Ray

Well, again, after some more thought, I still don’t think that is true, even if that’s what Tr2 meant. I believe the majority of the world’s population does have faith in God, it’s just that the majority of people in the world don’t have a testimony regarding everything that has been revealed about Him. Even if you only have faith to know that there is a supreme being, and that’s all you know, you can still have faith in God. And I’m speaking about a knowledge that has been conveyed to your heart by an assurance given from Him, and not simply a belief in what other people say is true.

75% is a scary figure, because I at least hope that the majority of members have a testimony. But even if all LDS have a testimony, I suppose 75% of the world in general could still be without a testimony, because LDS only make up a small percentage of world’s population. But still, since there are people in other religions who have a testimony about some truths, the idea that 75% of the world doesn’t even know that God lives, or that certain things are true, is scary. After all, you don’t need to be LDS to know that Jesus is the Christ, and you don’t need to be LDS to know that the Bible is inspired scripture, because you can still gain a testimony of those things without being LDS. Anyway, I can now agree with that idea, if that’s what Tr2 meant, because without a testimony, people really don’t know the truth, because they haven’t experienced the power of Faith for themselves. Perhaps that’s the reason for a testimony meeting once a month… to emphasize the idea that having a testimony is important?

Yes, most people do say that. However if you speak to most people about their faith in God you will find that they have faith in the God that they have been told about, having no experience of their own.I cannot count the number of mormons who have faith in Joseph Smith's God, and not their own. The same goes for those who follow Billy Graham, Benny Hinn, the Jehovah's Witnesses, etc, etc. They follow a god that another person has met. Only in religious circles are people this silly. Unless you have examples from your own life that have brought you to where you are, you are believing in somebody else's God. The Nicene creed doesn't incidate that you follow God, nor does the LDS testimony because both are simply statements of belief that require no experiential belief in God to say. Would you marry somebody that you had no experience in, but believes was real? Of course not, you commit to those that you have real life experience with. I'd say this probably defines at least 75% of all those in religious circles, and that is a generous figure. It's probably higher. Heh, I’m not sure that I understand you correctly, but if I do understand you correctly, it seems that you are wrong. LDS people are amongst the people who testify that they do have an experience of their own, which is basically what a testimony signifies. We state that we know, and that we know because God has assured us of something. You can still not agree with that, but you should at least acknowledge that we are testifying to what we know, for ourselves.In other words, I’m not relying on the testimony of Joseph Smith, and most other LDS aren’t either. The testimony of Joseph Smith simply gave me some information to investigate, and after investigating, I now testify that I know for myself that what Joseph Smith said about certain things was and/or is true. More specifically, I know that the Book of Mormon was inspired by God, and I know this because God has assured me it is true. Get it now? Now tell me, why do you believe what you believe?

What makes you think they aren’t requesting it? Or do you mean that you think we should have a spiritual manifestation from each and every one of those people who wants to receive the ordinance of baptism? And if so, how do YOU think that spiritual manifestation should manifest itself? And who do YOU think should receive those spiritual manifestations? And what would YOU say if I told you that there have been lots and lots of people who have performed the ordinance of baptism for other people who have received a spiritual manifestion from deceased persons to let them know that they wanted to receive it?

If I am to be included in this “we”, I would like it understood that what I like about this site is that people are allowed to say what is on their mind as long as they “try” to be nice about it. If we only allowed “positive” people to post “positive” things on this site, banning someone from the site as soon as they said one thing that might be construed as "negative", we would be excluding a lot of people and a lot of thoughts that people can benefit from being exposed to. Still, the moderators do a fairly good job of enforcing the “play nice” policy, it’s just that NOBODY can control what someone is going to say or how they say it BEFORE someone says something, and not everybody agrees on what can or should be construed as negative. You certainly don't expect everyone to agree with you, do you?

Yes, and that place would be without YOU with them. Or do you suppose that you would also be received into the celestial kingdom, as a murderer? If so, then why would you limit that act towards only YOUR children? Why not go around killing everybody’s children before they get to be 8 years old? After all, you’d only be doing THEM a favor too, right? And then after you die, or possibly get killed by an outraged parent, you’ll then be with them and receive nothing but praise from them about what you did. Right? Is that the way you see things? Or are you just being silly?Btw, children who die before the age of accountability go to the celestial kingdom only because Jesus made that provision for them. He is our lawgiver, and He can make any law He wants to, as long as He remains in agreement with our heavenly Father. There are reasons to support God’s decisions, but in the end, God is the one who justifies something as good or evil. God has told us that we should not kill people. Self defense is acceptable, and sacrificing ourselves so that others may live is also acceptable, but not if our sacrifice constitutes murder or suicide. Got it now? For further clarification: Self defense means to defend yourself, even to the point of killing someone, when it is reasonably obvious, to most “good” people, that they intend to kill you or someone else. Sacrificing yourself means to allow someone to kill you, after which THAT SOMEONE will be punished. And suicide means to kill yourself, for any reason. Sheesh. Sounds like just one more example of the type of reasoning people use to call something evil good.

Well, (heh, don’t you just love the way he said that? :)), Well, at least we know he accepted a testimony that Jesus is the Christ. The only thing that some of us don’t know is whether or not he will accept, as Paul Harvey says, “the rest of the story”. :)

I think most people will say they have faith in God, but some of those people still have a problem knowing how to know whether or not commandments come from God, whether or not things are conducive to the path of righteousness and morality, and what it means to “put your family first”. If a person doesn’t receive personal assurance from God to help them know the truth about something, they’re relying only upon their own reasoning to know whether or not commandments come from God, and whether or not things are conducive to the path of righteousness and morality. Some people will say that we’re supposed to rely only upon the words written in certain books, but putting our trust in our understanding of the writings in certain books is not the same as putting our trust in God and relying upon Him to guide us. In knowing what it means to “put your family first”, we should remember that we are expected to do things for other people. This includes doing things in the Church, to help establish and strengthen the kingdom of God on Earth. Some people complain about spending a certain amount of time focused in the work they are called to do in the Church, because they would rather have more time with their families. But are we to focus on our families so much that we neglect to do things for other people? If not, how do we determine how much time we should spend in our callings? For this, too, we need to rely upon God for an assurance that we are doing enough, to balance our time between the needs of our family and the needs of other people the Lord expects us to help.

Actually, I don’t think it is so much a matter of “that” as it is that we can see how some people can even twist the truth to support an unrighteous act. Yes, children who die before the age of accountability will automatically go to the celestial kingdom. No, that doesn’t mean that we should go around killing all children before they get to be that old. Why? Because the act of killing children will get yourself into a whole heap of trouble And Because children should be allowed to experience as much of their lives as they can. There are still some unasked and unanswered questions about all this, but we should at least understand what we should do and not do in regards to children. Kill them… NO Allow them to choose how to live their own lives: YES Got it?

I became LDS on July 23, 1989, or about 15 years ago. Before that I was a member of a church called the "Church of Christ", in which my Dad and Granddad were preachers. I was preparing to become a preacher myself, or maybe a Sunday School teacher, when I then met a returned missionary from the LDS church. The key thought that initiated my conversion was the idea concerning the need for authority, and my desire to know the truth. That was soon followed by a testimony that the Book of Mormon is what it claims to be, which meant (logically) that Joseph Smith Jr. had to be a prophet to be able to translate it. I then gained a testimony that Joseph Smith Jr. was a prophet, shortly after reading his testimony in the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine & Covenants, during which time I also gained a testimony that the Doctrine & Covenants were inspired. I then accepted Ezra Taft Benson as a prophet, as a logical conclusion, since his priesthood could be traced back to Joseph Smith Jr. I hadn’t heard about the RLDS church at that point, or I would have then wanted to gain a testimony about whether or not Ezra Taft Benson was a prophet. At this point, I then became a member of the "LDS" Church. Since then, I have gained a testimony that Ezra Taft Benson was a prophet, and I also have a testimony that Gordon Bitner Hinkley is a prophet. I’ve learned some more things since then too, and all of my knowledge is built upon learning a little something here, and a little something there, followed by an assurance or Faith to help me know the truth. I haven’t always been an “active” member of the Church since I’ve joined, though, because knowledge of the truth isn’t the only thing that enables someone to live a righteous life, but recently I have concluded that all of the sacrifices expected from me will be worth it. And now, I also have a testimony about that.

You won’t advance very far in the Jedi (Saintly) order with that attitude, my friend.Use the Faith, Tao, and you’ll be amazed by the things you’ll come to know. :) p.s. I'm in the mood to watch another Star Wars marathon.

Well, I can almost agree with that, except that instead of thinking that we fear each other, I think we fear what we do not know. And the thought that some people may know something that we don’t know scares us too… unless we know the truth, that is. Then we only want to reach out with love, by trying to help other people know what we know too, and doing whatever else we can while showing kindness and patience.Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger… anger leads to hate… hate leads to suffering. A [saint] must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. – Yoda (revised a little) :)

Heh, yeah, and Satan’s strategy isn’t limited to one approach, is it. His goal is simply to keep people from discovering the truth, so as long as you fall for anything he leads you to believe, he’s got you. Still, though, there would be some advantages to having one or several large institutions under his influence, because many people are drawn to particular institutions simply by the number of how many other people belong to it. And hey, if a person’s family and friends belong to a particular institution, why would they even bother to shop around?

Well, since there is a “real” church of Christ on this Earth, with all the truth and priesthood power that Jesus will give us, why can’t there be a “real” church of Satan on this Earth, to distort all the truth and oppose it with the power that Satan can give them? It still wouldn’t minimize the influence of churches that taught some or much of the truth, or those that taught some or many distortions of the truth, they just wouldn’t be as good as the best or as bad as the worst of them. Btw, which approach do you think would work best for Satan… to teach something about some gods other than Jesus Christ and our heavenly Father, or to teach about them but distort the truth?

According to those scriptures you quoted, what is your understanding of how the Lord will cleanse His church? Are you saying that some people who are remaining faithful to the gospel (as the RLDS understand it) are waiting for a righteous great, great, great… great grandson of Joseph Smith to be born to cleanse the church, or reorganize it according to the will of our Lord? Are you saying that you believe the true church of Christ is no longer on the Earth, except as a small splinter group who broke away from the true church of Christ that was restored through Joseph Smith? And that the true church of Christ thrived only as long as Joseph Smith Jr. was alive? How depressing those thoughts must be to you. Is this really what you believe our Lord expected when He restored the true church of Christ through Joseph Smith Jr.? That it would only be around for a short time, and then essentially be gone again? What was the whole point of it, by your reasoning? Merely to give the world the Book of Mormon and the inspired teachings of Joseph Smith Jr. ?

Jenda, Surely you know that there must be an explanation for everything. Don’t you know that you’re not the first person who has raised that issue? Have you ever checked into what Brigham Young and succeeding prophets in the Church have said regarding how they justify having the authority to lead the Lord’s church? I don’t have a nice little quote or link ready for you right now, but I do have a simple answer for how and why they could and can continue to do it. The thing you need to know is: Who has the keys? Did Joseph Smith 3 have any keys? No. The keys were given to Joseph Smith Jr, and he never did pass them on to his son, because our Lord never told him to do that. Joseph Smith Jr. passed them on to the apostles, just as the apostles have them today. But the apostles only use their keys when they are authorized to do so by the President of the Church, or when the President of the Church dies and they then appoint the next President, by unanimous consent supported by revelation from our Lord. The keys of the kingdom are never passed along according to the patriarchal order because a son isn’t always as righteous as his father, and the Lord will not give an unrighteous man free reign in His kingdom. Anyway, at least you have that information now, if you didn’t have it already. I don’t expect you to accept it just because I think it makes sense, but at least there is a rational explanation for it, and you should at least be able to accept the fact that it makes sense.

Hmmm, now that I think about it, this is definitely a thought worth exploring. I had heard something about the WCC before, but I never have learned a lot about it. Thanks Jenda. :) And for anyone else who wants to know more, here's the link: http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/who/index-e.html

Heh, well, at least I understand your ideas now, and I respect your right to have them, but I still don’t see things that way. I’ll give it some more thought, though, because I don’t have a testimony either way about whether or not Satan will have one “real” institution in which to focus his governance of the world. It does seem pretty hard to imagine, though. Can you imagine any church or government in the world today that would agree to such a thing…that their church or government should be governed by the Catholic church? I've heard that it happened in the past, to some degree, but that is one of the reasons I believe those days were called the “Dark Ages”. I certainly hope we’re a lot more enlightened than that these days.

No, not really. I am trying to show that the “Catholic” church is merely one of many institutions influenced by Satan and his kingdom, also known as the Great and Abominable Church.Try seeing the world through my eyes for a moment, in an eternal perspective. Do you imagine that the “Catholic church” will always be around forever? I don’t. I don’t even see the “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” as always being around forever. So what will there be? The kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan… two separate and distinct kingdoms. This world, the planet Earth, will someday become a world of our Lord Jesus Christ, just one of many other worlds that are already a part of His kingdom, with some people who are members of his kingdom living on this Earth. Our Lord could claim this planet right now, because after all, He did create it, and He does have dominion over Satan, but He has a purpose for allowing this world to remain under the influence of Satan right now. And I know you know what that purpose is. So, since we are here to be tested, Satan is allowed to influence us according to His desires. Those who follow Satan become part of his Great and Abominable Church, or kingdom, and those who follow Jesus become part of His Great and Righteous Church, or kingdom. Can you hear me now?

Why do you consider the Catholic Church "abominable"? Probably for the same reasons that Jenda does, Starsky almost did, and I did for a while, except that I now see that the source of the problem should be distinguished from the Catholic church. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places – Ephesians 6:12 The influence inspired by these “principalities, powers, and rulers of the darkness in this world” has been felt and still is felt by some people in “Catholic” churches, just as they are also felt by some people in “Protestant” churches which resulted from them, but they are also felt by all other people in all the other religions in this world, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As Starsky said, there are 2 main churches in this world, the church of God, and the church of the Devil. Our membership in either one is determined by “which spirit we listeth to obey”, or by what influence prompts us to do what we do, say what we say, and be what we are. Jenda also explained that there are 2 churches within a church: the institution, and the people who comprise that institution. In other words, a church is a kingdom, or government, similar to the government of a City, State, or Country. If there were a government governing this whole world, or planet Earth, you could say that was a church too, but in this case, there are 2 churches on this Earth. At some point in the future, though, Satan will be dismissed from this Earth, having served his purpose, and his kingdom will be somewhere else. Not completely gone, though, because that is impossible. And now you should understand that when I say abominable, I am referring to being offensive to the point of intense anger, which leads to hatred, which leads to murder. And as I have said before, the motivation behind all of that is fear. Yes, my friends, the person influencing Yoda knew what he was talking about. :) And now you should understand that when I say a particular religion is abominable, I am referring to how that institution relates to people, both to those who are within that institution and those who are apart from it, including God. In the past, present, and future? What did or will they do? What did or will they say, and be, and why? To add to something else Jenda said: I think we are all puppets, in a way. It’s just that we all get to choose how and whether or not to respond to those principalities who are trying to pull our strings.

Thank you for your kind words, but to put my attitude in the proper perspective, I would hope that you realize that I respect only your right to have your beliefs, and I respect you only insofar as you honor and uphold what you believe to be right. If you do something wrong or believe incorrectly only because you don’t know any better, I won’t hold that against you.Anyway, words are important, and I place a lot of value on the understanding of truth.

Hmmm, I have 100% confidence in my position too. So what do you think about that? If you also have 100% confidence in your position, as I have 100% confidence in my position, then I guess we’ll have to wait until the day of judgment before we know for certain which of us is right then, hmmm? Btw, I’ve heard from lots and lots of people who take a position against the Church, or against certain prophets and the things they said, and every single time I have been able to find some reasoning to support my position while maintaining integrity and harmony with all the prophets and the things that were said. Every single time. If I were a bettin’ man, which I’m not, I’d bet that you are operating under some misunderstandings and that I could clear those up. There’s even a good chance that I’ve already gone over the same issues that place you in the position you’re in now. But even if they are different issues than I’ve faced before, I’d still bet that I could clear those up and continue to maintain my integrity and harmony with all the prophets and their teachings. But that really wouldn’t change your position, would it. You wouldn’t believe what I say just because I find some reasoning that makes sense to me, and I really wouldn’t expect you to. After all, why would you trust my reasoning when you have reasoning of your own? And why would you accept my testimony when you have a testimony of your own? The best we can hope for, I think, is for you to live your life the way you think is best, while I live my life the way I think is best. As long as we’re relying on God to guide us, I’m sure He’ll help us find the truth.

No. <!--QuoteBegin--Ray@ Jun 8 2004, 09:56 AM The reason any person [alive on this Earth today] needs to accept Joseph Smith as a prophet of God to get into the celestial kingdom is because a person can only enter the celestial kingdom after receiving certain required ordinances, which can only be received in the temple, which requires a temple recommend, which requires the acceptance of certain revelations and laws from Jesus Christ. Thus, a person needs more than merely to be a member of any ole’ Bible believing church. Straightforward enough for you?

(standing beside Setheus) Yes, why do you believe this? Is that your testimony? How did you get it? Who or what are you relying on to support your belief? Are you prepared to stand before God and tell Him that you didn’t believe Joseph Smith because you didn’t think He was one of His (God’s) prophets?I find it interesting when people state that something is NOT true, or in this case, that Joseph Smith is a FALSE prophet. You must have some kind of support for your position, right? Btw, if you’re going to say that you received revelation or inspiration from God telling you that Joseph Smith was not one of His prophets, ask for revelation by the same spirit whether or not Jesus is the Christ. If you get a negative response to that, you are listening to a lying and deceiving spirit.

Come on now, peace. the dependence some mormons have on this man is unhealthy. At best, he was a flawed man. Now I don't hold him to the likes of David or Moses, but I also see those men as who they really are, flawed human beings. A question: Can I get to the good heaven (I know you folks have more than one) without acknowledging Joseph smith as a prophet of God? Heh, the answer to your question lies within, TR2. :)