21 Questions about Mormonism – A Cult? You Decide

To find out what this series is about look here.

To Summarise:

The Mormon Plan of Salvation is the plan by which God himself became God according to Mormonism. God made this planet to accommodate his spirit children (us) and faithful Mormons will go on to create and inhabit their own planets, which will be populated by their spirit children who will, in turn, worship them – and the whole process starts again.

The god of Mormonism has a body and, like the Wizard of Oz, he only appears omnipotent. Pull back the veil and you see a man. Mormons use the phrase “literally the Son of God” of Jesus as though it is a classic orthodox Christian tenet but by this deceptively simple phrase they are conveying their belief that an “exalted man” with a physical body had intercourse with an exalted woman and, from that union, came the “literal Son of God”. While the Bible teaches and Christians believe that Jesus is “literally God the Son”, the eternal God, Mormons believe he is “literally the Son of God”, the offspring of a man they worship as God and a woman they regard as their goddess mother.

Kolob illustrates the idea that the Mormon god is relatively omniscient (an oxymoron), not an eternal God but an exalted man who is only eternal going forwards; going backwards he clearly decreases until that time when he did not reign.

Following this example, Mormon men intend to become gods, just as their god has done before them. Joseph Smith taught this and, in 1974, Mormon apostle Marion G Romney stated, “God is a perfected, saved soul, enjoying eternal life.” That is what “salvation” is to a Mormon, i.e. godhood. (Salt Lake Tribune, Oct.6, 1974)

Not only do Mormon women need to have passwords but they need the permission of their husband to access heaven. Mormon women take the role of “heavenly Mother” with their god husband, heavenly Father, yielding “the most perfect obedience to their great Head.” Not only so but eternal happiness depends on entering into this eternal arrangement, a wife among countless wives of an exalted man among many gods. The seemingly innocent Mormon message about the family is the basis for this dynastic arrangement.

Mormons in their tens of thousands go out every year into areas where traditional Christianity is already established and the Christian message regularly preached. This despite the fact that there is no evidence for or reason to believe Mormonism, its original founders and witnesses discredited and/or excommunicated, denounced by their fellow Mormons and the larger world.

Why do some call the Mormon Church a cult? I think you can answer that question for yourself.

Previous Posts:

Mormonism: A Cult?

Jesus: God the Son, or the son of a god?

Kolob: Where God Lives?

God, Mary and the 'S' Word

Jesus in America

What Every Mormon Wants: godhood

Mormon Women

Mormon Secret Underwear

More Than One Kolob?

In Black and White

The Elusive Gold Plates

The Mormon Java Jive

Mission or Metaphor?

Family of The gods

21 Questions about Mormonism – Family of the gods; Whose in and Whose out?

To find out what this series is about look here.

Q: What do the Mormons believe about the family?

A: Mormons believe that the family is the foundation for this life and the life to come.

C: To reiterate earlier observations:

Qu: “Brethren, 225,000 of you are here tonight. I suppose 225,000 of you may become gods. There seems to be plenty of space out there in the universe. And the Lord has proved that he knows how to do it. I think he can make, or probably have us help make, worlds for all of us, for every one of us 225,000” (Spencer W Kimball, Ensign, Nov.1975, p.80)

C: Mormon men intend to become gods, just as their god has done before them. Joseph Smith taught this and, in 1974, Mormon apostle Marion G Romney stated, “God is a perfected, saved soul, enjoying eternal life.” That is what “salvation” is to a Mormon, i.e. godhood. (Salt Lake Tribune, Oct.6, 1974)

Qu. "In the Heaven where our spirits were born there are many Gods, each one of whom has his own wife or wives, raises up a numerous family of sons and daughters... each father and mother will be in a condition to multiply forever and ever. As soon as each God has begotten many millions of male and female spirits, and his Heavenly inheritance becomes too small, to comfortably accommodate his great family, he, in connection with his sons, organizes a new world, after a similar order to the one which we now inhabit, where he sends both the male and female spirits to inhabit tabernacles of flesh and bones.... The inhabitants of each world are required to reverence, adore, and worship their own personal father who dwells in the Heaven which they formerly inhabited.” (Mormon apostle Orson Pratt, The Seer, March 1853, pp. 37-39)

C. In the most fundamental way this describes the Mormon Plan of Salvation, the plan by which God himself became God according to Mormonism. God made this planet to accommodate his spirit children (us) and faithful Mormons will go on to create and inhabit their own planets, which will be populated by their spirit children who will, in turn, worship them – and the whole process starts again. The answer, then, is that there are, or will be planets which Mormons expect to rule after their death and ascension.

The impression given, and gained, from Mormon publicity for the family is that of a warm Victorian picture of hearth and home, thrift and industry and traditional values in support of the idea of the nuclear family. Mormons however expect to become gods, populating their own earth with their spiritual offspring, just as God has done before them. The family, so celebrated in Mormonism, forms the basis of this cosmic dynasty; the extended family writ large across your very own universe.

Q: Can someone who may never marry in life have eternal marriage?

A: God will not withhold blessings from any of his children who may not have the opportunity to marry in this life.

Qu. “If you want salvation in the fullest, that is exaltation in the kingdom of God, so that you may become his sons and his daughters, you have got to go into the temple of the Lord and receive these holy ordinances which belong to that house, which cannot be had elsewhere” (Mormon prophet Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 2, p.44).

Qu. “It fills my heart with sadness when I see in the paper the name of a daughter or a son of members of this Church, and discover that she or he is going to have a ceremony and be married outside of the temple of the Lord, because I realize what it means, that they are cutting themselves off from exaltation in the kingdom of God.

SORROW IN RESURRECTION IF NO ETERNAL MARRIAGE. These young people who seem to be so happy now, when they rise in the resurrection—and find themselves in the condition in which they will find themselves—then there will be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth, and bitterness of soul ...” (Ibid., p.60).

Qu. "Restrictions will be placed upon those who enter the terrestial and telestial kingdoms, and even those in the celestial kingdom who do not get the exaltation; changes will be made in their bodies to suit their condition; and there will be no marrying or giving in marriage, nor living together of men and women, because of these restrictions" (ibid. vol. 2, p.73).

Qu. "Except a man and his wife enter into an everlasting covenant and be married for eternity, while in this probation, by the power and authority of the holy priesthood," The Prophet says, "They will cease to increase when they die; that is, they will not have any children after the resurrection" (Mormon Doctrine, 1966, p.238)

C: Exaltation and even happiness in the next life, for a Mormon, depends on being married for eternity, the establishment of “increase” and the building of an eternal dynasty. Without this “there will be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth, and bitterness of soul ...”

Previous Posts:

Mormonism: A Cult?

Jesus: God the Son, or the son of a god?

Kolob: Where God Lives?

God, Mary and the 'S' Word

Jesus in America

What Every Mormon Wants: godhood

Mormon Women

Mormon Secret Underwear

More Than One Kolob?

In Black and White

The Elusive Gold Plates

The Mormon Java Jive

Mission or Metaphor?

Coming Up:

A Cult? You Decide

21 Questions about Mormonism - More than one Kolob?

To find out what this series is about look here.

More than one Kolob? Kolobs? Hmm. Is this an anagram?

Q: Does the Mormon Church believe in the existence of another physical planet or planets, where Mormons will "rule" after their death and ascension?

A: No.

Qu. "In the Heaven where our spirits were born there are many Gods, each one of whom has his own wife or wives, raises up a numerous family of sons and daughters... each father and mother will be in a condition to multiply forever and ever. As soon as each God has begotten many millions of male and female spirits, and his Heavenly inheritance becomes too small, to comfortably accommodate his great family, he, in connection with his sons, organizes a new world, after a similar order to the one which we now inhabit, where he sends both the male and female spirits to inhabit tabernacles of flesh and bones.... The inhabitants of each world are required to reverence, adore, and worship their own personal father who dwells in the Heaven which they formerly inhabited.” (Mormon apostle Orson Pratt, The Seer, March 1853, pp. 37-39)

C. In the most fundamental way this describes the Mormon Plan of Salvation, the plan by which God himself became God according to Mormonism. God made this planet to accommodate his spirit children (us) and faithful Mormons will go on to create and inhabit their own planets, which will be populated by their spirit children who will, in turn, worship them – and the whole process starts again. The answer, then, is that there are, or will be planets which Mormons expect to rule after their death and ascension.

It is strange that the Mormon Church should deny this since there is a hymn in the official Mormon Church hymnbook that speaks clearly of Kolob:

If you could hie to Kolob in the twinkling of an eye,

And then continue onward with that same speed and fly,

Do you think that you could ever through all eternity,

Find out the generation where God began to be?

 

Or see the grand beginning, where space did not extend?

Or view the last creation, where Gods and matter end?

Methinks the Spirit whispers, “No man has found pure space,

Nor seem the outside curtains, where nothing has a place”

 

The works of God continue, and worlds and livers abound;

Improvement and progression have one eternal round.

There is no end to matter; there is no end to space;

There is no end to spirit; there is no end to race.

(Hymn 284, Hymns, 1985 ed.)

Previous Posts:

Mormonism: A Cult?

Jesus: God the Son, or the son of a god?

Kolob: Where God Lives?

God, Mary and the 'S' Word

Jesus in America

What Every Mormon Wants: godhood

Mormon Women

Mormon Secret Underwear

 

Coming Up:

In Black and White

The Elusive Gold Plates

The Mormon Java Jive

21 Questions About Mormonism - Mormon Women

To find out what this series is about look here.

If you think some previous answers have been curt take a look at this for an answer:

"No!"

First they want to tell you all about Mormonism – then they don’t. You don’t think this is another “bury it with John D Lee” moment, do you?

Q: Does the Mormon Church believe that women can only gain access to heaven with a special pass or codewords?

A: No.

Qu. “In the divine economy, as in nature, the man "is the head of the woman," and it is written that "he is the savior of the body." But "the man is not without the woman" any more than the woman is without the man, in the Lord. Adam was first formed, then Eve. In the resurrection, they stand side by side and hold dominion together. Every man who overcomes all things and is thereby entitled to inherit all things, receives power to bring up his wife to join him in the possession and enjoyment thereof.

In the case of a man marrying a wife in the everlasting covenant who dies while he continues in the flesh and marries another by the same divine law, each wife will come forth in her order and enter with him into his glory.” ("Mormon" Doctrine Plain and Simple, or Leaves from the Tree of Life, (Mormon apostle Charles W. Penrose, p.66, 1897, Salt Lake City)

Qu. “Do the women, when they pray, remember their husbands?... Do you uphold your husband before God as your lord? "What!—my husband to be my lord?" I ask, Can you get into the celestial kingdom without him? Have any of you been there? You will remember that you never got into the celestial kingdom [during the temple ceremony] without the aid of your husband. If you did, it was because your husband was away, and someone had to act proxy for him. No woman will get into the celestial kingdom, except her husband receives her, if she is worthy to have a husband; and if not, somebody will receive her as a servant.” (Mormon apostle Erasmus Snow, Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, p. 291)

C. When Mormons attend the temple for their “endowments” they go through a ceremony in which they are brought to “the veil”, a representation of the veil between this world and the next. Someone stands on the other side of the veil representing God and there is a rehearsal of what is expected to happen when we pass from this life. The Mormon candidate repeats certain words and signs to gain entry “through the veil.” When Mormons get married in the temple this part of the endowment ceremony is rehearsed as part of the marriage ceremony with the husband taking the place of God “behind the veil” who leads his wife through the veil. Hence Erasmus Snow’s teaching that “No woman will get into the celestial kingdom, except her husband receives her.”

Not only do Mormon women need to have passwords but they need the permission of their husband to access heaven.

Q: Does the Mormon Church believe that women must serve men on both Earth and in heaven?

A: Absolutely not. Mormons believe that women and men are complete equals before God and in relation to the blessings available in the Church.

Qu. "But if we have a heavenly Mother as well as a heavenly Father, is it not right that we should worship the Mother of our spirits as well as the Father? No; for the Father of our spirits is at the head of His household, and his wives and children are required to yield the most perfect obedience to their great Head. It is lawful for the children to worship the King of Heaven, but not the 'Queen of heaven.'... we are nowhere taught that Jesus prayed to His heavenly Mother..." (Mormon apostle Orson Pratt, The Seer, page 159)

C. Mormon men expect to obtain to the role described here as the role of “the Father” or God. Mormon women, then, take the role of “heavenly Mother”, yielding “the most perfect obedience to their great Head.” See also the previous answer.

Previous Posts:

Mormonism: A Cult?

Jesus: God the Son, or the son of a god?

Kolob: Where God Lives?

God, Mary and the 'S' Word

Jesus in America

What Every Mormon Wants: godhood

Coming Up:

Secret Underwear

Kolobs?

In Black and White

The Elusive Gold Plates