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  1. pam

    GA made a bold prediction

    My own grandmother's patriarchal blessing said she would see the Second Coming of Christ. She died in 1987 at the age of 82. Was the patriarch wrong? I don't think so. I think she will see the Second Coming of Christ.
    4 points
  2. True. What happens is that when some things are not true and have been altered by bad translation, they can affect other understandings.
    2 points
  3. One reason for believing that our Heavenly Mother is not the Holy Ghost is that logically, I figure she must be a resurrected, embodied person, while we are told that the Holy Ghost currently does not have a physical body.
    2 points
  4. "Holy Spirit" and "Holy Ghost" are synonymous. Scriptures use both. LDS Christians do tend to use "Holy Ghost" slightly more, which is purely a cultural thing. It's part of the Book of Mormon. Link: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/mosiah/1?lang=eng
    2 points
  5. Vort

    The trinity = the family

    Oh, my goodness. This entire thread is an embarrassment to this site and all who participate in it, LDS or not, Christian or not, female or not. All sentient beings feel their cheeks burn when reading this thread.
    1 point
  6. That makes sense and is the reason I have a problem with the Holy Ghost being our Heavenly Mother. However, Joseph Smith said that the Father is a personage of spirit in one of his famous lectures (Lectures of Faith 5) which has been interpreted to me that He is a resurrected being. It seems likely, that Heavenly Mother is also a resurrected being and therefore also a personage of spirit which is why I leave that door open. I have no concluded one way or the other which is true.
    1 point
  7. God, in LDS belief, is a being, not a state of being. God is defined as the ability to continue the seeds. Though we might have all knowledge and power, it would be relatively useless if we could not continue the seeds. No. your explanation does not make sense.
    1 point
  8. This is a valid point and is aligned somewhat with LDS doctrine.
    1 point
  9. Some of it isn't. But there is plenty of truth to be found in the Bible.
    1 point
  10. The day has come where MP3 players are the new cassette tapes.
    1 point
  11. God - in LDS belief - is a State of Being. That State of Being is expressed fully as a Will - the Will that is God with all truth and knowledge. It is the reason why we are in our mortal probation - that we may gain full knowledge and understand all truth and freely exercise our own will with this truth and knowledge so that our will may become fully aligned with the Will that is God. When we achieve that - then we enter that State of Being that is God. These 3 persons -the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are ONE with the Will that is God, and therefore, they are God. Make sense?
    1 point
  12. We believe the same. We believe that if we change ourselves to align completely with the will of God, we can become God. But the Godhead is 3 persons - Father, Jesus, Holy Ghost.
    1 point
  13. And that's what we've been telling you - 4 places on the table. The Holy Spirit is not Heavenly Mother. You may believe that, if you like. But that's not LDS teaching so we don't agree with you.
    1 point
  14. The trinity is three: He, His Spirit and the son. I have stated His spirit is a girl, and won't repeat that. I don't know what role the 4th you listed would play.
    1 point
  15. Exactly. I just told you that. That's why you need the Book of Mormon and the latter-day prophets to translate it correctly. But to translate it correctly, you need The Bible. Any version. Just pick one - then it is corrected from there. The LDS Church decided to use the KJV in Sunday School just so everybody studying uses the same reference.
    1 point
  16. That makes sense, that a ghost is how society refers to the spirit of someone who had passed away... such as in popular culture, when ghosts appear, these being of humans who died but who for some reason, wander around without a home. I am curious about the history of the term being used for His Spirit as I don't like that much, since it implies a disembodied being, and obviously Miss has an immortal gorgeous body, which I saw (even though she can be a presence to be sensed as spirit, or a pillar of fire, etc.)
    1 point
  17. Maybe she wants a Mormon point of view.
    1 point
  18. True. But - the teaching of the Holy Ghost as a male personage in the Godhead is taught by the LDS Church and not just a personal view of a few individuals. This is what I've been trying to tell you.
    1 point
  19. The LDS scriptures: The Holy Bible (OT and NT - we use the KJV in Sunday School) The Book of Mormon Doctrine and Covenants Pear of Great Price We sometimes refer to the whole thing as the quad when you want to buy the whole volume at a bookstore. LDS Article of Faith: "We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God." Therefore, although we use KJV in scripture study, it does not stand on its own. It needs the Book of Mormon and the words of latter-day prophets to "translate" the teachings in it correctly.
    1 point
  20. I don't believe all of the posts on this board represent LDS views as a church. They represent the personal views of a few individuals. Your OP was spot on. Now we're talking about something different that may or may not be related to your OP. As with evangelical sites, people have their views and often, they believe that their view is the only correct one, but no one knows everything, so don't worry about it. No one can take away a personal experience. They may disagree with your interpretation of that experience but they can't change the actual experience. Or, perhaps, reasonably discussed. While I agree that the trinity does equal family, I also believe that we are part of that family (all of us, including Satan and all that followed him). I may be taking this out of context, but it appears that you, here, are presenting them as an exclusive family with no other members in it. But we also believe that all of us have always existed and will always exist. Families, therefore, had to come later and I believe this is what brought us from beings who have always existed into spirits in an order of eldest is spiritual order but born in mortality in genealogical order in the meridian of time. Our spirits were begotten by the word of God, the Father, simply by organizing us into families, all of which, I believe we had a choice or an input into that structure and order. This would suggest that there was an election (the scriptures suggest that there was a well) and that the three operate by agreement and capacity. Not by nature of their substance or being.
    1 point
  21. Plus, she has Catholic background... Anyway. Different translations: Latin Vulgate - Spiritus Sanctus - Holy Spirit German - Heilige Geist - Holy Ghost. The King James Version of the Bible uses Holy Ghost more so than the Latin originated Holy Spirit. The LDS faith uses the KJV version in scripture study so they tend to use Holy Ghost to refer to the 3rd person of the Godhead. The Catholic Bible uses Holy Spirit hence, Catholics tend to use Holy Spirit to refer to the 3rd person in the Trinity.
    1 point
  22. Ever in our lifetimes, yes. It has been worse historically, but I imagine (or at least hope) that most don't want to go back to those bad old days.
    1 point
  23. Vort

    GA made a bold prediction

    I think the various posts that have included this scripture might be overlooking the possibility that for some, the week, month or year, might be very well known, even though the hour or day is not. Again, no comments from me as to likelihood about this being the case, but it certainly seems like it could be a possibility. Those with eyes to see and ears to hear will not be taken by surprise when the Lord comes. They may not know the hour or the day, but they will see what is plain to be seen by those with the eyes to see, hear what is plain to be heard by those with ears to hear, and understand by the Spirit that the Lord's coming is near, even at the door. That is my belief, and I think scriptures bear me out.
    1 point
  24. I have a similar statement in mine
    1 point
  25. 1 point
  26. If like me you can't access that page, the story is also here: https://toofab.com/2020/02/12/woman-punches-retired-cop-in-bar-over-make-fifty-great-again-hat/
    1 point
  27. Given the fairly specific prophecies that were made to the Nephits about when Christ would come, it seems to me to be odd that there are no such publicly known prophecies for His second coming.
    1 point
  28. NeedleinA

    The trinity = the family

    vs. 3 Nephi 14:
    1 point
  29. 1 Ne 14:26 And also others who have been, to them hath he shown all things, and they have written them; and they are sealed up to come forth in their purity, according to the truth which is in the Lamb, in the own due time of the Lord, unto the house of Israel. Likely some prophets have seen visions including the second coming. But if they have, they have kept this information to themselves & sealed them up. Whenever I hear someone present hearsay about predictions of the second coming I dismiss them out of hand. Now, if 2 prophets died in the streets of Jerusalem or if there came a year without a rainbow I would be on the edge of my seat.
    1 point
  30. NeedleinA

    The trinity = the family

    Ecclesiastes 7 Alma 30
    1 point
  31. I saw that. I read that wonderful interview as well and in my reading, that wasnt the holy ghost but was the pre-mortal Christ.
    1 point
  32. Hate to burst your bubble, but I guess you’ll have now have to decide if an entry in a Church member’s notebook supersedes the word of God, spoken from his very mouth, and given as holy scripture to the Church in THIS dispensation... 6 And they have done unto the aSon of Man even as they listed; and he has taken his power on the bright hand of his cglory, and now reigneth in the heavens, and will reign till he descends on the earth to put all enemies dunder his feet, which time is nigh at hand— 7 I, the Lord God, have spoken it; but the hour and the aday no man knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor shall they know until he comes. (D&C 49) ”
    1 point
  33. So, our local newspaper has spent the last several months reporting on murders, crime and other violence. Now they publish a police report that crime is down about 11% in the city. Sadly, each story is true, but people have already made up their minds that ours is a crime infested cesspool and the police are lying. I suppose the above story is like that. It's true. We can't do anything about it. Trump supporters will feel some moral vindication. Opponents will consider it an aberration. We've heard this song before, but sure, let's have the next verse . . .
    1 point
  34. Then there is this floating around. Maybe somebody misquoted Joseph Smith. Christ says no man knoweth the day or the hour when the Son of Man cometh (Matt 24:36). …Did Christ speak this as a general principle throughout all generations? Oh no, he spoke in the present tense. No man that was then living upon the footstool of God knew the day or the hour. But he did not say that there was no man throughout all generations that should not know the day or the hour. No for this would be in flat contradiction with other scripture for the prophet (Amos 3:7) says that God will do nothing but what he will reveal unto his Servants the prophets.Joseph Smith
    1 point
  35. Vort

    GA made a bold prediction

    I hope to be around for the Second Coming of Jesus, too, though I don't necessarily expect it to happen in my lifetime. I assume all the righteous Saints of all ages of time will be around for that event.
    1 point
  36. Hero-talking Trump or defending Trump from unfair accusations... I've had to do that for the past 3 years even from the likes of Romney - Mocking disabled reporters, defending white supremacists in Charlottesville, even pouring fishfood into a koi pond for crying out loud. Trump's "vile" image is not all Trump - it's manufactured propaganda. But then maybe it's because I grew up in Philippine politics. But I'd rather have a President say what he thinks without being politically massaged into what counts for "Presidential" to win an election than a President who says all the "statesman" words that he doesn't mean. It's a running joke in my political family to mimic a politician saying in full statesman voice, "I will build a bridge! And if there's no river to put the bridge over, I'll build a river too!" Applause, applause... he is sooo "presidential". Of course, we'd rather have a President that uses statesman language to say what he thinks but you don't have that. You have a construction worker from New York. But to say that "this changes the landscape of politics from now on" is silly. Social Media changed the landscape of politics in the Age of Trump, not Trump himself. You don't just get politics from the "politically massaged propaganda". Now you get politics straight from the mouth of politicians and ordinary people without the benefit of cover by journalists - complete with all the stupidity that goes with it. The ugliness of the Kavanaugh trial was not more vile than Thomas' because of Trump. The ugliness of the Kavanaugh trial was more vile because of the pressure from people armed with Social Media. You can't really put all of that on the feet of Trump just because he talks on National TV the same way he talks in a construction site. All that stuff has been going on for ages. Trump did not cause for that cover of "decorum" to be unmasked any more than the invention of Twitter did.
    1 point
  37. @LiterateParakeet has the best answer to this. Elder Bednar gave a talk in a conference once that I attended. He stated that everything we do in the Church revolves around 2 things and 2 things only - "1.) to prepare to receive the next ordinance and its corresponding covenant, 2.) to help each other keep the covenants already made, period, exclamation point, end of sentence." Yes, he said that - "period, exclamation point, end of sentence". This simple paragraph should lead you to discerning how a person having the authority to "hold the umbrella" of the priesthood up and over his own family leads the family towards these 2 objectives and how a person gathering the people, especially the children, under the umbrella of the priesthood (regardless of who is holding it up) also lead towards these 2 objectives. In any case, that umbrella has to be held up.
    1 point
  38. I think this is true of pretty much all the changes. Sure there has been policy changes... But the fundamentals have not changed. If for whatever reason we did not understand before this is a chance for us to repent (aka change)
    1 point
  39. I could easily be misunderstanding the meaning behind what I have read, for example, "Unlike human cells or bacteria, viruses don't contain the chemical machinery (enzymes) needed to carry out the chemical reactions for life." (emphasis mine) Chemical reaction is "a process that involves rearrangement of the molecular or ionic structure of a substance." Viruses use the chemical reaction of cells to replicate, or the chemical machinery they themselves do not have. Again, I could be wrong in how I am understanding and reading it. All life is chemistry, just as all chemistry is physics. You can explain chemical reactions using physics, which is why there's a discipline called physical chemistry. But it's laborious. Physics is too fine-grained a tool to use understandably in general when talking about chemistry. It just gets overwhelming to talk about every chemical event in terms of the underlying physics. "The genesis of this chemical reaction is based on the valence electrons reverting to a least-energy state, blah blah blah blah blah..." Once you establish the relationship between physics and chemistry, you can chunk the physics concepts together and quit dealing with them individually. That's what constitutes chemistry. Similarly, you can explain biology using chemistry, which is why there's a discipline called biochemistry. But it's laborious. Chemistry is too fine-grained a tolo to use understandably in general when talking about biology. It just gets overwhelming to talk about every biological event in terms of the underlying chemistry. "The genesis of this biological reaction is based on the chemical attraction between the various amino acid pairs, blah blah blah blah blah..." Once you establish the relationship between chemistry and biology, you can chunk the chemistry concepts together and quit dealing with them individually. That's what constitutes biology.
    1 point
  40. How Y2K came an went without anything more disastrous than the movie Entrapment: ~4-10 years before the event companies started noticing that future events (such as graduations and card expirations) were scheduled to happen 96 years ago. Some specialty shims were written for the code. ~2 years before the event, companies had the prescience to realize this would affect a lot more things and started looking for complete, systematic fixes over their entire code base. COBOL (and other seemingly obselete) programmers were paid a premium and pulled out of retirement to patch things up. ~1 year before the event, companies sent out patches to their code consumers to fix code that had been released to production. Companies upgraded their systems based on the patch dependencies ~3 months before the event, consumers were encouraged to change the date/time on their computers to verify that all necessary patches had been applied and the system would work Jan 1, 2000. The night of the event, tech workers were in office or on call monitoring their web sites and tech stacks. Jan 1, 2000 12:05 AM, tech workers cheered loudly when their systems didn't crash Jan 1, 2000 12:45 AM, consumers drunkenly mash keys on the keyboard and shake the mouse and let loose a silly grin since the computer still works. What I learned from it was that when a known disaster is just on the horizon, experts get to work on a solution, inform the public on ways to mitigate the risk, and a conscientous public applies those recommendations. Do this and there's little panic, little looting, little chaos even when the disaster is at its peak. Don't do this, and you roll the dice. Applying safety measures and risk management are not panicking, nor are they the results of panic. I would argue that in many ways they prevent panic.
    1 point
  41. 1. I suspect that there is a certain amount of validity to this. Within the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement we speak of the Spirit in ways that probably seem feminine. The Spirit comforts, brings peace, allows us to sense God's presence, fills us, etc. In many ways these could be seen as "mothering." Another aside is that we have a Korean-originated religious sect in our area--the World Mission Society Church of God. It teaches that the founding pastor was the return of Christ, and that his alleged wife is Mother God. 2. Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Michael is Jesus, and that he was/is "a god," but not Jehovah--not GOD. They also teach that the 144K are Jehovah's chosen, amongst the Witnesses, who will reign with Jehovah in heaven, with the rest serving him on a reborn paradise-like earth. The above is meant to show that other religious sects seem to share bits and pieces of what e v e is espousing.
    1 point
  42. I actually agree with much of what you have written. Parts of it (e.g. "Plan A") are pure speculation, wtih all the pitfalls and dangers of such speculation, and you should take those ideas with a grain of salt. But this: Brother, you are way, way off the reservation on this. You're spiritually derailed. This is disloyalty at minimum. It's what many ostensibly faithful Saints said about Joseph Smith before he was lynched. We live in a top-down Church, not a bottom-up Church. It's not called the democracy of God. It's a kingdom. This is pure ark-steadying. You are blinded by your own perceived cleverness. Please do not pursue this path. It does not lead where you think it leads.
    1 point
  43. The concept that I believe helps is the difference between "authority" and "power." Power is individual righteousness. Authority is specifically accomplished by the laying on of hands. Women who exercise faith (e.g. single mothers, widows, single women, etc...) when children are sick and pray believing God will grant blessings these blessings are accomplished via priesthood power. An eye opening experience for me as a young father and my wife as a young mother was when our daughter was sick with a fever ranging between 102-104. At this time in our life I was working two full-time jobs (8-5pm and graveyard 11-7am). Around 12 AM in the morning the fever hit and and would not decrease in temperature no matter what she did. The infant pain medicine did not reduce the fever. As a young mother at 2 AM she couldn't call me as my position didn't allow a phone call and if she did it didn't mean it would reach me right away. She didn't have anyone to call that early, so she knelt by the side of the bed praying over our daughter. At the moment she ended the prayer, she checked again on our daughter and the fever was gone (no fever through the night, it never came back). It wasn't by the authority, but through personal faith and belief our daughter was healed by the power of the priesthood. This experience and others have made it very clear that women are able to access power in the priesthood in all that they do. In every assignment, in every calling, and in all they do that is the work of the Lord.
    1 point
  44. I do not know what you were taught, and I cannot say what others may have taught through the decades. I was taught something similar growing up. But the above is not according to scripture, as I learned when I began seriously reading and studying scripture at about the age of 19. There was only ever one plan, not two. That single plan was the Father's plan, originating with him. According to the Father, this plan would save all who would receive it and exalt all who would abide the law. The plan required a Redeemer, for which Jesus volunteered himself (doubtless was called of the Father to do so). In speaking up, Jesus made it clear that it was the Father's plan, done by the power of the Father, and that the glory was to the Father whose plan it was. At least one other also volunteered himself for being the Redeemer. This prideful volunteer, a liar from the beginning, amended the Father's plan by making a spurious claim: He would redeem not just some, but all, and therefore the glory and honor would accrue to him, and not to the Father. The Father rejected the impudent offer of the so-called son of the morning and confirmed Jehovah as our Redeemer. The liar whose offer was rejected rebelled against God, along with "the third part" of the Father's children who hearkened to his lies. This is the genesis of the war in heaven, the premortal result of which was that the third part was cast out.
    1 point
  45. Sort of like now—we had @MormonGator telling us what degenerates we all were, and reminiscing about the “Era of Good Feelings” he witnessed under Monroe.
    0 points
  46. mordorbund

    The trinity = the family

    Me too, Tem.
    0 points
  47. Yes. That's my point exactly. So, here's my suggest... you go study the scriptures and when you find a passage that says the Holy Ghost is a man, not appears in the form of a man with a vague reference to who that spirit actually is or some masculine pronoun passages and then we'll have something to talk about. Until then, we really have nothing further to discuss. You have your opinion and I have mine. You could be wrong. I'm most definitely not.
    0 points
  48. Vort

    GA made a bold prediction

    Well, that's not strictly true. You can ask. Just don't hold your breath for an answer right now.
    0 points
  49. Well, you didn’t need to share it to the online world if you truly believed he shouldn’t have shared it with you. That’s not cool.
    0 points
  50. My response would be along the lines of this: Yes, you have the responsibililty to lead and protect your family, even wtihout the Priesthood. But you do not have the full spiritual and patriarchal ability to do so. That comes only through the divine authorization of the Priesthood. I probably cannot defend this opinion well from scriptures or prophetic teachings. It is my own personal understanding. I believe it to be correct, but I don't expect you to just take my word for it. Just putting it out there for consideration. The easy answer is this: We have been commanded to minister to our sick by having men of the Priesthood offer them blessings. But that sort of begs the question, doesn't it? Hugh Nibley once offered the following example: We instruct our young children to wash their hands with soap. Our children do not understand what role soap plays in cleaning our hands; they just know they're supposed to use soap when washing their hands. But this does not mean that soap doesn't really do anything. It does do something, something very important. It helps in a real way, but a way beyond the understanding of a four-year-old. Similarly, we're instructed to use olive oil when offering blessings by the laying on of hands. We do not know why we use olive oil. But that doesn't mean there is no reason. We may well find in the next life that there are very good reasons indeed why we have been instructed to do the things we're supposed to do, and we will be very glad that we obeyed even though we didn't understand why.
    0 points