Fox Advocacy Group Declares Romney Non-Christian

[_Nomad]

Oh, and, by the way, I tend to agree with those who suspect that you're a Will Schryver sock puppet.

I acknowledge what appears to be an attempt to discredit me (or Will) by hopping on the bandwagon of those who believe we are one and the same. I deny it. Although I do not fall into the category of those who think being compared to Will is a bad thing. I think he is a good man who has been unjustly smeared by the less than admirable people who make up the majority of this place.

I may be wrong, of course, but, if I'm not, I can't quite figure out what you're trying to do here.

I'm just trying to figure out why elements of the organization you are part of appear to have collaborated with some very unsavory people in order to smear a good man and destroy his work before it could even be given a hearing on its merits.

That's all. But I won't derail this thread or trouble you further about the matter.

[_Hoops]

First, I admit I haven't read every post on this thread.

Obviously. I'll let you do that.

The problem with declaring that Mormons aren’t Christian is that in order to justify this declaration,

It's not just a declaration - like it's some sort of whim. It is based on their own professed beliefs.

folks are forced to construct definitions and restrictions that also tend to eliminate faiths like Catholicism as Christian.

Is there any denomination that holds this position? No? So this really has no meaning other than to construct a comparison that doesn't exist.

Catholics have as many issues with “work versus grace” as Mormons do.

Not hardly.

Any definition or restriction that ends up eliminating the biggest recognized Christian faith in the entire world is inherently flawed.

You've arrived here from a series of faulty assumptions and no evidence.

Because we all accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior and believed that, without his atonement, nothing we could do would unite us with God again. Isn’t that the essence of Christianity?

It is indeed. Wouldn't it be nice if LDS left it at that?

Fundamentalist EVs assert Mormons don’t believe the right thing and will thereby burn in hell.

No.

Mormons declare EVs don’t believe the right thing and will be eternally divided from Heavenly Father and will no longer have families.

Yes. See the difference?

What an anal, obsessive-compulsive, controlling God, with ego issues. Just the type of fellow to worship.

Why would you blame God for what we do? There's plenty of blame to go around, but God isn't one who should be. The very fact that you've chosen to do something "other" with your faith, abandon it, change it, direct it toward something else, whatever, is testimmony that God is nothing like what you've described.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I've done nothing of the sort, and you know it. I already named some of the low-hanging fruit I had in mind.

Of course I know it. Good grief. (Insert forbidden smiley face here.) I wasn't even particularly responding to you with that comment.

Well, I concede the field to you. I simply mentioned, without elaboration, my general policy of trying to avoid interaction with you, and your surly and aggressive responses subsequently -- I think you honestly don't realize how you come across (to me, at least), all the while lecturing me on my alleged obtuseness and nastiness -- have reinforced my resolution.

Fine. You're off my party list.

Other than that, I'm sure that you'll have a fine and fulfilling life, and I sincerely hope that you do.

End of discussion, as far as I'm concerned.

The problem with declaring that Mormons aren’t Christian is that in order to justify this declaration, folks are forced to construct definitions and restrictions that also tend to eliminate faiths like Catholicism as Christian. Catholics have as many issues with “work versus grace” as Mormons do. Any definition or restriction that ends up eliminating the biggest recognized Christian faith in the entire world is inherently flawed.

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.

I know there are EVs who actually don’t believe Catholics are Christians, but that view is laughable to the global Christian community, of which the majority are Catholics.

Precisely.

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).

I was LDS for 15 years. I was absolutely a Christian. My LDS family is absolutely Christian. Why? Because we all accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior and believed that, without his atonement, nothing we could do would unite us with God again. Isn’t that the essence of Christianity?

Yup.

Mormons declare EVs don’t believe the right thing and will be eternally divided from Heavenly Father and will no longer have families. What an anal, obsessive-compulsive, controlling God, with ego issues. Just the type of fellow to worship.

This is peripheral to the main focus here, and I hate to suddenly break the amicable rapport, but I confess that I just don't understand this issue, which you've raised yet again just now: You seem to think that the default position, before the Mormons came along, was to assume that families would all be together in the eternities, and that the Mormon abruptly declared eternal divorce for husbands and wives unless they complied with Joseph Smith.

But this seems historically untrue. Read Dante's Commedia. There are no family units to be found in it. Not in the Inferno, not in the Purgatorio, and not in the Paradiso. Every soul is punished or purged or blessed in individual isolation. That was the default setting. The Mormons didn't arrive with the bad news of permanent divorce and family break-up unless you toe the line. They arrived with the good news of the possibility that families might remain intact after death.

You don't believe it any more, of course. But, from the standpoint of a believer, the possibility that husbands and wives and children and siblings can continue their relationships beyond the grave is fabulously good news, and far preferable to the bleak assumption that the very best they can hope for is to rot side by side in complete obliviousness, and to be soon and utterly forgotten as if they had never lived.

I acknowledge what appears to be an attempt to discredit me (or Will) by hopping on the bandwagon of those who believe we are one and the same.

No attempt to discredit either you or Will.

I'm not part of that team, and I'm sorry that you apparently don't realize it.

I deny it.

Fine. As I said previously, it's possible that I'm wrong.

Although I do not fall into the category of those who think being compared to Will is a bad thing. I think he is a good man who has been unjustly smeared by the less than admirable people who make up the majority of this place.

I think there's substantial truth to that.

I'm just trying to figure out why elements of the organization you are part of appear to have collaborated with some very unsavory people in order to smear a good man and destroy his work before it could even be given a hearing on its merits.

I was out of the country and essentially incommunicado when the crucial events went down, but I don't think that this is an altogether fair characterization of what happened. Not, anyway, on the Maxwell institute side. On the other side, once again, I think it's not altogether incorrect.

[_Themis]

This is peripheral to the main focus here, and I hate to suddenly break the amicable rapport, but I confess that I just don't understand this issue, which you've raised yet again just now: You seem to think that the default position, before the Mormons came along, was to assume that families would all be together in the eternities, and that the Mormon abruptly declared eternal divorce for husbands and wives unless they complied with Joseph Smith.

I think beastie's point was not what Mormons or even what Ev's are declaring, but that if this is what God is declaring, that God is "an anal, obsessive-compulsive, controlling God, with ego issues. Just the type of fellow to worship." I tend to agree that this is not the kind of God one would want to worship.

They arrived with the good news of the possibility that families might remain intact after death.

I never understood that if family members all got to heaven that they would not remain intact, but then I think this doctrine stems from Joseph's and his concerns about his family.

You don't believe it any more, of course. But, from the standpoint of a believer, the possibility that husbands and wives and children and siblings can continue their relationships beyond the grave is fabulously good news, and far preferable to the bleak assumption that the very best they can hope for is to rot side by side in complete obliviousness, and to be soon and utterly forgotten as if they had never lived.

Again we continue relationships because we want to. It's not like family members in the next life are going to forget who they are related to. Your last part is probably what will happen if no God/s/Gia/reincarnation exists. This may be hard for many to accept, so believing we do continue on makes them feel better. Personally I don't know, nor do I worry to much about it.

I was out of the country and essentially incommunicado when the crucial events went down, but I don't think that this is an altogether fair characterization of what happened. Not, anyway, on the Maxwell institute side. On the other side, once again, I think it's not altogether incorrect.

Will has dug his own grave with some very poor behavior. No one is to blame for that, and I think you would agree that critics are not to blame for his work not being published, nor would they have any real influence in MI. Most critics wanted to see it.

[_harmony]

I'm just trying to figure out why elements of the organization you are part of appear to have collaborated with some very unsavory people in order to smear a good man and destroy his work before it could even be given a hearing on its merits.

That's all. But I won't derail this thread or trouble you further about the matter.

Good men don't treat women the way Will treated women here.

And no one tried to destroy his work here. We'd still be delighted to discuss his work here.

[_harmony]

You don't believe it any more, of course. But, from the standpoint of a believer, the possibility that husbands and wives and children and siblings can continue their relationships beyond the grave is fabulously good news, and far preferable to the bleak assumption that the very best they can hope for is to rot side by side in complete obliviousness, and to be soon and utterly forgotten as if they had never lived.

My mother, a lifelong Baptist, believes she and my father will be together in heaven. The idea that they would be separated never occurred to her. She doesn't understand why "families can be together forever" is considered by the LDS church to be a new, improved version of her religion, since she's always believed in eternal families.

I can't think of anyone I know who thinks they would "rot side by side in complete obliviousness, and to be soon and utterly forgotten as if they had never lived". The idea is absurd to any Christian I know.

[_Runtu]

How did a discussion on Romney's Christianity turn into another Schryver thread? I'm disappointed that Will's work won't be published by the Maxwell Institute, but I don't think it's because he was smeared by unsavory people (I wasn't involved at all, so that's at least one unsavory person who didn't smear Will).

As for Nomad, who cares whether he/she is or isn't Will? Whether or not his name is Will, Rick, Damon, Wheat, Nomad, Belinda, or whatever, the substance, tone, and focus of his posts are pretty much the same as Will's.

[_Buffalo]

Again, you can't blame evangelicals for doubting the Christianity of a group that has had trouble figuring out whether or not they're allowed to worship Jesus.

[_Daniel Peterson]

My mother, a lifelong Baptist, believes she and my father will be together in heaven. The idea that they would be separated never occurred to her. She doesn't understand why "families can be together forever" is considered by the LDS church to be a new, improved version of her religion, since she's always believed in eternal families.

Your mother's view has historically not been taught from the pulpits of Christendom, though it is now widely assumed -- at least in the United States.

See, on this general topic, Heaven: A History, by Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lange (as I recall).

I can't think of anyone I know who thinks they would "rot side by side in complete obliviousness, and to be soon and utterly forgotten as if they had never lived". The idea is absurd to any Christian I know.

I wasn't talking about Christians. I was talking about the atheistic view that beastie now holds.

[_EAllusion]

On the other side, once again, I think it's not altogether incorrect.

Yeah, truly unsavory characters like MsJack had the audacity to smear Will by, uh, quoting a pervasive pattern of horrible things he's said to people. Just think if they pointed to his habitual lying! In truth, I don't know if the world could handle that much concentrated evil. But I suppose I don't know what the world is coming to when we can sit by while a person is dragged through the mud by odious means such as pointing out things he says. I, for one, am just saddened that he can't get his work published in any venue ever because he was rejected by the Maxwell Institute. Dastardly anti-Mormons.