Mormon - Beliefs - A civil Discussion Please

[Realcatholicgk]

Do I realize there are two? Absolutely! That is what I am trying to show. There are two creation accounts.

Now, you say the second is older than the first? Why?

Why would God give Moses a latter Creation and then go back and give him one that happened much earlier? And why would he give us that?

It does not hold water Tami. The first creation happened first, and the second happened second. Just as God has given them to us.

MEgus

**
Hi ME,

Yea, like you were there! :whacky: The correct interpretation of Genesis is it being allegorical. It begins with a resolutely monotheistic story of the creation and goes on to provide a series of myths which can be echoed in sever other religions - the fall of man into a state of sin through disobedience (Adam and Eve eating the apple). The fact that two different names for God are used, Elohim in the first account and Yahweh Elohim in the second account, plus differences in the styles of the two chapters and a number of real discrepancies between them, formed one of the earliest concrete pieces of evidence that the Pentateuch had multiple origins, and these truths were instrumental in the development of source criticism and the documentary hypothesis which has stood firmly for ages. The story of a great flood which sweeps away the whole of sinful mankind except for one small group of survivors (Noah and his family), and the emergence of different languages (God’s punishment for man’s presumption in building the mighty tower of Babel, which almost reaches to heaven) echoed in other religions of that region.

In the Creation story God wanted the truth that He and He along created everything from nothing understood by His chosen people. That is the truth of Creation: That God, who always was, made everything from Nothing! Any other idea is foolish and deceitful at best!! Evil, if intentional! With the entry of Abraham, Genesis starts to teach the story of the Bible’s own people, the Hebrews. And thenJjesus was born and the Holy Catholic Church was founded to save the world and all true beleivers! Just like the NT describes!

God Bless**

 

[truthsilence]

But **I **want to take credit for it! You guys are spoil sports!

 

[truthsilence]

Tami,

If you want to say Elohim is God, and YHWH" (Adonai) is translated Lord I can go along with that.

However, your falling into the same problem with scripture that everyone else seems to do. You are taking something that comes later and then molding earlier scripture to fit that current interpretation. This is what causes people to err and not understand scripture. The first scripture takes precedence. Later scripture has to adhere to the first, not the other way around.

And again, I am not trying to imply anything here. I am trying to study the first, to gain understanding of what I should use as I study latter scripture.

MEgus

Do I realize there are two? Absolutely! That is what I am trying to show. There are two creation accounts.

Now, you say the second is older than the first? Why?

Why would God give Moses a latter Creation and then go back and give him one that happened much earlier? And why would he give us that?

It does not hold water Tami. The first creation happened first, and the second happened second. Just as God has given them to us.

MEgus

MEgus,

What makes the most sense to me is that the two creation accounts are narratives from two different time periods. One from Jewish history before Babylonian captivity, the other one after; and there are several hundred years in between. Therefore, I don’t believe Moses is the original “author” of either of them. I believe he compiled the accounts from what was passed on to him.

What is most important for us in reading any scripture is to come to an understanding of salvation history, of our relationship to God, of how we become children of God through Jesus Christ.

Peace,
Tami

 

[truthsilence]

Tami,

I’ve been thinking. Are you one of those people who believe that God created the world in 7 days?

Or are you one who believes he created the world in 7 1000 year days?

Or 7 periods of time?

I would just like to know as we discuss things here.

MEgus

Lets just say I am not a fundamentalist. It is important to understand scripture within the context of its literary form.

I believe the creation took as long as God wanted it to take.

 

[truthsilence]

MEgus,

Oops, I realize I’m off on the historical timeline up there.

See, I’m still learning something - everyday almost!

 

[truthsilence]

That’s because Tami is always right. :egyptian:

Hate to disappoint! Haaaa :doh2:

 

[Realcatholicgk]

Lets just say I am not a fundamentalist. It is important to understand scripture within the context of its literary form.

I believe the creation took as long as God wanted it to take.

**
Hi Truth,

I also believe it took as long as God wanted it to take! Only fools limit Him and His ways! I also believe He didn’t have to rest after He was done! That was an example for us to follow! :dts: I also believe that only He knows who will obtain eternal life! :sad_yes:

There are several questions, that I would like Him to answer, just so I could understand him better. Creation isn’t one of them! . My number 1 question is why He allows our country to continue to abort our babies without bringing His just punishment on our Nation, or maybe he finally has??

God Bless**

 

[MEgus]

**
Hi ME,

Yea, like you were there! :whacky: The correct interpretation of Genesis is it being allegorical. It begins with a resolutely monotheistic story of the creation and goes on to provide a series of myths which can be echoed in sever other religions - the fall of man into a state of sin through disobedience (Adam and Eve eating the apple). The fact that two different names for God are used, Elohim in the first account and Yahweh Elohim in the second account, plus differences in the styles of the two chapters and a number of real discrepancies between them, formed one of the earliest concrete pieces of evidence that the Pentateuch had multiple origins, and these truths were instrumental in the development of source criticism and the documentary hypothesis which has stood firmly for ages. The story of a great flood which sweeps away the whole of sinful mankind except for one small group of survivors (Noah and his family), and the emergence of different languages (God’s punishment for man’s presumption in building the mighty tower of Babel, which almost reaches to heaven) echoed in other religions of that region.

In the Creation story God wanted the truth that He and He along created everything from nothing understood by His chosen people. That is the truth of Creation: That God, who always was, made everything from Nothing! Any other idea is foolish and deceitful at best!! Evil, if intentional! With the entry of Abraham, Genesis starts to teach the story of the Bible’s own people, the Hebrews. And thenJjesus was born and the Holy Catholic Church was founded to save the world and all true beleivers! Just like the NT describes!

God Bless**

WOW Real, I never knew that the Catholic Church believed the Bible was a bunch of myths. I was always under the assumption that you guys believed the Bible.

I have heard that a lot of religions think the creation is a myth, that Adam and Eve were myths, that the Flood was a myth, that the Children of Israel going through the red sea was a myth, that being fed mana in the desert for 40 years was a myth, that the walls of Jerico falling down was a myth, that Jesus being born of a virgin was a myth, that the feeding of the 5000 and 4000 was a myth and that the resurrection of Jesus was a myth, but I did not know it originated from the Catholic Church.

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints believe the Bible to be the word of God in it’s entirety. We believe that some things have been lost or changed from it’s original meaning by being translated from one language to another or by having things taken out of it, but we believe it is all the word of God. Given to man to gain knowledge and understanding of Him and us and why we are here.

Thanks for the understanding that you believe many things are myths.

MEgus

 

[MEgus]

MEgus,

What makes the most sense to me is that the two creation accounts are narratives from two different time periods. One from Jewish history before Babylonian captivity, the other one after; and there are several hundred years in between. Therefore, I don’t believe Moses is the original “author” of either of them. I believe he compiled the accounts from what was passed on to him.

What is most important for us in reading any scripture is to come to an understanding of salvation history, of our relationship to God, of how we become children of God through Jesus Christ.

Peace,
Tami

Lets just say I am not a fundamentalist. It is important to understand scripture within the context of its literary form.

I believe the creation took as long as God wanted it to take.

Tami,

Interesting ideas there. I will agree that scripture is given to us to lead us to God and our relationship to him, but there is problems with us discounting things as not being relevant to that. It’s as if we think that only those things in the middle of scripture are important and not the first, when the first establishes the truth of the latter.

Even Jesus admonished us to study the scriptures and when he said that, there was no New Testament, only the old. So I would not just brush over that.

I was trying to think of a good way to convey that to you, and came up with this scenario .

Suppose God was to give us scripture in the early 1900’s that said, “Studying the scriptures together makes Mary and Martha gay” what would you think that would mean? Now, if you take that a 1000 years from now and the definition of gay remains the same as it does today, would you be able to understand the difference between the author saying, with the definition when it was stated, that it made them “happy” as to them becoming “homosexual” by studying scripture?

You see that is the problem. We tend to look at things today with understandings of today and try to determine things written long ago with that understanding. It can cause us to error and changes the meaning of what the original intent of the author was.

Here, instead of studying the original intent of the author of Genesis, you seem to want to just brush it off as two different accounts and put it past you instead of trying to search for the understanding of the original author.

I don’t think they are different accounts. I think they are exactly as they are. I think the Lord gave them to us to understand exactly who we are and what God is. They are very important. So much so that God gave them to all the inhabitants of the earth for us to gain that knowledge and understanding.

Taking them as myths or as just different accounts places the whole bible on shaky ground. Either it is as God says it is, or we have to put the rest of the Bible in suspect. Can you see that?

MEgus

 

[mfbukowski]

Thanks for the understanding that you believe many things are myths.

MEgus

Catholics put tradition and the philosophies of men ahead of the bible. When in doubt, the magesterium always wins, because it is the sole definer of truth.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Catholics put tradition and the philosophies of men ahead of the bible. When in doubt, the magesterium always wins, because it is the sole definer of truth.

I hope you realize that your rhetoric becomes more and more anti-Catholic.

The above is just you, making stuff up. Congratulations.

 

[RebeccaJ]

WOW Real, I never knew that the Catholic Church believed the Bible was a bunch of myths. I was always under the assumption that you guys believed the Bible.

I have heard that a lot of religions think the creation is a myth, that Adam and Eve were myths, that the Flood was a myth, that the Children of Israel going through the red sea was a myth, that being fed mana in the desert for 40 years was a myth, that the walls of Jerico falling down was a myth, that Jesus being born of a virgin was a myth, that the feeding of the 5000 and 4000 was a myth and that the resurrection of Jesus was a myth, but I did not know it originated from the Catholic Church.

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints believe the Bible to be the word of God in it’s entirety. We believe that some things have been lost or changed from it’s original meaning by being translated from one language to another or by having things taken out of it, but we believe it is all the word of God. Given to man to gain knowledge and understanding of Him and us and why we are here.

Thanks for the understanding that you believe many things are myths.

MEgus

MEgus, this is not what Catholics believe. It has always been the understanding that Scripture can be read and understood in different “senses”. That of literal and spiritual.

The types of spiritual sense that we read the scriptures include allegory, for example, the crossing of the Red Sea can be understood as an allegory to Christ’s victory and Christian baptism. (We also understand it literally.)

Another spiritual sense is moral, that is, that what we read in Scripture ought to cause us to act justly.

Another is anagogical, where we can view the realities and events in terms of eternal significance. Such as, the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.

This is straight out of the Catechism for the Catholic Church.

I will add, that in my own studies, there is numerical allegory. That is, numbers signify spiritual truths. The number 7 represents divine perfection. The number 1000 represents a long period of time, an amount of time only known to God. I understand the creation taking 7 days, to mean that when creation was complete, it was perfect. I understand that when Scripture speaks of 1000 years, it is conveying a long period of time. Not literally, 1000 years. All of this is an understanding that God is the Creator, of all things.

The early stories in the OT contain very important spiritual truths. We don’t believe that all of these truths are conveyed literally. A spiritual reading, in many ways, provides a deeper understanding of God’s will and purpose. What St. Jerome called, illumination.

 

[Realcatholicgk]

WOW Real, I never knew that the Catholic Church believed the Bible was a bunch of myths. I was always under the assumption that you guys believed the Bible.

**Hi ME,

You are actually too cute for words! The way you twist the truth, Joseph Smith would be proud to call you a member of his cult!
The Holy scriptures is the entire collection of canonical religious writings held sacred by Catholics and often distorted by Protestants and modified and added onto by cults like the Mormons and the SDAs to support their lies!

The real bible has 73 books is divided into the Old Testament 46 books and the New Testament. There is no divinely inspired “table of contents” for the Bible, therefore, Christians needed an authority, like the infallible Catholic Church established by Christ, to discern which books were the divinely inspired ones. No one has the authority to add or subtract books from the Bible. Only Satan attempts to do such foolishness!

None of the Bible is considered to be the literal word of God in the same way that Muslims consider the Qur’an to be. Generally it is accepted that all the books of the Bible were written by men with divine inspiration The Catholic church determines what is inspired and what isn’r based on its authority given by Jesus himself!. The scriptures provide all of God’s teachings required for salvation.

I know that Mormons wrote three additional books, and recognize the Bible “as far as it is translated correctly” (Articles of Faith 1:8). The books are The Book of Mormon (BOM) which Joseph Smith declared is “the most correct of any book on earth.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 194).This of course is the keystone of your cult! You also regard your phony Doctrine and Covenants (D&C) as scriptures :whacky: (GP, p. 54). Lets not forget the last book: The Pearl of the Great Price (PGP) “It clarifies doctrines and teachings that were lost from the Bible and gives added information concerning the creation of the earth” (GP, p. 54) .Yea, Sure it does It contains the false “Genesis” as you are attempting to distort from the real bible! Your cult and its false teachings are well known.Even Protestants deny you as christians! **

Thanks for the understanding that you believe many things are myths.

**
I actually believe that all of your lies and deseatful words are myths made up by Joseph Smith and his followers as dictated by Satan himself to gain souls for His kingdom. That is what I believe, that it what the One real God reveales to His people. Look to the teachings of the Pope and the Magisterium for the truth."- Fr John Corapi

God Bless**

 

[Realcatholicgk]

Catholics put tradition and the philosophies of men ahead of the bible. When in doubt, the magesterium always wins, because it is the sole definer of truth.

**Hi Mf,

Doesn’t LDS put the writings of Joseph Smith ahead of the bible as he told you to do? (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 194).The LDS motto seems to be “When in doubt write a new book or distort the bible!”

The scriptures speak of Protestants and about the Church of the LDS:

2 Pet 2:3 “In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.”

Mat 24:11 “And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.”

2 Pet 2:1 “But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them–bringing swift destruction on themselves.”

2 Pet 2:2 “Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.”

1 John 4:1 " Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world."

mf, don’t worry, God loves you. You can be saved. I am praying for your conversion daily. You and MEgus and all the other followers of false religious groups deserve to become real Christians. The Catholic church is open to everyone who will accept Jesus and deny the false prophets and their corrupted teachings! The choice is yours…

“In the end, forever, you and I will be in Heaven or Hell. Period.” - Fr John Corapi

AMEN!

God Bless**

 

[truthsilence]

Tami,

Interesting ideas there. I will agree that scripture is given to us to lead us to God and our relationship to him, but there is problems with us discounting things as not being relevant to that. It’s as if we think that only those things in the middle of scripture are important and not the first, when the first establishes the truth of the latter.

Even Jesus admonished us to study the scriptures and when he said that, there was no New Testament, only the old. So I would not just brush over that.

I was trying to think of a good way to convey that to you, and came up with this scenario .

Suppose God was to give us scripture in the early 1900’s that said, “Studying the scriptures together makes Mary and Martha gay” what would you think that would mean? Now, if you take that a 1000 years from now and the definition of gay remains the same as it does today, would you be able to understand the difference between the author saying, with the definition when it was stated, that it made them “happy” as to them becoming “homosexual” by studying scripture?

You see that is the problem. We tend to look at things today with understandings of today and try to determine things written long ago with that understanding. It can cause us to error and changes the meaning of what the original intent of the author was.

Here, instead of studying the original intent of the author of Genesis, you seem to want to just brush it off as two different accounts and put it past you instead of trying to search for the understanding of the original author.

I don’t think they are different accounts. I think they are exactly as they are. I think the Lord gave them to us to understand exactly who we are and what God is. They are very important. So much so that God gave them to all the inhabitants of the earth for us to gain that knowledge and understanding.

Taking them as myths or as just different accounts places the whole bible on shaky ground. Either it is as God says it is, or we have to put the rest of the Bible in suspect. Can you see that?

MEgus

MEgus,

First of all. How did you get out of what I wrote that ANY of scripture is not important? I did not say anything remotely close to that! What I did say, in answer to your question about the creation, is that I am not a fundamentalist. By that, I mean that I don’t believe the accounts in Genesis HAVE to be taken literally. And I certainly do not think we have to believe that the earth was literally created in six days. Do you?

I believe there are many many literary forms that appear in the Bible. Among them are myth, allegory, legend, debate, fiction, Gospel, parable, allegory, letter and apocalypse. Not only is it important to try and ascertain which literary form is being used to transmit what God wishes for us to know, it is also helpful to know what the beliefs of the people were at the time the passage was written. And why does the religious insight revealed in the passage bring growth to our understanding as compared to earlier ideas?

The reason it is unappealing to me to read scripture for personal spiritual insight without an understanding of the context in which it was written, is that I can see where that has lead to all kinds of misunderstanding and even abuse throughout history. So I find it helpful and even necessary to try and learn as much as I can about what I am reading. But I am just getting my feet wet, so to speak. I don’t have a huge grasp on the scriptures by any stretch of the imagination. I am falling more and more in love with the Bible every day. Becoming Catholic has not diminished my desire to know God’s word, (or Gods WORD) in fact, being Catholic has only intensified that desire. The best part, the most amazing and awesome part, is that I feel closer to Him and His word than ever before in my life.

All Praise Honor and Glory to His name.

I hope this clears up the misunderstanding. The Bible is the word of God, and I do not brush any of it off. None of it is “suspect” to me. There is a purpose for the whole of it. There is much more I could write about why a person should not be afraid to study its pages with an understanding of the context in which they were written. Perhaps we can get into that further sometime here on the forum in another thread.

Now, I must tell you. I still do not see how, in reading Genesis, you come up with the idea that the first chapter is a spiritual account of creation, while the second is physical. That is exclusive to Mormon theology and the idea comes from the Pearl of Great Price not Genesis.

Peace to you,
Tami

 

[MEgus]

MEgus, this is not what Catholics believe. It has always been the understanding that Scripture can be read and understood in different “senses”. That of literal and spiritual.

Rebecca, that’s not what Realcatholic said. She said,

The correct interpretation of Genesis is it being allegorical. It begins with a resolutely monotheistic story of the creation and goes on to provide a series of myths which can be echoed in sever other religions -

Which one of you should I believe???

MEgus

 

[truthsilence]

Rebecca, that’s not what Realcatholic said. She said,

Which one of you should I believe???

MEgus

MEgus,

Some of the reason you are reacting to the literary form “Myth” is that you have a negative understanding of the word.

The word Myth does not mean something was once believed to be true but we now know it is false. So, to say something is a myth is NOT to say it is untrue.

A Myth is an imaginative story about reality which might be beyond our comprehension, using symbols to speak about that reality.

Take a deep breath and don’t be afraid to accept that there might be a little bit of the literary form ‘Myth’ in the Holy Bible.

tami

 

[truthsilence]

Good ol’ Wikipedia.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth

See the paragraph on Religion and mythology in particular.

Peace,
Tami

 

[Realcatholicgk]

Rebecca, that’s not what Realcatholic said. She said,

**Hi Me,

I am a 64 year old Combat-disabled Male Nam Vet who will tear your tongue out if you call me “She” again! Got It?

Which one of you should I believe???**

Both are correct, as stated! Do you want to know the truth? Click on: The Truth!. You will read factual things there ! unlike here: Click on: Lies No One Could Believe! Any one can see that significant portions of the Pearl of Great Price are texts taken from the Bible and then rearranged to support your false beliefs. The Pearl of Great Price is not inspired by God, it is not a reliable historical document! It was created to solely give support to the false doctrines of the Mormon Church.

OK my friend, do you care to answer two “fair” questions?

1). How do you account for the stunning parallels in both content and order between the B of M and the “View of the Hebrews” by Ethan Smith? Published in 1823 (7 years before the B of M) less than 100 miles from the Joseph Smith’s parents home?

2). Why is about 1/8th of the B of M copied directly from the KJV (1611AD) when “it was alleged” to have been written some 1200-2000 years before the KJV existed?


God Bless

 

[PaulDupre]

I am a 64 year old Combat-disabled Male Nam Vet

Thank you for you service!