Ken Jennings, King of Trivia, I bow to you. You said my thoughts exactly. Perhaps it’s just because we both grew up in foreign countries, or maybe because of the geeky tech world we live in, but some how the anti-Mormon rhetoric and slurs seem worse than I remember growing up, and only seem to get worse as we move on. I wish they would all just stick to telling me what they believe. I can vouch for my own religion and beliefs, thank you.

Frankly, if others want to convert us, I suggest they try to find ways to make us happier, not try to take away from what already has made us happy. The continued jabs and stabs at our beliefs only offend, confuse, and hurt us. Our religion teaches us to inheritantly seek happiness. Most of us, especially myself, feel happiest when studying our beliefs. I have no doubt that if someone were to show us something happier and more joyful than what we have, we would seek it - I have only found that complete happiness in my Mormon faith though. There is nothing that has brought me more joy than the teachings of my faith.

As another Mormon Guy to the Internet: If you have something that will make me happier, please, teach that to me. Otherwise, please, as Ken Jennings said, shut up and think a minute!

I’ve mentioned my thoughts based on the trailer to the PBS Documentary, “The Mormons” that aired its first half tonight. My thoughts still remain the same - I think it’s an amazing documentary that remained pretty unbiased, a true educational tool for all types to learn about the Mormon religion. I felt the Spirit while watching.

I’d like to point out that pbs.org has made public a website devoted to the documentary today. There are Frequently Asked Questions, a forums area, and other items of interest that further explain the documentary. On Tuesday, you’ll even be able to watch the full program online. I encourage all to get on and participate in the discussions on there. I’ve heard plenty of reviews on the documentary itself. What are your thoughts on the website?

From 2007-04-28 Tu…

I just got back from the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point, where they are Demoing Segways for people to try out. No hesitation, I was of course one of the first to try it out! I gave it for a whirl, then my wife - while it was pretty easy to move around once you got going, I have to admit it was not what I thought it would be like. It turns out, instead of leaning forward from your upper body as one would naturally do, you actually lean forward and backward with your feet at the ankles. You then use your hands and arms to turn the handle bars right and left to turn. It ends up feeling pretty natural, but afterwards my ankles were a bit sore. I will definitely have to add this to my Amazon Wish-list! For those that would like to try it themselves, starting next week (I believe 5/7), the Gardens at Thanksgiving Point in Draper, UT will start renting them out for $15 an hour. Get there early, as I imagine word will spread! Here’s some more pics from my wife’s and my date:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jessestay/20070428TulipFestival

First of all, I apologize for the neglect in writing the last week. I was on vacation with my family to Disneyland - you can see the pictures on my picasaweb page.

I have been told again and again by various Seminary and Institute teachers that the Gift of the Holy Ghost was not on the earth during the period of Jesus Christ’s ministry. I am searching, but cannot find the source of that idea. In fact, I find evidence to the contrary. In “The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith”, compiled by Joseph Fielding Smith (a later prophet of the LDS church and I believe grandson of Hyrum Smith), Joseph Smith says (p. 336), “John’s (meaning John the Baptist) mission was limited to preaching and baptizing; but what he did was legal; and when Jesus Christ came to any of John’s disciples, He baptized them with fire and the Holy Ghost.” Is this inferring that the Holy Ghost was given and existed during the time of Christ? I cannot find evidence of so in the Bible however.

Here are some other evidences of the Holy Ghost being on the earth:

Moses 6:52 (God talking to Adam) - “And he also said unto him: If thou wilt turn unto me, and hearken unto my voice, and believe, and repent of all thy transgressions, and be baptized, even in water, in the name of mine Only Begotten Son, who is full of grace and truth, which is Jesus Christ, the only name which shall be given under heaven, whereby salvation shall come unto the children of men, ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, asking all things in his name, and whatsoever ye shall ask, it shall be given you.”

Moses 6:65 (Adam being baptized) - “And thus he was baptized, and the Spirit of God descended upon him, and thus he was born of the Spirit, and became quickened in the inner man.”

So it appears Adam had the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Here’s an example of Noah having it:

Moses 8:24 (Noah preaching to the people) - “Believe and repent of your sins and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, even as our fathers, and ye shall receive the Holy Ghost, that ye may have all things made manifest; and if ye do not this, the floods will come in upon you; nevertheless they hearkened not.”

I would almost wonder if John the Baptist, while we don’t have record of him practicing it, had the Melchizidek Priesthood, and therefore the possibility of the Gift of the Holy Ghost. In Matthew 3:4 it almost appears that John the Baptist (and by the reference, possibly Elijah as well) was endowed - in order to do so, I believe one must have the Gift of the Holy Ghost:

“And the same John had his raiment of camel’s hair (Greek means “Garment”), and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey”

Are there any other references you are aware of? I guess the question should be, what times was the Gift of the Holy Ghost not on the Earth?

I was just made aware that PBS has released the trailer to their upcoming documentary on the Mormon faith, to be released April 30th. The url is here: http://www.pbs.org/mormons/view/2514.html?&c=3wm. I just hope it lives up to the trailer - I was very impressed! It seems to stay true to the facts, while sharing all controversies that have arisen through the faith. I believe all commentators save one are non-LDS, but the one, Terryl Givens, was my Bishop in Richmond, VA. He is an English Professor at University of Richmond, and also teaches various religion classes there - he’s perfectly appropriate for this series. He’s a very smart guy on many fronts. The other guys seem to also share an objective view of the faith and will I hope give a good contribution to the documentary. I felt the Spirit during the trailer - I hope the actual series projects the same feeling.

President Gordon B. Hinckley, President and Prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has challenged members to read the definition of the Godhead in the Nicene Creed, “and compare it with the statement of the boy Joseph.” I would like to do that today, as I’ve learned some very enlightening things about it, which to me just make me even more proud to be a member of this Church.

In researching this, I was pointed to a great article by Bijhan Nasser-Faili. I do not know his background, but I suspect he is LDS, and he really did his research on this one. I’ve never seen the creeds and their context put in this way.

I think we should begin by stating the context of the Nicene creed. Years before the Council of Nice was called, a priest named Arius adopted an interpretation of the Godhead of which he claimed Christ was “created, not begotten”, that Christ did not exist before life on earth, and basically that the Savior was not divine in this essence. He succeeded in growing a large following in this belief, so much that there was enough contention in the Church at the time for Emperor Constantine to feel the need to call the Council of Nice to settle the matter. In counseling together, some of the most regarded Bishops of the time debated as to the proper wording of the time to appropriately describe the Godhead, and denounce any notion that the Arian followers were proclaiming.

What they came up with in A.D 325 was a very good document that described and supported the beliefs in God of the time. Unfortunately it was not built to withstand the change in those beliefs over time. I’ll go over it here:

The first section states,

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible.

Fine and dandy - we support that. I think the position of the Mormon Church on this is in agreement with other interpretations. Next section:

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father the only-begotten; that is, of the essence of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father;

Note that “begotten, not made”, and the substance thing were added to contradict Arian teachings. I should also note that “essence of the Father, and one substance with the Father” could be interpreted literally, in molecular form - aka, they both have a body, or they both have a spirit. Here is where the interpretations get a little out of agreement. A Mormon reading this might say, “Hey - we support that. Both God the Father and His Son have a body of flesh and bones. They are separate beings (in digit form), Christ was even begotten of the Father.” Another Christian could read that and say, “Hey - we support that. Both God the Father and His Son are in Spirit form of the same substance. They are one (in digit form), Christ was even begotten of the Father.” See the ambiguity in the wording? Notice the “1 in 3 and 3 in 1″ doctrine isn’t even preached explicitly here. Let’s move on:

by whom all things were made both in heaven and on earth;

Again, more Arian contradictions so we would all be clear this earth was created by Christ, the Son. I think Mormons and other Christians agree on this one.

who for us men, and for our salvation, came down and was incarnate and was made man; he suffered, and the third day he rose again, ascended into heaven; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

We agree here as well.

And in the Holy Ghost.

Not much info about the Holy Ghost here, but sounds very familiar to the First Article of Faith. Finally, it finishes with this direct warning towards the Arian followers:

But those who say: ‘There was a time when he was not;’ and ‘He was not before he was made;’ and ‘He was made out of nothing,’ or ‘He is of another substance’ or ‘essence,’ or ‘The Son of God is created,’ or ‘changeable,’ or ‘alterable’ — they are condemned by the holy catholic and apostolic Church.

Keep in mind that when this was written, “catholic” meant universal. I do not think the Church had been officially named the “Catholic” church yet when this was written.

So, as you can see - there is nothing wrong with the wording of the Nicene creed. It supports doctrines of Christianity, and it even supports the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The different lies in the interpretation of the document. It is ambiguous, written by man, and confusing without clarification from God. Hence the difference in beliefs between ours and other Christian churches. With clarification from a Prophet however, those ambiguities all of the sudden become clear (President Gordon B. Hinckley, http://www.lds.org/portal/site/LDSOrg/menuitem.b12f9d18fae655bb69095bd3e44916a0/?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=7c86605ff590c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1):

The Prophet Joseph declared, “It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [1976], 345).

“We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost” (A of F 1:1). This first article of faith epitomizes our doctrine. We do not accept the Athanasian Creed. We do not accept the Nicene Creed, nor any other creed based on tradition and the conclusions of men.

We do accept, as the basis of our doctrine, the statement of the Prophet Joseph Smith that when he prayed for wisdom in the woods, “the light rested upon me [and] I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is my Beloved Son. Hear Him!” (JS—H 1:17).

Two beings of substance were before him. He saw them. They were in form like men, only much more glorious in their appearance. He spoke to them. They spoke to him. They were not amorphous spirits. Each was a distinct personality. They were beings of flesh and bone whose nature was reaffirmed in later revelations which came to the Prophet.

And just last week:

When the emperor Constantine was converted to Christianity, he became aware of the divisiveness among the clergy concerning the nature of Deity. In an attempt to overcome this he gathered the eminent divines of the day to Nicaea in the year 325. Each participant was given opportunity to state his views. The argument only grew more heated. When a definition could not be reached, a compromise was made. It came to be known as the Nicene Creed, and its basic elements are recited by most of the Christian faithful.

Personally I cannot understand it. To me the creed is confusing.

How deeply grateful I am that we of this Church do not rely on any man-made statement concerning the nature of Deity. Our knowledge comes directly from the personal experience of Joseph Smith, who, while yet a boy, spoke with God the Eternal Father and His Beloved Son, the Risen Lord. He knelt in Their presence; he heard Their voices; and he responded. Each was a distinct personality. Small wonder that he told his mother that he had learned that her church was not true. And so, one of the great overarching doctrines of this Church is our belief in God the Eternal Father. He is a being, real and individual. He is the great Governor of the universe, yet He is our Father, and we are His children.

As Mormons, we have nothing to question! We know whom God is. We know His plan! We know we can talk to Him! We don’t need the teachings of man to show this to us, as our message comes directly from Him through His Prophet.

This is a post I recently posted on a Catholic Forums thread that seemed to be getting heated. I don’t normally hang around those places (including the Mormon ones), but on this one, some of the Catholics had some genuine questions. I noticed however that there were a few, especially Catholics that were former Mormons that kept trying to point out flaws in my faith. I also had recently reread some parts of Talmage’s “The Great Apostasy” and it reminded me of a time when I found the Mormon missionaries letting a Catholic investigator borrow that book. Is that not the same thing, the other way around?

I have always been of the belief that we as Mormons need to teach others about our church. Other religions also need to teach us about their churches. We don’t need to teach each other about each other’s churches though. We learn much more the other way around.

I’m a computer programmer by trade, and for those computer programmers in the crowd, software development can be a very religious topic (no blasphemy intended). Often one software developer will say his preferred language is better than the others. My preferred language is Perl. Yet, I’ve come to find that delving into the other languages and finding the good things in them I’ve been able to come back to my preferred language, Perl, and make it better. Does it change the language? No - the language is still the same. I just introduce new ways of using the plain and simple logic behind the language to produce glorious things in my code.

I think between religions we can do the same. Let’s learn from each other! Let’s please not tell each other how to live our religions though. I think that’s the “Christian” (meaning “like Christ” in my meaning) thing to do.

I’ve been doing a lot of research on the early Christian Church, and some of the evidences within that support the Mormon faith. I’ve got some good stuff. More to come later…

I was recently reading an excellent article quoted from a Series Deseret Book is doing on famous Mormons, which is a testimony by Senator Harry Reid about his conversion to Mormonism entitled “Why I believe”. The article can be found here:’

[http://mormonstories.org/?p=244](http://mormonstories.org/?p=244)

I have also been following all the hoopla surrounding Mitt Romney running for President and his “being Mormon” hurting his bid. He keeps quoting the Kennedy factor and how Kennedy being Catholic was a similar challenge as to what he is facing today. I can’t help but wonder though, what would happen if the tides were turned and it were instead a Democrat, with very liberal-leaning focus, but with still a firm devotion to the Mormon Church running for President? I personally think it would be a very different story. Here is why:

* He is a Democrat - the majority of Romney’s opposition comes from the Conservative evangelical right, who tend to be anti-Mormon in view. Reid would have a greater chance of surviving his primary.
* The media bias is in his favor - the media is more likely to ignore the issue of Reid’s religion, making it more of a non-issue. They have done so thus far in his political career.
* I don’t recall Reid having issues with his religion in his run for Senator. Romney, being conservative, in his run for Governor it was one of the top issues in his race. I think the same would reflect in a run for President.
* Reid hasn’t worn his religion on his sleeve as Romney has. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but it has allowed him to avoid the Mormon question.
* Reid is a Mormon convert - he was not Mormon his entire life, and I’m willing to bet he does not have the Mormon history of polygamy, etc. that Romney has been so criticized for. Does that matter? Only when trying to convince the Evangelical right that your religion will not take charge of your politics.
* He, too would probably get the majority of the Mormon vote, a strong conservative base especially in the West

Having thought of this, it’s a scary thought - I’m not a big fan of Senator Reid’s politics. I sincerely hope he does not run - he has a good chance of winning!

Well, I thought I’d do a little follow up to my previous post, because I know there are going to be some questions. I found the video on YouTube, code-named “3:16″, of which the “Evangelical Christians” will be distributing on Mormon Doorsteps in Utah on March 25th (that’s next Sunday folks). I have to admit, they did their research, and in many places tell the truth like it is, but in the areas where they attack the church they never tell “the Full Story”. I refuse to link to the video here because I’ve proven all the attacks false thus far and I see no reason to spread something that isn’t true. If you do decide to watch it, I strongly encourage you to research any questions it brings up. Google has gotten really good at returning the accurate articles about these stories as one of the first or second hits in your search results, so conveniently, a simple Google search should reveal most of these claims they make false. I actually learned some things - not really anything about what is most important to us Mormons, ie that Jesus is the Christ, and that in and through Him only can we be saved (they did make that point, but for some reason in attack to us Mormons), but I did learn of many physical “evidences” that I didn’t realize before existed about events in the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith’s life. I’ll list a few here. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to ask them in the comments. To me, once you understand the Mormon point of view of this video, it makes the Mormon religion seem even more glorious and wonderful to be a part of. I’m not quite sure what the evangelicals are trying to do here (well, okay - perhaps the word “Mitt” comes to mind, but why are they just targeting Utah Mormons then?). Anyway, here are my questions and answers that stood out to me from the video:

1. Did Joseph Smith teach that the moon was inhabited?
>>I highly recommend you read this article - it has some good references to back it up, and refers to almost the same questions the video asks, and some: [http://www.lightplanet.com/response/answers/moon.htm](http://www.lightplanet.com/response/answers/moon.htm)
Basically, this question came around due to a rumor based on a man in his old age, “remembering” from 50 years earlier something the Prophet had said. Regardless, who’s to say prophets can’t speculate as well? John the Revelator “saw an angel standing in the sun” (Rev. 19:17). I’m going out on a limb here (I don’t necessarily believe this), but some still speculate man ever went to the moon. Just today there is news about the possibility of caves on Mars. There is much we don’t know about planets and moons outside this planet. Who’s to say Joseph wasn’t seeing men in space suits on the moon, and just thinking they looked like Quakers, since there wasn’t really any good way at the time to describe space suits?

2. How could Joseph Smith have gotten plates from the Hill Cumorah, when the Book of Mormon claims there were great wars with metal weapons before its burial and there is no archaeological evidence to support the possibility of this?

>>Here’s a good article - the whole page is good, actually: [http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/response/qa/bom_metals.htm#absent](http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/response/qa/bom_metals.htm#absent) I’ll leave this one up to the article - it basically shows evidences that this claim just isn’t true. There are archaeological evidences, and even if not, some theorize that there could have been 2 Hill Cumorahs - one where the wars took place, and one where Moroni buried the plates. Here’s another good article: [http://www.josephtoldthetruth.com/index.php?pageid=16](http://www.josephtoldthetruth.com/index.php?pageid=16)

3. Did Joseph Smith carry around a “Jupiter Talisman”?

>>This has pretty much been confirmed as a myth. It actually has origins from a talk given in 1974, and was a bunch of hearsay, that based on the article looks like a big telephone game. There is little to no evidence to back up this myth (speaking of evidence), and all evidence seems to point to the contrary. Here’s an article explaining that myth in detail: [http://www.angelfire.com/sk2/ldsdefense/talis.html](http://www.angelfire.com/sk2/ldsdefense/talis.html)

4. Is the Joseph Smith papyri just an Egyptian funeral text?

>>I by no means am an expert on this, so I’ll leave it to the experts. To put it simple, not all Egyptologists agree on this claim from the video. Even if they did, there are so many things they admit they just don’t know about Egyptian civilization! How could they confirm without a certainty claims against what Joseph Smith translated? Regardless, here are some listed disagreements to those claims: [http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_Abraham2.shtml#facs](http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_Abraham2.shtml#facs)

Those are just the questions I didn’t directly have answers for until I researched them. I have answers for all the rest, and to put it quite simply, all the claims are false, or only portions of the truth! I do not recommend this video for anyone, especially as an education about the Mormons. However, if you do have any questions about it, please feel free to ask them in the comments.

Put out the Welcome Mats everybody! The Evangelicals are coming to visit our lovely state of Utah March 25th to convert us Mormons from our evil ways. Their intention is to leave a DVD on the doorstep of every Mormon in Utah so no one can reject their message. Should I bake some cookies for the party? (note - I link to Came2Pass.com so you can see the summary. The actual link is an anti-mormon who is against what the evangelicals are doing - that can be accessed via the link.)