I want to go off on a tangent from BYU Boner’s “Temple line that now makes me LOL” thread.

In the endowment ceremony, Elohim, that father of us all and the God of the entire universe, sure asks some dumb questions. For one thing, he keeps asking Peter, James, and John to check on “Adam and Eve and their posterity” and rat them out if necessary. Mormons are taught that God knows our every thought and action. There are over seven billion people on earth, and who knows how many billions each on the “worlds without number,” but somehow, God couldn’t keep track of a limited number of people during the time of Adam.

But for me, the stupidest questions are the ones that Elohim asks Jehovah. Here are the actual questions from Elohim, and the answers that I think Jesus should have given:

ELOHIM: Jehovah, Michael, is man found upon the earth?
JEHOVAH : Uh, dad? I thought that this whole earth creation project was really important to you, and now you’re telling me that you haven’t even been paying attention enough to know if there are people on earth?

ELOHIM: Jehovah, is it good for man to be alone?
JEHOVAH: Dad, we’ve been talking this over and uh…we think it’s time for you to move to a facility where some nice folks can take care of you. Your decreasing cognitive abilities put yourself, and others, at risk.

Lol! Yeah, someone didn't think that through very well when they were making it all up.

In my younger days, I had memorized all of the pre-1990 endowment. Why? Because I had so many questions. My bishop told be that if I went to the temple often, its meaning would be revealed to me.

And he was right. It was revealed to me that the temple was bullshit and that I was in a fucking cult. That bishop was more of a prophet than Hinckley, Monson, and Nelson combined!

BYU Boner Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In my younger days, I had memorized all of the
> pre-1990 endowment. Why? Because I had so many
> questions. My bishop told be that if I went to the
> temple often, its meaning would be revealed to
> me.
>
> And he was right. It was revealed to me that the
> temple was bullshit and that I was in a fucking
> cult. That bishop was more of a prophet than
> Hinckley, Monson, and Nelson combined!


LOLOLOLOL X a million!!!! That made my day!

CrispingPin Wrote:
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> ELOHIM: Jehovah, is it good for man to be alone?
JEHOVAH: we did give his hands enough reach for him to be good being alone.

ELOHIM: Then go down and return and report.

JEHOVAH and MICHAEL: Yeah verily, we will go down.

Yeah. Even naive, gullible me at 19 noticed all that. The whole play seemed on a par with "See Dick and Jane Run." His Grand Omniscience, God, is as clueless as they come. Temple Elohim couldn't run a bath much less run a creation.

The thing is, the temple isn't Sacred nor Secret. It's just Stupid.

And yet, I kept on going.

Of course there’s the stupid “what is wanted?”

What is wanted??? Geez, I’m banging on the door of the freakin’ celestial kingdom, what do you think I want? I’m not selling Girl Scout cookies; I’m here to prove I know the secret passwords and handshakes so that I can be rewarded for eternity.

Haha! This! Like: hear the words of my mouth..

It is all so stupid, but nobody there is brave enough to say that the emperor has no clothes.

"And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?"

(how come the all-seeing, all-knowing god doesn't know where Adam is in a garden?)

"And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?"

(again, why doesn't god know who told him he was naked? Or that they've eaten from the tree? And why doesn't god understand that even though he told them not to eat from the tree, they didn't yet have an understanding of right & wrong -- so they had no idea it was wrong to do what god told them not to?)

Yeah. Stupid alright :)

Yeah. The first time I saw it God was getting all the answers to his stupid questions from Lucifer the methodist minister. The one with the coolest apron. Haha ha ha.

"Just doing what we've been doing in other worlds. Remember? This is just the same old same old. Try to keep up Elohim. It's not that hard for Chrisake."

I know!
It's almost enough to make you think that none of this stuff came from a "god," but that people just made it all up!

:)

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> "Just doing what we've been doing in other worlds.
> Remember? This is just the same old same old. Try
> to keep up Elohim. It's not that hard for
> Chrisake.”

Elohim was probably sleeping through everything like most of the others in the endowment...

"Elohim, that father of us all and the God of the entire universe, ...

ELOHIM: Jehovah,... Michael, is man found upon the earth?
JEHOVAH : Uh, dad? ....."

I am confused. In mormonism, there is a god of the whole universe....AND a God of this planet?

Jehovah is the name of the old testament God for Jews and other Christians right?

Mormons believe that Elohim is the father of all of our spirits and that Jehovah is the pre-mortal Jesus. Jehovah was the main individual in charge of the creation of the world. After the fall of Adam, the only times that Elohim spoke to humans was to introduce Jesus (“this is my beloved son, hear him”). Any time an OT prophet heard God speaking, it was Jehovah (AKA Jesus).

"Any time an OT prophet heard God speaking, it was Jehovah (AKA Jesus)."

OT Jehovah was God, not the Son, Jesus. I found this online:

Je·ho·vah
[jəˈhōvə]
NOUN
a form of the Hebrew name of God used in some translations of the Bible.
synonyms: God · the Father · Jehovah · the Almighty · the Supreme Being · the Deity · Jesus · Jesus Christ · Christ · Christ the Lord · the Messiah · the Savior · the Son of God · the Redeemer · [more]

Yes, that is the common use for the name Jehovah in Christianity, but this is an ex-Mormon web site, and this thread is specifically about questions posed by Elohim in the temple endowment ceremony. According to Mormon beliefs:

Elohim is the father.

Jehovah is the son, the God of the Old Testament, and also Jesus.

I personally don't care how anybody defines Jehovah (or Vishnu, or Ra, or Captain America), but for the purposes of this thread, the Mormon definitions apply.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/14/2018 10:46AM by CrispingPin.

Uh...ok...I was trying to learn (and did ask) about the mormon and nonmormon clarifications and it became kind of philosophical/biblical for my own clarification.

Is there really a thread content police dept, now, and when someone gets kind of off topic, the get... The Pin?

I'm sorry--I didn't mean to be the content police. I just thought if we didn't stick to Mormon definitions in this thread, it could diffuse to the point of lacking any meaning pretty quickly.

"Diffuse to the point of lacking any meaning"-kind of like the endowment ceremony in the temple.

Do Mormons consider Elohim to be the god of the entire universe?

According to CP, yes.

""Elohim, that father of us all and the God of the entire universe, ..."

I like it when I learn something new...I did not know the 2 different Gods in mormonism, Elohim and Jehovah. Hence mormons are not considered "true" Christians, by other Christian religions due to their polytheistic view of God

Elohim is Jehovah's (Jesus) father.

But Elohim has a father, who has a father, who has a father...

Or so we were taught back in pre-correlation.

The obvious questions we young skulls full of mush would ask was, "Well, was there a first ghawd, and how did he get to be ghawd, and who did HE worship?"

And we'd get a finger waggled in our faces: "Now, see? This is why we don't mess around with the mysteries!! When the time comes, all our questions will be answered."

"Elohim is Jehovah's (Jesus) father"

This is what I have learned re: mormonism. In old-school Judaism/Christianity, Jehovah IS God...not Jesus.

nonmo_1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I like it when I learn something new...I did not
> know the 2 different Gods in mormonism, Elohim and
> Jehovah. Hence mormons are not considered "true"
> Christians, by other Christian religions due to
> their polytheistic view of God

"Elohim" is a plural word -- not a name. The pre-Israelite Canaanites (from whom the Israelites emerged) were polytheistic; their "main" father god was El, and "Elohim" was the plural term for El and his retinue of other "gods" (mostly his wives, sons, and daughters), including his female consort Asherah (also known by other names).

Jehovah is a form of Yahweh, which is derived from the vowel-less Hebrew YHWH, the "name" (which means "I am") of their tribal god. Israelites were polytheists until at least after the Babylonian captivity, and possibly as late as the 2nd century CE. At first Yahweh was part of El's retinue (the Elohim), later some groups of Canaanites adopted him as one god among many, but the one particularly interested in them (and who protected them/led them to victory in battles). This same group later "promoted" Yahweh above El as the "most important" of the gods (they were still polytheistic), and even worshiped Asherah as Yahweh's companion instead of El's. Only much later did they decide that Yahweh was not only the most important god, but the ONLY god. See below.

At any rate, it's amusing to see "other christians" -- who claim there are 3 gods but they're all one god (the trinity, an idea that originated to try and make the Jesus character fully god while dealing with his not-fully-god bible quotes), and which is manifestly polytheistic -- jump on mormons for being polytheistic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asherah#In_Israel_and_Judah

Not to defend the silliness of the endowment, but Elohim's dumb questions might fall into the category of teachers' questions. Teachers ask questions to see if the students know the answers, not because the teacher doesn't know.

An excellent observation...

Could JS have been thinking about a second, higher, endowment? And then more after that?

Since he was obviously inspired by the Mason example, which has plateaus of knowledge, it makes some sense that he might have had more 'learned' stages in mind, until finally, everyone was naked on a bunch of mattresses. Isn't that how it goes?

Naked and BROKE on a bunch of mattresses.

So when does the Holy Ghost get a real name and a physical body? I know there is some sort of doctrine about this but the poor guy is part of the god head for heaven's sake and we can't just call him Bob or Fred or something more eloquent?

And if God want's us to hear the words of his mouth, where else does he speak words? I'm thinking he speaks a lot of BS from his a--!

How does the Holy Ghost REMEMBER the names of all the people who have made him flee because of their impure activity, or because the clock struck midnight?

He's watching you right now via your webcam!!! Cinch up your robe!!!

What robe? It's a heat index of over 100 degrees and my AC is on the fritz not to mention my fridge decided to die as well. The HG is sure getting an eye full if he's monitoring my pad. But then he's watching me with spiritual eyes not physical eyes. The naughty bits must register as palm fronds or ivy?????

I think God is getting a bad rap; but what can he expect if he doesn't come forward to set the record straight.

All we know is what others say God said. We haven't heard from God himself.

Does God agree with the nonsense attributed to him? If that's the case, he's probably just as happy keeping mum and letting his peeps speak for him so that he can remain in the background being oh so mysterious.

Maybe he doesn't agree with what's being said in his name. If so, he's probably a little insecure and isn't comfortable with confrontation. Maybe he's just a go-along-to-get-along kind of guy and doesn't want to rock the boat. Or maybe he just doesn't care.

Maybe, just maybe, he doesn't exist except in the minds of those who would use the mere promise of his existence to further their own agendas, confident that God isn't going to step forward with due authority to contradict them.

"All we know is what others say God said."

That's a "Bingo!" for me. I've always said it's all hearsay and I'm sticking with that until his Omniscience puts in an appearance and we get it straight from the horse's mouth.

P.S. Your really have a way with words. Had to read it twice.

Just watched a Twilight Zone episode about a guy who created a mechanical duplicate of himself. The duplicate was all messed up because the living creator didn't exactly know what he was doing and made a bunch of mistakes. Even so, the mechanical duplicate could get a girl friend but the original creator could not. So the creator destroyed his duplicate and stole the girl friend.

Makes me wonder if that's who god is. Someone who is trying to create a likeness but hasn't quite perfected the process. Thus, we have cancer, autism, ALS, bunions, etc. When we die he/she will just try again and hopefully have learned enough to do a better job on the next likeness.