Why does the LDS Church Exist?

Dear Friends,

NOTHING is random in the world of BEING.  EVERYTHING that exists IS meaningful in some sense.  But it all has to fit like the right piece in the right place to unveil the TRUE PICTURE behind the puzzle of life.  Think science.  Be reasonable.  We need a master theory that integrates all the pieces of the puzzle of life into one master picture that makes sense.  

And this is what makes sense:  

- If we believe God exists (Al Farabi, The Perfect State - philosophical proof of the 1st Cause), 

- if we believe God loves us (Love is an attraction - the Creator would be attracted to Creation),

- if we believe God is the Master of Providence (Genesis 22:14, Romans 8:28, 1st Cause Nature),

Then as simple as 1, 2, 3, it doesn't make sense that God has abandoned any people or any culture or any time in history.  Forget this nonsense of the "chosen people" for a second and remember what God said to Jonah in the Bible:

Jonah: 4:9-11

But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”  “It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”  But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

Doesn't this story illustrate perfectly what Jesus proclaimed in the Gospel?

Matthew 10:29-31 "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows."

Therefore, I take my stand with Immanuel Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason.  Let us lift our eyes higher (Daniel 4:34), so that our reason may be restored to us.  If our theory doesn't make sense for the whole world and all of history, then it doesn't make sense for us either in our own, local, little lives and our own, little worlds either.  If it is not universal, it isn't real.  There is hidden universal truth in all things (as they are puzzle pieces of the great puzzle), but not all things are true in the illusions they present to us (every puzzle piece seen alone can create an illusion and false picture).

Therefore I declare that the existence of the LDS church is completely relevant, but it's explicit cosmology and beliefs about reality are utterly wrong.  This is a key point:

If God manifest His perfect virtuous nature in human form through Christ Jesus at the intersection of Europe, Asia, and Africa in Israel when North America and South America had absolutely no contact with these continents or people, then it wasn't fair to the American natives that God left them out of His plan of Love to redeem and elevate His children to the Higher Stations for which He created us.  On this one basic point, the Mormon Church is founded on a fundamental truth: God is Just, and as a Just and Fair Creator (Parent), He doesn't leave people (His children) out of His manifestations of Love towards us.  Beyond that though, virtually all the beliefs about reality professed by the Mormon Church are clear nonsense.  I will illustrate this below by analyzing a supposed legal proof of the beliefs of the Mormon Church:

Quotes and Responses to: The Profile of a Prophet

-  http://www.lds.org/liahona/2006/06/the-profile-of-a-prophet?lang=eng

Excerpts from a speech by Hugh B. Brown from the above website with my interjections: 

SPEECH:

- I should like to be for a few minutes a witness in support of the proposition that the gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored in our day and that this is His Church, which was organized under His direction through the Prophet Joseph Smith. I should like to give some reasons for the faith I have and for my allegiance to the Church. Perhaps I can do this more quickly by referring to an interview I had in London, England, in 1939, just before the outbreak of [World War II]. ... I can only give you, in the few minutes at my disposal, a condensed and abbreviated synopsis of the three-hour conversation which followed. In the interest of time I shall resort to the question-and-answer method rather than narration. 

- I began by asking, “May I proceed, sir, on the assumption that you are a Christian?”   

- “I am.”   

INTERJECTION: 

- I believe in Christ Jesus as a Manifestation of God in history, but I do not consider myself a follower of Christ alone, which would be the normal understood definition of a Christian, so it would be better to call me what I am, which is a Baha'i.

SPEECH: 

- “I assume you believe in the Bible—the Old and New Testament?”   

- “I do!”   

INTERJECTION:

- I do NOT believe that the Bible is a flawless expression of God's word.  Providence has allowed clergy to select the books of the Bible and their have been numerous revisions of both the number of books in the Bible and of the content of the passages in those books.  The standard Bible today contains numerous blatant contradictions and flaws.  Any sincere seeker of truth following the model of the early Christian Boreans (Acts 17:11) who don't just listen to arguments about the truth of faith, but who actually seek out verification of facts, which is now so readily at our fingertips online, will find that absurdly and blatantly contradictory facts abound in the Bible.  For example, with a quick Google search, I immediately come across these facts, which are just the type of the iceberg:

- Biblical manuscripts are notoriously unreliable when it comes to historical fact, and these disagreements and contradictions appear not only between various works, but, in an even more bizarre fashion within individual books. Saul reigned over Israel for two years, according to 1 Samuel 13:1. This figure seems improbably low so the two in the Hebrew text is usually changed to read 'twenty - two' in translation. However Saul reigned for forty years, if you believe what is written in the book of Acts 13:21. The Book of Samuel places Rachel's tomb in Benjamin at Zelzah in the north (1 Samuel 10:2) , as does Jeremiah 31:15. Genesis 35:19 and Matthew 2:16 place the tomb in Bethlehem, further south. Three sons were born to Absalom, we are told in 2 Samuel 14:27. However, a few chapters ahead Absalom said, 'I have no sons to carry on my name.' (2 Samuel 18:18) In a similar passage, we are informed that to her dying day, Michal, daughter of Saul was childless, for she mocked David for dancing in his underwear. (2 Samuel 6:23) However a few chapters later we are introduced to ‘the five sons of Michal.' (2 Samuel 21:8) Translators have usually changed the word 'Michal' in the Hebrew text to read 'Merob' in order to help clear this matter up. (http://www.awitness.org/contrabib/history/unrely.html)

The lists of blatant contradictions go on at great length and are easily found on many websites.  The simplest and most famous are battles listed in the books of Kings and Chronicles that report different numbers of casualties usually by magnitudes of 10.  For example, in one book, there will be a report of 30,000 dead.  In the next book, the exact same battle will be described with all the exact same details except 300,000 will have been reported dead.  I am stating my general recollections based on books I've read without looking up the exact details.  But it is easy enough to find many problems like this.  Then there is the problem of the lineage reported for Jesus.  Matthew and Luke tell completely different stories about who Jesus's father Joseph's ancestors were.  I tried to rationalize this for years by thinking that maybe Luke was talking about Mary's family tree, but that still doesn't work.  Both stories of ancestry talk about Joseph, not Mary, so this is still a blatant contraction.  The point is this:

The Bible is not the infallible Word of God.  It is an anthology of one of humanity's longest struggles to understand who God and His messengers are and what they really did and said.  By God's Providence, the Bible has become the most printed, read, translated, and available book in human history.  The God of Providence clearly wants His seekers to have the Bible to work with.  But it is a tricky doorway.  The Bible will keep people away from God just as easily and it will bring people to God.  Jesus teaches us that we have to develop pure hearts with spiritual eyes and ears to see clearly what makes sense about what people tell us God is telling us and what doesn't make sense.  The Bible is like a test with multiple choice answers.  Not all of the details in the Bible are correct.  We are responsible for rejecting the flaws and still seeing through to the light.  Here are two key passages from the Bible that help us with this process:

1 Corinthians 13:8-12

- Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

Matthew 13:10-16

The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?” He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. This is why I speak to them in parables:

“Though seeing, they do not see;

    though hearing, they do not hear or understand.

In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:

“‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;

    you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.

For this people’s heart has become calloused;

    they hardly hear with their ears,

    and they have closed their eyes.

Otherwise they might see with their eyes,

    hear with their ears,

    understand with their hearts

and turn, and I would heal them.’

But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.

No where in the Bible is it ever written that everything in the Bible is true.  The Bible isn't even mentioned in the Bible.  The Bible is an anthology put together and edited by priests and clergy.  And yet, to make our lives simpler in the past, we have just decided for ourselves without God's order or permission to declare the Bible His perfect word from cover to cover.  That has lead to big problems and massive disunity.  So absolutely, NO, I do not believe in the Old and New Testament cover to cover.  And now with the internet and the free access to information that we all have, it is not reasonable to assume that any of our serious, intellectually excellent, Borean like, honest, soul-searching grandchildren will accept any of our narrow little Christian sects with their narrow, non-inclusive, irrational, old belief systems that make a mockery of the big picture of human existence that is now becoming ever more increasingly clear.  The most obvious example of how extremely difficult Mormon beliefs (especially, among all Christian beliefs) will be for future generations is that the Church did not even allow black men to be priests until 1978.  The LDS church will never be able to recover from this one fact, and again, this is just the tip of a massive iceberg that will crush this church into dust if the church does not wake up soon enough and completely reform itself saving what little can actually be saved before it is too late.  The truth is an unyielding stone that will test our strength sooner or later.  It is better to be voluntarily broken now before being crushed to dust later.

Matthew 21:44 And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.

SPEECH:

- “Do you believe in prayer?”   

- “I do!”   

- “You say that my belief that God spoke to a man in this age is fantastic and absurd?”   

- “To me, it is.”   

- “Do you believe that God ever did speak to anyone?”   

- “Certainly. All through the Bible we have evidence of that.”   

- “Did He speak to Adam?”   

- “Yes.”   

- “To Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jacob, Joseph, and on through the prophets?”   

- “I believe He spoke to each of them.”   

- “Do you believe that contact between God and man ceased when Jesus appeared on the earth?”   

- “No, such communication reached its climax, its apex at that time.”   

- “Do you believe that Jesus was the Son of God?”   

- “He was.”   

- “Do you believe, sir, that after Jesus was resurrected a certain lawyer, who was also a tent maker by the name of Saul of Tarsus, when on his way to Damascus, talked with Jesus of Nazareth, who had been crucified, resurrected, and had ascended into heaven?”   

- “I do.”   

- “Whose voice did Saul hear?”   

- “It was the voice of Jesus Christ, for He so introduced Himself.”   

- “Then, … I am submitting to you in all seriousness that it was standard procedure in Bible times for God to talk to man.”   
- “I think I will admit that, but it stopped shortly after the first century of the Christian era.”   

- “Why do you think it stopped?”   

- “I can’t say.”   

- “You think that God hasn’t spoken since then?”   

- “I am sure He hasn’t.”   

- “There must be a reason; can you give me a reason?”  

- “I do not know.”   

INTERJECTION:

The Mormon Evangelist makes a good point here arguing against his Straw Man that it is unreasonable to assume that God stopped speaking to or through human messengers after Jesus.  However, the Mormon argument only enters the first few steps down this path without going all the way.  The Mormon belief system looks for a solution to the problem of cheating the American Continents, past and present, out of an original and a restored message from God, but it largely ignores the needs of the rest of the world.  Where are Joseph Smith's messages to the Buddhist People or the Hindu People or the Muslim People explaining to them what God's great purpose was for them in allowing billions of them to live their entire lives throughout all of human history within completely different faith traditions and no possible knowledge of Jesus or any of the messages in the Bible?  How is that fairness from our Just and Loving Creator God?  How is that consistent with the God who supposedly cared about Nineveh so much He had his prophet Jonah swallowed by a whale and vomited up on Nineveh's doorstep to take care of them outside of Israel too?  The Providential Purpose of God allowing Mormonism to exist was in broaching some crucial questions about love and fairness to the Christian world without overwhelming these Western people so darkened by prejudice against alien people and cultures that they could not think about God's love for Black Africans, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Chinese as being truly equal to God's love for them.  God used Mormonism to make a point to people blinded by prejudice who couldn't open their hearts wider to the whole world beyond the Americas.  But we must do that now.  We must open our hearts to the whole world to bring God's kingdom of Justice now to the whole world described in vision of Isaiah 58 as coming through the empathy of recognizing everyone else in the world as our own flesh.

SPEECH:

- “May I suggest some possible reasons: perhaps God does not speak to man anymore because He cannot. He has lost the power.”   

- He said, “Of course that would be blasphemous.”   

- “Well, then, if you don’t accept that, perhaps He doesn’t speak to men because He doesn’t love us anymore. He is no longer interested in the affairs of men.”   

- “No,” he said, “God loves all men, and He is no respecter of persons.”   

- “Well, then, if He could speak and if He loves us, then the only other possible answer, as I see it, is that we don’t need Him. We have made such rapid strides in science, we are so well educated, that we don’t need God anymore.”   

- And then he said, and his voice trembled as he thought of impending war: “Mr. Brown, there never was a time in the history of the world when the voice of God was needed as it is needed now. Perhaps you can tell me why He doesn’t speak.”   

- My answer was: “He does speak. He has spoken, but men need faith to hear Him.”   Then we proceeded to prepare what I may call a “profile of a prophet.” 

INTERJECTION and CONCLUSION:

I will not quote the rest of this speech.  The author of this speech draws his profile of a profit largely out of his Western class based prejudices about what a dignified man looks like.  It is largely irrelevant.  The important point he made successfully is that it does make sense that God would have more messengers to minister to us in our present age in history and to our present needs.  And God does have other messengers who wrote far more impressively than Joseph Smith.  The Bab and Baha'u'llah began their missions in and after 1844, the year Jesus was predicted to return by many Christians and the founders of the 7th Day Adventist church.  These manifestations of God wrote millions of pages of spiritual revelation at super human speed and immediately declared men and women and all races equal and equally loved by God.  They and their followers suffered far more brutal persecution than Joseph Smith and the Mormons, and their teachings have only become increasingly relevant and clear to this day.  The manifestations of God did not make false prophecies that did not come to pass.  This was a crucial test Moses gave us to distinguish false prophets from real ones (Deuteronomy 18:22).  Google false prophecies by either Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, or by Ellen G. White, one of the founders of the 7th Day Adventist Church.  The false prophecies made by Joseph Smith and Ellen White that did not come to pass are truly numerous and shockingly simple to spot.  These so-called prophets in the United States in the 1800s were spiritually powerful, charismatic souls used by God, but they were not real prophets with truly pure channels to connect to the Divine plane of existence or to manifest God's will and word to us.  They were tools of divine will, but they were not vessels of the Holy Spirit.

The purpose of this essay was to rest my case about Mormonism.  Mormonism was given to us in the Americas because our prejudiced and sexist hearts were too hard for the full light of truth.  Mormonism slowly started to reveal to us that we had to be fair to the natives of American, but it still left women and blacks as second class creations.  It is not God's true religion.  It was just a tool to shove us one step closer to the light, helping us, if we are willing, to lift our eyes up and beyond Mormon all the way to the Universal - like the King whose reason was restored to him in Daniel 4:34 - if we are willing.  Later I will write more fully about the power and meaning of the Baha'i Revelation and how God is truly beginning His kingdom on earth, Isaiah 58 style.  But for now, I finish and rest my case about Mormonism.

God bless you all, and remember, 

There is truth in all things, but not everything is true,

Seek the picture that includes all the pieces of the puzzle,

Sky

My People: Eternal in Life and Death

Dear Friends,

I seek you, my people, on every level of my existence in every act of living and of dying, in every way and in every day.  We will find each other in ever greater numbers, and we will be one.  I was created to know you and to love you with all of my strength and with all of my soul and with all of my might as we grow in deeply and radiantly reflecting back to each other attributes of the Divine Creator whom we were created to know and to worship (Baha'i Daily Obligatory Prayer, and Christ's Two Greatest Commandments).

I will not be weakened anymore by bringing the lasting metal purified in me through embraced suffering (Malachi 3:3) into harmful unions with evanescent clays satisfied with eroding pleasures (Ecclesiastes 8:15) that can only continue to weaken me.  In the metaphorical imagery of iron mixed with clay during late world history as described in the book of Daniel, I see this new dimension to the admonish in the Christian dispensation not to be unequally yoked (2 Corinthians 6:14-18).  For reference, here is that original metaphor:

Daniel 2:41-44
41 Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. 42 And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. 43 As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. 44 And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.

It is time that Christ's kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  The world is far too unjust of a place.  Far too many are suffering horrifically.  I cannot stand for it any longer.  I cannot be part of the pain.  I must be part of the solution.  And whether it costs me blood, sweet, or tears, I am in.  And this is why I write.  This is the call, and these are the words of my Lord Baha'u'llah, the Glory of God, who wants me to be a living letter as one of His angels bringing in the new world order:

"Write all that We have revealed unto thee with the ink of light upon the tablet of thy spirit.  Should this not be in thy power, then make thine ink the essence of they heart.  If this thou canst not do, then write with that crimson ink that hath been shed in My path.  Sweeter indeed is this to Me than all else, that its light may endure for ever" (Arabic Hidden Word 71).

Moreover, the Servant of the Glory of God, Abdu'l-Baha, wrote of us becoming God's angels in this manner:

"Ye are the angels, if:
(1) your feet be firm,
(2) your spirits rejoice,
(3) your secret thoughts pure,
(4) your eyes consoled,
(5) your ears opened,
(6) your breasts dilated with joy,
(7) and your souls gladdened,
(8) and if you arise to assist the Covenant,
(9) to resist dissension and to be attracted to the Effulgence!

Oh Great God on High! Find me these angelic friends! Make me such an angelic friend! United us all together to do Thy great work, in the name of Christ Jesus, Baha'u'llah, and all your Manifestations in every time and place!

Amen.