Great Apostasy revisited

[InCognitus]

22 hours ago, Zosimus said:

This is the tension in this discussion innit. Many of the things Mormons see as early Christianity is Platonism. Both Origen and Clement of Alexandria was heavily influenced by Plato. Origen, who you quote, was a student of the platonist Ammonius Saccas who also taught Plotinus, the founder of neoplatonism.

This goes back to the earlier questions in this thread, if we remove the Hellenist influence from Judaism and Christianity, we'd not have all these works that allow us to recognize all these 'original teachings' that Joseph Smith restored.

This is why it feels to me that Hansen has things backwards. The early Christians that had training in Plato somehow were the ones that managed to inject many of the 'original teachings' that were later rejected as heresies by the orthodox Church. Smith restored many of them

I think it would be hard to separate some of what we see in early Christianity from Platonism because it's hard to identify who borrowed from who.  The gospel of John in the New Testament shares many themes with the writings of Philo (for example), and some of the early Christians said that Plato had borrowed some of his ideas from Moses (i.e. Justin Martyr, First Apology of Justin, Chap. LIX, Clement of Alexandria, Instructor, Book 1, Chapter 8, and elsewhere). 

But I'm not sure why you think Jacob Hansen has things backwards.  Did you watch the video?  What do you think he got wrong?  The problems came when the Christians started replacing the earlier teachings with philosophical ideas that they viewed as more defensible and changed the doctrine to be entirely based on Greek Philosophy instead of ideas found in scripture.  I think that's what Hansen was trying to say.

Edited July 15 by InCognitus

[Zosimus]

4 hours ago, InCognitus said:

The gospel of John in the New Testament shares many themes with the writings of Philo (for example)

And Philo was also a Hellenized Platonist

4 hours ago, InCognitus said:

But I'm not sure why you think Jacob Hansen has things backwards.  Did you watch the video?  What do you think he got wrong? 

I think he has it backwards because he doesn't acknowledge or even bring up that the gospel of John in the New Testament shares many themes with the writings of Philo, a Hellenized Jewish Platonist who was very popular during the lifetimes of the authors of the New Testament. Here's a good overview from the Community of Christ (RLDS):

Philo of Alexandria: Judaism as Greek Philosophy

He also doesn't mention that the writings of Origen and Clement of Alexandria sound an awful lot like Philo, a Hellenized Jew that they had read and coopted. Or that Justin Martyr, who you quote above, was also heavily influenced by Plato.

Origen: The First Christian Genius
Justin Martyr: The First Christian Philosopher

Quote

The problems came when the Christians started replacing the earlier teachings with philosophical ideas that they viewed as more defensible and changed the doctrine to be entirely based on Greek Philosophy instead of ideas found in scripture.  I think that's what Hansen was trying to say.

That is what he is saying. What he isn't saying is that it was largely the three hellenized Christians you quote above that did the replacing. And those three were heavily influenced by Philo, a hellenized Jew.

While you agree with Hansen, he would not agree with you.

Maybe a better way to approach Hansen's claim is that platonism was adapted by Philo, Origen, Clement, Justin Maryr and others to come up with some incorrect ideas, while many original truths resembling platonism were later deemed heretical by church councils. Origen is a good example. We Mormons see many of his ideas such as the pre-existence of souls, a pre-cosmic fall, and a universal restoration (apokatastasis) as being similar to our original truths, yet he was posthumously branded a heretic by a church that became suspicious of the teachings of a pre-cosmic fall,  pre-existence of souls and a universal restoration. Those teachings felt too much like Greek philosophy.

The problem was never Plato's ideas, it was the way Christians have either misused Plato to become a more cosmopolitan faith, or rejected Plato because he wasn't a Judean patriarch.

Quote

and some of the early Christians said that Plato had borrowed some of his ideas from Moses (i.e. Justin Martyr, First Apology of Justin, Chap. LIX, Clement of Alexandria, Instructor, Book 1, Chapter 8, and elsewhere). 

Notice it was two Christian admirers of Plato that made the claim? I think it was Justin Martyr who also said that Socrates was a Christian. Although I’m sure he really wanted it to be true, It's clearly not true, or possible.

Although I highly doubt Plato could get any of his ideas from the books of Moses, I would think that Judeans and Greeks got many of their ideas from the same earlier sources. 

Edited July 15 by Zosimus

[telnetd]

On 7/13/2026 at 11:07 PM, InCognitus said:

Jesus was God before he was a man, and God the Father was God while he was a man, or else he would not have had the power to lay down his life and take it up again (as Joseph Smith said he did), and Jesus did what his Father did.

Who did Heavenly Father atone for?

[telnetd]

On 7/13/2026 at 11:07 PM, InCognitus said:

The early Christians taught that Jesus is "the first-born of all creation

Jehovah's Witnesses view this as the first-creation of God. This is similar to what
your church believes; that he is the first-spirit son born (created) in some way to 
heavenly parents.

[InCognitus]

On 7/14/2026 at 11:45 PM, Zosimus said:

On 7/14/2026 at 9:19 PM, InCognitus said:

The gospel of John in the New Testament shares many themes with the writings of Philo (for example)

And Philo was also a Hellenized Platonist

Yes, that was my point, along with similar ideas in the gospel of John.

On 7/14/2026 at 11:45 PM, Zosimus said:

I think he has it backwards because he doesn't acknowledge or even bring up that the gospel of John in the New Testament shares many themes with the writings of Philo, a Hellenized Jewish Platonist who was very popular during the lifetimes of the authors of the New Testament.

Jacob Hansen doesn't put down philosophy in his video, so I don't see why he would need to mention those things. His focus was to make plain the evolution of ideas that made the later ideas incompatible with the earlier ideas about God.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to defend him, I just don't see any justification for saying he has it backwards (and still don't).  I'm trying to understand your comment.

On 7/14/2026 at 11:45 PM, Zosimus said:

Origen is a good example. We Mormons see many of his ideas such as the pre-existence of souls, a pre-cosmic fall, and a universal restoration (apokatastasis) as being similar to our original truths, yet he was posthumously branded a heretic by a church that became suspicious of the teachings of a pre-cosmic fall,  pre-existence of souls and a universal restoration. Those teachings felt too much like Greek philosophy.

This is the point that I think Jacob Hansen was trying to make.  But it's not that the earlier teachings felt too much like Greek philosophy, but that those earlier teachings became completely incompatible with the later developed philosophical teachings (i.e. creation ex-nihilo, a more absolute monotheism of a "homoousious" Father and Son, etc.)

[InCognitus]

On 7/16/2026 at 10:06 AM, telnetd said:

On 7/13/2026 at 9:07 PM, InCognitus said:

Jesus was God before he was a man, and God the Father was God while he was a man, or else he would not have had the power to lay down his life and take it up again (as Joseph Smith said he did), and Jesus did what his Father did.

Who did Heavenly Father atone for?

Joseph Smith only said that God the Father was God prior to him being a man, since he had the power to lay down his life and take it up again, and Jesus followed him in that. 

[InCognitus]

On 7/16/2026 at 10:11 AM, telnetd said:

Jehovah's Witnesses view this as the first-creation of God. This is similar to what
your church believes; that he is the first-spirit son born (created) in some way to 
heavenly parents.

I know you know better than to make this false analogy and misrepresentation.

Latter-day Saints believe:

• Jesus has existed eternally (there was never a time that he was not).  Jesus is co-eternal with God the Father.
• The word "create" or "created" does not mean created from nothing.  It means to organize.  
• The Bible teaching that Jesus is the "firstbegotten" of the Father (Hebrews 1:6), the "firstborn of every creature" (Colossians 1:15).  Those are biblical teachings.

So for you to say that what Latter-day Saints believe "is similar" to what another group believes where that group believes that God created all things from nothing (creation ex-nihilo) and that Jesus is a created being (in that same sense of creation) is not just misleading, it's a flat out lie.

Now here's a question for you.  Do you believe in creation ex-nihilo like the Jehovah's Witnesses do?  Are your beliefs similar to Jehovah's Witnesses in that regard?

[telnetd]

22 hours ago, InCognitus said:

Joseph Smith only said that God the Father was God prior to him being a man, since he had the power to lay down his life and take it up again, and Jesus followed him in that. 

Who did God the Father atone for?

[telnetd]

22 hours ago, InCognitus said:

I know you know better than to make this false analogy and misrepresentation.

Latter-day Saints believe:

• Jesus has existed eternally (there was never a time that he was not).  Jesus is co-eternal with God the Father.

"Eternal" in the sense he always existed in some form but not "eternally" existing
as a son before he becomes a son born to heavenly parents.  He is therefore 
"co-eternal" even before becoming a son and then becoming a God.

22 hours ago, InCognitus said:

• The word "create" or "created" does not mean created from nothing.  It means to organize. 

What was the being (who would eventually become Jesus the Son) organized from?

22 hours ago, InCognitus said:

• The Bible teaching that Jesus is the "firstbegotten" of the Father (Hebrews 1:6), the "firstborn of every creature" (Colossians 1:15).  Those are biblical teachings.

Yes. Firstborn does not mean first organized or a being becoming the first born son
of heavenly parents.

22 hours ago, InCognitus said:

So for you to say that what Latter-day Saints believe "is similar" to what another group believes where that group believes that God created all things from nothing (creation ex-nihilo) and that Jesus is a created being (in that same sense of creation) is not just misleading, it's a flat out lie.

Now here's a question for you.  Do you believe in creation ex-nihilo like the Jehovah's Witnesses do?  Are your beliefs similar to Jehovah's Witnesses in that regard?

It's possible for ex-nihilo to be true.   In the LDS view, matter exists before some
being or thing becomes a spirit child, later to get the name Jesus.

Edited July 18 by telnetd

[InCognitus]

1 hour ago, telnetd said:

Who did God the Father atone for?

I already answered that question.  Joseph Smith said that Jesus did what he saw his Father do when worlds come rolling into existence, and that God the Father dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ did and he had the power to lay down his life and take it up again, and Jesus followed him in that.   There is no other information about God the Father's earthly experience other than that.

[InCognitus]

1 hour ago, telnetd said:

On 7/17/2026 at 12:06 PM, InCognitus said:

Latter-day Saints believe:

• Jesus has existed eternally (there was never a time that he was not).  Jesus is co-eternal with God the Father.

"Eternal" in the sense he always existed in some form but not "eternally" existing
as a son before he becomes a son born to heavenly parents.  He is therefore 
"co-eternal" even before becoming a son and then becoming a God.

He is eternal and therefore not anything like what the Jehovah's Witnesses teach about him.

1 hour ago, telnetd said:

What was the being (who would eventually become Jesus the Son) organized from?

This is answered from what Joseph Smith taught (in 1839):  “The spirit of man is not a created being; it existed from eternity, and will exist to eternity. Anything created cannot be eternal; and earth, water, etc., had their existence in an elementary state, from eternity. Our Savior speaks of children and says, Their angels always stand before my Father. The Father called all spirits before Him at the creation of man, and organized them. He (Adam) is the head, and was told to multiply. The keys were first given to him, and by him to others. He will have to give an account of his stewardship, and they to him.” 

1 hour ago, telnetd said:

Yes. Firstborn does not mean first organized or a being becoming the first born son
of heavenly parents.

Where does the Bible say that?

What does the Nicene creed mean when it says Jesus is "born of the Father before all ages" and "begotten, not made"?   What does the Athanasian Creed mean when it says Jesus was "begotten of his Father before all worlds" and "begotten not made"?

Saint Irenaeus (c. 175 - c. 195) taught, "For there is the one Son, who accomplished His Father's will; and one human race also in which the mysteries of God are wrought, 'which the angels desire to look into;' and they are not able to search out the wisdom of God, by means of Which His handiwork, confirmed and incorporated with His Son, is brought to perfection; that His offspring, the First-begotten Word, should descend to the creature (facturam), that is, to what had been moulded (plasma), and that it should be contained by Him; and, on the other hand, the creature should contain the Word, and ascend to Him, passing beyond the angels, and be made after the image and likeness of God."  (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book V, Chapter 36, paragraph 3).

Why would these early Christians refer to Jesus as the "offspring" of the Father, the "first begotten"?  Begotten before all the worlds?

1 hour ago, telnetd said:

It's possible for ex-nihilo to be true.

So you do believe the same as Jehovah's Witnesses on this doctrine.  That's what I thought.

[telnetd]

On 7/18/2026 at 2:21 PM, InCognitus said:

I already answered that question.  Joseph Smith said that Jesus did what he saw his Father do when worlds come rolling into existence, and that God the Father dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ did and he had the power to lay down his life and take it up again, and Jesus followed him in that.   There is no other information about God the Father's earthly experience other than that.

You should make a more clearer and concise statement like "God the Father atoned for
the children of his own heavenly mother and father".   This would satisfy a portion 
of your "Jesus did what he saw the Father do" statement.

Don't be afraid to claim, like Joseph Smith, there is a God above God the Father.

Was she organized (or created) by her own heavenly parents or do you speculate God's 
Father allowed him the special privilege to organize (create) his own future wife 
and provide an atonement for her sins?

[telnetd]

On 7/18/2026 at 2:53 PM, InCognitus said:

He is eternal and therefore not anything like what the Jehovah's Witnesses teach about him.

Jesus is an eternal being in that he has always existed externally in one form or another,
but he has no existed eternally as God. The church (of which you belong) teaches he became
a God. .

On 7/18/2026 at 2:53 PM, InCognitus said:

This is answered from what Joseph Smith taught (in 1839):  “The spirit of man is not a created being; it existed from eternity, and will exist to eternity. Anything created cannot be eternal; and earth, water, etc., had their existence in an elementary state, from eternity. Our Savior speaks of children and says, Their angels always stand before my Father. The Father called all spirits before Him at the creation of man, and organized them. He (Adam) is the head, and was told to multiply. The keys were first given to him, and by him to others. He will have to give an account of his stewardship, and they to him.” 

Yes.  Jesus was one of these organized spirits. He was the first one organized from
an intelligence into a spirit child of his heavenly mother. Then he progressed into becoming
a God before he took on mortality.

On 7/18/2026 at 2:53 PM, InCognitus said:

Where does the Bible say that?

What does the Nicene creed mean when it says Jesus is "born of the Father before all ages" and "begotten, not made"?   What does the Athanasian Creed mean when it says Jesus was "begotten of his Father before all worlds" and "begotten not made"?

Saint Irenaeus (c. 175 - c. 195) taught, "For there is the one Son, who accomplished His Father's will; and one human race also in which the mysteries of God are wrought, 'which the angels desire to look into;' and they are not able to search out the wisdom of God, by means of Which His handiwork, confirmed and incorporated with His Son, is brought to perfection; that His offspring, the First-begotten Word, should descend to the creature (facturam), that is, to what had been moulded (plasma), and that it should be contained by Him; and, on the other hand, the creature should contain the Word, and ascend to Him, passing beyond the angels, and be made after the image and likeness of God."  (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book V, Chapter 36, paragraph 3).

Why would these early Christians refer to Jesus as the "offspring" of the Father, the "first begotten"?  Begotten before all the worlds?

Christ is the only-begotten.  Early Christians didn't mean offspring in the sense
of a heavenly mother.

On 7/18/2026 at 2:53 PM, InCognitus said:

So you do believe the same as Jehovah's Witnesses on this doctrine.  That's what I thought.

It's possible God can create matter out of nothing.

 

[webbles]

3 hours ago, telnetd said:

Don't be afraid to claim, like Joseph Smith, there is a God above God the Father.

InCognitus has pointed out multiple times that this is claim might not be something Joseph even made.  And there are several LDS who don't believe Joseph ever made this claim and can point to the King Follet Discourse for their reasoning.

[telnetd]

On 7/21/2026 at 3:32 PM, webbles said:

InCognitus has pointed out multiple times that this is claim might not be something Joseph even made.  And there are several LDS who don't believe Joseph ever made this claim and can point to the King Follet Discourse for their reasoning.

Is Heavenly Mother a spirit child of her mother?

[webbles]

29 minutes ago, telnetd said:

Is Heavenly Mother a spirit child of her mother?

As pointed out by InCognitus, it depends on how you read the King Follet Discourse and the various transcripts we have of it (since we don't have an actual official transcript that is 100% accurate).  If you read it to have Gods above God, then yes, Heavenly Mother would have a Mother and Father (and who Her Mother and Father are would be pure speculation as there is absolutely nothing revealed about it).  If you read it that God is the first God, then no, She would not have a Mother (just like Heavenly Father wouldn't have one).

[telnetd]

On 7/23/2026 at 1:17 PM, webbles said:

As pointed out by InCognitus, it depends on how you read the King Follet Discourse and the various transcripts we have of it (since we don't have an actual official transcript that is 100% accurate).  If you read it to have Gods above God, then yes, Heavenly Mother would have a Mother and Father (and who Her Mother and Father are would be pure speculation as there is absolutely nothing revealed about it).  If you read it that God is the first God, then no, She would not have a Mother (just like Heavenly Father wouldn't have one).

Which of the various transcripts of the Follett discourse shows Heavenly Father does 
not have a father above Him?

[webbles]

5 hours ago, telnetd said:

Which of the various transcripts of the Follett discourse shows Heavenly Father does 
not have a father above Him?

None of them actually state that Heavenly Father has a Father.  You can read all 4 at https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/site/accounts-of-the-king-follett-sermon.  There is nothing in there that states that there is an infinite regression of Gods.  It is a possible reading but not a required reading.

[InCognitus]

On 7/21/2026 at 10:23 AM, telnetd said:

On 7/18/2026 at 12:21 PM, InCognitus said:

I already answered that question.  Joseph Smith said that Jesus did what he saw his Father do when worlds come rolling into existence, and that God the Father dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ did and he had the power to lay down his life and take it up again, and Jesus followed him in that.   There is no other information about God the Father's earthly experience other than that.

You should make a more clearer and concise statement like "God the Father atoned for
the children of his own heavenly mother and father".   This would satisfy a portion 
of your "Jesus did what he saw the Father do" statement.

I made it completely clear that Joseph Smith was using the "Jesus did what he saw the Father do" statement only with regard to creation (when the worlds come rolling into existence), and that God the Father dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ did and he had the power to lay down his life and take it up again.  There is no other information about God the Father's earthly experience other than that.  So for me to speculate that God the Father "atoned" for others would be far beyond anything that Joseph Smith was teaching, and he never implied that God the Father did every single thing that Jesus Christ did.

By the way, there’s a board rule against “badgering a participant for an answer that has already been given”.  You should take that to heart.

On 7/21/2026 at 10:23 AM, telnetd said:

Don't be afraid to claim, like Joseph Smith, there is a God above God the Father.

Joseph Smith didn't make such a claim.  And I'm not afraid to say that.  Joseph Smith taught that there is a God above Jesus Christ (God the Father is the God of Jesus Christ), but the Bible teaches that (so I'm sure you agree). 

[InCognitus]

On 7/21/2026 at 10:34 AM, telnetd said:

On 7/18/2026 at 12:53 PM, InCognitus said:

He is eternal and therefore not anything like what the Jehovah's Witnesses teach about him.

Jesus is an eternal being in that he has always existed externally in one form or another,
but he has no existed eternally as God. The church (of which you belong) teaches he became
a God. .

Like the early Christians did. 

Why did later Christians abandon that doctrine?

On 7/21/2026 at 10:34 AM, telnetd said:

On 7/18/2026 at 12:53 PM, InCognitus said:

Where does the Bible say that?

What does the Nicene creed mean when it says Jesus is "born of the Father before all ages" and "begotten, not made"?   What does the Athanasian Creed mean when it says Jesus was "begotten of his Father before all worlds" and "begotten not made"?

Saint Irenaeus (c. 175 - c. 195) taught, "For there is the one Son, who accomplished His Father's will; and one human race also in which the mysteries of God are wrought, 'which the angels desire to look into;' and they are not able to search out the wisdom of God, by means of Which His handiwork, confirmed and incorporated with His Son, is brought to perfection; that His offspring, the First-begotten Word, should descend to the creature (facturam), that is, to what had been moulded (plasma), and that it should be contained by Him; and, on the other hand, the creature should contain the Word, and ascend to Him, passing beyond the angels, and be made after the image and likeness of God."  (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book V, Chapter 36, paragraph 3).

Why would these early Christians refer to Jesus as the "offspring" of the Father, the "first begotten"?  Begotten before all the worlds?

Christ is the only-begotten.  Early Christians didn't mean offspring in the sense
of a heavenly mother.

How do you know what they meant by that?

Justin Martyr (150 AD) wrote:

“But this Offspring, which was truly brought forth from the Father, was with the Father before all the creatures, and the Father communed with Him; even as the Scripture by Solomon has made clear, that He whom Solomon calls Wisdom, was begotten as a Beginning before all His creatures and as Offspring by God..” (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter 62).

What did he mean?

On 7/21/2026 at 10:34 AM, telnetd said:

On 7/18/2026 at 12:53 PM, InCognitus said:

So you do believe the same as Jehovah's Witnesses on this doctrine.  That's what I thought.

It's possible God can create matter out of nothing.

It’s only possible if you believe that it’s possible for God to contradict the Bible. 

The Bible teaches that humans are the same “kind” of being as God (the génos of God) in Acts 17:28-29.  And since humans are the same “kind” of being as God, we should not think of our relationship to God is like the created things (gold, silver, or stone).  Our spirits came from God and existed with God prior to our mortal experience.

So it’s really not possible, biblically speaking.  And this fits with the earliest Christian views on creation, since the earliest Christians taught that matter is eternal and that God created all things from unformed matter.   It wasn’t until around 170 AD that Christians began to adopt the creation out of nothing doctrine.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses have tried to rid themselves of doctrines that (in their view) are based on Christian traditions, but they missed this one, and the idea of a closed canon of scripture is another one they missed.

[telnetd]

17 hours ago, InCognitus said:

Like the early Christians did. 

Why did later Christians abandon that doctrine?

I don't believe they had a doctrine like your church.

Which early Christians believed Jesus was the first spirit child of a heavenly mother/Goddess
wife of Heavenly Father?

 

17 hours ago, InCognitus said:

How do you know what they meant by that?

Justin Martyr (150 AD) wrote:

“But this Offspring, which was truly brought forth from the Father, was with the Father before all the creatures, and the Father communed with Him; even as the Scripture by Solomon has made clear, that He whom Solomon calls Wisdom, was begotten as a Beginning before all His creatures and as Offspring by God..” (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter 62).

What did he mean?

It’s only possible if you believe that it’s possible for God to contradict the Bible. 

Begotten, not made.  And not a product of a celestial marriage.

17 hours ago, InCognitus said:

The Bible teaches that humans are the same “kind” of being as God (the génos of God) in Acts 17:28-29.  And since humans are the same “kind” of being as God, we should not think of our relationship to God is like the created things (gold, silver, or stone).  Our spirits came from God and existed with God prior to our mortal experience.

If we are, present tense, the same kind of being as God, then we are Gods now, although
less developed.

In your church, part of "our spirits came from God", is that they are formed through
some method as spirit children to a male and female God.

[telnetd]

17 hours ago, InCognitus said:

and that God the Father dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ did

Who made that earth where God the Father lived on?

[telnetd]

On 7/25/2026 at 6:28 PM, webbles said:

None of them actually state that Heavenly Father has a Father.  You can read all 4 at https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/site/accounts-of-the-king-follett-sermon.  There is nothing in there that states that there is an infinite regression of Gods.  It is a possible reading but not a required reading.

"The Prophet taught that our Father had a Father and so on. Is not this a reasonable 
thought, especially when we remember that the promises are made to us that we may 
become like him?" (Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation).

"If Abraham reasoned thus—If Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and John discovered 
that God the Father of Jesus Christ had a Father, you may suppose that He had a 
Father also. Where was there ever a son without a father? And where was there ever 
a father without first being a son? Whenever did a tree or anything spring into 
existence without a progenitor? And everything comes in this way. Paul says that 
which is earthly is in the likeness of that which is heavenly, Hence if Jesus had 
a Father,10 can we not believe that He had a Father also? I despise the idea of 
being scared to death at such a doctrine, for the Bible is full of it" (Teachings
of Joseph Smith).

[InCognitus]

28 minutes ago, telnetd said:

I don't believe they had a doctrine like your church.

They taught that Jesus became God.  It sounds like they did.

32 minutes ago, telnetd said:

Which early Christians believed Jesus was the first spirit child of a heavenly mother/Goddess
wife of Heavenly Father?

They didn't get into the means of how he was begotten any more than we do.  We have no doctrine on the process by which God is the Father of spirits (Hebrews 12:9).  Only that he is just that.

29 minutes ago, telnetd said:

If we are, present tense, the same kind of being as God, then we are Gods now, although
less developed.

Right, we all have all power and all authority and rule and reign over worlds and create worlds.  You should see the one I created last night (not!).  Is that what you mean by being "God" now?

So it really depends on your definition of "God". 

Do you reject the Bible teaching that we are the same kind of being as God?  It sounds like you do reject it.

[InCognitus]

32 minutes ago, telnetd said:

18 hours ago, InCognitus said:

and that God the Father dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ did

Who made that earth where God the Father lived on?

You've seen me answer that question dozens of time, so why ask questions that you already know the answer to?  Who made the earth where Jesus lived on? 

Obviously God the Father made the earth that he lived on.  Joseph Smith taught that in the King Follet Discourse:  "What did Jesus do? Why; I do the things I saw my Father do when worlds come rolling into existence".