Posted on 02/13/2013 4:44:23 AM PST by spirited irish
The Mormonism Research Ministry is a missionary/apologetics organization organized in 1979 to propagate the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to critically evaluate the differences between Mormonism and biblical Christianity. Of the many crucial differences, the Mormon rejection of the Genesis account of supernatural creation ex nihilo in favor of a naturalistic account is just one of many pressing differences.
MRM reveals that Joseph Smith taught that matter is eternal and the Mormon God Elohim had no power to create out of nothing. Elohim merely reorganized already present elements, which have no beginning or end and cannot be destroyed:
"Since Mormons believe that the elements are eternal, it follows that they deny the ex nihilo creation." (Encyclopedia of Mormonism 1:400).
From this it follows that a mere man can become God, as the great Mormon prophet Joseph Smith explains:
"It is necessary 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 suppose that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see. 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... 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 priest to God, the same as all Gods have done before you, namely by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one. . . . (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 345-47
)
The Mormon God is a creature from within creation (nature). In fact, Mormon scripture states that he is merely a physical, exalted man who lives on a planet near the great star Kolob where he and his wives busily procreate millions of spirit children who are sent into this material realm of suffering and evil to live according to the laws of the gospel and thereby earn their own godhood over their own planet:
"The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us." (D&C 310:22, Ed Decker, "The Lesser gods of Mormonism")
In the Genesis account the living, supernatural Triune God created all things ex-nihilo, or out of nothing. He is self-existent, eternal, immutable, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. He is the sovereign Lord of the universe. He is the God of all creation. He is the God who stands outside of the space-time dimension, thus creation actually began before time came to be as God spoke life, soul/spirit, matter and all else out of nothing. The living, supernatural God is the First Cause of all things. (Psalm 33:6; John 1:3; Romans 4:17; Hebrews 11:3):
"For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." Col. 1:16, 17
In the "Pagan Temptation," Christian scholar Thomas Molnar reports that the idea that matter is eternal is a pattern of thought stretching back to the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, and Greeks in the West and in the East to the Upanishads:
"Matter is regarded as the opposite of God, equal to him or even greater in power, and thus absolutely evil. All of the great philosophers of Greece believed this....with the exception of Aristotle (and the materialists, of course.)" (P. 26)
In this way of thinking, everything somehow emerged out of either eternally existing matter as the ancients and Joseph Smith taught, or in contemporary terms from out of spontaneously-generated matter.
From the Babylonians forward, primordial matter has gone by many names. For example: divine One Substance, watery abyss, chaos, or void.
The Egyptian Sun-God Ra emerged (created himself) from out of Nu – the divine One Substance (primordial matter) and then as Joseph Smith recounts, became God "by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one:"
"I came into being from primordial matter...I made all the forms under which I appeared by means of (or out of) the god-soul which I raised up out of Nu (i.e., the primeval abyss of water.)" (The Long War Against God, Dr. Henry Morris, p. 243
)
In all pagan systems that speak of pre-existent matter as "spirit," Molnar writes that spirit is not personal. It is neither male nor female. It does not live, think or speak; it merely is. The human soul therefore is not created in the spiritual image of the living God Who exists outside of the time-space dimension (nature) Who Spoke and revealed Himself to man, thus it follows that humans are neither male nor female and that,
"Thought, reflection, and discursive reason entered the world through humanity..." (p. 30)
This is naturalism or materialism, which is the belief – taught by Joseph Smith – that there is neither living supernatural God nor heavenly realm outside of the space-time dimension. There is only the natural dimension.
Materialism is held in common by pantheism and spiritualism and dates back to pagan antiquity and was or is taught by all non-Biblical – but more specifically, non-Genesis account (creation ex nihilo) – thought systems.
At the heart of ancient and contemporary naturalism is monism, which refers to the view that pre-existent or spontaneously generated matter is the Ultimate Substance of which the universe and all life are made, therefore as the ancient Hermetic magic formula decrees, "as above, so below," or all is one.
In his book, "The God of Sex: How Spirituality Defines Your Sexuality," Dr. Peter Jones writes that pagan monism,
"(is) a mystical, unitive experience, a state in which distinctions disappear and opposites are joined. Androgyny, on a sexual level, reflects and confirms such an experience." (ibid, p.79)
Writing during the student revolution of the 1960s, Francis Schaeffer saw a transformation of consciousness permeating and overtaking the Western mindset, moving it away from the Christian ideal to the pagan model:
"Some forms of homosexuality today...are a philosophic expression...a denial of the antithesis. It has led in this case to an obliteration of the distinction between man and woman. So the male and the female as complimentary partners are finished." (The God of Sex: How Spirituality Defines Your Sexuality, Dr. Peter Jones, pp. 78-79)
As male and female distinctions drain into androgyny, the use of toddlers, older children and even babies for the sexual satisfaction of adults will not only be tolerated but prized, hence the pagan sage Xenophon declared:
"I must now speak of pederasty, for it affects education." (The One and the Many, Rousas John Rushdoony, p. 73)
Unresolvable Problem: Origin of Life
"Jesus saith to him: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me." John 14:
The unresolvable problem for all nature systems, and this includes Mormonism, is the ultimate origin of life and soul/spirit. This is why contemporary naturalists such as SETI researcher Paul Davies and Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the DNA molecule, have rejected abiogenesis, the idea that brute matter spontaneously generated itself from nothing, in favor of panspermia.
Panspermia is the vain idea that life on earth was accidentally seeded by meteorites containing the essential building blocks of life or perhaps by highly evolved extraterrestrials from deep space who for billions of years have been guiding the evolution of man. The extraterrestrial idea was favored by Arthur C. Clarke in his book, "Childhood's End" and a variation on this theme has recently been advanced by Davies, Crick, and Ralph Pudritz of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
Crick however admits that panspermia only pushes the unresolvable problem out into deep space:
"This scenario still leaves open the question of who designed the designer [aliens] – how did life originally originate?" (Crick, Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature, 1981)
Creation Ex Nihilo, the Incarnation: Repugnant to Nature Sages
"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." John 1:14
The revolutionary impact of the Christian teaching about creation ex nihilo and the Incarnation was nothing less than a scandal for pagan sages just as it is for 'new' pagan evolutionary materialists (i.e., Karl Marx, Freud), evolutionary pantheists like Hegel, Blavatsky, and Luciferian Theosophists, as well as for both pre-Christian and Christian-era Gnostic's and Mormon prophet Joseph Smith.
Molnar writes that it is inconceivable to nature sages that God,
"...the spiritual being par excellence, should assume materiality – a thought as distasteful to their contemporaries as the idea of creation ex nihilo, which meant that matter too was God's creation and did not preexist creation as a separate and evil principle." (pp. 26-27)
In company with pagan sages, Mormonism rejects creation ex nihilo and the Incarnation. While faithful Christians adhere to the fact that Christ's birth was the result of a miraculous conception, that Mary was a virgin yet still conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:18), according to the Encyclopedia of Mormonism,
"Jesus Christ is not the Father of the spirits who have taken or yet shall take bodies upon this earth, for He is one of them. He is The Son, as they are sons and daughters of Elohim." (4:1676; Mormonism Research Ministry)
The LDS Church manual Gospel Principles makes clear that all men and women are children of the man-god Elohim:
"All men and women are literally sons and daughters of Deity." (2009, p. 9; ibid)
This includes the Mormon Jesus, who according to Sixth LDS President Joseph F. Smith was,
"Among the spirit children of Elohim, the first-born was and is Jehovah, or Jesus Christ, to whom all others are juniors" (Gospel Doctrine, p.70; ibid).
So both Jesus (Jehovah) and his spirit-brother Lucifer were birthed by the man-god Elohim who lives near the great star Kolob. Twelfth President Spencer W. Kimball comments,
"Long before you were born a program was developed by your creators ... The principal personalities in this great drama were a Father Elohim, perfect in wisdom, judgment, and person, and two sons, Lucifer and Jehovah." (Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, pp. 32-33; Mormonism Research Ministry).
Putting all of this together, the Mormon man-god Elohim emerged (created himself) out of eternally existing matter much like the ancient Egyptian's self-created Sun-God Ra. And as with all ancient nature origin accounts, the Mormon man-god cannot account for either the ultimate origin of life or man's soul/spirit:
"The essence of the human is not the body, but the soul. It is the soul alone that God made in his own image and the soul that he loves....For the sake of the soul...the Son of God came into the world...." (Incomplete Work on Matthew, Homily 25, Ancient Christian Devotional, Oden and Crosby, p. 153)
Nor can it ultimately account for the two created sexes, male and female, since all things – including the Mormon man-god Elohim – somehow emerged out of genderless spirit (pre-existing matter). Thus like their ancient counterparts, Mormonism is fated to give way before the demands of gender-neutral homosexuality.
Capitulation is already underway:
"Attorneys for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are in quiet discussions with leaders of Utah's gay and lesbian community, trying to hammer out language for a statewide ban on housing and employment discrimination that the church could support. Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, opened a bill file on Thursday – the last day to request attorneys draft legislation – titled Housing and Employment Amendments and will sponsor the legislation should an agreement be reached." (Mormon Church Working on Bill to Protect Gays From Discrimination, hypervocal.com)
And while LDS attorneys hammer out tolerance policies with the gay and lesbian community, the Boy Scouts meanwhile, have put off deciding whether to reverse its long-standing policy regarding open homosexuality. The BSA's indecision is hailed by some as a strong stand, by 'gay' supporters as intolerant and bigoted. (Boy Scouts Stand Strong, Delay Potential Policy Reversal, Walker & Messner, heritage.org, 2/7/2013)
By whatever label – homosexual, gay, man-boy-lover, transgender, drag queen, bi-sexual – androgyny and nature systems go together like a hand and glove. Prior to Jesus Christ's earthly ministry pagan sages generally taught and practiced some form of gender-neutrality in keeping with their belief that pre-existent matter is the gender-free "one substance" out of which all things emerged. But when Jesus Christ – fully man-fully God – walked this earth, nature sages came face to face with the awful truth that God really exists, and further, that He really did create just two distinct sexes, male and female.
Nature philosophers and high priests had exchanged the truth about God for a lie (Romans 1:25-27). Writing in agreement, early Church Father Athanasius reveals that pride preceded man's fall into nature worship. A haughty spirit led them to disregard the higher things of God and seek in preference lower things here in the natural dimension.
The truth as to evil said Athanasius,
"...is that it originates, and resides, in the perverted choice of the darkened soul "which, materialized by forgetting God," and engrossed in lower things (i.e. matter, chemicals, DNA) "makes them into gods" and thereby "descends into a hopeless depth of delusion and superstition" whereby "they ceased to think that anything existed beyond what is seen (naturalism)....so turning away and forgetting that she was made in the image of the good God...sees no longer the Word after whose likeness she is made...." (Against the Heathen, New Advent)
Ideas have consequences. For Mormonism – as with evolutionary materialism, its secular derivatives and occult 'green' pantheist New Age spirituality – the predisposing corruption resides in foundational ideations. Thus in the rejection of the supernatural Triune God of Revelation together with the Genesis account of creation ex nihilo resides the inability to account for the origin of life, of man's soul/spirit (reason, will, conscience), immutable truth, moral absolutes, fixed meaning, and purpose (Psalm 115:4-8).
And with the rejection of the Incarnation (the historical Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity), comes the inability to logically account for and defend the two sexes. Thus the fate of Mormonism together with evolutionary materialism and occult pantheism is to not only fall into moral relativism and superstition but to eventually give way to the demands of unrestrained libido – including the use of children for the sexual gratification of adults. And these are the crimes against nature said Augustine,
"(which are the) crimes of the men of Sodom (and if) all nations in the world committed them they would all stand guilty of the same crime against the Law of God, which did not design men so that they should use each other this way." (Confessions of St. Augustine, p. 49)
Yet another bashing perceived "bashers" comment, eh?
It never fails to amaze me how others will bash somebody for being "anti-fill-in-the-blank-ism"...all the while they are being "anti" whatever they perceive...
Why do your bashing comments...why do your "anti" comments warrant some special elistist rank?
Here's a radical idea: Pick comments you like, and post them. Let your neighbors pick concepts, ideas, and comments they like, and let them express them....IF you're so anti-negativism, that is...I think that concept is embedded in some old document this country used to pay attention to...Ya know the First Amendment.
See how "fun" that is...
The fact that you honor only one of the above shows how two-faced, inconsistent, and hypocritical you are.
If nothing newer shows up; will you concede that it MUST still be in force?
So the two that I posted SIDE BY SIDE have no differences that leap out at you?
Then let your seeing eye dog read it to you!
Of COURSE not; since MORMONism claims the KJV as one of their scriptures.
What was posted was from the JST.
huh?
No, I said what I said, because you posted verses that had nothing to do with what you said.
Review the late 19th century multiple "United Order" socialist towns the Mormon leaders ran throughout Utah.
Yeah, the Mormons halted those...but Joseph Smith...in Lds "scripture" (D&C)...referenced them as "everlasting"...therefore, it's not like Mormons can even now bash what Smith called "everlasting."
Those United Orders, btw, had some indirect influence on the formation of Communism in the Soviet Union...via an author who investigated them firsthand...and then whose book influenced the Soviet communistic pioneers.
Try it and see.
Since when did pointing out truth and error deteriorate into being called *bashing*?
I think that concept is embedded in some old document this country used to pay attention to.
Here's another radical idea.
Telling people the truth of their spiritual destination of they don't receive Christ as the Bible says one must do to be saved.
No church membership or adherence ever saved one soul.
Gonna have to ask for references for that one. [T.P. Pole]
1. Jesus came to Middle East. Mormons say Jesus failed in that mission to keep a church together...Mormons say it apostatized after disciples died off. Joseph Smith boasted he was the ONLY man who knew how to keep a church together --that Jesus didn't do it; Paul didn't do it.
2. Lds say Jesus came to South or Central America. Started a church there. But they died off in warfare. (Jesus "failure" #2...per Mormonism)
3. Mormons say Jesus came yet again -- this time to upstate NY...when Joseph was either 14 or 16 yo... No church immediately resulted from this visit...Actually, after a child was born to Smith, he was taking classes with his wife (1827) I recall to join the Methodist church.
So here that was 6-8 yrs AFTER the Mormon Jesus came again...still no church!
So per Mormonism...3 visits...2 church failings/apostasies...And it wasn't the supposed 3rd visit that jumpstarted a church...that was linked to the Book of Mormon...a "message" that the Mormon Jesus did NOT leave with Smith...that (start of the church) supposedly came thru gold plates & a urum & thummim...
LOL. You ARE good. Or is it BAD?
I don't think it's fair to condemn Catholicism because of the actions of Pope John XII, nor do I think it's fair to condemn the Southern Baptist Convention because of their past support of slavery. And it certainly isn't fair to give a false portrayal of Matthew 24 as it appears in the Mormon Bible.
The reason I posted Woodruff’s 1890 declaration was in support of another poster’s claim about a 19th century declaration against polygamy. In no way was I making any claims as to the effectiveness of said declaration, only that it existed.
You may have a period at the end of this comment, but you did not finish the sentence...Hence, the "help" I just gave...
When you go to the Lds.com link Elz provided, you see the following description: "An extract from the translation of the Bible as revealed to Joseph Smith the Prophet in 1831: Matthew 23:39 and chapter 24."
(To Elsie): You intentionally substituted Joseph Smith's version in place of the one that is actually in use.
You, Hoodat, make it sound like you're referencing some Bible commentary written by the opinionated hand of Joseph Smith.
Hmmm...Is it that...
...you have troubled with the word "revealed" (as in "revelation")?
...or that you may fail to realize that the Lds church regards it as the "IV" (Inspired Version)?
...and that this Bible version would be in even greater usage by the Lds church had they actually ever secured copyright to it? ... [it's held by the old RLDS..known as the Community of Christ now]
I don't think it's fair to condemn Catholicism because of the actions of Pope John XII, nor do I think it's fair to condemn the Southern Baptist Convention because of their past support of slavery.
If ANY Pope were to teach something heretically regarded by Catholics across the board, yet were none of these Catholics to call it heresy, then yes, it'd be fair game to condemn Catholics for hosting heresy.
Southern Baptists have apologized for what their spiritual leaders said and did in the 19th century; in contrast, I don't see Mormons apologizing for what Brigham Young said and did in the 19th century. Furthermore, what Young & other Lds "prophets" did was supposedly done as THE direct "mouthpiece" of the Lord...tantamount to "Scripture." Young said that he had never preached a sermon that couldn't, upon review and correction, fail to be considered the same as "Scripture." You won't find ANY Southern Baptist claims to such sermons -- either then or now.
You can't hold what is obviously regarded as human opinion by a lowly servant-preacher the same level as a hierarchical "prophet" of the Mormon gods...who the Mormon leaders have said umpteen hundred times that the Mormon gods would never allow a Mormon "prophet" to lead them astray...
(I don't think you could claim the same "inerrancy" applied to any Southern Baptist leader of the 19th century)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xJkUyotSc4
Hello!!!
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I thought this was clear enough. Well, some background is in order.
Joseph Smith received a 'revelation' from GOD that he was to correct the errors in the KJV.
HE did, evidently, in his JST.
So the question NOW becomes: Why doesn't SLC accept the JST as 'scri[pture' and instead uses the OBVIOUSLY flawed KJV?
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[Side note here - I understand that this is not agreed with in the orthodox Christian world, but Mormons believe that there are ordinances, such as baptism, that are required to be saved, and that they must be performed by someone with the proper authority from God]
We also teach that the wickedness of men has caused that this authority be removed from the earth for a time. We generally refer to things like "the dispensation of Adam" or "the dispensation of Moses." Or Enoch, or Noah, or Abraham. And Christ.
But we also teach that in each of these the authority was removed from the earth.
We consider this to the the "dispensation of the fullness of times" when all things are restored, never to be taken from the earth again. This dispensation is connected to Joseph Smith.
And so, Mormons would consider each of these, and there are more than three, to be a time when Christ came to earth to establish His church, all of which expect this last one, the authority was later removed from the earth.
I'll mention why I asked for references - every now and then you will find someone who believes that maybe one of the earlier prophets was actually Christ in for a trial-run (or some such other craziness). Let me be clear - this is not something that mormons teach, and cannot be reconciled within mormon doctrine, but it is something you might hear about in late night conversations amongst the crazy. I was wondering if that is what the original poster was referring to, and therefore was asking for references to back up that mormons actually state such a thing officially.
And then after 1890 Woodruff continued to practice polygamy and “married” more Moemoin women and fi8nally died still in polygamous relationships
as did EVERY Mormon “prophet and president” after him until 1945 when the last polygamous pro$it Heber Grant died...
along with Woodruff et al Mormon “apostles” and elders and members of the top quorum of 15 in SLC lived with extra women as “wives” too...
All that the proclamation of 1890 did was fooled congress into voting Utah into the union as a new state...
about 1895 another proclamation was necessary because of all the continued “illegal habitation” AKA polygamy going on and so many apostles etc arrested and jailed...
after 1900 yet another proclamation or 2 were again necessary...
in all this though the utterer and signers of the proclamation ie Woodfuff and the later the Mormon pro$its never obeyed their own proclamations but kept right own committing adultry and bigamy a crime in all the US states...
even though Mormon doctrines command them to obey the laws...
well I guess the laws that they want to..
and I guess any of the laws that Brigham Young might have bothered to obey..
LOL
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