Ask a Mormon, Part 3

[_random_]

2 questions:
1. Is it true you serve water for communion? I've heard several authors use this against you, but they're the same people who say you believe you get to be God of you own planet, and most of them are Baptist, so I don't see how they can really complain.

2.Do you think it will be easier to have a thread like this with your recently acquired superpowers?

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

2 questions:
1. Is it true you serve water for communion? I've heard several authors use this against you, but they're the same people who say you believe you get to be God of you own planet, and most of them are Baptist, so I don't see how they can really complain.

We use water, yes. We also believe we will be gods, of our own universes, not planets. They get it wrong, but they underestimate it.

2.Do you think it will be easier to have a thread like this with your recently acquired superpowers?

I would hope not - I don't want to directly do anything against anyone who starts flaming or trolling here because I would look biased, so I would have to report it to the other mods, just as if I were a regular poster.

 

[Mowque]

Why water?

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

We don't drink wine outside of sacrament (what we call it) and our scripture says that the exact substance doesn't matter if it is done in memory of Christ. But water is cheap and easy to obtain.

 

[_random_]

. We also believe we will be gods, of our own universes, not planets. They get it wrong, but they underestimate it.

Do you believe that you would be completely sovereign over your universe, or that you would be an authority over it, still subjected to God's power? Is it true that you believe God started out as a normal guy, but then earned a universe?

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

We* will still be subject to God's power, though exactly what this means for us I cannot say. We do also believe that God was once like us and progressed to where He is now, though how much He "earned" it and how much came through the efforts of others, I cannot say. We certainly wouldn't say that any of us will "earn": this, as it will come primarily through the grace of Christ.

*In this particular case, by "we" I mean "those who will attain exaltation", not "Mormons", particularly.

 

[holy king]

no offense, but this whole becoming a god thing is cute.

(partially because it's so totally out of the blue...)

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

How is beloeveing that God can make us like Him any stranger (from your perspective) than believing in God in the first place?

 

[Shekwan]

I would call it strange because its unfamiliar.

 

[holy king]

I would call it strange because its unfamiliar.

yeah, it's a "whoa, where did that come from" factoid.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Well, we have believed it for going on 180 years or so now, and it's not like we have been the only group ever to have such a doctrine. If you literally mean "where did it come from", the answer is "it came from revelations that God gave to His prophets, especially Joseph Smith, as well as his successors."

 

[Shekwan]

I wonder where he got that idea?

 

[eastsidebagel]

I wonder where he got that idea?

From two glden plates he found in a forest near Albany, NY IIRC.

 

[Shekwan]

Are you making that up?!

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

The golden plates he was shown were actually closer to Rochester, but they were translated into the Book of Mormon. I was speaking of the Doctrine and Covenants, which were a series of direct revelations from God.

 

[eastsidebagel]

I'm sure that this has been asked before, but I'm just too lazy for searching it throughout all this thread, so I'm gonna ask it again: Where are those plates today? And if they aren't anymore found on Earth, why did God see it preferable to remove them from our eyes so that maybe the only valid proof which has ever existed which would have made the Joseph Smith story believable to most people, is gone now too?

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Actually, the Joseph Smith story is believable to lots of people, and I am not really sure it would be more so if the plates were still around, especially since we would still consider them too sacred to be thoroughly analyzed. Short answer: God took them back. Although they were shown to several people who issued a written statement that they had seen them. But there are other, better ways to know if his claims were true, and no matter how much people may say otherwise I don't think there are very many people who would be convinced by the plates alone.

 

[El_Machinae]

Though, you must admit that finding Jewish DNA amongst the natives would've really helped make the case.

 

[tycoonist]

the only knowledge i have of mormonism comes from a certain south park episode. if you have seen it, would you mind telling me what parts of it are correct, and which aren't?

(sorry if this has already been asked)

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Though, you must admit that finding Jewish DNA amongst the natives would've really helped make the case.

Perhaps it would have, but at the same time it is not official doctrine that the Lehites were the entire descendants of the New World natives. In fact, it was a rather small group that came over and the Book of Mormon implies (but doesn't say) that they mixed with people already here.

the only knowledge i have of mormonism comes from a certain south park episode. if you have seen it, would you mind telling me what parts of it are correct, and which aren't?

(sorry if this has already been asked)

It has been asked, but I have never seen it.