You know that isn’t possible, we’ve all been down this road before.
Scott is a convert from Judaism so you know he has some strong feelings and beliefs regarding this anti-mormon nonsense. Part of me doesn’t blame him for his reactions. If you are going to tell him to stop, doesn’t it stand to reason that MH should also be counseled in the same manner?
It takes two…
you know what I mean?
Beliefs aside, there is only one person being an ■■■ in how they are responding, and that is why I politly asked him to stop already. His approach is ignorant and offensive. He thinks he is fighting the good cause, when all he really is doing to making himself look foolish. There is very little in his approach to this that represents the Savior. But I can tell he never served a mission and thinks bashing is the way to win an argument. He just needs to stop.
This thread never intended to be an argument, until he decided to take it there. And he is getting it handed to him by his own ignorant rants.
I’m willing to defend the kingdom of God from these anti-Mormons. I know many aren’t.
Ah, so bearing ones testimony to anti-Mormons is anti-missionary too. Funny how you, the return missionary, bashes the apostles and prophet all the time. They aren’t righteous enough for you and must immediately disavow the Lords commandment against homosexual behavior and change the doctrine of the Priesthood. Yet, you try to chastise me? LOL
I will take your word for it and assume that MikeH probably feels the same way so I will try to understand his perspective as well and accept it.
I don’t see it the same way but like we have discussed so far, people don’t see things the same way all the time. Joseph Smith was derided, criticized and attacked, paying the ultimate price for his beliefs through martyrdom.
There are plenty of problems, faults and imperfections with the church. I know that as well as anybody, including MikeH. One difference, and MikeH admitted as much, is that I have had more than one experience confirmed by the Holy Spirit that the church is true. He said he has never felt the spirit, but he knows all of these things about the church that are true and I’m assuming they are all negative.
Sorry, not cool.
I’ve spent lots of time on other websites where anti-Mormons spend time offering attacks thinking they can persuade people to question their own testimonies. I suppose there those who don’t look for sites that answer these and only look for the negative. So, when MikeH tried to threaten to give me information that would destroy my testimony, I simply responded that I’ve seen it all and my testimony allows me to stand against his attempts.
I have no desire to bash with him. But I will answer his attacks too. Just as I do with KC. And, I start with my testimony.
Thanks KC for stating the obvious, and Jim, I’ve surprised to see you acting a little bit like grasshopper. It just shows that discussing religion with those that don’t agree with you is probably not very productive. I cringed a bit at your description of me as ‘ant-Mormon’ but that just seems to be the normal LDS defense mechanism kicking in. No one who knows me would think of me as anti-Mormon, in fact I love the LDS people more than almost any other group I can think of. I have friends and family members who I love dearly that are LDS, and I could tell you stories about the incredible honesty of LDS people that I experienced at BYU. In fact, I think I will share a few.
I’m very absentminded and so I used to lose things regularly, everything from pens and pencils to calculators and occasionally my entire backpack. I would just go back to the lost and found in the ELWC and every single time was able to quickly recover my belongings. Once I picked up a girl I was dating at Helaman Halls dorms to take her to a basketball game. Normally I would find parking and then go into the lobby and call her (in those days males couldn’t visit the females except for special open houses’ they’d hold occasionally on Sunday, a somewhat medieval practice that I hope has changed now.) Anyway, on this particular night there was no parking to be found because of the game in the nearby Marriott Center. We were late for the game so I just left the car running in the aisle of the parking lot, thinking that I would call her and let her know I was there and then quickly run back out and find a parking lot. Unfortunately though, we got talking about something and by the time she came down I completely forgot that my car was idling in the parking lot and suggested that we hurry on over to the game on foot. It wasn’t until the game was over that it suddenly hit me what I had done! We immediately ran over to where I had left the car, expecting that it had been towed or something, but some kind person had simply driven it into an empty parking space and left the keys on the seat! That’s the kind of thing that still makes me love BYU with all its faults and follies. By the time I left for grad school at the University of Houston I had begun to just assume that things worked the same way everywhere and was quickly educated otherwise. I set down my brief case to make some copies one day and when I turned around it was gone. I was able to recover it in the lost and found, but all of the valuables were gone.)
Anyway, I share these stories to tell you that I really don’t have an anti-Mormon bone in my body. If I did would I be such a huge BYU sports fan? I think the best approach here is to treat each other with respect and avoid topics like religion and politics that we probably won’t ever agree on. I don’t think I would have any trouble doing that with anyone on this board other than grasshopper, who’s posts I stopped reading long ago anyway. In the words of Rodney King: “Can’t we all just get along?”
It’s pretty much true about BYU. However, guys still can’t visit girls in their dorms as it should be. Our doctrine is that sexual intercourse is only between men and women who are married and of the opposite sex. While other churches have changed doctrine concerning these things through political and monitory pressure, we wait for revelation through our Prophet directly from The Lord.
The reason we think of you as anti-Mormon is from what you wrote. Attacking what we believe and then threats about information you can provide that you think would destroy our beliefs. That’s what anti-Mormons do. And, when you do this, you think no one will stand up to you.
I’m always willing to debate these things. But, it’s funny that when I do with these people, they get mad like you did when they can’t budge me or when I throw facts they didn’t know about back at them like I did you. And you got all huffy and puffy about it.
Actually, it’s important to have discussions about eternal things with family, friends and neighbors. Not ignor them and watch them work very hard and receive a lower glory absent of their family, friends and neighbors.
I don’t suppose anyone thought that grasshopper could ever let anything go did they? If anyone on here is anti-Mormon, I think it’s grasshopper, not me, since he would certainly push any potential convert away in a heartbeat, while I wouldn’t. He’ll never stop, not so much because he’s convinced himself that prattling on about nonsense is somehow helping the LDS cause, but because he thinks God is keeping score and that he’s building up points in heaven.
He thinks that he actually understands something about ‘debate’ too apparently, although I’d be hard pressed to figure out what that would be. Perhaps throwing around insults and quoting scriptures at people? And here I am thinking that debating has to start from a common set of facts and includes listening. I had no idea its just spouting off about what God thinks, something I would think anyone with the slightest amount of humility and commonsense would be pretty careful to avoid. Maybe I should send back all cap quotes from The Koran or something? I have no idea what he wants.
Grasshopper has a lot of funny beliefs. He apparently thinks that not allowing guys to visit girls in the dorms is a church doctrine that must await revelation to change. I guess they haven’t gotten the message at all the apartment buildings around town where <gasp!> both sexes mingle freely! Not allowing males in the dorms doesn’t do a thing to stop sex from happening. There are plenty of other places where that could occur. Its not like they have security patrolling Provo Canyon looking for people that have BYU stickers on their cars sharing tents, as they did back in the Wilkinson era. I understand you can even get a coke in the cafeteria these days so I imagine Coke drinkers are pretty grateful that particular revelation came down. 
I don’t know if they still board up the candy machines to keep them from ‘working’ on The Sabbath anymore, but I sure found that to be a little crazy, considering I hadn’t signed up for not buying anything on Sunday. It just inconvenienced people and made them drive to 7-11, which I did often with both member and non-member friends. So hopefully, if it hasn’t yet happened, I hope they get a revelation about that real quick too!
And before someone else attacks me again, not a single bit of what I wrote above is ‘anti-Mormon’ in the slightest. I know plenty of faithful members who say these exact kind of things. The paranoia of the old men in SLC is an ongoing joke at BYU, as I’m sure those of you who’ve ever attended know, so please lighten up a bit.
The funniest thing of all though is that grasshopper not only thinks I’m evil and anti-Mormon, he also apparently believes I find his debating tactics to have something to do with facts (at least that’s what I thought ‘factual’ meant), and that he makes me mad for some reason?? Nothing he’s written has angered me in the slightest, although I am a bit embarrassed for him, and I imagine you all find him a bit embarrassing as well.
Just so you know, I don’t think he’s representative of Mormons at all, so don’t worry about that. I have a lot of positive LDS people that I look up too, and I know how embarrassed they’d be if they read one of grasshopper’s posts.
- MikeI was probably a bit aggressive with my comment that you might be anti-mormon. On a personal level I can see that this isn’t the case. On a larger scale I guess I would consider you to be a detractor or somebody who, while being fine with the people who believe in the teachings, is very much against those teachings, many of which are “puerile nonsense”.
Is that an accurate statement?
We’re good people generally but not very astute when it comes to using logic and reasoning to establish our spiritual and religious beliefs? I’m not trying to contend or argue, just trying to get a feel for where you stand is all.
I’ll acknowledge that there are some things that I don’t completely understand on a purely logical and rational level but I have had several experiences that confirmed to my heart and mind that other things were true. I guess the rest of it requires faith on my part and that is okay with me.
You mentioned that you have never felt the spirit or Holy Ghost but that may only be because you have never tried to. Perhaps you are afraid of what might happen, what you might be compelled to do if you had, etc. But that is a choice you are making. If you want to know what water feels like you have to dip your foot or jump in head first. Likewise, if you want to know if something is true… and that can be a scary proposition and might require a bit of faith and effort.
Hi Jim,
You seem like the kind of intelligent LDS person I enjoy talking to about most anything but religion. I have a few LDS friends I can be open with, but in general I’ve found that, like you, they consider me a ‘detractor’ or something when I say I don’t believe, and especially when I say why I don’t believe. I imagine its the same with anyone who has strong sincerely held beliefs. Since I opened this can of worms though, I want to quickly say that I wasn’t saying LDS beliefs are puerile nonsense at all, and if you thought that, it may explain some of what you said before. What I meant was the stuff grasshopper was writing was childish nonsense, for example his assertion that LDS general authorities had always said that some time in the future Blacks would hold the priesthood, when anyone who has bothered to do the slightest bit of research knows that the exact opposite is true.
I don’t want to wade too far back into the pond, but I think you intimated at the exact things that probably make you a believer and not me. When you say that LDS people are “not very astute when it comes to using logic and reasoning to establish our spiritual and religious beliefs” I think that you hit on our exact differences. It isn’t that LDS people aren’t very good at using logic and reason, because they are. Some of the smartest people I know are Mormons. The difference is that LDS people use these skills for determining truth in the secular realm only, and have a different approach for religious beliefs, it seems to me.
You asked if I’ve ever had or think I could ever feel the spirit or Holy Ghost, and I would say that I certainly could in the sense that many LDS people describe it, which seems to be more or less just having good feelings or emotional feelings about something connected to Mormonism. Mormonism is a good philosophy, and who doesn’t want to live with their family forever? So yeah, I can imagine having positive feelings about that and maybe even emotional feelings about it. But I feel the exact same kinds of things when I hear a great rendition of our national anthem or when I watch a powerful movie. I have no idea how you would differentiate these from the kind of spiritual witness Mormons talk about, even though I would never call into question anyone who says they have had one. Religious feelings are personal and everyone gets to determine what they mean for themselves.
I do think though that in general people (or maybe just me) are not very good at interpreting feelings, and applying meaning to them. From my point of view it seems to me that really all the church has done is just to co-opt normal human emotions and claim them as proof of something that may never have been intended to prove anything. Unique beliefs require unique evidence, and I’ve just never found any of the good feelings I’ve had about the LDS Church are much different than the good feelings I’ve had about many other things, and whenever I look purely at the evidence, problems ensue.
Now before I stick my foot in my mouth again, its probably a good time for me to bow out of discussions about religion and politics. I’m glad that I met you guys though, and I really hope that this is the year in football where things finally take off and we can celebrate something big, like a NY 7 bowl game, or at least beating Utah. Oh wait, I don’t think they’re on the schedule unless I’m remembering wrong, but ya know … 
And queue grasshopper:
- MikeNicely done. Based on his apparent vast knowledge about things that would destroy my testimony, I think he’s a wolf in sheepskin and probably a thorn in the side of his family. Dealing with these guys and gals before, it’s just my feeling.
Thanks, he is an embarrassment to mormons by how he behaves on here, specifically this post, but it was established long ago that he suffers from mental illness so I appreciate you keeping that in mind. He believes he is doing gods will, so thanks again for not taking his insults personally. There are plenty of level headed mormons on this board.
You mean good representatives like you who claim the Prophet is uninspired because he doesn’t let gays marry, he holds fast to homosexual behavior is a sin and women are not allowed to have the priesthood conferred to them and be ordained to any office in the priesthood.
You mean good representatives that refuse to follow the Prophet and reject latter-day revelation. Like you, are members because we teach good morals which you partially agree with.
You mean good representatives that reject personal revelation and reside on so-called their own logic and reasoning?
Well, I certainly understand what you are saying but my testimony of truth is something that goes way beyond positive feelings and emotional responses to something I read or hear. I get many of those same feelings like you do when I experience everyday, normal things like those you mentioned.
I’m not sure what your personal response would be to some of the other experiences I have had… that didn’t involve feelings or emotional responses but answers to questions from pleadings to my Heavenly Father and other confirmations that I can’t brush aside or deny.
These were not everyday, every year or even every decade type experiences I am talking about. I would be interested to know how you would respond to these similar experiences.
The church is true and the apostles are special witnesses of Jesus Christ. I know this to be true and cannot deny it. If I did I would be lying to myself and to my Savior. This isn’t something I could have said 25 years ago but I can’t not say it now.
KC - There is some truth to what you are saying here. As everyone here is aware, SG and I don’t always see eye to eye on everything and perhaps some of his methods are extreme and insulting. He is certainly unique but his convictions are strong and have been shaped by his personal experiences and environment. Those too are different from any of the rest of us. Believe me when I say he isn’t as bad as he appears sometimes.
But he certainly seems to ruffle a lot of feathers here.
On another note, you have to admit that you have said some controversial, feather ruffling things yourself in the past. Comments that could be considered pot stirring and not something any of us would expect from a member of this church.
Just saying… you know?
I really am going now but Jim, I have to say that I don’t see how anything KC has said could be interpreted as pot stirring or unbecoming of a member of the church. He’s just trying to get people to be a little more open minded. and pushing for the kinds of changes the church has made many times in the past. The church’s attitude on Gay’s really is pretty backwards in the eyes of most of the world, and he’s just trying to change things for the better, probably because he doesn’t believe in discriminating against anyone in the name of religion. I don’t think you should interpret that in such a negative light. I think the church would have a lot more success if members were less judgmental of each other as Jesus taught.
Also, I have to say that the LDS church is pretty poorly positioned to condemn gay’s on the basis of ‘traditional marriage’ when the church was practicing polygamy less than a hundred years ago (probably not very traditional in the sense of most Americans) and the founder of your religion not only married multiple women but married young girls that were already married, again not very traditional. The church needs to be a little better at accepting people with different opinions or they’re going to become even more insular and isolated in my opinion. Do you really want a church where the majority of the people think like grasshopper? I think that would be a disaster, but I know I’m outside looking in.
It’s stuff he has said in the past.
As for some of the things you are saying -
“The church’s attitude on Gay’s really is pretty backwards in the eyes of most of the world, and he’s just trying to change things for the better, probably because he doesn’t believe in discriminating against anyone in the name of religion. I don’t think you should interpret that in such a negative light. I think the church would have a lot more success if members were less judgmental of each other as Jesus taught.”
That statement alone really does mischaracterize the current situation. Also, it is kind of flawed on a number of different fronts so… well, whatever.
“Also, I have to say that the LDS church is pretty poorly positioned to condemn gay’s on the basis of ‘traditional marriage’ when the church was practicing polygamy less than a hundred years ago (probably not very traditional in the sense of most Americans) and the founder of your religion not only married multiple women but married young girls that were already married, again not very traditional. The church needs to be a little better at accepting people with different opinions or they’re going to become even more insular and isolated in my opinion. Do you really want a church where the majority of the people think like grasshopper? I think that would be a disaster, but I know I’m outside looking in.”
And this comment is even more off base than the previous one. Thanks for finally showing your colors. I was wondering when that would happen or if it would at all. You might be a more extreme version of Black, who knows, you might even be him. You didn’t comment on a thing I said, just plowing forward with your propaganda. Thanks for engaging in another meaningless conversation but you’re right, at this point it is probably better that we stick with football.
If you are going to bring me up in all your posts then you should have the courage to say things direct to me instead of this round about way.
Fact is, your assertions about Joseph Smith are false in that sealings are not marriage. Back then, the sealing power was not fully understood and you had households being sealed to the prophet of this dispensation of time including men to men. And the slanderous attempts by anti-Mormons to try and re-write what happened back then doesn’t hold water under true study of the time period.
The use of traditional marriage is probably not the best way to describe what we talk about in terms of marriage. Whether a single wife or plural wives, marriage can only be recognized by The Lord when it’s heterosexual, not homosexual.
As far as KC, he’s made prior statements in the past that have led to a lot of head scratching. It’s more than just how we treat people. You missed a lot of that.
Lastly, the Church has expanded from 4 million to 15 million since I was baptized with the direction of what you would call people who think like SG. One of the reasons is because unlike other churches who try to please everyone and willing to bend and break the commandments, we don’t and never will. Lead by a prophet of God, we know what to bend and what not to break. We would love for all to join with us. But only if they adhire to the Church standards, not man’s standards.
The problem with an online message board, you actually are as bad as you seem because 99% of the people don’t know each other off board. You have defended him and said this for years about him, but sorry, he is who he appears to be and when asked politly to stop, he double downs on his ignorant posts. He comes across as a hypocrite, not a good person in how he has responded with Mike. It’s embarrassing is all.