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Missionaries confused


Anijen

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I am the Ward Mission Leader and the Elders asked me how I would answer the following question, this comes from a minister they were teaching;

If you have the opportunity to become like God will you then create a world and then be worshiped? They answered no that if they ever reach that point they will forever worship God.

I thought that was a good answer but then the minister asked well if you are to be like him, he then quotes this from Gospel Principles chapter 47 (exaltation);

Joseph Smith taught:
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I am the Ward Mission Leader and the Elders asked me how I would answer the following question, this comes from a minister they were teaching;

If you have the opportunity to become like God will you then create a world and then be worshiped? They answered no that if they ever reach that point they will forever worship God.

I thought that was a good answer but then the minister asked well if you are to be like him, he then quotes this from Gospel Principles chapter 47 (exaltation);

If we worship God who was once a man then why will we not be worshiped they could not answer.

I told them they were wasting their time he obviously is not interested. But the question still is left unanswered for them.

Yes, is the correct answer.

we will be like god in the fact that we will be a heavenly father as our heavenly father is to us.

I really dislike when member bend the truth to convert or dodge non-members questions, we should never do that for we can not be ashamed of the gospel of jesus christ.

Also dont dig a hole for your self.

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If we worship God who was once a man then why will we not be worshiped they could not answer.

I told them they were wasting their time he obviously is not interested. But the question still is left unanswered for them.

It follows that if we become gods, we would love God and our children with a perfect love, which would draw the kind of love (worship) we experience toward God, to us from our children. He shares His work and His glory with His children (joint-heirs with Christ), so we can worship God and still be worshiped. Gods can do that sort of thing--the opposite of creating a rock so heavy they can't pick it up: a love to great it can both worship and be worshiped and apply both to the eternal work and glory.

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I am the Ward Mission Leader and the Elders asked me how I would answer the following question, this comes from a minister they were teaching;

If you have the opportunity to become like God will you then create a world and then be worshiped? They answered no that if they ever reach that point they will forever worship God.

I thought that was a good answer but then the minister asked well if you are to be like him, he then quotes this from Gospel Principles chapter 47 (exaltation);

If we worship God who was once a man then why will we not be worshiped they could not answer.

I told them they were wasting their time he obviously is not interested. But the question still is left unanswered for them.

I think the key would be to define worship to the minister. Worship isn't such a bad thing if it is a great love and dedication to a person, that is returned by him who is receiving it.

Also point out, you can worship God as his child, and be worshiped also by your children at the same time. A giant family of love =).

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The actual answer is "we don't know".....

The quote from Gospel Principles states the Father was once a man as CHRIST was once a man, and since I don't know anyone who is Christ other than Christ, and since I know of no scriptures or revelations that state we will be "Gods of our own worlds" and "worshiped", there is no reason to answer one way or another, other than "I don't know, such hasn't been revealed".

Further, if he wants to argue, it is God & Christ themselves who told us to be like them, so he needs to argue with them about that. How much that actually entails, we simply don't know, and neither does he, thus it's unfair and uncharitable of him to claim we believe more than we actually do.

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Yes, is the correct answer.

we will be like god in the fact that we will be a heavenly father as our heavenly father is to us.

I really dislike when member bend the truth to convert or dodge non-members questions, we should never do that for we can not be ashamed of the gospel of jesus christ.

Also dont dig a hole for your self.

You are wrong.... And I dislike people who misrepresent mormonism. See my post above.

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I am the Ward Mission Leader and the Elders asked me how I would answer the following question, this comes from a minister they were teaching;

If you have the opportunity to become like God will you then create a world and then be worshiped? They answered no that if they ever reach that point they will forever worship God.

I thought that was a good answer but then the minister asked well if you are to be like him, he then quotes this from Gospel Principles chapter 47 (exaltation);

If we worship God who was once a man then why will we not be worshiped they could not answer.

I told them they were wasting their time he obviously is not interested. But the question still is left unanswered for them.

I think the best answer is that if you have you own spirit children because you are a god, then you will be worshiped by those spirit children. That does not mean that you will no longer worship your heavenly Father, your spirit children will worship you just as you worship your Heavenly Father.

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I am the Ward Mission Leader and the Elders asked me how I would answer the following question, this comes from a minister they were teaching;

If you have the opportunity to become like God will you then create a world and then be worshiped? They answered no that if they ever reach that point they will forever worship God.

I thought that was a good answer but then the minister asked well if you are to be like him, he then quotes this from Gospel Principles chapter 47 (exaltation);

If we worship God who was once a man then why will we not be worshiped they could not answer.

I told them they were wasting their time he obviously is not interested. But the question still is left unanswered for them.

This is very easily answered. I would have the missionaries ask the following question in response to the Minister's question:

"Do you worship your earthly father?" Why would I ask this question first? Because it sets up the conversation to show forth in what manner and way our Heavenly Father is worshiped.

I then would ask - what does it mean to worship our Heavenly Father? The appropriate definition is that Worship is from the Old English word Worthscipe and is an act of devotion toward something worthy, honoring. Thus, in this way, we show our devotion to our Heavenly Father, we are showing that our Heavenly Father is worthy of our adoration and devotion. Jesus Christ stated that the best way we show our adoration and devotion is by obedience to the council, wisdom, and following after Him (Christ) - If ye love me, ye would keep my commandments.

Upon explaining this, my suggestion would be followed up with - Just as we show our love, appreciation, and devotion to our earthly Father, so much more ought we to do the same to our Heavenly Father. In this, we too become like our Heavenly Father where, as Earthly Fathers, we receive the love, appreciation, and devotion of our Children - thus we already as Father's receive worship from our Children.

This, of course, will truly baffle the minister, and I would also follow up with - would you agree that as a Father (assuming that he is) you receive adoration, appreciation, and love from your children, and that this is the same type of worship you also give to your Heavenly Father?

I had an evangelical Christian who tried to spin this argument like you presented and asked, and after much consideration and prayer, this is what I actually discussed with him. His response, he left without a word being said and have not heard back from him.

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The actual answer is "we don't know".....

The quote from Gospel Principles states the Father was once a man as CHRIST was once a man, and since I don't know anyone who is Christ other than Christ, and since I know of no scriptures or revelations that state we will be "Gods of our own worlds" and "worshiped", there is no reason to answer one way or another, other than "I don't know, such hasn't been revealed".

Further, if he wants to argue, it is God & Christ themselves who told us to be like them, so he needs to argue with them about that. How much that actually entails, we simply don't know, and neither does he, thus it's unfair and uncharitable of him to claim we believe more than we actually do.

Here is the quote from the gospel principles book and the TofJS

Joseph Smith taught:

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This is where I start to have serious issues with the LDS doctrine. :/ I cannot bring myself to believe, and even through prayer it has not felt right in my heart, that God was a man like us. God, our Heavenly Father, has always been and always will be the Most High, and I believe that He has always been that way. Does this mean that I am out of the LDS club? :P

Here is the quote from the gospel principles book and the TofJS

Joseph Smith taught:

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This is where I start to have serious issues with the LDS doctrine. :/ I cannot bring myself to believe, and even through prayer it has not felt right in my heart, that God was a man like us. God, our Heavenly Father, has always been and always will be the Most High, and I believe that He has always been that way. Does this mean that I am out of the LDS club? :P

No, your still in the club, some doctrines are hard to swollow at first, it's like how do you eat a whole cow, one bite at a time.

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This is very easily answered. I would have the missionaries ask the following question in response to the Minister's question:

"Do you worship your earthly father?" Why would I ask this question first? Because it sets up the conversation to show forth in what manner and way our Heavenly Father is worshiped.

I then would ask - what does it mean to worship our Heavenly Father? The appropriate definition is that Worship is from the Old English word Worthscipe and is an act of devotion toward something worthy, honoring. Thus, in this way, we show our devotion to our Heavenly Father, we are showing that our Heavenly Father is worthy of our adoration and devotion. Jesus Christ stated that the best way we show our adoration and devotion is by obedience to the council, wisdom, and following after Him (Christ) - If ye love me, ye would keep my commandments.

Upon explaining this, my suggestion would be followed up with - Just as we show our love, appreciation, and devotion to our earthly Father, so much more ought we to do the same to our Heavenly Father. In this, we too become like our Heavenly Father where, as Earthly Fathers, we receive the love, appreciation, and devotion of our Children - thus we already as Father's receive worship from our Children.

This, of course, will truly baffle the minister, and I would also follow up with - would you agree that as a Father (assuming that he is) you receive adoration, appreciation, and love from your children, and that this is the same type of worship you also give to your Heavenly Father?

I had an evangelical Christian who tried to spin this argument like you presented and asked, and after much consideration and prayer, this is what I actually discussed with him. His response, he left without a word being said and have not heard back from him.

It is more than likely that he realized that there is no dialogue possible upon the subject of religion with people who have reduced the God of the Bible to such a puny stature of comprehensibility and coziness. Mormons really don't understand, usually, just how bizarre their theology is to mainstream Christians. God, as understood in an orthodox theology (even with variations), is beyond comprehension, being infinite, all present, all knowing and all powerful. Mormons have reduced this down to human terms, explainable as "progression"; and placed mankind in the very same "mold" as God is from: God is just bigger than we are, but no less eternal (i.e. uncreated) as all the other "intelligences" and matter. Yet the very existence of these is left unexplained: they just are and have always been. That makes "God" out to be nothing more than the greatest uncreated intelligence, not the originator of existence in the first place.

I cannot worship such a being. If I worship anything, it is the concept of the Necessary Cause. But I cannot "pray" to it since I do not know what it is; I only know it IS, and that my existence originates "from" there....

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The short answer is "I don't know." However, I think these links might be helpful:

1. This is from a blog post of mine entitled "Spirit Babies & Afterlife Worship?" It was in response to Aaron Shafovaloff's issues with supposed afterlife worship and the unique nature of God. It turns out that human deification and worship is quite ancient and quite Jewish.

2. See David Bokovoy's comments about our interdependence on and worship of God the Father and Jesus Christ in the thread "Can Women Become Goddesses?" (This is where his comments begin. He has more in the following pages.)The scriptural case he makes I think can be helpful.

3. Blake Ostler's FAIR presentation "The Fallacy of Fundamentalist Assumptions." His description of deification is spot-on.

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This is where I start to have serious issues with the LDS doctrine. :/ I cannot bring myself to believe, and even through prayer it has not felt right in my heart, that God was a man like us. God, our Heavenly Father, has always been and always will be the Most High, and I believe that He has always been that way. Does this mean that I am out of the LDS club? :P

See my links, Lareliw. I think they will be right up your alley.

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I am the Ward Mission Leader and the Elders asked me how I would answer the following question, this comes from a minister they were teaching;

If you have the opportunity to become like God will you then create a world and then be worshiped? They answered no that if they ever reach that point they will forever worship God.

I thought that was a good answer but then the minister asked well if you are to be like him, he then quotes this from Gospel Principles chapter 47 (exaltation);

I would have added: "In my worship of God I would ask what God would have me do to serve him and bring greater glory to his name and if he told me to go out to create a world, either with him, with others or on my own where I would be worshipped by those I cared for, then I would most certainly do so. I would understand also that I did this not only to be obedient to his wishes, but that through my acts more glory would be added to the Father's name as it always has been when I have been obedient to my God's Will and when anyone else as has done the same and I would be both grateful and joyful for the chance to honour him in such a way.
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This is where I start to have serious issues with the LDS doctrine. :/ I cannot bring myself to believe, and even through prayer it has not felt right in my heart, that God was a man like us. God, our Heavenly Father, has always been and always will be the Most High, and I believe that He has always been that way.

How do you view Jesus his Son and his relationship with his Father and his relationship with man? Are you comfortable with Jesus being a man like us?
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The concept of an eternal (not the name of God as in Doc&Cov 19) progression of Gods as being offensive or "unworshipable" is unfathomable to me because whatever one believes in terms of what "God" is (or should be), that belief makes no difference in the relationship I have to God, my Heavenly Father. He is my Father and my God, and that is all that is needed for me to worship Him. That there be another God, or a billion other Gods, doesn't change what my God has done for me, what my God will do for me, nor that my Father is, indeed and very fact, my Father.

If it should be that I will at one point in this eternal progression receive similar worship from my spiritual children, this will not change the relationship between me and Father. I say this even while knowing that there will be a change which is this one: I will add to His glory in exactly the same way (although to a far greater extent) than what I did to my earthly father when I, too, became a father

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The actual answer is "we don't know".....

The quote from Gospel Principles states the Father was once a man as CHRIST was once a man, and since I don't know anyone who is Christ other than Christ, and since I know of no scriptures or revelations that state we will be "Gods of our own worlds" and "worshiped", there is no reason to answer one way or another, other than "I don't know, such hasn't been revealed".

Further, if he wants to argue, it is God & Christ themselves who told us to be like them, so he needs to argue with them about that. How much that actually entails, we simply don't know, and neither does he, thus it's unfair and uncharitable of him to claim we believe more than we actually do.

This is a very good answer. I agree totally.

Christ was once a "man" who experienced mortality and suffered all kinds a pain and affliction. Christ had power over death and was perfect. Christ was never a sinner, he is and always has been perfect. We are trying to figure out how to be perfect. By saying that God was once a man does not lower him in any way, it serves to give us hope and courage. We don't know anything about how the Father came to be or if he ever had a father. The church does not teach it, the scriptures do not teach it and no prophet has ever taught it.

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The church does not teach it, the scriptures do not teach it and no prophet has ever taught it.

This is a false statement Lorenzo Snow did teach that "As man is God once was, and as God is man shall become". So Prophets have taught us that God once was man, it is also accepted theology by many Mormons (thought nothing is know about the why, where, or how) that God was once a man and became God, just like we can become a God through following the Plan of Salvation.

The Church has no official stance because we simply do not have enough revelation to make doctrine on this issue, this theology can be taught in the Church though, it cannot be presented as doctrine though only theory about our doctrine.

Added by edit:

Here is Joseph Smith's teaching about God was man, "God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! . . . 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, and take away the veil, so that you may see. . . . He was once a man like us; yea that God himself, the Father dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did. . . ."

Here is Brigham Young's teaching about God as man, "[T]hat God the Father was once a man on another planet who 'passed the ordeal we are now passing through. . .'"

The Prophet's have continually taught that God was once a man just like we are.

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This is a false statement Lorenzo Snow did teach that "As man is God once was, and as God is man shall become". So Prophets have taught us that God once was man, it is also accepted theology by many Mormons (thought nothing is know about the why, where, or how) that God was once a man and became God, just like we can become a God through following the Plan of Salvation.

The Church has no official stance because we simply do not have enough revelation to make doctrine on this issue, this theology can be taught in the Church though, it cannot be presented as doctrine though only theory about our doctrine.

Added by edit:

Here is Joseph Smith's teaching about God was man, "God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! . . . 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, and take away the veil, so that you may see. . . . He was once a man like us; yea that God himself, the Father dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did. . . ."

Here is Brigham Young's teaching about God as man, "[T]hat God the Father was once a man on another planet who 'passed the ordeal we are now passing through. . .'"

The Prophet's have continually taught that God was once a man just like we are.

Here Here!

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I am the Ward Mission Leader and the Elders asked me how I would answer the following question, this comes from a minister they were teaching;

If you have the opportunity to become like God will you then create a world and then be worshiped? They answered no that if they ever reach that point they will forever worship God.

I thought that was a good answer but then the minister asked well if you are to be like him, he then quotes this from Gospel Principles chapter 47 (exaltation);

If we worship God who was once a man then why will we not be worshiped they could not answer.

I told them they were wasting their time he obviously is not interested. But the question still is left unanswered for them.

just because j.s said that the father himself dwelled on an earth just as the son did, does not make us into "God "Gods"! we can becomne as the son {a God} but not equal to the father whom we worship above everything else..... very simple indeed.. this ministers question does not change a thing, and i really dont see how members get off track so easily.:P

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I am the Ward Mission Leader and the Elders asked me how I would answer the following question, this comes from a minister they were teaching;

If you have the opportunity to become like God will you then create a world and then be worshiped? They answered no that if they ever reach that point they will forever worship God.

I thought that was a good answer but then the minister asked well if you are to be like him, he then quotes this from Gospel Principles chapter 47 (exaltation);

If we worship God who was once a man then why will we not be worshiped they could not answer.

I told them they were wasting their time he obviously is not interested. But the question still is left unanswered for them.

Logical assumptions have paved the road to some really bad speculative doctrines in the past. Even with the quote from Gospel Principles, there are several sets of assumptions that are needed to get to the preacher's question (just read the replies in this thread).

The best thing for the missionaries to do is support what the Church has said on the matter, and say they just don't know what else that doctrine entails, no matter how solid the "logic" might be that takes you there.

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