Yekcidmij

To understand Trinitarianism it's important to understand philosophical concepts of "essence" and "personhood" and how they have been used over the centuries (such as Athanasius, the Cappadocian Fathers, etc..). The basic idea is easy: we believe in a tri-personal God. God is one Being/Essence/Substance/Nature and 3 persons. Conceiving how this "looks" or explaining the Trinity in further detail is difficult. I think the difficulty comes from the fact that we don't interact with too many objects that we think of in this manner and analogies we try to use to help us never seem to work. Some analogies that I have seen that I think all fail are as follows: The Human Analogy: I am body, soul and spirit just as God is Father Son and Spirit. The Egg: The egg is one egg composed of shell, white, and yolk. Water: Water can be in 3 states: solid, liquid and gas. Time: Time exists as past, present and future. And there are probably more too. I think these all fail for various reasons. If you are interested in current thinking on how to conceive and explain detail about the doctrine of the Trinity, it's worth noting that there are several main schools of thoght, all of which are trinitarian (they all affirm the historical creeds): Latin Trinitarianism, Social Trinitarianism, and Plain-ol-Mystery. Read all about them at Stanford here and enjoy: Trinity (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) If you are LDS, I suspect the Social Trinitarianism in particular will be appealing to you, and as you might imagine, those who are social trinitarians always end up defending charges of tri-theism in the literature.

Josephus talks about the building of the Samaritan Temple in Antiquities 11.8 and 13.3.4.

The was only occuring until the Assyrian destruction. They had another one built during the Judean Second Temple Period.

Don't forget the Samaritan Temple. Fun trivia note: the Samaritan's, though no temple now, still do sacrifices and such on Mt. Gerizim, and have been for quite some time (a couple thousand or so years). You can watch it on youtube; it's pretty interesting and probably helps see what the whole deal might have looked like back in the day.

I guess saying that Joseph got it right would depend on which version of Gen. 1 we are going to use from Joseph. Are we going to use the rendering in Moses 2? Abraham 4? The King Folllet Discourse? The Plurality of gods Sermon? 3 Nephi 9:15? D/C 14:9? And if we are going to quote modern scholars and use their methods (which I'm fine with), then I guess it's important to ask what's P doing in the book of Abraham, Moses, and Mormon anyway?

nvm

I'm sure there are churches out there who deny all revelation, but this would seem to me to be an extreme minority. Most churches affirm revelation and must do so because revelation for most born again churches is the only way to learn about God. Almost all would agree that the bible is a source of revelation. So it’s inaccurate to say that in most revelation is denied. Many people also DO claim personal revelation with things like, “God impressed this on me…” or “I feel God is really telling me…”. So it’s also inaccurate to say that most born again churches deny personal revelation. That’s simply not true. There are some people who are more open to personal revelation than others and sure, there are people who don’t believe in personal revelation at all today. I’ve also noticed that born-again Christians who engage in polemics against the LDS church are themselves more likely to deny personal revelation, but this seems to me to be a debate tactic and defense mechanism and not a reflection of what average Evangelical-Joe will believe. I could be wrong though, I have no statistics on this; perhaps you do and can show me wrong.

That's not actually how variants work though, and I thought after seeing a lot of your posts that you would know better.

I mean that not everyone is a member of a covenant relationship with the Creator. And yes, I do believe in election. I don't think everyone is part of the elect though. I think those who God does not give grace to are judged on the basis of their works. Do they go to hell? In short, it appears that if someone has not received God’s grace, the result will be “hell”. I put “hell” in quotes because I think many people have a flawed image of it in their minds and I’m just going to highlight that your concept of hell and mine may be slightly different. Thanks for the summary of your views. I’m aware of LDS theology in this area and I’m aware that not all Christians see it the same way as a Calvinist like me would. I do think that what I have come to believe is more or less what has been revealed to us. I’m not perfect though, so I imagine I’m wrong on some things here and there.

I provide comments on the 99% number. I povide them agan here: Someone keeps asking for a source from Snow. Tought I would help. Here is an article by Dan Wallace: And a book with Wallace as a co-author (see chs 4-8): Reinventing Jesus: How Contemporary ... - Google Books

Does he have a chance at salvation? Sure, why not. Does he have a chance if he never has faith in Jesus? It doesn’t appear that he does. I think it’s pretty clear that people are justified, that is declared to be members in right standing in covenant with God, by their faith in Jesus. If someone doesn’t have faith in Jesus, it’s pretty hard for me to say that they have been justified. I think it’s clear that not everyone is called into God’s covenant. So if there is a man living in the backwoods somewhere who has never heard, and never hears of Jesus, then it appears that he is not in any kind of covenant with God. I would say that God will still judge such a person fairly. After all, God is the best arbiter of justice. I don’t see any indication that people have a chance after death.

I think did post something relevant to the topic; you just decided to ignore it and go into conspiracy theory mode. Two posters on a message board do not represent all of evangelicalism. I would encourage you to engage them on the merits of whatever case they are making, but when you title the thread “Do born again Churches Seriously Believe This” understand that most born again churches do not believe that people get a second chance after their deaths; I even listed major denominations of American Protestantism. Now, are you going to ignore this again? Are you going to regress into your shell and whine about the thread?

I only asked a question. No need to get worked up or rude about it. That is abnormal for evangelicals. My comment still stands. Maybe you shouldn't be so defensive? Not everyone is out to get you.

Who? An evangelical couldn't tell you about the messiah? I've never heard any evangelical say that. I know that Assemblies of God, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and Anglicans don't teach that. .....sounds like it's someone else who is confused.....

I wasn't aware of 39 quotes of Enoch in the NT. I'm aware of a couple of verses in Jude and 1 Peter, but 39 is unsually large. And simply quoting Enoch doesn't mean it was considered 'canonical'. Paul quotes Aratus and Epimenides, but I hardly think Paul is saying that either is a canonical work.