Christianity or Bust

I was looking for Low CDs on eBay and am amused by this listing for the album Drums and Guns describing it as: ** ** ** Drums And Guns - Low - Christian Pop ** ** **.

It’s just funny because you could argue about the whole “Are Mormons real Christians?” thing. However, that’s not as funny as describing it as “pop”. It’s very alternative for starters and I’d be amused when the new owner of the CD finds that it is full of songs of death, in particular the persona of “Murderer” believes that God has asked him to kill and the opening lines of opener “Pretty People” are:

All soldiers
They’re all gonna die
And all the little babies
They’re all gonna die
All the poets
And all the liars
And all you pretty people
You’re all gonna die

I once leant this album to someone who described it as uplifting. She didn’t really listen to it.

Well last Sunday, I met with the Mormons for the fifth time. It was also the last time. They seemed to think that all we were really doing was “butting heads”. If it was that, it was the politest gentlest head butt that I’ve ever caused. I think they just gave up because I wasn’t such an easy mark.

At some point, I admitted that I was coming along only to try to convince them that they are wrong.

There are times in your life that you know you are never going to speak to people again but it’s only afterwards that you think of intelligent things to say. They accused me of being like a Pharisee for not having an open heart to the Book of Mormon; I would have accused them of the same thing for Mormon legalism.

They said I’d be able to return for discussion if I read the Book of Mormon with an open and sincere heart. I said that it’s a greater priority for me to finish reading the Old Testament.

It was particularly strange when I asked them why they ask people to read the Book of Mormon before The Bible. They said that was what made them distinct from other religions that are based upon the Bible… then they went onto describe how the Book of Mormon is their capstone built on top of Christ. I guess Christ is not at the peak of their faith.

I’m really disappointed that things ended this way. I wasn’t doing this just to waste their time. Personally, I gained a lot out of this. I would have thought they would have the time to support such a robust faith if the faith is indeed true.

Anyway, my Friday nights are back to being empty.

Lasting thoughts:

• Mormons love to talk about revelation from God and a warm feeling from in the bosom. They will never check whether that affirms what the Bible tells. Even worse, they will always dodge your questions on its reliability, particularly when so many other religions have founders who profess personal revelation from God and members who also have a feeling that it’s true.
• If you know much about the history of Joseph Smith, you know there’s a lot of dodgy stuff such as polygamy claims that normal human beings can become gods of their own planet and their past hatred of Negros. They are good topics but you don’t need to go for them straight away. They may just make Mormons defensive and feed their persecution complex.
• It’s hard when you talk with more than one Mormon at a time. Sometimes one of them will throw you a question but another will throw another at you without giving you a chance to answer the first. Also, if you go in alone, you don’t have the time to look up Bible passages to support yourself whereas they do.
• Watch out when they pull out the old “Flirt-to-Convert” technique. It’s just dirty and sin-causing.

Christians often talk ask friends how their spiritual health is - it’s a fancy way of saying is there anything relating to your faith that is troubling you. Many religions believe that the people who do not share the same beliefs will suffer a spiritual death, namely eternity in Hell.

Is there such a thing as spiritual triage? If there is, is it appropriate? Anyway, I was thinking about medical triage. From watching television, I thought there were just four categories:

• Dead: There is nothing that can be done.
• Absolutely urgent: If nothing is done soon, the person will die.
• Relatively urgent: For the time being the person will not die but will if ignored.
• Walking wounded: The peson is not going to die but still needs medical attention.

You’re probably wondering if I have a point to make! What sort of response is it when a doctor knows someone is going to die but tells them to go home and do something before they can save you? Thus, what sort of response do you think it is when someone tells another to go home and just read their spiritual book of choice first?

It was a pretty short talk. I turned up late and they had to finish earlier so we were only together for about 45 minutes.

Things weren’t that passionate tonight. On my side of the fence, I didn’t prepare enough. While I did read the whole chapter of the verse they asked me to read and spent time preparing an argument of how it was inconsistent with the Bible, I didn’t pray enough this week. I also should have been more punctual.

Tonight, “A” chose the hymn to sing and it was about how we can bring our whole family to church and the hope of marrying within the temple. In some ways, I’m amazed. I’m still not 100% sure what a Christian family is like, if it is meant to be closer than our biological family. So maybe the “other side” sensed that need in me for family. I’m even more concerned that the hymn focused upon marriage and was chosen by a woman. It also made me wonder if there is a role for single people within the Mormon church.

I watched a speech by one of the Mormon “apostles” on a DVD. I wasn’t that impressed because his voice was very monotonous and at first it really reminded me of the speech synthesis machine used by Stephen Hawking. He didn’t seem that emotional during his testimony of how he came to the Mormon faith, even when talking about how he felt he was the happiest boy in the world. Like many Mormons, he came to faith by praying to “God” to ask if this was the truth faith and he was filled with revelation. He also spoke a bit about the feeling of family. The bulk of his speech was about doing good works and didn’t really make a lasting impression upon my memory.

Overall, I think the Mormons focused upon the common things that we believe in tonight. I’m fairly sure this is a common Mormon tactic.

I was asked if I had prayed to God about whether the book of Mormon was true. I have and had no revelation. I wonder if people who do pray like that to any God, receive a “revelation” because they are already pre-disposed to it by other feelings. One of the Elders briefly showed me a passage from the New Testament that dealt with false prophets and Paul writes that he had direct revelation of the Gospel. The Elder said we all can have revelation. I wasn’t sure how to rebutt that.

Anyway, at the end, I said that they still haven’t explained why there is a need for more revelation than the Bible. I explained that we already have all we need about what offends God and cited pornography as an example of how we can tell God’s opinion even in new situations.

A few weeks ago, during one of Sydney’s unseasonally seasonal Summer rain periods, I was walking along George Street, happy with my purchasing of the latest Cat Power album when a couple of Mormons approached me.

I was pretty grumpy from the weather (and in general) and just gave them my phone number, rather than talk to them on the wet street.

The week after that, I had lunch with two of them. It was a pretty good discussion. In the past, I’ve found that it can be hard to talk to Mormons because they are trained to be able to talk all day… and I mean, all day. I just have conversations with my team leader at work about music but that’s not all day. I think food really helps because it relaxes people and people need to stop talking when eating. At the end of lunch, they asked me if I wanted to keep talking to them and I said yes.

I wasn’t actually expect them to call me back. I assumed that once they knew I was a regular church attending Christian, they’d leave me alone. They did call me back and invited me to talk to them again but at their headquarters. Last week, I met with a different set of Mormons. There were two Elders and two dressed in casual clothing, who were in Australia just to study. The two casually dressed Mormons didn’t say anything after introducing themselves. I found it a little intimidating at first that I was in this small room with the door closed.

I really enjoyed this discussion. It reminded me of things I truly believe. It also puzzled me where they brought up things that were foreign to me and were not from the Bible.

Over two hours, we talked about a lot of things. I can’t remember them all. Key areas of discussion were:

• Grace that I believe has been freely given to us and different types of faith
• Their belief that mankind has been waiting for Jesus Christ to bring salvation since Creation

They gave me another pamphlet and invited me back for the next week.

One thing I’m really amused by is a Christian friend’s comment that they started off with two people talking to me then went to four and would next bring out a lecture theatre full of Mormons to argue with me!

Well, I’m blogging this because I probably should debrief with someone (Al, we can talk about this on Sunday; Lawry, you can call me, meet up or send me a Facebook message) and it’s good to write down things as soon as possible. Unfortunately, I really can’t remember it all. I don’t actually take notes.

Tonight, the Elders from last week came but they brought a blonde nice-smelling female Mormon. That was distracting. I kept thinking that she’s so strong in her belief but they are incorrect beliefs! It’s a pity that she’s not a Christian and married to a nice Christian guy.

Tonight, I started discussion were what I see as inconsistencies between the Old Testament and the Book of Mormon.

Here’s the BOM’s 2 Nephi 2:22-23 (“And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end. And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin.”)

Compare it with Genesis Chaper 1 where many things are clear about life on Earth before the Fall of Man. The Bible states seven times that what God had created was “good” (six occurrences of “it was good” and the final is “it was very good”). God also clearly created the humans, animals and plant life to be able to reproduce. What’s the point of God instructing humans to replenish the world if they didn’t have the means to? I can’t really remember their response but it was something about how can you know joy or misery if you’ve never experienced anything else.

Their belief that people existed as spirit children with God in the spirit world before we were born is bizarre. If mankind was existing with God, we must have been perfect but they say that God wanted us to experience and learn more. Furthermore, they seem very Gnostic by saying that the spirit isn’t evil but the flesh is. Yet, Gnosticism was one of the threats to the early church that St Paul had to defend against.

We briefly touched upon Grace again and how it’s never enough with them.

Anyway, it’s getting really late. I should go to bed.

The Sydney Morning Herald today has two stories that can best be summed up as “Wow! Malekind has really fallen short of the way God wanted us to live and relate to women”.

Story 1: Man marries dog (article

This story has everything except discussion of bestiality (it’s got false religions, dodgy religious advice and questionable relationships between man and beast). In summary, an Indian man stoned two dogs to death 15 years ago and is convinced his disabilities have been punishment for that. So he consults an astrology who tells him to marry a female dog. The man marries the dog in a traditional Hindu ceremony.

Sadly, the article also doesn’t mention the astrology’s “logic” for this.

For some reason, I couldn’t help but think of the New Testament story of the woman who had been bleeding for many years and tried everything.(Mark 5:25-34) I bet this guy isn’t healed.

Story 2: Mormon men strip for faith (article)

In summary, a group of Mormon men have stripped for a beefcake calendar.

According to Chad Hardy, the producer and co-founder of Mormons Exposed who created the calendar, it “is intended to help debunk common misperceptions and dispel some myths about the Mormon religion - encouraging people of every belief system to be more tolerant of one another.”

“Tollerance”. Strange words from a faith that declared that all other churches were false teachers.

Anyway, what the hell is going on here? It’s pretty clear in the New Testament about Jesus’ opinion on lust. (Matthew 5:28)… So what makes them think that reverse sexism/objectification is okay?

Well, Belinda Emmett died at the age of 32 on the weekend from breast cancer. She’s most famous for her courage in marrying annoying git Rove McManus but also was a second rate soapie actress/singer. The Australian media was too busy reporting this instead of the death of Jack Palance.

A friend said “Perhaps God doesn’t exist” because He took her instead of Rove. Yesterday, Rove announced that he would go on hiatus for the rest of the year. God works in mysterious ways, indeed.

Anyway, I couldn’t believe Emmett was in a classically bad-but-good Australian series “Hey Dad..!” but only in the final season.

Subsequently, that made me think of the Australian television folklore of “the little fat kid from Hey Dad..!”, who was played by Matthew Krok. I can’t believe he became a Mormon missionary!