Do They Really Believe That?

http://ericbarger.com/articles/do_they_really_believe_that.htm

by Ed Decker

We are often asked, "Do the Mormons really believe those things, or have you dug up old material from some obscure past to make your points?" The question might be, "Aren't you flogging a dead horse The average Mormon family wouldn't know anything about that stuff! Why don't you make reference to something that someone below the rank of an apostle would have access to?"

It is our position that the very basic doctrines of Mormonism clearly separate it from Christian orthodoxy. No matter how many times the LDS church uses the name of Christ, they are, without a shadow of a doubt, completely outside Christianity.

They worship a different god, have a different Jesus, and a very different Holy Spirit. Mormons are polytheists in the highest sense. Not only do they teach that there are countless other gods, they teach that man may also attain godhood through "obedience to the (Mormon) laws and ordinances of the gospel."

The simplest expression of this is why the Church calls the "Law of Eternal Progression:" "As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become."

In order to show that the support documentation for this doctrine is readily available to the average, active, LDS family, we have listed Mormonism's basic heresies and have documented them from books and materials that an LDS family would have in its home.

NATURE OF GOD

Achieving Celestial Marriage Manual (abbreviated ACCM), p.129.
"God was once a mortal man. He lived on a planet like our own. He experienced conditions similar to our own and advanced step by step."

MORMON DOCTRINE (abbreviated MD), p.322.
Late LDS apostle Bruce R. McConkie wrote [quoting Joseph Smith]: "Further, as the Prophet also taught, there is ëa god above the father of our Lord Jesus Christ...If Jesus Christ was the son of God, and John discovered that God the Father of Jesus Christ had a father also...Was there ever a son without a father?"

ACMM, p.3.
"What you are saying is that God became God by obedience to the Gospel program, which culminates in eternal marriage? [answer] Yes."

D&C 130:22.
"God has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's."

ACMM, p.129.
"God is now an exalted man with powers of eternal increase. He lives in an exalted Marriage relationship. "

ACMM, p.129-130.
"We are the literal Children of God, a part of his family unit. We lives with our heavenly parents before coming to earth."

ACMM, p.4.
"...giving birth to spirit children and setting them on the road to exaltation. And if this is to be done, you must have an exalted man and an exalted woman."

MD, p.239
"God continues to progress, as his creations expand and his spirit offspring multiply."

PRE-EXISTENCE
and our First Estate

Moses 3:5-7 (Pearl of Great Price)
"Every form of life was created spiritually in Kolob first."

Abraham 3:22-23 (Pearl of Great Price)
"At first we were all spirit children, living in the presence of God, our heavenly father."

JESUS THE CHRIST, pp.15-16
"Apostle James Talmage's detailed explanation of the primeval council of the Gods."

Abraham 3:23-28 (Pearl of Great Price)
"A Council called of all the leading spirits."

Abraham 4:25-26
"God proposed a plan for our progression. "

Abraham 3:24-26, D&C 29:39.
"That plan was for us to come to earth, gain physical bodies, learn good from evil and have the free agency to choose which we wanted to follow."

Moses 4:1-4, Abraham 3:27-28 (Pearl of Great Price)
"Lucifer, our elder brother who desired the glory for himself, stood up and proposed his own plan."

Ensign (official Church magazine), December, 1980, pp.3-5.
"Jesus of Nazareth", Spencer W. Kimball, First Presidency Message: "His [Jesus'] trials were continuous. Perhaps his brother, Lucifer, had heard him say when he was still but a lad of 12, ëWhist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?í (Luke 2:49)

"...Then came the time when Satan thought to trip him. Their encounter in the previous world had been on more equal terms, but now Jesus was young and Satan was experienced."

Moses 4:1-3 (Pearl of Great Price)
"Lucifer's plan was to take away our free agency, force us to obey all the law. He wanted us to worship him."

Moses 4:2
"Jesus stood and offered himself as our sin-offering, giving man his free agency and the chance to attain eternal glory, or godhood with heavenly father."

Abraham 3:28
"All the council voted No to Lucifer and Yes to Jesus."

Abraham 3:28, D&C 29:36-37.
"Lucifer, very angry, persuaded one-third of the spirit children to follow him and rebel against God and the plan of Jesus. They were cast from God's presence and sent to this earth without bodies of flesh and bone."

MD, p.828, D&C 29:36-41
"Describes the war in heaven, Lucifer sent here to earth where he continues to battle against the saints. "

MD, pp.526-528, Moses 5:16-41, 7:8-22.
"Those who were least valiant in the pre-existence are known in mortality as negroes. They came to earth through the lineage of Cain, with black skin."

CREATION OF THE EARTH
and our Second Estate

D&C 77:12, Moses 1:39, Abraham 3:19
"The earth was created, in the same fashion of many worlds, populated by intelligent people, in his image. Man would always be learning and growing."

Abraham 2:28
"God tells Abraham about the control center, Kolob."

Moses 6:51-68; 3:17, 4:12-13
"The LDS version of the Garden of Eden account."

2 Nephi 9:25-26, Alma 42:17-21
"The earth is controlled by laws. If we break one, we must be punished."

Moses 4:29-31
"Adam and Eve are cast out of the Garden."

Moses 5:6-9
"They learn that their transgression was necessary that man might live. Adam is baptized, received the Holy Ghost and the priesthood. He becomes the first patriarch."

MD, p.546-547
"Our Lord is the only Son of the Father in the flesh. Each word is to be understood literally. Christ was begotten by an immortal father in the same way that mortal men are begotten by mortal fathers."

MD, p.742
"God is an immortal personage...Christ is his literal son...there is nothing figurative about his paternity...He was begotten, conceived and born in the normal and natural course of events."

ACMM, p.235

"The Lord is now sending the Choicest Spirits to earth. "I see an improvement each few years in the young people of the church. I believe that you are the cream of all the spirits in the hosts of heaven and God has sent you here to do a great work."óMark E. Peterson (apostle) BYU address."

GODHOOD
The Third Estate

MD, p.321
"That exaltation which the saints of all ages have so devoutly sought is Godhood itself."

MD, p.321
"You have got to learn how to be gods yourselves...the same as all gods have done before you." (quoting Joseph Smith)

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH, (HC) vol.6, p.306, by Joseph Smith
"My Father worked out His Kingdom with fear and trembling, and I must do the same; and when I get my kingdom, I shall present it to my Father, so that He may obtain Kingdom upon Kingdom, and it will exalt Him in glory. He will then take a higher exaltation, and I will take His place, and thereby become exalted myself."

ACMM, p.3
"If God became God by obedience to all of the gospel law with the crowning point being the celestial law of marriage, then that's the only way I can become a god." [answer] Right!

ACMM, p.203
(12-15) "The endowment is the celestial course of instruction...being enabled to give them the key words, the signs and tokens, pertaining to the priesthood and gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and hell."

D&C 124:28-36; 127:128; 128:15
"Baptism for the dead/keys to the holy priesthood ordained so you may receive honor and glory. For their salvation [the dead] is necessary and essential to our salvation."

D&C 131
"Three degrees of gloryócelestial the highest."

Moses 1:39
"This is my [God's] work and my gloryóto bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man "

D&C 76:51-60, 70.
vs.51-53 list some of the requirements, vs.54-60, 70 list the rewards. "They [temple Mormons] will be Kings and Priests and Gods."

D&C 132:19-20
"Then shall they be Gods, they shall have all power, the angels are subject to them."

ACMM, pp.131-132
(1-12) "The Lord commands marriage."

(1-13)" Exaltation is based on celestial marriage."

(1-14) "Then shall they be Gods, because they have no end"

(1-15)" Only resurrected and glorified Beings may become Parents of Spirit Offspring."

(1-17)" Celestial marriage prepares men to be Kings and Priests unto God."

(1-18) "Celestial marriage makes women Queens and Priestesses to their hubands."

(1-19) "Celestial marriage makes it possible for us to claim our moral children in eternity as well as to propagate ourselves throughout eternity."

D&C 132:1-7, 27-35, 49, 61-64
"New and Everlasting Covenant [plural marriage]: Abide or be damned, etc. Law of the Priesthood/also the name of the temple covenant sworn by all the temple endowment sisters."

MD, p.529-530
"Celestial marriage is the new and everlasting covenant of marriage."

JOSEPH SMITH

Come unto Christ, Melchizedek Priesthood Manual, 1984, pp.126-132
"If we get our salvation, we shall have to pass by him [Joseph Smith]; if we enter our glory, it will be through the authority that he has received. We cannot get around him."

D&C 1:17-18; 35:17
"God called Joseph Smith and commanded him to proclaim the gospel...Fullness of gospel set forth by Joseph Smith."

HC, vol.6, pp.408-409
"[Joseph Smith speaking] I have more to boast of than any man ever had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet."

HC, vol.6, p.78
[Joseph Smith] "I combat the error of ages; I meet the violence of mobs; ...I cut the Gordian knot of powers, and I solve mathematical problems of universities, with truthódiamond truth; and God is my "right hand man."

HC, vol.6, p.319
[Joseph Smith] "God made Aaron to be the mouthpiece for the children of Israel, and He will make me to god to you in His stead, and the Elders to be mouth for me; and if you don't like it, you must lump it."

LDS Hymn Book, #147, 296, "Praise to the Man"
"Long shall his [Joseph Smith's] blood which was shed by assassins plead unto heaven while the earth lauds his fame."

"Joseph the Seer"
"He pleads their cause in the courts above...He died, he died for those he loved...He reigns, he reigns in the realms above...Unchanged in death with a Saviour's love, he pleads their cause in the courts above...The Saints, The Saints, his only pride, For them he lived, for them he died."

D&C 135:1-7
"To seal the testimony of this book (The D&C) and the Book of Mormon, we announce the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Hyrum Smith, the Patriarch...It shall be said of me, He was murdered in cold blood."

Joseph Smith's History 2:30-59 (Pearl of Great Price)
"The story, in Joseph's own words, of Moroni's visit, the uncovering of the gold plates and the eventual translation of the Book of Mormon."

Joseph Smith's History 2:55-56
"Joseph involved in treasure seeking. "

Joseph Smith's History 2:17-20
"All Christian creeds were an abomination in [the LDS god's] sight, and all Christian professors were corrupt."

D&C 20:1-2
"Joseph Smith commanded to organize the church."

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. The King James Bible (used for LDS proof texts)

2. Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, Pearl of Great Price (LDS scriptures).

3. JESUS THE CHRIST and ARTICLES OF FAITH by James Talmage.

4. Come unto Christ, Melchizedek Priesthood Manual, 1984.

5. Sharing the Gospel/Religion 130 Course Manual, BYU, 1976.

6. Achieving Celestial Marriage/Course Manual CDFR60/61. LDS Church, 1976.

7. MORMON DOCTRINE by Bruce R. McConkie.

8. Uniform System for Teaching the Gospel/LDS Church, 1985.

9. Ensign Magazine, December, 1980, LDS Church, Spencer W. Kimball, pp.3-5.

10. The Church Hymn Book, LDS Church, Hymns # 147 and 296.

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