LDS as merely another denomination

For the discussion of the distinctives of the various mainstream Christian denominations
Jill
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Post by Jill » Tue Feb 03, 2009 11:25 pm

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Last edited by Jill on Thu Feb 17, 2011 6:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Paidion
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Re: LDS as merely just another denomination also

Post by Paidion » Wed Feb 04, 2009 6:41 pm

Karen, the LDS is definitely not "just another denomination".

The LDS understanding of God is wholly different from ANY denomination. Here are just a few examples:


1. God is an exalted man. He was once as we are now.

“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” —Genesis 1:26
“God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens!… I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man.…I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea.…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.…”—Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, compiled by Joseph Fielding Smith, pp. 345-346

2. God has a wife in heaven.

On page 129 of the Mormon Church publication, Achieving A Celestial Marriage Student Manual, the Church states:
“By definition, exaltation includes the ability to procreate the family unit throughout eternity. This our Father in heaven has power to do. His marriage partner is our mother in heaven. We are their spirit children, born to them in the bonds of celestial marriage… For as we have a Father in heaven, so also we have a Mother there, a glorified, exalted, ennobled Mother.”

3. God has a God who has a God who has a God, etc. ad infinitum

“I will preach on the plurality of Gods… Our text says, ‘And hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father.’ The Apostles have discovered that there were Gods above… My object was to preach the scriptures, and preach the doctrine they contain, there being a God above, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” —Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 370
“Our Father in heaven, according to the Prophet, had a Father, and since there has been a condition of this kind through all eternity, each Father had a Father, until we come to a stop where we cannot go further, because of our limited capacity to understand.” —LDS Apostle Joseph Fielding Smith (who became Mormonism’s 10th Prophet) Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 2, p. 47

4. We can become Gods

“Through Obedience to Law We Can Become Like Our Father in Heaven... If God became God by obedience to all of the gospel law with the crowning point being the celestial law of marriage, then that's the only way I can become a god.”—Achieving A Celestial Marriage, Student Manual, p. 4

5. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are Three Gods

“I will preach on the plurality of Gods.…I have always declared… Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the Father, and that the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage and a Spirit: and these three constitute three distinct personages and three Gods.”—Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 1976, p. 370

6. The Father has a physical body

“The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s.…” —Doctrine And Covenants 130:22

7. God is not actually omnipresent

“It has been said, therefore, that God is everywhere present; but this does not mean that the actual person of any one member of the Godhead can be physically present in more than one place at one time.…plainly, however, His person cannot be in more than one place at any one time.” —James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith, (1890), 1966ed., p. 43
Paidion

Man judges a person by his past deeds, and administers penalties for his wrongdoing. God judges a person by his present character, and disciplines him that he may become righteous.

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