Mormons are Christians

I a sorry to see you were unable to respond. I would however like to use this closing round to address some things about the Mormon faith that I find concerning and also confirms my reasoning for not believing it to be the same as the Christian faith. The Book of Mormon is "another testament of Jesus Christ" where in, the introduction it states, "The book was written by many ancient prophets by the spirit of prophecy and revelation". Let's quickly break this down. The definition of a prophet is a person who is called upon by God to be Gods spokesperson. In other words this person is essentially the voice of God, on issues of the past present and future. This is an extremely delicate roll and should not be taken lightly as I'm sure you imagine, due to the weight of responsibility. Now understanding the responsibility of this role here should be some way in which we can test a prophet to be a true prophet or not, or else anyone can be running around claiming God said this, and that and taking advantage of Him. We can find such a test in Deuteronomy 18:22 "If the prophet speaks in the Lords name but his prediction does not happen or come to pass, you will know that The Lord did not give the message. That prophet has spoken without my authority and need not be feared." In the same chapter a verses earlier the Bible even talks about if a false prophet comes to you and try's to pull you away from God you have the authority to kill him. So we can draw a couple of conclusions. 1. God has provided a simple way to test a prophet. 2. To wear the mantle of a prophet you will be expected to pass this test. 3. God does not look kindly to a false prophet because they claim e authority to be the word of God, thusly when speaking with that authority, and it is not e word of God it is misleading and guides people away from The Lord. With that in mind I would like to look at a couple of the prophets in the Book of Mormon. In the book 1 Nephi chapter 13 the introduction states "Nephi sees in a vision the church of the church of the devil set up among the Gentiles, the discovery and colonizing of America, the loss of many plain and precious parts of the Bible..". The book goes on to explain this in verse number 26. "And after they go forth by the hand of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, from the Jews unto the Gentiles, thou seest the formation of that great and abominable church, which is most abominable above all other churches; for behold, they have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away." Lets see if we can test this to the best of our ability. Nephi puts it quite simply. There are things in the Bible, that once it leaves the apostles hands, they will go missing. Things that were originally there, are no longer going to be there. We have in our posesion today over, 24,000 New Testament Manuscripts that are 99.5% pure. http://carm.org... This is one of the many resources to look at when supporting this thinking. The .5% that has changed is nothing more then puncuations, conjunctions, and things like "However" being changed into "but". On that website you will also find the evidence of the "oldest extant New Testament manuscripts compared to when they were originally penned." These are all things that we can see today, should we have the resources to get to them. Completely tangible. There are hundreds of resources that we can use to prove that, what the new testament says in the Bible we have today, is exactly what was originally written 2,000 years ago. Completely preserved, and we have the evidence to show it. It would appear at this moment, that Nephi has in fact made a prophecy that after being tested, showing it to be incorrect, can biblically be labeled as a false prophet. If we look at another prophet, Alma and what he said in 7:10 "And behold, he shall be born of Mary, at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers, she being a virgin, a precious and chosen vessel, who shall be overshadowed and conceive by the power of the Holy Ghost, and bring forth a son, yea, even the Son of God." Can we say that Alma just made a mistake? No, because since this is a "prophecy" this is the Word of God and God cannot make a mistake. You might argue that Jerusalem is only 6 miles away from Bethlehem, but it would make me wonder, why would God tell Micah the exact location, and only make things complicated for Alma? That seems to be wildly out of character for God. If you are asking any Archaeologist, they would tell you that, Bethlehem is Bethlehem and Jerusalem is Jerusalem. Based on the test that God gave us, a very simple one, we have to come to the honest conclusion that Alma, has to be labeled as a false prophet. This person as the Bible would tell us, "has spoken without my authority and need not be feared.". Lets take one last look at the prophet, Joseph Smith. Doctrine and Covenants 84:2-5 "2 Yea, the word of the Lord concerning his church, established in the last days for the restoration of his people, as he has spoken by the mouth of his prophets, and for the gathering of his saints to stand upon Mount Zion, which shall be the city of New Jerusalem. 3 Which city shall be built, beginning at the temple lot, which is appointed by the finger of the Lord, in the western boundaries of the State of Missouri, and dedicated by the hand of Joseph Smith, Jun., and others with whom the Lord was well pleased. 4 Verily this is the word of the Lord, that the city New Jerusalem shall be built by the gathering of the saints, beginning at this place, even the place of the temple, which temple shall be reared in this generation. 5 For verily this generation shall not all pass away until an house shall be built unto the Lord, and a cloud shall rest upon it, which cloud shall be even the glory of the Lord, which shall fill the house." We know that this temple was to be built up in Independence Missouri. http://en.wikipedia.org... It's very simple and easy to see that, there is no temple that is built at the exact spot that Joseph Smith said it would. Joseph Smith said that this temple would be brought up, in "this" generation and it was so clearly not. Could this be dismissed as a mistake? We cant look at it like that, based on what I previously said so we have to mark this as a prophecy that did not come to pass, and based on what the bible says, "That prophet has spoken without my authority and need not be feared.". My friend, I do not take the Book of Mormon, as the true word of God because the evidence so clearly points the other way. I cannot claim Joseph Smith to be prophet of God because the evidence so clearly points the other way. It is so interesting that the there is nothing to back to Book of Mormon up with, in the Bible. It is suppose to be coming from the same God, but the character of Jesus in the BoM is so vastly different then the God of the Bible. I want to encourage you to look into what I have shared. There is a true living God and His name is Jesus. He is the same God that spoke the world into existence and He is the same God that knitted you in your mothers womb. He came down, sacrificed His life, and shed His blood with you in mind. I can't stress enough, how desperate He is to know each one of us, and we don't get in relation with Him based on what we do but simply on accepting Him as Lord and accepting the free gift that is grace. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I have. Thank you for taking a few days to do this with me and I hope to meet you on here again soon!