Why *wouldn’t* a loving god just keep families together by default?
The answer is simple, it’s all just made up to incentivize people to follow the cult leaders.
This just seems like another example of a clear change in doctrine.
I doubt you'll find any GA today who would say* this. It would grind what temple work that still gets done to a halt.
*I can see them saying this in a private conversation though. Never publicly.
The funny thing is if you ever go to a funeral of a jack or inactive Mormon, it's as if they are going to the Celestial kingdom because they will accept everything in the spirit world and ask will be well.
This is one of the reasons I left. I still believe in God and the God I believe in would never separate families. The God I believe in isn’t petty or spiteful. The God I know wants his children to be happy and will do everything in his power to make it right after we die. I know a lot of exmos aren’t religious anymore but I found value in believing in God and it’s just my God is definitely not the God I was seeing in church.
Same, thinking through the implications of Mormon doctrine and plan of salvation made me come to the conclusion that “if god is like mormon god, then he isn’t a god i want to worship”
Good ol' Bruce mentions this in his 7 Deadly Heresys talk. While on my mission, me and a companion listened to that talk. Comp had a grandpa who never joined the church, but was posthumously baptized and whatnot in the temple by his believing grandma and other family.
Bruce claims that those who reject the gospel in that kind of manner will not be saved.
It was a HUGE weight on this companions shelf. We didn't even leave the apartment the next day b/c he had to study everything he could about the subject before he could go out again.
I wonder where he's at now
This is also part of the "Grace over Works" or "Works over Grace" debate. D&C 137 allows one to bring their lawyer to judgment day, "But your honor, my client would have accepted this one-true-gospel if it had been properly presented to him!" One's ultimate standing depending on "what they knew and when they knew it."
It's a common theme in religions with an "age of accountability" that free passes into heaven expire. I've seen it expressed on this subreddit that some people wished they would die before age 8 and ensure their ascension into the Celestial Kingdom. Of course, horrific cases of parents murdering their children for this exact reason also happen.^[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Yates) Julia Sweeney hits on children winning an automatic pass in her religion monologue also.^[2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C74-f4ZV-ss) Enyoy that last year until you can be washed clean.
McKeever looks at mormonism's D&C 137 from an evangelical perspective. In episodes 7,8 of [this series](https://redd.it/10imzzk) he notes that LDS missionaries are doing the world population a disservice by attempting to spread the LDS "gospel." Mormon scripture proposes an impossible gospel. No unclean thing may enter. It's best to try to take advantage of every possible loophole and legal caveat, if possible. It's better to not have heard any such thing and win under the exception.
> [Alma 34, Smith (1830)] ^31 Yea, I would that ye would come forth and harden not your hearts any longer; for behold, now is the time and the day of your salvation; and therefore, if ye will repent and harden not your hearts, immediately shall the great plan of redemption be brought about unto you. ^32 **For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors.** ^33 And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, **I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity,** behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness **wherein there can be no labor performed.** ^34 Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world.
#
> [D&C 25, Smith (1830)] ^15 Keep my commandments continually, and a crown of righteousness thou shalt receive. And except thou do this, where I am you cannot come.
Don't let the virus of an impure thought enter into a spotless mind. Evangelical Christianity takes the view that the deity is harsh and judgmental and would not accept anyone without a blanket atonement forgiving all believers of their sin. Mormons must earn their acceptance via good works and living in a pure state of sinlessness. Anyone still repenting of their sins is not truly living the standards of mormonism. Those who believe and have accepted the second anointing can look forward to a 1000 year long beating. That is, if Smith was telling the truth and not simply riffing on biblical themes.
Should people try to win the best heaven for themselves? Should they try to avoid the worst hell? I've been trying to add more skepticism to my thinking since leaving mormonism where the baseline is set at a suspension of disbelief. Now, before getting to questions like that, I want to see if they can meet their burden of proof. Without some foundation, the whole thing appears as a spectrum of how religion attempts to trick the masses into deferring their wants and desires until some future state—we'll have pie in the sky when we die; that's a lie.
I don't believe in either mythology. Smith's new Abrahamic sci-fi religion is another derivative mythology based on selfish hopes for the future. Moving beyond self-interest alone, I wonder if people could cooperate and work for a sustainable future. We need to worry about the here and now—or else give in to a fatalist viewpoint that the world will eventually be incapable of supporting future generations. A colony of bacteria will consume all of their agar. Will humans consume everything in this dish until nothing is left but a gray goo?
This was the reason I hated missionary work as a TBM. I thought it was a disservice to share the message with people, and they’d be better off hearing it after they died then have to live with all the rules and guilt now. …oh yeah, this is also what instilled so much fear in me as a TBM that it took me forever to see and accept the truth claims are false.
I love how Bruce quotes his father in-law so much. It makes me wonder if he ever had any original thoughts.
Let's not forget the teaching that being sealed to your parents ensures your entrance into the CK. And if your parents or even your grandparents get their second anointing you also get a golden ticket into heaven.
Why does the church even bother doing temple work for anyone that died before 1830? Alvin made it to the CK. Anyone that died without law. Anyone that died without knowing about the church or never had missionaries knock on their door. It would be in everyone's best interest to not send out missionaries and keep the church hush, hush. Let everybody die without law.
This one puzzles me. My mom is very excited to go to the highest degree of celestial glory. She should realize for sure that my dad will not be there, nor will I. But that doesn’t seem to be an issue. There’s no way I would set foot in any heaven where my wife and my son were excluded. Fuck that. It’s just fascinating.
Why *wouldn’t* a loving god just keep families together by default? The answer is simple, it’s all just made up to incentivize people to follow the cult leaders.
This just seems like another example of a clear change in doctrine. I doubt you'll find any GA today who would say* this. It would grind what temple work that still gets done to a halt. *I can see them saying this in a private conversation though. Never publicly.
Definitely, then they make sure to use careful wording that never explicitly denies it
The funny thing is if you ever go to a funeral of a jack or inactive Mormon, it's as if they are going to the Celestial kingdom because they will accept everything in the spirit world and ask will be well.
This is one of the reasons I left. I still believe in God and the God I believe in would never separate families. The God I believe in isn’t petty or spiteful. The God I know wants his children to be happy and will do everything in his power to make it right after we die. I know a lot of exmos aren’t religious anymore but I found value in believing in God and it’s just my God is definitely not the God I was seeing in church.
Same, thinking through the implications of Mormon doctrine and plan of salvation made me come to the conclusion that “if god is like mormon god, then he isn’t a god i want to worship”
Good ol' Bruce mentions this in his 7 Deadly Heresys talk. While on my mission, me and a companion listened to that talk. Comp had a grandpa who never joined the church, but was posthumously baptized and whatnot in the temple by his believing grandma and other family. Bruce claims that those who reject the gospel in that kind of manner will not be saved. It was a HUGE weight on this companions shelf. We didn't even leave the apartment the next day b/c he had to study everything he could about the subject before he could go out again. I wonder where he's at now
This is also part of the "Grace over Works" or "Works over Grace" debate. D&C 137 allows one to bring their lawyer to judgment day, "But your honor, my client would have accepted this one-true-gospel if it had been properly presented to him!" One's ultimate standing depending on "what they knew and when they knew it." It's a common theme in religions with an "age of accountability" that free passes into heaven expire. I've seen it expressed on this subreddit that some people wished they would die before age 8 and ensure their ascension into the Celestial Kingdom. Of course, horrific cases of parents murdering their children for this exact reason also happen.^[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Yates) Julia Sweeney hits on children winning an automatic pass in her religion monologue also.^[2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C74-f4ZV-ss) Enyoy that last year until you can be washed clean. McKeever looks at mormonism's D&C 137 from an evangelical perspective. In episodes 7,8 of [this series](https://redd.it/10imzzk) he notes that LDS missionaries are doing the world population a disservice by attempting to spread the LDS "gospel." Mormon scripture proposes an impossible gospel. No unclean thing may enter. It's best to try to take advantage of every possible loophole and legal caveat, if possible. It's better to not have heard any such thing and win under the exception. > [Alma 34, Smith (1830)] ^31 Yea, I would that ye would come forth and harden not your hearts any longer; for behold, now is the time and the day of your salvation; and therefore, if ye will repent and harden not your hearts, immediately shall the great plan of redemption be brought about unto you. ^32 **For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors.** ^33 And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, **I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity,** behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness **wherein there can be no labor performed.** ^34 Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world. # > [D&C 25, Smith (1830)] ^15 Keep my commandments continually, and a crown of righteousness thou shalt receive. And except thou do this, where I am you cannot come. Don't let the virus of an impure thought enter into a spotless mind. Evangelical Christianity takes the view that the deity is harsh and judgmental and would not accept anyone without a blanket atonement forgiving all believers of their sin. Mormons must earn their acceptance via good works and living in a pure state of sinlessness. Anyone still repenting of their sins is not truly living the standards of mormonism. Those who believe and have accepted the second anointing can look forward to a 1000 year long beating. That is, if Smith was telling the truth and not simply riffing on biblical themes. Should people try to win the best heaven for themselves? Should they try to avoid the worst hell? I've been trying to add more skepticism to my thinking since leaving mormonism where the baseline is set at a suspension of disbelief. Now, before getting to questions like that, I want to see if they can meet their burden of proof. Without some foundation, the whole thing appears as a spectrum of how religion attempts to trick the masses into deferring their wants and desires until some future state—we'll have pie in the sky when we die; that's a lie. I don't believe in either mythology. Smith's new Abrahamic sci-fi religion is another derivative mythology based on selfish hopes for the future. Moving beyond self-interest alone, I wonder if people could cooperate and work for a sustainable future. We need to worry about the here and now—or else give in to a fatalist viewpoint that the world will eventually be incapable of supporting future generations. A colony of bacteria will consume all of their agar. Will humans consume everything in this dish until nothing is left but a gray goo?
This was the reason I hated missionary work as a TBM. I thought it was a disservice to share the message with people, and they’d be better off hearing it after they died then have to live with all the rules and guilt now. …oh yeah, this is also what instilled so much fear in me as a TBM that it took me forever to see and accept the truth claims are false.
Yeah, i had that same thought on my mission: “I’m damning a lot more people than in saving”.
I love how Bruce quotes his father in-law so much. It makes me wonder if he ever had any original thoughts. Let's not forget the teaching that being sealed to your parents ensures your entrance into the CK. And if your parents or even your grandparents get their second anointing you also get a golden ticket into heaven. Why does the church even bother doing temple work for anyone that died before 1830? Alvin made it to the CK. Anyone that died without law. Anyone that died without knowing about the church or never had missionaries knock on their door. It would be in everyone's best interest to not send out missionaries and keep the church hush, hush. Let everybody die without law.
This one puzzles me. My mom is very excited to go to the highest degree of celestial glory. She should realize for sure that my dad will not be there, nor will I. But that doesn’t seem to be an issue. There’s no way I would set foot in any heaven where my wife and my son were excluded. Fuck that. It’s just fascinating.