Mormons & planets?

  • Thread starter Thread starter kimg901
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
kimg901 said:
So the lds church says that their members wont get their own planet. Thoughts on this?
nbcnews.com/news/religion/mormons-get-own-planet-not-so-fast-church-n40591
Click to expand...
I don’t think that’s what they are saying.

They are saying “Yeah, I’ll get my own planet someday; I just don’t like how you’ve drawn my planet!” 😃

Seriously, though, many non-Mormons have the idea that when a faithful Mormon man dies, he walks through the veil and someone hands him the pink slip for his new planet.

Most LDS don’t think it works like that. Most LDS believe that there is more growth and knowledge to be had between death and exaltation, and that that learning curve may take a long time. If you read carefully what Joseph Smith wrote about exaltation you see that he envisioned it as a very gradual process.

So I think what they are taking exception to is the way the belief is caricatured by non-members.

Besides, the newly-exalted god isn’t given a planet; he has to organize his own planet out of stuff he finds hanging around. 😃

I am interested to see how many of the LDS on these fora will react to this article.

Paul (formerly LDS, now happily Catholic)
 
PaulDupre1 said:
I don’t think that’s what they are saying.

They are saying “Yeah, I’ll get my own planet someday; I just don’t like how you’ve drawn my planet!” 😃

Seriously, though, many non-Mormons have the idea that when a faithful Mormon man dies, he walks through the veil and someone hands him the pink slip for his new planet.

Most LDS don’t think it works like that. Most LDS believe that there is more growth and knowledge to be had between death and exaltation, and that that learning curve may take a long time. If you read carefully what Joseph Smith wrote about exaltation you see that he envisioned it as a very gradual process.

So I think what they are taking exception to is the way the belief is caricatured by non-members.

Besides, the newly-exalted god isn’t given a planet; he has to organize his own planet out of stuff he finds hanging around. 😃

I am interested to see how many of the LDS on these fora will react to this article.

Paul (formerly LDS, now happily Catholic)
Click to expand...
I agree. The LDS article states, as quoted in the NBC article:

***“While few Latter-day Saints would identify with caricatures of having their own planet, most would agree that the awe inspired by creation hints at our creative potential in the eternities,” ***

Various LDS leaders and church manuals have taught that those exalted will receive “worlds” and have “eternal increase”, i.e. spirit children. Perhaps this is what is being alluded to be speaking of “the awe inspired by creation hints at our creative potential in the eternities”.

LDS don’t really think about “getting planets” and things of that sort (at least, I never heard anything like that while I was LDS. I do remember the bishop talking during ward council one time about the purpose of the Gospel being to prepare us to become gods, but that’s pretty standard, if not always explicitly said that way). I think the article is right when it says that Mormons tend to think more about eternal relationships. But this doesn’t reject that it has been taught that the exalted will have eternal increase and worlds. What is rejected is the caricature, as you rightly say.
 
Well, it’s nice of them to clarify that, I guess. I can’t say I’m an expert on LDS theology (or on Christian theology, for that matter), but there are still a lot of things I have been told they believe (and I think credibly, by LDS members) that are pretty far removed from orthodox Christianity as it’s presented in the Catechism. So we’re talking about a rather newly founded group that denies the Trinity, claims the Catholic Church lost its way somewhere in the second or third century (or thereabouts), and follows as a “prophet” a man who claims he dug up “another Testament” from the ground somewhere in the United States. Not to mention their belief that their current “prophet” still receives Divine Revelation. I think I prefer our Founder and his story.

Nevertheless, all things considered, I’d rather have a faithful Mormon standing next to me in the battle against government suppression of our religious freedoms than a lot of professed Christians I know, including a lot of Catholics, or at least people who call themselves Catholic.

I probably didn’t really answer your question.
 
LivingWaters7 said:
I agree. The LDS article states, as quoted in the NBC article:

***“While few Latter-day Saints would identify with caricatures of having their own planet, most would agree that the awe inspired by creation hints at our creative potential in the eternities,” ***

Various LDS leaders and church manuals have taught that those exalted will receive “worlds” and have “eternal increase”, i.e. spirit children. Perhaps this is what is being alluded to be speaking of “the awe inspired by creation hints at our creative potential in the eternities”.

LDS don’t really think about “getting planets” and things of that sort (at least, I never heard anything like that while I was LDS. I do remember the bishop talking during ward council one time about the purpose of the Gospel being to prepare us to become gods, but that’s pretty standard, if not always explicitly said that way). I think the article is right when it says that Mormons tend to think more about eternal relationships. But this doesn’t reject that it has been taught that the exalted will have eternal increase and worlds. What is rejected is the caricature, as you rightly say.
Click to expand...
You’re right there, as a former LDS I didn’t go to church every Sunday thinking that I was one step closer to getting my own planet. However, if you look into the core of LDS teaching (right back to Joseph Smith) they do teach that God the Father was a sinner once who qualified for complete exaltation and actually impregnated the Virgin Mary himself. Furthermore, they teach that after being exalted he and his many heavenly wives created spirit children who were sent down to earth to go through the same journey as their Heavenly Father did.

It’s strange in many areas (in my opinion) and you don’t hear much about this deep doctrine as it’s generally hidden from the average LDS member as many have left about finding out about these beliefs that they didn’t even know about. The average LDS missionary doesn’t even know this stuff! So that is the reason as to why you and I never really spoke about inhabiting our own planets - because we didn’t have a clue that this is actually LDS doctrine.

Peace! 🙂
 
LivingWaters7 said:
I agree. The LDS article states, as quoted in the NBC article:

***“While few Latter-day Saints would identify with caricatures of having their own planet, most would agree that the awe inspired by creation hints at our creative potential in the eternities,” ***

Various LDS leaders and church manuals have taught that those exalted will receive “worlds” and have “eternal increase”, i.e. spirit children. Perhaps this is what is being alluded to be speaking of “the awe inspired by creation hints at our creative potential in the eternities”.

LDS don’t really think about “getting planets” and things of that sort (at least, I never heard anything like that while I was LDS. I do remember the bishop talking during ward council one time about the purpose of the Gospel being to prepare us to become gods, but that’s pretty standard, if not always explicitly said that way). I think the article is right when it says that Mormons tend to think more about eternal relationships. But this doesn’t reject that it has been taught that the exalted will have eternal increase and worlds. What is rejected is the caricature, as you rightly say.
Click to expand...
I think that the planets thing is a bit off, what the LDS church used to teach in their Gospel Principles manual is that those who are exalted will have spirit children and those children will have the same relationship to us that we have with Heavenly Father. In short we (if we are exalted) will have spirit children that worship us as God. They have since toned it down because of course most Christians find it blasphemous to even think they will end up being worshiped as God.
 
and, once again we see that Mormons change their doctrine and teachings. It is the sign of false prophets and churches when teachings and doctrine are a constant moving target…

Journal of Discourses Volume 6 page 275 --Brigham Young

““After men have got their exaltations and their crowns – have become Gods, even the sons of God – are made Kings of kings and Lords of lords, they have the power then of propagating their species in spirit; and that is the first of their operations with regard to organizing a world. Power is then given to them to organize the elements, and then commence the organization of tabernacles. How can they do it? Have they to go to that earth? Yes, an Adam will have to go there, and he cannot do without Eve; he must have Eve to commence the work of generation, and they will go into the garden, and continue to eat and drink of the fruits of the corporeal world, until this grosser matter is diffused sufficiently through their celestial bodies to enable them, according to the established laws, to produce mortal tabernacles for their spiritual children.””

"All those who are counted worthy to be exalted and to become Gods, even the sons of God, will go forth and have earths and worlds like those who framed this and millions on millions of others

Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 18:259, October 8, 1876

"Then will they become Gods…they will never cease to increase and to multiply, worlds without end. When they receive their crowns, their dominions, they then will be prepared to frame earths like unto ours and to people them in the same manner as we have been brought forth by our parents, by our Father and God”

Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 17:143

“As our Father and God begat us, sons and daughters, so will we rise immortal, males and females, and beget children, and, in our turn, form and create worlds, and send forth our spirit children to inherit those worlds, the same as we were sent here, and thus will the works of God continue, and not only God himself, and His Son Jesus Christ have the power of endless lives, but all of His redeemed offspring.”

Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses 14:242

1894:

“…we shall sit upon thrones, governing and controlling our posterity from eternity to eternity, and increasing eternally”

Lorenzo Snow, Millennial Star 56:772, October 5, 1894

1956:

“…A man and his wife when glorified will have spirit children who eventually will go on an earth like this one we are on and pass through the same kind of experiences, being subject to mortal conditions, and if faithful, then they also will receive the fullness of exaltation and partake of the same blessings.”

Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation 2:48

2001:

“They will receive everything our Father in Heaven has and will become like Him. They will even be able to have spirit children and make new worlds for them to live on, and do all the things our Father in Heaven has done.”

Gospel Fundamentals [2001], 201
 
Hi TK,

It’s true that the LDS have taught these things in the past. It seems that they are now trying to distance themselves from these doctrines. I think that’s a good thing and I hope they keep evolving toward Christianity.

What I don’t like is that when they change a teaching or back away from an offensive doctrine, they try to convince everyone that it was never taught or was just “someone’s opinion”. That is very deceptive. But deception is what Mormons are known for.

I would rather they do what the very cultish Worldwide Church of God did after Herbert W. Armstrong died: They admitted that their cultish doctrines were wrong and unbiblical, then they adopted a new set of beliefs much more closely aligned to scripture and Christian tradition.

They were instantly and joyfully welcomed by all Christians as brothers and sisters in Christ and their membership decreased only a little.

The LDS should do the same. I think the reason they don’t is that the “prophets and apostles” are afraid that if the LDS became a Christian sect, they would become an anachronism and lose their power over the LDS people.

I have long predicted that I will live to see the LDS Church:

Abandon the belief in exaltation,
Abandon the belief in plural marriage and admit that the early Mormons were wrong to practice it,
Abandon belief in the PoGP and most if not all of the D&C,
Abandon the belief in the historicity of the BoM,
Radically redefine the role of a prophet in modern times and abandon the idea that their prophets are prophets in the biblical sense.

In roughly that order.

Paul (formerly LDS, now happily Catholic)
 
I can’t even keep my house cleaned…I would hate to think what my planet would look like.
 
PaulDupre1 said:
Hi TK,

It’s true that the LDS have taught these things in the past. It seems that they are now trying to distance themselves from these doctrines. I think that’s a good thing and I hope they keep evolving toward Christianity.

What I don’t like is that when they change a teaching or back away from an offensive doctrine, they try to convince everyone that it was never taught or was just “someone’s opinion”. That is very deceptive. But deception is what Mormons are known for.

I would rather they do what the very cultish Worldwide Church of God did after Herbert W. Armstrong died: They admitted that their cultish doctrines were wrong and unbiblical, then they adopted a new set of beliefs much more closely aligned to scripture and Christian tradition.

They were instantly and joyfully welcomed by all Christians as brothers and sisters in Christ and their membership decreased only a little.

The LDS should do the same. I think the reason they don’t is that the “prophets and apostles” are afraid that if the LDS became a Christian sect, they would become an anachronism and lose their power over the LDS people.

I have long predicted that I will live to see the LDS Church:

Abandon the belief in exaltation,
Abandon the belief in plural marriage and admit that the early Mormons were wrong to practice it,
Abandon belief in the PoGP and most if not all of the D&C,
Abandon the belief in the historicity of the BoM,
Radically redefine the role of a prophet in modern times and abandon the idea that their prophets are prophets in the biblical sense.

In roughly that order.

Paul (formerly LDS, now happily Catholic)
Click to expand...
They have tried sooooooo hard to hide their past and appear mainstream.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top