The Concept of Death

[_Bazooka]

My own view is once I die, if I find I still exist I will be humbled and gratified by that. It will both be a solemn and joyous occasion as I'm reunited with good friends and family that have died before I have. After that, I look forward to the grand adventure it will be to learn and expand my horizons beyond what any human-being can in one lifetime.

Nice idea, but it hardly sounds practical. How does one find old friends and family in the next existence? There's got to be millions and billions of spirits wandering around.

I can't even find my wife in a big department store, not to mention if we get separated at an airport. When they call out names over the loudspeaker system it's impossible to hear anything at all. It sounds like the announcer has a mouth full of marbles. Can you imagine what it's like in the spirit world? "Would Mrs. #€€%&/% please #*&¶&% a party of six in !"#€&%//#).

Do spirits wear name tags? Cause supposedly we all get the same white coloured hair and wear white robes.

As I understand the doctrine, all those should who were less valiant in the pre existence and had their skin cursed, will operate a fleet of Greyhounds to shuttle the recently deceased but delightsome to their designated place in the after life. Not so much pearly gates as pearly departure gates....

[_Fence Sitter]

Some strange "doctrine" above is asserted to be LDS doctrine.


Vicarious temple work does not have any immediate effect upon the departed. They still have their free will/agency and either accept the gospel of Christ or refuse it. If they believe, then their temple saving ordinances performed by mortals reach across the "veil" that divides the living from the dead (spirits in paradise and spirit prison), and those repentant spirits are now saved just as if they had accepted the gospel of Christ in mortality.

Are you implying that the only effect that vicarious work has is the ability on the other side to accept it or reject it? If that is true then why the rush to do vicarious work now? Wouldn't it be a lot simpler to do all the work in the millennium when those that are interested in having their work done can merely ask for it to be done.

At this point you either have to describe other benefits that it brings (like joyous family reunions or the ability to claim one is now LDS and so on) or acknowledge that there is no point to this huge amount of unnecessary work being done now here on earth.

If it has benefits then the spirits whose names are unknowable are being unfairly made to wait, in many cases for thousands of years, if it does not have benefits then there is a lot of unnecessary work and expenses being spent here on earth. Just think how much good the LDS Church could actually be doing in this world if all the time and money wasted in temple work was actually used to do some thing like feed and clothe the poor.

Which is it?

[_Bazooka]

Some strange "doctrine" above is asserted to be LDS doctrine.


Vicarious temple work does not have any immediate effect upon the departed. They still have their free will/agency and either accept the gospel of Christ or refuse it. If they believe, then their temple saving ordinances performed by mortals reach across the "veil" that divides the living from the dead (spirits in paradise and spirit prison), and those repentant spirits are now saved just as if they had accepted the gospel of Christ in mortality.

Are you implying that the only effect that vicarious work has is the ability on the other side to accept it or reject it? If that is true then why the rush to do vicarious work now? Wouldn't it be a lot simpler to do all the work in the millennium when those that are interested in having their work done can merely ask for it to be done.

At this point you either have to describe other benefits that it brings (like joyous family reunions or the ability to claim one is now LDS and so on) or acknowledge that there is no point to this huge amount of unnecessary work being done now here on earth.

If it has benefits then the spirits whose names are unknowable are being unfairly made to wait, in many cases for thousands of years, if it does not have benefits then there is a lot of unnecessary work and expenses being spent here on earth. Just think how much good the LDS Church could actually be doing in this world if all the time and money wasted in temple work was actually used to do some thing like feed and clothe the poor.

Which is it?

Now here's the thing.
If the purpose of Temple Work is simply for the purpose of offering the deceased a symbolic baptism that they may choose to accept or reject then there is a very efficient and complete way of doing it that ensures nobody is missed out. Once a year, one of the FP and their wife attend the Temple and spend the day doing all the necessary ordinances for and in behalf of "Everyone" who is dead. That way, each and every 12 months (the twinkling on an eternal eye) everybody who died whilst unbaptised into the Mormon Church has the opportunity to join or not. Nobody misses out simply because they died on earth whilst unrecorded in any genealogical database. Job done. 100% accuracy and efficiency for the people who have passed on.

So Temple Work isn't primarily for the benefit of the dead.
So who benefits?

[_Albion]

Never could quite understand how the Mormon God can take care of the health needs of numerous people with one prayer but is unable, with one prayer, to baptize for the dead a whole slew of people on a list all at once with one symbolic standin.

[_Tobin]

Never could quite understand how the Mormon God can take care of the health needs of numerous people with one prayer but is unable, with one prayer, to baptize for the dead a whole slew of people on a list all at once with one symbolic standin.

Maybe for the same reason the Christian God doesn't wave his magic wand and save everyone. After all, isn't the Christian God powerful enough to do that? Why have Jesus die on a cross and all that nonsense? Why even believe in Christianity in the first place? Just wave the magic wand and poof - everyone is saved.

[_Bazooka]

Never could quite understand how the Mormon God can take care of the health needs of numerous people with one prayer but is unable, with one prayer, to baptize for the dead a whole slew of people on a list all at once with one symbolic standin.

Maybe for the same reason the Christian God doesn't wave his magic wand and save everyone. After all, isn't the Christian God powerful enough to do that? Why have Jesus die on a cross and all that nonsense? Why even believe in Christianity in the first place? Just wave the magic wand and poof - everyone is saved.

You've reinforced the point.
Jesus (one person) could perform an ordinance for and in behalf of everyone who has ever or will ever live.
So one individual doing a symbolic set of temple ordinances for and in behalf of multiple people who are dead is well proven.
Good point, well made. (Shame is wasn't deliberate).

[_Uncle Ed]

Vicarious temple work does not have any immediate effect upon the departed. They still have their free will/agency and either accept the gospel of Christ or refuse it. If they believe, then their temple saving ordinances performed by mortals reach across the "veil" that divides the living from the dead (spirits in paradise and spirit prison), and those repentant spirits are now saved just as if they had accepted the gospel of Christ in mortality.

How will this work be facilitated here on earth for those people deceased for whom no records can be found?

You've surely heard of anecdotal accounts of the spirits being in attendance in the temples as their saving ordinances are being performed for them. Some people just connect to the metaphysical realm easily, and some even seem to prefer it to empirical reality (like, imho, Joseph Smith). So "over there" "nothing is lost, nothing is ever forgotten" (quoting Hern the Hunter and Robin in the Hood his disciple).

We have scripture referring to that which is recorded on earth is recorded in heaven, which, said another way (worthy of God's omniscience) could be, "Nothing that happens on earth goes unrecorded in heaven". It is about spirit before natural/mortal creation doctrine. Everything is spirit first, in heaven, before it comes here. So the spiritual original never breaks contact.

It remains for the spirits to provide the information regarding each and every soul that has lived on earth without earthly records (which has to be over 99% of all who have ever lived). And that communication between the spirit world and mortals is the unique work of the LDS Millennium....

[_Uncle Ed]

Are you implying that the only effect that vicarious work has is the ability on the other side to accept it or reject it? If that is true then why the rush to do vicarious work now? Wouldn't it be a lot simpler to do all the work in the millennium when those that are interested in having their work done can merely ask for it to be done.

At this point you either have to describe other benefits that it brings (like joyous family reunions or the ability to claim one is now LDS and so on) or acknowledge that there is no point to this huge amount of unnecessary work being done now here on earth.

If it has benefits then the spirits whose names are unknowable are being unfairly made to wait, in many cases for thousands of years, if it does not have benefits then there is a lot of unnecessary work and expenses being spent here on earth. Just think how much good the LDS Church could actually be doing in this world if all the time and money wasted in temple work was actually used to do some thing like feed and clothe the poor.

Which is it?

Both actually. We have the anecdotal references of spirits in attendance at their temple saving ordinances being heard by the vicarious worker, "I'm free!" Like Martin Luther King Jr shouting it I gather, I have never heard even a sneeze from an invisible spirit. So the early Mormon doctrine taught by Joseph Smith that being without a body is like a bondage time cannot be discarded. But it must be highly endurable, much like being stuck in an imperfect mortal "tabernacle of flesh" is highly endurable for nearly everyone. The "wicked" in spirit prison are simply in denial "over there" just like they are here: they don't accept that any of this assertion by "Mormon spirit missionaries" about having lived a mortal life and then died is real. Spirits have been spirits forever, until they come here, so dying is more like waking up from a weird or surreal dream; to believe in mortality takes faith for disembodied spirits. Their lot is common to their eternal existence, so the whole idea of being given back the heightened powers of fleshly senses is just imaginary or wishful thinking to them. But to those who truly believe that a resurrection is coming, that spirits have already left the spirit world for a more glorious afterlife as resurrected beings, have a hard wait imposed upon them because of their faith to believe. Joseph Smith taught that our associations in the spirit world are much alike with here, which has to include believing by faith. This notion that "Man's Search for Happiness" teaches, that when we die we go to a realm where people in white are standing around in a surreal, ethereal environment, is surely fallacious.

Sorry for the long ramble.

There is no immediate effect upon a non repentant spirit when their vicarious saving ordinances are performed in Mormon temples: but their right to accept those ordinances is then in place, in case they later choose to accept the gospel of Christ and repent. What the literal, empirical effects of saving ordinances are nobody has been able to say in any detail, only speculate, because we do not have knowledge of the details of life in the spirit world....

[_Uncle Ed]

Never could quite understand how the Mormon God can take care of the health needs of numerous people with one prayer but is unable, with one prayer, to baptize for the dead a whole slew of people on a list all at once with one symbolic standin.

It's all about us. Temple work benefits the patron first, the dead potentially second. If going "often as possible" to the temple does not benefit the patron s/he needs to go less often or not at all.

Joseph Smith put the original pressure on with his doctrine that the living cannot be saved without their dead, and the dead cannot be saved without the living doing their saving ordinances for them. This can only be done in temples. GtF did not set it up this way, he inherited "the system", which Joseph Smith said is eternal. Mormons who believe this MUST go the temples "often" or be remiss in their family duty to spiritual siblings.

So the carefree righteous who feel no need whatsoever to inflict upon themselves the recurrent boredom of the temple are not in need of this belief, it seems. I see no lack of goodness in the lives of other good people because they don't have temples to sit in "often".

Perhaps those most needful of distraction from their own weaknesses are those serving in the temples. It could be analogous to being a temporary monk/nun, coming out of the world through abnegation, i.e. fleeing from your personal demons by placing yourself in a safe place.

If there is more to Mormon temple work than that I cannot see it. "God" does not require anything from us in order to save anyone but ourselves. We are held justified if we behave according to our beliefs, we are condemned if we lie to ourselves, it is as simple and infinite as that.

Mormons must build temples and go there "often" to "save their kindred dead" (and the whole world) or be damned for their sin of omission on a cosmic scale....

[_Fence Sitter]

Both actually. We have the anecdotal references of spirits in attendance at their temple saving ordinances being heard by the vicarious worker, "I'm free!" Like Martin Luther King Jr shouting it I gather, I have never heard even a sneeze from an invisible spirit. So the early Mormon doctrine taught by Joseph Smith that being without a body is like a bondage time cannot be discarded. But it must be highly endurable, much like being stuck in an imperfect mortal "tabernacle of flesh" is highly endurable for nearly everyone. The "wicked" in spirit prison are simply in denial "over there" just like they are here: they don't accept that any of this assertion by "Mormon spirit missionaries" about having lived a mortal life and then died is real. Spirits have been spirits forever, until they come here, so dying is more like waking up from a weird or surreal dream; to believe in mortality takes faith for disembodied spirits. Their lot is common to their eternal existence, so the whole idea of being given back the heightened powers of fleshly senses is just imaginary or wishful thinking to them. But to those who truly believe that a resurrection is coming, that spirits have already left the spirit world for a more glorious afterlife as resurrected beings, have a hard wait imposed upon them because of their faith to believe. Joseph Smith taught that our associations in the spirit world are much alike with here, which has to include believing by faith. This notion that "Man's Search for Happiness" teaches, that when we die we go to a realm where people in white are standing around in a surreal, ethereal environment, is surely fallacious.

Sorry for the long ramble.

There is no immediate effect upon a non repentant spirit when their vicarious saving ordinances are performed in Mormon temples: but their right to accept those ordinances is then in place, in case they later choose to accept the gospel of Christ and repent. What the literal, empirical effects of saving ordinances are nobody has been able to say in any detail, only speculate, because we do not have knowledge of the details of life in the spirit world....

So then you agree that the vast majority of spirits, whose names cannot be known due to lack of earthy records are condemned to wait until the millennium for their work to be done? What a great system God came up with.

Temple work is merely "busy work" that need not be done at all. Certainly those so engaged could reap the same benefits by doing charity work for the living, rather than proxy work for a very select group of the dead who may or may not even be able to accept such work.

You do know that today's concept of the purpose of temple work does not resemble the 19th century version?

Today it's families are forever while back then it was a Celestial fantasy kingdom building. Back then it was a pure power grab, with Elders trying to seal as many people to themselves as possible, without regard to bloodlines, to increase their power and dominion in the hereafter. Nowadays it is merely a exercise in seeing how many members of your own family that get to endure eternal family home evenings together.