Mormon Beliefs

[Kristine1957]

Oh please… God was once a man of flesh?
The Mormon church says:

The first principle of the Gospel is to know for certain the character of God and to also know…that he was once a **MAN like us… **
( teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 345-346, and History of the Church, vol. 6, 305-307
However:

The President of the Mormon Church dosn’t want to admit what they teach! Look at the interview’s he had in 1997 with the SF Chronicle and Time Magazine.
The question was …Do Mormons believe that God was once a man?

Hinckley: “I wouldn’t say that. … That gets into some pretty deep theology that we don’t know very much about.”

Talk about DODGING the question!..:tsktsk:

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Your interpretations are all wrong!

No further comment is required.

zerinus

Thats not fair. What about the comments I made?

All that he has said in his lengthy posts is that all those scriptural passages that I had cited were not meant to be taken literally. Well I don’t agree. The context implies that they were meant to be taken literally. There is nothing more to be said about that.
zerinus

Thats just it, the “context” didnt support your conclusions.

Wrong! The LDS position is not the same as any of those. Our position is not based on an “interpretation” of the Bible. Our position is based on current revelation, which none of the others claim. We know that the Father and the Son are two separate personages in the human form, and have physical bodies, because the Lord has revealed it to us that that is the case. Joseph Smith saw them as two separate personages:
JS-History 1:17: “When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!” Once you know that, what is taught in the Bible falls into place, and it is not difficult to argue that position from Bible—which only serves to confirm the truth of what Joseph Smith taught.

You realize that in the Bible the TWO places when God the Father said “This is My Beloved Son, Hear Him” He was speaking from a cloud (Matt 3:16-17, Matt 17:5).
The Father never showed a body and never intended to.

 

[hosemonkey]

The proliferation of varying biblical interpretations argues against any of them, outside Catholicism, being correct. The Protestants decided on sola scriptura as a way of cutting the Catholic Church out. They decided that every man was his own interpretor of Scripture. The fruit of this has been the sects and cults. Immediately, the Protestants began fragmenting and arguing, mostly about interpretations of Scripture.

**I agree that that is true of Protestantism and other denominations (including Catholicism, I might add); but no so of LDS. The LDS position is unique in that it is based on continuing revelation, *which even the Catholic Church does not claim.

zerinus*

So let me decode this passage of Zerinus’ for you.

“The LDS position is unique in that it
is based on continual lying and revision of doctrine to accomodate social pressure (Blacks admitted to priesthood, polygamy) Inability to prove BoM, and general greed for money and an unwilligness to provide an accurate accounting.”
(Which,thankfully, the Catholic Church does not claim.)

 

[Allweather]

So let me decode this passage of Zerinus’ for you.

“The LDS position is unique in that it
is based on continual lying and revision of doctrine to accomodate social pressure (Blacks admitted to priesthood, polygamy) Inability to prove BoM, and general greed for money and an unwilligness to provide an accurate accounting.”
(Which,thankfully, the Catholic Church does not claim.)

Thanks, hosemonkey. I’d say you decoded it very nicely.

 

[Erich]

Did you miss post 151

John 4:24 – “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Or Luke 24:39 – “a spirit has not flesh and bones.”

Not only does the Bible itself contradict zerinus’ claim that God has a physical body, it also contradicts Mormonism’s concept of eternal progression. Isaiah got it right in chapter 43 verse 10: “‘You are my witnesses,’ says the Lord, ‘and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.’”

 

[zerinus]

Thats not fair. What about the comments I made?

I should explain that my time is limited, and I can’t afford to spend the time required to give lengthy replies to trite and trivial, or foolish but lengthy arguments, about which the author should know better (and I am sure he does). I will give you a couple of examples. I had quoted you Exodus 24:9-11 as evidence that God appeared to Moses and the elders of Israel. To that you had replied: “If you keep reading this to the end of the chapter it is clear it was God speaking from a cloud (also Ex 19:9-24. Ex 20:18-21)”. That just doesn’t hold water, something that I believe you are perfectly aware of. The fact that God had appeared to Moses and the rest of Israel in a cloud, it does not meant He could not have appeared to them on this occasion without a cloud. The verse clearly states that they “saw God,” and even describe what was paved under His feet. Now you want to tell me that that does not mean what it says. So what do you expect me to do, write a term paper to prove to you that it means what it says, something that you are perfectly capable of recognizing for yourself without any help from me? I don’t have any time for that kind of thing.

Here is another example. I had quoted you Numbers 12:6-8, commenting that “by the ‘similitude of the Lord’ is meant the very shape, form, and appearance of God.” To that you had replied: “You left off two important verses at the start and end of your quote, verses 5 and 10 which is clear God was appearing in and spoke from a cloud (as He often did). Your addition of the "" is unwarranted. All that passage is saying is that God speaks to Moses in a very intimate manner and in a clear manner (eg not in riddles);” which is a nonsensical comment, and completely ignores the verse where it says that “the similitude to the Lord shall he behold”. Do you know what the word “similitude” means? It occurs on eight occasions in the Old Testament altogether. Here is a complete list of all of them:

Numbers 12:

8 With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses

Deuteronomy 4:

12 And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice.

Deuteronomy 4:

15 Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire

Deuteronomy 4:

16 Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female,

2 Chronicles 4:

3 And under it was the similitude of oxen, which did compass it round about: ten in a cubit, compassing the sea round about. Two rows of oxen were cast, when it was cast.

Psalms 106:

20 Thus they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass.

Psalms 144:

12 That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace

Daniel 10:

16 And, behold, one like the similitude of the sons of men touched my lips: then I opened my mouth, and spake, and said unto him that stood before me, O my lord, by the vision my sorrows are turned upon me, and I have retained no strength.

So, now that you know what “similitude” means, what do you think it means when it says that “the similitude of the lord shall he behold”? Do you honestly expect me to write six term papers every time I debate with you to prove you the obvious? I am afraid my time is more valuable than that. I can’t afford to waste my time on this kind of thing.

zerinus

 

[hosemonkey]

I should explain that my time is limited, and I can’t afford to spend the time required to give lengthy replies to trite and trivial, or foolish but lengthy arguments, about which the author should know better (and I am sure he does). I will give you a couple of examples. I had quoted you Exodus 24:9-11 as evidence that God appeared to Moses and the elders of Israel. To that you had replied: “If you keep reading this to the end of the chapter it is clear it was God speaking from a cloud (also Ex 19:9-24. Ex 20:18-21)”. That just doesn’t hold water, something that I believe you are perfectly aware of. The fact that God had appeared to Moses and the rest of Israel in a cloud, it does not meant He could not have appeared to them on this occasion without a cloud. The verse clearly states that they “saw God,” and even describe what was paved under His feet. Now you want to tell me that that does not mean what it says. So what do you expect me to do, write a term paper to prove to you that it means what it says, something that you are perfectly capable of recognizing for yourself without any help from me? I don’t have any time for that kind of thing.

Here is another example. I had quoted you Numbers 12:6-8, commenting that “by the ‘similitude of the Lord’ is meant the very shape, form, and appearance of God.” To that you had replied: “You left off two important verses at the start and end of your quote, verses 5 and 10 which is clear God was appearing in and spoke from a cloud (as He often did). Your addition of the "" is unwarranted. All that passage is saying is that God speaks to Moses in a very intimate manner and in a clear manner (eg not in riddles);” which is a nonsensical comment, and completely ignores the verse where it says that “the similitude to the Lord shall he behold”. Do you know what the word “similitude” means? It occurs on eight occasions in the Old Testament altogether. Here is a complete list of all of them:

Numbers 12:

8 With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses

Deuteronomy 4:

12 And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice.

Deuteronomy 4:

15 Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire

Deuteronomy 4:

16 Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female,

2 Chronicles 4:

3 And under it was the similitude of oxen, which did compass it round about: ten in a cubit, compassing the sea round about. Two rows of oxen were cast, when it was cast.

Psalms 106:

20 Thus they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass.

Psalms 144:

12 That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace

Daniel 10:

16 And, behold, one like the similitude of the sons of men touched my lips: then I opened my mouth, and spake, and said unto him that stood before me, O my lord, by the vision my sorrows are turned upon me, and I have retained no strength.

So, now that you know what “similitude” means, what do you think it means when it says that “the similitude of the lord shall he behold”? Do you honestly expect me to write six term papers every time I debate with you to prove you the obvious? I am afraid my time is more valuable than that. I can’t afford to waste my time on this kind of thing.

zerinus

Zerinus,
I agree with you. Your time is much too valuable to waste on a hard-core pack of Papists like us. You really need to find a much more gullible audience. Perhaps your local white-shirts could fix you up with some likely prospects down at the Home or in a Jehovah’s Witness chat room. The JWs have some really bizarre notions too and I think that you guys would click. Just a thought.

 

[majick275]

does anyone realize that humans witnessing an event that they don’t understand will attempt to describe it in terms that they do?

God can appear however he wants to when he wants and to whomever he chooses. He appeared as a pillar of fire, a burning bush, a cloud, lots of things. surely we know he isn’t really a cloud nor a being of fire either. He is God. We can’t comprehend all that means so appears to some of us in ways that we can handle and we describe it as best we can. That is what we see consistently in the Bible. it doesn’t contradict itself. God isn’t a man nor does he have a body of flesh and bone. The Bible makes that clear. IT also tells us though that he has appeared in forms that look to a human like a number of things, one of which is a human. I don’t see the mystery here. Just a loving God (the only one ever) who has appeared on earth more than once to help us out.

 

[dbacks5439]

Jesus spoke in parables so that those who hear can understand. To the apostles, He spoke plainly to the apostles because they can understand without parables. To some humans, the Lord took the form of human so that those who see can understand. To Moses however, He appears as a burning bush, because Moses doesn’t need more understanding.

 

[PaulDupre]

Oh please… God was once a man of flesh?
The Mormon church says:

The first principle of the Gospel is to know for certain the character of God and to also know…that he was once a **MAN like us… **
( teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 345-346, and History of the Church, vol. 6, 305-307
However:

The President of the Mormon Church dosn’t want to admit what they teach! Look at the interview’s he had in 1997 with the SF Chronicle and Time Magazine.
The question was …Do Mormons believe that God was once a man?

Hinckley: “I wouldn’t say that. … That gets into some pretty deep theology that we don’t know very much about.”

Talk about DODGING the question!..:tsktsk:

President Hinckley is ashamed of the doctrines taught by the Mormon church, as well he should be. Zerinus is ashamed, too. as well he should be. That is why he denies what the LDS leadership has always taught.
Paul

 

[PaulDupre]

Do you honestly expect me to write six term papers every time I debate with you to prove you the obvious? I am afraid my time is more valuable than that. I can’t afford to waste my time on this kind of thing.

zerinus

If your time is so valuable, then why do you spend the majority of it here?

 

[hosemonkey]

Zerinus,
I agree with you. Your time is much too valuable to waste on a hard-core pack of Papists like us. You really need to find a much more gullible audience. Perhaps your local white-shirts could fix you up with some likely prospects down at the Home or in a Jehovah’s Witness chat room. The JWs have some really bizarre notions too and I think that you guys would click. Just a thought.

 

[Allweather]

President Hinckley is ashamed of the doctrines taught by the Mormon church, as well he should be. Zerinus is ashamed, too. as well he should be. That is why he denies what the LDS leadership has always taught.
Paul

Now, now… Zerinus isn’t ashamed of ALL the Mormon doctrines. He was mighty proud of polygamy back a few weeks ago when he spent a couple of days telling us how the Apostles were polygamists, and how holy a doctrine it is. Zerinus likes polygamy just fine. He may need a little prodding to get talking about it in the open, for fear of offending any ladies who might be lurking about, but once you get him talking about it, he does go on and on.

 

[kellie]

Thanks for your comments. I don’t do that either. You follow the traditions of your church, and I follow the traditions and practices of my Church. Unlike your church, we believe that the canon of scripture is not closed, but that God has and will continue to reveal more of His word and divine truth to His Church. The way we interpret the Bible is influenced considerably by that additional light and knowledge that we have received. The Book of Mormon and other books of modern scripture that we have received give us a deeper insight into biblical texts that enables us to understand and interpret them in a unique way that other Christian churches do not and cannot have. That is the source of our interpretations of the Bible.

zerinus

I was talking about all of this stuff with my mum earlier today.
During the conversation I realised something.
There have been prophets throughout time, Ezekial, Isaiah, Moses and others.
All telling of the Glory of God and the Coming of God.
God spoke through these prophets, told us His laws, and what He wanted us to do and how to live.
People followed God as they got to know Him through these prophets.
Some decided these prophets were just weirdos, and kept worshipping other gods.
Then God decided in the Year 0 (sorry lol, I know that’s a simple way of explaining time) to reveal Himself to us, instead of through prophets, as a man, Jesus.
Jesus IS God, and He walked the earth telling us the same stuff all these prophets before Him told. All the prophesies came true with the arrival of Jesus.
Jesus fulfilled the Law. Jesus gave us a new covenant.
Jesus was like having God live in concert. He was the real thing to listen to.
He came, He preached, He gave us His body for all our sins. God fulfilled ALL HIS PROMISES to us that all the prophets through time has foretold, as Jesus.
Jesus left us to go back to Heaven, with the keys to Heaven given to Peter, and the power to make disciple of all nations given to all His disciples.
And so this church has been going for 2000 years, with disciples making disciples through baptism in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, just as Jesus did.
His Word is complete. With the coming of Jesus, we now know all we need to know about how to live and be prepared for when He will come again.
We all now know how to live so hopefully we can get to Heaven.
My point to all this, why do Mormons still think we need prophets??
There is no need now for prophesies. We know from the horse’s mouth (with all respect and glory to God) that Jesus will come again, and Jesus told us we will never know when, it will just happen.
Jesus trusted His disciples to lead the church.
So once again, why do Mormons think we still need prophets???
Thanks

 

[JonathanKinsman]

---

I was talking about all of this stuff with my mum earlier today.

---

kellie;1945966:

So once again, why do Mormons think we still need prophets???

Thanks

**

Well, Kellie, as I have mentioned earlier, Mormons see themselves as JEWS and everyone else as GENTILES (a term they call us non-mormons here in the States).

They think they are reliving the Prophetic Age of ancient Israel and Judah. Everyone gets a lot of wives, men are in total control, God is talking to them on a daily basis, the Holy Spirit is sending out ‘atta boy’ memos to Zerinus and his White Shirt stormdrainers.

It is ingrained in their petty, literalist minds. They argue like 13 year old boys, changing the subject, full of “yeah, but what if…” and tossing out summaries that if called on to provide the full source, they attack another windmill to deflect their intellectual and spiritual shortcomings.

They are a wretched lot, full of spite towards us Catholics. They are a psychological case study of obsessiveness concerning the Catholic Church.

They build their ‘stake’ buildings and temples as close to the Vatican and other major Catholic structures throughout the world. Witness their pseudo-Spanish colonial monstrosity near Mission Santa Barbara (one of Blessed Junipero Serra and Franciscans’ original 21 Catholic churches in 18th and 19th century California) and the Press Release from SLC mormon central expressing dismay and regret at not being invited with other world religions’ leaders to the Vatican for Pope John Paul II’s funeral Mass and State wake.

They have taken to calling themselves “the Church” as we Catholics have done since the 9th century.

They attempt to hijack Catholic thought and early Patristic writers as fellow travelers on the Mormon Way through selective out of context phrases and quotations.

They are a nefarious bunch of wanna be Big Boys.

But they initial founding demanded that they ‘claim’ the same Divine Authority as the ancient Jews and Hebrews (Abram era) in order to justify their reason for being.

That is why they are so adamant about “revelation ever coming.”

But they don’t see the hypocrisy and irony in their claim to have the “fullness of the Gospel” in their goofy ‘scriptures,’ the Book of mormon and D & Cs.

Kellie, say hi to mum for all of us!

Pax Christi**

 

[kellie]

Kellie, say hi to mum for all of us!

Pax Christi

Mum thinks all people on the net are weird lol

But seeing as you’re Catholic, she may be ok lol

 

[JonathanKinsman]

Mum thinks all people on the net are weird lol

But seeing as you’re Catholic, she may be ok lol

An American Catholic of English-Irish-Slovak-German ancestry, so you see the arguing I do with myself.

Get her to sign on and contribute to the flow of ideas!

There might be six figure book deal down the road for her and what she has to add!

Pax Christi

 

[zerinus]

If your time is so valuable, then why do you spend the majority of it here?

Irelevant.

Z

 

[zerinus]

I was talking about all of this stuff with my mum earlier today.
During the conversation I realised something.
There have been prophets throughout time, Ezekial, Isaiah, Moses and others.
All telling of the Glory of God and the Coming of God.
God spoke through these prophets, told us His laws, and what He wanted us to do and how to live.
People followed God as they got to know Him through these prophets.
Some decided these prophets were just weirdos, and kept worshipping other gods.
Then God decided in the Year 0 (sorry lol, I know that’s a simple way of explaining time) to reveal Himself to us, instead of through prophets, as a man, Jesus.
Jesus IS God, and He walked the earth telling us the same stuff all these prophets before Him told. All the prophesies came true with the arrival of Jesus.
Jesus fulfilled the Law. Jesus gave us a new covenant.
Jesus was like having God live in concert. He was the real thing to listen to.
He came, He preached, He gave us His body for all our sins. God fulfilled ALL HIS PROMISES to us that all the prophets through time has foretold, as Jesus.
Jesus left us to go back to Heaven, with the keys to Heaven given to Peter, and the power to make disciple of all nations given to all His disciples.
And so this church has been going for 2000 years, with disciples making disciples through baptism in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, just as Jesus did.
His Word is complete. With the coming of Jesus, we now know all we need to know about how to live and be prepared for when He will come again.
We all now know how to live so hopefully we can get to Heaven.
My point to all this, why do Mormons still think we need prophets??
There is no need now for prophesies. We know from the horse’s mouth (with all respect and glory to God) that Jesus will come again, and Jesus told us we will never know when, it will just happen.
Jesus trusted His disciples to lead the church.
So once again, why do Mormons think we still need prophets???
Thanks

Because that church apostatized, and God had to start a new dispensation of the gospel through a prophet in the latter days.

zerinus

 

[zerinus]

Mum thinks all people on the net are weird lol

She is definitely right about that as far as you guys are concerned.

zerinus