Book of Mormon foolishness--Jaredite ships

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nonsensical and by all accounts disproven through modern DNA studies but it’s not nearly as abdsurd as noahs ark…
 
ParkerD said:
Gottle of Geer,
If the quotation you were referring to was the one I posted, then I’m not sure if you are aware that it is evidently from Catholic catechism, since I copied it from one of the responses of a Catholic.

Rather than go back and forth on this topic, I will add a simple statement to the thread where this topic was thoroughly discussed recently, so it comes up on the first page again and you can easily find it and read as much as you would like to. Again, it is quite thorough. It is a thread started by Lamb of God Girly.
Click to expand...

A few points:​

  • Error is error, no matter where found
  • It didn’t sound Catholic
  • How does quoting a Catholic (i.e., non-Mormon) source, help a poster understand Mormon doctrine
  • I’m not interested in Catholic doctrines or ideas about God, but in Mormon doctrines or ideas
  • How does quoting a Catholic source, vindicate Mormon doctrine 😦 ?
 
Gottle_of_Geer said:

A few points:​

  • Error is error, no matter where found
  • It didn’t sound Catholic
  • How does quoting a Catholic (i.e., non-Mormon) source, help a poster understand Mormon doctrine
  • I’m not interested in Catholic doctrines or ideas about God, but in Mormon doctrines or ideas
  • How does quoting a Catholic source, vindicate Mormon doctrine 😦 ?
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Gottle of Geer,
I was quoting that to illustrate that the Godhead that I have a testimony of, can be described using Catholic terminology. The other thread really is very thorough on the topic. I wasn’t trying to “vindicate Mormon doctrine”. I was hoping you would understand that there are enough similarities in the beliefs that one needn’t think that Mormons are so very strange. Sorry if you have felt let down by my post. When topics get discussed over and over, sometimes one jumps to a short answer rather than giving a thorough answer. Peace to you.
 
ParkerD said:
Cothrige,

Glass seems to have been invented/discovered earlier than 3000 BC. The logic of using glass for “windows” doesn’t seem unreasonable to me, with the guidance of God who is omniscient. Joseph Smith translated into words that would be familiar to him and others of his time, so the use of the term does not mean the Jaredites used the term for windows in their language. They could have used the term for “opening” and a term for “glassy material”, and Joseph Smith could have simply translated those words into the single word, “window”.
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That sort of logic defeats itself - it opens up the possibility that what is thought to be a holy book, is really:​

  • a script for “Star Trek V”
  • instructions on how to build a Cylon
  • a refutation of the “Book of Abraham”
  • a recipe book
  • anything else one cares to name
For all we know, the “barges” might really be dimension-spanning super-cruisers for travelling through wormholes. Or divine barges for Mesopotamian gods. Or NASA rockets. Unless there is some control over what is a plausible translation, & what is not, the idea that X more or less means Y will allow anything, however far-fetched it might otherwise be. As there is no copy of the Reformed Egyptian text on those plates translated by Joseph Smith, no such control on what the text can or cannot be translated to mean in this context or that, exists.

Anyone who has spent five minutes with a grammar of Egyptian, & knows how the meaning is conveyed by the script, will see all too well that this embrace of vagueness
as a means of saving the BoM, completely undermines the meaning of the BoM - which was, in any case, translated “by the gift and power of God”; which means that you are calling its accuracy, & by implication the prophetic mission of your Prophet, into question.
 
ParkerD said:
Gottle of Geer,
I was quoting that to illustrate that the Godhead that I have a testimony of, can be described using Catholic terminology.
Click to expand...

Appreciated - but Mormonism needs to be understood on its own terms. :cool:​

The other thread really is very thorough on the topic. I wasn’t trying to “vindicate Mormon doctrine”. I was hoping you would understand that there are enough similarities in the beliefs that one needn’t think that Mormons are so very strange. Sorry if you have felt let down by my post.
Click to expand...

Thank you for clarifying - however, that leaves my original post​

still in search of an answer…
When topics get discussed over and over, sometimes one jumps to a short answer rather than giving a thorough answer. Peace to you.
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Understood. TY.​

 
ParkerD said:
Gottle of Geer,
I was quoting that to illustrate that the Godhead that I have a testimony of, can be described using Catholic terminology. The other thread really is very thorough on the topic. I wasn’t trying to “vindicate Mormon doctrine”. I was hoping you would understand that there are enough similarities in the beliefs that one needn’t think that Mormons are so very strange. Sorry if you have felt let down by my post. When topics get discussed over and over, sometimes one jumps to a short answer rather than giving a thorough answer. Peace to you.
Click to expand...
There is absolutely NO similarity between the Mormon and Christian views of God. If you think there is, then you obviously do not understand either view.

And yes, Mormons are very strange indeed.
 
Gottle_of_Geer said:

That sort of logic defeats itself - it opens up the possibility that what is thought to be a holy book, is really:​

  • a script for “Star Trek V”
  • instructions on how to build a Cylon
  • a refutation of the “Book of Abraham”
  • a recipe book
  • anything else one cares to name
Click to expand...
My son and I have often mused about what a great Monty Python movie the Book of Ether would make. A barge full of animals (including bees) and full of poop turning upside down in the waves, cattle, sheep and poop flying around and landing on the Jaredites and beehives smashing, bees stinging the cattle and the cattle stampeding…

Finally, the wreckage of the shattered barges washes up on the shore, and a lone bee buzzes off into the distance…

:rotfl:
 
PaulDupre said:
My son and I have often mused about what a great Monty Python movie the Book of Ether would make. A barge full of animals (including bees) and full of poop turning upside down in the waves, cattle, sheep and poop flying around and landing on the Jaredites and beehives smashing, bees stinging the cattle and the cattle stampeding…
Click to expand...
That would make a lot funnier movie than the actual story, with eight small barges with a deck for when the weather was good (most of the time), and a doorway into the part of the barge that allowed descent into the safe haven part of the vessel during a storm. And all the work of tying up the sheep for the stormy weather–how difficult! How smart were these people? To think of using a rope–who would have thought?
 
ParkerD said:
That would make a lot funnier movie than the actual story, with eight small barges with a deck for when the weather was good (most of the time), and a doorway into the part of the barge that allowed descent into the safe haven part of the vessel during a storm. And all the work of tying up the sheep for the stormy weather–how difficult! How smart were these people? To think of using a rope–who would have thought?
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That is just silly. You nail their feet to the deck, of course. 😃
 
RebeccaJ said:
Which is just more Mormon nonsense which FAIR is profoundly adept at producing. Glass beads and blue glass do not windowpanes make. It is the same nonsensical argument used everywhere by Mormons. A glass bead = the more sophisticated technology to make a window. When there is no evidence anywhere that any such technology existed, and, that a window was never made until 3000 years later. It is not even pseudo-science, it is just plain illogical and throwing coins into a wishing well.
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Glass is glass. Glass was known. And that is what is important here.
 
po18guy said:
“Religion: LDS and Catholic”

It is well known that lies and deceit are not sins in the furtherance of the LDS organization. But, please choose a faith. It is 100% obvious that you are LDS and NOT Catholic. Another LDS user tried the same trick. Know this: It is a sin to lie or deceive - no matter the reason.
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You guys are kinda rude to my mormon friends and I don’t like it. I need to take their side in this matter. If you guys would tone it down and stop throwing bombs into the mix, the dialogue just may be interesting.
 
RebeccaJ said:
Sure we can, and do. Though “a very young man who wanted to dominate the world” is you, using rhetoric. It is clear that JS sought to deceive people, from a young age. His deceptions only grew as he did.
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At fourteen he sought to deceive people? Can we also say that saint bernedette sought to deceive people? And what about saint faustina? what about the children of fatima? Many protestants would claim deception by these people. Would you agree?
 
why_me said:
At fourteen he sought to deceive people? Can we also say that saint bernedette sought to deceive people? And what about saint faustina? what about the children of fatima? Many protestants would claim deception by these people. Would you agree?
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Apparently there is more foolishness to Mormonism than Jaredite ships.

St Bernadette had a private revelation, you are free to choose to believe it, or not. There is no impact to your ETERNAL SALVATION for rejecting her personal experiences. She didn’t use her experiences to fire up her own religion. She didn’t charge people to find treasure, claiming divine ability to do so. Need I go on?
 
Gottle_of_Geer said:

That sort of logic defeats itself - it opens up the possibility that what is thought to be a holy book, is really:​

  • a script for “Star Trek V”
  • instructions on how to build a Cylon
  • a refutation of the “Book of Abraham”
  • a recipe book
  • anything else one cares to name
For all we know, the “barges” might really be dimension-spanning super-cruisers for travelling through wormholes. Or divine barges for Mesopotamian gods. Or NASA rockets. Unless there is some control over what is a plausible translation, & what is not, the idea that X more or less means Y will allow anything, however far-fetched it might otherwise be. As there is no copy of the Reformed Egyptian text on those plates translated by Joseph Smith, no such control on what the text can or cannot be translated to mean in this context or that, exists.

Anyone who has spent five minutes with a grammar of Egyptian, & knows how the meaning is conveyed by the script, will see all too well that this embrace of vagueness
as a means of saving the BoM, completely undermines the meaning of the BoM - which was, in any case, translated “by the gift and power of God”; which means that you are calling its accuracy, & by implication the prophetic mission of your Prophet, into question.
Click to expand...
Gottle of Geer,

I would assume you have noted the following verse from the Latin Vulgate Bible:

Genesis 6:16 Thou shalt make a window in the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish the top of it: and the door of the ark thou shalt set in the side: with lower, middle chambers, and third stories shalt thou make it.
 
Gottle_of_Geer said:

That’s why I asked.​

Given your answer: how is God the Father a “perfected man” - & who was god (or God) while he was coming to perfection on “an earth” (whichever that may have been) ? If the Spirit is “a personage of spirit”, is the Spirit also a “perfected man” ?​

Nothing quoted is incompatible with:
  • Tritheism
  • Polytheism
  • Anthropomorphism
  • Arianism
  • Macedonianism
  • as a result, even Modalism & Sabellianism are not completely guarded against 😦 If God, in any of the Persons, is a “perfected man”, he cannot be unchangeable: & a changeable God could easily become the Modalist God. The text as quoted is open to all sorts of errors - nothing is said God’s Transcendence, nor of most of His other attributes, such as Eternity, Omniscience, Holiness, etc. It is what is not said, & what is not guarded against, that is bothersome. 😦
But thanks anyway

Does Mormonism accept that some of God’s attributes are incommunicable, & others are communicable ?

Maybe that’s off the topic… Thank you again 🙂
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Gottle of Geer,
I observe that you would like a fairly thorough answer to your questions, here on this thread. I apologize to others who may follow other threads, that this will be redundant, but here goes:

I don’t think of God the Father as a “perfected man.” I think He was always perfect, but did indeed live on an earth and became a resurrected Being. The following quote is from the transcript of a talk given by Joseph Smith at a funeral in 1844, called the King Follett Discourse:

"God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself did, and I will show it from the Bible.

I wish I had the trump of an archangel; I could tell the story in such a manner that persecution would cease forever. What did Jesus say? (Mark it, elder Rigdon!) Jesus said, “As the Father hath power in himself, even so hath the Son power.” To do what? Why, what the Father did. The answer is obvious–in a manner to lay down his body and take it up again. Jesus, what are you going to do? To lay down my life as my Father did, and take it up again."
…
“Here, then, is eternal life–to know the only wise and true God. And you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves–to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done–by going from a small degree to another, from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you are able to sit in glory as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power.”
…
“How consoling to the mourner when he is called to part with a husband, wife, father, mother, child, or dear relative, to know that although the earthly tabernacle shall be dissolved that dear one shall rise in immortal glory, not to sorrow, suffer, or die any more but shall be God’s heirs and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. What is it? It is to inherit the same glory, the same power, and the same exaltation until you ascend the throne of eternal power the same as those who are gone before. What did Jesus do? Why, I do the things I saw my Father do when worlds came rolling into existence. I saw my Father work out his kingdom with fear and trembling, and I must do the same; and when I get my kingdom I shall present it to my Father so that he obtains kingdom upon kingdom, and it will exalt his glory. And so Jesus treads in his tracks to inherit what God did before.”
…
“We say that God himself is a self-existing God. Who told you so? It is correct enough, but how did it get into your heads?”
…
"The mind of man is as immortal as God himself. I know that my testimony is true; hence, when I talk to these mourners, what have they lost? Their friends and relatives are separated from their bodies for only a short season; their spirits existed coequal (i.e. coeternal, because they always existed) with God, and they now exist in a place where they converse together, the same as we do on the earth. Is it logic to say that a spirit is immortal and yet has a beginning? Because if a spirit has a beginning, it will have an end. That is good logic. I want to reason further on the spirit of man, for I am dwelling on the spirit and body of man–on the subject of the dead. I take my ring from my finger and liken it unto the mind of man, the immortal spirit, because it has no beginning. Suppose I cut it in two; as the Lord lives, because it has a beginning, it would have an end. All the fools and learned and wise men from the beginning of creation who say that man had a beginning prove that he must have an end. If that were so, the doctrine of annihilation would be true. But if I am right, I might with boldness proclaim from the house tops that God never did have power to create the spirit of man at all. God himself could not create himself. Intelligence exists upon a self-existent principle; it is a spirit from age to age, and there is no creation about it. Moreover, all the spirits that God ever sent into the world are susceptible to enlargement.

The first principles of man are self-existent with God. God found himself in the midst of spirits and glory, and because he was greater, he saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have the privilege of advancing like himself–that they might have one glory upon another and all the knowledge, power, and glory necessary…"
 
Gottle of Geer,
To further answer your question about what the situation might have been when God the Father lived on an earth, I feel as I also read the Lectures on Faith which Joseph Smith used as a teaching resource, that God the Father is and has always been the Supreme Ruler of this Universe. If there was a previous distinct universe (apart from this universe) where God the Father lived, then I have to assume from the teaching of the Bible and Joseph Smith’s insights, that God the Father lived a sinless life there just as Jesus did here, and was resurrected with a Perfect Eternal body and that as far as this universe where we are living is concerned, He is God the Eternal Father and the Supreme Ruler of the universe from all eternity backwards in time to all eternity forwards in time.

So whether He was Self-existent as God or “had a God before Him”, I just don’t know nor do I think it is pertinent to my salvation or growth.

As for the Holy Spirit or the Holy Ghost, the LDS belief is that He is a personage of spirit as you said, and has never had a body therefore never been a “man”. To my knowledge, Joseph Smith never talked about how this third member of the Godhead received His attributes of perfection and omniscience, but I would assume that He has always had those qualities since He was first “created” (organized and brought into the progressed state of being a spirit) as a spirit from having previously been an “intelligence”, a less progressed entity in eternal states of being. (We have all existed as intelligences eons of time backwards into the eternal past.)
 
Gottle of Geer,
You also asked, “Does Mormonism accept that some of God’s attributes are incommunicable, & others are communicable ?”

If I have understood your question, then it is going to take an explanation about the LDS belief about God’s power and glory. I think some paragraphs from the text of the Lectures on Faith will help:

“2 We here observe that God is the only supreme governor, and independent being, in whom all fulness and perfection dwells; who is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnicient; without beginning of days or end of life; and that in him every good gift, and every good principle dwells; and that he is the Father of lights: In him the principle of faith dwells independently; and he is the object in whom the faith of all other rational and accountable beings centers, for life and salvation.”
…
18 Sixthly, That he is love.

19 An acquaintance with these attributes in the divine character, is essentially necessary, in order that the faith of any rational being can center in him for life and salvation. For if he did not, in the first instance, believe him to be God, that is, the creator and upholder of all things, he could not center his faith in him for life and salvation, for fear there should be a greater than he, who would thwart all his plans, and he, like the gods of the heathen, would be unable to fulfil his promises; but seeing he is God over all, from everlasting to everlasting, the creator and upholder of all things, no such fear can exist in the minds of those who put their trust in him, so that in this respect their faith can be without wavering."
…
“The God of heaven understanding most perfectly the constitution of human nature, and the weakness of man, knew what was necessary to be revealed, and what ideas must be planted in their minds in order that they might be enabled to exercise faith in him unto eternal life…to enable them to exercise faith in God, and through this means to be partakers of his glory.”
…
“They are the Father and the Son: The Father being a personage of spirit, glory and power: possessing all perfection and fulness: The Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, a personage of tabernacle, made, or fashioned like unto man, or being in the form and likeness of man, or, rather, man was formed after his likeness, and in his image;–he is also the express image and likeness of the personage of the Father: possessing all the fulness of the Father, or, the same fulness with the Father;”

God the Father has perfect love, perfect faith, and allows the free agency of spirits in a perfect way, including embodied spirits on this earth, the spirits who have already lived on this earth, and resurrected beings whose spirit has been reunited with a physical body.

God creates by using the power of His word to command matter and energy to obey Him because those entities are susceptible to His authority. His omnipotence means He can command all things to do what His will is, but yet He would cease to be God if He commanded anything in a way that was not in keeping with the attributes of perfect love and allowance for free agency as I noted above. He obeys truth because He loves truth.

I have said all that so you will understand that God cannot provide any other creature with “communicable” attributes, other than by allowing us to obtain such attributes for ourselves by means of our progress through accessing the full powers of the atonement of Jesus Christ. It is only through Jesus Christ that we can even hope to attain any of the divine attributes, but through Jesus Christ we can indeed hope to attain them, if we are willing to be very, very patient in both this life (where Jesus will teach us much if we let Him) and in the next stages of existence (the spirit world followed by the eternity after our resurrection). We will never have those attributes but that we always acknowledge and depend upon Jesus Christ as our Eternal Source of Truth, Light, Goodness, and Faith.
 
PaulDupre said:
And yes, Mormons are very strange indeed.
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And they are also nice people, very christian in demeanor, modestly dress, especially the youth, a people who pray to heavenly father often and attempt to live his commandments. Also, mormons can be very kind to others and see their bodies as temples and not amusement parks. I suppose that would make anyone strange indeed in this day and age.
 
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