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

[_Tobin]

Tobin is just doing what other NOM's do all the time - see Liz and her thread on polygamy - they pick and choose the doctrine that they can stomach and toss the rest out.

Church of Tobin, Church of Liz, (and I had my own Church, too)...it's all different and all the same. It makes religion easy.

H.

And I noted this. But as a NOMer I know what I pick and choose and when I toss something out I know I am in a heritical position the what the Church teaches. And I also noted that the difference is Tobin thinks he is right on whatever the hell he says and he thinks what the church teaches is BS. He is not heretical. The Church leadership and teachers are.

Don't mistake passion for the truth as having to be always correct. I'm perfectly willing to learn when I'm mistaken. However, on this topic I have yet to see anything that persuades me that I'm far off the mark.

[_jo1952]

I guess it's okay to believe that I don't need to pay tithing as long as I keep paying it. No problem there. Unfortunately for me, I actually acted on my belief and stopped paying, which meant I didn't get to ordain my son to the priesthood and probably won't get to baptize another child in a few months.

Hello 007!

I believe that our Leaders cross the line sometimes. What you have described above is one of those places. I would also include the strictness surrounding Temple marriage. I think that if a couple "qualify" for a Temple marriage that there should be no restrictions about also having a "temporal" marriage ceremony which will not hinder their ability to still be sealed in the Temple without needing to wait for a year. Obviously, this would give loved ones who are unable to go to the Temple (regardless the reason) the opportunity to participate. I doubt seriously that Heavenly Father's desire is to cause unhappiness, conflict, and problems in the lives of a couple who want to do what they believe is the right thing to do, and then suffer consequences for it. I believe the Church, through decisions like these, is creating affliction and persecution for its own members from inside of the Church. It also does not put the Church in a very favorable light to non-LDS loved ones.

Having said this, God still allows everyone their free agency. Satan uses peoples strengths to fool them and cause them to make decisions which are not in accordance with God's will. We cannot escape these influences as long as darkness has not been completely replaced by Light within us. Leaders of the Church, despite their callings, have not yet become perfect in following God's will. So, like Peter who loved Jesus so much that he didn't want Jesus to die, they can at one moment be serving God, and the next moment either knowingly or unknowingly be serving Satan.

There was great wisdom being used by God in choosing Peter in the first place. Peter is an example we all need to learn from; not only on a personal level, but also on a Church Leadership level. We need to be able to see the types and the patterns and the layers that are available to be revealed to us in Scripture in order to understand how it is that a Leader can still be fallible. Better yet, we need to understand that God is not going to remove a Leader's free will in order to force him to do only His will. Even though Jesus actually called Peter "Satan", Jesus did not take any authority or power away from Peter. And again, after Peter had denied Jesus three times, Peter was not relieved of any of the authority or power bestowed upon him.

We are here to learn - and we learn from making mistakes; and we learn from doing what is right. Our Leaders are here for the same reason.

Blessings,

jo

[_Darth J]

Tobin, did the following people say that children who die before the age of accountability will go to the Celestial Kingdom:

Joseph Smith? ___Yes ___No

Brigham Young? ___Yes ___No

George Q. Cannon? ___Yes ___No

John Taylor? ___Yes ___No

Did you assert that the following people did not say this:

Joseph Smith? ___Yes ___No

Brigham Young? ___Yes ___No

George Q. Cannon? ___Yes ___No

John Taylor? ___Yes ___No

[_Darth J]

I was under the impression that "Satan would be loosed for a season" after the millennium, and everyone would be "tested", no?

- VRDRC

No. The LDS story is that there will be people living during the Millenium who have are not members of the Church, and people both in and out of the Church who have not been resurrected yet. If "everyone" means mortals, then yes.

I make no representations that any of this makes sense or has any ontological value. I am only visiting this thread to comment on the faulty reasoning and quote mining that Tobin is relying on.

[Guest]

It has always been a common doctrine in Mormonism that those who do not have a chance to choose in this life will at some point be given all the same opportunities that we share.

No it has not. It has been conclusively shown otherwise in this thread, and your ongoing recitation of Tobinist doctrine does not refute the issue of objective fact as to what the LDS Church teaches.

In fact, Mormons perform temple work for the dead to provide these opportunities. However, we do not do them for the unaccountable.

In fact, Mormons do not perform temple work for children who died before the age of eight.

It has also been taught by several prophets that those children that did not survive to be accountable and enjoy the bounties of life (and opportunities that we all share) will be given those opportunites during the Millenium.

No, it has never been taught by any LDS prophets that dead children will be given the opportunity to be held accountable in the Millenium.

Instead, my view is they will be given the opportunity to be exalted, but they must choose to do so and follow the Lord. I believe it is a step too far to say anyone can be exaltted without choosing to do as the Lord asks and follow him. To be exalted as celestial beings and attain the highest degrees of glory in the CK requires a number of things.

But you don't believe that people will be exalted at all, since in LDS parlance this means becoming a god. Tobinism holds that people cannot become gods. Remember?

There's a quote in Wilford Woodruff's journal where Brigham Young expresses his belief that infants who die as newborns probably did not have enough of a chance at mortality and their spirits are reborn in new mortal bodies. Why he would have confined this to children who died as newborns, I'm not sure. But the logic of his thought may be similar to yours.

It is very consistent with my view. These children must be given the same choices and opportunites that we have. This is why this was said. Otherwise, why would he suggest this if they were automatically saved and exalted?

Brigham Young also expressed the belief that Michael is our Heavenly Father. So this must mean that the Adam-God doctrine and reincarnation are standard features of LDS theology.

[_Darth J]

Cylon. I'm well aware that it is taught in the LDS Church. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying it isn't correctly understood given the context of what we know about the temple and how one comes unto God and is exalted and becomes a Celestial Being.

I'm happy that you learned from the temple endowment that the LDS Church is wrong. That must have been quite an existential experience.

Similarly, I learned on this message board that the internet does not exist.

[_ludwigm]

God is NOT a respecter of persons!

And you said this with a straight face.

Apparently jo1952 didn't read LittleNipper's lessons:

Deuteronomy 7:6 For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.

[_Drifting]

We are here to learn - and we learn from making mistakes; and we learn from doing what is right. Our Leaders are here for the same reason.

Blessings,

jo

Actually, the Church teaches that you are to follow the Prophets counsel even if you think he is making a mistake.

[_Tobin]

This may not be a popular subject; but Joseph Smith believed in multiple probations (i.e., reincarnation). So did some of our other early Leaders. Certainly our Savior has lived in more than one incarnation. So, if we are to become like Him, are we not also going to go through multiple incarnations? There are indications of belief in reincarnation in the Bible. Many early church fathers believed in it. The Jewish Kabbalah teaches it. In fact the Kabbalah also teaches there are seven heavens. Is this what was being revealed to us in D&C130:10-11??

Superficially, it appears to me that when a child dies before the age of accountability, who then is taken to the CK, has NOT had the opportunity to use their own free will to choose to accept Christ or to choose to believe in Father for that matter. Yet we know that God would not change the rules for some spirits and take away their free will. This goes against the Plan of Salvation itself.

Since we also know that God has a purpose for everything; and also, that whatever choices we DO make in exercising our free will, He will find a way to use those choices (whether they were good ones or evil ones) to promote His purposes.

So let's think about the issue which Tobin has raised, while at the same time taking into consideration even the possibility of reincarnation, and see what that "looks like". I believe it can remove the concerns of those who think Tobin is becoming an apostate; as well as help Tobin further his own speculations by providing answers to some very real problems which LDS doctrine suffers from through the perceptions of non-LDS, anti-LDS, and even former LDS people.

Hi Jo,

I too believe in multiple lives (or phases) that we experience. Our mortal experience is but one of many that we have experienced and will yet experience.

You also hit on the concept of reincarnation. I also believe in this, but more along the lines of how the Lord talks about it. In the case of children being raised during the Millenium and being given the opportunities that we have. Reincarnation is certainly a requirement. But not in the traditional sense that most people think about it. If the Lord was able to bring Lazarus back to life, he certainly could restore a dead child so that they could learn and grow during the Millenium. And I believe this is what the prophets are talking about when they speak about this.

[_Franktalk]

Deuteronomy 7:6 For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.

You wrote this in answer to the statement about God not being a respecter of persons. And I have to agree that on its face it appears that this is a major conflict with other passages. So let me detail how I see all of these various statements fit together. In doing so I may shed some light on many such apparent conflicts.

In the first place I believe the spirit of man is eternal and we have known God for a long time and He knows us. I believe we have free agency and we have a unique set of abilities which make us all different from each other. So based on the choices we have made over time we have developed our unique spirit. I am sure that each of us due to what we have done makes us in the eyes of God unique as well. Some more pleasing to God than others. But if we say that God is solid in His judgment then the judging or ranking so to speak is based on our behavior and not some arbitrary friendship which overlooks faults. Statements to the effect that justice will not be robbed and the like make this clear. So with this in mind God has placed us on the earth in the form of flesh in different environments. He has picked for each of us a life based on what we need to learn based on who we are not based on who He is.

So when a statement like "God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself" just what does this mean. To me God has chosen every single place for all spirits to live in the flesh. So in this case the Jews are not unique. They may be unique in the way He has chosen to deal with them on earth. He instructed Moses to declare the law and to hold the feet of the Jews to a fire to uphold that standard. The Law of Moses is not a fun set of instructions. They were so invasive and at times seemed to conflict with each other. I think this was done on purpose to show all of the Jews that all would fail in their attempt to follow the letter of the Law. But they also received the two greatest commandments. You shall love your God and love each other. So the Jews actually had a choice yet they were blind to it. They could either bring each other before a judge because of problems with the letter of the Law or they could love each other and resolve problems with each other and not include a judge. Sadly they chose the letter of the Law and judges. In our reading of scripture we are to see this message but few do. The acting out of mistakes of the Jews is for all of us to learn so we don't have to live through the same experience. But sadly we don't learn well by knowing but by trial and failure and suffering. Such is the weakness of the flesh.

It is my belief that each spirit needs to learn various things in order to grow towards a perfect ideal. This is described as the light or truth and going in the wrong direction is described as a lie or darkness. I also believe that each of us has many lives in the flesh but one spirit. The unfairness in each life is part of the trial. But in the big picture there is a balance. Again it is up to us to see the trials on the earth in the proper way. If we trust God then we don't see our life as unfair and we see the unbalanced nature of the world as necessary instead of evil. This are mind choices we make.

I could have written volumes on this but I think the main idea has been conveyed. The whole of scripture needs to be considered in each passage. The overriding two great commandments is our guide if we accept them. Our experience on this earth is what we make of it. What we perceive as truth will lead to faith, but faith can be misdirected. Our lesson is to learn that to trust God leads to faith in God. The only way out of this endless loop is to get it right.

If one looks for error in scripture you will find it. If you look for truth you will find it instead.