Is Jesus divine?

Any faith that has secret rituals is a cult in my estimation. Jesus said "I call you friends".

 

Something I have always pondered......

 

You cannot give the 'gift of the Holy Spirit'. If you believe anything that is Gods prerogative.

 

Sacred more than secret. If you have nothing sacred in your Church, then it is all for show. Jesus spoke at length about this.

 

The Holy Spirit and the gift of the Holy Ghost are two different aspects of the same thing. The Holy Spirit comes and goes at Gods direction. The gift of the Holy Ghost dwells in you by the authority of the giver whose authority can only be given by God. It was Gods prerogative to restore his Church and authority. It is not mans to claim or stead to which to appoint himself.

 

No, I know the Bible is true as a book of remembrance, kept by the Jews, of their relationship with God over the course of four thousand years. I also know that the testimonies of Jesus Christ by his Apostles are true. But the accuracy of the Bible is contingent on the interpretations and translations by men. I also know, independent of all influence other than Gods spirit that he is real, he lives, and is divine. I knew this before I learned by reading and hearing that the spirit of God caused the virgin Mary to conceive and give birth to Jesus Christ.

 

Then Jesus just left his disciples ignorant that they needed to wear a "secret/sacred undergarment"? My marriage is sacred......it is not a secret. There are no secrets in the Body of Believers I attend. There is confidentiality, however, to reframe from gossip. I served as deacon for many years and my son is an elder.....not to build myself up but we never saw ourselves as superior to anyone else in the Body. There are a lot of things sacred, namely our Truths that Jesus shared with us and they are not a secret. There is no special "Temple Order" and our women don't have to be touched with water over all of their body parts and then again with oil in order to have "Temple Status". We do not need to make a special journey anywhere to have our marriages "sealed" in a Church. Jesus dwells within all who believe.
2000 Years ago Jesus said "there is a day when we will not worship in a Temple but in Spirit and in Truth."
Temples are for show!

 

Wow.
You jumped from revolutionary war to civil war in 2 posts

Anyways. Party changes.
Southern beliefs have not

 

The Holy Ghost is simply another name for the Holy Spirit. The 'gift of the Holy Ghost' implies another being living within you. A 4 part Godhead.

 

Sacred and secret rituals are to hide things from the general public.

 

That's your Church's secular doctrines and beliefs. The Church of Jesus Christ LDS teaches that marriages and families are forever, just like our spirits. That is of course according to the free agency and worthiness of the participants. So Temples aren't for show. They also perform baptisms and other ceremonies for the dead in accordance with the prophecies of Malachi, in turning the hearts of the Fathers and children together so that our roots and branches aren't burnt up in the heat of the last days. Malachi 4

The Church has built 335 Temples worldwide, with more to come. So no one has to go to Jerusalem to worship God in spirit and truth. Besides one can worship God anywhere. The Temples are for special ceremonies IE: anointings, eternal marriage, family sealing, work for the dead, etc. I don't know why people put a spooky spin on the LDS Church. Is it normal for a virgin to get pregnant, give birth to God who is crucified and resurrected, in whom if you believe and eat his flesh and drink his blood then all your evils are done away and you will be whisked to heaven to live forever? Oh and what about his marrying the Church, having every man woman and child sealed to him. Is that cultish? The problem with traditional Christianity is that it is so blinded by tradition that it can't see its own oddities or make room for additional truth, as if God should say or do no more. .

 

The point of my post on this tangent being that God restored his Church and authority thru Joseph Smith. Giftedone asked what new thing this religion brought to the table. So I answered him, Gods authority.

 

Democrats are much the same now as then.

 

The Democratic Party at the time of the civil war was in favor of slavery, segregation and all things racist.

That changed over a period of time with the likes of Governor Wallace being a holdout and Democrats championing equal rights.

 

The problem with Mormonism they imply that Jesus, the only Begotten Son of God who came in the flesh, left out so many secrets!

You say: "Is it normal for a virgin to get pregnant, give birth to God who is crucified and resurrected, in whom if you believe and eat his flesh and drink his blood then all your evils are done away and you will be whisked to heaven to live forever?" It is not normal, the virgin birth was a miracle. Where do you get off spewing this other ridiculous stuff? Taking Communion is nowhere implied that it takes away sin. You made that up. We do that not as a ritual but we do it "often in remembrance of what Christ did for us. It is symbolic. The bread sympolizes His life that was torn for us, and the wine symbolizes His blood that was shed. By ingesting it we symbolize that we internalize His Word.
On that same point.... does your sacred garment merely "symbolize" protection from the evil one? Or does it magically work? What about the thousands that don't get one?
Why do Temple Mormons pledge to secrecy the events of the temple on the penalty of a gruesome death? You know, I am glad God has pulled many out of the cult to divulge those secrets. Judy and Jim Robertson did that and countless others. "Out of Mormonism" is their book and they are now good solid Believers in Jesus Christ.

 

True, and they take a pledge to intimidate them into secrecy.

 

The Jesus you profess to believe had much to say about this topic. Now you even admitted you have not studied the Bible all that much in another post but I suggest you read this one. Matthew 22:23-33. Jesus started off telling those who hold to what you do, "You are in error". I suggest you study the passage in it's context. Don't get sucked in to this "heresy".

 

They are neither married nor given in marriage in the resurrection because by that time it has already been done, and no more is to be done. So they are either raised united to glory or single and as angels. That's why all the work(marriages, sealings, baptism and marriage for the dead, etc.) in preparation for that day is being done now 24/7, in hundreds of Temples around the world. Consequently, with the preparations made beforehand, the resurrection will be in order. And there will be no marrying nor giving in marriage in the resurrection.

 

So I guess the Quran is more legitimate.

 

You ignored my point which is that the LDS Church is founded on and by Jesus Christ himself, but contains more than bible based religion because it is Gods restored Church. So when you criticize the "more" of the LDS Church(temples, book of mormon, etc.), you also criticize its foundation on Jesus Christ on which you say your Church is founded.

In fact, bible based religion isn't founded on or by Jesus Christ. It is founded on the Bible which is a record of testimonies of others about Jesus Christ, by men who have taken it on themselves to establish tens of thousands of different denominations, with no two alike. So it is akin to gossip or image worship. The LDS Church was founded by God the Father, Jesus Christ, and a concourse of Angels, who by the laying on of their hands, gave Joseph Smith all the keys and authorities necessary for the restoration of Gods Church and kingdom.

All bible based denominations claim authority from the bible, not from the living God. And they all parrot the bible. And none of the tens of thousands of them are the same. If they are of the true God, then their God is a lying lunatic. This disparity is in owing to the opinions and interpretations of the bible by different men, not by God. The Bible teaches one Christ and one gospel. So traditional Christianity is essentially a marketplace of counterfeiters. Consequently it is absurd for this marketplace of counterfeiters, sans continuity among themselves, to say that the Church of Jesus Christ LDS is a fraud. Especially in light of the fact that the LDS Church teaches on Christ and one gospel, just as does the Bible.

 

There will be no marriage, period ,aside from the marriage of Jesus and His Bride. Read in context. The Words of Jesus was before Joseph Smith and his hallucinations.

 

" In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God". The Word is the expression of God given to us through Jesus Christ, not Lucifer.

 

God has resassigned his authority so many times through history he has probably forgotten which authority is which or what his next authority will be. In his latest 'AUTHORITY' through Smith doesn't even remember that the first authority - Abraham and his supposed descendants - according to Smith, supposedly sailed to the USA where no trace of them has ever been found.

 

I call this religious BS. Mistranslation and misinterpretation. Call it whatever you want.

In Greek there is the word "Logos", not "Word (of God)". Let alone the Bible which was compiled ~300 AD.
The Logos is an emanation of God in a differentiating (expanding) Universe. The first manifestation of God in the Universe, if you will. That's why it says "In the beginning there was the Logos".

 

The LDS church was founded by Joseph Smith and what he wrote, not on the Bible. In fact the Bible (OT and NT) were all founded on what men wrote. Religions of the world can be traced back to the ideas of man in trying to understand the world around them. They couldn't, so they invented a being we call god to account for their world.