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[Anonymous]

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[_Inconceivable]

I don't think Smith remembered much about the Book of Mormon:

32 For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors.
33 And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed.
34 Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this;
35 For behold 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., if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked.

(Book of Mormon | Alma 34:32 - 35)

From this and a few other verses, it appears that life for a Mormon is the last one before self-actualization.

[Anonymous]

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[_Black Moclips]

There are hints at "multiple mortal probations" in some statements by early church leaders. I like one where Brigham Young talks about sons of perdition being cast down into their native elements and being reforged to come forth again at a later time. Here is an article I've always found interesting:
http://www.freeread.com/archives/eternal_lives.php

I actually like the idea, and it makes more sense to me than a "one time then out" plan of salvation. There is just too much inequality in life experiences across the history of the planet for me to make sense of the fact that everyone only gets one shot.

[_Redefined]

Of course, if the church decides all of a sudden to make reincarnation a part of its doctrine, the members can always fall back on "so and so was speaking as a man when he said that", but the church has made statements rejecting reincarnation, an example below (I know I have read rejection of it from other sources as well).

5. Reincarnation denies the entire purpose of the atonement of Jesus Christ. Those who believe that spirits and gods can repeatedly inhabit a variety of physical forms do not take into account Christ’s mission and the purpose of the Atonement. For a person who believes in reincarnation, Christ would be but one manifestation of a temporarily embodied savior—one of many possible incarnations.

To accept this premise would be to repudiate the most fundamental teaching of the gospel—that there was a single, unique act of redemption made by the Lord Jesus Christ. By denying the ultimate importance of the Atonement and of Christ’s mercy and love, those who believe in reincarnation fail to see the Savior in his rightful position as King of Kings and Lord of Lords—the only name given whereby we can be saved. (See D&C 18:23.) Though reincarnation is an interesting theory that may have a few similarities with the gospel, it denies the absolute centrality of the Atonement and must be rejected as false.

http://LDS.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=96a527cd3f37b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD

[_Black Moclips]

Well it also depends on what you mean by reincarnation. A lot of the criticism of reincarnation deals with notion of returning to live as other life forms, like animals, plants, or pond scum. There may be certain religions that believe in digressing into lower life forms, but most New Agers simply believe they return as humans multiple times. This in an of itself does not repudiate the atonement. Maybe it casts a different understanding of what it was though.

I've always wondered how Jesus became who he was. We normally chalk it up to him being half super hero because his dad was a God, but that doesn't make sense to me. I have this same issue with personal salvation, that somehow this tiny fraction of eternity, with all its randomness and inequality can somehow qualify someone for godhood. It makes much more sense to me that Jesus achieved his relative perfection through hundreds or thousands of lifetimes, and that the end result of his mortality, becoming one with God, shows what our potential is as well.

If progression really is eternal and part of Gods plan, then what of lower life-forms? Where did they start and why? What is their end result? What does the mosquito hope to achieve with its life? Can the only thing it hope for is to become an exalted mosquito? It makes much more sense to me that lower forms experience mortality just as we do, but on a much fast pace, continually reincarnating and evolving spiritually from micro-organisms, to basic plants and insects, to fowls, mammals, etc, on and on, until they qualify for the human state that we are in now. The entity we define currently as God is God because he has been everything lower than himself and has mastered it. Which would mean that divine humanoid is not the end. Interesting thought. Just like our physical bodies are made up of living cells, billions of them, what if we as humans are part of something larger?

Anyway, I like thinking about this stuff. Its sort of goofy and out there, but for some reason, I want to believe its true. Its certainly much more fun to think and wonder about than regular organized religion.

[_Ezias]

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[_Investigator]

There are hints at "multiple mortal probations" in some statements by early church leaders. I like one where Brigham Young talks about sons of perdition being cast down into their native elements and being reforged to come forth again at a later time. Here is an article I've always found interesting:
http://www.freeread.com/archives/eternal_lives.php

I actually like the idea, and it makes more sense to me than a "one time then out" plan of salvation. There is just too much inequality in life experiences across the history of the planet for me to make sense of the fact that everyone only gets one shot.

What BY said about the SOP makes sense to me too, but I'm not Mormon.

I'm still investigating the Church, and I know that what Brigham (Widstoe, and others) said about the SOP being recycled isn't doctrine.

What I'd like to know is if it's heresy?

Does the Church have an official position on this (and how could Young's theory be reconciled with passages in the Book of Mormon, and D&C saying that the torment of the SOP has no end, and they have no forgiveness in or out of the world)?

[_ludwigm]