Different Views of Ulitmate Reality

[Frey]

Send me a message if you want to see what I had originally posted here.

[Shadowfax272]

Very interesting. I'll have to do some research on this.

[Frey]

As of this post the work has been updated.

[Chaos Priest]

I hope you don't mind me being critical here, but I have a few points I'd like to make.

The first is I'm not entirely certain what your purpose for compiling this list is, as it seems to simply be a list compiled for no apparent reason. I've nothing against religious discussion, I'd just like to have some context and direction here.

The second is that I'm a bit confused as to what you mean by some of those terms, and what your guidelines are for placing people in the categories which you have. Particularly with the categories "Significant Persons of the Faiths" and "Seers/Sages/Saints". What makes somebody fit in better with the Significant Persons rather then the Sages? I noticed that you have the Abrahamic Prophets and Apostles of Christ listed under Persons, whereas I would certainly consider them to fit under the category of Seers/Sages/Saints from the way I understand those terms. This is not to say that they are not significant, but it's confusing the way things are currently laid out. As well, you offer a brief explanation to the Seers/Sages/Saints category as those who are "sensitive to divine energy", but what precisely you mean by that is not clear either.

Finally, while it may be a minor thing I notice that nobody unique to my faith (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or more commonly known as Mormons), whether in our history or unique scriptures, made your list. This comes across as a bit of a snub, suggesting they were not in anyway significant or in communion to the divine. I doubt you meant any offense and likely simply did not think of them or are not familiar with my faith, but the problem with compiling lists such as these, even when saying that the list is not definite, is that when somebody does get left out there is still going to be some offense made.

[Mrrout]

i think too that no offense was volunteer.
but i would like to know who those seer or saint of the mormoon faith are, because i don't know them, and i'm always happy to learn.


ther is something that bother me about your list of suprem beings, Frey: i saw no Goddess.
i'm not a wiccan, but i think that in the history of humanity, a lot of people have worshipped a feminine suprem being, as "great mother", under different names.

[Chaos Priest]

but i would like to know who those seer or saint of the mormoon faith are, because i don't know them, and i'm always happy to learn.

Well I'm not quite sure what Frey meant by those terms (hence my asking about it), but I can still at least mention who's considered to be the most important in our church outside of the Christ and the major Biblical figures (who have already been listed by him).

---------------------------------------

I guess the most logical person to start off with would be our founder, Joseph Smith Jr. To sum up him and his accomplishments very briefly: we believe he was a prophet, much like the ones found in The Bible. He saw and spoke with God and his son Jesus Christ, was instructed to teach the people, was given revelations which were written down and we have today as a part of our scriptures, making up a large part of the Doctrine & Covenants. He received divine authority from heavenly messengers, set forth what were to be the teachings and ordinances performed, passed down his authority to others, and was killed by a whole lot of people who didn't like us very much. In addition to that we believe that through the gift of God he translated a record of a group who came to the American continent before the Europeans. This record contained an abridged history of the people, their dealings with God, a few wars here and there, and ending with a description of the fall of their civilization. This is called The Book of Mormon, and along with The Bible, the revelations to various church leaders contained in the Doctrine & Covenants, and other miscellaneous writings in The Pearl of Great Prince, makes up what our church uses as scripture. It should be noted though that we do not consider this a closed canon, and are willing to accept other revelations that may come as scripture as well.

The other particularly famous leader of our church is Brigham Young, who we also believe, like all other presidents of our church, to be a prophet who received guidance and revelation from God on how the church is to proceed. He is famous for leading the members of the church out west in an attempt to escape persecution after the death of Joseph Smith. Eventually he established a major city by the Great Salt Lake in Utah called Salt Lake City, along with many other smaller settlements throughout that area. In more modern times, the man who was prophet for most of my life was Gordon B. Hinckley, who passed away fairly recently. Our current prophet's name is Thomas S. Monson.

As for major figures in the Book of Mormon, it would honestly probably just be better to get a copy of the thing and read it But to quickly list some of the figures in there: Nephi is the first writer in the book, and other important figures around his time are his father Lehi and younger brother Jacob. There's a few more generations in there where not much happened. Later, King Benjamin doesn't have a lot of space in the book dedicated to him, though he was still an important figure. He appears in the book of Mosiah, as do Abinadi and Alma. Alma and his son, Alma the Younger (yes, Alma is used as a boy's name in the Book of Mormon), are both major prophets, and the longest book in the Book of Mormon is even named after Alma the Younger. Then there are other prophets and leaders such as Captain Moroni and Helaman. Samuel the Lamanite was preaching shortly before the time of Christ's birth, and there was another Nephi at the time of Christ's death. There is then a record of Christ visiting this people, and we believe it's likely others as well, after his resurrection. Many generations later Mormon appears as the civilization is falling. The record as a whole is named after him because he's the one who abridged most of the records, and at times inserts his own commentary as well (you can practically hear the fanboy squeels when he's talking about Captain Moroni). The account of the end of Mormon's life, along with the rest of the abridging work, is finished by his son Moroni (take a wild guess who he was named after). He offers some final words and advice at the end, then sealed up the record until it was retrieved many, many years later by Joseph Smith.

While that's hardly all the important figures in there, goes into almost no detail about them, and doesn't even touch our teachings and beliefs, I think that's about what you asked for. I'm perfectly willing to go into more detail about anything you may be curious about though. I used to be a missionary, so it's not like it's anything I haven't done before.

---------------------------------------

And while I apologize to those of you who don't think the above is necessarily on topic for a Hellsing fancomic fan-forum, in my defense it is on topic for this particular thread. That and Mrrout literally asked for it, so there

[Mrrout]

thank you
i didn't know a lot about Mormons, except that it is a christian religion
i might buy the book cause i had never heard about this story (it seems that the Mormon missionnaries that travel Europ missed me )

[Frey]

ther is something that bother me about your list of suprem beings, Frey: i saw no Goddess.
i'm not a wiccan, but i think that in the history of humanity, a lot of people have worshipped a feminine suprem being, as "great mother", under different names.

Sorry about. I have added the terms "Great Father/Great Mother" and "Dryghten" (Wiccan). There is only One Supreme Being, perceived through different religious, theological, philosophical, and cultural frames. I was taking a monistic-panentheist view of the Divine Parent in that I view certain highly anthromorphic deities (e.g. Vishnu, Shiva, Zeus, Brahma, Indra, Aphrodite, Vulcan,) as personifications of the elements, concepts, or attributes of The Absolute. Whereas specific other anthromorphic deities (e.g. Apollo, Hermes, Athena, Rama, The Yellow Emperor, Odin) who provide teachings to humanity I view as "Primordial-Enigmatic" Manifestations. My spiritual views have been largely influenced by Hindu, Buddhist, Greek, Deist, and Baha'i thoughts.

My use of the term "seer" refers to those who have received visions (akin to oracles) and interpret them. Seers/oracles are not exactly prophets as in speaking with the voice of the divine. As for Joseph Smith, I view him as a religious teacher.