The Depressing Plan of Salvation

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_beastie
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Post by _beastie »

Once again, we see that communication is extremely difficult between believer and exbeliever.

Look at how Daniel responded to KA’s post:


I dunno. We're getting a mother's reminiscence of something evidently told to her by her little girl about what a volunteer teacher once said to the little girl, which, even so, doesn't seem to be setting out the doctrine that you want to ascribe to the teacher. I would be very surprised if that teacher, asked whether she thought OCD could keep a child from the celestial kingdom, would have said Yes.


There is nothing, I mean NOTHING, in KA’s post that could reasonably be construed as meaning that someone, either her daughter or KA, ever asked the teacher if OCD could keep a child from the celestial kingdom. But it certainly is easy to show that the assertion that a primary teacher told a child or a mother that the child could not go to the CK due to OCD is a ridiculous and likely false assertion.

In contrast, KA’s actual assertion, is quite reasonable – that a primary teacher taught her class that you had to be good to get into the CK to be with your family forever. In fact, this is a simplified version of what is taught to EVERY Mormon.

It is also quite reasonable that a child with OCD or some other issue that impacted his/her ability to be “good” as the child perceived “good” to be interpreted this to mean that she/he would never be able to get in the CK and be with his/her family.

I know Daniel is intelligent enough to see the difference between these two assertions. So why did he respond to a straw man construction – ie, that a primary teacher actually told someone OCD would keep them out of the CK? Daniel, help me out here. When you read KA’s story, did you interpret it to mean that the primary teacher actually told either the daughter or KA that OCD would keep her out of the CK, or did you realize that you were slightly changing the point of the story but felt justified to demonstrate some larger point?
We hate to seem like we don’t trust every nut with a story, but there’s evidence we can point to, and dance while shouting taunting phrases.

Penn & Teller

http://www.mormonmesoamerica.com
_truth dancer
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Post by _truth dancer »

Hi Kevin,

The former concept sounds lovely to children who are worried about being away from their mommy and daddy, but as you grow up you really have to consider the implausibility of it all.


But, it sounds horrible for children whose parents are not members or sealed, knowing they will be alone in heaven... not even with their siblings. Alone. No matter how hard they try, how good they are, they will be without their family in heaven.

~dancer~
"The search for reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings for it destroys the world in which you live." Nisargadatta Maharaj
_beastie
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Post by _beastie »

This is why I have frequently pointed out to LDS when they talk about how cruel the EV world view is that would condemn nonbelievers to fiery hell for eternity that the LDS worldview is not much better - it condemns nonbelievers to an eternity of involuntary divorce from one's family.

I think how one responds to the plan of salvation "requirements" depends partly upon personality. I was a stressed Mormon due to the fact that I was hard on myself. I took the teachings and counsel of leaders quite seriously (having not learned to the majority of what they teach is nothing more than their own opinion) and felt guilty for not doing EVERYTHING I was supposed to be doing. I wasn't doing a good job at missionary work. I wasn't doing a good job as a visiting teacher. I had a terrible marriage. I really wondered if these things would keep me out of the CK.

Even before I got married and life got really complicated, as a BYU student I was still stressed about whether or not I was "good enough". I had gained a few pounds in college and felt that I wasn't controlling my appetite enough, and felt guilty about it, as one example. (not realizing at the time I had hormonal imbalances)

I had a dream that I have never forgotten while at BYU, which demonstrated something significant to me (which is why I have never forgotten it). In the dream, the Second Coming had arrived, and BYU students were gathered in the Marriot center, and someone at the pulpit was reading the list of students who had MADE IT into the CK. I was on pins and needles, worried and stressed that my name would not be called. Then MY NAME WAS CALLED, and I knew I had "made it" and was filled with relief and joy.

What is interesting about this dream is my nervousness and uncertainty about "having made it", despite being a devout, faithful Mormon who certainly was not committing any sins of commission, and whose sins were of omission instead, in that I couldn't fulfill every counsel and expectation church leaders conveyed to us. I sucked at trying to convert my nonmormon friends, for example. I tried, but wasn't good at it. I was nervous and worried about the impact of my proselytizing on my relationships with nonmormons.

So despite, by all sane measures, being a decent person doing her best, I still was nervous about "making it". That wasn't what my personality needed - I didn't need to be reminded of all the things I should be doing, because I already remembered them and felt guilty for not getting to it all. In terms of psychology and personality, I would have been better off under a "saved by grace" alone paradigm. I would still have tried to be "good", but I wouldn't have been so stressed about not being able to do EVERYTHING, and do it all RIGHT.

On the other hand, some people who believe in "saved by grace" alone get into the habit of not worrying about sinning because it's easy to repent, and they're still saved. Those people would probably be better off as Mormons, in terms of learning to control their behavior.

This is part of why I believe that, if some theistic god exists after all, there cannot possibly be ONE TRUE path to him - people are just too different for one size fits all.
We hate to seem like we don’t trust every nut with a story, but there’s evidence we can point to, and dance while shouting taunting phrases.

Penn & Teller

http://www.mormonmesoamerica.com
_truth dancer
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Post by _truth dancer »

As a child, prior to joining the church, I just naturally assumed all good people go to heaven. I grew up in a great family and it just never entered my mind that we wouldn't all be together ....until the day I learned the "Plan."

It never oocurred to me to think that families wouldn't be together in heaven.

I mean, why would a child think God would separate families? Why would anyone?


~dancer!
"The search for reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings for it destroys the world in which you live." Nisargadatta Maharaj
_dartagnan
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Post by _dartagnan »

For me, the pressure to be perfect never really got to me. I often wonder why that was so, but it never really bothered me. However, I saw how it impacted the personalities of others.

A recent example with a family who just transferred to the embassy in Poland. The wife was perhaps the nicest, most charitable person I had ever met in the Church. I there have been plenty of great examples for her to measure up to, and I can say with confidence that she impressed me teh most. She was always chipper, excited, smiling, pleasant, etc. She was always going out of her way to find out what she could do to help others. She always bore her testimony in tears every month.

Frankly, I didn't know how she did it. People like this intimidated me when I first joined because I kept asking myself if I could ever put forth that kind of effort in this life. It was a exhausting task to even think about it. She didn't have a job, but just being the way she was every day was a job in itself. She had three lovely children who were well raised, always polite and well mannered.

Anyway, the weekend before they moved to Poland they had a yard sale. I went over there to pick up all sorts of American goods that you couldn't buy in Brazil. At the end of the day I was helping her clean up and she started to open up to me. She blew me away because I couldn't figure out what triggered this emotional ventilation.

She started crying, telling me she was upset because so many American members in the ward never go to Church but they send their kids. She thought they were hypocrites because they wanted their kids to benefit from the Church but they themselves never wanted to hold callings and contribute. Then she started going off on herself, talking about how her Mother emotionally abused her and she wonders sometimes if she would ever abuse her kids because of genetics. Then she went off talking about how sometimes she has doubts about the Church and yaddie yaddie ya.

She seemed to have decided to unleash all sorts of concerns and emotional baggage that she had been stocking up for quite some time. I suspect she unleashed it on me because she was leaving the country. But I felt so badly for this woman because she went on and on about how she tries to do the things she should, like read the scriptures, pray with the kids ... she listed a dozen different things and then said she still feels like she isn't doing enough.

Hell, she had me crying after about ten minutes. I mean if this woman, who is far more "spiritual" than I will ever be, senses she is in danger of sub-celestial kingdom status, then where would a lowly sinner like me be placed!!
“All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it...Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality." - Albert Einstein
_barrelomonkeys
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Post by _barrelomonkeys »

beastie wrote:
This is part of why I believe that, if some theistic god exists after all, there cannot possibly be ONE TRUE path to him - people are just too different for one size fits all.


Amen!
_ozemc
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Post by _ozemc »

truth dancer wrote:HI KA...

I had a similar time as a child.

I was a child convert. My father is agnostic, my mother joined a few years after I. Everytime I heard, "families can be together forever," I heard, "I will be alone in heaven."

The Plan, for me, was, no matter how good I was, I would not be with my family. My parents were not sealed, I was not sealed to anyone. I would not be with my parents and siblings.

I never liked the plan. It always seems so elitist, so cruel, so wrong. So NOT what a child needs to here. I spent many a night as a child crying, wondering why God would create such a plan.

~dancer~


Well, that's what's so ridiculous to those of us on the outside looking in.

If God is true and faithful to those he calls his own, it would be a cruel and evil thing to do to separate families. Therefore, by God's very nature of being true and faithful, it's something that cannot happen.

Either that, or God is not really true and faithful, is evil, and this is all just a big nasty joke on us.

Or maybe we're just on this big ball of rock, spinning in a back corner of a galaxy, in a universe filled with more stars than grains of sand on the planet, and God, whoever or whatever he, she, or it is, if anybody, just set it all in motion, and this is all we've got.

You know, nobody really knows for sure.
"What does God need with a starship?" - Captain James T. Kirk

Most people would like to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch. - Robert Orben
_Seven
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Post by _Seven »

barrelomonkeys wrote:
Lucretia MacEvil wrote:
Daniel Peterson wrote:
Lucretia MacEvil wrote:Who believes that nobody can be with their families?

The same people who believe that marriage lasts "until death do us part." I've actually met them.

I have to admit, candidly, that I find this really weird. I've always thought of the notion of eternal families, and always heard it presented as, good news on top of what people already tended to believe about individual immortality, not as a subtraction from what people already believed. Mainstream Christians already believed that we would continue to exist as individual angels in the life to come, without special relationships to people who had once been members of our earthly family. Mormonism came to take nothing away from the idea of continued individual existence, but to add to it the (to me, very good news) that earthly kin-relationships would be made eternal. That's not negative. It's wonderfully positive.


Because they don't believe that marriage bonds don't prevail in heaven doesn't mean they they believe that nobody can be with their families. It's not weird that you would think so, though. It's a typical Mormon misconception.

Most mainstream Christians I meet do believe marriage ends at death but all loved ones will reunite in heaven.


I have never met a Christian who believed they would not be with their loved ones in heaven. Eternal marriage is where Mormonism differs. The statement that other faiths believe they will not be with those they know and love is a popular misconception in the LDS church about other Chirstians.

I do agree with Daniel Petersen that the LDS doctrine of heaven is good news compared to mainstream Christian beliefs until you realize that "families are forever" is nothing more than a bumper sticker. Sealing children to parents makes no sense in the plan of eternal marriage/exaltation.

I do believe the LDS doctrine of hell is much more merciful and in line with the teachings of Jesus, but......... to tell a child he/she won't be with their family in heaven if they are not Mormon, is just another form of hell. A child's happiness depends on the security of the family. To use that teaching in the plan of salvation is cruel to children.

I was given many teachings on the plan of salvation as a child and was terrified of not being with my family again if I sinned.
"Happiness is the object and design of our existence...
That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another." Joseph Smith
_harmony
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Post by _harmony »

At one point in my life when confronted with the idea that I wouldn't be with my family if I didn't accept the LDS paradigm of what would be in the CK (polygamy as a necessary part of salvation in the CK, my husband calling me out of the grave, eternal pregnancy, remaining a shadowy figure to my eternal children, etc.) my response was: they won't be there either.

Give me wings and call me an angel, I'm not interested in being a goddess. Or send me to a lesser kingdom, I'm not interested in being an eternal mother, hidden from her children. I have no interest in teaching anyone in spirit prison, nor do I expect to sit around all day, singing praises to God. Sounds pretty danged boring to me.

It makes no sense to say families are forever, when half the families are fractured or broken anyway.
_Trinity
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Post by _Trinity »

harmony wrote:At one point in my life when confronted with the idea that I wouldn't be with my family if I didn't accept the LDS paradigm of what would be in the CK (polygamy as a necessary part of salvation in the CK, my husband calling me out of the grave, eternal pregnancy, remaining a shadowy figure to my eternal children, etc.) my response was: they won't be there either.

Give me wings and call me an angel, I'm not interested in being a goddess. Or send me to a lesser kingdom, I'm not interested in being an eternal mother, hidden from her children. I have no interest in teaching anyone in spirit prison, nor do I expect to sit around all day, singing praises to God. Sounds pretty danged boring to me.

It makes no sense to say families are forever, when half the families are fractured or broken anyway.


Amen. As a parent who is plagued nonstop with anxiety worrying about the well-being and progression of the few mortal children I have in this life, I just cannot even try to work up an appetite of doing this for a million children in the eternities. I just can't. They'd have to create some goddess-style valium in order for me to work up a bliss or peace in this plan. And that sorta defeats the idea doesn't it? You have to be medicated in order for it to be heaven?

You folks also need to remember that Mormonism goals pattern themselves after God. You are trying to become a God, emulate his behavior in order to attain exaltation. So whether it is vocalized or not, it is clear in christian scripture that God himself is not above separating himself from his so-called loves one. Hell, he'll send them to hell where he doesn't have to see, hear, or look at them because he is so repulsed by these so-called loved ones. So it should not surprise anyone that the afterlife diagramming for Mormonism would also include separation, or threats of separation, in order to coerce certain behaviors or conformity. And why you can see this behavior patterned in mortal family dynamic. The more you are coercing your own family, the closer you are becoming to being a God. Behave or "to hell with you."
"I think one of the great mysteries of the gospel is that anyone still believes it." Sethbag, MADB, Feb 22 2008
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