Aw, shucks!
::blushes::
No offense, but but I find that just a wee bit wacky. And what if all the cool planets are taken and you get a crappy one like Pluto? That would suck.
OK, now cut it out before they tell us to get a room. 
Offense? Look at the thread title again. None taken. And don’t worry about the cool planets being taken; in the Mormon plan, you get to make your own. Mine would have been shaped like a Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme[sup]TM[/sup].
dangermom, a fair number of Protestant churches think that Catholics are not Christian, and are in fact idolatrous evil saint-worshipping conspiractors who are going straight to hell.
Hee… I’ve heard Orson Scott Card’s “Secular Humanist Revival” speech a couple of times (we used to live about an hour away from him, and he came to a couple of the university run SF conventions) and his line about Catholics is “Catholics are Christian, but only on a technicality” (referring to other christian denominations’ views, not LDS views).
First I’d heard that my former church was actually worshipping Satan though :dubious:. Sister Mary Discipline woulda been horrified to learn it wasn’t Jesus she’d been wed to!!
I guess “devil worshipper” is fundie-ese for “worships differently from me”. Doesn’t quite translate that way in my dictionary though.
What happens when we run out of spirits? For that matter, what if we’ve already run out and are giving birth to soulless little monsters? Hmm, I smell a horror movie plot . . .
When all the spirits that are waiting to be born into bodies have done so, reproduction will stop. Whether that’s by God saying “OK, OK, time out,” or by there simply not being any more pregnancies is a point on which official LDS literature is rather vague.
As for your other idea, I think sometimes that my own youngest son is a soulless little monster, so maybe it’s begun already… 
Can you enlighten my ignorance?
If it is called Church of the Latter Day Saints, where did the reference “Mormon” come from?
Great discussion by the way. Thank you.
Been done - The Seventh Seal with Demi Moore. Actually not too bad - it has the captain dude from Das Boot in it and he’s always fab. Juergen somthingortheother.
The official name of the church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The church uses a volume of scripture called the Book of Mormon, named after the ancient prophet who compiled it from the work of various authors. The term “mormon” came into use, first as a derogatory name given to the early church members by others, then as a nickname used by the members of the church itself and the public at large.
Jurgen Prochnow. He’s excellent. I, of course, remember him best from his role as Duke Leto Atreides in David Lynch’s Dune. Hehehe.
Yes, that’s what I was referring to.
I would disagree with OCS’s characterization of “what happens when we run out of spirits.” Everything I’ve ever heard is pretty much that we won’t; that even in the Millennium, after the Second Coming, people will still be having children. AFAIK, there isn’t really a limit to the number of people waiting to be born–thus the belief that those who become exalted will be priviliged to continue the cycle. As children of God, he wants us to grow up to be like him–actual joint-heirs with Christ. Other Christian theologies hint at this (C. S. Lewis mentions it, for one), but don’t take it as far as we do.
Is it true that many mormons still have several wives?
I have also heard that the black man was seen upon as some sort of devil’s child lately
I wasn’t necessarily saying that the cessation of physical reproduction would be before the Millennium or Second Coming, although that’s the only way it makes sense. The scriptures are fairly clear on the point that all of the spirits that our God created were there before the creation of the world. They were there when Satan took 1/3 of them and went off to play elsewhere. Unless you believe that God has periodically gone back to make more spirits since then, which is not impossible but has nothing in canon to suggest it, there’s a finite number of spirits meant for this world. Besides, if the purpose of life on earth is to be tested and prove ourselves, what would be the point in bringing children into the perfected, post-millennial, post-Second Coming world?
Nope. Plural marriage in the Church was officially discontinued in 1890 and effectively ended within the next 20 years. There are fringe sects of the Mormon church that still practice polygamy, but they’re relatively few and are denounced by the mainstream church.
Not lately, and not really the devil’s child. Until 1980, people of black African descent couldn’t hold the priesthood in the Mormon church. An official reason for this was never given, but the prevailing belief among Mormons, supported in books written by several Church leaders, was that blacks were descended from either Cain or Ham, or had been “less valiant” in the War in Heaven and were being punished with blackness.
Great thread, OCS. Let me take you back to the discussion about the temple marriage ceremony. I’ve heard during the ceremony you’re given a new name for your bride, and you’ll use this name to call her into heaven after you both die. Is this accurate? And if so, does that mean a woman can pretty much be as good a Mormon as she wants, but still can’t get into heaven without her husband’s intervention?
Oh, and WildfireMM** - I was just reading about polygamy earlier this week after they had a rally to support it in SLC. According to the group that sponsored the rally (Principal Voices For Polygamy), there are around 37,000 Americans who consider themselves “Fundamentalist Mormons,” and maybe half of those actually practice polygamy. Sounds almost prevalent enough for the Repulicans to come out against it in the next election. 
You’re doing a great job in this thread, OCS. Thanks for representing the beliefs of the mormon church accurately (as I remember them from 20+ years ago).
Does the church still teach any of their beliefs that were farther from mainstream Christianity? Like the Jaredites comong across the Atlantic in wooden submarines with stones set aglow by a touch from the finger of God the Father for light? I can’t imagine that Jared & his brother’s story was removed from the BofM in it’s latest printing. Or any of their beliefs about immortals? When you left the church, did they still teach about the 3 Nephites; 3 of Christ’s apostles from his visit to the Americas nearly 2,000 years ago still walking the earth, at this present day? What about the story from one of the early General Authorities about meeting Cain (the son of Adam & Eve) on the road in Missouri(?), and Cain looking like what today we’d call Bigfoot? I remember hearing that story in mormon sunday school in Provo, Utah in the late 70s.
Each Mormon who receives the endowment receives a new name. At the marriage ceremony, the husband is told what his wife’s new name is (the reverse is not true), and calls her by that name as part of the ceremony.
As far as not getting into heaven, getting married in the temple is mandatory for both men and women in order to receive the highest reward. As mentioned upthread, that reward is to become a god and goddess over your own planet, which you will populate with your spirit children as our god has done for this planet.
(bolding mine)
That may not be such a good idea, considering that all 37,000 are probably Pubs. 
Interesting. Does that mean I heard wrong about the woman getting to heaven then (that the man has to basically invite her with that name)?
Also, just out of random curiosity, what are the names like? Normal stuff like Bill, Stephanie, Mikey? Or “churchy” names like… I don’t know… Nebuchanezzar?
Thanks. I’m just trying to be open, be accurate and present what I know with as little bias as possible - positive or negative.
Yep, that’s all still in the BoM and is a very popular story; it’s still referenced in lessons and sermons all the time.
Yep, that’s in the BoM too, the three Nephite apostles who would never die, but be translated in an instant from mortal to immortal when Jesus returned. And thanks to the Mormon love of urban legend and “magic” stories, there’s no shortage of anecdotes about people getting their flat tire changed, or muggers chased away, by the Three Nephites. I’m going to break my vow of non-bias here and give that a big:rolleyes:. OK, now I feel better. Thanks.
That was Wilford Woodruff, fourth prophet of the Church, IIRC. Yeah, it’s still being told. I heard that one in the Mission Training Center in the early 90s. I don’t know if it’s actually contained in his memoirs anywhere (Woodruff was an obsessive journal writer, and is usually credited with making it general practice among Mormons), but as in the above example, Mormons just love supernatural stuff, so the story lives on.
Well, single and divorced women get to heaven just fine, so apparently there doesn’t have to be a husband to “call you through the veil.” As I said, you have to be sealed in order to receive exaltation, but that’s true for men as well.
The only secret names I know are mine and my ex-wife’s, and a few I received on behalf of dead people when receiving the endowment as a proxy for them. All the names I heard were from the Bible or Book of Mormon, and none were especially bizarre. Mine was “Silas.”
:eek:
<OneCentStamp flinches, instinctively looks skyward for signs of lightning>
Faith and fear. They both die hard.