Two days ago, after having talked again with some Mormon missionaries for two days in a row, I again started studying the Biblical calendar of history. I came across some calendar pages by John Pratt. His name was familiar to me, and while reading the first page I came to, written by him, noticed he made an odd comment, something about something or other maybe being a sign or evidence of the Aaronic priesthood, even though I knew there was no such thing, and then saw that he was, as I suspected, a non-upfront Mormon as I looked deeper into his website. He doesn’t mention in his self-biography that he is a Mormon. I noticed a hypocritical statement he made, which was that Martin Luther was a prophet. This is in contradiction to what the founder of Mormonism taught, which was that no church was true during his time (which would include the Lutheran church that Martin Luther founded). Ironically, that same day, one of the missionaries I mentioned implied that “Martin Luther King” was a Mormon prophet, but when I asked repeatedly about him, they directly denied that he was one, and then the one who called him Martin Luther King corrected himself, saying, “actually, I think it’s Martin Luther”. More ironic was that both of the missionaries were black, but not so ironic perhaps if they had often thought about both Luthers as being saviors of some sort (one of blacks, and in a way all races, and the other who lead people away from Catholicism, however the Bible says that going from one false religion to another false one, which Arminian-type and baptism-for-salvation-requiring type Lutherism is, just increases their damnation, and therefore, their eternal punishment.)
Also, yesterday, I was in an intermediate lesson type class in a Mormon “church”, taught by a blonde woman. They apparently, but not surprising to me, have no advanced classes, as they are always going over the same basic things, which reminds me of how the Bible talks about non-Christians as always learning (about religious truths) but never able to come to the truth, as in never understanding the parts that matter most or believing them, at least believing them to the point where you change your ways in order to be pleasing to God. She was teaching about the persecution Jeremiah experienced, and trying to match it to various parts of the Book of Mormon (a supposed holy book that Joseph Smith came up with from God, which is full of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors in the original, and has many contradictions). She brought up how king Zedekiah was a hypocrite for asking Jeremiah to bless Israel despite him putting him in a horrible prison, and that he was also a weak person, as in he gave in to the will of the anti-Christians rather then to God’s. And she was somewhat emphatic about how hypocritical and weak Zedekiah was for what he did. She also talked about how Jeremiah had a “burning” feeling in him and a “calling” to the point where he couldn’t keep God’s word back (the Mormons are obsessed with feelings because their founder Joseph Smith had no evidence for his new teachings and taught them to rely on their heart instead of reason and evidence). And one of the listeners, an elderly woman who was a genealogist in that church, spoke up and said that Wycliffe also had a burning within him and a calling to speak his beliefs about God. I am not against feelings, as without them there would be no love for goodness or others and no anger at what is wrong or those who do wrong, nor am I against a so called burning feeling to do what is right or when inspired and so on, and I am not against a genuine calling. But what I am against is the hypocrisy of the Mormons, which is a hypocrisy equal to or greater than that of Zedekiah and those who knew that Jeremiah was a prophet, and what God’s word and will was: Joseph Smith claimed that one of the first things he heard in his first supernatural encounter, supposedly with Jesus himself, was that “no church is true”, meaning all the churches were misleading people about how to get eternal peace and were instead leading people to an eternity of extreme pain and sorrow in Hell. Wycliffe was not apart of the Mormon church, but was a Christian who believed in destiny, unlike Joseph Smith, who came up with, out of contempt for God, a nonsensical version of “free will”. He came up with it out of his hatred of thinking that God was truly the leader of his life, despising God’s control. How hypocritical for the many Mormons, at least 20, in that room, who did not speak out against the genealogist. And as evidence of the deeply warped view that Mormons have thanks to Joseph Smith, was that in the basic class I was in the same day before that more advanced one, was when a sloppy-teaching, clearly newbie “missionary” taught Satan’s plan was to take everyone’s free will away and make us like robots and computers because he wanted to force his plan, but he didn’t bother to say what Satan’s plan was and why God’s plan, despite using obvious force, was not in the same way trying to make us robots and computers.
So for those of you who wonder why I bring up free will now and then and go extensively into it, it’s not because I’m obsessed with it, but because others are in a sick way and are confused about it and spread that confusion to the hurt of others.
It made me very sorrowful to see adorable children in that church, and beautiful parents, some of whom were clearly deceived into thinking they really did have the true gospel, who really did think that they were sitting with Christ, who had concern for their family, but in a shallow way, a concern that was complacent, because it didn’t take the threat of Hell seriously enough to make sure their family was on God’s path to peace, but only seriously enough to make sure it was following the path of man’s tradition and will.
11/17/2010:
Two missionaries came over to my place again just as the sun was going down, and one had been switched out. They seemed to be trying to bring their lessons to a close and get me to convert. And the new one emphasized how he knew at the close of their teachings that his beliefs were right (and therefore so should I, more emotionalism). During their teaching I tried to get them to say what I thought would be typical of them, which was that God won’t send many people to Hell (the missionary that didn’t switch out apparently agreed since before the other was switched out, said that, and he didn’t correct him), and that if God tries to force anyone to do anything it’s a violation of their free will and that if you have eternal life you’ll sin all you like. They disappointed me, and I think part of it was my own fault for leading them to clarity, and praying that they would be lead to truth more than ever. I should have been happy about it, and I was a little, but I was hoping things would be simple and the same with no complications. I did get them to admit that they believe that God can’t force anyone to do anything, but as I kept pressing, the light black one later changed his doctrine and said that sometimes God does intervene, which although is still a ridiculous thing to say, being that God always intervenes through angels, and with Jesus made a massive intervention. They also showed confusion about how if our will’s are completely random, how it is possible to predict what will happen in the future, though I suppose it is possible that if it were possible for them to be completely random, that God could still somehow see outside of this dimension and see the future. I tried to get them to admit that they would think God cruel for sending many people to Hell, but I lead them in such a way that when I asked them if they would think of God as cruel for sending most of the world to Hell, they both agreed that he wouldn’t be, and wouldn’t turn against him, because it is the choice of whoever goes to Hell to go there. There is a problem with that though: notice that their obsession with free will being free is coloring everything they say? And so much so that that response is illogical: Not everyone chooses to go to Hell, so what about those who go to Hell against their will? Clearly God will force them to go there, even the Book of Mormon implies it when it says he will “thrust” them into Hell (and in contradiction to that that Satan will speedily drag them there, and in another place says he will carefully do so). But since they are so fixated on avoiding saying that God forces anyone to do anything, even rescuing children from those who want to abuse and murder them, they, instead of saying, “It’s God’s right to punish those who disobey him and send them out of his presence”, turn it into a pride issue and give themselves the credit for going to Hell. It is the same way with them with their going to their version of Heaven and getting their version of eternal life: they claim that they must obey God’s laws to get to Heaven and have eternal life, that they must do something, that they, “have to do their part.” Some admit, even with tears, and the first time I went to one of their churches, that they don’t deserve what is good, that they fail to obey Christ all the time, and that Jesus died for all their sins, but still, they want to take some credit for saving themselves, to be equal with the Savior, to have their will equal with his. I also suggested that they believe that God can’t tamper with our will and that it’s because ours is equal with his, and when I said that, neither of the missionaries denied it.
One Mormon woman I met five years ago on the infamous anti-religious Nexopia profile site, named Bree, a Canadian, who herself was infamous for her stubborn belief in Mormonism (but because of her beauty and pandering and her drawing new members no doubt, they moderators tolerated her and defended her and even made her a moderator to attack me in new ways), was so hateful of the belief that God would send most of the world to Hell, that she attempted to incite others to burn my house down. When I told another pair of Mormon missionaries about her, the bolder one of the two exclaimed that she wasn’t a Mormon then, in other words: “Mormon’s don’t sin”, which is obviously a lie, but he was so prideful and blind, he couldn’t see how crazy it was for him to say such a thing.
When I moved on to the claim of a Mormon missionary I met five years ago, that if you get eternal life now that you will sin all you want (but didn’t say to the ones I was talking to at the moment that he was the one who made the claim, they expressed that having it now wouldn’t necessarily make you sin all you wanted to, and the dark-skinned one smiled about it, as he thought it was a funny thought, but instead of going completely against that suggestion, said that it was important to get eternal life once we went to Heaven, so that we wouldn’t sin anymore and face the possibility of never getting eternal life. That made no sense, but he said that because I had brought up earlier an issue I had with a statement one of their missionary teachers made in a classroom I was in, which was that he said that Satan doesn’t, mess with “the people downtown” but “with church-members” with people who are trying to obey God’s laws. The Bible does not teach that at all but that Satan harasses everyone, and that he flees those who resist him. When I brought up the fleeing Satan verse I noticed they didn’t recognize it till I kept repeating it to them in various ways, and then illogically the dark-skinned missionary used it as a reason to accept that we might not get eternal life here, and therefore should try to get it in their Celestial Kingdom. There was also something strange about that response in that he was suggesting that it was possible to get eternal life now, and yet that is against Mormon doctrine. Now that I think about it I think he said that because he probably had met some Christians who told him that eternal life could be obtained now, and thought it might be possible if they showed him evidence from the Bible for it.
About that teacher who made the “downtown” comment, I told them that not all teachers give perfect sermons apparently, and they agreed, since they realized he was wrong to say that Satan doesn’t attack non-church members.
I had also told them about a false and backslidden Christian woman who told me the opposite of that teacher, which was that Satan doesn’t attack Christians because he knows they are going to Heaven (which was bizarre for her to say since she didn’t believe in predestination, and got angry when I showed her evidence for it, and that God controls our hearts, or at least manipulates them, and so believed that once you are saved you are always saved, which is the opposite of what the many people who do believe in predestination believe, because they logically understand that if someone isn’t predestined, that it is not certain if they will stay saved.) But the dark-skinned one and the light skin one said that she wasn’t completely wrong, because the more obedient we are to God, the less Satan is likely to attack us (which is opposite of what their church-based teacher said), and they only told me that after I brought it up, and the fleeing Satan verse, which I now remember as, “resist the devil and he will flee from you”. It’s something almost exactly like that.
I also asked them why most people rejected God and chose not to obey him (as in after they became aware of him and his laws), hoping they would realize that without God’s direct intervention and influence that no one will turn to God, but instead they had no answer, and I suggested with a question, like, “could it be that man is more inclined to do evil?”, hoping they would realize that obvious fact and remember what the Bible said about man, but neither had a direct response, and seemed to avoid responding to it. Though I haven’t been direct with them, at least I’ve helped them to accept possibilities that are closer to the truth, as I had prayed for them.
How to Get to Heaven 