this thread is really interesting, i hope it keeps going ... nabster and matthew, where are you guys getting your research from ?

are we talking about angels being only male? Ive only heard of man angels in Bible suchas michael, gabriel. will find out when we go to Heaven.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">WE WERE IN HEAVEN BEFORE WE WERE BORN?</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Very interesting thread, good reading.

I just wanted to comment on the subject of this thread.

While studying Theology on my own time I decided to see why Mormons always had so many kids (it is a sterotype, but true). The answer I found was shocking! They beleive that we are all in Heaven before we are born, and so they have lots of kids because they are trying to get them out of Heaven and down to earth.

I personally find this twisted, but that's just my opinion!

wow, new one for me too! thought it was that they didnt believe in birth control?

Just a bit of clarification - what you posted about Mormons and kids is wrong. It's true that we believe we were all in Heaven before we were born (look at Ecclesiastes 12:7 - how can our spirits return somewhere they've never been?), but that's not the reason we have a lot of kids. That's a personal decision by the parents of each family - I know plenty of Mormon families with just one or two kids, but you're right, it is typical for Mormon families to have upwards of 4 (and where I am, at BYU, it's not uncommon to run into people from families of 8 kids or more (I'm included in that category myself)). The reason Mormons tend to have large families is because we have a strong belief in the importance of the family, and just love kids, I guess. There is nothing doctrinal about it - no one is ever encouraged to have large families (unless they think there is some social pressure from the families around them, which there shouldn't be - no one preaches it) - it just happens that most Mormons have lots of kids, because we love families. No other religion in the world places more importance on the family, and that breeds a love of families and a love of kids (for more information on LDS beliefs in the family here\'s a link to go to , or you could go to mormon.org and click on the link that says "Families").

It's also not true that we don't believe in birth control - that's the Catholics (I think - I'm no Catholic, so I don't know for sure, but that's what I've heard). We believe the use birth control to be a personal decision between husband and wife, and it is not regulated by our doctrine at all. My mother used birth control in between her pregnancies.

And lastly, I wish I had more time to spend here, but being at college and taking 21 credits isn't really conducive to spending a lot of time on the internet doing things unrelated to school. So, I probably won't be back for a very long time. If someone has a really important question for me, if you send me a private message it'll get sent to my e-mail and I'll see what I can do; other than that I won't ever see it.

So, at least for the forseeable future ('cause when this semester's over I'll be going to serve a mission in a foreign country somewhere for two years, so I also won't be able to visit the site), adieu.

Matt

Well just so you know, I have nothing against Mormons, some of my best friends growing up were Mormons and once done with schoolong went out on there Missions as well.

It makes sense that I am right in my comment about kids. We both know that you obviously have a choice to have lots of kids, but this certainly stems from the fact that you're supposedly bringing them down from the Heavens, It makes sense to me...

Mormonism is an edifice built atop another religion, Christianity. But the views and interperatation are entirely different.

None of the other Christian religions made multi-chick marriages an essential feature, but the LDS church gave that up in 1890. Publicly at least, and only after the federal government stepped in. The feds revoked the citizenship of every polygamous Mormon, disincorporated their church, and began seizing its assets. Shortly thereafter the residing Prophet responded with a fresh revelation from Heaven, immediately reversing their five decades old implementation of the holy sacrament.

Polygomy also makes sense with the "Bringing kids down from Heaven theory". Don't you think?

Incidentally, good chunks of the Book of Mormon (purported to have been written circa 400 AD) were lifted from the King James translation of the Bible (completed in 1611). Included in these plagiarisms are the errors made by KJV's translators. Explanations of this time warp are curious and unsatisfying. Furthermore, whichever Supreme Being wrote the Book of Mormon's pseudo-KJV verses possessed an inadequate understanding of how to use Jacobean noun cases.

The Mormons are the only mainstream church to engage in retroactive, posthumous baptisms, in order that ancestors may ascend to heaven... ok... Among those so baptised were Adolf Hitler in 1993, Josef Stalin, and Vlad the Impaler. By 1997 a coverup of the most controversial baptisms occurred, accomplished imperfectly.

The Mormons were vilified by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his first Sherlock Holmes story, "A Study in Scarlet." It was also Mormon settlers who precipitated the war between Earth and Klendathu in the movie Starship Troopers.

I just don't see it...

thanks for the lesson, had no idea. to each its own. AS long as folks arent off sacrificing people on alters-i leave that up to druid cults. not the earth pagan cults-wicca. both remind of THE CRAFT movie, scary! PEOPLE JUST WORSHIP IN DIFFERENT WAYS, Id rasther they have too many kids than to kill them any day. ive known some mormons myself. its their personal choice,but its not for me-not my bag to be in any ''harem'' [polygamy]? AT LEAST BE GIVEN A CHOICE TO MARRY A MAN KNOWING HED HAVVE OTHER WIVES-. thats better than him just hiding and cheating. some rel. cults like davidians took it too far with having children as wives etc-under 12 too young. although its hard to find virgins[any gender]under 16 even anymore.

i have nothing against mormons noor Arab cultures where its more Biblical generation, tradition. im not for abuse of anyone in name of religion however. that can happen anywhere, look at waco![DAVID KORESH CULT]. it should be consentual as adults, not child abuse -power hungry wanna bes scare me as a church leader.

HOPE I hadnt confused anyone, am rambling again i think? NO OFFENSE TO ANYONE. thanks.

I now see how you got your post++ count spinny, 3 seperate posts in 5 minutes,

Wow... I really shouldn't be taking the time to do this, but I got bored and came back for a peek to see if anyone had responded to me post, and found an outright attack on my beliefs, that I didn't even bring up.

sdibias - you said "I just don't see it..." What don't you see? The only thing I said anything about was clarifying an incorrect statement you had made. There was nothing to "not see." Then you had the audacity to tell me I don't know what I believe.
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">It makes sense that I am right in my comment about kids. We both know that you obviously have a choice to have lots of kids, but this certainly stems from the fact that you're supposedly bringing them down from the Heavens, It makes sense to me...</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That, said right after I told you what the Mormon position on it is (that there isn't one, and I know that from very personal experience, seeing as how I'm a Mormon), is very directly calling me a liar. It doesn't matter what "makes sense to you" - I told you what the Mormon doctrine is. I promise I'm not lying to you.

Then you go on and make numerous unwarranted, uncalled for attacks against my church. Even though all of this has been extensively covered in the Mormons thread, I'll go over it all again briefly, so you don't have to search through that mess.

First off, polygamy - it's in the Bible. Remember Jacob? Abraham? David? Solomon? There must be some instance in which the practice of polygamy is ordained of God, for it was in the case of those Old Testament prophets. Can you explain to me the Christian doctrine behind those polygamists? The Book of Mormon has an explanation of it, and it's in Jacob 2:27-30 - it basically says that the purpose of polygamy is to raise up a people unto God. So, the practice of polygamy has Biblical precedent (which you cannot lightly dismiss), and we have a reason for it. Now to the part about "abandoning" it. John Taylor, the 3rd prophet of my church, spent most of his time as prophet in hiding because of the issue of polygamy, and many members of my church went to prison for it. But he didn't claim revelation in order to make things easier for himself or for the members. He died in hiding, then Wilford Woodruff became the next prophet. He was in hiding for a while to, and would have stayed in hiding (as evidenced by the fact that John Taylor died before he gave up what he believed (and I believe) was a commandment of God) had he not been commanded by God to stop the practice. There was none of this "shortly thereafter" stuff. And the "Publicly at least" - now you accuse my whole church of being liars. There are people in southern Utah and other places who practice polygamy and call themselves Mormon, but they have no affiliation with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon church). Anyone who has practiced polygamy since 1890 has been excommunicated. This is a very cursory defense of polygamy, but I don't really have the time or the interest right now to do more. You might be able to find more on the Mormon thread if you're interested.

As far as what you claimed about the Book of Mormon - have you ever read it? There is power in that book, and I would suggest (ask) that you read it before making judgements like that. Certainly there are parts that say the same thing as the Bible - you'd think God would say the same thing to different people, so there should be some overlap. Does the fact that the New Testament says some of the same things as the Old Testament make the New Testament false? Again there's a whole lot more I could say about it, but I don't have time, and chances are you don't really care anyway (if you want to get into evidences of authorship, there's this ancient Hebrew literary form called chiasmus I would like to introduce to you, of which the best example in all world literature, ever, is in the Book of Mormon - kinda suggests it was written by an ancient Israelite, doesn't it?). I would suggest (ask, even plead) that you postpone judgement on the Book of Mormon until you've read it yourself, cover to cover. Anything less would only give you a prejudiced, uninformed opinion. Blatantly attacking something you have no experience with isn't something Christ would do, is it?

Third, you mentioned (what we refer to as) baptism for the dead. Interesting that you bring this one up too; see, it's also in the Bible. Look up 1 Corinthians 15:29. That's not where we get our doctrine from, but it's evidence that the early Christians did it. I won't take more time here defending the fact that it is a practice ordained by God (if the Bible isn't evidence enough of that), because you mentioned Hitler. Honestly, I don't know anything about this alleged "cover-up," but if Hitler or Stalin wanted a chance to repent, do you think Christ would give it to him? Who are you to say someone is unworthy of forgiveness? Now, I'm not saying that my church thinks either one of them has been forgiven (we don't know - that's between him and God). When we do a baptism in behalf of someone who is dead, what we believe happens is they have the opportunity to either accept it or reject it - it's not forced upon them. So I see no problem in performing a baptism in behalf of Adolf Hitler, because if he accepted it, that means he repented, and God got one more prodigal son back that I'm sure He'd be very happy to have, and if he didn't, that's his problem. We are not condoning their actions by performing a baptism in behalf of them.

And, last, was this: </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The Mormons were vilified by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his first Sherlock Holmes story, "A Study in Scarlet." It was also Mormon settlers who precipitated the war between Earth and Klendathu in the movie Starship Troopers.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I really don't see what the point of this is. The only purpose this has is to belittle my church. It says nothing of doctrine, it doesn't even make one of the all-to-frequent character attacks on the leaders of my church. The only thing it says is that someone made fun of us. What in the world does that prove? If I go and make a joke about Jews, does that all of a sudden count as evidence that Judaism is false? No, it just means I need to repent, 'cause I'm guilty of belittling someone else. I've been in lots of religious discussions before, and I've never seen this - comedic satire used as evidence in a theological debate.

So, I just don't see where all of this came from. All of these attacks, and all I said was "Mormons think families are important." The only part of your post that was in any way called for was the first two paragraphs, and even that was just calling me a liar. Why get so defensive, even offensive? I was very offended by that post, and I got pretty upset. I tried very hard not to be angry back at you, but I'm sorry if I didn't do a good job all the time. I really don't have time to keep on doing this, and it's all repeats of the same thing, anyway. If I thought you really cared I would be happy to take the time to explain these things to you, but it's been my experience that no one who makes attacks like that will ever listen if I try to answer them. Feel free to prove me wrong - please do. I would love it if people would stop just blindly believing everything they're told about my church from antagonistic sources (which is interesting, because that blind obedience is something we are very often accused of (which is also extremely false)), and actually listen to someone who personally knows what they're talking about.

I guess the whole point of this is - please don't believe everything you read about my church (unless you get it from the right source: lds.org or mormon.org). I can promise you that almost everything you can find about Mormonism that's not written by a Mormon is almost entirely either outright lies or intentionally misleading. I've seen the claims people make about my church, and I've found the answers to them (I've been through this kind of thing a lot). Please postpone judgement, like Christ told us to do.

And now I really don't have time for this anymore, so if anyone is interested in hearing the truth about my church feel free to send me a private message.

(Sorry, Allen, that this isn't in the Mormon thread, but this is where sdibias brought it up)

I cant answer for others here. it is better to learn about other's religions and respect our differences-the right to disagree without judgement. Im sorry for any offense by me. we can all learn from your posts and others here, me too. agree to disagree is my policy. I find most religions of interests myself. [I recently looked up the mormom website for research on my own]. we each take what we need from the Bible, form different perspectives, they had these issues B.C and A.D. churches fighting over which religion should rule etc. not unusual. dont fret it. God will work this out for all involved in time. the more we learn, the less we judge? I hope. Im not perfect either. and cant throw that first stone. your cool by me whatever your background/faith. [;

maybe allen or steve etc could give you a better answer.

Matthew, I too have little time to write at the current moment, and looking at the "Mormon" thread, I don't have time to read that either (40+ pages or so) Like you, I have lots of studying to do, as well as work and these bulletin boards seem to lure me in like a fish on a hook, i just can't find the time at the current moment to reply to our post.

I too agree that maybe I should have posted this in the other thread, my appologies for not doing so.

I will however reply when I have the time.

And if I offended you, please accept my appology.

Hi, Ive been guilty of misthreadingon here or even offending others. never my intent. I bet he [matt]is ok with you by now. we miss you! [; ALOT.