brothermason

Return to your home country. Find a nice Mormon girl and marry her. There are so many problems with your scenario, and while the feelings might be strong now they will fade and you need to build your relationship on something solid. 1. If you marry a non-LDS girl it will be harder to raise your children as members of the Church. 2. You can never have a temple marriage, which means you will not attain your exaltation and become a god in the next life. You will not create worlds, you won't have a continuation of the seed and you won't be united as an eternal family unit. 3. If she converts it will probably lead to her ostracisation. Depending on the country, it might even lead to her imprisonment.

I have a question. When we are Gods and Goddesses in the afterlife and rule over our own posterity will we still pray to and worship our God? I have a feeling that the answer is yes, but I wonder then if our children who reside on the worlds we create will worship us or our Heavenly Father (their grandfather)?

I admit I'm a little confused. Are you saying that parents whose children have died before baptism shouldn't discuss this issue or ask about the fate of their children? I don't really see what I've said that is speculative. It's standard LDS doctrine that those who attain exaltation enjoy eternal increase of their posterity and inherit thrones and kingdoms. Surely it's okay for members to ask if their deceased children will also share in these blessings.

Thanks! But do they attain their exaltation, marry, have a continuation of the seed and become Heavenly Parents over future generations like righteous married members who die in adulthood do?

Hi all, I was wondering about young children who die before baptism? Will they go to the celestial kingdom and attain their exaltation? I know that non-Mormons who never have a chance to receive baptism and other ordinances can accept them in the hereafter. Are children who die early given a similar chance? Will they have the joy of eternal partners and increase, or do they not progress any further? Do they end up with their parents but don't inherit Godhood? Is there any Church teaching on what happens to these infants?

Rather than think of people as "half mortal/half divine" I think it makes sense to think of ourselves as gods in training (or as the term goes, 'gods in embryo'). Mortals are divine beings on their way to perfection and exaltation. God is the father of our spirits and, at the beginning of the human race in the Garden, he fashioned our bodies too. That doesn't make us "half mortal/half Gods". It makes us gods in embryo striving to be like our Father. Our life here as father and mother over a family is to prepare us for the eternities where we will be Heavenly Fathers and Mothers over the generations and worlds we will produce as gods in the celestial kingdom.

Can you expand on this more? I always understood exaltation to mean that our celestial offspring were spirit children, and they were sent to earths we created in the same way we have been sent to worlds created by our God. Why would polygamy be necessary for that?

It is not true to say that polygamy will never come back. It may, it may not. Doctrinally, there is nothing wrong with polygamy. It is in the D&C, it was practiced by many of the Prophets (both before and after the restoration) and quite possibly by Heavenly Father himself (though we have no way of knowing that. The structure of Heavenly Father's family is speculation, all we have been revealed is that he has one). God cannot command what is immoral, so there isn't anything immoral with plural marriage per se. It's sinful now because it has not been commanded by God through his living prophets. There were many righteous plural families. Given that men can be sealed twice there are probably going to be many righteous, eternal plural families in the celestial kingdom from our own generation. It's different and no longer permitted, but let's not be rash and say it's wrong.

I think there is a lot of difficulty that converts have with this issue because of the traditional understanding that Christianity has of God being the only "necessary existent". However, I don't think LDS thought is necessarily that different. Obviously we have a different understanding of the Godhead - the "trinity" is actually three distinct persons in our theology, and there are also other Gods in existence that precede our own God and will proceed from Him. So, while our Heavenly Father might not be the cause of 'ishood', as you put it, divinity of some sort is still 'ishood'. The Prophet said that divinity is one eternal round, so in some sense LDS do believe that Divinity is the necessary existent, we just don't view divinity as being restricted to this one God who is somehow also three different people. Basically, I think many LDS still view the Divine as having always existed (that is, 'ishood') and being that necessary existent, our understanding of what makes up the divine is just a little bigger than others :)

I don't think it's fair to say that there's something inherently problematic about same sex attracted males being given charge over boys. After all, I'm sure there are plenty of righteous LDS same sex attracted men who teach and care for younger males. Homosexuality and pedophilia aren't the same thing.

God commands it because our faith is supposed to be in relationship with others, and marriage is the preeminent way that people come together and form communities.

Hi Syme, As you note one of the great blessings of being sealed is it allows us to be with our family forever. However, a sealing gives other blessings as well that those who are not sealed do not have. Sealed families form eternal families and enjoy eternal increase (offspring) in the afterlife. God also gives us a share in His creative power, and a sealed husband and wife raise up a righteous generation in the eternities. These are blessings that are enjoyed only by those who inherit celestial glory, and a temple marriage is one of the ordinances we need to participate in to be like our Heavenly Father. That's why sealings are so important.