You think the point was that
they were both in physical places? Oh Lord...okay...I'm not going to get into things at this level with you. Again, I didn't make the video. Maybe write to its creator and he can explain what he meant.
I don't recall doing that in that post, but now that you have, the comparison is very well-founded. The root of Arianism's theological error and Mormonism's theological error is the same: the erroneous belief that Jesus Christ and God the Father are not of the same essence. The Arians, like the Mormons, taught that Jesus was a created being (albeit the first of God's creations), and hence could not be said to be of the same substance as Him.
From
the earliest recorded Arian Creed, written to HH St. Pope Alexander in about 320, in response to his excommunication by Alexander (his bishop) in 318, Arius claims concerning the relation of the Father and the Son:
"but, as we hold, [the Son is] created by the will of God before times and before aeons and having received life and being from the Father and various kinds of glory, since he gave him existence, alongside himself. For when the Father gave him the inheritance of everything he did not deprive himself of that which he possesses unoriginatedly (ἀγεννήτως) in himself; for he is the source of all. Consequently, there are three existing realities (ὑποστάσεις).
And God is the cause of them all for he is supremely sole (μονώτατος) without beginning (ἄναρχος), and the Son, having been begotten timelessly by the Father and created and established before aeons, did not exist before he was begotten, but, begotten timelessly before everything, alone has been given existence by the Father; for he is not external nor co-external nor co-unoriginated, with the Father, nor does he possess being parallel with (ἅμα) the Father, as some say who rely on the argument from relations thereby introducing two unoriginated ultimate principles, but as the Monad (μονάς) and origin (ἀρχή) of everything, so God is prior to everything."
Obviously this is not exactly Mormonism, as from what you guys have taught me there doesn't seem to be a belief that
anyone did not exist before being begotten ('eternal intelligences' being...well, eternal), but otherwise we can see here the same rejection of giving Christ His proper worship and place because doing so would (according to this view) violate God the Father's place as the 'unoriginated ultimate principle', to use the language of the letter. (Mormonism might say "the one God we worship", or "the supreme God among the gods" or whatever, in keeping with its henotheism.)
This type of subordination is common to Arianism and Mormonism, and is not affirmed as a means of emphasizing their
homoousian reality (since obviously neither of these believe in that) -- as can be found in Christianity -- but as a way of saying that they are fundamentally different from each other in
essence, as one is the
creation of the other (in Mormonism, by Jesus' being a 'spirit child' or whatever). The Arian Creed even ends with the following note from the translator:
"The Father, Arius continues, is the Son's origin (ἀρχή) from which he derives his glories and life everlasting, and the Father is the Son's God. Arius dislikes any statement that the Son is 'from' (ἐκ) the Father, because it implies that the Son is 'a consubstantial part of him and like an issue', and this means that God is composite and divisible and mutable and even corporeal."
This would more obviously offend Mormonism, because of course you guys
do believe that God the Father has a corporeal body, and yet your understanding of and objection to the Christian Trinity is remarkably similar, being as it is rooted in corporeality. How many times have you objected to me and to others that the Persons of the Holy Trinity cannot be consubstantial because St. Stephen the Protomartyr saw Jesus at the right hand of the Father, or that the baptism of Jesus Christ shows the Persons of the Trinity in three different physical places, or something else which shows that the problem that you have is one of
physicality? This is the same. Arius too apparently had this idea that consubstantiality must have to do with physical existence, or else the objection that saying they are consubstantial makes God 'divisible' makes no sense. (It is also similar in this way to the Muslim objection that the Trinity turns God into 1/3 God, i.e., one God, divided three times).
Yes, but not for the same reason. I outlined that briefly above. You would excommunicate him because you believe in a 'pre-existence' which includes Jesus
and everybody else (as 'eternal intelligences' and then as 'spirit children'), whereas we did excommunicate him for teaching that the Son is a creation, and not coessential/consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Spirit -- both of which are things that Mormonism
agrees with him about.
When did I ever say it couldn't? Obviously any two religions can be compared. My point was that Mormonism and Islam share certain similarities with each other that they do not share with Christianity,
not that Islam and Christianity don't share anything in common.
Seeing as how Islam is basically just a very cheap and obvious rip-off of Christianity (see, e.g., the Arabic Infancy Gospel, the Martyrs of Najran, and the other things that came from preexisting Christian sources that actually ended up in the Qur'an itself) mixed together with large doses of Arab paganism and folklore, we would
expect them to have things in common, just like how Mormonism and Christianity have things in common due to Mormonism's being a very cheap and obvious rip-off of Christianity mixed together with large doses of 19th century backwoods folk magic (seer stones, buried treasure, etc).
Mormonism is a lot closer to Arianism and Islam than it is to Christianity. I'm sorry if this upsets you, but you don't have to stay in it if you're really all that perturbed.
