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Janadele said:
Every mortal ever born on this earth, and all those yet to come, are the Spiritual children of their Heavenly Mother and our Heavenly Father.
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This is very different from the miraculous creative power attributed to God in Islam or Judeo-Christianity. Muslims would see this way of creation as inconsistent with god being all powerful.

Did God in the LDS perception create this universe? If so, why does he have to make use of causation within it to create life? Or is it not a case of necessity? What was Mrs God's role in creation of the universe, if the question is applicable?

Do gods experience need or want?
 
Sideroxylon said:
So the afterlife is a bit like one of those civilization computer games, especially the old "Black and White" title. Can you play the god role any way you want? Is there a punishment for a cruel god that builds dysfunctional worlds? Can your people die? What happens after they die?
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Well, I'd argue that Yahweh is a cruel god that built a dysfunctional world, but then I'm an atheist. :D

By Mormon doctrine, the children you create as a god, go through the same thing we're going through now, and the best of them will become gods like you. (The gods go back ad infinitum with each previous version being higher than their offspring.) Since only the very best Mormon men and women will become gods in the afterlife, presumably the thing perpetuates itself.

Of course, I would argue that "the very best Mormon men and women" doesn't mean a whole lot. My mother is a widow, and therefore entitled to home teachers (a pair of men who come to see her every month to make sure she's doing okay and whether she needs anything) that hold the Melchizidek (higher) preisthood. I've known her home teacher since I was a kid, and I know for a fact that he's currently on probation for defrauding the gov't, and I have other well-grounded suspicions about him. He hasn't lost the priesthood despite his shady and criminal past. So there's that.
 
Janadele said:
As far as I am aware the determining criteria was of African descent.
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Wait, according to the Book of Mormon God cursed the Lamanites with black skin for their sins. You know, the guys who supposedly were the ancestors of Native Americans*. How does that apply to people of African descent?


* This idea is, of course, laughably false for many, many reasons.
 
Janadele said:
No, it is an Eternal Principal that Priesthood Authority is held by worthy males. Our Heavenly Father holds the Priesthood, our Heavenly Mother does not.
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How can you be so sure it's an eternal principle? The history of church policy makes it quite clear that no principle need be eternal if new revelations occur. If one were looking for good things to say about the Mormon church, this ability to adjust as times change would be near the top of the list. If somewhere down the line, a new policy emerges, will you quit the church, or just conveniently redefine what it means to be eternal?
 
tsig said:
Yes they're all frauds but the title of this thread is "LDS" so your continued mention of others strikes me as an attempt at distraction.
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Distraction from what?

I've probably posted as much social history surrounding the LDS church as anyone on this thread, from 19th century secular medical books resembling the Word of Wisdom, to 19th century theories about the origin of the American Indians.

None of it is an attempt to distract from the LDS church. All of it is an attempt to further understanding of the behavior of LDS church founders and members.

I'm a big proponent of looking at things in context, because it's my observation that human behavior is rarely unique. It usually only appears to be unique when the surrounding social context is forgotten. That often happens if it's an obscure area, like 19th century anthropological theories on the origin of the American Indians.

For example, I'd argue that Janadele is having trouble defining "negro" not just because of the lack of a hard-science biological definition of race, but because of the social context of race in 19th and 20th century America, which I posted about earlier here, and which was the background of Mormons' attitudes toward race, with the conflicting definitions then, from white-looking slaves to light-skinned blacks passing as white, from racial fluidity within a couple generations to the rigid one-drop rule.

Comparing how other churches created and continue to rely on their scriptures is just another example of doing the same, except in this case, the social context isn't forgotten, it's so all-pervasive that it's invisible.

What I was trying to do was show the difference between a clean-slate atheistic view which starts with no attributes of god (since all religions are made-up, so people can fantasize anything they want), and a Protestant-socialized view of religion, which starts with the view that the Protestant-Catholic-Jewish religions are the baseline of what religion should be, with ancient scriptures and little-to-no current input from God.

Joseph Smith used that to his advantage, of course, by wording the Book of Mormon in pseudo-Elizabethan English, because people in his generation were socialized to believe God spoke that way, due to the popularity of the King James translation of the Bible. Nowadays, modern-English translations of the Bible are more popular, and guess what the newer additions to the Doctrine & Convenants sound like?

I think many people in modern society aren't aware of just how deeply Protestant religion affects everyone's world-view of what religion should be, even if they're not believers themselves.
 
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Good on you, Pup. As well as the opportunity to learn something, genuine attempts to understand are more likely to lead to dialogue than ridicule. I am far from innocent on that score.
 
Janadele said:
That for a short time, the Lord withheld the responsibility of His Priesthood from worthy males of Negro descent, had no effect on those who were not worthy, and those who were would have accepted the Lord's decree and have been blessed for it. No issue.
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This might seem like a reasonable answer to you, but to me removing responsibility from someone can be more insulting and dehumanizing then you'd think.

Some new variation on the White Man's Burden is not going to impress many people these days.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
How many Australian aboriginals or Melanesians became priests before the ban was rescinded?
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Janadele said:
It is pointless me researching for you, as I am discouraged from posting any information
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On the contrary we would be delighted if you would actually attempt to answer questions instead of batting them away with scarcely relevant quotations of dogma. I was really only curious to know if the answer was more than zero. Do you know if any aborigines became priests before the ban was lifted?

Americans need to remember that they are not the only people in the world.
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I fail to see how this would be relevant even if I were American, which I'm not.
 
Were white South Africans barred from the priesthood, Janadele? Were Egyptians? I'm trying to understand but you aren't being terribly informative whether the previous prohibition was based on skin colour, ethnicity or continent of origin - and if continent of origin, how far one must go back to determine whether a person is from that continent, if they, their parents and grandparents etc were all born in a non-African country?
 
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Janadele said:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a world wide Church and was established in many places soon after the Church was organised... including Hawaii, Samoa, Cook Islands, Tonga, New Zealand, Australia, Britain. It is pointless me researching for you, as I am discouraged from posting any information, so do your own research at official LDS sites such as LDS.org
Americans need to remember that they are not the only people in the world.
My previous posts clearly answered your question:
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Then why did Jesus only appear in the Americas? For a universal, all world god your Mo-god seems to have an inordinate fondness for the USA.
 
Empress said:
Well, I'd argue that Yahweh is a cruel god that built a dysfunctional world, but then I'm an atheist. :D

By Mormon doctrine, the children you create as a god, go through the same thing we're going through now, and the best of them will become gods like you. (The gods go back ad infinitum with each previous version being higher than their offspring.) Since only the very best Mormon men and women will become gods in the afterlife, presumably the thing perpetuates itself.

Of course, I would argue that "the very best Mormon men and women" doesn't mean a whole lot. My mother is a widow, and therefore entitled to home teachers (a pair of men who come to see her every month to make sure she's doing okay and whether she needs anything) that hold the Melchizidek (higher) preisthood. I've known her home teacher since I was a kid, and I know for a fact that he's currently on probation for defrauding the gov't, and I have other well-grounded suspicions about him. He hasn't lost the priesthood despite his shady and criminal past. So there's that.
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Well, not to indulge too much in measuring wands but I hold the Mosaic Priesthood with the Golden Jesus Cluster so I can bind and loose not just individuals but whole planets and, if the mood strikes, save whole races and kindred's.
 
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