Question about Mormon beliefs

[Jay53]

Boy, are you going to get a bunch of private messages from thecourt.

Just in case you aren’t/weren’t aware, He claimed to be lds, then he claimed to be Catholic, then he said he received a protestant baptism, now he’s back to lds.

Have fun with that.

Thanks. Obviously you know something I don’t. (Although I did read about him/her changing religions.) But, no messages yet - maybe he/she will leave me alone.

 

[Anna_Scott]

To answer the original poster of this thread — no I do not believe that at all!!! Ask me what I believe before you start buying into the recycled hogwash on the forums here or the internet in general. Again, I repeat, I do not believe such.

thecourt:

We are all free to start a thread and ask questions. Just as forum members have the freedom to respond or not respond.

You said, “state what we actually believe versus the recycled hogwash that will never die.”

I did just that in my earlier post, by quoting Mormon sources.

Joseph Smith, founder and first Prophet of the Mormon Church stated, “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted Man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens.”

Journal of Discourses of the General Authorities of the LDS Church (JD) 6:3, Joseph Smith, April 6, 1844

"God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted Man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens. That is the great secret. If the vail was rent to-day, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by his power, was to make himself visible,

–I say, if you were to see him to-day, you would see him like a man in form –like yourselves, in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image, and likeness of God, and received instruction from and walked, talked, and conversed with him, as one man talks and communes with another. . . .

. . .God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted Man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens. That is the great secret."

Mormon Prophet, Brigham Young, taught the following:

• Jesus was not begotten by the Holy Spirit.
• Jesus, our elder brother, was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the garden of Eden, and who is our Father in Heaven.
• Adam is "our FATHER and our GOD, and the only God with whom WE have to do.”

Brigham Young’s Sermon of April 9, 1852, Journal of Discourses of the General Authorities of the LDS Church, Volume 1:50-51
Regarding the Virgin Mary, Jesus, Deity:
“When the Virgin Mary conceived the child Jesus, the Father had begotten him in his own likeness.”

“He was not begotten by the Holy Ghost.”

“And who is the Father? He is the first of the human family; and when he took a tabernacle, it was begotten by his Father in heaven, after the same manner as the tabernacles of Cain, Abel, and the rest of the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. . …”
“It is true that the earth was organized by three distinct characters, namely, Eloheim, Yahovah, and Michael, these three forming a quorum, as in all heavenly bodies, and in organizing element, perfectly represented in the Deity, as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”

“Jesus, our elder brother, was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the garden of Eden, and who is our Father in Heaven.”

“Jesus Christ was not begotten by the Holy Ghost.”
**
Regarding Adam:**
“When our father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him.”

“He helped to make and organize this world.”

“He is MICHAEL, the Archangel, the ANCIENT OF DAYS! about whom holy men have written and spoken”

“HE is our FATHER and our GOD, and the only God with whom WE have to do.”

Every man upon the earth, professing Christians or non-professing, must hear it, and will know it sooner or later.

When Adam and Eve had eaten of the forbidden fruit, their bodies became mortal from its effects, and therefore their offspring were mortal.

The Desert News
Discourse
By President Brigham Young
Delivered in the new Tabernacle
Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, June 8th, 1873

"How much unbelief exists in the minds of the Latter-day Saints in regard to one particular doctrine which I revealed to them, and which God revealed to me—namely that Adam is our Father and God—I do not know, I do not inquire, I care nothing about it.

Our Father Adam helped to make this earth, it was created expressly for him, and after it was made he and his companions came here. He brought one of his wives with him, and she was called Eve, because she was the first woman upon the earth.

**Our Father Adam is the man who stands at the gate and holds the keys of everlasting life and salvation **to all his children who have or who ever will come upon the earth. I have been found fault with by the ministers of religion because I have said that they were ignorant. But I could not find any man on the earth who could tell me this, although it is one of the simplest things in the world, until I met and talked with Joseph Smith."

4th President of the Mormon Church, Wilford Woodruff, Served 1887–1898. This is one of the quotes:

“I say to Israel, the Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as president of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the program. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that the Lord would remove me out of my place, and so He will any other man who attempts to lead the children of men astray from the oracles of God and from their duty.” ( The Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, sel. G.
Homer Durham [1946], 212–13.)

(For Forum Members who do not have access to the LDS Journal of Discourses, it is online at [journalofdiscourses.org - This website is for sale! - journalofdiscourses Resources and Information.).

You can also find “The Desert News online.”

Again, I am only quoting Mormon sources.

Do you have more authority than Joseph Smith and Brigham Young to disagree with their teachings?](journalofdiscourses.org - This website is for sale! - journalofdiscourses Resources and Information.).)

 

[PaulDupre]

Can you explain the part I have bolded and underlined? How can God the Father be God if there was some other god before Him? Doesn’t that negate the whole Alpha and Omega, beginning and the end aspect of God who always was, is and always shall be??? Wouldn’t this other god who God the Father was obedient to actually be God then?

Hi Jay,
The Mormons believe that the being they call God the Father is just one more in a long lineage of gods stretching back into eternity without end. Their god had a god who had a god etc. Each god worships the one that preceded him.

The Mormon prophets taught:

“If Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and … God the Father of Jesus Christ had a Father, you may suppose that He had a Father also. … And where was there ever a father without first being a son? … If Jesus had a Father, can we not believe that He had a Father also?

• Joseph Fielding Smith, comp., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Deseret Book Co., 1938), p373.

“… there never was a time when there were not Gods and worlds, and men were not passing through the same ordeals that we are now passing through. That course has been from all eternity, and it is and will be to all eternity.”

• John A. Widtsoe, comp., Discourses of Brigham Young (Deseret Book Co., 1954), pp. 22–23.

There is an interesting LDS hymn wherein they sing about this belief:

“If you could hie to Kolob
In the twinkling of an eye,
And then continue onward
With that same speed to fly,
D’ye think that you could ever,
Through all eternity,
Find out the generation
Where Gods began to be?”

• Hymns, no. 257.

Hope this helps,
Paul

 

[Jay53]

Hi Jay,
The Mormons believe that the being they call God the Father is just one more in a long lineage of gods stretching back into eternity without end. Their god had a god who had a god etc. Each god worships the one that preceded him.

The Mormon prophets taught:

There is an interesting LDS hymn wherein they sing about this belief:

Hope this helps,
Paul

Yes, thank you.
Then what makes God the Father special? Why don’t they worship god “x” who came x number of generations before Him?

No offense to anyone, but I am finding all of these beliefs increasingly bizarre.

 

[PaulDupre]

Yes, thank you.
Then what makes God the Father special? Why don’t they worship god “x” who came x number of generations before Him?

No offense to anyone, but I am finding all of these beliefs increasingly bizarre.

That’s a question that has occured to a number of Mormons. When I was at BYU there was an ad hoc discussion group that met on Sunday evenings. They were discussing exactly that - the teachings of Joseph Smith and other Mormon prophets indicating that “Heavenly Father” was not the first or highest god - and discussing the possibility of incorporating a worship of the “First Father” into their spiritual lives.

Salt Lake somehow got wind of this, and Boyd K. Packer came down and threatened all of the members with expulsion from BYU and excommunication from the Church if they did not cease the discussion. They ceased, at least publicly.

 

[Jay53]

Do you know anything about the belief in/of a Heavenly Mother and what this belief entails and where it came from (i.e. scriptural/Biblical support)?

 

[PaulDupre]

Do you know anything about the belief in/of a Heavenly Mother and what this belief entails and where it came from (i.e. scriptural/Biblical support)?

Mormon leaders say that the belief is inferred by reason. That is, it is a logical extension of Mormon beliefs in eternal marriage, the eternally married becoming gods, those gods having spirit babies, etc. The belief that the Mormon gods have wives and babies leads to the natural conclusion that the wives are the mothers of the babies.

And no, there is no scriptural support for any of it.