Mormon Awakenings: Episode 038: Dan Wotherspoon Discusses Awakenings

Great discussion! I appreciate your views on the word “church” and what it can mean or might not always mean.

Yea, reincarnation! My wife and I have too much evidence favoring it, staring us right in our faces. LDS and Jewish history on reincarnation beliefs and disbeliefs are fascinating. Zealots running the most organized “churches” have always wanted to silence this liberating idea of eternal progression which frees congregants of their need for the zealots. Most Christians still try to silence reincarnation today, though Christ and His disciples contradict the zealots on reincarnation too, with many suggestions of it, and elimmated scrtures in favor of jesus teaching it too. It was a common belief back then. Our still beloved Zealots call reincarnation of Satan (though they seem to force their views and obedience, a little like Saint’n?).

Moses said (in the Zohar) that our Loving, Giving God (hmmm, the God, father of Jesus, which Jesus describes) gives us a 2nd, 3rd, and so forth lives to prove ourselves to Him and to experience, learn and progress. Same with Joseph Smith in private settings with some, which is recorded, though some worked overtime to snuff out that record opposing their own general christian beliefs to the contrary of prophets and Jesus. Early Christian history was very divided on reincarnation, and also back to the the Old Testament and beyond, so many examples of editing and trying to destroy history of reincarnation and of many things, to change it to tell their desired zealot versions which “you must obey and not question!” to be saved and not burn in their hell forever. A red flag there too, along the lines of D&C 46: 4-8 and many other scriptures.

The Bible is based on so many things like this too, hooking into Sumerian, Indian, Egyptian and other beliefs contemporary and before them. Our Bible uses the same stories with common origins, but many times “the names have been changed to protect the innocent.” Right in the Old Testament it starts out with the GodS (plural) creating the earth and Us. Then only later on when Abraham leaves Sumeria the bible reduces down to just the one and only Hebrew God who opposes the God (Enlil – the angry genocidal god Abraham and his father served. The other brother God, the opposing Sumerian God who adored and wanted the best for his and his wife’s creations seems to be the God abandoned by Abraham in the OT, with some confusion and reversals (hey, just like our day!) going on?

Then back to the good God when Jesus comes on the scene, and is crucified by the forces from the “angry God” who demands sacrifices? Then the New Testament gets muddled in this as authors write and one-up each other, both in the Gospels and letters of Paul, esp that latter letters are not written by Paul at all. Oh, counterfeits again, maybe that eternal theme is trying to tell us something?

Yes, our scriptures are in part about counterfeits and tests to see if we are bright enough and alert enough and in tune enough to really spot one counterfeit, then the next counterfeits and if we can actually spot ALL the many counterfeits by their fruits. Of course, really a test! That eternal and real Test, vs “the other brother’s plan.” Forced goodness, the recurring counterfeit. Sumerians taught this too, and in Egypt and India and the Americas and… Ancient travelers got around with their real stories and parables. Sometimes it may be hard to tell which is which, once we realize their were huge local floods at the end of the last ice age nearly 12,000 years ago. Naoh, for real, at least the unembellished versions?

The accounts vary, but one had to become the ultimate tale, much like the ultimate tale of jesus which culminates after His exist in the 2 Great Commandments of Men, “Obey Us! Don’t Question Us!” Plus their natural corollaries: “Or you will surely roast! Pay your fire insurance to the Anointed Us!”

Oh, oh, and oh again… “Buy their fruits and examine them for rot, and you just might come to know them.”

This all actually does coincide very well with Sumerian texts from which much of the bible and its recurring themes derive – Starting with many Gods then reducing to one jealous. what does that really say to us? Surely not that it is all Bs and to be tossed? Some take it that way as they jump from frying pan into the fire. this is what some call leaving a cult to join up with a great cause, socialism (the True Cult). “Ah, finally, real forced goodness (a test…) with No Accountability at all! for the greater good!” Same story, more intense, but the names have been changed to protect the innocent. Are they still worshipping the ultimate “God” which is not at all like the father God whom Christ taught who loves and adores and is giving to us, even of knowledge, advocating for our liberty from tyrants, religious and secular, IF we “seek and have eyes to hear and ears to see.”

Your discussion on scripture meanings and D&C 121 made me think of how differently I currently see section 121 as I learn more, which section amazingly does not apply to the zealots for some reason??? Demigods above us forcing our salvation? How is that different than Marxism forced at gunpoint? I now see the heart of this scriptural gem, 121, as meaning that “it doesn’t matter if this section is a direct download from God or not. It HAS great wisdom,”

If we see choose to see it in a fuller light, not by force or someone shaking us to see it “correctly,” but also that it does not just apply to priesthood holders but to any child or adult, male or female, who has a charge over others and to genly influence others for good by leading, not force (for extra credit in heaven – that other brother’s plan again…), yet they choose to abuse their charge/stewardship to teach in Christ’s leading example-only way – then “Amen to their understanding, growth and expansion of the kingdom here and hereafter…” They have now zealously retarded themselves. And where is says, “Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost” may mean with clarity, not with anger at all. I like it better that way, more consistent with my current and hopefully still growing understanding of Jesus and true teachings. Jesus was also changed right before our eyes in the books of the NT. the earlier written accounts don’t agree well at all with latter written accounts, in many critical and most important ways.

I don’t worry about that as much now, but seek more for what we can learn from that too, of jesus and of the nature of men to force their views, and how to really “take out the trash” while keeping the good still: Don’t toss baby Jesus with the filthy bathwater we’ve baptized Him in which makes that dirtied version of Jesus rather distasteful to many. I like the loving Jesus with His loving and giving Father, but not so much the angry, jealous, narcissistic, genocidal, fear-mongering God and Jesus which zealots have created in their won image, and recorded in parts of scriptures too, and told us they ARE “the word of God!”

We see these contradictions in the BoM and D&C too. What good can we find among those contradictions as we clean them up for our better consumption to “nourish and strengthen our bodies” and minds?

You can imagine how often my eyes roll at the teachings and comments we hear and read – teachings of men mingled with scriptures? I’m getting better at seeing them, but also better at seeing the good hidden behind and within the words of zealots.

Oh, how we and esp our leaders can smorgasbord from the often contradicting scriptures (The Word of Men – some words more wise and inspiring than others) to force feed us, picking and choosing oh so carefully from that buffet to fit their mold for our salvation for their credit. I can no longer imagine the God which they fear and warn of constantly, that God which they must force us to fear in order to get us to obey Themselves. This of course is all warned of right in the scriptures. Part of the huge counterfeits test.