Adam - God Theory

[GoodK]

So... it's not necessarily a bad thing when you consider the merits of certain counsel?

[skalenfehl]

So... it's not necessarily a bad thing when you consider the merits of certain counsel?

We have always been invited to ask the Lord in all things. Another point to consider is are we asking such questions to build our relationship with the Lord or to undermine the beliefs of others?

[VisionOfLehi]

We don't follow our leaders blindly, as some would have you believe.

We do it on faith... We test the words of our leaders, to see if they're true.

After awhile we find a pattern: They speak the truth, and tell us things that help us grow, and help us lead a good life.

But no, that doesn't mean they're always right, and it doesn't mean that we should listen to everything they say without praying about it ourselves.

[GoodK]

We don't follow our leaders blindly, as some would have you believe.

We do it on faith... We test the words of our leaders, to see if they're true.

After awhile we find a pattern: They speak the truth, and tell us things that help us grow, and help us lead a good life.

F.Y.I. I have been a member all my life. I know how we do it.

But no, that doesn't mean they're always right, and it doesn't mean that we should listen to everything they say without praying about it ourselves.

Agreed.

[Snow]

So here’s what I found out about the Adam God theory.

There are only two LDS camps on this:

That Brigham Young did in fact believe, at least for part of his life, that Adam was God, the Father.

That although Brigham Young did say that God=Adam, people have misinterpreted what he meant.

There is another or third camp - that deny that Brigham Young ever taught or believed any such thing - period, but that is not a factual or credible position and is to be ignored.

Brigham Young has something like 1500 recorded discourses. In about 20 of them the Adam-God topic comes up. In most cases, when taken in context, the references are in-line with orthodox LDS theology. In some of the cases, however, BY seems to actually assert that God and Adam are one in the same. The examples I’ve read do not really have much depth to them and all the remarks can be read in a matter of minutes. Since there is so little to the remarks, and since they seem to contradict other remarks that BY made about God, they are hard to interpret with precision.

In others of his discourses, BY is clear that God and Adam are separate and distinct and that God created Adam... One might even wonder if some remarks were recorded correctly, or it could be that BY’s views on the matter were different during different parts of his life.

For those that think that although BY taught that Adam=God, his beliefs are misinterpreted, the argument goes something along the lines of Adam being a title, meaning first, father, etc; there is Adam, the first man but the title Adam is applied to God and that how the Adam/God discourses are to be understood. There is some precedence in the Bible for calling God Adam in 1 Cor 15.

I don’t know if there is a majority opinion - whether belief A, or belief B, is more widely held but some LDS who have studied the matter do accept that BY equated Adam with God and taught it on occasion. It doesn’t appear to have even been widely known in BY time and other Church leaders that were contemporary with BY were silent on the matter. There are two prominent exceptions, Heber C. Kimball and Orson Pratt who rejected the concept.

The concept was never canonized, never binding on the Church and never widely held. It was simply BY’s personal opinion and went no further than that. During the first part of the 20th century some Church leaders who were not personally familiar with BYs views and they took the position that BY’s beliefs were misrepresented. Later leaders like Bruce R. McConkie have recognized that BY did teach it.

Certainly there is more to the issue than that rough overview...

[mike_uk]

I have never really looked into the Adam-God theory personally so I am unsure if Brigham was the prophet at the time he said this or not. What do you know about this?

[WANDERER]

Thanks Snow, that was a good overview.

[Tough Grits]

It would be cool with me if LDS people just admitted that and moved on. But to sit and deny it is pure insanity and makes them look silly to educated investigators.

Would it really be cool?

Would you really back off if anybody here admitted to such a thing?

In my opinion, to admit such (first of all none of us were there, second none of us knows what he was thinking as he said those words, third none of us knows if it was recorded correctly...) would NOT appease certain people.

It is a trap.

If an inch is given, then another bomb will be dropped.

Here is an example of how it might go...

**Can't you just admit that it might have been possible for ....(insert whatever fallacy is being blasted at us and our faith)

**Okay, okay...I give...sure...maybe it is possible...

**Oh really? Well, if it is possible then how can you ...(insert whatever further accusation can now be heaped upon us for not standing firm in our original conviction)

It is a vicious cycle that I have seen too many times here and on other forums.

If we do not back down, we are blind fools for sticking to watered-down, falsified doctrine (according to the wolves...who by the way are not even bothering to wear sheeps clothing!!).

If we DO let our guard down, then they keep hammering away at that small weakness until all is lost. Good has become evil and evil has become good.

The quickest way to tell the wolves from the sheep, if anybody ever makes you feel stupid, blind, inferior, spoon-fed, brainwashed, uninformed of the "truth", blah, blah, blah...well that is sort of a HUGE clue that you are staring a wolf right in the jaws.

You cannot win against a wolf. Their arguments are as quicksand. They sift and change, lunge and back-peddle, yell and offer sweet platitudes, and they enjoy the chaos...all-the-while denying their joy in the chaos...in fact they deny that there is even any chaos to begin with. Finally, they drop all our concerns and offended spirits back into our own laps by stating that we are over-reacting and acting out-of-character for an LDS.

Hmm. What is the true character of an LDS? According to some, aren't we blind fools to begin with? So why be so surprised and shocked when these "blind fools" get tired and offended of these constant threads with back-n-forth between the sheep and the wolves.

Please take note that never once did I mention who I personally believe to be the sheeps or the wolves.

But it will interesting to see who responds in the manner of a wolf. Indeed. Either way we can tell...either by their dead silence...or by their defensive accusational response.

If it snarls like a wolf, and stalks like a wolf...then it must be a wolf. Some things really are what they appear to be. Be ye not decieved.

[Hemidakota]

It is always about ACTION of the individual that is plain to others.

At this point, it is matters not how we interrupt President Young's statement since this is one of many more made from his early days to role as President, which 'falls under the same guidelines', that we believe he was a prophet called by GOD, this remains as a fact.