Mormonism

Should Mormonism be considered a distinct Abrahamic religion akin to Islam or just another sect of Christianity?

This is honestly a pretty hard question. Mormonism is obviously a development of American Protestantism and a result of the Great Awakenings, but it has a very different cosmology and version of theology than most Christian sects. The most obvious being the non-trinitarian view of God/Jesus/holy spirit and things like exhalation.

For me, the biggest deciding factor is the notion that Jesus is the path to salvation. Historical speaking, many early Christian groups also had views that varied, some of which were vastly incongruent with modern mainline theology, and those are pretty much universally still acknowledged to be sects of Christianity. So I view Mormonism as comparable to the many early sects, just in a more modern context (which is sort of how it sees to view itself).

That being said, I could easily see why someone, especially a Christian from another denomination, would see otherwise. Mormons regard Jesus as key to salvation, but their conception of Jesus is almost a different person to more standard views. And much of Mormon cosmology sounds more like Scientology than Christianity when you're first exposed to it. It's certainly a weird development of Christianity, but it still meets the very basics of that criteria as far as I'm concerned. It's certainly always presented itself and Christian and defined itself in terms of Christianity, unlike other religions developments that have result in distinct faiths, like Islam, Sikhism, or Baha'i.

I think its similar to how during the first century christians still considered themselves jews and instead of forming a unique religious identity they tried to convince the rest of the jewish community that they were doing judaism wrong.

mormonism is just one cult based off an older doomsday cult
so no prolly not

distinct one

>first century christians still considered themselves jews
That's not entirely accurate. Many of the first Christians did see themselves as Jews, but they definitely saw themselves as a different kind of Judasim. That's why so much of the early church history reovlved around heated debates over exactly how Jewish someone had to be to be a Christian, and why before the end of the first century, some of the gospel writers were already vilifying Jews and making Christianity seem un-Jewish and more appealing to Gentiles.

Christians established their own identity pretty much right after his followers realized they needed to reinterpret Judaism to keep regarding Jesus as the messiah after his death. How Mormons regard themselves is pretty similar to any Christian group since Luther that has claimed to be restoring the "true church."

how could such a rational person fall for the mormonism meme?

no, it's fucking retarded

Absolutely. Mormonism is to Christianity what Islam is to Christianity or Christianity is to Judaism. It adds a new book, new prophet etc. The belief system is radically different. Mormons are polytheistics, sort of, believe we can become, just as a start.

Separate. If Bahai isn't just treated as a type of Islam, Mormonism shouldn't be seen as Christianity.

Because he's not as rational as he or many of his followers believe. Shad is just a smug, arrogant pseud who thinks a little bit of knowledge makes him an expert about everything. He doesn't even seem to know what the word "research" means in historical/social science context; the word has a specific use and refers to original research which discovers new information. He constantly refers to himself as a "researcher," but fully admits that he has almost no real experience with actual swords or historical documents, and his arguments constantly show he has no understanding of historiography or archaeological methods. Unless he's going over work someone else has given done and given him to present (like the falchion videos), his content is poorly-reasoned garbage. Fundamentally, he's just a hobbyist with an unwarranted sense of self-importance.

His video about that sword from the book of mormon is a great example. It's a twenty minute video, and most of that is dedicated to proselytizing and talking about how a few archaeological finds are actually evidence of the book of mormon's accuracy; to do that, he cites wikipedia and makes terrible arguments.If you take Shad seriously, you probably don't know much about how actual historical research.

it's like Islam in that it's total lunacy

From what I know (non-American here, mostly looked at statistics) they're decent people with a high birthrate.

>they're decent people
That's pretty subjective. I grew up in an area with a lot of Mormons and plenty of them were assholes, or had miserable family lives. The church encourages people to present a happy, wholesome image as a way of attracting converts (it helps the image of the church and sends a message that converting will make you happy), but that's enforced through a strict code of peer pressure that makes lots of people miserable. I wouldn't say most of them were bad people (although I've known some Mormons who have done awful things for the church), but it's not the kind of culture I'd want to live in. There's a lot of guilt-tripping and social manipulation that most people don't seen to know about.

Nope, we believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ being the Son of God and the blood atonement for mankind.

>Ifunny

Well, according to the Bible itself, the only thing you really need to be a Christian is to believe that Jesus Christ is God, and presumably they do believe that.

All the Abrahamic faiths share a lot of the same lore, so that doesn't mean anything.

>you shall not take or add to any of the words I have given you

So nothing written after Deuteronomy counts?

jesus said that in the NT

im so sick of you smarmy jews

please just go into an oven

What verse are you referring to?

>MUH LUTHER

kys

he doesn't know
I love how Christians act like they can just staple a book to the end of the Tanakh and pretend its a unified body.

>jesus said that in the NT
Where? Because the only thing close to that quote in the NT is in Revelations, and it's in the voice of the narrator.

It just depends on where you live and the attitude of those members there. In my area members are some of the kindest and humblest people I've met. Though I'd rather live where I am now than live in Utah where the culture can be as you said.

>How Mormons regard themselves is pretty similar to any Christian group since Luther that has claimed to be restoring the "true church."

Muslims believe that Mohammad restored the "original, true church" too, and they're still a distinct religion. The only reason Mormonism isn't considered a separate religion yet is because not enough time has gone by.

Depends on the next century.

mormonism is to christianity what bahai is to islam.

take that for what you will and tell me if it's a different religion or not.

>Muslims believe that Mohammad restored the "original, true church" too, and they're still a distinct religion.
Because Muhammad claimed to be restoring the correct religion that God gave to Abraham; he never specifically claimed to be restoring deviated version of Judaism and Christianity, but the true version that was given by God and relayed through an angel. Joseph Smith claimed to be restoring the true, Christian church (again, like many Protestant denominations, which no one argues aren't Christian), which is a pretty major difference.

As far as Baha'i goes, it's a really bad comparison. The founders of that religion specifically emphasized that it wasn't purely a revision of Islam. The entire point is that every major religion's founder has been a prophet and they were all right for their time. Baha'ullah claimed to be establishing the new religion, as correct for his time. They don't see themselves as Muslim, and Muslims sure as shit don't see them as Muslims, either.

fucking amazing answer