From: geb@cs.pitt.edu (Gordon Banks)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Anthony Rose; answering ----------->   Gordon
Date: 14 Dec 92 18:08:44 GMT
Reply-To: geb@cs.pitt.edu (Gordon Banks)
Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh Computer Science

In article <faTa02=K2djJ01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> agr00@juts.ccc.amdahl.com (TONY ROSE) writes:
>manner.  Are you ignoring them simply because you can't answer or deal
>with it?  You wrote off the whole Joseph Smith speach as "his sense of
>humor".  I guess that is a good way to deal with something that there are
>no answers for.  But you know, there is another way to deal with it!
>You can accept it for what it is!  FALSE!  Instead of writing it off, you
>could study it and come to the true conclusion:  Joseph Smith was a false
>prophet, started a long line of false prophets, and today, that false
>church has a false prophet simply because of the succession.
>
First, you didn't quote but a tiny snippet of the King Follett Discourse,
not the "whole speach <sic>".  I consider it a wonderful speech, and
value it beyond any of Paul's Epistles for theology, if you really
want to know what I think!  If you want to type it in, we can deal
with it.  It wasn't on the Trinity, but on the fact that God and
man are the same kind and species.  That is a more radical idea
than you have been criticizing anyhow, is it not?

>Gordon, when I get a letter like this one you have answered with, I can
>see that you cannot deal with these matters.  From here you can do two
>things.  You can ignore them and write them off, as you seem to be doing,
>or you can accept them for what they are, turn to the True Jesus Christ
>and accept Him as you personal Savior.  He then will show you the Truth.

Again, I find you incredibly arrogant and presumptuous.  Let me turn
that around and say "Tony, you can quit your false beliefs are turn
to the True Jesus Christ and accept Him as your personal Savior."
And what do you say to that?  And where does this get us?  Sheesh!

>This is the choice that you have to make now Gordon.  Other Mormons have
>faced the truth of these things and have accepted Jesus as their
>personal Savior.  Today they KNOW that they are saved! That is one thing
>that you can't say as a Mormon.  

I'm afraid you just don't speak my language, Tony.  First of all,
Mormons believe in a universal salvation where only a tiny few
are not saved.  Second, my interest in religion has nothing to do
with my wanting to be saved.  I know you probably find this almost
incredible to believe from your perspective, but it is really
true.  Third, I do accept the atonement of the
Savior most readily.  But I find it somewhat offensive that you think that
someone could reach out to Jesus, accept his atonement, and 
be rejected because of some theological error in their belief
about His nature.  I really don't think Jesus was the kind of
person who would insist upon rigorous correctness of belief of
those who ask him for help.  I'm sorry you do.  Fortunately,
I am as certain as can be that you are wrong, so those you so
readily would send to hell need fear nothing.

-- 
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Gordon Banks  N3JXP      | "I have given you an argument; I am not obliged
geb@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu   |  to supply you with an understanding." -S.Johnson
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Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc