Sometimes it strikes me how vastly different my church is from your run of the mill Christian Protestant religion. And as I talk to other members of my faith, I am amazed that we all act so ... cookie cutter identical in practice to those of other Christian faiths, as if the contrasting ideas are a bad thing, to be ignored.Blah.
Always with trying to fit in so as not to be mobbed and murdered.
Yesterday, the Bishop's 2nd counselor spoke about the Restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ. To make a point about how the LDS church is very different from other Christian sects, he quoted excerpts from Mark Twain's "Letters From Earth" (and, if you will, please make note of the irony as I link to a site called "positive atheism"). He specifically referred to the bits of Satan's Letter that describe heaven - the angelic choirs and harp playing cacophony, cloud floating boredom kind of heaven. How insanely stupid is that concept of Heaven? Who would bother? What's the point of life and Love and suffering and death and Heaven and God if it's all prayer and lounging for the rest of eternity? You may not believe in an afterlife, and that is fine, but if you do, ought it not have some point?
I spent most of this morning reading Letters From The Earth. Interestingly, a lot of the contentions brought up against the popular idea of Heaven are in direct opposition to what Mormons believe Heaven to be like.
I wonder if perhaps our missionaries would do better to knock on doors offering "eternal increase" upfront (a.k.a. after life sex life - eternally; ah yeah). I want to be with my family forever, especially my spouse and I don't want our only post death date night activity options to be singing Hallelujah or playing harp ... according to Mr. Twain I am due 150,000 opportunities and now I am treading dangerously close to forbidden blog topic territory. So I'll stop.
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Mark Twain visited Utah. About Mormon women (like me) he wrote:
Our stay in Salt Lake City amounted to only two days, and therefore we had no time to make the customary inquisition into the workings of polygamy and get up the usual statistics and deductions preparatory to calling the attention of the nation at large once more to the matter. I had the will to do it. With the gushing self-sufficiency of youth I was feverish to plunge in headlong and achieve a great reform here - until I saw the Mormon women. Then I was touched. My heart was wiser than my head. It warmed toward these poor, ungainly and pathetically "homely" creatures, and as I turned to hide the generous moisture in my eyes, I said, "No - the man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian charity which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their harsh censure - and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deed of open-handed generosity so sublime that the nations should stand uncovered in his presence and worship in silence."Is there any other author who employs sarcasm with quite the elegance of Mark Twain?
Look, see? I can take a joke. It's only funny because it's true?
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Mormons don't really believe in Hell.
Mostly everyone (99.9999999999%) goes to Heaven.
I am cool with you believing whatever you'd like, even if you think my church is dumb. You can suck my ... drat ... I can't be profane. I tried. But I couldn't pull the trigger. Alas. Perhaps a picture up top to drive it home.
4 Brilliant Bits of Inspiration:
Mark Twain's quote..hilarious. You look at those old pictures and it's true, but you had to be hardy to eek out an existence int the Salt Lake Valley.
And I just want to clarify your statement on hell. True we don't believe in hell as a place you have to spend all of eternity being punished for all of your misdeeds, but some people will have to pay for their own sins by suffering for them a finite amount of time. Also, once that process is done you still won't be able to be in the presence of God (some people may consider that hell).
I am quite fascinated by Mormon theology, but what's always intrigued me the most is the idea that I could have the chance to be converted and saved after death. As an interested outsider, I've always wanted to get people's personal opinions/beliefs on this, especially converts. I often joke that if I die and find out that y'all were right I'm gonna try and sign right up. I need a Mormon friend to promise to do a baptism of the dead for me after I croak. Any takers?
Beck,
We'll put your name on the list:)
One of the things which I love most about about the LDS church is our theology concerning Heaven and Hell.
The word "damnation" means "A stopping of progress"... not "roasting in Satan's crockpot".
I remember hearing someone say in a talk once "what will suprise us most after death is how familiar the face of God will be, how we will realize He has been with us all along"
It makes me feel warm and comforted.
I FREAKING LOVE BEING LDS:)
p.s. I loved this post! Why is everyone righting such kick-a posts lately?
p.p.s.- Everything is assembled for Lori's Fairly Bizzare Gift Packages..I just lost your address:(
I completely agree with the fact that Hell isn't a place where people spend eternity being punished.
During my confirmation classes in the Lutheran church we were told that Hell is the chaos and confusion we experience now, not a physical place but a state of mind. Now here is where we differ. The Lutheran church, and I agree, believe that Jesus gave us the ultimate gift, and that he already paid our way into heaven. There is nothing more we can or need to do.
Don't get me wrong, there are still the basic guidelines that the Bible teaches us about how to live and treat others. But those aren't done to get into Heaven, they're just how we should live because we Believe.
I'll admit the hard part with this teaching is that Jesus paid the price for EVERYONE, and that there are no exclusions. It's a hugely forgiving belief, which can be very difficult to believe, especially watching the news and hearing the bad things in society. Until you remember the description of Hell. Then you realize that the chaos and confusion we call evil means that these people are in Hell now, and that in death all of that will be (for lack of a better word) fixed.
Plus it was never up to us. Jesus gave his life for ALL of us, and only God has the right to offer judgement or forgiveness.
I didn't mean to sound too preachy, I just find it fascinating that religions can have so many similarities and yet so many differences in the nuances.
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