Servant says...

[_The Erotic Apologist]

Is this your Gospel?

If you are going to ask a question, please construct the question in complete thoughts.

The blue text is a link. You're supposed to click on it.

[_Bret Ripley]

Report Card

Student: Servant

Satisfactory?
....[X] Attendance
....[X] Uses scissors correctly
....[. ] Plays well with others

[_Quasimodo]

In my opinion, an examination of Joseph Smith's lifestyle and his false prophecies precludes any possibility that Mormonism is anything but a fiction conjured up by a 19th century hoaxter.

I think that may be true, Servant. I also think that that the questionable history of the old and new testaments point to fiction, as well. People in glass houses?

We also have to deal with:

The Crusades.

The Inquisition.

Pogroms against Jews by Catholics.

Pogroms against Jews by Orthodox Christians.

Pogroms against Jews by Protestants.

Religious wars.

Catholics burning Protestants at the stake.

Protestants burning Catholics at the stake.

Witch trials, torture and execution (Catholics).

Witch trials, torture and execution (Protestants).

The genocide of Native Americans (Catholics).

The genocide of Native Americans (Protestants).

Officially sanctioned slavery (Catholics).

Officially sanctioned slavery (Southern Baptists).

Refusal of anesthesia for childbirth (Catholics).

Refusal of anesthesia for childbirth (Protestants).

This is only a partial list.

It seems like there is enough blame to go around.

[_Res Ipsa]

Sorry, but you are failing to make the distinction between Continuing Anglicans (of which I am a part) and Episcopalians and other liberal Anglican groups.

Continuing Anglicans are evangelicals, are conservative in their interpretation of the Scriptures, support Right to Life and Traditional Marriage, and do not ordain homosexuals or female priests (although some allow female deacons, but not as a regular "holy order.") There are several continuing Anglican churches - United Episcopal, Anglican Episcopal, Orthodox Episcopal, Anglican Church in N.A. (the largest) Reformed Episcopal and Anglican Catholic. Most of these groups meet together and cooperate on different levels.

So there are six different Continuing Anglican churches, plus other Anglican groups. And that's just Anglicans. And you are puzzled by the number of Mormon sects?

[_Servant]

Why are there 150 sects of Mormonism?

Actually there have been more than 400 different expressions of the church since the time that Joseph Smith founded his original version in 1830.

Today we have the Salt Lake City based version which claims 15 million members (actual numbers are probably half that), and the RLDS/Community of Christ with a few hundred thousand, the FLDS (run by the wacko Jeffs) with perhaps 10,000 members. Beyond that are small scattered fundamentalist groups, mostly polygamist, whom no one has ever heard of.

What do you mean by 150 sects of Mormonism?

And there's the Allred group which practices a form of Mormonism close to the Utah original. The Community of Christ is in transformation now, and will probably drop the Book of Mormon and other Mormon related books down the road. They have accepted the Trinity and reject polytheism. There's the Brother Joseph group out by Big Water that I once visited - the women seemed rather like Stepford wives if you ask me - in plain clothes. There are probably only 4,000,000 active Mormons, the rest being either ghost members who never go, or who have died, or possibly just left after becoming disenchanted and never bothered with the convoluted resignation process, etc., or babies counted before baptism. The Utah Church is dwindling.

[_Servant]

In my opinion, an examination of Joseph Smith's lifestyle and his false prophecies precludes any possibility that Mormonism is anything but a fiction conjured up by a 19th century hoaxter.

I think that may be true, Servant. I also think that that the questionable history of the old and new testaments point to fiction, as well. People in glass houses?

We also have to deal with:

The Crusades.

The Inquisition.

Pogroms against Jews by Catholics.

Pogroms against Jews by Orthodox Christians.

Pogroms against Jews by Protestants.

Religious wars.

Catholics burning Protestants at the stake.

Protestants burning Catholics at the stake.

Witch trials, torture and execution (Catholics).

Witch trials, torture and execution (Protestants).

The genocide of Native Americans (Catholics).

The genocide of Native Americans (Protestants).

Officially sanctioned slavery (Catholics).

Officially sanctioned slavery (Southern Baptists).

Refusal of anesthesia for childbirth (Catholics).

Refusal of anesthesia for childbirth (Protestants).

This is only a partial list.

It seems like there is enough blame to go around.

So your point is that the Gospel of Christ is false since some Christians (or nominal Christians) blew it? Maybe Mormonism is totally false since a squad of Mormons summarily executed 120 unarmed men, women and children of the Fancher party, right?

[_Fence Sitter]

And there's the Allred group which practices a form of Mormonism close to the Utah original. The Community of Christ is in transformation now, and will probably drop the Book of Mormon and other Mormon related books down the road. They have accepted the Trinity and reject polytheism. There's the Brother Joseph group out by Big Water that I once visited - the women seemed rather like Stepford wives if you ask me - in plain clothes. There are probably only 4,000,000 active Mormons, the rest being either ghost members who never go, or who have died, or possibly just left after becoming disenchanted and never bothered with the convoluted resignation process, etc., or babies counted before baptism. The Utah Church is dwindling.

Okay, but I am still curious what you meant or where you got your number of 150 sects of Mormonism.

[_Ceeboo]

....[X] Uses scissors correctly

Now THAT.........was funny!

Peace,
Ceeboo

[_Servant]

And there's the Allred group which practices a form of Mormonism close to the Utah original. The Community of Christ is in transformation now, and will probably drop the Book of Mormon and other Mormon related books down the road. They have accepted the Trinity and reject polytheism. There's the Brother Joseph group out by Big Water that I once visited - the women seemed rather like Stepford wives if you ask me - in plain clothes. There are probably only 4,000,000 active Mormons, the rest being either ghost members who never go, or who have died, or possibly just left after becoming disenchanted and never bothered with the convoluted resignation process, etc., or babies counted before baptism. The Utah Church is dwindling.

Okay, but I am still curious what you meant or where you got your number of 150 sects of Mormonism.

I read on the net that there had been about 150 different sects of Mormonism sinceits founding, but if you think that it's higher, that's fine with me. What about the sentence didn't you grasp?

[_Quasimodo]

So your point is that the Gospel of Christ is false since some Christians (or nominal Christians) blew it? Maybe Mormonism is totally false since a squad of Mormons summarily executed 120 unarmed men, women and children of the Fancher party, right?

My point is that we (you and I) can't know for sure if the gospel of Christ (Jesus, Yeshua) is true. There are just too many questions about the validity of the gospels.

Much evil has been done in the name of Christ. I don't think you can blame Jesus for that. I do think that Jesus (Yeshua) was probably a real person. His philosophy was pretty much the same as much older greek philosophy. Not surprising since the country he lived in had been a Greek for a few hundred years.

The Mountain Meadows Massacre was an evil that demonstrated the mindset of Mormons at that time. Personally, I believe that Brigham Young had much more to to do with that than historians would have you believe.

Given that, the Mountain Meadow Massacre is pretty small potatoes compared to things that Christians (Catholic and Protestant) have done in the last thousand years.