THE BOOK
MORMONS Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
(From ‘Mormonism Online’.)
‘Members of this church believe that there will be a Second Coming of Jesus Christ to the earth sometime in the future. The LDS Church and its leaders do not make predictions of the actual date of the Second Coming. According to LDS Church teachings, the true gospel will be taught in all parts of the world prior to the Second Coming preceded by increasingly severe wars, earthquakes’ etc. Nature of God: ‘Like most other Christian groups, Mormonism teaches that there is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but unlike Trinitarian faiths, the LDS Church teaches that they are separate and distinct beings with the Father and Son having perfected physical bodies (*) and the Holy Ghost having only a body of spirit. While the three beings are physically distinct, in Mormon theology they are one in thoughts actions and purpose and commonly referred to collectively as the “Godhead”. Also, Mormonism teaches that God the father is the literal father of all the spirits of all men and women, which existed prior to their mortal existence. (**) The LDS Church also believes that a Heavenly Mother exists. Further, it is believed that all humans as children of God can become exalted, inheriting all that God has, as joint-heirs with Christ, and becoming like him as a God.’ (***)
Restoration: Mormonism describes itself as falling within world Christianity, but as a distinct restored dispensation. Mormons believe that God re-established the early Christian Church as found in the New Testament through [Founder] Joseph Smith. Mormons thus believe that their Church is the “only true and living Church” because divine authority was restored to it through Smith. (****)
Asterisks (*) and (**): The relationship between the two aspects denoted by asterisks 1 and 2 reveal a most perplexing belief. On the one hand, we have God as the ‘literal father of all the spirits of men and women’ who will then somehow progress to become perfected “physical beings” forever, exactly as the Mormon religion believes the Creator is supposed to be. In simple and logical extrapolation --- we have once already explained this and will do so again in a later Discourse in detail –- physical beings by their very nature must obey Natural Law. That means The Laws of Creation. They decree that physical bodies must perform physical functions such as elimination of waste products from physical organs. That means ingestion of food and liquid and consequential and necessary urination and defecation that all physical bodies must do.
Mormons, is that what you really believe of The Creator: The Lord Of All The Worlds --- that HE is little more than us; just another human being? How crass, how unbelievably inane --- or should we say insane!
That belief is not just a shocking affront to HIM Who gave Life to all, but is an appalling distortion of His Very Truth in its Divine Perfection. This is precisely why the warnings are so severe: “Few men left”, and “Were the times not cut short, not a man would be saved”. Such unbelievable conceit will not survive what will come upon the earth and its peoples!
Perhaps the early history of Mormonism; extreme persecution and the long trek to the desert to find a safe haven, a well-drilled and equipped standing Army and the short-lived ‘Danites’ -– a group of ‘vigilantes’ who “forcefully protected” the religion and its leaders –- accounts for such an extreme and totally wrong concept of THE ALMIGHTY.
Persecution will always produce a brand of ‘religion’ that stands well outside the main school of thought; in this case the “wide road” of Christianity. What is so incongruous to this writer is the reality of a large, wealthy, and relatively fast-growing religion that has one of the great choirs of the world --- The Mormon Tabernacle --- that ostensibly gives much musical praise to a Creator-Being, yet Who, in their eyes, is just some kind of advanced, higher- level human being. How can such an appallingly distorted belief even emerge?
Mormonism seems to reveal itself as a religion based on intellectualism rather than any form of real spiritual knowledge, for such knowledge would never --- could never --- arrive at such an unnatural notion. It smacks of what has constituted American arrogance from its “frontier days” right up to the present where, in the doctrine of “Manifest Destiny” --- as one international commentator succinctly put it --- “America regards the world as its personal war zone”. This kind of aspiritual intellectualism stems from the intellect of course, and that in turn is from the brain. Well, what does the brain do at physical death? It rots away!
So, in the world of a ‘Mormon nutshell’, we somehow ‘progress’ from spirit to being perfected physical bodies, but not to ‘perfected spiritual human beings’ as the more “spiritually enlightened teachings” correctly affirm.
Mormon ‘leaders’; you really need to teach the great Laws of Creation --- which you clearly do not know. In this example, it would be: The Law of Spiritual Gravity as the primary one in this case, but also coupled to other great Laws of Creation, vis-à-vis: The Law of Reciprocal Action and The Law of Attraction of Similar Species.
Now, asterisks (***) and (****): When you have learned just these Perfect Laws, you will realise to your horror that even presuming to become ‘like him as a God’, and that your church and religion possesses ‘divine authority’, will be akin to a spiritual ‘death sentence’ when the Divinely Ordained “time of necessary destruction” comes upon humankind. Why must that be? Precisely to cleanse the earth of everything that denigrates and opposes His Perfect Laws.
Reader: With such appalling distortions, what kind of outcome do you think awaits the Mormon religion and its adherents --- if there is no change in the doctrine?
Despite having to notate a constant stream of one unbelievable religious distortion after another, we must yet still continue this difficult and quite nauseous narrative of human religions. Why is it difficult and nauseous? It is because what must be written about is absolute anathema to every single nuance of The Very TRUTH Itself. And it is certainly so to this writer’s spirit. Nonetheless, we continue; for the spiritual salvation of “a few more”.
‘Mormonism Online’ continues:)
Relation to Mainstream Christianity:
Mormonism categorizes itself within Christianity, and nearly all Mormons self-identify as Christian. For some who define Christianity within the doctrines of Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism, Mormonism’s differences place it outside the umbrella of Christianity.
Relation to Judaism:
Although Mormons do not claim to be part of Judaism, Mormon theology claims to situate Mormonism within the context of Judaism to an extent that goes beyond what most other Christian denominations claim. The faith incorporates many Old Testament ideas into its theology, and the beliefs of Mormons sometimes parallel those of Judaism and certain elements of Jewish culture.
Relation to Islam:
‘Since its origins in the 19th century, Mormonism has been compared to Islam. Islam and Mormonism both originate in the Abrahamic traditions. Each religion sees its founder (Muhammad for Islam, and Joseph Smith for Mormonism) as being a true prophet of God, called to re-establish the truths of these ancient theological belief systems that have been altered, corrupted, or lost. In addition, both prophets received visits from an angel, leading to additional books of scripture. Both religions share a high emphasis on family life, charitable giving, chastity, abstention from alcohols, and a special reverence for, though not worship of, their founding prophet.’
‘The religions differ significantly in their views on God. Islam insists upon the complete oneness and uniqueness of God (Allah) while Mormonism asserts that the Godhead is made up of three distinct personages. Mormonism sees Jesus Christ as the promised Messiah and the literal Son of God, while Islam insists that the title “Messiah” means that Jesus (or “Isa”) was a prophet sent to establish the true faith, not that he was the Son of God or a divine being. Despite opposition from other Christian denominations, Mormonism identifies itself as “Christian” asserting that Jesus and all true followers of Christ’s teachings were (and are) Muslims – a term that means submitters to God.’ (Wikipedia.)
Notwithstanding the fact that other churches and groups also “await” a “Messiah”; on a sliding scale those we have looked at are probably the primary religions that have had the greatest impact on the human narrative. However, before we leave this foundational first Discourse, we should briefly look at two ‘stone-age’ peoples who, before any European religious influence, possessed a far-sighted notion of an ‘invisible’ Creator Being.