Huh, the telestial kingdom sounds better than the terrestrial kingdom, maybe because it rhymes with celestial. Guess that’s wrong.
Yeah, and since people are given chances both to join the Church and get forgiveness in the Millenium, the theology isn’t as clear as it may seem.
It’s also not clear where people like me will wind up, having had the temple ordinances, but then resigning from the Church, which cancels the ordinances. Obviously the celestial kingdom is right out, but would it be the telestial kingdom or the the terrestrial kingdom. There were things said in the early days which would suggest Outer Darkness, but that isn’t offical doctrine. (A lot of Mormonism isn’t offical doctrine.)
Hey, when I’ve is my classmates asked my rabbi what he’s believe about the afterlife, he replied, “we don’t know”.
My understanding is that Mormons believe that God gives you a chance to repent and worship Him after you die. After you come face to face with Him and have actual evidence that He’s God. So I’d assume that your final resting place (or afterlife place, i guess) would depend on whether you continue to reject God when faced with that choice.
No. That is not my understanding. You are in one phase of the afterlife but I don’t believe that you come face to face with him until after you have been resurrected.
You do have an opportunity to repent and join the church in the period after you die and up to 1,000 years after Christ’s return.
However, people who have as assurance that Jesus is the Christ don’t get a chance to repent and are sent to Outer Darkness with Satan and the third of the hosts of heaven.
There is no clear answer as to what the assurance is. Conflicting teachings have been made, but some early leaders said that apostates would suffer this but other teachings suggest that isn’t the case.
Mormon doctrine changed considerably during Smith’s life and it’s not in any of the scriptures produced in his lifetime.
The current leadership are lawyers and MBAs, selected for their ability to manage the 300 Billion USD assets of the church rather than for their spiritual insights. Although there’s always been the idea of “milk before meat”, there’s never any real meat anymore. Ironically, that’s about the only way the Word of Wisdom counsel that meat is “to be used sparingly” is practiced these days!
The church is in apostasy. The leaders are illegitimate, because they were installed contrary to the Law of Consent* detailed in the scriptures; they can mark your name in their database as “resigned”, but they cannot cancel your ordinances because they lack the authority. You may have resigned from the Church but your membership in the Kingdom of God is another matter entirely.
* from the church’s own website:
“Church officers are selected by the spirit of revelation in those appointed to choose them, but before the officers may serve in their positions, they must receive a formal sustaining vote of the people over whom they are to preside. (D. & C. 20:60-67; 26:2; 28; 38:34-35; 41:9-11; 42:11; 102:9;
124:124-145.)”
Obviously I don’t believe in the church anymore, but I don’t want to get into a debate about this. As I said early on:
I’m trying to convey what the LDS doctrines and teachings are. Personally, I’m interested in hearing what is being taught now compared to what I learned growing up 60 plus years ago. Thus, I’m not really interested in debating if the LDS church has the authority or not, or if they ever had any authority. I’m more interested in what they teach and how the members receive it.
No worries. I shall limit myself accordingly. 
It’s an interesting topic for me as well. I’ve only been out for 10 years and things have changed a lot just in that timeframe. It’ll be exciting to see what’s coming now during the Oaks administration!
That makes sense. The person who told me that was talking about what would happen to me after death, and i am a never-has believer in Jesus.
I’ve wondered what the thinking would be for someone like me. I was born and raised in Utah, baptized at 8, seminary, temple, mission, etc. I did all the right stuff (okay, not perfect - but nothing too bad). I REALLY prayed for a confirmation from the Holy Ghost and got something.
Then ran across some negative stuff that was difficult to justify. I saw that the Southern Baptist was more Jesus, God and less about me, organization, men (church leaders), etc. My “confirmation” wasn’t strong enough and figured that it could easily be me making myself feel that way. So, I left to become even more Christian, to me.
My intentions were good, I did the right things, and so forth. Would they think I will go to Outer Darkness since I could be considered an apostate?
I looked at this some for the lesson I had to do earlier this year on the Three Kingdoms of Glory.
Joseph Smith: Sons of perdition “have the heavens opened unto him, and know God, and then sin against Him. . . . He has got to say that the sun does not shine while he sees it; he has got to deny Jesus Christ when the heavens have been opened unto him, and to deny the plan of salvation with his eyes open to the truth of it” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith 358)
Joseph Fielding Smith: It is probable that only personages who have acquired similar full knowledge, who willfully and deliberately deny the truth, when they know it to be the truth, can commit the unpardonable sin and become sons of perdition. They are sons of perdition because, “Having denied the Holy Spirit after having received it, and having denied the Only Begotten Son of the Father, having crucified him unto themselves and put him to open shame” (D. & C. 76:35). They must have had a fullness of knowledge; a testimony which cannot be destroyed. One must be on a high eminence to fall so low; and few in world’s history have attained such a height. It is doubtful if even Judas, who betrayed Jesus, was sufficiently enlightened to become a son of perdition (Gospel Doctrine, p. 545).
Spencer W. Kimball: “The sin against the Holy Ghost requires such knowledge that it is manifestly impossible for the rank and file to commit such a sin” (Teachings 23).
So yeah… basically… if you left because you no longer believed the Church was true, it means by definition that your testimony wasn’t strong enough to be a son of perdition. I think you guys are okay. (Not that it matters to you!)
(I’m sure that you could find quotes, especially early-church-ish, that negate these, but I would say that most people in the Church these days come down on the side of apostasy NOT meaning outer darkness.)
Oh yes, there are clear teachings from early prophets that contradict current beliefs, but it’s the nature of all religions that beliefs evolve.
To understand early Mormon doctrine, it’s necessary to understand that Mormonism was an apocalyptic sect, with the belief that the end of the world was now, not at some distant future, with a bloody battle between the forces of the few good saints in mortal combat against the seemingly overwhelming forces of evil.
Of you weren’t with us, you were against us, and turncoats were the worst of the worst.
Mormons had no desire to be seen as mainstream because it was the mainstream Christians who were allied with the Devil himself.
After the Mormons fled to the barren deserts of Utah starting in 1847, the end was postponed but it was seen as imminent.
The Saints had seen the violent death of their beloved leader, the center of their universe.
They were driven from their homes by mods and fled into Indian territory where many died of tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases. (From their point of view.)
With the death of Smith, there was a succession crisis and the Mormon movement splintered into various groups. The largest was the LDS Church which went to Utah and another large group eventually became the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which has changed its name to the Community of Christ.
At any rate, the Mormons saw all of this as signs of the end times, and was harsh on apostates.
In Utah, the Mormons had Utah and some of the immediate surroundings areas all to themselves, essentially forming a theocracy while being busy gathering Saints from around the world.
Outside of the practical authority of the US government, the Mormons started practicing polygamy openly, as well as teaching from the pulpit and expanding on what had been hidden doctrine. This is when it was taught that a man must have multiple wives in order to obtain the highest degree of the celestial kingdom, and that those who go there will become gods and goddesses, and get their own worlds. This particular teaching has come back and bitten them more than almost anything.
It’s also when blood atonement was openly taught, in which apostates must have their blood shed to obtain forgiveness.
To be continue
PS
Correct. As an atheist, I don’t believe in an afterlife.
Hey hey, i know we sometimes make dicey decisions, but i don’t think we’ve ever driven anyone across state lines …
Please! Also, can you elaborate on “blood atonement”?
And also, I’ve been told that the Mormon Church preached polygamy in part to increase the population of Mormons, and to make sure every woman was supported. But that only really makes sense if there were more women than men. And the first part only makes sense if there were significantly more women than men (or if some men are extremely rich and many men are too poor to feed children). Were there more women then men? Was there enormous wealth inequality? And if so, how did that come to be?
So unlike our own dear SDMB mods. Mostly.
Yes, i assume that was a typo for “mobs”.
Personal story…
I was a Mormon missionary. We were teaching a couple and they were close to joining the Church. Then their pastor gave them a negative book about Mormonism (we called things like that Anti-Mormon). I told them it was full of lies and half truths, as I was taught and believed. But they had one specific question that was a showstopper (related to the Book of Abraham, part of Mormon scriptures). They couldn’t explain the issue well enough for me to understand, and they wouldn’t continue without an answer. The only thing I could think of was for me to borrow the book, find out what it was and come up with an answer. Which eventually led to me leaving the Mormon Church (long story).
Some of the things in the post were along the lines of what are in this post. The book had a lot more.
The things mentioned in the post (and the book) weren’t inconsistent with what I was taught and believed. But, I wasn’t taught some of them. For example, I was taught about polygamy being practiced in the past (including at least one of my ancestors) but I don’t think I was taught that it was required to go to the highest level.
So, while things in the post were taught in the past, I would say things like, “that was someone’s opinion”, “that was just for a specific purpose”, “I have never heard of that before”.
For Blood Atonement, I don’t think I heard about that as a Mormon, but as the post said, the teaching was that some sins required the person to be killed by bloodshed for the person to be forgiven. This may not have been practiced and even it was it would be very limited.
Huh, Utah used to execute by firing squad (and still makes allowances for that in its laws) and Idaho lets a prisoner choose that. I wonder if that’s related to this doctrine.
I laughed really hard at this. Thanks guys for the levity!
So I was under the distinct impression – like, I couldn’t point to you where I was taught, just that it was one of those things people know – that “the new and everlasting covenant” of marriage from D&C 132 (which includes the promises “and it shall be said unto them—Ye… shall inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, dominions, all heights and depths”) included polygamy (though to be fair, polygamy doesn’t really enter in until later in the chapter, so just reading the text doesn’t necessarily imply that).
When I looked it up just now, google took me to the 2014 seminary manual on this section, which actually says “Plural marriage is approved of the Lord only when He commands it” and “Do not speculate about whether plural marriage is a requirement for the celestial kingdom. We have no knowledge that plural marriage will be a requirement for exaltation,” so I guess that was already the party line in 2014. So either I’m remembering incorrectly about my 2017 class that said plural marriage was required (maybe I’m conflating with a class four years before that; that wouldn’t be surprising) or it took a while for the changes to seep in (also very possible).
I definitely was under the impression that a) a lot of men in the Church in those days died for various reasons (mob violence, various hardships) and b) there just were more women in the Church in general, possibly because women are more likely to convert/be more religious (which continues to be the case today). But I wouldn’t take that as fact (unless someone else backs it up), more like “this is the story I osmosed to make sense of polygamy.”
Allegedly blood atonement is why Utah has long had (and still has) execution by firing squad. I am not entirely convinced this is sole reason but it does make sense in the context of such beliefs,
Honestly, in some cases like this I don’t remember what I was taught as a Mormon and what was “official” vs. speculation/opinion. Some may be what I heard they believed. But, I’m thinking the execution wasn’t for “atonement”. I’m thinking that it’s related to what is in Genesis, “whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed”.