Has this essay been revised since originally posted. If so does anyone have a link to the original posting?

Haven't looked, but you might try archive.org. Only problem with that is you'd have to know the original location since they've slyly avoided any path to it from the home page.

This link works for me:

https://www.lds.org/topics/becoming-like-god?lang=eng

Oops. Nevermind. Disregard that link. I misunderstood the question. I had thought this was another one of those cases where they had changed locations and made it so people couldn't find an essay that had been previously posted. Sneaky little beggars.

Having just gone and reread it, I'm 90% sure it has been revised to include more language affirming the LDS belief of becoming gods. I remember last December reading it and having a wtf moment about godly potential doublespeak by the church.

I posted the question because I also recently reread it and I am sure it was way different, backing away from the teaching that we can become a GOD and stressing that we have God like potential. Wasn't it in a interview with Larry King that Pres. Hinckley said he didn't think we taught that we can become Gods?

Yes, it was Hinkley and King.

But in Gordie's defense, it had been almost two years since he had personally taught that men can become gods in a conference talk. ;-)

almostx Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I posted the question because I also recently
> reread it and I am sure it was way different,
> backing away from the teaching that we can become
> a GOD and stressing that we have God like
> potential. Wasn't it in a interview with Larry
> King that Pres. Hinckley said he didn't think we
> taught that we can become Gods?

The question King posed was whether God was once a man, not whether we can become gods. Kind did not ask whether we can become gods.

The church has definitely changed that essay to give back everyone's shot at godhood. Looks like taking away people's ability to become gods isn't so popular. Surveys to the members' reactions to the old version of this essay probably told them to revise that belief and give the members their own planet or universe back. It's a balance between keeping the members happy (ie: the tithing dollars flowing), and trying to keep the rest of the world from finding out they're a cult. They might have been better off to not post this essay to begin with. I still don't see any "...thus saith the lord" here. Some day they can just blame some anonymous person for being wrong. Meanwhile, the TBM's will find what shows up on the church's official website and accept it as gospel. I am amazed that I too was once that gullible.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/27/2014 07:45PM by azsteve.

I went through that version, and the other archived versions from February and March, and they are the same as the current version. Does anyone know if February 26 was when the essay was originally posted on the lds.org site?

Anybody else surprised Eliza Snow is called "a church leader"?

On March 7, 2014, I saved screenshots of several of the essays. I just compared the one I saved of "Becoming Like God" to the link that Heretic 2 posted and they are the same.

Get a white robe, and like, put it on, man. And sandals and sh!t. You will become like Dios.

Anybody have a screenshot from December?

There is one change. In the section "How do Latter-Day Saints envision exaltation?" it used to read (emphasis added):

"A cloud and harp are hardly a satisfying image for eternal joy, AND most Christians would agree that inspired music can be a tiny foretaste of the joy of eternal salvation."

Now it reads:

"A cloud and harp are hardly a satisfying image for eternal joy, ALTHOUGH most Christians would agree that inspired music can be a tiny foretaste of the joy of eternal salvation."

Looks like a legitimate editorial change to me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/28/2014 03:47AM by rt.

The first version of this essay that I read, didn't admit directly that exaltation means becomming a god yourself, nor that your work and your glory as an exalted being would be exactly the same as the work and the glory of the god we know of (our god). It indirectly implied that one could become as rightous as god and then be with him for eternity. But that was the limit of it. Then the essay claimed that we don't know more than that. I am not opposed to the concept of exaltation, just against the church's waffling about what they believe in trying to be all things to everyone, and in originally backpaddling on the concept that god was once a mortal man who committed sins, and that believing mormons believe that one day, they themselves will become omnipotent beings and gods to other mortal beings who are progressing to themselves also, becomming gods to yet others. In the minds of almost all Christians around the world, that makes the mormon church a cult. The church wants to be seen as mainstream, not as a cult. So at first, they lied about what they believed. The church still hasn't told everything as clearly as I have here. I guess it's another milk before the meat justification. Cult, cult, cult.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 09/28/2014 12:25PM by azsteve.

Here's MormonThink's response to that essay: http://www.mormonthink.com/essays-becoming-like-god.htm