How to Reconcile LDS Doubts

[Azrael]

excellent.

Safe to say you are cherry picking mormonism?

No.

I believe the LDS are mistaken in that Joseph wasn’t fallen, and I can’t be a part of it until Christ returns and straightens it out.

I believe He is here now.

[Brent]

Is he in Detroit?
Or Chicago?

[Brent]

Seriously. I assume he is ministering somewhere that is suffering...

[Azrael]

Not sure if you’ve read scriptures or not.

Is the oil in the lamps of Motor City full?

Because when it’s Omega Mission time, He isn’t going to have time to worry about the unfaithful when he’s busy gathering His 144,000.

I think there is an angel which demands every single soul be saved, but unfortunately for the bleeding hearts of the arrogant he is fallen and most of his Keys removed.

All that being said, I suspect He is surrounding himself with those who can benefit from His presence the most.

[Thoughtful]

My point is, I hope you’re sure of your stance, because you’ll have to explain it to Christ someday. Assuming you are a Christian still and believe in Final Judgement.


Perhaps he just knows better than to spend his time debating you.

Ok though, I’ll bite, what would you have me read?

Did you dig up some fresh loosely Interpreted anti Mormon material or will this be the same ole same ole?

If you sincerely would like to explore the problems, be ready to do some legwork.

1--I suggest a deep read of the church history essays--all of them. Don't *just* read the first paragraph, follow the links to the entire essay. Follow all the footnotes and read the sources. When you follow the footnotes to their sources, read ahead and behind the selected passage to be sure you have an accurate context. Then go back to the claim the essay is making-- does it match up? Do that with each footnote, for each essay. Find the buried essays too-- the are three on LDS.org about polygamy. Some are harder to find.

2--After you've read all the essays and all the footnotes in context, start on the Joseph Smith papers. Read all the accounts of the first vision. Read up on the context of each release. Do a bit of a dive into the historical attitudes in and out of the church (not saying the attitudes of anti mormons but the attitudes of the Christian culture at the time regarding the trinity.)

3--Book of Abraham-- read the recently released statement by one of the authors of the essay.

4--JST-- read the paper published by BYU identifying the source material it was pulled from.

5--Year of Polygamy podcast. She cites her sources so you can follow and read those as well to verify the veracity of the accounts shared.

Good luck.

I keep up on LDS publications.

I’m not sure why you’ve tasked me with reading all of this.

Perhaps a little commentary on how you feel each of these publications are relevant to this conversation?

You said upthread that people would recommend "anti mormon" sources. We don't need to. You can drive deep on LDS publications and get the same info the "antis" have against the church, because the church has had to admit the anti material is true in some cases and in others they spin the truth to try to pretend there's a basis of integrity for their claims about history-- but their own sources (footnotes) don't back up their position. They count on people seeing a citation and taking their word for it. Read the source material and see how they have lied to you.

I gave you a list of evidence of how the church lies, tries to cover up past lies, and in some cases has admitted in a rationaling way that they lied before, using official publications from the church and church owned media to evidence their track record for dishonesty and their current spin. (YOP is not church owned but well researched, well cited, and hosted by a advocate for healthy Mormonism. But it's a great compilation of firsthand accounts of how the church actually interacted in its early years.

Being "familiar" with LDS publications is not the same as driving deeper and looking at whether their claims actually hold up. Reviewing their footnotes is the fastest way to see how they have lied and spun the truth to appear to support claims that are not factual (ironically, exactly what they like to claim anti-Mormons do).

Scuba dive into LDS history instead of the snorkeling encouraged by Sunday School. Don't do a surface reading, get in there and read the quotes from the primary sources. The church/BYU has admitted JST was plagiarized, that JS did not translate the book of Abraham and the Kinderhook plates translation was a hoax. They take scriptures out of context to support doctrines and practices that hurt people and to justify church history.

But until you're willing to dive deep, you're not going to be able to engage here without looking very foolish.

I'll be happy to discuss with you after you do your homework, but if you're going to argue that we're all going to hell and you aren't willing to consider all the information on why we're willing to take that risk without any concern, well that's just a Merry Go Round and a waste of all our time.

[Azrael]

If you sincerely would like to explore the problems, be ready to do some legwork.

1--I suggest a deep read of the church history essays--all of them. Don't *just* read the first paragraph, follow the links to the entire essay. Follow all the footnotes and read the sources. When you follow the footnotes to their sources, read ahead and behind the selected passage to be sure you have an accurate context. Then go back to the claim the essay is making-- does it match up? Do that with each footnote, for each essay. Find the buried essays too-- the are three on LDS.org about polygamy. Some are harder to find.

2--After you've read all the essays and all the footnotes in context, start on the Joseph Smith papers. Read all the accounts of the first vision. Read up on the context of each release. Do a bit of a dive into the historical attitudes in and out of the church (not saying the attitudes of anti mormons but the attitudes of the Christian culture at the time regarding the trinity.)

3--Book of Abraham-- read the recently released statement by one of the authors of the essay.

4--JST-- read the paper published by BYU identifying the source material it was pulled from.

5--Year of Polygamy podcast. She cites her sources so you can follow and read those as well to verify the veracity of the accounts shared.

Good luck.

I keep up on LDS publications.

I’m not sure why you’ve tasked me with reading all of this.

Perhaps a little commentary on how you feel each of these publications are relevant to this conversation?

You said upthread that people would recommend "anti mormon" sources. We don't need to. You can drive deep on LDS publications and get the same info the "antis" have against the church, because the church has had to admit the anti material is true in some cases and in others they spin the truth to try to pretend there's a basis of integrity for their claims about history-- but their own sources (footnotes) don't back up their position. They count on people seeing a citation and taking their word for it. Read the source material and see how they have lied to you.

I gave you a list of evidence of how the church lies, tries to cover up past lies, and in some cases has admitted in a rationaling way that they lied before, using official publications from the church and church owned media to evidence their track record for dishonesty and their current spin. (YOP is not church owned but well researched, well cited, and hosted by a advocate for healthy Mormonism. But it's a great compilation of firsthand accounts of how the church actually interacted in its early years.

Being "familiar" with LDS publications is not the same as driving deeper and looking at whether their claims actually hold up. Reviewing their footnotes is the fastest way to see how they have lied and spun the truth to appear to support claims that are not factual (ironically, exactly what they like to claim anti-Mormons do).

Scuba dive into LDS history instead of the snorkeling encouraged by Sunday School. Don't do a surface reading, get in there and read the quotes from the primary sources. The church/BYU has admitted JST was plagiarized, that JS did not translate the book of Abraham and the Kinderhook plates translation was a hoax. They take scriptures out of context to support doctrines and practices that hurt people and to justify church history.

But until you're willing to dive deep, you're not going to be able to engage here without looking very foolish.

I'll be happy to discuss with you after you do your homework, but if you're going to argue that we're all going to hell and you aren't willing to consider all the information on why we're willing to take that risk without any concern, well that's just a Merry Go Round and a waste of all our time.

I see clearly what you are referring to. I agree the Church has lied at times and it’s a mess that’s getting worse.

I also believe Smith was the Restoring Prophet and his prophecy concerning the Church never falling is true.

I also believe he was fallen and removed. I think the JS Translation is bogus.

I think the only thing we likely disagree on is whether Smith was ever a Prophet and whether the Priesthood is real in the LDS Church. I believe both are true.

[Thoughtful]

I think the only thing we likely disagree on is whether Smith was ever a Prophet and whether the Priesthood is real in the LDS Church. I believe both are true.

I am willing to consider space for theophany having occurred, but theophany does not a prophet make, and the fruits of his prophetic mission are questionable. Theophany doesn't = authority.

There's plenty of evidence the priesthood was an after the fact fabrication to keep other people from fronting on the authority he was claiming, it's as problematic as his translation.

[Azrael]

I think the only thing we likely disagree on is whether Smith was ever a Prophet and whether the Priesthood is real in the LDS Church. I believe both are true.

I am willing to consider space for theophany having occurred, but theophany does not a prophet make, and the fruits of his prophetic mission are questionable. Theophany doesn't = authority.

There's plenty of evidence the priesthood was an after the fact fabrication to keep other people from fronting on the authority he was claiming, it's as problematic as his translation.

Perhaps the Priesthood is a farce in general? Why would it be withheld so long?

Or perhaps it only exists in bloodlines?

I believe the LDS will be the framework for Christ’s only Church upon His return.

[Thoughtful]

I think the only thing we likely disagree on is whether Smith was ever a Prophet and whether the Priesthood is real in the LDS Church. I believe both are true.

I am willing to consider space for theophany having occurred, but theophany does not a prophet make, and the fruits of his prophetic mission are questionable. Theophany doesn't = authority.

There's plenty of evidence the priesthood was an after the fact fabrication to keep other people from fronting on the authority he was claiming, it's as problematic as his translation.

Perhaps the Priesthood is a farce in general? Why would it be withheld so long?

Or perhaps it only exists in bloodlines?

I believe the LDS will be the framework for Christ’s only Church upon His return.

Maybe. Good luck on your journey.

[moksha]

Is he in Detroit?
Or Chicago?

Banff?
The Great Barrier Reef?
Fhloston Paradise?
Chateau Horgon on Planet Risa?
All of the above?

[Anon70]

Is he in Detroit?
Or Chicago?

Banff?
The Great Barrier Reef?
Fhloston Paradise?
Chateau Horgon on Planet Risa?
All of the above?

Missouri. Every good Mormon knows he’s in Missouri.

[Red Ryder]

Is he in Detroit?
Or Chicago?

Banff?
The Great Barrier Reef?
Fhloston Paradise?
Chateau Horgon on Planet Risa?
All of the above?

Missouri. Every good Mormon knows he’s in Missouri.

I saw him at the West Edmonton Mall a few weeks ago selling Crocs.

Azrael, you're providing an example of the foolishness of religion. Look how your arguments keep shifting. Joseph was a fallen prophet. 144K people in heaven. Jesus has returned. Mormonism is the framework of his one true church?

Let's talk about that framework:

Constant changing foundational narrative?
Nepotism amongst founder families?
Sex amongst founder and congregation?
Migration to BFE to practice kooky religion?
Plagiarism and everyone else's ideas?
Religious underwear? Really?
Real estate holdings?
Billions in the stock market?
Cattle farms?
German Apostles?
Lawyers running the church?
Masturbation interviews?
Sexual abuse cover-ups?
Rape in the MTC basement?

The list goes on. Surely this is the framework of a church allegedly owned and operated by Jesus the Christ, Savior and Redeemer of Heavenly Father's spiritual offspring with millions of women from Kolob!

[Azrael]

Banff?
The Great Barrier Reef?
Fhloston Paradise?
Chateau Horgon on Planet Risa?
All of the above?

Missouri. Every good Mormon knows he’s in Missouri.

I saw him at the West Edmonton Mall a few weeks ago selling Crocs.

Azrael, you're providing an example of the foolishness of religion. Look how your arguments keep shifting. Joseph was a fallen prophet. 144K people in heaven. Jesus has returned. Mormonism is the framework of his one true church?

Let's talk about that framework:

Constant changing foundational narrative?
Nepotism amongst founder families?
Sex amongst founder and congregation?
Migration to BFE to practice kooky religion?
Plagiarism and everyone else's ideas?
Religious underwear? Really?
Real estate holding?
Billions in the stock market?
Cattle farms?
German Apostles?
Lawyers running the church?
Masturbation interviews?
Sexual abuse cover-ups?
Rape in the MTC basement?

The list goes on. Surely this is the framework of a church allegedly owned and operated by Jesus the Christ, Savior and Redeemer of Heavenly Father's spiritual offspring with millions of women from Kolob!

Do you mean is isn’t a church full of perfect people doing perfect things always?

The outrage! Ohhhhhh those dirty Mormons! How dare them not exercise all of God’s will as perfect as God himself would!

It really makes me wish Lucifer was Christ, that way we’d all be perfect doing perfect things and nobody failing!

[Red Ryder]

The "church is perfect the people aren't" defense is old, weak, and used more than Joseph's excuses to bed his girlfriends. It shows your complete lack of critical thought. But then again, you've proven your inability to provide any reasonable conversation here.

Hey Jesus, reign in your followers!

[RubinHighlander]

I believe he was a fallen prophet; tasked with restoring The Priesthood and building the Temples of God which the LDS have succeeded in. I suspect he fell to temptation and instituted plural marriage without Command and was removed because of it.

So, as far as when Joseph became a fallen prophet and when the Priesthood was restored, does the order of those things matter to you? In other words,do you think God could still used Joseph even as a fallen prophet? What if the restoration of the priesthood did not happen in the timeline order in which the LDS church lays it out in their publications? What if the actual historical documents show he was marrying young girls then later came up with the priesthood restoration? Here your out is that Joseph was good at the first to get it all started, then later fell and was removed as a prophet. You really need to dig deeper into your family history and look at what the Smith's were involved in, even before Joseph was born, back to his grandfather and the connection to the Masons. If you look at the actual historical records of Joseph growing up, all the treasure digging, peep stones, court documents of his failures to find hidden treasure, multiple versions of his First Vision and how that came to be in the LDS church's narrative...that's really what Jesus was working with to create a restoration of his true church?

What if the ideas of the temple ceremonies were all taken from the Masons and further research into what the Masons made up with their ceremonies were not actually ancient rituals of any of any Jewish nature, but were just borrowed ideas and made up rituals, no true Christian religious value whatsoever. I've witnessed, first hand, the significant changes and evolution of the temple ceremonies over my 40+ years in the LDS church; the removal of the blood oath gestures was the biggest one. If you have studied the historical evidence of how temple rituals of the LDS church came to be where they are you would recognize these things. Looking at LDS temples from a purely historical Jesus/Jewish point of view, I would not conclude they hold any value in the bible Last Days narrative...unless you want to cherry pick things out of LDS scripture. But your out here is that you believe the LDS church will be the framework upon which Christ comes back, cleans out all the bad things the LDS church does and then conveniently uses the temples they built to do it the right way. If you think there are threads of truth in those temples, it seems to me you would make the effort to get a recommend and get in there to see what is going on. If there's no current value there and Jesus can knock down a temple to dust and built it up again in a day, I don't see his need for a frame work by the LDS Church's hands if it's a fallen and false church now.

My point is, if the priesthood and temple are key components of your belief system (a few things the Mormon Church/Smith got right), but you also point out there have been false prophets leading that church along the way after Smith, where are you with the current leadership of the church and their current ways of doing things? The LDS church is only X percentage right and only you know of all the truths? Seems a very muddy river to navigate to create a belief system by cherry picking perceived truths out of old scriptures and restoration claims of a small revivalist sect in this dispensation.

BTW - Your blood right claim to the Smiths comes across negatively pious and seems to be the anchor point at which you are basing a lot of your testimony.

As others have pointed out here, you are welcome to keep posting and have this conversation, but very unlikely to get much agreement from those of us who invested most of our lives in believing the LDS church, having the spirit tell us what was true, but later turned out to be false. For most of us it was a long painful journey, costing some their marriage. For you to say that Jesus will forgive us and that we'll need to be accountable for our sins of not believing what you are preaching here, well I for one look forward to that day. If there is a Jesus he will know my heart and I can testify here and to him my sincere and ardent journey to seek truth. I would be able to answer him with a clear conscious. If he knows everything, he will know everything I read, studied, prayed about, agonized over and how the brain he gave me came to the conclusions it did. If there's some mental flaw in my brain that somehow deceived me into how I came to these conclusions, then a fair and just God would not condemn his children for having been on such a journey. If it's because I was not genetically part of some elect bloodline, well then, I'm going to have a real problem wanting to love a God who only thinks that less than one percent of his children are special (144k) and therefore are the chosen ones that get to hang out with him at his palace in the sky.

God, evolution, the universe, it will all be sorted out..or it won't and falls to entropy. Carpe Diem!

[Brent]

The beauty of cherry picking is that you only take the cherries you want. I believe in this case that our friend here is simply making it up as he goes along and making sure it fits his personal narrative so that he can be one of the hundred and forty four thousand.

[Hagoth]

The beauty of cherry picking is that you only take the cherries you want. I believe in this case that our friend here is simply making it up as he goes along and making sure it fits his personal narrative so that he can be one of the hundred and forty four thousand.

Which is what every Mormon must do to some degree to keep from going completely off the deep end with all of the contradictions and obfuscations.

[Azrael]

I have to keep turning to the promise in Matthew concerning the fruits of a branch. The LDS Church is in great shape.

The Church has some problems.

I believe scripture attempts to train us, and this is a pattern in nearly all eras of prophet teachings, to Discern in general.

I believe it is the influence of Satan which convinces members/leaders or misspeaking prophets to add a doctrine into any religion which claims “we are the only true religion/church” that is ‘Perfect and Absolute’.

The only parts of any church which can be proven true are the more simple true principles in said churches doctrine. This life isn’t simple, at least it rarely feels as such.

Do we have any way to know a temple ordinance does a dang thing? I’ve certainly been a part of some interesting experiences that have aspects rooted in temples. I haven’t had an Angel show up in the flesh in any way I can understand in my life, testifying of truths or anything too amazing.

Do I have any way of truly knowing the BOM is true front to back? I have scripture telling me to pray about anything I want to understand. So far I’ve felt nothing concerning the Book of Mormon, except generally uninspired to read it since the very start of my investigation of the LDS. I have however, been compelled to turn to Doctrine and Covenants many times over the years, and I have a deep feeling there are true prophecies there, and solid gospel truths, and great information. I never developed that testimony from the BOM.

Unless a man is so chosen as a discerner; has such a great calling of God to provide this truth, whereas God himself or the Holy Spirit speaks clearly in words to this man, or a true angel of heaven should appear to proclaim a truth. Unless we are that man, we are just as whacky as those who claim they know for certain it’s true, when we claim we know for certain it’s false.

I have my greatest understanding of Christ’s Gospel in general from my time with the Mormons.

I believe the FreeMasons, as a literal Church of Satan, exposed Smith to ordinances that had true spiritual power in their evil temple. I believe Smith, understanding the principle of opposition in all things, was made witness to ordinances which God wanted not only evil men to practice, so he called on Smith to make these processes available to goodly people as well. It’s possible God led Smith to FreeMasonry to win back some of the powers they’d found effective, and to expose a goodly version of their evil.

Joseph Smith was a loose cannon. He was perhaps lazy, and prone to look for an easy way out. He screwed some things up, and while we should all appreciate what he did right, we’ve got to stop making excuses for what he screwed up. We can’t deny what he did right.

Basically anything Smith “translated” might be completely made up, based loosely on real events and not of much relevance to the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. Even if he made it up, is it uninspired? Does it teach false and harmful principle? Yes and no in my opinion. That’s a book to write, and a boring one at that, to touch on the topic.

I always work hard to avoid falling into any Holes of Absolution. Generally anytime anyone says anything that implies absolution, I believe they are speaking evil. This means I’ve got to consider that the translation stuff was all real. I can also consider that the very condition that Smith suffers/is blessed with that caused him to channel the Gift of Prophecy, wires a man’s brain in such a way to where he may need to trick himself, or be guided perhaps, into believing a rock can help the process, when in reality they are just constructs necessary to ease a man’s mind and prepare them emotionally for the Holy Ghost to relay information directly into the mind of this prophet, for some purpose. I believe strongly God or the Holy Ghost, or Exulted Jesus at the end of our time, can stream words directly into a prophet’s mind at any time, for any purpose. This basic Abrahamic Religion fundamental is difficult to explain away considering all the real prophets appeared to have experienced direct promptings. Even presiding leaders have recorded similar experiences at times. Is schizophrenia a Key in humanity to skim data from beyond the veil? Is a prophet a person who’s good at ignoring the evil traffic and focusing on the good?

Is any flesh and blood man truly immune to the conflict between + & -, good and evil, the two forces that literally sustain this physical dominion? No man does so perfectly. Christ, as Alpha & Omega, even a master of both, sits at the end of time, neutral, like his Father before him, conquerors of the conflict that defines us. But the prophets who are tasked to walk in flesh, even Jesus Christ himself on his first Alpha mission to Atone, was not made from substance different than you and I, at least I don’t believe he was infallible despite some prophets claim! Because I know those prophets have the same problem Smith had, Muhammad had, Abraham had, every single one, they weren’t perfect transformed beings, built in a way to resist this conflict we are made from. Every single prophet misspoke at times, every prophet made mistakes that cost his people. In the oldest of days concerning those who had the gift of prophecy, these incidences were often explained away by saying God sometimes asked men to do evil things, for greater purpose. Is there a difference? Do we know God’s nature well enough to believe he isn’t just The Holy Ghost and Satan wrapped up into one Alpha&Omega type being himself?

This life is hard, Prophets are meant to help guide us through this mess with control of our spirits intact at the end. They aren’t perfect!

There was an Arch-Angel in Heaven which wanted perfect prophets, it was Lucifer, and every time we claim some religion is absolutely right or wrong, or this prophet is perfect or that one is not, we become followers of Lucifer’s will. This belief leads a spiritual man to Satan’s Church eventually, whether a card carrying member like the Fraternities, or in spirit.

[Azrael]

I believe he was a fallen prophet; tasked with restoring The Priesthood and building the Temples of God which the LDS have succeeded in. I suspect he fell to temptation and instituted plural marriage without Command and was removed because of it.

So, as far as when Joseph became a fallen prophet and when the Priesthood was restored, does the order of those things matter to you? In other words,do you think God could still used Joseph even as a fallen prophet? What if the restoration of the priesthood did not happen in the timeline order in which the LDS church lays it out in their publications? What if the actual historical documents show he was marrying young girls then later came up with the priesthood restoration? Here your out is that Joseph was good at the first to get it all started, then later fell and was removed as a prophet. You really need to dig deeper into your family history and look at what the Smith's were involved in, even before Joseph was born, back to his grandfather and the connection to the Masons. If you look at the actual historical records of Joseph growing up, all the treasure digging, peep stones, court documents of his failures to find hidden treasure, multiple versions of his First Vision and how that came to be in the LDS church's narrative...that's really what Jesus was working with to create a restoration of his true church?

What if the ideas of the temple ceremonies were all taken from the Masons and further research into what the Masons made up with their ceremonies were not actually ancient rituals of any of any Jewish nature, but were just borrowed ideas and made up rituals, no true Christian religious value whatsoever. I've witnessed, first hand, the significant changes and evolution of the temple ceremonies over my 40+ years in the LDS church; the removal of the blood oath gestures was the biggest one. If you have studied the historical evidence of how temple rituals of the LDS church came to be where they are you would recognize these things. Looking at LDS temples from a purely historical Jesus/Jewish point of view, I would not conclude they hold any value in the bible Last Days narrative...unless you want to cherry pick things out of LDS scripture. But your out here is that you believe the LDS church will be the framework upon which Christ comes back, cleans out all the bad things the LDS church does and then conveniently uses the temples they built to do it the right way. If you think there are threads of truth in those temples, it seems to me you would make the effort to get a recommend and get in there to see what is going on. If there's no current value there and Jesus can knock down a temple to dust and built it up again in a day, I don't see his need for a frame work by the LDS Church's hands if it's a fallen and false church now.

My point is, if the priesthood and temple are key components of your belief system (a few things the Mormon Church/Smith got right), but you also point out there have been false prophets leading that church along the way after Smith, where are you with the current leadership of the church and their current ways of doing things? The LDS church is only X percentage right and only you know of all the truths? Seems a very muddy river to navigate to create a belief system by cherry picking perceived truths out of old scriptures and restoration claims of a small revivalist sect in this dispensation.

BTW - Your blood right claim to the Smiths comes across negatively pious and seems to be the anchor point at which you are basing a lot of your testimony.

As others have pointed out here, you are welcome to keep posting and have this conversation, but very unlikely to get much agreement from those of us who invested most of our lives in believing the LDS church, having the spirit tell us what was true, but later turned out to be false. For most of us it was a long painful journey, costing some their marriage. For you to say that Jesus will forgive us and that we'll need to be accountable for our sins of not believing what you are preaching here, well I for one look forward to that day. If there is a Jesus he will know my heart and I can testify here and to him my sincere and ardent journey to seek truth. I would be able to answer him with a clear conscious. If he knows everything, he will know everything I read, studied, prayed about, agonized over and how the brain he gave me came to the conclusions it did. If there's some mental flaw in my brain that somehow deceived me into how I came to these conclusions, then a fair and just God would not condemn his children for having been on such a journey. If it's because I was not genetically part of some elect bloodline, well then, I'm going to have a real problem wanting to love a God who only thinks that less than one percent of his children are special (144k) and therefore are the chosen ones that get to hang out with him at his palace in the sky.

God, evolution, the universe, it will all be sorted out..or it won't and falls to entropy. Carpe Diem!

You’ve said a lot here. I cover my response and opinions to some parts in a general post above.

Concerning a few points specifically:

Concerning the nature of God: He isn’t a goody two shoes. Apparently the struggle in the Eternities is real. For example he has his only begotten son signed up to come and live a really goodly life, only to be murdered, just so every person ever after can have hope and understanding they will be saved from spiritual death. Then he has Him signed up to come back and Elect 144,000 and burn the rest in fire I think. This isn’t any goody two shoes expectation. This is a war on evil. Satan demanded every soul be saved and offered himself as a leader to bring it forth. I believe he will! I believe he will lead every soul that gets worn out and chooses perdition eventually, right to another place in Spacetime where they can exist in the spirit world forever, or get another crack at starting fresh from a big-bang somewhere. They’ll have to be adopted by another who holds keys to creation.

I believe the 144,000 are “Redeemed” as his prize. I believe he worked hard, and invested all of His and His counterpart’s potential as beings into this creation we are apart of. I believe these Elect are the only ones that make it out of this ‘Master Dispensation’ (Big Bang to final Entropy) “Alive”. I believe all the others who choose (Eternal Life, the first ordinance) will continue through iterations of being born and dying eternally until they chose perdition, or succeed in being a 144,000. When this Master Dispensation is Entropy the spirits will find their way to the next suitable region of Spacetime. Maybe the same one rewound perhaps. Perhaps this silly framework is recycled. Perhaps each iteration provides new intelligence and this is the meaning of life when considering our collective efforts as individual beings working together in the Eternities. All questions I hope to ask God someday.

Side note: 144,000 is strangely close to .00001% of the estimation of the number of people who have ever lived.

We have 7.2 billion alive now, they say there is a man whose lived in the past for each alive now, 7.2 x 7.2 = 14.4 billion. Divided by one in ten thousand, and you have 144,000. And with that babble I digress.

[Just This Guy]

I believe Joseph was not commanded to institute plural marriage. I believe he was removed By Father before more damage could be done. I think the Jospeh Smith Translation of the Bible is a work of the Adversary. I think several false prophets have served as President of the LDS since. I think the Mormons have so much right, but a few things wrong, and when Christ returns to claim his throne those wrongs will be straightened out.

I don’t care what the LDS Church thinks of me for calling Smith (my cousin heh) a fallen prophet. I’m still on their rolls and if they want to take me off that’s their issue, not mine!

Trying to understand your view here, so feel free to correct me if I'm misinterpreting you. You feel that JSj was a fallen prophet who was mistaken for instituting polygamy and was removed for having done so. Okay, the lord never intended his church to practice it. Mormonism (or at least the Brighamite movement of it,) continued that practice as well. Not only did they continue it, but greatly greatly expanded it bringing much ruin and suffering to many people for the decades in which it was in use. So by your logic, modern Mormonism is also the product of a fallen prophet, right? How man Mormonism be the truth if it is a direct outgrown of unapproved "doctrine", for lack of a better term.

Next, I would caution you about relying on your ancestry to JSj. The thing about genealogy is that it branches FAST. by the time you are out to the 5th or 6th cousin level, you are literally related to millions of living people today. I am personally related to 12 presidents of the US, the founders of 5 well known religions (including JSj), dozens of modern celebrities, several European royal families, and two famous criminal gangs. And that's just the stuff I know about and does not include my wife's ancestry. I'm 1st cousin, about 14 generations back from Queen Anne Boleyn, from there the whole Tutor dynasty of British monarchy and from there you can link into several European royal families. That really doesn't matter. A bunch of dead relatives have nothing to do with who I am today.

Ancestry.com has a tool that will take your genealogy and link you to all the noticeable people that it can find. The more complete your genealogy the more people it can link you to. It can be a fun way to spend an afternoon looking at all the connections. That's just the nature of genealogy and the math of exponential growth. Keep in mind, that mathematically, you are no more than an 8th cousin to anyone alive today.