Fox Advocacy Group Declares Romney Non-Christian

[_Daniel Peterson]

The doctrine of the Trinity is also illogical.

Literally incoherent, as a matter of fact.

[_Joey]

The doctrine of the Trinity is also illogical.

Literally incoherent, as a matter of fact.

But man learning to become God, as all Gods in the past have, and worshiping a subsidiary God is totally coherent to Christianity. Like we will ever see a recognized and official spokesperson from the Mormon Church go on national TV and explain that doctrine of Christianity!

Hell, Mormonism would be making a step forward if anyone in the US knew who was the head (let alone a prophet of God) of their beliefs.

Where is Monson when you need him? Hiding from having to explain his religion!

[_Daniel Peterson]

But man learning to become God, as all Gods in the past have, and worshiping a subsidiary God is totally coherent to Christianity.

I was talking about logical coherency, Joey. Come to the party.

I recommend two articles on this topic, both by non-Mormons:

E. Feser, "Has Trinitarianism Been Shown to Be Coherent?" Faith and Philosophy 14/1 (January 1997): 87-97.

Timothy W. Bartel, "The Plight of the Relative Trinitarian," Religious Studies 24/2 (June 1988): 129-155.

Both contend that orthodox Trinitarianism is, quite literally, incoherent. That is, that to hold to an orthodox Trinitarian position necessarily entails simultaneously affirming mutually contradictory propositions.

Like we will ever see a recognized and official spokesperson from the Mormon Church go on national TV and explain that doctrine of Christianity!

What you're saying has nothing to do with the topic here.

Hell, Mormonism would be making a step forward if anyone in the US knew who was the head (let alone a prophet of God) of their beliefs.

I'm not even sure that I can decode this sentence. Perhaps it means something, of course. But I don't much care.

Where is Monson when you need him? Hiding from having to explain his religion!

This has nothing to do with the topic here.

[_beastie]

You seem to have been surreptitiously reading my book Offenders for a Word. That's an important part of the book's argument.

I commend you on your study of my book, and hope that you've bought at least twenty copies, for distribution to family and friends.

Drat, you've discovered my deep, dark secret.

Actually, I've been invoking the example of Catholicism for years in these sorts of discussions. I don't mean to belittle your genius, but it is quite obvious. ;)

In fact, I've specifically asked certain very vocal, more-or-less professional or full-time anti-Mormons whether Catholicism is Christian, and several, after resisting the question (e.g., with "My ministry isn't to Catholics"), have finally answered that No, it's not (though allowing that some individual Catholics may be).

This has been my experience as well.

Hoops, earlier on the thread, acted as if I had missed something crucial by not reading all of the previous posts before replying. So I went back and read them all. Now I'm left scratching my head, wondering which of the posts had that crucial information that I missed, that somehow refuted this argument?

It's true that Hoops' position has been rather vague on this thread, so I'm not responding to Hoops' position in particular. Like DCP, I'm using my own experiences. I live in an area of the US heavily populated by fundamentalist Evangelicals. I am specifically responding to THAT group, not Evangelicals in general. The fundamentalist EVs that I've known really don't think Catholicism is Christian, or, at best, are deeply skeptical of it. When pressed, they will admit that.

Which is why the whole definition they've created is absolutely ludicrous. Creating a definition that eliminates the LARGEST religion historically accepted as Christian is just bizarre. But here's why they do so, in my experience.

Catholics are too rite oriented. Fundamentalist EVs believe all you have to do is accept Jesus as your Savior, and that's it. The rites, while an outward manifestation of belief, are NOT necessary. Catholics, on the other hand, have historically even insisted that INFANTS can't be saved without baptism. While their position has softened in some regards, there are other demands in connection with rites that must be performed for salvation. And not only that, but they engage in worship and beliefs that EVs find strange. They pray to Saints. They have all those statues. Etc, etc. So Catholicism isn't "really" Christian just like Mormonism isn't "really" Christian.

And those who think that somehow the Bible gives such CLEAR and indisputable teachings about what Jesus did or said are, in my opinion, misinformed. If it were so clear then there wouldn't be a gazillion different Christian sects in the first place. Moreover, study of the development of the Bible makes it plain that it wasn't exactly clear-cut. There were disputes and power struggles that ended up affecting the compilation of the Bible. I'm hardly a Biblical scholar, but even I know that.

[_beastie]

I have a question for the exmormons who agree that Mormonism is not Christian.

When you were LDS, did you believe you were a Christian?

[_Buffalo]

There are multiple shades of meaning for the term worship

Could we decide right now whether all words have only one meaning (like insider), and that meaning is determined by mopologists, or whether words have multiple shades of meaning, also determined by mopologists? It's all so confusing.

[_Sophocles]

I have a question for the exmormons who agree that Mormonism is not Christian.

When you were LDS, did you believe you were a Christian?

Yes, when I was a believing Mormon I considered myself a Christian. But, I understood Christianity to be a large category, in a taxonomic sense. There were three Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. If you believed in Abraham, you had to fit in one of those three buckets. As a believer in both the Old and New Testaments, and not the Koran, I was clearly a Christian, and not a Jew or a Muslim.

As a believing Mormon, I always assumed that the question was that trivial. To say that Mormons are not Christians would be like trying to say fish aren't vertebrates. They may not have the same kind of backbone as mammals, but there is no question that they have a right to their place in phylum Chordata as much as reptiles and birds.

Since leaving the church, I have come to learn that certain groups of Christians, notably evangelicals, use the term Christian in a very specific way to refer to their own in-group. It might seem a little confusing and disingenuous, but then LDS do the same thing with the term "Mormon" so they can't really complain, I suppose.

To use another analogy, when I was a believing Mormon, I considered myself a Christian in the same sense that a Bolivian considers himself an American. As a resident of South America, in one sense he is as American as everyone else on the continent. Since leaving, though, I have discovered that there is a particular nation called the United States of America that refers to its own citizens as "Americans," and that Mexicans and Canadians, North Americans though they may be, don't qualify as Americans under that definition.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Could we decide right now whether all words have only one meaning

They don't.

But they're also not infinitely flexible in meaning.

like insider

It doesn't.

But it's also not infinitely flexible in meaning. If there is to be communication, those using it aren't free to whimsically alter the way it's commonly used.

that meaning is determined by mopologists

No. It isn't, and no "mopologist" has ever claimed otherwise.

whether words have multiple shades of meaning, also determined by mopologists

They do, but no "mopologist" claims to determine those meanings.

It's all so confusing.

He's actually not confused. He's an agenda-driven caricaturist, and dishonest. He also imagines himself to be quite funny. (Okay, so maybe, in that regard at least, he is confused.)

[_Buffalo]

He's actually not confused. He's an agenda-driven caricaturist, and dishonest. He also imagines himself to be quite funny. (Okay, so maybe, in that regard at least, he is confused.)

I'm so glad we have images back.

[_Daniel Peterson]

No doubt. What's a caricaturist without images?