Posted by:
Wally Prince
(
)
Date: October 25, 2018 02:50AM
It doesn't seem like Mormons talk much about the pre-existence anymore (or maybe I've just not been paying attention). I see on the Interweb that a remake movie based on the 1970's "Saturday's Warrior" musical was done in 2016 by the same guy(s) who did the 1970s original.
Like all Mormon stories that don't quite add up if you scrutinize them too hard, I guess you'll need massive doses of "Suspension of Disbelief" pills to be able to enjoy it.
One thing confused me years ago when "Saturday's Warrior" was all the rage and everyone was talking about how "the most valiant spirits were saved for the latter days" and "the children being born in these latter days were generals and mighty warriors in the war in heaven" and so on and so forth.
When you combine those notions with the "eternal family" sealings supposedly done in the temple, you get the weird result where the spirits who were the mightiest, greatest and bravest in the pre-existence are now sealed into very, very junior positions in eternal families--due to no other reason than birth order.
So, logically, you could get a deal where a grandpa ("Ned") in the "eternal family" was, as it turns out, just an average Joe for about 10 million years worth of pre-existence life. Ned's service in the war in heaven consisted mainly of working far behind the front lines picking up used angel darts and hauling them off to recycling long after the relevant battle was over. Turns out he was a screw up and often lost half or more of the used angel darts that he was supposed to deliver to recycling. He was just brave enough to get a birth spot in Utah. But barely that. His rank in God's army was equivalent to corporal.
But now, due to birth order, he's the automatic boss of his grandson Willy--like as in FOREVER! But then it turns out that Willy was one of the mightiest generals in the pre-existence and was second-in-command to Michael the Archangel. In fact, Willy was the general who came up with the winning strategy for defeating Beelzebub's finest battalion at the Battle of Foggy Sinkhole and this was a major turning point in the war.
So why would General Willy want to be sealed into an "eternal family" where he is now eternally subordinate to Corporal Ned?
Since this lifetime is like a blink of an eye compared to eternity, isn't it crazy to eternally lock in the temporary relationships established in this lifetime? Wouldn't it be like finding out in high school that you have to take orders from a guy named Claude just because he was once named Team Captain for a dodge ball game that you once played in kindergarten? Wouldn't it be crazy to find out that the team relationships established in that one dodge-ball game in kindergarten had become legally permanent?