Kids who die before age 8 DON'T automatically go to the C.K.

[_Polygamy-Porter]

Tobin, your avatar is very fitting for your espoused beliefs.

[_dblagent007]

As I began this thread, I laughed at the absurdity of Tobin's posts. As the thread wore on, I started to see how Tobin was being annihilated ... and he didn't even know it. Now that I'm at the end of the thread, I feel a lot of sympathy for Tobin - sort of like how you feel sympathy for a handicapped kid who gets the crap beat out of him.

Tobin's a guy with a testimony that can't be touched by reason, logic, or anything else and that's okay. He is still in that stage where he can't allow himself to even think the unthinkable thought - i.e., that the Church might not be true. He has to make it all work somehow. Pointing out how absurb his coping methods are probably isn't going to help anyone.

[_Tobin]

As I began this thread, I laughed at the absurdity of Tobin's posts. As the thread wore on, I started to see how Tobin was being annihilated ... and he didn't even know it. Now that I'm at the end of the thread, I feel a lot of sympathy for Tobin - sort of like how you feel sympathy for a handicapped kid who gets the crap beat out of him.

Tobin's a guy with a testimony that can't be touched by reason, logic, or anything else and that's okay. He is still in that stage where he can't allow himself to even think the unthinkable thought - i.e., that the Church might not be true. He has to make it all work somehow. Pointing out how absurb his coping methods are probably isn't going to help anyone.

Again, you aren't making an argument or contradicting my view with anything. All I've seen anyone do in this thread is state over and over that they have misconceptions and that they'll continue to have those misconceptions about this topic. The idea that fetuses are automatically exalted despite having to be resurrected, baptized, endowed, married, and so on to reach the highest glory of the CK as celestial beings is pure non-sense. It is a mistaken concept based on the teaching that when a fetus dies they return to the CK where they came from as spirits. That's it. You are welcome to your ill-considered views, but it has nothing to do with the gospel as I've maintained.

[_Cylon]

Again, you aren't making an argument or contradicting my view with anything. All I've seen anyone do in this thread is state over and over that they have misconceptions and that they'll continue to have those misconceptions about this topic. The idea that fetuses are automatically exalted despite having to be resurrected, baptized, endowed, married, and so on to reach the highest glory of the CK as celestial beings is pure non-sense. It is a mistaken concept based on the teaching that when a fetus dies they return to the CK where they came from as spirits. That's it. You are welcome to your ill-considered views, but it has nothing to do with the gospel as I've maintained.

We know it has nothing to do with the gospel as you've maintained. We're quite aware of your view of what the gospel is on this matter. But it's been shown again and again that your view is not what the LDS church teaches. What I don't get is why you're so dead set on saying your view is what the church believes. You certainly haven't been shy about saying where the church teaches false doctrine on other issues.

[_Tobin]

Again, you aren't making an argument or contradicting my view with anything. All I've seen anyone do in this thread is state over and over that they have misconceptions and that they'll continue to have those misconceptions about this topic. The idea that fetuses are automatically exalted despite having to be resurrected, baptized, endowed, married, and so on to reach the highest glory of the CK as celestial beings is pure non-sense. It is a mistaken concept based on the teaching that when a fetus dies they return to the CK where they came from as spirits. That's it. You are welcome to your ill-considered views, but it has nothing to do with the gospel as I've maintained.

We know it has nothing to do with the gospel as you've maintained. We're quite aware of your view of what the gospel is on this matter. But it's been shown again and again that your view is not what the LDS church teaches. What I don't get is why you're so dead set on saying your view is what the church believes. You certainly haven't been shy about saying where the church teaches false doctrine on other issues.

Because people are blithely assuming that fetuses are saved in the highest degree of the CK and become celestial beings without considering what the means in Mormon doctrine. Even the topic of the original thread 'Why Men will have to share their wives in the CK' makes no sense when you think about it. How are fetuses married when they get to the CK? You have to be sealed and married in the temple. That means you have to be endowed and baptized. How is that accomplished? We don't baptize, endow or marry fetuses. Maybe they aren't married, but then they can't go to the highest degree of the CK. But if they are saved in the CK, then that can't be. Like I said, it is completely ridiculous.

[_Cylon]

Because people are blithely assuming that fetuses are saved in the highest degree of the CK and become celestial beings without considering what the means in Mormon doctrine. Even the topic of the original thread 'Why Men will have to share their wives in the CK' makes no sense when you think about it. How are fetuses married when they get to the CK? You have to be sealed and married in the temple. That means you have to be endowed and baptized. How is that accomplished? We don't baptize, endow or marry fetuses. Maybe they aren't married, but then they can't go to the highest degree of the CK. But if they are saved in the CK, then that can't be. Like I said, it is completely ridiculous.

You're getting hung up on the fetuses issue. Forget fetuses. There is no LDS doctrine concerning what happens to unborn fetuses. There is doctrine about children who die before the age of accountability, and it is quite clear. Young children who die are saved and go to the Celestial Kingdom. That is what is taught in the scriptures and by lots of the prophets and apostles. Whether it makes sense or not is completely irrelevant. Whether it reflects absolute truth is irrelevant. All we're saying is that is what is taught by the Mormon church. Call it false doctrine all you want, but if you continue to assert that it's not what the church teaches I'll be forced to conclude you're a blatant liar.

[_Drifting]

You're getting hung up on the fetuses issue. Forget fetuses. There is no LDS doctrine concerning what happens to unborn fetuses. There is doctrine about children who die before the age of accountability, and it is quite clear. Young children who die are saved and go to the Celestial Kingdom.

Can you quote the doctrine for us please?

I'm thinking this will come down to a debate about at what point a foetus becomes a child.

[_Cylon]

You're getting hung up on the fetuses issue. Forget fetuses. There is no LDS doctrine concerning what happens to unborn fetuses. There is doctrine about children who die before the age of accountability, and it is quite clear. Young children who die are saved and go to the Celestial Kingdom.

Can you quote the doctrine for us please?

I'm thinking this will come down to a debate about at what point a foetus becomes a child.

The doctrine on children has already been quoted multiple times on this thread, I'm not going to repost it.

[_Darth J]

Tobin, you have extremely poor reasoning skills. In addition, you are a zealot. Your bad logic and your zealotry make you incapable of even perceiving issues accurately, let alone discussing them rationally.

Question of objective fact = whether the LDS Church teaches (X)

Question of religious faith = whether (X) is "true"

To give an example, it would be like discussing the mythology of the ancient Greeks. It is a fact that they believed in Zeus, Apollo, the Titans, centaurs, etc. It is false to assert that the ancient Greeks believed in Voldemort, Dr. Who, Batman, and Smurfs. You do not get to mistakenly claim that the ancient Greeks believed in the second list of things, and when shown that you are wrong, rebut your interlocutors by saying how absurd it is to believe in Zeus et al. That's what you're doing, except with Mormonism.

With the exception of Liz, nobody participating in this thread so far believes that the LDS Church is the true church. Nobody (except Liz) believes that the LDS Church's teachings about infants being saved are true. We are saying---backed by conclusive evidence---that you have your facts wrong about what Mormonism says about the salvation of infants. But because you are a zealot, you keep arguing as if we all believe the religious teachings, and it is our religious beliefs that are mistaken.

Like I said before, you are not relying on some revelation from this deity who explains things better to you than to Joseph Smith or any other leader of the church to which you belong. You have made it clear (if anything you say can be called "clear") that you have arrived at your conclusions about whether infants are saved by inductive reasoning from the teachings of past LDS leaders. That is, you are making a statement of FACT, not religious faith, as to what the LDS Church teaches about the salvation of infants. But the statements from which you arrive at that conclusion are all quote-mined. None of those statements are dealing with the exception to the rule: children who die before they reach the age of accountability. Every single on of the LDS leaders you quote-mined taught unequivocally that children who die before the age of accountability are guaranteed through the Atonement to go to the Celestial Kingdom. There is no trial of their faith. There are no ordinances required, because there is nothing to save them from. Not having ever had the capacity to sin, they never experienced the spiritual death that baptism saves them from. This is crystal clear and categorical from what all of them taught. Section 137 of the Doctrine and Covenants says it explicitly.

You arrived at your conclusions based on a faulty factual premise: what the LDS Church teaches. Because you are asserting a faulty factual premise, not religious faith, simply repeating your religious faith does not rectify your faulty factual premise. You have to show that your facts are correct, and you have not done so. To the contrary, it has been conclusively shown that you have the facts wrong.

There are many, many people in this board who have spent a lifetime in the LDS Church, and who much more aware of its doctrines than you have shown yourself to be. As zealots and poor reasoners tend to be, you are arrogant and defensive. But your arrogance is based on ignorance, and your defensiveness is based and your inability to defend your assertions in the face of fact and reason. So I again recommend to you your own advice: "stop pretending you understand a thing about Mormonism and spouting your non-sense."

[_Darth J]

Can you quote the doctrine for us please?

I'm thinking this will come down to a debate about at what point a foetus becomes a child.

It will only come down to that if this thread becomes even less responsive to the issue that Tobin has created.

WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT METAPHYSICAL "TRUTH." WE ARE TALKING ABOUT THE OBJECTIVE, ACADEMIC FACT OF WHAT THE LDS CHURCH TEACHES ABOUT CHILDREN WHO ARE BORN BUT THEN DIE BEFORE THEY ARE EIGHT YEARS OLD.