Questions about religion


StudMuff
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I have been asked a few questions by an atheist friend about religion, and he wants to know how the Mormon church would answer these questions. These are questions that other churches have not been able to answer for him and it has turned him sour upon religion. I can answer these questions myself...but I've noticed many peope on here are well versed in the doctrine and with the scriptures of our church. Perhaps you guys could help me answer the questions more thoroughly.

The questions are:

1. How can everyother religion be wrong and your belief is right?

2. What makes your god real and other gods not real?

3. If somebody believes in a different god because its in their culture, do you think they will go to hell or not be "saved"?

4. What is the benefit from being religious? Can this be accomplished without religion?

5. How do you know, without a doubt that god is real? Im looking for tangable evidence.

Once again, I know how to answer these questions myself, but I'm hoping others on this board can give me some helpful insight.

Thank you!

Stud

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1. How can everyother religion be wrong and your belief is right?

We believe there is truth in every religion. To say a religion is false, in my mind, is distasteful. We do, however, believe that God can only have one gospel. If two churches teach different things then they can't both be true. God doesn't teach one thing to one church and the opposite to another church. There can only be one gospel. With that one gospel, there can only be one authority. The true gospel and the true authority would have to exist in the same church for it to be God's church. We believe this gospel and this authority was restored to Joseph Smith, who in turn re-established the church on the earth, under the guidance of the Father and the Son.

2. What makes your god real and other gods not real?

There is only one God. Different people believe different things about who or what God is, but there is only one God.

3. If somebody believes in a different god because its in their culture, do you think they will go to hell or not be "saved"?

Again, only one God. We do not believe people outside our church will go to hell. We don't have the authority to judge. All we can do is share what we believe and invite people to find out for themselves if it's true. God will be the ultimate judge.

4. What is the benefit from being religious? Can this be accomplished without religion?

Religion, to me, is more than just going to church on Sunday and saying a few hail mary's. To me, it's a way of life. It's a belief system that effects every aspect of my life. To be a true Christian, or a true Latter-day Saint, I have to live what I profess to believe. We can't be Sunday Christians.

5. How do you know, without a doubt that god is real? Im looking for tangable evidence.

The scriptures warn us of being sign seekers. I don't have to see God to know that He exists. I know that He lives and that He's the Father of my spirit. The Lord requires us to have faith. This faith, when sought after and applied fully, is greater than any physical knowledge. I KNOW, without a doubt, that God lives and that Jesus is His Son, who died so that I may live again.

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1.I don't think any religion has 100% correct belief. You can find doctrinal imperfection in anybody's church. Not every religion can pass the Barean test. (Acts 17:11) Not that one can by logic and reason prove any religion, but to some degree that religion should agree with the scripture's. If any religion is true then it's scripture must be true enough to use to test the truth of any religion.

2.Why can't we live with not intellectually knowing if anybody's God's exist. I enjoy the comfort feeling in my heart that God exist's and cares about me. If i ever see God after i die then my mortal feeling's will be validated.

3.I feel if anybody dies without law they will be saved from hell. Though i consider heeel a tempoary place and for it to replaced by a place called outer darkness.

4.I could hang out with people in bars, but that would make me feel bad inside. I much prefer to enjoy the moral boost i get when i sing hymns at church. I like being around spiritual people.

5.I have taken comfort in LDS book's like Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon. I decided if the Book of Mormon had any solid internal or external evidences of it's antiquity that a real God was behind the book. That may not be final proof that God exist's, but it was enough for me to take the book seriously. The LDS argument's gave me supplemental hope that God existed.

I am a Reorganized Latter Day Saint. We are a different denomination than LDS but we have belief's in common. I do not care if the LDS Church is right and mine wrong. As long as the Book of Mormon is true we share a belief in the same true book. Of course gaining a testimony of the book won't come by logic and reason only, but by prayer. (Moroni 10) And your atheist friend will not gain a testimony by asking question's unless he is spending quality time with the standard book's of the Restoration. He need's to be reading scripture and asking God.

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Here's my take:

1. How can everyother religion be wrong and your belief is right?

It's not like that. Everyone has some beliefs that are right, and some that are wrong. Same thing for institutions. The closer we can get to God, the fewer the beliefs that are wrong. Even though we believe the Church was restored by God through Joseph Smith, Jr. in 1830, that still leaves us almost 200 years to the present time, to mess it up -- so I wouldn't say the Church has it *all* 'right'.

Nevertheless, the doctrines are profoundly different from creedal Christianity because we have those doctrines more directly from God, with less time to mess it up, and a prophet to step in where necessary and straighten things out. Yes, the Church is true, but most other churches have truth as well. Yet there is a difference.

2. What makes your god real and other gods not real?

I believe in the LDS God, and as I have experiences with them I learn new things about them. I believe that God allows us to mis-understand things, if they serve to help us develop and learn more, and that this is not a problem, except to the small-minded and divisive people. I think God is real, and that most people believe in that same god, though they may describe Him/Her/It differently.

3. If somebody believes in a different god because its in their culture, do you think they will go to hell or not be "saved"?

No, as long as they follow what they believe is 'right' to the best of their ability.

4. What is the benefit from being religious? Can this be accomplished without religion?

Good health, people like them better, fewer crimes & misdemeanors, more safety in society, etc. Yes, mostly, but fewer people would be taught the behaviors that bring the benefits, IMO.

5. How do you know, without a doubt that god is real? Im looking for tangable evidence.

Absolutely. Nothing tangible. Has to be subjective.

Thank you!

Stud

Yer Welcome.

HiJolly

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1. How can every other religion be wrong and your belief is right?

Mormons don't see it as right and wrong but on a kind of continuum of light. Mormons also have a dispensation worldview in that they believe at different points in history the fullness God's religion was established and subsequently in all dispensations, excluding this last and final dispensation, the people gradually fell away in righteousness. So a mormon is more likely to look at a present-day form of religion and see certain elements that have the ring of truth but ultimately acknowledge that many ideas of men had been intertwined with whatever the original form looked like.

2. What makes your god real and other gods not real?

God is real because he is both some place and some time. No matter how any human describes Him or worships him, it does not change the reality of his character as he really is. Many gods of various religions are, by definition, not 'real' in that they are immaterial ideas or thoughts. Is an idea real? It is real to the person but the idea itself does not have any essence. Mormons got themselves out of the typical argument when Joseph Smith declared God the Father and Jesus Christ have bodies of a refined and pure but still physically tangible.

3. If somebody believes in a different god because its in their culture, do you think they will go to hell or not be "saved"?

Mormons don't view it as an all-or-nothing Heaven or Hell. Again, more akin to a continuum of light each individual being 'rewarded' according that which they are willing to receive by choice. Mormons have missionary work continuing in the millennium, baptisms for the dead, and phrases such as "as it has been explained to you" that makes it impossible to judge, hence the tendency to defer to God as the Judge of eternal destiny.

4. What is the benefit from being religious? Can this be accomplished without religion?

For mormons salvation is not an individual experience, we talked about couples, families, communities of zion being saved, the house of Israel. Also the highest levels of religiousity in Mormonism cannot be conducted in isolation, the covenants involve how we treat each other and function together. There is also the belief in authority, a needed official stamp, and that stamp being priesthood and ordinances which occur within the Church.

5. How do you know, without a doubt that god is real? Im looking for tangable evidence.

Mormons are perhaps unique in that their tangible evidence is recent enough that it has a large amount of first hand accounts surrounding its roots. I refer specifically to the Book of Mormon, it is as tangible as you can get, it either came from God or is a fabrication. We have journals and witnesses from the time it came about, we have an incredible amount of information to sort through. For many other present-day religions, Islam and the Koran, Buddhism, Biblical scholarship, people who want tangible evidence must make conclusions from an incredibly small amount of archeological data or historical records. The fact that there are historians who have dedicated their entire lives to studying the early roots of Mormonism and do not all come to the same conclusion implies ultimately there will have to be some other kind of knowing. And I think God, and it is incredibly brilliant in my mind, has allowed just enough blurriness and question marks in the story so that an individual will eventually have to take a leap of faith in proclaiming their loyalties to him in word and deed. If life is a test of our loyalty and our ultimate desires for the entrusting of sacred privilege and responsibility I could not imagine a more well-crafted test.

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1. How can everyother religion be wrong and your belief is right?
Can everybody be right? With God things are done his way. The defiention of truth is things as they really are. God is a God of truth, he has his way of doing things, and doesn’t (and can’t) very from that. His way well always be the same! The purpose of this life is to find this truth and obey it. There is only one true way to worship God, or follow him, to Return to him, to get to heaven. How ever you want to put it we have to accept the idea that not everybody can be right. Not everybody can have the truth. Especially with how different every religion is. I would honestly expect every religion believe it has the truth. If anybody felt that there religion didn’t have all the truth, then there would be room for error. When we are talking about worshiping God, there isn’t Room for error. Its his ways, or not. The “or not” doesn’t lead toward God. Getting Almost to Heaven isn’t good enough.
We believe we are right by revelation, by the power of the Holy Ghost (which bares witness of the truth), by Joseph Smith and the first vision (which other churches can claim also). But once you feel the holy ghost testify to you of the truth of something, you can’t deny it. And thus you know you are on the true path to god.


2. What makes your god real and other gods not real?
This goes with the last question and about the idea of what is true, or truth in general. To have faith in something it has to be truth. (you can’t faith in a wrong idea, or principle). Truth faith leads us closer to God. The faith has to come by being taught the truth, this we feel comes from Revelation, Scriptures, prophets and so forth. The only way for any human to understand God is to be taught by God. Humans can’t “figure” out God on our own. This is why prophets are so important, they are ones that each us about God, who he is, and what we can learn from Him. The idea of forming some school to discover God well never work! It comes from God! Thus the reason we feel our god is “real” is because of Joseph Smith. He saw God and Jesus Christ. This witness isn’t something that can come from any other way but from God. Anybody that claims they have come to learn of God in any other way is headed in the wrong direction.


3. If somebody believes in a different god because its in their culture, do you think they will go to hell or not be "saved"?
We are judged on what truth we have, and how we obeyed it. If we have learned in this life to follow truth (through the light of Christ that is given to everybody) we well gain more knowledge. The more knowledge we gain the more we are accountable for. But in the LDS church we believe that everybody well have the chance to hear the (true) gospel. If they have lived there life in a way that they can recognize the truth, then we believe they well want the gospel and follow it. If people have followed more “worldly” ways, and have distance themselves from God and his spirit, they well have a hard time recognizing truth when it is given to them. Ether way, with God’s justice well be just. Each person well gain the Kingdom of glory (sense we believe in more then one) that they have earned. OR the way scriptures teach this, is what law they kept. If people keep a higher law they well get a higher kingdom. (D&C 88)


4. What is the benefit from being religious? Can this be accomplished without religion?
The benefits of being religious, or more being part of Gods kingdom is that we gain the blessings and help as we progress towards God. The point of a religion is to have the organization that helps God’s children back to Him. We make baptism covenants, (and others) that help us do what is expected of us. This can not be accomplished with out a Religion. This is the point of having the priesthood on the earth. TO have Gods power to act in his name, to bind on earth and in heaven. With out God’s priesthood (or with out having a God kingdom here) we would be lost for direction. We wouldn’t be able to draw closer to God, and thus be lost.
5. How do you know, without a doubt that god is real? Im looking for tangable evidence.
Tangable is a hard to thing to provide when the basis of Religion (and God) is based on Faith. I can truly believe that I exist because of God. I’m here, I live and breath, and I learn to communicate with others. People can doubt this and explain it away. But there is to much pointing to God, then point away from him. Either the whole idea of Religion is the biggest joke that has been going on for way to long, or there really is something to it. It can’t just be a story that keeps coming back. But even more once you see God act in your life (big or small) it know somebody is there watching over you. You feel it as if you are a part of something bigger. Then once you feel the Holy Ghost, something you can’t make up on your own, your realize there is a God that loves you, wants the best for you!

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Guest Malcolm

It is quite interesting that an Atheist would have questions about religion. Often times they have researched the issue to exhaustion and concluded for a variety of reasons that either there is no God or that it is irrelevant.

In the other hand, if in fact he is truly interested in researching issues of faith he should make the inquiries himself as to secure the information from a reliable source and have a high degree of confidence that he has explored the issue thoroughly.

The questions are quite interesting and also important. I wonder what he intends to do after he receives an opinion or explanation.

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4.I could hang out with people in bars, but that would make me feel bad inside. I much prefer to enjoy the moral boost i get when i sing hymns at church. I like being around spiritual people.

I am a little confused with this answer. I am an athiest and I don't hang out out bars.

Why does that confuse you? He didn't claim atheists hangout in bars. He's saying hanging out in environments that don't promote church standards makes him feel uncomfortable. Bars aren't the only place where this would happen.

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