Showing posts with label Doctrine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Doctrine. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

My favorite person from The Book of Mormon

Love this picture of Jesus
I think my favorite person from The Book of Mormon would have to be Jesus Christ. I mean he did come and visit the people in the Americas. So that is an obvious no brainer... But for the sake of going in depth into the Book of Mormon, I'll talk about someone else.

So after that being said I would have to say that my favorite person (like so many other people) is Captain Moroni. Captain Moroni was a boss. He was appointed the leader of the Nephite army when he was just 25. Think about that. Being responsible for the lives of an entire army when you are 25 years old. When I turn 25, I'm gonna be in school worried about what classes I need to pass to get a degree to start work.

Captain Moroni and the Title of Liberty

So with this trust that was put on Captain Moroni also came great power. I mean think about it, he was the Commander of an entire army of men, who would lay down their lives with him. I think the greatest part about Moroni is that he was given this power and yet it didn't get to him. You know the saying "Power corrupts, and absolute power absolutely corrupts", well that was not the case for Moroni.
Joseph Smith's Vision
When Moroni was out with his army, they had been fighting the Lamenites for a long while and he needed supplies from the cities. But they were not getting the help they desperately needed. And in an epistle to Pahoran he says this "Behold, I am Moroni, your chief captain. I seek not for power, but to pull it down. I seek not for honor of the world, but for the glory of my God, and the freedom and welfare of my country"(Alma 60:36). He is, in my opinion, the 2nd best example of what a man should be like. Even Moroni, while he was putting the plates together and reflecting on what Moroni was like said "Yea, verily, verily I say unto you, if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto aMoroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the bdevil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men."(Alma 48:17). What bigger or better complement could a person give another than that? Especially coming from Mormon, the Prophet in charge of collecting and putting the plates together.
The Book of Mormon is full of great men. It is rich with the history, stories, and accounts of those who inhabited the Americas 600 BC to about 400 AD. This record was translated by the gift and power of God through the Prophet Joseph Smith. If you have read this and want to learn more and talk to me directly, click my facebook link and shoot me a message!
God is great! Come and investigate the claims that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints makes.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Revealed Truth and Science Pt 3: Life and DNA

Life

           Science defines a living thing as one that has form, can reproduce itself, can make or break down complex biomolecules and can take energy in one form and make it into another. Although this is a "definition" it is merely a description of the characteristics of living things. It does not really define life. Revealed truht talks about the "breath of life" (Genesis 2:7) which makes the soul composed of the spirit and the mortal body. Body without spirit is dead. The Gospel also speakes of many inanitmate objects having life- for instance the earth (See Moses 6). Scientists have never succeeded in making a living thing from non-living biomolecules. Recently they have made a piece of DNA in the lab (it took 15 years) which was inserted into a cell whose DNA was extracted, and the cell lived and reproduced itself according to the inserted DNA genetic message. However, synthetic biomolecules do not live, in and of themselves. The essence of life remains an unanswered question scientifically.
    
           From the Gospel's standpoint we are given to understand that Christ is the light and life of the world. (John 1:4, Mosiah 16:9) Yet we do not understand this very essence of life, other than it comes from the Father (the breath of life) and seems to be coupled with light. We are aware that the body without the spirit is dead (James 2:26), so the spirit is essential. But spirit is light (Doctrine and Covenants 84:45), so light and life are coupled very tightly. Yet we (at least I) really don't understand what this light really is.

DNA
            Much has been made of DNA testing and typing to provide evidence for relationships between individuals or individuals and forensic evidence. When the markers agre, there is a very high likelihood of an individual's identity and lineage. But when the markers don't match, considerable uncertainty exists. In other words, DNA testing can tell you things that are related rather conclusively, but cannot tell you when they aren't to the same certainty at all. With genealogical relationships, as the number of generations increase, so does the uncertainty in a mismatch. The DNA evidence for native American lineage is one such example. Much evidence accumulated since the first studies which indicated that all American Indians came from the far east has led to serious question about this theory.

Find the refrences to the scriptures right here http://lds.org/scriptures?lang=eng