Longest Thread Ever

[Ben10]

So, babe, please tell me what the Mormon doctrine teaches about the trinity or equivalent. If you would.

Every time I speak with a Mormon they're shocked to hear what I (as well as about every other protestant Christian) believes on this topic.. almost as if Mormons have been mistaught what most protestants believe.

Can I take a crack at this?

The LDS faith believes that the God head is made up of 3 distinct individuals. God the Father, His son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. The difference between most Christian religions and that of the Mormon faith is that the trinity seems to link all 3 of those individuals into one Person/being. While the Mormons believe that the trinity (God Head) are one in perpose and thought but are not just one Person/Being.

 

[Dr. Jones]

Thanks, Ben.

That too is what I believe. As it is most Christians I know. 3 individuals and 1 spirit. And by that I mean they are entirely aligned and in sync in their ways and beliefs... but 3 individually.

 

[babe]

So, babe, please tell me what the Mormon doctrine teaches about the trinity or equivalent. If you would.

Every time I speak with a Mormon they're shocked to hear what I (as well as about every other protestant Christian) believes on this topic.. almost as if Mormons have been mistaught what most protestants believe.

So, shock me, too. I listen to folks like Ravi Zacharias, Dr. Irwin Lutzer, and the deceased J. Vernon McGee's "Bible Bus" program a lot. . . .

The BBN (Bible Broadcast Network) out of Charleston SC as delivered to Utah by Ogden's 95.5 FM station. Love the old music, and all the regular doctrinal programs. They play their signature hymn twice a day about the trinity. Not to say there aren't a lot of people with somewhat variant ideas of God who classify themselves as Protestant. . . . or Catholic.

 

[babe]

The LDS doctrine on the Godhead has at least four historical versions, beginning with an early trinity concept that is indeed found in the Book of Mormon, followed by Joseph Smith's account of the First Vision, written later. Brigham Young brought out the Adam/God idea and authorities linked it back to Joseph Smith in the Nauvoo period as well. Then there was President John Taylor's return to the emphasis on Jesus Christ in "The Mediation and the Atonement", followed by Pres. Heber J. Grant's setting up James E. Talmadge to produce the modern idea of Mormonism in his commissioned scholarly work "Jesus the Christ", an effort to harmonize Mormonism with modern Christianity on some points. . . . which makes out that Jesus was the God of the Old Testament (Jehovah) in distinct contradiction of Paul's essay in Hebrews which tried to satisfy Jews that Jesus was the final and great High Priest of the Mosaic Law, who gave Himself as an offering for our sins to bring us back to God, thus ending the need for any more Priests sitting in the Temple offering sacrifices as the Law of Moses directed. . . .

I would go with the Book of Daniel as perhaps the most explicit statement that Jesus, in the day of the Great Judgment, will be brought forth before the reigning God, The Ancient of Days, and there and then being crowned as the Prince of this creation and our direct leader.

 

[babe]

Can I take a crack at this?

The LDS faith believes that the God head is made up of 3 distinct individuals. God the Father, His son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. The difference between most Christian religions and that of the Mormon faith is that the trinity seems to link all 3 of those individuals into one Person/being. While the Mormons believe that the trinity (God Head) are one in perpose and thought but are not just one Person/Being.

This is what I believe as well. Most of us live by "common sense" and ordinary meanings that words mean. Theologians, not so much. In Talmadge's "Jesus the Christ", the error is that he (and doctrinaire Mormons) insist that Jesus is Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament, and the creator of this world. The Adam/God concept taught by Brigham Young infers that Eloheim or JHVH, Christ, and Michael/Adam/The Archangel should be read as titles, not individual names. In the creation story, a world is made under management from Eloheim by an obedient "Christ" commissioned to do so for the man Adam, who is given the whole world for him and his posterity. . . . There are a lot of scriptures that equate Jesus with being our "Lord" and a God, particularly speaking after the atonement/crucifixion. Jesus in his own words spake often of His Father, and made of point of submitting to the will of the Father, stating that the doctrine was not His (Jesus') own, but that of His Father. Jesus told his believers that if they would continue to follow those teaching, the end result would be that they, like He Himself", when they came into the presence of the Father, would be "like Him (the Father)"

To the Jews/Israelites the YHVH God was holy, and the Messiah would be someone sent from Him. David, accordingly in Psalm 110:4 describes the Messiah (David's "Lord") as sitting on the right hand of YHVH(the GOD of Israel). That makes a distinction between Jesus and the GOD that handed down the stone tablets to Moses, and the GOD that made the covenant with Abraham. If you believe Moses' account of going up on the heights of Mount Sinai and seeing parts of GOD, if not the face of GOD, that GOD was in a human form, unless that idea is just too much for you and you want to insist it's all metaphorical or some mystical display of some kind of illusion, just "appearing to have human body parts".

Abraham invited the GOD of Israel to walk into his tent and there fed Him some of the fatted calf and his wife's bread. . . pretty much tells me that the God of Abraham was a human being.

Paul, in his book of Hebrews, centered his explanation of who Jesus is on Davids Psalm 110:4, thereby placing the Messiah in the customary Israelite/Jewish identity and focusing on the role of mediator and the atonement, figuring Jesus in the role of the indispensable "High Priest" who makes intercession for mankind with GOD.

Daniel describes the last Judgment as the occasion where the mediator..... is brought before the throne of GOD and there crowned as Lord of Lords, and receives dominion over this world. Jesus is the one who makes intercession for us before the holy Father, on a global basis.

What all this does, in my mind, is direct our minds to the point that faith in Christ, like faith in God, does make our efforts to "follow" meaningful in our daily decision-making, and requires us to do what is right rather than things that are non consistent with being "like our Father". Some might think the old Mosaic law didn't exactly teach that somehow. I don't. Some might think that Jesus' atonement means the "work" is all done for us. I don't. Jesus said strait is the gate, and narrow the way that leads to the life entailing with becoming "like our Father". Jesus said if we will follow His teachings, that will be the result.

Jesus got into some heated debates with the priestly officers of the Jewish theological authorities because he included himself with the sacred thing about their GOD, saying "I AM that I AM" referring to the essential thing of being(should I say BEING") like His Father. I take the "I AM" expression as possessing the power of being, on a continuing basis, holy. Which is the one thing essential to anyone who deserves to be praised or held in mind as reverenced. The essence of being "God" in my mind.

 

[babe]

Romans 14:11 For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.

Equivalent Mormon scripture:

Mosiah 27: 31 Yea, every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess before him. Yea, even at the last day, when all men shall stand to be judged of him, then shall they confess that he is God; then shall they confess, who live without God in the world, that the judgment of an everlasting punishment is just upon them; and they shall quake, and tremble, and shrink beneath the glance of his all-searching eye.

I can't dispute the actual sovereignty of God. Even devils, including The Devil, actually know who God is. On the dark side of knowing that, there are those who hate the fact. Somewhere there's a scripture if my memory serves me well that states that even the devils believe in God, and even fear and tremble in His presence. When Jesus was casting out demons, they did comply. Probably hated it, though.

So when demons or devils are whispering in your ear that there is no God, they are self-knowing liars. I don't know what anyone can do about folks who choose to go that, that is their choice. I consider that God has given me a great gift in just the privileges of living in this world, of my life itself. I'd like to give a gift back to Him in return. . . . by making to my best understanding my best effort to live a life that serves Him and His, but most of all in choosing to love Him and choosing to believe the good about Him.

The devilish thing about Bill Ayers and other determined "progressives", beside the lies they make up about who they are and what they want, is the fact that they are willing liars who will purposefully, assiduously, and regardless of whatever the truth may be, go on making up any lie they can to beat down anyone who seems to be in their way. Bill Ayers, like Trotsky and other organizers for totalitarian control states, don't care what the truth is, they are determined to work the crowds and just manipulate them whatever it takes.

 

[babe]

Our "modern" totalitarian set has decided that they have the moral authority so long as they can get away with. . . .That's Nietzsche in a nutshell.

 

[babe]

Some folks who follow this modern "philosophy" have convinced themselves that God is not demonstrable, argumentatively speaking, so obviously He does not exist, according to their reasoning. . . .

Others may know God exists, and have just decided either that they don't care, or that the gains of going along with a fascist world of statists is worth the price of pretending not the believe. Others may actually just hate God. Who knows. . . . .????

 

[babe]

I now have an excellent DVD put out by some southern Baptist type of patriots. . . . Newt Gingrich gives the introduction. It is about "The Wall of Separation" Thomas Jefferson referred to in his letter to the Danbury, Connecticut Baptists. In the year 1801-2, Connecticut still have a state religion. . . . Congregationalist I think. A lot of my ancestors came from there, leaving in 1797 to take land grants awarded by Congress for their service in the American Revolution. Probably a majority of States then had their own state-sanctioned church. . . .

The idea of barring the Federal Government from usurping control over the states, and dictating a national government, was one of the conditions a lot of States insisted on.

So the idea is presented in this light. . . .our founders did not want a government that was absolute, but limited, particularly the Federal government. They did not want a President, or a Judiciary, or a Legislature at the Federal level with any kind of absolute power, and they prayed that the government they were setting up at the federal level would never get the idea or the power to become absolute.

When "progressives" obtained their majority in the Supreme Court, they began to say things like "The Constitution means what we say it means", and began to overturn one principle after another that should have been kept in place to keep the Federal government limited to the original scope intended and agreed to by the contracting States.

About thirty years into that tyrannical tradition, The Supreme Court began to invoke the "Wall of Separation" in ways Thomas Jefferson never intended, and our founders would never have accepted. They turned the idea upside down, and instead of it being a limit on the Federal government, they made it a limit on the speech and conduct of the citizen, literally driving religious believers into their closets to exercise their faith.

It took a lot of outright, knowing lies and knowing liars to turn our federal government into the authoritarian phenomenon it is today. . . . all "progressives".

 

[babe]

At the state level, having a "state-sanctioned church" is not a good idea. . . . it was a holdover from the medieval period of Western Europe, something that developed from the absolute tyranny of the medieval Church-States like the Holy Roman Empire and England, where a person even having a bible could be, and often was, burned as a heretic.

 

[babe]

At the state level, having a "state-sanctioned church" is not a good idea. . . . it was a holdover from the medieval period of Western Europe, something that developed from the absolute tyranny of the medieval Church-States like the Holy Roman Empire and England, where a person even having a bible could be, and often was, burned as a heretic.

I see the same kind of absolute, tyrannical impulse in what a lot of progressives say today as they invoke ideas like "social justice" and "political correctness" and pound conformity into school kids. With vague ideas about "evolution" and "environment" and a lot of other "good" values, they are pursuing a campaign to marginalize and persecute anyone who is not "compliant" with their world view. . . .

Give them the power, and they will tell you what to do with every last red cent you've got, if they don't take it from you in taxes and spend it themselves. They will tell you who can do what in every possible or conceivable way, and they will tell you if you deserve to live or not, and whether you can get health care or not. . . .

 

[PearlWatson]

I can't dispute the actual sovereignty of God. Even devils, including The Devil, actually know who God is. On the dark side of knowing that, there are those who hate the fact. Somewhere there's a scripture if my memory serves me well that states that even the devils believe in God, and even fear and tremble in His presence. When Jesus was casting out demons, they did comply. Probably hated it, though.

So when demons or devils are whispering in your ear that there is no God, they are self-knowing liars. I don't know what anyone can do about folks who choose to go that, that is their choice. I consider that God has given me a great gift in just the privileges of living in this world, of my life itself. I'd like to give a gift back to Him in return. . . . by making to my best understanding my best effort to live a life that serves Him and His, but most of all in choosing to love Him and choosing to believe the good about Him.

The devilish thing about Bill Ayers and other determined "progressives", beside the lies they make up about who they are and what they want, is the fact that they are willing liars who will purposefully, assiduously, and regardless of whatever the truth may be, go on making up any lie they can to beat down anyone who seems to be in their way. Bill Ayers, like Trotsky and other organizers for totalitarian control states, don't care what the truth is, they are determined to work the crowds and just manipulate them whatever it takes.

PKM knows the nature of humans to deny the obvious, but then again there is the anti-Christ who will deceive people into believing what they want to believe.

But as He says his second appearance ain't going to be like the first. People ain't going to be allowed to deny who He is, whether they never knew the truth or rejected the truth. No perjury allowed.