w00dy931

Hold on guys, I need to explain something first I guess. and no, I am not saying any of this whatsoever. to say I am saying the church (I think you are referring to the mormon church) teaches old tired out of touch doctrine would be a ridiculous statement in and of itself, because of modern day revelation. I understand the mormon churches stance on that and so it would make no sense to make that "claim" The reason I said What??? no. I want people to be open minded as I am. you think I got to where I am today because I refused to listen to other peoples point of view? think about it. Im sure everyone here knows how big of a deal it is to step away from the mormon church when you have your entire family so integrated into it. I do believe everyone needs to be open minded yes, but I have no interest in converting anyone. I simply think we all have the right to be heard. When I said look to why church founders believed it, I was talking about the catholic/prodestant church, sorry for not clarifying. I was referring to my first post. Your right, I have heard this in a teaching recently. But I took it for what they had to teach and tested it, I found it lined up with what I already believed. Im not saying we cannot refer to lessons or things that have been taught by leaders in the past, its really as simple as i want to encourage people to read the bible, and for some the book of mormon, deductively. and yes people are already doing that. I hope this clears some things up. if you guys still feel the same about what I am saying then I am sorry, this is the best way I can explain my heart here.

I understand what you guys are saying, the purpose of this forum, is for mormons to talk about what they believe. and I respect that. but I believe the emerging generation is a group of people that want to discover things for themselves and not be defined by the past. and i think its time we have our own time of interpretation. Deductive bible study rather then inductive. we as believers need to begin to talk about what we believe and why, not just what we are told to believe. Also I want to say something else. I did not leave the mormon church on bad terms, I still go occadionally when cousins return from their missions. I simply found that what I believed did not line up with what the mormon church was teaching. and I have no interest in tearing down mormon beliefs, I simply want to share what I believe, and why I believe it. maybe that will help to understand why i would rather not look to why church founders believed it.

I have only been on this forum for a few days but i find that I have been getting very frustrated with the way some people respond to my posts. When I make a statement about what I believe, I am not in need of being educated on where this idea i am talking about in my faith originated from, especially to the point of telling me I am incorrectly representing what I believe. If a person hundreds of years ago was aloud to interpret the bible to mean something and write what they believed, that does not mean I am bound to that today. My request to everyone in this forum, is that they would consider accepting somethings people say as what they believe, and not look to tell them how they need to correct what they are saying to better line up with their churches history. I understand that with the mormon church a lot of teachings are held as churchwide doctrine and it is something the church holds to all together, but I dont have any of my beliefs because I was taught. My beliefs are based off of my own interpretations. Also, I dont understand why some people have no interest in discussing, and simply prefer to say they are right and anyone who disagrees is wrong. I understand this is an LDS forum but if people of other faiths come here they should find honest discussion where people are willing to listen to other peoples ideas,we all have a different point of view on life and we have so much to learn from eachother. for the most part i find honest discussions, but sometimes I think pride is getting in the way of people considering others Ideas. Thats it just some thoughts from someone new to the forum. I have really enjoyed being here overall though

He talked about polygamy which is adressed in D and C 132.

This is a pretty difficult statement to make. being resurrected is not going to happen to those in hell. salvation is being saved from death. so to say that those who have no faith in jesus will still be saved is just not true. if we have no faith in jesus then our sins will not be forgiven. and we will "live" in eternal torment. which is basically living outside of the presence of God, but being able to see it. the absence of light is darkness, the absence of good is evil, and the absence of life is death.so those who do not accept christ can only find the latter of those three.

Here is a passage for you to chew on. Matthew 12:22-32 22(AA) Then a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him, and he healed him, so that the man spoke and saw. 23(AB) And all the people were amazed, and said, "Can this be the Son of David?" 24But when the Pharisees heard it, they said,(AC) "It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons." 25(AD) Knowing their thoughts,(AE) he said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. 26And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? 27And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul,(AF) by whom do(AG) your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. 28But if it is(AH) by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then(AI) the kingdom of God has come upon you. 29Or(AJ) how can someone enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed(AK) he may plunder his house. 30(AL) Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. 31(AM) Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but(AN) the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32And whoever speaks a word(AO) against the Son of Man(AP) will be forgiven, but(AQ) whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in(AR) this age or in the age to come.

sorry i see th confusion there, i was talking about sin, i believe in God's sovereignty we find the forgiveness for things we have not done yet and things we have already done. so the second sentence was reffering directly to sin and not to ones desire to deny salvation

heres an interesting thing to think about, if you look into the original hebrew text for i believe the first 11 chapters of genesis, its actually hebrew poetry. so its quite possible it wasnt meant to take literal. Its possible we were meant to know God created everything, and thats what is important.

personally I find that you can spend a lot of time trying to explain what LDS teach about being saved by grace and not works, but I still see a teaching that is based off of works. because If my belief says that I am saved by grace through faith, and absolutely nothing else matters the I believe I am saved by Grace. But what is Grace? Its undeserved kindess or unmeritted favor. Something I do not deserve, its not that I have not earned it yet, but that I actually do NOT deserve it. So I believe my salvation is not only a free gift but its a gift I should not be getting. So my question to you guys as LDS members, how important are works? do you believe that works in any way are necessary to go to heaven? is it possible for someone to do absolutely no good works, and still go to heaven. in fact is it possible for that person to do bad things, sinful things, with no good works and still go to heaven? And this includes in the afterlife as well. If the answer to that is yes, then truly this is not a works based faith. But when someone says LDS is works based they are not saying that people from that faith neccessarily disregard what jesus did and try to perfect themselves, its just that if works are have any hold whatsoever on salvation in your faith, then essentially its a part of the foundation, so it is the easiest way to describe the faith. since it is, in a way, different then a grace based salvation. Its true one could say LDS believes in a grace and works based salvation, but the problem there is that anyone who is from a grace only backround will become very confused. because there understanding of grace can only make sense in a total sort of way, that it is grace entirely. So I will say this, I dont know if this will answer or create more questions, and I can support this biblically if someone would like me too. is that No matter what I do, the only way to lose my salvation is to run as fast as I can away from God for the rest of my life and flat out say NO to my salvation. Yes that means that if i wanted to (which i have NO desire to) I could do whatever I wanted, or not do whatever I wanted. and I would still be saved. But out of my faith comes a life of devotion and sacrifice. and works. but none of those things matter to me or to God. So I hope that helps everyone in some way understand why some would say mormons believe they are saved by works while the rest of the christian world says we are saved by grace. to put the two together, is actually very confusing.

a lot of the great miracles Jesus preformed are put in front of everyone, from the least to the greatest. at the time its true he told people not to go and tell people but that was for a couple specific reasons, he knew how things had to happen and he did not want to become famous and overthrow the literal kingdom, and two (welli guess this one depends on your view of who jesus is) he came to earth and lowered himself for a while to be as low as the humans, if everyone knew all he was doing they would say he is God, so they didnt want the people to know everything while he was there, otherwise the crucifixion never would have happened. i dont know its fair to have that opinion I just base mine off of the example God has given us with the bible and the records of Jesus the apostles and the members of the first church.

is the differences in what they teach not important as well?

why do you say they are to be done in private and to not tell anyone?

I would actually be really happy if it was that simple, but most of the time we prayed for unbelievers. we went on the streets of Haiti to pray for people and we prayed for everyone. we saw one kid who actually came to us to make fun of us, and then we asked if we could pray for him he froze up and agreed rather then actually making fun of us. so really it can be either, the one praying or the one receiving prayer. but it is always God who is doing the Healing.

I just returned from being in Haiti for two months, We saw at least 30 miraculous healings during that time. im confused why you would want to call that the work of the devil? or at least question if thats what it is? I Have a very strong Faith in Jesus Christ and the Bible says that one cannot confess Jesus is lord unless it is by the Holy spirit. So I tell you now that Jesus christ is my Lord and savior and only by his name were those people healed. and His name alone. I think that what you are hearing about should definatley get you thinking but to even consider giving credit of something like that to the Devil is a very dangerous road to travel.

These are some verses I base my theology off of. Ephesians 2 : 8-9 8For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. To me this is saying that When Jesus came to earth, he brought the gift of salvation. that we can have this Gift through faith in him alone, that what we do with our lives has absolutley no hold in getting this Gift, because it is not by our own doing. to support this theory here is another verse Galatians 2:21 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. I would like to say that Reading the book of Galatians all the way through really helps people understand where the Christian Faith gets its understanding of Grace. Its only 6 chapters.