Mormon heaven is very complicated. The Telestial Kingdom and the Terrestrial Kingdom are so much better than our life on Earth, that they could be considered "Heaven". You don't need to go to the Celestial Kingdom to have a great afterlife.

Mormon commandments are so difficult to follow that, for all practical purposes, many Mormons find it impossible to obey them all, making it unlikely they will go to the Celestial Kingdom. It is easy to come to the conclusion that you will be satisfied with a lower kingdom.

If you were still a Mormon and felt satisfied with a lower kingdom, would you still pay tithing? Would you still go to Church? Even if you did not do these things, you would at least go to the Telestial Kingdom, and maybe to the Terrestrial Kingdom.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/15/2019 10:33PM by behindcurtain.

I wouldn't pay tithing if I didn't believe I was going to be crowned in the Celestial Kingdom, that would just be paying for someone else's glory. I certainly wouldn't do the temple thing if I planning on going to the terrestrial Kingdom. Letting another man have Celestial relationship with my spouse would be ridiculous, but somehow Old Joe and Briggs convinced some men to do just that.

I guess If I was TBM and planning on having my spouse go to the celestial kingdom and I was going to Hell, Maybe I'd let Briggs have her? I don't know, it's just a sick thing to think about?

is of, by and for plyg patriarchs (aka "Harem Owners") like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.

The main selling point was always eternal procreation (aka "sex") with multiple partners (for the plyg patriarch).

For the women, the only selling point was status (i.e. being one of the wives of a high-ranking priesthood guy (see "plyg patriarch" and "harem owner" references above). The women, once they've helped populate a planet with their spirit children can't even get worshiped in return (because "Heavenly Mother" is too sacred to be talked about, doncha know!)

For the guys with smaller priesthoods, they can even have their CK fantasy stolen from them by one of the guys who has a bigger priesthood (hence polyandry and JS and BY sending guys on missions so they can steal their wives).

People in the real spirit world tell me that the CK is really a quarantine zone where pretentious, bloated a**holes and d**ks go to work the eternal lust and power cravings out of their systems. If and when their spirits can return to health and sanity, they can then spend time in the higher kingdoms--on a probation basis. They only believe that the Tel and Ter kingdoms are lower because they were of the mindset that the "winner" is always the guy who boinks the most.

I often hear that I am going to be proved wrong when the afterlife comes, that Mormons will be right, etc. I find it interesting that they know exactly what will happen when they die. I mean, no one knows the future, so how can Mormons know? I think they will be the ones in for the big surprise when their plan falls to crumbles. In all honesty, if there is an afterlife, it is probably so radically different from their view that it will blow their mind.

I guess that you don’t need the father, son , and the holy ghost, at one place. Even the lowest level “ only” has the holy ghost.
The only one I’d be concerned about is outer darkness.

The more Mormons you know the more you want to be as far away from them as possible. The arrogance and ignorance are one thing, but the worst is they are boring beyond belief. That is the real crime. Is the Telestial Kingdom even far enough away from the CK? I don't think it could be.

Oh, but if I were still believing Mormon? You gotta go for it. So yes. I'm a competitive SOB. CK all the way! Of course in my day you got to be God and have your own planet so there was a bigger carrot on the end of the stick. Nowadays I'm not sure you even get the mansion at the rate they are downgrading the perks.
Chances are good you will end up as Wendy's assistant or a waiter at Chez Joseph.

Nope....I want the full enchilada or nothing!!

If you were a Scientologist would you settle for less than this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OT_VIII

Mormonism like Scientology sets prices and standards of devotion so high that there is a huge paying base willing to accept less like any good MLM business.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/16/2019 10:50AM by Elder Berry.

Was it Brigham Young who said that heaven was so spectacular that if we knew how great even the telestial kingdom was, we'd want to die just to get there. I know I haven't stated what he said exactly but that was the jist of it. Maybe it wasn't even BY.

I really didn’t give it much thought to be honest. I was born into the church. My parents were inactive and went back to church and got sealed in the temple shortly before I was born. So my life growing up was pretty much the church thing.

For me the church was just part of what was expected. It was house rules. Much like scouting. I loved cub scouts but had other interests by the time I got into Boy Scouts. But I did the scouting thing because that’s what you did.

I basically went through the motions. It was a cultural thing more than some deep seated belief.

I was banking on mid-Terrestrial myself. Not being able to visit up, Telestial didn't give me enough options. I figured that if I needed a change of pace from hosting and attending endless sedate, respectable Terrestrial dinner parties, I could simply visit a few of the Telestial strip clubs and join in some of their orgies. Never bought into the smoothie thing.

Celestial? No way. Who wants to exist under the constant watchful eye of Elohim as he micro-manages every aspect of your afterlife? Celestial housing developments would consist of row upon row of McMansions, each occupied with newly-minted godlings, all trying to one-up their equally omnipotent neighbors for eternity in the power and glory department. Kind of like a super-upscale Provo with gold streets (D&C 137:4) and glowing like Chernobyl.

I have never been a Mormon, but I think if the three kingdoms were real, either the Telestial or Terrestial would be fine. Sometimes I've said this to Mormon missionaries, and they respond, "But Brother Gentile, we want you to be able to enjoy the fullest blessings and the highest degree of glory."

Actually, the Celestial Kingdom, as usually described, doesn't sound all that appealing to me.

I'll just settle for nonexistence. I was happiest before I was born.

Amen

When I was a believing Mormon, I never thought I was going to the Celestial Kingdom. I always assumed I'd be in a lesser kingdom.

The CK was for the really great people who read their scriptures ever day and went to the temple once a week. I was a good, devoted Mormon, but I didn't see myself as one of the really good ones. I really didn't care that I'd never make it to the top though, being a perfect Mormon was too much pressure and I didn't really like the perfect Mormons much anyway. I assumed I'd be a better fit with the people in a lower kingdom.

Every several years when missionaries stop by, I like to ask them what they're going to do in the CK. Usually reply vaguely about being with family, being happy, etc.

I tell them it will be endless church meetings and temple sessions and missionary work, like now. And sitting on a throne, with streets paved of gold - very sterile and bland. And then the polygamy thing, which is when their enthusiasm wanes.

I tell them I'd rather be digging in the dirt.

Few Mormons have thought much about the CK. They just tell each other how wonderful it will be.

Pretty funny to be paying big bucks and investing countless hours to get to where you probably don't want to be.

I think, yes, I would do whatever it took to do what God wanted me to do. Not because of a reward being dangled, but because that would be what pleased God. Because God is perfect and full of love and doesn't want to make us suffer and burn forever, so we have to help him help us....and yadda, yadda, yadda.

I did all kinds of embarrassing things when I was a try-hard young TBM.

When I was about 14 or so, I thought the Holy Ghost was telling me to go around our neighborhood knocking on doors like a missionary to tell them about the Gospel. It was actually just my internal dialogue with the intelligent part of my mind trying to talk the idiot part out of doing something stupid. In that instance the religious idiot won out. The extreme cringe-fest that followed as I went door to door still has me waking up at night decades later, in a cold sweat and trembling, just remembering the embarrassing stupidity of it.

Basically, I got myself branded as the village idiot, but thought I was earning major brownie points in heaven each time one of our neighbors looked at me like they were wondering who they needed to call to get me committed for examination by a psychiatrist and child-protective services.

It was a stupid thing I did. It was embarrassing as hell, and my face was probably red with embarrassment the whole time. But it was all based on what I had been hearing in church and reading in church books. It's exactly the kind of thing the heroes in all the faith-promoting stories would do.

I thought I would be rewarded for doing what God wanted me to do no matter how embarrassing or difficult.

In a way, I was rewarded. Because over the next few years the truth about the fraudulence of Mormonism was revealed to me with unmistakable clarity. If there is a God, he/she had mercy on me. God was probably thinking: "Whoa! That kid is taking the whole Mormon matrix thing way too seriously. We gotta get him out of there."