A Meditation on the Lord's Prayer

In this article I shall quote the Lord's Prayer and interpret it according to what I have learned about the Bible. If this interpretation differs from any other official interpretation, then it is to glorify God and bear witness to the return of the Messiah, the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

First let me introduce the first part of the prayer:

Our Father, who art in Heaven
Hallowéd be thine Name
Thy Kingdom come
Thy Will be done
On Earth, as it is in Heaven.

In the first five lines of the Lord's Prayer is the promise that the Kingdom of God will come upon us, though it be without warning. This is a distant reference to the Millennial Age when Christ will rule over the Earth before the End of the (Latter) Days is upon us.

These five lines have been written in my heart as the penultimate Millennial Promise of God sung by the angel of song.

In the second part of the Lord's Prayer we have:

Give us this day our daily Bread,
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those
who trespass against us
and lead us not to temptation
and deliver us from evil.

Contained in the first line of this part of the Lord's Prayer is the transubstantiation of the body of Christ from the bread of sacrament. Although we as Christians have sacrament on the Sabbath — the day of rest — it represents the renewal of the covenant and reminds us to remain repentant — and thus refrain from sin.

In the third and final part of the Lord's Prayer is the acknowledgement that the Kingdom, the power and the glory is of God, which lasts for a long, long time.

For thine is thy kingdom,
the power and the glory,
Forever and ever.
Amen.

Commentary:

With respect to the history of Christianity — founded by Jesus and written by Luke, it is like the history of ancient Rome — founded by Romulus and written by the Roman historian Dionysus — and the history of the Hebrews — founded by Moses and written by the historian Josephus — with each founder being born from God.

For Romulus was born by the river Tiber, while Moses came floating down the Nile and Jesus was baptised in the River Jordan.

Over the past two thousand years his being born from God has become the literal truth in the Christ's story as an established Truth that frees all of humanity who accepts Jesus as their savior from their past sins in apostasy, now ritually cleansed away by baptism, provided that they "go and sin no more."

That provision — to go and sin no more — is the essence of repentance.

Afterwards, repentance becomes an ongoing process that is sanctified by weekly church meetings on Sunday, and by daily prayers based on scripture. Indeed, the weekly taking of sacrament of bread and water that symbolizes the body and the blood of the Christ renews their covenant with God. That covenant consists of following the commandments of their church and the observance of fasting and taboos of the respective religious denomination.

In the case of LDS theology, their taboo that addresses addiction consists of no coffee, tea, alcohol, tobacco, or illegal drugs.

Additionally, the taboo regarding the law of chastity implies no coveting of another person for immoral purposes, such as fornication, be it heterosexual or homosexual. This also includes adultery, including that of the heart e.g. looking upon another person as a sexual object. Finally, there is a taboo against masturbation and pornography.

I can see wisdom in making these things taboo: having no money to buy energy drinks prevents temptation of alcohol, tobacco and illegal drugs.

With respect to chastity, my choice of the term "coveting" means the wanton desire to use another person for sexual purposes. Fornication implies a sexual act. As for masturbation, the avoidance of pornography is the result of the taboo against it.

Indeed, the study of the Scriptures — the Bible (Old Testament and New Testament) and the LDS scriptures (Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price) — is purported to be an inspiration to keep the law of chastity.

Though I prefer a cold shower now and then.

Returning to the first part of the Lord's Prayer, I still hear it being sung as though by an angel of song who clearly sings the promise of Jesus Christ to return to rule over the Kingdom of God in the Afterlife when End of Days is upon us.

Our Father, who art in Heaven
Hallowéd be thine Name
Thy Kingdom come
Thy Will be done
On Earth, as it is in Heaven.

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Reference:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_the_Apostles#Genre.2C_sources_and_historicity_of_Acts
  
• Wikipedia article on the Lord's Prayer
  
• The Lord's prayer - The Singing Nun- this is the song I heard on the radio in the 70s.

Kyrie Eleison: To serve is the meaning of Priesthood (satire)

After two interviews with my bishop, I now have the choice of picking an elder to ordain me as Priest next Sunday. As of that date I am 23 days a baptized Mormon.

Is it not too early to serve the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint? No, for it is not I who hears God calling me but the bishop who knows that I shall be an usher because, despite lost sleep from the night before, I am trusted due to the mercy, not of him, but of God himself.

Yes, but it is because I answered the questions correctly, but not according to my libertarian views. For libertarian means "a person who shall live for the day, choosing to act conservative when it suits him with regard to private worship while actually holding onto liberal values like a life raft in his secular role in society."

I believe the pejorative term to describe me is "hypocrite" which means "a person who applies the least amount of critical thought to all things in his practice of his faith; he who acts pious on Sunday but is the least pious when it is not the Lord's day; a person who act religious in front of pious people."

Recently I have talked to an apostate who is First Nations, and argued with him about the chastity vow. He claims that most religious people break their vows regularly by claiming that overall, most Christians masturbate (99% men, 90% women). My counterargument is that 75% of Mormons masturbate, overall (80% men and 62% women). I decided not to add that by the time they get baptized (between their 10th to 12th year), the rate might be higher but becomes lower.

A lot of Mormons can save their grief if they have fallen due to masturbation. This is not an act that will lead to Spirit Prison. However, this sin is what the Melchizedek priesthood uses to psychologically blackmail members of the church, and sometimes the lower Aaronic priesthood. It is also what confessing to such a thing may lead to NOT being a Good Member In Standing - pun intended.

Since most masturbation is done in the privacy of the home, it is between you and God, not anyone in the Priesthoods to use to control your behavior and to use in an excommunication due to fapping instead of praying to the Lord. Prayer is the recommended method of substitution, i.e. praying rather than fapping.

It is unimportant to the higher priests to even mention masturbation to them, because it tempts them to commit the higher sin of Lording it over you. Remember the Bible story about the rich man praying to God and the poor may praying also. That is the sin that anyone who controls other people, regardless of whether it is religion or politics, commits and it is less pardonable than breaking the vow of chastity.

For when a rich man is humble, he is no different from a poor man who humbles himself by praying, "Lord, have mercy on me a sinner."

Indeed, a priest ought to make the Sinner's prayer his motto.

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Reference:

Melchizedek - Latter-Day Saint beliefs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melchizedek#Latter-day_Saint_beliefs
The Melchizedek priesthood is the higher priesthood; and the Aaronic is the lower.

Looks Like I'm Going to be a Dry Mormon (satire)

My desire to become a baptized Mormon died when I was told I couldn't be baptized because my roommates are "living in sin" aka in a common law relationship. That didn't make me want to take up smoking though.

Of course, I let the Mormons know I put my roommates before the Mormon church. Hopefully they'll respect that devotion to my roommates.

However, while waiting for church to start today, I happened on the Rational Wiki which had a hilarious spin on Mormons, though no True Believer Mormons would be laughing at it as much as I am.

After reading about dry Mormons, which are people who attended Mormon meetings on Sunday but aren't baptized due to complications like mine, I found the concept amusing as I did Jack Mormons, who are apostate Mormons who try to outdo the secular decadent hedonists in south Utah.

I know for myself that I don't self-identify as a cafe Christian, who is just on the edges of being a Christian. He'd give up coffee & tea, cigarettes, alcohol, and dangerous drugs, but he might come up with excuses not to attend Sunday meetings at the Mormon meetinghouse.

Just for the record, I am not disappointed at not being able to be baptized soon. However, I'm going to go out of my way to be virulently anti-Mormon, because of that one Buddhist precept that says a believer should never disrespect the Buddha. Even though a Christian prophet is nothing like a Buddha, both of them are spiritually alike.

It would be foolish of me to disrespect the Mormons in any way, and the mention of the Rational Wiki's take on Mormonism is not an attack on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saint. Rather, it is an amusing spin on an American folk religion that evolved into another part of the Christian mosaic in the USA.

Oh, also I'm invited to a dinner with a Mormon family later on this week. We'll see how that goes when it happens.

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Mormonism - Rational Wiki: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Mormonism

A Brief Look at Polygamy and the Mormon Church (satire)

According to what I read about Mormonism, the practice of polygamy in the early Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter-Day Saints is what led to bigamy laws in America, not bigamists. In short, American bigamy laws were used to stop polygamy among Mormons.

By the time the fourth president of the Mormons, Wilford Woodruff, wrote his 1890 Manifesto calling for the eventual abandonment of polygamy, the bigamy laws were being used to persecute the Mormons.

Rather than waste valuable money fighting costly court battles, Woodruff decided to give up polygamy and by 1904 when the second manifesto was written, polygamy was no longer practised among newly baptized members of the Church.

Of course, it took many more years before polygamy was abandoned by the Mormons. However, the Fundamentalists refused to reform, and later, split off into factions which descended into corruption, including one faction being led by a Fundamentalist leader who plotted assassinations of rival Fundamentalists.

I feel that this internecine warfare between rival Fundamentalists shows that Mormon Fundamentalists felt so strongly about Zion that keeping Joseph Smith Jr's polygamy alive was vital for Zion coming about e.g. the communal pureness of heart as symbolized by New Jerusalem on a New Earth (Zion).

Yet polygamy is what leads Fundamentalists to become so spiritually impoverished that sister wives might often live in poverty while their husbands commit welfare fraud by lying about their other wives.

Thus the abandonment of polygamy by Mormons by 1904 is what helped contribute to their current success and especially the survival of the Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter-Day Saints. This is because it reduces the temptation to commit welfare fraud just to avoid federal or state bigamy laws. As well, it inspires church members who marry to work within a monogamous relationship to achieve Zion.

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References:

Wilford Woodruff - Presidents of the Church Teacher Manual - LDS: https://www.lds.org/manual/presidents-of-the-church-teacher-manual-religion-345/wilford-woodruff-fourth-president-of-the-church?lang=eng

Wilford Woodruff - Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilford_Woodruff