Mormons running for President: Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman
Filed under: Mormon Church, Mormonism, News & Politics
It is becoming always more interesting the debate about Mormons and politics. In the next presidential elections there will be two Mormons trying to become the President of the United States, John Huntsman and Mitt Romney.
But as someone said,
one of these two guys could be our next president….the other one is John Huntsman (Colbert report).
Many Americans still do not know what Mormons believe and therefore are a little bit suspicious, but this presidential campaign is helping people to know Mormonism better, or at least it helps to put Mormon beliefs in perspective, even when this is done with a good amount of irony.
For example, again in the Colbert Report, the “weird” beliefs of Mormonism were compared to the similarly “weird” beliefs of Christianity and Judaism.
Mormons believe that Joseph Smith received golden plates from an Angel on a hill, when everybody knows that Moses got stones tablets stones from a burning bush on a mountain
Many may have never noticed how strange is Moses’ story while at the same time they attack Joseph Smith.
In another case, in an article titled ” The ultimate organization Men”, the author James Carrol does an interesting job of explaining the “organizational” propensity of the Mormon Church (and many of its members) as a consequence of Mormon theology. He writes,
For the Mormon God is not like other gods. God did not create the world out of nothing, as in other monotheistic traditions; according to the revelation given to Joseph Smith, God “organized it out of chaos.’’ Drawing order out of preexisting “elements. . . [that] may be organized and reorganized, but not destroyed,’’ God was working with what was already there.
But what most impressed me in this article is when the author humbly recognizes the need of correcting himself from something he had written previously.
The distinction between God as creator and God as organizer matters because the perennial religious call to imitate God made organizing a defining act of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (Note to readers: In my last column, I omitted “Jesus Christ’’ from the formal name of the Mormon religion – a not insignificant mistake.)
Not everybody who writes about Mormon obviously is so ready to correct their own mistakes, but this campaign will help to make Mormon beliefs better known among the public, someway forcing the media to be more careful when they talk about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some of the wrong information that was so commonly disseminated in the past will have to be more carefully reviewed before publication.
Even this article (with a video) on CNN.com is probably a consequence of the political campaign and is fair enough.
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/24/explain-it-to-me-mormonism/?iref=obinsite
Religion and Science
Probably what I am about to post has been posted before by others, but it is worth republishing. It helps understand the limitations of trying to prove or deny the existence of God by using our limited logics.
When someone asks me to “prove there is a God,” I wonder what he means. I suppose he means, he wants me to prove it logically. But the truth can’t be established by logic alone because even sound logic doesn’t always yield right conclusions. In the Middle Ages some people thought the world was flat. To them that was perfectly logical; and though their logic may have been impeccable, their conclusions were false because they started from false assumptions.
The point is that, in religion, in science, in everything that really matters, only correct assumptions can lead to reliable conclusions.(My Father’s Formula- By Henry Eyring- 1978)
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As a college student, I learned that the original premise of a syllogism, or logic train, is critical. Sophisticated lines of reasoning may seem compelling at each step in the logic, but if the original premises are faulty or incomplete, the whole line of reasoning will be flawed. ( The Quest for Spiritual Knowledge – By Elder Robert S. Wood- June 2007)
The doctrine does not abuse logic, for “truth is reason,” especially “truth eternal”, but is more than logic alone can fully support. (See Hymns, 1985, no. 292.) It could only come from restoration by modern revelation. It was certainly not abroad in the land of America until Joseph Smith’s articulations. ( Premortality, a Glorious Reality – Elder Neal A. Maxwell -Nov 1985)
In the Church most of the basic questions we ask are questions of fact. Did Joseph Smith see God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ in the Sacred Grove or did he not? This question boils down to just as much a historical fact as who won the Battle of Hastings, or how high is the highest mountain. These are questions of fact, and they do not depend on value judgment, emotion, or exercises in logic.(Things Not Seen – Don Lind- Sep 1986)
We come to know the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ not simply by the exercise of intellect or the process of logic but by acting on what we learn. Through faith and obedience, the validity of gospel doctrine can be etched upon our hearts.
If our faith is rooted in the sandy soil of reason and logic, it will be swept away by a rising tide driven by the escalating winds of opposition. A faith founded in Jesus Christ and on the rock of revelation will endure through the fiercest storms of life (see Helaman 5:12).(Coming to Know for Ourselves – By Elder Kenneth Johnson- July 2008)
Let me give you an example of how I think we ought to present it to them. This is a response from President Spencer W. Kimball, this great Christlike man, to a youth who sat in his office and said, “These are your own opinions.” And then President Kimball responded, “Yes, if that were true, I would agree with you. Your mind may be broader than mine, your gray matter thicker and grayer, your logic and thinking processes may be far more alert than my own, but you have forgotten one thing: Your opinion, no matter how erudite, is matched not by mine but by the composite of the inspiration of all of the ancient prophets of at least six millennia and of the Creator himself. Your logic is hardly equal to the inspiration and revelation from the Lord that I am representing to you. Your deliberations look rather puny when compared to the knowledge and wisdom of the God who made your little mind and gave it function. God said the act is sin. Numerous prophets claim the act is sin. The act is sin. Yes, my friend, if it were your mind against mine, your logic against mine, your perception against my limited ability, then I would retire and leave you to your deliberations and conclusions. But I am expressing not my own opinion but the word of the Lord of heaven, and I am telling you God’s truth. The act is sin. To compare your opinion with the Lord’s proven truth might be like a grain of sand compared to the bulk of Mt. Everest.”(News of the Church -Sep 1973)
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Is the Mormon Jesus the Brother of Satan?
Filed under: Jesus Christ, Mormon Church, Mormonism
I started paying attention to this comment about Jesus being the brother of Satan only in the last few years here in the US. I became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church) in Italy and I had never heard this argument when people tried to attack the Mormon Church.
While living in Brazil I heard it only a few times, but I thought that it could be dismissed very easily, since it seems to me a very dumb comment anyway.
Since we are all children of God, brothers and sisters in spirit, then Jesus is the brother of Satan the same way some of us have brothers and sisters, but this fact doesn’t really tell us anything about what we believe, or it does not mean that the Mormon Jesus is someway “friend” with Satan or that they stand for the same things
However, during the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I began noticing people who were raising signs like the one below.
Clearly, some people extrapolate all sort of meanings from the simple belief (and fact) that Jesus and Satan (and all of us) were spiritual brothers and sisters before this life.
I think that a recent article from MDL.org helps to understand how this belief is twisted to attack Mormon beliefs.
Many anti-Mormons claim that Mormons are not Christian. But Mormons believe in Jesus Christ and in His Atonement for our sins. It is only through Jesus that we are saved. Many Christians who claim you only have to accept Jesus to be saved have a problem with Mormons because we likewise accept Jesus as our Savior and Redeemer, despite our doctrinal differences. So, the thought goes among some who refuse to accept us as Christians, that we must believe in a different Jesus, not the Jesus of the Bible. As supposed proof, these critics argue that the so-called “Mormon Jesus” is the brother of Satan, and therefore it doesn’t matter if Mormons accept him or not because he is the wrong Jesus. Alternatively, to other detractors, accepting the “Mormon Jesus” actually matters very much, because following the “Mormon Jesus” would be the same as following Satan, his “brother.”
Whichever the case, this ridiculous notion is a “straw man” or a gross misrepresentation of actual LDS belief…In short, the entire argument is a disingenuous attempt to demean and belittle Mormons. It is bigotry pure and simple.
Using social media for family history research
I have only recently decided to start using the New Family Search of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have all of my family history – genealogy in the old PAF files and I was not too excited to start uploading information on the internet and connect what is already there in my family tree.
However now that I have started doing it, I can see already some benefit. The first surprise was to find that someone in Argentina had submitted information about one of my ancestors who lived in Italy. Through the New Family Search I found the email address of this person and I wrote to her.
It was a great surprise when she sent me a complete family tree of that ancestor, a family tree that goes back to the year 1623.
An article on Deseret News suggest the use of blogs to gather even more information by connecting with people over the Internet.
According to the article
There are thousands of blogs related to genealogy and family history used by Mormons, Catholics, Jews, Baptists, atheists, and others to study and find their ancestors. People are starting to recognize that blogs and other forms of social media work really well for genealogy.
I suppose that I could write here a list of last names in my family history that could attract others who are doing the same work here
This is a short list, starting from the closest to me
Martinengo, Causarano, Janna, Bertazzolo, Mussarelli, Sasso, Maraldo, Toffoli, Musso, Vercellino, Montesi, Mamola, Santini, Ongaro, Piccinali, De Martin.
Just to start…