I was skimming some random obituary the other day and the decedent's obit stated that she had said to her children, shortly before her passing, I hope your dad is "tidying up the place". According to her obit, her husband had preceded her by a number of years. Do they believe that they will live in houses or some kind of cabin or bungalow, for example? I could just see her, imagining him dusting and vacuuming "the place". Hahahaha

Whatever they're told to believe.

Louis? Probably too vulgar for them, but still a lot of great true family humor.

Most religions really provide very little information about what life in “heaven” will be like. Considering it is a driving goal of many, this seem odd to me. At least the Mormon idea of advancing until you can spend time creating other worlds is an interesting concept.

According to her own doctrine, I think she will be shocked to find a few other new women "tidying up the place" for when she comes. Welcome to eternal polyandry! Or the great celestial orgy!

There are accounts from early church leaders about visions of 'heaven' and how the streets were paved with gold.

But then there are the 'mysteries' that seminary students could often get their teachers to talk about...

I was always fascinated by the issue of 'what's an atheist going to think when he 'wakes up' on the other side of the veil? It made sense to me that he or she is going to have to shed that belief awful damn fast!

But based on some stuff in Mosiah, we wee little seminary students were told that, "No! Atheists will obviously recognize that there is life after death, but they won't suddenly become theists. Otherwise where's the faith challenge? And it explains why ghawd has to keep on killing off missionaries, so that they can preach to all the non-believers in spirit prison.

Non-mormons who die automatically go to spirit prison, and the same attitudes and beliefs they had in life will stay with them. Death bed confessions won't change a thing.

There is more precision regarding the teachings about good mormons in the afterlife. They go to paradise, where they hang out with their relatives and friends, in houses lining the gold paved streets. Mothers and fathers of children who died in earth infancy will keep house with the adult spirits of those infants. At the resurrection, they'll all get their resurrected bodies, only the children will be back in the infant or child bodies they had at death, and the righteous parents of Zion will get to raise them! (Changing diapers again? I suppose that could be construed as a blessing...)

Mormon cosmology is complex and it's all been (ill) thought out. They are so whack!!!

Just for kicks: At the second coming, much of the world will NOT recognize that it's JC setting up shop in Zion. Yeah, that's right, most of the world, according to seminary teachers, won't recognize the biblically foretold world-ending event, and won't know that a ghawd is at the head of his theocracy, doing supermarket openings, and shit....

The great thing about a religion that tells you how wonderful life was in the pre-mortal existence (but you conveniently *forgot*), and then how wonderful it will be in the post-mortal existence (of course you won't know until you're dead), is that they get to control you with these unprovable "Trust us, it was paradise" stories in the here-and-now-mortal existence.

What great scam.

Excuse me while I go out to the grove and pray.

I still remember a guy teaching my class to us deacons. He told us that he was excited to just make a giant watermelon appear so he could eat it.

Only evil children of saved TBM parents have a chance in hell of being saved. The rest be damned.

https://youtu.be/tMnMby61VT0

ETA: In Moism, outside the Celestial Kingdom, most people won't be damned, even the worst sinners and SOB's. We're all saved! It's a true feel good about yourself religion.

If you're Mormon and married in the temple then you're assured you'll be in the CK. No one else has that assurance. Only temple recommend holding LDS.

As for the rest of us, we'll be slugging it out with our peers in the lesser endowed kingdoms where we'll be relegated. One is ruled by Jesus Christ himself. And the lowest kingdom is ruled by the Holy Ghost.

Only the Sons of Perdition (think apostates and Judas Iscariot,) will be relegated to Outer Darkness. That is where the unpardonable sinners go. Kind of like an eternal Black Hole without an end in sight.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2016 05:41PM by Amyjo.

>
> If you're Mormon and married in the temple
> then you're assured you'll be in the CK.
>

Yay!!! I'm going to be in the CK!!!!


Apostates are not Sons of Perdition. The only person I can point to in my life who has a shot at SoP status is Tom Phillips.

And there was plenty of speculation in Seminary that Judas wouldn't be cast out into outer darkness because he was only playing a role.

The way I was taught about apostates was anyone who left the Mormon church was a blasphemer. And blasphemers are cast in the same lot as Sons of Perdition.

Why blasphemy for leaving? How could anyone leave the true church knowingly and willfully unless they were blasphemers? That not only makes us 'apostates' it also makes us ineligible for any of the three kingdoms.

We're going to be rank and file in the outer banks.

I was also taught Judas was probably the worst sinner to have ever lived, because he knowingly betrayed the son of God for shekels of silver. As it was said in the NT, "It was better for him that he had never been born." That was my early Primary and Sunday School teachings anyway.

He was cursed from the start, because it was foreordained. No free agency there!

Outer banks?

Your final sentences are the basis for the questioning I've heard regarding the status of Judas Iscariot:

>
> He was cursed from the start, because it
> was foreordained. No free agency there!
>

It's like Adam's Transgression: it had to be done, so none of us think that Adam is going to the "outer banks". Like so much that happens 'off the books' in seminary, it was just a nice excuse to avoid the lesson material.

It is a veritable staple of seminary teachings that run of the mill apostates can't be SofPs. Here's JS's description of what it takes:

The Prophet Joseph Smith asked, concerning those who become sons of perdition, “What must a man do to commit the unpardonable sin? He must receive the Holy Ghost, have the heavens opened unto him, and know God, and then sin against Him. After a man has sinned against the Holy Ghost, there is no repentance for him. He has got to say that the sun does not shine while he sees it; he has got to deny Jesus Christ when the heavens have been opened unto him, and to deny the plan of salvation with his eyes open to the truth of it; and from that time he begins to be an enemy. This is the case with many apostates of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” (Teachings, p. 358.)


This is why I stated that of the people you and I know, even if only by reputation, only Tom Phillips might be considered for this 'honor'.

I don't get why you think that only Tom Phillips fits Joseph Smith's definition.

Smith ascribes it to apostates in general. When we were baptized at the age of 8 as fully accountable and fully members yada yada, it didn't really leave room for us to exit the church when we did later in life other than to be labeled apostates - there was a time when most of us did accept it fully. And then later turned our backs on it once we figured out it was based on lies and mischief.

Hardly the fruits of apostates. But that wasn't Smith's definition. In Mormons eyes, we are what he was referring to.

How does Tom Phillips rank any differently? Because he was a bishop who now wants to exact justice on the church that caused him so much anguish?

>
> I don't get why you think that only Tom
> Phillips fits Joseph Smith's definition.
>

Because of the common interpretation given to the latter part of JS's admonition: "What must a man do to commit the unpardonable sin? He must receive the Holy Ghost, have the heavens opened unto him, and know God, and then sin against Him."

I venture to opine that no mormon you or I know will claim to have had the heavens opened unto him, and know ghawd, which can be interpreted as seeing him!

As to why Tom Phillips? He's had the Second Anointing. "Heap big powerful medicine!!" said the very brown Lamanite.

Seriously, 'Outer Banks'?

Outer Banks was to deflect attention away from where the morg would have us wander. I prefer the OBX to the dark recesses of the cosmos any day of the week, thank you very much.

Although with the hurricane looming on its shores, right now not a good time to be visiting the OBX.

Tom Phillips, second anointing? Hahahaha. Now that is funny!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2016 01:18AM by Amyjo.

>
> Tom Phillips, second anointing?
> Hahahaha. Now that is funny!
>

I think I'm a very funny guy, and quick to light up a smoke, but your comment above has me scratching my head.

What is it you're saying? Where's the humor? Honestly, I don't know what you're trying to say.

Between Second Anointings, Outer Darkness, and Outer Banks, the only one with any real substance is the OBX.

The others are hyperbole!

You can say anyone has a "second anointing." Doesn't make it so.

Well, you got me there; you got me good.

I didn’t actually see Tom Phillips get his second anointing, so who really knows?

And they'll have many servants consisting of less valiant but still faithful mormons who are working their way up to having a beautiful home like the one where they serve.

A mother who laid on her back neglecting her children while popping tranquilizers told me that she would have servants in the CK, and those servants would be the less valiant from this life.

A few have told me they know they are going there...and worry about thier children who have strayed.

RB

Pretty sure if there is anything remotely close to a CK, it's going to be based on your heart, not if you followed a checklist and had a signed piece of paper.

Or I'm wrong and it will depend on how many women you sweet talked into being an extra wife....

They're really stupid about it if you ask questions.

God sits on a throne and is surrounded by angels that sing his praise and adore him. 1 Nephi 1:8

Heave is a sea of glass and fire D&C 77:1, 130:7

And they teach these thing(like SoP) to children.....how young?

I couldn't say when a formal, classroom expression of this belief is first offered, but for sure there are occasional references to SofPs in Sacrament meeting talks, so it's likely a random experience; some kids hear about sooner than others. But it's definitely going to come up during the four years of seminary, which corresponds to the American high school years.

It's amusing to me: The church seems to be quite happy for the members to know all about Sons of Perdition, those souls DOOMED! to outer darkness, without bodies...But there are opposites, and the church seems to try to keep them a secret.

These are the individuals who have been guaranteed their spots in the highest level of the CK, no matter what they do in the future. It's called receiving the Second Anointing. We have an individual in the RfM community who, as Amyjo rightly points out, 'claims' to have received this. I hadn't thought of it in those terms before, but as I acknowledged to her above, I wasn't there to see it, so maybe she was right in laughing at him?

In any event, there is no doubt that this Second Anointing ordinance exists, and that its effect is to guarantee the opposite of what being a Son of Perdition guarantees: recipients of the Second Anointing CAN'T do anything that could lose them their top spot in the CK!

So while we're taught about the great penalty that awaits Sons of Perdition, we are not taught about the possibility of obtaining the greatest reward possible, the Second Anointing.

What's that? Weird? huh!

You never hesitate to leave the church because of the love you feel, the hesitation to leave comes from fear....

So is a Second Anointing the same thing as having your calling and election made sure? I remember hearing that term but having not a clue what it meant ...

Yes.

But again, I'm only going on the word of Tom Phillips, who may have been trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes. As Amyjo correctly points out, just because he said it, doesn't mean it happened.

Brigham Young said you can't get to the highest heaven without Joseph Smith's consent.
" . . . no man or woman in this dispensation will ever enter into the celestial kingdom of God without the consent of Joseph Smith," (Journal of Discourses, vol. 7, p. 289)

So all of us dirty disbelievers of the pervert Joseph won't have a chance. Boo-hoo!

Now I'm going to cry about it to my cat.

Not sure if this is widespread belief among TBMs, but when I was a child my TBM parents told me that the CK is so incredible that if anyone on earth were to get a glimpse of it, they would want to commit suicide so they could go there. What kind of crazy $&@% is that to say to a child?!

That's based off what Joe said in regards to a vision he had about the telestial. He said even the telestial is so fucking awesome, that people would commit suicide if they actually knew how fucking awesome it was! Wowzers, right?

I learned about that when I was a young(er) adult. And used that against my parents when I was inactive just to be an ass. They'd tell me to shape up and I'd say something along the lines of, "according to JC, the telestial is better than here. And I'm having a blast right now so god can send me there, that's fine." They never knew what to say to that.....ha

Ah well that makes sense they were regurgitating some garbage. I didn't stay in tssc long enough to 'learn' of that other than from the parents.

Here's the thing about so much of what the church was teaching in the 50s, 60s and 70s: there was little evidence we had to pay attention to that made church teachings look silly, and We Had All The Answers! That was pretty goddam glorious!

You know how insufferable I can be here? Imagine a 20 year old version of me, in 1965, heading out to the mission field with the knowledge sufficient to answer ANY question put to me about religion! We're talking some serious 'I-know-it-all-ism'! Brown GA walking!!!

When we had our session with the GA's in the temple, during the SLC mission home week, sitting there in an upper level meeting hall, decked out in our dark suits, white shirt & tie splendor, I sat there and felt so proud about how I was mentally giving the same answers the GAs were giving to the 'mysteries' questions that were being asked of them. Gad, but what a pompous ass I was! Now I'm just a silly ass, and I'm sure we're all a lot better of with the change.

But then science and the availability of a silly thing called facts started catching up to the church and the projected 100 million saints by 2000 fell by the wayside.

"Truth" can be such a bitter pill... Which is why so many refuse to partake.

About 25% chance Monson will be dead before the conference, looking at the most recent published photograph.