FWIW, of the nine relevant definitions for "Christian" at dictionary.reference.com, not a single one references the Trinity. The same is true for the five definitions of "Christianity".

The first definition for the adjective "Christian" is listed as "of, pertaining to, or derived from Jesus Christ or His teachings". The LDS Church most definitely fits that definition, regardless of the Trinity doctrine. Our doctrines are indisputably "of, pertaining to, or derived from Jesus Christ or His teachings", regardless of whether the rest of the Christian world agrees with our interpretation thereof.

Fair enough. I trust you won't mind if I continue to call myself Christian, though, since there is no better term ;)

Correct. (Scroll down to the paragraph preceded by the heading "We worship the Father and him only and no one else".)

I can accept the definitions you've given, however I fail to see why it matters whether Mormons are monotheistic or monolatristic when deciding whether we're Christian. Regardless of whether we're technically Christian according to the definitions you've provided (and if it weren't even more off topic I could show how monolatrism actually is taught in the Bible) we're most definitely Christians in practice -- which is to say, we do our best to live our lives according to Christ's teachings, and we believe that it is only through Christ that we can be saved.

Isn't that relevant when considering whether it is reasonable for us to call ourselves Christian?

I actually would be interested in such examples; I have studied many supposed contradictions in Mormon doctrine, and in most cases thus far, I have found that the apparent contradiction is caused because the person suggesting it is choosing a specific interpretation for some verse of scripture, and insists that said verse does not allow for any other interpretation. Other problems people have with Mormon doctrine come down to incorrect information about what Mormons believe, differences of opinion, conflicting hearsay from 150 years ago, and so on.

I have, after many years of study, concluded that my religion's teachings are logically self-consistent (and true, mostly for other reasons); this does not mean, however, that I would refuse to accept evidence to the contrary, if it actually is evidence to the contrary. All I ask is to be given the opportunity to actually figure out whether it is, without anyone telling me that if I come to some other conclusion I'm deceiving myself. Which is to say, I don't like people going into these kinds of discussions with no intention of allowing me to show them flaws in their reasoning, because it proves they're not interested in finding truth, just in demolishing their version of my beliefs.

(Again, in the interest of not derailing the thread further I would prefer to have that conversation via e-mail. I promise not to argue, though I would appreciate it if you allow me to provide resolutions to apparent contradictions if I can. Please don't just link me to some random anti-Mormon website, I've most likely already read it.)

As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread just now, I guess that depends on how you define monotheism. I would define it as the worship of one and only one God, which is a definition that fits Mormons; we worship God the Father, in the name of Jesus Christ. (Technically speaking, Mormons do not worship Christ; Christ is instead the vehicle of our salvation, which matches what is taught in the New Testament.)

I obviously believe I am both monotheistic and Christian, because I worship one and only one God, and I believe that it is only through Christ that I may be saved. As far as I am concerned, that is what matters.

If your definition of "monotheistic" requires the belief in the existence of one and only one god, then I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree :)

We believe that Yahweh is the same being as Christ, which is to say that we believe it was Jesus who acted as the God of the Old Testament. (It helps that Jesus said so himself in the New Testament, and that Isaiah said so in the Old.) We believe that it is not Christ/Yahweh who we are supposed to worship, but rather his Father (sometimes referred to as Elohim).

So in the sense that we believe there exist multiple omnipotent, perfect beings, yes, we believe there is more than one god. However, we believe that there is only one God whom we should worship, that is, we are to worship God the Father in the name of Jesus Christ. (I realize elsewhere in this thread I said Mormons worship Christ. I tend to get sloppy with the specifics of this in most contexts, because it's generally not relevant.)

In the end I suppose it depends on how you define "monotheistic", that is, whether it precludes belief in the existence of other gods, or whether it requires belief in the existence of only a single God. Personally I don't worry about how people label me in this regard ;)

FWIW Mormons (myself included) would agree with a slight tweak of that statement:

Only God's sacrifice of a perfect being could atone for all sins for all time.

As God's Son, Christ was perfect, and was therefore capable of filling that role. Abraham's (aborted) sacrifice of his son Isaac was a rather straightforward foreshadowing of God's sacrifice of his son Jesus Christ.

I don't understand why people insist that the Trinity doctrine is what makes a religion Christian. Mormons believe that it is only through the atonement of Jesus Christ that all mankind may be saved. Isn't *that* what makes a person Christian?

I don't think Shavano is saying that merely calling oneself "Christian" is sufficient; instead, he is saying that calling oneself a worshipper of Christ is sufficient. He is not rendering the term "Christian" meaningless, he is just defining it differently than you apparently define it.

We Mormons believe that both Jesus Christ and his Father are God (or gods, if you prefer), and that Jesus Christ is the literal son of the Father; in addition, we believe that they each have physical, tangible bodies of flesh and bone. (People who believe in the Trinity must necessarily believe that there is at least one physical body involved, because Christ had one after his resurrection, so believing that the Father has one too should not seem too much of a stretch.)

The *actual* difference between our belief and the Trinity doctrine is that we do not include a self-contradictory assertion that they are somehow both separate beings and the same being at once. Instead, we believe that the Father and the Son are separate beings who are one in purpose, that is, they work together in perfect unity. (This has the added benefits of being logically self-consistent, and of not contradicting anything Christ said during his ministry; I can give examples if you wish, but perhaps that would be best done via e-mail so as not to take this thread too far off topic.)

But the real question is, why does believing one or the other affect whether one is Christian? In practice, both beliefs lead to the same basic behavior: we worship the Father in the name of Christ, and believe that through Christ's atonement we can return to live in their presence.

Can you articulate exactly why it matters whether they are the same being and yet not the same being, or whether they are two beings (Father and Son) who are perfectly united in purpose? Why, exactly, does my belief disqualify me in your eyes from being Christian, despite the fact that I believe Christ is the only path to salvation? (This is a serious question; I've never gotten a response to it other than "it just matters!".)

(For the sake of simplicity I omitted the Holy Ghost from my above comments. The Holy Ghost is included in the standard view of the Trinity; Mormons consider the Holy Ghost a third, separate personage of spirit, who does not possess a physical body as the other two do. In either case, the Holy Ghost serves the same function. However, I do not think this is particularly relevant to the discussion at hand.)

It's funny that people point at the Mountain Meadows massacre as "proof" that Mormons commonly killed people of other faiths. See, that massacre was carried out by a small group of extremists who were *not* authorized to do any such thing, and in addition, such an act is and always has been quite clearly prohibited by church doctrine. (Self-defense is not, but the Mountain Meadows massacre could not be considered self-defense by any rational person.)

But even if it *had* been authorized -- and again, it was not -- pointing to one isolated incident would not prove that such behavior was common. If it was indeed common for Mormons to kill non-Mormons merely for not being Mormon, shouldn't you be able to point to many examples, not just one?

Wouldn't you say that such behavior would undermine the missionary effort we have, from the very beginning, put so much work into?

(Yes, I'm Mormon, but please focus on my logic, not on my choice of religion.)

The Law of Consecration did not (and does not) permit church members to forcibly take property from anyone, church member or not. While we do believe that God created everything and thus everything belongs to God, we do not believe that "any natural resource could be taken by any Mormon from any gentile", nor was this ever a doctrine of the Church.

There are probably as many thieves among Mormons as among any other group of people, but the Church has never authorized or approved of theft, fraud, arson, kidnapping, piracy, murder, etc.

Evidence to the contrary would be gladly examined.

From the TFA:

* Sixty-four percent (64%) of survey participants found the transition to Agile confusing, hard, or slow. Twenty-eight percent (28%) report success with Agile.
- I'd like to see the number for success in waterfall.

* Overwhelmingly, 40% of participants that use Agile did not identify a benefit.
- How is 40% overwhelming? I though overwhelming meant much larger than a simple majority. What about the other 60%?

* We received some unprecedented scathing and shocking comments about the level of competence, professionalism, and attitudes of some members of the Agile movement.
- Having not met them, I can't vouch for the Agile leaders. However, we're using their product, not their personality.

* Be aware that the Agile movement might very well just be either a developer rebellion against unwanted tasks and schedules or just an opportunity to sell Agile services including certification and training.
- Sure, it's another developer rebellion... against bad practices. Agile does not mean you get to avoid the necessary tasks like documentation. And who doesn't want to make money? If that's what they do fulltime and it's valuable they should be able to earn a living. That's the pot calling the kettle black with them pushing their $150 report.

I'm not an agile fan boy but it's a better alternative than A) bad managers thinking they're managing a project correctly or B) planning a massive project and having it shift underneath you.

This just sounds like a smear to get attention.

Some NASA guy just explained that the Russian images are no worse and no better than NASA's images; they're just looking at the earth in different ways. There's no hint of blame anywhere (and indeed, there's nothing to be blamed for).

I would be extremely surprised if Could Drive did de-duplication like that. Cloud Drive is built on S3; S3 is not designed to do de-duplication (as a cursory examination of the S3 product page will tell you).

Apple must also think all of their users have Android devices, because that's the only way any of their users could get confused - Amazon's store is Android-only...

We'd only need a receive mechanism. Once we create it, we could hope that someone in the future will figure out how to send, and there would be standing instructions to send a message to the time shortly after the receiving device's invention.