[extropy-chat] Mormons and >H

[Brent Allsop]

Damien,

I figured most people wouldn't understand this, but I didn't want to 
make the post longer.
So thanks for asking!!  And let me know if I missed anything you are asking.

The "3 degrees of glory" part has to do with the common Mormon beliefs.  
Most Christians believe in Heaven and Hell, or 2 ultimate places "souls" 
will end up.  But Mormons are different, they believe in these "3 
degrees of glory" and of course "outer darkness" which is where the 
Devil, and a few of his cohorts supposedly end up.

According to Mormons, everyone will be resurrected and end up in one of 
these places.  These 3 differ in magnitude of quality like the 
difference between the sun, the moon, and the stars.  But even the 
lowest is supposedly better than life here on earth.  There is some 
speculation that people in higher degrees might be able to occasionally 
visit souls in lower kingdoms but never the reverse.

So to me, this is all some amount of isolation, a terrible and faithless 
thing to believe in.  So when Mormons claim "Families will be together 
forever" I quickly point out that this is a lie since they believe 
everyone will be split up like this. But I do believe, or at least hope, 
that families really will be together forever, and am committed to never 
giving up on anyone until this is achieved for everyone.  In other 
words, once we reach the singularity, and become immortal, for me an 
important remaining task will be the work to resurrect all our 
ancestors.  And of course never giving up until everyone is in this 
heavenly future all together, with no more isolation forever more for 
everyone including newly created children whether spiritual or whatever.

The worshiping and wallowing in misery is only minimally about the 
misery of families not really being together in heaven.  It more has to 
do with how Mormons spend so much time worshiping and wallowing in 
misery.  Though when you claim they do this they attempt to deny this also.

The descriptions of God in the bible is some what vague, and many people 
take away differing specifications about just what the God of the bible 
is.  The Book of Mormon supposedly clarifies many things about what they 
believe God is.  But for me, this vision of God, is a very miserable God 
in Hell.  The God of the book of Mormon even more so than the God of the 
Bible.  I mean just imagine being this God and watching all the 
Nephites, your good spirit children, being tortured, killed, and 
ultimately completely wiped off the face of the earth by the Lamenites 
because of their belief, or lack of belief in God and failing to follow 
your commandments after Jesus visited them.  Not to mention going to 
"sacrament meeting" every day and worshiping the "infinite" suffering 
Jesus supposedly did.  What is any "partaking of the sacrament" if not 
worshiping in and wallowing in misery, I say.

The more miserable life is, the better it is for Mormons.  They go on 
and on about how miserable life was for their early followers of Joseph 
Smith and Brigham Young.  They have constant celebrations where they 
worship how miserable and full of suffering life was for them.

So, for me, it is all theists, that truly lack faith, they accept the 
existence of and worship some impotent God that evidently wallows in 
watching all the souls on earth going through all this, and is impotent 
against all this evil.  But I have faith that evil like, isolation, 
suffering, death, and so on isn't all that hard to overcome, and in fact 
we will soon overcome it completely, long before we are "omnipotent".

So in other words, the heaven extropians believe in is infinitely better 
than the "eternal damnation" Mormons believe in where when people 
finally become Gods, evidently it will be kind of a contest to see if 
the world you create can be even more full of such evil, so that your 
children will be similarly worship and wallow in misery as they are 
tried, developed, and proved even better than those of other less "evil" 
and full of suffering worlds...    Again, Mormons will deny much of 
this, but when they talk about their beliefs, this is what I understand 
them to be.  i.e. it is all worshiping and wallowing in misery, and the 
"glory of God" is to do yet more of it for his children, for an eternity.

Brent Allsop




Damien Broderick wrote:
> At 10:32 AM 4/8/2007 -0600, Brent wrote:
>
>   
>> People will not be split up and isolated into "3 degrees of glory" 
>> in heaven and I believe other worship and wallow in misery things 
>> like that are not true.
>>     
>
> I don't understand this for several values of "understand." Could you clarify?
>
> Damien Broderick
>
>
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