The players on this forum have repeatedly lied and distorted our true beliefs
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So mormons now believe in the Trinity ???
And that Jesus is God...the word of God who is eternal from “in the beginning” ???
That Jesus shed His blood on the Cross to save us and not in the Garden of Gethsemanee ???
That mormon males will not bcome gods with planets of their own and harems full of women to constantly impregnate to make spirit children to worhip the new gods ???
That women are not eternal sex slaves but are equal with men in salvation ???
That Mary did not have sex with man or god ???
That Jesus is not the brother of Lucifer ???
That Catholics and Protestants are not the whore of Babylon and its OK to join them ???
That males do not need to practice polygamy to go to the mormon after life and there is no marriage or sex in the mormon after life ???
That dead dunking just gets silly mormons wet but doesnt save anyone ???
That mormon temples are just ugly buildings that millions of dollars were wasted on and are not necessary to get anyone to God ???
That we were never in heaven before we were born and after death with be our first visit ???
That the occultist Joey Smith was not visited by God and Jesus ??? (Be careful on this one. Brigham Young denied it happened. He said it was only an angel)
That mormonism is not Christianity ???
OK you win...
First of all, I apologize for denigrating you a few weeks ago. I shouldn’t have behaved so inappropriately.
Secondly, I’ll answer all your questions HONESTLY. Can I expect you to be similarly honest and accept them as accurate depictions of genuine LDS beliefs? In other words, accept the fact that my answers and brief elaborations are accurate. I don’t expect you to convert, and neither do you expect to be convinced that my church is the true church. We both get happy.
1. Mormons do NOT believe in the traditional description of the Trinity. We believe in the biblical Triad or threeness of the Godhead. We believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. These three separate and distinct entities are God by nature and share a oneness in a manner that cannot be imagined. We do not believe God is nonmaterial, is Mind, is three hypostates in one ousia (whatever that is). We believe God is a spirit being who dwells in an immortal material body just as we are spirit beings dwelling in mortal bodies.
2. Mormons believe Jesus is God. The Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants explicitly and repeatedly state Jesus is God incarnate, who was the Old Testament YHWH God of the Hebrews, who is from everlasting to everlasting, who is the Eternal God.
3. Mormons believe Jesus died on the cross to save us from sin and death. We believe his Atonement, that mindless, terrifying substitution sacrifice STARTED in the Garden of Gethsemane. The agony he went through was so intense that he, despite being God, was so great he bled blood. His nature of being God and his nature of being sinless, allowed him to become our substitute. One sinless God is a fair substitute for an infinite number of sinful men. He, despite being the greatest of all, allowed himself the indignity of dying a slave’s death on the cross. He rose from the dead three days later, triumphing over death and now sits at the Father’s right hand.
4. Mormons believe all humans are spirit OFFSPRING (genos) of God. The Bible describes us as his “genus” with Jesus as the firstborn (prototokos). Our physical bodies are his creation while our spirits (who we actually are) are his spirit offspring. This is why God made the unimaginable sacrifice of subjecting his only begotten Son Jesus Christ to the unimaginable torture of the Atonement. No sane entity, God or man, will subject their child to unimaginable torture for the sake of toys or mere creations. Christ’s sacrifice shows we’re much more important in God’s eyes than a mere creation.
BECAUSE we’re God’s spirit offspring, we are given the opportunity to become like him. While we are not “God” by nature - only the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are God by nature; we become God or gods by Grace. How? Because Jesus Christ “bridged” the two separate natures. He was fully, 100% God and he was fully, 100% man. He was “God” from his Father and “Man” from his mother. Because of Christ’s incarnation as a human or member of the “Homo Sapiens” species; he shares whatever he has with his true followers. He is the Head while we are the Body. He is the Groom while we are the Bride. These descriptions denote a unity far beyond what one would expect between God and some of his creatures.
We believe the Bible isn’t lying when it repeatedly describes the true followers are sharing Christ’s oneness or becoming like him. The early Church Fathers described this concept as THEOSIS no less than 150 times.
Instead of just enjoying “eternal bliss;” his true followers become the “bene ha elohim,” the Sons and Daughters of God, enjoying eternal increase and eventually evolving to a point of becoming deified into the oneness of the Godhead.
5. What’s the obsession with sex? Mormons believe men and women are equal. In fact, we believe women are naturally more righteous than men. This is why the Priesthood is given only to men since we need it in order to approach the spiritual level of women.
6. Again with the sex. We believe God the Father is the literal father of the physical body of Jesus. We do NOT believe Mary had sex with God. All we are referring to is Jesus Christ’s PATERNITY. Where then did half his chromosomes come from? Where did his ability to reanimate after cellular decay originate? Or walk on water or heal the sick just by touching? He obviously wasn’t a clone since he possessed a different gender than Mary.
7. Since we believe we’re all God’s spirit offspring with Christ as the Firstborn (prototokos); we believe Satan and the demons are also our siblings who rebelled against God’s plan and were cast out. Jesus and Satan are spirit siblings with each other and with us. We’re all one family. This is why Satan could demand God give him his power. God cast him out instead of merely pointing out to him that it wasn’t possible since he was only a creation.
Furthermore, if Satan was only a creation of God; that then opens up the philosophical problem of theodical culpability - God then is responsible for all the evil Satan causes since he created him, and as an all-powerful being who knows the future; he then becomes responsible for Satan’s actions since he has perfect foresight.
8. Mormons do NOT teach the Catholic Church is the “whore of Babylon.” We believe the distortions of the scriptures occured shortly after their creation. In the case of the New Testament, during the first and early second century. In the case of the Old Testament; much earlier as evidenced by the conflicting versions of biblical vorlages (e.g., Samaritan Pentatech, DSS Jeremiah, LXX, etc.).
9. Well, since polygamy is the natural condition of humanity and only recently has fallen out of favor due to the triumph of monogamy since the 17th century; I find the entire issue quite silly. God explicitly approves of polygamy no less than six times in the Bible.
also, again with the sex obsession ...
10. Jesus said we must be born of water and of the spirit. Otherwise we cannot enter into God’s kingdom. We believe him thus believe in the practice of baptism.
11. Your opinion and irrelevant.
12. Belief in the pre-existence is the ONLY was to resolve one of the greatest problems facing Christian philosophy today: how to solve the problem of undeserved suffering if God is all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful. If you believe that you were an adult spirit offspring of God who was given a choice to experience undeserved suffering in exchange for a greater good; God then maintains his omnibenevolent and omnipotent natures.
13. I believe it. I can’t prove it but neither can you disprove it since we both weren’t there.
14. It is hard to claim with a straight face that a religion that teaches Jesus Christ is God, the Son of God, who was born of the virgin Mary, who died on the cross for our sins, who was resurrected after three days and is the only way to heaven could be anything but a Christian faith.
There! I’ve taken the time to answer all your questions. Can I expect a similar honest effort?