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If you want to start a new thread on the subject, I'll be happy to. I don't believe in trying to derail somebody else's thread with rants about why I hate someone else's religion, though, so I'm not interested in pursuing any of your criticisms here. By the way, have you always been a Catholic? Your behavior seems to be very out-of-character for a Catholic.
What do you mean, "go ahead"? You're the one making the challenge.
Well, do us all a favor and stick to a topic you understand. If anyone needs help understanding Mormonism, there are several of us here who are considerably better qualified at answering people's questions on the subject than you are.
I'm just curious, that's all. In my experience, Catholics are generally quite respectful of other people's beliefs. They seldom post the kind of inflamatory misreprestations you did. You sound like you started out as a fundamentalist Christian who converted to Catholicism and are still dragging around all of that hateful baggage you should have left behind.
So what? God does.
And why should anybody care what the Catholic Church thinks about Mormonism? I don't really care what Baptists think of Lutherans, what Pentacostals think of Catholics, what Jehovah's Witnesses think of Methodists or what Orthodox Christians think of Seventh-day Adventists. There are better sources of information about people's beliefs than their enemies.
I have every right to get "uppity." I suspect you'd get "uppity" too, if I started posting nonsense like, "Catholics practice cannibalism." As I've already stated, I will correct your statements if you start a new thread. I don't think it's right to take the OP's thread off topic.
I merely said that you are quite different than most Catholics I've known in the past, and seem much more like a fundamentalist Christian. If I've guess wrong, I'm sorry. I'm just stating how it appears to me.
And like I said, start a new thread if you want to talk about Mormonism beyond its definition of "eternity."
The one spoken of in the Bible.
That depends on how you define "historical Christianity." But you're right -- we don't accept the 4th and 5th century attempts to define God.
Well I'll tell you what... You answer my question and then I'll answer yours. Deal?
Well, that's exactly what Martin Luther taught about the Catholic Church, i.e. that it had fallen into apostasy and had changed certain doctrines and practices as taught by Christ.
I see "time" and "eternity" as referring to the same reality. In other words, eternity is simply "endless time."
No, for misrepresenting those beliefs, for parodying them and stating them in such a way that anyone who was unfamiliar with them would wonder how on earth anybody could possibly believe such nonsense.
It may be "bizarre" to you, but that's because you don't believe it. I do believe it, so it's not "bizarre" in the slightest to me.
I know you don't, but Mormons believe every word the Bible has to say about God the Father and about His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ. The biggest reason that I can see why you disagree is that you really don't know what we Mormons believe at all. You only know what you've been taught we believe.
Yes, I understand that. To me, Christianity is all about the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Church He founded.
Actually, it's far more open-minded towards others than they are towards us. Try looking for Mormon-sponsored anti-Catholic websites. You won't find any. Try looking for Mormon-published books in any Christian bookstore that bash other religions. You won't find any of those either. Try finding Mormon-made films and cartoons ridiculing Lutherans or Catholics or even Muslims or Jews. There are none. Check out that new Mormon-written broadway play intended to provide a couple of hours of sacreligious entertainment about the Catholic magisterium. Oh wait... it's yet to be written, and in fact never will be. Drive around any city where a large group of Catholics or Baptists or Methodists are congregating and see all of the Mormons holding up signs saying they're all going to hell. Well, you're going to be driving around for a long, long time.
But care about Mormonism's. Why? You've found a religion that works for you. Is there some reason why you feel you have to badmouth mine?
Well then stop it.
Promise?
Promise?
Sure. Why not?
So what does the word "image" mean? It's the representation of something's physical appearance. That's it's only meaning.
Of course it is -- if by "silliness" you mean "something I don't believe."
There are plenty of verses in the Bible which are anthropormorphic metaphors. There are others, including many that idea has posted, that make more sense if taken literally than if interpreted symbolically.All of the above verses are simply anthropomorphic metaphors, such as saying, "I felt my God smiling down upon me today as the sun filled my soul". What, you felt actual lips of flesh squishing against your face, and a burning ball of hydrogen actually entered into you, literally? A literal reading of this would make you conclude this, wouldn't it. These are all simply a use of language to express how it impresses us in terms we are familiar with; the face of God, the hand of God, the heart of God, etc, etc, etc. Whoever reads these as literal truly has no understanding of the uses of language, and would find themselves utterly dismayed and lost a poetry reading, assuming the poet to be speaking of actual, corporeal things!
Because these are not literal expressions. Even when I was a child I understood things like "the hand of God", to mean a representation of power. Not fingers and a palm and a wrist.
It's a representation of the nature of God. "She is the image of purity and refinement". Does purity have a physical body? If being created in the image of God means we look like God physically, then why don't we all look identical? Why are some black? Why do some have olive skin? Why do some have green eyes? Why are some women? Why are some men? You see the sorts of problems you get into trying to make this fit some theology?
No, I can respect differences in belief just fine. I reserve the word silly for things which are irrational and fly in the face of what is common sense in language use.
None of those make more sense taken literally.
