In this post,

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,198756,198999#msg-198999

I had said that like other religious leaders, Joseph Smith created Jesus in his own image, so that the LDS Jesus has his attributes.

I guess the strongest evidence is the Doctrine and Covenants. The "God" speaking in each of those cannonized "revelations" is Jehovah. As a TBM, I was struck by how many of the sections of that book were micro-managing. In an early verse, he tells Martin Harris that he is commanded to sell his property for the church. In this and other instances, Joseph Smith was speaking the will of Jesus (Jehovah is Jesus in LDS theology), and Jesus's opinion just happened to be the same as his, and in his best interest.

That Jesus, speaking in the D&C, is wrathful and condemning. Joseph grew up in a strict, protestant household where it seems likely that would have been his image of manliness. That Jesus is manipulative, he is constantly telling people that they have to repent, and the way to do so is to do what HE wants, which is always what Joseph Smith wants.

The BoM also evidences the creation of a 19th century New-England values Jesus, although the connections are hard to make. You have to remember that each page is supposed to testify of "Christ." What comes next are attacks on Unitarianism, paid clergy, people who don't want to look beyond the bible for truth, etc. These were things Joseph Smith disdained, and they became things that God and Jesus personally condemn.

In D&C, Jesus also behaves very emotionally. He manipulates with fearful descriptions of the punishment we will have to endure. He tries to make you feel sorry for him. The biblical Jesus is written in a pretty direct way. He doesn't come off as emotional except for 2 or 3 times in his life. JS was known to be explosive. So is his Jesus.

From the cultural view, Mormon Jesus becomes the "head" of the church - an administrator in a very centralized heavenly government. We learn that he swoops in constantly to visit his underlings in the temple and give them power to do exactly what he wants done. Isn't this Joseph Smiths' legacy? I mean, the burning of the printing press was the perfect example of micro-managing.

Perhaps most importantly, Mormon Jesus is close minded and secretive. The gates of the LDS temple are closed to all who don't swear allegiance.

This is a commandment from their Jesus.

A Jesus who is unique in his secretive approach to religion.

The same way JS acted with his apostles.

Mormon Jesus is controlling. He is aggressive and masculine, and he is cruel to those who dare question his "authoritay." He is the perfect image of the founding prophet of Mormonism.

This does not mean that some of those attributes cannot be seen in the Jesuses of other churches. Evangelicals seem to have a self-important, angry Jesus - who is like them.

It's just my opinion, but having been force fed thousands of JS stories, I think the person they describe as Jesus is much more like JS.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/23/2011 02:42PM by rogertheshrubber.

Absolutely; if ever Man created God in his own image, it was Horny Joe. The Kolobian God is, as you pointed out, petty and vengeful, not to mention adultrous. Smith even goes one step further and sets himself above Jehovah not only in earthly accomplishments (Smith's boast that followers left Jesus, but no one ever left him), but eternally, as the doctrine that no one gains admittance to the Celestial Kingdom without Smith's approval.

D&C 132 has Jesus giving JS free reign in taking "virgins." That, of course, was a Jesus in his own image. I failed to mention that before. Luckily, Chulotc knew where I was going on the last thread.

Here's the difference:

Mormonism makes it up as it goes.

Christianity doesn't know what it believes.

Both are bat-s**t crazy.

Again, proving the cult false - an easy thing to do by the way - does nothing to bolster the credibility of any other faith.

I'm no longer a mormon or a christian. Why? Because both are full of s**t like every other religious system.

Pointing a finger at me and saying "You're not a christian/mormon" is the same as pointing a finger at me and saying, "You're not a dumb-a**."

Quite complimentary, don't you think? ... Or don't you?

This is the Gospel according to Timothy ... Everyone's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer.!

Timothy

I think you just described religion, in general.

take your god figure, bestow him with whatever characteristics float your boat and find a few sheeple to follow you.

if you dont agree with those characteristics (and if you're charismatic enough), you discredit the last leader and bestow the god figure with your own set of characteristics.

It's no secret why there are 34,000 denominations of christianity, alone

The concept of "Hell" is a perfect example.

There are a lot of so-called x-ians who realize how ridiculous the idea of hell is, so they create a new x-ian deity that doesn't send people to hell, he just annihilates them. (As if that makes their god any less ridiculous)

Here's a couple of christian leaders (so-called) from that 34,000 EssexExMo keeps harpin' about:

http://youtu.be/H-CAcdta_8I

So let me get this straight. Christian god, unhappy with his creations, allowed the god of islam to follow through with his September 11th, 2001 plans because christian god needed to teach his peeps a lesson?

WTF, mates?

Timothy

I've never thought about it in this way before. I definitely need to re-evaluate the specific Jesus differences between the different Christian churches.

Thanks for clarifying, that was actually very enlightening. That is just something I never saw when I was a Mormon.

I guess my question now would be whether or not different sects of Christianity have different views of Jesus as well, or if this is specific to Mormonism. I wonder if modern, mainstream Mormons have carried on JS's view of Jesus.

There are two beings in heaven right now, one the father and the other the son, or whether there is just the father.

They also can't agree on whether the son always existed independent of the father, or if the father decided to create the son at some arbitrary point in time.

The reasons for this are:

If they admit that the son ALWAYS EXISTED independent of the father (meaning the son was not created by the father) then he is not a "son" at all, and in fact is a separate god, meaning x-ians are polytheists.

If they admit that the son WAS CREATED at some arbitrary point by the father, then they are also admitting that the son is just a remote-controlled robot. It was created by the father with the father's mind and is unable to sin, meaning it's a robot.

If, as EssexExMo suggests, there are 34,000 christian denominations, then you simply don't have a whole lot of folks on the same page.

Joe created his theology out of neccesity. You can't very well go about proclaiming exclusive "truth" when you're sayin' the same thing everyone else is sayin'.

Likewise, you can't go about sayin' the group you seperated from is wrong when you're sayin' the same thing they're sayin'.

See what I'm sayin'?

Timothy

When I left the church two years ago, I started reading a book by Karen Armstrong called, "the Case for God." Armstrong is a historian first and an Anglican second. She had a fascinating view of God that she claimed had been very common for millenia before protestants started claiming bible literalism.

Among the points she made was this. God was never supposed to be A being. The God of the early religions was BEING. Everything and nothing. To say that God is "good" then is nonsensical, as is calling God a "he." Jesus didn't say he was God, but simply said "I AM," i.e. Jesus was a part of, or in harmony with, Being. The problem with that scenario is it takes Jesus down from a throne and makes everybody equal.

I am not saying this is the doctrine in the churches, but it makes the Jesus myth a little more palatable for me.

chulotc is snarky Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There are two beings in heaven right now, one the
> father and the other the son, or whether there is
> just the father.
>
> They also can't agree on whether the son always
> existed independent of the father, or if the
> father decided to create the son at some arbitrary
> point in time.
>
> The reasons for this are:
>
> If they admit that the son ALWAYS EXISTED
> independent of the father (meaning the son was not
> created by the father) then he is not a "son" at
> all, and in fact is a separate god, meaning x-ians
> are polytheists.
>
> If they admit that the son WAS CREATED at some
> arbitrary point by the father, then they are also
> admitting that the son is just a remote-controlled
> robot. It was created by the father with the
> father's mind and is unable to sin, meaning it's a
> robot.

And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the one true God AND Jesus Christ WHOM THOU HAST SENT.

I mean it is pretty direct unless we are saying GOD is schizo talking to himself.

Besides when Christ is baptized the heavens open, they hear a voice and then the spirt shows ups as a dove.

3 distinct person with distinctive roles, united as one

God = Creator
Jesus = Saviour
Holy Ghost = Sanctifier

Purpose: Well I guess JS was right here to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man!

Let us create man in our own image...US implies plurality...I guess for me it is a non-issue like a mom and dad saying ok lets make a child and well the lock fits into the key and they are literally one in the act and well the child is one.

Well ofcourse there are two people in Heaven.

There is a reason Christ is called the Man [because he is like us flesh and blood] in the Glory [well he is the first man to be risen and sit at the right hand of God].

I am not trying to wax theological, for me it was never an issue

As a child like 6 or 7 I would always ask my mum [we were raised Catholic before the MORG, It appears we are suckers for punishment and patriarchal abuse] why people always made God be a three headed monster.

Don't they understand that they are different people...she thought I was a little weird.

Now you have to say whether they always existed independent of one another, or if the son was created later on by the father.

it is THREE deities in one!! yeah Trinity..... and not the Matrix Trinity!! :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/2011 03:14PM by bignevermo.

But when I talk to a fundamentalist, I often find that the Jesus of their religion is a hard ass (like them).

Besides that, Jesus is an anti-gay, pro-gun Republican if you ask a lot of the fundie right-wingers in our country :)

"Creating God in one's own image"
http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/11/creating_god_in_ones_own_image.php

"Psychological studies have found that people are always a tad egocentric when considering other people's mindsets. They use their own beliefs as a starting point, which colours their final conclusions. Epley found that the same process happens, and then some, when people try and divine the mind of God. Their opinions on God's attitudes on important social issues closely mirror their own beliefs. If their own attitudes change, so do their perceptions of what God thinks. They even use the same parts of their brain when considering God's will and their own opinions."

"He showed some 145 volunteers a strong argument in favour of affirmative action (it counters workplace biases) and a weak argument opposing it (it raises uncomfortable issues). Others heard a strong argument against (reverse discrimination) and a weak argument for (Britney and Paris agree!). The recruits did concur that the allegedly stronger argument was indeed stronger. Those who read the overall positive propaganda were not only more supportive of affirmative action but more likely to think that God would be in the pro-camp too.

"In another study, Epley got people to manipulate themselves. He asked 59 people to write and perform a speech about the death penalty, which either matched their own beliefs or argued against them. The task shifted people's attitudes towards the position in their speech, either strengthening or moderating their original views. And as in the other experiments, their shifting attitudes coincided with altered estimates of God's attitudes (but not those of other people).

"For his final trick, Epley looked at the brains of recruits as they in turn attempted to peer into the mind of God. While sitting in an fMRI scanner, 17 people had to state how they, God or an average American would feel on a list of social issues, including universal health care, stem cell research, euthanasia, abortion, sex education and more. As before, their answers revealed a closer match between their beliefs and those they ascribed to God, than those they credited to the average Joe or Jill.

"The brain scans found the same thing, particularly in a region called the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) that's been linked to self-referential thinking. The mPFC is more active when we think about our own mindsets than those of others. Epley found that it was similarly abuzz when the recruits thought about their own attitude or God's, but lower when they considered the average American. The three images below show the differences in brain activity between the three tasks and you can see that the 'God' and 'self' scans had little to distinguish them."

So true!

Reminds me of the story about how the LDS portraiture of Jesus came about because David O. Mckay saw him in a vision and well he was blonde haired with blue eyes yadi yadi yada...funny I thought, wanna bet that was what Mckay looked like!

The last I checked Yashua is called "the light of the world"

Light has very single colour built in...hmmmm!

Also it is not Mormon doctrine that Jehovah is Jesus. Please don't credit, this comes from Judaism.

Jesus himself said, before Abraham I AM...Abraham saw my days and he rejoiced!

it is not Mormon doctrine?

Doctrines are not mutually exclusive, aliveinchrist. There are very frew doctrines TSCC has actually adopted, but this is definitely one of them.

Or, wait a minute...!

You aren't just correcting me on a meaningless point to show your scriptoral prowess, are you?

Why, you silly king!

rogertheshrubber Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> it is not Mormon doctrine?
>
> Doctrines are not mutually exclusive,
> aliveinchrist. There are very frew doctrines TSCC
> has actually adopted, but this is definitely one
> of them.
>
> Or, wait a minute...!
>
> You aren't just correcting me on a meaningless
> point to show your scriptoral prowess, are you?
>
> Why, you silly king!

No I am not trying to show scripture prowess. that mormons are nuts is true...just making sure we ascribe the right thing to the right person.

Nahhhhh not showing off...what good would that do. We are all in the same boat going I am not sure what is going on or how I ended up here.

If anything I am sounding off everything I thought I knew and checking it and checking and checking it.

As you can imagine my trust is shot, not that I had a lot to begin with.

You are the silly one!