Paradise (not) Lost

@itsajelly1 @LostMyHats @SenMikeLee Yes

@LostMyHats @SenMikeLee So Freemasons can't be Christian? Is that what you're saying?

With Mormonism being the scuttlebutt of the hour, thanks to @SenMikeLee demanding the Pentagon undo 2k-year-old historic Christian doctrines to allow their inclusion, you might find my I2I piece on Mormonism and Freemasonry interesting, from a while back: Joseph Smith became a Master Mason in Nauvoo in March of 1842, advancing through the degrees with astonishing speed, and soon surrounded himself with a leadership class heavily populated by fellow Masons, including his brother Hyrum Smith and future successor Brigham Young. The Nauvoo Lodge exploded into one of the largest Masonic bodies in Illinois almost overnight as hundreds of Mormon men entered its ranks, effectively intertwining the lodge and the church. Smith himself occupied a unique concentration of power: prophet, revelator, mayor of Nauvoo, lieutenant general of the Nauvoo Legion, presidential candidate, and Masonic initiate, all at the same time. He presided over a movement that functioned as church, government, military force, and fraternal order simultaneously. Then, within weeks of becoming a Master Mason, he unveiled the Mormon temple endowment, complete with ritual handshakes, sacred signs, ceremonial garments, secret passwords, veiled progression rites, and penalties for revealing the mysteries. He baptized those rituals, declared them divine revelation, and presented them to his followers as sacred ordinances revealed directly from heaven. Millions of people today regard these ceremonies as the pinnacle of God's restored truth, unaware that they originated in a nineteenth-century fraternal order. The parallels are not vague similarities that only cult specialists can detect. They are so obvious that even Mormon historians are forced to acknowledge them. The secret handshakes. The ritual grips. The sacred clothing. The penalties for revealing temple secrets. The progression through degrees of hidden knowledge. The symbols carved into temples. The veils separating one realm from another. Strip away the pseudo-Christian terminology, and what remains is a structure that looks remarkably less like the New Testament church and remarkably more like a Masonic lodge. The Book of Mormon supplied the mythology. Freemasonry supplied the architecture. Joseph Smith fused the two together and called the result "restoration." That reality creates an uncomfortable question for Mike Lee or anyone else insisting Mormonism is merely another Christian denomination. If the defining rituals of the faith were imported from a secret fraternity, if its temple ceremonies were constructed from borrowed Masonic forms, and if its doctrines of exaltation and progressive ascent mirror Masonic concepts of advancing toward greater light, then what exactly was restored? The deeper one digs into Mormon origins, the less it resembles Christianity rediscovered and the more it resembles a frontier-era religious entrepreneur who wraps borrowed rituals in biblical language and persuades thousands that the costume itself is revelation. Once that possibility enters your mind, Mormonism stops looking like an ancient faith restored and starts looking like the most successful act of religious rebranding in American history. Read at Insight to Incite. Link in the next comment.

@atomzer0_ @LostMyHats @SenMikeLee It has been routinely condemned by the Catholics and the Orthodox for being a "counter-church."

@LostMyHats @SenMikeLee Plenty of good people have been freemasons. Despite the conspiracy theories, Freemasonry is just a fraternal organization focused on making good men better through moral teachings, brotherly love, & charity. It's not the sinister cult you want it to be. Neither is the LDS church.

Mormon apologetics are weak sauce.

I did. It was a horrible experience. Full of factual errors (Jesus being born in Jerusalem, horses in America before the Spanish brought them, etc.), poorly written, hundreds of "and it came to pass" and other statements making it obvious that it is the same writer in each book,tells of a group being cursed with being black, Jesus telling the Nephites he is the "Alpha and Omega" when they would never have known Greek, quoting Latin words from the King James and other Biblical passages (which were the best parts of the reading), describing places and people that do not reflect the archeological and DNA evidence at all...and that's just the highlights and doesn't include the theoligical statements that directly contradict the Bible.... It's an absolute mess. But lastly...it promises another testament, which demonstrates it to be a different religion than Christianity. If it's just a different denomination, no new scriptures would be needed. You would never become LDS from reading the Bible alone.

@ThoughtfulSaint This Is the same type of Blasphemous bullshit that your fearless leader used to say.

@Hotchkiz @BenZeisloft What strawman?

I am a member of the Church of Mormon. I believe in the Trinity, reject Joseph Smith as a prophet, and oppose the notion that Jesus and Satan are brothers. But since my church has Mormon in the name, I am a Mormon, and I demand that the world recognize me as such.

Brigham Young said the following in a discourse given 8 July 1860: "...[T]here is no act, no principle, no power belonging to the Deity that is not purely philosophical. The birth of the Saviour was as natural as are the births of our children; it was the result of natural action. He partook of flesh and blood—was begotten of his Father, as we were of our fathers." He’s saying sex between the father and Mary created Jesus.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

In no other circumstance can you reject something this foundational about anything and claim to be a part of it

It's always deeply amusing when people try morally equating the Aztecs to the Catholics. The worst thing I can say about Catholics is that they are- quite literally- spiritual bureaucrats. More people have probably died waiting for Mass to end so they can finally use the bathroom than the Inquisition ever actually killed. The roughly 3000 people killed by the Spanish Inquisition were primarily the targets of pogroms following the Reconquista. People tend to not like their former occupiers and tax collectors trying to sneakily practice their old faiths after being told to convert or get the fuck out. Still less bloody than the average Socialist regime.

@BrisonF15778 @JimmyParker87 They share the same divine nature, they are two different persons.

@HeavenIsNotLost @JimmyParker87 So they are not the same being?

Mormons really don't know that every Christian denomination rejects them as Christians do they?

Or, when you articulate Mormon beliefs they will just lie and tell you that they don't believe that thing

Mormons: We are Christians! Christians: You affirm the Nicene Creed? M: No. Absolutely not. C: The Trinity? M: No way. C: Jesus was always God, at least. M: No, he was born of Heavenly Parents. C: Jesus is born of a virgin at least. M: No. God the father came down to ‘father’ Jesus the old fashioned way. C: Do you celebrate the Eucharist? M: With water. C: Does your Church have apostolic succession? M: Oh for use, in 1839 John the Baptist and St Peter, Paul and John appeared to Joseph Smith and gave him the Aaronic and Melchezidich priesthood. C:…what? Do you adhere to any of the ecumenical councils? M: No. Absolutely nothing of Christ’s Church existed after the Great Apostasy. C: The what? When did that happen? M: We don’t know. At some point. C: But God created the universe, at least? M: No. God reorganized existing matter. Matter is eternal and so is our intelligence which is the same as god the fathers’. C:… M: And we have temples where you go to get an endowment— C: Mormons are not Christians. M: Yes we are! It says so on the meeting house! C: Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken!

Muhammad and Joseph Smith performed ZERO miracles to give testimony to their new doctrines. Jesus Christ and His Apostles performed hundreds of public miracles. Catholic Saints have performed public miracles for 20 centuries.

It is so crazy that Joseph Smith’s final words seem to be depicted here as an expression of faith and/or piety when he was simply uttering a Masonic distress call (“O Lord, my God, is there no help for the widow's son?”) This conclusion is corroborated by a number of LDS sources

@BasedMikeLee Just quit while you are ahead, no real Christian denomination from Catholics to the Orthodox, Presbyterians to Methodists, Baptists to Evangelicals are going to consider Mormons as real Christians after decades of Mormons calling them false Christians.

As of two days ago, the Pentagon recognizes every Christian faith in America as Christian Except one That’s not okay, and it needs to change—now Pass it on if you agree

@drebnan @calvinrobinson There is only one God (Deut 6:4) The Father is God (1 Jn 3:1) The Son is God (Heb 1:8) The Holy Spirit is God (Acts 5:3-4) The Father is not the Son (1 Jn 4:14) The Son is not the Holy Spirit (Jn 16:7) The Holy Spirit is not the Father (Jn 14:16)

Why are the Mormons demanding we call them Christians? What did I miss, did they accept the Holy Trinity?!

@KaiSchwemmer Speaking truth isn't edgy

Hating on Mormons is safe edgy 🤷‍♂️

@BasedMikeLee I read the original 1830 one, it is miles vetter than the current one, and that's saying something.

Read the Book of Mormon. Cover to cover. Pray about it, asking sincerely to know whether it’s true (the final chapter provides specific guidance on this point). Then tell me whether Latter-day Saints believe in Jesus Christ. Will you accept that challenge?