re lds rick s reply in article c kdzk acsu buffalo edu psyrobtw ubvmsd cc buffalo edu robert weiss says just briefly on something that you mentioned in passing you refer to differing interpretations of create and say that many christians may not agree so what that is really irrelevant we do not base our faith on how many people think one way or another do we the bottom line is truth regardless of popularity of opinions i m sorry i thought we were discussing heresy i assumed that heresy meant a departure from orthodoxy in which case generally accepted belief is indeed an important issue in this case the definition of the word create is of great importance since creation is the issue being discussed also i find it rather strange that in trying to persuade that created and eternally existent are equivalent you say granted the mormon belief you can t grant your conclusion and then expect the point to have been addressed in order to reply to the issue you have to address and answer the point that was raised and not just jump to the conclusion that you grant i should have said given the mormon belief if you disagree with the mormon belief that creation is more a function of organization of eternally existent substance than one of ex nihilo creation then that is the important point the bible states that lucifer was created the bible states that jesus is the creator of all the contradiction that we have is that the lds belief is that jesus and lucifer were the same correction you interpret the bible to mean something very specific by such terms the mormon belief is that all are children of god literally there is nothing symbolic about it this however contradicts what the bible says the bible teaches that not everyone is a child of god it always cracks me up when anti mormons presume to tell mormons what they believe mormons do in fact believe that all people including christ and lucifer are children of god in the sense that we were all created or organized or whatever by him we also believe that being offspring of god has a symbolic sense when applied to being spiritually born again of him thus the same word can be used to convey different meanings this is how language works robert and it s why making someone an offender for a word is dangerous this is really a red herring it doesn t address any issue raised but rather it seeks to obfuscate the fact that some groups try to read something into the bible doesn t change what the bible teaches for we first look to the bible to see what it teaches to discount or not even address what the bible teaches because there are some groups that have differing views is self defeating to see what the bible teaches you have to look at the bible on the contrary robert it is not a red herring at all to show that those who rely wholly on the bible cannot seem to agree on what it says you say that one must simply look at the bible to see what it teaches but centuries of people doing just that have sho wn that no one is really sure what it says are we to believe that you are the only one who really understands the scriptures i find this rather curious when i mentioned that the mormon belief is that jesus needed to be saved i put forward some quotes from the late apostle bruce mcconkie the curious part is that no one addressed the issue of jesus needing to be saved rick comes the closest with his i have my own conclusions to addressing the point let me clarify this one more time you did not refer to the mormon belief that jesus needed to be saved but rather to mcconkie s belief in same we keep trying to point out to you that bruce mcconkie is not the source of mormon doctrine and you keep ignoring it see below most of the other replies have instead hop scotched to the issue of bruce mcconkie and whether his views were official doctrine i don t think that it matters if mcconkie s views were canon that is not the issue were mcconkie s writings indicative of mormon belief on this subject is the real issue the indication from rick is that they may certainly be on the contrary robert if you are quoting mcconkie s words as mormon canon then the question of whether they are canon or not is of great importance the fact is that they are not whether or not they indicate general mormon belief would only be ascertainable by interviewing a large number of mormons robert weiss psyrobtw ubvms cc buffalo edu rick anderson librba byuvm bitnet
