Contending For the Truth That The LDS Deserve
GOD’S WORD:
“Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar.” -Proverbs 30:5-6
“This is what the Lord says- Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty: I am the first and the last; apart from me there is no God.” -Isaiah 44:6
“But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!” -Galatians 1:8
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is a gift of God- not by works so that no man can boast.” -Ephesians 2:8-9
“God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth.” -John 4:24
"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." -John 14:6
"The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower." -Psalms 18:2
JOSEPH SMITH’S WORD:
"I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book." -History of the Church, Vol. 4, p. 461
“I will preach on the plurality of Gods. I have selected this text for that express purpose. I wish to declare I have always and in all congregations when I have preached on the subject of the Deity, it has been the plurality of Gods. It has been preached by the Elders for fifteen years.I have always declared God to be a distinct personage, Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the Father, and that the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage and a Spirit: and these three constitute three distinct personages and three Gods. If this is in accordance with the New Testament, lo and behold! we have three Gods anyhow, and they are plural: and who can contradict it!” -History of The Church Vol. 6 p. 473-479
"The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's; the Son also, but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit. Were it not so the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us." -Doctrine and Covenants 130:22
“You have got to learn to become Gods yourselves, the same as all Gods before you have done.” -Teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith p. 355
"...no man or woman in this dispensation will ever enter into the celestial kingdom of God without the consent of Joseph Smith." -Journal of Discourses Vol. 7 pp. 282-91
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ,
Please hold fast to God’s word and rebuke these false teachings of Joseph Smith.We are on your side, contending for the truth of God’s word that you deserve!!
Galatians 4:16
Please hold fast to God’s word and rebuke these false teachings of Joseph Smith.We are on your side, contending for the truth of God’s word that you deserve!!
Galatians 4:16
posted by Eric Hoffman @ 8:54 PM
12 comments
12 Comments:
Hello Mr. Hoffman,
I will present a simple syllogism.
1)"Every word of God is flawless"
2)The bible contains errors and contradictions.
Conclusion:
The bible is not the word of God.
Sorry, Mr. Hoffman, but welcome to reality.
Simon
Simon,
Care to openly and honestly challenge me on that in a structured formatted debate on the podcast?
Jesus loves you Simon...
In His name...
-Eric
Eric, I am shocked to read this bible verse you quoted on the front page of your blog.
"My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you." -Job 42:5
Also, Jacob, this bloody liar (wrath will be upon him) said:
Gen 32:30 "And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved."
And oh mighty, read this pagan's words:
Jdg 13:22 "And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God."
So do you think the people in the bible lie? I don't think so.
Yet, they contradict your false Messiah.
Jhn 1:18 "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared [him]."
Jesus contradicts the scriptures. Therefore, he was a false prophet and not the son of God! He had to die because he was blasphemous.
Moreover, his prophecy that he would return in the very generation was false, because he is gone now for 2000 years, and about 2000/30 generations have gone by since.
FALSE PROPHET!
FALSE SCRIPTURE!
FALSE GOD!
Eric, you know that you deserve to be stoned for your idolatry and blasphemy. You deny the scripture!
Joshua.
Eric,
before we debate about the errors in the bible, I think there is still a podcast to be done about the church you belong to and the false prophecies etc. of your church leader, right?
I think you tried to avoid that topic since the founding of this blog.
If you are done with that episode, maybe I will debate with you concerning the bible.
Joshua,
You must be a Muslim?
Calvary has nothing to do with this post. Your are trying to create a smoke screen. Come on the podcast and we can discuss Calvary chapel as well.
You are the one who has a problem with me and Calvary. I think it would be to your advantage to cover any Calvary topics I might miss.
Agreed?
In Him,
-Eric
(801) 938-6763
So Eric,
who is right, Jesus or the three quotes of the old testament, or none of them.
Don't try to avoid the truth by reverting to
"Which religion are you?"
"Are you LDS?"
"Are you catholic?"
"Are you muslim?"
You only ask this in order to get away from the embarrassing topics.
But you can't play this trick on me, Eric.
Your bible is a bunch of lies.
Joshua.
Joshua,
if you are so secure in this conlclusion then why are you here adding your comments? I did not seek you out. You sought me. Why dont you join the previous commenter in an phone conversation with me?
What do you say? Are you willing to discuss this like grown men over the phone?
Jesus love yous my friend...
-Eric
Hello Eric,
I have just stumbled upon your blog and podcast.
Recently, I have read a bit about Mormonism, because I have seen an interesting movie about Mormon missionaries (the movie is called "Latter Days").
Reading your last post, some thoughts came to my mind:
You contrast "God's Word" and "Joseph Smith's word".
By doing this, you make some very big assumptions:
1) that the bible is God's word.
2) that God did not speak to Joseph Smith.
What do you base your assumptions on?
If you take a more global look at religion, you will find tons of holy scriptures.
- The bible
- The Torah
- The old testament canon
- The Quran
- The Buddhist sutras
a) Theravada sutras called the Pali canon
b) Many different Mahayana sutras.
- Jain texts
- Gnostic texts
- The vedas
- Texts about the Greek gods
I could continue this list to fill page after page. So there are thousands of holy writings, and you just choose one of them, while rejecting all others.
All these scriptures are based on people's experience.
So by choosing one scripture, you claim that the authors of that particular scripture had "right experiences", while all other people had "wrong experiences".
The people having "wrong experiences" include
-Joseph Smith
- Muhammed
- The Buddha
- Mahavira
- All authors of Mahayana sutras
- many people diverging from traditional Christian theology
As the book "Nathan the Wise" by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing points out, we mostly trust our ancestors and their experience.
Therefore, Jews were taught the roots of their tradition, Muslims the roots of their tradition, Buddhists the root of their tradition, and almost everyone simply accepts his/her parents' tradition.
Thus, we trust the experience of our parents more than that of a foreigner.
The legitimacy of your claims all base on somebody else's experience, on people you don't know, from a time far away.
How can you be so sure that you trust the only people who had "right experience" while everyone else had "wrong experience"?
My quotation marks indicate that I don't accept such categories as right or wrong concerning one's experience.
As you seem to ask everyone what his belief is, I come from the Theravada Buddhist tradition, that is, my "holy scripture" is the Pali canon, although I don't reject any other book if it contains wisdom, be it the Mahayana sutras, the bible, the book of Mormon, sutras from the Jains or any other text.
And here is the reason:
All those texts are based on people's experience. How can we condemn their experience?
We might be of different opinion, but we can't judge their experience. I have found many interesting texts and many similarities in the bible with regard to the Buddhist writings, and I think that below the superficial doctrine of a personal God (who never speaks to you but only to people of the past!), you also believe in the law of nature, the Dhamma.
Maybe you could explain to the readers why you accept someone's experience (the bible authors'), but reject others' experiences.
Greets, Christoph.
Christoph,
first off, forgive me of my extreme skeptism, but I have a feeling you have posted here under many different names posing your views in different ways. The term you ended your post with "Greets" is following a similar critics pattern.
But none the less, if your questions is sincere, then it is a good question that deserves an answer because I respect the honest skeptic.
I reject all other writings for these reasons:
1) Jesus said so.
2) The proof of the biblical texts is overwhelming.
3) The imperical evidence for the accounts in the Bible are overwhelming.
3) The lack of evidence that is found in the writings of the Koran and Buddhist writings and the Book of Mormon.
3) The other writings contain countless references where man can be his own glory.
4) The countless contridictions in the Book of Mormon, and Koran.
Does this answer your question? It seems to me that your over all statement seems to point that there is no ABSOLUTE TRUTH and all views are valid and contain truth...Am I correct in this conclusion?
God Bless you Christoph...
-Eric
Hello Eric,
I have not read many articles and comments because they are quite long.
So I don't know if some other people share my opinion.
As to the phrase "greets", I thought it was a common way of ending a post, so I also used it.
Cf. the following links where people use this phrase:
https://beta.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=30995845&postID=1452750148919804786
https://beta.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8622438097218550892&postID=1806641780389890287&isPopup=true
https://beta.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=20130462&postID=114664270803254650
https://beta.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14332934&postID=112257300670043969
But maybe its rather German slang than American English.
Thank you for your answer.
First of all another question:
Have you read all scriptures, or at least the most important ones?
Have you read the Quran, the Vedas and the Buddhist sutras? If not, how can you make a valid conclusion about all of them?
Now I will address your answers:
1) Jesus said so.
The problem about this statement is that Jesus said so ONLY IN THE BIBLE. Therefore, it is a circular argument.
2) The proof of the biblical texts is overwhelming.
To be honest, I am rather sceptic. From what I know, there are many problems with the bible and its historicity. Around last Christmas, there was a documentary about what archaeologists and historians think about the bible, and they said that many stories are not historical, including the conservative timeline (Young Earth Theory), the creation, the flood, the exodus, the census and other stories.
3) The imperical evidence for the accounts in the Bible are overwhelming.
Hmm, I thought you are a native English speaker. Isn't it "empirical" ? That's called a Freudian Slip, isn't it?
3) The lack of evidence that is found in the writings of the Koran and Buddhist writings and the Book of Mormon.
What do you mean by "evidence"?
I can only speak for the buddhist writings, but all places mentioned in the Sutras do exist, and there exists evidence that they are genuine.
3) The other writings contain countless references where man can be his own glory.
Which only is a bad thing on the basis of your belief, which again is based on your scripture.
Again circular reasoning.
4) The countless contridictions in the Book of Mormon, and Koran.
These are probably due to the process of creation, where errors might slip in, as it happened in the bible and the sutras as well.
your over all statement seems to point that there is no ABSOLUTE TRUTH and all views are valid and contain truth...Am I correct in this conclusion?
The problem is not that there is no absolute truth, but that your approach to truth, namely choosing the scriptures the ancestors of your culture wrote, is not a valid way to obtain truth.
You simply trust the experience of one scripture but refute the experience other people made.
Don't you see the danger in that?
Isn't there a great chance to choose the wrong?
Looking forward to your answer.
Christoph.
Christoph,
This is what I will no longer do. You seem to have your mind already made up concerning the accuracy and reliability of God’s word. If want to argue/debate I am more than willing to do it...just not here on the blog. The posts are left open for commenters to share their thoughts and concerns. Which you have partly done, but more so to the objection that I have no ground to stand on concerning the Bible’s reliability. If this is you stance then you should also address the Buddhists, Muslims, the Mormons, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Catholics, and the Hindus, because the all claim exclusivity. You also addressed your comment in the form of a question rather than comment.
Regardless of all that I have said, you are welcome to debate me on the issue in another format. You can call me or join the forum...do either of these interest you?
Grace and Peace to you…
-Eric
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