The afterlife

[Anonymous]

The problem with eternal progression is that it cannot go on forever. Omnipotence is only as far as it can go.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, that darned limitation of omnipotence!! Omniscience is a real bummer, too.

[Anonymous]

Afterlife:

1. What flowerdrops said.

2. What Near Death Experiences say.

[Anonymous]

I like the concept of eternal progression. It is exciting to believe that you can continue after this life to larger and more expansive experiences. On the other hand I do not think there is anyone alive that really knows what is in store for us. The scriptures are mostly silent on the after life or at least the details of it. Most modern thought is just speculation, so I would not worry about something we really know nothing about.

[Anonymous]

Cadence wrote:

.. The scriptures are mostly silent on the after life or at least the details of it. Most modern thought is just speculation…

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

…not that it matters much what the scriptures say anyway. 😈 There are plenty (millions!) of other equally or more credible sources for such information.

[Anonymous]

Greetings all!

My first post turns out to be on the topic that causes me the most confusion and distress about the church, mostly because it deals with “unanswerables.” Please forgive me for ranting. I’ve got some stuff to get off my chest.

Since we’re on the topic of the afterlife, I’ll throw in my thoughts. If they’re misplaced, feel free to relocate them.

My thoughts on the afterlife all come from questions about temple marriage/family as the LDS church teaches:

1) Why would God set up this system (temple marriage) that only recognizes or approves some marriages but not others?

2) How is temple marriage in itself different from others, aside from the “authority” to seal for eternity? It obviously does not pretend to make a person or a couple more righteous, as D&C 132 says the only qualifier for exaltation beyond the actual sealing authority is not sinning against the Holy Ghost (which is defined as “assenting” unto the death of Christ and shedding innocent blood, after receiving the temple marriage covenant). That’s not hard to do, as I understand it, and it seems to me that most married couples don’t go around murdering innocent people, so I don’t see how that makes temple marriage any better, besides the authority to bind for eternity. Which brings me back to the first question: Why would God do that? Why would He deny the blessings of becoming like Him to His children who were maybe more righteous than the temple married ones, just because they didn’t have that authority? If the only difference is authority, then it seems like favoritism. Am I missing something?

“Let’s make it harder for them to become like us by creating a law that doesn’t do anything except give us a reason to exclude some.”

It’d be like saying to His non-member children, “you have to do this and this and this, and even still, you only get to be ministering angels unless you accept proxy work,” and to His member children, “if you come get my stamp of approval when you get married, and don’t kill each other, you’re off the hook. You don’t have to do anything else.”

Imagine a father saying to his children, “you can only grow up to be like me if you get my permission first.”

3) And here’s my big question: in the afterlife, will we be forcibly separated from our loved ones who had not received temple covenants? If those non-temple marriages were not recognized of God and “not of force” after death, would we be restricted to being ministering angels in a different quadrant of the galaxy to keep us away from our beloved? Or could we use our agency to be with them anyway, in a non-God-authorized sort of bond? What would the consequences of that be?

4) If earth models heaven, why does HF dictate our “continuation of lives” after we die? My parents don’t have much control over how I live my life after I leave home, and they don’t have a final judgment for me, or separate my siblings and me into various degrees of closeness to them. We simply choose how close/how much like my parents we want to be.

5) I personally would prefer a smaller-scale afterlife/exaltation. I’d rather have a few spirit children versus billions and billions. Is that allowed?

I hope the afterlife is more merciful than this concept, and I hope people will not be forced into a heaven they don’t want. That doesn’t make any sense at all to me, and I can’t imagine my God keeps such double-standards. I’m probably jaded in my perspective on most of these. I’ve been dating a wonderful non-mormon boy for the past year, and my family loves him and says they only wish he was mormon. They fear for us because “if we ever have children, we will never be able to see them again after this life.” They will never be ours again. We’ll never see each other again. I’m the one keeping my own family from being whole in the eternities because of my choice to be with him.

I get the same from my ward members, and I feel like they’re using the old fear-of-death/the-unknown trick to manipulate/bribe me into being with a man they can feel comfortable with 🙄 It makes me sad. I’ve been thinking a lot about the afterlife lately because of this, and it’s scary, because I don’t know, and can’t know, without experiencing it. Maybe they are right after all, and I will find out too late. But if it was true, I wouldn’t want it. I don’t believe in the same post-existence my family does, and I can hope for something better. I do wish I could find a way to reconcile my differences with them in a way that they wouldn’t have to fear losing me or the salvation of our family. I think the Greeks had it right with the story of Pandora’s box; hope is the key in this case.

As a side note, have any of you read I Hated Heaven by mormon author Kenny Kemp? I picked it up as an easy read for between classes at the college, but it turned out to be surprisingly ecumenical and lighthearted, for dealing with a subject so emotionally charged as the afterlife.

[Anonymous]

Wow, for your first post, that sure is a heck of a way to start. My head is spinning.

For the most part, the concepts of heaven that I learned in the LDS culture I grew up in – make very little sense. I just can’t accept it as true as I was taught.

I don’t have the answers, and I don’t think anyone else on this planet does either – and that includes the prophet.

One thing that I believe, is a comment that Ray makes often that applies to temples and accepting the gospel in the next life and such. We, as a church are very merciful and lenient to non members, but when it comes to our own – we are much more judgmental and harsh, and think that if we “fail” this life we have no other options. We give non members all the benefit of the doubt – why do we not do the same thing for members? Just a thought.

[Anonymous]

macalla, rather than trying to answer your questions and address your comment here (since that would take more space than your comment ), I am going to suggest you go back and go through the older posts to read what we’ve discussed in those posts. We have talked about the questions you have asked quite often, and there are really good (and varying) opinions about them. You can comment on those posts – which will pull them to the top of the active posts for others to comment, as well.

Please understand that I’m not trying to avoid the questions, and I’m not trying to devalue them in ANY way, but I just think you’ll get a much broader spectrum of ideas for all of those questions by reading the other posts than by having us try to address them here in the limited space we have in one thread.

I will look for relevant threads and provide links for you.

(“What Will Life Be Like in the Celestial Kingdom?”) http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1466

(“A Profound Comment on Redeeming the Dead”) http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1162

(“Families Can Be Together Forever”) http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=610

[Anonymous]

Thanks for linking those threads; the last one was particularly insightful and a much-needed read for me.

I suddenly had a thought regarding the afterlife I thought I’d share:

In The Last Battle (C.S. Lewis’ Narnia), at the end of everything, the Dwarves are in paradise (an allegory of paradise, maybe, but still). They are seated in a circle talking about how it’s dark, they can’t see anything, the prison rations are terrible, etc. while the other Narnians are enjoying a most precious fruit and running without being weary, etc.

The Narnians try to reason with the Dwarves and show them how wonderful this afterlife is, but the Dwarves refuse to see what’s right there in front of them.

I’m wondering if the afterlife might actually be what we make it. Perhaps our creative power as children/creations of The creator is stronger than we realize. Mental power is mysterious, and we currently only use tiny portions of our brains. We already know that our perceptions create our current reality, and that no two people experiencing the same thing truly have the same experience. Is it possible that the afterlife will be no more (or less) than what we’ve been taught to believe it will be? Or what we choose to believe it will be?

This would explain why near death experiences are so different, and why they generally agree with the religion/religious experiences of the person who dies and comes back. It’s what they consciously or subconsciously expected.

Additionally, this idea sort of correlates with LDS afterlife doctrine. Those who don’t accept the gospel after death aren’t sealed to their families and are “as the angels.” Some Christian denominations believe that they become angels after they die…

I like this idea and I’m glad it popped into my head. It’s a way everyone can be right We don’t know what’s to come in the hereafter (or even if there is a hereafter). We can believe whatever we want about it, so why not believe it’s the best thing we can possibly imagine, and wait to find out?

I know my mother doesn’t ever want to be responsible for billions of heavenly spirits. She wants a little cottage in the countryside where she can be absolutely alone and paint for eternity. This bothered me when I was younger. I thought, “why wouldn’t she want to have her family with her? Why can’t she just have faith that the Celestial Kingdom will be as wonderful as the scriptures say?” Now I understand. Her idea of heaven is not my idea of heaven, and my idea of heaven has changed considerably since my faith crisis. It will probably continue to change (I’m only 19 after all!). I can accept that, and I can allow her to believe in whatever gives her the most peace and comfort, while continuing to explore ideas of what my own experience will be. And hoping she will tolerate my divergence of belief 😯

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