Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: cms@dragon.uucp Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: The Mormon Religion Message-ID: Date: 5 Aug 90 23:20:15 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Computer Projects Unlimited Lines: 305 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Originally, I posted this article on talk.religon.misc, however, in view of the recent question about Mormon beliefs concerning the appearance of Jesus to the ancient American Indians, I thought I'd repost it on s.r.c. Several more articles follow. [or precede -- I got this one last, and it's hard to know in what order you will see them --clh] In article <5380@vice.ICO.TEK.COM>, hall@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Hal Lillywhite) writes: In article <336@caeco.UUCP> andre@caeco.UUCP (Andre' Hut) writes: >This is slightly understated. Brigham Young preached that Adam was God, >and the LDS church held that as doctrine for nearly fifty years. As long as you are suggesting that we stick to facts, this accusation is hardly established fact. Brigham Young is quoted as saying something to that effect but the quote is in a book published in England several years after he was alleged to have said it. The book was based on notes someone took and Brigham Young (who was in Utah at the time of publication) had no chance to review it for accuracy. On the Mormon position of the Nature of God, I have here a list of quotations from Mormon sources which I shall reproduce here so that people can people can judge for themselves what Mormons believe on the basis of their own statements about themselves: ******* begin quote ******* 1. "In the beginning, the head of the Gods called a council of the Gods; and they came together and concocted a plan to crete the world and people it" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 349). 2. "God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man,..." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 345). 3. "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..." (Doctrines and Covenants 130:22). 4. "Gods exist, and we had better strive to be prepared to be one with them" (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 7, p. 238). 5. "As man is, God once was: as God is, man may become" (Prophet Lorenzo Snow, quoted in Milton R. Hunter, The Gospel Through the Ages, pp. 105, 106). 6. "Each of these Gods, including Jesus Christ and His Father, being in possession of not merely an organized spirit, but a glorious immortal body of flesh and bones..." (Parley P. Pratt, Key to the Science of Theology, ed. 1965, p. 44). 7. "And then the Lord said: Let us go down. And they went down at the beginning, and they, that is the Gods, organized and formed the heavens and the earth" (Abraham 4:1). 8. "Remember that God, our heavenly Father, was perhaps once a child, and mortal like we ourselves, and rose step by step in the scale of progress, in the school of advancement; has moved forward and overcome, until He has arrived at the point where He now is" (Apostle Orson Hyde, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 1, p. 123). 9. "Mormon prophets have continuously taught the sublime truth that God the Eternal Father was once a mortal man who passed through a school of earth life similar to that through which we are now passing. He became God -- an exalted being -- through obedience to the same eternal Gospel truths that we are given opportunity to obey" (Hunter, op. cit., p. 104). 10. "Christ was the God, the Father of all things...Behold, I am Jesus Christ. I am the Father and the Son" (Mosiah 7:27 and Ether 3:14, Book of Mormon). 11. "When our father Adam came in the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him. He helped to make and organized this world. He is MICHAEL, the Archangel, the ANCIENT OF DAYS! about whom holy men have written and spoken -- HE is our FATHER and our GOD, and the only God with whom we have to do" (Brigham Young, in the Journal of Discourses, Vol. 1, p. 50). 12. Historically this doctrine of Adam-God was hard for even faithful Mormons to believe. As a result, on June 8, 1873, Brigham Young stated: "How much unbelief exists in the minds of the Latter-day Saints in regard to one particular doctrine which I revealed to them, and which God revealed unto me -- namely that Adam is our father and our God.... "'Well,' says one, 'Why was Adam called Adam?' He was the first man on the earth, and its framer and maker. He with the help of his brethren, brought it into existence. Then he said, 'I want my chldren who are in the sprit world to come and live here. I once dwelt upon an earth something like this, in a mortal state. I was faithful, I received my crown and exhaltation'" (Deseret News, June 18, 1873, p. 308). ............... The following quotations are excerpted from a sermon published in the Mormon newspaper Times and Seasons (August 15, 1844, pp. 613-614) published four months after Smith delivered it at the funeral of Elder King Follet and only two months after [Joseph] Smith's assassination in Carthage, Illinois. This discourse was heard by more than 18,000 people and recorded by four Mormon scribes. It is significant that the split in Mormonism did not take place for more than three and one-half years. So apparently their ancestors did not disagree with Smith's theology, as they themselves do today. Nor did thy deny that Smith preached the sermon and taught polytheism, as does the Reorganized Church [of Latter-day Saints] today. But the facts must speak for themselves: "I want you all to know God, to be familiar with him,...What sort of a being was God in the beginning? "First, God himself, who sits enthroned in yonder heavens, is a man like unto one of yourselves,...if you were to see him today, you would see him in all the person, image and very form as a man... "I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined that God was God from all eternity. These are incomprehensible ideas to some, but they are the simple and first principles of the gospel, to know for a certainty the character of God, that we may converse with him as one man with another, and thatgod himself; the Father of us all dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself did...what did Jesus say? (mark it elder Rigdon;) Jesus said, as the Father hath powerin himself, even so hath the Son power; to do what? Why what the Father did, that answer is obvious...Here then is eternal life, to know the only wise and true God. You have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves; to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done; by going from a small degree to another, from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you are able to sit in glory as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power..." .............................. Mormon apostle James Talmage describes the church's teachings as follows in his book The Articles of Faith: "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints proclaims against the incomprehensible God, devoid of 'body, parts, or passions,' as a thing impossible of existence, and asserts its belief in and allegiance to the true and living God of scripture and revelation...Jesus Christ is the Son of Elohim both as spiritual and bodily offspring; that is to say, Elohim is literally the Father of the spirit of Jesus Christ and also of the body in which jesus Christ performed His mission in the flesh...Jehovah who is Jesus Christ the Son of Elohim, is called "the Father"...That Jesus Christ, whom we also know as Jehovah, was the executive of the Father, Elohim, in the work of creation is set forth in the book JESUS THE CHRIST, chapter IV (pp. 48, 466, 467). .............................. That the Mormons reject the historic Christian doctrine of the Trinity no student of the movement can deny, for after quoting the Nicene creed and early church theology on the Trinity, Talmage, in The Articles of Faith, declares: "It would be difficult to conceive of a greater number of inconsistencies and contradictions expressed in words as here...The immateriality of God as asserted in these declarations of sectarian faith is entirely at variance with the Scriptures, and absolutely contradicted by the revelations of God's person and attributes..." (p. 48). .............................. Continuing with our study, apostle Orson Pratt, writing in The Seer, declared: "in the Heaven where our spirits were born, there are many Gods, each one of whom has his own wife or wives which were given to him previous to his redemption, while yet in his mortal state" (p. 37). ............................... [Talmage, The Articles of Faith]: "It has been said, therefore, that God is everywhere present; but this does not mean that the actual person of any one member of the Godhead can be physically present in more than one place at one time...Admitting the personality of God, we are compelled to accept the fact of His materiality; indeed, an 'immaterial being,' under which meaningless name some have sought to designate the condition of God, cannot exist, for the very expression is a contradiction in terms. If God possesses a form, that form is of necessity of definite proportions and therefore of limited extension in space. It is impossible for Him to occupy at one time more than one space of such limits..." (pp. 42, 43). ................ Parley P. Pratt [wrote]: This leads to the investigation of that substance called the Holy Spirit or Light of Christ...There is a divine substance, fluid or essence, called Spirit, widely diffused among these eternal elements...This divine element, or Spirit, is immediate, active or controlling agent in all holy miraculour powers...The purest, most refined and subtle of all these substances, and the one least understood, or even recognized, by the less informed among mankind, is that substance called the Holy Spirit" (Key to the Science of Theology, pp. 45, 105, 46). ....................................................... In Doctrine and Covenants 20:37 the following statement appears: "All those who humble themselves...and truly manifest by their works that they have received of the Spirit of Christ unto the remission of their sins, shall be received by baptism in His church." [In the Book of Mormon]: "Yea, blessed are they who shall...be baptized, for they shall...receive a remission of their sins...Behold, baptism is unto repentance to the fulfilling of the commandments unto the remission of sins" (3 Nephi 12:2; Moroni 8:11). ........................................................ Relative to the doctrine of the virgin birth of Christ, Brigham Young has unequivocably stated: "When the Virgin Mary conceived the child Jesus, the Father had begotten him in his own likeness. He was NOT begotten by the Holy Ghost. And who was the Father? He is the first of the human family; and when he took a tabernacle [body], it was begotten by his Father in heaven, after the same manner as the tabernacles of Cain, Abel, and the rest of the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve; from the fruits of the earth, the first earthly tabernacles were originated by the Father, and so on in succession...Jesus, our elder brother, was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the garden of Eden, and who is our Father in Heaven (Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, pp. 50 and 51). [Brigham] Young said: "When our father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him...He is our FATHER and our GOD, and the only God with whom WE have to do." Parley Pratt, a leading Mormon writer whose books are recommended by Mormon publishing houses as representing their theological views, also writes concerning this doctrine: "Each of these Gods, including Jesus Christ and his Father, being in possession of not merely an organized spirit, but a glorious immortal body of flesh and bones..." (Key to the Science of Theology, Ed. 1966, p. 44). Added to this polytheistic picture are other official Mormon sources, many of whom confirm the sexual conception of Jesus enunciated by Young and many others. Wrote apostle james Talmage in The Articles of Faith: "...His [Christ's] unique status in the flesh as the offspring of a mortal mother [Mary] and of an immortal, or resurrected and glorified, Father [Elohim]" (p. 473, ed. 1974). Brigham Young, therefore, taught this anti-Biblical doctrine of which he spoke openly more than once as recorded in Journal of Discourses, Vol. 8, p. 67; Vol. 4, p. 218; Vol. 4, p. 216; Vol. 10, p. 192; Vol. 13, p. 145; Vol. 9, p. 291; Vol. 3, p. 365; Vol. 4, p. 27: "When the time came that His first-born, the Saviour, should come into the world and take a tabernacle, (body) the Father came Himself and favoured that spirit with a tabernacle instead of letting any other man do it" (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 4, p. 218). ................................ In Mormon theology, Christ as a pre-existent spirit was not only the spirit brother of the devil (as alluded to in the Pearl of Great Price, Moses 4:1-4, and later reaffirmed by Brigham Young in the Journal of Discourses, Vol. 13, p. 282), but celebrated his own marriage to both "the Marys and Martha, whereby he could see his seed before he was crucified" (apostle Orson Hyde, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 4, pp. 259-260). [Brigham Young]: "Suppose you found your brother in bed with your wife, and put a javelin through both of them, you would be justified, and they would atone for their sins, and be received into the kingdom of God. I would at once do so in such a case; and under such circumstances, i have no wife whom I love so well that I would not put a javelin through her heart, and I would do it with clean hands... "There is not a man or woman, who violates the covenants made with their God, that they will not be required to pay the debt. The blood of Christ will never wipe that out, your own blood must atone for it; and the judgements [sic.] of the Almighty will come, sooner or later, and every man and woman will have to atone for their covenants...All mankin love themselves, and let these principles be known by an individual, and he would be glad to have his blood shed...I could refer you to plenty of instances where men have been righteously slain, in order to atone for their sins...This is loving our neighbor as ourselves; if he needs help, help him; and if he wants salvation and it is necessary to spill his blood on the earth in order that he may be saved, spill it" (Journal of Discourses, Vol. III,p. 247, and Vol. 14, pp. 219-220). ************** End of Quote ***************** The Kingdom of the Cults Walter Martin pp. 202-219 There's much more. Obviously, this author does not favor Mormonism. I quoted his quotes of Mormons, along with some of his comments. (I hope I didn't quote too much. I skipped around to find Mormon quotes. How much can you quote directly from a book to generate discussion anyway?) LDS doctrine is really rather limited as to what members are expected to believe. The cannonized scriptures and a few official statements of the "First Presidency" are about it. However, we are encouraged to think and study for ourselves and some of this gets published. It is useful to give others something to think about but in general is not official. The author of the above work appears to me to be of the opinion that if most Mormons knew what their theology taught they might not believe it. Most Mormons, he maintains, are decent, clean living folk, who are largely unaware of the inconsistencies and outrageous blasphemies of their religion. I think Mormons want to be Christians, and believe they are Christians, but the theology of the Latter-day Saints is simply not Christianity. Perhaps, over time, the Mormon Church will continue to repudiate so many of the outrageous statements of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and others that they will rejoin the ranks of Christianity. An assertion as to the truthfulness and accuracy of the Apostles Creed would be a good start. -- Sincerely, Cindy Smith emory!dragon!cms [The volume of postings by Cindy on this subject has been larger than I normally like to accept from one person on one subject. However since there is pretty much a standard list of issues in discussions about LDS theology, it seemed best just to get the whole list on the table at once. I'm going to be pretty selective about other postings on this subject, rejecting those that duplicate these. --clh]