Posted by
Phil E. on Monday, July 09, 2007 6:05:21 AM
An actual sign at a Mormon event warning cult members to stay away from unapproved (i.e. Christian) "literature."
Click on the sign to hear a creepy cult warning.
Members of the cult get the message loud and clear. ("Seeds of Apostasy")
Glad to oblige
From
National Review OnlineThere are 519 blog posts that use the terms "Romney" and "creepy" according to Technorati. According to Google, there are 202,000 web pages that have those two words.
Including this one!
I suppose I should figure out how to get this blog listed on Technorati so I can add to their count. (Or maybe you'll tell them about this blog for me?) But I'm glad Google picks me up. And I'm glad others have picked up on the creepiness of Mormonism too.
How does it make you feel?
(The subhead is a parody of Mormonism. Mormonism is all about feelings. Not about thinking.)
While I'm a strong proponent that Christian faith is not an emotional faith—one based on feelings, like Mormonism—that doesn't mean you should ignore your feelings when they tell you something is wrong.
When people talk about religious faith, they tend to spiritualize it, making faith more like magic or some kind of emotional revelation,
a burning in the bosom if you will, or some other kind of subjective manifestation. It is not.
Faith is simply believing in something not seen. You act on faith a million times a day. There's nothing magical or spiritual about it.
For example, do you fly on the airlines? How do you know the two people in the cockpit are FAA licensed pilots? Who are in good condition medically? They could be drunk, you know. Or that the airplane has been checked over mechanically to ensure all systems are "Go?" You don't know, do you? And yet you're willing get on that airplane, trusting the pilots and that the airplane will get you to your destination safely. You take it on faith, believing without seeing .
There's nothing magical about it. Nor do you "pray about it, to see if it's true." Even though you don't really know if the pilots are licensed or if the airplane has been maintained at all, you assume, because of that airline's reliability record, government oversight, etc. that they must be. And you bet your life on it. Aren't you also betting your life on the Christian faith?
Now, Christian faith is not a blind faith, like believing in Santa Claus or Joseph Smith. (Although some have wrongly made it so.) Christian faith is based on fact. Historical fact. It's the same as knowing O.J. did it without being there because all the evidence points to O.J. doing it.
So far, there seems to be a preponderance of historical evidence to believe in the Resurrection of this guy named Jesus, who claimed to be God in the flesh. He said He would prove He was God by taking his life back. He even specified when He would do it, lest there be any dispute. If the Resurrection is fact, then what He said about Himself is true. That He is God. That there is sin. That there's a heaven and a hell. And you had better settle accounts with Him before it's too late.
If the resurrection is a myth, then Jesus was not God and in fact, was a blasphemer and the Jews were right to have him executed. This is all very logical.
The Apostle Paul acknowledges this. He said,
If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 1 Cor 15:13 ff
In fact, the Apostle Paul concluded "If the dead are not raised, 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.'" (
v32)
So if you believe what you believe (e.g. in Jesus or Joseph... or Mohammed, for that matter) and NO fact can change your mind about your belief, then you have a blind faith. You're probably going by feelings. That is NOT the faith of the true Christian. Our faith is based on fact. If someone finds the body of Jesus, then I simply was wrong about what I have believed and will have to look for truth elsewhere.
How about you? Were you simply raised a certain way and so believe what your parents believe without investigating the facts for yourself? Did you pray about it and "know" that something is true, regardless of the facts?
You've got that creepy feeling. Whoa-oh, that crEEeepy fEEeeling....
(Sung to the tune of
You've lost that loving feeling, by—how Providential—the Righteous Brothers.)
Not ignoring feelings has saved many an innocent victim from the clutches of a bad guy. Call it intuition if you want. Or maybe there's a spiritual component to it.
Once, when I was evangelizing to the Mormons, a married couple and another fellow stopped by to talk about religion. I immediately felt / thought something was wrong, since most married couples pal around by themselves or with other couples. Some bells were going off in my head. I didn't know why. But we talked.
It was clear that these people weren't Mormon. (I probably asked them outright.) They were using Christian language, but it became clear they weren't Christian either. Turns out they were from the
Boston Church of Christ. (The main man admitted this when I asked.)
Now
the Boston Church of Christ is a cult. I'm going to post the secular definition of a cult soon, but one universal test is that they're "creepy." I know that's nebulous, but as Justice Potter Stewart might say, "You know it when you feel it." As with Mormonism.
The married couple were all smiles, lovey dovey and let the main man do most of the talking. They looked on him admiringly. I felt this weird pull, as if they were trying to love me / suck me in to their religion. Of course, their words confirmed the feeling and to his credit, the main man was honest enough to answer my pointed questions about baptism, salvation and a few of their other non-Biblical beliefs. But that was one of the creepier encounters I've had on the streets. And I've had some creepy ones with Mormons.
So when there are almost a quarter of a million web pages with the words "Mitt Romney" and "creepy" in them, there may be more to it than meets the eye.
Don't vote for Mitt Romney. He may be giving you the creeps because Mormonism is creepy. As John Harris, of Politico observed, Mitt Romney appears "programmed." (
Listen to the funny audio clip in this post.)
It's not you. It's him. More accurately, it's Mitt Romney 's Mormonism. Don't vote a Mormon in the White House.