cdowis

It appears that you are not familiar with LDS doctrine. The short answer is that we all existed as spirits before mortality. We are all children of God, and are brothers and sisters. Satan lead a rebellion against Father, and he and his minions chose not to receive a mortal body here on earth, but to remain as spirits. He is just as real as you and I are real.

Young sister "Bishop, I know that I am only twenty, but I really want to go to the temple." Bishop "WONDERFUL! Let me get the paperwork for a mission, and we'll fill it out together."

I would certainly hope you would understand that members of the LDS church have complete respect for your beliefs. I singled out that particular doctrine because, for some, it represents the demarcation between "one of us" and "nonChristian", e.g. http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/why-doesnt-the-catholic-church-accept-mormon-baptism (Although this is addressing conversion baptism, within context, the meaning is quite clear.) I simply wanted to point out the irony. And the question was asked.

The House passes a article of impreachment, and then refers it to the Senate. If it passes the Senate, he simply clears out his office, and goes back to doing what he was doing before -- making alot of money and contributing to the Democrats. The President would then nominate someone else and the Senate would have to confirm the nomination. In the meantime, the President will appoint one of his pals to be a temporary replacement. And meanwhile all of this will get entangled in presidential election politics, and has to be done BEFORE the election of a new president for it to any meaning at all. And, yes, I agree with you. It's all for show.

For me, the best thing about Halloween is that we get an extra hour of sleep Saturday night.

A truly profound insight. The Nicene Creed is the poster boy for the "other gospel". Were you aware that the vote for this creed was NOT unanimous -- and those bishops who voted against it were severely punished by the Emperor Constantine. A study of the history of the Council of Nicea would show that his creed was not a religious document, but a political one. The Christian church was persecuted, and it paid a heavy price for their protection. And it is still paying that price today. It is truly ironic that this Creed it the major argument that Mormons are not Christian -- that we believe in "another Christ", we reject this doctrine of the "one substance entity". We accept the teaching of Christ as found in the Bible, in John 17:19-23. Who indeed is preaching this "other gospel"? This was fundamentally the loss of priesthood keys. Again, looking at the history of the Council of Nicea, the bishop of Rome was ill at that time, so he sent a representative. Look carefully whether the other bishops gave him a special place or authority in formulating this creed. He was simply an equal among equals. No special recognition as the Bishop of Rome, possessing the keys of Peter. Just another bishop. It was the Emperor himself who took center stage and punished those who disagreed with him.

Bottom line -->> The historic Christian church replaced the apostles and prophets, who were guided by revelation, with theologians and philosophers who are guided by the wisdom of man, e.g receiving a PhD at the university, the Council of Nicea which created the doctrine of the "one substance entity" or Nicene Creed. Paul wrote that the church would always be lead by apostles and prophets (Eph 4:11-14), and Peter wrote 2 Pe 1 [20] Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. [21] For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Even basic doctrines of salvation are debated by the theologians, such as baptism, and faith vs faith. For this reason, the Lord called a prophet in our day, and restored His church and Gospel.

CRITIC Just a burning in my bosom (mockery) RESPONSE As Christ said to Peter ==>> Matt 16 [15] He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? [16] And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. [17] And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. This is not "just a feeling" but a divine manifestation from the Father Himself. It is tragic for someone to continue to live in spiritual darkness. Perhaps this will help you. https://youtu.be/zDEXQ-GTYTs?list=FLOGthnff2vitBgcB66Ngm1A

"I'm sorry" Apology accepted

DOJ took its marching orders from Obama when he said, even before all the facts were known, that there was "not a smidgen of evidence of a crime." Following the "hint", the investigation was conducted by a major donor to the Dem party.

We can only hope you are right, but the crux of the Iranian deal is that they will honor the terns of the deal, which includes full disclosure. If our hope turns out to be a fantasy, the consequences would be very serious. We are literally betting the peace of the world and the survival of Israel on the verification of the terms of the treaty. Obama is willing to take that bet in order to secure his legacy, despite evidence to the contrary.

CRITIC The Book of Mormon says there all of the Jaredites were destroyed, and that no nation would know of this land except the Nephites. So, all of North America was uninhabited when Lehi landed. RESPONSE I agree that this was how many have interpreted the Book of Mormon text decades ago (including myself), but further research into the text clearly indicates that there were "others" living here when Lehi landed. For example, I Nephi 18:25 indicates that there were already domesticated animals when they came here. While the Jaredite nation itself was destroyed (like the Olmecs), it is reasonable to assume there were small settlements far away from the main cities where there were surviving inhabitants (also like the Olmecs). There are several articles on this issue which have been published showing other indications. http://www.fairmormon.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/ash-Were_the_Lehites_Alone.pdf http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon/Lamanites/Relationship_to_Amerindians/Descendants_of_Lehi

It was actually an apologist who put that on a web site as a joke -- Jeff Lindsay. I posted the link.

Several of the old Westerns showed Mormon settlers dressed and acting like the Amish.

In Germany the mothers were hoping that the missionaries WOULD take their daughters to America. Anyway, in England there was a popular antiMormon book that made that claim. In fact, some of the girls escaped by jumping out of window of the temple into the Great Salt Lake.

Joseph Smith himself admits that he wrote the Book of Mormon. On the Title Page it says, Joseph Smith, author and proprietor. He realized his mistake and removed it from later editions. The Book of Mormon mentions "Christ", but that is a greek word. There were no Ameri-Indians who spoke Greek.

" drives a car" Except a mormon "car" does not use gasoline, but eats oats. Obviously something about the Word of Wisdom.

Having a little bit of experience with antis, I see no antagonism from this individual. None of of the questions were insulting, but more along the line "This is what I have heard, and I would like to see your side of the story." If we do get a negative anti here on the forum, I try to follow the rule -->> "if you can't be nice, just ignore them", which sums up the rules of the forum.

Was the Book of Mormon Plagiarized from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass? Here is the link http://www.jefflindsay.com/bomsource.shtml

Skype. It's handy to have several computers in our home, and I've learned how to Skype and watch TV at the same time. I used to do texting, but I found out that we needed to do quality time.

Bottom line -->> this point was made by an apologist to point out the silliness of the "parallelism" argument, comparing the BOM with other books. I have demonstrated that the BOM was actually written in the 21st century -- the blood oaths of the Mafia, the Taliban hiding in the mountains, drug lords with a standing army. You can see the latest newspaper events in the Book of Mormon, so it was obviously written within the past couple of decades.

Bottom line -->> this is antiMormon doctrine. This is not a doctrine of the LDS church. We are Bible believing Christians and accept the events as described in the Bible.

Bottom line -->> we are all the children of God the Father. We all lived in the presence of Father before this mortal existence. So, this means that we are all brothers and sisters of Satan, and of Christ. Satan and his minions are the black sheep of our family.

Bottom line -->> The answer is yes, and no, and is the subject of urban myth.

CRITIC Long sentences in the Book of Mormon. RESPONSE There was no punctuation in the original Book of Mormon manuscript -->> it was added later by the printer. This is evidence for the ancient origin of the Book of Mormon, because punctuation is a relatively modern invention. It was first used in 300BCE, or one hundred years AFTER Lehi. http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150902-the-mysterious-origins-of-punctuation The actual "punctuation" in the Book of Mormon seems to consist of certain key phrases, such as "and it came to pass". There is some evidence that this was a single character, and so it denoted the end of a sentence.