Quote: Hizz... It might be a good idea to not bunch Roman Catholic in with Protestants. <:-/ Even if they're a different branch from the same tree (of religion).
I was pointing out that Christianity has its hands dirty. It was asked on the board to provide recent examples, so I did.
I also want to point out that I'm not saying that Christian people still feel and act as they did centuries ago. The point I was making is that the Christian faith (along with the other 2 major religions) has a very dark past and IMO it cannot be overlooked or swept under the rug just because it was "a long time ago". The atrocities were done in the name of their God, the same god that modern-day religious people worship. They are required to believe in the texts filled with intolerant, hateful attitudes along side the loving and peaceful things. You can't claim to believe in just the happy, pretty parts of the bible and discard the rest....after all it is god's words and commandments.
Quote: By what sign did you know you had received the Holy Spirit?
Well in the Mormon religion, it's basically "gifted" (confirmed and ordained by church officials) on you once you're baptized (Mormons usually baptize their members when they're 8 years of age, or when you decide to join the church). Remember that Mormons fully believe in the King James version of the Bible, and also fully believe in the stories of Jesus contained in the new testament, (they also have their own stories of Jesus in the Book of Mormon, but I won't go into that).
Quote: Just curious. Who were the other 2 Israelite Gods besides 'Yahweh'? I tried googling it, but didn't come up with any (useful) info.
Yahweh is spelled a few different ways throughout history (usually seen as YHWH but changed to Yahweh, often for the sake of phonetics). I'm surprised you hadn't heard of that name though as god in the bible is referred to by that name in a few translations, but I was always told it just meant "god".
The other gods that were worshiped along with Yahweh were Asherah and Baal. A good book to read about how god came to be in the 3 major religions is A History Of God by Karen Armstrong. The book is not an anti-religion or athiest book. It doesn't set out to dis-prove god, but it explains how god has changed through the ages.
Here's a great video that briefly explains the book:
The author of these videos has a video series of his deconversion from Christianity that is very similar to my own once I started studying and researching religion. Although he can explain it much more eloquently than I can. If you're interested, I would recommend watching his series, if for anything to provoke thought.