Nope. That's just Hamby attempting a "trick of language" to suit his agenda.

Who is a Christian is a more amusing question than who is a Jew. If we go by some models there can be atheist Christians.

Richard Dawkins, the THE himself, says that is what he is.

Go figure.

Because from what I recall Mormon's have their own book, that only Smith could read with his magic glasses, and they have magic underwear.

so then would you call christians jews or vice-versa, since they share the majority of their books?  there has to be a line somewhere. 

i refuse to call mormons christians for two main reasons: one, they attach no central importance to the death and resurrection of jesus christ, and two, they have only recently (within the last 30 years or so) insisted, as part of a huge publicity campaign, that they are "just another christian denomination."  one look at quotes from mormon leaders before the late '60s/early 70s, including smith himself, shows that they made every effort to disassociate themselves from mainstream christianity, and some claim they still do behind closed doors. 

Christian "theology" does not admit the politics. Nor is there any exposition of the politics per se. I can however recite the political situation at the time. John Hyrcanus, grandson of The Hammer, was a Judean aka a Jew. He conquered Samaria, Idumea and the Galilee and imposed circumcision on them as well as direct rule by his family and relatives the priest kings. It is not credible in any sense to say the other three were jews in any form if they did not practice circumcision. (Lift your robes. If circumcised pay the temple tax. Threat to authority and finances if they get away.)

Disregarding questions of exitance, Jesus was a Galilean. As late as the Mishna the Judeans call them Galileans. Emperor Julian (the Apostate) was friendly towards Judeans. He rescinded the ban on entering Jerusalem. He called them Galileans.

In the "time of Jesus" they were under civil rule by Herod who was an Idumean, another conquered people. However they were still required by Roman custom to obey Judean religious law because they were circumcised.

Then appears a religious group in Galilee. One of its oldest letters from an early leader says circucision is not required. No more temple tax. Later we find the terrorists from Masada raiding Galilean towns for food and fighters and they demanding protection from Rome. (That is from very old memory. I need to verify that the victims/complainants were Galileans. The raids and complaints did happen as per Josephus.)

Unless I come across something buried in the literature, meaning ignored by believers, that is about all that can be said. But it does not take much to infer the real problem was over the loss of income for lack of circumcision. While the credibilty and chronology of Acts is in serious question by most all scholars meaning I go to the extreme and consider it a joke it records an attempt by the Judeans to exterminate the Galileans -- Paul the bounty hunter back when his name was Saul. True or not it certainly suggests no love lost. Certainly no points of agreement are indicated by Julian. Talmud references go downhill from there.

Sharing the majority of books yes but that does not appear to have been the original movement. You can still find the earliest disagreements in the early salvation by faith alone or faith and works as opposed to the Judean works alone. Faith of course in Jesus. Works as in imitation of the works of Jesus and those he said to do. If those are enough something is missing, the law.

In the early writings the only talk of the law is what is no longer required. Circumcision is up front of course. But there are no unclean foods, no prohibition against mingling with pagans or against eating and drinking with them. Essentially none of the Judean laws that made the followers look and act differently from everyone else was gone. Even bragging about being better is not requireed.

Obviously there is a big hole there, do as thou wilt that is the whole of the law, when saved by grace. So you mean I can still be a bandit? A hit man? After eliminating at least 90% of the Torah what was left was elevated to sacred or revealed word and imposed. The Septuagint had been popular reading for new Galilens including the Book of Enoch but there is no indication either Galileans or Judeans took it as more than that until much later. Certainly by the 8th c. it was but what I have found does not suggest it is the earliest.

And technically it does not apply to Catholics at all as the hierarchy claims to final authority regardless of it. The source of authority is doctrine and scripture. Doctrine cuts scripture. Pope breaks doctrine. Scripture chokes Spock who isn't here yet.

It is in fact the protestants who elevated it. And that apparently to make up for the rejection of Papal authority.With people actually reading the bible it would not have taken long to see Jesus was silent on just about every "sin" or moral policy like murder and theft. Yes scripture is for counsel but not for authority.

@iwbiek

A line does need to be drawn, however there are fundamental differences between jews and christians that don't exist between mormons and other christian sects. There isn't a christian out there, to my knowledge, who embraces the torah as a holy book. But mormons use the bible.
The christian & mormon backbones are indistiguishable. It is only ritual and history that are disputed. Just like protestants and catholics and baptists etc.

can you clarify?  because the torah is nothing more than the first 5 books of the bible, and pious christians accept it as holy in the exact same manner as pious jews--i.e., as an inspired revelation delivered verbatim by god to moses on mt. sinai.  the only thing that differs is exegesis.  what jews refer to as the "hebrew bible" (tanakh) is exactly the same as what christians refer to as the "old testament," with a few additions by catholics and orthodox.

also, it was only after several centuries, and intense debate, that the new testament was canonized.  before that, the only "scriptures" you could count on all christians accepting was the hebrew bible (or rather the septuagint).  mormons, however, accepted additional scriptures directly from joseph smith from the very beginning, and nobody had any right to debate what was in the "canon" of the book of mormon.  in this way, the book of mormon has a helluva lot more in common with the quran than the bible, and mormons a helluva lot more in common with muslims than christians.

for christians, the central, non-negotiable tenet of their religion is the salvific power of the death of jesus christ.  mormonism has no concern with ideas like blood atonement and substitutionary death in the new testament sense.  (in fact, i'm trying to remember if mormons don't have a docetic conception of the cruifixion.)

i don't think jesus's preaching to the indians is supposed to be the central event of the mormon world history.  smith used it mostly for etiological purposes, and today it is emphasized more than in the past because of the whole "we have the same jesus as you" publicity campaign. 

honestly, i would argue the intended central event of mormonism never happened.  as i said in a previous post, mormonism has more parallels with islam than christianity, and here an islamic analogy is extremely helpful.  muhammad had his hijra, which is the central event of islam and the beginning of the present era for muslims, and because of it muhammad died a successful prophet.  joseph smith tried to have a hijra of his own, several times--to ohio, then missouri, then finally illinois--but never succeeded.  the mormons were constantly driven out until smith was finally slaughtered like the dog he was and died a penniless, felonious failure.  perhaps that was helpful to future mormon missionary efforts among christians, since they were able to hold smith up as a suffering christ figure, but it's obvious that smith would have rather been of the muhammad type.

i suppose most mormons today would identify their central event as the translation of the BOM by smith and the establishment of the mantle of prophethood.  mormon soteriology seems to be mostly gnostic in nature, with higher levels of eternal existence granted to those who have been admitted to higher levels of initiation.  smith was a freemason and on his own admission borrowed heavily from masonic ceremonies, while maintaining that mormons had rediscovered the "true" freemasonry, which had been corrupted over time.

I intended in modest detail to demonstrate money could in every case explain the issue you raised. Perhaps I misunderstood your posts. Apologies. Even I am not perfect.

The story line as I understand it is after the resurrection Jesus preached the gospel in the new world. I don't see how that would negate the crucifixion riff. I sort of rememeber the BOM being called an additional testament. 

Who would argue the golden plates were real?

The movements in the aftermath of starting the LDS are all presented as forced as a consequence of persecution as in Islam. But in Islam that is part of the story of the spread of the religion. For the LDS it is a matter of historical events around Brigham Young saga. What Smith might have wanted to be is unrecorded. I would not leap to an extreme. The simplest assumption is he wanted to stay where he was and enjoy his harem.

As to where he got the rituals for the religion they are mainly Jewish. Ritual baths aren't called Mikvahs but does that matter? The magic underwear is Jewish. Polygamy is Jewish. Being a prophet is Jewish. Mohamed drew on the same OT source materials.

If one wants say dog then certainly that would apply to Falwell and his ilk. Anyone creating a cult following would be in that category including Rabbi Scheerson and dozern of his kind over the centuries and to this day. I do not see how any of these are particularly worthy of death solely for that. Just because we have the Roman custom of monogamy does not condemn polygamy. With the claim that Paul was a citizen of Rome his preaching Roman values is expected.

All cult founders and prophets are scam artists and crooks. The penalty is in proportion to the harm not summary execution although I willing to entertain the idea.

Nor do I see anything inherently backward in gnosticism. Up and coming politicians in Rome made financial contributions to temples and in return were initiated into the higher mysteries. It was required for advancement in Rome. Seems to me just an institutionalized variant on shamans having special knowledge. That the gnostics lost a power struggle in the early church does not appear to be significant.

it doesn't.  the point is, christianity considers the crucifixion--i.e., the substitutionary death of jesus--as the central salvation event, and the blood of jesus as the agent that brings us into a relationship with the one god.

mormonism does not attach any special salvific quality to the crucifixion.  for them, it's just another story among many.

history gives no credence to that assumption.  smith made no secret of the fact that, just like muhammad, he had aspirations for political power.  that's what got him driven from place to place--not his unorthodox beliefs, but the fact that people didn't cotton to being ruled according to this new, strange religion, and they saw that that was exactly what was about to happen.  i mean, look at all he did in nauvoo, illinois: got himself elected mayor, made the city charter so that he could basically rule by decree, raised a private army and strutted around in uniform, and, when his enormous debts ruined his credit entirely, printed his own money.

as for his harem, he constantly wavered on the idea of polygamy, since his wife refused to accept it.  he never got to enjoy it with the same kind of reckless abandon as brigham.

being a prophet is iranian.  we have no evidence of prophecy entering the jewish ethos until after the babylonian captivity.  zarathustra was the first prophet in the strict sense of the word, and he no doubt took his cue from the soma-inspired aryan singers of proto-vedic hymns.

There are two threads to the death of Jesus. Death is the manner of salvation not the manner of death. The other thread cues St. Judas is causing a messy death as required for human blood sacrifice. So far as I remember from the dubious pleasure of 12 years of RC school education the former is doctrinal, the latter is explanatory. All the early disagreements were over real death of real human not the manner of death.

Another idea imposed on the gospels is the hidden (gnostic) meanings of the parables were not revealed to apostles only until after resurrection. That the same was taught elsewhere is not excluded.

The Koran makes no assertion of intent to political power. Of course no one knows what really happened but that cuts both ways.

As to details on Smith I see no bearing of those points upon the issue at hand. I am certain the LDS have their side of the story.

Should they be considered Christian? I do not have a dog in that fight. If I did I would also find myself needing an opinion on Catholics pagans or christians? Self declared is self declared. I would prefer both cock fights and that fight be equally illegal.

If Mormons declare they are despite the opinion other christian groups so what? I see nothing specifically precluding it when there is a body of Protestant thought that Catholics are not Christians.

In today's environment invidious comparisons to Islam are not helpful and were never rational. All religions are equally stupid. For an atheist to have any other opinion is to side with some variant of theism. That is not rational either.

Fine by me but it was still based upon jewish polygamy. Many of the ideas are from the OT. All Christian groups arbitrarily pick and choose from the OT also. That is not a discriminant.

The captivity is a myth without physical evidence. You can't get there from here. The Septuagint uses the word. What people choose to call Zarathustra based upon the Septuagint is their choice. The Septuagint from the mid 2nd c. BC is the oldest presentation of the concept separate from oracular communications although it is clearly a variation upon it.

It's relevant enough, since Hamby's... op-ed is posted there.

Note: your ranting again, Hamby. Not all that impressively, either.

Well there's a fucking surprise...

edit; you might say this is a short critique on Hamby's protestant-oriented cheapshot of religion (Mormonism) and the fact that religion is, well... divisive. Standard "NSS!" remark, here.

That is because it IS a critique, but with a smile!

I am unaware of any LDS expression of such intent and I would have thought the US Cavalry parade though downtown Salt Lake City marked paid to any such pretensions. The closest to promoting a form of theocracy are the born again types with abortion and creationism as lead issues.

What have you found I missed and got any URLs? However debating whether or not they are christians given the creation/abortion agenda would suggest non-christian to be a positive thing.

It would seem there are two venues for the establishment of a theocracy, revolution or both 2/3rds of Senate and 3/4 of the state to ratify several amendments to the constitution. I don't how a pretty face contributes to either. But I will read your URLs.

Back in the day I did look into a few of these polemics. They all turned out to be what Feynman called Cargo Cult science. Like the cargo cult types they had all the appearances of real science, footnotes, citations, but when you looked into the appearances you discover they are bogus.

There is also a special talent in presenting material out of context and in the worst possible light. If one wishes to play that game bring out both the Torah and the Talmud. If you want to hang Catholics bring on the Borgias. And if you want to hang Obama quote is pastor. If you want to hang Islam keep talking about Jihad and never mention the rescue effort after the major earthquake in Iran was also called a Jihad. Of course you are free to stick with medieval papal propaganda.

Even if it were absolutely, 110% true the possibility of success is so low, so beyond serious consideration, that I would have to rate it beyond the threats of being taken over by Papists, Mexicans and Scientologists in that order.

But given legistlative success in the states and even at the federal level I would rank your source as a clear and present danger to the republic.

You have to learn to stop taking fruitcakes seriously.

To paraphrase Hermann Goering, 'Declare the country in danger, denounce nay-sayers for lack of patriotism, it is the same in every country.' Of course he left out a point. Declare the government propaganda successful and do it anyway, even though 63% of Americans and 72% of Brits were against the conquest of Iraq.

I should waste my time on possible threat far below the Scientologist threat for what reason? As I said, 110% correct, why should I do anything but chucke?

I also have a VERY long standing policy against READ HIM and you will know I am right posts.

If you wish to make the case yourself please feel free to do so. I will not engage in an ex partite debate. Or you can have the author log on here and I will discuss it with him myself. I will not play the third party game. It is no different from an admonishion to read the bible. I will debate the bible. Get the authors to log on and defend themselves. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Josephus ane Herodotus are all the same save the last two are from sources known to have existed.

And when I call jews dictators I add the tator to be polite. Is this clever enough for government work?

I defend no one. I speak only for the facts as I know them. I agree the name I give to the facts is different. I agree what I call the facts is different. I agree what I call the name of the facts is different. Please read Lewis Carroll.

I have described Zionism as it describes itself, period. I have NEVER deviated from what Zionism says it is. Not ONCE!

I agree with every word down to the last jot and tittle of what Zionism says it is.

How can I be more clear than that? Those are the facts.

What I call the facts is of course different from what Zionists call the facts. I give the facts a different name. The zionists call it an occupation. I call it a jewish military tyranny. And while the Zionists call the name, redeeming the land their god gave to them I call a war crime.

Should I type slower so you can follow? Is "Through the Looking Glass" over your head?

We are both atheists. All religions are fungible. All believers are idiots. Idiots chose not to convert to Christianity. Don't whine about stupid decisions. I am not interested. Not converting means accepting the consequences of the decision. That the idea of a jewish people independent of religion was invented by the Zionists is such a well known fact that I was sort of surprised Sand needed to write the book. I know several established facts he did not include in addition to all he did include and years before he published.

I also hold that anyone who lets Israel get away with calling itself "jewish" truly, deep down in his heart, hates Jews. If theft, murder and tyranny is what it maens to be a Jew thank your god the world is still cowed by holodile tears. If it were not for that it would have vanished long ago. The link is from Haaretz 4/17/12, probably today for you. www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/before-we-lose-the-protective-shell-1.424719

It is good to know you are not and cannot possibily be a Jew. You may be a Zionist but that makes you a political Jew not a real Jew. No atheist can claim to be a Jew without claiming to be a Zionist thief, murderer and totalitarian animal. Again there are facts. That is what I choose to call the facts. Call them what you want. I will freely debate what you call them.