LDS

[Olowkow]

Oh yeah? Try these on for size!

I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous - if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men.

If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane.

My creed is that: Happiness is the only good. The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to make others so.

A fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of wonders. A fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether it is or is not a fact. A lie will not fit anything except another lie.

I do not believe in forgiveness as it is preached by the church. We do not need the forgiveness of God, but of each other and of ourselves. If I rob Mr. Smith and God forgives me, how does that help Smith? If I, by slander, cover some poor girl with the leprosy of some imputed crime, and she withers away like a blighted flower and afterward I get the forgiveness of God, how does that help her? If there is another world, we have got to settle with the people we have wronged in this. No bankrupt court there. Every cent must be paid.

We must remember that in nature there are neither rewards nor punishments there are consequences. The life and death of Christ do not constitute an atonement. They are worth the example, the moral force, the heroism of benevolence, and in so far as the life of Christ produces emulation in the direction of goodness, it has been of value to mankind.

Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery. It is far better to be free, to leave the forts and barricades of fear, to stand erect and face the future with a smile. It is far better to give yourself sometimes to negligence, to drift with wave and tide, with the blind force of the world, to think and dream, to forget the chains and limitations of the breathing life, to forget purpose and object, to lounge in the picture gallery of the brain, to feel once more the clasps and kisses of the past, to bring life's morning back, to see again the forms and faces of the dead, to paint fair pictures for the coming years, to forget all Gods, their promises and threats, to feel within your veins life's joyous stream and hear the martial music, the rhythmic beating of your fearless heart. And then to rouse yourself to do all useful things, to reach with thought and deed the ideal in your brain, to give your fancies wing, that they, like chemist bees, may find art's nectar in the weeds of common things, to look with trained and steady eyes for facts, to find the subtle threads that join the distant with the now, to increase knowledge, to take burdens from the weak, to develop the brain, to defend the right, to make a palace for the soul. This is real religion. This is real worship.

---Robert G. Ingersoll

 

[Pixel42]

It really is deeply unpleasant stuff isn't it. The people who made it up must have been equally unpleasant, and no-one with the slightest integrity would want anything to do with them.

I feel quite sorry for Mormons if anything approaching the God of Christianity really does exist. Most of them seem nice enough, but the punishment awaiting them in the afterlife (especially for the blasphemy of imagining that they can also be gods one day) will be severe. It's not like it isn't perfectly obvious to anyone who bothered to look into it honestly what nonsense it all is.

 

[Craig4]

The nature of the awful sin against the Holy Ghost, against which the Lord warned the Pharisaic accusers who sought to ascribe His divine power to Satan, is more fully explained, and its dread results are more explicitly set forth in modern revelation. Concerning them and their dreadful fate, the Almighty has said:-"I say that it had been better for them never to have been born, for they are vessels of wrath, doomed to suffer the wrath of God, with the devil and his angels in eternity; concerning whom I have said there is no forgiveness in this world nor in the world to come. . . . They shall go away into everlasting punishment, which is endless punishment, which is eternal punishment, to reign with the devil and his angels in eternity, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched, which is their torment; and the end thereof, neither the place thereof, nor their torment, no man knows, neither was it revealed, neither is, neither will be revealed unto man, except to them who are made partakers thereof: nevertheless I, the Lord, show it by vision unto many, but straightway shut it up again; wherefore the end, the width, the height, the depth, and the misery thereof, they understand not, neither any man except them who are ordained unto this condemnation."

Yeah, so?

 

[Janadele]

 

[RandFan]

The nature of the awful sin against the Holy Ghost, against which the Lord warned the Pharisaic accusers who sought to ascribe His divine power to Satan, is more fully explained, and its dread results are more explicitly set forth in modern revelation. Concerning them and their dreadful fate, the Almighty has said:-"I say that it had been better for them never to have been born, for they are vessels of wrath, doomed to suffer the wrath of God, with the devil and his angels in eternity; concerning whom I have said there is no forgiveness in this world nor in the world to come. . . . They shall go away into everlasting punishment, which is endless punishment, which is eternal punishment, to reign with the devil and his angels in eternity, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched, which is their torment; and the end thereof, neither the place thereof, nor their torment, no man knows, neither was it revealed, neither is, neither will be revealed unto man, except to them who are made partakers thereof: nevertheless I, the Lord, show it by vision unto many, but straightway shut it up again; wherefore the end, the width, the height, the depth, and the misery thereof, they understand not, neither any man except them who are ordained unto this condemnation."

It's the oldest trick in the book. Threaten people to get them to do what you want them to do.

 

[Janadele]

Those who consider warnings as threats... such as lights flashing at a railway crossing... and choose to ignore them, are foolish indeed.

 

[pakeha]

The nature of the awful sin against the Holy Ghost , against which the Lord warned the Pharisaic accusers who sought to ascribe His divine power to Satan, is more fully explained, and its dread results are more explicitly set forth in modern revelation. ...

For me, Janadele, the viciously unprincipled distortion used to transform an Egyptian funerary text into a faux scriptural source for the LDS far outweighs the heinousness of any conjecture or doubt about Jesus' divine power.

 

[Filippo Lippi]

Those who consider warnings as threats... such as lights flashing at a railway crossing... and choose to ignore them, are foolish indeed.

But you cannot show me the train, when you can show me that the train exists outside of your imagination I may pay heed.

 

[RandFan]

The nature of the awful sin against the Holy Ghost, against which the Lord warned the Pharisaic accusers who sought to ascribe His divine power to Satan, is more fully explained, and its dread results are more explicitly set forth in modern revelation. Concerning them and their dreadful fate, the Almighty has said:-"I say that it had been better for them never to have been born, for they are vessels of wrath, doomed to suffer the wrath of God, with the devil and his angels in eternity; concerning whom I have said there is no forgiveness in this world nor in the world to come. . . . They shall go away into everlasting punishment, which is endless punishment, which is eternal punishment, to reign with the devil and his angels in eternity, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched, which is their torment; and the end thereof, neither the place thereof, nor their torment, no man knows, neither was it revealed, neither is, neither will be revealed unto man, except to them who are made partakers thereof: nevertheless I, the Lord, show it by vision unto many, but straightway shut it up again; wherefore the end, the width, the height, the depth, and the misery thereof, they understand not, neither any man except them who are ordained unto this condemnation."

BTW, Janadele, atheists and skeptics are as moved by the Bible, D&C and Book of Mormon as you are by the Bhagavad Gita. You don't take that seriously, what makes you think we will take Mormon and or christian scripture seriously?

 

[RandFan]

Those who consider warnings as threats... such as lights flashing at a railway crossing... and choose to ignore them, are foolish indeed.

Muslims are warning you that if you do not become Muslim you will perish. The Scientologists have warnings as do the Jehovah's Witness. I now more fear their threats as you do theirs.

 

[halleyscomet]

The nature of the awful sin against the Holy Ghost, against which the Lord warned the Pharisaic accusers who sought to ascribe His divine power to Satan, is more fully explained, and its dread results are more explicitly set forth in modern revelation. Concerning them and their dreadful fate, the Almighty has said:-"I say that it had been better for them never to have been born, for they are vessels of wrath, doomed to suffer the wrath of God, with the devil and his angels in eternity; concerning whom I have said there is no forgiveness in this world nor in the world to come. . . . They shall go away into everlasting punishment, which is endless punishment, which is eternal punishment, to reign with the devil and his angels in eternity, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched, which is their torment; and the end thereof, neither the place thereof, nor their torment, no man knows, neither was it revealed, neither is, neither will be revealed unto man, except to them who are made partakers thereof: nevertheless I, the Lord, show it by vision unto many, but straightway shut it up again; wherefore the end, the width, the height, the depth, and the misery thereof, they understand not, neither any man except them who are ordained unto this condemnation."

Was there a specific point you were trying to make, or did you just log in to post a random, unrelated blob of religious copypasta?

 

[Foster Zygote]

Those who consider warnings as threats... such as lights flashing at a railway crossing... and choose to ignore them, are foolish indeed.

When someone says, "Don't touch the stove or you'll get burned", that's a warning. When someone says, "Love me and praise me at all times or I'll destroy you", that's a threat.

 

[Pup]

The nature of the awful sin against the Holy Ghost, against which the Lord warned the Pharisaic accusers who sought to ascribe His divine power to Satan, is more fully explained, and its dread results are more explicitly set forth in modern revelation. Concerning them and their dreadful fate, the Almighty has said:-"I say that it had been better for them never to have been born, for they are vessels of wrath, doomed to suffer the wrath of God, with the devil and his angels in eternity; concerning whom I have said there is no forgiveness in this world nor in the world to come. . . .

The quote of D&C 76 has been snipped there at the crucial point, to leave out the most important thing. All that hatred is referring only to those who (in the next two verses):

35 Having denied the Holy Spirit after having received it, and having denied the Only Begotten Son of the Father, having crucified him unto themselves and put him to an open shame.
36 These are they who shall go away into the lake of fire and brimstone, with the devil and his angels—

In other words, it's a description of "outer darkness," and only fallen-away Mormons are eligible for that kind of hatred and punishment. This is explained in the LDS Gospel Principles (scroll down to "Outer Darkness" at the bottom, which cites D&C 76:35, the verse I quoted above). It explains the punishment is only for "they who had testimonies of Jesus through the Holy Ghost and knew the power of the Lord but allowed Satan to overcome them." From what I've seen, this is often interpreted generously within the church, so the average backslider who sort of drifts away is said not to have really had the spirit, but theoretically it could be applied even to them.

But this would be a warning meant for Mormons who have received the holy spirit, so according to Mormon belief, couldn't happen to any of us non-Mormons. So it's an empty threat when used by a Mormon to a non-Mormon, even if that god existed.

Was there some reason you quoted it out of context to misrepresent LDS beliefs?

 

[RoboTimbo]

Has Janadele made any attempt to honestly answer any of the outstanding questions that go back as far as the beginning of the thread yet?

 

[Slowvehicle]

The nature of the awful sin against the Holy Ghost, against which the Lord warned the Pharisaic accusers who sought to ascribe His divine power to Satan, is more fully explained, and its dread results are more explicitly set forth in modern revelation. Concerning them and their dreadful fate, the Almighty has said:-"I say that it had been better for them never to have been born, for they are vessels of wrath, doomed to suffer the wrath of God, with the devil and his angels in eternity; concerning whom I have said there is no forgiveness in this world nor in the world to come. . . . They shall go away into everlasting punishment, which is endless punishment, which is eternal punishment, to reign with the devil and his angels in eternity, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched, which is their torment; and the end thereof, neither the place thereof, nor their torment, no man knows, neither was it revealed, neither is, neither will be revealed unto man, except to them who are made partakers thereof: nevertheless I, the Lord, show it by vision unto many, but straightway shut it up again; wherefore the end, the width, the height, the depth, and the misery thereof, they understand not, neither any man except them who are ordained unto this condemnation."

...in your opinion...

 

[Slowvehicle]

References for the above
D&C 76:31–48; Heb. 6:4–6; Alma 39:6.) Matt. 12:38–45; 16:1; Mark 8:11; Luke 11:16, 29; John 2:18; 1 Cor. 1:22. D&C 46:9; 63:7–12. Mark 8:12.

You may have missed several threads delineating why claims made in the Bible (or the D&C, or any "scriptures") are not, cannot be, evidence of the truth of the claims made in the Bible (or the D&D, or any scriptures). Particularly when the "scripture" in question make demonstrably false historical claims.

I wonder if you are ever going to answer my question about when, in your opinion, the events in theBoM (particularly those set in the pre-Colombian Americas) are supposed to have taken place.

 

[Cleon]

Muslims are warning you that if you do not become Muslim you will perish. The Scientologists have warnings as do the Jehovah's Witness. I now more fear their threats as you do theirs.

The difference is that when you're damned by the Scientologists they actively try to **** your life up.

 

[dlorde]

When someone says, "Don't touch the stove or you'll get burned", that's a warning. When someone says, "Love me and praise me at all times or I'll destroy you", that's a threat.

When someone says, "Love me and praise me at all times or I'll torture you for eternity", that's a sadistic psychopath with an inferiority complex. Which makes one wonder about the people who dreamed up this stuff...

 

[Foster Zygote]

When someone says, "Love me and praise me at all times or I'll torture you for eternity", that's a sadistic psychopath with an inferiority complex. Which makes one wonder about the people who dreamed up this stuff...

Hitchens described the Christian Heaven as a celestial North Korea. He then added, "But at least in North Korea you can ******* die".

 

[Craig4]

Those who consider warnings as threats... such as lights flashing at a railway crossing... and choose to ignore them, are foolish indeed.

Don't be silly. A train can't stop in time to stop from hitting a car if it tries to get through the crossing. That's why it's a warning.

This is a threat because you're telling us some intelligent agency is going to torture us forever because we refuse to believe the obviously absurd.