Did Joseph Smith teach Adam-God?

[Calm]

3 hours ago, Grug the Neanderthal said:

People can definitely have spiritual experiences without having knowing about Moroni's promise or other scriptures, but they aren't going to know how to test teachings and receive an answer by the spirit without or determine God's will without the scriptures/prophets. Everyone also has access to the light of Christ and therefore receives some direction of what is right and what is wrong, but this inner compass alone won't truly show them God's will.

If you mean specific teachings that are only found in scripture, that is reasonable. You can’t test something you don’t know about. But if you are referring to the testing method of finding good fruit itself, I disagree. And if you are talking about teachings that are encountered outside the scriptures, what is stopping others from using the available to everyone pragmatic method of finding good fruit?

[Calm]

13 minutes ago, Grug the Neanderthal said:

We all know that a downvote means more than this. Especially when there’s a wave of them. 

Lol, no we don’t.  It never occurred to me to think of downvotes that way before reading your comment and now looking back on several occasions I have given and received downvotes as well as seen others do the same, you haven’t persuaded me in the least that that is what they mean, wave or not. 
 

Perhaps others would be so kind as to downvote this post of mine if they agree with you and upvote it if they agree with me it’s as likely to be simple disagreement or dislike and even a flurry of downvoting is not that often about feeling threatened or offended.  I am quite curious if I am projecting my own experience too much on others or you are. 

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Grug the Neanderthal said:

I get what you’re saying, I don’t disagree. My point is that everything you knew about church, Jesus Christ, God, the Holy Spirit, etc. prior to this experience originated from the scriptures/prophets. You heard these things from people who ultimately got them from this source.

I disagree. I think we could know many things about God and the Spirit without having the appropriate label for them, making the connection to a specific narrative or theology about God and Christ. After all, according to God all creation testifies of God. 
 

There are details that are only available through scripture, but a lot of awareness of God and the Spirit come from experience even if we don’t know what name to call the cause of those experiences.

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Grug the Neanderthal said:

I get what you’re saying, I don’t disagree. My point is that everything you knew about church, Jesus Christ, God, the Holy Spirit, etc. prior to this experience originated from the scriptures/prophets. You heard these things from people who ultimately got them from this source.

Nope.

I deduced them by the spirit and then found a church that fit close enough which the spirit told me to accept

I still do that with every teaching I hear.

In God I trust; everyone else must conform to the spirit or out they go.

How dare YOU tell others how they know the church is true?

I never took a serious look at scripture until my heart told me to, and even now I see them symbolically.

I have seen NOTHING that has historical evidence for its occurrence other than there existed an itinerant preacher named Jesus.

Without the spirit, I would not believe any of it.

Edited March 18, 2023 by mfbukowski

[CV75]

2 hours ago, Grug the Neanderthal said:

I get what you’re saying, I don’t disagree. My point is that everything you knew about church, Jesus Christ, God, the Holy Spirit, etc. prior to this experience originated from the scriptures/prophets. You heard these things from people who ultimately got them from this source.

Adam originally got everything he knew from God directly, and then of course wrote them down for others. But we also have Alma 12, which describes additional, subsequent instances of knowledge concerning the Holy Spirit outside of scriptural sources (e.g., conversing angels):

28 And after God had appointed that these things should come unto man, behold, then he saw that it was expedient that man should know concerning the things whereof he had appointed unto them;

29 Therefore he sent ^aangels to converse with them, who caused men to behold of his glory.

30 And they began from that time forth to call on his name; therefore God ^aconversed with men, and made known unto them the ^bplan of redemption, which had been prepared from the ^cfoundation of the world; and this he made known unto them according to their faith and repentance and their ^dholy works.

Edited March 18, 2023 by CV75

[Grug the Neanderthal]

9 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Nope.

We weren’t talking about your experience.

13 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I deduced them by the spirit and then found a church that fit close enough which the spirit told me to accept

There would be no churches, no knowledge of Jesus Christ, his teachings, the Holy Ghost, etc. without scriptures/prophets. 

14 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

How dare YOU tell others how they know the church is true?

I didn’t say anything like this. Not even remotely. Please settle down. 
 

[Grug the Neanderthal]

59 minutes ago, Calm said:

a flurry of downvoting is not that often about feeling threatened or offended.

I disagree. I think this is exactly what it is in most cases. Though I doubt anyone who does this will admit it. 

[Grug the Neanderthal]

8 minutes ago, CV75 said:

Adam originally got everything he knew from God directly, and then of course wrote them down for others. But we also have Alma 12, which describes additional, subsequent instances of knowledge concerning the Holy Spirit outside of scriptural sources (e.g., conversing angels):

28 And after God had appointed that these things should come unto man, behold, then he saw that it was expedient that man should know concerning the things whereof he had appointed unto them;

29 Therefore he sent ^aangels to converse with them, who caused men to behold of his glory.

30 And they began from that time forth to call on his name; therefore God ^aconversed with men, and made known unto them the ^bplan of redemption, which had been prepared from the ^cfoundation of the world; and this he made known unto them according to their faith and repentance and their ^dholy works.

Of course people can get knowledge from and about God directly from the heavens. But there’s a reason that God speaks to prophets and has them deliver those teachings to others. God doesn’t just guide everyone exclusively by their inner compass. And few people converse with angels and even fewer speak to God face to face. This is generally reserved for those who have already exercised great faith in God by applying the teachings in the scriptures or from prophets directly.

[mfbukowski]

55 minutes ago, Grug the Neanderthal said:

There would be no churches, no knowledge of Jesus Christ, his teachings, the Holy Ghost, etc. without scriptures/prophets. 

Not by the names we know them, but imo the principles they taught are logical necessities for the best possible life for humanity.

The truth is that we worship idealized perfect humans and the rules by which they bring about immortality and eternal lives of a perfect vision of humanity.

The history is irrelevant to the ideas that produce perfection.

And anyone can find these principles in their hearts through inspiration 

This is how parables work; they are stories which happened or were imagined which teach deductible principles

There is reason why Jesus taught entirely in parables which could be about any person in a similar situation.  It is the principle which is important, not the characters.

The sower parable is perfect; it does not even need characters and yet discusses the nature of all mankind and their personal histories as though they were plants in a field.

Incredibly brilliant.

Edited March 18, 2023 by mfbukowski

[JLHPROF]

24 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Not by the names we know them, but imo the principles they taught are logical necessities for the best possible life for humanity.

The truth is that we worship idealized perfect humans and the rules by which they bring about immortality and eternal lives of a perfect vision of humanity.

The history is irrelevant to the ideas that produce perfection.

And anyone can find these principles in their hearts through inspiration 

This is how parables work; they are stories which happened or were imagined which teach deductible principles

There is reason why Jesus taught entirely in parables which could be about any person in a similar situation.  It is the principle which is important, not the characters.

The sower parable is perfect; it does not even need characters and yet discusses the nature of all mankind and their personal histories as though they were plants in a field.

Incredibly brilliant.

The most important principle, that Christ took upon him our sins, died, and was resurrected breaking the bonds of death would be unknown without scriptural history.  Nor would we understand the necessity of the atonement without them.

We would know nothing of any importance without the words of mortal men recorded in scripture telling us of their experiences with the Father and the Son.

That's no parable.

Edited March 18, 2023 by JLHPROF

[Hamilton Porter]

19 page thread on some esoteric doctrine. No way.

[Calm]

10 hours ago, Grug the Neanderthal said:

I disagree. I think this is exactly what it is in most cases. Though I doubt anyone who does this will admit it. 

Nice setup for heads you win, tails I lose, lol

Edited March 18, 2023 by Calm

[Calm]

Just now, Hamilton Porter said:

19 page thread on some esoteric doctrine. No way.

Yeah, if you read it, you will see lots of side tracks and what’s there on topic, gets repeated a lot imo.

[Calm]

39 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

The most important principle, that Christ took upon him our sins, died, and was resurrected breaking the bonds of death would be unknown without scriptural history.  Nor would we understand the necessity of the atonement without them.

We would know nothing of any importance without the words of mortal men recorded in scripture telling us of their experiences with the Father and the Son.

That's no parable.

I don’t disagree that God would have to be sending out a lot of visions to replace scripture when talking about the details of people’s lives and the narratives.  But I am challenging that claim we learn “everything” about God, etc. through scripture***. I do believe God would be an unkind Father if he limited knowledge of him to only those who had access to scriptures, written or oral.  That might be, if it were true, a majority of humanity that would have lacked any access or experience of God since the Hebrew Scriptures were limited to a very small portion of the globe for a very long time and there are still parts of the world where there are people who have no knowledge of them save perhaps they existed.  I have met a few of them, immigrants from China who had never even touched a Bible before the missionaries came by.  Not that easy to discuss Bible stories with someone who doesn’t even have exposure to them through literature.  Talk about starting from scratch.

***Grug:

Quote

everything you knew about church, Jesus Christ, God, the Holy Spirit, etc. prior to this experience originated from the scriptures/prophets. You heard these things from people who ultimately got them from this source.

 

Edited March 18, 2023 by Calm

[CA Steve]

59 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

We would know nothing of any importance without the words of mortal men recorded in scripture telling us of their experiences with the Father and the Son.

So the people who lived before written scripture existed knew nothing of importance about God?

[Grug the Neanderthal]

53 minutes ago, Calm said:

I am challenging that claim we learn “everything” about God, etc. through scripture***. I do believe God would be an unkind Father if he limited knowledge of him to only those who had access to scriptures, written or oral.  That might be, if it were true, a majority of humanity that would have lacked any access or experience of God since the Hebrew Scriptures were limited to a very small portion of the globe for a very long time and there are still parts of the world where there are people who have no knowledge of them save perhaps they existed.  I have met a few of them, immigrants from China who had never even touched a Bible before the missionaries came by.  Not that easy to discuss Bible stories with someone who doesn’t even have exposure to them through literature.  Talk about starting from scratch.

***Grug:

Quote

 

everything you knew about church, Jesus Christ, God, the Holy Spirit, etc. prior to this experience originated from the scriptures/prophets. You heard these things from people who ultimately got them from this source.

I think you're making too much out of the word "everything." We would know precious little about God without the scriptures/prophets. We wouldn't know anything about Jesus Christ, his atonement, the need to faith in him and repent, or what his commandments are. The most important things we would need to know about God, we would have no clue about. As far as visions and spiritual manifestations go, Satan provides these, too. Without the scriptures/prophets mankind would have no way to tell the difference, no way of discerning truth from error. 

In the Book of Mormon we learn something about just how vital the scriptures are. When Lehi is commanded by God to leave Jerusalem and depart into the wilderness, he is commanded to send his sons back to Jerusalem to get the scriptures. Why is that? It's because Lehi's posterity would have dwindled in unbelief without them. 

4 For it were not possible that our father, Lehi, could have remembered all these things, to have taught them to his children, except it were for the help of these plates; for he having been taught in the language of the Egyptians therefore he could read these engravings, and teach them to his children, that thereby they could teach them to their children, and so fulfilling the commandments of God, even down to this present time.

5 I say unto you, my sons, were it not for these things, which have been kept and preserved by the hand of God, that we might read and understand of his mysteries, and have his commandments always before our eyes, that even our fathers would have dwindled in unbelief, and we should have been like unto our brethren, the Lamanites, who know nothing concerning these things, or even do not believe them when they are taught them, because of the traditions of their fathers, which are not correct. (Mosiah 1)

The people of Zarahemla (Mulekites) had also been led to the promised land by the hand of God, but they didn't have the scriptures with them. This was the result:

17 And at the time that Mosiah discovered them, they had become exceedingly numerous. Nevertheless, they had had many wars and serious contentions, and had fallen by the sword from time to time; and their language had become corrupted; and they had brought no records with them; and they denied the being of their Creator; and Mosiah, nor the people of Mosiah, could understand them. (Omni 1)

 

 

[Grug the Neanderthal]

1 hour ago, Hamilton Porter said:

19 page thread on some esoteric doctrine. No way.

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Yeah, if you read it, you will see lots of side tracks and what’s there on topic, gets repeated a lot imo.

Yeah the people would rather discuss homosexuality than Adam-God, so I guess we have to give them what they want. 

As for Adam-God. We can basically sum up like this:

Brigham Young taught Adam-God. He taught this publicly, privately, and in the temple from 1852 to 1877. He was not misunderstood or misinterpreted. He is on record three times stating that Joseph Smith first taught Adam-God and a good deal of evidence supports this. Adam-God was believed and taught by other apostles and church leaders during Brigham's presidency and until at least the turn of the century, but not all apostles and church leaders believed or taught Adam-God during this time period. In the early 20th century Adam-God was no longer taught and slowly began to be denied. By the 1960s and 1970s it was declared a damnable heresy by McConkie, Kimball, and Peterson and attempts were made to deny that it was ever taught by leaders of the church. Most members today know little to nothing about Adam-God. The church won't touch it with a 10 foot pole today. 

Whether or not Adam-God is true is up for debate. Most people who know anything about Adam-God, reject it completely. But some people believe it, mostly fundamentalists, but also some active members of the church who keep it to themselves. The issue of whether or not Adam-God is true can't really be settled by the scriptures, statements by Joseph Smith, or statements by other church presidents and apostles, as these provide us with evidence for and against Adam-God. So people are left to study this doctrine out for themselves and seek personal revelation, or not. 

[Dario_M]

5 hours ago, Grug the Neanderthal said:

I disagree. I think this is exactly what it is in most cases. Though I doubt anyone who does this will admit it. 

But you can also do the same and downvote others (like me) if you want to because with them (me) you are not argee. I'm sure that 95% of what i post you are not agree with anyway. You even told me that i whas annoying. Those post's you can downvote if you want too. That's the right you have. 

Edited March 18, 2023 by Dario_M

[Grug the Neanderthal]

6 hours ago, Dario_M said:

But you can also do the same and downvote others

I consider downvoting to be juvenile and offensive. Same with upvoting posts that are demeaning another poster. 

That's not how I roll. 

[mfbukowski]

11 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

The most important principle, that Christ took upon him our sins, died, and was resurrected breaking the bonds of death would be unknown without scriptural history.  Nor would we understand the necessity of the atonement without them.

We would know nothing of any importance without the words of mortal men recorded in scripture telling us of their experiences with the Father and the Son.

That's no parable.

No, but it is your BELIEF that it happened, and your heart telling you so, that makes it effective in your life.

It is the FUNCTION of the belief that makes the difference, not the facts.

Alma 32- if the BELIEF is SWEET, it grows in your heart:

Another parable.

"Faith is the principle of action"- Lectures on Faith

We act on beliefs, not what some call "facts".

Actually we act on what we BELIEVE are "facts".

 

Edited March 18, 2023 by mfbukowski

[Tacenda]

9 hours ago, Grug the Neanderthal said:

I think you're making too much out of the word "everything." We would know precious little about God without the scriptures/prophets. We wouldn't know anything about Jesus Christ, his atonement, the need to faith in him and repent, or what his commandments are. The most important things we would need to know about God, we would have no clue about. As far as visions and spiritual manifestations go, Satan provides these, too. Without the scriptures/prophets mankind would have no way to tell the difference, no way of discerning truth from error. 

In the Book of Mormon we learn something about just how vital the scriptures are. When Lehi is commanded by God to leave Jerusalem and depart into the wilderness, he is commanded to send his sons back to Jerusalem to get the scriptures. Why is that? It's because Lehi's posterity would have dwindled in unbelief without them. 

4 For it were not possible that our father, Lehi, could have remembered all these things, to have taught them to his children, except it were for the help of these plates; for he having been taught in the language of the Egyptians therefore he could read these engravings, and teach them to his children, that thereby they could teach them to their children, and so fulfilling the commandments of God, even down to this present time.

5 I say unto you, my sons, were it not for these things, which have been kept and preserved by the hand of God, that we might read and understand of his mysteries, and have his commandments always before our eyes, that even our fathers would have dwindled in unbelief, and we should have been like unto our brethren, the Lamanites, who know nothing concerning these things, or even do not believe them when they are taught them, because of the traditions of their fathers, which are not correct. (Mosiah 1)

The people of Zarahemla (Mulekites) had also been led to the promised land by the hand of God, but they didn't have the scriptures with them. This was the result:

17 And at the time that Mosiah discovered them, they had become exceedingly numerous. Nevertheless, they had had many wars and serious contentions, and had fallen by the sword from time to time; and their language had become corrupted; and they had brought no records with them; and they denied the being of their Creator; and Mosiah, nor the people of Mosiah, could understand them. (Omni 1)

 

 

Sometimes do we get tunnel vision with certain religious beliefs, even those stemming from scripture, and which scriptures are harmful vs helpful. Maybe God wants us to weed out those things that are harmful and look around at the beauty of every creation/creature. Day in and day out of my life in Mormonism seemed to crowd out so much of these on my path to righteousness and worthiness that now that I don't know that I believe everything I've been taught I see more, my tunnel vision more removed. But again I understand where you're at Grug. 

[Dario_M]

1 hour ago, Grug the Neanderthal said:

I consider downvoting to be juvenile and offensive. Same with upvoting posts that are demeaning another poster. 

That's not how I roll. 

Why would you be offensive to me if you downvote one of my posts??? 

Btw dear Grug, you allready have offended me several times. So don't worrie about the downvotes. ⬇️

Edited March 18, 2023 by Dario_M

[CV75]

13 hours ago, Grug the Neanderthal said:

Of course people can get knowledge from and about God directly from the heavens. But there’s a reason that God speaks to prophets and has them deliver those teachings to others. God doesn’t just guide everyone exclusively by their inner compass. And few people converse with angels and even fewer speak to God face to face. This is generally reserved for those who have already exercised great faith in God by applying the teachings in the scriptures or from prophets directly.

Given the Restoration, we enjoy the benefits of prophets and scripture -- excellent resources for building Zion and preparing the world for the Second Coming as opposition increases. But these are not the only ways God's children can come up with the idea to pray and receive answers from Him, and correctly identify the source as the Holy Spirit (or some other term they use to describe the same power). As you pointed out, "few" disallows "exclusive," and according to Alma, conversing with angels was quite the norm earlier on. There are people today who have that as their only source (e.g., the ministry of translated beings).

How else does God guide people without appealing to the inner compass (the light of Christ) that we are all born with? Not possible.

I am addressing the correct identification of the power of the Holy Ghost by someone who has not been taught to pray and receive answers from the scriptures or the prophets, as I did. When you trace the origins of our knowledge of this to the scriptures, you also have to trace that their contents came from conversations with angels and God. After that, you get into semantics (D&C 68: 2 - 4).

This is not the same as being guided to seek, and receiving, revelation that does not comport with scripture as described in D&C 68: 2 - 4, or with the means by which revelation is received for the Church, or which is promulgated through contentious means.

[pogi]

13 hours ago, Grug the Neanderthal said:

Of course people can get knowledge from and about God directly from the heavens. But there’s a reason that God speaks to prophets and has them deliver those teachings to others.

That's all good and dandy, but even the prophets suggest that we can't know if what they are saying is God's will without finding out for ourselves via the Spirit/discernment.   They clearly ask us to not just take their word for it. 

13 hours ago, Grug the Neanderthal said:

God doesn’t just guide everyone exclusively by their inner compass.

As I stated, there are lots of sources for direction/God's word, but there is only one source of discernment of God's will/word. 

13 hours ago, Grug the Neanderthal said:

And few people converse with angels and even fewer speak to God face to face. This is generally reserved for those who have already exercised great faith in God by applying the teachings in the scriptures or from prophets directly.

The scriptures and prophets are critical, but we are not expected to follow blindly.  We will not be judged by how blindly we follow their words, we will be judged by what we did with the light we have been given to know via the Spirit.   

Edited March 18, 2023 by pogi

[Grug the Neanderthal]

3 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Sometimes do we get tunnel vision

I would suggest that the tunnel vision you are referring to is clasping and holding on to the iron rod along the straight and narrow path that leads to eternal life.