Can someone explain Mormon to me?

[threeonefour]

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What is the highest level of the Celestial Kingdom? (Hint: Elohim reached it)

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the celestial kingdom is the higher level of heaven. i think what you might be getting at is godhood, or at least something of that nature.

the way i always understood it, baby ducks grow up to be ducks, kittens grow up to be cats, humans who prove themselves worthy grow up to be much like god the father. of course they are always underneath them in terms of the hierarchy. similar to the way that while i grew up to become an adult. i have all the rights and privileges of an adult, however, i am still my father's son and not vice versa.

[threeonefour]

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Did Elohim come from a planet near Kolob? If so, doesn't it stand to reason that he had a father?

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i don't really know enough about Kolob to really say. i just always thought it was a heavenly place. does this one really even matter from the skeptics perspective? is more far fetched that god lives on some planet rather than in Missouri or something? pretty grand claims either way right?


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Did Elohim have sex with Mary to produce Jesus? Here is a link explaining it from a Mormon point of view from the Journal of Discourses by Brigham Young (and Brigham Often).
http://journalofdiscourses.org/Vol_04/refJDvol4-42.html


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i have already explained this somewhat. i was always under the impression that no, god did not stick his penis in mary, however jesus was born much like any human was born, ie sperm+egg+9 months= baby boy with 46 chromosomes and DNA not unlike any other child.
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Why are there dinosaur bones on Earth?


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i personally have never heard this issue tackled by an *official* source. i could state what some might believe, but that probably wouldn't be prudent.


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What color are the most pure spirits from heaven (skin color)?

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i am pretty sure you want me to say white. personally, i am not familiar with the verse that says something of that nature, but i wouldn't be surprised since the doctrine and covenants has a lot of language relating Truth and Light, and whiteness is often associated with purity throughout the scriptures. i would be a bit worried about you taking something wildly out of context here. Mormons (the church AND the people) don't hate nonwhite people or think they are inferior. in fact, the book of mormon is chiefly about Jesus visiting america to preach to the people there (the gospel wasn't exclusively revealed to people in the middle east).

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What happens to black people and native americans when you baptise them and actually get all of their sin cleaned?

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i would be amazed if you asked the prophet, any apostle, or any 70 (kind of like a catholic cardinal or bishop) today and heard them say that what happens to people of color differs in any manner from white people.

honestly, and this coming from a guy who has actively seperated himself from the church, the "mormon church is racist" stuff is pretty baseless. i have known a lot of white mormons and i haven't know any of them to be racist. i suppose many of the individuals were very ignorant of course, since growing up in the rural west you don't necessarily get much exposure to other races or culture. The church as a whole isn't a racist organization and i think if you went to a 1000 services you wouldn't find anything racist going on.

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Where did you say you're from? There is a really big difference between "Mormon" and "Mormon-Lite" like I've said.




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[threeonefour]

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Where did you say you're from? There is a really big difference between "Mormon" and "Mormon-Lite" like I've said.




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[/ QUOTE ] my dad served in the stake presidency, i certainly was the opposite of mormon-lite. my family has the food storage, 72 hour kits, CTR rings, tithing/fast offering stubs, quilts, 6 kids, merit badges, family home evenings, temple pictures on the wall, etc to prove it

my brother served an honorable mission, my brother and two sisters that are old enough to be married are married (ages 21,25,27), i got fast offerings, went to seminary, served the sacrament, spoke in church, i received my patriarchal blessing when i was 14 (which is something anti-mormon people don't talk about much but is easily one of the strangest practices from an outsider's perspective in all of mormondom imo). i didn't have many LDS friends so outside of young men's i didn't really go to many socials/dances though. but yea, i was pretty *in*


oh yea i went to general conference several times. i personally rose my right arm to the square to give my vote of confidence for Prophet Howard W. Hunter.

[Taraz]

I'm not sure if you're familiar with the history of the Mormon church, but they changed their position on race in the 70s. They used to proclaim whiteness as virtuous and dark skin as sinful.

[threeonefour]

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I'm not sure if you're familiar with the history of the Mormon church, but they changed their position on race in the 70s. They used to proclaim whiteness as virtuous and dark skin as sinful.

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that isn't exactly accurate. they did change their stance in the 70s yes. however it was more like this, the descendants of cain (people of color basically) were cursed for cain's transgression. as such they were not worthy for the priesthood, though they could still be members of the church.

much like women today can not be priesthood holders. women are not thought of as inferior, its just not the role they play. at the time, the church leaders (or rather god) did not think it was yet the time for black people to have the preisthood. which sounds bad right? was it a mistake? most outside of the church would say yes. but it wasn't exactly what anti-mormon people frame the situation as. basically all christian churches have similar problems with their policies if you look into their past (more distant for many churches). Catholicism in particular. not that that is an excuse, i just think its important to come from the right perspective. to say that mormons think OR thought black people were more sinful/immoral than white people is simply wrong imo and i think anyone who actually researched the issue in an honest manner would come to the same conclusion.

of course that policy is no longer in effect, for obvious reasons.


for the record, this is just my understanding of the issue which may be somewhat off. so if you want the official line you should really ask a bishop, church official, official church website or missionary. you should probably double check if your source is a missionary though, they are just kids themselves, not necessarily scholars.

[Taraz]

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that isn't exactly accurate. they did change their stance in the 70s yes. however it was more like this, the descendants of cain (people of color basically) were cursed for cain's transgression. as such they were not worthy for the priesthood, though they could still be members of the church.

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So people of color were cursed and unworthy. That doesn't sound like black people are more sinful to you? I mean, seriously?

And I would love to see enrollment numbers for people of color prior to the 80s. I realize that you can claim that they were allowed in the church, but it wasn't so in practice unfortunately.

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basically all christian churches have similar problems with their policies if you look into their past (more distant for many churches). Catholicism in particular. not that that is an excuse, i just think its important to come from the right perspective.

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Most definitely true. It is just interesting that nobody wants to own up to the fact that there used to be racist policies in place.

I don't mean to say that I think Mormons are evil or dumb or anything like that. I knew several Mormon families growing up and they were consistently awesome people.

[threeonefour]

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Here is a nice cartoon to explain a whole LOT to people who haven't had much (or any) contact with this church in the past.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy0d1HbItOo


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just watched this. the movie does have a lot of "truthiness" but is definitely just a propaganda film. i would say the movie is 80% true, but almost 100% of the disturbing things are just flat out wrong. Does LDS doctrine often sound far-fetched? certainly at times, to an outsider. Is LDS doctrine sinister or bigoted? are they a cult/do they brainwash people? i must answer a honest and adamant no.



"the mormon jesus" who the [censored] is that? its just jesus round here. in fact, calling LDS people Mormons is somewhat derogatory, or at least inaccurate, though 99% of Mormons recognize that its not worth fighting and just fully accept the name. it wasn't until after about 5 years of inactivity that i used the term mormon to refer to LDS people in front of non-LDS people. kind of like how it is often more socially acceptable to say the n word if you are black. eventually though, i decided that since no mormons care, i probably shouldn't care either.


I think TS's suggested direction of this thread would be more interesting then most of the stuff i have been discussing.


LDS culture, the people, their mentality is really interesting in my opinion. they really are unusually nice, hard working, and charitable people. mormon house life (the family centricity, the food storage/emergency preparedness), and mormon adolescence (mormon dating, the responsibilities of the young men, the attitudes of mormon teenagers) is also pretty interesting.

Drinking coke at a party with mormons is like doing coke at a party with regular people. Mormons can't date until they are 16, but once they are, they are practically PRESSURED to date as many people as possible. oh and you shouldn't have a steady boyfriend/girlfriend. which is pretty nice, since a guy can have a different date lined up every night of the week with impunity (except sunday of course, though you could go to a different ward with a girl i guess). also, pretty much any mormon guy can secure at least 1 date with any mormon girl if he is at ALL socially capable. so there are benefits, of course you can't have sex or even make out (i mean that is if you both buy into the whole church thing, which you almost certainly do). also, a lot of mormon girls are very hot. all that clean living.

[threeonefour]

one other crazy mormon cultural phenomenon. When missionaries come back from their missions they pretty much turn into brad pitt in the eyes of LDS girls. seriously a bottom tier RM will out class the vast majority of guys who haven't gone. this is because once a guy returns from his mission, he is eligible to be married and LDS women aren't too keen on waiting to be married.

If you were to go to a random BYU classroom/dormroom the vast majority of the gossip you would hear would concern who is marrying who, who is planning on proposing and how. I don't know the numbers, but i am pretty sure the vast majority of students at BYU are married by the time they graduate. I have even heard several stories of girls getting proposed to 2 or 3 times in a month from different guys. its something that has always blown my mind.

these facts may or may not be even more pronounced at BYU-Idaho, i am not sure though, i only have some anecdotal evidence to go on.

[Follow]

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my dad served in the stake presidency, i certainly was the opposite of mormon-lite. my family has the food storage, 72 hour kits, CTR rings, tithing/fast offering stubs, quilts, 6 kids, merit badges, family home evenings, temple pictures on the wall, etc to prove it

my brother served an honorable mission, my brother and two sisters that are old enough to be married are married (ages 21,25,27), i got fast offerings, went to seminary, served the sacrament, spoke in church, i received my patriarchal blessing when i was 14 (which is something anti-mormon people don't talk about much but is easily one of the strangest practices from an outsider's perspective in all of mormondom imo). i didn't have many LDS friends so outside of young men's i didn't really go to many socials/dances though. but yea, i was pretty *in*


oh yea i went to general conference several times. i personally rose my right arm to the square to give my vote of confidence for Prophet Howard W. Hunter.

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You still haven't answered my question, but from your post, I can easily conclude that you aren't from Utah or the surrounding states mentioned in my earlier post. Just because your dad was stake president doesn't make you the "opposite" of "Mormon-Lite." It's the culture around you that makes the religion hard core and cultish, not necessarily the wacky teachings. When you have large numbers of Mormons in the same place (as in Utah, Idaho, California, Arizona, and in some cases Wyoming), you have a very different culture from Mormonism in say; Delaware...

Utah Mormons (and I use that term to describe more states than just Utah) are very different from your perception of them. I would invite you to actually spend a year in Utah and go join a ward to understand just how different it is here than in other places. Here you can see what Mormons WANT their religion to look like, not what it does look like outside of here. I have known hard line East Coast Republicans that have come here and ditched the party because of how frightening it was in this state (owned and operated by the Mormons here).

Honestly though, why would you want to go through this obfuscation gag with the faith of the Mormon church in the first place? Isn't the whole point of having a church at all to be free to worship what you want to? Or what they want to? Frankly, I'm more disappointed by the Mormon's inability to hold the line more than I am anything else. This is America, where you can have wacky religions and worship that way freely (and I can freely point and laugh). But the efforts to make Mormon doctrine seem "mainstream" in any way are absolutely disgusting.

By the way, the Mormon Jesus is different from the biblical Jesus. If for no other reason than the Mormon Jesus was the brother of Lucifer, which is not the case with the Christian one. A countless number of Mormon "prophets" [sic] also say that the Book of Mormon is more correct than the Bible, so there is very little denial possible in that point.




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