LDS LDS ‘The Hearts of the Children Shall Turn to Their Fathers’

drstevej said:

Sounds like Scientology / Dianetics

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There are definitely parallels (or at least stronger parallels than there would be between Christianity and Scientology), though LDS scoff at the idea. I posted a video of two "exes" (an ex-Scientologist and an ex-Mormon) talking about their respective experiences in a thread a long time ago here, if anyone is interested in seeing what people who have actually been in say.

Phoebe Ann said:

No. He can do all things. He chooses to use people, but people can't convert unbelievers. We need God; God doesn't need us. Mormons are very proud of drawing people in. I've seen that first hand. They draw people in who don't have the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit can draw people out as He did me.

It's sad that you worship an incapable god who has to depend on man.

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If God did not have men to help Him, He could show Himself to all the world every day and convert everyone to the gospel. In doing so, He would erase faith, which is the center piece of His gospel. There would be nobody on earth that would not believe because He would be magnificent in the sky as all were able to behold Him and His glory, and not one person would be lost. He could do this, but He won't, because faith is the centerpiece of His gospel.
So he has to depend on men to help Him with His purpose.

I think you know what I am saying so let us not smash this topic to a pulp, it is not necessary. We both know the power and majesty of God, and that He does not really need man, but He chooses to use men to fulfill His purposes on earth and that we walk in faith to recieve the grace of Jesus Christ and EL.

Phoebe Ann said:

Did Moses use a stylus to write the ten commandments?

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Did he use a stylus to copy the God written 10 commandments so the entire 3,000,000 people could have a copy of them?

Phoebe Ann said:

He doesn't have to depend on men. Why do you make God out as helpless and without freewill?



Jesus was here. Not everyone had faith.

John 10
19 There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings. 20 And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him? 21 Others said, These are not the words of him that hath a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?

John 10
22 And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. 23And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. 24 Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. 25 Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me.26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.

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Again, I agree with you that God does not need man, but He chooses to use them and we walk in faith to receive the grace of Jesus and EL.

Your response: Jesus was here, everyone did not have faith. So what, we all know that not everyone believed and had faith in Jesus, even when he was looking them straight in the eye. That is not the point.

I agreed with you that God does not need man, but He does choose to use them to bring about His purposes on earth, so that we can walk in faith to receive grace from Jesus and EL.

Your response should have been along the lines that I was right or I was wrong about that. Sometime it would be nice if you would acknowledge that I was right to agree with you. Thank you.

Phoebe Ann said:

Unable to answer the question?

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Why, someone had to create copies to be distributed to the people. Could God use a man or woman to copy the 10 commandments if He chose to?

Peter1000 said:

Are you saying that these creations of Jesus, live and are destined to die once, never hearing the name Jesus Christ, therefore do not believe in Jesus, nor do they keep his commandments, so when they die, they immediately face judgement, and are sent directly to hell fire?

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Neither I nor the Bible says that. Therefore, here's what the ending of your question should be:

"...so when they die, they face judgement?"

And my answer would be yes.

Peter, as an illustration of why we can consider the LDS salvation taxonomy and the ways to get to it completely useless and irrelevant, we can consider the right-hand thief with Christ on Golgotha. This was a man who had not only never heard of Jesus, but who had lived a life of wickedness and crime for which he was being executed. Yet he clearly knew God when he saw Him being crucified beside him, and when he said to our Lord "Remember me when you enter into Your Kingdom", the Lord replied that he would be with Him that very day in paradise.

God rewards the faithful for their faith and repentance, not for the mechanical fulfillment of religious rites as in Mormonism. And I obviously belong to a Church that is full of rites and rituals, so I am not knocking them in themselves or the concept of having them (never!), but we must not forget why it is that we do any of this stuff in the first place, and what is really important beyond anything that we can do or perform of our own will. If baptism in itself were a precondition for salvation as Mormonism would have it, then our Lord would never have told the thief "Today you will be with Me in paradise." But He did. So the proper understanding (that is, the Christian understanding) is that baptism is the means of formal entrance into the Church, which is where our Lord wants us to be, as it is His body. But can He call people from outside of it, and/or find them where they are and bless them and save them as He sees fit? Absolutely! How else do you think any of us would get to where we are? I wasn't born Orthodox, and our dear friend Phoebe Ann likewise came to Christ from Mormonism (one of many people who have found the light from within the darkness, praise be to God!), and so on and so forth.

So here we all are, working out or salvation with fear and trembling as the scriptures tell us (Philippians 2:12), and not with Mormonism's (literally) dead ritual. That, my friend, is the work of God, not whatever it is you are doing in the Mormon temples.

BigDaddy4 said:

Neither I nor the Bible says that. Therefore, here's what the ending of your question should be:

"...so when they die, they face judgement?"

And my answer would be yes.

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And is the first judgement question, "do you believe in Jesus Christ", and they say no, we have not heard of him. What happens next?

dzheremi said:

Peter, as an illustration of why we can consider the LDS salvation taxonomy and the ways to get to it completely useless and irrelevant, we can consider the right-hand thief with Christ on Golgotha. This was a man who had not only never heard of Jesus, but who had lived a life of wickedness and crime for which he was being executed. Yet he clearly knew God when he saw Him being crucified beside him, and when he said to our Lord "Remember me when you enter into Your Kingdom", the Lord replied that he would be with Him that very day in paradise.

God rewards the faithful for their faith and repentance, not for the mechanical fulfillment of religious rites as in Mormonism. And I obviously belong to a Church that is full of rites and rituals, so I am not knocking them in themselves or the concept of having them (never!), but we must not forget why it is that we do any of this stuff in the first place, and what is really important beyond anything that we can do or perform of our own will. If baptism in itself were a precondition for salvation as Mormonism would have it, then our Lord would never have told the thief "Today you will be with Me in paradise." But He did. So the proper understanding (that is, the Christian understanding) is that baptism is the means of formal entrance into the Church, which is where our Lord wants us to be, as it is His body. But can He call people from outside of it, and/or find them where they are and bless them and save them as He sees fit? Absolutely! How else do you think any of us would get to where we are? I wasn't born Orthodox, and our dear friend Phoebe Ann likewise came to Christ from Mormonism (one of many people who have found the light from within the darkness, praise be to God!), and so on and so forth.

So here we all are, working out or salvation with fear and trembling as the scriptures tell us (Philippians 2:12), and not with Mormonism's (literally) dead ritual. That, my friend, is the work of God, not whatever it is you are doing in the Mormon temples.

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For you that is great. For someone who has died and never heard about Jesus or working out their salvation with fear and trembling, what happens to them. You say Jesus will take care of it. That is fine, but do you know how he will take care of it?

You do not, but we do. I've told you how, so I will not reiterate it again.

Peter1000 said:

For you that is great. For someone who has died and never heard about Jesus or working out their salvation with fear and trembling, what happens to them. You say Jesus will take care of it. That is fine, but do you know how he will take care of it?

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Because He said so, in that case and in others. e.g., when He told the woman in the Gospel of St. Luke that her faith had saved her. As recorded also in the Gospel of St. John, He told the woman "Go forth and sin no more", and not "Go forth and be baptized for all your dead relatives/acquaintances and people you've never met, because I'm not going to go to them." The harrowing of Hell happened, and Christ saving those who had faith in Him not only happened, but still happens.

You do not

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Yes, we do. Have you not read John 3:16, possibly the most oft-quoted Bible verse of all time? "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

Whoever is whoever, not "whoever happened to be lucky enough to live in late Roman Judaea when our Lord Jesus Christ and His most honored and blessed holy apostles and disciples taught."

but we do.

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What you have is a reflection of the limited and weak gods that you serve in the Mormon religion, and nothing more -- certainly nothing true, at any rate. In Christianity, the incarnation of Christ our God is precisely the unbounded Word taking on and uniting the bounded flesh to Himself, without change, without confusion, and without mixture. As such, He does not cease to be the holy and immortal Lord because He has come down into time (which is a human concept that we have no reason to assume even applies to the afterlife; in fact, the Bible tends to suggest otherwise when it says that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years), but rather remains unbounded as shown by the very nature of His existence: the fact that He is risen from the dead, the fact that He descends into Hades and preaches to the people there, and so on.

Your gods, in sharp distinction to the above, seem to need you do things that they cannot or will not do, like offering life to the dead. But life, as you should well know if you are going to claim Christianity, is the providence and prerogative of God alone, such that no mere man can even offer it. After all, how was it that Jesus drew the ire of the religious Jews around Him in the first place, such that they accused Him of blasphemy and sought to stone Him? They said He made Himself God (John 10:33) by teaching as He did that He gives His sheep eternal life, and that He and the Father are one. (John 10:28-30)

And so you make the work of God into a work by man! That is true blasphemy.

I've told you how, so I will not reiterate it again.

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Yes, and anyone with eyes to see and a brain to make the comparison can see the vast difference between Mormonism and Christianity in this and many other areas, so I trust the reader to understand how deeply, deeply anti-God and anti-Christian the Mormon religion is. You say you have all of these things, all of these ways that the Lord has given to you via Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdry or whoever, but you do not recognize how they destroy faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by replacing it with these strange dead rituals that are not attested to anywhere in the history of the Christian religion but among heretics and God-haters like Marcion or the parasitic Gnostic sects. Lord have mercy.

Peter1000 said:

And is the first judgement question, "do you believe in Jesus Christ", and they say no, we have not heard of him. What happens next?

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How do you know that is the first judgement question? Is there a list of judgement questions somewhere that I don't know about?

What happens next is up to God. As dzheremi pointed out about the thief on the cross, some who don't know/never heard of Jesus will know he is God, some will not. That's one of the points, IMO, of the interaction between Jesus and the thieves on either side of him. In addition, if you will recall the account of David being called to replace Saul on the throne, "the Lord looks at the heart" (1 Sam 16:7). Whatever rituals the lds or anyone else wants to do for dead people is fruitless. God knew/knows their heart while they were/are alive and He alone will decide their fate.

BigDaddy4 said:

How do you know that is the first judgement question? Is there a list of judgement questions somewhere that I don't know about?

What happens next is up to God. As dzheremi pointed out about the thief on the cross, some who don't know/never heard of Jesus will know he is God, some will not. That's one of the points, IMO, of the interaction between Jesus and the thieves on either side of him. In addition, if you will recall the account of David being called to replace Saul on the throne, "the Lord looks at the heart" (1 Sam 16:7). Whatever rituals the lds or anyone else wants to do for dead people is fruitless. God knew/knows their heart while they were/are alive and He alone will decide their fate.

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All you have is: its up to God. You have no knowledge about this process. We do, and it is a genius plan by Jesus. Because it causes us to remember our baptismal covenants every time we baptize someone for the dead. It causes us to remember our marriage covenants every time we marry someone for the dead. So it not only helps the dead in their progress toward Jesus Christ, but it helps us to keep on the right path. Repetition = reminders= stay on the right path. So the work benefits the living and the dead.

Phoebe Ann said:

Oh, you changed your mind? Congratulations.

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You could have been gracious and said something like, "good, we agree on something", but you had to throw a barb in there that it was good that I changed my mind. So thanks.

Peter1000 said:

All you have is: its up to God.

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And this is all anyone has ever had, or will ever need.

dzheremi said:

And this is all anyone has ever had, or will ever need.

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AMEN!