Jbdf

Hello and welcome, gsimsii!

Welcome!

Welcome to the forum, pinetree89!

Hello and welcome, Janet!

Welcome, Jon! That's good stuff there!

It's interesting that the phrasing was changed so radically between the original form of the revelation and the 1835 form of the revelation. But it does seem likely (at least to me) that the reference is to the use of a divining rod, though a particular godly use rather than the ordinary use. Richard Bushman in his biography of Joseph Smith also endorses the view that a divining rod is involved here: "Most likely, Cowdery used a rod to discover water and minerals. The revelation spoke of divine power causing 'this rod of nature, to work in your hands.' His family may have engaged in treasure-seeking and other magical practices in Vermont, and, like others in this culture, melded magic with Christianity. [...] The revelation said nothing to discourage Cowdery's use of his special powers. [...] Rather than repudiate his claims, the revelation redirected Cowdery's use of his gifts." (Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling [New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005], 73) It doesn't seem to pose any more difficulty than Joseph Smith using a seerstone to translate some of the Book of Mormon; both would be, from an LDS perspective, cases of a sanctified use of an item traditionally associated with less holy pursuits.

Hello, just_girl! I'm not LDS but would convert if I were convinced.

Welcome to the site, Artyom! You and I are the same age.

Welcome, Tantalus! I'm not Mormon, but people with questions are my favorite kind of people.

Welcome to the site, Kimmi!

Welcome to the site, lizevo!

Welcome to the forums, Kurt! Yeah, unfortunately there are a lot of Christian forums where many of the users can get rather abrasive, and even some more ecumenical forums where the users can get abrasive whether they're LDS, other sorts of Christians, or not Christians at all. But this is a fairly calm place.

Hello, Shelby! Nice to meet you. Welcome to the site! Yes, it is a nice place here.

Nice to meet you, gettingaclue. Welcome!

Glad to meet you, Debra!

Welcome to the site, Karen! Lovely to hear that you've found peace. :)

Welcome to the site, Zed! Where'd you serve your mission?

Welcome to the forums, Nathan!

I heard about the news this morning from a friend of mine; it was heartbreaking.

Welcome to the forum, Julene! I think it's wonderful that you're doing that work.

Welcome!

:p

In fairness to Jonathan, it seems to me as though an argument could maybe be made for the position implied by his question: Let us say that 'worship' is defined as the proper response to encountering the ultimate, such that it would be improper to worship any lesser entity and that it would be improper to withhold it from an ultimate entity. Then if our Heavenly Father attained exaltation and presumably had a deity before him, this deity is still worshipped by the Father (for what is ultimate cannot cease to be ultimate). But if our Heavenly Father recognizes this higher deity as ultimate, then our Heavenly Father cannot be ultimate and therefore is not worthy of worship. Or, perhaps there is a maximal limit to progression such that our Heavenly Father and his Heavenly Father are both equally ultimate now (let us say that such is a possibility). Indeed, in such a scenario we might speculate that there could be a limitless number of such entities. In this case, there would be a binding obligation for us to render discrete worship to each of them. What would not seem to be possible - on this understanding of worship - would be for us to have only an obligation to worship one such entity who himself has similar obligations with respect to a yet higher entity. The only way I can personally see to evade this argument is to accept a definition of 'worship' whereby God is not worthy of worship simply for being who he is, but rather only because of what he does for us.

Safer than picking on immortals!

Ah yeah, I think I remember that episode!