InCognitus

And what scripture would this be? I can't count myself as well-read in scripture as many others, but I don't believe I've ever read anything that corresponds to what you are saying here. He takes Isaiah 43:10 out of its context of decrying idol worship and thinks there is a "before" and "after" to an eternal God, where it says "before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me". What does "before" or "after" mean to an eternal God? Obviously that's referring to the context of Israel as God's witnesses, as it says in verse 12: "I have declared, and have saved, and I have shewed, when there was no strange god among you: therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God." When God declared himself to Israel at a time "when there was no strange god" among them, there is no other god formed to be the God of Israel either before or after that time. It says nothing against other gods existing, nor does it contradict God's plan for others to become like he is. God gives his glory to those who follow him (John 17:20-23) and has them sit with him on his throne (as you pointed out) in Revelation 3:21.

"From age to age" he is God, at the very least anyway, as the Bible says. Other than that the Bible is silent, except for the supposition that "Eternal God" means something different than "Eternal Life".

I live in Utah now (I used to live in Arizona), and one thing that keeps popping up on my YouTube feed suggestion is the Utah "Collision Cam" channel. It's really scary to watch it. They have monthly compilations. Distracted driving is a serious issue, not just in Utah. But I think the road designs lend to more serious crashes because of speed and visibility and odd intersection configurations.

Same here. I had to look up the RestoredTruth channel to learn who he was, and I recognized him instantly once I did that.

It makes me wonder if there was a medical issue or some other major distraction. The seatbelt choice was dumb which didn't help, but zooming right through a red light? I know it can happen, but it seems odd to me for someone that young.

I was wondering about that. Thanks for posting that.

But all are the offspring of God. All humans. The Bible says so, you know the verses. And we must “love our enemies” and “do good” to them that hate us, so "that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven", as Jesus said. We're all children of God, but we must become his children by entering a covenant with him and follow him.

I just posted this in the News section, but it is sad that we just lost a Pro LDS YouTube channel content provider on Friday. It was Chandler David Hendry, the founder of the Restored Truth podcast on YouTube: Religious podcaster dies in Lehi multi-vehicle crash It's sad to see any young life taken away like that. This is the Restored Truth channel: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Restored+Truth+podcast

KSL carried this story yesterday: Religious podcaster dies in Lehi multi-vehicle crash "Chandler David Hendry, 27, was the sole victim of a three-vehicle crash that happened at 8:25 a.m., Lehi police spokesperson Jeanteil Livingston said. The crash happened at the intersection of Timpanogos Highway and Morning Vista road." "Hendry was the founder of the Restored Truth podcast, which explores interfaith dialog, scripture, Christian history and the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ, according to a Restored Truth YouTube video." This is his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@RESTORED_TRUTH/shorts And the community section is mourning his loss: https://www.youtube.com/@RESTORED_TRUTH/community This is sad news.

All terrestrial and telestial inhabitants do not receive a fulness of joy even though their spirit and body are joined together eternally – not even those in the two lower divisions of the celestial kingdom have it. "Fulness of joy" and "eternal life" seem to be different things, and it's only reserved for exalted beings. "Neither is it enough to be a good, solid citizen, contributing to charities, serving on community boards, and in general living a good Christian life. Although commendable, this is not sufficient to entitle one to the fulness of joy and the eternal life that our Father in heaven has promised to those who love him and keep his commandments" (January 1975, New Era, Just for Today, President N. Eldon Tanner). Becoming a god (God) precedes obtaining a fulness of joy. Both Father and Mother obtained their fulness of joy. The LDS Father did not have a fulness of joy until he passed all his tests and became a God. "We learned that if we placed our faith in him, obeying his word and following his example, we would be exalted and become like our heavenly parents. We would receive a fulness of joy … We can be exalted as God is and receive a fulness of joy … If we passed our tests, we would receive the fulness of joy that our heavenly parents have received … Blessings of Exaltation: They will become gods. They will receive a fulness of joy" (Gospel Principles, 1997). The LDS Father is not always a God (in a state of godhood) before he fully progresses. "The progression of our Father in heaven to godhood, or exaltation, was strictly in accordance with eternal principles" (Achieving a Celestial Marriage manual). And none of this has anything to do with what I said in my last post about exaltation, which is that it is “the kind of life God lives”. But you reject the idea that some being progressed beyond what he was before and became a God then Father. This all goes back to how you define “God”. God the Father has always been the most advanced, the most intelligent, the “most high” of all other spirits regardless of the other things he did that were like what Jesus did. What I reject is the idea that this does not make him “God” in some sense, for no other being could compare to him. Yes. God the Father is above all the gods of the Greeks, Romans, Hindus, etc. What about Jesus? I asked about Jesus. According to the Bible, God the Father is the very God and Father of Jesus Christ (John 20:17, Romans 15:6, 1 Corinthians 11:3, 2 Corinthians 11:31, Ephesians 1:3, Ephesians 1:17; Hebrews 1:8-9, 1 Peter 1:3, Revelation 3:12), and Jesus is even said to be eternally subject to the Father (1 Corinthians 15:28). Do you believe that Heavenly Father is a higher God than Jesus like the Bible teaches? Or do you reject those Bible teachings too? As for the gods of the Greeks and Romans, those are false gods. They are “nothing” (according to the Bible). God is not a God of “nothing”. He is not a God of fictional characters. That would be like saying God is the God of the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause. It is demeaning and disrespectful to God to classify him that way, because anyone (me, you, or your dog) can be the “god” to fictional characters that don’t exist. But the Bible truth is that God is the God of other “gods” that exist in reality, “God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible” (Deuteronomy 10:17). A God of fictional characters is not mighty or terrible.

I checked your links but I see no place where you address the fact that you believe Joseph Smith, in his King Follett discourse, was really saying that "God was not OUR God (OUR Father) from all eternity" as opposed to "God was not God from all eternity". Remember, your question to me was this: In every one of the posts I linked above, I quoted the portion of the King Follet Discourse that addresses that question. Here’s a quote from my post on 10/30/2022: “Joseph Smith taught "what kind of being God is" and how he got to be the way he is, a being who created worlds, a being who created man in his own image. He described it this way: "The first principles of man are self-existent with God. God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself. The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge. He has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligences, that they may be exalted with himself, so that they might have one glory upon another, and all that knowledge, power, glory, and intelligence, which is requisite in order to save them in the world of spirits." Here’s a quote from my post on 11/10/2022: “And God the Father has always been above all others. How he came to be our God is explained in the statement from Joseph Smith that I quoted just a few posts ago (here) : “The first principles of man are self-existent with God. God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself. The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge. He has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligences, that they may be exalted with himself, so that they might have one glory upon another, and all that knowledge, power, glory, and intelligence, which is requisite in order to save them in the world of spirits.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 354) "That is how God came to be our God.” And in my post on 11/11/2022 I reposted what I said above, and added: “Repeating what I said above, ‘God the Father has always been above all others.’ How he came to be our God was in our relationship to him, and him providing a way for us to advance and become like him. That is the way Joseph Smith taught it in his sermon.” I could post the same thing from the other posts (and others). This was all in direct response to the same question you asked me above. The God of the Bible has eternal increase, so why wouldn’t you accept that? Otherwise, what is God’s point in creating the earth? The “how God came to be our God” part is all contained in the same sermon. It was the focus of Joseph Smith’s overall teaching. Read or listen to the entire sermon in context. Joseph Smith explained it right within the same sermon. Do I need to quote it again? Let me break it down for you, phrase by phrase: “The first principles of man are self-existent with God” : Our spirits are self-existent with God. We were with God in the beginning of his plan. “God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory…” : God had more glory than others and he implemented a plan for the other spirits. “because he was more intelligent” : God was the most intelligent of all others, eternally so. This puts him in the position to be the “most high” of all others, always and forever. He has always been “God” in that sense. “saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself” : God the Father instituted the laws, nobody else did that. God the Father didn’t inherit those laws from some other God, he is the lawgiver. “The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge” : We entered a relationship with God, this is where God became “our God”. “He has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligences, that they may be exalted with himself, so that they might have one glory upon another, and all that knowledge, power, glory, and intelligence, which is requisite in order to save them in the world of spirits." : Because God is love, he wanted others to have the same knowledge and experiences that he has. God offered this plan to the spirits that were self-existent with him. It’s perfectly clear to me anyway. I understand that to be your belief, but believing that only God is self-existent is a doctrine that contradicts the Bible teaching that we are all the same “kind” of being as God (Acts 17:28-29). I prefer to believe the Bible doctrine rather than traditions that were developed later. That's self serving – a being, eternally existing as maybe intelligence, without a spirit or physical body, institutes laws by which he advances into becoming a God. You never show from scripture where some being instituted laws to become a God before he becomes a Father. How is it “self serving” for a God who loves others so much that he wants them to have the same experiences that he has and provides a way for them to receive everything that he has? And can you show me from the Bible what God the Father did before he created this earth? You can’t. The Bible doesn’t talk about that. No doubt you have some belief that you hold about what he was doing, but you can’t demonstrate any of it from scripture. We’ve already been through the verses that say, “from age to age thou art God” (like Psalm 90:2), but those don’t prove what you are thinking. I can show you from Latter-day Saint scripture where God has been creating “worlds without number”, but other than that we aren’t given any other details. Nor can you ever claim to receive “eternal life” that Jesus is offering us by the same line of reasoning. It’s really not “eternal life” because (as you believe) you didn’t have it eternally. But this shouldn't be an issue to you, since the Bible never refers to Jesus as the "Eternal God". The Book of Mormon does in several places, however. The fact that some taught that men could become gods or Gods doesn't make it true It wasn’t just “some men” who taught that men can become gods or Gods, it was the “heavy hitters” like St. Clement of Rome, St. Justin Martyr, St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Theophilus of Antioch, St. Clement of Alexandria, St. Hippolytus of Rome, Origen (Highly regarded as one of the most influential Christian theologians), St. Cyprian, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Augustine of Hippo, that all taught that men become gods in no uncertain terms. This is the widespread foundation of the teachings of the early Christian Fathers. The bottom line? “Christian” doctrine has changed through the years. It used to be one thing, now it’s something completely different. The difference here is that the earliest Christians taught that men become “Gods” far and wide, independently of one another. They didn’t get it from interpreting the words of one person in different ways, they received it as part of their basic teachings from the earliest time. Latter-day Saint leaders, on the other hand, were often trying to interpret some things that one scribe recorded (incorrectly in some respects) of a sermon that Joseph Smith gave without access to the original source, and with the assumption that what was first published of the sermon was an accurate account of what Joseph Smith said. This was not the case for the early Christian Fathers teaching that men can become gods. See above where I explained the difference. I believe they misinterpreted what these verses mean: Of course you do. Christian teachings have changed drastically since the first three centuries AD, and they have needed to reinterpret scripture to fit the modern teachings and ignore others, like the Biblical teaching that we are all the same “kind” of being as God (we are the very génos of God - Acts 17:28-29). They might say that you are the one misinterpreting what those verses mean. Is God the Father (the Father of the Gods as you say above) also the Father of Heavenly Mother (believed to be a God herself)? You didn’t answer the question I asked last time. I’ll ask it again: I quoted Joseph Smith directly. Joseph Smith emphasized that God the Father is the “head God” at least eight times in the King Follet Sermon, calling him “the head, the Father of the Gods”. He taught that he was “more intelligent” and “saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself”. Where is there any room in those statements for the idea that God has a God above him like you are asserting? I already addressed that sermon in great detail, and you didn’t even bother to read my responses, so why should I bother repeating myself again? I’ll just cut and paste things all over again. But I’m getting tired of the fact that you ignore my responses and pretend like we didn’t ever discuss this. Why should I respond to you at all in the future? See my recent post on 07/27/2026 where you quoted the same thing while posting as telnetd, which refers back to my post on 05/26/2025 where I addressed that sermon in detail. During the Sermon in the Grove, Thomas Bullock recorded Joseph Smith saying the following (right before the part that you quoted above): “I want to reason— I learned it by translating the papyrus now in my house—I learned a test. concerning Abraham & he reasoned concerng. the God of Heaven— in order to do that s[ai]d. he— suppose we have two facts that supposes that anor. fact may exist two men on the earth— one wiser that the other— wod. shew that anor. who is wiser than the wisest may exist— intelligences exist one above anor. that there is no end to it” The problem with this record is that it directly contradicts the source that Joseph Smith is said to be referencing. Bullock records that the “two facts” are that there may always be one that is wiser than the wisest (which is logically impossible, or otherwise the wisest is not really the wisest). And he also says that there is no end to intelligences existing one above another. But Abraham 3:18–22 says the following: 18 … if there be two spirits, and one shall be more intelligent than the other, yet these two spirits, notwithstanding one is more intelligent than the other, have no beginning; they existed before, they shall have no end, they shall exist after, for they are gnolaum, or eternal. 19 And the Lord said unto me: These two facts do exist, that there are two spirits, one being more intelligent than the other; there shall be another more intelligent than they; I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all. …. 21 I dwell in the midst of them all; I now, therefore, have come down unto thee to declare unto thee the works which my hands have made, wherein my wisdom excelleth them all, for I rule in the heavens above, and in the earth beneath, in all wisdom and prudence, over all the intelligences thine eyes have seen from the beginning; I came down in the beginning in the midst of all the intelligences thou hast seen. So, the “two facts” stated in the book of Abraham are that there is one who is the wisest and the most intelligent than all others, and that being is the Lord God. And it is the eternal existence of intelligences that have “no end”, because they have no beginning and no end, not that there is no end to them existing one above another as the Bullock notes indicate. So, Thomas Bullock gets it wrong. Furthermore, to re-quote what I said to you posting as telned: I see from Thomas Bullock’s notes of that sermon that the discussion of God the Father having a father was in the context of God the Father’s mortal experience on an earth. His notes show that the statements about God the Father having a “father” are immediately followed by “I want you to pay particular attention to what I am saying. Jesus said that the Father wrought precisely in the same way as His Father had done before Him”. In other words, Bullock’s notes indicate that God the Father’s “father” would have been either his earthly father when he was born into mortality, or that God the Father (as the head of all other Gods) would have appointed some other God to produce him in the same way that Jesus came into mortality. But Bullock also seems to have repeated himself in part of those notes, so it’s hard to tell if Joseph Smith was restating something for emphasis, or if Bullock recorded it incorrectly, or if he did get it correct, we need further information and context to draw any conclusions with certainty. Joseph Smith referred to him as the “head of the Gods”, not me. I was quoting Joseph Smith. I’ll respond to these questions as soon as you answer this question: What exactly was God the Father doing on August 9, 100 billion B.C.? Be specific. (And it wasn't a Sabbath day). I don't agree with Lactantius teaching Jesus Christ is the "Second God". Of course you don’t. Christian teachings have changed drastically since then, and you go with the modern interpretations. Neither of those verses say that Jesus created Satan. And John 1:3 includes the stipulation that without Jesus “was not anything made that was made.” In other words, Jesus didn’t make anything that was not “made”, like the spirits that existed with God in the beginning (they are called the “sons of God” and “morning stars” in Job 38:7), and the Bible teaches us that humans are the same “kind” of being as God (the génos of God - Acts 17:28-29). We need to include all the Bible teachings on this topic, not just a few here or there.

Depends on your point of view. Jesus called men gods in John 10:34-35, "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken." But many of the early Christians considered it a process of "becoming", like what St. Hippolytus of Rome (c. 170–235 AD) taught in is work Refutation Book 10 Ch. 29: "For if He had willed to make thee a god, He could have done so. Thou hast the example of the Logos. His will, however, was, that you should be a man, and He has made thee a man. But if thou art desirous of also becoming a god, obey Him that has created thee, and resist not now, in order that, being found faithful in that which is small, you may be enabled to have entrusted to you also that which is great." And in Chapter 30 (of the same reference linked above) he indicates that this is not fully realized until we receive immortality (with a resurrected body): "And thou shalt possess an immortal body, even one placed beyond the possibility of corruption, just like the soul. And thou shalt receive the kingdom of heaven, thou who, whilst thou didst sojourn in this life, didst know the Celestial King. And thou shalt be a companion of the Deity, and a co-heir with Christ, no longer enslaved by lusts or passions, and never again wasted by disease. For thou hast become God: for whatever sufferings thou didst undergo while being a man, these He gave to thee, because thou wast of mortal mould, but whatever it is consistent with God to impart, these God has promised to bestow upon thee, because thou hast been deified, and begotten unto immortality."

Obviously not the same glory that God the Father "gave" to Jesus, as Jesus says in John 17:5, 22 and 24. The early Christians spoke of Jesus receiving these things only after he was begotten by the Father, i.e. "the first-born of all creation, who is the first to be with God, and to attract to Himself divinity, is a being of more exalted rank than the other gods beside Him" (Origen's Commentary on John, book 2 chapter 3).

"O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." (John 17:5) And, "the glory which thou gavest me I have given them" (John 17:22), and "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world." (John 17:24)

The spirits of men and women (which are sometimes called "souls") are the "kind" of being that God is, all the time. What it means to be "gods" is relative to that, and obviously not clearly defined as it was shown in that quote from the early Christian writings of Clementine Homilies.