Fundamental Mormon Claims

[_Daniel Peterson]

I'll be happy to look at what you've written, Nightlion, when I get the opportunity. Thanks.

You don't have to comment further on your heretical belief in Adam-God if you don't want to, Dan. All I'm saying is that secrecy here seems a rather convenient excuse.

Why so mild?

Suggesting that I'm being heretical and disingenuous is one of the least critical charges you've ever leveled during your relentless five-year-old vengeance-driven crusade of anonymous character assassination against me.

Are you going soft in your advancing rage-ravaged decrepitude?

[_Kevin Graham]

That's not my motivation, and I've picked nothing like that up from any of my colleagues.

So it is just a wild coincidence that everything from the apologetic vanguard is geared towards pushing everything into the realm of unfalsifiability?

You're making a notable effort to read disingenuousness into what I wrote, but that, in my opinion, says considerably more about you than it does about me. I happily declare that I believe that Joseph Smith translated an ancient record into the Book of Mormon.

Not at all. Just pointing out the apologetic speak that has been conditioned over the years. It downplays points that are falsifiable.

Again, I disagree.

Then how do you explain his mistranslations of the Facsimiles? Or his oiff the cuff translation of the fraudulent Kinderhook Plates?

[_Yoda]

I'll be happy to look at what you've written, Nightlion, when I get the opportunity. Thanks.

You don't have to comment further on your heretical belief in Adam-God if you don't want to, Dan. All I'm saying is that secrecy here seems a rather convenient excuse.

Why so mild?

Suggesting that I'm being heretical and disingenuous is one of the least critical charges you've ever leveled during your relentless five-year-old vengeance-driven crusade of anonymous character assassination against me.

Are you going soft in your advancing rage-ravaged decrepitude?

No. He's not going soft. He just recognizes that he is posting in the Celestial Forum. ;-)

[_Yoda]

That's not my motivation, and I've picked nothing like that up from any of my colleagues.

So it is just a wild coincidence that everything from the apologetic vanguard is geared towards pushing everything into the realm of unfalsifiability?

You're making a notable effort to read disingenuousness into what I wrote, but that, in my opinion, says considerably more about you than it does about me. I happily declare that I believe that Joseph Smith translated an ancient record into the Book of Mormon.

Not at all. Just pointing out the apologetic speak that has been conditioned over the years. It downplays points that are falsifiable.

Again, I disagree.

Then how do you explain his mistranslations of the Facsimiles? Or his oiff the cuff translation of the fraudulent Kinderhook Plates?

What is the apologetic answer for Joesph's mistranslation of the Kinderhook Plates?

[_Daniel Peterson]

So it is just a wild coincidence that everything from the apologetic vanguard is geared towards pushing everything into the realm of unfalsifiability?

No, it's not.

What is the apologetic answer for Joesph's mistranslation of the Kinderhook Plates?

Here's a pretty mainstream response.

[_Dr. Shades]

Joey asked if we believed God the Father was the first God, or simply one of many.

My understanding is that we believe that God the Father is the first God, and the he and Jesus developed the plan for us to become Gods and Goddesses. Is this accurate or not?

It's not accurate. God the Father earned His exaltation by being obedient to the commandments of his own God, and likewise that God was obedient to his own God, etc. back through infinity.

Recall the oft-occurring LDS phrase "The Lord's Course is One Eternal Round." This refers to the cycle of being exalted, bearing spirit children, those spirit children being born into mortality on other worlds and achieving exaltation themselves, then repeating the cycle by bearing their own spirit children, etc.

In the King Follet Discourse, Joseph Smith revealed, "God Himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens!" He couldn't have been exalted without a God of his own to help him overcome sin and death.

Likewise, Smith taught, "You have got to learn to become Gods yourselves, the same as all Gods before you have done." That settles the matter.

[_moksha]

Dr Peterson, what are your thoughts regarding the LDS Church going the way of the Community of Christ and making even more past religious speculations optional as a matter of belief? Wouldn't this allow us as a religious people to concentrate more on the teachings of Jesus?

[_Daniel Peterson]

Dr Peterson, what are your thoughts regarding the LDS Church going the way of the Community of Christ and making even more past religious speculations optional as a matter of belief?

I don't expect us to go the way of the Community of Christ, and would not stick around if we did.

There are enough liberal Protestant denominations already.

Moreover, such a change would be disastrous. It hasn't even been particularly healthy for the Community of Christ.

Wouldn't this allow us as a religious people to concentrate more on the teachings of Jesus?

I don't see a problem on that score.

To the extent that we, like all other Christians, fail to focus sufficiently on the teachings of Jesus, that seems to be explainable by general human recalcitrance, etc., rather than by the specific details of our unique theology.

[_Markk]

It's not accurate. God the Father earned His exaltation by being obedient to the commandments of his own God, and likewise that God was obedient to his own God, etc. back through infinity.

Maybe just semantics, but more accurately, LDS authoritive teachings have taught very clearly that God the Father earned his God status by obedience to "eternal law". [The concept of 'eternal laws' in LDS thought governs even God Himself.

...He became God by absolute obedience to all the eternal laws of the Gospel by conforming His actions to all truth, and thereby became the author of eternal truth. Therefore, the road that the Eternal Father followed to Godhood was one of living at all times a dynamic, industrious, and completely righteous life. There is no other way to exaltation." (The Gospel Through The Ages, pp. 114-117)

Some people are troubled over the statements of the prophet Joseph Smith…the matter that seems such a mystery is the statement that our Father in heaven at one time passed through a life and a death and is an exalted man. This is one of the mysteries….the Prophet taught that our father had a father and so on. Is not this a reasonable thought, especially when we remember that the promises are made to us that we may become like him? -Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation

I believe it is safe to say that LDS theology demands that even before there was a "god', eternal law existed, and through eternal law 'intelligence', which according to LDS teachings always existed, somehow became a spirit, then a human, then a god. A major hole in this teaching is that it doesn’t allow for “the first God”. Remember the LDS teaching of eternal law demands that man must do certain things to become a God, which would not exist for ‘the first god’.

I believe that teachings like this is one reason why LDS scholars and current GA do not dig too deep into LDS theology in that it stops with past GA’s and their teachings…for people like Dan to dig deep into these dead ends must be somewhat of a road block, while their digging into history leaves ample wiggle room and ability to allow LDS thought to evolve and change. Dan’s reluctance and/or inability to express his views on BY’s AG teaching is a good example.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I believe that teachings like this is one reason why LDS scholars and current GA do not dig too deep into LDS theology

I take it that you weren't in the audience at the just-concluded annual meeting of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology.

in that it stops with past GA’s and their teachings…for people like Dan to dig deep into these dead ends must be somewhat of a road block,

I'm not at all clear as to what the passage just quoted says. But that's fine, because I don't care much, either.

while their digging into history leaves ample wiggle room and ability to allow LDS thought to evolve and change.

????

Dan’s reluctance and/or inability to express his views on BY’s AG teaching is a good example.

Of what, exactly?

Incidentally, just to be clear: Dan isn't at all reluctant or unable to express his views on BY's AG teaching. He simply chooses where he will do so. And this place didn't make the cut.

However, his world extends beyond this message board.