Contradictory teachings

[_harmony]

Pokatator made an astute observation on another thread that I think would do well as its own thread.

1. Women cannot get out of the grave without the help of a man, according to LDS doctrine. Yet, at the time of the Atonement and the Assumption, the graves were opened and both men and women came forth. So why is it that women cannot come forth out of the grave unless they have a man to bring them out now?

2. Another teaching is that men can become gods. Yet it's universally accepted that Jesus was God before he came to this earth. Now how is this possible, in LDS teaching? Saying "he was special" is also against LDS teaching. We're taught that all of God's children are the same, and that God loves us all the same. Yet here we have Jesus, a special case? Either God is a respector of persons, or he isn't. Either we have to come to earth, progress, and be judged in order to become gods, yet Jesus was God without all that.

3. We're told to follow the prophet, he won't lead the church astray. Yet we have records of many times where following the prophet would not only lead us astray, but would put us seriously on the wrong side of the law. And how to reconcile the 12th AoF with following a prophet who walks outside the law?

4. Another teaching is that the church has priesthood authority, restored via Joseph. But the church was formed prior to the restoration of the Melch priesthood, or at least we have no record of the single-most important revelation ever received. So by what authority was the church itself started?

5. We canonize our scriptures via common consent. We agree to be bound by them. But what is common consent, except a majority vote? So... we agree to call this book or that book scripture, but that doesn't mean they actually are scripture. Canonization/common consent doesn't touch the validity of the proposal at all. It just shows if it's supported by the members or not.

6. We profess to be the church in which reposes the gospel of Jesus Christ, restored to the earth for our benefit. Yet our practices are so dissimiliar to the ancient church as to be totally separate from them.

7. We claim to have the gospel, yet our temple recommend questions don't address basic gospel principles at all.

I'm sure there are other contradictory teachings as well. What others can you think of?


[Sometimes I wonder if our leaders ever really think about some of this stuff. I mean, geez... some of these things are in direct opposition to other teachings, within our own church. We don't need the other churches, or even our own apostates, to trip us up; we do it to ourselves.]

[_ozemc]

Pokatator made an astute observation on another thread that I think would do well as its own thread.

1. Women cannot get out of the grave without the help of a man, according to LDS doctrine. Yet, at the time of the Atonement and the Assumption, the graves were opened and both men and women came forth. So why is it that women cannot come forth out of the grave unless they have a man to bring them out now?

2. Another teaching is that men can become gods. Yet it's universally accepted that Jesus was God before he came to this earth. Now how is this possible, in LDS teaching? Saying "he was special" is also against LDS teaching. We're taught that all of God's children are the same, and that God loves us all the same. Yet here we have Jesus, a special case? Either God is a respector of persons, or he isn't. Either we have to come to earth, progress, and be judged in order to become gods, yet Jesus was God without all that.

3. We're told to follow the prophet, he won't lead the church astray. Yet we have records of many times where following the prophet would not only lead us astray, but would put us seriously on the wrong side of the law. And how to reconcile the 12th AoF with following a prophet who walks outside the law?

4. Another teaching is that the church has priesthood authority, restored via Joseph. But the church was formed prior to the restoration of the Melch priesthood, or at least we have no record of the single-most important revelation ever received. So by what authority was the church itself started?

5. We canonize our scriptures via common consent. We agree to be bound by them. But what is common consent, except a majority vote? So... we agree to call this book or that book scripture, but that doesn't mean they actually are scripture. Canonization/common consent doesn't touch the validity of the proposal at all. It just shows if it's supported by the members or not.

6. We profess to be the church in which reposes the gospel of Jesus Christ, restored to the earth for our benefit. Yet our practices are so dissimiliar to the ancient church as to be totally separate from them.

7. We claim to have the gospel, yet our temple recommend questions don't address basic gospel principles at all.

I'm sure there are other contradictory teachings as well. What others can you think of?


[Sometimes I wonder if our leaders ever really think about some of this stuff. I mean, geez... some of these things are in direct opposition to other teachings, within our own church. We don't need the other churches, or even our own apostates, to trip us up; we do it to ourselves.]

Harmony, you're asking the questions that people like me, on the outside looking in, have been asking for quite a while.

It's interesting. I never knew much about the Mormon church until I started dating my wife.

But, wanting to be knowledgable of what she was all about, I started studying.

All these types of questions you pose, as well as others, came up.

To date, there are no, to me, sufficient answers. None of it makes any sense. As I wrote in another thread, faith without reason is blind faith, leading to disasters. I cannot have blind faith in anything.

One more question I might add just for discussion:
For those who wear them, why do you think God cares what type of underwear you wear? Didn't He create us naked? And when the fall happened, didn't he just clothe us in anaimal skins? I find no mention of underwear anywhere.

[_Coggins7]

I'm going to take one, and just one point brought up here, because th answer, theologically speaking, is fairly straightforward. How could Jesus be a god before he came to this earth when men (and woman, Harmony clevery left that out as usual) can become God's only by undergoing a mortal probation.

Well, a cursory purusal of the New Testament will quickly demonstrat that, although Jesus was a god before he came here, he did not have a fullness or completeness of godhood until after his resurrection. Further, LDS docrtine and philosophy has always had a clearly developed understanding of the nature of eternal progression within which God's children can attain extremely high levels of power, authority, knowledge, and intellegence in the preexistence, which the mortal probation then serves to fulfill and complete. Eacn of us, because of our uses of agencey in the premortal world, comes to this world with different talents, diffeent bias and predispositons, and at different levels of preexostent development.

The term "God" is also a relative term. There is a fullness of godhood, but relative to beings of a much lower sphere of intellegence or knowledge, other beings may be as "gods" to them in the sense of comparison and contrast. Hence, while Jesus Christ has all power in earth and heaven, and has a fullness, any number of angels or othe heavenly beings, such as, for example, Adam, would be as gods in realtion to us, that is, godlike in their attributes, power, and intelligence.

[_harmony]

I'm going to take one, and just one point brought up here, because th answer, theologically speaking, is fairly straightforward. How could Jesus be a god before he came to this earth when men (and woman, Harmony clevery left that out as usual) can become God's only by undergoing a mortal probation.

Well, a cursory purusal of the New Testament will quickly demonstrat that, although Jesus was a god before he came here, he did not have a fullness or completeness of godhood until after his resurrection. Further, LDS docrtine and philosophy has always had a clearly developed understanding of the nature of eternal progression within which God's children can attain extremely high levels of power, authority, knowledge, and intellegence in the preexistence, which the mortal probation then serves to fulfill and complete. Eacn of us, because of our uses of agencey in the premortal world, comes to this world with different talents, diffeent bias and predispositons, and at different levels of preexostent development.

The term "God" is also a relative term. There is a fullness of godhood, but relative to beings of a much lower sphere of intellegence or knowledge, other beings may be as "gods" to them in the sense of comparison and contrast. Hence, while Jesus Christ has all power in earth and heaven, and has a fullness, any number of angels or othe heavenly beings, such as, for example, Adam, would be as gods in realtion to us, that is, godlike in their attributes, power, and intelligence.

Christ is Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament. Christ is the one who created this earth. It boggles the mind that you somehow think he was a God-in-training. Try again.

[_Coggins7]

Christ is Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament. Christ is the one who created this earth. It boggles the mind that you somehow think he was a God-in-training. Try again.

No Harmony, do a little homework in the New Testament and then call me in the morning. It isn't me making a fool of myself in this forum.


Loran

[_harmony]

Christ is Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament. Christ is the one who created this earth. It boggles the mind that you somehow think he was a God-in-training. Try again.

No Harmony, do a little homework in the New Testament and then call me in the morning. It isn't me making a fool of myself in this forum.


Loran

Sweet thing, that isn't me talking. That's the modern prophets and the temple ceremony. I suggest you check out LDS.org before you call me a fool.

[_kerfuffle]

Wasn't there a counsil?? You know where Satan rebelled? So that would mean that Jesus was born while God was still a mortal man. Wouldn't that mean that he was already judged before being sent to Earth? I don't know much about this topic, but this is what I've gotten out of it.

Also, I've been wanted to know: So God used water to cleanse the Earth, but in the LDS church, water is controlled by Satan. I don't get it...Probably not the best question, but I never get a straight answer for it.

[_ozemc]

Wasn't there a counsil?? You know where Satan rebelled? So that would mean that Jesus was born while God was still a mortal man. Wouldn't that mean that he was already judged before being sent to Earth? I don't know much about this topic, but this is what I've gotten out of it.

Also, I've been wanted to know: So God used water to cleanse the Earth, but in the LDS church, water is controlled by Satan. I don't get it...Probably not the best question, but I never get a straight answer for it.

I've always wondered how God could have been a man too. That means that there must have been a God before him, and, I'm guessing, a Jesus, too? Surely, if God was a mortal man, he would have had to have been saved, right?

(Of course, that raises the question of why didn't any other men become God with God, or are there infinite gods running around through infinite universes? But wouldn't those Gods have had Gods of their own, with their own Jesus?)

And if you go back far enough .... ?

With this scenario, there is always a beginning. It heads toward eternity, but never gets there.

Also, if that is the case, shouldn't we be worshipping God's God, or his God, or ... maybe God to the 100th power?

[_Brackite]

Pokatator made an astute observation on another thread that I think would do well as its own thread.

1. Women cannot get out of the grave without the help of a man, according to LDS doctrine. Yet, at the time of the Atonement and the Assumption, the graves were opened and both men and women came forth. So why is it that women cannot come forth out of the grave unless they have a man to bring them out now?

2. Another teaching is that men can become gods. Yet it's universally accepted that Jesus was God before he came to this earth. Now how is this possible, in LDS teaching? Saying "he was special" is also against LDS teaching. We're taught that all of God's children are the same, and that God loves us all the same. Yet here we have Jesus, a special case? Either God is a respector of persons, or he isn't. Either we have to come to earth, progress, and be judged in order to become gods, yet Jesus was God without all that.

3. We're told to follow the prophet, he won't lead the church astray. Yet we have records of many times where following the prophet would not only lead us astray, but would put us seriously on the wrong side of the law. And how to reconcile the 12th AoF with following a prophet who walks outside the law?

4. Another teaching is that the church has priesthood authority, restored via Joseph. But the church was formed prior to the restoration of the Melch priesthood, or at least we have no record of the single-most important revelation ever received. So by what authority was the church itself started?

5. We canonize our scriptures via common consent. We agree to be bound by them. But what is common consent, except a majority vote? So... we agree to call this book or that book scripture, but that doesn't mean they actually are scripture. Canonization/common consent doesn't touch the validity of the proposal at all. It just shows if it's supported by the members or not.

6. We profess to be the church in which reposes the gospel of Jesus Christ, restored to the earth for our benefit. Yet our practices are so dissimiliar to the ancient church as to be totally separate from them.

7. We claim to have the gospel, yet our temple recommend questions don't address basic gospel principles at all.

I'm sure there are other contradictory teachings as well. What others can you think of?


[Sometimes I wonder if our leaders ever really think about some of this stuff. I mean, geez... some of these things are in direct opposition to other teachings, within our own church. We don't need the other churches, or even our own apostates, to trip us up; we do it to ourselves.]

Hi Harmony,

Here is a contradictory teaching that is found within the Triple Combination of the Scriptures, between the Doc. and Cov. and the Book of Mormon:

Doctrine and Covenants Section 132:1:

1 Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Joseph, that inasmuch as you have inquired of my hand to know and understand wherein I, the Lord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as also Moses, David and Solomon, my servants, as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many wives and concubines—


Jacob 2:23-24:

[23] But the word of God burdens me because of your grosser crimes. For behold, thus saith the Lord: This people begin to wax in iniquity; they understand not the scriptures, for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his son.

[24] Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord.

[_Jason Bourne]

1. Women cannot get out of the grave without the help of a man, according to LDS doctrine. Yet, at the time of the Atonement and the Assumption, the graves were opened and both men and women came forth. So why is it that women cannot come forth out of the grave unless they have a man to bring them out now?

This one is a reach. The speculative idea is a man will call his wife forth from the grave. I recall my MP telling is this then he said, "You better treat your wife well because when you call, she does not have to come to you." In other words it is a relationship thing. She does not need a man to resurrect here.

2. Another teaching is that men can become gods. Yet it's universally accepted that Jesus was God before he came to this earth. Now how is this possible, in LDS teaching? Saying "he was special" is also against LDS teaching. We're taught that all of God's children are the same, and that God loves us all the same. Yet here we have Jesus, a special case? Either God is a respector of persons, or he isn't. Either we have to come to earth, progress, and be judged in order to become gods, yet Jesus was God without all that.

The teaching is the men can become God's and that God was once a man and had a mortal experience. There is nothing that says that the mortal experience God the Father had was unlike the mortal life Jesus had. In other words God was God and was a savior of a world, just like Jesus was God before his birth and was a savior of a world. Above you have cherry picked a few teachings to create a straw man that just does not exist.

3. We're told to follow the prophet, he won't lead the church astray. Yet we have records of many times where following the prophet would not only lead us astray, but would put us seriously on the wrong side of the law. And how to reconcile the 12th AoF with following a prophet who walks outside the law?

Could you be more specific here?

4. Another teaching is that the church has priesthood authority, restored via Joseph. But the church was formed prior to the restoration of the Melch priesthood, or at least we have no record of the single-most important revelation ever received. So by what authority was the church itself started?

The early records to seem scant for evidence of priesthood before the organization in 1830. Additionally there is evidence that the perception of what an Elder and apostle meant evolved over the first five or six years of the Church history and that the Book of Commandments was later changed to write into it priesthood being given at an early date to substantiate what appears to be the changes in what the offices of Elder and apostle meant. I recommend Bushman's Rough Stone Rolling and Quinn's first volume of Mormon Hierarchy.

5. We canonize our scriptures via common consent. We agree to be bound by them. But what is common consent, except a majority vote? So... we agree to call this book or that book scripture, but that doesn't mean they actually are scripture. Canonization/common consent doesn't touch the validity of the proposal at all. It just shows if it's supported by the members or not.

I do not follow your points here.

6. We profess to be the church in which reposes the gospel of Jesus Christ, restored to the earth for our benefit. Yet our practices are so dissimiliar to the ancient church as to be totally separate from them.

Oh I don't know. Some are similar, some are not. Can you list things you think are so dissimilar?

7. We claim to have the gospel, yet our temple recommend questions don't address basic gospel principles at all.

TR interviews are more focused on belief in the organization and obedience to certain commandments rather then specific divine attributes like mercy, meekness, giving to the poor. On the other hand, the question about keeping your temple covenants may actually encompass that. Sacrifice and consecration seem to cover some of these things.