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Longest Thread Ever
- Thread starter babe
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This is not an original comment on Joseph Smith or Mormonism at all, I heard it years ago. The question of whether Mormonism could have sprung up in any other country than America. . . . whether our Constitution provided essential rights for people to seek God on their own, or whether any other nation would have let a religion like Mormonism grow at all, or whether there would have been any people at all who would have found it acceptable enough to believe the teachings. . . .
Mormonism could not have happened anywhere else, but on the American frontier of the early nineteenth century.
Mormonism could not have happened anywhere else, but on the American frontier of the early nineteenth century.
I think the anti-christ is symbolic more than a real entity. I do not believe that a single individual will arise that represents Satan and his minions, or what have you.
well, Log, you are partly right in the point that no simply mortal man is or will be the anti-Christ. Most Christians would pin it on Lucifer himself, and some early Mormons viewed it as the specific mortal who first made a deal with the Devil. . . . Cain, who was in the Inspired Translation of the KJV done by Joseph Smith, also called "Master Mahan" and who, like Saint John the Beloved and the Three Nephites, has been in a sort of halfway house between mortality and the the spirit world. . . . still "mortal" but not appointed to death until some later time. Cain is according to this idea, the mortal representative in the flesh of Lucifer. For the "good guys" the change to immortality will perhaps be when the Lord comes again with all the Saints: for the evil "Wicked", it will perhaps be at the end of the thousand years' reign of Jesus just prior to the last judgment.
In the Doctrine and Covenants, there is also a character termed the "One Mighty and Strong" who is represented as coming at a point in time to set the Church in order, and a lot of men with audacious braggadoccio have tried to hold forth that they are that "One", sometimes right in the bag with being Jesus Himself as well. . . . no end to the delusions of grandeur humans can cook up. . . . . It seems to me that this character will be, from the description given, an immortal personage who does hold authority over the Church superior to any living oracles. Put that down as Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith spoke once of a dream wherein he returned after a long time to find the Church in a condition of complete disorder and malappropriateness, and how he was going to have to set things right again. . . .
I'd put it down as doctrine that Joseph holds the keys to this dispensation.
This is not an original comment on Joseph Smith or Mormonism at all, I heard it years ago. The question of whether Mormonism could have sprung up in any other country than America. . . . whether our Constitution provided essential rights for people to seek God on their own, or whether any other nation would have let a religion like Mormonism grow at all, or whether there would have been any people at all who would have found it acceptable enough to believe the teachings. . . .
Mormonism could not have happened anywhere else, but on the American frontier of the early nineteenth century.
My cousin, who like me worked for Henry E. Eyring for a while, spoke of his relationship and recollections of that time. . . . . How when Henry E. Eyring, who is the father of the current counselor to the President of the LDS Church, Henry B. Eyring, spent a short time in the room where his wife Mildred Bennion had just died, and who had prayed in front of the family that someone of his family would come to take her home. . . .
When he emerged from that room, he told his family directly that his mother had come for his wife.
This struck a chord with me because of a similar thing that happened when my brother died. I speak just as matter of factly that Henry E. Eyring came with my grandfather to take my brother home.
My cousin calls this sort of thing "Gnosticism". . . . the direct experiential "knowing" of God and of spiritual truth. It makes us pretty refractory to the arguments of know-nothings who mock religion, to say the least.
My cousin, who like me worked for Henry E. Eyring for a while, spoke of his relationship and recollections of that time. . . . . How when Henry E. Eyring, who is the father of the current counselor to the President of the LDS Church, Henry B. Eyring, spent a short time in the room where his wife Mildred Bennion had just died, and who had prayed in front of the family that someone of his family would come to take her home. . . .
When he emerged from that room, he told his family directly that his mother had come for his wife.
This struck a chord with me because of a similar thing that happened when my brother died. I speak just as matter of factly that Henry E. Eyring came with my grandfather to take my brother home.
My cousin calls this sort of thing "Gnosticism". . . . the direct experiential "knowing" of God and of spiritual truth. It makes us pretty refractory to the arguments of know-nothings who mock religion, to say the least.
I won't call this kind of "knowing" "Science". I've had this thing about science since I was kid. Science is the kind of thing you can demonstrate. With science you can construct an experiment with rigorously-defined equipment, methods, and principles and lay out a procedure that anyone can duplicate anywhere on earth, any time they want. . . . or at least under specified circumstances. . . . and other people will be able to get the same results you report. Science is thus different from religion, a thing apart, as far apart from other ways of knowing as, for example, "Art".
When I was interviewed for my mission years ago, the bishop asked if I "knew" the Church was true. A pretty good example of a gnostic influence in Mormon language. . . . the question was whether I could serve as an expert witness to spiritual truth. I misunderstood the question because I was thinking more in terms of science. So I said "No".
The Bishop, who knew me pretty well, sat back in his chair and then asked why I wanted to be a missionary, noting that I would need to be telling people the Church is true. . . . I said "Of course I can't prove it to them, but it's the best thing I know, and it's worth telling other people about it. It's their job to decide for themselves if they want to believe it." The poor Bishop signed the recommend.
But the fact of the matter was that I "knew" the spiritual truth of Mormonism before I even realized that it was what the Church had ever embraced. . . . I considered the LDS Church problematic in the fact that its members didn't understand it very well, even before I was eight years old. I have always believed what I know, preferentially to what anyone else has ever tried to lay out as doctrine. I know it like I know the back of my hand, like God knows me.
The fact that God exists, and is involved in our lives if we don't force Him out with our self-will and our sin, is beyond rational disbelief for anyone who has known God.
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When I read history, I run across other people who knew "God" as I do, not infrequently as a matter of fact.
A lot of people involved in the American Revolution, the leaders and soldiers who were in the fight, came out with experiences beyond denial as claims of knowing God had done something for them in the woods, in the lines of battle, and in the affairs of nations. I speak factually, as a direct descendant of King George, the tyrant we rebelled against, as someone related to an English spy for the Crown during the Revolution who thereafter fled to Canada, and as a descendant of at least twenty of the Revolutionary War soldiers. . . .
When a British officer describes training his rifle sights on an American officer, and being distracted by a thought, an impression, of what a fine gentleman the man seemed to be, to the extent of deciding just not to shoot that one man. . . . and later realizes that it was George Washington himself he could have shot, but didn't. . . . oh, yah, an isolated instance maybe pure coincidence. . . but thousands of coincidences like that, adding up to even the native Americans calling Washington the man who couldn't be shot. . . .
Nah, I know God played a hand in helping us win our Independence. A lot of Americans came home from that war knowing that.
A lot of people involved in the American Revolution, the leaders and soldiers who were in the fight, came out with experiences beyond denial as claims of knowing God had done something for them in the woods, in the lines of battle, and in the affairs of nations. I speak factually, as a direct descendant of King George, the tyrant we rebelled against, as someone related to an English spy for the Crown during the Revolution who thereafter fled to Canada, and as a descendant of at least twenty of the Revolutionary War soldiers. . . .
When a British officer describes training his rifle sights on an American officer, and being distracted by a thought, an impression, of what a fine gentleman the man seemed to be, to the extent of deciding just not to shoot that one man. . . . and later realizes that it was George Washington himself he could have shot, but didn't. . . . oh, yah, an isolated instance maybe pure coincidence. . . but thousands of coincidences like that, adding up to even the native Americans calling Washington the man who couldn't be shot. . . .
Nah, I know God played a hand in helping us win our Independence. A lot of Americans came home from that war knowing that.
I've heard of similar things in other wars. . . .
my brother-in-law was in the Korean War. He has told the story in my hearing a number of times, of how his life was saved over and over again. I know what he's talking about. My wife knows what he's talking about. The experience he describes is like our own experience in times when life was on the line. My father told, and put to writing, over thirty of his experiences of a like kind. My father was never particularly religious in any outward fashion. . . . but he told of falling under a team of horses as a child, and how a voice told him exactly what to do, and how it saved him from being trampled. He spent his life being a scientist, and considered things religious to be undemonstrable and would not discuss them, but he still "knew" some person from another side of existence had spoken to him.
Once in a mine in Park City, as a young man just starting college, when he was tending a chute for loading ore, he was "told" to step back, just a moment before a ton of ore fell where he had been. . .
I sorta suspect that people all over the world can tell true stories like this. I think the term "Gnosticism" is tainted by its association with cult-like practices and mysticism, but the true idea is simply that if we are open to it, we will know a lot of things that can't be "demonstrated" or "proven" about our existence, and our relationship to God and other persons who have some connection to us despite being in another department of existence.
my brother-in-law was in the Korean War. He has told the story in my hearing a number of times, of how his life was saved over and over again. I know what he's talking about. My wife knows what he's talking about. The experience he describes is like our own experience in times when life was on the line. My father told, and put to writing, over thirty of his experiences of a like kind. My father was never particularly religious in any outward fashion. . . . but he told of falling under a team of horses as a child, and how a voice told him exactly what to do, and how it saved him from being trampled. He spent his life being a scientist, and considered things religious to be undemonstrable and would not discuss them, but he still "knew" some person from another side of existence had spoken to him.
Once in a mine in Park City, as a young man just starting college, when he was tending a chute for loading ore, he was "told" to step back, just a moment before a ton of ore fell where he had been. . .
I sorta suspect that people all over the world can tell true stories like this. I think the term "Gnosticism" is tainted by its association with cult-like practices and mysticism, but the true idea is simply that if we are open to it, we will know a lot of things that can't be "demonstrated" or "proven" about our existence, and our relationship to God and other persons who have some connection to us despite being in another department of existence.
So, anyway, Mormonism can be defined by men, and has undergone a number of renditions of that kind, and in that light we can quibble about what it is, exactly. Henry E. Eyring dealt with this quite succinctly, and declared that "Mormonism is whatever the truth is". Some things he disagreed with other people on, even church authorities. He declared that "evolution" was Mormonism so far as it was true, and so far as it would ever be known to be true. He said "I don't know how God did it, but I know He did it."
I thought Henry E. Eyring was wrong about some things. I thought his declarations and statements of faith were technically faulty or off the mark here or there somehow. I think anything I could say is subject to the same critiques. . . .
I remember a month or so before he died, he met his son Henry B. Eyring at his office in the Chemistry building at the University of Utah. I was off a ways, and they were not aware of me being there. . . . They stood near the north doors to the old building at that time, and I was on my way back in, but when I saw them there, alone, I just sat down about forty feet away. . . . I watched them talk for several minutes. It was a singular moment in time. I know what sort of men they are. I just "know" them. That was thirty years ago, and I still know them. I stood off because if I made any move it would have changed the time they had, and it was their time, not mine.
My great-grandfather was a close friend in the 1860-1890 time span to their grandfather/great-grandfather. Some kind of connection that played down to my time somehow.
Comparable in my mind to my wife's great-grandfather being the best friend over a lifetime to a particular relative of mine in their era, translating down to her brother being named after my relative because her father honored the history. . . .
This is a time when these kinds of "connections" are going to prove important. . . .
I thought Henry E. Eyring was wrong about some things. I thought his declarations and statements of faith were technically faulty or off the mark here or there somehow. I think anything I could say is subject to the same critiques. . . .
I remember a month or so before he died, he met his son Henry B. Eyring at his office in the Chemistry building at the University of Utah. I was off a ways, and they were not aware of me being there. . . . They stood near the north doors to the old building at that time, and I was on my way back in, but when I saw them there, alone, I just sat down about forty feet away. . . . I watched them talk for several minutes. It was a singular moment in time. I know what sort of men they are. I just "know" them. That was thirty years ago, and I still know them. I stood off because if I made any move it would have changed the time they had, and it was their time, not mine.
My great-grandfather was a close friend in the 1860-1890 time span to their grandfather/great-grandfather. Some kind of connection that played down to my time somehow.
Comparable in my mind to my wife's great-grandfather being the best friend over a lifetime to a particular relative of mine in their era, translating down to her brother being named after my relative because her father honored the history. . . .
This is a time when these kinds of "connections" are going to prove important. . . .
Mormonism is not Joseph Smith, or even just Jesus.
Mormonism is the family of God.
Mormonism is the faith of everyone who wants a place in the family of God. It is who we are, when we get past our blindness to the truth. It is who we always wanted to be. It is our living relationship with not only God, but one another. The part of us, and the part of our relationships, that is honorable. The rest of who we have been, or who we are, is just dust in the wind.
Mormonism is the family of God.
Mormonism is the faith of everyone who wants a place in the family of God. It is who we are, when we get past our blindness to the truth. It is who we always wanted to be. It is our living relationship with not only God, but one another. The part of us, and the part of our relationships, that is honorable. The rest of who we have been, or who we are, is just dust in the wind.
So, anyway, most people hold notions like this about what is "real" but beyond practical demonstration and unfit for general information we can with any expectation of credibility discuss with anyone but those we know will "understand".
Personal experiences are not science, science if it regards them at all will label and dismiss them as 'anecdotal" much like a court will dismiss any "second-hand" evidence as "hearsay". If you call it "faith" you might get hounded by a set of secular "humanist" crusaders on a tear to dissuade you from such "irrational" belief. . . .
Personal experiences are not science, science if it regards them at all will label and dismiss them as 'anecdotal" much like a court will dismiss any "second-hand" evidence as "hearsay". If you call it "faith" you might get hounded by a set of secular "humanist" crusaders on a tear to dissuade you from such "irrational" belief. . . .
But the fact is, it is first-hand testimony, and of the same status as any "witness" who can testify to anything.