Spirit not subject to bodily desires

[_zeezrom]

Were you taught this? I recall learning in seminary that if presented with a decision involving bodily (i.e. carnal) desires, your spirit would desire the righteous choice despite the bodily urge. I wonder why that is. Maybe our spirits are better informed? They have many more years experience, that's for sure. But why the conflict?

One thing is for certain. If you have to pee really badly, there is nothing your spirit can do to stop it. In this case, the spirit has no free agency. It must conform to the body's bidding.

[_Buffalo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIs8i2uR6I8

[_LDSToronto]

Were you taught this? I recall learning in seminary that if presented with a decision involving bodily (i.e. carnal) desires, your spirit would desire the righteous choice despite the bodily urge. I wonder why that is. Maybe our spirits are better informed? They have many more years experience, that's for sure. But why the conflict?

One thing is for certain. If you have to pee really badly, there is nothing your spirit can do to stop it. In this case, the spirit has no free agency. It must conform to the body's bidding.

I've heard something related, but different. Let's suppose you are a smoker, and die a smoker. Once you get to Spirit Prison, you will still have to repent of smoking but because you don't have a body, it will be much more difficult to give up the desire to smoke. This seems somewhat opposite to what you were taught.

I've never been able to reconcile this teaching with LDS doctrine so I'm uncertain where it originates.

H.

[_Buffalo]

Were you taught this? I recall learning in seminary that if presented with a decision involving bodily (i.e. carnal) desires, your spirit would desire the righteous choice despite the bodily urge. I wonder why that is. Maybe our spirits are better informed? They have many more years experience, that's for sure. But why the conflict?

One thing is for certain. If you have to pee really badly, there is nothing your spirit can do to stop it. In this case, the spirit has no free agency. It must conform to the body's bidding.

I've heard something related, but different. Let's suppose you are a smoker, and die a smoker. Once you get to Spirit Prison, you will still have to repent of smoking but because you don't have a body, it will be much more difficult to give up the desire to smoke. This seems somewhat opposite to what you were taught.

I've never been able to reconcile this teaching with LDS doctrine so I'm uncertain where it originates.

H.

I believe that comes from the Book of Mormon - something about the same spirit that possesses you now will possess you in the resurrection.

[_LDSToronto]

I've heard something related, but different. Let's suppose you are a smoker, and die a smoker. Once you get to Spirit Prison, you will still have to repent of smoking but because you don't have a body, it will be much more difficult to give up the desire to smoke. This seems somewhat opposite to what you were taught.

I've never been able to reconcile this teaching with LDS doctrine so I'm uncertain where it originates.

H.

I believe that comes from the Book of Mormon - something about the same spirit that possesses you now will possess you in the resurrection.

Right - Alma 34:34 "Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful acrisis, 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."

I need to think about this - it may actually imply both what Zee was taught and what I was taught.

H.

[_LDSToronto]

Right - Alma 34:34 "Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful acrisis, 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."

I need to think about this - it may actually imply both what Zee was taught and what I was taught.

by the way, doesn't this also imply that LGBT people won't become heterosexual in the afterlife?

H.

[_zeezrom]

Some interesting quotes in regard to the OP:

“Let the spirit, which God has put into your tabernacles, take the lead. If you do that, I will promise that you will overcome all evil, and obtain eternal lives. But many, very many, let the spirit yield to the body, and are overcome and destroyed.” (BY, Journal of Discourses, 2:256.)

Here in mortality our spirit body struggles to subdue and control the desires, appetites, and passions of our physical body. David A. Burton, Mar. 1990.

“In the first place the spirit is pure, and under the special control and influence of the Lord, but the body is of the earth, and is subject to the power of the devil, and is under the mighty influence of that fallen nature that is of the earth. If the spirit yields to the body, the devil then has power to overcome both the body and the spirit of that man, and he loses both.” (BY, Journal of Discourses, 2:255–56.)

[_stemelbow]

Were you taught this? I recall learning in seminary that if presented with a decision involving bodily (i.e. carnal) desires, your spirit would desire the righteous choice despite the bodily urge. I wonder why that is. Maybe our spirits are better informed? They have many more years experience, that's for sure. But why the conflict?

One thing is for certain. If you have to pee really badly, there is nothing your spirit can do to stop it. In this case, the spirit has no free agency. It must conform to the body's bidding.

Hey Z, here's my take, not that it matters much:

The spirit is essential to living and developing because God works on us through our spirit. That's not to say our spirit, though contrasted to our physical body, is some separate entity that conflicts with our natural urges. Not really. Its more a teaching that we need to learn to live by faith, relying upon God in our lives because we as individuals can't quite develop as God wants us to develop. On this note I'll add, its not necessary to be a "member" to develop as God wants someone to develop, at elast for some folks.

[_daheshism]

You consist of one physical body and from "0" to "5" ethereal bodies depending upon your level of spiritual vibration. Jesus had six ethereal bodies. Very evil men have none. Most ordinary people have 1 to 5 ethereal bodies; each one "grosser" than the one above it. The physical body is most "heavy" or "gross" meaning it is the one, naturally, most attracted to the material plane.

At death, your ethereal bodies "go" to the plane/realm that most suites them. The lowest ethereal body still has physical desires but cannot fulfill them without a physical body. Your highest ethereal body (if you have one) has no physical desires anymore than a young child desires sex.

Your "spirit" is part of God, and is not a body or thing. It is part of God, as all "spirits" are part of God.