Interesting article for Youth about Heavenly Father

[_why me]

I don't get all the consternation over this issue. I always liked the doctrine; it's one of the things that made Mormonism interesting. What I criticize is the relatively recent dissembling on the issue, whether by President Hinckley or President Newsroom. I don't get why Mormons are embarrassed by this doctrine, why they want so desperately to fit in with the Protestants. The problem isn't with the doctrine--it's with the flip-flopping. It really makes them look like they aren't serious about their religion.

I think that if you go back in time to the very beginnings of the faith, you will see a lot of speculation about doctrine and beliefs. This is one of the things that made Mormonism exciting. Nothing was etched in stone except the 10 commandments. So, speculation was the name of the game. We need to remember that if a GA spoke back then, it was generally not based on revelation but on speculation. No creeds. Joseph said as much himself. How often did any president of the church claim revelation when they gave their understandings? Not many. Thus, we can have contradictions galore.

What is better? The catholic way were all belief is in a book of hundreds of pages or the LDS way where there are no such books except the scriptures.

[_zeezrom]

Where in the world did you get the idea of not "having a penis in heaven for not being obedient enough"? I have been an active Latter-day Saint for the 44 years since I was baptized, and I have never heard anyone in the LDS Church imply that a penis or lack of a penis was connected with one's obedience in any way.

I believed (as a TBM) that the Celestial Kingdom is the only place you can procreate forever and ever. In the other kingdoms, you are stuck without the ability to do so. This implies

A. You don't have the reproductive organs
B. Your organs don't work anymore
C. You don't have the desire (i.e. chemicals, etc)

[_malkie]

A footnote. Just a little footnote. Mormons believe they can become polygamous Gods after they die.

I don't call that a little footnote.

Infymus, we obviously put emphasis on different things. Latter-day Saints put emphasis on letting Jesus Christ transform our lives; we don't put emphasis on the eventual outcome of the transformation of those lives. You do. That's fine with me. What's a footnote for me and other Latter-day Saints might indeed be a much more important matter for you. Once again, that's fine with me.

Not having a penis in heaven for not being obedient enough might be a footnote.

Where in the world did you get the idea of not "having a penis in heaven for not being obedient enough"? I have been an active Latter-day Saint for the 44 years since I was baptized, and I have never heard anyone in the LDS Church imply that a penis or lack of a penis was connected with one's obedience in any way.

If that were the case, I think I would expect that the teachings in the temple would have a different emphasis. Instead, the temple endowment and sealings are largely about the mechanics (signs, keywords etc) of how you get to this footnoted outcome, is it not?

[_malkie]

Where in the world did you get the idea of not "having a penis in heaven for not being obedient enough"? I have been an active Latter-day Saint for the 44 years since I was baptized, and I have never heard anyone in the LDS Church imply that a penis or lack of a penis was connected with one's obedience in any way.

I believed (as a TBM) that the Celestial Kingdom is the only place you can procreate forever and ever. In the other kingdoms, you are stuck without the ability to do so. This implies

A. You don't have the reproductive organs
B. Your organs don't work anymore
C. You don't have the desire (i.e. chemicals, etc)

I believed that the "hell" of anything lower than the celestial kingdom was that you may still have the desire, but that you have no means of satisfying it.

[_Equality]

Where in the world did you get the idea of not "having a penis in heaven for not being obedient enough"? I have been an active Latter-day Saint for the 44 years since I was baptized, and I have never heard anyone in the LDS Church imply that a penis or lack of a penis was connected with one's obedience in any way.

Those pesky "prophets" strike again:

In both of these kingdoms [i.e., the terrestrial and telestial] there will be changes in the bodies and limitations. They will not have the power of increase, neither the power or nature to live as husbands and wives, for this will be denied them and they cannot increase. Those who receive the exaltation in the celestial kingdom will have the “continuation of the seeds forever.” They will live in the family relationship. In the terrestrial and in the telestial kingdoms there will be no marriage. Those who enter there will remain “separately and singly” forever. Some of the functions in the celestial body will not appear in the terrestrial body, neither in the telestial body, and the power of procreation will be removed. I take it that men and women will, in these kingdoms, be just what the so-called Christian world expects us all to be – neither man nor woman, merely immortal beings having received the resurrection.

Doctrines of Salvation. vol. 2, pg. 287-288.

Why does it seem like the critics know the teachings of the Mormon prophets better than life-long faithful members of the church?

[_lulu]

What is hidden?

"Heavenly Parents"

hmmm, plural, gender neutral, hmmm . . .

could it be . . . . . Heavenly Mother?

[_KevinSim]

Hinckley was not telling the truth, and many member had to do a double take. He was just trying to get out of an uncomfortable situation. I seem to remember him saying after in conference that he knows what the church teaches with a little smile. It is true that the church does not spend much time on it, but it is still doctrine.

Such a rush to brand Hinckley a liar!

I'm sure that Hinckley was in an uncomfortable situation. Critics of the LDS Church would like the world to believe that the principal reason people are LDS is because they want to be deities over their own planets some day; they are, the critics say, drawn by the promises of power.

So what did Hinckley say when asked about that? Quite frankly I don't remember the exact words, but it was something like, "I don't know that we teach it. I don't know that we emphasize it." You said, "Hinckley was not telling the truth, and many member had to do a double take." For the record I myself did a double take, because it didn't sound right at all. It sounded completely false. But I had to ask myself (and you would do well to ask yourself), were Hinckley's words false?

They weren't! On reflection they weren't false at all. "It is true that the church does not spend much time on it," you said, "but it is still doctrine." Of course it is! Did Hinckley say it was not doctrine? Not at all! He was careful with how he worded it. He said that he didn't know that we teach it, and that he didn't know that we emphasized it. If you think that what Hinckley said was false, then please find me one lesson manual where a quorum or class instructor is directed to teach that we can become gods or deities in any single lesson manual published in the year before Mike Wallace asked his question and Gordon Hinckley gave his controversial answer.

If we really do teach that we can become deities, then it should be in some lesson manual, wouldn't you think? You have already admitted that we don't emphasize it. So where's the lie?

Hinckley was not saying that us eventually becoming deities was not a part of LDS Church doctrine; he was trying to dispell the notion that it is the primary motivator of the vast majority of Latter-day Saints that keeps them on the straight and narrow, that it is so central to LDS thought that Latter-day Saints think about it all the time; in short he was trying to dispell the notion that the LDS Church is currently actively involved in teaching it and emphasizing it.

[_KevinSim]

You've obviously never been female.

Okay, fine. I haven't ever been female before. I also haven't been Jewish before. In a post on another thread a poster said that Jews were largely in control of the finances of the whole world. Later on down the post he carefully pointed out that his statement was a joke.

Harmony, please help me understand whether Infymus, and by extension you, were any more serious in your statement associating having a penis with "being obedient enough," than that poster was serious about Jews controlling the world's finances?

Look, I'm not a female, nor ever have been. I don't know what it's like to be female and a member of the LDS Church. But I do know my wife, and I know that she's absolutely, definitely not the type of person who would be a member of a church that believed she'd have a penis if she'd been more obedient in some prior existence than she actually was. I also know my two sisters, and I know that at least one of them would also not be a member of a church that believed she'd have had a penis if she'd similarly been more obedient.

Furthermore, the other sister has a daughter who would have left the church had she found that belief embedded in its culture. My niece did in fact leave the church, because she was repelled by the LDS Church's doctines on homosexuality. I can assure you that if she had also been exposed to the mentioned penis-belief, I would most certainly have heard about it.

[_zeezrom]

I believed that the "hell" of anything lower than the celestial kingdom was that you may still have the desire, but that you have no means of satisfying it.

That would make for some pretty nice story telling. A whole world full of frustrated lovers!

[_Jonah]

"On the other hand, the whole design of the gospel is to lead us onward and upward to greater achievement, even, eventually, to godhood. This great possibility was enunciated by the Prophet Joseph Smith in the King Follet sermon (see Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 342-62); and emphasized by President Lorenzo Snow. It is this grand and incomparable concept: As God now is, man may become!"
- Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley, General Conference, October 1994

Things must have changed by 1997 though. Here is an excerpt from a Hinckley interview with the San Francisco Chroncle -

Question: "Don't Mormons believe that God was once a man?"

Hinckley: "I wouldn't say that. There was a little couplet coined, "As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become." Now that's more of a couplet than anything else."
- Interviewing Gordon B. Hinckley, San Francisco Chronicle, April 13, 1997, p 3/Z1

Or perhaps this excerpt from Time magazine -

Question: "Is this the teaching of the church today, that God the Father was once a man like we are?"

Hinckley: "I don't know that we teach it. I don't know that we emphasize it. I haven't heard it discussed for a long time in public discourse. I don't know. I don't know all the circumstances under which that statement was made. I understand the philosophical background behind it. But I don't know a lot about it and I don't know that others know a lot about it."
- Interviewing Gordon B. Hinckley, Time Magazine, Aug 4, 1997

YAAAAAWWWWWNNNNNN....

During my 40+ years as an active member, the concept of god once being a man, man someday being a god, and having their own world, planet, whatever, was taught and emphasized to me on a regular basis. As well as Joseph having one wife (Emma), the golden plates being made of real gold, only one Hill Cumorah (in N. America), etc. Oh, and Tom Trails was "The Man". I don't know what anyone else was taught in their corner of the world, but these are the things I was taught in my little SoCal ward.