Mormons at the Door

The Mormons at my Door
I hear ma and pa came in with pizza. So I am about to dig in. My dad told me I need to go answer the door in a few minutes. I ask why. He said mormons are coming. I gather my thoughts and walk outside. They walk up in a few seconds. Polite introductions. Here is the gist of the argument:

Me: Do y'all believe in Christ.

Them: Yes.

Me: Is he the same as God?

Them: Same in purposeMe: That's not what I asked. (I then explain ontological and economic trinity).

Them: Well, that's just your interpretation and it can be wrong.

Me: How do you know mine is wrong? I can easily say the same thing about yours'. At this point, who is right? What is the standard, then, for determining who is right and who is wrong

Them: You have to have faith that the book of mormon is what God revealed to Joseph Smith

Me: (Welcome to my parlor said the spider to the fly). So what? How do I know that is right?Them: You have to pray and believe in your heart that the book of mormon is right.Me: That's begging the question. Anyway, I did. God told me you are wrong. Given what you just said, you have to accept my experience as genuine and binding. Therefore, on your own words, you are wrong. (This is called an "internal critique." In other words, if you are right, then you are--ultimately--wrong). You said my experience is a valid criterion for truth. Well, there you have it. My experience says you are wrong.

They also said some things about manuscripts being corrupted and greek and all that. I stopped that quick. I let them know that I have held facsmile copies of the most corrupted manuscripts. Its no big deal. They then tried to pull the "in the hebrew" stuff with me. I just mentioned I had taken hebrew and they didn't want to go that route either.

I was talking w ith ma afterwards about it. I asked her, "can I celebrate my liberty in Christ and not be a mormon and go buy a six pack of beer?" She looked at me funny but didn't say no.