The Whole Probationary State Idea Just Doesn't Do It for Me

[_JohnStuartMill]

Then when we go to hell, we throw the demons out and make it into a heaven.

[_Gazelam]

What if there is a god and he's not really good? What if he/she/it is truly an arbitrary, unmitigated jerk?

KA

Then he/she/it wouldent be a God.

[_JohnStuartMill]

Then what's that being that allows tsunamis and earthquakes to happen? You can't blame those on agency, because humans didn't cause them. God could have just as easily created a world where natural disasters didn't happen. That he didn't shows that He's either a total asshat, or doesn't exist.

[Anonymous]

Actually, a truly thoughtful, believing LDS might chime in that it's not so much a right/wrong test, as much as it is an opportunity for us to become whatever it is we will become. That is, we don't become Gods by getting an A on some cosmic test, so much as by learning the nature of Gods and conforming ourselves to that nature. The Celestial hoops that we have to jump through, like baptism, ordination, endowment, and sealing, aren't just hoops to jump through, mere technicalities (like the idea of knowing or not knowing the farsical signs and tokens), but in fact are, in themselves, enablers of the process.

That is, baptism is necessary for the effects of the atonement to enable us in our progression toward conforming ourselves to the nature of Godhood, and so is ordination, endowment, etc.

It's not a bad story, actually, except that it becomes hard to justify in light of all the people who have lived out their lives and died having not the slightest inkling of Jesus or the Gospel, plus the retarded people, the infants who die, and even the fertilized eggs that fail to implant in the womb, if you take the belief of spiritual quickening that far back.

We've all heard that retarded people are "special" in that God already knew they would make it to the Celestial Kingdom, so they're just here to get a body, not to be tested, and to provide learning opportunities for their families and caregiver. Given the proportion of people born retarded, or stillborn, or who died before the age of 8, one must surmise that a very large proportion, possibly a majority (an overwhelming majority if you include the non-implanted fertilized embryos) didn't actually need this "probationary state" after all.

So really, Joseph Smith and every other person who isn't retarded or stillborn, actually was in the bottom half of the class in terms of spiritual valiancy, and not at the top of it like the book of Moses says. Isn't that cute?

Anyhow, it becomes an ad hoc, "just so" rationale for justifying why the world just happens to be exactly as it is. Fancy that!

[_JohnStuartMill]

I wonder if even the black stillborn and developmentally-disabled children were celestial shoo-ins. How could they be less valiant in the pre-existence, yet so obviously celestial material that they didn't have to be tried on Earth?

[_Kishkumen]

Then he/she/it wouldent be a God.

Preposterous tautology.

[_Roger Morrison]

To say that this life will be the sum of all tests to qualify ourselves for the next step toward our exalted state with Him, defies even basic scrutiny.

If this is the only lifetime we have to prepare to meet God, he truly deserves the group of ignorant, shallow, uncompassionate and unrefined group that only wore one pair of moccosins.

Why would I have jumped for joy in the pre-existance for this all or nothing crap shoot? (UL added by RM)

Were my brother Hitler and my sister Anne Frank jumping just as high as the Mormons?

CK, I understand you being unable to grasp the concept of a "probationary period" or a "pre-existance" for that matter. You, my MDB friend are simply to smart to swallow THAT kool-aid...

Incon..., am I correct in thinking you are being facetious about "..jumping for joy in the pre-existance..."???

That such nonsense remains at the base of LDSism is one of its incredulous, if not nefarious, Hallmarks. To teach such unprecidented 1830s ruminations of Joseph Smith and Company, as "gospel truth" in 2009CE, does a disservice to the good-folks who make up the majority of LDS membership... Roger
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[_Gazelam]

Sethbag,

You said some really great things in your post. I know that when you weigh in various factors some of the things taught by the church seem a bit odd. How do stillbirths factor in, how do the mentally handicapped fit in, etc... The later bears some weight on my families mind, my nephew having been born with Angelmans Syndrome.

Let me start with a quote from George Albert Smith, from Conference April 1805 :

I sometimes wonder if people realize the purpose of their existence, and the importance of the labor that men and women are expected to perform while on the earth...

We have been placed here for a purpose. That purpose is that we may overcome the evil temptations that are placed in our way, that we may learn to be charitable to one another, that we may overcome the passions with which we are beset, so that when the times comes for us to go to the other side we may be worthy, by reason of the effort we have put forth, to enjoy the blessings that our Father has in store for the faithful...

We are not here to while away the hours of this life and then pass to a sphere of exaltation; but we are here to qualify ourselves day by day for the positions that our Father expects us to fill hereafter.

If there is anything I have learned in my time here on these boards, it is that there are all kinds of members in this church. It is a help when we are born to receive a name and a blessing, and it is both a requirement ( Family name of Christ sealed upon us) and a help for us to be baptised, so that the Holy Ghost might assist us in our lives.

Those ordinances aside, there are without a doubt countless people who never knew Christ who lived a Christlike life. People who overcame selfish desires, who chose to educate themselves and set aside carnal desires for honest loving relationships.

What God is really interested in is people who see the big picture. People who understand carnality and selfishness are destructive behaviors in the long run. The Father wants to reward individuals who live honorable lives, who keep promises and teach others.

We may not be able to comprehend the type of life God lives. We do not comprehend the effects the process of creation has on a person, the responsibilities of organizing worlds and individuals from chaos and disorder.

A weeding out process has to take place to see who is capable of bearing responsibility. People who are capable of doing the right thing when there is no other compultion to do so other than personal desire. People who are willing to do the will of God because it is in their very nature to do so.

When judgement day comes, all will be made clear to us, including an understanding of our own natures. We will understand on our own what we are capable of and what we can handle in terms of responsibility. The proof is in the pudding, and the pudding is our lives we have lived.

[_Gazelam]

President Boyd K. Packer of the Quorum of the Twelve:

“There are three parts to the plan. You are in the second or the middle part, the one in which you will be tested by temptation, by trials, perhaps by tragedy. …

“Remember this! The line ‘And they all lived happily ever after’ is never written into the second act [of a play]. That line belongs in the third act, when the mysteries are solved and everything is put right. …

“Until you have a broad perspective of the eternal nature of [the plan], you won’t make much sense out of the inequities in life. Some are born with so little and others with so much. Some are born in poverty, with handicaps, with pain, with suffering. Some experience premature death, even innocent children. There are the brutal, unforgiving forces of nature and the brutality of man to man. We have seen a lot of that recently.

“Do not suppose that God willfully causes that which, for His own purposes, he permits. When you know the plan and the purpose of it all, even these things will manifest a loving Father in Heaven”

(The Play and the Plan [satellite broadcast, 7 May 1995], 1–2).

[DrW]

Hi GAZ, it's been a long time since we conversed :-) You said: (I'm in red)

Sethbag,

You said some really great things in your post. I know that when you weigh in various factors some of the things taught by the church seem a bit odd. How do stillbirths factor in, how do the mentally handicapped fit in, etc... In that you are absolutely correct. This generally gives thinking people cause to look beyond the theorizing of 1805 science and move past their attempts of persuaiding belief in false science that leaves heart ache in the abyss of ignorance it perpetuates... (UL added by RM)


The later bears some weight on my families mind, my nephew having been born with Angelmans Syndrome. I'm sorry for that Gaz. But I think there are answers, and reasons for such things, that Religious Leaders as LDSism turn out are blind to...

Let me start with a quote from George Albert Smith, from Conference April 1805 :

Gaz, if you were looking for advice in the fields of medicine, mechanics, engineering, electronics etc. etc... would you turn to a journal writen over 200 years ago??

As for BK Packer's above homily, it reeks of the same stench of ignorance that pervades Mormon theology... BKP's death will quickly take much of his utterance into obscurity along with most of the past leaders' words-of-sagacity that folks of their time hung on as divinely inspired...

Warm regards, Roger
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