Did that ever make sense to you?

That's a claim that members of the LSD Church always make.

"We're here to learn important stuff."

"It's like a school."

But some aspects of this notion have always bothered me.

(1) If the afterlife is a realm of abundance, love, sharing and caring, what can we learn in this life of scarcity, competition for resources and the eat-or-be-eaten principle that will be of use to us in the afterlife, where everything is 180-degrees different from here? (Why would we need teeth and a digestive tract in the afterlife? Why would we need physical bodies in a spiritual realm?) Isn't it like taking a job working in a coal mine in order to learn how to be a chef specializing in French cuisine? Apples and oranges. This life is about learning how to survive in a sewer. Heaven is supposedly a place where the lessons learned from surviving for a number of years in a sewer would be completely irrelevant. I just don't get it.

(2) What kind of loving "father" sends his children to a school that often is nothing more than a house of horrors, with overwhelming difficulties, knowing that the consequence of failing to thrive in that environment will be eternal damnation, separation and suffering? Isn't that a bit like saying that you want your kid to learn how to swim, so you're dropping her from a helicopter into the arctic ocean...and if she succeeds in swimming back home, she will be worthy of love and acceptance? Wouldn't it make more sense to teach lessons in sensible steps, rather than in one extreme succeed-or-die scenario? It's like trying to sharpen your kid's reflexes by throwing bricks at him for several hours.

excuse whenever one of their marks discovers that they were lied to.

"It was a test of your loyalty. Since you came directly to me with your concern, that proves that you are loyal and honest. And that's why you're just the right person for this big, new special project I have been working on..."

stop trying to make sense of idiocy.

No, life is not a test. It’s an experience. You can like it or not, but it’s uniquely yours.

Unless you’re in a cult, then it’s a gullibility test.

That claim could be true.... except that one big lesson is why not to get involved with cults, like the mormon church.

As for (1), you have to taste the bitter to know the sweet.

As for (2), what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

See? It's all so simple. The Mormons know the deep truths. :)


Eternal progression was the only thing that kept my testimony in the fast lane. Always learning, never leveling off. It separated us from other religion's ideas of heaven which always seemed like roaming around some clouds with a harp. How long can you do that with out a real lot of drugs?

But in the end my idea of eternal progression wasn't about magic. I actually wanted to know new stuff all the time. The Mormon version sounded good to me. I was designing some new flowers for my planet when it all came crashing down.

-------------------------------------------------------
> As for (1), you have to taste the bitter to know
> the sweet.

Yep. For some time I thought that was a persuasive explanation. But as I thought about it more, I realized that the "opposition in ALL things" concept didn't really make sense either. For example, I can thoroughly enjoy skiing and cycling without experiencing a situation where I am physically unable to do those things. I don't need to eat bird poop for a week in order to appreciate a good slice of carrot cake. Like all other notions pushed by the LSD Church, this one too fall apart under scrutiny. Like so many things, this "opposition in all things" idea that is pushed in Mormonism appears to be derived from Freemasonry (think of the black&white checkered symbolism in Freemasonry). Freemasonry obviously influenced Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, etc. much, much more than most TBMs have ever considered possible.

> As for (2), what doesn't kill you makes you
> stronger.

Yeah, that's one of those "truisms" that turns out almost never to be true. What doesn't kill you...well...it almost kills you and in many instances leaves you permanently impaired, weakened, disabled, maimed, scarred, traumatized.

It's a maxim that makes sense in places like the local gym, where the trainer is encouraging somebody to push through another 10 minutes of working out. Or it may make sense in a case where you do something you're afraid of and come out of it unharmed, thereby realizing that you don't need to be afraid of it. But if you've survived a head injury that resulted in permanent brain damage, you can't say that the experience made you stronger just because it didn't kill you.
+++++++++++++++++

I agree, as vague as it was, the notion of eternal progression was one of the few things that made Mormonism seem more enlightened and positive than the even more ambiguous notions about the afterlife available in other belief systems. (It's a hell of a lot more appealing than the Buddhist goal, which in some ways seems to be little more than working hard to get a permanent death in order to avoid returning for another nasty experience on the reincarnation merry-go-round.)

But since everything else in Mormonism is made up or plagiarized, it's hard to take it seriously. I notice that since Hinckley, they don't talk much about us eventually becoming gods. But then I haven't been going to church or listening intently to conference talks, so maybe I just missed it.

Love your elaboration on (1) and (2), Wally. Couldn't agree more. I used to buy both of those wholesale and am still tempted to throw them out now and then.

As far as the afterlife----

I had one of those nights last night where you wake up at three in the morning and EVERYTHING seems hopeless, and black, and I felt so trapped. Times like that really make me want it to be that dying is simply "lights out" and I won't have to suffer anymore.

But then in the morning, the sun is up, the garden looks great, coffee tastes good and "I'm stuck like a dope with a thing called hope . . ." Dammit.

I mean, why not? I don't know if I have a firm basis for hope that there's a continuation and that it's an improvement over this very flawed existence. But sometimes there are things that happen that seem to indicate that there's more going on than meets the eye and maybe the general idea that we do go on in some way or another is true. If that hope is wrong, I'll never know that it turned out to be wrong. ;o)

TBH, going into oblivion has no appeal for me. Some people seem to think that oblivion would provide relief from suffering.
But oblivion, by definition, makes any sense of relief impossible. So...may as well hope for relief or something even better to come after this life and find as many things to enjoy as possible in this life.

“you have to taste the bitter to know the sweet.”
I tasted Mormonism, so maybe true.

“what doesn't kill you makes you stronger”
They stole that from Stoicism. But whatever does kill you makes you dead.

Mormonism’s harem heaven probably came from Islam. For some reason Joseph really liked it.

Yeah, it's sort of like you start out at Harvard, then get thrown down to a Junior College to learn "humility" so you can get back to Harvard.
I guess a TBM would say: "Sure, it's like a rich dad that makes his kid work as a ditch-digger for a while to learn what real work is!"

But if you start out in an idyllic pre-existence with God, why do you NEED to learn humility (and get tempted by "the adversary" along the way that might mess up your chance to get back to Him?)

I've written at length about this, but that's the gist.

Unless the pre-existence and afterlife are substantially the same as earthly life, there do not seem to be any "lessons" that can be learned here that would be relevant there.

What relevance does the "humility" concept in an earth-based society of mortal beings have to an afterlife where there are no shortages of resources, no artificially constructed hierarchies and no reason for the type of relationships that exist between humans on earth to exist in the afterlife? Alternatively, if the pre-existence and afterlife conditions are substantially similar, but less extreme, why not just learn the lessons there?

You don't have to experience being a worm or sewer rat in order to be a better human. The conditions, survival necessities and biological impulses are so different that learning how to be a good worm or good sewer rat would not equip you to be a good human. And, if what is preached is to be believed, life in the presence of God would be much more different from human life on earth than human life is from sewer rat and worm life.

lessons in this life versus any relevance of such lessons in an afterlife are all of the rules and notions of morality in Mormonism relating to sexuality.

At the root of it all, the basic human sex impulse is a result of hormones that motivate humans to engage in reproductive behaviors that they otherwise would not be inclined to engage in.

Unless the afterlife is just a bunch of harem dynasties dominated by a few alpha dogs (like Joe Smith and Brigham Young) who basically believed that the whole point of having resurrected bodies was to have sex, then everything about the Sex-Religion Industrial Complex, it would seem, would be completely irrelevant. Sex in heaven would not be necessary for species survival and related family formation strategies.

Take that away and there really are no lessons of any relevance to be learned on earth.

Let's see, a "mormon timeline:"

Pre-existence: Unknown but really, really long time during which apparently there was some kind of war and we chose sides, but we didn't learn anything from that towards our eternal progression. It did determine where we'd be born and what color skin we'd have, though.

Existence: short, brutal, limited minds/bodies. Initial position (at least) determined by the pre-existence. A few acts and a few supposed "ordiances" absolutely required.

Afterlife: eternity to have harems (if you're a man, be in one of you're a woman, but only if a man chooses you), make spirit babies, populate planets, repeat ad infinitum. Ability to do any of those things relies entirely on the extremely brief existence stage...don't do the right ordinances or join the right church, and you spend eternity doing...something, just not having resurrected sex and ruling planets.

SO, to sum up:

Infinitely long pre-existence, the entire point of which was to determine starting point and skin color in existence.

Nearly infinitely short existence, the point of which is to determine what happens next...

Infinitely long afterlife, entirely determined by a few things in the infinitely short existence.

Yeah, that make sense.

Not.

...just a different variation of the "Truman Show."

F'it.

Us humans, once our brains grew large enough. definitely were not lacking in imagination and creativity to explain our existence on this earth.

Stories were the TV of the day for a very long time beginning way back and were used for both sharing information and entertainment. Fact and fiction were the ingredients and very often competition entered the scenario with the need to make one's story more interesting, thrilling, entertaining, and informative than the next person's or tribe. Subjects varied, but in all cultures there is a creation myth of how humans came to exist on the earth, plus tales to explain our purpose on earth and what happens when we die. Religion is present in every single culture studied on the earth.

When you think about it, with all the thousands and thousands and thousands of religions that exist and have existed, the human imagination is incredible with what it has come up with......hopeful and comforting, but also terrifyingly judgmental and downright evil.

Mormonism came way late in the religion game, building its story using bits and pieces of previous stories and also adding their own ingredients here and there (Jesus appearing in America being one of the most original). What is fascinating is that Mormonism can be fact-checked because it is so new and left a trail of evidence in its wake.

And, the history of Mormonism that is available can make an investigator laugh, fall to sleep reading it, angry, and even find comfort and hope in bits of the story.

"(1) If the afterlife is a realm of abundance, love, sharing and caring, what can we learn in this life of scarcity, competition for resources and the eat-or-be-eaten principle that will be of use to us in the afterlife, where everything is 180-degrees different from here?"

COMMENT: Assuming for the sake of argument that there is such an afterlife, it makes perfect sense to me that a recollection of a prior life of hardship and difficulty would enhance the appreciation of such an afterlife. After all, successful people in this life who have overcome a host of difficulties, often make that very point; i.e. that their current status is more appreciated because of where they came from, and what they endured.
_________________________________________

"(Why would we need teeth and a digestive tract in the afterlife? Why would we need physical bodies in a spiritual realm?) Isn't it like taking a job working in a coal mine in order to learn how to be a chef specializing in French cuisine? Apples and oranges. This life is about learning how to survive in a sewer. Heaven is supposedly a place where the lessons learned from surviving for a number of years in a sewer would be completely irrelevant. I just don't get it."

COMMENT: Of course, the issue of the *need* for a physical body in the afterlife is a bit of a different question. That said, even though there may be only a very tenuous connection between the *learning* requirements associated with working in a coal mine and that of working as a chef, this is a false analogy because it compares vocations, not emotional responses to comparative well-being, or comparative hardship. There is no reason to assume that in a subsequent existence (heaven) where the hardships of this life do not exist, that learning and perspective achieved from earth life is therefore irrelevant to a person's understanding; i.e. to who that person has become after having such experiences.

___________________________________________

"(2) What kind of loving "father" sends his children to a school that often is nothing more than a house of horrors, with overwhelming difficulties, knowing that the consequence of failing to thrive in that environment will be eternal damnation, separation and suffering?"

COMMENT: Again, this is a different question, and involves a host of rhetorical assumptions involving rigid theological consequences that most theists, including Mormons, would deny. Mormon judgment is much more individualized, leaving much more room for mercy than your assumptions suggest. Moreover, for the sake of argument, I would point out that what "a loving father" might or might not do, or what is rational for such a person, cannot be answered without a more complete understanding of the context of such decisions; including the precise nature of God and the natural laws of the universe that he might be subjected to.
__________________________________________

"Isn't that a bit like saying that you want your kid to learn how to swim, so you're dropping her from a helicopter into the arctic ocean...and if she succeeds in swimming back home, she will be worthy of love and acceptance? Wouldn't it make more sense to teach lessons in sensible steps, rather than in one extreme succeed-or-die scenario? It's like trying to sharpen your kid's reflexes by throwing bricks at him for several hours."

COMMENT: Here I think your point is well-taken. One has to assume the rather baseless and empty doctrine that "God (or life) will not test a person beyond their ability to overcome it." The reality is, after all, that life does just that--repeatedly! Moreover, even if we assume freewill, the degree of suffering experienced by some people certainly transcends any reasonable expectation that they will somehow above it. If learning by suffering is indeed the goal here, one might expect a God with even limited power to devise a system that was more restrained in its harshness, not to mention more equitable, than the one we apparently witness on a day-by-day basis. In other words, what we see does not have *any* apparent relationship to any plan at all; its just random.

Henry Bemis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "(1) If the afterlife is a realm of abundance,
> love, sharing and caring, what can we learn in
> this life of scarcity, competition for resources
> and the eat-or-be-eaten principle that will be of
> use to us in the afterlife, where everything is
> 180-degrees different from here?"
>
> COMMENT: Assuming for the sake of argument that
> there is such an afterlife, it makes perfect sense
> to me that a recollection of a prior life of
> hardship and difficulty would enhance the
> appreciation of such an afterlife. After all,
> successful people in this life who have overcome a
> host of difficulties, often make that very point;
> i.e. that their current status is more appreciated
> because of where they came from, and what they
> endured.

RESPONSE: Do you have to experience the life of a worm to enhance your appreciation of life as a healthy human being? I don't really buy this "enhanced appreciation" argument. For one thing it is once again based on the idea that the afterlife is essentially just a continuation of the same limited perceptual capabilities and emotional dynamics of this life. As indicated in other examples I gave, I don't need to experience being physically incapacitated and growing up in a dumpster to enjoy the exhilaration of cycling on a perfect day on a road winding through a beautiful mountain meadow. The type of dynamic contrasting you're describing is more a recipe for a manic-depressive existence than anything else. It has nothing to do with promoting a healthy emotional state of mind and equilibrium, nor does it have any relevance to attaining the perceptual acuity and wisdom required to appreciate good without having to constantly cycle back and forth between good and evil. In fact, I would go so far as to say that a horrific, traumatic experience in this life may have the opposite effect from what you are suggesting. A soul may be more inclined to seek numbness, reduced consciousness, a retreat from experience or oblivion in response, rather than developing an enhanced sensitivity and openness to the enjoyment of experiences.

Based on the manic-depressive model you seem to be describing, heaven itself can be a sh*thole, but if it's significantly better than your previous sh*thole experience, you're in good shape. Like: "After a week of having nothing but rat turds to eat, I'm really appreciating these semi-spoiled carrots and cabbages that are on offer in this dumpster."

> _________________________________________
>
> "(Why would we need teeth and a digestive tract in
> the afterlife? Why would we need physical bodies
> in a spiritual realm?) Isn't it like taking a job
> working in a coal mine in order to learn how to be
> a chef specializing in French cuisine? Apples and
> oranges. This life is about learning how to
> survive in a sewer. Heaven is supposedly a place
> where the lessons learned from surviving for a
> number of years in a sewer would be completely
> irrelevant. I just don't get it."
>
> COMMENT: Of course, the issue of the *need* for a
> physical body in the afterlife is a bit of a
> different question. That said, even though there
> may be only a very tenuous connection between the
> *learning* requirements associated with working in
> a coal mine and that of working as a chef, this is
> a false analogy because it compares vocations, not
> emotional responses to comparative well-being, or
> comparative hardship. There is no reason to assume
> that in a subsequent existence (heaven) where the
> hardships of this life do not exist, that learning
> and perspective achieved from earth life is
> therefore irrelevant to a person's understanding;
> i.e. to who that person has become after having
> such experiences.

RESPONSE: Obviously in that analogy, I wasn't talking about "emotional responses to comparative hardship" that's a straw man entirely of your own making. So it's not a "false analogy." If heaven (for lack of a better word) is an infinitely better and different milieu than this earthly life, there would seem to be no practical lessons that can be learned in this life that would prepare us well for navigating and optimizing our existence in that entirely different life, JUST AS spending 20 years working in a coal mine would not prepare you in any sensible way to navigate and optimize an opportunity to be a chef specializing in French cuisine. You know, if you suddenly died in the coal mine and found your soul transferred into the body of a great French chef, you would be totally out of your element.

Similarly, if we don't need to kill and tear apart food with our teeth in the next life, what good did it do our eternal souls to spend several decades using teeth and, for most of human history, clubbing and killing other living creatures for our own survival? If the type of existence, occupations and activities in the next life are EVEN MORE DIFFERENT from this life than coal mining is from French cooking, it's hard to see how any "lessons" learned in this life would translate into becoming "learning tools" that facilitate a better existence in the next life.
>
> ___________________________________________
>
> "(2) What kind of loving "father" sends his
> children to a school that often is nothing more
> than a house of horrors, with overwhelming
> difficulties, knowing that the consequence of
> failing to thrive in that environment will be
> eternal damnation, separation and suffering?"
>
> COMMENT: Again, this is a different question, and
> involves a host of rhetorical assumptions
> involving rigid theological consequences that most
> theists, including Mormons, would deny. Mormon
> judgment is much more individualized, leaving much
> more room for mercy than your assumptions suggest.
> Moreover, for the sake of argument, I would point
> out that what "a loving father" might or might not
> do, or what is rational for such a person, cannot
> be answered without a more complete understanding
> of the context of such decisions; including the
> precise nature of God and the natural laws of the
> universe that he might be subjected to.

RESPONSE: Well, the "holy scriptures" are quite explicit in their judgments and condemnations. Not a lot of fudge room. But I will grant that most "theists" do indeed pull out of their butts whatever customized interpretations they think that they can get away with to help them sleep at night. But why should I take anything they say seriously when they usually end up contradicting massive portions of the holy scriptures they claim to be basing their brand of theism on? Nothing you said actually answers my question. You've basically, in so many words, simply given the classic "god's ways are not our ways" and "it's a mystery that has not yet been explained to us and is beyond our current understanding" types of answers.
> __________________________________________
>
> "Isn't that a bit like saying that you want your
> kid to learn how to swim, so you're dropping her
> from a helicopter into the arctic ocean...and if
> she succeeds in swimming back home, she will be
> worthy of love and acceptance? Wouldn't it make
> more sense to teach lessons in sensible steps,
> rather than in one extreme succeed-or-die
> scenario? It's like trying to sharpen your kid's
> reflexes by throwing bricks at him for several
> hours."
>
> COMMENT: Here I think your point is well-taken.
> One has to assume the rather baseless and empty
> doctrine that "God (or life) will not test a
> person beyond their ability to overcome it." The
> reality is, after all, that life does just
> that--repeatedly! Moreover, even if we assume
> freewill, the degree of suffering experienced by
> some people certainly transcends any reasonable
> expectation that they will somehow above it. If
> learning by suffering is indeed the goal here, one
> might expect a God with even limited power to
> devise a system that was more restrained in its
> harshness, not to mention more equitable, than
> the one we apparently witness on a day-by-day
> basis. In other words, what we see does not have
> *any* apparent relationship to any plan at all;
> its just random.

Every experience that includes the qualifier: Well I learned something, I guess. Has been a horrible experience. And I've learned a lot of things without those experiences.

So has anyone, ever, said please hurt me so that I can learn?

Abusive asshole sky daddies who think that the best way to teach something is to drive it into your mind with a blunt object are assholes.

"So has anyone, ever, said please hurt me so that I can learn?"

COMMENT: Maybe not. But, many people have said in hindsight that they are glad they had such an experience; would not change the fact that they had such an experience; and have claimed to have become a better person as a result of such experience. Moreover, I suggest that learning through suffering is unique, such that there is no classroom presentation or bystander empathy that could take its place in a meaningful way.

Thus, although no one (except a masochist or an altruist) wants or chooses to suffer, or to have negative experiences, such experiences can involve an element of learning or "growing" as a person. So, there is clearly a sense in which negative experiences can have very positive, life changing, effects--when not too harsh, and when the consequences are not too severe. The problem for theodicy is the simple fact that often such experiences *are* too harsh, and the consequences *are* too severe to make "learning" either meaningful at all, or sufficiently positive as a moral justification for its negative effects.

Your not wrong about negative experiences being an impetus for positive effects. However, to some extent the positive effect is predicated not on the negative experience itself but instead on the individual who is having the experience. A person who reacts positively is more likely to have a positive outcome regardless of the experience.

My issue with the whole idea is the ignorant attitude that insists that those experiences are for my good. And that without them I wouldn't be able to be a complete person. Oh and the idea that the bad things that happen to me will be the vessel of my ultimate salvation.

I'm only hurting you because I love you is one of those things that make me question my latent nihilism.

Wally, it's weird that you posted this because I was having the EXACT same thoughts the other day. I'm sick of LDS, Inc. justifying our suffering because our difficult experiences will help us in the next life. So if I suffer a terrible injury and spend most of my life in pain, only to be resurrected with a perfect body in a place where pain no longer exists, how will my painful experience on planet earth serve me or others? Why would I even want to remember any pain I experienced when pain will NEVER AGAIN be an issue, and after a while, I wouldn't be able to remember the pain, even if I tried. Makes ZERO sense.

Going through various trials (pain, sickness, etc..) on earth, makes us appreciate the good times. Getting through the flu makes us appreciate when we are well. But in heaven, where all is eternally good, what's the point in remembering trials that are no longer relevant?

You also questioned the relevance of a digestive system in the next life. I was wondering the same. In heaven, will we eat living organisms, either plant or animal? Won't all living things from this life that are resurrected to the next life be eternal? Can plants/animals still be killed? If we're not eating living organisms, there's no reason for us to have a digestive system, and really no need for the bodies that have evolved over millions of years for survival on planet earth to serve a purpose in the next life where survival is no longer an issue.

If you present these questions to any "authority" in LDS, Inc., you'll be told not to worry about it; it will work itself out in the next life. Everything will be A-OK! Just be sure to pay your tithing.

Wally Prince Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It's like trying to sharpen your kid's
> reflexes by throwing bricks at him for several
> hours.

And your best example kid to learn from died from his experience 2000 years ago.