Celestial Sex

[inquiringmind]

This is probably one of my dumber questions, but if exalted men and women (with bodies of flesh and bone) give birth to spirit children, why did Jesus say "that which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of spirit is spirit"?

Why would a union between resurrected beings (with bodies of flesh and bone) produce children with spirit bodies (in need of mortal parents to give them tabernacles of flesh)?

Edited February 26, 2012 by inquiringmind

[altersteve]

There is no doctrine stating that resurrected beings produce spirit children by any sort of sexual union; the method by which our spirits were created is not known. Also, the term "celestial sex" was invented by Ed Decker, and anti-Mormons use it for no other purpose than to distort, shock, and offend. You will never find that term used in scripture or any LDS publication.

[Storm Rider]

There are so many questions that can be asked and there is so much that we don't know. We know so very little about how the creation process takes place for worlds unending to spirits byond count. What is of utmost importance is to seek answers for questions that relate to Salvation; the rest is nice to know, but has no bearing on your soul or anyone else's.

It is one of the reasons the Church constantly tries to focus the membership on the fundamentals of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

[why me]

This thread is doomed. It will be closed once the mods see it. I don't think that one has to worry about sex in the celestial kingdom. Everything will take care of itself. We need to remember that with sex comes a lot of baggage that celestial beings really do not need.

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

Upon reading your thread title, my immediate response was: "I vote in favor!"

Upon reading your question, my immediate response is: "I dunno."

The term itself is not scriptural, but I frankly think it's silly to get shocked or offended at it. Decker is just a hypocritical prude; if sex happens in the Celestial realm, I can't see why it'd be any less sacred and meaningful (and fun!) than down here. (I watch The Godmakers every now and then for laughs -- the animation is hilarious.)

If the term is silly -- and it is -- who cares? Mormons think the Fall was a eucatastrophe - Eve ate the fruit in order to have joy, and wisdom, and become like the Gods. It was the first step on their eternal progression. We're not depraved sinners from birth; only by following after the false traditions of the "fathers" of much of the Western world's intellectual heritage (such as those ascetic post-Apostasy Christian virgins who thought bodies and sex were primitive and beastial and degrading and evil) do we become like the Adversary.

I think the difficulty comes from our current inability to really define "spirit" (at least to my satisfaction), stemming from conceptual problems. I think we often tend to have the idea that what we call "spirit" beings like the pre-mortal Christ are incorporeal, like some sort of gas or ghostly special-effect from lame movies, and I suspect this is in error. Ether saw a human hand reaching out of the cloud; was it physical, or was it some sort of illusion, some sort of hologram? The D&C says that the way to tell reality from a deception is to extend a hand to the Messenger who comes to see you -- if they're a real person, they'll shake it!

If it was really "just" a human hand, then "spirit" -- spiritus, ruach, etc., meaning "wind" or "breathing" -- becomes a sort of title rather than a description of any particular bodily condition. Was Louis XIV really a Sun King, really a burning ball of fire, or was his title symbolic? Is Lady Wisdom really a physically growing tree somewhere, or is that just a metaphorical title she was given in Proverbs 3:18? In Nibley's Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri, he talks about the Egyptian sensen, the "breath" which is ritually given to initiates.

In the Vedas, Dyaus Pita ("Sky Father") and Prithvi Mata ("Earth Mother") are called the two great parents, and according to the Yajur-Veda, they are kept in mind as the archetypal union upon which the fecundity of both heaven and earth rest, and commemorated in the ordinance of the Brahman marriage when the bridegroom says to the bride: "I am the Sky, thou art the Earth, come let us marry." As part of the marriage ceremony in Gujerat, the pair must circumambulate the sacred fire. It's all symbolism speaking of the wedding between the heavens and the earth.

But what are they symbolizing? Joseph Smith is unclear on this point, since he used "spirit" and uncreated "intelligence" somewhat interchangeably. The "tripartite model" which many Mormons believe in is something of a reformulation by guys like BH Roberts.

At any rate, Smith also said that our "spirits" -- what I would call our Uncreated Intelligence -- are made of fine matter that is too pure to be seen with our current eyes, which can exist outside of our mortal bodies or be bound with them to become immortal. The key point is that they are physical, yet physical like something akin to light. Sunlight is physically real, and yet we can walk through it.

Our Uncreated Intelligence, we are told, is something that is "breathed" into us at some point. Unlike some Christians, we don't believe our souls were created from nothing at conception; our Uncreated Intelligence can only be moved from place to place, not "created". That's why we are "fallen" -- we have suffered a "spiritual death" and been separated from God, falling to this world like sunlight. If "death", then, is separation from a body, then "spiritual death" is separation from a spirit body. It implies that we died when we were spirits (not a death of the Uncreated Intelligence which is like a spark of flame that can never be killed or extinguished, but rather the physical pre-earth body, like that of Christ, which Ether saw) and were "born again" into this world.

There are plenty of myths in which women are impregnated by lightning bolts, or beams of light, etc. We have utterly no idea about the physics of all this, so we have to use simplified language. The point is that we, as Uncreated Intelligences, are eternal and free, existing as sparks of light until we are given bodies by our parents. Just as we have "heavenly" parents, so too we have "earthly" parents.

(And just as our "father" Abraham is not actually our "father" in the same way that he was to Isaac, so too our heavenly "parents" might not necessarily be our physical spirit-parents -- the point is to be adopted into the family which they head as spokespeople, as opposed to that of the Adversary, which is the family composed of people who have spirits desiring bloodshed.) One family is earthborn, the other heavenborn, depending. Born of the flesh of the earth, or that of heaven. It's a web of light extending from world to world in which we rescue each other from the darkness that comes when we are separated from our bodies, our eyes.

So in John 3, we read:

Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

So what does this mean? Some say it's just a metaphor: be "born again" as a good, moral person or whatever. Personally, I think it's a little more literal. My view is this: we have existed eternally as radically free Uncreated Intelligences, which we can only metaphorically describe as sparks of light blowing on the wind, since we do not possess the understanding of physics necessary for us to understand how consciousness can exist decoupled from the brain. These sparks of light, which are us at the most fundamental level, can be "breathed" into bodies on various worlds (since we believe Gods are physical men and women who live in various places in the physically-real universe, not the outside-of-time-and-space Neoplatonic heaven of many other Christian groups) and given life.

We bind our Uncreated Intelligence to bodies in order to develop sympathy for our fellows and have all the joys our bodies have evolved to feel: the pleasure of movement, of swimming, running, eating, breathing, thinking, hugging & kissing, dancing, singing, making love. The purpose of life is to have joy, and we have joy by making each other happy, giving each other pleasure of every kind, serving each other. The worst sin is to take away someone's body by force, because you've deprived them of the ability to take part in all these good things, you've cut them off from their family and their world.

So why shouldn't parents in another world have "celestial sex" to give bodies to the Uncreated Intelligences which are their children, so those eternal sparks of light can become adopted back into the biological family? (It's kind of confusing to talk about "biological adoption", but hey.) After all, it's kind of what we do now with our "earthial sex", which is a sacred and beautiful thing. It's the power of creation, of life itself! It's all good, man.

It's also fantastically weird, of course. Biology is fascinatingly bizarre. And this is all completely speculative; my answer is strictly "Gospel of Jeremy" stuff and not representative of official doctrine. But I think it's pretty cool!

Edited February 26, 2012 by JeremyOrbe-Smith

[Flyonthewall]

I have never understood how a spirit could be born through a physical process.

I would imagine that it would be done by something like a preisthood ordinance <guessing here>.

Although I would not doubt that there is still physical intimacy between husbands and wives.

[mfbukowski]

This is probably one of my dumber questions, but if exalted men and women (with bodies of flesh and bone) give birth to spirit children, why did Jesus say "that which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of spirit is spirit"?

Why would a union between resurrected beings (with bodies of flesh and bone) produce children with spirit bodies (in need of mortal parents to give them tabernacles of flesh)?

We don't know.

Mary had a body of flesh and blood.

This kind of topic is considered pretty irreverent to even bring up- in effect we are discussing God's personal business, which is clearly none of ours.

That's why I think we know so little about Heavenly Mother. Would you want a bunch of guys on a street corner talking about your wife the way guys will talk?

Very sacred stuff here.

All we have is about like how you would answer a 2 year old when she asks "Daddy- where did I come from?"

We will know the details when we need to know them and that's not now.

Edited February 26, 2012 by mfbukowski

[CV75]

Why would a union between resurrected beings (with bodies of flesh and bone) produce children with spirit bodies (in need of mortal parents to give them tabernacles of flesh)?

It makes perfect sense to me that if mortal parents can provide the physical bodies for immortal spirits, then immortal parents can create the immortal spirits that are to inhabit physical bodies.

[Rob Osborn]

How did Adam and Eve come about? Personally I believe the Gods made them in the same process that we make our children.

[Nemesis]

Sexually themed threads. These tend to become distasteful and we have some younger participants. Discussing sexual behavior of LDS leaders, past or present, will not be allowed.