Article works to get rid of the Heavenly Mother myths [Meet Mrs. god; wife of a Mormon god]

Meridian Magazine, a Mormon magazine, (its website is http://ldsmag.com) has published an excellent article by Warren Aston, titled “The Other Half of Heaven: Debunking Myths About Heavenly Mother.” (Read) It’s refreshing to see this piece published in Meridian, which is often a vanilla-plain LDS-themed publication. (Hat tip for learning about the article goes to LDS writer Joanna Brooks, via her Facebook page).

For a divine individual who is presumably equal to her spouse, Heavenly Father, Mormons are hesitant to discuss Heavenly Mother. As Aston points out, the most condescending reason sometimes offered for the silence on Heavenly Mother is that to discuss someone so pure would leave her at the mercy of the verbal and published criticism that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ receive.

Gotta get rid of that idea, which also sprang as a defensive measure from church defenders after some Mormon women were harrassed a generation ago for wanting to talk more about their Mother in Heaven. Anyway, Aston offers, wisely, these three statements as myths about Heavenly Mother:

Myth 3: Our silence protects her against being blasphemed and slandered as the Father and the Son are.

In his article, Aston leans heavily on a recent BYU Studies article, by David L. Paulsen and Martin Pulido, “A Mother There: Historical Teachings and Sacred Silence.” In the article, more than 600 incidents are listed where church leaders have spoken about our Mother in Heaven. Aston writes: “All the statements affirm our unshakeable belief in Heavenly Mother. That we have a Mother in the pre-mortal realms is as basic as the fact that we have a Father there also.”

As for myth number 2, Aston points out that there are allegorical references to a Mother in Heaven in the Old Testament. They can buttress latter-day revelation, including this statement from 19th century LDS apostle Erastus Snow, which Aston quotes : “What,” says one, “do you mean we should understand that Deity consists of man and woman?” Most certainly I do. If I believe anything that God has ever said about himself . . . I must believe that deity consists of man and woman . . . there can be no God except he is composed of the man and woman united, and there is not in all the eternities that exist, or ever will be a God in any other way.” … Snow’s quote, from 1878, which asserts that God is comprised of united man and woman, is just more evidence of the LDS Church’s progressive roots.

Finally, to debunk the third myth, Aston refers back to the BYU Studies article that points out “… there is no authorized mandate of silence concerning Heavenly Mother. …“ Aston concludes with this advice: “There is no need to speculate or teach beyond the body of material given by the leaders of the church for the past 180 years. She is there in the heavenly realms with the Father, watching over us in our mortal probation.”

Here’s to hoping our LDS leaders lead the way in talking more about Heavenly Mother. Frankly, we could use some guidelines. For example, talking too deeply about Mary Magdelene can lead to speculation of her being Jesus’ wife, or worse, one of his wives. As for Heavenly Mother, the discussion could lead to whether she’s God’s first wife, his 50th, or his 500th, and so on.

But convoluted pseudodoctrinal consistency is less feared now, and that’s great. Let’s just learn to appreciate our Heavenly Mother, and leave the more personal questions as private matters between Her and Heavenly Dad.

Note: This columnist/blogger, Doug Gibson, is

MORMON

He is citing an article that came from a

MAINSTREAM MORMON PUBLICATION, THE MERIDIAN MAGAZINE

Gibson's blog, referencing the Meridian Mag article: In the article, more than 600 incidents are listed where church leaders have spoken about our Mother in Heaven. Aston writes: “All the statements affirm our unshakeable belief in Heavenly Mother. That we have a Mother in the pre-mortal realms is as basic as the fact that we have a Father there also.”

Hmmm...was Eve made in the Mormon goddess' image???

And since Lds take it literally that man was made in God's image (they give the Mormon god a body of flesh and bones) does that mean that Mormon doctrine teaches that women were not made in God's image? (Only men??)

Now do you see why we rightly say Lds are polytheists???

Mom-god is just another god in the long line of Mormon gods...

The question is, "When did she become divine?" Did she 'beat' the Mormon god to the race line in becoming divine? (Given that Mormons believe their god was once a man before ever becoming god)

And if she's the "elder" divinity, might not that make her the "Senior god" of this planet???

Words mean things...Until other words mean, those earlier words didn't mean what they meant then.

Yeah, the Mormon god is a relative subjective god...who changes the meanings of words...

In the words of FR poster Ejonesie22...(who must have dusted off the microscope to read the Mormon legal fineprint):

Official sites are sites supported by LDS officials unless said official sites are consider unofficial by said officials. At that point such sites are unofficial unless officially referenced for official purposes by officials who can do so officially. This should not be misconstrued as an indication that official sites can be unofficially recognized as official nor should it be implied that unofficial sites cannot contain official information, but are not officially allowed to be offical despite their official contents due the their unofficialness. Official sites will be official and recognized as official by officials of the LDS unless there is an official reason to mark them as unofficial either temporally or permanently, which would make the official content officially unofficial. This is also not to imply that recognized sites, often used here by haters cannot contain official information, it just means that content, despite its official status, is no longer official and should be consider unofficial despite the same information being official on an official site else where. Even then the officialness my be amended due to the use of the unofficial information which may determine the officialness of anything be it official or unofficial depending on how and where it is used officially or unofficially. I hope this clear things up for the lurkers out there. As I said the haters tend to make things complicated and confusing when it is all crystal clear.... Source: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2573705/posts Post #24

(Thanks again Ejones!...we need those fine-print navigators out there!)

How often have we seen posts through the years where somebody cites a previous sermon or Journal of Discourses reference by an LDS “prophet” or general authority only to be told, “Ya know, that’s not LDS canon!” or “You can’t hold an LDS “prophet” or “apostle” accountable for every obscure spiritual message he gives in public, can you?”

Whenever a Mormon would offer up such an explanation, well, how befuddled could they leave readers? Here, LDS have lectured us left & right about the need for living revelators & seers & "prophets" & "apostles" via general conference messages, Ensign mag articles, sermons, teachings, writings, etc. (So tell us again why it’s our issue if Mormons consider what any general authority—dead or alive—has voiced publicly to either be dismissed or deemed obscure?

ALL: The lesson to be learned here? ANYthing ANY Mormon general authority has said can be readily dismissed. If one Lds "prophet" has said "No blacks allowed." Well, so what? A later Lds "prophet" just updates the teaching; reverses it, and moves on.

* Polygamy as a Book of Mormon "abomination" in the Book of Jacob, 1830? (Yup)
* Joseph Smith & D&C 132 institutionalizing it? (Yup)
* A manifesto frowning upon it (1890?) (Yup)
* McConkie announcing the Mormon Jesus will rebound polygamy into the earthly mix? (1966) (Yup)
* Lds leaders tossing McConkie's book "Mormon Doctrine" in the waste bin of republishing? (2010) (Yup)
* Polygamy going on near Kolob right now, per Mormonism? (Yup)

MYTH???

Then they'd have to erase the past...

Party ownership of the print media
made it easy to manipulate public opinion,
and the film and radio carried the process further.

16. Ministry Of Truth

.......

The Ministry of Truth, Winston's place of work, contained, it was said, three thousand rooms above ground level, and corresponding ramifications below.

The Ministry of Truth concerned itself with Lies. Party ownership of the print media made it easy to manipulate public opinion, and the film and radio carried the process further.

The primary job of the Ministry of Truth was to supply the citizens of Oceania with newspapers, films, textbooks, telescreen programmes, plays, novels - with every conceivable kind of information, instruction, or entertainment, from a statue to a slogan, from a lyric poem to a biological treatise, and from a child's spelling-book to a Newspeak dictionary.

Winston worked in the RECORDS DEPARTMENT (a single branch of the Ministry of Truth) editing and writing for The Times. He dictated into a machine called a speakwrite. Winston would receive articles or news-items which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to alter, or, in Newspeak, rectify. If, for example, the Ministry of Plenty forecast a surplus, and in reality the result was grossly less, Winston's job was to change previous versions so the old version would agree with the new one. This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs - to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance.

When his day's work started, Winston pulled the speakwrite towards him, blew the dust from its mouthpiece, and put on his spectacles. He dialed 'back numbers' on the telescreen and called for the appropriate issues of The Times, which slid out of the pneumatic tube after only a few minutes' delay. The messages he had received referred to articles or news-items which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to rectify.

In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of the speakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for written messages; to the left, a larger one for newspapers; and on the side wall, within easy reach of Winston's arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building.

As soon as Winston had dealt with each of the messages, he clipped his speakwritten corrections to the appropriate copy of The Times and pushed them into the pneumatic tube. Then, with a movement which was as nearly as possible unconscious, he crumpled up the original message and any notes that he himself had made, and dropped them into the memory hole to be devoured by the flames.

What happened in the unseen labyrinth to which the tubes led, he did not know in detail, but he did know in general terms. As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of The Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its stead.

In the cubicle next to him the little woman with sandy hair toiled day in day out, simply at tracking down and deleting from the Press the names of people who had been vaporized and were therefore considered never to have existed. And this hall, with its fifty workers or thereabouts, was only one-sub-section, a single cell, as it were, in the huge complexity of the Records Department. Beyond, above, below, were other swarms of workers engaged in an unimaginable multitude of jobs.

There were huge printing-shops and their sub editors, their typography experts, and their elaborately equipped studios for the faking of photographs. There was the tele-programmes section with its engineers, its producers and its teams of actors specially chosen for their skill in imitating voices; clerks whose job was simply to draw up lists of books and periodicals which were due for recall; vast repositories where the corrected documents were stored; and the hidden furnaces where the original copies were destroyed.

And somewhere or other, quite anonymous, there were the directing brains who co-ordinated the whole effort and laid down the lines of policy which made it necessary that this fragment of the past should be preserved, that one falsified, and the other rubbed out of existence.

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