Originally Posted by Indy Coug (Post 233331)

I think Sooner has already established he is a religion unto himself.

Originally Posted by Indy Coug (Post 233331)

I think Sooner has already established he is a religion unto himself.

Originally Posted by MudphudCoug (Post 233336)

Whatever. I freaking love Mormonism. Someone told me once that a graduate student on campus referred to me (behind my back) as a "hard core Mormon guy."

My goal is to find a happy medium. As I see things, this means that I should have Tex and Indy think that I'm an apostate while non-Mormons consider me to be devout.

Originally Posted by Indy Coug (Post 233342)

Simple. You put on one face there and another face here. :)

Originally Posted by splitbamboo (Post 233308)

I'm not sure where you're going with this, but I'll add something.

Yesterday my wife and children went to the funeral of the brother of my sister-in-law (yeah, she bailed me out again).

Anyway, the Baptist minister preaches salvation by grace. The dead guy professed a belief in Christ once upon a time and now he's saved, taking harp lessons.

To take this further, adding insult to injury, the minister goes on about the spirituality of the deceased and family. We're not sure where the minister even came from. We're sure the family hasn't stepped into Church in years. My brother left the Church (any church) behind when he left home after high school. That was 32 years ago.

My wife (as an overworked and underpaid wife, mother of six, and RS president), is now thinking it's time to make a switch (so to speak). She says, "what's with this works stuff if we can get in with just a professed belief?" She wants to know where this works stuff comes from. I quote the typical James stuff and she asks why the two thoughts (works vs. grace) She says this is stupid. And why'd we get saddled with the works option?

I didn't have any good answers but I'd love to give away my four year old primary class (the hardest calling I've ever had and that's with just four students and a team teacher). My guess is that it's not going to happen anytime soon...

Originally Posted by BlueK (Post 233397)

Maybe it's my LDS upbringing, but the born again philosophy on salvation makes zero sense to me. I don't see how a just God sends some very few lucky souls to heaven who happen to know they're supposed to say a specific prayer or only have a passive belief in the nicene creed version of God (and no other version), while anyone else who either doesn't know what the formula is or believes in another version of God, like the LDS, automatically goes to hell, no questions asked and no matter what they did in life.

Originally Posted by il Padrino Ute (Post 233405)

I'll take it a step further and comment that it seems the born again view on salvation accepts death bed repentance as a valid way to enter heaven.

IMO, that is rather ridiculous.

Of course, perhaps born agains don't really believe it and I just don't understand their belief on it.

Originally Posted by BlueK (Post 233408)

One coworker I had soon after the Tsunami hit SE Asia was a very devout Christian and definitely believed most of the people who died were not saved because the percentage of Christians in those countries is pretty low. I think he felt sad about that idea, but it was definitely what he believed. I don't think that's uncommon among the more hard core evangelicals. The problem is their theology makes no provision for those who don't know to believe in Christ. We're all sinners, and the only way to heaven is through belief in Christ. So everyone else is toast. If you want to be a biblical literalist, the Calvinist idea actually makes the best argument. If it really is only about grace, then saying a prayer or trying to have faith is not relevant either, since God can decide to accept you or reject you. Otherwise you do believe in certain works.

What really seems unfair to me about that is that God would provide a savior who is only going to be able to save a very small percentage of those who have lived on earth. Most born agains I know either don't want to address that question and prefer not to think about it. A few, (and usually the hard core anti mormons come from this camp) have no problem with believing that only a select few get to go to heaven.