The Question: Are Mormons Christian? A Biblical Approach

[_jordon3]

Wow Maklelan your last posting just verifies why the internet is rife with sites saying that Mormonism is a cult. I dislike the work myself. Your biblical concept of God is so far removed from the Christian concept. As you put it in your overly dramatic statement "it staggers the imagination". Oh daddy Maklelan. The Bible is very clear there is only one Eternal God ----- it staggers the imagination why you can't see it. I guess that is what is called a veil.

Makelelan wrote :So you're response is "Nu-uh!" Your fundamentalism is showing again. My position is the academic consensus, and it has been that for longer than you or I has been alive. Not all the scholars who promote that position, Jewish or Christian, believing or non, are in a cult, as you suggest my academic position indicates.

Jason wrote, Oh daddy I really have to bite my tongue. I don't really care what your so called consensus would be. The majority of Christians would disagree. For some odd reason your seem to equate intelligence with academic standing. Nothing could be further from the truth, nothing could be closer than the truth.

You believe in a created God.....Christians don't Period.

Proving God of the Bible is the Only Uncreated Creator

First you have to prove the uncreated Creator exists. You do that by being logical. Since nothing in nature happens all by itself, nature can't cause itself; ergo, given trillions of cases of things with a cause and no scientific evidence for something that is without a cause in nature, that's powerful evidence the universe was caused by that which is uncaused Whom we call God. No matter how painful it is for your brain to accept the conclusion from the evidence, it must be so. That is what it means to be humble and not full of pride in one's own ideas.

Next, who is the uncreated Creator? Well the first requirement is He has to reveal Himself in Person in the likeness of flesh as personal and He has to say He is God, the uncreated Creator. Once He does this (and by the way, I don't know anyone who does this but Jesus), He has to prove it with a substantial enough proof that it is undeniable. How does He go about doing this? He says by the proof of His resurrection, you can know unequivocally that He is God. Ok, fair enough, but does the evidence for the resurrection match up with His claim? Indeed.

Most (almost all) scholars on the resurrection of Jesus, both skeptics and non-skeptics, agree on some things related to the Bible (66 books). One of those things is that they truly believe, given all the evidence known to humankind about history and court-type evidence, that Paul of Tarsus was being genuine when he wrote Gal. 1 & 2, 1 Cor. 15. In those earliest writings since the cross, Paul said he met with the apostles Peter, James and John on more than one occasion soon after the cross in which they agreed not only they saw Jesus resurrected in various group settings, but that they understood the purpose of His resurrection, mainly because Jesus told them originally when He was with them for more than 3 years when He walked in the likeness of flesh (i.e. He became a man so as to be fully God and fully man to men in order to atone for their sins on the cross and give eternal life).

Since modern psychology is unable to explain this way as merely hallucination, because there is no such things as group hallucinations (they are experienced individually and differ with each person) and nobody can come up with an alternative explanation, it must be true.

What closes the lid on the Case for Christ, Faith, the Real Jesus and Creator is that on top of all this, the Apostles who saw Him and were more well documented than anything in history, never changed their view. They went to their deaths as martyrs for their testimony in seeing the resurrected Jesus, walking with Him, eating with Him, touching Him and speaking with Him. Even doubting Thomas for all you skeptics out there. Even Paul for all you outsiders of the faith out there. Even James, brother of Jesus, for those raised in Christian homes. The brother of Jesus did not believe his brother Jesus was God until after He was resurrected and appeared to him. Paul had absolutely no reason to turn to Christ for he had high standing and was going places in Judaism. He indicated no sense of guilt whatsoever as he was doing a good job as a Pharisee and was well commended.

The lawyer in the Guinness Book of Records who won the most court cases in a row (400), said the death, deity and resurrection of Jesus is the best evidential case he has ever seen. In a court of law, he said, he would easily win proving Jesus is God.

You don't need to worry about anything else except these minimal facts; you don't even need to claim the Bible is inerrant. That's what makes the proof for God and Jesus being God and God being uncreated so special. It is not that complicated. Even a young child can understand it, so you are without excuse and need not go to hell, for rejecting God's love in His only begotten Son shedding His blood for you to give you eternal life. Eternal life is not just eternal blessings for the new city and new earth, but it is also for the the first time an ability to know God when you regenerated by the Holy Spirit.

[_jordon3]

Hey Daddy Maklelan what proof do you have that there are other gods that are eternal and uncreated. Oh sorry--- you think God is a created being-- so forget that question. The Bible certainly doesn't have any other uncreated Gods. What other of your so called gods have the attributes and characteristics and nature of the only and true Eternal God spoken of in the Bible?

[_Res Ipsa]

Worst
logic
ever

[_madeleine]

1 Cor 10:20 quoting Deut 32:17

No interpretation needed. It is perfectly clear.

"No, I mean that what they sacrifice, [they sacrifice] to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to become participants with demons."

The note in the NAB says: "To demons: although Jews denied divinity to pagan gods, they often believed that there was some nondivine reality behind the idols, such as the dead, or angels, or demons. The explanation Paul offers in 1 Cor 10:20 is drawn from Dt 32:17: the power behind the idols, with which the pagans commune, consists of demonic powers hostile to God."

And as Deut 32:17 makes clear, those demons were considered gods. The Hebrew elohim is in apposition to the word "demons." Further: Heb 2:7 translates the Hebrew elohim of Ps 8:5 with the Greek angelos. After an angel visits Manoah and his wife in Judges 13, Manoah comments that they will surely die, since they have seen elohim, or "a god." I could go on and on. Obviously angels were considered gods, irrespective of what your Bible's footnote pretends. Go ahead and make an appeal to authority, though.

As opposed to appealing to your opinion? I trust real Biblical scholars more than I would trust any Mormon interpretation.

So are you insisting that, since "no-god" must mean a non-existent and imaginary deity, then the nation of Assyria, which is the "no-people" that God incited, must also have been a non-existent and imaginary people. Odd that they managed to do so much damage to Israel without even existing.

Israel are the people of God. No-people then are the godless who worship EMPTY IDOLS. Empty, means empty. I didn't think it was so hard to grasp.

When the people of God turned to the idols of their neighbors, they become a no-people themselves.

"I will be your God and you will be your people." There isn't any indication that GOD views the pagan gods as real gods. The errors of the godless is what you are attempting to portray as "Christian". Jesus is the God of Christianity, the only God there is. There are not other gods, so-called.

[_maklelan]

Jason wrote, Oh daddy I really have to bite my tongue. I don't really care what your so called consensus would be.

I know. That's the nature of dogmatism.

The majority of Christians would disagree.

You have absolutely no idea whatsoever what the majority of Christians would do. (An actual research study has shown that the majority of Christians do accept Mormons as Christians, though.)

For some odd reason your seem to equate intelligence with academic standing. Nothing could be further from the truth, nothing could be closer than the truth.

You believe in a created God.....Christians don't Period.

Again you presume to speak absolutely on behalf of all Christianity. Again, your fundamentalism is showing. That's that belief that you are Christianity, and what you say goes. Period.

Proving God of the Bible is the Only Uncreated Creator

First you have to prove the uncreated Creator exists. You do that by being logical.

Sorry. Logic can never bring us to knowledge a being that putatively exists outside of natural law and the universe. You should read As a Driven Leaf. You might learn a thing or two about logic and doubt.

Since nothing in nature happens all by itself, nature can't cause itself;

Who said nature caused itself?

ergo, given trillions of cases of things with a cause and no scientific evidence for something that is without a cause in nature, that's powerful evidence the universe was caused by that which is uncaused

No it's not. It's special pleading to just cut off the regress of causality and say "There's God!" Causality is also something observable that you're just arbitrarily extending to cosmology.

Whom we call God. No matter how painful it is for your brain to accept the conclusion from the evidence, it must be so.

Not in any sense of the word must it be so. The development of the cosmos and of life is quite easily explained without recourse to a deity. The cosmological argument is for college freshmen.

That is what it means to be humble and not full of pride in one's own ideas.

Unless one's own ideas are about God. Then we must shout down any doubters and nakedly assert that we are the only ones who are right.

Next, who is the uncreated Creator? Well the first requirement is He has to reveal Himself in Person in the likeness of flesh as personal and He has to say He is God, the uncreated Creator.

And where on earth does this requirement come from? Obviously it's the result of trying to figure out how to get from the cosmological argument to Evangelicalism.

Once He does this (and by the way, I don't know anyone who does this but Jesus), He has to prove it with a substantial enough proof that it is undeniable.

And no biblical faith claims has ever even approached such an evidentiary standard.

How does He go about doing this? He says by the proof of His resurrection, you can know unequivocally that He is God. Ok, fair enough, but does the evidence for the resurrection match up with His claim? Indeed.

Most (almost all) scholars on the resurrection of Jesus, both skeptics and non-skeptics, agree on some things related to the Bible (66 books). One of those things is that they truly believe, given all the evidence known to humankind about history and court-type evidence, that Paul of Tarsus was being genuine when he wrote Gal. 1 & 2, 1 Cor. 15.

That's not true at all, and suddenly the academic consensus is of concern to you?

In those earliest writings since the cross, Paul said he met with the apostles Peter, James and John on more than one occasion soon after the cross in which they agreed not only they saw Jesus resurrected in various group settings, but that they understood the purpose of His resurrection, mainly because Jesus told them originally when He was with them for more than 3 years when He walked in the likeness of flesh (i.e. He became a man so as to be fully God and fully man to men in order to atone for their sins on the cross and give eternal life).

Since modern psychology is unable to explain this way as merely hallucination, because there is no such things as group hallucinations (they are experienced individually and differ with each person) and nobody can come up with an alternative explanation, it must be true.

Holy crap. You actually believe that you can prop up the claim that the resurrection MUST BE TRUE on top of assumptions about who was telling the truth and what people aren't allowed to have made up? Good night, that's just grotesquely ignorant.

What closes the lid on the Case for Christ, Faith, the Real Jesus and Creator is that on top of all this, the Apostles who saw Him and were more well documented than anything in history, never changed their view.

And the notion that it's the most well-documented event in history is pure and unadulterated nonsense. One would have to know absolutely nothing at all about history to think that.

They went to their deaths as martyrs for their testimony in seeing the resurrected Jesus, walking with Him, eating with Him, touching Him and speaking with Him. Even doubting Thomas for all you skeptics out there. Even Paul for all you outsiders of the faith out there. Even James, brother of Jesus, for those raised in Christian homes. The brother of Jesus did not believe his brother Jesus was God until after He was resurrected and appeared to him. Paul had absolutely no reason to turn to Christ for he had high standing and was going places in Judaism. He indicated no sense of guilt whatsoever as he was doing a good job as a Pharisee and was well commended.

The same kinds of arguments can be made for Joseph Smith. So what?

The lawyer in the Guinness Book of Records who won the most court cases in a row (400), said the death, deity and resurrection of Jesus is the best evidential case he has ever seen. In a court of law, he said, he would easily win proving Jesus is God.

Pure and utter nonsense.

You don't need to worry about anything else except these minimal facts; you don't even need to claim the Bible is inerrant. That's what makes the proof for God and Jesus being God and God being uncreated so special. It is not that complicated. Even a young child can understand it, so you are without excuse and need not go to hell, for rejecting God's love in His only begotten Son shedding His blood for you to give you eternal life. Eternal life is not just eternal blessings for the new city and new earth, but it is also for the the first time an ability to know God when you regenerated by the Holy Spirit.

Again, your naïve and remarkably misguided fundamentalism is showing.

[_maklelan]

As opposed to appealing to your opinion?

I didn't appeal to opinion. I backed up everything I said with evidence.

I trust real Biblical scholars more than I would trust any Mormon interpretation.

I'm not a real biblical scholar? On what grounds do you revoke from me my identity as a biblical scholar?

Israel are the people of God. No-people then are the godless who worship EMPTY IDOLS. Empty, means empty. I didn't think it was so hard to grasp.

I understand what you mean when you say empty. The problem is, Deuteronomy 32 qualifies his description of the foreigners in exactly the same way he qualifies his description of those other gods. You don't get to massage his qualification into something it's not. Either they both exist or neither does.

When the people of God turned to the idols of their neighbors, they become a no-people themselves.

So they stopped existing?

"I will be your God and you will be your people." There isn't any indication that GOD views the pagan gods as real gods.

Except for, oh, Deut 32:8, where he gives them rule over the nations. Or, oh, say, Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7, where they come before him and shout for joy at the creation. Or, oh, a dozen other verses where their existence is unquestionably presupposed by the biblical authors.

The errors of the godless is what you are attempting to portray as "Christian". Jesus is the God of Christianity, the only God there is. There are not other gods, so-called.

Because you say so. Got it.

[_madeleine]

As opposed to appealing to your opinion?

I didn't appeal to opinion. I backed up everything I said with evidence.

I trust real Biblical scholars more than I would trust any Mormon interpretation.

I'm not a real biblical scholar? On what grounds do you revoke from me my identity as a biblical scholar?

Israel are the people of God. No-people then are the godless who worship EMPTY IDOLS. Empty, means empty. I didn't think it was so hard to grasp.

I understand what you mean when you say empty. The problem is, Deuteronomy 32 qualifies his description of the foreigners in exactly the same way he qualifies his description of those other gods. You don't get to massage his qualification into something it's not. Either they both exist or neither does.

When the people of God turned to the idols of their neighbors, they become a no-people themselves.

So they stopped existing?

"I will be your God and you will be your people." There isn't any indication that GOD views the pagan gods as real gods.

Except for, oh, Deut 32:8, where he gives them rule over the nations. Or, oh, say, Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7, where they come before him and shout for joy at the creation. Or, oh, a dozen other verses where their existence is unquestionably presupposed by the biblical authors.

The errors of the godless is what you are attempting to portray as "Christian". Jesus is the God of Christianity, the only God there is. There are not other gods, so-called.

Because you say so. Got it.

*shrug* I have no idea who you are, but your Biblical exegesis does not impress me as Christian in nature.

As I said, Israel struggled with pagan ideas, but these ideas are dropped post-exilic and there is no doubt, Israel does not believe in the existence of other gods. Most people view this as God leading His people to a true understanding.

But, believe what you like, support your position with a pagan understanding and errors, but don't be surprised when Christians do not accept a religion that does so as Christian.

[_maklelan]

*shrug* I have no idea who you are, but your Biblical exegesis does not impress me as Christian in nature.

Well, just to save you the time, I am a biblical scholar, specializing in Israelite religion, Septuagint, Dead Sea Scrolls, and early Jewish and Christian identity. My exegesis is in line with the scholarly consensuses.

As I said, Israel struggled with pagan ideas, but these ideas are dropped post-exilic and there is no doubt, Israel does not believe in the existence of other gods. Most people view this as God leading His people to a true understanding.

I've already addressed this. You didn't respond to my concerns.

But, believe what you like, support your position with a pagan understanding and errors, but don't be surprised when Christians do not accept a religion that does so as Christian.

In other words, you can't defend your assertions, but you're still right. Your fundamentalism is showing, too.

[_sr1030]

And that kind of rhetoric is no different from saying the Broncos are the only real football team in the AFC.

Do you really need analogies such as this? I don't.

As I have pointed out, the rest of the Bible flatly rejects the notion that no other gods exist.

Do you then agree that Christ stated that there is only one (1) true, real or genuine God? At least in this passage?

Even Jesus himself points out the Bible refers to others as gods, and then asserts that the scripture cannot be broken.

Why don't we finish with John 17:3 before you move on?

Your exegesis is presuppositional and naïve, as is your criteria for determining who is and isn't a Christian.

Are you saying you can be a Christian and not believe the teachings of Christ?

You've refused to address any of my concerns and have instead just made naked assertions and stomped your foot when challenged.

I haven't in any sense stomped my feet, and you are seemingly trying to distract by bringing up other concerns when we haven't finished the first. It would be nice if you do not lower the bar by insults. I sense that is coming.

sr

[_jordon3]

Maklelan wrote You have absolutely no idea whatsoever what the majority of Christians would do. (An actual research study has shown that the majority of Christians do accept Mormons as Christians, though.)

Jason15, yes you keep harping this, it's also apparent that a lot of Chrisitans have no idea what Mormons believe. Once they are told they absolutely do not accept Mormons as Christian. You can live in your fantasy world Maklelan....but the Christian God is not a Created being like your Mormon god. The Christian god does not resemble the Mormon god in any way....no matter how much you wish He did.

The fact is these studies your keep ranting about are bogus. If these people were given the facts on Mormon beliefs there is no way they would consider Mormons Christian any more than Muslims etc.