That's what the church teaches it's members to do. That's what missionaries do and what they teach investigators like you were to do as well. Now feelings come in a variety of ways and intensities. Some are described as a burning in the bosom, calm assurance, a still small voice, thoughts, impulses, and even more dramatic like visions, dreams hallucinations, etc.



Scriptural? LOL Not sure what you mean by that, but then interpretation of what is scriptural will vary from person to person even within the church. An example is that even you and frank don't agree on everything. Or do you mean scriptural in that you think the experience fits what the scripture says about it. In this case just about anything can be interpreted to fit it. All good feelings. I could look up scriptures to fit all positive feelings, thoughts, dreams, visions, hallucinations, etc.



People who fly do tell others what it is like. It may not describe it perfectly, but they can still do it. Members of the church, or other religions like Wicca, do explain their experiences to others, but usually those they think are also believers. It's only when you think you are talking to unbelievers that you clam up. Church publications have lots of stories.



You should pay more attention to those you want to discuss with or help. That way you would already know I have been on a mission and been an active member serving in the church for decades. I have read and prayed many times. I have had experiences I at one time thought were from the HG. I did this because that is what I was taught to do. Now I have brought up that we have no idea of all that the body is capable of producing on it's own, but believers always want to ignore this one. I try to ignore the arguing and try to stick to discussing it and why I think I may be right.



You should learn to use the quote feature. I never know who you are referring to since you have confused me with drifting before. Now I expected you to say something like this simply because I don't agree with you.

Themis, have you fasted and prayed about this? If so, how long?

From the orthodox Christian perspective Psalm 82 absolutely does not teach that men can become gods, the great blaphemy of the Garden. Psalm 82 is an impeachment of unjust judges who are officially called "gods". The gods spoken of in the Psalm are the Judges of Israel, so called as the official representatives of God on earth. Their authority gives them power to act in the name of God and similarly as types of gods in dispensing God's judgements. The Psalm berates them because they are unjust and contrasts their unjust humanness with the "superhuman dignity of their calling." Jesus picks up this theme in John 10;34-35.

I don't know where you get all that BS from! The scripture clearly states that you are gods and all of you are the children of the Most High! Jesus even quotes that same verse in John 10:33-35 to the Jews who try to stone him! The same principle in also taught in Revelation 3:21 clearly!

" To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me on my throne, even as I have overcome and am sat down with my Father in His throne."

I already said that I did. Can you not even read others posts. You really are lazy. As for length, it varied, and it did not always focus on the question of the Book of Mormon being true, but around greater spirituality. It took decades to realize that the body is more then capable, an area you really don't want to evaluate fairly since it can never give you want you want. Now this gradual realization did not cause me to change beliefs about LDS truth claims, but gradual awareness of evidence that proved some of the core LDS claims were not true. The Book of Abraham was essentially the smoking gun.

Actually the Book of Abraham was the smoking gun, the bloodied candlestick; knife; lead piping; and Colonel Mustard jumping up and down on the head of my belief in the Billiard Room.

I get it out of the Bible by taking the passage in context rather than seizing on a word or two to support some far out belief. This Psalm is a direct assault on the unrighteousness of the Judges of Israel and their failure to fulfill their God-given role as a type of god over Israel....a role enshrined in The Law as referenced by Jesus. Now I know that Mormon belief might be different....it does not, however, change the facts.

PS. Being in the company of God and Jesus is not the same as being God (even with a small g as a god). Inheriting all that the father has to give is the promise of Biblical salvation...part of that is the very act of being with God. It is only Jesus who sits with God as an equal. Your use of Revelations is a stretch any way you look at it.

Albion, those are some of the weakest, most pitiful arguments to try to justify those false teaching that I have ever heard!!! Don't try to twist the meaning of these very plain scriptures! No matter who the people are and what they were doing, the fact remains that the scriptures clearly state that they were gods, and that all of them were children of God!!! the Apostle Paul makes this very clear when he speaks to the unbelieving Greeks and tells them plainly that we are Gods offspring!!! Furthermore, the Bible teaches very plainly and very clearly that it is the Fathers good pleasure to give us the kingdom, and that we can become joint heirs with Christ as well as sitting on the throne of godhood as Revelation also clearly states!!! You sound like one of those ignorant evangelicals who always claim the Bible only as your authority, but you no more understand it than the man in the moon!!! And when something is quoted to you that you don't understand, then you try to twist the meaning entirely of what the scripture is actually stating into something entirely different!! It talks about gods and being the children of God, and then you go off into left field talking about who the teaching was aimed at as it that would change that truth!!! You never answered my question that I asked you! Question: How is Adam made from the dust of the earth and also the son of God as Luke 3:38 states?!?

gdemetz, insults are the weakest form of argument, but I''l ignore those and simply suggest a good study in Hebrew history with a specific focus on The Judges of Israel and the actual titles they were given. I suppose that when one starts from a position that assumes the new, false teaching is the correct one then the original and the consensus scholarly position is the one that is out of kilter. In answer to your question...Adam is God-breathed and a son of God just as we all are. That does not mean that he is in any way conceived by God and one of his spirit wives. "Talking about who the teaching was aimed at as if that would change the truth". This declaration alone demonstrates the weakness of your argument since history and context are essential to any correct understanding of scripture.

Albion, good luck with that. gdemetz has a very fundamentalist Mormon view and accepts Brigham Young's view that Jesus was conceived by God the Father having sex with Mary, that Adam and Eve were conceived and born to one of God's wives, and that the Bible clearly teaches that man can become God. You can explain that the Bible doesn't teach any of those things (nor should anyone believe it), but he won't accept that. He's convinced that he is on his way to being God (and yes, I know how blasphemous that is). I've tried hard to dissuade him from such things, but even though I'm Mormon I haven't been able to convince him in the slightest how awful they are.

I feel like Mormonism is only defensible on the basis of deliberately out-of-context citations that actually mean the opposite of what LDS teaches them to mean.

Psalm 82 as rendered in the JPSHebrew-English Tanakh published by the Jewish Publication Society.

God stands in the divine assembly;
among the divine beings He pronounces judgement.
How long will you judge perversely,
showing favor to the wicked?
Judge the wretched and the orphan,
vindicate the lowly and the poor,
rescue the wretched and the needy;
save them from the hand of the wicked.

They neither know nor understand
they go about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth totter.
I HAD TAKEN YOU FOR DIVINE BEINGS,
sons of the Most High, all of you;
but you shall die as men do,
fall like any prince.

Arise, O God, judge the earth,
for all the nations are your possession.


Asaph was a musician first mentioned in 1st Chronicles and who lived during the reign of the Judges of Israel, those men divinely empowered to judge and rule in the affairs of Israel. It is clear that the council in question is an earthly one, none of the failings would exist in a heavenly council, and God is calling it to account for its failure to act under the divine commission he has given them. You simply have to understand the history and context to understand the verses. From the Mormon perspective, how could these men be referred to a gods in the sense that Gdmetz uses the term when they are still men. Presumably even Gdmetz won't know if he will make it to godhood until he actually steps to the Cestial Kingdom....unless he believes he is deserving of the term god right now.

Joseph also taught that we can become Gods, so you are not just out of step with what the current church teaches but what Joseph eventually came up with when he was making his religion up. This is why we see an evolution over time to some of these more peculiar doctrines.

In fairness to Tobin, Gdmetz has suggested some pretty bizarre ideas on this thread around this subject that I have never heard from Mormons, even those who argue for the man becoming gods position.

I agree and as you have noted, I see no basis in scripture for any of it either.

You never addressed the main point! Regardless, of who the scripture was about, the main point is there clearly in black and white!!! That point is that "YE ARE GODS AND ALL OF YOU ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE MOST HIGH"!!! When the Jews accused Jesus of blasphemy for making Himself out to be a God, He countered by stating that; isn't it written in your law that "YE ARE GODS"!!! You guys apparently need an English comprehension class!!

AS far as the other point goes, I do not teach anything different than Joseph Smith taught! I also say that we can become like our Heavenly Father just as he did! If you guys weren't so spiritually blind, then you could understand what Jesus was teaching them, and that was that they were gods in embryo! And if you guys were not so blind, then you could also see what this scripture means:

To him that overcometh, will I grant to sit with me on my throne (of godhood), even as I overcame and am sat down with my Father on His throne (of godhood)."

Please don't quote the Bible to me when it clearly states something that simple and then try to put such a ridiculous spin on it! I don't mean to be so rude, but I have never seen such blatant blindness on something which is written as simply and plainly as this!!!

Uhh... you're not being rude, you're being stupid. The meaning of the text is clear: the "gods" (or "divine beings") are being called gods or divine beings ironically. The Judges are called "gods," because they were appointed to act in God's name, but they are acting like feminine hygiene products: defending the unjust, showing partiality to the wicked, and so on.

You seem fairly Biblically literate so it is extremely surprising to me that you demonstrate such total unfamiliarity with the content of the Book of Judges. The Judges were, by and large, utter failures at their appointed task, and with just a small handful of exceptions they all met violent deaths because of their cruelty and wickedness.

As for John, some additional context is crucial:



The reason Mormonism is blasphemous is that it attributes properties--namely, being divine--that properly only belong to Jesus/God, to ordinary human beings. Jesus is not saying here that everyone is 'gods.' Jesus is saying that He is God, or more precisely that "the Father is in [Him] and [He] in the Father." That is totally fine to say about Jesus, but it is utterly wrong and blasphemous to say about ordinary human beings, and to claim otherwise is to contradict both the Hebrew and the Christian Bibles.

Just to be clear, I have no problem with the claim that people can become mundane 'gods' or powerful local protector-spirits; they are an important class of beings in Buddhist cosmology, and Buddhist teaching openly acknowledges that certain kinds of meditative states lead directly to rebirth in one of the many, many different 'god' realms. What I have a problem with is calling this Jewish or Christian, because it is not Jewish or Christian, it is pagan as pagan comes. More broadly, the problem I have with this is that it is not a supreme result, but will only lead to more suffering; true, transcendent enlightenment(/accession into the Kingdom of Heaven) requires the total abandonment of the ego. Mormonism, as a deviant variant of Masonic occultism, is essentially a path for validating and building up your ego, and is therefore a type of Satanism, the opposite of what Jesus Christ taught.

As I have said on this forum multiple times, I do not believe Mormonism teaches that man can become God. I do know that many Mormons, including prophets of the Church, have taught such things and greatly sinned in doing so. It is the height of arrogance to equate yourself with God and as you stated, blasphemous and Satanic in origin. I am unsurprised to find gdemetz preaching it as well, and falsely stating the Bible supports him in this perverse and sinful doctrine. It is simply not credible for gdemetz to pretend he could step in and do what God has done and does for us. gdemtez is basically stating he could do what Christ did which is absurd and arrogant. gdemetz is a flawed mortal, limited man and lacks any humility or awe of God and the grace by which God saves us. It is irreverent and despicable and I wish Mormons that teach such things would cease immediately, repent and admit what an awful sinful teaching this is.

Mormonism does teach it. It has taught it right from Joseph Smith on. You might have a different take on it, but it doesn't change the fact that the doctrine's source is Joseph Smith. You wish Mormons would repent, but then I suspect they would feel the same about you.

From the perspective of one with experience inside and outside the Mormon Church it does appear to be extremely difficult to pin down Mormon theology on a number of issues. The position of "he's only a prophet when he is speaking as a prophet" is mighty puzzling and does appear to be a very handy "get out of jail free" card that is popped up whenever something difficult or "questionable" comes up. It is made even more puzzling to outsiders because they so often hear Mormons proclaiming how important it is to be led by a prophet so that his people are no longer tossed to and fro on every wind of doctrine. For a top down authoritarian system, Mormon sure seems to have turmoil in what it believes to be the fundamentals.