LDS / The Nature of God

[ben_dy]

Wish I had time to respond - really had something working, fool, but had to set it aside and am going back into hospital tomorrow for who knows how long (and a different hospital so I don’t know that I’ll have Internet access, though I’m taking my laptop with wireless card AND a 25 foot ether cable just in case!). Hope to see all of you in the next week or so!

Take care and may God bless you all! Having to make late Mass this morning - may be my last for awhile!

 

[Chris-WA]

must also be inspired by the same Spirit in order to discern whether something that is taught is indeed inspired or not. That is what in LDS scripture the Lord has counseled church members to do. See D&C 50:13-25. You probably come from a religious tradition of “blind obedience,” therefore you have difficulty grasping the ideas behind what we teach.

No Amgid, blind obedience is when one is willing to overlook any and all doctrinal or other errors made by Joseph Smith or Brigham Young no matter how serious. When one excuses doctrinal error by a prophet of God, they are blindly following that prophet.

 

[PaulDupre]

ben_dy:

Wish I had time to respond - really had something working, fool, but had to set it aside and am going back into hospital tomorrow for who knows how long (and a different hospital so I don’t know that I’ll have Internet access, though I’m taking my laptop with wireless card AND a 25 foot ether cable just in case!). Hope to see all of you in the next week or so!

Take care and may God bless you all! Having to make late Mass this morning - may be my last for awhile!

God be with you, Ben. You are in our prayers.
Paul

 

[catholic-rcia]

Mormon Fool

Read this whole page, look to the Scripture at the bottom and look them up in your KJ Bible.

scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s2c1p7.htm#385

It has a lot to do with God and us, His Nature / Our nature

Be pretty busy this week, would love to talk about this portian oc the Church’s Teachings.

God Bless

 

[ben_dy]

majick275:

GBH never denied this doctrine. He said he didn’t know that it was taught or emphasized. (current Gospel Doctrine Manual says it is), He said we don’t know much about it…maybe, depends on your definitions. He clintoned this issue in an interview. We all know it’s taught and always has been by LDS.

maj-

Just a quick one before I try and get a few hours of sleep…

…what is the “Gospel Doctrine Manual”? Not the same as the 400+ page “Gospel Principles” which is online, I’m assuming, as I could find nothing in that book which addresses this principle (save by taking what is written about man and applying it to God).

I’ll take a look at DB and see if I can find it - at some point… too many other things to worry and fret (and PRAY) over just now!

 

[mormon_fool]

ben_dy:

Wish I had time to respond - really had something working, fool, but had to set it aside and am going back into hospital tomorrow for who knows how long (and a different hospital so I don’t know that I’ll have Internet access, though I’m taking my laptop with wireless card AND a 25 foot ether cable just in case!). Hope to see all of you in the next week or so!

Take care and may God bless you all! Having to make late Mass this morning - may be my last for awhile!

Hi Ben,

Your posts are certainly worth the wait, keep 'em coming as your health permits!

–fool

 

[ben_dy]

amgid:

They are indeed, and by and large their teachings on various subjects have been inspirational and uplifting, and have taught correct principles. The number of instances where they have seriously erred has been very small, considering the volume of output and length of time involved. Joseph Smith in particular was very cautious about what he taught, and apart from the King Follett discourse I don’t know of any other instances where he allowed his imagination to get ahead of his sound judgment. We never said that prophets must be infallible. Why you ignore the hundreds of thousands of lines of good and sound principles that they taught, and like to latch on to a few lines of speculation, and blow it out of all proportion, is a question that you are best able to answer.

amgid

amgid,

I AM going to try and get a few hours of sleep but I did, as one guilty of latching on to a few lines of speculation and blowing it out of proportion, want to answer that. The reason is not the fault of the LDS church - it is because anyone who begins an online investigation (as I did but - what - 5 1/2 months ago?) of LDS doctrine is slapped silly, time and time and time again, with the repetition of the same lines of speculation until we come to the point where, read often enough, we believe that MUST be the LDS doctrine or it would not be on countless number of websites, in books, etc. It’s titillating stuff - Adam/God/Michael, the KFD, etc., and yet in reading the entirety of the JoD, particularly, difficult to find in such an historical document many “anti-Mormon gems”. We who feel that we are seriously undertaking a look at LDS doctrine, therefore, have a difficult time of letting go of these gems - we find them because they are easy to find, much more so that reading 500 pages of current teachings (yes, some things we find that we disagree with there, but nothing so juicy or easy to remember than Snow’s couplet).

So the answer to your question - “Why you ignore the hundreds of thousands of lines of good and sound principles that they taught, and like to latch on to a few lines of speculation, and blow it out of all proportion?” is… because it’s the easy thing to do.

So it’s MUCH easier to say ‘your church teaches X’ when there are thousands upon thousands of two or three instances where such teaches have been spoken than it is to wade through the fine print of that which is not quite as ‘exciting’ a find.

Glad to see you back - hope that I will be back soon!

 

[mormon_fool]

Ben,

majick is referring to chapter 47 of Gospel Principles manual. Here is all the incidents of teaching “God was once like us” I could find in the last ~35 years of publications.

Conference Addresses:
Eldred G. Smith, “Decision,” Ensign, May 1978
N. Eldon Tanner, “Ye Shall Know the Truth,” Ensign, May 1978
Spencer W. Kimball, “Our Great Potential,” Ensign, May 1977
Lesson manuals
Brigham Young manual, 4: Knowing and Honoring the Godhead, 29
AP 2, 1: Who Am I?, Objective ‘93
Gospel Principles, 47: Exaltation
Periodicals
Hoyt W. Brewster Jr., “I Have a Question,” Ensign, Feb. 1982,
James B. Allen, “Line upon Line,” Tambuli, Sept. 1979,
James B. Allen, “Line upon Line,” Ensign, July 1979,
Cannon, Dahl, and Welch, “The Restoration of Major Doctrines through Joseph Smith: The Godhead, Mankind, and the Creation,” Ensign, Jan. 1989
Joseph Smith Jr., “The King Follett Sermon,” Ensign, Apr. 1971,
Kent Nielsen, “People on Other Worlds,” New Era, Apr. 1971
Marvin J. Ashton, “Q & A: Questions and Answers,” New Era, Apr. 1971
R. Val Johnson, “The Purpose of Life,” Ensign, Apr. 1993,
Marvin J. Ashton, “Proper Self-management,” Ensign, Nov. 1976
L. Tom Perry, “Learning to Serve,” Ensign, Aug. 1996
L. Tom Perry, “Learning to Serve,” Liahona, May 2002
Boyd K. Packer, “The Candle of the Lord,” Tambuli, July 1983
Boyd K. Packer, “The Candle of the Lord,” Ensign, Jan. 1983
(this talk was condensed in 1988 with the Snow couplet left out.)
“The Atoning Sacrifice: Modern Prophets Testify,” Ensign, Apr. 1974 (As man is, God once was—even the babe of Bethlehem)
Art, Poetry, Otherin periodicals (too trivial to link to)
“Mormonad,” New Era, June 1982,
34730, Gospel Art Picture Kit, Lorenzo Snow, 510
Hilary Hendricks, “President Lorenzo Snow Crossword,” Friend, Mar. 2002
Glen M. Leonard, “Sculpture from the Church’s Second International Art Competition,” Ensign, Aug. 1991
Michael Umphrey, “In the Shadow of the Sun,” Ensign, July 1989

HTH,
fool

 

[majick275]

yes. You should be able to read all of the current LDS lesson manuals from www.lds.org. While I certainly don’t agree with theit conclusions they are very informative if you wish to understand what LDS believe.

 

[amgid]

Well, Chris, I am not going to get into an endless back and forth with you over something that I believe you already know to be true. Your answer has already been given in the Book of Mormon:

Ether 12:

26 And when I had said this, the Lord spake unto me, saying: Fools mock, but they shall mourn; and my grace is sufficient for the meek, that they shall take no advantage of your weakness;

---

36 And it came to pass that I prayed unto the Lord that he would give unto the Gentiles grace, that they might have charity.

37 And it came to pass that the Lord said unto me: If they have not charity, it mattereth not unto thee; thou hast been faithful, wherefore thy garments shall be made clean. And because thou hast seen thy weakness thou shalt be made strong, even unto the sitting down in the place which I have prepared in the mansions of my Father.
amgid

 

[amgid]

Brad Haas:

Today I attended a stake play in honor of the life of Joseph Smith. At the end, they played a video of Gordon B. Hinckley. It looked like a general conference. He said something along the lines of Joseph Smith learned more about the “nature of deity” than all of the men who had studied and disputed in the centuries before him.

A think that I would agree with him on that! As a 14 year old boy Joseph Smith saw the Father and the Son as two distinct and separate personages, in human form, one of whom addressed him by name saying: “This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!” (JS-H 1:17.) That already tells you more about the nature and attributes of God than all the studies and disputations of scholars and theologians of the past centuries.

amgid

 

[amgid]

ben_dy:

…what is the “Gospel Doctrine Manual”?

This refers to the “Gospel Doctrine Teachers’ Manual” that is used to teach the Sunday School Gospel Doctrine classes in the Church on Sundays. It cycles between the OT, NT, BoM, and D&C and Church History every year. This year it was the latter. Next year it will start with the OT. It is also online, and can be seen at the Church’s website.

By the way, I replied to your PM a long time ago, but it looks like it still remains unread. You are in our prayers, and I hope you will get the right treatment you need. The Lord loves you too and will take care of you.

amgid

 

[amgid]

ben_dy:

I AM going to try and get a few hours of sleep but I did, as one guilty of latching on to a few lines of speculation and blowing it out of proportion, want to answer that. The reason is not the fault of the LDS church - it is because anyone who begins an online investigation (as I did but - what - 5 1/2 months ago?) of LDS doctrine is slapped silly, time and time and time again, with the repetition of the same lines of speculation until we come to the point where, read often enough, we believe that MUST be the LDS doctrine or it would not be on countless number of websites, in books, etc. It’s titillating stuff - Adam/God/Michael, the KFD, etc., and yet in reading the entirety of the JoD, particularly, difficult to find in such an historical document many “anti-Mormon gems”. We who feel that we are seriously undertaking a look at LDS doctrine, therefore, have a difficult time of letting go of these gems - we find them because they are easy to find, much more so that reading 500 pages of current teachings (yes, some things we find that we disagree with there, but nothing so juicy or easy to remember than Snow’s couplet).

Thank you for your honesty. This, however, may be true of you, but not necessarily of others. I fear that a lot of those who “latch on” to those things know better, and do so our of malicious intent rather than out of ignorance.

So the answer to your question - “Why you ignore the hundreds of thousands of lines of good and sound principles that they taught, and like to latch on to a few lines of speculation, and blow it out of all proportion?” is… because it’s the easy thing to do.

Yes, but most of them who do already know better.

So it’s MUCH easier to say ‘your church teaches X’ when there are thousands upon thousands of two or three instances where such teaches have been spoken than it is to wade through the fine print of that which is not quite as ‘exciting’ a find.

Those who generally know better!

amgid