Posted on 01/07/2010 9:39:02 AM PST by Colofornian
Truman Madsen was amazed at the outburst.
Madsen was at a Harvard seminar on the great Catholic thinker, Saint Augustine. As the graduate students were discussing the Creation, Madsen presented the Mormon idea that "man's intelligence was unoriginated and indestructible."
"The entire class was violent in its outbursts," Madsen later wrote. "For some minutes the professor's anxiety to keep the peace was futile."
Madsen, who died last year, wrote about this encounter in his 1966 book "Eternal Man."
But the idea that caused the academic explosion wasn't Madsen's. "Regarding the ultimate identity of man, the Prophet Joseph Smith taught that man as a primal intelligence is eternal," Madsen wrote. "Likewise the spirit-elements that compose his divinely sired spirit and the matter-elements that compose his physically-sired body are eternal."
Joseph Smith's revolutionary teachings had four characteristics, according to Madsen:
1. Individuality
Humans had a beginningless beginning. As Joseph said, "Intelligence is eternal and exists on a self-existent principle."
2. Autonomy
The self is free and can, as Joseph said, "act for itself" where God placed it.
3. Consciousness
There is no unconscious mind...
4. Capacity for development
"All the minds and spirits that God ever sent into the world are susceptible of enlargement," Joseph said.
But these four ideas are radical. They challenge both religious dogma and secular viewpoints.
"It uproots in one fell swoop presuppositions that are lodged in billions of minds and millions of books," Madsen wrote.
SNIP
Orthodox Christianity sees humans as beings created by God out of nothing -- ex nihilo.
"If God is directly responsible for all that man is, he is indirectly responsible for all that man does," Madsen wrote about the implications of that doctrine...
(Excerpt) Read more at mormontimes.com ...
That's right. Mormons believe that the God who created you isn't any more eternal (as in eternal past) than you are. Mormonism is all about both raising men to godhood and reducing God to manhood.
From the column: 2. Autonomy The self is free...
Uh, sorry to break this to you, Mr. Mormon Scholar, but "auto" = self, as in running on yourself, your own power. And people God releases to outer darkness/hell are indeed "autonomous" souls -- they are running on just themselves.
The entire Bible from one end to the other points to just the opposite. That we are to run on the energy of God, and God the Holy Spirit. Example: To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me. (Colossians 1:29) [Doncha wish Joe Smith would have read his Bible better?]
So, no; we aren't independent...God is our Sustainor. No, not even Adam & Eve were "autonomous" -- for God interacted with them and supplied what they needed.
As for "the self is free" -- if you call separation from God "freedom" and "liberty" then I guess you'd call Satan & his dominions "free" and "at liberty." Listen, Mr. Mormon Scholar: It's quite simple: Adam & Eve, pre-sin, had a dimension of freedom mankind no longer has. Jesus made it clear in John 8 and the apostle Paul made it clear in Romans 6 that man is basically in bondage to sin, to death and the fear of it, and to Satan. Outside of being in Christ, there is no "freedom" unless you call outer darkness or hell being "free."
From the column: "All the minds and spirits that God ever sent into the world are susceptible of enlargement," Joseph said.
[This is just the played-down version of the Mormon "gospel" -- the version they want to use in public so that they don't have to describe themselves as "gods" and wannabe-gods...so, IOW, this is Mormon "coded" language. Mormons know what fellow Mormons mean when coded words like "enlargement," "exaltation," "eternal progression," and "celestial glory" are utilized. These are all mere replacement words for Mormons describing for themselves their desire to become a god or grow their divine embryo within...be worshipped, adored, glorified, prayed to, as god of their own future world. The divine embyro within? Now you know what the Lds church shares with the New Age movement]
We agree. This author is no Christian.
Man was caused by something else - the uncaused cause oi all things. God is the uncausesd cause.
Man is CREATED by the CREATOR, thus he did not always exist. And while the power of the CREATOR has always existed, His CREATIONS, including matter and beings, did NOT exist until He created them.
While once created we are eternal, unlike God, we have not always existed.
I am very happy to count them as fellow Americans. I look forward to working with them to eliminate the abuses of our ever-expanding government.
If some of them happen to be Gods, then I think it is about time they use their powers to kick some liberal butt!
On a Rant Roll today?
Darwin was right ... Today’s imperfect humans probably evolved from apes.
Point: We had a beginning point after all, unlike the Mormon mythology Smith created later in his false prophet career (1833), when he claimed people were uncreated if you are talking about their spirits/their intelligences. (D&C 93:29, 33)
From the column: ...Joseph Smith's revolutionary teachings...
OK, if our spirits were uncreated, if we are autonomous, and if we can be enlarged as gods (3 of the 4 Mormon founder's teachings De Groote is calling "revolutionary"), then exactly where were these "teachings" in the Book of Mormon?
The first one, uncreated spirits/intelligences, didn't dawn upon Smith until May of 1833 -- three years after the Book of Mormon was published. (Well, why didn't any of the Book of Mormon authors know about this little gem?)
"Enlargement?" Where does the Book of Mormon teach that men can become gods or are gods? (Gee, I guess that's yet another teaching of the dozens those Book of Mormon author-apostates left out of the Book of Mormon!).
Autonomy? Sorry, but even Bruce Satterfield of the Mormon Meridien Mag pointed out: The Curse of Adam. The negative side of all this is that the acquisition of knowledge of good and evil brings dire consequences both in mortality and in eternity. The Book of Mormon reveals that the Fall of Adam brought upon Adam, Eve, and “all mankind a spiritual death as well as a temporal, that is, they were cut off from the presence of the Lord” (Alma 42:7,9; see also 2 Nephi 2:21; 9:6; Mosiah 16:3; Alma 12:22; 22:12; Helaman 14:16; Mormon 9:12). Together these two deaths comprise what the Book of Mormon calls the “first death” (2 Nephi 9:15; Alma 11:45; Helaman 14:16). Mormon also called it “the curse of Adam” (Moroni 8:8). Why? In this fallen state, man to became “carnal, sensual, and devilish, by nature” (Alma 42:10; see also D&C 20:20; Moses 5:13; 6:49). Abinadi explained that the condition man inherited by the Fall is the very means by which he experiences the knowledge of good and evil. He taught that Satan “did beguile our first parents, which was the cause of their fall; which was the cause of all mankind becoming carnal, sensual, devilish, knowing evil from good, subjecting themselves to the devil” (Mosiah 16:3). Elder Talmage wrote: “From Father Adam we have inherited all the ills to which flesh is heir; but such are necessarily incident to a knowledge of good and evil, by the proper use of which knowledge man may become even as the Gods.” [xv] Because of this condition, man’s relationship with God changed. The brother of Jared described this relationship while pleading to the Lord for a blessing: “We know that thou art holy and dwellest in the heavens, and that we are unworthy before thee; because of the fall our natures [i.e., physical bodies] are evil continually” (Ether 3:2). Further, King Benjamin stated that “the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been since the fall of Adam” (Mosiah 3:19)." (Source: "Free to Choose Liberty and Eternal Life")
Philippians 2:5-7
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7 but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
I’m just curious. Is this all you ever post about?
I find mormonism on this point rather interesting. The will be first to say Christianity is derived from Platoism. Yet on this point they recite Platoism (with its belief in eternally pre-existent matter) in application to mormonism.
Now that is funny.
Thread initiation-wise, pretty much. Post-wise, no.
On Jan. 1, I posted on a theology thread. My '09 posts included baptism, posts on presidential candidates, homosexuality, abortion, several on the Seattle Seahawks & Dallas Cowboys as funders of Planned Parenthood, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roy Masters, etc.
What's always curious to me is that when a Mormon missionary comes to your door, do you ask him, "Is this all you ever do? Ring doorbells? Knock on doors? Is this all you ever talk about, Mr. Missionary, is Mormon missionary lessons?"
So singlemindedness is an admirable trait only for some?
And if it is?
You are on the Religion Forum and nobody compels you to click on these informative articles.
Joseph Smith is not the most reliable source on creation. Try reading the book of Genesis.
No, that’s not what I meant. I just haven’t really seen anything remotely uplifting from your posts. So I just wondered if you had a vendetta or something. I’m not promoting nor advocating single-mindedness... it just seems like your article posts are always of the same, exact topic.
You answered my question though.
And yes, I realize that this is a Religion forum.
Thoughts that aren't even memorable enough to hang on a refrigerator post-it note let alone be exhibited as examples of transcendent Mormon philosophy.
Well, then you missed yesterday's thread when I commended Lds columnist Jerry Johnston... here, see for yourself:
Humility Only Real Response to Salvation
Here's a few of the excerpts I said: Some Mormons like author Brad Wilcox and this columnist, Jerry Earl Johnston, are beginning to understand the relationship between grace, salvation, our works, and to who's glory those works are done! ...Yippee!!! There's wonderful, fresh movement among Mormons!...Johnston's words: "...since we have so little to do with redemption" are indeed glorious words to read from a Mormon writer! (Good job, Jerry! Be a true pioneer & speak it loud and clear up & down the Wasatch Range!...)
On the other hand, do you as a Mormon consider it to be "uplifting" to gossip about non-Mormons publicly? Behind their back?
If not, why did you engage in that on FR Tuesday? [See
Here [LDS Caucus] ] ... and on an LDS caucus thread to boot where you knew non-Mormons aren't likely to be hanging out?
(I wouldn't have known that you had were it not for these comments you made.)
Don't you know it's proper online protocol that if you mention them in a post, you ping them? Is that what you commonly do at home? Make negative non-uplifting remarks about people behind their back? (And then you dare come online & chastise others about supposedly not being uplifting?)
Can you say two-faced? Is this what your religion endorses?
The article is the exact same as posted on the caucus you visited derek. What makes the caucus posting "uplifting and an open posting of THE SAME ARTICLE not. Perhaps the problem is that the contents do not go unopposed by alternative view points, and not that it is not "uplifting".
It’s an inside joke that carries over from a terrific discussion we had over the holiday and earlier today.
But thanks for playing.
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