Latest in a series.

Me: Please tell me whether this is an accurate statement of Mormon doctrine, from the "Encyclopedia of Mormonism": "Latter-day Saints worship and pray to the Father and offer all other sacred performances to him in the name of the Son, Jesus Christ." Apostle Bruce R. McConkie said: "We worship the Father and him only and no one else. We do not worship the Son and we do not worship the Holy Ghost." Is that really Mormon doctrine?

TBM: Yes, we worship God the Father, in the name of the Son.

Me: Another question: I have heard that Mormons believe that Jesus was the "God" referred to in the Old Testament. Is that correct?

TBM: Yes, before he became incarnate, Jesus was called "Jehovah" and was the God of the Old Testament.

Me: It was really Jesus, then, that dictated the Ten Commandments?

TBM: Yes, as Jehovah.

Me: So it was Jesus, then, speaking as Jehovah, who said "Thou shalt have no other gods before me"?

TBM: That's what we believe.

Me: Then aren't you Mormons violating that commandment of Jesus/Jehovah, by worshiping God the Father rather than the being that said "Thou shalt have NO OTHER gods before ME"?

TBM: I know the church is true, I know that Joseph Smith was....


==========
Previous "stump" posts:

#1: Baptism wording: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1013735
#2: "sun" vs. "son": http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1089659
#3: Name of church 1834-1838: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1102694
#4: Bible prophecies: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1121855
#5: Languages in the pre-existence: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1127558
#6: What is doctrine? http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1135995

The problem is that you can't look too closely at these beliefs, or they crumble with inconsistency.

Good grief Packham, will you just stop it already. All of this making sense and pointing out obvious fatal flaws, come on now.

I KNOW THIS CHURCH IS TRUE, I KNOW THIS CHRUCH IS TRUE, I KNOW THIS CHURCH IS TRUE, LALALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALALALALALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU.....

:)

My SIL actually did that to me once when I was dissing Brigham Young. Turned up radio, covered ears, and started with the "la, la, la, la...."

Just like a four year old. That’s when I knew that the church creates intellectual children was a stone cold fact.

And why did Joseph Smith pray to Jehovah during the dedication of the Kirtland temple in D&C 109? As per the section header: "According to the Prophet’s written statement, this prayer was given to him by revelation."

And why does Jesus speak like this in the 1830 "revelation" on selling the BoM copyright?:

http://josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/revelation-circa-early-1830?locale=eng&p=2

"Behold I the Lord am God I Created the Heavens & the Earth & all things that in them is, wherefore they are mine..."

According to the church, this would be Jesus, the creator, right? They don't claim that Joe received any revelations directly from god the father, do they?

"...that it may be the means of bringing souls unto Salvation through mine only Begotten. Behold I am God I have spoken it & it is expedient in me Wherefor I say unto you that ye shall go to Kingston seeking me continually through mine only Begotten..."

Wait a second!...sounds like this is the father...hmmm...

"...Behold I am the father & it is through mine only begotten which is Jesus Christ your Redeemer amen"

Yep, definitely the father...unless Jesus likes to call himself the father and refer to himself... Nah!!! That sounds like something Satan would do.

My goodness Mr. Packham, no wonder you won't accept God's One True Church. You're thinking too much like a scientist.
But seriously, this was another great post. Always a pleasure to read.

There's so many confusing things about the mormon teaching of the Godhead. Mormons believe that to become a god you must have a body and a spirit, so how is the Holy Ghost a member of the godhead when he doesn't have a body (according to D&C)? And how did Jesus manage to be god of the Old Testement when he didn't get his body until the New Testement?

Like in the temple movie.... How do Larry, Mo and Curly have bodies as they speak to Adam aka Michael and Eve? (Sorry, forgot the names of them....)

another question to stump them. Is the Mormon priesthood critical in restoring the true church

Yes of course

Them how come there is no record of the date this happened , an event so important and we do not know when or if it ever occurred.

There's also no date for the first vision. There's a date for Moroni's first visit, but not the first vision? The 1835 history in the Messenger & Advocate makes it clear that the angel's supposed visit, which was dated, WAS the first visitation Joe had claimed up to that point.

I just tried this one on my RM daughter. She said, without
missing a beat, "but He was speaking for the Father."

For the record my RM daughter is an exmo, and was just
illustrating for me what the "party line" would be.

baura Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I just tried this one on my RM daughter. She said, without missing a beat, "but He was speaking for the Father."

But then shouldn't he have said, "Thou shalt have no other gods before Dad"? Or "Dad says thou shalt not have any gods before HIM"?

OK, that's because the Whore of Babylon took out that part. It's one of the passages that is the reason for the phrase "so far as it is translated correctly" in the Articles of Faith.

Maybe there's no way to stump a Mormon.

There's no way to stump an idiot, either.

Don't forget the whole "Divine Investiture of Authority" bullshit.

As a messenger, much like a medieval herald, his words are the words of him who sent him.

I long ago realized that I could never be smart enought to explain the doctrine of the church. One is either off-the-charts brillant as a conceptualist, or one casts a blind eye, or one is just smart enough to know better.

thus depriving him of the very salvation he died to affect.


Ana

It wasn't even a suicide it was like a cocoon. Jesus went from larva to butterfly.

Have you ever wondered what you would have done when you got your own planet and had one of your sons become their "Jesus" ("as was done on other worlds"), and then you needed to allow him to be tortured to death to save your innumerable other children.

Whom you helped raise and knew intimately their every lofty thought and wrongful desire....


Anagrammy

As a TBM, I would have answered, "No, because Jesus acts under the authority of his Father and whatever one answers, you can know that the other would answer the same. They are one in heart, mind and purpose, so they would give the same answer. But Jesus is answering on behalf of his Father there."

Besides, the Ten Commandments were the Mosiac law, which was "fulfilled" (nullified) by Christ's Atonement.

Although, that doesn't stop TBMs from going on and on about the law of tithing from Malachi.

> Maybe there's no way to stump a Mormon.

Never underestimate a Mormon's ability to justify irrational beliefs.

The book of 3rd Nephi contains a section when Jesus is with the nephite apostles where everyone starts praying to him, I couldn't figure out why they weren't praying to god, because I was taught praying to jesus was wrong.

That's where the huge divide is between Mormonism and Christian religions - the Divine Trinity. They do not understand that the Trinity is one of the most important pieces of doctrine in Christian religion.

Mormons want to call themselves Christians, but this is one piece of Mormon belief where they show that they don't believe in Christian principles. It's a huge, huge issue and I don't think they understand why other religions disagree with them on this one.

Of course there are some other issues that also cause problems (becoming a personal god, getting your own planet, Satan and Jesus were brothers), but this one is a huge, huge issue.

RPackham Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ...we worship God the Father, in the name
> of the Son.


What the X^#@* does that even mean? It's something we said all the time, but I realize I have no idea what that really means. Jesus is some kind of authorized portal everything needs to be channeled through, because a supposedly omniscient God can't/won't hear or accept our prayers otherwise? Does it mean we can't cut Jesus out of the family business, that our worship needs to grease his palm or it doesn't get into the capo di tutti? Or is it just another sausage of doctrine invented to try to make sense of some other random-meat-scraps-in-a-tube doctrine?

A lot of these Mormon doctrinal peculiarities were put there for a reason. It's interesting to puzzle out their implications.

For example, what is the identity of this "Heavenly Father" we pray to? If Jesus is not the son of Jehovah, but is rather Jehovah himself, then HF is Jehovah's father. The father of Jehovah, or Jove, is Saturn. And so it is Saturn -- the god of sadness and death, the sickle-bearing old man who kills and eats his children, the principal component of the Christian amalgam "Satan" -- to whom Mormons pray. Without most of them being aware of it.

I'd sum up my experience of Sacrament Service in one word: saturnine.

What the hell does it mean to say we worship God in the name of Jesus Christ, in the first place??