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James
11-12-2015, 03:13 PM
The Holy Spirit has told me the idol in Mormonism among other things is the word "intelligences" and the games Mormons play with it. The more you read about it, the more you realize Mormonism is just supernatural atheism with no need for God. If God always existed and created intelligences and intelligences are used to make humans that could be considered the "uncreated Creator" but almost no Mormons take this view (#1 below). You have to ask which of these 3 views below do you favor to know what it is you follow. If you follow #2 or #3 you debase God. If you believe #1 that is certainly better.

Historically there have been three general ways to understand JS’s teaching:

1. Intelligence is the material from which all persons but God the Father are made. The status of the Son and the Holy Ghost is unclear.
God remains absolute; sovereign
This may be the original position among Mormons, but as we saw it is not clear how early Mormons thought about the question or even whether they did.
This may be the view behind late objections to the contemporary view (Penrose and Lund)

2. Intelligence is the material from which all persons, including God are made.

God is finitistic and must have an origin. Some force must have brought God into existence—but what?
This is a variation on the oldest position. It accounts for many of the unusual beliefs ascribed to Mormons, though it seems to have been popular mostly during the second half of the 19 century.

E.g.: “As man is, God once was; as God is man may become”—Lorenzo Snow (1840)
This view puts the sovereignty of God in question—though few who subscribe to this position recognize that problem.

3. Each person, including God, exists eternally as an individual entity (the dominant view today).

Finitistic—the existence of other eternal entities puts limits on God that we would not find in classical theism.
It doesn’t require that some force have brought God into existence, though it is necessary that God is, in some sense, conditioned by beings other than himself. This view also limits God’s sovereignty, but not nearly so much as #2.
It is not uncommon for Mormons to collapse #2 and #3, understanding intelligence in terms of #3 but picking up aspects of #2 when talking about the destiny of human persons—and when inferring an origin for God.
In spite of that, the two are logically separable. The finitism of #3 does not imply the finitism of #2.
#3 is also more compatible with the description of intelligences that we saw in Abraham 3:19: “And the Lord said unto me: These two facts do exist, that there are two spirits, one being more intelligent than the other; there shall be another more intelligent than they; I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all.”
Both #2 and #3 make it possible to understand human persons as possibly becoming like God, but #3 makes that notion of theosis more like Orthodox notions than like BY’s and John Taylor’s.
JFS’s view (something of the human individual is eternal, but we don’t know what) remains a viable option, but so does #3.
I don’t think anyone holds to #1 any more, and I’m skeptical that #2 can be made to work.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUlO8PdIz3Q

James
11-12-2015, 09:13 PM
So basically the most popular view of Mormonism today is pre-existing individuals, some stronger and better than others. Presumably the Mormon God would be the most powerful of all these individual entities.

The reason I find this evil is because it sounds like Calvinism in that individuals have an arbitrary status of greatness or not so great that has always been and unchanging.

This is evil. A comparison might by how Mormons treat black people. Mormons treat black people with contempt because they were always this way or presumed to have become colored because of their sins.

Mormons are so evil!

James
11-12-2015, 09:26 PM
"In meekness correcting them that oppose themselves; if peradventure God may give them repentance unto the knowledge of the truth" (2 Tim. 2.25)

and, or

"And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie" (2 Thess. 2.11).

James
11-16-2015, 12:00 AM
1. Intelligence is the material from which all persons but God the Father are made. The status of the Son and the Holy Ghost is unclear.

God always existed in this version and created material to create intelligences to create humans. Or it means there was this material alongside God always having existed.

2. Intelligence is the material from which all persons, including God are made.

This is purely atheistic since atheists say material created all persons including any alleged gods. It does not distinguish whether this was an infinite regress of cause and effects or merely always existing state of material unto itself that brought everything into existence.

3. Each person, including God, exists eternally as an individual entity (the dominant view today).

This is arbitrary and fails to answer the necessary question: where do these others come from as there can only be one uncreated Creator?

​Two is the opposite of three.

All three fail even one, because God is ALONE FROM EVERLASTING so there is no material beside God, and He does not need to create material to create humans. He can simply call man made in His image into being. When we speak of Mormon material we are not talking about all the matter in the universe, but some supernatural material.

http://christopherjolsen.com/bhrobertsconf/intelligence_outline.pdf

James
11-16-2015, 12:19 AM
Mormons are polytheists and henotheists not monotheists.

LDS Apostle James Talmage said of one God manifested in three persons, "It would be difficult to conceive of a greater number of inconsistencies and contradictions expressed in words as few" (A. of F., pp. 47-48). Joseph Smith also said, "I have always declared God to be a distinct personage, Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the Father, and the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage and a Spirit: and these three constitute three distinct personages and three gods" (T. of P.J.S., p. 370).

http://www.utlm.org/onlinebooks/mclaims2.htm