Temple sealings as a solution in search of a problem

[drumdude]

One of the charges against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that invariably surprises and puzzles me runs more or less along the following lines: “The Mormon Church separates people at death. It teaches that families won’t be together in the afterlife, and it divorces husbands and wives. But then it offers to permit spouses and families to be together again if and only if they submit to it and fork large chunks of money over to it.”

This charge surprises me because it seems to presume that the default setting in Christendom is, and has historically been, that families will continue as families in the world to come, and that marriages will continue (unless, of course, they’re somehow broken up by malign Latter-day Saint interference). Amazingly, I’ve even seen indignation on this front from atheistic naturalists — as if they themselves believed that such relationships continue beyond the grave in any meaningful way. (If, as naturalistic materialism typically insists, human consciousness and personality cease at death, it’s difficult to see how family relationships or marriage would be very likely to persist in their absence.)

I’ve encountered this charge again over just the past few days. But here are some examples of Christian (and other) marriage vows that I’ve easily located online. They demonstrate that the default assumption among Christian denominations is that marital (and, therefore, family) relationships terminate at death, if not before. I have italicized phrases that make that assumption clear:

...
DCP includes a list of wedding vows from a cursory Google search
...

Feel free, too, to browse through a representative sample of secular wedding vows, where you will find no shortage of phrases such as “as long as you both shall live,” “as long as the two of you live,” “all the days of our lives,” “for all the days of my life,” “all the days of our lives,” and “until death should part us.”

Latter-day Saints didn’t introduce the notion that marital and family relationships end at the grave. They introduced a cure.

The first historical use of "till death do us part" is from The Anglican Book of Common Prayer, first published in 1549:

I N. take thee N. to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth.

What were Christian views about marriage after death before this late date in Christian history? Luckily enough, we have Jesus himself to explain:

[23] The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him,
[24] Saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.
[25] Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother:
[26] Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh.
[27] And last of all the woman died also.
[28] Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her.
[29] Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.
[30] For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.

Essentially Jesus is trying to explain that Heaven is not a clone of Earth. Jesus has to speak in parables to even begin to describe the afterlife. "Roads? Marriage?? Where we're going, we don't need roads or marriage!" It's a far cry from the materialistic worldview of 19th century, post-Enlightenment Joseph Smith. It's hard to imagine a worldview farther from Jesus' description than the three-tiered, bureaucratic, corporeal afterlife that Mormonism describes.

It shouldn't be surprising then, that most Christians don't consider marital separation after death to be a pressing concern. For one, most Christians accept the mystery of death - we don't have a concrete picture of what happens. We do have vague notions of being reunited with Christ and God, and eternal happiness and peace. Does that require keeping your nuclear family, your house, your body, and your lawn that needs watered every week? The Mormon conception of Heaven looks more like a 1950's utopia than the transcendent paradise spoken of in the Bible.



Mormons themselves take this view with their own furry loved ones. They take a hopeful stance that their pets will be there in the afterlife, and they won't be separated. Does this require a legalistic sealing ceremony performed in a temple? No. They simply believe it will all work out, just like every other Christian believes about all of their loved ones.




https://www.ldsliving.com/animals-and-t ... en/s/80286

But as far as animals being resurrected and going to heaven? Personally, my feelings on the matter can be summed up by this quote, attributed to an unknown author: “Heaven is the place where all the dogs you’ve ever loved come to greet you.”

DCP claims Mormon temple sealings are a cure, but they're just another example of religions creating the problem, then selling you the fix. Only the gullible would believe any of that nonsense is necessary were they not born into the religion and brainwashed early.

[Rivendale]

It is indistinguishable from a mafia boss taking protection money from a buisiness to prevent it from being burned to the ground.

[Fence Sitter]

Unlike the mafia who will really burn down your house if you don't pay, organized religion offers protection for problems that don't exist.

[Rivendale]

A gem from the Hitchen's file adds more to the list of self generated sanctions.

Hitchens claimed that believing in God was equivalent to life in an eternal totalitarian state: ‘It is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep, who can subject you to total surveillance around the clock every waking and sleeping minute of your life, before you’re born and, even worse and where the real fun begins, after you’re dead. A celestial North Korea.’

[drumdude]

A gem from the Hitchen's file adds more to the list of self generated sanctions.

Hitchens claimed that believing in God was equivalent to life in an eternal totalitarian state: ‘It is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep, who can subject you to total surveillance around the clock every waking and sleeping minute of your life, before you’re born and, even worse and where the real fun begins, after you’re dead. A celestial North Korea.’

And Mormon God is even more similar to a North Korean dictator since he is literally just a man of flesh and blood who wants you to treat him as a deity.

North Korea is the closest place to Mormon Heaven on Earth.

[Rivendale]

And don't forget the massive suffering machine that goes on perpetually. Mormon God’s plan is so flawed that 99.99% of people ignore Mormonism. And John Larsen describes it well.

If you are exalted you are just going to keep cranking out hundreds of billions of spirits. And they are going to suffer. And you are going to do it again and again. And you're going to do it again and again. After 100 billion generations why the exalted couple does not suffer I don't know. If this doesn't piss you off I don't know what is wrong with you.The people I love think this is the nature of reality. That we are just this endless factory producing endless suffering. It's offensive on the deepest level. I can't imagine believing this it is sick. ......If it's true we have one task. We have to hunt down what ever being started this and kill it.

[canpakes]

I’m a bit surprised that Peterson has missed an entirely obvious and logical reason for the phrase, ‘until death do us part’. That being, typically when a married person passes away, their spouse is rarely passing away at the same moment. Hence, ‘till death do us part’. One member of the union will be without the other for some time.

Nothing about the phrase suggests that this dissolves any imagined relationships in the afterlife.

The claim that Peterson makes about the phrase doesn’t hold, and neither does the LDS ‘solution’, nor has a satisfactory argument been made as to why it would be needed.

[drumdude]

I’m a bit surprised that Peterson has missed an entirely obvious and logical reason for the phrase, ‘until death do us part’. That being, typically when a married person passes away, their spouse is rarely passing away at the same moment. Hence, ‘till death do us part’. One member of the union will be without the other for some time.

Nothing about the phrase suggests that this dissolves any imagined relationships in the afterlife.

The claim that Peterson makes about the phrase doesn’t hold, and neither does the LDS ‘solution’, nor has a satisfactory argument been made as to why it would be needed.

Exactly. It’s like a used car salesman trying to tell you that the oil leak is actually a feature. DCP just can’t understand why people laugh at the “solution.”