ANSWERS: 10
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Some do. However, there is no strong scriptural basis for a belief in a Mother in heaven. Some Mormon leaders (especially early ones) taught that a Heavenly Mother existed, but none of these teachings were ever accepted as doctrine. Again, to directly answer the question, some Mormons believe in "God the Mother". For teachings that allude to a heavenly mother, see http://tinyurl.com/5ud3w
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Here is an offical LDS site with refference to a Heavenly Mother! http://tinyurl.com/av9bo 'The Father of Jesus is our Father also. Jesus Himself taught this truth when He instructed His disciples how to pray: “Our Father which art in heaven,” etc. Jesus, however, is the firstborn among all the sons of God—the first begotten in the spirit, and the only begotten in the flesh. He is our elder brother, and we, like Him, are in the image of God. All men and women are in the similitude of the universal Father and Mother and are literally the sons and daughters of Deity.' However, God is a Man.
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I suppose you must first qualify which Mormon god you are referring to since there are many. If we are talking of the one that Mormons call "Heavenly Father" then Blaylock is somewhat correct. The one referred to as "Heavenly Mother" hasn't had a name "revealed". However, Orson Pratt taught in The Seer (1853, pg. 158) that "the Virgin Mary must have been, for the time being, the lawful wife of God the Father". Brigham Young also taught that "This matter was a little changed in the case of the Savior of the world, the Son of the living God. The man Joseph, the husband of Mary, did not, that we know of, have more than one wife, but Mary the wife of Joseph had another husband. On the manger, was begotten, not by Joseph, the husband of Mary, but by another Being. Do you inquire by whom? He was begotten by God our heavenly Father" (Journals of Discourse - Brigham Young Vol. 11, pg. 268). So we can assume if they are correct that Mary (Mother of Jesus) is one of God's wives. However, if you are considering the individual they worship as Jesus Christ (by that I mean their version of Jesus) whom they also consider one of many gods then we can rely upon the teachings of their former General Authorities for the answer. For example, Orson Hyde and Brigham Young both taught that Jesus was married to the sisters Mary and Martha among other wives their Jesus had.
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The early autihorties taught this. It's only logical that as we have a Heavenly Father we also have a Heavenly Mother. But to avoid criticism and the possiblity of goddess worship, it is not talked of much. if a mormon knows the doctrine, yes.
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Generally, yes, we do. See, for example, verse 3 of Hymn #292 in the standard LDS Hymn Book (http://www.lds.org/churchmusic/)
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Heavenly Mother..lol...yes they do! I missed that in the old and new testiment?
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We are told by God that marriage is necessary to become like him. That being the case the logical conclusion is that he must have a wife, who would be our mother as he is our father. . God himself has not said one way or the other, either in scripture or through living prophets. . Many, perhaps most, of us do believe it, but it must be considered logical conjecture, not God given doctrine.
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Direct answer...YES! The traditional family relationship (husband and wife and kids) is "patterned" after the "eternal family" in Heaven. The Church leaders have spoken of "eternal parents" as separate, distinct beings with a gender basis (in the sense that mortals can understand). Same holds true for the Father, Son and Holy Ghost...Distinct beings, all acknowledged as "male". We know that couples (as equals) and children can joined or "sealed" for the eternities. But we are under commandment to pray to the Father in the name of Christ. Or in other words, we recognize Heavenly Mother, but in this mortal life, we are supposed to deal with the Father in/through the name of son only. It is similar to how the members don't pray directly to the Holy Ghost, or even to Jesus (with some rare exceptions. See Book of Mormon, 3rd Nephi) although we ask for the inspiration of the Holy ghost FROM the Father and ask for forgiveness of sins FROM the Father. So yes, we recognize a Mother in Heaven, SHE is no secret or hushed up belief as some would lead us to believe; but in mortality, we are required to deal with the Father.
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We most certainly do! Sean, hit the nail right on the head, in post #7..The answer is found on page 292 of our Hymn book, from which we sing every Sunday. And anything found in our Hymn Book is Church Doctrine. Here is the 3rd and 4th verses.. 3."I had learned to call thee Father,Thru thy Spirit from on high, But until the key of knowledge was restored, I knew not why. In the heavens are parents single? No the thought makes reason stare, Truth is reason, truth eternal tells me I've a mother there." 4."When I leave this frail existence, When I lay this mortal by, Father, Mother may I meet you in your royal courts on High. Then at length when I've completed, All you've sent me forth to do, With your mutual aprobation let me come and dwell with you." I suppose some of our members are not quite sure what we believe, or what is Church Doctrine, and that is understandable. But we are quite proud of this Doctrine...Later
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SHORT ANSWER: Yes. But paradoxically they're told NOT to worship her - or even even dwell on her too much. Doing so has resulted in the excommunication of some Mormons. (which oddly didn't stop the LdS "Backyard Professor" from doing a 4-part video series on her which I have embedded) LONG ANSWER: Since there have been some good answers provided already ("The Mormon Guy" answer is the best so far as of this writing) about the only thing that I would add are some quotes from Mormon Leaders as well as some information about those who got excommunicated for dwelling on or emphasizing the Mormon Mother in Heaven too much. QUOTES FROM MORMON LEADERS: "Now, it is not said in so many words in the Scriptures, that we have a Mother in heaven as well as a Father. It is left for us to infer this from what we see and know of all living things in the earth including man. The male and female principle is united and both necessary to the accomplishment of the object of their being, and if this be not the case with our Father in heaven after whose image we are created, then it is an anomaly in nature. But to our minds the idea of a Father suggests that of a Mother." (Apostle Erastus Snow, "Journals of Discourse", 31 May 1885, Volume 26 p.214) "In the Heaven where our spirits were born there are many gods, each of whom has his own wife or wives." (Orson Pratt, "The Seer," p. 37) “This doctrine that there is a Mother in Heaven was affirmed in plainness by the First Presidency of the Church... they said that 'man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents, and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father,' that man is the offspring of celestial parentage,' and that 'all men and women are in the similitude of the universal Father and Mother, and are literally the sons and daughters of Deity.'" (Bruce McConkie, "Mormon Doctrine", 1979; p. 516) "But if we have a heavenly Mother as well as a heavenly Father, is it not right that we should worship the Mother of our spirits as well as the Father? No; for the Father of our spirits is at the head of His household, and his wives and children are required to yield the most perfect obedience to their great Head. It is lawful for the children to worship the King of Heaven, but not the 'Queen of heaven.'... we are nowhere taught that Jesus prayed to His heavenly Mother..." (Orson Pratt, "The Seer", p. 159) "Brother Kimball quoted a saying of Joseph the Prophet, that he would not worship a God who had not a Father; and I do not know that he would if he had not a mother; the one would be as absurd as the other" (Brigham Young, "Journal of Discourses", vol. 9, p.286) "The fact that there is no reference to a mother in heaven either in the Bible, Book of Mormon or Doctrine and Covenants, is not sufficient proof that no such thing as a mother did exist there. . .Is it not feasible to believe that female spirits were created in the image of a 'Mother in Heaven'?" (Joseph F. Smith, "Answers to Gospel Questions", Vol. 3, pp. 142, 144) "In the Heaven where our spirits were born there are many Gods, each one of whom has his own wife or wives, raises up a numerous family of sons and daughters... each father and mother will be in a condition to multiply forever and ever. As soon as each God has begotten many millions of male and female spirits, and his Heavenly inheritance becomes too small, to comfortably accommodate his great family, he, in connection with his sons, organizes a new world, after a similar order to the one which we now inhabit, where he sends both the male and female spirits to inhabit tabernacles of flesh and bones.... The number of the sons and daughters of God, born in Heaven before this earth was formed, is not known by us. They must have been exceedingly numerous.. The amount of population now on the globe, is estimated in round numbers at one thousand million. If we take this estimation for the average number per century, during the seven thousand years of its temporal existence it will amount to seventy thousand millions [i.e., 70 billion].... It will be seen, from this estimation, that about seventy thousand million sons and daughters were born in Heaven, and kept their first estate... If we admit that one personage was the Father of all this great family, and that they were all born of the same Mother, the period of time intervening between the birth of the oldest and the youngest spirit must have been immense. If we suppose, as an average, that only one year intervened between each birth then it would have required, over one hundred thousand millions of years for the same Mother to have given birth to this vast family.... Should the period between each birth, be one hundred times shorter than what is required in this world, (which is very improbable,) it would still require over one thousand million of years to raise up such a numerous progeny.... But... it is altogether probable that the period required for the formation of the infant spirit, is of the same length as that required in this world... If the Father of these spirits, prior to his redemption, had secured to himself, through the everlasting covenant of marriage, many wives... the period required to people a world would be shorter... if it required one hundred thousand million of years to people a world like this... it is evident that, with a hundred wives, this period would be reduced to only one thousand million years" (Orson Pratt, "The Seer", March 1853, pp. 37-39) Recommended Resources: http://www.signaturebookslibrary.org/women/chapter1.htm#Mother16 http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/basic/godhead/heavenly_mother.html http://www.mrm.org/heavenly-mother EXCOMMUNICATIONS: (excerpted from Margaret Toscano's Sunstone Article, "IS THERE A PLACE FOR HEAVENLY MOTHER IN MORMON THEOLOGY? AN INVESTIGATION INTO DISCOURSES OF POWER") "For Church members eager to follow their leaders to the letter of the law, President Hinckley’s prohibition can easily be read to mean that any who pursue the topic of the Heavenly Mother are also “misguided.” Add to this a grassroots feeling that Heavenly Mother is too sacred to talk about because her husband does not want her name “taken in vain” like his is rationale that itself reflects a notion of male control), and the result is the disappearance of specific references to the Heavenly Mother altogether in Church publications since 1991. No doubt the publicly discussed excommunications of feminists like Janice Allred, Lynne Kanavel Whitesides, MaxineHanks, and me, all of whom were disciplinedin part simply for talking about the Heavenly Mother, adds to the general sense that discourse about her is strictly forbidden. While I have never seen any study that documents when or how the idea developed in the Church that Heavenly Mother cannot be talked about because she is too sacred, my sense is that it began in the 1960s and 1970s, at about the same time that there was a resurgence of interest in feminist questions in the Church, accompanied by the renewed interest of some women to search for the divine feminine. I see the language of sacred taboo as part of a backlash and an expression of fear on the part of leaders and members that feminism might creep into the Church and disrupt current structures. While some regard the need for silence about the Heavenly Mother as reverence, absolute silence about her does not protect her, it erases her."
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