Mormonism is much more structured then that. There are different sects but those sects are different churches, both of us come from the LDS church, which is the largest and the one that everyone thinks of when they say Mormon (unless they are thinking of the polygamous FLDS).
There are those that call themselves New Order Mormons which are within the LDS church, by which they mean they don't believe in any of the truth claims of the church but like the culture (or something like that, I am sure I am taking what they say out of its "rich contextual setting").
I am mostly just answering direct questions, I am horrible at walking away when questions are asked. Since this conversation is far outside of the norms of the group, I will do so in a private message if atomliner wants to continue the conversation. If he would rather it be public I would be willing to set up a blog for the purpose of continuing this conversation.
So, you can use your apologetic arguments all you want for whatever idea you have about Mormonism, but if they aren't based clearly in the scriptures
Please show what I said (excluding the reference to Confucius) is not clearly based in scripture, Numbers 11:29 may be helpful.
would not teach false doctrine?
Yes. that is unreasonable to assume
Do you think that a person who speaks face-to-face with Jesus Christ would then teach his own false ideas to members of Christ's One True Church?
Absolutely, if Jesus says something to a prophet then what Jesu...
Who authorizes messengers from God?
God obviously.
It's not like He has a public key,
There are actually quite a few rules given to determine if a messenger is from God. Jesus for instance said "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself", then there is the qualification in Deuteronomy, the requirement in John, the experiment in Alma, the promise in Moroni, and some details in the D&C. It is somewhat of a bootstrapping problem as one must already trust one of those sour...
you can be moral, healthy, and happy without faith in God
Paul saying those that didn't know God and that didn't have the law but that acted justly being justified because of their actions doesn't imply to you that it is possible to be moral, healthy, and happy without faith in God? How about this, where in "There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated— And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated." does it me...
What passages in the scriptures tell you that you can be moral, healthy, and happy without faith in God?
I already pointed you to Romans 2, specifically in this case Romans 2:13-15, did you want more?
Why wouldn't I?
A prophet is only a prophet when they are acting as a prophet. More specifically there are multiple First Presidency statements saying Adam-God is wrong; Statements by Apostles saying that the racist theology was created with limited understanding and is wrong (as well as more recent church statements saying explicitly that it is contrar...
Since it appears that you grew up in a pluralistic society then I have no idea why you considered everyone different then you to not be a good person and feel you were never exposed to the idea that they possibly could be a good person. Considering that Jesus (Matthew 25:40), Paul (Romans 2), Nephi, Benjamin, Alma, and Moroni all say that it is action more then belief that defines who is saved, who has faith, and who is good, happy and healthy then I don't know how it was a shocking revelation that those who do not have the law but that act by nature acco...
Why go to the Journal of Discourses? D&C 132 clearly states that those that receive exaltation will be gods, the only question is whether that involves receiving a planet or just being part of the divine council. The Bible clearly states that we will be heirs and joint heirs with Christ. The Journal of Discourses is not something that most members look to for doctrine as it isn't scripture. I, and any member, am free to believe whatever I want to on the subject (or say we don't know) because nothing has been revealed on the subject of exaltation and ...
Calling us morons doesn't reveal anything to reason or even attempt to force me to address what you may think of as a blind spot.
Being called a moron seems hostile to me, just to use an example right here.
I am going to make a prediction that you likely grew up in a smaller community in Utah or Eastern Idaho.
In regards to the Journal of Discourse quote, the actual doctrine that Brigham Young is talking about it is very much emphasized and is found in the D&C, the Book of Abraham, and explicitly in the Temple. A dead giveaway is his reference to philosophers, he isn't talking about us being aliens but that our spirits always existed and come from where God is rather then being created at birth as thought in the rest of Christianity. Given this and your ex...
Applying Greek thought to "Ehyeh asher ehyeh" is an attempt to get at something that "explain(s) itself", I am sure you are familiar with St. Thomas Aquinas and his five ways.
I suppose you are also familiar with Divine Sophia in Gnosticism? Saying we have a logical reason for things existing seems to be on that same level of reasoning and appears to just add another turtle to me.
I believe the result is that atheists have an above average knowledge of world religions, similar to Jews (and Mormons) but I don't know of results that show they have an above average knowledge of their previous religion. Assuming most of them were Christians then the answer is possibly.
In this particular case I happen to know precisely what is in all of the official church material; I will admit to having no idea where his teachers may have deviated from church publications, hence me wondering where he got those beliefs.
I suppose I can't comment on wha...
Have you seen Gods as Topological Invarients? Note the date submitted as it is relevant.
Anyways the whole question seems a confusion: either the answer will be something that does exist or it will be something that does not exist, if it exists it would appear to be part of "anything" and therefore the question is not addressed, and if it does not exist then that appears to be contradictory.
Some of that might be because of evaporative cooling. Reading the sequences is more likely to cause a theist to ignore Less Wrong then it is to change their beliefs, regardless of how rational or not a theist is. If they get past that point they soon find Less Wrong is quite welcoming towards discussions of how dumb or irrational religion is but fairly hostile to those that try and say that religion is not irrational; as in this welcome thread even points that out.
What I am wondering about is why it seems that atheists have complete caricatures of their p...
I am Mormon so I am curious where you got the beliefs that Homosexuality would destroy civilization, that humans came from another planet, that the Ten Tribes live underground beneath the Arctic? Those are not standard beliefs of Mormons (see for instance the LDS churches Mormonsandgays.org) and only one of those have I ever even encountered before (Ten Tribes beneath the Arctic) but I couldn't figure out where that belief comes from or why anyone would feel the need to believe it.
I also have to ask, the same as MugaSofer, could you explain how The God Delusion obliterated your faith? It seemed largely irrelevent to me.
I think you are confused, this is the Solitudinem Party foreign policy, the Scorched Earth Party involves only the destruction of all non-Jews in the Middle East (facebook) and a lot of lead pipes. We of the Solitudinem Party do agree on some points with the Scorched Earthy Parties foreign policy but feel it doesn't go far enough in ensuring an end to suffering and world peace. We take as our party motto and guiding principle this sound advice:
ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant - Tacitus
It has a proud and honored history of effectively working. We fee...
Forget the clown suit. Try defending theism in a place where atheism reigns. Try being chaste before marriage and happily married after. Try to stand up for what you know to be right even if no one else around you is.
It is fashionable and respectable to be a dissenter in pre-approved areas of dissent, try instead to stand up for the norms which one knows to be right, and see what happens.
This is the true lonely dissent and the true rebellion for which the "tolerant" are not able to tolerate regardless of whether it is right or true.
I see a problem with this: There doesn't seem to be a way to tell if omega itself is in the laws of physics or some finite precision approximation to omega. Given any set of finite observable phenomena and any finite amount of time there will be some finite precision approximation to any real number which is sufficient in the equations to explain all observations, assuming the models used are otherwise correct and otherwise computable. How would one tell if the universe uses the real value Pi or a finite precision version of Pi whose finiteness is epsilon greater then what is needed to calculate any observable value?