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Question: What Is Mormonism?
Answer: The doctrines and practices of the Mormon Church based on the Book of Mormon.
The Latter Day Saint movement, including Mormonism, originated in the 1820s in western New York. Restored by Joseph Smith, Jr., the faith drew its first converts while Smith was dictating the text of the Book of Mormon.
This book described itself as a chronicle of early indigenous peoples of the Americas, portraying them as believing Israelites, who had a belief in Christ many hundred years before his birth. Smith claimed that he translated over 500 pages in about 60 days, and that it was an ancient record translated "by the gift and power of God". During production of this work in mid-1829, Smith, his close associate Oliver Cowdery, and other early followers began baptizing new converts into the Christian primitivist church, formally organized in 1830 as the Church of Christ. Smith was seen by his followers as a modern-day prophet.
The following Articles of Faith were taken from mormon.org:
13 Articles of Faith
1.
We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.
2.
We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.
3.
We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.
4.
We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.
5.
We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.
6.
We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth.
7.
We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth.
8.
We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.
9.
We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.
10.
We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.
11.
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.
12.
We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.
13.
We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul-We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.
Okay . . . but what is Faith?
According to Dictionary.com --
faith
noun
1. Strong or unshakable belief in something, esp without proof or evidence.
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.
So, faith then is believing a thing without any logical reason for believing that thing.
How can I, a person who believes in logic, vote to put a candidate who professes to believe things without any logical reason for believing them into The White House as President of the United States of America?
And yet I suspect that voting for President Obama will merely help to continue the nation's current direction toward a government that will soon grow so big and so powerful that a future unscrupulous leader can (and will) be elected who then will turn that government into the most dangerous and unstoppable dictatorship the world has ever known.
And there will be no God The Holy Father to step in and miraculously intervene, no Mighty Moses to lead the oppressed people out of bondage into some glorious promised land.
There will be only Big Brother.
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WORD FOR TODAY
hallucinate
Verb
Experience a seemingly real perception of something not actually present, typically as a result of a mental disorder or of taking drugs.
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Faith: not wanting to know what is true.
--Friedrich Nietzsche
Hi Gene, I tried to comment earlier but it seems to have failed, perhaps because I was using my smartphone - they tend to be not as smart as they think they are sometimes.
ReplyDeleteMy question to you is: Why do you think Obama is more a harbinger of big government, and ergo Big Brother, than Romney would be?
Obama's administration hasn't been terribly overwhelming in regulatory burdens even on large corporations, 5% fewer federal rule impositions than under G.W. Bush. Frankly I'd like to see a bit more reining in of corporations; as Teddy Roosevelt noted, a proper use of Big Government is to allay the tyrannies Big Business would like to impose on the little man.
While Obama hasn't set my hair on fire with his Constitutional fervor for walking back the vile abuses of the Bush administration such as sneak-and-peek searches, he has walked back some; an example would be his support of FISA warrants for domestic wiretapping, which while it is still too easy in my view is surely better than the situation he walked in on, where not even the FISA court was being consulted. He has been roundly condemned by Romney and other Republicans for insisting that habeas corpus cannot be ignored even for people accused of terrorism. I consider these policy changes weak tea, but they're far from Big Brother, and they've been opposed by the GOP in general and Romney in particular.
I'm sure I don't need to point out which of the two stands more for women's rights, both reproductive rights and in terms of being allowed to sue if their employers pay them less for the same work; is the freedom of employers to discriminate more important than the freedom of employees to seek justice? Then there's the rights of gay people, which Romney doesn't appear to think do or should exist; I wish Obama would stand up for their right to marry, but at least he isn't actively opposed to that freedom.
Finally, while Obama rather finely parses the regulations allowing faith-based charities to compete for federal monies, he does seem to have a healthy respect for separation of church and state, certainly by comparison to Romney who is close to an outright antidisestablishmentarian.
If it's government oppression you fear, as indeed you bloody well should, I think you're directing your fear too much at the wrong candidate.
You wrote: "My question to you is: Why do you think Obama is more a harbinger of big government, and ergo Big Brother, than Romney would be?"
DeleteMy answer is: I don't. But arrogant Democratic Party leaders (Pelosi, Reed, et al.) are... inherently.
Thank you for the well written thought-provoking comment.