Will the Statue Moroni on Top of Temples be Replaced with Jesus?


clbent04
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2 hours ago, The Folk Prophet said:

I mean if @clbent04's view is right but those in charge remain "tone deaf" and keep putting up the false idol Moroni atop the temples, don't the doors of opportunity remain shut despite the few, or even the many's revelatory sensitivity? In other words...what's the point of opinions even being expressed in this thread or the argument even being made? (Yes, I'm saying this thread is a waste of time... that being said..... it's sort of mostly what we do here....)

When it's our time to depart this life and finally see for ourselves the great beyond, none of us will fully be prepared for all the answers in what it looks like on the other side or how God truly thinks. In this life and perhaps for all eternity we simply can't 100% comprehend His majesty, love, nor opinions on every matter.  But through observation in this life, we can arrive to a few of our own conclusions be as differing as they are from one another.  Does mankind even have one unanimous opinion on who God is? 

Regarding Church revelation, I respect the leaders of the Church and believe they are divinely guided on all matters that promote us loving God, each other, and ourselves, but beyond that, I think the more superficial matters of the Church such as the angel Moroni being placed on top of temples often isn't based on God-given revelation but rather the opinions of men. We should always question why do we do the things we do.

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27 minutes ago, clbent04 said:

I think the more superficial matters of the Church such as the angel Moroni being placed on top of temples often isn't based on God-given revelation but rather the opinions of men.

I highly doubt that any prophet or apostle has considered the design, placement, or construction details of any temple to be "superficial".

One source of my doubt ... I was going to quote from it, but there's too much, so just read the whole talk.  If you don't come away with understanding, pray before reading it a second time.  (Note that it's not this one talk per se that causes my doubt, it's the facts that the talk gives us about how all temples are designed and built - and there have been other talks that teach additional facts in the same vein.  I believe there is absolutely nothing superficial about our temples and that prophets and apostles direct all of it, even if they're not the ones doing the physical inspections. Unfortunately, I don't remember enough details from other such talks to quickly find them, but there have been such talks or Ensign articles explaining the process and standards involved - as well as the miracles involved - in placing, designing, and constructing temples.)

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56 minutes ago, clbent04 said:

We should always question why do we do the things we do.

Why?

And who's "we" in the "things we do" part of this? Because I wasn't involved in what you're claiming "we" did.

Edited by The Folk Prophet
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What we should be thinking, pondering, and wondering if we should change something about... Are the things under our control and stewardship.
 
Last I checked I had no control or stewardship over the designs of the Temple.
 
The people that do I have every reason to believe are trying their best with study, prayer, and ponderings over such things.  Will they be perfect all the time, every time?  Nope.   But such projects have several different checkpoints where they have to work with others that also have stewardship.  I would expect these kinds of projects to be more correct because of this than I would ever be on my own.
 
Ponder what you want to Ponder.  Think about what you want to Think about.  Study what you want to Study.  Just remember what you are doing should be drawing you closer to the Lord.  If instead it leads you to Fault Finding or Ark Steadying then it is an Evil Fruit and you need to redirect.
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where would you get the idea that we would put a statue of the Lord on the temples. The angel moroni has always represented the scripture in Revelation 14:6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people. That is it, nothing more, we don't worship the statue and we never would desecrate the Lord's image in that way. If you look at the new temples; we are taking the angels down from the new designs. 🙄

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I read this on another website.  After Russell M. Nelson became president of the Church in 2018, a shift in focus led to the elimination of the angel Moroni as a standard design feature on Latter-day Saint temples. There are now 75 temples that do not have an angel Moroni statue.

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12 minutes ago, Still_Small_Voice said:

I read this on another website.  After Russell M. Nelson became president of the Church in 2018, a shift in focus led to the elimination of the angel Moroni as a standard design feature on Latter-day Saint temples. There are now 75 temples that do not have an angel Moroni statue.

Don’t validate my opinion with the Prophet’s own directive, @Still_Small_Voice. Some people on here might not like that. Lol jk. I really like a lot of the initiatives President Nelson has taken on. 

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1 hour ago, clbent04 said:

Don’t validate my opinion with the Prophet’s own directive, @Still_Small_Voice. Some people on here might not like that. Lol jk. I really like a lot of the initiatives President Nelson has taken on. 

Agreed. I like the new designs. I always thought the angel looked like a baseball trophy.

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1 hour ago, clbent04 said:

Don’t validate my opinion with the Prophet’s own directive, @Still_Small_Voice. Some people on here might not like that. Lol jk. I really like a lot of the initiatives President Nelson has taken on. 

Wait... you believe that those of us who are "true blue", so to speak, would not like or support it if the Prophet had, actually, said we should stop putting Moroni on the temples?

You really don't understand most of us very well, do you? ;)

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6 hours ago, Emmanuel Goldstein said:

Agreed. I like the new designs. I always thought the angel looked like a baseball trophy.

My mission companion said his non-member Dad always told people the statue of angel Moroni was actually a representation of the famous jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie.

dg.jpg.771172990cf9d429667f3946b29094dc.jpg

 

Edited by clbent04
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2 minutes ago, clbent04 said:

My mission companion said his non-member Dad always told people the statute of angel Moroni was actually a representation of the famous jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie.

dg.jpg.771172990cf9d429667f3946b29094dc.jpg

 

 

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25 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

You really don't understand most of us very well, do you? ;)

Probably too much so!

I think the biggest recent test for the faithful were the COVID vaccinations. Not that they were mandated, but definitely promoted by Church leadership.

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7 minutes ago, Vort said:

I'm not saying I imagine Moroni giving that initial trumpet squeal. I'm not saying I don't, either.

I thinking hard here trying to relate my post of Dizzy Gillespie, to your subsequent post of a seemingly random video of three latinas dancing and singing, to your comment here.... Do they all connect somehow or am I overthinking it? Are the latinas dancing to Moroni's trumpet?

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/11/2023 at 7:16 PM, Carborendum said:

Is it vain idolatry to use the remnants of a Pagan holiday as decorative center of the celebration of the birth of Christ?

Maybe not vain idolatry (and I don't care if it is or not) but I've always found it personally entertaining that we do this, as well as let commercial entities lead us around by the nose as they transform holiday by holiday into festivals of junk-buying.

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On 4/13/2023 at 10:10 PM, clbent04 said:

I thinking hard here trying to relate my post of Dizzy Gillespie, to your subsequent post of a seemingly random video of three latinas dancing and singing, to your comment here.... Do they all connect somehow or am I overthinking it? Are the latinas dancing to Moroni's trumpet?

Oops. Never responded to this. My comment was meant not to be read closely. Your comparison of Moroni to Dizzy Gillespie reminded me of the trumpet squeal preceding a song sung by a female Mexican pop trio in the 1980s or early 1990s, which for some reason I found rather hilarious. That's all. No deeper meaning. (I think the song was actually done by a famous Mexican pop singer and songwriter named Juan Gabriel, but it was the Pandora trio that I remembered.)

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On 4/23/2023 at 4:58 PM, schematic_dreamer said:

Maybe not vain idolatry (and I don't care if it is or not) but I've always found it personally entertaining that we do this, as well as let commercial entities lead us around by the nose as they transform holiday by holiday into festivals of junk-buying.

And that's perfectly fine.  Personally, I don't think any of that which I described is "idolatry."  I look at the ark of the covenant and realize it had two idols right there on top of it.  Why did that not violate the first and second commandments?

No, I think that the idea that Moroni on tops of temples being considered "vain idolatry" is really stretching to criticize our practices.  And if they're stretching that much, I really don't want to give them a whole lot of credit in taking our beliefs seriously.

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Somewhat relevant:  apparently the Boston temple’s steeple was just replaced due to water seepage issues with the original.  The new steeple, like the old one, has Moroni on top of it.

So while Moroni isn’t being put on newer temples, it seems that we are not about to see a church-wide purge of the symbol where it already exists.

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Why is it Moroni when the Joseph Smith papers says the angel is Nephi?

When I first looked upon <him> it I was afraid; but the fear soon left me: calling me by name,
<he> said. that he was a messenger. sent from the presence of God to me. and that his name
was Nephi.— that he had a work for me to do that my name 

 

 

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51 minutes ago, romans8 said:

Why is it Moroni when the Joseph Smith papers says the angel is Nephi?

When I first looked upon <him> it I was afraid; but the fear soon left me: calling me by name,
<he> said. that he was a messenger. sent from the presence of God to me. and that his name
was Nephi.— that he had a work for me to do that my name

From draft 2 of the same document, footnote 18 on page 5.  (Your link is to draft 3, where the text in question is found on page 6.  Draft 1 starts after these events, so I didn't look further.  The error is continued into the "fair copy", also page 6.)

Quote

A later redaction in the hand of Albert Carrington changed “Nephi” to “Moroni” and noted that the original attribution was a “clerical error.” Carrington probably made the note in 1871, at a time when he was Church Historian and Recorder. He and others at the Historian’s Office were assigned by Brigham Young to investigate the difference of the name of the angel in this source compared with other sources.a Early sources often did not name the angelic visitor, but sources naming Moroni include Oliver Cowdery’s historical letter published in the April 1835 LDS Messenger and Advocate; an expanded version of a circa August 1830 revelation, as published in the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants; and a JS editorial published in the Elders’ Journal in July 1838.b The present history is the earliest extant source to name Nephi as the messenger, and subsequent publications based on this history perpetuated the attribution during JS’s lifetime.c   (aVogel, History of Joseph Smith, 1:xxxiv, 12n21.bOliver Cowdery, “Letter VI,” LDS Messenger and Advocate, Apr. 1835, 1:112; Revelation, ca. Aug. 1830, in Doctrine and Covenants 50:2, 1835 ed. [D&C 27:5]; [JS], Editorial, Elders’ Journal, July 1838, 42–44.cSee “History of Joseph Smith,” Times and Seasons, 15 Apr. 1842, 3:753–754; and “History of Joseph Smith,” LDS Millennial Star, Aug. 1842, 3:53–54. For JS’s other accounts of this experience, see JS History, ca. Summer 1832, 4; JS, Journal, 9–11 Nov. 1835; JS, “Church History,” 707; and JS, “Latter Days Saints,” 405.)

Not that it really matters, but I think it's safe to stick with Moroni as the correct name.

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