Dorian

Hi all, Thank you for your responses. I guess I was surprised because I've only ever had one encounter with a missionary before (we met on a tram, and I stupidly invited him and his companion to come in for a cup of coffee before remembering you guys don't drink it. He just had water hahaha). He must have been a one off though, because he was very passionate about his religion and quoting scripture off by heart and we had some great conversations so I guess I just assumed they were all like that. Also, I'm a teacher and one of the subjects I teach is comparative religion, so it's kind of my job to know about different beliefs. Maybe the missionary thought I was trying to trip her up or something. Oh well, no harm done and I'll just stick to here or maybe talk to a local Church leader if I have any more questions.

I've had an interest in the LDS faith for a while now and today for the first time I logged onto the Mormon.org 'chat to a missionary' website. I did so because I kept hearing conflicting reports about what Mormons believe, so I thought I'd go ask someone who is an official representative of the Church. I asked about the afterlife and how their understanding of Heaven differs from what I grew up with (mainline Christian). She said Heaven was a place to grow and become more like Heavenly Father, etc. She asked me why I was asking and I was very honest and said that I keep hearing conflicting reports, so I thought I'd come to a missionary and ask. She asked what I'd heard and I mentioned the idea that people can have kids in the afterlife, she said this isn't LDS doctrine she had heard of and asked where I heard it. I read it in an artice on the BYU website called 'Eternal lives, Eternal Increase' so told her so. She then became really defensive and asked me if I'd read the book of Mormon. I said I'd read a bit, but not all of it. She then said I should read the Book of Mormon before reading anything else or asking any more questions, because any questions I have will be answered in the Book of Mormon. When I asked if I was allowed to ask questions about the religion she said "not until you've read all of the Book of Mormon. Then she said she wouldn't talk to me anymore, and that I should come back to Mormon.org and chat after I'd read all of the BoM. I wanted to argue after that because I felt like she was being pretty rude. I mean, those nice young men that knock on people's doors don't wait for people to read all of the BoM before trying to convert them. I've never been told before that I'm not allowed to ask questions until I read a massive book first. I didn't argue though, that's not what I came for, and more to the point the missionary closed the chat before I could say anything else. Is this normal? I mean why even bother having a 'Chat with a Missionary' function if all they're going to do is say "if you've got questions, read the Book of Mormon and then we'll talk". May as well just link straigh to the BoM. If a newcomer comes into my Catholic church and has questions we try to answer as best we can, we don't say "Read the entire Catechism and then we'll talk". That's just ridiculous. Really not getting a good feel if that's the way your Church deals with honest questions...

Ha, I don't know, but it can sometimes be frustrating talking to Mormons about this stuff because they always say "it's just speculation" (like the first response here) but then the doctrine of having spirit children is right there in your official manuals! So it's not so speculative after all.... I just wish Mormons would be more upfront about their unique beliefs. I get the whole "milk before meat" idea but maybe the whole reason a lot of people are interested in Mormonism is because it's different from regular Christianity. Besides now that people have access to the internet down playing the unique bits doesn't work so well. Thanks for your honesty, Annwandering :)

Will your spirit children worship you like we worship our Heavenly Father?

Great, thanks. Another question. You said that Jesus didn't have the fulness but received it later (after his time on earth?) But Paul says that Christ was equal with God and then became human. He didn't receive His fulness, rather he already had it and chose to become man. "5Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,7but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men." In LDS theology it seems to be all about man going up, whereas in Christian theology it seems to be about God coming down. How does this quote from Phillipians square with the idea that Jesus attained His Godhood or is subordinate to the Father?

"“What do we mean by endless or eternal increase? We mean that through the righteousness and faithfulness of men and women who keep the commandments of God they will come forth with celestial bodies, fitted and prepared to enter into their great, high and eternal glory in the celestial kingdom of God; and unto them through their preparation, there will come spirit children." "“Mortal persons who overcome all things and gain an ultimate exaltation will live eternally in the family unit and have spirit children, thus becoming Eternal Fathers and Eternal Mothers. (D&C 132:19–32.) Indeed, the formal pronouncement of the Church, issued by the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve, states: ‘So far as the stages of eternal progression and attainment have been made known through divine revelation, we are to understand that only resurrected and glorified beings can become parents of spirit offspring.’ (Man: His Origin and Destiny, p. 129.)” (Mormon Doctrine, 517)." So, according to the current materials you guys study, you will have spirit children in heaven?

Okay, so if the first one is just hypothetical can someone explain what eternal increase is to me? I've read that only those who reach the highest level of heaven get the blessing of 'eternal increase'.

I have a few question: If you achieve your exaltation do you expect to have spirit children and do you expect that they will look to you in the same way you look to Heavenly Father, ie direct prayers to you? Also, if God were a polygamist (I understand that you don't have a clear teaching either way on how many wives God was sealed to when he was a man), is it possible that there are Heavenly Mothers and while we all have the same Father we don't all have the same mother? Does God worship His own heavenly father?

You can always still go to the Holy Sacrifice on weekdays and read Catholic theology even though you're now LDS :) Catholicism is beautiful and if certain Catholic spiritual authors help bring you closer to God then I can't see why reading them would be wrong.

Hmmm, okay, I see what you say about the priesthood in the Old Testament. I'm still not convinced though becaue a) That was the Old Covenant, which was restricted to the Jews anyway B) In the Jewish Faith holding the priesthood was never required before one could be saved, like it is in the LDS faith. If priesthood and temple marriage are required for exaltation then by withholding the restored priesthood from black people you're literally making it impossible for them to return to Heavenly Father, or to be with their families forever. I'm still really interested in figuring out with stuff about the nature of God, too. It's kind of a big one for me. Even though I know it's not official doctrine, it is something that is believed by most Mormons and seems to be held by the GA's. Also, as some others said, it seems to be logically required in order to make sense of other LDS doctrines. So, does God worship His Father? Does He live with His Father in a celestial kingdom? Do you ever feel that introducing all these other Gods detracts from Heavenly Father's glory? I mean, if there are Gods before Him then He's no longer the Almighty, or the Most High, or anything like that. If God has a physical body does He walk around, talk, touch, hug, etc, other people (his wife/wives, spirit children, etc) in Heaven? Do they have houses? If there is a chain of God's (eternal regression along with eternal progression) then where did it all begin? Is there a God out there that always was? I think atheism is irrational because it requires an infinite regress of causes in order to explain existence, and to me the LDS conception of God seems to suffer from the same problem. It's "turtles all the way down". Thanks!

I need a little help. I feel really attracted to the LDS Church. I've read the Book of Mormon, read about Joseph Smith, prayed about it, and have been experiencing all those little experiences and attractions that your Church says is part of a testimony. There are several LDS doctrines, like your understanding of the Godhead, that make a lot of sense to me. However there are other areas that I feel really, really uncomfortable about and I don't know if any amount of study or prayer will change my mind. I'd really like to overcome these issues so I'm going to list the two major ones below and any help, advice, or explanations anyone could offer would be really appreciated. 1. The idea that Heavenly Father had His own father, and that there are other worlds with other gods and goddesses ruling them. To me this just seems like polytheism (even if you only worship one God) and the defining characteristic of the Hebrew Scriptures is that the Jews believed in only one God. It seems to me that monotheism is central to the Old Testament. I know Joseph Smith taught that 'Elohim' was a plural, but I find the explanation that it's a superlative much more consistent with the rest of scripture. The whole doctrine seems to make God secondary to a grand circular process (or, one eternal round). 2. The Church's history with black people. I know that the LDS Church holds to continuing revelation, and I think that makes a lot of sense, but when I read quotes like the ones below I really wonder how close these men were to God. "The reason that one would lose his blessings by marrying a negro is due to the restriction placed upon them. 'No person having the least particle of negro blood can hold the priesthood' (Brigham Young). It does not matter if they are one-sixth negro or one-hundred and sixth, the curse of no Priesthood is the same. If an individual who is entitled to the priesthood marries a negro, the Lord has decreed that only spirits who are not eligible for the priesthood will come to that marriage as children. To intermarry with a negro is to forfeit a 'nation of priesthood holders'" - Apostle Mark Petersen to BYU students, 1954. How can a man who is supposed to be a successor of the apostles and be incredibly close to God hold such disgusting views? Furthermore, even if the restriction has been lifted, it still means that in the past God excluded black people from the priesthood and exaltation which just seems completely illogical given that we're all made in His image. There are lots and lots of other quotes like this too from apostles and presidents dating from Brigham Young's time all the way through to the 1970's. Anyway, those are the two major issues I have and was hoping to get your perspective on them. Thanks!

Your interpretation is also inconsistent with the rest of the passage where Our Lord goes on to say "and I will give to you the keys to the kingdom of Heaven". One does not give the Keys to a statement of belief or a personal revelation, but to a person. Christ then is clearly talking to Peter and establishing His Church on him. Likewise Christ promised to be with us "all days, even unto the end of the world". Not for a few decades, then disappear for nearly two millennia, and return again in Joseph Smith's time.

Hi, I was wondering why the Book of Abraham uses the plural when telling the Creation story. Do you believe that multiple deities were involved in forming the earth or just Heavenly Father? Thanks https://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/abr/4?lang=eng

This highlights a very serious reason why I couldn't become LDS. Relying on a testimony of the spirit to ascertain the truth of Mormonism sounds nice and pious, but really it reduces the quest for truth down to subjective feeling. In fact, I think this is one of the reasons the LDS church has such a hard time retaining converts. After a year or two the 'convert zeal' simply wears off and their has to be something stronger than warm feelings in the bosom holding up your faith. I'm a convert (to Catholicism), so I should know. I'm not saying that feeling and personal experience (or personal revelation/testimony) have no place is forming our religious beliefs, but being told by the missionaries to just pray about it and any warm and fuzzy feelings I get are confirmations from God that the LDS Church is true was way too hard to swallow. Let's face it, people of all different religions employ this approach all the time. I've heard a convert to Islam explain that they prayed to God to reveal the truth to him and that night he dreamt about the Quran, then the next day came across Muslims proselytising on the streets and he's now a devout Muslim. You hear Evangelical Christians talk about being overwhelmed by a warm, peaceful feeling at their lowest (often to do with alcohol/drug addiction) and then converting all the time. If our measure of truth is going to be a personal testimony that comes in the form of nice emotions then God is giving a whole lot of different answers to different people. It doesn't do to explain away the religious experiences of non-LDS people to appeal to the Devil, because they'd do the exact same in regards to your personal testimony and it really gets us nowhere. This is one of the things I love about Catholicism: the complementarity of faith and reason. In fact, when I was converting to the Church, the priest explicitly told me not to base this decision on emotion because emotions come and go. The emphasis the Catholic Church places on coming to know God through nature and philosophy, and Her ability to trace Her history back to the very time of Christ, is what I think finally allowed me to take that leap of faith.

I have a question concerning LDS doctrine on sealing. It is my understanding that you guys believe we live in family units in eternity, right? So say Mr and Mrs Jones have five kids and all of their kids then grow up, enter temple marriages and have their own kids. Now Mr and Mrs. Jones' kids, who are all married, are sealed to their own spouse and children? Does this mean that in eternity Mr and Mrs. Jones will be with their kids and their kids' families, or will they be separate? If this is the case then can we expect that in the celestial kingdom there will be generations and generations of sealed families all living together? Say, Mr and Mrs Jones parents, and their parents, and their parents, etc. What about when it comes to creating and populating new worlds? How can they still be together for that if each married couple is to become heavenly parents to spirit children?