Understanding Mormon Doctrine

[ParkerD]

So are we literal offspring of God the Father and Heavenly Mother or not? You are both appealing to “canonized scripture” here. Why does this seem so familiar, where have I seen it before?. With all the revelation, God’s mouth piece here on earth and so forth you’d think there would be a definite answer to such a question???

Hi, Zaffiroborant, and Happy Independence Day,
Your question reminded me of Acts 17:29,
Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God…"

I have had the impression that Catholics like to take most scripture literally (as do I). We may not know what “offspring” means in terms of the how, but the word means “progeny” which would mean that God is our progenitor.

I think it’s wrong to assume just because there is a mouthpiece of God on earth, that every question humankind asks needs to be answered within humankind’s timetable. I think the number one teaching of God in this life is “patience”. Have a great day.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Hi, Zaffiroborant, and Happy Independence Day,
Your question reminded me of Acts 17:29,
Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God…"

I have had the impression that Catholics like to take most scripture literally (as do I). We may not know what “offspring” means in terms of the how, but the word means “progeny” which would mean that God is our progenitor.

I think it’s wrong to assume just because there is a mouthpiece of God on earth, that every question humankind asks needs to be answered within humankind’s timetable. I think the number one teaching of God in this life is “patience”. Have a great day.

One your “mouthpieces”, Brigham Young, spoke to more details regarding this mormon belief. Not only do you have one mother, your god has multiple wives. None of whom are allowed to be worshiped.

 

[zaffiroborant]

Hi, Zaffiroborant, and Happy Independence Day,
Your question reminded me of Acts 17:29,
Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God…"

I have had the impression that Catholics like to take most scripture literally (as do I). We may not know what “offspring” means in terms of the how, but the word means “progeny” which would mean that God is our progenitor.

I think it’s wrong to assume just because there is a mouthpiece of God on earth, that every question humankind asks needs to be answered within humankind’s timetable. I think the number one teaching of God in this life is “patience”. Have a great day.

Well to me the question, were we created by Christ or are we the offspring of God the Father and Heavenly Mother, is foundational and it would seem answering in the affirmative to either negates the other.

 

[hosemonkey]

What we have then, at the end of the day, is the same thing that we had before. Namely, a false doctrine, invented by a false “prophet”, disseminated by false “apostles”, "explained by false “scriptures” and believed by badly deluded people. Mormonism is nothing more than the product of Joseph Smith’s fevered imagination, promoted by those who had an agenda, seeking power and wealth over ignorant frontier peasants. So it was and so it remains.

 

[zerinus]

What we have then, at the end of the day, is the same thing that we had before. Namely, a false doctrine, invented by a false “prophet”, disseminated by false “apostles”, "explained by false “scriptures” and believed by badly deluded people. Mormonism is nothing more than the product of Joseph Smith’s fevered imagination, promoted by those who had an agenda, seeking power and wealth over ignorant frontier peasants. So it was and so it remains.

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[ParkerD]

Well to me the question, were we created by Christ or are we the offspring of God the Father and Heavenly Mother, is foundational and it would seem answering in the affirmative to either negates the other.

Zaffiroborant,
I appreciate the thought behind your response here. I assume you may be aware of the LDS belief that Christ becomes humankind’s “spiritual Father” when each person has the “second birth” talked about in the Bible. Through that spiritual rebirth, He “hath spiritually begotten” us and we (all who are spiritually reborn) become His sons and His daughters.

So I don’t think one belief “negates” the other, from a scriptural standpoint or a plausibility standpoint.

Rebecca,
Thanks for your comments and interest in pointing out that Brigham Young evidently thought and taught things that were not unitedly voted on by the twelve or by the membership of the Church, and he was sometimes “out on a limb” with some of those thoughts. I’m not bothered that that becomes a test for some people’s faith. 'Might as well be that as any other sifting process. I think Finrock’s opening explanation was apropos.

 

[zaffiroborant]

Zaffiroborant,
I appreciate the thought behind your response here. I assume you may be aware of the LDS belief that Christ becomes humankind’s “spiritual Father” when each person has the “second birth” talked about in the Bible. Through that spiritual rebirth, He “hath spiritually begotten” us and we (all who are spiritually reborn) become His sons and His daughters.

So I don’t think one belief “negates” the other, from a scriptural standpoint or a plausibility standpoint.

But that doesn’t seem to be what Z is saying when he quotes scripture on the creation.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Rebecca,
Thanks for your comments and interest in pointing out that Brigham Young evidently thought and taught things that were not unitedly voted on by the twelve or by the membership of the Church, and he was sometimes “out on a limb” with some of those thoughts. I’m not bothered that that becomes a test for some people’s faith. 'Might as well be that as any other sifting process. I think Finrock’s opening explanation was apropos.

So you think BY made **** up in order to see who would continue to follow him?

Is what your “prophets” teach, scripture, or not?

 

[ParkerD]

So you think BY made **** up in order to see who would continue to follow him?

Is what your “prophets” teach, scripture, or not?

Rebecca J,
I do need to clarify my short comment. The only time a prophet is speaking “scripture” is when he is either quoting scripture or is speaking under the direct and complete inspiration of the Holy Ghost. When they are speaking as a person who is explaining their own personal beliefs, then that part of their message is just a personal belief, and the members are not going to be held accountable to believe that or to accept it.

So, no, I didn’t mean that he “made stuff up,” I just mean that he was the kind of person who liked to speak his mind, and he did it a lot, and sometimes what he said was BY talking as a person just like anyone else. The “test of faith” comes because (1) if a person is looking for an excuse to find fault with Mormonism, then they can find one by reading some of his speculations and thinking his every word was doctrine, or (2) if a person doesn’t have the Holy Ghost in their own life, then they are adrift anyway so their intent has been sifted out by whether they realize how revelation works in people’s lives, including the life of a Church leader. (It is never a given, and it is never automatic.)

If BY had taken his thoughts to the Quorum of the Twelve and had asked them to discuss the ideas and discern the spiritual veracity and vote on it, and if their vote had been unanimous, then it would be announced as a teaching for the church membership to receive as a binding teaching, but that would never have happened with some of his ideas–there was not a unanimity of feeling about some of those ideas. BY was still “seeing through a glass darkly” when he talked about them.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Rebecca J,
I do need to clarify my short comment. The only time a prophet is speaking “scripture” is when he is either quoting scripture or is speaking under the direct and complete inspiration of the Holy Ghost. When they are speaking as a person who is explaining their own personal beliefs, then that part of their message is just a personal belief, and the members are not going to be held accountable to believe that or to accept it.

So, no, I didn’t mean that he “made stuff up,” I just mean that he was the kind of person who liked to speak his mind, and he did it a lot, and sometimes what he said was BY talking as a person just like anyone else. The “test of faith” comes because (1) if a person is looking for an excuse to find fault with Mormonism, then they can find one by reading some of his speculations and thinking his every word was doctrine, or (2) if a person doesn’t have the Holy Ghost in their own life, then they are adrift anyway so their intent has been sifted out by whether they realize how revelation works in people’s lives, including the life of a Church leader. (It is never a given, and it is never automatic.)

BY taught he was teaching doctrine.

I pray more are sifted out of the the fog of Mormonism.

 

[Christian55]

Some LDS websites contain JD.

Journal of Discourses (JD)
JD 6:2 – p.3, Joseph Smith, April 6, 1844
My first object is to find out the character of the only wise and true God, and what kind of being he is; and if I am so fortunate as to be the man to comprehend God, and explain or convey the principles to your hearts, so that the Spirit seals them upon you, then let every man and woman henceforth sit in silence, put their hands on their mouths, and never lift their hands or voices or say anything against the man of God or the servants of God again. But if I fail to do it, it becomes my duty to renounce all further pretensions to revelations, inspirations, or to be a Prophet; and I should be like the rest of the world – a false teacher, be hailed as a friend, and no man would seek my life. But if all religious teachers were honest enough to renounce their pretensions to godliness, when their ignorance of the knowledge of God is made manifest, they will all be as badly off as I am, at any rate; and you might just as well take the lives of other false teachers as that of mine, if I am false. If any man is authorized to take away my life because he things and says I am a false teacher, then, upon the same principle, we should be justified in taking away the life of every false teacher; and where would be the end of blood? And who would not be the sufferer?

JD 6:3, Joseph Smith, April 6, 1844
But meddle not with any man for his religion; and all governments ought to permit every man to enjoy his religion unmolested. No man is authorized to take away life in consequence of difference of religion, which all laws and governments ought to tolerate and protect, right or wrong. Every man has a natural and, in our country, a constitutional right to be a false prophet as well as a true prophet. If I show, verily, that I have the truth of God, and show that ninety-nine out of every hundred professing religious ministers are false teachers, having no authority, while they pretend to hold the keys of God’s kingdom on earth, and was to kill them because they are false teachers, it would deluge the whole world with blood.

I will prove that the world is wrong, by showing what God is. I am going to inquire after God; for I want you all to know him and to be familiar with him; and if I can bring you to a knowledge of him, all persecutions against me ought to cease. You will then know that I am his servant; for I speak as one having authority.

I will go back to the beginning, before the world was, to show what kind of being God is. What sort of a being was God in the beginning? Open your ears and hear, all ye ends of the earth; for I am going to prove it to you by the Bible, and to tell you the designs of God in relation to the human race, and why he interferes with the affairs of man.

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.

In order to understand the subject of the dead, for the consolation of those who mourn for the loss of their friends, it is necessary that we should understand the character and being of God, and how he came to be so; for** I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity, I will refute that idea, and will take away and do away the vail, so that you may see.
**
These are incomprehensible ideas to some; but they are simple. It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the character of God and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did; and I will show it from the Bible. I wish I was in a suitable place to tell it, and that I had the trump of an archangel, so that I could tell the story in such a manner that persecution would cease for ever. What did Jesus say? (Mark it, Elder Rigdon.) The Scriptures inform us that Jesus said, “As the Father hath power in himself, even so hath the Son power”–to do what? Why, what the Father did. The answer is obvious—in a manner, to lay down his body and take it up again. Jesus, what are you doing to do? To lay down my life, as my Father did, and take it up again. Do you believe it? If you
do not believe it, you do not believe the Bible. The Scriptures say it, and I defy all the learning and wisdom and all the combined powers of earth and hell together to refute it.

JD 6:4, Joseph Smith, April 6, 1844
Here, then, is eternal life-to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all the Gods have done before you, - namely, by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one, - from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to the resurrection of the dead, and are able to dwell in every lasting burnings and to sit in glory, as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power. And I want you to know that God, in the last days, while certain individuals are proclaiming his name, is not trifling with you or me.