Divine Example: Marriage Among Deity

[tagriffy]

Uh. Like, WOW! You really don't see the difference?!? Just because one thing isn't weird doesn't mean another thing isn't weird.

I have a feeling a can't do very well to explain this to you, though. It would in fact be weird if he did even if you don't think so.

Like, no, I really don't see the difference. "Weird," like "beauty," is very much in the eye of the beholder.

That's a mistaken notion. We have always existed because we have always been a part of our parents before us. We didn't come from out of nowhere. Sounds like you need to understand the story of the birds and the bees.

Are you approaching this from a Mormon angle? There is plenty in Joseph Smith's teachings that support the idea we have eternal and independent existence. In fact, it was a key point in Elder B. H. Roberts' brilliant theodicy.

[Ahab]

Like, no, I really don't see the difference. "Weird," like "beauty," is very much in the eye of the beholder.

The difference is the difference between siblings and children. One was begat along with us while the other is what we beget.

Are you approaching this from a Mormon angle? There is plenty in Joseph Smith's teachings that support the idea we have eternal and independent existence. In fact, it was a key point in Elder B. H. Roberts' brilliant theodicy.

We are eternal but not apart from our Father (and Mother). You were a par tof him (and her) before you were born as one of his (and her) children. Just as now while you may not have any children when you do they will be coming from a part of you and the one who will be the child's Mother. Life doesn't begin for any of us but when we are begotten we are coming from our parents before us going back into eternity past.

[Calm]

Yet, members and occasionally the Church will balk at these implications. Why is that?

Because some people prefer revelation over speculation.

[tagriffy]

The difference is the difference between siblings and children. One was begat along with us while the other is what we beget.

And?

[Calm]

And this is life eternal, that they might know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent

We define "eternal life" as "exaltation". I think this points to our full and continuing understanding of Christ and God the Father occurring at that time, when we become one with them. It's also indicated I believe in the Corinthians verse about 'now we see through a glass darkly....then we shall know as we are known'. Edited May 31, 2013 by calmoriah

[Calm]

The difference is the difference between siblings and children. One was begat along with us while the other is what we beget.

I think it becomes an issue because we see a father as having authority over a child and/or one relationship (father/parent) that is very intimate in one way is being replaced with another relationship that is very strong and intimate in another way. Can one change/replace feelings or not confuse them in such circumstances.

We are eternal but not apart from our Father (and Mother).

There is the belief that "intelligence" means a being that was in existence before the Father (and Mother) clothed us in spirit just as our earthly parents gave us a physical body for our preexisting spirits. Some believe, IIRC, that the intelligence was just particles/elements that were used to create the spirit, but I think when we are described as eternal beings that means we have been individuals in some fashion for all that was and was not time past and all that is time and not time present and all that will be time and not time future (to cover all philosophical versions of what time is and is not).

[tagriffy]

There is the belief that "intelligence" means a being that was in existence before the Father (and Mother) clothed us in spirit just as our earthly parents gave us a physical body for our preexisting spirits. Some believe, IIRC, that the intelligence was just particles/elements that were used to create the spirit, but I think when we are described as eternal beings that means we have been individuals in some fashion for all that was and was not time past and all that is time and not time present and all that will be time and not time future (to cover all philosophical versions of what time is and is not).

That is what I am referring to in my posts.

[Calm]

That is what I am referring to in my posts.

It was clear to me that you were doing so.

[Ahab]

I think it becomes an issue because we see a father as having authority over a child and/or one relationship (father/parent) that is very intimate in one way is being replaced with another relationship that is very strong and intimate in another way. Can one change/replace feelings or not confuse them in such circumstances.

No, there can be no replacement for the feelings between parents and their own children, just as there can be no replacement for the feelings the parents have between each other, and if a parent had a child with another one of his (or her) children they would have only some of the feelings involved in both relationships while not being able to experience a fulness of each. Can you imagine trying? You are married, aren't you? Do you have the feelings you think you should have toward your spouse? Can you imagine having those same feelings toward your children? You do have children, don't you? The idea of even attempting to blur the lines between each type of relationship is totally abhorrent to me, and I would think it would be to you too. If not for you and you don't see any difference, well, I wouldn't want to feel like you do.

There is the belief that "intelligence" means a being that was in existence before the Father (and Mother) clothed us in spirit just as our earthly parents gave us a physical body for our preexisting spirits. Some believe, IIRC, that the intelligence was just particles/elements that were used to create the spirit, but I think when we are described as eternal beings that means we have been individuals in some fashion for all that was and was not time past and all that is time and not time present and all that will be time and not time future (to cover all philosophical versions of what time is and is not).

Yes there are many false beliefs in this world, including what it means to be a being and how different kinds of beings perpetuate their own species. Your basic idea is correct, because we have always been individuals of the kind of being we are, but do you really know what kind of being we are? I'm telling you we are and always have been the same kind of being as our parents, and that's who we came from.

[tagriffy]

Yes there are many false beliefs in this world, including what it means to be a being and how different kinds of beings perpetuate their own species. Your basic idea is correct, because we have always been individuals of the kind of being we are, but do you really know what kind of being we are? I'm telling you we are and always have been the same kind of being as our parents, and that's who we came from.

So are you saying Joseph Smith and B. H. Roberts were perpetuating false beliefs?

[BlueDreams]

It never ceases to amaze me that we define a concept of God as a being beyond our comprehension and then we reduce him to a being we think we comprehend. The errors in the above statement are too many to address at this time.

For the record. My comment was highly off cuff. I wasn't going for heavy amounts of accuracy, just my general feel of what I think. And I generally think that God is far more comprehensible than we generally allow ourselves to believe. I don't think I fully comprehend him, nor that I have that capacity. But I also believe that I grow in understanding him each day that I seek Him out.

On what evidence do you base your assumption that it is unnecessary? Your assumption that it is unnecessary is also an inferred assumption.

On the assumption that if it was absolutely necessary to know he would have mentioned it somewhere....beyond a handful of quotes from BY. It's not something seen in the scriptures at all.

But you're right it is an assumption. I just don't see the need and I don't like the implications. I prefer the idea of equity in marriage. Brothers and Sisters are equal. Father and daughter///perfect immortal being w/ mortal imperfect being////teacher&student etc....not so much. Simply put, Our relationship with the Father is vertical in nature. We learn and receive direction from Him, not the other way around. With our brothers and sisters, we learn and develop and become with each other...it's horizontal in a marriage.

So a marriage between a divine, inherently better being would leave quite an unequally yoked marital state indeed.

You should enlarge your circle of acquaintances.

Nah, I'm good. I'm perfectly content with comfortable ignorance . But honestly, that I haven't heard this idea beyond the internet should state at least a little about how prevelant such a folk doctrine/theory is among LDS. It's not like I keep my ears closed and eyes down.

To point out a flaw in your reasoning: Joseph and Mary were married by Jewish law in effect at the time. I do not think it was an eternal marriage but you are right in that there is no real evidence either way.

So why don't we do the work for those that were married under jewish law that we have record of in the bible? I don't know how that all works or how they were married. But I'm far more content to go with the basic point that there is no significant indication that God wouldn't honor their marriage as is.

From purely a curious nature why does it bother you so much to think that Mary may have been married to God?

Very bluntly: Feels wrong and sounds holey. Some ideas just don't seem right to me and never have. This is one of them. Besides I have literally no reason to believe such. I can think of more problems caused by such a belief then it corrects. So I'm content tossing it into a long list of ideas that just don't go all that far. In short: It's not enlightening, is unnecessary, and has little support for the idea.

With luv,

BD

[Stone holm]

If he had married Mary then he would have been married to one of his daughters. I know we marry our sisters but to marry our children is just a little too weird. I don't see how anyone could really believe our Father would have married any of his children.

Yeah I have heard that argument before. So if you go with that argument, its okay to impregnate a spiritual daughter, but not marry her. That makes no logical sense. Or are you on the verge of denying that Jesus Christ was the only begotten of the Father in the flesh?

[Stone holm]

For the record. My comment was highly off cuff. I wasn't going for heavy amounts of accuracy, just my general feel of what I think. And I generally think that God is far more comprehensible than we generally allow ourselves to believe. I don't think I fully comprehend him, nor that I have that capacity. But I also believe that I grow in understanding him each day that I seek Him out.

On the assumption that if it was absolutely necessary to know he would have mentioned it somewhere....beyond a handful of quotes from BY. It's not something seen in the scriptures at all.

But you're right it is an assumption. I just don't see the need and I don't like the implications. I prefer the idea of equity in marriage. Brothers and Sisters are equal. Father and daughter///perfect immortal being w/ mortal imperfect being////teacher&student etc....not so much. Simply put, Our relationship with the Father is vertical in nature. We learn and receive direction from Him, not the other way around. With our brothers and sisters, we learn and develop and become with each other...it's horizontal in a marriage.

So a marriage between a divine, inherently better being would leave quite an unequally yoked marital state indeed.

Nah, I'm good. I'm perfectly content with comfortable ignorance . But honestly, that I haven't heard this idea beyond the internet should state at least a little about how prevelant such a folk doctrine/theory is among LDS. It's not like I keep my ears closed and eyes down.

So why don't we do the work for those that were married under jewish law that we have record of in the bible? I don't know how that all works or how they were married. But I'm far more content to go with the basic point that there is no significant indication that God wouldn't honor their marriage as is.

Very bluntly: Feels wrong and sounds holey. Some ideas just don't seem right to me and never have. This is one of them. Besides I have literally no reason to believe such. I can think of more problems caused by such a belief then it corrects. So I'm content tossing it into a long list of ideas that just don't go all that far. In short: It's not enlightening, is unnecessary, and has little support for the idea.

With luv,

BD

What are the problems it creates?

[Calm]

I'm telling you we are and always have been the same kind of being as our parents

I have always believed that.

As to where we've all come from, I believe we (human beings) have all come from the same thing...whatever that is. If one wants to call that "God", it doesn't contradict anything I believe and may well be the best fit.

Edited June 1, 2013 by calmoriah

[Calm]

So are you saying Joseph Smith and B. H. Roberts were perpetuating false beliefs?

Specific references to these beliefs please so we are all on the same page.

[Calm]

Father and daughter///perfect immortal being w/ mortal imperfect being////teacher&student etc

My understanding of BY (and granted I haven't studied in depth so I may be totally wrong) is that he saw the marriage/sealing of Mary and the Father as having taken place between two perfect beings prior to Mary's birth on earth...so that Mary (and who knows who else...perhaps all of us?) was like Adam and Eve, celestial beings that laid down their immortality to partake in additional refinement in mortality? At the very least, the sealing was prebirth and seen as eternal so even if it was between perfect and imperfect, it involved two eternal beings where one was perfect and one was becoming perfect, including by agreeing to take on the role which she accepted as handmaiden to the Lord.

add-on: I don't agree with it, at the most it is pure speculation, imo, reasoning based on incomplete knowledge where some pretty significant gaps were filled in by speculation.

Edited June 1, 2013 by calmoriah

[Calm]

So, the impliction is strong that if God impregnated an unwed woman, He would marry her first.

Is that not assuming that such took place in the same way that it has taken place the majority of the history of man....but not for the last several decades where a woman who has never been physically intimate can carry a child, either of her own biological DNA or of two other people?

If Christ had been the child of Heavenly Mother and Father and Mary only carried him in her womb, not contributed any DNA, do you think that God's laws would require the Father to be sealed to Mary?

Edited June 1, 2013 by calmoriah

[Tacenda]

What if Mary isn't a daughter but our actual Mother in Heaven? Maybe she begat Jesus exactly as BY spoke of, and is either the wife, or one of many wives of God.

Don't ask how I came up with this, it popped in my head and is definitely better than incest!

Also, maybe earthlife time is so much slower than in heaven that HF didn't have to wait long for her to return.

Edited June 1, 2013 by Tacenda

[Calm]

What if Mary isn't a daughter but our actual Mother in Heaven? Maybe she begat Jesus exactly as BY spoke of, and is either the wife, ir one of maney wives of God

Don't ask how I came up with this, it popped in my head and is definitely better than incest!

If Adam and Eve were perfected celestial beings that laid down their celestial bodies to become mortal again as some state that BY taught (I don't know, it seems like he did in some cases and in others didn't) the possibility that Mary is (a) Heavenly Mother works for me.

I suspect this thread will be closed soon though as getting into the physical aspects of Christ's conception (or anyone else's) is not usually smiled upon by the mods (so no one needs to be surprised or offended if this gets shut down)

Edited June 1, 2013 by calmoriah

[BlueDreams]

What are the problems it creates?

I mentioned one in the post that I could think of off the top of my head: The inherent hierarchal relationship that is antithetical to the principle of a celestial marriage.

With luv,

BD

Edited June 1, 2013 by BlueDreams

[Calm]

That is what I am referring to in my posts.

While I do believe we will be equal with our earthly parents in the celestial kingdom (we will all be adult resurrected beings, just as we were all 'adult' spirits when coming to earth), there seems to be something of the parent child relationship that continues in the next life...or so it would seem from the way family sealings are performed and certain teachings are presented.

I get the assumption that if we were all once individual intelligences and that God progressed beyond that state prior to our own progression, but was still from that state....that in that sense one could ignore the fact of the current relationship of his being our Father now, but I don't think that we are intended to as we teach that God will always be our God, our Heavenly Father. That Father/Child relationship will be eternal and it seems it will be important, as important as the 'fact' (assumption here) we all are the same species--all eternal intelligences.

[BlueDreams]

My understanding of BY (and granted I haven't studied in depth so I may be totally wrong) is that he saw the marriage/sealing of Mary and the Father as having taken place between two perfect beings prior to Mary's birth on earth...so that Mary (and who knows who else...perhaps all of us?) was like Adam and Eve, celestial beings that laid down their immortality to partake in additional refinement in mortality? At the very least, the sealing was prebirth and seen as eternal so even if it was between perfect and imperfect, it involved two eternal beings where one was perfect and one was becoming perfect, including by agreeing to take on the role which she accepted as handmaiden to the Lord.

add-on: I don't agree with it, at the most it is pure speculation, imo, reasoning based on incomplete knowledge where some pretty significant gaps were filled in by speculation.

Interesting.....same conclusion that you added on. It takes a lot of jumps to get there that have no extra backing beyond BY's thoughts.... and I still don't think involving two eternal beings that are perfect and becoming perfect is equitable or close enough to it for my major concern to be absolved. There's not much difference from where we are now (HF: Perfect, us: Becoming perfect....as long as we humble ourselves before Him)

I just don't buy it.

Thanks for the longer clarification. I forgot about the details about A+E in his ideas.

With luv,

BD

Edited June 1, 2013 by BlueDreams

[tagriffy]

Specific references to these beliefs please so we are all on the same page.

I am working with D&C 93:23-29, the King Follett Discourse, what appears to be Joseph's final discourse, Abraham chapter 3, and B. H. Roberts' theodicy in The Truth, The Way, The Life (pagination varies depending on the edition; in the Larson 1994 edition, see pages 374-383).

[Calm]

Yeah I have heard that argument before. So if you go with that argument, its okay to impregnate a spiritual daughter, but not marry her. That makes no logical sense. Or are you on the verge of denying that Jesus Christ was the only begotten of the Father in the flesh?

God and Christ have both altered the physical state of many as recorded in the scriptures and elsewhere in reference to healings. Placing DNA within a woman through a medical procedure is not the same thing as "impregnating" in my view whether it is your own DNA or someone else's (though I have a friend who is an infertility tech who stated he impregnated more women in the city of Calgary than any other man in existence...and in one sense he was correct, but I do not see him as requiring to be sealed or married to the thousands of women he made fertile). It is not identical, but in the same category for me as healing....and closer to that than it would be to the physical act of intimacy between a husband and wife that at sometimes leads to pregnancy, but does not always. Edited June 1, 2013 by calmoriah

[tagriffy]

I get the assumption that if we were all once individual intelligences and that God progressed beyond that state prior to our own progression, but was still from that state....that in that sense one could ignore the fact of the current relationship of his being our Father now, but I don't think that we are intended to as we teach that God will always be our God, our Heavenly Father. That Father/Child relationship will be eternal and it seems it will be important, as important as the 'fact' (assumption here) we all are the same species--all eternal intelligences.

Thank you! This is why I brought up the idea that in our ur-state we were individual, self-existent intelligences. The implicit question was whether this has any bearing on the topic. Am I reading you correctly that you say it does not?