God Was Once A Man Like Us

There are two Mormon quotes that has attracted a lot of resistance from the Christian communities. These two quotes were, 

Joseph Smith
I will go back to the beginning, before the world was, to show what kind of a being God is. What sort of a being was God in the beginning? Open your ears and hear, all ye ends of the earth; for I am going to prove it to you by the Bible, and to tell you the designs of God in relation to the human race, and why he interferes with the affairs of man.

God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted Man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens. That is the great secret. If the vail was rent to-day, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by his power, was to make himself visible,—I say, if you were to see him to-day, you would see him like a man in form—like yourselves, in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image, and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked, and conversed with him, as one man talks and communes with another. 
(Journal of Discourses, Vol 6, pg 3-5, / King Follett Sermon - April 1844) 

Lorenzo Snow
“As man now is, God once was; as God is now man may be.”
( The Teachings of Lorenzo Snow, ed. Clyde J. Williams [1984], 1.) 

Both Joseph Smith and Lorezno Snow made these quotes to say that God the Father was a man like us and progressed into Godhood. Essentially, that God the Father was once a mortal man like us and became a God, our God. Joseph Smith claimed that this very doctrine is in the Bible, but has anyone shown this in the Bible? 

Spirit Prison - a Real Place Where Christ Attended

Within the Bible, there is a passage that has been challenged by many Christians, some believing that Jesus visited the spirits of men and women who are held in a type of spiritual prison and others deny that Jesus visited anyone in spirit, claiming that this passage speaks about the state of humanity, being in spiritual type prison because of the bondage of sin. IN the latter, other Christians have tried to justify on the basis that our chance for salvation is in mortality and once mortally dead, our chance has ended, claiming that for Christ to speak to spirits in prison advocates a contradictory doctrine that there is a second chance when the Bible says there is only one.

The Bible passage in question is,

1 Peter 3: 18-19

18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;

When we follow the English as written in the King James passage of 1 Peter 3:18-19, it follows, by reading it, it says that Jesus CHrist died and after which (said as "By which"), he went to the spirits in prison. Is there more in the Bible which we can find that clarifies this before we compare these various Christian theories?

There are other Bible scriptures, so let us look at them.

John 5:25,28

25 Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.
26 For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;
27 And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.
28 Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,

This scripture speaks about the power and authority given to Jesus Christ by the Father. This passage may not specifically refer to a spirit prison, but it speaks of the dead and they shall hear his voice and those that hear his voice shall live. What this suggests is that those who have died, the just and unjust, are going to hear the voice of Christ, therefore, the dead only refers to the mortally dead and they are much alive in spirit. When we combine this to 1 Peter 3:18-19, we have the power of Christ given by the Father to speak to the spirits in the grave. The part of the power to execute judgement in John 5:27 may mean final judgement but to be assured, for any person to end up in a spiritual prison, requires some judgement made upon him/her to place them there. Therefore, we still see that these scriptures confirm the belief that Jesus spoke to the spirits (the dead) in spirit prison.

Banned From the Bible

This is a video posted to Google, taken from the documentary previously aired by the History Channel. This documentary provides scholarly research into the history and makings of the Holy Bible and the books that were excluded. It shows the Roman Emperor, Constantine the Great, how he was involved in the making of the Holy Bible, the actual origin of many of the texts or books we now have as part of the canon of the New Testament and shows some of the historical influences and problems, that existed and affected the early Church Fathers who decided what was acceptable to the first Bible of their time.

What it clearly shows is that the making of the Bible was not by divine direction, it was not divinely constructed because of the many problems and issues that plagued the Bible's early compilers.

Allow me to ensure what I am saying is clear. The content of the Bible is the word of God, but the means by which it was complied and constructed was not by God or his prophets. This says that the scriptures that the early Apostles would have complied to publish canon would not have met such problems as the Bible suffered. The early Bible suffered from, among other things, problems with distinguishing what is God's word and what is not.

(False) Proof that the Mormon Church is a Cult: Webster Settles It!

There is a website called mormoncult.org, whose author claims that he has found proof that Mormons are a cult. As he rambles on in his website, he leads to a page where he claims that he "pursued the most scholarly, objective approach". As I read his proof, I was sadden to see another person who has chosen ignorance as his mainstay of evidence. This person, who chose to be anonymous, has not pursued any real scholarly study at all. In fact he conveniently ignores many aspects of his (poor) evidence, using the Webster dictionary with the clear intention to mislead others.
IN my blog article, I will address those missing aspects he conveniently ignored, in order to bring together a much better perspective on the word "cult". A word that Webster did not create.
The word "cult" originated from the Latin word cultus:

The Latin word cultus meaning "care, cultivation, worship," originally "tended, cultivated," also the past participle of colere "to till".

(Link: http://www.babylon.com/define/112/Latin-Dictionary.html  - type in "cultus" and obtain various reference sources with definitions )

When reading the origin of the word, the meaning and useage changes. The Unabridged Webster's dictionary says cultus refers to an established or accepted religion,

Cultus
(n. sing. & pl.)
Established or accepted religious rites or usages of worship; state of religious development. Cf. Cult, 2

(Ibid)

Historically, the term "cult" had a totally different usage and meaning,

The term "cult" first appeared in English in 1617, derived from the French culte, meaning "worship" or "a particular form of worship" which in turn originated from the Latin word cultus meaning "care, cultivation, worship," originally "tended, cultivated," also the past participle of colere "to till". Thus in French, for example, sections in newspapers giving the schedule of worship at Catholic churches are headed Culte Catholique; the section giving the schedule of protestant churches is headed culte réformé.

(Ibid)

Did this anonymous person at mormoncult.org provide that information to you? Nope, not even with the links he provided. What this person did, was track down a definition that suited his own ideas and failed miserably to research the history and meaning of the word - cult. If he had properly researched the word with the intention to find truth, irrespective of his personal feelings and beliefs about the Mormon Church, he would see that the origin of the word "cult", clearly had a more benign origin, one which had no application to the way it is used today.
The history of the word therefore, scholarly speaking, does not speak against any religious group. By the historic definition of cultus or culte, all religions are a cult because all believe in and worship a deity, having their own forms of worship.

Hades Means Spirit Abode - not Hell

Many centuries ago, when the New Testament was being translated into English, the translators made an error. They decided on their own, without inspiration from God to translate the word "Hades" in Greek to the English word "hell". To show you what I mean, here is an excerpt from Wikipedia,

In the Septuagint (the ancient translation of the Old Testament into Greek), the Greek term "ᾅδης" (Hades) is used to translate the Hebrew term "שׁאול" (Sheol) in, for example, Isaiah 38:18).^[1] This use refers the term hades to the abode of the dead in general, rather than the abode of the wicked. Thus too, in New Testament Greek, the Hebrew phrase "לא־תעזב נפשׁי לשׁאול" (you will not abandon my soul to Sheol) in Psalm 16:10 is quoted in Acts 2:27 as "οὐκ ἐγκαταλείψεις τὴν ψυχήν μου εἰς ᾅδου" (you will not abandon my soul to Hades).

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hades_in_Christianity)

The mistranslation of this one word effectively corrupted the doctrines of God pertaining to a temporary spiritual abode of two spiritual places called "spirit prison" & "paradise". A place where the wicked and righteous go to await the resurrection. This important distinction within the scriptures likely caused Christendom (among other false influences), to believe there are only two places, being heaven and hell, the latter being with Satan. The failure to translate this one word effectively removed the truth of where Jesus Christ went immediately after his mortal death and this corruption effectively deadened the doctrine that Jesus taught the spirits in a spiritual prison. 

With this mistranslation, Christendom failed to believe that after mortal death, the spirit goes to one of two places within this temporary abode, that of paradise or spirit prison. The parable of Lazarus and the Rich man explains the existence of Hades and it's division of two places, showing the unrighteous (rich man) ending up in spiritual prison to suffer some more, while the righteous (Lazarus) ended up in paradise to be at peace, both awaiting their resurrection. 

This historic fact, which many Christians fail to see and even heed, is the proverbial wrench in their beliefs and personal doctrines. For example the Christian doctrine that once a person dies from mortality, they go asleep, becoming unaware of anything until the day of final judgement. This is in contrast to what the Greek word "Hades" means.

With the removal of the word Hades, mistranslating it into the English word of "Hell", allowed these doctrinal corruptions to occur, because that opened the door to frivolous philosophies of men that took hold and became one of many false Christian traditions.

When Joseph Smith said that we believe in the Bible as the word of God, so long as it is correctly translated, was a statement of faith supported by fact. The importance to interpret the Bible correctly is crucial to the proper development of faith and a needed protection from false and evil doctrines. Proper interpretation requires the Holy Ghost, without whom, there is no spiritual understanding of God's word.

The fact that Hades was mistranslated, means that a common Christian will falter in his/her faith to God, believing in false doctrines that, according to the Bible, makes God angry. This is because faith is to God and his truth, but once faith is placed into false doctrines created by men or Satan, faith is removed from God, the giver of life, and instead gives faith to death or dead things.

All this bears the witness that Christian traditions, usually called "Creeds" are corrupted and bear no authorship of God. The fact that this one corruption occurred is evidence that many other corruptions exist as well. For a person to claim that the Bible is the word of God, believing that it is "inerrant", is in error himself. The fact that many Christians blindly believe doctrines because they are "popular" among different denominations, have fallen to falsehoods and false worships.

Is not true that Jesus said those who abide in God the Father will worship him in spirit and in truth? Then how can false doctrines and bad interpretations (and translations) be truth?.

To follow false traditions and doctrines only leads to spiritual death and like the rich man parable, will end up in spiritual prison, because righteousness can only exist from God's truth, not from falsehoods of men.