Josh Khinder Posted June 12, 2018 Posted June 12, 2018 23 hours ago, RevTestament said: Genesis describes this as God speaking and His spirit moving across "the waters" to create the earth. Let's see - earth from water? That's not "Ex Nihilo." Sorry, the Bible says no such thing to support Ex Nihilo creation. Adam was not created Ex Nihilo either. He was created from the dust. "Ex Nihilo" is just an early theological invention - as is the doctrine of the Trinity. The General Conference talk says The trinity was taught in The Book of Mormon in fact it the Fullness of the Gospel
Josh Khinder Posted June 12, 2018 Posted June 12, 2018 Answers to Gospel Questions Vol. 3 pp 98-99 under Counsel given by President Charles W. Penrose Now, some of our brethren have taken up quite a discussion as to the fulness of the everlasting gospel. We are told that the Book of Mormon contains the fulness of the gospel, that those who like to get up a dispute, say that the Book of Mormon does not contain any reference to the work of salvation for the dead, and that there are many other things pertaining to the gospel that are not developed in that book, and yet we are told that the book contains "the fulness of the everlasting gospel." well what is the fulnesspel? You read carefully the revelation in regard to the three glories, section 76, in the Doctrine and Covanants, and you find there defined what the gospel is, There God the Eternal Father, and Jesus Christ, his son, and the Holy Ghost, are held up as the three persons in the Trinity-the one God the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, all three being one God. When people believe in that doctrine and obey the ordinances which are spoken of in the same list of principals, you get the fulness of the gospel for this reason: General Conference Report, April 1922, pp 27-28.
RevTestament Posted June 12, 2018 Posted June 12, 2018 28 minutes ago, Josh Khinder said: The General Conference talk says The trinity was taught in The Book of Mormon in fact it the Fullness of the Gospel Did you not read anything I posted? Yeah, the three are one Elohim. All the other stuff taught in the doctrines of the trinity is wrong ie unscriptural or incorrect understanding of scripture.
JAHS Posted June 12, 2018 Author Posted June 12, 2018 6 hours ago, Josh Khinder said: Answers to Gospel Questions Vol. 3 pp 98-99 under Counsel given by President Charles W. Penrose Now, some of our brethren have taken up quite a discussion as to the fulness of the everlasting gospel. We are told that the Book of Mormon contains the fulness of the gospel, that those who like to get up a dispute, say that the Book of Mormon does not contain any reference to the work of salvation for the dead, and that there are many other things pertaining to the gospel that are not developed in that book, and yet we are told that the book contains "the fulness of the everlasting gospel." well what is the fulnesspel? You read carefully the revelation in regard to the three glories, section 76, in the Doctrine and Covanants, and you find there defined what the gospel is, There God the Eternal Father, and Jesus Christ, his son, and the Holy Ghost, are held up as the three persons in the Trinity-the one God the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, all three being one God. When people believe in that doctrine and obey the ordinances which are spoken of in the same list of principals, you get the fulness of the gospel for this reason: General Conference Report, April 1922, pp 27-28. In the next paragraph Elder Penrose said: "All revelation from the Father comes through the Son, and by the power and gift of the Holy Ghost, who as one of the Trinity, is an individual, as we are told in the revelation, he is "a personage of spirit." Early church members called it the Trinity, but still recognized them as three separate individuals.
snowflake Posted June 12, 2018 Posted June 12, 2018 21 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said: Sorry, good buddy, but it is an absolute law of science that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed -- Law of Conservation of Mass. It is instead the adherents of Judeo-Christian tradition who dogmatically and falsely claim that Genesis 1 entails creatio ex nihilo. Why don't they believe in science? I don't know, but it is clear that they cannot read the Hebrew text of Genesis one, which plainly has creation from pre-existing matter. So E. Speiser, Genesis, Anchor Bible 1 (Doubleday, 1964). Are you saying that the almighty God is subject to the Law of Conservation of Mass!?! He must submit to it?!? Sorry my friend I believe he created the laws along with all the matter in the universe.
JAHS Posted June 12, 2018 Author Posted June 12, 2018 15 minutes ago, snowflake said: Are you saying that the almighty God is subject to the Law of Conservation of Mass!?! He must submit to it?!? Sorry my friend I believe he created the laws along with all the matter in the universe. Some laws are eternal; they have to be and as such God uses those laws to perform His work. There are some things God cannot do. He cannot sin; He cannot not exist; He cannot make a round square; He cannot forget anything. Because matter cannot be created out of nothing or be completely destroyed God also does not create something out of nothing. Why would He need to do that when there is already enough existing material to use as He pleases? I do know that there are no scriptures in the Bible that specifically state that God has ever created anything out of nothing. One of the meanings of the Hebrew verb 'baurau', translated as "create" in the Old Testament, is "to organize, form, or fashion"; the same way a carpenter might organize together some already existing pieces of wood to make a table. Here's a little history on ex nihilo. The concept of creation ex nihilo was not accepted as doctrine until after 200 AD. Shortly before this, an approach to creation ex nihilo was initiated by Theophilus of Antioch and was expanded upon by Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons to proclaim that God created earth and the cosmos out of nothing. This doctrine spread quickly throughout the Christian church and on until the present day.
mfbukowski Posted June 12, 2018 Posted June 12, 2018 11 hours ago, Josh Khinder said: Jesus was never created since he was God from eternity Mosiah 3:5 Sorry, we are unable to communicate and trying has proved useless.
mfbukowski Posted June 12, 2018 Posted June 12, 2018 2 hours ago, snowflake said: Are you saying that the almighty God is subject to the Law of Conservation of Mass!?! He must submit to it?!? Sorry my friend I believe he created the laws along with all the matter in the universe. Yes, and that is why He obeys his own laws, similar to you going on a diet if you decide to limit your intake of chocolate cake. He could make the laws and decide to follow his own laws. It is a concept called positive freedom, and we do the same every time we decide to follow a traffic law, or be righteous secretly We do it because it is right, and God doesn't even break his own laws.
Ahab Posted June 12, 2018 Posted June 12, 2018 2 minutes ago, mfbukowski said: Yes, and that is why He obeys his own laws, similar to you going on a diet if you decide to limit your intake of chocolate cake. He could make the laws and decide to follow his own laws. It is a concept called positive freedom, and we do the same every time we decide to follow a traffic law, or be righteous secretly We do it because it is right, and God doesn't even break his own laws. His law because he accepts it as something that he approves of, I guess. As opposed to us saying it is a law and him having no choice but to accept it as a law just because we consider it to be one.
JLHPROF Posted June 12, 2018 Posted June 12, 2018 (edited) 3 hours ago, snowflake said: Are you saying that the almighty God is subject to the Law of Conservation of Mass!?! He must submit to it?!? Sorry my friend I believe he created the laws along with all the matter in the universe. Eternal laws are not created nor can be, and God is only God because he follows them and he cannot break them and cease to be God. Other laws are created as part of God's creation of this world and can be transcended. (IE Christ walking on water). Joseph Smith taught some things that are very consistent with thermodynamics. Edited June 12, 2018 by JLHPROF
Robert F. Smith Posted June 12, 2018 Posted June 12, 2018 4 hours ago, snowflake said: Are you saying that the almighty God is subject to the Law of Conservation of Mass!?! He must submit to it?!? Sorry my friend I believe he created the laws along with all the matter in the universe. It is true that normative Judeo-Christian dogma claims creation from nothing. However, as I pointed out, the Word of God says otherwise, as biblical scholars know. You may not like that principle straight from the Bible, but you can't have your cake and eat it too. You must decide at some point whether you want to accept God's authentic word, or a warped Greek philosophical version of it. Your choice. God lives in a natural universe, and He has complete mastery of all natural law. That is what makes Him God. We His children are coeternal with Him, which means that we have true free will, and that there is no problem of Theodicy -- of Him being the author of evil, as He is in normative Judeo-Christian theology (which is paradoxical and self-contradictory). 1
Ahab Posted June 12, 2018 Posted June 12, 2018 10 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said: God lives in a natural universe, and He has complete mastery of all natural law. That is what makes Him God. I suppose that is one way to explain it. I think it might help him to understand that God is a word that is used to refer to the most supreme kind of being in all of existence, with the greatest degree of Intelligence, when compared to all other kinds of beings. That degree of intelligence is what enables him to do all he is able to do. 10 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said: We His children are coeternal with Him, which means that we have true free will, and that there is no problem of Theodicy -- of Him being the author of evil, as He is in normative Judeo-Christian theology (which is paradoxical and self-contradictory). I would have him understand that we by being his children are the same kind of being he is, and that as his children, we didn't come out of nowhere or nothing. We came from him and our Mother when they created us from them as their children. Life doesn't begin. It never has and it never will. Life perpetuates itself and our kind of being perpetuates itself by having parents who can create their own children, with parents going back forever and ever with never a beginning to any of them. 2
Josh Khinder Posted June 12, 2018 Posted June 12, 2018 9 hours ago, JAHS said: In the next paragraph Elder Penrose said: "All revelation from the Father comes through the Son, and by the power and gift of the Holy Ghost, who as one of the Trinity, is an individual, as we are told in the revelation, he is "a personage of spirit." Early church members called it the Trinity, but still recognized them as three separate individuals. The Trinity does teach three separate and distinct persons or individuals in 3 separate places https://i.imgur.com/osAmiy2.jpg
JAHS Posted June 12, 2018 Author Posted June 12, 2018 6 minutes ago, Josh Khinder said: The Trinity does teach three separate and distinct persons or individuals in 3 separate places https://i.imgur.com/osAmiy2.jpg The clover representation of the trinity is not a bad one except it doesn't allow each leaf to be in different places as they were when Jesus was baptized.
Ahab Posted June 12, 2018 Posted June 12, 2018 28 minutes ago, Josh Khinder said: The Trinity does teach three separate and distinct persons or individuals in 3 separate places https://i.imgur.com/osAmiy2.jpg Do you understand "God" as a word which we (LDS) use to refer to 1) a particular kind of being such that any person who is that kind of being is God, 2) our Father in heaven, who is a person who is that kind of being, 3) Jesus Christ, who is also a person who is that kind of being, 4) the Holy Ghost, who is also a person who is that kind of being, 5) any or all of us who are our Father in heaven's children and thus the same kind of being he is. God, as understood by LDS, is a word which has multiple definitions all of which are equally correct so it is important to try to understand the context in which we use that word whenever we use it.
JAHS Posted June 13, 2018 Author Posted June 13, 2018 7 hours ago, Josh Khinder said: Right the three Gods are One God just like the Utah basketball team called "Jazz" are one but made up of several members each one called a Jazz. The word "God" can be either singular or plural. Consider the words of Jesus as he said: "For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh" Of course Jesus did not mean that a man and woman would actually become one person when they are married, but that they would dedicate themselves to each other, work together and be one in purpose and spirit. As Jesus was praying to the Father He said: "And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:" (John 17:11, 21-22) Here, Christ prayed for his disciples and other converts, that they should be preserved in unity, "that they all may be one" as the Father and the Son are one. Christ did not want His followers to lose their individuality and become one single person. He wanted them to be one in purpose as He and the Father and Holy Ghost are one. 1
snowflake Posted June 13, 2018 Posted June 13, 2018 17 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said: It is true that normative Judeo-Christian dogma claims creation from nothing. However, as I pointed out, the Word of God says otherwise, as biblical scholars know. You may not like that principle straight from the Bible, but you can't have your cake and eat it too. You must decide at some point whether you want to accept God's authentic word, or a warped Greek philosophical version of it. Your choice. God lives in a natural universe, and He has complete mastery of all natural law. That is what makes Him God. We His children are coeternal with Him, which means that we have true free will, and that there is no problem of Theodicy -- of Him being the author of evil, as He is in normative Judeo-Christian theology (which is paradoxical and self-contradictory). If God has a body of flesh and bones (as Jesus) and lives in the natural universe, how do they travel to Kolob? He must obey all the physical rules of the universe....and what about all those miracles, if Jesus is subject to the natural law how did he walk on water?
snowflake Posted June 13, 2018 Posted June 13, 2018 17 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said: It is true that normative Judeo-Christian dogma claims creation from nothing. However, as I pointed out, the Word of God says otherwise, as biblical scholars know. You may not like that principle straight from the Bible, but you can't have your cake and eat it too. You must decide at some point whether you want to accept God's authentic word, or a warped Greek philosophical version of it. Your choice. Your take (or the LDS take) on creation seems to have borrowed heavily from the Greek version as well, the "Chaos"....deities organizing matter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_(cosmogony)
Robert F. Smith Posted June 13, 2018 Posted June 13, 2018 (edited) 38 minutes ago, snowflake said: Your take (or the LDS take) on creation seems to have borrowed heavily from the Greek version as well, the "Chaos"....deities organizing matter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_(cosmogony) You are confusing ancient Greek religion with Greek philosophy, which are just not the same. You are also failing to accept normative biblical scholarship: Quote Some scholars have argued that Plethon viewed Plato as positing ex nihilo creation in his Timaeus. Eric Voegelin detects in Hesiod's chaos a creatio ex nihilo. The School of Chartres understood the creation account in Plato's Timaeus to refer to creatio ex nihilo. * * * * On a historical basis, many scholars agree that the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo was not the original intent of the Biblical authors, but instead a change in the interpretation of the texts that began to evolve in the mid-second century AD in the atmosphere of Hellenistic [Greek] philosophy. The idea solidified around 200 AD in arguments and in response to the Gnostics, Stoics, and Middle Platonists. Thomas Jay Oord, a Christian philosopher and theologian, argues that Christians should abandon the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. Oord points to the work of biblical scholars such as Jon D. Levenson, who points out that the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo does not appear in Genesis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_nihilo#Ancient_Greek . The late Jewish scholar Ephraim Speiser urged that, despite our theological preconceptions, we should allow the text "to speak for itself" (Speiser, Genesis, 13). Why are you opposed to standard scholarship? Edited June 13, 2018 by Robert F. Smith 1
Robert F. Smith Posted June 13, 2018 Posted June 13, 2018 52 minutes ago, snowflake said: If God has a body of flesh and bones (as Jesus) and lives in the natural universe, how do they travel to Kolob? He must obey all the physical rules of the universe....and what about all those miracles, if Jesus is subject to the natural law how did he walk on water? There are no actual "miracles." Natural law can never be abrogated, and does not need to be. We humans are simply ignorant of the full implications of natural law. As stated by Arthur C. Clarke, in his Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Thus, Jesus can walk on water, he can walk through walls, can read our minds, and can ascend into the heavens. How can he do those things? The same way Peter was able to walk on water, and early Christians could speak in tongues -- through faith and the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul speaks of our obtaining glorified and incorruptible bodies in the resurrection, presumably allowing us all to move through space the same way God and his angels do -- no longer limited by the surly bounds of Earth. 1
snowflake Posted June 13, 2018 Posted June 13, 2018 11 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said: The late Jewish scholar Ephraim Speiser urged that, despite our theological preconceptions, we should allow the text "to speak for itself" (Speiser, Genesis, 13). Why are you opposed to standard scholarship? Because all scholars don't agree with your take....ex-nihilo can be supported by the text itself too. I absolutely agree that we should allow the text to speak for itself. Heb 11:3 [3] Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. Col 1 [16] For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: John 1:3 [3] All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. Why would I need a "scholar" to explain these verses to me?.......we just disagree Robert.
Atheist Mormon Posted June 13, 2018 Posted June 13, 2018 On 6/10/2018 at 11:13 PM, The Nehor said: The answers to those questions are all in the sealed portion of the plates. Howconvenieent. I have 10 M $ in sealed portion of BoA, they'll give me after I'm dead.
Ahab Posted June 13, 2018 Posted June 13, 2018 1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said: There are no actual "miracles." Technically speaking, there are things we still refer to as miracles. The word refers to things God is able to do which we can't explain. 1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said: Natural law can never be abrogated, and does not need to be. We humans are simply ignorant of the full implications of natural law. As stated by Arthur C. Clarke, in his Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." ... or miracles, too, I suppose. 1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said: Thus, Jesus can walk on water, he can walk through walls, can read our minds, and can ascend into the heavens. How can he do those things? The same way Peter was able to walk on water, and early Christians could speak in tongues -- through faith and the power of the Holy Spirit. I'll suppose you realize that more than just faith and the power of the Holy Spirit is involved. That is only the power that makes those kinds of things possible, but something else is still required to bring about those results. To walk on water the water molecules must support the weight of the person walking on the water instead of just moving out of the way to let that person pass around them, for example. And the opposite must happen to be able to walk through a wall. Faith and the power of the Holy Spirit are what cause those kinds of things to happen. 1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said: Paul speaks of our obtaining glorified and incorruptible bodies in the resurrection, presumably allowing us all to move through space the same way God and his angels do -- no longer limited by the surly bounds of Earth. The fact that our Lord and his angels can do that doesn't mean everyone will be able to do that. Some will lack faith and some will not have the same power of the Holy Spirit which God and his angels have. But, yes, it will be possible for some of us to do that, later.
snowflake Posted June 13, 2018 Posted June 13, 2018 2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said: There are no actual "miracles." Natural law can never be abrogated, and does not need to be. We humans are simply ignorant of the full implications of natural law. As stated by Arthur C. Clarke, in his Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Thus, Jesus can walk on water, he can walk through walls, can read our minds, and can ascend into the heavens. How can he do those things? The same way Peter was able to walk on water, and early Christians could speak in tongues -- through faith and the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul speaks of our obtaining glorified and incorruptible bodies in the resurrection, presumably allowing us all to move through space the same way God and his angels do -- no longer limited by the surly bounds of Earth. Very interesting take....haven't heard explained that way before..... I appreciate that. There is also another way to explain it, a much more biblical explanation. God is spirit and exists outside our time-space domain....in other words this world we live in is a shadow of "reality" or a shadow of the "spirit realm". Like you said above, Jesus can appear out of nowhere, as well as angels,.......they have the ability to enter and leave our time-space domain at will. The lds Heavenly Father is stuck in the same length X width X height X time domain as all other humans......with superior technology he can perform miracles. The God of the Bible exists outside of this domain without a body of flesh and bone.
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