NO Mormons are not Christian!

[_grindael]

What's wrong with this picture?

Nowhere did I ever tell anyone that is what I believe.

And I do believe it.

So now he is trying to change his story and worm out of it. He DOES believe that YHWH is a storm god. This is exactly what I have been saying all along.

I believe that it is an accurate accounting of how the early Israelite religion developed. That is a far, far cry from saying I subscribe to ancient Israelite religious dogmas.

Ah, but that is not what I said. Here you go changing things again. You believe that the God of the Israelites is a conflated storm god. I didn't say you "subscribe" to anything.

Since the God of Israel is the Mormon God... do the math. Unless you don't believe in Mormonism?

[_maklelan]

Fine by me, see ya. But the fact is, I asked him if he personally believed that this was how the Hebrew Religion Developed. I did not ask him if that was what some Biblical Authors believed. He affirmed that he did personally believe that this was how the Hebrew Religion developed. So, he believes that YHWH is a conflated God.

No, I believe the early Israelites viewed YHWH as a conflated deity. This could not be made more clear.

[_maklelan]

What's wrong with this picture?

Nothing. You just refuse to acknowledge a difference between believing an academic model and believing in a faith claim.

So now he is trying to change his story and worm out of it. He DOES believe that YHWH is a storm god. This is exactly what I have been saying all along.

I believe no such thing, and nothing you have provided shows otherwise in any sense whatsoever.

Ah, but that is not what I said. Here you go changing things again. You believe that the God of the Israelites is a conflated storm god. I didn't say you "subscribe" to anything.

Now you're changing your story. This disagreement began when you said I believe that "the God of Mormonism is a storm god." I said I believed no such thing, and you told me I was wrong:

I do not claim that the God of Mormonism is a storm god.

Yes you do. Because the Mormons believe that the Hebrew God is their God - the same God you call a storm god. Logic defeats you, again.

Obviously you're saying I personally believe in a deity that's a storm god, which has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with our actual conversation, which engaged nothing other than my academic position regarding the way the Israelite religion developed.

Since the God of Israel is the Mormon God... do the math. Unless you don't believe in Mormonism?

Theology is not about math, grindael.

[_grindael]

Fine by me, see ya. But the fact is, I asked him if he personally believed that this was how the Hebrew Religion Developed. I did not ask him if that was what some Biblical Authors believed. He affirmed that he did personally believe that this was how the Hebrew Religion developed. So, he believes that YHWH is a conflated God.

No, I believe the early Israelites viewed YHWH as a conflated deity. This could not be made more clear.

No, you are hedging. You said that is how the Hebrew Religion DEVELOPED. You believe this. This can't be more clear. Keep hedging. You can run, but you can't hide. This is recited as what you believe are the facts:

You want to know the process that occurred? Ok. The original Syro-Palestinian pantheon consisted of a high god and his consort. In the case of Israel, it was El and Asherah. The state cult explicitly recognized both deities throughout the united and divided monarchies. The second tier was inhabited by the "Sons of El," which, in the literature as it has come down to us, are nameless except for Yhwh. They are described in similar terms as those used in the Ugaritic literature--that is, deities assigned to specific duties vis-a-vis natural phenomena and political entities. Thus Yhwh is a storm god, Rephesh is a deity of pestilence, Mot is a deity of death, etc. The "Sons of El" are also assigned nations as stewardships, as in Deut 32:8-9. The next tier down constitutes the servant deities. They are ontologically deities, but they exist only to serve other higher-tier deities. These were exclusively messenger deities, originally.

Yhwh and El were conflated around the beginning of the united monarchy in an effort to centralize cultic authority under the single state head when the northern and southern kingdoms came together. Cultic centralization in the late pre-exilic period sought to further consolidate cultic authority by delegitimizing temples and cultic sites outside of Jerusalem. This undermined the local worship of Yhwh, which is attested at Kuntillet Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom (no more "Yhwh of Teman" or "Yhwh of Shomron." This is too close to "Baal of Peor," and "Baal of Gad," "Baal of Hamon," etc. From now on just Yhwh of Jerusalem).

This consolidating strained localized cultic piety, however, which began to manifest itself literarily. By the time Israel returned from the exile the roles filled by the several deities of the original pantheon were reconfigured and expanded for the new pantheon. Cherubim, Seraphim, the Hosts of Heaven, the Holy Ones, the Adversary, and a number of other offices were developed during the exile.

This expansion continued into the Hellenistic Period with the explosion of angelological literature like 1 Enoch and texts from Qumran, but developing sectarian concerns catalyzed a push to reconsolidate these roles. The solution which was developed was to corral them all into one taxonomical category. The most convenient category was the angelic, so authors and religious authorities began to treat these disparate characters as different responsibilities or manifestation of angelic beings. The Greek translation of Deut 32:43 represents the first clear attempt to equate the angels with the Sons of God, but it was quickly and completely assimilated into the Jewish worldview

.

A deity is a god. YOU believe that the Ancient Israelites believed that YHWH was a conflated god, hence Daniel believes that YHWH was a conflated god. I asked you if you personally believed this and you said YES. I can repeat this all day, and it won't change anything, except you for some reason want to deny it, but not really deny it. Weirdness to the max.

[_Nightlion]

The things I think are difficult for Mormonism with regards to their Christianity standing or otherwise:
a. The insistence that Latter Day Saints are the only true Christians (one true Church).

Sucks being ignored. I know.
There IS only one true church but it ain't the Mormons and never will be, worlds without end. It could have been. But the Gentiles were too much of the world and would not forsake the overflowing tsunami (scourge) of Satan's lying wonders to sanctify themselves a Zion people.

The cliché that Mormons are the one and only true church is a rip-off and facade of what could have been but never was. If anyone is particularly annoying about insisting they are the only true church, be they special witness or less, bring them to me and I will have them eat the flesh of their own arm in this regard.

b. The claim that Jesus Christ told Joseph Smith directly and in person that the other Christian sects around at the time were an abomination.

This designates the LDS Church as much an abomination as all the rest since they failed to obey the Lord and bring forth and establish a real and true Zion.

c. The changing of the wording in the Book of Mormon from it's earliest version portraying a trinitarian theology, to a later language of individual personages.

They did remove lots of references to Christ being the Eternal God but did manage to leave a couple in. Lucky that. Without those I might never have figured out the New Mormon Theology which is rooted in all LDS Standard Works perfectly with no conflicting barbs I am aware of. Meaning I understand perfectly in my day Restoration theology. Mormons do not have a clue about it and never will. They are like a bunch of eager to please teenagers totally out of their depth in serious relationships with God.

d. The doctrine of plurality of God's and that we may become God's

This is flatly false doctrine according to LDS scripture. It was born in adolescent misunderstanding of what Joseph said and the context of what he did say. If even a few early Mormons had troubled themselves enough to get the gift and power of the Holy Ghost this doctrine would have been disavowed quickly. That condemns the weakness of the people in seeking beyond the mark and not seeking to come unto Christ and be born of him and continue to be taught of God. I can, and have proven many times the corruption of this doctrine in light of LDS scripture and the continuity of the creation scriptures refute the notion outright.

Exaltation and the continuation of the seeds both in the world and out of the world is true. It IS to a much lesser degree becoming a god like unto God in that you are not statically fixed in a kingdom but step down and go back up as Christ set aside his glory and became as man. But we are on the round of Adam and Eve and not that of God, Christ and the Holy Ghost which is one God and eternal without beginning of days or end of years.

So the Zion of the Restoration IS the only true church and gospel and it does not presently exist to any great degree.

[_maklelan]

No, you are hedging. You said that is how the Hebrew Religion DEVELOPED. You believe this. This can't be more clear. Keep hedging. You can run, but you can't hide. This is recited as what you believe are the facts:

I questioned your honesty for much of this, but now I honestly question your intelligence. Of course that's how I believe their religion developed. It's a diachronic model of the development of Israelite religion. It has nothing to do at all with what I personally believe about deity.

A deity is a god. YOU believe that the Ancient Israelites believed that YHWH was a conflated god, hence Daniel believes that YHWH was a conflated god.

But it does not follow that if I believe the Israelites believe X, I automatically believe X. That's just asinine. I am not an ancient Israelite. I am not beholden to any of their belief systems. What on earth is wrong with you?

I asked you if you personally believed this and you said YES.

Yes, you asked if I personally believe that Israelite religion developed that way. I believe it did develop that way. This has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on my own theology or what I think about God. You did not ask me if I believe what the Israelites believed, or if I believe that YHWH actually was a storm deity. You seriously fumbled the comprehension on that entire conversation, and despite multiple people pointing out you are simply misunderstanding, you are making a fool of yourself trying to salvage your petty little rhetorical point.

I can repeat this all day, and it won't change anything, except you for some reason want to deny it, but not really deny it. Weirdness to the max.

You are right, it will not change anything. You will be wrong no matter how many times you pretend my statement reflected a personal belief about God.

[_grindael]

No, you are hedging. You said that is how the Hebrew Religion DEVELOPED. You believe this. This can't be more clear. Keep hedging. You can run, but you can't hide. This is recited as what you believe are the facts:

I questioned your honesty for much of this, but now I honestly question your intelligence. Of course that's how I believe their religion developed. It's a diachronic model of the development of Israelite religion. It has nothing to do at all with what I personally believe about deity.

A deity is a god. YOU believe that the Ancient Israelites believed that YHWH was a conflated god, hence Daniel believes that YHWH was a conflated god.

But it does not follow that if I believe the Israelites believe X, I automatically believe X. That's just asinine. I am not an ancient Israelite. I am not beholden to any of their belief systems. What on earth is wrong with you?

I asked you if you personally believed this and you said YES.

Yes, you asked if I personally believe that Israelite religion developed that way. I believe it did develop that way. This has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on my own theology or what I think about God. You did not ask me if I believe what the Israelites believed, or if I believe that YHWH actually was a storm deity. You seriously fumbled the comprehension on that entire conversation, and despite multiple people pointing out you are simply misunderstanding, you are making a fool of yourself trying to salvage your petty little rhetorical point.

I can repeat this all day, and it won't change anything, except you for some reason want to deny it, but not really deny it. Weirdness to the max.

You are right, it will not change anything. You will be wrong no matter how many times you pretend my statement reflected a personal belief about God.

Once again, you miss the point, and are covering up your blatant lying. I don't know what YOU believe about the Deity you might or might not believe in or worship and I could care less. I said that by claiming that the God of the Israelites was a conflated storm god, which you ACTUALLY personally believe (you said so) -- that you are claiming that the Mormon God is a conflated storm god, since the Mormons, by Joseph Smith and every other "prophet", claim to worship the same God that you are calling a conflated storm God. This is simple logic. (Something that obviously escapes you). Do the math. The fact that you would espouse such speculation is deplorable, if you claim to be a Christian in any way at all.

I don't know if you are a Mormon or not. You may CLAIM to be, but that doesn't mean a thing. Your agenda in denigrating Christians, is right in line with your? Mormon "prophets". You are the one reading things into what I'm actually saying. You are reading it wrong, as usual. You can deny that you are claiming this, but it is what it is. Anyone who believes that the Ancient Hebrews invented their God, poisons their own well if they claim to be a Christian. You don't seem to be able to comprehend this. This is only petty to you, who of course would call it such, because you got caught lying. You said you DIDN'T believe that YHWH was a conflated storm god, then reversed yourself when you saw the evidence that you did say that you did. Then you tried to redefine what the conversation and questions were all about.

And your opinion that Jesus did not claim to be YHWH is laughable. He absolutely did. So whatever you believe in, you destroy the very premise that Mormonism is based on, that the God of Israel was a real God, not a made up conflated god of modern speculation. Here is what your speculation does to your own? religion, as written by someone VERY FAMILIAR with the speculations that you espouse:

By 560 B.C. when the Exodus story in its present form was written in the Exile (cf. 2 Kings 25:27), the narrator was evidently unaware that his God, Yahweh-Elohim was an amalgum of earlier pagan Late Bronze Age gods from Sumer, Syria (Ugarit & Mari), Canaan and Egypt (the Hyksos' Baal-Zephon/Baal-Hadad, assimilated to the Egyptian god Set/Seth).

Professor Kramer, as noted earlier, pointed out the Bible's indebtedness to motifs found in Sumerian literature of the 4th-3rd millenniums B.C. (which would equate with Canaanite Early Bronze Age). He noted that Enki the Crafty God, is alive and well today, his feats and epithets having been ascribed and assimilated to later gods. Many of Enki's motifs appear in Genesis, ascribed to Yahweh-Elohim. Still later, Christianity ascribed Enki's motifs to Christ, claiming that the God of the Old Testament was none-other than Christ himself as Logos ("The Word"). Then came Islam, understanding that the God of Abraham was Allah, and thus to Allah was ascribed Enki's motifs.

Today millions unknowingly honor Enki/Ea/Ayya, "the trickster god" in his "new guise" as Yahweh/Ehyeh, Christ and Allah.

And,

It follows that if the Israelite Yahweh is really a recast Yaw of the Ugartic myths, that the Hebrew meaning of his name, revealed suppossedly to Moses at Mt. Sinai, ehyeh asher ehyeh "I am that I am," is false, and is probably a speculation from a late period.

As this writer, who is FAMILIAR with all the literature writes,

Nothing is "lock-tight provable," _all_ is _speculation_ for scholars, myself included. I understand that Yahweh is an almagam of MANY gods and goddesses, Mesopotamian, Hittite, Syrian, Phoenician, Egyptian, and Canaanite. I feel it is a useless methodology to "nit-pick" and stress "the differences" and IGNORE the similarities shared by the various dieties. For me the Hebrews are _not_ attempting to preserve ALL the characteristics of any given god or goddess, they omit what they have no interest in to build their case for there being only one God. So I accept in essence many gods and goddesses as being amalgamated into Yahweh and I DO NOT WORRY about "the inconsistences" which some scholars view as "cancelling-out" identifications. Gods fused into Yahweh's persona are the Sumerian Enki (Akkadian/Babylonian Ea), Enlil (Ellil), An (Anu), Utu (Shamash), _and_ the Egyptian Hyksos' god Baal Saphon (Baal Hadad) as well as Seth (Seth/Set being assimilated to Baal Saphon) and Sopdu of Egypt, said Egyptian gods surfacing in altered form in the Exodus traditions (said associations being made in "other" articles at my website).

Professors Graves and Patai (1963) on the Hebrews borrowing the epithets and achievements of the pagan gods and ascribing them to Yahweh:

"The titles and attributes of many other Near Eastern deities were successively awarded to Yahweh Elohim...Prophets and Psalmists were as careless about the pagan origins of the religious imagery they borrowed, as priests were about the adaptation of heathen sacrifical rites to God's service. The crucial question was: in whose honour these prophecies and hymns should now be sung, or these rites enacted? If in honour of Yahweh Elohim, not Anath, Baal or Tammuz, all was proper and pious." (p. 28. Robert Graves & Raphael Patai. Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis. New York. Greewich House. 1983 reprint of 1963, 1964 editions)

This is your world, Daniel. Good luck defending it and calling yourself a Christian (if you even do). I'm not buying your speculation, your labels, skewed exegesis or anything else that comes out of your keyboard. You can't win an argument you can't prove. And if you think I'm trying to win an argument to PROVE Christianity, think again. How many Mormons who believe what you write about the Ancient Hebrews will leave the Church because they won't believe they worship a real God anymore? My, my, now isn't that an interesting thought...

[_Tobin]

No, you are hedging. You said that is how the Hebrew Religion DEVELOPED. You believe this. This can't be more clear. Keep hedging. You can run, but you can't hide. This is recited as what you believe are the facts:

I questioned your honesty for much of this, but now I honestly question your intelligence. Of course that's how I believe their religion developed. It's a diachronic model of the development of Israelite religion. It has nothing to do at all with what I personally believe about deity.

Welcome to the reality that is grindael, the foremost asinine ignoramus on this forum (I put Themis up there in close contention). It really is pointless and worthless to discuss anything with him. You can tell him something a million times and he's just too pigheaded to acknowledge it or even grasp what you are telling him. And his ability to make mystifying connections and leaps of illogic is stunning. I really think he may be suffering from some form of mental illness or deficiency.

[_Polygamy-Porter]

So then are you saying that all Mormons® are Christians©?

No Mormons, are not Christian.

Google "double negative"

[_grindael]

Welcome to the reality that is grindael, the foremost asinine ignoramus on this forum (I put Themis up there in close contention). It really is pointless and worthless to discuss anything with him. You can tell him something a million times and he's just too pigheaded to acknowledge it or even grasp what you are telling him. And his ability to make mystifying connections and leaps of illogic is stunning. I really think he may be suffering from some form of mental illness or deficiency.

I must have really hit a nerve to get you to reply Tobin. That's encouraging. Bothering you means I'm doing something right. How are those little green gods of yours doing? Any visits lately? I think we all know who is mentally deficient here.