Eternal Family Relationships
Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2011 3:33 pm
This seems to be a huge selling point with us as LDS but it is a concept I don't really understand.
Here are some questions I have with regarding the LDS eternal family concept.
1. I don't think any of us conceptualize eternity in either of its manifestations. Either as an endless progression of time or as some sort of existence outside of time. Not understanding what either of those concepts involve means we don't really know what it means to 'live' eternally with anyone or what eternal marriage actually is.
2. As LDS we existed before this life as individuals for a REALLY long time (or maybe it was outside of time), I assume we are going to get all those memories back and I also assume that the short 70 years we have lived here will suddenly look like the blink in time it really is, yet for some reason this blink in time determines who we want to dwell with for eternity instead of those previous memories. This does not make much sense to me.
3. I have been married for over 30 years. I have been blessed with both a loving spouse and 5 great sons. I also have a large extended active LDS family with whom I get along with very well. Both my parents are still alive and living active faithful LDS lives. I would not change much about my life. (Except the size of my bank account maybe.) All that said, as I look back over this short time period and realize that all those relationships have been very dynamic. At times I am closer to my wife than others. Sometimes I communicate a lot with my parents and others not. The point I am making is in a short period of time relationships change (I think that is both a positive and negative). Why do we assume that being together for eternity is even going to be a good thing after a few hundred thousand years?
4. What are we going to be doing for eternity that is so important that we be doing it together as a family? I think for the truly faithful the reward is the ability to procreate and organize more worlds. I have raised five sons. I loved it, I love seeing my grand kids but life moves on. I don't picture eternal fatherhood as a reward. I don't see creating my 700 billionth world as something to look forward to. It seems to me at some point, maybe in a few hundred thousand years or a few billion, that it will just be another world with a few hundred billion children who treat each other horribly to look after. This whole endless creation concept seems to look like one long unending Stepford wives saga.
5. Supposedly we are all God's children. Why do we believe that it is more important to be around those we have got to know well in this short time span then any of the rest of his children?
6. My mother-in-law was a piece of work. Abusive and an alcoholic who treated her family very badly at times. After she passed away her daughters had her sealed to them. I asked why they wanted to be sealed to her given how she treated them. They have this concept that all her bad personality traits will go away and she be this wonderful person to be with in the here after, which to me means she is not the same person. I like some of my faults and I even liked some of my mother-in-laws faults some of the time. This concept of one big happy family is troublesome and frankly boring. That which makes us different is important, sometime difficult but important none the less.
Here are some questions I have with regarding the LDS eternal family concept.
1. I don't think any of us conceptualize eternity in either of its manifestations. Either as an endless progression of time or as some sort of existence outside of time. Not understanding what either of those concepts involve means we don't really know what it means to 'live' eternally with anyone or what eternal marriage actually is.
2. As LDS we existed before this life as individuals for a REALLY long time (or maybe it was outside of time), I assume we are going to get all those memories back and I also assume that the short 70 years we have lived here will suddenly look like the blink in time it really is, yet for some reason this blink in time determines who we want to dwell with for eternity instead of those previous memories. This does not make much sense to me.
3. I have been married for over 30 years. I have been blessed with both a loving spouse and 5 great sons. I also have a large extended active LDS family with whom I get along with very well. Both my parents are still alive and living active faithful LDS lives. I would not change much about my life. (Except the size of my bank account maybe.) All that said, as I look back over this short time period and realize that all those relationships have been very dynamic. At times I am closer to my wife than others. Sometimes I communicate a lot with my parents and others not. The point I am making is in a short period of time relationships change (I think that is both a positive and negative). Why do we assume that being together for eternity is even going to be a good thing after a few hundred thousand years?
4. What are we going to be doing for eternity that is so important that we be doing it together as a family? I think for the truly faithful the reward is the ability to procreate and organize more worlds. I have raised five sons. I loved it, I love seeing my grand kids but life moves on. I don't picture eternal fatherhood as a reward. I don't see creating my 700 billionth world as something to look forward to. It seems to me at some point, maybe in a few hundred thousand years or a few billion, that it will just be another world with a few hundred billion children who treat each other horribly to look after. This whole endless creation concept seems to look like one long unending Stepford wives saga.
5. Supposedly we are all God's children. Why do we believe that it is more important to be around those we have got to know well in this short time span then any of the rest of his children?
6. My mother-in-law was a piece of work. Abusive and an alcoholic who treated her family very badly at times. After she passed away her daughters had her sealed to them. I asked why they wanted to be sealed to her given how she treated them. They have this concept that all her bad personality traits will go away and she be this wonderful person to be with in the here after, which to me means she is not the same person. I like some of my faults and I even liked some of my mother-in-laws faults some of the time. This concept of one big happy family is troublesome and frankly boring. That which makes us different is important, sometime difficult but important none the less.