Re: Are Mormons really honest about explaining what they believe?

On Feb 13, 7:05 pm, rasqual <scott.marqua...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> So dismissing Christendom as a passel of abomination-chanting
> apostates is fine if the messenger believes it's the Spirit
> convincing? If it was persuasion this would be "attacking?"

You seem to be misrepresenting what we do as missionaries. We actually
appreciate other churches, they do a lot of good in peoples lives. We
just believe that we have the WHOLE truth and the keys to exaltation.
It really is just that simple. Not sure why people try to make it more
than that (and don't quote the BOM scriptures I am fully aware of
them).

>
> But that's really beside the point. I think "attack" is an ill-chosen
> word. I think "slander" might be a better term. And of course slander
> (misrepresenting) is inexcusable.

I guess I could agree with that statement. Attack might be the
incorrect term to use in what I am talking about. But (and I'm smiling
while I am typing this) when missionaries knock on a door and someone
comes to the door with bible in hand telling them their of the devil -
I consider that an attack.


>Perhaps a high
> pro****tion of these claims are non-essential beliefs of many Mormons,
> and other Mormons who don't hold to the beliefs their fellows do
> unfortunately hold, will take exception to the representation of these
> "compelling speculations" as constituting Mormon belief.

I will admit something about LDS people. We speculate about things way
to much. We take something that Joseph Smith or Brigham Young said
over 100 years ago and misinterpret it in our minds and make it to
come out as some doctrine. Our Sunday School cl***** used to be
terrible. I hated attending them. I would rather spend that hour in
the halls of the church reading my scriptures then attending those
cl*****. People talked about things that were not church doctrine and
made them sound as if it was true teachings of the church. But lately
the church has put an emphasis on teacher improvement. Since that time
I have noticed a difference. But thats not to say that there aren't
some members of the church that still do this, they must not express
those incorrect (in my estimation) views publicly.

>
> Whokay, let's run a test. Can you find a web site critical of
> Mormonism that does NOT slander Mormonism -- that is, it represents
> Mormon belief accurately -- and then goes on to critique it, intending
> to show it to be false?

I would say that since the Romney campain this is very much a more
frequent thing. It helps that the church is being more public about
our beliefs. So articles and websites are more accurate than they used
to be. I have even noticed a few web articles that say something at
the bottom like "this corrects the previous version stating..." I
think that the church using LDS.org and mormon.org has made a
difference. It would be hard to publish something and say (for
example) that "Mormons believe that we evolved from s****s". When
someone goes to the churches sites and doesn't find that belief then
you can't believe anything that site said.

I don't have a problem with someone maybe critiquing our belief in the
Word of Wisdom, but telling lie and slander thats another thing.


> Someone once raised the point that the experience you describe is much
> more likely in "Mormon country" than elsewhere. I think that's so.


Out of all the friends I grew up with (I'm from Cali) only 2 friends
served in Utah. Our experience is the same. Missionaries all over the
world have that same experience, its not just found in Utah and Idaho.

BTW I served in British Columbia.

> Anywhere diverse communities are mixed, there's potential for non-
> constructive conflict. Ironically, the antidote isn't to put on
> superficial aires of geniality and pretend the differences don't
> matter; the solution is to engage each other sincerely without
> slander, and acknowledge the conflicts between the communities.

Its interesting you mention this. Lately there actually have been much
more of this involving the LDS church, and I think its a good thing
for our society as well and for the churches. I also have an
experience to share on this:

In Williams Lake there was a youth pastor at the Salvation Army that
simply wanted to learn more about Mormonism. So he asked my companion
and I too teach him. We told him about the discussions and he agreed
to listed to them, with the condition that we was not going to be
baptized. We agreed to skip the commitments from each discussion and
just to teach the doctrines and principles. We both had a great
experience and I would certainly say that during my 5 months there he
was someone I considered a friend. But the good experience did not end
there.

This town had about 10 Christian churches and there were only about
20k people in it. Knocking on doors in that town often resulted in
doorstep "discussions" and not pleasant ones. After we taught this
youth pastor something happened. People started being nice to us. They
would give us drinks of water on hot days. People offered to give us
rides. They may not have wanted to discuss religion, but they we at
least nice to us which was a huge difference. People also knew our
names and would call us by name even before we got close enough to see
our names tags. It turned out that in a sermon, this young pastor told
of his experience of being taught by the LDS missionaries. He spoke
very highly of us and when people asked. He even, apparently, when
asked a question about Mormonism told the people to go and ask us
about it.

If only my missionary experience would have been the same in all the
towns and cities I served.


John