Just came home from church and we are furious!

[ryan_cats]

200. OK, this is a bad thing but...

OK, this is a bad thing but, playing Devil's advocate, consider they said that President Obama was doing a great job and should be re-elected? Would you urge them to turn them into the IRS then? If not, why?

I'm a Christian but in college, I wrote a pretty vicious paper on why the Catholic Church should pay taxes. Got an A as well. Not a fan of Catholics when you consider that 90% of their services and views are not anywhere in the Bible.

Look up transubstantiation. It means that as you consume the consecrated cracker (communion cracker) it actually turns into the flesh of Christ. This is Catholic doctrine.

Two things:

1) It's testable, try it with someone who has been on a fast. If it is flesh (I don't believe it is, it's nowhere in the Bible) then we should see tissue and not cracker pieces. As a plus, if it was flesh, we could clone Jesus! (I'm kidding).

2) Jesus said do this in remembrance of me, not eat my actual flesh and drink my real blood, just look at the end of Mathew, Mark and Luke but it's not in John.

The actual text in Luke 22:17-20, from the King's James version is: #17 Jesus: "And he took the cup and gave thanks, and said, "Take this and divide it amongst yourselves. 18: For I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the Kingdom of God shall come. 19: And he took bread and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them saying, "This is my body which is given for you: this, do in remembrance of me." 20: Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new Testament in my blood which is shed for you. From my reading (and millions of others) he is talking about a method of remembering the sacrifice Christ did in propitiation of our sins.

It sounds gross but if he really wanted us to eat his actual flesh and drink his real blood, that is easily accomplished yet he didn't do it.

But there is an excellent passage: John #13:34 A new commandment I give unto you. that you love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. #13:35 By this shall all men know that ye are all my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to determine whether these two new commandments supersede the over 600 (that's right not ten but over 600 in the Pentateuch) or are added to them. The problem with all of these commandments bedsides being impossible to follow in a lifetime, they can only condemn you, they cannot save you. That's why Jesus appeared.

While I have considerably mellowed after around 30 years, I still see things that I think are outside of what should be tax exempt and I am a non-denominational Protestant who attends Church twice a week.

I mentioned a diss of the President by the Pastor and the Pastor said, he thought I was right and he toned it down (this was in 2009) but now that the election is here, the rhetoric has ratcheted up.

The funny thing is, Christians do NOT believe that Mormons worship the same Christ the rest of Christianity does. They (Mormons) have a saying that goes like, "As man is God was and as God is, man can become." I might not have it exactly quoted but you get the idea. First of all, I can barely run my life yet I'm supposed to get my own planet (seriously) and be god over it. Ask a Mormon missionary about the planet Kolob.

Then there is the real kicker, until, I believe, sometime in the '70s, the Mormon hierarchy reversed their stance on black people. They used to believe that the reason they were black was because they were marked by their god much like Cain was marked. I guess all those blacks with their 10% tithe caused them to have a 'vision' that allowed blacks in church and this is during the 70s!

I know a lot of conservative Christians and Mitten's Mormonism seriously bothers them. People thought since JFK was a Catholic, that he would accept orders from the Pope. Well, in Mormonism, the 12 apostles are still alive and I have no idea how much influence they have over their star members. I know a lot of Mormons and as for lifestyle, they leave Christians in the dust. Their facade is one of a caring and believing people. However, you go to Temple a lot as a Mormon.

This is anecdotal but an atheist friend lived in Salt Lake City and he said they had people in supermarkets to ensure that Mormons didn't buy tobacco, alcohol or even caffeine. Sounds creepy and unbelievable but he swore it was true. It appears, that once you become a Mormon, you might as well be a Borg because they take up a lot of your live's time and they control you such as not being able to drink alcohol. While I can understand that my body is my temple and I shouldn't defile it, it's my problem, so why do they have monitors?