I saw a youtube video of a guy(maybe a christian preacher) saying that in Christian Science they teach that you can become a god. I wanted to know if this was true. For some reason i only thought mormonism taught this kind of thing but i am really curious to know if this was true.

God d@mn that was pretty sinister sh#t right there. But my grandmother did believe she would become a goddess before she died and that is what that clip reminded me of. She was strong in mormonism to the end.

Hi Adam,

Thought I'd share with you a statement Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, wrote in a letter to Augusta Stetson, a Christian Scientist in New York City:

"In your letter to me you spoke of your 'divine self.' Where do you find such a selfhood outside of God? Nowhere; it is an unscientific statement. You can say your spiritual or God-like self, but divine self includes God, and man is not God -- he is His divine reflection, but not a divine selfhood."

Ok so they don't believe they can become a god based off of that statement i am guessing. I wonder why that preacher i saw said that.

Badassadam1 Wrote:
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> Ok so they don't believe they can become a god
> based off of that statement i am guessing. I
> wonder why that preacher i saw said that.

Hi Adam,

I don't know why the preacher said that. I think it could
possibly be that the preacher was misinformed about Christian Science or misunderstood what it teaches, etc.

Christian Science teaches that God is the Divine Mind or creative intelligence behind the universe and its phenomena, including man. Seen from a spiritual standpoint, men and women reflect the attributes of their Creator, but the creation can never claim to be the Creator. So men and women can never become God or gods.

I should also add that were Caffiend and I to engage in any lengthy discussions of Christian Science and Mary Baker Eddy it seems obvious that we would have strong disagreements. I came to this forum because of my interest in Mormonism and not to discuss other religions or religious groups, including my own. So I've chosen not to engage in any kind of extensive discussions with Caffiend about Christian Science. I'd much rather talk with him about operas, etc.!

CommonGentile is right in that Christian Science does NOT teach that men are, or can become, gods. But in a subtle way, Christian Science does.

A key "proof text" of Christian Science is Genesis 1:27: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." Eddy, their founder, ascribes to Mankind all the qualities of God:

As God is perfect, so is (in true, absolute reality), Mankind.
As God is sinless, so is Man.
As God is eternal, so is Man.
As God is a spirit (i.e. a non-material entity), so is Man.
"Et cetera" -- Whatever God is, Man is.

Therefore, all the qualities that make God "divine" or also the qualities that constitute Man. So Eddy is rhetoricaly slippery when she says "Man is not divine." The problem is, Adam, your fallen, imperfect "material thought" (called "mortal mind" in their lingo) has convinced you that you are a physical being in a body that will get sick and someday day. But the real, "spiritual Adam" is not!

So the qualities of divinity are assigned to humans, making them, in effect, divine, i.e. gods. As you know, cultists can be slippery with their word usage. Christian Science is a cult, and they practice what is termed "secret language," in that they give words different meanings than what other people use.

Last thought: Eddy wrote it out in what she called "The Scientific Statement of Being," which is recited at the end of every Sunday service and Sunday School.

"There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual."

I see, i have always seen it as a weakness or weird for a man or woman to say they will become a god. It is not healthy for the mind in my opinion. But sometimes i do feel like i am more than just a material machine that won't exist after death. But maybe exist as some energy of some kind or something after death. That's what makes sense to my mind atleast. If someone were to say that 'i am a god' like i have seen on youtube, they just sound ridiculous. So you would say that in a slippery way christian science says you will become a god? Or just that we have divine attributes like a god and that is it? It was hard to draw a real conclusion from all that if they do or they don't believe they will become gods or not. I really want to know because i really thought mormonism only taught that and i think its a big deal if there were other cults or religions that taught that as well at least for me it's a big deal.

You're working your way through some pretty heavy stuff, Adam, so don't worry if it seems confusing. I'm old enough to be your grandfather (at least!) and have been reading up on this, so bear with me if some of it comes off as highfalutin stuff.

Badassadam1 Wrote:
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> I see, i have always seen it as a weakness or
> weird for a man or woman to say they will become a
> god. It is not healthy for the mind in my
> opinion.

You're absolutely right: it is spiritual pride for us doomed-to-die-someday folks to consider ourselves, or aspire to, godhood. There are various strains of New Age and mystic beliefs that make Man "god" in some way or another, also.

Right you are, again! The Christian writer (and former atheist) C.S. Lewis once wrote, "You have never met a mere mortal," because some part of us will exist "beyond the veil." Just what that is ("soul" and/or "spirit") is subject for another conversation. My problem with atheism is that some sort of belief in the afterlife is found in all cultures and eras. With due regard to our friend "Hie2Kolob," who insists that "there is no evidence," I suggest that the evidence that there is is 1) not specific enough and 2) unconvincing because of an overly pure empirical threshold (in other words, an insistence upon purely material proof).

But sometimes I do feel like i am more
> than just a material machine that won't exist
> after death. But maybe exist as some energy of
> some kind or something after death. That's what
> makes sense to my mind atleast.

As a Christian, I take the Bible seriously, but not always literally. The Bible is quite consistent and clear that we will have some form of consciousness in the afterlife, and memory of our human existence. Beyond that, I take images of "streets of gold," a holy city made of exotic gems and minerals, etc. to be poetic allusions to beauty and joy beyond our human capacity to understand. At least we agree it won't be Kolob!

> If someone were so you would
> say that in a slippery way christian science says
> you will become a god? Or just that we have
> divine attributes like a god and that is it?

The latter: Whereas they'll never say Men and Women are "gods" or "gods in the making," they do believe that humans "in the absolute reality of their true Spiritual identity" are, essentially, godlike and divine.

> It was hard to draw a real conclusion from all that
> if they do or they don't believe they will become
> gods or not. I really want to know because i
> really thought mormonism only taught that and i
> think its a big deal if there were other cults or
> religions that taught that as well at least for me
> it's a big deal.

There's not a lot that's really original in religious thought, just the same things recombined and repackaged so they appear to be new revelation or "truth." Just as JS took different ideas from different sources, first to write the BoM and later to establish his evil theocracy and polygamy, Mary Baker Eddy--a prolific reader but unoriginal thinker--borrowed from American Transcendentalism, Spiritism ("Spiritualism"), Hindu & Buddhist thought, Unitarianism, tied it up with the string of "science," and called her "revelation" Christian Science.

As Mark Twain said, her religion is neither Christian, nor a science.

caffiend Wrote:
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> The Christian writer (and
> former atheist) C.S. Lewis once wrote, "You have
> never met a mere mortal," because some part of us
> will exist "beyond the veil."

You'll notice, I hope, that C.S. Lewis offers no evidence in support of that claim. Other than his typical fallacies, I mean.

> My problem with atheism is that some
> sort of belief in the afterlife is found in all
> cultures and eras.

It's not, actually. Most, yes. Not all.
Not that it matters...some sort of belief in a flat earth could be found in all cultures and eras until quite recently (and even still in most parts of the world).
Does that mean the earth is flat?
Of course not.
The number of people who believe something has no bearing on whether what they believe is true or not. That's an appeal to popularity fallacy.

> With due regard to our friend
> "Hie2Kolob," who insists that "there is no
> evidence," I suggest that the evidence that there
> is is 1) not specific enough and 2) unconvincing
> because of an overly pure empirical threshold (in
> other words, an insistence upon purely material
> proof).

1) Non-specific "evidence" isn't evidence of anything except non-specificity.

2) I don't insist on "purely material proof," as I've pointed out hundreds of times here. Just on repeatable, verifiable evidence. The biggest problem with what's claimed as "evidence" in this case isn't even that (though it isn't repeatable or verifiable) -- it's that it's assumptive. Somebody has an "experience," and they ASSUME it's from a 'god' or 'spirit' or whatever. When the fact is the person doesn't know the source. The source *could* be a 'god' or 'spirit,' or it could be their own emotions or brain activity or any of thousands of other possible sources. So the claimed 'experience' isn't just anecdotal, unverifiable, and unrepeatable...it isn't evidence of what they claim it's evidence of anyway. It's evidence they had an 'experience' -- not evidence the experience came from a 'god.'

That's not an "overly pure empirical threshold," nor it is an insistence on anything "material." It's high-school logic and rejection of fallacies.

If someone approached you and told you they had a 'spiritual experience' whose source was energy beings living on Venus, you'd probably use the same logic I do above (tell them there's no evidence the source was energy beings living on Venus). For good reasons. Claimed 'spiritual experiences whose source is god' are the exact same fallacy.

:)

(hey, you called me out, I responded :) Badassadam, you should know that despite our disagreement on god-things, caffiend and I are friends, and I fully support his right to believe what he believes. I just don't find his reasons for believing compelling, as outlined above. What you believe or don't is up to you to decide.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/2018 02:46PM by ificouldhietokolob.

Appreciate you clearing all that up caffiend. But is there another religion that believed man will become gods? You are right i am sifting through heavy things but i think stuff like this is helpful believe it or not to get some truth in my mind instead of bullsh#t that is still programmed within me. But you are too young to be my grandfather, both my grandfathers passed away in my teens. My father is 64 years old, so you could easily pass as my father's age. There has always been a rift between me and my father, i am nothing like him and i think deep down that bothers him. But him being nothing like me has always bothered me. I think the age gap played a factor between me and my father for sure. When i was 10, he was 40. That is quite a gap.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/men-gods-yuval-harari_us_58d05616e4b0ec9d29deb15c

(and just FYI, I had my first kid at 36, my second at 40, and my third at 55. All more than the 30 years between you and your dad. It's not an issue :)

My first came at 40, then 42, 44, and 50! Nothing like a bunch of young'uns to beat the Midlife Crisis Blues! Some guys get mistresses or sports cars at 50. I was presented with my "Angel" (Daughter #1 is my "Princess"), and changed careers, moving from the US Postal (Dis)Service to the Boston Police.

Adam: You're at a good place in life to set a new direction with fresh energy. We're all pulling for you!

Now, regarding Man's "godhood." Hie, your link is interesting, but I don't think that's what Adam is asking about. Off hand -- this is a tough question to query -- I can't think of any groups with ecclesiastical structure, i.e. organized religions, that teach this outright, but in the mishmash of New Age belief systems I have met people who believed that we are gods, or gods in potential, in progress, things like that. So we're really down to Mormonism (outright) and Christian Science (by inference).

Yuval Noah Harari's take is that the stuff is science fiction is imminent reality, the latest take that Mankind is evolving not just physiologically, but also morally, intellectually, and scientifically, to the point where we will be so freaking enlightened and capable we will have created our own perfection. "Rots of Ruck," as they say. You can be sure that somebody will muck it up, and figure out a way to game Man-made paradise to his/hers/its advantage, and somehow exploit others. There's an old-fashioned word for that--"sin."

He predictably dismisses the Bible, which I both understand and dislike. But he says something that really scares me: " If they have enough data on you, and enough computing power, they know what you feel already and why you feel that way. Based on that, they can allegedly make much better decisions on your behalf than you can on your own." So his sense of "god-ness" is more "true" and beneficent than the Creator? Ouch! I want no part of his brave new world.

You've got a few other points I haven't answered, HieTwoCobalt. I'll get back to you later, so I don't turn this post into a long digression.

You two make a strong argument for why schools should teach sex education :)

Yeah, yeah, I know, you’d wish my parents used birth control. Too late!

Yikes! That scares me considering, what "public education" has done to teaching history and literature.This thread might merge with "It's Not About Eternal Families, It's About Eternal Sex!" thread, as we consider what route to "godhood" fascinates and appeals to us most.

Hahaha people wish my parents used birth control as well, too late boner we are stuck here we might as well continue to be funny bastards.