Dorian

Hi all, Thank you for your responses. I guess I was surprised because I've only ever had one encounter with a missionary before (we met on a tram, and I stupidly invited him and his companion to come in for a cup of coffee before remembering you guys don't drink it. He just had water hahaha). He must have been a one off though, because he was very passionate about his religion and quoting scripture off by heart and we had some great conversations so I guess I just assumed they were all like that. Also, I'm a teacher and one of the subjects I teach is comparative religion, so it's kind of my job to know about different beliefs. Maybe the missionary thought I was trying to trip her up or something. Oh well, no harm done and I'll just stick to here or maybe talk to a local Church leader if I have any more questions.

I've had an interest in the LDS faith for a while now and today for the first time I logged onto the Mormon.org 'chat to a missionary' website. I did so because I kept hearing conflicting reports about what Mormons believe, so I thought I'd go ask someone who is an official representative of the Church. I asked about the afterlife and how their understanding of Heaven differs from what I grew up with (mainline Christian). She said Heaven was a place to grow and become more like Heavenly Father, etc. She asked me why I was asking and I was very honest and said that I keep hearing conflicting reports, so I thought I'd come to a missionary and ask. She asked what I'd heard and I mentioned the idea that people can have kids in the afterlife, she said this isn't LDS doctrine she had heard of and asked where I heard it. I read it in an artice on the BYU website called 'Eternal lives, Eternal Increase' so told her so. She then became really defensive and asked me if I'd read the book of Mormon. I said I'd read a bit, but not all of it. She then said I should read the Book of Mormon before reading anything else or asking any more questions, because any questions I have will be answered in the Book of Mormon. When I asked if I was allowed to ask questions about the religion she said "not until you've read all of the Book of Mormon. Then she said she wouldn't talk to me anymore, and that I should come back to Mormon.org and chat after I'd read all of the BoM. I wanted to argue after that because I felt like she was being pretty rude. I mean, those nice young men that knock on people's doors don't wait for people to read all of the BoM before trying to convert them. I've never been told before that I'm not allowed to ask questions until I read a massive book first. I didn't argue though, that's not what I came for, and more to the point the missionary closed the chat before I could say anything else. Is this normal? I mean why even bother having a 'Chat with a Missionary' function if all they're going to do is say "if you've got questions, read the Book of Mormon and then we'll talk". May as well just link straigh to the BoM. If a newcomer comes into my Catholic church and has questions we try to answer as best we can, we don't say "Read the entire Catechism and then we'll talk". That's just ridiculous. Really not getting a good feel if that's the way your Church deals with honest questions...

Ha, I don't know, but it can sometimes be frustrating talking to Mormons about this stuff because they always say "it's just speculation" (like the first response here) but then the doctrine of having spirit children is right there in your official manuals! So it's not so speculative after all.... I just wish Mormons would be more upfront about their unique beliefs. I get the whole "milk before meat" idea but maybe the whole reason a lot of people are interested in Mormonism is because it's different from regular Christianity. Besides now that people have access to the internet down playing the unique bits doesn't work so well. Thanks for your honesty, Annwandering :)

Will your spirit children worship you like we worship our Heavenly Father?

Great, thanks. Another question. You said that Jesus didn't have the fulness but received it later (after his time on earth?) But Paul says that Christ was equal with God and then became human. He didn't receive His fulness, rather he already had it and chose to become man. "5Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,7but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men." In LDS theology it seems to be all about man going up, whereas in Christian theology it seems to be about God coming down. How does this quote from Phillipians square with the idea that Jesus attained His Godhood or is subordinate to the Father?

"“What do we mean by endless or eternal increase? We mean that through the righteousness and faithfulness of men and women who keep the commandments of God they will come forth with celestial bodies, fitted and prepared to enter into their great, high and eternal glory in the celestial kingdom of God; and unto them through their preparation, there will come spirit children." "“Mortal persons who overcome all things and gain an ultimate exaltation will live eternally in the family unit and have spirit children, thus becoming Eternal Fathers and Eternal Mothers. (D&C 132:19–32.) Indeed, the formal pronouncement of the Church, issued by the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve, states: ‘So far as the stages of eternal progression and attainment have been made known through divine revelation, we are to understand that only resurrected and glorified beings can become parents of spirit offspring.’ (Man: His Origin and Destiny, p. 129.)” (Mormon Doctrine, 517)." So, according to the current materials you guys study, you will have spirit children in heaven?

Okay, so if the first one is just hypothetical can someone explain what eternal increase is to me? I've read that only those who reach the highest level of heaven get the blessing of 'eternal increase'.

I have a few question: If you achieve your exaltation do you expect to have spirit children and do you expect that they will look to you in the same way you look to Heavenly Father, ie direct prayers to you? Also, if God were a polygamist (I understand that you don't have a clear teaching either way on how many wives God was sealed to when he was a man), is it possible that there are Heavenly Mothers and while we all have the same Father we don't all have the same mother? Does God worship His own heavenly father?

You can always still go to the Holy Sacrifice on weekdays and read Catholic theology even though you're now LDS :) Catholicism is beautiful and if certain Catholic spiritual authors help bring you closer to God then I can't see why reading them would be wrong.

Hmmm, okay, I see what you say about the priesthood in the Old Testament. I'm still not convinced though becaue a) That was the Old Covenant, which was restricted to the Jews anyway B) In the Jewish Faith holding the priesthood was never required before one could be saved, like it is in the LDS faith. If priesthood and temple marriage are required for exaltation then by withholding the restored priesthood from black people you're literally making it impossible for them to return to Heavenly Father, or to be with their families forever. I'm still really interested in figuring out with stuff about the nature of God, too. It's kind of a big one for me. Even though I know it's not official doctrine, it is something that is believed by most Mormons and seems to be held by the GA's. Also, as some others said, it seems to be logically required in order to make sense of other LDS doctrines. So, does God worship His Father? Does He live with His Father in a celestial kingdom? Do you ever feel that introducing all these other Gods detracts from Heavenly Father's glory? I mean, if there are Gods before Him then He's no longer the Almighty, or the Most High, or anything like that. If God has a physical body does He walk around, talk, touch, hug, etc, other people (his wife/wives, spirit children, etc) in Heaven? Do they have houses? If there is a chain of God's (eternal regression along with eternal progression) then where did it all begin? Is there a God out there that always was? I think atheism is irrational because it requires an infinite regress of causes in order to explain existence, and to me the LDS conception of God seems to suffer from the same problem. It's "turtles all the way down". Thanks!

I need a little help. I feel really attracted to the LDS Church. I've read the Book of Mormon, read about Joseph Smith, prayed about it, and have been experiencing all those little experiences and attractions that your Church says is part of a testimony. There are several LDS doctrines, like your understanding of the Godhead, that make a lot of sense to me. However there are other areas that I feel really, really uncomfortable about and I don't know if any amount of study or prayer will change my mind. I'd really like to overcome these issues so I'm going to list the two major ones below and any help, advice, or explanations anyone could offer would be really appreciated. 1. The idea that Heavenly Father had His own father, and that there are other worlds with other gods and goddesses ruling them. To me this just seems like polytheism (even if you only worship one God) and the defining characteristic of the Hebrew Scriptures is that the Jews believed in only one God. It seems to me that monotheism is central to the Old Testament. I know Joseph Smith taught that 'Elohim' was a plural, but I find the explanation that it's a superlative much more consistent with the rest of scripture. The whole doctrine seems to make God secondary to a grand circular process (or, one eternal round). 2. The Church's history with black people. I know that the LDS Church holds to continuing revelation, and I think that makes a lot of sense, but when I read quotes like the ones below I really wonder how close these men were to God. "The reason that one would lose his blessings by marrying a negro is due to the restriction placed upon them. 'No person having the least particle of negro blood can hold the priesthood' (Brigham Young). It does not matter if they are one-sixth negro or one-hundred and sixth, the curse of no Priesthood is the same. If an individual who is entitled to the priesthood marries a negro, the Lord has decreed that only spirits who are not eligible for the priesthood will come to that marriage as children. To intermarry with a negro is to forfeit a 'nation of priesthood holders'" - Apostle Mark Petersen to BYU students, 1954. How can a man who is supposed to be a successor of the apostles and be incredibly close to God hold such disgusting views? Furthermore, even if the restriction has been lifted, it still means that in the past God excluded black people from the priesthood and exaltation which just seems completely illogical given that we're all made in His image. There are lots and lots of other quotes like this too from apostles and presidents dating from Brigham Young's time all the way through to the 1970's. Anyway, those are the two major issues I have and was hoping to get your perspective on them. Thanks!

Your interpretation is also inconsistent with the rest of the passage where Our Lord goes on to say "and I will give to you the keys to the kingdom of Heaven". One does not give the Keys to a statement of belief or a personal revelation, but to a person. Christ then is clearly talking to Peter and establishing His Church on him. Likewise Christ promised to be with us "all days, even unto the end of the world". Not for a few decades, then disappear for nearly two millennia, and return again in Joseph Smith's time.

Hi, I was wondering why the Book of Abraham uses the plural when telling the Creation story. Do you believe that multiple deities were involved in forming the earth or just Heavenly Father? Thanks https://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/abr/4?lang=eng

This highlights a very serious reason why I couldn't become LDS. Relying on a testimony of the spirit to ascertain the truth of Mormonism sounds nice and pious, but really it reduces the quest for truth down to subjective feeling. In fact, I think this is one of the reasons the LDS church has such a hard time retaining converts. After a year or two the 'convert zeal' simply wears off and their has to be something stronger than warm feelings in the bosom holding up your faith. I'm a convert (to Catholicism), so I should know. I'm not saying that feeling and personal experience (or personal revelation/testimony) have no place is forming our religious beliefs, but being told by the missionaries to just pray about it and any warm and fuzzy feelings I get are confirmations from God that the LDS Church is true was way too hard to swallow. Let's face it, people of all different religions employ this approach all the time. I've heard a convert to Islam explain that they prayed to God to reveal the truth to him and that night he dreamt about the Quran, then the next day came across Muslims proselytising on the streets and he's now a devout Muslim. You hear Evangelical Christians talk about being overwhelmed by a warm, peaceful feeling at their lowest (often to do with alcohol/drug addiction) and then converting all the time. If our measure of truth is going to be a personal testimony that comes in the form of nice emotions then God is giving a whole lot of different answers to different people. It doesn't do to explain away the religious experiences of non-LDS people to appeal to the Devil, because they'd do the exact same in regards to your personal testimony and it really gets us nowhere. This is one of the things I love about Catholicism: the complementarity of faith and reason. In fact, when I was converting to the Church, the priest explicitly told me not to base this decision on emotion because emotions come and go. The emphasis the Catholic Church places on coming to know God through nature and philosophy, and Her ability to trace Her history back to the very time of Christ, is what I think finally allowed me to take that leap of faith.

I have a question concerning LDS doctrine on sealing. It is my understanding that you guys believe we live in family units in eternity, right? So say Mr and Mrs Jones have five kids and all of their kids then grow up, enter temple marriages and have their own kids. Now Mr and Mrs. Jones' kids, who are all married, are sealed to their own spouse and children? Does this mean that in eternity Mr and Mrs. Jones will be with their kids and their kids' families, or will they be separate? If this is the case then can we expect that in the celestial kingdom there will be generations and generations of sealed families all living together? Say, Mr and Mrs Jones parents, and their parents, and their parents, etc. What about when it comes to creating and populating new worlds? How can they still be together for that if each married couple is to become heavenly parents to spirit children?

I know that the LDS Church no longer practices plural marriage but that at times God has required it from His people. So hypothetically, if tomorrow the prophet received a revelation that God wanted the saints to practice the principle of plural marriage again (and any legal obstacles were cleared away) how would you respond?

I think FLDS and other fundamentalist groups also believe in Adam-God doctrine and the United Order. I think most people (probably all) who watched understood that polygamy isn't part of the LDS Church, I mean a large part of the narrative was Bill being at log aheads with the Church (and Barb with her sister) because they weren't in the same religion.

I never said that because it's commonly believed it must be true. I recall listing Jews, Muslims, and Christians. I don't think I listed Near East Ancient myths (and I wonder how many people still believing that are around).

Did anyone here watch it? I did and loved it. It's actually what started my fascination with the LDS religion (though I know the religion depicted in the show isn't LDS). I'd be interested to hear what Mormons thought of it.

Look, I'm not going to get into a prolonged argument over this or delve into semantics and etymology. The point is when most people talk about theistic creation (God created me, the earth, etc) they mean creation from nothing. This is what Muslims, Christians (four billion of 6 billion people right there), Jews, and many other religions mean by "creation". Now that Finrock has explained to me that by the word "create" Mormons mean "organise" whereas most other Christians mean bring into being from nothing we can put this issue to rest. That's all that needed to be done, and Finrock's approach was much more helpful than yours. First, no I do not believe that the eternality and aseity of God was revealed to the Church Fathers. No Catholic believes that, we believe revelation ended with the death of the last apostle. This is exactly what i mean about you clearly not knowing enough about my religion to act so haughty. I believe that these doctrines are clearly taught in the bible and Apostolic Tradition. Yes, I did read what you wrote. I even responded to it and you neglected to reply. Here is what I wrote: No, it's not. "existing non-existence" is an oxymoron. By the term "a time when He was not God" I was attempting to illustrate a difference in my conception of God and yours (general you): I believe God has always existed as God (as opposed to believing He always existed as intelligence and then became God). By "time" I don't merely mean since the creation of this world, or since humanity began measuring time and history, but that God has always been God and exists outside of all measurements of time. He didn't become God, He doesn't have His origin in another God or on another world. This isn't a meaningless contradiction in terms, actually, but a fairly well thought out philosophical concept called aseity; a quality that my religion applies to God. Aseity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia It means God had no beginning and has no end, given that Joseph Smith appears to have taught that God did have a beginning and "became" God (became implying a change from one state to another) then it seems clear that the Mormon conception of God isn't of one that is eternal, and if the word eternal is used then it is done so with a different meaning. My point is that labelling a belief "a meaningless contradiction in terms" is a declarative statement and doesn't provide any reasoning for that claim. For billions of people the idea of a God outside of time, or a God Who creates from nothing, isn't a contradiction in terms. To be honest I think many of your beliefs are far more oxymoronic and contradictory. For example there's nothing inherently contradictory about "timeless God" whereas there certainly is (to most people's minds, anyway) something oxymoronic in the term "spirit matter". I get that you think these ideas are contradictory and meaningless - you've said that multiple times now - please provide me with a reason why you think the terms are meaningless and without value? Don't just state it, but explain it. Why is creation ex nihilo or the idea of an uncaused cause/prime mover meaningless? That's what I'm asking you to do. I apologise if you did not intend to come off as condescending and I wrongly interpreted your tone.

I'm going to ask a favour. Do you mind cutting the condescension? I'm just here because I want to understand your beliefs. I don't want to argue and I'd prefer not to have my own religious beliefs constantly called false & meaningless in the process. Strictly speaking the word "create" originally means to bring into being from nothingness. That is its original meaning, that is how it is used by 99.99% of Christians, and Jews, and Muslims, and pretty much everyone else who believes in God. I'm grateful to Finrock and Anatess for pointing out those differences to me and how we use the same word with different meanings. Also you've accused classic Christian conceptions of God and creation of being meaningless multiple times now but not once actually provided a reason as to why you constantly dismiss them as such. To be honest, from what I've seen, I don't think you know enough about my religion to make that kind of judgment. If you'd like to outline why you think 2000 years of Christian philosophy and theology about God is stupid then I'd find that really interesting to read, but simply accusing those beliefs of being meaningless concepts or useless strings of contradictory words isn't going to get either of us anywhere. That we believe Christ a union of two natures: divine and human and that strictly speaking Christ's physical body belongs to His human nature which God the Son, second person of the trinity, took upon Himself at the incarnation. It's complicated and if you're genuinely interested then I'm happy to explain it in further detail to you (maybe over PM's) but the point is it differs quite significantly from the LDS claim that God is inherently material or that spirit is actually made out of very fine matter (the idea of spirit matter is oxymoronic to most people), which is what I'm trying to understand.

Okay, that makes way more sense now! Thanks! So when you guys use the word "create" you mean to organise or bring into being from something that already exists? Kind of like "creating" a statue out of a block of stone rather than God bringing something into existence that didn't exist before? Now I see how Vort can claim to be created and eternal at the same time, because he means that God "organised" him rather than literally created Him? So is this right: You exist as intelligences co-eternal with God --- >God organises your pre-existent matter into spirit bodies and you become His children ---- > God sends you to earth to acquire physical bodies ---- > if you lived well your body is exalted and perfected just like God's is (and then some Mormons think you also become gods and have your own spirit children and create worlds, but that's not strictly speaking Church dogma?) Is that right?

Sorry, I know you spent a lot of time as a Catholic, but I don't think that's a correct account of what Catholics believe about God. Contrary to what you wrote Catholicism does not teach God has a physical substance and that that substance is just a mystery. God is formless and not "made" of any thing. There's no "mystery substance" of which God is composed for Catholics. We believe that there are other types of being that exist other than material/physical. Existence does not have to be physical. I think you've misunderstood what we mean by the term 'substance'. As I said before the Greek term "ousis" means essence and nature. "Substance" is derived from the Latin translation of the Greek and does not mean matter or material (or "spirit matter", or any other kind of material). Again if we take into consideration the Christological heresies the Council was condemning (adoptionism and Arianism) we can see that by this term "consubstantial with the Father" the Church is teaching that Christ is absolutely equal to the Father in all ways and always has been. That is what "substance" means when used in Catholic theology. My apologies. I misunderstood. That is not the Catholic view of spirit. Spirit can be eternal (such as God) but we also believe in created spirits. The angels and human souls are examples of created spirits. They had a beginning in time but are immortal. So whereas the Spirit (God) has no beginning and no end our spirits (souls, angels) have a beginning in time but not end. This does differ from the LDS belief, yes? Maybe I should rephrase my question. You believe Jesus is co-eternal with the Father but not that Jesus has eternally been a person of the Godhead? His existence but not His divinity is co-eternal with the Father? Is that more accurate? This clears it up. Thanks! I actually think it's quite a good analogy for understanding God as a communion of persons, but each to their own. If it doesn't work for you then fair enough. It did, thanks a lot :) I appreciate you taking the time to explain all this to me.

Can you explain to me how something can be simultaneously eternal and created? Eternal means having no beginning in time (always being) and created means to be brought into existence. As far as I can see it's an obvious contradiction to say you're both created and eternal. The two are mutually exclusive.

But Catholicism doesn't believe God is "made" out of physical stuff, so when we say that Christ is eternal we mean His person is eternal. God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three distinct Persons and each is eternal as a person united by a shared divine nature. To say that the Son "proceeds" from the Father doesn't imply that the Son existed after the Father in the same way the LDS saying that Christ is the creation of the Father does. I like the way this priest explains it: Okay, that makes a lot more sense now. So whereas in Catholicism Christ is God in virtue of His nature (substance) in Mormonism He is God because He acquired perfection and that's what we're all working towards too? I'm sure you get this a lot but how do you think that squares with Isaiah 43:10 (both in relation to Christ and also exaltation of good Mormons who die)? "You are my witnesses," declares the LORD, "and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no God was formed, nor will there be one after me.