I love mormons as any other. I just heard a person saying she was a Mormon, say that Jesus and the devil are brother's, and that doesn't make sense to me. I suppose it could be that people are raised differently from one another. The way she said it though, indicated that all mormons believe that, and I just don't understand it.
What you have to understand is the anti-Mormon "Christians," attempting to vilify what they call "the Jesus of Mormonism," will often use what is called a shocking generalization tactics, which is to bring a phrase down to a simplified line: "The Jesus of Mormonism is the Spirit brother to the Devil." Or: "Jesus & the Devil are Brothers in Mormonism." (No references or explanations about the pre-existence are expounded on to give the surrounding information for this belief).
Atheistic & early anti-Christian vilification tactics use the same tactics to vilify Christians. Like saying: Christ drink blood. Or as Madeline O'Haria the
American Atheists called it: "...barbaric habit of drinking blood of Jesus, and eating the flesh of Jesus..." Or it would be like expounding upon all the evils that the devil has done and then asking: "And do you know you created the devil? Jesus Did!
These are examples of
shocking generalizations, a tactics used by critics all down throughout history.
The early anti-Christian, 2nd cent., Celsus, also used this tactic too, he generalized all early Christians beliefs into one, not pointing out their differences & how some had argued against Marcion, for example, & generalized that early Christians speak of
two divine sons locked in combat with each other. In other places, Celsus shows he knew about the early Christians's beliefs in the pre-existence, how that they speak of a war in heaven, of the fall of the angels down into the infernal regions to be punished in chains. He asked: "Why would god need to fight with his own creations?" Tertullian, an 3rd cent., wrote of how Christ came to blot out the sins caused by the evil brother. Other early Christians talked of how Satan was jealous of his brother Jesus, in what Jesus would do. Christ is also often called the first born, taking part in a council in heaven, before the creation of the world. There are even earlier bibles that don't start with the creation, they start with the pre-existence, a life of spirits before the world was made. Earlier bible illustrations show the pre-existence, war in heaven, the devil & his followers fall, as fallen angels, being thrust out of heaven, their fall & crashing down into the underworld. Thousands of art works all over Christendom show these types of pre-existence themes too.
Bibliography:
Darell Thorpe,
Pre-existence: Our Pre-earth Life in a Family in Heaven.
Radio shows.
Another. Blog, scroll down to
art works on war in heaven, etc.
Terryl L. Givens,
When Souls Had Wings, Pre-mortal Existence in Western Thought,
Brent L. Top,
Life Before Life.
A. S. Garretson,
Primitive Christianity And Early Criticism, (Boston: Sherman, French & Company, 1912).
Chandler Rathfon Post,
A History of Spanish Painting, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 19301958). (New York: Kraus reprint Company, 1970's).
Clifford Davidson, Editor,
The Iconography of Heaven,
Early Drama, Art, and Music, Monograph Series, 21, (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 1994).
Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lang,
Heaven: A History, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988).
E. A. Wallis Budge,
Coptic Apocrypha in the Dialect of Upper Egypt, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1913), 6 vols.
Ernst and Johanna Lehner,
Devils, Demons, Death and Damnation, (New York: Dover Pictorial Archive Series, Dover Publishing Inc., 1971).
Dr. Huge Nibley,
Enoch the Prophet.
Old Testament and Related Subjects, (1986).
J. Eugene Seaich:
Ancient Texts and Mormonism, (Murray, Utah: Sounds of Zion, 1983).
The Heavenly Council, Mysteries and Sacred Ordinances, (unpublished research paper).
Jeffrey Burton Russell,
Satan, The Early Christian Tradition, (Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press, 1981).
Lucifer, The Devil In the Middle Age, 1984).
The Prince of Darkness, Radical Evil and the Power of Good in History, 1988).
Nigel Morgan,
Early Gothic Manuscripts, II, 1250 - 1285,
A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles - General Editor: J. J. G. Alexander, (London: Harvey Miller, 1988).
Genesis A & B.
R. Joseph Hoffmann, (translator)
Celsus On The True Doctrine, (A Discourse Against the early Christians), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).
