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Sunday, November 26, 2006

This, Mitt believes... (Volume 1)

The kerfuffle over Andrew Sullivan's post on Mitt Romney's magical underwear inspired me to do a weekly series of posts on Mitt's Mormon beliefs. As the great great grandson of a Mormon prophet, Willford Woodruff, a holder of the Aaronic Priesthood, and an LDS Seminary Bowl champion, I think I'm more than qualified to do so.

We'll start out with Kolob. It's the star nearest to the planet where God lives. It's important to remember that. We Mormons get very angry when gentiles say we believe God lives on Kolob. It makes us sound crazy. God couldn't live on Kolob. He isn't a sun person; he'd burn his feet.



The story of Abraham's discovery of Kolob is found in the Pearl of Great Price (Abra. 3:3-9), one of the "four standard [scriptural] works" of the Mormon religion, the others being the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and the Doctrine and Covenants:

3 And the Lord said unto me: These are the governing ones; and the name of the great one is Kolob, because it is near unto me, for I am the Lord thy God: I have set this one to govern all those which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest.

4 And the Lord said unto me, by the Urim and Thummim, that Kolob was after the manner of the Lord, according to its times and seasons in the revolutions thereof; that one revolution was a day unto the Lord, after his manner of reckoning, it being one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest. This is the reckoning of the Lord's time, according to the reckoning of Kolob.

Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham for inclusion into the Pearl of Great Price by using the same Urim and Thummim Abraham used to discover Kolob. A facsimile of the original papyrus is included in the Pearl of Great Price.

The prophet Joseph Smith also used these "seer stones" to translate the Golden Plates into the Book of Mormon. Elder Russel M. Nelson (a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles) describes the stones:

Also, that there were two stones in silver bows--and these stones, fastened to a breastplate, constituted what is called the Urim and Thummim--deposited with the plates; and the possession and use of these stones were what constituted 'seers' in ancient or former times; and that God had prepared them for the purpose of translating the book.

Elder Nelson also tells us how they were used:

Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man.

Elsewhere:

Calculate your age in Kolob time (Mitt is almost 85 minutes old).

Prepare yourself for Mitt Romney's inauguration by learning the words to the Mormon hymn, If You Could Hie to Kolob. You know Kathryn Jean Lopez is practicing her butt off.

Update: I think the Lord inspired me to tell you what Mitt believes. That's good, because it looks like the Governor is keeping it secret.

Shunned! Apparently, this post got me delinked from the Bloggernacle

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous9:28 AM

    Excellent information. Mormonism is full of science doctrine which is downright silly. Yet they claim it is divine truth.

    See:
    http://www.i4m.com/think/lists/mormon_science.htm

    ReplyDelete

We'll try dumping haloscan and see how it works.