FoodPoisoning said:
Hey sergeant, What exactly do Mormons believe?
could you possibly give me a basic summary ><
I'm sick of people at my "Christian" school bashing mormons without knowing a thing about them and making up lies about them...
Well, without making this an overly long thread, I'll try to give you the readers digest version.
We believe in God the Father, his son Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. We use the King James Version of the bible and believe it to be the word of God as long as it is translated correctly. We also believe the book of mormon to be the word of God.
The book of Mormon is a record of the ancient inhabitants of the american continent and serves as a testament of Christs teachings and visitations to them. Sometime around 600 bc a group of them left Jeruselum and about 8 years later set sail for the "promised land" which was probably South America. Over the course of about 1100 years, they inhabited South America, middle America and then North America. The record was hidden by the last surviving member of the Nephite race, their whole civilization wiped out by the Lamanite nation. I think, and it's generally held as a good possibility, that the Lamanites are the ancestors of Native Americans.
in 1823, during a time of great religious awakening the young boy Joseph Smith was confused by all the conflicting teachings of all the various religions and churches and wanted to know which one to join. He took to a wooded area near his home in upstate New York to pray about which church he should join. It was at that time he was visited by God and Jesus and instructed to join none of them, that none had or taught God's full gospel. They all had parts of the truth but none had the whole truth and that is what caused the conflicting teachings.
In time, the location of the plates was reveaved to Joseph. These plates are the original manuscript if you will for the book of Mormon. Joseph Smith organized the LDS church in 1830 and served as the first prophet in this dispensation of the church. Now let's see if I can dispel some of the stuff people tend to misconstrue about us.
We do not practice polygamy or plural marriage. We did at one time when it was legal. It has been prohibited both by law and by the church for over 100 years and any member found practicing it is excommunicated from the church, their membership wholly and totally terminated.
We don't smoke, drink alcohol or generally consume things which are harmful to the body (generally viewed as coffee, tea, tobacco and alcohol). All of this is written in the 89th section of our book of Doctrine and Covenants and is commonly referred to as the Word of Wisdom. It encourages a healthy diet, details how many should eat and live to grant health and a healthy lifestyle.
While we can still marry civilly or "until death" like anyone else can, in our temples, we can marry "for time and all eternity", meaning the bonds of marriage are not broken by the death of a spouse. Only a temple divorce can sever a temple sealing.
Um...what else... Well, I'll leave it at that. If you want to know more I'd be happy to tell you, just ask. If you want some good resources you can go to
www.mormon.org - The church's site for people who want to find out about it. The official site is
www.lds.org. There is a fantastic site hosted and produced privately by a church member,
http://www.jefflindsay.com/MyPages.shtml#religion
Hope this helps a bit and let me know if you have more questions.
toader said:
Lets see if I can get some of it right...im not Morman, but I feel like giving it my best shot.
The mormans (founded by Joseph Smith) believe in the Cristian Bible as well as the "lost" chapters that Mr. Smith found in the woods of Utah. He found the encrypted tablets, along with a decoder, and he decoded them and started the Morman church. Hmmm...thats about all I can do with any kind of accuracy.
Sarge....take it from here....
toader, you get an A for effort. We do believe in the Christian bible and we do believe in, not lost but hidden, plates that tell of the ancient inhabitants of the american continent. They were found in the woods of upstate New York after the location had been revealed to him. The plates were translated with the Urim and Thummim by the power of God and that gave us the Book of Mormon.
Not too bad, you did better than most.
