Posted by:
Chicken N. Backpacks
(
)
Date: February 27, 2017 04:56PM
I've been trying to solidify my thoughts on "choice spirits" being lucky enough to born into mormon families, so I'll start with a disclaimer: Brainwashed TBM's wouldn't listen to any arguments anyway.
There, now that that's out of the way...according to LDS teachings, spirits are sent to Earth to "learn", sort of like a rich family sending a kid to work at a fast-food place or out to dig ditches so they can understand what real hard work and humility are; the spirits are literally brainwashed, so they have no recollection of where they came from, and must work hard to gain favor so they go to the highest level of Heaven. However, rich families don't erase their kids' memories to make them start over from scratch and do all kinds of rat-in-a-maze tricks to get back home--how cruel!
On the other hand, sometimes a rich family *will* send a kid who's a bit of an a-hole out into the nitty-gritty world to break him down a little & learn what real hard work is. Are spirit children little monsters who need to be taught a lesson? And in the pre-existence, those who are "less worthy" get sent to "less worthy" famlies--are they little a-holes? If they were less "less valiant" in the War in Heaven, doesn't that mean they were full grown spirits (or had bodies?), so they weren't actually children. How does the theology work that "dark skin" is a punishment for "fence-sitting" if you are a literal child of God? Am I getting my LDS theology confused???
Mormon theology is more like: You start out as a beautiful butterfly, *then* you become a caterpillar so you can transform...back into a butterfly. You start from point B, but go back to point A so you can struggle back to point B! I guess an apologist or bishop would say "No, you start at A, go to B, and earn your way to C. Except that both A and C are Heaven! And Heavenly Father is literally the same God in both A and C, so how does that work!?
I'm trying to be more concise in a tear down of TSCC's squishy theology to show how it doesn't make sense.
And for reference, here's the official party line:
***"In our premortal life, we were taught lessons that prepared us to assist Heavenly Father in bringing about the salvation of His children (see D&C 138:56). We also had the agency to follow and obey God. Some of Father’s children distinguished themselves through their “exceeding faith and good works” and were foreordained, or given assignments, to serve in specific ways on earth (Alma 13:3). The greatest of those who followed Heavenly Father back then was His firstborn spirit son, Jesus Christ—or Jehovah, as He was known there.
The Prophet Joseph Smith explained that while in our premortal state, we were all present when God the Father explained His plan for the salvation of His children. We learned that a Savior would be needed to overcome the problems brought on by the conditions of mortal life."***
You see, God effed up our pretty nice heavenly lives ON PURPOSE so that we needed "salvation."
And this, which doesn't make a helluva lotta sense:
***"Knowing that everyone on earth chose to follow the Savior in the premortal life changes our lives by helping us when we do missionary work. As Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has said: “Every child of God in mortality chose the Savior’s plan. Trust that given the opportunity, they will do so again."***
What a cheap shot: give everyone knowledge, then make them forget that knowledge and see if they'll be tempted to do the wrong thing BECAUSE GOD HAS TAKEN AWAY THEIR KNOWLEDGE!!
And naturally, it's not actually God who helps us on the re-learning path back to Him, it's a bunch of old white guys who *speak with the authority of God*. How tithingly convenient...