How I Understand the Church's 1st Article of Faith

Here's how I read the First Article of Faith of the Church of context here:

1: We beleive in God the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.

In the current milieu, it is easy to read this simple statement as saying something almost diametrically opposed to what I understand Joseph Smith to have meant when he penned the words a hundred some-odd years ago. So I'm going to offer my unofficial rephrase, using words that I hope will be more understandable in modern English:

We believe in the Prime Paradigm -- the Eternal Progenitor -- and in the pre-eminent Child thereof, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Essence.

Except that that has just as many issues of interpretation as the original, probably more, even if they are different issues. 

Well, it's a thought. I'll leave it up there as a decoy while I ask you to allow me room to explain how I understand the principle terms of the original wording. 

(The point is, when I talk about God, I'm not talking about what certain other people say I'm talking about. Please set aside all the assumptions, images and preconceptions that people have thrown at you about God and religion, claiming to be either for or against.) 

God:

1. That which a person sets at highest priority;
2. The source of the universe around us.
   

 

Eternal:

• Existing outside the bounds of what we attempt to describe in our physical laws of thermodynamics, ergo, not bound by entropy or by its corollary, time.

 

Father/Parent:

• Progenitor, or archetype from which children are generated.

 

Son/Child:

• That which is generated or pro-created by the Parent, thus, capable of growth.
  
  1. Capable, when fully grown, of standing independent.
  2. Capable, when fully grown according to the pattern of the Parent, of standing in proxy for the Parent.

 

Jesus:

• Name which can be interpreted as "God is help." Points us to the concept that God does care, after all.

 

Christ:

• Title indicating the necessity of choice.

 

Holy:

• Not profane. In particular, not made profane by the pursuit of power, authority, fame, influence, monetary gain, or such.

 

Spirit:

• The essence of those things which we perceive by our five senses,
  
  1. somewhat corollary to the mathematical concept of automata,
  2. also somewhat corollary to software in programmed systems.
• All things have spirit.
  

Note, relevant to the current arguments concerning gender, that none of this mentions gender, other than indirectly by the implicit reference to engendering.

Note also that, none of this references an angry god-image ready to punish to the fullest all who dare breach any of his dictates. In fact, such an image simply does not fit in this concept of Progenitor, and does not match at all with the meaning of the name, Jesus.