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RebeccaJ
Guest
An idolatry of oneself.
Or, as I see it, Mormons look through the wrong end of the telescope.
- Status
Or, as I see it, Mormons look through the wrong end of the telescope.
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Richard_Abanes
Guest
**S: **Nice ego he had, too
RA: Smith was really something. Quite an interesting guy, TBH. Both admirable and frightening at the same time – as are most charismatic, talented, megalomaniacs.
RA
RA: Smith was really something. Quite an interesting guy, TBH. Both admirable and frightening at the same time – as are most charismatic, talented, megalomaniacs.
RA
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mfbukowski
Guest
Nice attempted dodge of my question that you obviously refuse to answer.**Stephen: **the mormon godhead seems finite like us
RA: Actually, what’s really interesting is…you’re right.
If you look at the body of other lectures and writings of Smith, you will see that according to Smith the only thing truly eternal is something he called “intelligence” or “Intelligences.”
Both us *and *“God” were created out of this cosmic element. From eternal “intelligence(s)” we were formed by Heavenly Father and his wife, Heavenly Mother, via regular procreation in the heavenly realms (just as we procreate children here on earth).
After being conceived spiritually, just as we are conceived physically, we were born in heaven as spirit babies. There, in God’s celestial home, near a star named Kolob, we were raised to maturity, after which time we came to earth to continue our “eternal progression” to godhood.
This “eternal progression” is the same path walked by Heavenly Father, who after being born somewhere a spirit baby himself, was born as a man on a planet somewhere. He lived, died, was resurrected, and then went on to become a god just like we can become a god, and just like all other gods before us have done.
In other words, we are all just one big, happy, God-species family trying to progress our way to godhood, after which time we’ll have our own Celestial wife (but you have to land her while on earth, guys, sorry), our own Celestial kingdom, and then our own Celestial family who will worship us as we worship our Heavenly Father.
Cool, huh?
RA
see
ONE NATION UNDER GODS - Mormon History
INSIDE TODAY’S MORMONISM - Mormon Doctrine
How do evangelicals know that the bible is the word of God?
And why do they subscribe to the Nicene Creed of the catholic church if they think that the catholic church is in error?
At what point did the Catholic church go wrong?
Times must be hard that you have to peddle your books this way.
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Richard_Abanes
Guest
MFB,
chill dude…insults will get you nowhere. how sad. and I answered your question elsewhere. I answered your question in Old Oct 28, '08, 1:31 pm. I haven’t dodged anything. But I’m not going waste my time either. You ask me to answer questions, I tell you where to find MY views, but then you say “Times must be hard that you have to peddle your books this way.” Sorry. But I am not going to reprint my books for you online at a message board. Read my answers where they are available, or don’t.
RA
chill dude…insults will get you nowhere. how sad. and I answered your question elsewhere. I answered your question in Old Oct 28, '08, 1:31 pm. I haven’t dodged anything. But I’m not going waste my time either. You ask me to answer questions, I tell you where to find MY views, but then you say “Times must be hard that you have to peddle your books this way.” Sorry. But I am not going to reprint my books for you online at a message board. Read my answers where they are available, or don’t.
RA
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mfbukowski
Guest
This was your answer to my questions originally in posts 225 and 226.
You are right. I am having trouble being charitable with a person who makes his living by attacking my church. I will try harder to be charitable.
Note in the above “answer” how you changed the subject from my question to an attack on my beliefs.
Same thing you are doing now. You are dodging the questions.
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Richard_Abanes
Guest
MFB,
Let’s get straight just who attacked whom, Mkay?
Since the origins of Mormonism (c. 1830 and following), YOUR LDS leaders have sought to distance themselves from Christendom. Only in recent years has this approach been changed in an effort to blend in with Christendom. Here’s what YOUR own leaders started out saying about us Christians (and I include our RC friends):
“when the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness” (Brigham Young, JOD 5:73).
LDS leaders since its inception has merciless attacked Christendom. Even more recent LDS leaders, if you look hard enough through all the PR, have said that we, in Christendom, don’t have the correct concept of God at all— that we allegedly believe in a false god worshiped “in vain,” follow “precepts of men” and are disconnected from the “real God.” (documentation, see Inside Today’s Mormonism, p. 255).
And for all of you RC peeps, here’s what LDS Apostle Bruce McConkie, said about you in Mormon Doctrine, p. 129, 1958 edition, under the heading “CHURCH OF THE DEVIL”):
It is also to the Book of Mormon to which we turn for the plainest description of the Catholic Church as the great and abominable church. Nephi saw this ‘church which is the most abominable above all other churches’ in vision. He ‘saw the devil that he was the foundation of it’ and also the murders, wealth, harlotry, persecutions, and evil desires that historically have been a part of this satanic organization"
Here’s my favorite about all of us:
“…the church of the Savior and his Apostles…came to an end within a century after its formation. The doctrines which its inspired leaders taught were corrupted and changed by others…none of the Christian systems that existed after those developments, though they did some good things, enjoyed divine endorsement as the Lord’s own church…To say that Satan sits in the place of god in Christianity … is not to say that all that is in it is satanic.”
“But God is not at its head, making that church - following the appearance in it of Satan - no longer the church of God. To say that Satan sits in the place of God in Christianity after the time of the apostles is not to say that all that is in it is Satanic.” (Kent P. Jackson, “Early Signs of the Apostasy,” The Ensign magazine, December 1984, pp. 8-9).
So, MFB, friend, please, save the attacking my church. I am defending MY church against an assault your church and founders made against my church beginning back around 1830.
R.A.
Let’s get straight just who attacked whom, Mkay?
Since the origins of Mormonism (c. 1830 and following), YOUR LDS leaders have sought to distance themselves from Christendom. Only in recent years has this approach been changed in an effort to blend in with Christendom. Here’s what YOUR own leaders started out saying about us Christians (and I include our RC friends):
“when the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness” (Brigham Young, JOD 5:73).
Code:
‘all other churches are entirely destitute of all authority from God; and any person who receives Baptism or the Lord’s supper from their hands highly offend God, for he looks upon them as the most corrupt of all people” (Orson Pratt, The Seer, pg. 255).
“We talk about Christianity, but it is a perfect pack of nonsense…the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century” (John Taylor, JOD 6:167).And for all of you RC peeps, here’s what LDS Apostle Bruce McConkie, said about you in Mormon Doctrine, p. 129, 1958 edition, under the heading “CHURCH OF THE DEVIL”):
It is also to the Book of Mormon to which we turn for the plainest description of the Catholic Church as the great and abominable church. Nephi saw this ‘church which is the most abominable above all other churches’ in vision. He ‘saw the devil that he was the foundation of it’ and also the murders, wealth, harlotry, persecutions, and evil desires that historically have been a part of this satanic organization"
Here’s my favorite about all of us:
“…the church of the Savior and his Apostles…came to an end within a century after its formation. The doctrines which its inspired leaders taught were corrupted and changed by others…none of the Christian systems that existed after those developments, though they did some good things, enjoyed divine endorsement as the Lord’s own church…To say that Satan sits in the place of god in Christianity … is not to say that all that is in it is satanic.”
“But God is not at its head, making that church - following the appearance in it of Satan - no longer the church of God. To say that Satan sits in the place of God in Christianity after the time of the apostles is not to say that all that is in it is Satanic.” (Kent P. Jackson, “Early Signs of the Apostasy,” The Ensign magazine, December 1984, pp. 8-9).
So, MFB, friend, please, save the attacking my church. I am defending MY church against an assault your church and founders made against my church beginning back around 1830.
R.A.
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mfbukowski
Guest
You are still avoiding answering me.
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Richard_Abanes
Guest
MFB: You are still avoiding answering me.
RA:
So typical.
RA
RA:
So typical.RA
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Richard_Abanes
Guest
Now, you’re supposed to copy what I just wrote and post that.
Stephen168
New member
It seems from the first half of this thread Mormons do not (or are unwilling) understand the Christian God. It also seems there is no rational defense of the Mormon godhead as described in the King Follet Discourse.
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mfbukowski
Guest
Oh let’s not start that again.
Explain the rational defense of 3 persons with one “being”. You would be the first to explain it if you could.
I personally have no problem with the King Follet Discourse, but that is not what this thread is about.
Incidentally that discourse is not canonized Mormon Doctrine. Neither is anything about heavenly mother. LDS would be totally justified in believing in neither. Yes I know some of the concepts are in the gospel principles manual. We have beaten that to death. It is still not canonized doctrine.
If it is not in the standard works, it is not canonized doctrine.
Telling me how silly I am to believe in the KFD is kind of like me telling you how silly you are to believe in the immaculate conception.
We can go down that road if you like. This is not the thread for that discussion.
Stephen168
New member
Is this a digression or a red herring? Both seem to be popular in mormon apologetics.
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Richard_Abanes
Guest
Oh Stop stop stop stop stop – Oh, my gosh. Just stop it with that absolute rubbish. You have just lost all credibility with me.
You know darn well that you are utterly playing semantics and using classic LDS obfuscation regarding Mormon beliefs. I am SO disappointed in you. Please, oh please, friend. Ugh.
This shows me so much: “LDS would be totally justified in believing in neither”??? :whacky: REALLY? Please email me your real name, and your ward – I will write to the First Presidency in SLC and see what they say. (Expect a visit from someone).
You know darn well that the KFD techniclaly is not canonized, but that every major doctrine in it is indeed canonized elsewhere. You also know that Heavenly Mother is a necessary doctrine of inference that is completely accepted by Mormons based on the belief in a heavenly Father. Do not make me provide end-on-end quotes. C’mon, show some integrity about this and we can keep talking.
R.A.
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RebeccaJ
Guest
How about it bukowski, go home and tell your wife that it is completely optional for the future worshippers of your godly self to acknowledge that their mother in heaven exists.
And while you’re at it tell her you think this whole eternal progression thing is optional too.
let us know how it goes…
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mfbukowski
Guest
As usual, you have distorted what I said.
AS I SAID, I accept the King Follett discourse and I accept heavenly mother. I will not discuss heavenly mother further. I consider that too sacred to discuss especially in this context, and I find your continued obsessive reference to her, Richard, highly offensive. I find it would be less offensive if you were so obessed with my own personal intimate life. On the other hand, if you want me to go away forever, continue talking about her.
Neither King Follett nor heavenly mother are canonized LDS doctrine because neither are in the standard works. I agree that both are logical “extensions” of what is in the standard works. But so are other possible beliefs.
And disbelieving in either or both would cause me no problems in my church membership. I know the exact definition of apostasy in my church, and that is not included. I know this far better than you and deal with it daily. You know nothing about me personally. If you go on any mormon apologetics site these questions are discussed all the time. No official action would be taken against anyone who belived only what is in the standard works. To say so is absurd.
In fact there are discussions about whether or not President Hinckley accepted the first half of the famous Lorenzo Snow couplet. I think he was in good church standing.
And Richard, talk about being disappointed in someone. You will not take on my challenge.
Here I am some lowly Mormon nobody, and you a published author with all your scholarship, afraid to answer my question about how it is that you know that the bible is the word of God.
Talk about red herrings etc.
So very sad. I think you have no confidence in your own faith that you will not discuss it’s own underpinnings.
I am not willing to give you my money to carry on your mission of attacking my faith by buying your books, and you know it. But you will not discuss these basic principles with me.
So very sad.
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mfbukowski
Guest
et tu, rebecca?
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mfbukowski
Guest
Not so.
Exaltation is canonized, but that God was once like us is not canonized. It IS taught in the gospel principles manual, which is not itself canonized.
How do you know the bible is true?
How do you know which version of history is true?
Why do you accept the Nicene Creed, which is Catholic?
When did the Catholic church go wrong?
Stephen168
New member
Red Herrings
Does exaltation have anything to do with the Mormon godhead?
If so, What does it mean?
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Richard_Abanes
Guest
AG: As usual, you have distorted what I said…
RA: Wrong. You said: “LDS would be totally justified in believing in neither.” This implies that the doctrines within the KFD as well as the concept of Heavenly Mother are able to be rejected by a faithful Mormons and if they were to do so, they would be justified. And that is not true.
AG: I will not discuss heavenly mother further.
RA: That’s not surprising since it is a doctrine believed by Mormons that can be found NOWHERE in ANY of the LDS Standard Works. It’s merely a doctrine of inference. Want quotes? How can you actually embrace a doctrine that doesn’t appear anywhere in ANY of your Standard Works?
AG: I find your continued obsessive reference to her, Richard, highly offensive.
RA: Really? And why is that? She is supposedly up there somewhere with Heavenly Father and she is your Mother. Why would you find me talking about her any more offensive than me talking about Heavenly Father and/or Jesus?
AG: And disbelieving in either or both would cause me no problems in my church membership. I know the exact definition of apostasy in my church, and that is not included. . . . No official action would be taken against anyone who believed only what is in the standard works. To say so is absurd.
RA: Then, please allow me or anyone else on this board to write to the First Presidency in SLC and provide them with this opinion you are giving to us – and see what they have to say. Please notify us who of us can write to SLC. We’ll need your real name and ward, please.
AG: In fact there are discussions about whether or not President Hinckley accepted the first half of the famous Lorenzo Snow couplet. I think he was in good church standing.
**RA: **Facinating. That couple, of course, is: “As man is, God once was; as man is, God may become.”
And what do you say? “…discussions about whether or not President Hinckley accepted the first half of the famous Lorenzo Snow couplet.”
Let’s let Hinckley answer for himself, shall we? OH, and we even can hear his views on the King Follet Discourse:
“On the other hand, the whole design of the gospel is to lead us onward and upward to greater achievement, even, eventually, to godhood. This great possibility was enunciated by the Prophet Joseph Smith in the King Follet sermon (see Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 342-62); and emphasized by President Lorenzo Snow. It is this grand and incomparable concept: As God now is, man may become!” - Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley, General Conference, October 1994
Hmmmm. It seems he liked not only the KFD, but also Snow’s couplet.
And, truth be told, whatever unofficial, rank-n-file discussions about Hinckley are taking place stem from the fact that it was during a *Time *interview that Hinckley – a master PR man – sought to downplay the whole idea f God being a man just to not offend non-Mormon readers.
This is consistent with the classic LDS method of keeping “deeper” teachings from the general public. The Time interview reads as follows (oh, and Hinckley did the same tihng in an interview with The San Francisco Chronicle):
“Is this the teaching of the church today, that God the Father was once a man like we are?”
“I don’t know that we teach it. I don’t know that we emphasize it. I haven’t heard it discussed for a long time in public discourse. I don’t know. I don’t know all the circumstances under which that statement was made. I understand the philosophical background behind it. But I don’t know a lot about it and I don’t know that others know a lot about it.”
“I wouldn’t say that. There was a little couplet coined, ‘As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become.’ Now that’s more of a couplet than anything else. That gets into some pretty deep theology that we don’t know very much about.”
Obviously, this caused no small controversy since it seemed that Hinckley had suddenly forgotten 100+ years of his own church’s history and belief. As recently as 2005, we read:
“Many religions teach that human beings are children of God, but often their conception of Him precludes any kind of bond resembling a parent-child relationship. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught of a much simpler and more sensible relationship: “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 veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit … was to make himself visible … , 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.” - Strengthening the Family: Created in the Image of God, Male and Female, The Ensign, Jan. 2005, pg. 48
This has been the standard, accepted, official belief since the founding of Mormonism, which got the whole concept from Joseph Smith’s FIRST VISION.
RA
RA: Wrong. You said: “LDS would be totally justified in believing in neither.” This implies that the doctrines within the KFD as well as the concept of Heavenly Mother are able to be rejected by a faithful Mormons and if they were to do so, they would be justified. And that is not true.
AG: I will not discuss heavenly mother further.
RA: That’s not surprising since it is a doctrine believed by Mormons that can be found NOWHERE in ANY of the LDS Standard Works. It’s merely a doctrine of inference. Want quotes? How can you actually embrace a doctrine that doesn’t appear anywhere in ANY of your Standard Works?
AG: I find your continued obsessive reference to her, Richard, highly offensive.
RA: Really? And why is that? She is supposedly up there somewhere with Heavenly Father and she is your Mother. Why would you find me talking about her any more offensive than me talking about Heavenly Father and/or Jesus?
AG: And disbelieving in either or both would cause me no problems in my church membership. I know the exact definition of apostasy in my church, and that is not included. . . . No official action would be taken against anyone who believed only what is in the standard works. To say so is absurd.
RA: Then, please allow me or anyone else on this board to write to the First Presidency in SLC and provide them with this opinion you are giving to us – and see what they have to say. Please notify us who of us can write to SLC. We’ll need your real name and ward, please.
AG: In fact there are discussions about whether or not President Hinckley accepted the first half of the famous Lorenzo Snow couplet. I think he was in good church standing.
**RA: **Facinating. That couple, of course, is: “As man is, God once was; as man is, God may become.”
And what do you say? “…discussions about whether or not President Hinckley accepted the first half of the famous Lorenzo Snow couplet.”
Let’s let Hinckley answer for himself, shall we? OH, and we even can hear his views on the King Follet Discourse:
“On the other hand, the whole design of the gospel is to lead us onward and upward to greater achievement, even, eventually, to godhood. This great possibility was enunciated by the Prophet Joseph Smith in the King Follet sermon (see Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 342-62); and emphasized by President Lorenzo Snow. It is this grand and incomparable concept: As God now is, man may become!” - Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley, General Conference, October 1994
Hmmmm. It seems he liked not only the KFD, but also Snow’s couplet.
And, truth be told, whatever unofficial, rank-n-file discussions about Hinckley are taking place stem from the fact that it was during a *Time *interview that Hinckley – a master PR man – sought to downplay the whole idea f God being a man just to not offend non-Mormon readers.
This is consistent with the classic LDS method of keeping “deeper” teachings from the general public. The Time interview reads as follows (oh, and Hinckley did the same tihng in an interview with The San Francisco Chronicle):
“Is this the teaching of the church today, that God the Father was once a man like we are?”
“I don’t know that we teach it. I don’t know that we emphasize it. I haven’t heard it discussed for a long time in public discourse. I don’t know. I don’t know all the circumstances under which that statement was made. I understand the philosophical background behind it. But I don’t know a lot about it and I don’t know that others know a lot about it.”
- Gordon B. Hinckley, Time Magazine, Aug 4, 1997
“I wouldn’t say that. There was a little couplet coined, ‘As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become.’ Now that’s more of a couplet than anything else. That gets into some pretty deep theology that we don’t know very much about.”
- Gordon B. Hinckley, San Francisco Chronicle, April 13, 1997, p 3/Z1
Obviously, this caused no small controversy since it seemed that Hinckley had suddenly forgotten 100+ years of his own church’s history and belief. As recently as 2005, we read:
“Many religions teach that human beings are children of God, but often their conception of Him precludes any kind of bond resembling a parent-child relationship. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught of a much simpler and more sensible relationship: “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 veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit … was to make himself visible … , 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.” - Strengthening the Family: Created in the Image of God, Male and Female, The Ensign, Jan. 2005, pg. 48
This has been the standard, accepted, official belief since the founding of Mormonism, which got the whole concept from Joseph Smith’s FIRST VISION.
RA
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Richard_Abanes
Guest
So, again, I say to you, stop it. Be transparent and honest about your church’s views. I get that from the RCs here who are more than willing to open up and share their TRUE faith of their TRUE church no matter how unpleasant it might sound to me or anyone else. And I applaud them for that. It means we can talk.
MFB: Here I am some lowly Mormon nobody, and you a published author with all your scholarship, afraid to answer my question about how it is that you know that the bible is the word of God.
RA: My goodness, I answered that: “Divine revelation, historical accuracy, internal consistency, anecdotal evidence – combined as checks and balances.”
You then asked: “So in the case of personal revelation, dreams etc of a personal nature, how do you know these are from God?”
But I already TOLD you: “combined as checks and balances.”
You then asked: And on the other side, you cited historical accuracy. Aren’t there many interpretations of history? How do you know which is correct?
But this smacks of post-modernism and the claim that we cannot know history at all. THAT was the same argument used by proponents of *The Da Vinci Code *as the REAL history of the Roman Catholic Church and Jesus Christ, which was absurd.
We can know history. And I am not going to spend page after page after page explaining how we can know history.
RA
MFB: Here I am some lowly Mormon nobody, and you a published author with all your scholarship, afraid to answer my question about how it is that you know that the bible is the word of God.
RA: My goodness, I answered that: “Divine revelation, historical accuracy, internal consistency, anecdotal evidence – combined as checks and balances.”
You then asked: “So in the case of personal revelation, dreams etc of a personal nature, how do you know these are from God?”
But I already TOLD you: “combined as checks and balances.”
You then asked: And on the other side, you cited historical accuracy. Aren’t there many interpretations of history? How do you know which is correct?
But this smacks of post-modernism and the claim that we cannot know history at all. THAT was the same argument used by proponents of *The Da Vinci Code *as the REAL history of the Roman Catholic Church and Jesus Christ, which was absurd.
We can know history. And I am not going to spend page after page after page explaining how we can know history.
RA
- Status