Beyond Mitt's Underwear: Part 3: The Preexistence, Creation, and Plan for Salvation
Father in Heaven (Elohiem) and His wives live near the star called Kolob on a pair of magic stones. They were once mortal humans just like we are and have retained their physical bodies of flesh and bone, but instead of blood they have “spirit matter, a substance which is more refined and pure and glorious than blood”. At the time of creation
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Let's clarify - if you took the fastest starship, perhaps one that could fold space and teleport from one place to another, you could not find Kolob anywhere in our universe. It cannot be reached physically. I couldn't tell you anything beyond that, since we're not entirely sure what was meant by all of that.
Brigham Young once taught that Adam was the son of Elohiem, father of Jesus, and God of our world, a teaching which was incorporated into the “lecture at the veil” portion of the Temple Endowment ceremony, but this was removed in 1877 when Brigham Young died and the modern church no longer teaches it.
Son of Elohiem = true, just like we all are
Father of Jesus = true in the sense that if Adam was the first man, he is physical father to us all
God of our world = true in the sense that he helped create it, and since he is the father of us all, he is invested in the lives and salvation of all of us. Like Revelations says, Michael (who is Adam) was the general of the armies of the Lord. Jehovah (Jesus) and God the Father did not fight in that sense - in a way, they were above that conflict. It was Michael who fought against Lucifer.
I have personally read the Adam-God statements by Brigham Young, and these interpretations fit perfectly without being silly by saying Adam was God the Father. Why Brigham did not elucidate, I do not know.
The spirits who fought most valiantly against Satan were foreordained to be born into righteous Mormon families.
This is a silly misinterpretation. I know good non-Mormon men and women who are more virtuous, valiant, honest, and pure in heart than many Mormons. To imply that every Mormon was more righteous than others in the premortal existence which is why they were bron Mormon, while less righteous people were born non-Mormon is completely against what we teach. God places His elect here and there according to His will. While I will not argue that we believe some who are born into the church were foreordained to that because of righteousness, it is false to attach the word *ALL* to that statement.
Mormons who know the true path will keep those promises, join the church, perform the saving ordinances, and stay faithful to their oaths and covenants.
Nah, this isn't strictly true. This is related to another comment, which I will quote here in a sec, but you missed a massive, critical piece of our belief set, and that has to do with missionary work in the Spirit World. It's the whole reason we do work in the temples and genealogy. Because of this belief, it allows us to accept that other people in other religions may be exactly where they need to be - for instance, every Mormon I've ever talked to agreed with me that Mother Theresa will get to heaven faster than the rest of us. God needed her right where she was, and on the other side, we think she joined the church with no loss of blessings. (I'm not saying I know whether her temple work has been done or not.)
So no, not all the elect of God become Mormon in this life, and that's fine. It's not our place to judge. Heck, what about the elect of God who were born in 200BC China that never heard the name Abraham, Moses, or Jesus Christ? *Everyone* gets a chance, and that's what the next life is about.
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I think it's your turn to provide a citation. Who says that?
This is a silly misinterpretation.
Nice to know we've finally gotten to the silly part. I was having trouble figuring out which part was the silly part.
Don't shoot the messenger. Take up this "misinterpretation" with the Quorum of the Twelve, Priesthood Correlation Program, or whoever's telling the LDS.org webmasters to write that stuff down as if it's officially accepted doctrine.
Weren't you the one saying that it's not up to us to question the wisdom of the Prophets, since they speak to God and we have to take their word for it? This is what God told your Prophets, the Church accepts it and teaches it. Deal with it.
every Mormon I've ever talked to agreed with me that Mother Theresa will get to heaven faster than the rest of us.
That's wrong on multiple counts.
First, you'll get to one of the Three Kingdoms faster than she will, because she'll be stuck in spirit prison until someone does her temple work for her. You've already had your temple work done, so you'll be there faster.
Second, it's not simply an issue of who gets to any of the Kingdoms faster, but who ends up in which kingdom. And regardless how good she was, Mother Theresa isn't getting into the Celestial Kingdom without joining the church, performing the saving ordinances, and staying faithful to the oaths and covenants.
If you know otherwise, I invite you to link to the relevant web page on lds.org instead of just making this stuff up or passing off rumor as official doctrine.
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Lots of people I have talked to over the years within the church. Maybe Hugh Nibley? This is organically received info, so I have no citation. Anyone reading this can believe whatever they like - you or someone who has lived it for almost 40 years. :)
Nice to know we've finally gotten to the silly part. I was having trouble figuring out which part was the silly part.
Heh. Yeah, I know. Any religion seems silly to non-religious people, so I accept your comment as a good faith one.
Don't shoot the messenger. Take up this "misinterpretation" with the Quorum of the Twelve, Priesthood Correlation Program, or whoever's telling the LDS.org webmasters to write that stuff down as if it's officially accepted doctrine.
Fair enough. I didn't make myself clear in my own comment, so you are totally fine to call me on it. Let me try again:
Lots of people, both within and without the church have been foreordained to certain tasks. People who have been foreordained were given those tasks because of their righteousness. For instance, we believe the Founding Fathers were foreordained to that time and place to perform that duty. Are they less righteous than a rank and file member born into the LDS religion today? No, that is not what we are saying.
I think the distinction is saying that only the most righteous are born into the church, which the link you posted does not claim. It implies a certain level of righteousness to be foreordained in the first place, but within that framework of general righteousness, there is no implication that being born LDS is the highest foreordination one can aspire to. That is entirely your interpretation.
Does that clarify a little? It should also stand completely in line with the link on foreordination.
Weren't you the one saying that it's not up to us to question the wisdom of the Prophets, since they speak to God and we have to take their word for it? This is what God told your Prophets, the Church accepts it and teaches it. Deal with it.
Nah, you're the one that says we must blindly obey. I never said that. You are telling me how to interpret the teachings of the prophets based on zero time as a member vs me living it for almost 40 years. I'd say of the two of us, I have a far better understanding of the doctrine than you do, standing as an outsider.
We are explicitly taught to study things out, pray, and seek understanding. At certain times with certain things, we simply have to accept and obey, but that is not the rule we live by on a day to day basis. I have some amount of experience with this organic dichotomy.
That's wrong on multiple counts.
First, you'll get to one of the Three Kingdoms faster than she will, because she'll be stuck in spirit prison until someone does her temple work for her. You've already had your temple work done, so you'll be there faster.
Second, it's not simply an issue of who gets to any of the Kingdoms faster, but who ends up in which kingdom. And regardless how good she was, Mother Theresa isn't getting into the Celestial Kingdom without joining the church, performing the saving ordinances, and staying faithful to the oaths and covenants.
If you know otherwise, I invite you to link to the relevant web page on lds.org instead of just making this stuff up or passing off rumor as official doctrine.
You're right, technically speaking. I was using the term "faster" not to imply speed but more to indicate the level of her personal virtue. Perhaps I should have said, "easier"? Or some other word indicating that because she was such a magnificent selfless soul, compared to most of the people I know, this will be a non-issue? I personally believe that her virtue indicates joining the church in the next life to be automatic, so there's no question.
Is that helpful as far as what I was trying to say?
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I'm wondering what your characterisation of Mother Theresa as a "magnificent selfless soul" is based on.
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What she did, what she professed, the sacrifices she made to help those who had no other defender, the life she was willing to live in order to do what she did, etc.
I'm being broad, and I know that wikipedia catalogues some of the issues surrounding her, but I'm willing to accept some of those issues when we see her willingness to help as much as she could.
I'm not casting her as the essence of perfection, but I do recognize that she performed some amazing feats of service throughout her life, even if she was struggling with her faith itself. She still helped those that needed help, regardless.
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I didn't say "blindly obey". I did (in the next post) say that the Laws of Obedience, Sacrifice, and Consecration basically amount to that.
I also started this series of posts by saying "there’s a difference between what the LDS gospels say, what the general authorities of the Church say, and what most Mormons currently believe and practice." I can't say that all every single Mormon blindly obeys. But I can say not just that the Laws require this, but that when they blew their means and time dog whistle you guys certainly hopped to it.
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I've vastly abbreviated all the claims of Adam-God Doctrine which were unambiguously explicit, spoken by a sitting Prophet, accepted and taught as doctrine by the Church, and go well beyond Adam being the "father of us all".
For a time, the Church taught that Adam (not Elohiem) was not just the co-creator of the earth but the direct, spiritual father of our spirits in the Preeixstence. There's a whole story about Adam being mortal, becoming Exalted, becoming a God, creating our world, then eating the apple to become mortal from human, and eating another kind of magic fruit to turn back into a God later. It gets complicated.
I'd be happy to write a whole separate detailed post on the subject, but it seemed kinda moot since the Church basically threw out the whole thing, stopped teaching it, and removed it from the temple ceremony after Brigham Young died.
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Questions of character and daily living are far more defining of who we are than all this space doctrine, which is why I simply shrug and say you're missing the whole point, though I'm happy to engage and clarify up to a certain point.
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Is it just coincidence - you're LDS because you were born into an LDS family, and you'd be unexaminingly accepting Scientology if your parents had been Scientologists?
(Also: I find it baffling that someone could commit their life to an organisation, could structure their worldview around a set of strictures, and could devote so thoroughly to a concept, without ever examining the history and claims of the organisation for internal consistency let alone external consistency. I have difficulty *imagining* not "studying things that do not apply to daily life". That kind of incuriousity is... gaah! It makes my teeth itch, it what I'm saying. I could never STOP studying the not-immediately-applicable. I would promptly divert into "but why am I avoiding the not-immediately-applicable?" and picking around the edges of THAT.
It's a philosophical difference, and I find it really weird.)
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Is it just coincidence - you're LDS because you were born into an LDS family, and you'd be unexaminingly accepting Scientology if your parents had been Scientologists?
That's an excellent question, one that if I answered fully might take us a while, so let me see if I can hit the highlights.
I was definitely raised Mormon, but I almost left the church when I was on my mission - crisis of faith.
I never doubted the existence of God or of Jesus Christ. By this time in my life, I had had so many prayers answered directly, it was a non-issue. For me the question was, "Why Mormonism instead of some other Christian denomination?" Or perhaps, "Is this really what I want to commit to for the rest of my life?" is a better enunciation of that question.
I learned later that I am an ENFP on the Myers-Briggs scale - right on the edge with E/I, really super pegged on N instead of S, high F over T, and moderate P over J. While I didn't recognize this at the time, I can see now that my decision process went through my strengths rather than my weaknesses - I am primarily a iNtuitive rather than a Sensor, meaning that when I trust my instincts, I am usually correct, but if I try to observe and filter through my senses, I fail spectacularly. Both have their value in the world, which is why I love my S friends and family - they can do things I cannot, and I can do things they cannot.
As an NF (SJ and NF are the two of the main distinctions Myers-Briggs uses to classify people on a broad scale - not sure I'm communicating that right), if I don't live according to my inner instincts, I am simply not happy. An SJ must live according to the external observations or else they are not happy.
This is why you find my philosophy so strange and why I simply do not live by yours. I would suspect that you are an SJ, though I could easily be wrong. :)
Anyhow, back to my story - knowing that I was not questioning my Christianity, I looked around at other religions and found not a one had anywhere near the number of answers that we had. Forever families, work for the dead so that everyone gets a chance, eternal progression rather than playing the harp and sitting around with God all day every day, clear direction from living prophets, additional scripture to clarify other doctrines, etc. I saw those things, and concluded that if I was wrong, I was very happy to live in that wrong way. In other words, I was willing to dismiss some of the contradictions and such I had seen because what was important to me was deeper than just what Brigham or Joseph said at one time that was not part of our core doctrines.
But I didn't stop there. I asked for some signs, some guidance and miracles to help me find my way. I told God I was willing to do whatever He wanted me to do, but I needed some answer that I could not manipulate, something external to me to show me that I was making the decision He wanted me to make. I got it, and that's where I draw the curtain closed. My experience was intensely personal, and I do not intend to make it public. I received more than one sign, actually, over the course of several months, and it was enough for me to commit to this path and never look back.
Heck, I could be wrong. I don't think I am, but I am totally willing to accept that possibility. The truth for me, though, is that I am really really happy living this lifestyle and having this faith, and that's good enough for me. It makes me into a better, more giving, more forgiving, more loving person than I was before, which is what I want more than anything. Knowledge interests me a bit, but what I am most interested in is being a virtuous person, someone with honesty and integrity, and this belief set assists me with that goal.
I know that religion (least of all my religion) is not a requirement for virtue, but it has helped me be more virtuous thanI would have been on my own.
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If you don't examine whether the answers are consistent, well-sourced, verifiable against reality, and match what you CAN confirm, how can you accept it? How can "number of answers" matter AT ALL if the source of the answers can't defend itself?
I mean, Basic Scientology teaches simple life skills! Those are objectively a good thing for people to understand, and a network of co-religionists easing your path is, for the individual, a great thing. And yet, Scientology is completely full of shit, and you *do* agree with me that Scientology is full of shit because you're not a Scientologist. And yet, adopt Scientology, immediately receive real-world results that the Scientologists claim "because Scientology". If you refuse to examine anything beyond the immediate, if you refuse to question what God may or may not have told past Prophets, why is Scientology *not* the correct religion, again?
non-snarky questions over, beware, snark may ensue:
I had had so many prayers answered directly, it was a non-issue.
Even though the answer to ever question that wasn't "was this going to happen anyway regardless of my prayer" was "no"?
I would suspect that you are an SJ, though I could easily be wrong. :)
I've never taken a professional Meyers-Briggs, nor seen anything that suggests Meyers-Briggs is meaningful in any real way - but yes, I suspect it would label me as Sensing/not-imagining Measuring/not-imagining, or "SJ".
I asked for some signs, some guidance and miracles to help me find my way. I told God I was willing to do whatever He wanted me to do, but I needed some answer that I could not manipulate, something external to me to show me that I was making the decision He wanted me to make. I got it, and that's where I draw the curtain closed. My experience was intensely personal, and I do not intend to make it public.
Notably, your past public proclaimations of divine intervention have been DEMONSTRABLY IDENTICAL to things completely indistinguishable from "divine intervention", which also were repeatable and testable in ways you claimed God's Will could not be.
Saying "I have experienced the divine and I wish to hide it" implies that you wish to avoid analysis and criticism, not that you feel your experience is valid. And yes, I am in fact not disposed to believe that your experience of Christ is genuine when I can point out more rational explanations and identical experiences by people who concluded not-Christ -- but that shouldn't really change your obligation to Witness, should it?
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This is an excellent question, and I am enjoying your sincerity. :)
Except you are saying the source of the answers is Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, etc, and that's not true. You don't even believe in God, and so when I say that God is the source of those answers and I already have a relationship with him, you dismiss that out of hand, which is fine. That's totally your prerogative. But since you dismiss what I call the TRUE source of all these answers, you are forced to focus on the weak, mortal, seeming-source of those answers, and thus you come up with seeming-logical answers that are actually not answers at all, at least according to the way I see it.
I know how to ask God for clarity. I've done it all my life. I've made many mistakes since it's not a cut-and-dried process, but a skill you have to develop over long years of practice and desire. So I went to the real source and asked Him, and when he says to not worry about that stuff, I don't. It's His work and His business and I know how crazy it sounds to you because you don't even believe in Him in the first place. But that's OK. :)
If you refuse to examine anything beyond the immediate, if you refuse to question what God may or may not have told past Prophets, why is Scientology *not* the correct religion, again?
What I teach goes far beyond simple life skills. The truths I find in the Book of Mormon and profoundly powerful, life-changing things. yeah, you can find lots of unique and interesting things in the other books, but I don't bother with them much. If I want to change my life, be a better person, I study the Book of Mormon. Scientology hasn't got *anything* like that. Not even close.
Plus, as I said before, they don't have wonderful, family-affirming, hope-filled visions of fabulous eternities like I do. Why the heck would I trade down?
non-snarky questions over, beware, snark may ensue:
Seriously, when you are not being a straight up jerk, I really enjoying talking to you. Your snark always make me laugh, so please, snark away. :)
Even though the answer to ever question that wasn't "was this going to happen anyway regardless of my prayer" was "no"?
LOL! No, I've had answers to questions, problems solved, miracles occur, and all kinds of things outside of the very narrow window of questions your comment implies. :)
I've never taken a professional Meyers-Briggs, nor seen anything that suggests Meyers-Briggs is meaningful in any real way - but yes, I suspect it would label me as Sensing/not-imagining Measuring/not-imagining, or "SJ".
Heh. And that's exactly what an SJ would say. They don't buy into that "psychology test" nonsense. Seriously though, the MBTI is probably the most researched, scientifically based test there is. if for no other reason than for curiosity's sake, you ought to either take 3-4 of the free tests you can find online, or pay for the official one to see what you come up with. It might be somewhat illuminating. :)
Saying "I have experienced the divine and I wish to hide it" implies that you wish to avoid analysis and criticism, not that you feel your experience is valid.
Actually, that's exactly NOT what I meant by it. To tell you of that experience would require from me a certain amount of vulnerability and going into some detail concerning mistakes and weaknesses of mine that I would really only share with very close friends or family. As I said, it was intensely PERSONAL. If you really want me to tell you about those experiences, you will have to work *really* hard to convince me that you are one of my best friends, that I can trust you with my problems and weaknesses because you would never ever betray me or take advantage of me in any way. I'm having a hard time envisioning a reality where this could happen, if for the sole reasons that 1) you are not a believer in any sense of the word, let alone LDS and 2) you are in Canada, so we will likely never meet in person, which would be about the only venue I might ever tell that story.
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I'm sincere most of the time. I'm just ALSO rude.
Except you are saying the source of the answers is Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, etc, and that's not true.
They claim their source goes back farther, but, and this is important, all the subsequent investigation has shown that everything that WOULD be true if their source went further back than them is not true.
You don't even believe in God,
True.
and so when I say that God is the source of those answers and I already have a relationship with him, you dismiss that out of hand, which is fine.
This part, I disagree with.
And my disagreement is fundamental *and*, I think my disagreement is so critical that I find the statement that I dismiss it "out of hand" genuinely offensive.
No, I'm not joking. I am deadly serious when I say that I find accusations of casual dismissal offensive. I don't want you to apologise, I don't want you to feel you need to placate me. I want you to *understand* why I feel it is offensive to describe that way, even if you disagree. With me? Okay, here goes:
I do not dismiss your experience casually. I dismiss your experience because it is unremarkable, because it is unoriginal, and because it is unpersuasive.
Your experience is unremarkable because it is shared with billions of other people who believe *contradictory* things that cannot be mutually true, simultaneously with you. You cannot all be right, and yet you all claim to be equally right. As such, I do not and cannot consider your claim to be any more (OR LESS!) credible than the claim of anyone else.
Your experience is unoriginal because it makes no claims that have not already been addressed, and that are not also shared by billions of other people who believe *contradictory* things that cannot be mutually true, simultaneously with you.
Your experience is unpersuasive because it makes no claims that have not already been conclusively disproven, and that are not also shared by billions of other people who believe *contradictory* things that cannot be mutually true, simultaneously with you.
I dismiss your experence because your experience is DEMONSTRABLY WRONG, because if your experience were true, any number of things would be measurably different. And the best counter you have to offer is that God alters the past and hides to prevent His own discovery, where if we hadn't looked He would have left His favour?
I do not dismiss your experience "out of hand". I dismiss your experience because you are wrong, and have been proven to be wrong, and because I have no expectation that you will ever be proven right. Because if you WERE right, then things would be different, and they are NOT different. Reality does NOT match your faith, nor that of anyone else. Reality is reality, regardless of what you believe.
I have not dismissed your beliefs "out of hand". I have dismissed them after careful consideration, giving them FAR more thought than you ever did. Applying far more thought than you EVER have has led me to conclude that Mormonism is Islam is Zoroastrianism is Hinduism is Last Tuesdayism is Scientology: all equally valid.
That's why I find your accusation that I dismiss this "out of hand" offensive.
Do you understand, now?
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I do, and I appreciate you taking the time to explain it to me. The funny thing about taking offense is that everyone has different hot buttons, but we expect everyone around us to know what *our* individual hot buttons are because we know them and they are logical to us. Anyhow, the fact that you were willing to take time to explain that this particular phrase is a hot button for you says a lot of good about you, and my respect for you has gone up a notch.
That being said, let me explain something to you about our theology that addresses your particular concern.
I believe in a God that somehow, for some reason, only had his Gospel taught in a small portion of the world across history, and then it was taken away. Huge sections of our world and history did not have this Gospel taught in it, and that was OK for some reason. How do I reconcile what I know about a loving God with the idea that Hindus and Muslims and Buddhists and Taoists and every other religion exists when He could have sent prophets to these lands and got everyone converted to the "Mormon" faith (though it would not have been known like that)?
As I dig deeper into my theology, I discover that this world was mainly a testing ground for character, not doctrine. If the latter was true, then He would not have been OK with 2000 years of the Great Apostasy following the death of the Apostles. Since He knows each of His children on a perfect and profound level, and He knows the best place and time and culture and family to send His children to for the personalized experience and instruction they need to become the best person they can be, then I start to understand that perhaps when a Catholic prays and receives inspiration that they should be a Catholic, He is giving personalized instruction to that child based on what they need. Perhaps they don't need to be LDS in this life. Indeed, for a long time, Catholic was about the only Christian option, so He was totally willing to work within those bounds.
The truth of the next life being the leveling ground for all the misfortune and misunderstandings of this life allows Him to guide each child to and through the religion they need, while not shutting down their options for eternal progression.
So when you see billions of people claiming the same source but getting different answers, you see evidence of No God. But I see the same thing, and because my theology is expansive, merciful, and individualized, I see evidence of God. You cannot comprehend a God who could be so individualized, but I can and do, and thus accept what other people come up with.
I also think that while someone may have an experience with the divine, they may also lack the knowledge to properly interpret such experiences. For example, an American Indian who takes hallucinogenic drugs to receive divine guidance could very well be getting a mixture of straight hallucinations and revelation from God, but they don't know how to tell the difference, and so the whole experience was accepted rather than sorting it.
Anyhow, do *you* understand?
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Except, and this matters, you have no reason to consider your Gospel any more credible than that of anyone else.
I discover that this world was mainly a testing ground for character, not doctrine.
Which is to say, you discovered that your doctrine was unsupportable, and thought of something else. A little *more* digging would have shown you that the claim that the world is a testing ground for character is ALSO unsupportable.
when you see billions of people claiming the same source but getting different answers, you see evidence of No God.
Clarification: I see billions of people claiming many different sources, and getting contradictory answers, with all answers either matching their own preconceptions (and thus, are their own inventions) or having better explanations than a deity. Which is why I see no evidence of a God, which is NOT the same as "evidence of No God". The distinction is important.
. But I see the same thing, and because my theology is expansive, merciful, and individualized, I see evidence of God
Except, you don't. You see a world where all the evidence points to no God taking a hand in it, where you've said previously, outright, that you believe God deliberately erases all evidence of His own existence - and you use that to conclude YOUR God, by rationalising that he's just hiding the truth from everyone else who aren't ready the way YOU are ready.
You cannot comprehend a God who could be so individualized,
More, I do not accept your rationalisation. I can comprehend a God who *could* provide many paths and personalised teaching and who would only reveal the true truth to those who are "ready" for it - but I don't believe that any such God exists, since no path provides anything different from any other path, or from no path.
Either there *is no* correct direction, or people moving in the correct direction are not getting any feedback, at all, making their direction completely arbitrary and their choice of the correct or not-correct direction utterly random. Why yes, they COULD all become Mormons, but there's nothing to say that Mormons are right and that you aren't secretly being groomed to be a Jehovah's Witness, or an Asatruar, or a murderous cannibal - and your side trip through Mormonism is just a mistake along the way, that you're making because you're not ready for the real truth and God knows it.
I also think that while someone may have an experience with the divine, they may also lack the knowledge to properly interpret such experiences
Whereas I know, for a fact, that people atrribute to the divine all kinds of experiences that have non-divine causes.
Anyhow, do *you* understand?
I do. But I think it's critical to catch that I don't think *you* understand the arguments you're making, or the logical results of them.
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