swimnchick wrote:
I think I will take the time to set you straight on some things concerning The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (aka Mormons).
I think I'll be the one to set YOU straight on some things concerning the Mormons.
swimnchick wrote:
First, the Temple ceremony is open to all worthy members (meaning people who are living their lives according to what Christ taught e.g. chaste, honest, etc.). If the parents are baptised, they may still be excellent people, but Christ was baptized and so all of the requirements have not been fulfilled. It is not meant to punish, though some who are hurt may claim it is.
It's exclusivity and it knows no limits, and they will prevent the parents from attending if the parents are judged to be "unworthy" by the Mormon Church. There are many people who have not been able to have their whole family attend a complete mormon wedding because of this. And this, coming from a religion which supposedly values "family". Ha, what a joke.
swimnchick wrote:
As for the "occult" factor, this is just your confusion (sorry, no name calling, just stating a common misconception that is wrong that you also seem to have). Technically, any religion that believes anything supernatural falls in under this category. I know that many good Christian religions (if not all, though I don't know everything about every Christian religion, sadly) believe in things like miracles, heavenly visitations, and basic guidance from a higher power which Christians have termed "God" or "Father." The Mormon church, likewise, believes in supernatural powers from the source of God in Heaven. The most important belief is by far that the Savior truly did live and that He truly did die for the sins of the world because of His great love and that He did rise again and lives today. Mormons firmly believe in the Atonement and the Resurrection of the Savior, Jesus Christ, which, by dictionary definitions, makes them Christians and not just hiding behind a "Christian veneer."
First of all, you didn't address the "occult" issue. "Occult" is not the same as "supernatural", although you attempt to equate the two. Anyone who has religious belief believes in the supernatural. "Occult", on the other hand, is a belief that one can discover and attain the
hidden knowledge regarding the supernatural. "Gnosis" is another term used for this. The hermetic religions, such as Thelema, believe that one can attain knowledge which can supplant most or all "faith" a person might need in the supernatural. That is what occultism is. The Mormon church is an occult religion. They provide "revelation" of the hidden, they use the same symbolism of the general occult.
Furthermore, they do not really believe in "Jesus Christ", because they define him differently from the Jesus Christ of Christianity. It is a different "Jesus Christ" that they have. Their Jesus Christ is the brother of Lucifer, and he was a polygamist with many wives and children of his own. Their Jesus Christ does not provide complete salvation, but only provides a small degree of salvation, so that mormons must work for most of their salvation. Their Jesus Christ is one god of many, many gods, as opposed to the Christians' Jesus Christ who is the One True God. Their Jesus Christ is separate from their "heavenly father", whereas the Christians' Jesus Christ is not.
I could start calling a hockey puck a "tennis ball" and call a hocky stick a "tennis racket", and then insist that every time I'm playing hockey I'm actually playing a game called "Tennis" since I'm using a "tennis ball" and "tennis racket" to play the game. Of course, just because I redefined things to make them fit what I wanted them to be, that doesn't change the fact that I'm using a hockey stick and hockey puck and playing hockey and just changing the names around. That's what the Mormon Church does. It redefines "Jesus Christ" and then uses their false "Jesus Christ" as a basis to call themselves "Christians", which they are not.
In Mormonism, there is not ONE god, there are three: Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit. They are not ONE Triune God as they are in all the rest of Christianity, but they are THREE separate gods. So, mormons are not Monotheists as Christians are, but they are polytheists. The highest god in their pantheon is "Heavenly Father", NOT Jesus Christ. So again, they are not followers of Christ, they are followers of Heavenly Father, and secondarily they follow their own made-up Christ.
swimnchick wrote:
As for the symbolism of the signs on the Salt Lake Temple, there is meaning behind those things, such as what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians where he wrote of worlds having the glory of the sun, moon, and stars. Much of the meaning of the symbolism can be found by reading the Bible and researching Judaism at the time of Christ and also looking into the history of early Christianity (e.g. many Greek Orthodox churches, especially the very old ones) have similar symbolism.
Interesting, I'm Orthodox and I have yet to see inverted pentagrams on any Orthodox Church. Can you give me an example? (I'm sure you can't.) The symbols on the Salt Lake City temple are easily found in other occult and hermetic religions, particularly in freemasonry and witchcraft religions. Why must Mormons always lie to try to justify their occult symbols???
And interestingly, the one symbol there is of Christianity, the cross, is nowhere to be found on the Salt Lake Temple or any other temple, or any other church/meeting house of the mormons. Go figure...and they still want to be considered "Christians".
swimnchick wrote:
One last thing - LDS (Mormon) marriages are not arranged and really never have been. God gave His children agency to live as they desire and gave them commandments to give them guidance on His paths. The Mormon church may give guidance on things to look for in a marriage partner (and yes, sometimes there may have been suggestions in the past), but the principle of agency is vitally important in the belief system of Mormons and no one would be forced into an arranged marriage because that is so against the idea of agency.
Tell that to the teen child brides of Joseph Smith, Brigham "Bring'em" Young or Warren Jeffs. They arranged marriages with multiple women and many of them young teens.
swimnchick wrote:
So while you have an interesting theory, I'm afraid that it would take too much of a stretch to end in a real Mormon Temple wedding. And I truly do hope that you are not offended by this, because that is certainly not my intent. I just feel that the world will be a much better place when we take the time to truly understand the religions around us and not judge them as bad. Christ said that "by their fruits ye shall know them." (Matthew 6:20) and we should look at the goal of the religion to determine its value, meaning, does it teach the people to be better people or worse. Since I feel that nearly every religion does, at least to some extent, teach its followers to try to be better people and make the world a better place, I think that all religions should be treated with respect and not looked on with disdain or judgmentally.
When a religion is deceitful and misleading as the Mormon Church is, it's time to stop respecting that religion, so that's the point I'm at with them. Sorry if that rubs you the wrong way. You really ought to start examining things with a more open mind regarding your Mormon religion.
