Fether

This ☝️☝️☝️☝️

@Josh H. I am very impressed with your religion. I have a good friend (who admittedly I haven't spoken to in years) who knew the catholic church doctrine inside and out and wanted to become a priest. We had many long talks and he was able to expound the catholic beliefs on so many topics and I was incredibly impressed with how nicely fit all your doctrine fit together without him having to say the cliche "Only God knows" statements when the hard questions came along. Do you personally study scripture often? and if so, how do you keep it fresh? I kinda get stuck with what it is I want to study, and we have like twice as much scripture as you do haha xD

I understand. I won't stand by my statement, instead I'll stand by these publications that are on the official church website. For future reference... I would suggest using official statement when sharing beliefs about our faith and not personal creeds. I may sound frustrated, and that is because I am. I understand not wanting to throw the deeper, less (and oftentimes almost non) important beliefs at people who aren't members, but to tell someone that we don't believe this, and that it is only a skeptical theory held by members, all-the-while a church source says that many church prophets and brethren have taught this and that "It is clear that the teaching of President Lorenzo Snow [that God was once a man] is both acceptable and accepted doctrine in the Church today." seems wrong to me.

You seem to have not read any of those sources. Let me help you out. "Is President Lorenzo Snow’s oft-repeated statement —“As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may be” —accepted as official doctrine by the Church?...To my knowledge there has been no “official” pronouncement by the First Presidency declaring that President Snow’s couplet is to be accepted as doctrine. But that is not a valid criteria for determining whether or not it is doctrine...President Snow’s son LeRoi later told that the Prophet Joseph Smith confirmed the validity of the revelation Elder Snow had received...The Prophet Joseph Smith himself publicly taught the doctrine the following year, 1844, during a funeral sermon of Elder King Follett: “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! … It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did.”...Numerous sources could be cited, but one should suffice to show that this doctrine is accepted and taught by the Brethren. In an address in 1971, President Joseph Fielding Smith, then serving as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, said:“I think I can pay no greater tribute to [President Lorenzo Snow and Elder Erastus Snow] than to preach again that glorious doctrine which they taught and which was one of the favorite themes, particularly of President Lorenzo Snow. …“We have been promised by the Lord that if we know how to worship, and know what we worship, we may come unto the Father in his name, and in due time receive of his fulness. We have the promise that if we keep his commandments, we shall receive of his fulness and be glorified in him as he is in the Father.“This is a doctrine which delighted President Snow, as it does all of us. Early in his ministry he received by direct, personal revelation the knowledge that (in the Prophet Joseph Smith’s language), ‘God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens,’ and that men ‘have got to learn how to be Gods … the same as all Gods have done before.’“This same doctrine has of course been known to the prophets of all the ages, and President Snow wrote an excellent poetic summary of it.” (Address on Snow Day, given at Snow College, 14 May 1971, pp. 1, 3–4; italics added.) It is clear that the teaching of President Lorenzo Snow is both acceptable and accepted doctrine in the Church today." (churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/i-have-a-question/is-president-snows-statement) "Since that sermon, known as the King Follett discourse, the doctrine that humans can progress to exaltation and godliness has been taught within the Church. Lorenzo Snow, the Church’s fifth President, coined a well-known couplet: “As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be.”43 Little has been revealed about the first half of this couplet, and consequently little is taught. When asked about this topic, Church President Gordon B. Hinckley told a reporter in 1997, “That gets into some pretty deep theology that we don’t know very much about.” When asked about the belief in humans’ divine potential, President Hinckley responded, “Well, as God is, man may become. We believe in eternal progression. Very strongly.”44" (churchofjesuschrist.orggospel-topics-essays/becoming-like-god) "The Gospel of Philip, an apocryphal book, makes this simple statement of logic: “A horse sires a horse, a man begets man, a god brings forth a god.”24 The difference between man and God is significant—but it is one of degree, not kind. It is the difference between an acorn and an oak tree, a rosebud and a rose, a son and a father. In truth, every man is a potential god in embryo, in fulfillment of that eternal law that like begets like." (byu.edu/tad-r-callister/our-identity-and-our-destiny/) There, now you don't need to do any personal research.

And here lies the source of what transformed CatholicGator into MormonGator (I kid of course )

ummmm... I can pull up multiple sources, official church, and semi-official (BYU lectures by active 70s and a Truman G Madsen's discourses on Joseph Smith for example) that disagree with this. I think it is very clear on what the church teaches on the topic of Heavenly Father's "past". Sure we don't have a biography of his past, but we do believe that Our Heavenly Father was once a man. I'll provide some of the most readily available ones below. churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/i-have-a-question/is-president-snows-statement churchofjesuschrist.orgthe-king-follett-sermon churchofjesuschrist.orggospel-topics-essays/becoming-like-god byu.edu/tad-r-callister/our-identity-and-our-destiny/ @Josh H. Though we do believe this, We don't go around screaming it in church (hence the lack of source material), in fact it is really such a minor part of what we believe. We are far too worried about faith, hope, charity, Christ's infinite sacrifice, repentance, baptism, prayer, scripture study, salvation, family, obedience to the commandments, family history, and countless other eternal truths. It has been probably over a year since this topic was even brought up in church, and it was by some crazy old man who said it out of context of the discussion trying to sound wise. The only mysteries of God we are truly worried about are the mysteries of how it is we can put off the natural man and become like Christ. And, of course, what is in Sister Jordan's Cheesy Potatoes... how does she make that glorious dish!?

Well... maybe so... but that only lasts until the next I let it slip that I enjoyed the new star wa-... I've said too much

 *Shrug* So, go.  But, no complaining about the size of the crowd.  Ya, and you better not let him find out you are there in spite of local leaders telling you not to. Of all the apostles, he would be the first to crack the whip.

🤷🏻‍♂️ your probably right. Differential equation just sounds incredibly familiar from something that was at least discussed and taught in my HS class. And I just googled examples of differential equations and I’m more convinced I did it in HS

I also believe @anatess2 knows what she is saying, no translation error. Personally There were 3 Calc classes in my high school, I only took the first 2. I have not once in my time on this forum seen her be wrong (I mean that both in an honest sense and in a spiteful patronizing sense)

The HS class was called Calculus AB. I took it so I didn’t have to take calculus in college. That little swirly symbol you used was definitely something we used often basis I that class. We used differentials to find velocity of a graph and things like that (honestly that was the only thing I remember. It was like 5 years ago and never took a calc class again)

I did some more think and it was actually in the college calc class I took in high school that we did differentials.

I took pre-calc in HS and we covered differentials.

Better than most other -philes one could be.

I think it is good to learn about other faiths. I think it is better to learn about our faith. I think it is best to live our faith. Seeing that most saints don’t participate in ministering, read scriptures every day, have home study, or attend the temple regularly, I would suggest we focus on best before focusing on good

I would study what hope is. I found that once I had gained an understanding of what hope really was, then it really helped me acquire it. Preach My Gospel: how-do-i-develop-christlike-attributes?lang=eng A great talk on it: general-conference/1999/10/hope-an-anchor-of-the-soul Ether 12:4,6,12,27

Good ole Kentucky and Indiana!

An apostle coming to visit a ward/stake can quickly become a nothing more than a circus attraction for all members in a 100 mile radius. GAs attend stakes with specific needs and they give specific counsel to those in the stake. This seems to be one of those cases. I imagine Paul and the other early apostles had many private meetings that were held specifically for locals and leaders. But like us today, there is a time and season for all sorts of meetings. For example, not sure if you heard of this, but all the apostles speak to the whole world twice a year. And then there are the face-to-face events, Christmas devotionals, roots tech, and others. What great missionary opportunities they allow us. And of course the occasional occurrence when one comes to your own stake. How awful would it be if an apostle of the Lord came to speak to your local, small congregation of only 200-500 acquaintances only to find out 2,000 - 5,000 people from across the western USA showed up. Which brings up another major issue with allowing as many people as they want attend. I don’t know what the capacity is, but there is a definite fire hazard to having so many people in one church building. Perhaps this is the main reason to limit who is invited. They need to adhere to local fire code.

I get the vibe that this isn’t a HUGE issue, you just want to experience college life and are curious what others have experienced when it came to marriage and college. You will definitely miss out on some college specific social interactions. My wife and I had a great friend group we were a part of prior to our marriage. After we were married, we didn’t see much of them anymore because we were just at completely different points in our lives. But we ended up making new friends along the way. Sure I could have had more fun if I kept waiting, but I didn’t want to. I don’t regret my decision one bit

Early in our marriage, I told my wife that she was not my soul mate and that I could have been happy marrying anyone else. And she could too. She didn’t quite appreciate that.

Another great question! and here is another great link :https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1977/06/i-have-a-question/is-it-true-that-each-of-us-contracted-with-someone-during-our-premortal-lives-to-find-and-marry-that-person-here?lang=eng

I find this akin to dialogue I would expect to see at some high fantasy LARPing war counsel.

It’s Utah... Any school outside of the Provo area is “liberal”. And Any left leaning school is not really that left leaning. I went to SUU, a liberal arts school, that went hard during diversity week/month. Still felt the majority of people I knew were conservative. Granted I mostly hung out with other saints.

The SLC, St George, Cedar City, And Bountiful temples are almost always packed. I imagine it is that way with most Utah temples. the Louisville temple is small and does not see masses of people attending. The Vegas temple on the other hand is absolutely massive and I always felt like it is constantly under staffed due entirely to its size, not so much because of the attendance, cause the attendance isn’t particularly impressive.

Great question! read this: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/suicide