As Man Now Is, God Once Was; As God Is Now Man May Be.

[ERayR]

Okay...but I certainly understand why the critics might be confused as to what the church actually believes, on this issue. I mean, that is fair right?

Critics are intentionally confused even if you bring it down to an elementary level. That is way President Hinkley answered the way he did.

[ERayR]

To me, this idea that we will become Gods (rather than gods) is quite wrong. I do not believe that anyone will ever pray to me or worship me. If I am exalted in the celestial kingdom my spiritual posterity will pray to and worship the same being I do.

Not if you don't want it.

[Calm]

I find it odd that any LDS would find the idea of becoming a God would be abhorent!

He did not say this was abhorrent to him, but the idea of someone else replacing God as the object of love and worship.

Big difference.

I have heard of some LDS who do not desire to become exalted because they do not believe they could bare watching their children suffer while in mortality. I think this assumes to a degree that we will view suffering in the same way that we do now, it is possible that since God sees the entire being of an individual that he is aware there is actually less suffering than it appears to us as we experience through the mortal lens...and there is the issue of time being all present before him and if so, perhaps he sees the result side by side with the suffering and that is what allows him to hold back his hand from interfering...the individual begging him to let the pain continue because of the joy to come.

[Calm]

Not if you don't want it.

I think it will be more along the lines of if God the Father doesn't want it. Perhaps our Father desires us to be able to experience all things of wonder and glory that he has experienced and thus he withdraws from the role and insists that we take it up instead.

If so, would those who shudder at the thought now actually refuse him when both occur because of profound love and respect for him and therefore a desire to follow his commandments? Would this be a commandment that is right to refuse?

[Calm]

After all, it seems apparent that many, if not the vast majority of the world's sectarian Christians don't believe there will be any theological surprises when, at last, they enter the eternities. Remember, for them all of God's word for man is already permanently enshrined in the Bible, a book that cannot have anything at all added thereto nor taken away.

I wonder if this is an accurate portrayal. I would think when they say God's Word for man, they mean mortal man, not resurrected man.

[ERayR]

I honestly don't know why he didn't just say "Yes, we teach that. Isn't it marvelous? Next question."

Because he is much more experienced at media interviews that are stealth hit pieces than you are.

[ERayR]

I think it will be more along the lines of if God the Father doesn't want it. Perhaps our Father desires us to be able to experience all things of wonder and glory that he has experienced and thus he withdraws from the role and insists that we take it up instead.

If so, would those who shudder at the thought now actually refuse him when both occur because of profound love and respect for him and therefore a desire to follow his commandments? Would this be a commandment that is right to refuse?

But he will not push us beyond what we are totally comfortable with. Can you imagine what could happen if the awesome powers of the universe were entrusted with someone who was uncomfortable with them.

[Calm]

We were created in HIs image, we are His spirit offspring, and as His offspring if we follow the path that Christ has shown us we will become one with them (a God in our own dominions) it is not dethroning God anymore than I "dethrone" my earthly father from His position as the patriarch of my family just because I became a father.

I know as a grandmother there are few things that delight me more than watching my son be a father, teaching and caring and playing with his children as I did with him what feels like eons ago. I hope that I will be able to do the same with my daughter some day.

[Calm]

But he will not push us beyond what we are totally comfortable with. Can you imagine what could happen if the awesome powers of the universe were entrusted with someone who was uncomfortable with them.

Totally agree. I do not think God intends to have to rush in and rescue a world from one of his children having a nervous breakdown because he can't handle the pressure.

Makes me wonder what kinds of things he will have us do to work up to such an ultimate experience (working under the assumption that such will happen, I haven't decided one way or the other yet). Obviously our experience here as parents in mortality, but there is a huge jump between that and overseeing the experience of the population of an entire world throughout its years of existence.

[Calm]

It is a lesson...how else to teach. Would you or others feel better if not numbered.

Pa Pa, Bernard and I and anyone else talking about "checklists" are doing so in response to a quoted (by Nevo) comment by Armand Mauss saying that the absence of such in the recent GP manual is evidence of eliminating or watering down of doctrine....since as far as we can tell in regards to the topic he was speaking about there is no absence, there would appear to be no watering down. Unfortunately Brother Mauss did not specify what he was talking about, but just made a general remark so it is hard to evaluate his claim. It looked like he just used the antiwebsite and thus missed that some of the eliminations were just removing duplicates, not removing it completely so in no sense eliminated or even watered down a doctrine.

Would be nice to know what he was talking about specifically as it is possible he was right in some aspects, but again how does one tell with just the material given?

No one is making comments about the content of the actual checklist, just that it exists...assuming that this is what he is talking about and not something else.

Edited July 26, 2012 by calmoriah

[ERayR]

Totally agree. I do not think God intends to have to rush in and rescue a world from one of his children having a nervous breakdown because he can't handle the pressure.

Makes me wonder what kinds of things he will have us do to work up to such an ultimate experience (working under the assumption that such will happen, I haven't decided one way or the other yet). Obviously our experience here as parents in mortality, but there is a huge jump between that and overseeing the experience of the population of an entire world throughout its years of existence.

I think moving a few planets across galaxies might be good practice.

[Calm]

Looks like a checklist to me.

Editing it down to just the checklist (this is the only checklist I see on the anti site referred to by Brother Mauss), first we have the current one (see http://www.lds.org/m...tation?lang=eng )and second the one from 1997 for comparison, there are some changes, but I don't see it as making his point.

1. We must be baptized.

2. We must receive the laying on of hands to be confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ and to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

3. Brethren must receive the Melchizedek Priesthood and magnify their callings in the priesthood.

4. We must receive the temple endowment.

5. We must be married for eternity, either in this life or in the next.

In addition to receiving the required ordinances, the Lord commands all of us to:

1. Love God and our neighbors.

2. Keep the commandments.

3. Repent of our wrongdoings.

4. Search out our kindred dead and receive the saving ordinances of the gospel for them.

5. Attend our Church meetings as regularly as possible so we can renew our baptismal covenants by partaking of the sacrament.

6. Love our family members and strengthen them in the ways of the Lord.

7. Have family and individual prayers every day.

8. Teach the gospel to others by word and example.

9. Study the scriptures.

10. Listen to and obey the inspired words of the prophets of the Lord.

Here is the 97 version (that can still be accessed on lds.org btw at http://www.lds.org/l...1-13-59,00.html ):

He commands us all to receive certain ordinances:

1. We must be baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ.
   
2. We must receive the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.
   
3. We must receive the temple endowment.
   
4. We must be married for time and eternity.
   

In addition to receiving the required ordinances, the Lord commands all of us to--

1. Love and worship God.
   
2. Love our neighbor.
   
3. Repent of our wrongdoings.
   
4. Live the law of chastity.
   
5. Pay honest tithes and offerings.
   
6. Be honest in our dealings with others and with the Lord.
   
7. Speak the truth always.
   
8. Obey the Word of Wisdom.
   
9. Search out our kindred dead and perform the saving ordinances of the gospel for them.
   
10. Keep the Sabbath day holy.
    
11. Attend our Church meetings as regularly as possible so we can renew our baptismal covenants by partaking of the sacrament.
    
12. Love our family members and strengthen them in the ways of the Lord.
    
13. Have family and individual prayers every day.
    
14. Honor our parents.
    
15. Teach the gospel to others by word and example.
    
16. Study the scriptures.
    
17. Listen to and obey the inspired words of the prophets of the Lord.
    

What is eliminated is basically the duplication between saying "keep the commandments" and listing the most obvious ones out individually. Eliminating repetition is a common goal for the 2009 edition from what I can tell going through the changes as many times as I have. I do not see how not listing the obvious commandments of being honest, chaste, WoW waters down "keep the commandments".

The MRM site just has the various items on the list crossed out if they are not identical to the edited version without showing the updated version, giving the appearance that much, if not all of the checklist was removed. If Brother Mauss had not checked the actual manual (which seems unlikely for such a scholar of his renown so I am left wondering if this is what he was actually referring to...though what other checklist did MRM refer to?) he would have gotten the wrong idea of what was still in there. For example they have crossed out "Keep the Sabbath day holy" without any indication that it still included the more specific "5. Attend our Church meetings as regularly as possible so we can renew our baptismal covenants by partaking of the sacrament."

Edited July 26, 2012 by calmoriah

[cinepro]

Because he is much more experienced at media interviews that are stealth hit pieces than you are.

If bringing up a doctrine that has been taught by the Church since the days of Joseph Smith makes something a "stealth hit piece", and the only response is for the Prophet to respond by saying:

"I don't know that we teach it. I don't know that we emphasize it. I haven't heard it discussed for a long time in public discourse. I don't know. I don't know all the circumstances under which that statement was made. I understand the philosophical background behind it. But I don't know a lot about it and I don't know that others know a lot about it,"

...then that is a terrible commentary on the state of LDS public relations.

I honestly can't imagine how a simple, affirmative answer would have been worse than what we got. It's not like they brought up something from the Temple, or something obscure and outdated like moon-men or missionaries going to the sun.

"Yes, we believe that and teach that. Next question?" At least FAIR wouldn't have to put up a page explaining his answer.

Edited July 26, 2012 by cinepro

[CASteinman]

At least FAIR wouldn't have to put up a page explaining his answer.

Are you losing sleep over this matter? Or is it, overall, pretty much irrelevant to our lives?

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

I know as a grandmother there are few things that delight me more than watching my son be a father, teaching and caring and playing with his children as I did with him what feels like eons ago. I hope that I will be able to do the same with my daughter some day.

Grandbabies are wonderful...my job is to spoil them and I take that job very seriously.

[theplains]

Critics crow about how the LDS Chuch "seems to be" pulling back from the statements of Joseph and President Snow on the matter of deification.

In the Friend article, it said "He wrote as a couplet (two lines of verse) a revelation that he had and that the Prophet Joseph

Smith said was true: As man ____ is, God once was: As God now is, man may be".

When and where was this revelation given? I couldn't find any original source.

Thanks,

Jim

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

He did not say this was abhorrent to him, but the idea of someone else replacing God as the object of love and worship.

Big difference.

God cannot be replaced...and Christ is the Saviour of all worlds.