The Folk Prophet

Okay...just that quick I've come up with another objection. Sealing. So now we're doing our family history and we work our way back to Adam's time (probably in the Millenium with help of Angels), now we have a great, great, great.......great, great, great grandma who wasn't human...wasn't a child of God. So who do we seal her children to? Hmm? What about great, great, great.......great, great, great grandpa. Let's say he wasn't culpable, in that it was simply the traditions of his fathers, but oh how he loved great, great, great.......great, great, great grandma...but too bad. She's not human. Really, the idea is just a mess. I'm sure I'll have more ideas coming.

I just don't see reading anything other than artistic expression into sons of God vs. daughters of men. We are all sons and daughters of God and all sons and daughters of men. To imply something else, it seems to me, a different term would need to be used...a la...sons of God married the daughters of...say...monkeys... I'm being flippant...but hopefully my point is clear. :) Hmm. My point isn't really about skin color, but about the supposed idea that some of us are "pure" humans whereas some of us are half monkey-men (I know, I know...flippant...I can't help myself.) As much as I can, overall, accept the logic behind your thoughts, they seem like an effort to stretch things to fit secularism rather than, perhaps more appropriately, the other way around. There is, of course, a reason the church does not have an official p.o.v. on pre-Adamites. But what can I say? I guess I'm a McConkie-ite. (Wait...is that mixing metaphors? Er...wait...what's a metaphor?) I'll do some pondering and see what other objections to the idea I can come up with.

Well, come on. Certainly not the "only" way. I mean, there's always aliens. Seriously though, there are other explanations, theoretically. We once thought the world was flat and all that... Only if you interpret daughters of men to mean something other than what it says...the daughters of...you know...men...as in the first "man"...Adam. :) I do tend to be pretty neutral on the potential existence of pre-adamite humaniod beings. But like I said, my problem is with them mating with men. It's as likely a thought as us mating with a monkey now to my thinking. So theologically, how does that work? The monkey man is...what? Fashioned after the image of God, as all His children are -- but not quite? What of the creature's spirit? Is it also half monkey spirit and half man spirit? There are too many problems raised with the idea. So I don't buy it. And as it applies to the thread at hand, which is more racist...God changed Cain's skin color, or the descendants of Cain are from non-Human stock, whereas the rest of us are pure-bloods? Muggles, mudbloods and squibs! It doesn't strike me that such speculation is one bit wiser than the now disavowed other theories that have been postulated in the past.

I know you said you weren't going to debate it, so don't take this as an attempt, just a thought being shared: There may be some merit to this thinking for the Lamanites. For Cain, however, although there are LDS folk (I've "debated" with them on it before) who believe that there were pre-Adamite races, I for one think the idea of the children of God having mated with said pre-Adamites, even if they existed (which I'm dubious about), problematic from a theological point of view.

It probably won't surprise anyone, but no one thinks I'm liberal. :)

Claire, I would say that your basic understanding is in place but you're interpolating things that are not valid. I'm not sure where you picked this up, but the concept of Christ's potency being in any way limited is incorrect. (Other than, perhaps for a time in his mortal youth.) And the "unity of will" idea, although true, is incomplete. God the Father and God the Son are one in more than just will. They are one in power, majesty, glory, knowledge, love, etc., etc... Stating that Christ "participated" in the creation of the world is also misleading. Christ is the creator. Not just some participant. Adam and the other "gods" were participants. He underwent the same basic pattern, yes. But with one HUGE difference. He is the Son of God -- literally, in the flesh, begotten by Him. This, if nothing else, changes the nature of His "limitations". But for the sake of understanding, I'll acquiesce the point and say, sure -- same limitations. But by the power of perfect faith and perfect obedience, any of us would have access to perfect knowledge and power. So even if it were true that he was just the same as all of us (which He was not...but for the sake of discussion...) then He still was perfect in His faith and obedience, and therefore had access to perfect knowledge and power. That being said, He had access to all power and knowledge by virtue of His heritage as the Son of God, and by the fact that He was, literally, the creator of the world -- hence the winds and the waves obeyed Him. I wouldn't go so far as to say "likely". But perhaps. Christ's omniscience has been revealed to us.

Well...technically, skin color aside, descendants of Cain would have to do with a person's race. But we have no idea who are and are not descendants of Cain. What I think is also interesting to think about is that to claim the Book of Mormon is racist somehow skips over the fact that the Lamanites and the Nephites are the exact same race.

Definitely not. Fundamentally, Christ was and is a God. He is the creator of the universe. He is the Father and the Son. He is the Great Jehovah. He is the only begotten of the Father. Fundamentally, we are none of these things. We hold that Christ did have to learn and grow in mortality though. But the question was not whether Christ knew the time of His return, but whether Christ knows the time of His return. Decidedly different question.

How can we believe that the great Jehovah is our all-powerful omniscient God and yet think that He does not know the time of His return? That's a very strange idea to me.

Ah, man. I should have used a pretty girl picture for my avatar. Just think of all the conflict I could have avoided.

I can certainly see your point. But by that thinking, Christ was contentious. So...

There are more important - God commands killing - stories in the Bible than Abraham, since ultimately God did not actually command (at least in the sense of follow through) the killing of Isaac. So trying to justify God's command is pretty easy there. He didn't follow through. So I don't know why anyone would try and contend that Abraham made up the idea himself based on pagan ideas. That strikes me as a bit out there. It's easy enough to simply say that it was a test and God never meant it. It's a little bit harder to justify God's command to kill every man, woman, child and beast of the Amalekites in 1 Samuel and all the nations in Deut 7 (Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, etc). It's also a bit strange to me to take these commands as only allegorical. The concern I have with taking anything one doesn't like as allegorical in the OT is that it imagines up a different God than that which as been revealed to us. The simple fact of the matter is that God DOES command killing sometimes. I find it fairly irresponsible to simply throw that out as allegorical. This is very different than whether snakes and donkeys talk or not. This is a distinct and importantly different God! That's a big deal. Whether God commands killing or not actually matters to our faith and our understanding of Him and what really matters. Understanding that mortality is not the end-all of our existence, and having that perspective is incredibly importing in our spiritual understanding of tragedy in life and facing why God would allow horrible things to happen. Moreover, the fearsome God of the Old Testament is part and parcel of who the Almighty is. He is a loving and merciful God. Yes. But He is also a vengeful jealous God who we must obey or we will face His wrath. These ideas are both important components in understanding and knowing who and what God is. Understanding the truth of God, and what is and is not truly important in our existence matters. There is a distinctly important teaching in the idea that God can and does command things that are not strictly in line with the broad-stroke rules/commandments sometimes. It is important that we understand that God's direct command supersedes the broad-strokes. Thou shalt not kill is the command. And we must follow it. But if and when God says kill, who are we to say, "but the Bible says..."? This is true of anything. God's direct command to anyone overrides any thing. God's word to us is key and king. Taking the commandments as canonized in scripture as the end all of right and wrong denies the exceedingly important concept of personal revelation and direction. It leads, forgive me, to Pharisaical ideology.

Not sure how this is confusing. You and others have stated that Catholics have "required" and "optional" beliefs. Although it doesn't quite work that way in LDS think, there are specific tenants of the LDS faith that one must believe in order to be considered a "believing" Latter-day Saint. The revelations from heaven and the literal truth of that in the examples of that in the Bible are pretty straight forward. LDS believe God appeared, spoke, etc., in the OT the way it says He did. But did a donkey literally speak? Less important. My point is quite clear, however. Even for LDS people, I think it is highly problematic to pick and choose what we are going to accept and what we are not from God's canonized word. If I decide that I'm going to view anything in the OT as non-literal based on my personal tastes and convictions concerning the matter at hand, then I am thereby free to dismiss something like Polygamy as a valid principle -- and make no mistake, some LDS people do just that -- and yet the LDS church's history is so heavily steeped in polygamy that to deny this is, as I said, problematic. Moreover, the Book of Mormon teaches that God commanded Nephi to slay a drunken man in the street. If one, skittish about the idea of murder, thereby chooses to reject that, then it puts the veracity of the Book of Mormon being the word of God into jeopardy, upon which idea the faith and testimony of LDS religiosity rests. It's not complicated. Not everyone believes everything. I'm sure that's true even of so-called "required" Catholic beliefs for Catholics. But the teachings of a church are the teachings of the church, whether members believe them or not. Clearly the LDS dogma approach is less rigid than Catholic. But do not get the idea from some of the comments that we all just willy-nilly think whatever we want and the word given by prophets can take a flying leap per personal agenda without any repercussions in the eternal scheme of things. God will hold non-believers accountable when it comes to the truths He has revealed to the children of men that we reject.

Okay...well...picking and choosing beliefs from the Bible, in my opinion, is problematic, as I've said. But that, of course, is your right.

No one is speaking for everyone. Anyone can believe any old thing they want. The LDS church teaches specific things, however. Sometimes there is ambiguity in those teachings. Sometimes there is not. In the case of God speaking to man, there is not. Let whomever believe whatever whomever wishes. That's their business. But LDS teaching is, without question, that God literally speaks to man, literally spoke to Moses, literally spoke to Abraham, etc., and so forth.

Duplicate

No one can be a believing LDS and deny God's literal speaking to man. Our faith is based on God literally appearing to Joseph Smith. And we have many many instances of God's voice "booming" down in both the Book of Mormon and latter-day experiences. It would be pretty silly to accept these as literal and deny the same in the OT.

CatholicLady - "I don't think God's voice ever echoed from the skies and told Abraham to kill his own son." Then you do not feel the same way we do about it at all.

I expect there are things in the OT that are not literal, but as a general rule, we believe what it says happened happened. But there are things that could be artistically described, perhaps -- as Jane Doe suggested above. The problem is, in my opinion, that if you don't give the OT the benefit of the doubt then it's too easy to simply write off anything you disagree with. I find that thinking incredibly spiritually dangerous. So did the flood "literally" cover the whole earth or not? I don't know. Perhaps not. But I see no harm in simply presuming it did. Did a snake talk to Adam and Eve or is the snake symbolic and representative of something? I don't know. Once again, I see no harm in presuming it was a literal snake. Really, in these things, it doesn't much matter though. Whether it was a snake or Satan himself speaking, someone tempted Eve. Certainly the more directly spiritual things I believe though. Simply taking the Abrahamic sacrifice and writing it off as false? Why? I very much believe it actually happened. And what is the motivation for claiming it figurative? Because the stories are hard to swallow? Oh...you mean like a man walking on water, turning water to wine, raising the dead, magically creating food, and coming back from the dead Himself? That kind of hard to swallow? And yet we accept this as valid -- in spite of the fact that they're a bunch of "crazy stories". So why would I write of the OT "crazy stories"? So, yes. I take the OT literally -- for the most part -- and any suspicions I have that there may be some level of figuratism therein, I give the benefit of the doubt to literalism regardless. (I think I just made up the words figuratism and literalism. Cool.) We also believe, in the LDS church, that the Bible, OT and NT are only correct as far as they are translated correctly. We believe there are errors therein. Is it possible that some of the crazy stories are somewhat in error? Sure. But does that automatically imply that the entirety of the book is meant to be nothing but figurative? No. As SpiritDragon implied, there's no hard line "it is figurative" or "it is literal" for the entire OT, though I feel confident that if we dug we could find some sort of teaching somewhere about the literal belief in most of the occurrences therein.

If you deny the truth of the Bible - even the OT - then there can be no common ground to our understanding.

I'm not sure this is supportable. There are plenty of killings God has justified and even commanded that would be considered legal and even ethical murders by others.

Could be?

*whew* I'm so pleased to see you included me on the list. I thought for a second I was gonna get left out as the obnoxious one (a view, I'm certain, several share.) :)

Bart Simpson....I can't promise I'll try, but I'll try to try. I don't know why I posted this. I just like the Bart quote.

Oh...missionaries in hot climates are allowed to wear tank tops and short shorts.