User talk:74s181/Sandbox/Mormonism and Christianity

I am trying to reorganize and tighten up the Mormonism and Christianity article. It is a very controversial article, the talk page has a lot of history about its evolution. For more information about why I'm doing this, see my thoughts near the end of the talk section of the original article Talk:Mormonism and Christianity. Tom suggested I work on this in my user sandbox, so that is what I'm doing.

Some original thoughts:
 * 1) The title is Mormonism and Christianity. The original article is very large and discusses the differences in their historical context.  There is a lot of really good history in the original article, but I think it makes it difficult to track down the actual differences between the two groups.  I really think the article needs to be split into two separate articles:
 * 2) The actual doctrinal differences - this is the part that is most interesting to me. User:74s181/Sandbox/Mormonism and Christianity (doctrine)
 * 3) The history of how those doctrinal differences evolved over time - excellent work here, needs to be separated out of the purely doctrinal statements and preserved. User:74s181/Sandbox/Mormonism and Christianity (history)

Old outline
3/27/05 See the user page for my current outline, User:74s181/Sandbox/Mormonism and Christianity. As of 3/14/05 this what I'm thinking. Main article has the following outline, a brief paragraph on each topic with a link to a detail page:

(or else, separate articles on each doctrine, linked from the doctrinal differences and the history pages, maybe that is better)
Hmmm, looks a lot like the original outline. I'll have to think about this some more.

Some guiding principles for the doctrinal differences document

 * 1) There is no need to thoroughly rehash every detail of every aspect of the difference between the two groups, this is one of the reasons the current article is so huge. Many of these topics have been well explored elsewhere, those that have not should be.  What is appropriate here is a short summary of each issue with links to the more detailed articles.
 * 2) There is a traditional Christian POV of the difference, and a LDS POV of the difference. TCs focus on specific objectionable doctrines and claim they prove that Joseph Smith was not a prophet. LDS focus on the need to gain a testimony of Joseph Smith's authority as a prophet of God, then the doctrines are validated. Both POVs need to be represented, but I think the traditional Christian POV needs to go first, simply because there are more traditional Christians than LDS.

handling NPOV bloat
3/14/05 Quick note to myself - I had a thought this morning, the reason I'm having trouble with the historical section is that there is still POV stuff there, it is a balanced POV, but it makes the article much bigger as each side keeps adding content for 'balance'. Also, dividing it up into historical periods as I started to do is a good idea, but probably separate articles. Again, some of it belongs in the main history article, maybe the thing to do would be to divide up the main historical article but that is too much to contemplate right now, I'll take a look at it later and think about it.

Also, yesterday I removed two planned sections from the doctrinal differences article because I was afraid they would suffer massive POV bloat. Now I am thinking, two additional articles under the main heading:

User:74s181/Sandbox/Mormonism and Christianity, Traditional Christianity Perspective

User:74s181/Sandbox/Mormonism and Christianity, Mormonism Perspective

The thing is, these two articles would express a POV, but that POV is itself a fact. That is, what TCs think about Mormons is a fact, and what Mormons think about traditional Christianity is a fact, if it is presented in this way I think this should be ok, I'll have to re-read the 'no POV' guidelines. If I can figure out how to make this work it could help to keep the articles from bloating over time, that is, if commentary from the other side is kept to a minimum in each article then once both sides get it all out of their system it should be over.

I need to see if there is a way to link to a section in an article, rather than the entire article. This way, the two articles could cross link to each other's sections if they wanted to.

Another possiblity is if the POV rules don't allow this, then each separate topic of dispute would have to become a separate article. Maybe that isn't such a bad idea, I'll have to think about it some more. Ok, even if each disputed point is a separate article there needs to be a general statement somewhere on what TCs think about Mormonism, and what Mormons think about TC.

Ok, having reread the NPOV page, I think the following are true:
 * 1) It is appropriate to have a page that describes how a particular group feels about a particular thing.
 * 2) We don't need to restate every argument on every page.
 * 3) Links to other pages with more information are good.

Therefore, it is ok to have a page where TC views of Mormonism are presented, and another page where Mormon views of TC are presented, as long as each stated issue includes a short statement on how the other side views the issue with a link to a page with more information. 74s181 12:46, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Comments from Blainster, moved from the user:74s181/Sandbox/Mormonism and Christianity
On the statement "As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become"
 * I'm not LDS and no expert on this, but I had always heard that B Young had said that somewhere in the Journal of Discourses. --Blainster 05:13, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Brigham Young said this, he actually said quite a bit more, but the basic doctrine originated with Joseph Smith in the King Follett sermon.74s181 23:37, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

On the endowment
 * You can find this information now posted on the Internet. There is  even an mp3 recording of the endowment ceremony you can download, although is is of poor quality (the mike being hidden and all)--Blainster

Baptism for the dead
 * To my understanding, some Jews (in the New York area I recall) were so upset when they found out about their ancestors proxy baptisms (I don't remember how they knew it, except perhaps on FamilySearch.org) that the LDS church officially agreed to refrain from proxy baptisms of those Jews who objected. --Blainster

I'm discussing this and the exclusive authority objection in the doctrinal section.74s181 23:37, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Mormonism claim of exclusive authority
 * I'm of RLDS background, and the one true church idea was fairly widespread in that tradition prior to the 1960s, although no more, and of course they never had the temple ordinances. --Blainster

Progress...
I made a copy of the History of the LDS movement article, I'm thinking more and more about dividing it up into subpages so I can link to those subpages from the Mormonism and Christianity (history) pages. 74s181 23:39, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)