What Do Mormons Believe? #mormonism #apologetics #theology #LDS

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February 27, 2024

In this episode, Eli is joined by apologist Matt Slick to talk about the basic beliefs of the Mormons, or the LDS. Matt has spoken with countless Mormons and is very familiar with their belief system. In this video, he shares from his experience and interactions with them.

00:01: All right, welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and today
00:07: I have a good friend on with me, Matt Slick. He is the president of CARM .org.
00:14: So for folks who might be new listeners to Revealed Apologetics and you've never heard of CARM, CARM is a, well, it's a
00:23: Christian apologetics ministry. It's a nonprofit, non -denominational, Protestant apologetics ministry with the internet and radio outreach.
00:32: It is involved in lots of evangelism, including full -time support for several foreign missionaries.
00:39: It's based here in the United States and it was founded a long time ago in 1995. I was in middle school when
00:47: CARM was founded. And of course, Matt Slick is the president of that ministry.
00:53: And so folks, if you don't know about CARM, I highly recommend folks check out CARM .org.
00:58: That is C -A -R -M .org. That stands for Christian Apologetics Research Ministry.
01:05: Matt, why don't you briefly introduce yourself and maybe share a little bit about who you are to maybe my first time listeners.
01:13: Sure. Matt Slick. My real name is Slick and a graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary with a
01:20: Masters of Divinity 1991. I started studying apologetics back in 1980.
01:26: And if we do a slide thing here, I'll show you with a quote that actually got me started in all of apologetics.
01:33: And so then working on CARM for 28 years, I've written about, the last estimate is 6 ,000 articles.
01:40: And the sites had 161 million visitors, been doing radio for 23 years, 21 of it five days a week and written several books, lots of debates.
01:53: I got a debate coming up this Friday on open theism and not a big deal, but hey, that's what
01:59: I do. Awesome. And you're going to jump into it, but he's been doing apologetics for a really long time and it is actually related to Mormonism that got him started.
02:10: So looking forward to having him share that. But before we do that, I just want to give folks a heads up on what's coming up in the near future on my channel.
02:18: So I'm going to share the screen real quick. So I will be offering a response to the Convincing Proof podcast, where there is a critique of presuppositional apologetics that I think is important to address.
02:31: Something along the lines of comparing presuppositionalism and postmodernism, which is quite wrong headed, but we're going to address that and hopefully it will clarify some issues.
02:42: Also, I will be doing a response, being joined by my good friend, Saiten Bruggenkate.
02:47: We're going to be taking a look at an older video that was put out by Capturing Christianity in which
02:53: Cameron Bertucci had Dr. Josh Rasmussen, I think that's his name, come onto his show and offer his critiques of presuppositionalism.
03:02: And so this is not to, you know, be aggressive towards those who disagree and all that kind of stuff.
03:09: I just think that responding to things like this, just give a good opportunity to clarify and do a little bit of teaching, especially for those who are interested in the specific flavor of apologetics that we do on this channel.
03:21: So looking forward to that. There's no set date for those things, but they are coming soon and I'll let folks know as soon as I'm able to get ready for those two episodes.
03:33: All right. I want to take that off the screen there, Matt, why don't you take it away? My first question, actually, I have a couple of questions for you first, before you jump into your presentation.
03:42: I want to begin with sharing a little bit about my experience that kind of inspired me having you on.
03:50: And so I work at a Christian private school and I was called into the office, the admissions office, and I was asked about a family who was trying to enroll in the school and they were
04:02: Mormons. And the poor, the poor lady at my job, she was like, can you, can you come in here and explain to them why we don't, we don't accept
04:11: Mormons. It's not because they're bad people or anything like that. I just don't know how I can express myself and kind of explain the differences.
04:19: And so when I went into the office, I had a very interesting discussion. I won't get into too much of the details, but apparently
04:26: I know nothing of Mormonism. I'm wrong to suggest that Mormonism teaches polytheism.
04:34: I'm wrong to suggest that Mormons teach that it is possible for men to become gods themselves.
04:41: This is kind of standard Mormon doctrine. I was even wrong for calling the Mormons Mormons.
04:47: They rejected that title and suggested that LDS is more accurate.
04:53: So my question for you, Matt, in light of this, and I had to double check like, hey, you know, I want to make sure
04:58: I have my information right. And so I double checked sources and yes, whether that family was familiar with their own church's official teaching or not,
05:09: I was accurate. Although I do want to acknowledge that there are various views within Mormonism that we want to be able to delineate between.
05:18: But that said, my first question for you, there's two questions. Number one, what defines the core tenets of Mormonism as you understand it?
05:27: And are there distinct branches within Mormonism? All right. And if so, what sets them apart?
05:35: So by the way, not two questions. Yeah. So you can hear me OK, right? Yes, sir.
05:41: All right. So this got started back in 1830 and Joseph Smith and his family were money diggers into the occult, doing some weird stuff.
05:49: And there's an interesting story of how Mormonism got started. But that's another time. If you want to get to it later, we can. But the core tenets of Mormonism is that that they take the
06:00: Bible, they read the Bible, King James, and then they reinterpret the words in it into a
06:06: Mormon style and a Mormon system. So if you were to say to a Mormon, do you believe in one God? They say, well, of course, just believe in one
06:13: God. Do you believe in the Trinity? Yeah. Well, what's the Trinity? Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Well, do you believe in salvation by grace?
06:20: Well, of course we do. And what you have to do when you talk to Mormons is you have to speak in terms of definitions.
06:26: Do you believe there's only one God in all existence, all place, all time, that there was never a God before God and that there will be never a
06:32: God after God? They can't say yes to that. So when you this is a really important, important fact, when you talk to Mormons, you can't use your standard vocabulary.
06:45: You have to use the definitions of your vocabulary. That's what you have to do. So if they say we believe in one
06:52: God, that means of all the gods that are out there, they only serve and worship one of them. That's what it means to believe in one
06:58: God. OK, now what if they say, what if they say, well, no,
07:04: I only I believe there's only one God in all of existence. Is that an option within Mormonism or is that Mormon unaware of their own church's official teachings?
07:14: They're unaware. OK, so I remember talking to some two Mormons. They were just converted from some
07:21: Protestant denomination into Mormonism two years earlier. I picked them up their flat tire, took them to a store, dropped them off, and they were
07:29: Mormons. And I said, oh, you know, then you know about God being a man from another world, is it?
07:34: That's not what that doesn't teach that. Well, you know about many, many gods. Oh, no, no, no, it's not true.
07:40: This is back 25 years ago. And and I said, well, you know about becoming gods. No, that's ridiculous.
07:47: We've been Mormon for two years. You don't know what you're talking about. We know what it says. We've been Mormons for two years.
07:53: So what's happening in Mormonism is they're trying to sound more evangelical. So they're not really teaching
07:59: Mormonism the way Mormonism used to be taught. Now, Bill McKeever is a friend of mine from Salt Lake City, Santa, Utah.
08:08: He runs MRM .org Mormonism Research Ministry, and he's a world class expert.
08:15: And I talked to him about this. We actually entertain the idea about can Mormonism actually become
08:21: Christian because of what they're doing, the way they're talking now?
08:28: But it's a possibility. But the only way to do that is to reject everything that was taught before.
08:34: How are they going to do that and still have temples and still? So there's a real problem. But we believe that the
08:42: Internet is what did this, really started them on the track because now people can go research. OK, so.
08:49: Official Mormonism, and I'll show you the documentation from their own writings, from their own stuff.
08:55: Now, I debate a lot online regularly, two, three, four times a week, and there's a well -known
09:02: Mormon who comes on and he's used to teach biblical Greek and he uses it to support
09:07: Mormonism. And I say, well, you know, doesn't Mormonism teach God came from another world? That's we don't teach that.
09:13: I read him a quote and I say, that's what it says. Well, that's not official. But do you believe it?
09:20: And he won't answer because they want to play. Well, we don't believe it or we believe it, but we don't want to say we believe it.
09:28: And this is the kind of thing that's going on in Mormonism. So it's certainly possible that those people did not know what
09:33: Mormonism really taught. So what I tell them is this. I say, go to your bishop. Bishop is like a pastor.
09:39: Go to your bishop of your ward. A ward is like a church. Go to your bishop and ask him, did it ever was it ever taught in Mormonism that we could become gods?
09:49: Just ask that one question because I want to give too many questions. I never heard back from anybody afterwards.
09:54: But if they do ask that, the bishop has to say, well, yes, otherwise he's lying. Yeah, it's interesting,
10:01: Matt. Greg Bonson, who we're both familiar with, told a story where Mormons came to his door.
10:07: I mean, that's a wrong house to knock on, but they went to Greg Bonson's house and they had conversation.
10:17: And Greg Bonson conveyed this in a story. He says, well, I couldn't join your church because you guys believe in many gods.
10:25: And the Mormons that came to his door, they were like, no, we don't. And he's like, well, well, yes, you do. And then he showed them in their own literature because, of course, he had their writings and all that.
10:36: And then they were like, well, you know what? Let us let us get back to you. And and he said, be sure that you come back. I want to I want to hear what you have to say.
10:43: And of course, they came back and they said, OK, well, we checked our sources. We do believe in many gods, but we only worship the god of this world.
10:51: And that's interesting because these were these were missionaries. You would think that they would have knowledge of the details of a doctrine like that.
10:59: So very fascinating. I want to make a distinction. And Matt made the distinction between what
11:04: Mormonism officially teaches and what, say, the everyday Mormon believes. It may be the case that they have not been exposed to a lot of the official, official
11:13: Mormon doctrine, which I would love for Matt to get into. And I see that he has a presentation here.
11:18: You want to you want to jump into that? Sure. Let me make a comment. Yeah, it's really interesting, because back in 1980 to 83,
11:27: I did a swap meet ministry in California every Saturday for two and a half years.
11:32: I went out there and did that. And one time I remember this so clearly, a way we do it. We had tables with tracks and rocks on the tracks.
11:39: It wouldn't blow away. We were there for six, seven hours a day, I mean, on Saturdays. And people would ask questions where I first started really doing apologetics.
11:48: OK, so this guy comes up and we had a section on Mormonism and he goes, well,
11:53: Mormonism, what about that? I said, oh, it teaches that God came from another planet, used to be a man, has a goddess wife.
11:59: They have relations in heaven, make spirit babies. They inhabit human bodies on Earth. And you have the potential becoming a god of your own planet.
12:06: But you have to go to the temple, learn a secret handshake, secret hugs. You get a new name, have to have underwear, secret underwear that you wear.
12:13: And you have to go to the secret ceremony for all this. And I never forget this. This guy looked at me and he said, you're lying.
12:20: I said, no, I'm not. He goes, yes, you are. I said, no, I'm not. This is what they teach. He said, no, they don't.
12:25: I said, how do you know? He said, no one's that stupid to believe that. And he turned around and walked off.
12:33: And I said, but it's true. I never forgot that. I never forgot that.
12:38: It was really interesting. But at any rate, so, yeah, we've got our slides. And I guess
12:44: I can share my screen or I think I already did, didn't I? You can add. Yeah. Someone's telling me what's the red light blinking above Eli's head.
12:51: Hope he doesn't have a low battery. I do have a low battery and I don't know why. Because I'm actually I'm actually a low battery up there, too.
13:00: I am plugged into an outlet. I'm not even it's not even like an external battery that needs to be changed in the camera.
13:06: So if I go to my regular webcam, I'll just visually look not as good. And then we'll we'll make
13:12: Matt's Matt's camera big and he'll look not good. But with HD quality and details.
13:20: Yeah, it's 60. It's not going to be a pretty sight. It's OK. Even if my camera goes off, at least we have this big old you got these slides here.
13:30: That's right. We got stuff. That's right. There you go. All right. So let's jump in. I'm going to let Matt just take it away.
13:36: And if I if I have a question, I might interject. But for the most part, I'd like you to kind of just just walk us through your analysis of Mormons.
13:44: And real quick, before I forget, because I remember what this family, very, very nice family.
13:51: They they they made a distinction between Mormonism and LDS. What's what's that about?
13:57: They were almost like, well, we don't call ourselves Mormons. Yeah. Are you familiar with this? This idea?
14:03: Yeah. A few years ago, it came up officially from the Grand Poobah in Salt Lake City.
14:11: And you're supposed to call the church, the Church of Jesus Christ, the Latter Day Saints. That's the whole thing.
14:17: It's either that or Mormons. We always, in language, shorten things and make it easier.
14:24: And that's all we're saying, you know, but they might settle for LDS. Oh, you're LDS. That's fine. I don't want to offend them needlessly.
14:30: Sure. Sure. Sure. That's all. All right. Whenever you're ready, Matt, you could jump right in. But, you know, I'm going to ask him, do you did you change the name of the
14:37: Mormon Tabernacle Choir to the Church of Jesus Christ, the Latter Day Saints Tabernacle Choir? But that's another question.
14:44: All right. So here we go. A brief analysis of stuff. All right.
14:51: So what I did, I'm starting here, got three slides right here, just listing out the basics of Mormonism.
14:57: Sure. The true gospel was lost from the earth. Mormonism is its restoration. We need prophets today, the same as in the
15:04: Old Testament. The Book of Mormon is more correct than the Bible. There are many gods.
15:10: There's a mother goddess. God used to be a man on another planet. After you become a good
15:17: Mormon, you have the potential of becoming a god. God, the father has a body of flesh and bones.
15:23: God is in the form of a man. God is married to his goddess wife and has spirit children. We were first begotten as spirit children in heaven and then born naturally on earth.
15:34: Jesus and Satan are spirit brothers, and we were all born as siblings in heaven to them both.
15:42: Think about that. I mean, you go to the first slide. Can you go back to the first? I have a quick question. So it says here the true gospel is lost from the earth and you have history of the church.
15:52: Is that an official? Is the history of the church a book that all LDS accept as authoritative, as something to teach from?
16:01: Or could a Mormon say, well, we don't use that source? They could say that. But then the question is, then why did your guys teach it?
16:11: OK, why did your officials teach it? Like Mormon Doctrine by Broussard McConkie.
16:16: He was in the 70s quorum. That's way up there in Mormon authority. OK, in this book,
16:23: Mormon Doctrine is sold in their bookstores. So and there's other sources that talk about this.
16:29: He just got honest and started saying what it was. So here's the church of volume four, page 461.
16:36: The Book of Mormons, the most correct book of any book on earth. And a man could get closer to the precepts of God by following it than by any other book.
16:45: So the Bible, in fact, in the eighth article, the Mormon Church, it says that the Bible is correct insofar as it is correctly translated.
16:53: So they always doubt the word of God. And and I talk to them about that. So the book
16:58: Mormon Doctrine, some will say, well, it's not true. The Mormon Doctrines book is by McConkie. It's not official doctrine.
17:04: And I say, OK, are there many gods? Always do that. Say, do you believe that there's many gods out there?
17:11: Well, we just worship one. Do you believe there's many gods out there? We only worship one.
17:17: I got you. You only worship one. Are you only worshiping one of the many that are out there? And they don't want to answer the question a lot of times, but that's what's happening.
17:25: And you got to ask the same thing over and over again. OK, and so that's what you have to do. All right. OK. All right.
17:33: So. Do I learn how to do these nice, nice little PowerPoint gliding things?
17:40: Let me know and I'll help you out. All right. All right. Thank you. So Jesus and Satan are spirit brothers right there.
17:46: The second of the bottom one. And we are all born brothers and sisters to Jesus and the devil.
17:52: So Jesus is our elder brother in the spirit preexistence. Jesus' sacrifice was not able to cleanse us from all of our sins, murder and repeated adultery are exceptions.
18:03: Now, real quick note, 9 -11, I think it was 1857.
18:09: I try to remember is called the Mountain Meadows Massacre on September 11th, where the
18:14: Mormons murdered one hundred and twenty five ish men, women and children. The story goes, it's worth really looking at.
18:22: But the story goes that a wagon train was going out to the southern part of Utah and some jerks in the wagon train called the
18:32: Missouri Wildcats said that they had the gun that killed Joseph Smith, made a lot of Mormons mad.
18:39: Brigham Young was the Mormon leader at the time in Utah. And so he was teaching this doctrine murder.
18:47: You have to have your own bloodshed in order to save you. So we have to kill you to save you.
18:54: Hmm. That's the mentality. So long story short, they ended up killing all these people. OK. And it's something that Mormons hold to today.
19:03: But that was something that was justified back then. Is that what you're saying? Well, that's debatable because the last
19:10: I forgot who he was. Bill McKeever knows there's a man who was executed in Utah 20, 30 years ago by firing squad.
19:20: That is a shedding of blood. OK. He was a murderer. So this is what
19:25: Mormonism teaches. And oh, but wait, there's more. So good works are necessary for salvation.
19:33: OK. In fact, in Articles of Faith by James Talmadge, he says one of the most heinous doctrines of the devil is teaching that you're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
19:46: All false religions deny that truth. Anyway, we accept Christ's atonement by repenting of our sins, being baptized, receiving the gifts of the
19:56: Holy Ghost and obeying all the commandments. I'm going to use that on Catholics.
20:02: I'm going to use it on Catholics because I do that all the time. Anyway, Jesus paid for all of our sins when he suffered in the
20:08: Garden of Gestimony. Now, this was debated. OK. Some say he just, I'm sorry.
20:14: Some say he just potentially did it there or began it there. But this is one of the things that was published by Mormon periodicals.
20:24: So there's no salvation without accepting Joseph Smith as a prophet of God. They generally don't hold to that as much anymore.
20:33: Salvation in Mormonism is universal resurrection. It can also be forgiveness of sins.
20:39: And then in Mormonism, there's three levels of heaven, telestial, terrestrial and celestial.
20:45: Telestial is the bottom. That's where the wicked people go. And they go for about a thousand years. Mormonism teaches universalism.
20:53: Basically, everybody is going to be saved. And the lowest level, there's three heavens. The Bible talks about three heavens, but it's not like this.
21:00: The top level is the dwelling place of God. The second in Christian theology or Jewish theology, what it was is where the birds and the clouds were.
21:10: And then the first, excuse me, the lowest level was where the birds, the clouds, the sky was.
21:15: The second level was the stars, the moon, the sun. And the third was the presence of God. And I have an article on this on the website.
21:22: But they take it as different levels in the afterlife. So wicked people go to telestial.
21:29: I wouldn't even go to telestial heaven because I'm sincerely deceived. That's what
21:34: Mormons tell me. I would go to the terrestrial. And but I would never be able to get to the celestial level.
21:41: And in the celestial level are three levels. And the bottom two don't know the names of, but the top one is called the
21:48: Church of the Firstborn. And that's where you become a god. Only males become gods technically, but they exalt their wives to goddesshood.
22:00: And they have to be sealed in the temple. And there's nothing kinky goes on in the temple. You know, sexual, there's a lot of rumors, but nothing like that happens.
22:08: But I can tell you what goes on in there very interestingly about Mormon temple ceremony with the apron that Satan's wearing.
22:13: Another interesting tidbit. So you have to know the handshakes, the hugs, you have to pay a full 10 % tithe of your income to the church to get into the temple.
22:22: And then you can have the potential of becoming a god, but you have to keep celestial law. And no
22:28: Mormon I've ever talked to is keeping celestial law. So the Holy Ghost is a male personage.
22:36: Okay, marvelous working wonder, there it is. So, and the Holy Spirit is the presence of God everywhere.
22:42: But the Holy Ghost is a third person in the Trinity. But in Mormonism, it's not a
22:47: Trinity, it's a triad. A triad is three separate beings.
22:54: So when Mormons say to me, well, no, we only believe in one God. They say, okay, just so you know, in Hebrew, the word for God is
23:01: Elohim. The name of God is Yahweh. First Kings 8 .60 says Jehovah is
23:07: Elohim. Okay, so Yahweh is Elohim. First Kings 8 .60. So the
23:13: Hebrew word for God is simply Elohim. And God's name in Exodus 3 .14,
23:18: Exodus 3 .15, what shall I say is my name? My name is I am. Yod -Heh -Vav -Heh, the
23:23: Tetragrammaton, the four letters. Yahweh, we say, or Jehovah, but we say Yahweh. So in Mormonism, God the
23:30: Father's name is Elohim and Jesus' name is Jehovah. That's what they do.
23:37: And I show them First Kings 8 .60, where it says Jehovah is Elohim. So the
23:43: Bible's not right, whatever. And so anyway, I'll say, okay, so do you believe that Elohim is your
23:50: God? Yes. And is Jesus a God? Yes.
23:56: Isn't that two gods? Well, we only worship one. Okay, let's try it again.
24:03: Is Elohim a God? Yes. Is Jesus a God? Well, yes, but that's two gods.
24:09: And is the Holy Ghost a God? Yes. Is there a mother goddess out up there?
24:16: Elohim's wife? Yes. That's four gods right there. And what about the God who exalted Elohim from his other world that he lived on?
24:24: His circle Kolob in the Pearl of Great Price, one of the four standard works. That's where he came from. So what about that?
24:30: That's five gods right there. Now, when I was talking to the family, I asked the question, is the
24:37: Father God, is the Son God, is the Holy Spirit God? And I said, and are they one?
24:43: He said, the gentleman said, they're one and they're one in purpose. And I was like, are they one in nature?
24:49: So you got to be careful with the language there because three individuals can be one in purpose.
24:55: But if they're not one in nature, okay, then you have a denial of the Trinity, which the gentleman, well, the couple that we were talking with at the school, they said they affirm the
25:05: Trinity. But of course, when they use the word Trinity, it's not what we would say within the
25:10: Orthodox Christian theology. That's right. With Mormons, you got to use definitions.
25:17: Yeah. Didn't Walter Martin speak of this in his famous book, Kingdom of the Cults, where there is an entire chapter called
25:25: Scaling the Language Barrier. Right. And you need to learn how to, because they use lots of words that as Christians, we're going to be very familiar with, but they fill them with meaning that's nothing like what
25:37: Christianity teaches. Yeah, I have an article on that and some of the word definitions used here as well.
25:42: In fact, I had the privilege of studying under Walter Martin for several years. So it was really great. Yeah. All right, you ready?
25:49: Yep, let's go. Okay. So it's called the four standard works or Mormon scriptures, the
25:57: King James Bible, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price. Okay.
26:03: Pretty cool. No big deal. Hey, there's a picture of Joseph Smith. That's supposedly about what he looks like.
26:11: Now, one of the things Bill made a comment, Bill McKeever made a comment, he goes, you know,
26:17: Joseph Smith just gets better looking. I didn't notice that, yeah. Yeah, because he looked kind of like a doofus like me.
26:26: So anyway, Mormonism was also known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints as a worldwide religious organization headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.
26:35: It began with six members in 1830, reached its first million in 1947, now has 17 million followers worldwide with 60 ,000 active missionaries.
26:47: Okay, here's a question. How many of you have seen the movie George of the Jungle with Brandon Fraser? Oh man, a while back.
26:55: Yeah. Okay. So you watch it when the bad guys get out of the Bouchamboro jail and you're walking down the street talking about how they're going to get rid of George.
27:05: In the background, you see two of our missionaries on bikes screw up, goodbye. Okay. They weren't extras.
27:13: They were people in the background that got in the movie. I went, no way.
27:20: So you can see right there, he was born in 1805 and they moved to Palmyra, New York.
27:26: Okay. There's so much I could talk to you about, but I won't get into it. All right. So according to Joseph Smith in 1820, he went into the wooded area to pray about which church was true.
27:37: God, the father and Jesus appeared to him and told him that all churches were false. Now the first vision is very important because Mormonism claims that true gospel was lost from the earth and Smith was told in the first vision that the fullness of the gospel would be revealed to him later.
27:53: The first vision, without the first vision, all of Mormonism is false. Okay. And sometimes
27:59: I'll say to Mormons, I'll say, I can prove to you Mormonism is false. Prove it. You won't accept it, but I will prove that all of Mormonism is false.
28:10: It's a false church. Okay. You can't, it's not possible. I have a testimony. Okay. You pray about the
28:16: Book of Mormon and get a feeling, but at any rate, I'd say, I can prove it. So do you believe the
28:21: Bible? They say, well, yes. Okay, good. Good. You believe the Bible. All right. So then let's take a look at what the
28:29: Bible says. John 6, 46, Jesus says, not that any man has seen the father, except the one who's from God.
28:36: He has seen the father. And Paul, the apostle says, speaking of God, the father there, he alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light whom no man has seen or can see.
28:54: Did Joseph Smith see the father? Yes. Let's go over this again.
29:01: And what I'll do is I'll go over this. I focused on 1 Timothy 6, excuse me. And I'll say, he cannot be seen.
29:08: Did, was he seen? Yes. Let's go over it again. Was Paul wrong? That's when they have trouble.
29:14: Was he wrong? Well, you have to have the eye of faith to see him. That's not what it says. You see, what they'll do is change the words, change the meaning.
29:23: So Jesus says no one's ever seen him, except the one, not the father. And the key thing there,
29:28: Matt, is not only does it say no one has seen him, it says no one can. Right. Exactly correct.
29:36: No one can see him. Well, they saw God, the father, Stephen saw him in Acts 7, 55 through 60.
29:44: No, he had a vision of God and saw the glory of God. Well, Moses saw God, yes, Exodus 6, 2 and 3, and Exodus 24, 9 to 11,
29:53: Numbers 12, 6 through 8. You can tell him to do this a long time. These are verses related to that kind of stuff. And I quote them to him and I'll say, no, no, that was a pre -incarnate
30:01: Christ, and go through and explain. But I just proved all of Mormonism false right there because Joseph Smith said he saw
30:08: God, the father, but the Bible says you can't. It's false.
30:14: This is it, we're done. Next, because Mormonism is now proven false.
30:20: I say next like that with Jehovah's Witnesses, with Mormons, with Roman Catholics, with Eastern Orthodox, with the
30:26: Muslims, Atheists. I go, next, because I will give something that there's no way out of it, and they just continue to deny it.
30:35: And that's the state of the unregenerate mind. Matt, I remember there's a video floating around of you a long time ago.
30:42: You were talking to some Mormons at their pageant, I think. And there was a young man you were speaking with, and I think his father was there.
30:50: And you read a portion of scripture to him, and you said, this is what your church teaches.
30:57: And he said, no, it isn't. He's like, I'm going to show you. And you showed him, and you told him to read it.
31:04: He looks at it, and then he closes the book, and he gives it back to you and says, all
31:09: I can tell you is what I know, is that I have a testimony that Joseph Smith is a true prophet. And I thought that was interesting.
31:15: Back in the day, I was like, well, why doesn't he read it? It was right in front of you. You showed him in his own literature.
31:21: Now, I would imagine it's very difficult for someone who believes something very strongly to grapple with that there at the moment.
31:27: But I think that was a very telling situation there, that we can very easily not want to see what is in front of us, regardless of how clear the evidence is.
31:39: So I thought that was fascinating. That's why I don't turn the mirror on in the morning when I go into the bathroom. Don't turn the light on.
31:45: I mean, I don't want to see what's there. You don't want to be hit with a hard cold reality in the morning. It's like, oh man, whoa,
31:53: I'm awake now. So that is a regular thing.
31:59: And what it is, is a judgment of God upon them, giving them over to the depravity of their heart and their mind, because what they're doing is judging
32:06: God's truth by their experience. They're subjecting God, the creator of the universe and his holy word to their feelings.
32:16: I have a testimony. I know what truth is. So you're not testing your experience by the word of God.
32:22: You're just saying, this is my experience. So I know it's true. Right, that's right. Exactly. All right.
32:28: Now I'm going to go to the next slide here, which I will now read it to you.
32:34: This is the quote that started me studying everything. So back in 1979 or 1980,
32:42: I can't remember. I'm 67. I've been around for a long time. And a friend of mine,
32:48: Charlie Spine, he's on the board of directors with CARM. He's a great guy. I remember the first time
32:53: I saw him, and he read me this quote at a Bible study on a Friday night, I think it was. And I got so mad,
33:00: I snatched the paper out of his hand. I said, who said this? And he said, Joseph Smith said it. I said, well, he's not a
33:06: Christian. I said, who is this guy? And he said, well, he started Mormonism. I said, well, Mormons are Christians, but he's not.
33:13: And he said, no, they're not Christians. I said, yes, they are. And he said, no, they're not. I said, why not? And he told me what they believe,
33:19: God from the other planet. I went, what? And I started studying. And I'll tell you this too.
33:24: I don't tell this very often, but what happened was really kind of interesting because the next morning,
33:32: I had no interest in actually going to a Bible study on Tuesday because it was on Tuesday Bible study. And it was
33:37: Marion and Jerry Bodine who worked with Walter Martin. I'd lost interest on Saturday morning.
33:44: Saturday afternoon, didn't care, didn't wanna go. This is the truth. Sunday morning, I don't care. I don't wanna go, I'm not interested.
33:50: I just, whatever. Monday morning, don't care. Tuesday, I don't care. And I'd already given my phone number.
33:57: He called me up. You going? I said, yes. And I still remember being surprised by me saying yes.
34:04: And I needed to go. It's the weirdest thing. That's only happened to me a couple of times like that.
34:09: And that was one of them. And I ended up, I could not believe. And I was just hooked at that point. So this is the quote that got me started studying apologetics.
34:21: God is in the still small voice in all these affidavits, indictments. It is all of the devil, all of corruption.
34:29: Come on, you prosecutors, you false swears. All hell boil over you burning mountains roll down your lava for I will come out on the top at last.
34:37: I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam.
34:45: A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it.
34:52: I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from him but the
34:57: Latter -day Saints never ran away from me yet. Yeah.
35:03: Two months later, he was dead. They killed him. They murdered him. And that's another story.
35:09: And he was murdered, but he killed two people also. I don't blame them.
35:15: I mean, they were trying to kill him. That's a whole nother story. But yeah, pride goes before a fall.
35:22: Yeah. All right. I don't know who said it, but someone read this quote not saying who said it.
35:28: And they asked the Mormon, what do you think of this quote? The person said, yeah, this person is from the devil.
35:35: Because who would say that? And it was revealed, oh, this is actually Joseph Smith. So interesting, interesting stuff.
35:44: Back in Southern California, before I moved up here to Idaho, the weirdest thing would happen. I'd drive somebody, two
35:50: Mormon missionaries. I'd just drive somewhere. There they are. I just drive, there they are. I got to talk to them. And this had happened so much that I was told, or they told me that they had a meeting specifically not to talk to me because I was causing
36:03: Mormon missionaries to leave their church. One of the things I would do is quote them this.
36:08: I'd have memorized. I'd quote it to them. Whoever said that wasn't Christian, you're right. I have other stuff
36:15: I would show them. But yeah, it's bad. All right. So let's give a little bit of a history.
36:21: Don't need to get into too much. But so on September 21st, 18 to 23 at age 17,
36:31: Joseph claimed that the angel Moroni appeared to him, told him that there were golden plates buried nearby that he would be called to translate them, but he was not yet allowed to retrieve them.
36:40: A lot of people don't know this. This is a little bit of background context is at that time in the 1820s before and after, there were rumors of golden plates being buried in the area.
36:53: Captain Kidd's treasure, I think it was, was another possibility. And so what the Smith family would do, and particularly
36:59: Joseph Smith, is they would get a bunch of people together and they would go money digging. And what that was, was to get either a divining rod or whatever mechanism they would do.
37:11: But what they usually would do, take a goat or a lamb, they would all pitch in the money and they would slit the throat of the goat or the lamb and they'd go out into the forest and where it dropped and died, that's where the buried treasure is.
37:23: So the people would start digging and Joseph Smith would say, if any of you doubt, the angel will move the treasure.
37:32: And so they'll be digging and digging and digging and they're hours and not finding anything. And they gave up.
37:38: And Joseph would say, okay, who's doubting? Come on, somebody's gonna raise their hand.
37:44: See, it's called non -falsifiability. And this is how he made money.
37:50: And then when Mormonism got started, this kind of mentality was already in the people. So he said he had the golden plates.
37:58: So he finally obtained them, he says, began his translation process. To do this, he used a seer stone, which
38:04: I'll show you a picture of when it's similar to it. The seer stone was supposed to be from the Urim and Thummim spoken of in Exodus.
38:10: That's the breastplate with the 12 stones. So Joseph Smith had one of them. And a lot of people don't know this, but I don't know if you guys know this, but the
38:18: Garden of Eden was actually in Missouri. Missouri. I've been to it.
38:25: I've been to the Garden of Eden in Missouri. So yeah, anyway, and that's how they were able to get one of the stones because that's really where it was is over here.
38:35: And the Urim and Thummim was, okay, so I got the, I already told you about that. Pretty, pretty whacked. So it's supposed to be, the
38:42: Book of Mormon is supposed to be about writing about ancient members of the American continents, the
38:47: Nephites and the Lamanites who lived from approximately 2000 BC to 400 AD. It's a story of their journey from Jerusalem, they're
38:56: Jews, around 600 BC to the Americas. They traveled in large boats, as the
39:01: Book of Mormon says, as they crossed the Atlantic. Within his pages is a history, the people, their development, battles, teachings, eventual decline, as well as the appearance of Jesus because Jesus appeared to them.
39:13: Some people call him Quetzalcoatl and it's a whole nother thing. The last contributor to the
39:18: Book of Mormon was called Moroni and his statue is atop of LDS Temple.
39:24: So he became an angel. He was a man who became an angel, all right? And so somebody did a calculation because it said a strong wind blew the barges that went from Jerusalem all the way to the
39:42: Americas for how many days? And he was a maritime expert. He wrote an article on this and said, well, basically, the description that he gave that is in the
39:52: Book of Mormon, they would have circumnavigated the entire planet like three or four times.
39:58: And he did calculations and showed, it's just ridiculous. And it says the barges were as long as a tree, just stuff like this.
40:06: So what Joseph Smith was doing was making it up as he went. You're trying to sound spiritual, yeah. And that's what looks like the seer stone.
40:14: It's similar to that. I couldn't find a really good actual picture, but it's pretty similar to that. So he would put a seer stone into a hat, put his face over the hat, drawing it closely around and exclude the light.
40:27: Darkness would be there and the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear on that appeared to writing one character at a time, and would appear there.
40:36: And under it would be the interpretation in English. What he would do is he would say this one letter at a time to Oliver Cowdery, who was behind a veil.
40:45: And that's how the entire Book of Mormon was translated, supposedly. Okay, by the power of God, with the arm and thumb and with the hat.
40:53: Okay, with his power of the priesthood and all this stuff. Except the Book of Mormon's got thousands and thousands of changes in it.
41:01: That's another topic. All right. So here are 12 things in the
41:09: Book of Mormon. Remember, in History of the Church, Volume 4, page 461, the Book of Mormon is the most correct book of any book on earth.
41:16: And a man could get closer to the precepts of God by following it than by any other book. Yet, the 12 essential
41:24: Mormon doctrines are not found in the Book of Mormon. I'll tell you why. But church organization, the plurality of gods, plurality of wives doctrine, word of wisdom,
41:33: God's an exalted man, celestial marriage, men may become gods, three degrees of glory, baptism for the dead.
41:41: That's another thing we haven't talked about yet. Eternal progression, the Aaronic priesthood, temple works of washing, anointing, endowments and sealing.
41:49: So the reason that these are not found in the Book of Mormon is because Joseph Smith, when he was doing what he was doing, making it up as he went.
42:00: And he probably had the Solomon Spalding manuscript. That's another story. But he wrote this stuff.
42:06: And all he was doing was incorporating into Mormonism, the ideas of Christianity and basic concepts.
42:13: But Mormonism hadn't gone askew yet. So these things weren't found in it until later.
42:21: Then he got more revelations. Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price. So that's what's going on there.
42:27: That's why. All right. Okay. So the
42:35: Book of Mormon says there's one God. But Mormonism teaches there's many gods. It's one of the things
42:40: I've done before is I've taken a... I don't even have a book here. Let me show what I mean. I'll get my
42:47: New Testament here. In my Greek New Testament. And so one of the things is...
42:56: Yeah, here we go. So I pretend this is a Book of Mormon. I have it in the garage.
43:02: I would put it sideways. And all the verses of the Book of Mormon, I put tabs. One God. The Trinity is one
43:09: God. God is unchanging. God is spirit. Eternal hell. Polygamy condemned.
43:17: And you just hold the tab. You open it up. And we go. And I would underline that reference.
43:23: That's all I would do. Nothing in it other than that. I walked up to... I can't tell you how many
43:29: Mormon missionaries. I'd have this book in my car, Southern California. I just walk up. Wouldn't even say anything.
43:36: Just hold it up sideways. They'd see the tabs. They'd see the Book of Mormon on it. And they would take it.
43:42: They'd spend five minutes going through it. Hadn't said a word. They'd hand it back to me.
43:48: And you could tell they were shaken. I'd say, why is Mormonism not in the Book of Mormon?
43:54: I'll tell you why. Had meetings. Don't talk to this guy. I can tell you stories about that as well.
44:03: So you can see... I want to interrupt you for two seconds. Very interesting. I remember you just used an example at the beginning where you asked a
44:10: Mormon a question. And they don't often answer directly.
44:16: And I'm having this situation right now. There's a Mormon in the chat, which is fine. I'm glad he's here.
44:22: But he made mention that the information that's being said here is not accurate. And of course,
44:29: I asked a simple question. I said, do you believe there are more than one?
44:35: I said, is it true that your church teaches that there are many gods in existence? And then he says, your question about gods.
44:42: The word God is a collective noun. Elohim is the plural of God. See Genesis 126. It's contingent on context.
44:48: And so I said, are there more than one God on your view? And he says,
44:53: Trinitarianism is extra biblical. So I ask again, are there more than one
44:58: God on your view? And he says, Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth is also God. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of God.
45:05: God the Father is also God. There is a Godhead. Trinitarianism is an ambivalent idea that isn't biblical.
45:11: So I ask again, on your view, respectfully, can you provide me a simple answer to my question? Are there many gods in existence?
45:18: Thanks. And then he says, the word word is a collective noun. So the word sheep, fish, and so forth, collective nouns can either be plural or singular contingent on the context.
45:26: To which I then ask the question again. And then he says, he's going through definitions.
45:32: This is fascinating. I ask again. And then he says, a binary question, a binary answer to your question is too contingent on your definition or definitions of God.
45:42: Jesus Christ is the only mortal to have ever lived who is also deity. So I ask again.
45:49: That seems to be a very easy. It seems to be an easy question.
45:55: I'm not trying to debate the Trinity. I'm just asking, do you believe that there are more than one
46:01: God in existence? My question, he says here, my question about God is contingent on how you define
46:09: God. I'm asking you, as the Mormon, is there more than one
46:15: God? That's not a complicated question. You don't have to go into the details. You can hold your theology and be like, yes, we believe there are more than one gods.
46:22: And then you can clarify. It's interesting that not answering a simple question. I think that's an illustration of what you were suggesting earlier, that they often don't give you straight answers.
46:35: Some do. This one here seems to be nice enough. But it's very interesting to see what appears to me to be evading a simple question.
46:43: And the reason why I ask this question is to highlight the fact that what you're going through, Matt, I don't think you've said anything inaccurate, except the portions where you are expressing your obvious disagreement.
46:53: They're going to disagree with that. But the actual theology seems to be pretty spot on, that you're given sources and all that kind of stuff.
47:00: So I thought that was fascinating. Yeah, you could just ask them. You could try this too.
47:05: Do you have the potential of becoming a God? It's either yes or no. Yeah, look at this here.
47:12: I need to understand your definition of God to answer your question. Why is my definition relevant to what you believe?
47:17: I'm asking what you believe. That seems like a simple... What I'll say is this.
47:25: I'll say one supreme being who created the entire universe, who has always existed, was never a man on another planet, was always the triune being, the singular being who is
47:36: God, who always knows all things and always will. He did not increase in knowledge.
47:42: That's the God. And he can't affirm that because that's not Mormonism. Mormonism denies it.
47:47: Joseph Smith absolutely denied it. So yeah, I think that's interesting. If I was a Mormon, I would just say yes or no, and then
47:53: I would expound on what I meant. But it's interesting to see that this person is not just giving a basic answer.
48:01: My definition of God is affecting his ability to just tell me what his position is. I think that's interesting.
48:06: But I apologize for interrupting. Go ahead, continue. That's all right. You just say the Mormon definition of God.
48:12: How many are there? Because we know in Mormonism, God the Father is a God. The Son, Jesus, is a
48:19: God. The Holy Ghost is another God. There's a goddess wife. They don't like talking about her. And then there's the
48:25: God who exalted Elohim to becoming a God. So when an
48:30: LDS person, if he is LDS, whatever, won't answer the basic truths, it's because he doesn't want to answer truthfully.
48:40: This is important. When you're in a situation where basic questions repeatedly, you can't answer truthfully, it means that lies are more important than truth.
48:50: Because you either have truth or lies. It's not ambivalent, not a gray area. It's either truth or it's a lie.
48:56: It's either the case that God's only being in existence or it's not the case that God's only being in existence. So which is it?
49:02: It's because they're more in tuned with the lies that they've heard in their mind and their psyches are conditioned for it.
49:10: It takes a lot of work to bring someone out of a cult. And so there's a phenomenon in Mormonism, well, in the cults called snapping.
49:19: It's when I don't believe, I don't believe, I don't believe. Then they believe, they snap. And it's very difficult to get someone out, particularly if they've had a testimony, which
49:28: I can, I give them my testimony and no Mormon's ever compared their testimony to mine and matched it.
49:35: And I say, my testimony is incredible. And I believe Mormon's false from that testimony.
49:42: So testimonies are not the way to go. I think we can get into that too. We could shred the logic on that. All right, let's make us move along.
49:48: Got a lot of stuff here. So also God is spirit in the book of Mormon, but in Mormon doctrine,
49:57: God is a form of man. There's eternal hell in the book of Mormon, but hell is it not eternal in Mormonism.
50:04: Polygamy is condemned in the book of Mormon, but it's taught and practiced in Mormon doctrines.
50:10: Now you asked earlier, are there a lot of churches that are break -offs? Over a hundred. There's over a hundred groups that follow the book of Mormon and claim to have true prophets and stuff like that.
50:21: Absolutely. There's one God in the context of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
50:27: No, Jason, all we're asking is this, are there more than one gods of any true God kind in all of existence?
50:34: That's all I'm asking. Yeah, yeah. See if you can answer, because if you don't, everybody here is seeing how you as a
50:41: Mormon represent your church, and it doesn't seem to be very good representation. Yeah, I think my question is pretty clear.
50:48: I mean, I'm not trying to get into a debate in the comments. I'm just asking a question. There is one God in the context of,
50:55: I mean, I'm not asking, I'm saying from your perspective, in all of existence, are there more than one God? That's all
51:01: I'm asking, yeah. And then they'll play the game. What do you mean by God? Well, the one divine, what do you mean by divine?
51:09: They do whatever they can not to answer. Yeah, I mean, I've read
51:14: Genesis 126 suggestion. I don't see how that teaches what you're teaching, but I'm not trying to debate you.
51:20: I'm just asking a simple question. Yeah, that's all I was asking, so. And also what I'll do, you do this exact same thing.
51:26: What I'll do is I'll ask the same question 15, 20 times, over and over, and I say to everybody, see how he's not answering?
51:36: Why is he not answering? What's going on that he can't give truth? Truth, you shouldn't be afraid of.
51:43: You shouldn't have a problem with truth. But if you are such that you have to hide the truth, that's the devil.
51:52: Okay. All right, so here's LDS terminology. Adam, father of physical mankind.
51:59: He's also known as Michael the Archangel, the Ancient of Days. Atonement, sacrifice of Christ, that made resurrection possible along with death.
52:07: And then he goes along with the possibility of our earning forgiveness of sins. I haven't even got into that.
52:13: But 2 Nephi 25, 23, you're saved by grace through faith after all you can do.
52:20: And Maroni 10, 32, if you deny yourself of all ungodliness, then is
52:25: God's grace sufficient for you? And I think it's D &C 82, 7, that if you sin, your former sins, that you've repented of, then all of your former sins come back upon you.
52:38: There's no hope in Mormonism for salvation. So I didn't know how long, you said you wanted a basic something, but there's so much to talk about in Mormonism.
52:47: I could go on and on. Anyway, celestial heaven is the highest of three levels of heaven. The church is the
52:53: LDS church. Notice this, false religions say we have the true church.
52:59: Salvation is found in the true church. It effectively replaced Jesus with the church.
53:06: Roman Catholics do it, Eastern Orthodox do it, Mormons do it. Eternal life is exaltation to godhood.
53:15: Exaltation, the state of becoming a god, okay? Fall of mankind was a blessing.
53:23: A necessary step in the progress of humanity to the level of godhood. And I can tell you that I was thinking about this once I was with my wife, and we've been married 36 years, that's like 33 years ago or so.
53:38: Southern California, I'm pushing the cart, doing the shopping, and I'm thinking about this because the
53:44: Mormons were talking to me and telling me how the fall was a good thing and that it allowed exaltation, people to become gods.
53:51: And I remember looking at the cart and having my hands there, it hit me.
53:57: Only the ungodly celebrate sin. All right.
54:05: Interesting stuff. Well, I would imagine there's a lot of information. I'm not sure if there are any questions.
54:13: And Jason, I think Jason is the resident Mormon in the comments, and again, like I said before,
54:19: I'm happy you're here. If you have any questions, you can pop one up and maybe Matt could address some of the questions.
54:25: But if there are no questions, that's fine as well. I think you did a good job kind of just basically outlining the perspective.
54:32: Now, someone might be asking, well, why didn't I get a Mormon here? Why didn't I get a Mormon on here to explain the views? Well, I'm a
54:38: Christian apologist and Matt's a Christian apologist, and to be perfectly honest, while Mormons are wonderful people, their theology is dangerous.
54:47: And so I don't wanna have a Mormon here to preach. I wanna have someone who's informed on Mormonism to lay out the view and then teach believers how we can respond lovingly but accurately with our
55:01: Mormon friends and in some cases, Mormon family. So, yeah, if people think there's inaccuracies here,
55:08: I mean, that's why I asked the question, what is inaccurate other than the parts that a
55:13: Mormon would naturally disagree with? Namely, there are two Christians here disagreeing with Mormon theology, right?
55:20: So that's why I asked the question about multiplicity of gods, and apparently my question is ill -formed.
55:29: I'm not the smartest person in the world, but I don't see how my question was ill -formed. Matt says
55:34: Mormonism teaches more than one God. That seems to be the teaching in the
55:40: Mormon church, right? I mean, I'm interested in seeing what is it that Matt, when he quoted here, is inaccurate, because I wanna make sure that we're accurate, right?
55:51: We don't wanna misrepresent. So if there are any questions or comments, please send them in. Other than that,
55:56: I guess my questions here is perhaps if Matt can share with us some of his experiences and strategies in speaking with Mormons.
56:06: How many Mormons have you spoken to? Hundreds, thousands, what? Thousands, possibly thousands, yeah?
56:13: Hundreds of Mormon missionaries, thousands of people, because I used to go to the Anti -Mormon Miracle Pageant every year for 15, 20 years, and there's literally thousands there, so I've talked to thousands of Mormons there, not to mention probably a couple hundred
56:29: Mormon missionaries in Southern California. Yeah, okay. Here's a question someone has, and Jason, respectfully,
56:37: I do encourage you, if you do have a question or you have an objection or something like that, if you preface your question or your statement with a question,
56:44: I will try to address it, and that's perfectly fine, okay? Let's see here.
56:49: Here's a question for Matt. Let's see here. If I get rid of the projecting, we can go back on the screen.
56:56: What was that? Yeah, we can get rid of the projecting. I just don't want the big old red thing over my head. Well, if my battery's dying,
57:04: I'm still here, thankfully. So let's see here.
57:10: There was a question for Matt. Okay, so here's a question from Bill. Bill asks, Mormons believe that Jesus and Lucifer are spirit brothers.
57:18: Where did they get this from? Joseph Smith taught it. Where'd he get it? He was involved in the occult.
57:26: I personally believe that he had demonic oppression upon him. Okay. Yeah, because he would do, in a sense, blood sacrifices to demonic forces when they would cut the throat of an animal, and it's death that enabled them to find out where treasure was.
57:42: It was for money. This is a very, very bad occultic thing, and Joseph Smith did it a lot.
57:48: Okay, and let me see here. So I have a question. Let's see here.
57:54: So my question is, what constitutes the Mormon gospel, and is there a unanimous agreement among Mormons on what the gospel is?
58:02: In Mormonism, in order to be saved from your sins, you have to follow the laws and the ordinances set out in the
58:09: Mormon church. You have to be baptized, and they want you to practice baptism for the dead ceremonies in their church, but you have to obey the laws and the ordinances of the gospel.
58:20: You're saved by grace through faith after all you can do, and that's what it is. It's a works righteousness false gospel, so that's what
58:26: Mormonism teaches. Okay, and this concept that a lot of people are taken aback by when they're not familiar with what
58:33: Mormonism teaches, this idea that men can become gods, is the concept of men becoming gods universally embraced among Mormons and LDS?
58:42: Is that a view that all of them hold, even despite some of the differences they might have in other areas?
58:48: Well, I can't survey each Mormon, but it is official Mormonism, and it has been taught for 200 years.
58:57: That's what Mormonism is, and so they're not emphasizing it as much, but none of the leadership denies it.
59:04: They all believe this, teach this. This is official Mormon theology. How much they're teaching to the people down at the lower levels, we don't know, but that's been changing.
59:16: Right. Jay asks, has a Mormon ever explained who or what was the standard their gods strived to live up to in order to become a god, or is there just an infinite regress of gods in their theology?
59:28: Well, there's two questions, different kind of related, but the standard, they had to keep celestial law, and, sorry, just remembered something.
59:39: Had to keep celestial law, which is basically living perfectly, and you'd be a good
59:44: Mormon, real high up, and you had the potential of becoming a god. That's it, and so is there an infinite regress of their gods in theology?
59:54: Bill McKeever and I have talked about this. It's logically impossible that that is the case, and I've written an article on this.
01:00:01: It's an impossibility, but they just say it's a mystery, we don't know, because there are what's called infinitely old intelligences that then become human spirits, and that's shady as well.
01:00:15: Okay. Now, what do you think of this here? So Jason said, we have the potential to become like God through faith in Jesus Christ and in no other way.
01:00:26: See, Jason, if you're listening to me, I'm gonna address you. You are being dishonest.
01:00:32: You know that that is not an answer to the question, do you have the potential of becoming a god?
01:00:37: Not like God, a god. That's different. You're not answering our question. You're being evasive, and you're doing it on purpose.
01:00:45: You are representing your church. You're representing what Mormonism teaches. We all here are very aware of how evasive you're being about speaking truth.
01:00:57: We Christians aren't afraid to speak truth. We will tell you what the truth is. That's one of the distinguishing, separating factors between cults and the true faith of Christianity.
01:01:08: And I know, I've been studying this for 44 years. I know what the cults teach.
01:01:14: I know the mentality. You're not the only one who has evaded answers, okay?
01:01:23: Notice what he says. The propitiation of Jesus Christ is a biblical matter that affords mortals eternal life.
01:01:28: See, notice the ambiguity of terminology. There's not enough clarity. Yeah, it happens like that a lot.
01:01:35: They wanna find ways to say something without really committing to anything. This is why you have to be very consistent and say the same thing over and over again.
01:01:44: Yeah, that's why I thought it was interesting that he wasn't answering my previous question. Now, he does say -
01:01:50: In situations like this, I recommend that everybody do the same thing at this point. Don't have multiple conversations, but everybody focus on one thing at a time.
01:01:59: Or you can't avoid it. Everybody starts saying, for example, are there many gods in all existence?
01:02:05: Or do you have the potential of becoming a god? Or whatever one question. Everybody needs to start doing the one question.
01:02:11: And the reason is because in a situation like this, he has the excuse to ignore a question and go to something else because all these questions are all over.
01:02:19: So he can cherry pick what he wants to say when he wants to say it. But if everybody is saying the same thing, that's gonna go away.
01:02:25: Then we'll see what he does. Now, let's try to be even -sided here with his comments here.
01:02:34: And I'm interested, maybe he can put some examples. He says here, Jesus gives you an answer to our becoming like God throughout several scriptures in the
01:02:42: New Testament. Again, I misread that. And now that I read it, that doesn't seem accurate either, becoming like God.
01:02:50: No one, no Christian denies that we can become like God in some way, right?
01:02:56: As we become godly through sanctification. The question is, can we become God? I'd say, so now that I read it again,
01:03:03: I'm like, actually, no. I thought that was gonna be something we can kind of rest on and explore where in the
01:03:09: New Testament he would go to support his view. But I guess, all right. Well, that out the window.
01:03:16: James, thank you so much for your $5 Super Chat. If the Book of Mormon contradicts Mormonism, why are they still Mormons?
01:03:23: Because they don't rely on truth. The issue of Mormonism in particular, the mind is not the thing that you worship
01:03:30: God with. It's your heart. They're feeling it's a subjectivity. They're told in James 1 .5, if any of you lack wisdom, let a mask of God.
01:03:37: They apply that to praying about the Book of Mormon to see if it's true. Actually, in Moroni 10 .34,
01:03:44: listen to this, Jason. It says to pray about the Book of Mormon to see if these things are not true.
01:03:51: When I asked Mormons, did you pray about it to see if it's not true? Yes. And what was your answer? Was it in the affirmative or the negative?
01:03:58: Well, it's affirmative. So the affirmative to the prayer is that it's not true. You pray about the
01:04:06: Book of Mormon to see if these things are not true. Did you do that? Yes. You got the affirmative. So it's not true.
01:04:13: I had fun with that with them. See, look, it's right here again. Okay, I try to be pretty patient.
01:04:18: I'm getting a little frustrated, just a little bit. We have the potential to attain eternal life through Jesus Christ. That's not the question.
01:04:25: No one's asking whether we have the potential to have eternal life. We're asking, can someone become a
01:04:33: God? That seems like a simple question. Even if you don't have, I mean, you don't even have to explain the details of the theology.
01:04:39: You can say, yes, we have a potential to become a God, and here are some explanations. I'm just asking the simple question.
01:04:45: I'm gonna stop addressing those questions because it doesn't look like we're gonna get anywhere there. But I do genuinely mean this.
01:04:52: Jason, you are welcome in the comments section, and that's perfectly fine. And I just hope that I'm no longer going to put his comments on the screen there.
01:05:03: But if anyone is gonna continue interacting with him, I do ask that you guys do so respectfully so that you have some good, fruitful conversation in the midst of disagreement, okay?
01:05:13: All right, someone asked the question, Matt, if Mormonism believes in the concept of hell.
01:05:20: I think I just skipped a year. Let's see here. There we go. Do Mormons believe in hell?
01:05:27: What's their view on that? Yes, they do, but only for the really wicked people, the really, really, really, really, really, really bad people, and they go for 1 ,000 years, and then they're redeemed.
01:05:39: Okay. Here is another question from Scott Carter. Ask Matt to expound on what the similarities between theosis in Greek orthodoxy would be and the
01:05:48: Mormon doctrine of becoming a god. In Greek orthodoxy, theosis is becoming like God, but they say becoming
01:05:55: God, but they don't mean actually ontologically by God, but so much like Him, and moving through the energies or the graces of God that move upon you and through that, you become so much like Him in that sense, but you're not, and it's called theosis, but there's another word for it.
01:06:10: And so, but Mormonism says, no, you become a god, a god of your own planet.
01:06:17: And that's not what in Greek orthodoxy. And you're worshiped. Yeah, and you're worshiped, yeah.
01:06:22: And in Mormonism, God could have been a sinner on another planet. And one of the things I thought about in Mormonism, you know, just think about this, because in Mormonism, God's an exalted man from another planet.
01:06:35: He brought one of his wives with him. They're married. He's about six feet tall. Oh, I'm six feet tall. And so I use myself as an example.
01:06:42: He's about my height. Okay, that's what they say. And could you imagine in the pre -existence in the celestial realm,
01:06:50: Mrs. Goddess is up there, and God goes, you know, we've got to populate a planet.
01:06:58: I mean, are you kidding me? How does that work in Mormonism?
01:07:04: They're spirit babies, but they have relations, and they produce offspring that are spirit babies. I mean, is there celestial breastfeeding up there?
01:07:11: Does she pop them out? Well, how does it work? How does it, you know, I started asking Mormons this. They said, no, they wanted nothing to do with this conversation.
01:07:19: But I said, I'm just working with what you guys teach. How does that work? It makes no sense.
01:07:25: It's actually ludicrous. Here's a Bo Staff Maverick says,
01:07:31: I do not think these two men are aware that there are four groups of Mormons. Are you familiar with the groups there,
01:07:38: Matt? There's the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints. There's a reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day
01:07:43: Saints called the Church of Christ. There's the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ, Latter -day Saints, and I actually met one of them.
01:07:51: I know he's a Christian. I meet him every now and then online, and he was in there, FLDS, and there's others.
01:07:57: I forgot the names of them, but they're not very prominent, but they're out there. Yeah, there's a lot.
01:08:02: Here's an interesting one. Here's from Lorenz. He says, reveal apologetics. That's referring to me. I was a
01:08:07: Mormon and served a full -time mission, two years. Mormons believe that after the afterlife, they will be gods and create their own dominion.
01:08:17: However, when I seriously ponder, it's kind of grammatically incorrect, seriously and ponder studying the
01:08:24: Bible, I can't see any supporting evidence for that. Yes, that's correct, so yeah. Correct, it's correct.
01:08:30: A lot of people are leaving Mormonism, lots, oh yeah. I think they're doctoring their numbers.
01:08:38: Yeah, well, Matt, this has been super useful, and I will be sure to point others to this video who want information on Mormonism, and I'm kind of glad we got a little bit of interaction there.
01:08:53: I think that's helpful when you're learning some of the things that people might encounter, and again,
01:08:59: Mormons are different, right? Some people will tell you flat out, yeah, that's what I believe. They're very aware. Others, they're not aware.
01:09:06: Others try to not be as explicit about some of those beliefs, but you are, oh man, it's a presentation full of conjecture.
01:09:18: I mean, you quoted sources, so I don't know. Try this. Would you be willing to let him stay in after we're done, have him come in or stay on?
01:09:29: Invite him in. Get in the URL and come in, and we'll talk. I'll be glad to talk to him. Would you be willing to do that,
01:09:36: Jason? I don't know if he'd feel comfortable with that. I mean, he's more than welcome to. Jason, why don't you say in the chat, would you like to join the discussion, and maybe you can clarify your position and then answer some questions?
01:09:51: I promise you won't be attacked or anything like that.
01:09:58: I'm a pretty fair moderator of discussions, but you're more than welcome, but no pressure.
01:10:05: So if he mentions it in the, he says I can write unable to do video right now. Okay, well, maybe in the future then.
01:10:12: So, well, Matt, this is super helpful. I really appreciate this, and I appreciate you and your ministry, and so folks who are not familiar with mattslickandkarm .org,
01:10:20: definitely check out the website. There's a lot of information on Mormonism, but also a lot of information on Jehovah's Witnesses, Islam, a bunch of different, you name it, all the different religious perspectives out there and cults and things like that.
01:10:33: Yeah, and Ayalaism, it's another cult. Ayalaism, that's right. So Matt, I really appreciate your friendship, and I appreciate everything that you've shared with us this evening.
01:10:45: I appreciate it, man. All right, yeah, you guys wanna have an after show? I don't know if they're,
01:10:52: Bill was asking me if I wanna do that. I don't know, I'm gonna go check on my wife, and then, because she's having some problems, and then
01:10:58: I probably will get on Discord tonight and start answering questions on Discord for a little while. That's right. All right, man, you're like a machine.
01:11:05: I'm like tired, I'm about to go to sleep. Yeah, well, you know, it's what it is, but yeah.
01:11:12: All right, well, thank you so much, Matt. Just to let folks know, again, if you were coming in at later, this is what's coming up soon.
01:11:19: I'll be, this is actually a video coming out tomorrow I have prerecorded, but I'll be responding to the
01:11:26: Convincing Proof podcast, and be responding to an older video that's out there with my good friend
01:11:33: Saiten Bruggenkate. We're gonna be interacting with the objections to presuppositional apologetics that was offered a while back on Capturing Christianity.
01:11:40: So hopefully, that'll be a great opportunity to do a little bit of teaching and some presupp, and hopefully, that'll be useful for folks.
01:11:47: So thank you, everyone, for listening in, and until next time, take care, and God bless.