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Originally Posted by ceeboo
Thank you as well Vanhin,
I have seriously considered not making this post as to not seem argumentative but have decided to share in hopes that we can extend our thoughts to eachother in an even light for mutual benefit and fairness.  |
Ceeboo,
No worries. Feel free to speak your mind.
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Your comments to me seem to take as FACT the prophet ( JS ), how God has chosen to restore his church. In addition you use the early Church to strengthen your claims.
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Well, I hope you can see that my comments also recognize and appreciate, that you do not accept these things as facts.
The truth is, I do accept the Joseph Smith story as fact, and I approach this topic as someone who knows it to be true, addressing someone who clearly does not. I am a life long member of the Church, having joined at the age of 9. For me, the path to this knowledge started at option #2 and then, inevitably I was faced with option #3.
What I have attempted to explain to you, is that God calls prophets. That is how he operates, and the scriptures are a testament to that. Even after his ascension into Heaven, Jesus Christ directed the afairs of his kingdom through the apostles, by way of revelation. You would have to totally ignore many important parts of the Bible to come to some other conclusion.
So, one thing I am trying to establish, is that it is plausible, and entirely possible that the pesky Mormons are right about this; or at the very least, that something like this can happen. I am curious about whether you believe that it is a possibility that what we claim is true?
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There is indeed an alternate perspective on this, I will try and share mine with you while trying my best to be fair and respectful to your beliefs, as you have to mine.
The " restoration " was to restore the Church back to the early church days ( before the JS claim of great apostasy and due to the broken line of apostles ) agreed ?
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Yes.
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Well IMHO ( with a hint of Catholic bias ) the early Church writers do not strengthen the LDS claim at all, Rather drastically weaken it, the early Church writers ( Ignatious, Eusebius, Clemente,Polycrap, etc ) Write nothing at all about this Great Apostasy, In addition, it is my further humble opinion that they also wrote nothing about much of the Mormon Doctrine that is claimed to be restored ( not to mention they seemingly never knew or heard of a Mormon ).
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I appreciate your opinion on this. It's not my intention to try to prove to you that an apostasy happened. That is not necessary for unbelievers to accept, when discussing our claims. It's only important to understand that we believe there was an apostasy, and why we believe that; which are facts that I think you understand by now. You know that Mormons believe there was an apostasy, and that they believe it because of the First Vision.
You also understand and agree that if the First Vision did not occur, then we definetly are wrong about our claims. that's how vital that experience is to our church.
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" How do I suppose God reveals truth to us "
IMHO, there are many ways, but the primary way that he did was to send his son to tell us directly from his mouth what we needed and should know through his teachings, love, examples,parables,. To be clear I ( Catholic ) believe God was the one who revealed truth to us directly from God )
God bless,
Carl
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The other thing I was trying to establish with you, is that we can know directly from God the truth. Before talking about that, I wanted to know how you think God reveals truth. So, I thank you for your answer.
You say that there are many ways God reveals truth to us, but the primary way is through his Son; namely his teachings, and example. I agree with that. But what I really wanted to know, is how do you think a person can know that the teachings of Jesus Christ, or the prophets, represent truth?
For example, if you take a Bible to someone who has never seen it before or even heard of Jesus Christ, how can they find out for themselves that it really is the word of God? How do you think?
Sincerely,
Vanhin