Joseph Smith on Human Potential

Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith

humilitycreationnaturalismmormon authoritiesharmonizationtechnologyfaithhuman potential

This day I have been walking through the most splended part of the City of New York. The buildings are truly great and wonderful to the astonishing of every beholder, and the language of my heart is like this: “Can the great God of all the Earth, maker of all things magnificent and splendid, be displeased with man for all these great inventions sought out by them?” My answer is no. It cannot be, seeing these works are are calculated to make men comfortable, wise, and happy. Therefore, not for the works can the Lord be displeased; only against man is the anger of the Lord Kindled because they Give him not the Glory.

“Letter to Emma Smith,” History of the Church, pages 78-79, Deseret Book

Related Quotes

Nick BostromNick Bostrom

It may be possible for simulated civilizations to become posthuman. They may then run their own ancestor-simulations on powerful computers they build in their simulated universe. Such computers would be “virtual machines”, a familiar concept in computer science. (Java script webapplets, for instance, run on a virtual machine – a simulated computer – inside your desktop.)

Brigham YoungBrigham Young

You believe Adam was made of the dust of this earth. This I do not believe, though it is supposed that it is so written in the Bible; but it is not, to my understanding. You can write that information to the States, if you please—that I have publicly declared that I do not believe that portion of the Bible as the Christian world do. I never did, and I never want to.

Brigham YoungBrigham Young

Many have tried to penetrate to the First Cause of all things; but it would be as easy for an ant to number the grains of sand on the earth. It is not for man, with his limited intelligence, to grasp eternity in his comprehension. There is an eternity of life, from which we were composed by the wisdom and skill of superior Beings.

More from Joseph Smith

‘Do you believe Joseph Smith, Jun., to be a Prophet?’ Yes, and every other man who has the testimony of Jesus. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

God was once as we are now, and is an exalted person, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret.

I see no faults in the Church, and therefore let me be resurrected with the Saints, whether I ascend to heaven or descend to hell, or go to any other place. And if we go to hell, we will turn the devils out of doors and make a heaven of it. Where this people are, there is good society.

The first and fundamental principle of our holy religion is, that we believe that we have a right to embrace all, and every item of truth, without limitation or without being circumscribed or prohibited by the creeds or superstitious notions of men, or by the dominations of one another, when that truth is clearly demonstrated to our minds, and we have the highest degree of evidence of the same.

As concerning the resurrection, I will merely say that all men will come from the grave as they lie down, whether old or young; there will not be “added unto their stature one cubit,” neither taken from it; all will be raised by the power of God, having spirit in their bodies, and not blood.