No Other Way!

@mattforney @CovfefeAnon Let’s bring back the old ways.

Prison itself is a relatively recent innovation. @CovfefeAnon has written a ton about this: I'll link one of his threads in the replies. Prior to the 1700s, criminals were either executed or exiled. Incarceration was used almost entirely to hold convicts until they were sentenced. Violent offenders were hanged, non-violent ones were told to GTFO of Dodge within ten days on pain of death. Britain shipped convicts to the Thirteen Colonies prior to the Revolution and Australia afterwards. (Aside: it's funny that Australians puff themselves up over being descended from "convicts." The majority of convicts sent to Australia were from debtors' prisons, the white equivalent of Kool-Aid pineapple enthusiasts.) Exile was considered tantamount to death throughout most of human history. It meant being stripped of your possessions, permanently separated from your friends and family, and cast into foreign lands where you would be viewed with suspicion at best, where you could not speak the local language. THE SONG OF THE CID starts with El Cid's anguish at being unjustly exiled for this reason; he was booted out of Castile after being accused of robbing the king. The modern prison system was intended to reform criminals into productive citizens, hence the name "penitentiary": to repent. It only works in a limited number of cases. Libtards have worsened the problem with their anti-death penalty campaigning in one of their longest running motte-and-bailey operations. "Life imprisonment is punishment enough!" Except that libtards also campaign to abolish life imprisonment and have already succeeded in places like Norway, where 21 years is the maximum sentence a judge can hand out. A rational society would have tried Karmelo Anthony within a week of his crime, then dragged him behind a woodshed and put one in his skull. Just look at him. Zero empathy, zero remorse. The kind of sociopath who was common in Europe before centuries of executing or exiling criminals made it safe. Even a life sentence couldn't teach this freak empathy. He is societal dead weight. No more cushy Club Fed prisons for rapists and murderers. Time to take a page out of Stolypin's book and letting military tribunals get rid of people like this. A few more Karmelo Anthonys in shallow graves and "changing consumer habits" will change for the better.

The Christ of the Bible and the Christ of LDS doctrine are very different. That is our basis of saying that the LDS Jesus is a different Jesus, a false Jesus that should be rejected. I've been talking to Mormons for over 40 years and very few have any depth to their biblical knowledge. Joseph Smith said that the Bible was full of errors and even tried to rewrite it to line up with the Book of Mormon. So don't go pointing to the Bible as if you guys respect it and accept it in the same way we do. You've got a new scripture that you claim is perfect through direct revelation and you cast shadow on what came before despite the overwhelming evidence that what have been transmitted and delivered to us is accurate to within 1% and what is in question affects no major doctrine of the last 2000 years. But you never studied the transmission of biblical manuscripts, did you? Nor did your "prophet."

@_whatisaname_ @JoelWebbon you say we don't follow "your Christ" but we follow the Christ of the Bible, if that is not your Christ you need to repent

Mike Lee's complaint only works if everyone agrees to ignore what Mormonism actually teaches. He wants the public to focus on the label while averting its eyes from the contents. But theology is not judged by branding. If it were, every cult in America could become orthodox by hiring a better marketing department. Mike Lee belongs to a religion that teaches God the Father was once a man who progressed to godhood, that human beings may follow the same path, that Jesus and Lucifer share the same heavenly parentage, and that the highest aspiration of the faithful is not merely to worship God forever but to become gods themselves. These are not minor disagreements within Christianity. These are different answers to the most basic questions Christianity asks. Mike Lee knows this. He was raised in Mormon royalty, educated in Mormon institutions, and formed by Mormon theology. His objection is not that the Pentagon misunderstood Mormonism. His objection is that the Pentagon accidentally described it accurately. What makes the spectacle particularly amusing is that Mormon leaders spent generations insisting they were not what Mike Lee now demands to be called. -Joseph Smith launched his movement by declaring every existing church on earth an abomination. -Brigham Young mocked the God of Christianity as a being who "never did exist." -John Taylor described Christianity as "a perfect pack of nonsense." -Bruce McConkie warned that the doctrines of Christendom would damn men's souls. -Gordon Hinckley openly admitted that the Christ worshiped by Mormons was not the Christ worshiped by traditional Christians. For nearly two centuries Mormon leaders built a theological wall between themselves and Christianity brick by brick, sermon by sermon, book by book. Now Mike Lee appears before that same wall demanding to know who built it. The answer is simple: his own prophets did. The deeper problem for Senator Lee is that Mormonism's truth claims are so spectacularly strange that they force a choice. Either they are true, in which case historic Christianity has been wrong for nearly two thousand years and Joseph Smith really did restore the gospel through golden plates, angelic visitations, sacred underwear, proxy baptisms for the dead, and a seer stone in a hat. Or they are false, in which case Mormonism is one of the most successful religious inventions in American history. What it cannot be is ordinary Christianity. The faith that emerged from Nicaea and Chalcedon has many internal disputes, but none of them involve exalted men becoming gods, planets populated by spirit children, or a deity residing near a star called Kolob. Mike Lee is free to believe every one of those things. What he is not free to do is pretend they are the same religion that produced the Apostles' Creed.

@WwWilberforce So does my church. Your point?

@realBalloonDog Mormons excommunicate homos lol

All this back and forth about whether Mormons are Christians is missing an important component - a clear definition of what a Christian is. Oneness Pentecostals and many Seventh Day Adventists have a definition of what a Christian is that excludes me. I don’t care. Wouldn’t even waste time arguing about it. Joseph Smith’s God told him that those who hold to the traditional confessions and creeds of the Christian faith are “an abomination.” That’s me. I’m an abomination to the god of the LDS. We have different definitions of what a Christian is. We have a different definition of who God is and what he is like. We have many variations in doctrines that are wholly incompatible. I get that Mormons think they are the true, restored church but it’s disingenuous to say that they want to be included in a list of traditional Christian churches when they have said that their church is the only one that should bear that title. If they were honest they would demand that all the other churches listed as Christian on the Pentagon list be stripped of that title. Indeed, they should be pleased and proud to not be lumped in among the “abominations.” As I said, I don’t care what anyone thinks about my faith and about whether they think I’m a Christian or not. Whatever. But I do find it quite interesting that Mormons care so much about traditional Christians accepting them into our fold.

@WwWilberforce Ooooo! What a burn! Perhaps we can agree that schismatics that act outside the teachings of their faith are not representative of the mainstream.

@realBalloonDog Meanwhile protestants in 2026.

I did read the Book of Mormon when I took classes at the Institute of Religion by my college. I also read the original 1830 edition and noted the changes. Also read the D&C (including the parts that were removed) and the Pearl of Great Price and explored the whole Book of Abraham issue (more Joseph Smith "scripture" that even many LDS scholars admit is just a Egyptian funerary text.) Lots of trouble points, but most LDS are blissfully ignorant of the issues in their own religion. The Institute had a great library of LDS history and doctrinal works that was very helpful in the days before the internet. The LDS students were mostly disengaged, attending out of duty, I guess. I won the "design a Liahona" competition (because mine was the only entry) and used the prize gift certificate to get a copy of McConkie's "Mormon Doctrine," which was also very enlightening. People can be educated on the LDS faith without ending up as a Mormon.

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?

@BasedMikeLee If I read the Book of Mormon and prayed to God to confirm it, and then had a burning in my bosom that the Book of Mormon was true and the Joseph Smith was God's prophet, I would repent for disobeying God's holy words that told me not to do such things in the first place.

@stevezarutskie Love your avatar by the way!

@realBalloonDog Thank you for the correction.

That’s why even Moldova 🇲🇩 the poorest White country with the lowest HDI among all European/White nations is still a paradise compared to the entire third world.

My post at its core is about using proper definitions. LDS are not pantheistic, but they are polytheistic. Christians who believe the Bible reject both, as the Scriptures, though mentioning the other gods of pagan nations, states time and time again that these "gods" are nothing but the imaginings of men and that through their idols they worship demons. There is one God and there is no other, none formed before him and none formed after. One cannot believe both the Bible and Joseph Smith.

@realBalloonDog LDS is pantheistic.

@FRXianHumanist @TanneriteCortez Yeah I get it. God is not bound by our denomination structures. Just found the diagram with the SDA barely touching funny.

@realBalloonDog @TanneriteCortez I think in reality SDA's got far more than 5 members - maybe even 10% of them are born again; Heck, I'd guess maybe 0.5% of Mormons are members of the invisible church. IFB, Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Charismatics also got short changed IMO.

When thinking about who is and isn’t considered Christian, this is a helpful guide:

👇

Scripture gatekeeps doctrine and warns against heresies. Galatians 1:8 "But if we or an angel from Heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed." I want LDSs to be saved, but we can't reach them if they think they already are.

@TanneriteCortez Hey! I can see my house from here!

@OldStateSaloon They misspelled "Heterosexual Awesomeness Month."

How crazy is the LGBTQ clan? Found in our mailbox today.

This is the face you get from 98% of Christian women today the moment you start discussing traditional biblical gender roles as universally practiced in Christendom for 1900 yrs. They have zero frame of reference. Egalitarian feminism is stage 4 cancer inside the church today.

It is concern trolling. I follow Christian Nationalist and White Nationalist accounts because both sometimes say right things and sometimes say wrong things. I am a grown man and not unintelligent. I am quite capable of winnowing the wheat from the chaff. My following list does not inherently define my views and I am unconcerned with the opinions of anyone who thinks it does.

Everyone submit your follows to Neil by 6pm on Monday for final approval.

There is zero moral difference between the Aztec who murders a born child to make the sun rise and the American who murders a preborn child because they hate responsibility.