Daddy God! (Creator, experience, recall, worship, Mary)

[w00t]

Some Christians seem to perceive God in the role of a father and themselves in the role of naughty children who need correction! Maybe some people are happy with that concept of God, but it doesn't do anything for me! Where is Mummy God? I thought many Christians thought intentional one parent families weren't a good idea?

[Scott1]

Originally Posted by Tangnefedd

Some Christians seem to perceive God in the role of a father and themselves in the role of naughty children who need correction!

.... does seem rather silly to me as well.

Where is Mummy God? I thought many Christians thought intentional one parent families weren't a good idea?

Hehe.....that's cute!

By calling God "Father", the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. God's parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood, which emphasizes God's immanence, the intimacy between Creator and creature. The language of faith thus draws on the human experience of parents, who are in a way the first representatives of God for man. But this experience also tells us that human parents are fallible and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood. We ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, although he is their origin and standard: no one is father as God is Father. (CCC#239)

Hope that helps.
S

[angellous_evangellous]

Originally Posted by Tangnefedd

Some Christians seem to perceive God in the role of a father and themselves in the role of naughty children who need correction! Maybe some people are happy with that concept of God, but it doesn't do anything for me! Where is Mummy God? I thought many Christians thought intentional one parent families weren't a good idea?

Enter princess Sophia.

[SoyLeche]

Originally Posted by Tangnefedd

Some Christians seem to perceive God in the role of a father and themselves in the role of naughty children who need correction! Maybe some people are happy with that concept of God, but it doesn't do anything for me! Where is Mummy God? I thought many Christians thought intentional one parent families weren't a good idea?

I'd say more along the lines of "naive children who need to be taught a whole lot".

She's there - she has just decided to stay out of the spotlight.

[Scott1]

Originally Posted by angellous_evangellous

Enter princess Sophia.

.... or any number of others... Venus, Isis, Mary worship in confused Christian circles, etc etc.

[angellous_evangellous]

Originally Posted by Scott1

.... or any number of others... Venus, Isis, Mary worship in confused Christian circles, etc etc.

Just spin the bottle.

[Booko]

Originally Posted by Tangnefedd

Some Christians seem to perceive God in the role of a father and themselves in the role of naughty children who need correction! Maybe some people are happy with that concept of God, but it doesn't do anything for me!

For that matter, why does Daddy have to be limited to the "Wait Till Your Daddy Gets Home" part of fatherhood?

[madhatter85]

Indeed it is an established doctrine of the LDS church that mortals not only have a Heavenly Father but also a Heavenly Mother. In 1909 the First Presidency of the LDS church issued a statement that sheds some light on the nature of spirit creation.

The doctrine of the preexistence, revealed so plainly, particularly in latter days, pours a wonderful flood of light upon the otherwise mysterious problem of man's origin. It shows that man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents, and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father, prior to coming upon the earth in a temporal body to undergo an experience in mortaility.... Jesus, however, is the firstborn among all the sons of God - The fist 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. (Encyclopedia of Mormonism 4:1667-68, emphasis added, The two parts of this quotation have been reversed for the sake of clarity.)

Elder Orson Pratt made remarks that tie in with the previous statement.

If we were born in heaven before this world was made, the question might arise as to the nature of that birth. Was it by command that the spiritual substance, scattered through space, was mircaulously brought together, and organized into a spiritual form, and called a spirit? Is that the way we were born? Is that the way Jesus, the firstborn of every creature, was brought into existence? Oh no; we were all born there after the same manner that we are here, that is to say every person that had an existence before he came here had a literal Father and a literal Mother, a personal Father and a personal Mother;... [E]very man and woman that have ever come here on this globe, or that ever will come,... [had] a Father and Mother in the heavens by whome thier spirits were brought into existence. (Journal of Discourses 15:246, emphasis added)

President Spencer W. Kimball told the sisters of the church:

God made man in his own image and certainly he made woman in the image of his wife-partner. You [women] are daughters of God. You are precious. You are made in the image of our Heavenly Mother. (The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, Bookcraft 1982)

President Gordon B. Hinckley has stated:

...in light of the instruction we have recieved from the Lord Himself, I regard it is as inapropriate for anyone in the Church to pray to our Mother in Heaven....The fact that we do not pray to our Mother in Heaven in no way belittles or denigrates her (Ensign, November 1991, 100)