The mind or the intelligence which man possesses is co-equal with God himself.
Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pg.353.
The REAL God of the Bible is omniscient — all knowing. To say mankind is equal to God in knowledge is very high hubris, as well as being a lie straight from the pit of hell. Man’s knowledge is limited—God’s is not. Only a fool would believe otherwise.
H/T Life After Ministry.
Monogamy, or restrictions by law to one wife, is not part of the economy of Heaven among men. Such a system was commenced by the founders of the Roman Empire. That empire was founded on the banks of the Tiber by wandering brigands. When these robbers founded the city of Rome, it was evident to them that their success in attaining a balance of power with their neighbours, depended upon introducing females into their body politic, so the stole them from the Sabines, where were their near neighbours. The scarcity of women gave existence to laws restricting one wife to one man. Rome became the mistress of the world, and introduced this order of monogamy wherever her sway was acknowledged. Thus this monogamic order of marriage, so esteemed by modern Christians as a holy sacrament and divine institution, is nothing but a system established by a set of robbers.
Brigham Young, 6 July 1862, Journal of Discourses 9:322
Young wants to deny history as well as the Bible. God's intent was for ONE wife or he would have given Adam more than one. Genesis 2:23-24:
And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Notice he said the two shall be ONE flesh. In every instance in Scripture where a man has more than one wife, strife becomes part of their lives. In Deuteronomy 17 God tells His people that when they have a king, the king should not have many wives. This was centuries before the Roman empire and Young's story is nothing but 100% fiction not supported by actual history.
The truth is that Joseph Smith started the law of polygamy (claiming he got it from God) because he was caught having an affair way back when in Ohio; he was a womanizer and suddenly needed a word from God to excuse his sin of adultery and to allow him to pile of sexual conquests even with women already married to other men. Brigham Young was just as much a womanizer and follower on Smith's heel collecting multiple sexual conquests.
IF the prophecy truly came from God, mankind's rules would have no effect.
You believe Adam was made of the dust of this earth. This I do not believe, though it is supposed that it is so written in the Bible; but it is not, to my understanding. You can write that information to the States, if you please—that I have publicly declared that I do not believe that portion of the Bible as the Christian world do. I never did, and I never want to. What is the reason I do not? Because I have come to understanding, and banished from my mind all the baby stories my mother taught me when I was a child.
Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 2:6
Genesis 2:7 states: And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
"it is supposed that it is so written in the Bible; but it is not, to my understanding"?!?! It is specifically written in the Bible, as anyone actually reading the Bible would know.
But Brigham called it "baby stories," blaspheming God who stated how he formed Adam. Yet Young is declared to be a prophet of God all the while what God has said.
Mormons, like other cults, dismiss things in the Bible that they don't agree with and which would prove their who belief system is founded of false prophets and false teachers.
As a Church we have critics, many of them. They say we do not believe in the traditional Christ of Christianity. There is some substance to what they say. Our faith, our knowledge is not based on ancient tradition, the creeds which came of a finite understanding and out of the almost infinite discussions of men trying to arrive at a definition of the risen Christ. Our faith, our knowledge comes of the witness of a prophet in this dispensation….
Gordon Hinckley, 2002 LDS General Conference
Hinckley, as well as other LDS teachers, is correct that the LDS Jesus is NOT the Christian Jesus.
While the Christian Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit so that Mary was pregnant while a virgin, the LDS Jesus was conceived by their man-god having sex with Mary.
While the Christian Jesus suffered the punishment of the Cross for our salvation through our faith, the LDS Jesus suffered in the garden of Gethsemane (just how did he suffer other than emotionally?) and only provides salvation through our works.
While the Christian Jesus never married, the Mormon Jesus was a married and probably a polygamist. Although this isn’t the current official view of the Church, under their doctrine of eternal progression Jesus had to be married:
Joseph Fielding Smith stated, in response to the question In the Temple ceremony we are told that only through Temple marriage can we receive the highest degree of exaltation and dwell in the presence of our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Christ came here to set us the example and, therefore, we believe that he must have been married. Are we right? Yes! But do not preach it! The Lord advised us not to cast pearls before swine! (Letter to J. Ricks Smith, 3/17/1963)
Apostle Orson Hyde stated the following:
She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.' Is there not here manifested the affections of a wife. These words speak the kindred ties and sympathies that are common to that relation of husband and wife … Now there was actually a marriage; and if Jesus was not the bridegroom on that occasion, please tell who was. If any man can show this, and prove that it was not the Savior of the world, then I will acknowledge I am in error. We say it was Jesus Christ who was married, to be brought into the relation whereby he could see his seed, before he was crucified. (Journal of Discourses 2:81-82).
…I said, in my lecture on Marriage, at our last Conference, that Jesus Christ was married at Cana of Galilee, that Mary, Martha, and others were his wives, and that he begat children”(Journal of Discourses 2:210).
We have now clearly shown that God, the Father had a plurality of wives, one or more being in eternity, by whom He begat our spirits as well as the spirit of Jesus His First Born… We have also proved most clearly that the Son followed the example of his Father, and became the great Bridegroom to whom kings' daughters and many honorable Wives to be married. (The Seer, 172)
Brigham Young stated: The Scripture says that He, the Lord, came walking in the Temple, with "HIS TRAIN; I do not know who they were, unless his wives and children; (Journal of Discourses, Vol. 13:309)
Apostle Orson Pratt also taught that Jesus was a polygamist: ...it will be seen that the GREAT MESSIAH who was the founder of the Christian religion, WAS A POLYGAMIST, . . .the MESSIAH chose. . .by marrying honorable wives himself, show to all future generations that HE approbated the plurality of wives under the Christian dispensation, as well as under the dispensation in which His polygamist ancestors lived. . . .We have now clearly shown that God the Father had a plurality of wives. . . (The Seer, page 172)
More of the early LDS apostles also taught the practice of polygamy by Jesus. Now, these Apostles claimed that what they taught came from God, so for the current Church to deny this teaching they have to denounce Brigham Young as a prophet as well as state uncategorically that their Apostles were false teachers.
So, for celebrating Christmas, remember that Mormons don’t celebrate the birth of the same person as do Christians.
God never made something out of nothing; it is not in the economy or law by which the worlds were, are, or will exist. There is an eternity before us, and it is full of matter; and if we but understand enough of the Lord and his ways we would say that he took of this matter and organized this earth from it.
Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young, pg.197
The Bible teaches us that the REAL God was all there was until HE created matter. Because God is omnipotent he created everything and nothing existed before God. The LDS god is not omnipotent and existed originally as a person on another planet and worked his way to heaven!
The Book of Mormon…declares that the Bible is true, and it proves it; and the two prove each other true. The Old and New Testament’s are the stick of Judah [Ezekiel 37:15-19]. You recollect that the tribe of Judah tarried in Jerusalem and the Lord blessed Judah, and the result was the writings of the Old and New Testament’s. But where is the stick of Joseph? Can you tell where it is? Yes. It was the children of Joseph who came across the waters to this continent, and this land was filled with writings, and they are in the hands of Ephraim. Where are the Ephraimites? They are mixed through all the nations of the earth. God is calling upon them to gather out, and he is uniting them, and they are giving the Gospel to all the world.
Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young, pg. 122
I’ve addressed this claim before when looking at a statement by Joseph Smith. This claim about the “two sticks” is nothing but scripture-twisting. In context the two sticks represent the nations of Judah and Ephraim, not the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Apprising Ministries has a good article examining the truth of the sticks.
In the beginning, after this earth was prepared for man, the Lord commenced his work upon what is now called the American continent, where the Garden of Eden was made.
Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young, pg.94
Well, since the American continent didn't exist until after the Great Flood, this statement is pure nonsense. Remember, this is from a "prophet"--who if a true prophet wouldn't make such a nonsensical statement.
Things were first created spiritually; the Father actually begat the spirits, and they were brought forth and lived with him. Then he commenced the work of creating earthly tabernacles, precisely as he had been created in this flesh himself, by partaking of the coarse material that was organized and composed this earth,…consequently the tabernacles of his children were organized from the coarse materials of this earth.
Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young, pg.50
It’s hard for me to do anything but laugh at this unbiblical nonsense. Nothing in the Bible even hints that anything was created spiritually first. God did not give birth to spirits because he is not human nor did he have sexual relations with spiritual wives (as other LDS doctrines claim) to beget spiritual children.
The great architect, manager and superintendent, controller and dictator who guides this work out of sight to our natural eyes. He lives on another world; he is in another state of existence; he has passed the ordeals we are now passing through; he has received an experience, has suffered and enjoyed, and knows all that we know regarding the toils, sufferings, life and death of this mortality, for he has passed through the whole of it, and has received his crown and exaltation and holds the keys and the power of this Kingdom; he sways his scepter, and does his will among the children of men, among saints and among sinners, and brings forth results to suit his purpose among kingdoms and nations and empires, that all may redound to his glory and to the perfection of his work.
Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young, pg.30
The Mormon God is a man who lived the same kind of life we live and he sinned while working his way to godhood. The Christian God is a spirit who created the universe but doesn't live in it. He has always been God, was never a man and never sinned.
Just more evidence that the LDS is NOT a Christian denomination.
If you read the linked articles, you can come to no other conclusion than that Joseph Smith was a false prophet and the LDS is NOT a Christian denomination (I.e., it is a convoluted cult).
Oftentimes, it’s what they don’t say
What does the word “Christ” mean?
The LDS New Testament is full of lies!!!!
The Mormons don’t believe in the biblical Trinity, so:
Why is the Trinity in the Book of Mormon?
Why is the Trinity in the Doctrine & Covenants?
For all their claims to be Christian, the LDS does not believe in the God of Scripture.
Besides claiming that Noah is the angel Gabriel, the LDS claims that Adam is Michael the archangel. The problem is that angels and humans are two different creations: man cannot become an angel!! Adam was never noted in the Bible as a priest, let alone a high priest!
Wait a minute—I thought Adam was God, who had sex with Mary to produce a body for Jesus. Wait another minute—so Adam is a “son of God?” The LDS Adam is quite a convoluted person!
Why Did the Nephites Speak Greek?
Amusing to me is that the LDS still struggles with polygamy. If God ordered it, why did they stop—why did they not disobey the law of the land?
Along those lines, we have The Changing God of Mormonism.
The temple oaths are nothing more than signs and oaths from the Freemasonry cult.
But the LDS says that the earth was created for temple endowments—so how come there were no such things until aft Joe Smith invented them?
The Bible was never meant for today?!?!?
How did Joe Smith really get his priesthood?
Mormons say we don’t need God! Of course they also say there are multiple gods and people on other planets!
So, LDS members, doesn’t any of this make you think just a wee bit that there is a problem with your religion, that it doesn’t make a bit of sense?
