DB#345 - Mormons and Catholics
In this Feedback Friday show: Canadian Mormons; Christian revelation, the Canon of Holy Scripture and Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon; the Catholic Mormon’s Podcast; Sleep, insomnia, power naps and productivity; more iPod tips for my bishop; next week: survival in Luxembourg; laugh and live.
Link: Polynap Sleep Tracks
Link: Catholic Mormon’s Podcast on iTunes | RSS feed link | Website
Download or listen: Today’s Show
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Father - SWQPN Podcast award voting was mentioned a few times on last night’s Life on the Rock on EWTN.
Here is what I say and do when approached by a Mormon missionary or Jehovah Witness. I flash my million dollar smile and say, “No thank you, I’m a happy Catholic!”
Well, I haven’t listened to this episode yet, but judging by the title of it, you seem to have answered my audio question on Mormons… thanks! I look forward to listening to it
Something I’ve heard about Mormon missionaries is that evangelization not really their main reason for being out there, it is really to train the missionaries in the Mormon faith. Most conversions to Mormonsism are from family, freinds, neighbors, etc of church members.
Dear Father,
Good overview on Mormonism. Though Mormon’s believe their book dates around 73 BC and Joseph Smith just translated it, so the argument about the Canon of scripture being closed at the death of the Apostles wouldn’t apply against the book of Mormon itself. Though they do believe in continuing revelation through their leader so past teachings such as polygamy or barring blacks from the LDS priesthood were changed by their leader as so-called revelation.
As you know the Church does not except LDS baptisms, since even though they use the correct form and matter they do not believe in the Trinity. Whereas the Church does accept baptisms from pretty much all Christian denominations. Mormonism is really Polytheism since they believe in multiple Gods where God the father was once as we were. Or as they say “As man now is, God once was. As God now is, man may become.” There is a infinite regress of gods and not just one God, which philosophically is quite an error as St. Thomas Aquinas fully showed in the Summa Theologicae.
Most Mormons though do consider themselves Christians, and are not aware of what their teaching really mean and how at odds they are to Christianity. Few realize that their doctrine teaches that God the Father is now on a planet near the star Kolob with his wives having spiritual children. This is not to call Mormon’s evil or to bash them, the good lives that many Mormons live put some Christians to shame.
I had listened to the Catholic-Mormon podcast, which was very good and informative - especially some of the episodes on Joseph Smith.
One of my readers, Carson Weber who runs the outstanding “Understanding the Scriptures” podcast, informed my about about an very interesting anachronism involving what Joseph Smith had written.
http://carsonweber.org/2007/07/20/a-mormon-stumper
The issue of Mormonism is a hot topic this year in the states since Mormon Mitt Romney is running for President. There are some who would not vote for him just because of this, which I think to be mistaken. While he is not my favorite candidate running, I would vote for him over a pro-abortion Democrat on the other ticket.
Father - I relistened a number of times trying to hear if you mentioned the URL of the site where you got your sleep audio, but could not identify a web site. Could you provide a link to the audio that you mentioned?
Thanks.
insomnia…..
when i can’t sleep during the night, i listen to daily breakfast……..puts me right out…..
but seriously,
i PRAY……
i ask the Lord what needs to be interceded for, then I pray……
if i stay awake, i get on the floor and pray for that person/need that I am not aware of that is in need of prayer (don’t worry, my 11 yr old chocolate lab keeps vigil in my bed…..we switch places!)….
i cannot tell you the times in the past 5 years that someone is being born, dying, having trouble, even the simple and the mundane (friends in calif. who are 3 hours behind and they have a need), etc., etc.
Eventually, when I fall asleep, it is in the Lord’s hands…..
and, as my Irish Catholic Grandmother used to say: if all else fails: an act of contrition, your awake because of a guilty conscience.
@Mike: here is the link http://polynap.grelly.com/?page_id=7
Funny that your topic was Mormons. Earlier today before I got to listen to this episode, I was watching a well balanced documentary on them that was originally shown earlier this year on PBS:
http://www.pbs.org/mormons/
You can watch the whole documentary there.
And while reading about that documentary, I found out that the filmmaker, Helen Whitney, also did one a few years ago on John Paul II, “John Paul II - The Millennial Pope”:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/pope/
I have not seen this, but from the excerpts on the site, it seemed to be an overall positive look at him.
Thanks for another great episode :).
A couple of things that have helped me with sleep problems:
1.Cut down on caffeine
2.Try to go to bed and get up at approximately the same time every day
3.Exercise every day
4.Ask your doctor for something to have on hand just in case you can’t sleep
Just having it may lessen your anxiety about not sleeping
5.If you read, invest in a small booklight
6.When your brain is too active try meditating on the word trust
Not getting enough sleep is an epidemic in our society. They are working on a new type of drug that will improve the type of sleep, not the amount, we get, which apparently is the most important element in helping the cognitive impairment that starts around the age of 40.
BTW, Father, I think you talked about having some memory problems. A lot of people seem to use: http://www.mybraintrainer.com/
It’s inexpensive and fun.
This is totally unrealated but is anyone have a issue with downloanding old eps of the Daily Breakfast? It goes very slowly and then eventually times out.
I found out many years ago that it helped me to sleep if I don’t think about work or other complex issues after 9:00pm. If there’s something I want to work on, it goes on a list for the next day. I’ve even been known to leave myself voice mail messages at work for something I didn’t want to forget. This is one of those David Allen tricks, to get stuff out of my brain and someplace where I’ll be guaranteed to see it.
And if I’m having any trouble going to sleep at all, I say the rosary. Guaranteed to put my mind at rest!
An easy way to get the non-English characters on in Windows (ö, Ê, etc.) is to set up Windows to have different layouts of the keyboard. To do this, go to the control panel, regional settings and languages, and configure multiple keyboard layouts. In order to SEE the layout, you can enable the on-screen keyboard using accessibility options or the ease of access center. Then you can print that keyboard layout (alt-prtsc to copy, paste it into Paint) on a piece of paper.
You can also enter these characters using the alt-codes (ö is alt-numpad-0246) but that gets painful if you do it a lot.
@Kim,
Thanks for the PBS link!
On the topic of missionaries, this story is interesting: Jesuits say take word of God to Second Life. I found a link to it from another blog, where someone mentioned that there is already a pretty decent Catholic presence on Second Life. People have built churches, monasteries, and prayer chapels… almost makes me want to go check it out, but my computer is too old to handle the graphics.
God bless,
Jason
@MC You are very welcome!
@Jason It would be really cool to have an SQPN presence on SecondLife. I’m for it! Though I just have a free membership so I don’t have any land to offer. And if anyone else plays on SL and wants to find me, my name is Calvero Watson.
Fr. Roderick,
About insomnia, sometimes I used listening radio, specially AM. I know that it not already possible in some countries in Europe because the ATO (Analog Turned-Off), but due AM propagation you can listen from many other countries. In my opinion, AM is relaxing because the sound with a bandwith lower than 9/10Khz introduces some kind of white-noise. Second, there are many Oldie’s music programs. For example, in Buenos Aires you can listen tango or folklore music from the ‘40 or ‘50. As result, relax and you may sleep in a few minutes.
Thanks for the program every day.
I’m cathing up with the daily breakfast. I’m not quite sure if it was in this episode that Fr. Roderick was talking about sites where you can ask for example webprogrammars to bid on building your website. Has anyone a link or name for me?
I’m very much intrested.
If any one Knows the Web Adress Of the “White noise Power nap” files for Fr.’s I-Pod Please Send it to Benyanke@gmail.com
Father, if this priest thing ends up not working out for you* you can make a living making “white noise” sounds … I am so ready for a nap now!
*I’m teasing of course!!
Adrianne