Why we build altars

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Pazooka
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Why we build altars

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Something finally clicked in my head.

Have some fun and ask any temple-going member of the Church why the ancient patriarchs built altars. They might say something like: in order to offer sacrifices that were supposed to point their minds towards the sacrifice of God’s Only Begotten, right? And that’s not wrong, but it’s not complete either.

They built altars as a means of talking, face to face, with God. For example, in Abraham 2:
18 And then we passed from Jershon through the land unto the place of Sechem; it was situated in the plains of Moreh, and we had already come into the borders of the land of the Canaanites, and I offered sacrifice there in the plains of Moreh, and called on the Lord devoutly, because we had already come into the land of this idolatrous nation.
19 And the Lord appeared unto me in answer to my prayers, and said unto me: Unto thy seed will I give this land.
20 And I, Abraham, arose from the place of the altar which I had built unto the Lord, and removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched my tent there, Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east; and there I built another altar unto the Lord, and called again upon the name of the Lord.
So the part in Moses 5 about Adam being told the sacrifice was in similitude of the sacrifice of the Son was not the purpose of the sacrifice but merely an explanation of the fact that the Son is the means through which we are redeemed from the Fall, brought back into the presence of the Father and can, thereby, communicate with the Father.

How does that apply today? The purpose of our altars should be the establishment of communion between the Father and the worshipper. We go through all the motions in the temple but...do we ever arrive at actual communion, as the “the fathers” did?
Last edited by Pazooka on July 24th, 2021, 2:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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XEmilyX
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Re: Why we build altars

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I'm actually hoping to build an altar to be in my room or on a dedicated space. I felt a wanting to just pray at an altar so I want to build one.

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Pazooka
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Re: Why we build altars

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XEmilyX wrote: July 24th, 2021, 2:26 pm I'm actually hoping to build an altar to be in my room or on a dedicated space. I felt a wanting to just pray at an altar so I want to build one.
Upon it will you be offering a broken heart and a contrite spirit? I wonder about personal altars - I’ve never even thought about that.

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Pazooka
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Re: Why we build altars

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Wow, I had never noticed this before...but in Moses 5, Adam and Eve did not start offering sacrifices until they had had many sons and daughters which had had sons and daughters of their own, at which point this happened:
4 And Adam and Eve, his wife, called upon the name of the Lord, and they heard the voice of the Lord from the way toward the Garden of Eden, speaking unto them, and they saw him not; for they were shut out from his presence.
5 And he gave unto them commandments, that they should worship the Lord their God, and should offer the firstlings of their flocks, for an offering unto the Lord. And Adam was obedient unto the commandments of the Lord.
After Adam began offering sacrifice in similitude of the sacrifice of JC it certainly appears as if He was able to speak with His God, again, face to face.

larsenb
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Re: Why we build altars

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XEmilyX wrote: July 24th, 2021, 2:26 pm I'm actually hoping to build an altar to be in my room or on a dedicated space. I felt a wanting to just pray at an altar so I want to build one.
I was visiting with a Jewish couple (older, kids gone) with a friend of their's, and the woman of the house showed us a private little room she had cordoned off by her kitchen that had a curtain made of vertical beads for its door, and she said this was her private place she used for prayer and meditation.

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inho
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Re: Why we build altars

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Pazooka wrote: July 24th, 2021, 2:38 pm
XEmilyX wrote: July 24th, 2021, 2:26 pm I'm actually hoping to build an altar to be in my room or on a dedicated space. I felt a wanting to just pray at an altar so I want to build one.
Upon it will you be offering a broken heart and a contrite spirit? I wonder about personal altars - I’ve never even thought about that.
Some splinter groups make a big deal about personal altars. But altars outside of temple used to be a thing in the past:
It is, perhaps, from this focus on the quotidian ritual that a fixture emerged among the saints that is generally forgotten: the family altar. The idea of walking into somebody’s house who is Mormon and seeing an altar in their living room borders on the absurd or apostate. However, for the Saints of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the family altar was consistently preached from the pulpit and in Church periodicals.

The family altar (bycommonconsent.com)

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Pazooka
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Re: Why we build altars

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inho wrote: August 2nd, 2021, 1:05 pm
Pazooka wrote: July 24th, 2021, 2:38 pm
XEmilyX wrote: July 24th, 2021, 2:26 pm I'm actually hoping to build an altar to be in my room or on a dedicated space. I felt a wanting to just pray at an altar so I want to build one.
Upon it will you be offering a broken heart and a contrite spirit? I wonder about personal altars - I’ve never even thought about that.
Some splinter groups make a big deal about personal altars. But altars outside of temple used to be a thing in the past:
It is, perhaps, from this focus on the quotidian ritual that a fixture emerged among the saints that is generally forgotten: the family altar. The idea of walking into somebody’s house who is Mormon and seeing an altar in their living room borders on the absurd or apostate. However, for the Saints of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the family altar was consistently preached from the pulpit and in Church periodicals.

The family altar (bycommonconsent.com)
Wow - great article. How interesting that we don’t know about (at least I didn’t) or discuss the personal/family altar whatsoever. Instead, we are made to think the only altars are the Church’s. Seems like a metaphor for how things are, generally.

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inho
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Re: Why we build altars

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Pazooka wrote: August 2nd, 2021, 1:45 pm How interesting that we don’t know about (at least I didn’t) or discuss the personal/family altar whatsoever.
Yeah, if somebody told me that he/she has an altar at home, I would instantly think Manti in 1990's, where Jim Harmston and others were "piercing the veil" at their altars.

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Pazooka
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Re: Why we build altars

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inho wrote: August 2nd, 2021, 1:55 pm
Pazooka wrote: August 2nd, 2021, 1:45 pm How interesting that we don’t know about (at least I didn’t) or discuss the personal/family altar whatsoever.
Yeah, if somebody told me that he/she has an altar at home, I would instantly think Manti in 1990's, where Jim Harmston and others were "piercing the veil" at their altars.
Yeah, me too. I think we’ve been conditioned.

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