The Nehor

[Kishkumen]

It reads like you measure procreation in the hereafter as the prime benefit of godhood. If that's the case, it seems like heaven is gong to be all about a contraction, rather than an expansion, of Earthy benefits. Most here on earth are afforded the opportunity to have sex--but in heaven, only you, and those like you, will be given the opportunity to do so. So, maybe becoming a god means getting to continue, on a grander scale, the things you did on Earth, all while stopping those other folks from enjoying the same pleasures.

I think that's about right. Has Ajax ever thought about polygamy, and how polygamy just incidentally allowed Joseph Smith and Brigham, and a few others, to get around the rule that prevents indiscriminate coitus in this life?

There is the social dimension, but also an economic one and the Celestial realm realizes the decoupling of these dimensions. The celestial model is one where all resource constraints have been lifted for the Gods, and they are essentially an invasive species to a universe, or multiverse, that has inexhaustible resources. The lower kingdoms are kept caged and alive by fiat of the Gods for no economic reasons, only social ones. And the wall that prevents the lower kingdoms from getting in can't be cut with a sawz-all. Unlike earthly kingdoms where royalty lives in privilege, riding the backs of the conquered, the lower kingdoms are of no material benefit to the Gods. The Gods are all powerful, and create earths by their own, individual powers. The social mirror to this life is a simulation of this life, not driven by natural laws, but by administrative fiat of the omnipotent rulers. The arrangement makes no economic sense whatsoever, its a story that would be infinitely confusing to anyone who didn't know the material backdrop of the Gods from their mortal days.

In the story, the Gods must populate universes. With the natural constraints lifted, which probably is what drove coitus to be so instantaneously gratifying in the first place -- just as the rich tastes of sugars and fats pace their caloric densities -- the Gods are burdened only to push that button all they want, as it will never be enough. Whether they get one wife, or multiple wives, they must have sex billions and billions of times just to create the spirits that will populate a single planet; and they shall create worlds without ends. They can eat as much ice cream as they want without gaining a pound. Only people who the Gods are comfortable with just happen to fit the bill for living in their administrative city. No gays, for example, and it's all whites. True, people of other colors can be saved and achieve the highest degree of glory, but once they achieve it, they will become white, and live lives exactly like Ajax does.

You always bring an interesting perspective to the table, Dean.

[canpakes]

I think that's about right. Has Ajax ever thought about polygamy, and how polygamy just incidentally allowed Joseph Smith and Brigham, and a few others, to get around the rule that prevents indiscriminate coitus in this life?

There is the social dimension, but also an economic one and the Celestial realm realizes the decoupling of these dimensions. The celestial model is one where all resource constraints have been lifted for the Gods, and they are essentially an invasive species to a universe, or multiverse, that has inexhaustible resources. The lower kingdoms are kept caged and alive by fiat of the Gods for no economic reasons, only social ones. And the wall that prevents the lower kingdoms from getting in can't be cut with a sawz-all. Unlike earthly kingdoms where royalty lives in privilege, riding the backs of the conquered, the lower kingdoms are of no material benefit to the Gods. The Gods are all powerful, and create earths by their own, individual powers. The social mirror to this life is a simulation of this life, not driven by natural laws, but by administrative fiat of the omnipotent rulers. The arrangement makes no economic sense whatsoever, its a story that would be infinitely confusing to anyone who didn't know the material backdrop of the Gods from their mortal days.

In the story, the Gods must populate universes. With the natural constraints lifted, which probably is what drove coitus to be so instantaneously gratifying in the first place -- just as the rich tastes of sugars and fats pace their caloric densities -- the Gods are burdened only to push that button all they want, as it will never be enough. Whether they get one wife, or multiple wives, they must have sex billions and billions of times just to create the spirits that will populate a single planet; and they shall create worlds without ends. They can eat as much ice cream as they want without gaining a pound. Only people who the Gods are comfortable with just happen to fit the bill for living in their administrative city. No gays, for example, and it's all whites. True, people of other colors can be saved and achieve the highest degree of glory, but once they achieve it, they will become white, and live lives exactly like Ajax does.

You always bring an interesting perspective to the table, Dean.

As stories go, it does seem weird that the bounty conferred on us within our infinite post-mortal existence would be predicated on things deemed desirable by mortals existing within an infinitesimally tiny slice of time and bound by conditions that will never exist outside of that specific scenario.

I was once told by one of my SO’s parents that Earth will someday be (for lack of a better way to put it) baptized and converted into its as-yet-unrealized full perfected glory, that being a solid diamond sphere. My first thought was that this end result may seem appealing to people who value the relative wealth conferred by diamonds, but it would be a horribly boring transformation that would strip the planet of every amazing feature and characteristic that could point to a god of unbound creative power.

I didn’t share that opinion with them, of course. Gotta keep the peace. : )

[Chap]

I was once told by one of my SO’s parents that Earth will someday be (for lack of a better way to put it) baptized and converted into its as-yet-unrealized full perfected glory, that being a solid diamond sphere. My first thought was that this end result may seem appealing to people who value the relative wealth conferred by diamonds, but it would be a horribly boring transformation that would strip the planet of every amazing feature and characteristic that could point to a god of unbound creative power.

A large sterile lump of crystallised carbon, completely uniform and incapable of supporting life? And that is the perfection of the creation of the deity described in the first chapter of Genesis?

Genesis 1:

11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.

14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

True or not, that is a noble and inspiring view of the richness of the world in which we live, even in its present damaged state. The story those other people told you? A mean-minded and ridiculous fantasy. What's next in this very earth-bond gospel, I wonder? "In the Celestial Kingdom the faithful will all be given golden credit cards, pre-loaded with unlimited funds"? Maybe ...

[ajax18]

What's next in this very earth-bond gospel, I wonder? "In the Celestial Kingdom the faithful will all be given golden credit cards, pre-loaded with unlimited funds"? Maybe ...

Jesus did say to lay up treasure in heaven. Whether or not I can even imagine what that might be, I take His word for it. Whatever it is, I believe it'll be worth it. I don't feel the need to spend the rest of my life questioning whether He'll keep His promise. I've got more important things to do and to think about, and that also carries with it the benefit of making me a little happier and peaceful right now,

[Chap]

What's next in this very earth-bond gospel, I wonder? "In the Celestial Kingdom the faithful will all be given golden credit cards, pre-loaded with unlimited funds"? Maybe ...

Jesus did say to lay up treasure in heaven. Whether or not I can even imagine what that might be, I take His word for it. Whatever it is, I believe it'll be worth it. I don't feel the need to spend the rest of my life questioning whether He'll keep His promise. I've got more important things to do and to think about, and that also carries with it the benefit of making me a little happier and peaceful right now,

The "golden credit cards" suggestion was supposed to be so obviously ridiculous that even the people who believe in the earth being baptised and turned into diamond would laugh at it. But you say, in effect "Maybe. I'll wait and see."

Do you think that in the Celestial Kingdom people might (just might) be allowed to fart in the perfume of their choice, you know, Chanel number 5, the sky's the limit? Or are you at least prepared to rule that out as too ridiculous to be a possibility?

[Physics Guy]

Stars bigger than our Sun can go through multiple fusion stages; the bigger they are, the farther up the periodic table they can get, until Iron, which is the end of the fusion power road no matter how big a star you are. If a star isn't big enough to fuse all the way to Iron, then once it has gone as far as it can, it goes dim and just cools down over millions of years. Dead stars shrink a lot as they cool, because without pressure from heat to keep them puffed out, their own gravity pulls them into a dense ball. They may end up being only the size of a planet like Earth, yet with mass several times that of the Sun. Only the very biggest stars collapse all the way into black holes, because there are some other sources of pressure, besides heat, that can keep a star from compacting if it isn't too big.

Some stars run out of steam, as it were, with a big core of carbon. It's thought that all that carbon will eventually crystallise, making these dead carbon stars giant diamonds.

They'd be roughly Earth-sized, but so dense that gravity on their surfaces would be extreme. Living on giant diamonds isn't for wimps.

[canpakes]

What's next in this very earth-bond gospel, I wonder? "In the Celestial Kingdom the faithful will all be given golden credit cards, pre-loaded with unlimited funds"? Maybe ...

Jesus did say to lay up treasure in heaven. Whether or not I can even imagine what that might be, I take His word for it. Whatever it is, I believe it'll be worth it. I don't feel the need to spend the rest of my life questioning whether He'll keep His promise. I've got more important things to do and to think about, and that also carries with it the benefit of making me a little happier and peaceful right now,

ajax, does it ever seem weird to you that your highest hope is to one day enter a state of infinite existence in which you will participate as a recipient within a perpetual welfare state?

[Gadianton]

I was once told by one of my SO’s parents that Earth will someday be (for lack of a better way to put it) baptized and converted into its as-yet-unrealized full perfected glory, that being a solid diamond sphere.

This is absolutely true. Not sure if it's a "diamond", but a "sea of glass", a great Urim and Thummim whereby all things past, present, and future are before the Gods.

My mother mentioned this many times and laughed that she was sure going to miss the trees.

[ajax18]

Jesus did say to lay up treasure in heaven. Whether or not I can even imagine what that might be, I take His word for it. Whatever it is, I believe it'll be worth it. I don't feel the need to spend the rest of my life questioning whether He'll keep His promise. I've got more important things to do and to think about, and that also carries with it the benefit of making me a little happier and peaceful right now,

ajax, does it ever seem weird to you that your highest hope is to one day enter a state of infinite existence in which you will participate as a recipient within a perpetual welfare state?

See the above post you just quoted.

[Chap]

What's next in this very earth-bond gospel, I wonder? "In the Celestial Kingdom the faithful will all be given golden credit cards, pre-loaded with unlimited funds"? Maybe ...

Jesus did say to lay up treasure in heaven. Whether or not I can even imagine what that might be, I take His word for it. ...

Well that is in line with the classic Christian view enunciated by Paul:

1 Corinthians, 2:

9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

That seems to make fairly good sense, theologically speaking.

But that being so, why did Joseph Smith and his successors find it necessary to go into all those details about the privileges, pleasures and pains attached to each of the elaborately described grades of their view of the after life? Why, sometimes it sounds like some kind of a sales pitch to get people signed up as Mormons, doesn't it?