perfection - equals again. And as I indicated above, God does not restore us only part-way.

 

- I do not know what you mean by "dismissing the authority of other churches". If you mean that we think that we have the correct beliefs and not the other churches, well, you can say the same for pretty much every church. If you mean that we dismiss them as completely incorrect, that's not true to my knowledge...we believe they have some of the truth, just not as much as we have.

This came from the Wikipedia, which may not be accurate, but reflects what I've heard: "Mormons believe the Catholic line of succession is invalid because of a Great Apostasy that occurred soon after era of the apostles. The line of succession was restored through Joseph Smith when biblical prophets and apostles appeared to him and ordained him through the laying on of hands with lost priesthood authority. Thus, Mormons believe that non-Mormon clergy have no heavenly authority and that sacraments performed by clergy of other faiths are of no effect in the eyes of God."

 

Does that mean that Mormons should be baptizing everyone through the ages, else most of humanity is lost?

 

- The Book of Mormon is not exactly a hidden book. Anyone can read it; I'm sure there are some Mormons in your area who would love to give one to you. We believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God to His disciples in the Americas, just that it was not discovered and translated until much after the Bible was.

I'm alluding to the fact that the gold plates were always kept hidden; only the closest circle to Joseph Smith ever claimed to have seen them. Jesus was very open with source material.

 

If you have any other questions or thoughts to share, feel free to do so! This is a very thought-provoking discussion and I'm glad to be having it.

I found these stated on another site as Mormon beliefs. Are they really? They are totally at odds with what I understand of God.

What does Mormonism Teach?  Well, here are some of the basics, plain and simple.

1.God came from another planet

2.God is a man with a body of flesh and bones

3.There is a mother goddess

4.God and his goddess wife are married

5.You can become gods

[Akiresa]

I personally think of God/Gods as one massive entiny sytem witch created us and every one of us as independent as we are have our right to understand it as we wish eather it is trinity god of crhitianity or god pyramid of greeks or egyptians in the end it all comes to 1 entiny who created us and speaks to us time to time wheather we understand it correctly or use it to do our own thing is up to our level of spirituality to connect to God you have chosen cause there are as manny truths as are people so its bound to be understood diferently by every being

[Fightandspawn]

 

Whenever someone asks me about my faith, I tell them I'm an "Idontgiveadamnist".

I just want to live my life, without having some mystical mumbo jumbo about what could happen after I kick the bucket shoved down my throat. And to those who do try doing that to me, I present with my religion's designated peace sign: The highway salute.

I usually follow it up with our slogan: "Bite me." or something more vulgar depending on how hard they've been shoving their faith into my face.

 

I might start doing this too you had me laughing at the 'designated peace sign'

[Gingehfish]

The paradox/no father belief of mine seems at odds with the Mormon concept of the Father having a perfect physical body as well as Jesus having one.  The Mormon belief does not fit with my understanding of the triune God.

Yes, we do believe that God has a physical body as well as Jesus. I see where you're coming from about God having a father as well - I'm kind of confused about this myself, now that I think about it! I'll ask one of my church leaders what the official church stance on this is.

 

I believe that only God can truly cleanse our souls, and God does not do it only part-way. We do need to repent (ask for forgiveness, make amends if we can, and try not to sin again) and we often backtrack and need to repent again, but when God forgives, our redemption is complete.

Yes...we believe this as well. The levels of glory thing is mostly dependent on how much we are willing to repent of. We believe that God can and will restore us completely, but only as completely as we ourselves allow. We can't be forgiven if we don't repent, and we can't be completely forgiven if we don't completely repent.

 

God can cleanse the soul of anyone whether or not they are/were baptised; the ritual is for the living community. If the baptism for the dead brings you, the living, closer to God, then I guess there can be some good out of it.  I just do not see any actual benefit to the dead with it and do not like the way some people have been driven further away from God by those insistent about doing it against opposition.

Well, that's what we believe. Whether or not you agree with it and believe it as well is up to you.

 

As far as I can tell, being a woman will prevent you from getting there if you do not submit to the right man.  A woman cannot get there independently of a man.  I believe God created man & woman as partners, equals.  Only after sinning was a woman made subservient.  Jesus came to restore us to our created perfection - equals again.  And as I indicated above, God does not restore us only part-way.

No. A woman can get to heaven without "submitting" to a man. That has nothing to do with it. Since a woman cannot have the priesthood, that's not a factor in salvation.

 

This came from the Wikipedia, which may not be accurate, but reflects what I've heard:  "Mormons believe the Catholic line of succession is invalid because of a Great Apostasy that occurred soon after era of the apostles. The line of succession was restored through Joseph Smith when biblical prophets and apostles appeared to him and ordained him through the laying on of hands with lost priesthood authority. Thus, Mormons believe that non-Mormon clergy have no heavenly authority and that sacraments performed by clergy of other faiths are of no effect in the eyes of God."

 

Does that mean that Mormons should be baptizing everyone through the ages, else most of humanity is lost?

Well...yes. If that's what you mean by dismissing the authority of other churches, that we don't recognize their ordinances, then yes, I suppose we do.

Yes, we are trying to baptize everyone. I think we realize we won't be able to on our own and probably not before the Second Coming of Christ, but we believe everyone who accepts our gospel will eventually be baptized.

 

I'm alluding to the fact that the gold plates were always kept hidden; only the closest circle to Joseph Smith ever claimed to have seen them.  Jesus was very open with source material.

Yes, that's right. If that is too secretive for you to believe their credulity, then that's your judgement and you don't believe it.

 

I found these stated on another site as Mormon beliefs. Are they really? They are totally at odds with what I understand of God.

Yeah, I wouldn't count that as a completely credible source of the Mormon faith. It's in opposition to the church, so should be taken with a grain of salt, and while they do cite their sources, they interpreted the doctrine we teach differently in some cases. If you want a site that is officially approved by our church, you should try mormon.org, which is nonmember friendly.

 

1.God came from another planet

The source I saw for this on that website was not from official doctrine, but from the writings of Joseph Smith. That was his interpretation as a mortal man, his opinion, rather than scripture. The teachings of the prophets were sometimes later proved to be incorrect, because it's not all from God, and it's mixed with their opinion. But I think this falls under the point of God having a father of His own, so I'm not quite sure. I'll tell you after I get an answer.

 

2.God is a man with a body of flesh and bones

Yes, we do believe God has a body of flesh and bones.

 

3.There is a mother goddess

I'm not sure if this is scripture-canon, but it is a common belief amongst members.

 

4.God and his goddess wife are married

If God has a wife, then they are certainly married.

 

5.You can become gods

"Becoming" gods is kind of a stretch. We believe that if we are faithful and do everything we're supposed to, making it to the highest degree of glory, we will be able to receive all of the blessings God has to give us. This is probably where that idea comes from.

 

 

In the end, what you believe and what Mormons believe is not going to be completely the same. But my understanding of the word "Christian" is not "one who belongs to the one and only perfect church of Christ" but "one who believes and follows Christ", which can be a Catholic, a Mormon, Baptist, etc, or even a nondenominational Christian, like someone who believes and follows Christ but doesn't go to any particular church. So calling us not Christians isn't very accurate.

[zorua9]

LoL, I just watched a youtuber that sayed "stick with Mormons in an apocalypse, cause they have a lot of food" and to be honest, it is true, all my Mormon family, and my Mormon home teacher (still not converting and he is coolies with it) all stock up on food and also have a lot for dinner.

I was wondering to all you religious people, has god answered you in way or another? even if it might seem weird or stupid or something else, I am just curious.

[Akiresa]

I was wondering to all you religious people, has god answered you in way or another?

I am wiccan and i do have receved answeers from Gods ussually when i ask for soething it usually comes in as opportunity to take for something i have lonnged or needed

[zorua9]

fair enough aki.

 

and if it possible to become a god then it would (to me) be like this:

picking up the mantle of the god if he/she is dead, insane, etc. like in a fictional game called "The Elder Scroll V: Skyrim" there is a lot of debate in the game about talos, who after he dead he ascended and became one of the divines, and theories have been going around on the internet such as: in the lore, there was a aedra (the good god people things) named lorkan who tricked the other beings into making a planet, and they did, and when they found out, they killed him, and after thousands of years, talos took up the mantle of lorkan and became the patron of humanity.

that is how I see one becoming a god, but since we have no proof of a god existing and a god not existing, and we do not know how many there may be.........

 

short version: a god dies, human who does really good and helps humanity takes up the mantle of the dead god.

[Awdz]

Yes, we do believe that God has a physical body as well as Jesus. I see where you're coming from about God having a father as well - I'm kind of confused about this myself, now that I think about it! I'll ask one of my church leaders what the official church stance on this is.

 

 

Yes...we believe this as well. The levels of glory thing is mostly dependent on how much we are willing to repent of. We believe that God can and will restore us completely, but only as completely as we ourselves allow. We can't be forgiven if we don't repent, and we can't be completely forgiven if we don't completely repent.

 

 

Well, that's what we believe. Whether or not you agree with it and believe it as well is up to you.

 

 

No. A woman can get to heaven without "submitting" to a man. That has nothing to do with it. Since a woman cannot have the priesthood, that's not a factor in salvation.

 

 

Well...yes. If that's what you mean by dismissing the authority of other churches, that we don't recognize their ordinances, then yes, I suppose we do.

Yes, we are trying to baptize everyone. I think we realize we won't be able to on our own and probably not before the Second Coming of Christ, but we believe everyone who accepts our gospel will eventually be baptized.

 

 

Yes, that's right. If that is too secretive for you to believe their credulity, then that's your judgement and you don't believe it.

 

 

Yeah, I wouldn't count that as a completely credible source of the Mormon faith. It's in opposition to the church, so should be taken with a grain of salt, and while they do cite their sources, they interpreted the doctrine we teach differently in some cases. If you want a site that is officially approved by our church, you should try mormon.org, which is nonmember friendly.

 

 

The source I saw for this on that website was not from official doctrine, but from the writings of Joseph Smith. That was his interpretation as a mortal man, his opinion, rather than scripture. The teachings of the prophets were sometimes later proved to be incorrect, because it's not all from God, and it's mixed with their opinion. But I think this falls under the point of God having a father of His own, so I'm not quite sure. I'll tell you after I get an answer.

 

 

Yes, we do believe God has a body of flesh and bones.

 

 

I'm not sure if this is scripture-canon, but it is a common belief amongst members.

 

 

If God has a wife, then they are certainly married.

 

 

"Becoming" gods is kind of a stretch. We believe that if we are faithful and do everything we're supposed to, making it to the highest degree of glory, we will be able to receive all of the blessings God has to give us. This is probably where that idea comes from.

 

 

In the end, what you believe and what Mormons believe is not going to be completely the same. But my understanding of the word "Christian" is not "one who belongs to the one and only perfect church of Christ" but "one who believes and follows Christ", which can be a Catholic, a Mormon, Baptist, etc, or even a nondenominational Christian, like someone who believes and follows Christ but doesn't go to any particular church. So calling us not Christians isn't very accurate.

Thank you for the discussion and clarification of the Mormon beliefs. I think I better understand the Jewish perspective that Christians do not worship the same God as they do, because I am not at this point able to reconcile the differences in the Mormon beliefs with what I see as fundamental to my Christian faith.

 

I will always believe there is only one God, who has always existed, and who can take physical form but is not inherently of created matter. God did not come from any place, another planet or here; God does not have wife, as that would suggest the possibility of a second god, which goes against my understanding of what God is.

 

I am not about to define how heaven is organized. Outside of Mormonism, I have not heard anything of levels, and that concept goes against my belief that God loves all of us equally and redeems us completely.

 

Along with the levels of heaven, excluding women from the highest level unless they submit to a man who can get there goes against my belief of the equality of all people.

 

No, I do not believe the secretive nature by which Joseph Smith translated those plates. No one else ever read the plates directly, and history shows that translations done by a single person tend to be much more full of errors than those done with others checking/contributing to it. The fact that it contains contradictions with what I believe from what Jesus taught makes me distrust it all the more.

 

Net, I respect that you live according to your beliefs, I just do not share them. Thank you again for the discussion

[S0ren]

I was wondering to all you religious people, has god answered you in way or another? even if it might seem weird or stupid or something else, I am just curious.

Yup! Most often the answers came when I was a devotee to Loki--the things I asked for and needed always happened before there were real consequences for not having gotten them, the ones I wanted but didn't need did not. Usually the things I needed and hasn't gotten were because of a like of money or resources, but after communing over it, opportunities would show up to give me what I needed. For example, I needed $400 I just didn't have a couple months ago (my car needed work unexpectedly) and I had no idea how I was going to make that much. I can't just pick up extra hours at my job because it's a set schedule, same every day, and nothing I was listing on Craigslist was selling. I asked Loki about it, and the next day I sold two old game consoles and a computer, giving me $300 out of the $400 I needed, then I finally got a letter saying that I was approved for $125 per month in food stamps, leaving my grocery money suddenly free.

[Akiresa]

I was wondering to all you religious people, has god answered you in way or another? even if it might seem weird or stupid or something else, I am just curious.

Yup! Most often the answers came when I was a devotee to Loki--the things I asked for and needed always happened before there were real consequences for not having gotten them, the ones I wanted but didn't need did not. Usually the things I needed and hasn't gotten were because of a like of money or resources, but after communing over it, opportunities would show up to give me what I needed. For example, I needed $400 I just didn't have a couple months ago (my car needed work unexpectedly) and I had no idea how I was going to make that much. I can't just pick up extra hours at my job because it's a set schedule, same every day, and nothing I was listing on Craigslist was selling. I asked Loki about it, and the next day I sold two old game consoles and a computer, giving me $300 out of the $400 I needed, then I finally got a letter saying that I was approved for $125 per month in food stamps, leaving my grocery money suddenly free.

Talking about well done Loki plan i had a debt for phone once 200$ and i just suddenly found freelancer job for illustrations and did 220$ instead

[Gingehfish]

Net, I respect that you live according to your beliefs, I just do not share them. Thank you again for the discussion

Respect is as much as anyone can ask. You're welcome.

[teslakana]

i may/may not be an Agnostic Theist, and the only part of the 'Bible' that i'll -and dare i say it, 'believe in' is Revalation 21:6; 'I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life, freely'.

 

other than that, my religion is my family, simple as that.

 

it's like Woody Allen once said: `If God exists, i hope he has a good excuse'.

 

 

[AngesRadieux]

A friend of mine used a phrase that really sums up my ideas about religion very nicely: "Do whatever floats your boat. Just don't sink mine." I'm Christian. I attend a Presbyterian church almost every Sunday. If that's not what works for someone else, fine. I'm more than happy to respect whatever you may believe or not believe, but I think it has to work both ways. I don't push my beliefs on people. I don't even really talk about it that much, except for in the instance when someone asks what my plans are and I tell them I'm doing something with my church. So it really irks me when other people try to tell me I'm wrong or make me feel silly for what I believe.

 

I have a professor who's an atheist. Generally speaking, I don't care. You can believe or not believe in whatever you like and as long as you're not a jerk to me, we'll still get along fine. But today she just made me so angry. Right now, I'm really turned off to her, the class, and even the play we were reading that set her off on her tangent. Right now, we're studying Moliere's Don Juan. Of course Don Juan is a character who doesn't tend to respect Christian values. Again, fine. That in itself doesn't bother me. But the professor chose to linger on that fact. First, it was pretty harmless, just an aside that as an atheist she felt he was right to not put much stock in Christian teachings. Then, though, she launched into this whole tirade, which consisted of, "I mean, think about it! Christianity teaches x, y, and z, and I mean, when you think about it, what a ridiculous fable!" And then she started snickering about it and, after an obligatory "And I'm sorry if there are any Christians in the room, I don't mean to hurt your feelings", repeated the "how ridiculous" sentiment.

 

Sorry?

 

I'm here to learn about French literature, not what you think about my beliefs. If you think it's ridiculous, fine. Whatever. You do that. But please be respectful enough not to go off about it, especially not when it's the kind of situation where you're a professor in front of a class, so I can't either put in my two cents or walk away if I'm bothered. A general rule of thumb: If you have to either preface or follow up a statement with "no offense", "I don't mean to upset you", or whatever, you probably just shouldn't say it. Nine out of ten times, you're little conciliatory remark doesn't make what you're saying any less aggravating. No matter how you frame it, referring to my faith as a "ridiculous fable" and having yourself a good laugh about it is going to be offensive.

 

And I found it especially grating because it happened during Holy Week. It's kind of a special time. It's leading up to our biggest holiday and Good Friday service is my favorite church service all year because I find it very meaningful and poignant. I particularly don't want to hear about how ridiculous my faith is now, when I'm trying to get into a frame of mind to anticipate and appreciate what's to come.

 

I just find the whole thing really frustrating. I really liked this professor up until this point in the semester. I wish she would speak a little less English in class, but I've generally found her to be really nice and knowledgeable and I've been enjoying the class and the material. I'm probably inordinately irritated by it, but the fact remains that at the present time, my opinion of the class and her as a professor has really soured. Maybe it'll fade in time, but in any case I feel like she was incredibly unprofessional.

 

/End rant

 

Anyway, yeah. Basically, I'm all for everyone getting along and believing whatever makes them happy or makes sense to them. I chose my church because I felt called to be there. I was going through a really tough time and even though I'd stopped attending church except for on Christmas and Easter when I was a kid, I suddenly felt compelled to get back into the habit. It started with the intention of going to a Catholic church because that's what I was raised in, but a series of circumstances led me to the Presbyterian church I'm currently at, and that's where I found what I needed. I understand that different people find different paths others may find what they need in other faiths. I just think everyone needs to respect each other enough to live and let live. Don't try to force your own beliefs on someone who doesn't want them and certainly don't ridicule people for whatever beliefs they may have.

 

Sorry for the long-ish rant. It was kind of gnawing at me all day, and since I don't really have anyone IRL to talk to about it, I figured this was as good a place as any to get it off my chest.