Mormonism is as valid a Christian form as any other Christian sect.

I will label my arguments according to the numerical ordering of Pro's rebuttals in the above round despite extra, somewhat unrelated content in each section. 1. Pro first affirms that I was correct in stating that the Mormons do indeed claim that the Bible is not reliable nor the inerrant word of God. He goes on to point out a few examples of where the Bible contradicts itself or has been mistranslated. This presentation of contradictory and mistranslated scriptures is futile, as his overall argument here does not make any sense. He presents what he thinks is evidence that the Bible is mistranslated, but whether or not the Bible really has been mistranslated or not is simply not the issue. The issue is whether or not Mormons affirm that the Bible has been mistranslated. Pro and I have made it abundantly clear that this is, in fact, the case. How can Mormons claim that they believe in the teachings of Jesus just like everyone else, but simultaneously deny that anything in the Bible is completely accurate? This is equivalent to reading the encyclopedia, telling your friend that you agree with and believe everything the encyclopedia says about a given topic, but at the same time denying that the encyclopedia is accurate concerning this same topic. It simply doesn't make sense. Similarly, Mormons can't claim they agree with all of Jesus's teachings, tell Christianity at large that they do, and simultaneously claim that the Bible (the only source common to both Christianity and Mormonism which contains Christ's teachings) is inaccurate. Pro's next contention essentially says: "Protestants are considered Christian and they, too, have made major alterations to the Bible. Therefore, Mormons can be considered Christian even though they have made alterations to the Bible." As Pro says, Protestant versions of the Bible (including the King James Version) are missing 7 books that the Catholics include: Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (or Ecclesaisticus) and Baruch. However, each and every one of these books was included in the Old Testament. (1) As such, they don't contain Christ's teachings, Protestants hold to the same set of Christ's teachings as Christianity at large, including the Catholic Church, and no infringement has been made by either dogma to our established definition of Christianity. Next, Pro provides a couple examples of where the Bible has been translated differently. However, both examples Pro provides are such minor changes that they do nothing to change any teachings of Christ in the New Testament. Furthermore, we can be sure that current New Testament translations (which contain the teachings of Christ) are accurate because "there are tens of thousands of manuscripts (about 24,000 to be precise) from the New Testament, in part or in whole, dating from the second century A.D. to the late fifteenth century. These manuscripts have been found in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Greece, and Italy." 99.5% of all the text in each of these 24,000 ancient manuscripts agrees with one another. In contrast, only 643 copies of the Iliad have been found and agree with one another in only 95% of the text. (3) "Thousands of early Christian writings and lexionaries (first and second century) cite verses from the New Testament. In fact, it is nearly possible to put together the entire New Testament just from early Christian writings." (2) Due to our vast collection of ancient New Testament manuscripts and their mutually affirmed validity, scholars have confirmed that our current Bibles do not deviate from their predecessors. As such, any changes to the New Testament text, such as those made by Mormonism in the Inspired Version of the Bible and its Joseph Smith Translation are completely arbitrary and do not at all reflect what the original text actually said. 2. Pro next claims that the RLDS Church possesses both the original manuscripts and the copyright for the Inspired Version of the Bible and that this is why the LDS Church does not use it. However, there have been two editions of the Inspired Version published by the RLDS Church: one in 1867 and another in 1944. Unfortunately for Pro's argument, the first edition, published in 1867, is now public domain due to the United States declaring that all copyrights prior to 1923 have expired. (4) Should the LDS Church desire, could easily and legally be used for its own purposes. Bruce R. McConkie, a former LDS apostle and prominent church leader, once that the Inspired Version "is a thousand times over the best Bible now existing on earth." (5) If this is the case, we simply MUST question why the LDS Church doesn't jump on the opportunity to publish the public domain Inspired Version. Again, this gives the idea that the Church doesn't take its founder and his version of the Bible very seriously. 3. Finally, Pro attempts to undermine my argument that, because Mormons and Christians teach fundamentally different versions of Christ's teachings, they cannot both be Christian. Pro first provides differences in sources of doctrine and interpretations of The Trinity between denominations. However, none of the interpreted Pro has listed modify or contradict the teachings of Christ as Mormonism does. This is because they are just that: interpretations. Let's let the dictionary define the difference for us: Interpret: To explain the meaning of (6) Modify: To change in form or character; alter. (7) Mormonism most definitely modifies Christ's teachings fit its own theology. For example Matthew 23:39 in the King James Version of the Bible (8) reads in stark contrast to the Joseph Smith-Matthew version of Matthew 23:39 (9) which doubles the size of the original verse and adds doctrine. As such, Pro's suggestion that different interpretations of Christ's teachings put other denominations of Christianity on the same level of Mormonism in terms of Christ's teachings is false. Under our definition of Christianity and Christians, different interpretations of what Christ has said in the Bible are allowable. Modifications to what Christ actually says are not, because this fundamentally alters the teachings of Christ in the Bible, which, as previously discussed, are completely reliable. In summary, Mormons claim that the Bible is permeated with errors, but also claim that they agree with Christ's teachings as presented in the Bible. However, it is logically contradictory for one to state they agree with Christ's teachings in the Bible, and are thus Christian by definition, while simultaneously claiming that the Bible, the source of Christ's teachings, is full of errors that they do not agree with. Further, Protestants have not altered Christ's teachings and the idea that the Bible cannot be relied upon and that there are excessive mistakes is completely false. Secondly, the Church IS able to use the Inspired Version of the Bible because it has been declared public domain. Finally, Mormonism does not fit our established definition of Christian because they MODIFY the teachings of Christ whereas other religions, which are considered Christian, only make different interpretations of Christ's existing and reliable teachings. Thus, both Mormons and Christianity at large cannot both fall under our established definition of Christian. (1)http://www.nationalbible.org... (2)http://www.godandscience.org... (3)http://www.amazon.com... (4)http://copyright.cornell.edu... (5)http://www.lds.org... (6)http://www.thefreedictionary.com... (7)http://www.thefreedictionary.com... (8)http://scriptures.lds.org... (9)http://scriptures.lds.or...