Have some Qs about Mormonism and I didn't want to ask a Mormon because I'm afraid I'd get the cheerleader version. Admitadly, I was reluctant to ask here for fear of a non-Mormon rant. Want I'm really looking for is the kind of response an academic on Mormonism would feel comfortable giving. If you could provide a response, or at least, point me in the right direction, that would be helpful. Thanks in advance.

1. What is the official LDS view on evolution? Is this revised from the historical view?
2. What is the official LDS view of the origin of the Native Americans? What about the mainstream Mormons belief about their origins? My sense is that most Mormons believe in an East Asian/Bearing Strait origin of Native Americans with a limited engagement who came over Israel (per the BoM) and settled in the Mayan areas. Is my perception correct on this? Is that how N.A. origins were historically viewed?
3. Mormons believed in people going to a tiered heaven based upon the goodness/correct beliefs here on Earth. They also believe that spouces sealed in a Mormon temple will be together for all eternaty. How does this togetherness work if the spouces actions on Earth would require them to have been sent to different tiers?

1. For the 'official LDS view' on anything you need to go to www.lds.org or www.mormon.org
2. LDS believe that the Native Americans are the 'literal' descendants of the Lamanites talked about in the Book of Mormon, although they have changed their wording on this over time - from 'Literal' to 'Principle' to 'Among The' ancestors of the Native Americans.
3. Mormons believe heaven consists of three degree's of glory culminating in the Celestial Kingdom (top degree). They also believe there are a further three degree's of glory within the Celestial Kingdom. There is no answer for the last part of number three except Mormon's will say that they trust it will all be sorted out after death.

Hope this helps

Find out the "official LDS view" on anything is like nailing jello to the wall. You'll NEVER get the "official" view. The cult LDS leaders just don't work that way.

That said, here's my take:

1- wishy washy. Their BofA gives them some wiggle room on interpretation of 7000 years -- and most Mormons I know believe god used evolution to do his thing. I do know some very creationist-view (non-evolution) types in the church as well.

2- mainstream: Lamanites == Indians (ignore all scientific evidence to the contrary).

3- "Eternal Marriage" only counts if you live up to your "temple covenants" which means all those promises of eternity are only true if you live the mormon centered lifestyle to its fullest -- otherwise you are unworthy.

DNA clearly shows that native Americans originated in Asia.

The Book of Mormon is a fraud.

There were no Nephites or Lamanites. Joseph Smith never foresaw the Double Helix.

1. "Official" view was first promulgated about 1925, and is contained in The Encyclopedia of Mormonism (which is not available online as far as I know). IT is, in a nutshell, that we don't know for sure how mankind was created, and it is not essential to our salvation. It does not rule out evolution, but does not endorse it either.

That said, this "official" view is not widely promulgated within the church. Young-earth creationists, of which there are many in LDS Inc, will never hear anything in church talks or lesson manuals that will cause them to doubt their 7000 year old earth worldview.

2. I think many active Mormons still believe most Native Americans are Lamanites. Historically, the overwhelming majority of believing Mormons believed most or all Native Americans were Lamanites. This is what the Book of Mormon pretty plainly states, though Mormon apologists have come up with some pretty creative interpretations of the straightforward language of the book, to justify their "limited geography theory".

3. As others stated, you both need to qualify for the top tier for the eternal sealing to be in effect. There is a strong "unwritten belief" that if one parter is particularly righteous, they can "pull" the other partner into the top tier. Same applies to parents "pulling" children into the Celestial Kingdom. In my family, the belief seems to be that total apostates don't have a chance, but people who are so-so Mormons can be boosted up one tier by righteous family members.

I view this as nothing more than creative folk-theology within the Mormon subculture.

Are those your ONLY concerns about Mormonism?
Kids' stuff.

You're OK with... everything else?

Hopefully you'll realize that most of the anti-Mormon ranting is true.

Second, OP took no position on being OK with everything else. Like point one, you just made that up yourself.

Third, OP explicitly asked for an academic response rather than an anti-Mormon rant. You provided an anti-Mormon rant.

Zero for three amos. Well, you were right about most antiMormon ranting being true.

Give my regards to Surely.

Check out this quote from Joseph F Smith, which is in the CURRENT old testament institute manual.

"I say most emphatically, you cannot believe in this theory of the origin of man, and at the same time accept the plan of salvation as set forth by the Lord our God. You must choose the one and reject the other, for they are in direct conflict and there is a gulf separating them which is so great that it cannot be bridged, no matter how much one may try to do so"

They do pay lip service in the lesson to the idea that their could be an old earth and do say that officially the church holds no position. But that seems to be just something to give them an out.

The majority of the lesson are bad arguments against evolution. In fact most of them seem to come directly from creationist sources like Answers in Genesis.

The fact that the church says they hold no position while at the same time teaching young people these kinds of things is shameful. There is a lot of truth to the 'nailing jello to a wall' analogy.

edit: Here is a link to that lesson
http://institute.lds.org/manuals/old-testament-institute-student-manual-1/ot-in1-02-gen-a-2.asp



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2011 07:13PM by chainsofmind.

Almost more interesting than the changing concepts is the changing notion of who/what determines the doctrine in Mormonism.

In Catholicism, it's been worked out to this answer: Church beliefs and practices are determined from scripture and tradition. The pope decides how these are interpreted.

In Mormonism, it used to be modern revelation interpreting previous revelation for our time, as in "when the Brethren have spoken..."

Since that has worked out so badly, we see the entire process in revision before our eyes. The General Authorities have just abdicated the position of having the responsibility to answer doctrinal questions for members. They have delegated that to local authorities for the real prize: Plausible Deniability.

There has been a horrendous clashes of modern teaching/instruction and previous revelations in such key areas as the Plan of Salvation and the nature of the Godhead. These are not practices. Mormons face the necessity of dancing as fast as they can to avoid public censure, negative publicity and to promote positive image should the miracle of elected office come their way. In this climate, they need the privacy of rewriting ALL the scriptures and revising EVERYTHING they say and do on a continual basis.

Correlation, apologists, local authorities deciding key doctrines and interpreting for members. What a mess--and out of this chaos the General Authorities hope to avoid having said something substantive that can be refuted.

Bad enough they can be conned by a college student selling forgeries. Bad enough they can't translate even with a magic stone in he vault. Bad enough most everyone knows their founder was a licentious child molesting adulterer...

I will almost return to belief in God and miracles if they can pull their asses out of the fire their lies have created.

Anagrammy

agagrammy I agree good points.

I was in the church 40 years and had never heard the name Emanuel Swedenborg. If you want to understand the source of mormon heavenly theology you need to know him.

http://swedenborg.newearth.org/hh/hh05.html


Where did Joseph Smith get his ideas for the Mormon concept of heaven?
"At its worst, heaven can be an 'effective tool for manipulation,' says Paul Knitter, emeritus professor of theology at Xavier University in Cincinnati. "If you can get people to believe in a certain heaven, you can get them to do anything.' David Koresh told his followers in Waco that if they died with him, they would go directly to heaven."
- Why We Need Heaven, Newsweek, Aug. 12, 2002
Some have wondered where Smith got his descriptions of the afterlife as first described in Section 76 of the D&C.
In D. Michael Quinn's excellent book "Early Mormonism and the Magic World View," he gives a very fascinating source of Smith's "revelations" on the afterlife. Quinn offers an exhaustive examination of the sources for the 1832 D&C Section 76 "Vision" of the "three degrees of glory."

In fact, Smith's description of the "Celestial Kingdom" was not only a copy from earlier written works, but also very controversial to the Latter-Day Saints.

The diaries of Orson Pratt and John Murdock from the 1830's record their efforts to reassure members who questioned the 1832 vision of heaven. The two men described countless excommunications of Mormons, including branch presidents, who denounced "the degrees of glory" as a "satanic revelation." Even Brigham Young had a hard time with it at first and described it as "a trial to many."

Why were faithful Mormons choking on this idea of three heavens?

Quinn explains that it's because members correctly recognized it as coming from the occult. The only other sources of separate degrees in heaven came from occult writers of Smith's time.

For example, in 1758 a man by the name of Emanuel Swedenborg wrote a book about his visions of the afterlife. Swedenborg insisted: "There are three heavens," described as "entirely distinct from each other." He called the highest heaven "the Celestial Kingdom," and stated that the inhabitants of the three heavens corresponded to the "sun, moon and stars."

By Joseph Smith's own statements, he was familiar with Swedenborg's writings. Smith told a convert by the name of Edward Hunter that "Emanuel Swedenborg had a view of the world to come, but for daily food he perished."

I was so fascinated by the connection that Quinn documented, that I bought a copy of Swedenborg's book myself from Amazon.com. It's called "Heaven and Its Wonders and Hell and was written way before Joseph Smith. Yet it describes the three Mormon degrees of glory quite well.
Not only does Quinn make a strong case that Smith knew all about Swedenborg's ideas, but he also shows that his book "Heaven and Hell and Its Wonders" was a book in Smith's hometown library since 1817. Quinn also writes that "Nine miles from Smith's farm, in 1826 the Canandaigua newspaper also advertised Swedenborg's book for sale. The bookstore offered Swedenborg's publications for as little as 37 cents."

If you ever want to know details about the Mormon afterlife, read Swedenborg's book. Smith liberally plagiarized from it to come up with his D&C "visions" of the celestial, telestial and terrestrial kingdoms. But Swedenborg's works are definitely the originals.
In fact, a faithful Mormon and scholar Craig Miller has also written on this subject in a paper titled "Did Swedenborg Influence Mormon Doctrine?." Miller lists 19 unique similarities between Swendenborg's fictional "Celestial Kingdom" and that of Joseph Smith.
See for yourself.
You can also read some of Swedenborg's books online. Here is the book "Heaven and Its Wonders and Hell" From Things Heard and Seen:

http://swedenborg.newearth.org/hh/

If you go to the main page, there is more on who Emanuel Swedenborg was and other links:

http://swedenborg.newearth.org/

Options: Reply•Quote•Follow Topic•Report
Posted by: Heresy ( )
Date: November 18, 2010 05:04PM
Craig Miller's article new

http://craigwmiller.tripod.com/interest.htm

Some items on his list of Swedenborg's ideas:

1 Three levels of heaven
2 Three heavens in the CK
3 Priesthood robes are worn in heavenly marriage ceremonies
4 You must be married in heaven to inherit the highest heaven
5.The world of spirits is a place of preparation for either heaven or perdition
6 There are angles who communicate between heavens
7 The 3 kingdoms are like sun, moon, stars
8.The church that Christ established has passed from the Earth

Sound familiar?