My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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boo
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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JW I have followed this discussion with interest. While I understand your argument at least in general terms it seems to me that that it is the same argument that an observant Jew might have made to Peter or John after the Crucifixion. His argument would have been yes the religious practices have become corrupt and yes a cleansing may be necessary and yes our leaders may be in error but at its essence this is the organization that the dispensation head Moses set up. By what authority do you break the covenants you made and leave the group who are Abraham's seed? How can you argue that God has revealed to you something he never revealed to Moses or Abraham? Moses never said that the law would be changed and now you are changing it and encouraging people to break their covenants and wander away from the truths taught by Moses. Substitute the LDS church for Jewery and you our hypothetical Jew and you are making precisely the same argument are you not ?

jwharton
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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boo wrote:JW I have followed this discussion with interest. While I understand your argument at least in general terms it seems to me that that it is the same argument that an observant Jew might have made to Peter or John after the Crucifixion. His argument would have been yes the religious practices have become corrupt and yes a cleansing may be necessary and yes our leaders may be in error but at its essence this is the organization that the dispensation head Moses set up. By what authority do you break the covenants you made and leave the group who are Abraham's seed? How can you argue that God has revealed to you something he never revealed to Moses or Abraham? Moses never said that the law would be changed and now you are changing it and encouraging people to break their covenants and wander away from the truths taught by Moses. Substitute the LDS church for Jewery and you our hypothetical Jew and you are making precisely the same argument are you not ?
I understand where you are coming from.
I'll address it later when I have more time.

jwharton
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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boo wrote:JW I have followed this discussion with interest. While I understand your argument at least in general terms it seems to me that that it is the same argument that an observant Jew might have made to Peter or John after the Crucifixion.
I understand this point of view but there is a crucial difference that obviates this.
boo wrote:His argument would have been yes the religious practices have become corrupt and yes a cleansing may be necessary and yes our leaders may be in error but at its essence this is the organization that the dispensation head Moses set up. By what authority do you break the covenants you made and leave the group who are Abraham's seed? How can you argue that God has revealed to you something he never revealed to Moses or Abraham? Moses never said that the law would be changed and now you are changing it and encouraging people to break their covenants and wander away from the truths taught by Moses. Substitute the LDS church for Jewery and you our hypothetical Jew and you are making precisely the same argument are you not ?
The answer is that I do not and the reason why is because of the narrative that is in motion now is different than back then.

What is currently happening now is real tangible and literal beings of flesh and bone as Adam and Eve were constituted in 1830 and their lifespan is at least another 900 years or so from then so they are very young yet in their age. And, we also have the narrative that talks about Adam and Eve falling into transgression and being driven out into the wilderness and being put under the buffeting of the adversary until such a time as they are cleansed and redeemed. This part of the cycle is the end and the beginning. It is a period of time in the creation that is unique to any other time. So, there are partial likenesses at other times but there isn't another time when there is a fullness.

The means by which Eve is cleansed and redeemed is She is literally purged of the polluted members of Her body and She enters into Her exaltation.
In all other periods of time there is no recovery and restitution or redemption from apostasy but this time there is a restitution of all things.

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Jonesy
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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Most convincing post I've read yet:

https://ldsanarchy.wordpress.com/2016/0 ... -teachers/

boo
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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jwharton wrote:
What is currently happening now is real tangible and literal beings of flesh and bone as Adam and Eve were constituted in 1830 and their lifespan is at least another 900 years or so from then so they are very young yet in their age. s.
You know I had thought I had a least a basic understanding of your complex and to my mind confusing theology . But this claim completely befuddles me . However don't bother to explain. My interest in and tolerance for your remarkably novel theological musings has suddenly evaporated . Thanks for the ride though

jwharton
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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No problem Boo. I've determined to no longer participate here.

plainness
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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Denver is just a guy who turned over some stones of faith and encountered Jesus.

And his Gnosticism gets on top of him. He's more Mormon than Russell M Nelson, that's for sure. Poor guy.

I like his PTHG book. It's pretty good medicine for people who are anxious that the banality of LDS dogmatism is somehow an actual representation of heaven. Helps you get free, at least mentally.

But yeah, he's very heavily Gnostic and I don't think it serves him well.

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Jonesy
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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I want to share this link to the blogpost below because it captures the mental trap in which I found myself. I can't tell you enough how it was a miracle that I've found my way back to the Church.

https://www.sixteensmallstones.org/apos ... ectualism/

Additionally, I want to add Pres. Uchtdorf's five testimonies that always accompany the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ from his 2006 talk, The Power of a Personal Testimony:
  • God lives. He is our loving Father in Heaven, and we are His children.
  • Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God and the Savior of the world.
  • Joseph Smith is the prophet of God through whom the gospel of Jesus Christ was restored in the latter days.
  • The Book of Mormon is the word of God.
  • President Thomas S. Monson, his counselors, and the members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles are the prophets, seers, and revelators in our day.
Lacking in any of these testimonies is spiritually corrosive; but these days, the devil seems to focus on the last one. It proves to be quite a test, because it can still keep you lingering around safe waters until something gives. It will lead one to believe that the Church is only partly or not at all true, that it's just a good institution, that it doesn't have all the keys to the fullness of the priesthood, or any variance of the sort.

There are dangerous doctrines being promoted. Two in particular I see:
  • The dismissal of the importance of the keys in the Church (whether they don't matter, they don't have them, or lack some)
  • The over-emphasis of the Spirit, while at the same time dismissing the importance of any appendage of the restoration (church, apostles and prophets, ordinances, temples, etc.). Don't get me wrong, the Spirit IS important, but will stick to all the truths of the restoration.
If you find yourself in this scenario, I invite you back to the Good Ship Zion with both hands hanging on. It can be done by faith and personally investigating your way back into the church. Simply consider it and let it set upon your mind.

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pjbrownie
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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Keys aren't true the way the LDS Church teaches them. They are the most important doctrine taught by the Church but they are foundationally weak. And if they were true, we should all become Catholic because they guarantee leaders that won't lead people astray.

There's a reason why the last testimony principle is the one some people reject. It's because it's based on a sandy foundation. But people will use that shifty principle to reject everything else and that's the dangerous part.

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Jonesy
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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pjbrownie wrote: June 25th, 2017, 8:55 am Keys aren't true the way the LDS Church teaches them. They are the most important doctrine taught by the Church but they are foundationally weak. And if they were true, we should all become Catholic because they guarantee leaders that won't lead people astray.

There's a reason why the last testimony principle is the one some people reject. It's because it's based on a sandy foundation. But people will use that shifty principle to reject everything else and that's the dangerous part.
As long as the Twelve are alive, the Church is true and the keys remain. It is actually a pretty solid foundation of the restoration (prophets and apostles). We see that the church Christ set up fell when the Twelve died.

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pjbrownie
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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Christ never set up a church the way we think of it. He called witnesses.by showing himself to his apostles. Otherwise those keys could have just been passed down through callings like we do today. It's amazing to think how simple this is, that it takes a charismatic call from the Lord, that they can't simply be passed down from a man.

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Jonesy
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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pjbrownie wrote: June 25th, 2017, 1:59 pm Christ never set up a church the way we think of it. He called witnesses.by showing himself to his apostles. Otherwise those keys could have just been passed down through callings like we do today. It's amazing to think how simple this is, that it takes a charismatic call from the Lord, that they can't simply be passed down from a man.
I would encourage you to search this out. There is plenty of information and revelation to support this. Although each period of the Gospel may be administered a little differently, we have been given the law to administer today. It's established in the Doctrine and Covenants. The keys are with the Church. If there is anyone administering the Gospel outside of the Church, they are not authorized.

These quotes build on that foundation:
Words of Joseph Smith:

I suppose I had established this Church on a permanent foundation when I went to Missouri, and indeed I did so, for if I had been taken away, it would have been enough, but I yet live, and therefore God requires more at my hands.
Also, if applicable:
An angel, said Joseph, may administer the word of the Lord unto men, and bring intelligence to them from heaven upon various subjects; but no true angel from God will ever come to ordain any man, because they have once been sent to establish the priesthood by ordaining me thereunto; and the priesthood being once established on earth, with power to ordain others, no heavenly messenger will ever come to interfere with that power by ordaining any more…You may therefore know, from this time forward, that if any man comes to you professing to be ordained by an angel, he is either a liar or has been imposed upon in consequence of transgression by an angel of the devil, for this priesthood shall never be taken away from this church.(Orson Hyde, “Although Dead, Yet He Speaketh: Joseph Smith’s testimony concerning men being ordained by angels, delivered in the school of the prophets, in Kirtland, Ohio, in the Winter of 1832–3,” Millennial Star 8 no. 9 (20 November 1846), 138–139

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pjbrownie
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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There may be temporal sunsets in those statements. Same with all the statements about the church in the D&C. There is no promise that the church would last into perpetuity, and.those statements apply to that time and place. For this one must go to the Lord. And read Isaiah. You will then see that there are prophecies relating to the drifting of the latter day church.

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Jonesy
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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pjbrownie wrote: June 25th, 2017, 3:10 pm There may be temporal sunsets in those statements. Same with all the statements about the church in the D&C. There is no promise that the church would last into perpetuity, and.those statements apply to that time and place. For this one must go to the Lord. And read Isaiah. You will then see that there are prophecies relating to the drifting of the latter day church.
Those prophecies have not yet come to fulfillment. Not one, and you are not justified in saying so. Until the 12 die, you may be on to something.

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pjbrownie
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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The second statement is a recollection by Orson Hyde quoting Joseph Smith in 1846. I'll take that with a little grain of salt. The Lord called prophets outside of the priesthood system all the time in the Bible and Book of Mormon so it doesn't fit the scriptural pattern.

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Jonesy
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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pjbrownie wrote: June 25th, 2017, 3:16 pm The second statement is a recollection by Orson Hyde quoting Joseph Smith in 1846. I'll take that with a little grain of salt. The Lord called prophets outside of the priesthood system all the time in the Bible and Book of Mormon so it doesn't fit the scriptural pattern.
I can believe that there was a tribal priesthood, different than when a church is set up. However, whenever a church is established, the church is solely authorized to administer the ordinances of the Gospel. That holds true throughout the scriptures.

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pjbrownie
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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That's an interesting theory. Don't know if it's true, but I tend to think God does things more or less the same.

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Jonesy
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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pjbrownie wrote: June 25th, 2017, 4:28 pm That's an interesting theory. Don't know if it's true, but I tend to think God does things more or less the same.
I'll PM you from here later on...

eddie
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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pjbrownie wrote: June 25th, 2017, 8:55 am Keys aren't true the way the LDS Church teaches them. They are the most important doctrine taught by the Church but they are foundationally weak. And if they were true, we should all become Catholic because they guarantee leaders that won't lead people astray.

There's a reason why the last testimony principle is the one some people reject. It's because it's based on a sandy foundation. But people will use that shifty principle to reject everything else and that's the dangerous part.
Wow, You know not of what you speak if I understand you correctly. Sad

eddie
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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pjbrownie wrote: June 25th, 2017, 3:16 pm The second statement is a recollection by Orson Hyde quoting Joseph Smith in 1846. I'll take that with a little grain of salt. The Lord called prophets outside of the priesthood system all the time in the Bible and Book of Mormon so it doesn't fit the scriptural pattern.
The Lord did not call Prophets outside of the Priesthoid system, he was given Priesthood authority by God the Father. Where do you get your information, please document.

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pjbrownie
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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Alma, Abinidi, Ezekiel, John the Baptist, Lehi, Jesus Christ. These are all examples of men called outside of the existing hierarchy of their day. None had hands laid on their head to give them keys. They did have priesthood but that's different. Read D&C 84 and Alma 13. Human priesthood is preparatory. Heavenly priesthood is given by God. You can't simply get this by getting called and being the oldest in a quorum.

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gclayjr
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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pjbrownie,

http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Priesthood ... ical_Times
ATRIARCHAL PRIESTHOOD AND MELCHIZEDEK. From Adam to Jacob, the main office of God's priesthood was that of patriarch. Adam, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham administered the Lord's work, established covenants between God and the faithful, recorded their teachings and prophecies, and gave special priesthood blessings. A patriarch could bless his offspring by calling upon the powers of heaven. As he gave the birthright blessing to one of his sons, for instance, the keys and powers of the priesthood were extended to the next generation. In the patriarchal order, under the law of primogeniture, these priesthood rights normally were to be given to the eldest
D&C 84:18-21
7 Which priesthood continueth in the church of God in all generations, and is without beginning of days or end of years.

18 And the Lord confirmed a priesthood also upon Aaron and his seed, throughout all their generations, which priesthood also continueth and abideth forever with the priesthood which is after the holiest order of God.

19 And this greater priesthood administereth the gospel and holdeth the key of the mysteries of the kingdom, even the key of the knowledge of God.

20 Therefore, in the ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest.

21 And without the ordinances thereof, and the authority of the priesthood, the power of godliness is not manifest unto men in the flesh;
Alma - (I assume you mean the elder) was a Priest in King Noah's court

Abinidi - Priesthood existed in King Noah's kingdom - not stating his priesthood line of authority doesn't mean he didn't have it

Ezekiel - The author of the Book of Ezekiel presents himself as Ezekiel, the son of Buzzi, born into a priestly (Kohen) lineage

John The Baptists - father was a priest who served in the temple, while he may not have narrated an event of his father giving him the priesthood, there is no reason to believe it didn't happen

Lehi - Again the priesthood was definitely available, and not narrating his line of authority doesn't mean it didn't exist

Jesus Christ - OK you got me there. I don't think anybody gave Jesus Christ the Priesthood of Jesus Christ with the authority to act in his own name!

Not stating something doesn't mean that it didn't happen. You are on ridiculously thin ice to justify a lack of need for proper authority, because prophets in the Old Testament, and BOM didn't think it necessary to write down the ordination and line of authority in the scriptures.

Regards,

George Clay

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pjbrownie
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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Yes priesthood, but not keys. They operated outside of the hierarchy even though they had priesthood. Read Alma 13 and D&C 84 again. Human ordination is merely an invitiation to receive a heavenly ordination. It can happy outside of any hierarchy. We've been told our entire lives that this isn't possible it's not how the Lord works, but I've just shown many instances when it HAS worked that way. Many of these people also happened to have priesthood from within their own organizations (such as Alma who was a priest for King Noah) but they did not have KEYS the way the Church interprets them, meaning that you can't go against your presiding authority. Alma went againt the King so he was violating keys. It would be as if Oaks decided to leave the create his own church.

The rubric for priesthood is righteousness, not keys.

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gclayjr
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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pjbrownie,

I guess, I should have read your post more carefully. I would say the reason that they worked outside of the hierarchy was that the "organized" church of those times had fully gone astray. Are you positing that the LDS church has fully gone astray, and the Lord needs to call prophets from outside the hierarchy and rebuild anew?

Regards,

George Clay

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AI2.0
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Re: My Experience with Denver Snuffer

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pjbrownie wrote: June 26th, 2017, 1:06 am Alma, Abinidi, Ezekiel, John the Baptist, Lehi, Jesus Christ. These are all examples of men called outside of the existing hierarchy of their day. None had hands laid on their head to give them keys. They did have priesthood but that's different. Read D&C 84 and Alma 13. Human priesthood is preparatory. Heavenly priesthood is given by God. You can't simply get this by getting called and being the oldest in a quorum.
Alma, Abinadi, Ezekiel, John the Baptism, Lehi and Jesus Christ were not called outside the existing hierarchy of the TRUE church--and they had something that Denver Snuffer lacks. AUTHORITY.
You are following a false prophet who has no authority.

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