Posted on 11/05/2010 6:32:25 PM PDT by Colofornian
LDS Prophet Joseph Smith taught that God was once a mortal 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. ...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 take away the veil,...
It is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God, ...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; ...you have got to learn how to be gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all gods have done before you, namely, by going from one small degree to another,... from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to the resurrection of the dead, and are able to dwell in everlasting burnings. and to sit in glory, as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power" (History of the Church, Vol. 6, Ch. 14, p. 305-6).
LDS President Brigham Young declared that God was once a finite being:
"It appears ridiculous to the world, under their darkened and erroneous traditions, that God has once been a finite being" (Deseret News, Nov. 16, 1859, p. 290).
LDS President Joseph Fielding Smith said that God had a father, a grandfather, etc.:
"Our father in heaven, according to the Prophet, had a father, and since there has been a condition of this kind through all eternity, each Father had a Father" (Doctrines of Salvation, 2:47).
LDS President Joseph F. Smith taught that God was born as a mortal on some other earth:
"I know that God is a being with body, parts and passions...Man was born of woman; Christ, the Savior, was born of woman; and God, the Father was born of woman" (Deseret News, Church News, Sept. 19, 1936, p. 2).
LDS Apostle Bruce R. McConkie taught:
"The Father is a glorified, perfected, resurrected, exalted man who worked out his salvation by obedience to the same laws he has given to us so that we may do the same" (A New Witness for the Articles of Faith, p. 64)
LDS Apostle Melvin Ballard explained that God has a wife:
"For as we have a Father in heaven, so also we have a Mother there, a glorified, exalted, ennobled Mother" (As quoted in Achieving a Celestial Marriage, LDS Church manual, 1976, p. 129).
LDS Doctrine and Covenants promises the faithful LDS couple that they can achieve godhood in the same manner as God the Father:
"...if a man marry a wife, and make a covenant with her for time and for all eternity,... they shall [have]...a continuation of the seeds [children] forever and ever. Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting,... Then shall they be gods, because they have all power,... and continuation of the lives,... [endless procreation of spirit children]" (Doctrine and Covenants Section 132:18-22)
LDS President Brigham Young taught that faithful Mormons can achieve godhood:
"Intelligent beings are organized to become Gods, even the Sons of God, to dwell in the presence of the Gods, and become associated with the highest intelligences that dwell in eternity. We are now in the school, and must practice upon what we receive" (Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 245).
LDS President Joseph F. Smith said:
"We are precisely in the same condition and under the same circumstances that God our heavenly Father was when he was passing through this, or a similar ordeal" (Gospel Doctrine, p. 54).
As recently as 2007 both Apostle Boyd K. Packer and Dallen Oakes, during an interview for PBS, explained that God the father has a resurrected body. Apostle Packer stated:
"That vision [Joseph Smith's 1820 vision] taught us some things. We learned about the personality of God the Father, a resurrected Being, as part of our gospel." [link]
Apostle Oakes used the same term when he was interviewed:
"The first revelation received by Joseph Smith was the appearance to him of the Father and the Son embodied, separate, identifiable, tangible Beings who appeared to him in what we refer to as the First Vision. And that first revelation, concerning the nature of God as an embodied, glorified, resurrected Being, challenged the creeds of Christianity. Christianity describes God as a disembodied, incomprehensible, spiritual entity that fills the whole universe, and an indistinguishable Father and Son." [link]
LDS Apostle James E. Talmage taught that God progressed from a mortal to a god:
"We believe in a God who is Himself progressive, whose majesty is intelligence; whose perfection consists in eternal advancement — a Being who has attained His exalted state by a path which now His children are permitted to follow, whose glory it is their heritage to share. In spite of the opposition of the sects, in the face of direct charges of blasphemy, the Church proclaims the eternal truth: 'As man is, God once was; as God is, man may be'" (Articles of Faith, Ch. 24, p. 430-431).
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What the Bible Says About God
1. ALWAYS GOD - in the past as well as in the future.
"Art thou not from ever-lasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One?" Hab. 1:12
"For I am the Lord, I change not." Mal. 3:6
"...from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." Psa. 90:2
"God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent." Num. 23:19
"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man,...who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever." Rom. 1:22-25
The LDS god started as a finite man and progressed to godhood.
2. ALWAYS HOLY - Both in the past and future.
"...a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he." Deut. 32:4
"I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee." Hos. 11:9
"The Lord is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works." Psa. 145:17
"God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." 1 John 1:5
"Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness." Psa. 119:142
The LDS god achieved holiness.
3. ALL KNOWING - Both in the past and in the future.
"Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding? ... There is no searching of his understanding." Isa. 40:13, 14, 28
"Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite." Psa. 147:5
The LDS god had to learn everything.
4. ALL POWERFUL
"The Lord God omnipotent reigneth." Rev. 19:6
"...his eternal power and Godhead." Rom. 1:20
The LDS god attained his power.
5. OMNIPRESENT
"The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; where is the house that ye build unto me: and where is the place of my rest?" Isa. 66:1
"Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord." Jer. 23:23-24
The LDS god can be in only one place at a time.
6. ACTED ALONE IN CREATION
"I am the Lord that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone, that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself." Isa. 44:24
"By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth." Psa. 33:6
"Thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all." Neh. 9:6
The LDS god cooperated with the Council of Gods to create.
7. NO OTHER GODS
"I am he; before me there was no God formed neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no saviour." Isa. 43:10-11
"I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God....is there a God beside me; yea, there is no God; I know not any." Isa. 44:6 & 8
"To whom will ye liken me, and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be like?...for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me." Isa. 46:5 & 9
"I am the Lord; that is my name; and my glory will I not give to another." Isa. 42:8
The LDS God has a father and mother, grandparents, brothers and sisters, etc.
For a more in-depth discussion of the LDS view of God and man:
Mormonism and the Threefold Problem of Progression: Examining the LDS Doctrine of Eternal Progression in Light of the Bible, Philosophy, and Science
It was her opinion. Also mine. Donate or read-only.
You keep my bank account out of this.
I’ve posted many many passages fro Stourme, to show how faith is first and faith is what gets counted to make one whole in Christ
If some one tells you they have faith do you believe it? or do you need to see it before you decide?
I am not a works of the law believer, but i do not believe that is what James is talking about, i believe he is simply talking about doing to others as you would have them do unto you.
How ever i do not know what the object of your comment believes.
When i was a kid i once received a one dollar bill from a stranger to buy something to eat, ( well it happened more than once )i said thanks and i will pay you back, well how could i pay him back? i did not even know who he was, he told me that if i ever found any one in the shape i was in to just give it to them and that would be paying him back.
It did not take me too many years to understand what he meant, but that is what it is all about.
One of the commandments is to love thy enemy, how would you love your enemy other than to give them something to eat if they were hungry? or to pull them out of the ditch?
For all i know the man who gave me the dollar to buy me something to eat may have considered me an enemy.
Those things has had more to do with me being a believer than any other thing.
If i had to show my faith by works of the law, i would be lost :period:
Also if we had to show our faith by works of faith we also would be lost as far as the church is concerned, because we are not to do every thing to be seen of men, True works of faith are rarely seen of men.
You been a bad boy ???
When theres holes in a thread...
Resty, this is a very good question for a Mormon to ask. It's all very confusing for Mormons becasue they don't understand that angels are an entirely different order of being.
People can never become angels. Angels can never become human (in spite of all the heart-breaking infant obituaries.)
Satan/Lucifer/The devil is a fallen angel, kicked out of heaven, taking a third of the rebellious angels with him.
We are not told of any plan of salvation for fallen angels. THEY HATE OUR GUTS!!!!
(Instead of pretending to BE Christians, why not actually BECOME Christians?)
WOW TM4...
You have hit the nail on the head with that question...
:)
Does it have to be "correctly translated" scripture?
LOL! I loved that stuff!
Indeed.
As I said, you need to caucus with your posse to get your story straight. In #232 stourme stated:
No one is saying they do. Jesus Christ saves us. Jesus has requirements that must be met or He will not save us.
Having requirements to be met are also known as qualifications resty. The full context is there, so why do mormons have to twitch and squirm so much when the scripture so clearly speaks against them?
I got to be Emma Hale in a mormon Christmas program once.
I was only a shepherd in a grade school production of Amal and The Night Visitor. I wore my brother's bathrobe and said (with a sweeping arm gesture) "Good night my dear friends, good night and farewell".
The sad thing was I am a girl. A girl who had very short hair, MOM. The girls with long hair got to wear their mother's slips, cardboard wings and foil halos and be angels.
I'm still torn. It WAS a speaking part after all.
You lift up my heart :-)
Ummm....what a dilemma...give to a $50 BILLION dollar Corporation...( LDS, INC. )or give to...FreeRepublic.
I'd just leave if I was you.....
You are having a REALLY good day.
This is one the LDS will fight to the death, because if this crack is opened, the whole dam comes crashing down.
What you all NEVER seem to understand is that....I love you enough to speak to you directly about your errant ways. I have prayed about it, researched it at length...and have found that mormonism is a false religion. A cult. Period.
I don't dislike mormon's....it is mormonism that I dislike.
I tease you resty...but I would never accuse you of arson, or murder.
Ummmmm.............................
OK, sorry :-)
I know the words and how they are used can get confusingYes, the words Telestial Kingdom and Terrestial Kingdom can get confusing. To Christians.
Emma Hale...
The lady with some guts and sense...
She didnt go with Brigham Young to his lair in the Rockies...
Ah, the Celestial KIngdom. The place where those who do the will of the LDS church go, you mean.
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