Purpose Of Mortality

[Questing Beast]

Different slant on it: What if the true purpose of why we do this mortality gig is to find "God"? What if when we "die", we wake up, and our whole mortal life has been recorded, and even observed; or it then gets observed and interpreted, in search of any possible insights into who/what "God" Is, and where? In the so called "afterlife" (as viewed by mortals and as assigned that term), all of us are equally believers in existence, and that there is a "God", and we are all interested in finding out more about "God". In fact, that is our sole shared quest. But "God" is inscrutably distant to the world of humans. It has been found that "sleep" is the most natural state for contemplation of the Infinite, or "terrible questions". So we do this, and while here, we also sleep regularly, thus looping back to our sleeping, immortal mind and making equally regular contact, assessing and discarding and ordering the entire experience for study. We've been at this for literally billions of years, and since we have never found anything better to do, we plug away, perhaps without any real hope, trying to come "face to face" with the REAL GOD who caused existence in the first place....

[Tacenda]

Different slant on it: What if the true purpose of why we do this mortality gig is to find "God"? What if when we "die", we wake up, and our whole mortal life has been recorded, and even observed; or it then gets observed and interpreted, in search of any possible insights into who/what "God" Is, and where? In the so called "afterlife" (as viewed by mortals and as assigned that term), all of us are equally believers in existence, and that there is a "God", and we are all interested in finding out more about "God". In fact, that is our sole shared quest. But "God" is inscrutably distant to the world of humans. It has been found that "sleep" is the most natural state for contemplation of the Infinite, or "terrible questions". So we do this, and while here, we also sleep regularly, thus looping back to our sleeping, immortal mind and making equally regular contact, assessing and discarding and ordering the entire experience for study. We've been at this for literally billions of years, and since we have never found anything better to do, we plug away, perhaps without any real hope, trying to come "face to face" with the REAL GOD who caused existence in the first place....

Great OP! The other day while driving I was listening to a Christian station on the radio and whoever, was talking about this very thing. He mentioned gathering our families for a 10 min. a day block of time to give to the Lord, he didn't go into detail but I gather it could be done through scriptures, meditation, discussion etc. But how easy this would be right? We give our time to so many dumb things throughout the day that are meaningless. I know the church asks us to do the same (scriptures), but sometimes it takes a jolt like this or outside noise to get me going again on thinking my children don't have that relationship. Scripture study has been a bad word in our family lately, my 20 yr. old son is now thinking of moving out with a friend that is a girl, talk about stress and feeling like a failure as a mother. All his friends are still on missions, but still, it seems so wrong. And my other son just turned 16 and thinks our family is so boring, he can't stand to be home. I know that Jesus/God is missing in our home. I wish there was some way to get my older boys onboard with realizing how urgent it is to get that relationship. Thanks for this post QB, we all need this.

[ERayR]

We already knew God before we came to this existence. The purpose of this life is for us to sort ourselves into where we will be comfortable.

[thesometimesaint]

There are two purposes in this life.

1. To gain a body.

2. To see for ourselves if we will do everything our Lord and God require.

[Calm]

It has been found that "sleep" is the most natural state for contemplation of the Infinite, or "terrible questions".

Is this a hypothesis of yours or some research you have come across. It is hard to tell from the way you are phrasing your post. If the latter, CFR please.

[Questing Beast]

... Scripture study has been a bad word in our family lately, my 20 yr. old son is now thinking of moving out with a friend that is a girl, talk about stress and feeling like a failure as a mother. All his friends are still on missions, but still, it seems so wrong. And my other son just turned 16 and thinks our family is so boring, he can't stand to be home. I know that Jesus/God is missing in our home. I wish there was some way to get my older boys onboard with realizing how urgent it is to get that relationship. Thanks for this post QB, we all need this.

Reads similarly to my family situation, only girls instead of boys are the worry. Our 17 year-old daughter spends almost no time at home and hasn't for more than a year (she always wanted to grow up, even as a three year-old). Her sister next in age is living independently and her morals are a disturbing poser to we her parents, she's not promiscuous or anything like that, but sees, along with the example of her next older sister, no reason to regard traditional sexual morality as set in stone. Of the four girls, only the oldest has followed the strict lifestyle of a TBM, i.e. setting a good example by marrying in the temple. Of the five boys, four are married in the temple and living active LDS family values, and one is single and likely to remain such, but his moral standards are, if anything, the most elevated of the five boys.

During most of our child rearing years we held family scripture study and daily prayers, in fact until I decided that it was unnecessary to get all stressed over that at the expense of peaceful feelings in the home. I still believe this is better than putting on increasing pressure to follow the "guide lines" we always hear preached about "how to do it". When children resist or even rebel against the daily routine, and bring a bad spirit into the proceedings, it is inimical to compel them (compel or force, they are such malleable words), so we the parents would let the disinterested, or even bellicose child, be excluded: and once that occurred, others followed, until usually it was just me and my wife and maybe one other child from time to time engaging in scripture reading and family prayer. This upset my wife, and her being upset then upset me, but I still didn't go back to the way it had been. There were too many memories of her getting shrill with the children who were resisting/rebelling against the religious regimen, for me to want a return to that.

I trust in the long view. My children are not wicked much less "evil". Those who don't have an interest in the Church still have an abiding interest in belief in a "greater power" at work in the world, and because of their parents' and other siblings' examples the non religious children refer to that "greater power" as God, but without knowing exactly what they mean by that name. They are like their dad that way....

Edited July 15, 2013 by Questing Beast

[Questing Beast]

We already knew God before we came to this existence. The purpose of this life is for us to sort ourselves into where we will be comfortable.

I am not convinced that we knew "God" before we engaged in this mortal world. The wider view, the bigger concept for "God" insists that "he" is unknowable except in part. That "part" is your connection, which increases all the time through immortal experience. But to actually "unite" with "God" and comprehend "God In Total" is not doable, and remain in the flesh, i.e. as your sovereign self: you'd have to be "absorbed back into God" to experience such an all-encompassing comprehension of the Cause. So perhaps we do this mortality thing to widen our experience, increase the "facets" of our perspective, and we share these experiences freely, to glean any new insights and perspectives about what/who "God Is". All of that would include your LDS views, and infinitely more as well.... Edited July 15, 2013 by Questing Beast

[Questing Beast]

There are two purposes in this life.

1. To gain a body.

2. To see for ourselves if we will do everything our Lord and God require.

If we already have an immortal body we don't need to get attached to this one, which gets old, decrepit and ugly anyway.

If we mess up, chalk it up to experience. Nobody does "everything" that God requires....

[ERMD]

Abraham 3 answers this.

[Questing Beast]

Is this a hypothesis of yours or some research you have come across. It is hard to tell from the way you are phrasing your post. If the latter, CFR please.

Hypothesis. I was positing an immortal origination to, "It has been found that 'sleep' is the most natural state for contemplation of the Infinite, or 'terrible questions'". But is sure seems to apply here too, at least for me, I get far more "mileage" out of my thoughts when I first wake up, than throughout the day....

[Questing Beast]

Abraham 3 answers this.

That's one man's hypothesis at least....

[Tacenda]

QB, was my 1st reply in line with the topic? I don't want to derail or make this go the unintended route. BTW, I think there is a fine line we walk as parents, and we have be care if we preach the talk but don't walk the walk. For which I fail miserably. But I wonder sometimes if I didn't get across that relationship as being vital, because I had not grasped that way of living the gospel before.

[Questing Beast]

QB, was my 1st reply in line with the topic? I don't want to derail or make this go the unintended route. BTW, I think there is a fine line we walk as parents, and we have be care if we preach the talk but don't walk the walk. For which I fail miserably. But I wonder sometimes if I didn't get across that relationship as being vital, because I had not grasped that way of living the gospel before.

I think that the radio program you refer to is associated with what I am thinking about, vis-a-vis this earth life connecting to what's going on with we immortals, and our equally immortal quest seeking after God.

So many Mormon parents "talk but don't walk" the gospel. That has to be the single-most detrimental facet of failing families. As long as a family remains consistent the children will be powerfully influenced for the rest of their lives by that consistency. If the consistency is Mormonism, then the children will be "Mormon" in their core values. If the consistency is pursuit of wealth then the children will value that above all. And so it goes. There are bound to be individual exceptions, as exceptions prove the rule. Generally, the core (consistent) values demonstrated by the parents will be what sticks most to their children as they go throughout their own adult years....

[Freedom]

I am not clear why you would come to an LDS board and dismiss our doctrines so flippantly. If you are here to pose questions, you will receive LDS doctrinal responses. If you don't want LDS doctrinal responses, why are you here asking the questions?

[Ahab]

Different slant on it: What if the true purpose of why we do this mortality gig is to find "God"?

Then there would be various levels of how much people have found out about God.

What if when we "die", we wake up, and our whole mortal life has been recorded, and even observed; or it then gets observed and interpreted, in search of any possible insights into who/what "God" Is, and where?

Then there would still be various levels of how much people have found out about God.

In the so called "afterlife" (as viewed by mortals and as assigned that term), all of us are equally believers in existence, and that there is a "God", and we are all interested in finding out more about "God". In fact, that is our sole shared quest. But "God" is inscrutably distant to the world of humans.

Not so, even though some people think so.

1) God, as a kind of being, is the same kind of being we refer to as the human being... so we can scrutanize God in that way.

2) God, in reference to our Father in heaven, is a part of each one of us because all of us are his children and thus have a part of him in us... so we can see God in that way.

3) The fact that our Father is in a physical place distant from us doesn't mean we cna't communicate with him across that distance.

It has been found that "sleep" is the most natural state for contemplation of the Infinite, or "terrible questions". So we do this, and while here, we also sleep regularly, thus looping back to our sleeping, immortal mind and making equally regular contact, assessing and discarding and ordering the entire experience for study. We've been at this for literally billions of years, and since we have never found anything better to do, we plug away, perhaps without any real hope, trying to come "face to face" with the REAL GOD who caused existence in the first place....

Yep, except that there is no being which caused existence in the first place because everything has always existed.

[ERayR]

I am not convinced that we knew "God" before we engaged in this mortal world. The wider view, the bigger concept for "God" insists that "he" is unknowable except in part. That "part" is your connection, which increases all the time through immortal experience. But to actually "unite" with "God" and comprehend "God In Total" is not doable, and remain in the flesh, i.e. as your sovereign self: you'd have to be "absorbed back into God" to experience such an all-encompassing comprehension of the Cause. So perhaps we do this mortality thing to widen our experience, increase the "facets" of our perspective, and we share these experiences freely, to glean any new insights and perspectives about what/who "God Is". All of that would include your LDS views, and infinitely more as well....

You asked the question I gave you an answer. You dismissed my answer out of hand. My question: Did you only start this thread as a way to preach your dogma? If not why do you dismiss others answers so flippantly?

[CV75]

We've been at this for literally billions of years, and since we have never found anything better to do, we plug away, perhaps without any real hope, trying to come "face to face" with the REAL GOD who caused existence in the first place....

I think the idea that a “god” that would design and create beings that have nothing better to do than “plug away, perhaps without any real hope” in finding the “real god” is sick. There can be no “real god” without real hope, and vice-versa. I think you need to sleep on it a bit longer until it gets better!

[Tacenda]

I think the idea that a “god” that would design and create beings that have nothing better to do than “plug away, perhaps without any real hope” in finding the “real god” is sick. There can be no “real god” without real hope, and vice-versa. I think you need to sleep on it a bit longer until it gets better!

Did I read QB's OP wrong? Why is everyone coming down on him. I took it to mean do we search for God, or have that relationship. But after reading this article we also need to be doers in the faith. I c/p from this website....http://www.biblesupport.com/blog/65/entry-169-i-never-knew-you/ "I never knew you. Depart from me."

Of all the difficult sayings uttered by Christ during His earthly ministry, this one has quite possibly caused more spiritual heartburn than any other among those who use His name. I've spoken to many saints over the years who have been tormented at the thought of one day hearing these words from the Lord they profess to love and serve. Most recently, a former co-worker of mine expressed his fear in this regard. At the time, I showed him a few things in the passage in hopes of putting his heart at ease, but have continued to meditate on it. It's been almost a year since that conversation.

Let's look at the whole passage:

²¹ “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. ²² Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ ²³ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” Matt. 7:21-23

There are a few things immediately apparent in the context itself - but we'll get to those later. The gospel permeates all of Scripture, so there is much good news to be seen in these verses. There is one particular point of good news, not quite as obvious as the others, that I'd like to address first.

Most Christians have an understanding of God's foreknowledge that is far too passive. I'm sure that many of you, as I once did, think of God's foreknowledge as God simply knowing what will happen before hand. As it regards election and predestination, the argument goes something like this: God looked down through time and saw who would believe, and then chose them to be saved on that basis. In other words, they are elect because God knew in advance that they would trust Him. That's the way I thought about it until a few years ago when a friend of mine helped me see that it actually makes no sense. The problem with that view is that God doesn't need to look through time to figure anything out. He KNOWS everything, without needing to think about it. Besides, that would then mean that He only chose us because we first chose Him, which is really no choice at all on His part. In that scenario, our choice supersedes His, making our choice the deciding factor; but the Bible says repeatedly it was He Who chose us. I believe this passage illustrates the true meaning of foreknowledge by means of a subtle juxtaposition.

Notice in verse 22 that Jesus refers to those who say, "Lord, Lord," in the future tense. He says, "many will say to Me in that day." In other words, He knows in advance what will happen "in that day." And yet He goes on to tell them "I never knew you." Clearly, when He says "I never knew you," he is speaking of a different kind of "knowing." He clearly knew OF them, because he just foretold that they WILL come, and what they WILL say "in that day." So, He does know them in advance, but He doesn't "KNOW" know them. But, how can a God Who knows everything (Jesus IS God) tell anyone "I never knew you"? It's because this is a deeper kind of knowing that is entirely separate from his omniscience and being able to see down through time.

Notice, too, that it doesn't say "I used to know you, but you lost your salvation, so now I don't know you anymore." He tells them "I never knew you." In John 10:14, Jesus says: "I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me." Jesus "knows" those who are His (2 Tim 2:19), but these "Lord, Lord"-sayers are not His - and "never" were His. I know this is a difficult thing to accept, but that doesn't make it untrue. There are many things in the Bible difficult to understand, but the difficulty is due to our limited capacity. Election and predestination are not popular, but they are in the Bible (more than you realize) and must be dealt with, without explaining them away. Objections to them are sometimes based on limited knowledge and at other times an incorrect understanding - but that doesn't mean God is unjust.

When the Bible speaks of being "elect according to the foreknowledge of God," it is speaking of something more than merely "knowing in advance." It's speaking of an intimate knowing - as when it speaks of Adam knowing Eve, etc. We are fully and intimately known from the foundation of the Earth, known in such a way that is separate from His omniscience. It is this intimate knowing that prevents it from being fatalism or puppetry.

Regardless of what you think about election and predestination, an honest person must admit that this passage shows there is a difference between "knowing" and "knowing in advance."

Enough on that.

Now let's look at verse 21 to see what Jesus says about who these people are: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven." Here Jesus points out that you can't just call Him Lord with your mouth and not back it up with appropriate actions. This goes back to the previous verses in chapter 7 where He speaks of "knowing" someone by their fruit. We must DO the will of His Father in heaven - which means you must "know" His father's will.

Look what the "many" will say: "Lord we've done this, and Lord we've done that...in your name." So, why does Jesus say he never knew them? He just got done saying you need to be a doer and not just a talker. What's the problem?

Well, look at the types of works they list on their resumes: prophecy, casting out demons, and performing wonders - all of them flashy and showy - things to be seen. But, aside from being attention getters, these people are trusting in what they've done (ostensibly for the Lord) and not what the Lord has done for them. They are trusting in their own works - in their own goodness. I believe this serves as a warning to those of us, here on this site, who extol the virtues of religious activity for the sake of remaining in God's graces. Nothing I do adds to my standing with God - Jesus paid it all. Remember the "Works and Fruit" discussion? Works are fleshly effort; but fruit validates the intrinsic essence of my new nature. It's no coincidence that Jesus discusses fruit in the verses prior to these. Fruit comes naturally, not by human effort.

This is why Jesus condemns them as workers of iniquity/lawlessness: because they were false disciples concerned with their own glory. Love is the ultimate fulfillment of the law: love for God and love for your neighbor. Love is others-centered, not self-centered. And love is a "fruit" of the Spirit.

So. What about you? Are you busy doing all kinds of religious things to establish or maintain your own righteousness? Or is it coming naturally by virtue of who you are in Christ?

[Ahab]

I think the idea that a “god” that would design and create beings that have nothing better to do than “plug away, perhaps without any real hope” in finding the “real god” is sick. There can be no “real god” without real hope, and vice-versa. I think you need to sleep on it a bit longer until it gets better!

Even for a person who has no real hope in finding the "real god", there is still nothing better any of us can be doing than to look until we find the real God. And I would argue that a person who spends his life in search of the true God must have some kind of hope that he'll find him otherwise he'd stop looking for the real God.

If only it were as easy as finding someone who will tell us they have already found him. Seems each of us has to find God ourselves.

[Deborah]

I am not convinced that we knew "God" before we engaged in this mortal world.

Well, I am.

[Questing Beast]

I am not clear why you would come to an LDS board and dismiss our doctrines so flippantly. If you are here to pose questions, you will receive LDS doctrinal responses. If you don't want LDS doctrinal responses, why are you here asking the questions?

LDS doctrines are not the bottom line or whole story, that's why. I suppose the LDS people have imaginations that far transcend the doctrines as given. And I suppose that some actually speculate that their imaginations might be leading them to more information about "God" and Existence. "The Mysteries", if you will. The moment anyone presents such imaginative concepts in place of the doctrines of any religion, is when s/he ought to depart to wider climes. But I am not doing that. One interest I have is in continuing to examine JS's revealed religion in the light of other religious paradigms, because I believe that aside from a few dogmatic doctrines upheld by dogmatic people as mutually exclusive, religions agree vastly in what they assert about "God" and the afterlife, even the purpose of this world of humans we inhabit....

[Questing Beast]

... except that there is no being which caused existence in the first place because everything has always existed.

How do you explain that conundrum? Matter, mindless as well as intelligent, has simply always drifted about unorganized, until some vast intellect ("greater than all the rest") got his (not her) act together and took human form, then begat children in likeness to himself, oh, I suppose after getting another vast intellect, a female, still puny compared to his intellect, as he has said/asserted, into bodily form like his own, only female gender specific. And this entire process just happened to arise out of "everything [that] has always existed". Depending on how huge your imagination Is, I suppose that's not entirely off the mark: since my concept for "God" (Existence) requires always existing and thus having no cause, the only Cause that is uncaused....

[Questing Beast]

You asked the question I gave you an answer. You dismissed my answer out of hand. My question: Did you only start this thread as a way to preach your dogma? If not why do you dismiss others answers so flippantly?

You gave a one-liner, response dismissing all content of my OP and what is implied, and you say that I am the one "flippantly dismissing other's answers"?...

[Questing Beast]

I think the idea that a “god” that would design and create beings that have nothing better to do than “plug away, perhaps without any real hope” in finding the “real god” is sick. There can be no “real god” without real hope, and vice-versa. I think you need to sleep on it a bit longer until it gets better!

Now that is a reaction I can ID with, thank you.

Consider the magnitude of "God" for a moment, then rethink what you wrote. "God", being Infinite, and we being finite, are an immeasurable distance apart intellectually, literally and eternally, since Creation continues to expand infinitely with the infinite variety that that implies. How could we possibly KNOW "God"? We can apprehend, but never comprehend, unless we are "taken back" into the whole "mind of God", which, as I proposed already, would effectively eliminate us as finite, sovereign souls. We couldn't ever comprehend the Infinity that is Existence without losing our minds, literally.

"God" appears to not want that, so we have literally limitless opportunities to get to know the "mind of God" a "piece" at a time, each time we strike up a new acquaintance, and proceed into deep friendship forever with that unique soul. The more friends we know the more of "God's mind" we know. Sort of like eating an elephant a bite at a time. The only difference being, that the "elephant" keeps getting bigger the longer we nibble away at it.

If that presents a "sick" outlook, I don't know what else to say. It begins to seem to me, rather, like an eternal occupation that never grows stale or pointless....

[Questing Beast]

...

So. What about you? Are you busy doing all kinds of religious things to establish or maintain your own righteousness? Or is it coming naturally by virtue of who you are in Christ?

That was a very fine and interesting read, thank you.

What about a "Gandhi"? Or any other terrifically wise and peace loving soul making the world a better one for being in it? Are they "unknown" to Christ in the way you posited? How can that be, how can any be "unknown", since all are supposed to be spirit children of the same "Father"? What makes them "unknown"? Certainly not their origin, they are not "other Godly", or intelligences that somehow intruded upon his creation and unbidden subverted his authority over it. The doctrine states that all that exists originated from God, nothing that exists is unmade or was never made, but all was made by God, the Word. So there can be no strangers, or "unknowns" to Christ, the Word. I think your thoughts are intriguing but not correct on this.

Try this: "God" never made a soul, a part of "himself" to fail. That means that no matter how long, in spacetime terms, it takes every soul will ultimately find Joy and choose it over misery. It's our nature and shared destiny to be joyful and not miserable. There IS a predestined quality about it, a game playing quality too, but I believe that "God" creates and disperses infinite free will-possessing souls throughout creation, so that "he" can experience existence in unlimited ways, but finite ways too. And although "God", being omniscient about all of creation, possesses all of it as NOW, "he" chooses to only pay attention to the details as required. In order to "play the game" with satisfaction, "God" must be each one of us, and only us individually, egocentrically separate from every other soul, and in possession only of what that soul acquires through choices and experiences, forever, again speaking within spacetime terms. It's better than being Void. If it weren't, the Void is all there would be....