The human body in mormonism

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Vidar

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Even when I was quite young, I felt there was something wrong about what I was taught about God in the mormon church (I was raised a mormon). I couldn’t put my finger on it until years later. It dawned on me one morning in the shower.

Suppose there is a line of mirrors turned towards each other in an angle that allows them to transmit an image from the beginning of the line to the end of the line. You stand in one end, looking at the image of a human being being transmitted to you from the other end. There has to be a source of the image, right? What if the line is infinite? Must there still be a source of the image? One would think so, the mere fact that the line is infinite does not account for the image that is being transmitted from mirror to mirror.

Now on to the point of this little thought experiment:


  1. *]You possess 3,000,000,000,000 nerve cells all coordinated by the brain.
    *] You have 30,000,000,000 working sections to the brain.
    *] You have 131,000,000 photoreceptors in your eyes.
    *] You have 24,000 hair cells in your ears that react to sound and convert it to nerve impulses.
    *] Your small intestine has a surface area of 970,000 square feet.
    *] Your heart pumps 2,000 gallons of blood every day beating 100,000 times a day.
    *] Your liver manufacturers more than 1,000 different enzymes, each controlling a different chemical reaction.
    *] You have 60,000 miles of blood vessels in your body.
    *] You breathe 438 cubic feet of air a day.
    *] There are 35,000,000 gland cells in your stomach to break down food yet not digest itself
    *] Your kidneys have 40 miles of tubing and clean 500 gallons of your blood every day.
    *] Every cell has 1,000,000,000,000 bits of data in it (the same amount of information as 10,000 encyclopedia- sized books.
    *] There are 639 muscles that must work together.
    *] Joints must move 25,000,000 times in our lifetimes without wearing out.
    *] There are 30,000,000,000,000 cells in our body with 10,000 functions.

    There seems to be only two logical options for the origin of the human body. Divine design or some sort of evolution by natural processes (or both).

    In mormon theology, God has a body. It is probably comparable to the glorified physical body of Jesus Christ. It would have to be even more complex than our mortal bodies.

    Now how did God get this body? In classic mormon thought God was once a man that lived on a planet like ours. He passed his trial and was exalted to godhood. We receive our bodies from him (both spiritual and physical). He received his body from his father, who receives one from his… ad infinitum.

    Who, then, designed the human body in mormon thought? Not “Heavenly Father”, because he got his body from his father. Not his father, because he got one from Elohims grandfather, etc…

    But organs still have a purpose. The heart exists for the purpose of pumping blood through our veins. Where did this design come from? Is it “just there”? How can the mormon worldview account for the complexity of the human body?

    Furthermore, if all the gods have once lived on planets with fauna and flora that could sustain them, who designed planets? Who designed photosynthesis? Where does all of this come from? Not from the mormon gods, obviously. As mentioned, all of them lived on such planets prior to becoming a god, in a physical human body provided to them by their gods, ad. infinitum.

    Compare this to the mirror example. What in mormonism can account for the complexity of the human body? What is the source of the image being reflected in the infinite line of mirrors?

    All the gods in mormon reality are mere copycats. They are organizing matter, as they have been taught by their father, who was taught by their father, etc… None of them has an original thought in his head. But who or what is the origin of their unoriginal thoughts that they hand down from god to god, from father to son?

    For the liberal mormon, who (contrary to modern revelation) does not believe that God has a father, that he is eternal and all of us will become “lesser” gods, the problem is smaller. But it is not solved. Where did this God get his body from? Did he at some point make one for himself seeing that he would be incomplete without one? Has he always had one? If so, what accounts for the complexity of this body? What accounts for the fact that arms, legs, eyes, ears, organs etc… have a purpose? Who’s purpose if it has no designer?

    The only real solution is to believe in a God that is above the myriads of anthropomorphic gods mormons believe exist. A God that is the designer of the human body.

    In his wonderful creativity he came up with the complex design of human beings, planets, animals, plants etc. Who himself does not have a body (then we’d get into the same problem) and has never been subject to a trial on a planet. This is the God I worship as a Catholic.

    I just don’t believe in all the embodied intermediaries…

    Vidar
 
The only real solution is to believe in a God that is above the myriads of anthropomorphic gods mormons believe exist. A God that is the designer of the human body.
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In his wonderful creativity he came up with the complex design of human beings, planets, animals, plants etc. Who himself does not have a body (then we’d get into the same problem) and has never been subject to a trial on a planet. This is the God I worship as a Catholic.
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I just don’t believe in all the embodied intermediaries…
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Amen, Vidar, Amen!
 
If you are looking for a logical explanation of the beliefs of the LDS church, you are probably goign to need to look outside their own explanations of their religious thought.

I use the term “religious thought” because, for the life of me, I cannot find any theological treatises by them. It seems to get down to either something one of the 12 said, or Joseph Smith or one of the subsequent leaders said, or one of their books said (the Book of Mormon, etc.).

They seem to take as Gospel Truth all that they are taught, without really seriously questioning it; they have their construct of the Great Apostasy (without ever showing any logical, believeable proof, such as something - anything - found archeologically, as opposed to Joseph’s visions and tablets), and that takes care of any and all other evidence to the contrary - it is all wrong, these books are right, and please don’t confuse me with evidence or logic.

I suspect that your question is just one of who knows how many could come from studying their scriptures and religion, and then applying (or rather, trying to apply) logic to it.

It reminds me of the often stated maxim in trials: “False in part, suspect in all”.
 
Luke 23:46 Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ; and when he had said this he breathed his last.

Matt. 27:51 And behold, the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. 51 The earth quaked, rocks were split, 52 tombs were opened, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised. 53 And coming forth from their tombs after his resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many.

Cor. 16:53 For that which is corruptible must clothe itself with incorruptibility, and that which is mortal must clothe itself with immortality.

Luke 24:39 Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have."

Mark 16:19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God

Question:
  1. Does our spirit die at death or just the mortal flesh and bone body?
  2. The saints that appeared to many were they just spiritual bodies?
  3. After Jesus coming forth of his body from his tomb, after his resurrection did his spirit leave that flesh and bone body and died a second time?
  4. When Jesus was taken up did he take his seat at the right hand of God clothe with immortality with a body of flesh and bone?
  5. “…the right hand of God” was that hand clothe with immortality too or does Jesus and all the saints that came forth clothe with immortality have something God does not have?
  6. Were Adam and Eve created after not only there image but there likeness (as immortal flesh and bone bodies), but when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden friut there immortal bodies of flesh and bone were changed to mortal and would be subject to die? Gen 1:26 "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."The LORD God gave man this order: Gen. 2:16 “You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden 17 except the tree of knowledge of good and bad. From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die.”
  7. Is God a ghost (a spirit)?
  8. How are God and Jesus “one” if Jesus is taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God?
  9. Is this the answer to 8 found in John 17:22 “And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one” for 11 men (Apostles) were to be one as God and Jesus are one, (spiritually not physically)!
 
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Vidar:
Suppose there is a line of mirrors turned towards each other in an angle that allows them to transmit an image from the beginning of the line to the end of the line. You stand in one end, looking at the image of a human being being transmitted to you from the other end. There has to be a source of the image, right? What if the line is infinite? Must there still be a source of the image? One would think so, the mere fact that the line is infinite does not account for the image that is being transmitted from mirror to mirror.
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Our thoughts are not Heavenly Fathers thoughts. His ways are not our ways. We can not even begin to have an idea how things really work. Paul says we look through a glass which is dark. We are only seeing things through a thick fog. All the reasoning man can put together is nothing. We are from time to time given small glimpses threw the mist by the prophets, both old and new.

You should post this on LDS Fair message board. There are some there that like to engage in this kind of abstract theosophical discussion.
 
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Vidar:
Even when I was quite young, I felt there was something wrong about what I was taught about God in the mormon church (I was raised a mormon). I couldn’t put my finger on it until years later. It dawned on me one morning in the shower.

Suppose there is a line of mirrors turned towards each other in an angle that allows them to transmit an image from the beginning of the line to the end of the line. You stand in one end, looking at the image of a human being being transmitted to you from the other end. There has to be a source of the image, right? What if the line is infinite? Must there still be a source of the image? One would think so, the mere fact that the line is infinite does not account for the image that is being transmitted from mirror to mirror.

Now on to the point of this little thought experiment:


  1. *]You possess 3,000,000,000,000 nerve cells all coordinated by the brain.
    *] You have 30,000,000,000 working sections to the brain.
    *] You have 131,000,000 photoreceptors in your eyes.
    *] You have 24,000 hair cells in your ears that react to sound and convert it to nerve impulses.
    *] Your small intestine has a surface area of 970,000 square feet.
    *] Your heart pumps 2,000 gallons of blood every day beating 100,000 times a day.
    *] Your liver manufacturers more than 1,000 different enzymes, each controlling a different chemical reaction.
    *] You have 60,000 miles of blood vessels in your body.
    *] You breathe 438 cubic feet of air a day.
    *] There are 35,000,000 gland cells in your stomach to break down food yet not digest itself
    *] Your kidneys have 40 miles of tubing and clean 500 gallons of your blood every day.
    *] Every cell has 1,000,000,000,000 bits of data in it (the same amount of information as 10,000 encyclopedia- sized books.
    *] There are 639 muscles that must work together.
    *] Joints must move 25,000,000 times in our lifetimes without wearing out.
    *] There are 30,000,000,000,000 cells in our body with 10,000 functions.

    There seems to be only two logical options for the origin of the human body. Divine design or some sort of evolution by natural processes (or both).

    In mormon theology, God has a body. It is probably comparable to the glorified physical body of Jesus Christ. It would have to be even more complex than our mortal bodies.

    Now how did God get this body? In classic mormon thought God was once a man that lived on a planet like ours. He passed his trial and was exalted to godhood. We receive our bodies from him (both spiritual and physical). He received his body from his father, who receives one from his… ad infinitum.

    Who, then, designed the human body in mormon thought? Not “Heavenly Father”, because he got his body from his father. Not his father, because he got one from Elohims grandfather, etc…

    But organs still have a purpose. The heart exists for the purpose of pumping blood through our veins. Where did this design come from? Is it “just there”? How can the mormon worldview account for the complexity of the human body?

    Furthermore, if all the gods have once lived on planets with fauna and flora that could sustain them, who designed planets? Who designed photosynthesis? Where does all of this come from? Not from the mormon gods, obviously. As mentioned, all of them lived on such planets prior to becoming a god, in a physical human body provided to them by their gods, ad. infinitum.

    Compare this to the mirror example. What in mormonism can account for the complexity of the human body? What is the source of the image being reflected in the infinite line of mirrors?

    All the gods in mormon reality are mere copycats. They are organizing matter, as they have been taught by their father, who was taught by their father, etc… None of them has an original thought in his head. But who or what is the origin of their unoriginal thoughts that they hand down from god to god, from father to son?

    For the liberal mormon, who (contrary to modern revelation) does not believe that God has a father, that he is eternal and all of us will become “lesser” gods, the problem is smaller. But it is not solved. Where did this God get his body from? Did he at some point make one for himself seeing that he would be incomplete without one? Has he always had one? If so, what accounts for the complexity of this body? What accounts for the fact that arms, legs, eyes, ears, organs etc… have a purpose? Who’s purpose if it has no designer?

    The only real solution is to believe in a God that is above the myriads of anthropomorphic gods mormons believe exist. A God that is the designer of the human body.

    In his wonderful creativity he came up with the complex design of human beings, planets, animals, plants etc. Who himself does not have a body (then we’d get into the same problem) and has never been subject to a trial on a planet. This is the God I worship as a Catholic.

    I just don’t believe in all the embodied intermediaries…

    Vidar
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  1. And here is my though. If you can not become God without first being a human, then what of the Holy Spirit?
 
Paul G:
Our thoughts are not Heavenly Fathers thoughts. His ways are not our ways. We can not even begin to have an idea how things really work. Paul says we look through a glass which is dark. We are only seeing things through a thick fog. All the reasoning man can put together is nothing. We are from time to time given small glimpses threw the mist by the prophets, both old and new.

You should post this on LDS Fair message board. There are some there that like to engage in this kind of abstract theosophical discussion.
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The problems isn’t that I don’t see. The problem is that I see all too well that the LDS concept of God cannot account for the world in which we are living. It cannot account for the purposefullness of the human body. My eyes have a purpose, my ears have a purpose, my organs have a purpose. But in the mormon universe, nobody designed them. Unless there exists a God above all humanoid gods who does not have a body, who is the source of the tradition handed down to the gods…

If I were to accept your explanation, I might just as well become an atheist and attribute everything to the mystery of mother nature. Atheistic evolution would be more probable than the idea that all of the complex designs are simply there, without anything to account for them.

Vidar
 
Even if you go through a purely scientific approach for evolution, the universe, etc., not everything is answered.

Science starts with the big bang. If time is infinite, there must have been something before the big bang.

big bang = In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw how good the light was. God then separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” Thus evening came, and morning followed–the first day. Gen 1:1-5
 
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RCT:
Luke 23:46 Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ; and when he had said this he breathed his last.

Matt. 27:51 And behold, the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. 51 The earth quaked, rocks were split, 52 tombs were opened, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised. 53 And coming forth from their tombs after his resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many.

Cor. 16:53 For that which is corruptible must clothe itself with incorruptibility, and that which is mortal must clothe itself with immortality.

Luke 24:39 Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have."

Mark 16:19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God

Question:
  1. Does our spirit die at death or just the mortal flesh and bone body?
  2. The saints that appeared to many were they just spiritual bodies?
  3. After Jesus coming forth of his body from his tomb, after his resurrection did his spirit leave that flesh and bone body and died a second time?
  4. When Jesus was taken up did he take his seat at the right hand of God clothe with immortality with a body of flesh and bone?
  5. “…the right hand of God” was that hand clothe with immortality too or does Jesus and all the saints that came forth clothe with immortality have something God does not have?
  6. Were Adam and Eve created after not only there image but there likeness (as immortal flesh and bone bodies), but when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden friut there immortal bodies of flesh and bone were changed to mortal and would be subject to die? Gen 1:26 "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."The LORD God gave man this order: Gen. 2:16 “You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden 17 except the tree of knowledge of good and bad. From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die.”
  7. Is God a ghost (a spirit)?
  8. How are God and Jesus “one” if Jesus is taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God?
  9. Is this the answer to 8 found in John 17:22 “And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one” for 11 men (Apostles) were to be one as God and Jesus are one, (spiritually not physically)!
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I do not have time to deal with this in detail (I am presently at work). Most of your problems can be cleared up with a proper understanding of Catholic theology.
  • We do not dispute a physical resurrection. Jesus took on a human nature, he lowered himself, became a man. Died, rose from the dead physically.
-A spiritual body as the term is used in scripture, does not mean non physical body, but rather supernatural body, like the physical body Christ rose from the dead in. A spirit has no shape, form, weight, or any physical properties. It does not extend into space. It is pure consciousness.
  • If being created in the image and likeness of God meant having a body, God (singular), would have to be male and female, the text says he created “them” in HIS image and likeness. Paul says that the Christian is created after the image and likeness of God. What does he mean? Do we change our pysical appearance when we become Christians?
  • God is not a “ghost”. He is spirit. He has no body (spiritual or otherwise). He is infinately greater than our finite minds. Therefore he reveals himself in part by visions, such as the one St. Stephen saw. This was a vision, an image, representing reality, not the reality itself. Paul states that nobody has or can see God (incidentally, he says the same thing about Jesus, so he could not be speaking about the man Jesus Christ, but Christ as he is from eternity).
I will deal with this in greater detail if I have time when I get home.

Vidar
 
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mjdonnelly:
Even if you go through a purely scientific approach for evolution, the universe, etc., not everything is answered.

Science starts with the big bang. If time is infinite, there must have been something before the big bang.

big bang = In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw how good the light was. God then separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” Thus evening came, and morning followed–the first day. Gen 1:1-5
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I did not mean to suggest that I find atheism likely or logical. I think atheism is absurd. But it is more logical than the LDS view, in which evolution cannot come to the rescue. Nobody designed the human body in mormonism. Nor did it evolve. It is “just there”.

Vidar
 
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mjdonnelly:
Even if you go through a purely scientific approach for evolution, the universe, etc., not everything is answered.

Science starts with the big bang. If time is infinite, there must have been something before the big bang.

big bang = In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw how good the light was. God then separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” Thus evening came, and morning followed–the first day. Gen 1:1-5
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Actually, that’s not true. You need motion for time to exist. Space and time go hand in hand because they are both created by the movement(motion) of matter. When forced to summarize the general theory of relativity in one sentence:
“Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter.” (Albert Einstein)

Prior to the big bang there was nothing. No material motion, and therefore no space and no time. There is a theory that the only thing that existed before the big bang was pure energy. In fact, because of the distribution of matter and radiation in the universe it is impossible for matter to have existed in any form prior to the big bang(no matter, no time). It’s called the Inflation Model. Here’s a description I pulled off of the string theory website superstringtheory.com/:

“In the Inflation model, our Universe starts out as a rapidly expanding bubble of pure vacuum energy, with no matter or radiation. After a period of rapid expansion, or inflation, and rapid cooling, the potential energy in the vacuum is converted through particle physics processes into the kinetic energy of matter and radiation. The Universe heats up again and we get the standard Big Bang.”

It’s exciting to me that this model fits in perfectly with the Catholic idea of the beginning of the universe. There was pure energy(intelligence). The energy begins to change into matter under extreme pressure and BOOM, we have the beginning of the universe.

It contradicts the traditional LDS teaching of an infinite number of men becoming Gods teaching other men to become Gods, etc, etc(the Amway plan of salvation I call it).
 
Vidar

You may have discovered why galexies are exspanding → “God was once a man that lived on a planet like ours. He passed his trial and was exalted to godhood. We receive our bodies from him (both spiritual and physical). He received his body from his father, who receives one from his… ad infinitum.”

Is the real you a spirit that is clothed in a mortal body that one day will be clothed in an immortal body like Jesus and is it your spirit that tells your body what to do like those things you listed even thougt you are not aware of it only because we only use a small % of our brains capability because we are mortal.

Rev. 3: 21 “I will give the victor the right to sit with me on my throne, as I myself first won the victory and sit with my Father on his throne.”

What will those that sit on the with God on his throne do with the gift for the rest of eternity, twiddle there thums or do as God has done?

I also find it that the scriptures are used very little by anyone if not at all when making there points. I have used them but some may say “We can not even begin to have an idea how things really work”, well then why would we be told in James 1:5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and he will be given it. 6 But he should ask in faith, not doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed about by the wind.

Rev. 21:5 The one who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” Then he said, “Write these words down, for they are trustworthy and true.” 6 He said to me, "They are accomplished. I (am) the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give a gift from the spring of life-giving water.
7 The victor will inherit these gifts, and I shall be his God, and he will be my son.

Its been fun but so long, good by and good night! I’ll not return!
 
Paul G:
Our thoughts are not Heavenly Fathers thoughts. His ways are not our ways. We can not even begin to have an idea how things really work. Paul says we look through a glass which is dark. We are only seeing things through a thick fog. All the reasoning man can put together is nothing. We are from time to time given small glimpses threw the mist by the prophets, both old and new.

You should post this on LDS Fair message board. There are some there that like to engage in this kind of abstract theosophical discussion.
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Afraid this answer is a neat cop out to a very important statement. LDS’ers, do you realise that it is impossible to get anyone to take you seriously if you cop out every time you are asked a question that challenges your belief system?
 
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honeybear:
Afraid this answer is a neat cop out to a very important statement. LDS’ers, do you realise that it is impossible to get anyone to take you seriously if you cop out every time you are asked a question that challenges your belief system?
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I don’t think this is a cop out. All Paul G is saying is that LDS have some beliefs that defy human understanding. As a Catholic you should be able to grasp that concept. The Trinity is a concept that I’ve never heard adequately explained(in my opinion). LDS have said the same thing to me about the Trinity that you have said to Paul G regarding LDS theology.
 
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