Exalting Gays (Thought Experiment)

[pogi]

My patriarchal blessing says I will never have to apologize for my children so I wonder if that means they will turn out gay........or criminals.

 

Or perfect...or perhaps it says something more about you then them.

[Calm]

I rather think that eternal parenthood will be harder and more painful than mortal parenthood. With more knowledge and power comes more experience with reality - both the pain and the joy. If celestial childbearing is not painful, inconvenient, tiresome, etc. (all the challenges with mortal childbearing) then I have to ask "what is the point?" If there is no real sacrifice, would there really be anything gained from the experience?

 

For me the hard part of parenthood is not knowing….not know if what they are going through is worth the suffering, not knowing if what I am doing is good for them or making things harder.

[Calm]

you still have to wonder why God would grant such a "blessing" then, but not during mortality. 

I am certainly wondering why God didn't grant me a much healthier body to do the things that both he and I want to do for his children and instead I end up in bed at times I am most needed by others.  Why not now rather than later when it won't be so important to others I am physically there to help them?

[Brian 2.0]

I am certainly wondering why God didn't grant me a much healthier body to do the things that both he and I want to do for his children and instead I end up in bed at times I am most needed by others. Why not now rather than later when it won't be so important to others I am physically there to help them?

I know it's not a popular view of God, but I much prefer a view of God who CAN'T do that over a God who CHOOSES not to for his own reasons.

Edited December 25, 2014 by Brian 2.0

[Calm]

And I am okay with that. Why he can at sometimes though and other times can't makes me wonder what the principle is that inhibits him. I think he has the power and ability, it is the consequences that he like the rest of us must live with that impose the limits. Somehow the ripple effect perhaps would alter the world too much with some healings, even minor ones, to remove agency, while others, even raising a child from death does not. Some sort of balance must be maintained...and once Zion is achieved, these things will contribute to stronger balance between agency and love and not destabilise it somehow.

Thus I can see why many blessings must be delayed.

If a man is healed of all hardship, pain, confusion and conflict, he will be eternally grateful to the one who has healed him...but might he also feel eternally inadequate to be one with him, the ultimate goal? If the purpose of external life is to create an individual who can know God, be one with him through the atonement and do so for the right reason...not for greed, arrogance, not so he can wallow in his imperfectness that God rescue him from, or a belief he deserves it, etc, but for the best reasons...he simply loves him. Outside of love, all those other reasons oneness won't be a true joining at all

[Robert F. Smith]

I rather think that eternal parenthood will be harder and more painful than mortal parenthood. With more knowledge and power comes more experience with reality - both the pain and the joy. If celestial childbearing is not painful, inconvenient, tiresome, etc. (all the challenges with mortal childbearing) then I have to ask "what is the point?" If there is no real sacrifice, would there really be anything gained from the experience?

 

To use an analogy, consider the "treks" that church youth groups will sometimes perform. Modern treks involve some challenges and tired muscles, but they are nothing compared the real thing - no deaths, loss of toes, endless horizons and leaving family members you will never see again. I think there is some value in modern treks, but its foolhardy to say that a 12-hour experience that begins with a reminder from the stake young women's president to "drink lots of water" can somehow build the same amount of faith as the pioneers' experience.

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Celestial activity of whatever kind does sound like work.  I don't think that we "just roll around heaven all day," like that "lucky old Sun."  God's work of creation sounds like very hard work, so hard that He had to rest on the seventh day.

Edited December 26, 2014 by Robert F. Smith

[Brian 2.0]

Celestial activity of whatever kind does sound like work. I don't think that we "just roll around heaven all day," like that "lucky old Sun." God's work of creation sounds like very hard work, so hard that He had to rest on the seventh day.

Does He rest or does he go to hours off meetings and service for His day of "rest"?

[Robert F. Smith]

.......................................................................................................   

I think the bottom line for me personally is I don't believe that celibacy in this life is part of the plan of salvation.  It never has been.  It is a doctrine that was so widely scorned in my youth by another church that required it of it's priesthood.  Now that scorn has changed to embrace for the Mormon churches own priesthood.  The joy and companionship I have with my boyfriend is too important to my life experience.  I would guess that most people who are married feel the same way. I still believe that "it is not good for man to be alone."  If God is going to damn me from the Celestial Kingdom for the very human decision to be with someone in this life, then the Celestial Kingdom is probably not the kingdom I want or belong in.  I know fully well that the church does not support the decision I have made.  And so, like most gay members, I have left the church.  The church seems to be ok with most gay members leaving (weeding out the wheat from the tares thing)  and most gay members seem to be willing to accept their separation from the church.  So life will continue on.  Perhaps this wound will never be sewn up.  This gap will continue to widen.

Is this really the informal, unstated policy of the LDS Church, that God is damning you from the Celestial Kingdom?  As though there is no effective preaching, repentance, and ordinance work beyond the veil?

Is it statistically true that most gay members have left the LDS faith?  Or does it simply "seem" that way?

Is it statistically true that most gay members are willing to accept that separation?  Is perception everything?

Is it true that LDS leadership is OK with that loss?  Wheat from tares, etc.?  Once again, as though only this life exists in which to resolve all such questions?

 

So what will be the long term game plan?  What will happen after a generation of gay marriage.  What will happen when most religions change their position towards gay couples in their congregations revert back to the law of chastity that sex within the bounds of marriage is right in the site of God.  What will happen when most churches open their arms of love to their gay members.  Just as the civil right laws changed a lot of the discrimination against blacks, so will the upholding of the civil rights of gay citizens will change a lot of the discrimination habits towards gays in this country.  Will the church continue on it's present day course?  Will the church now become the marginalized group now instead of the gays they so willingly marginalize from temple marriage?  Will this issue become a major stumbling block for many of it's members?  Will fewer and fewer people accept a gospel of Jesus Christ that excludes loving gay couples as possibly being the gospel of inclusiveness that Jesus Christ taught?  The next decade will be an interesting time for the church.  This issue that is a small problem today will only become a bigger one for the church.  I have no doubt that the church will weather the storm, but at what cost  and more importantly for what reason when this position is based completely on speculation and not the rock of revelation,   The fascinating thing about life is that it will unfold before us, whether we like it or not.

Aside from the fact that there are Mormons in Utah unhappy with the strong LDS Church support for gay civil rights in Utah, upon what do you base the notion that the LDS moralistic position on homosexual conduct will cause the Church to lose religious popularity or lose members in large numbers?

 

Thus far, in matters of religion, the churches and synagogues losing the most members and dissolving the fastest are precisely those which adopt soft positions on morals -- that nearly anything goes.  It is the Orthodox synagogues and traditional churches which are maintaining and even growing membership, while the others are slowly disappearing.  After all, when tolerance and compassion are seen as justifying nearly any model of behavior, the very fabric of a religious organization can become so diaphanous that it ceases to exist.

[Stargazer]

    I really don't have any doubt that in the future the LDS church will change its policy regarding same sex marriage. I am sure that will be disputed by many, and thats fine, just start a new thread on it. If I, and others, are right about this,I think allowing Gay couples to fully participate in the Sunday experience will be relatively easy to do. The real question becomes, is there ANY WAY to fit homosexual marriage into a traditional(ish) Mormon exaltation theology, or will it have to be discarded to accommodate, should this prediction come true?  I am a strong believer in exaltation, but I also am fairly convinced that for many individuals, there is no way they will be happy or whole with a spouse of the opposite gender. Your serious thoughts on this are appreciated...

 

Hopping into this days late.  I have not looked at any of the replies preceding this.  I hope this doesn't matter.

 

You are making the entirely unwarranted assumption that SSA is an eternal attribute.  This is as unfounded as the notion that a person born blind will be blind in the resurrection and in Exaltation as well.  Do you not see the entirely untenable nature of your assumption? 

 

With apologies to our several fine gay men and women on the board who might read this, having SSA is a temporary condition and has the same genesis as any other congenital defect.  Yes, I know it feels right to you, and it's part of you.  But it is not eternal.  Whatever God chooses to do about your situation in the eternities will be just and fair, I am certain, but there will not be any same sex eternal marriage partners.  There is ZERO evidence for gay eternal marriage, and more than enough evidence to the contrary.  

[Rivers]

It will be a really big adjustment for gays when they are suddenly attracted to women in the ressurection.

 

And that point raises another question.  Does sexual desire even exist in the resurrection?  Or is sexual desire exclusive to the mortal experience like hunger, thirst, or sleepiness?  If there is no sexual desire or sex in the resurrection, what then is the purpose of eternal marriage?  I believe that men and women need one another for the same reason that a body needs a spirit.  You need both for a fullness of joy.  There's the complimentary nature of men and women. 1 Cor. 11:11.  Yin and Yang. 

 

So the only way I can see gay marriage fitting onto our theololgy is to say that gay couples are simply an exception to the way things usually work out. 

[Calm]

Why suppose it is a sudden attraction?  Could it not be something that grows upon them as they become closer to God and align their wills with him just as those men and women who lust for the opposite sex in mortality may slowly lose that desire as they become purified and sanctified?  We lose the desires that impeded our progression and our desires that God will use to draw us to him will be nurtured and grow beyond our ability to understand them completely, imo.

 

I hope there is sleepiness in the next life and the sleep that fulfills it.  You cannot imagine the sheer joy of a true relaxation, falling into sleep rather than having to fight one's way into it and being jerked up out of it on a daily basis if unluckly or going under because of sledgehammer of a drug that allows one to come back into zombie state for a couple of hours before even contemplating one survived the night successfully.  I still get it on occasion to know that it is as fun as activity as climbing rocks, flying kites, riding bikes, driving down the freeway with the windows open in the dead of night on a warm's summer day with the best music blasting out and feeling as if the car is about to take flight itself and even sex (if sleep deprivation is high enough).

Edited December 26, 2014 by calmoriah

[Stargazer]

It will be a really big adjustment for gays when they are suddenly attracted to women in the ressurection.

 

And that point raises another question.  Does sexual desire even exist in the resurrection?  Or is sexual desire exclusive to the mortal experience like hunger, thirst, or sleepiness?  If there is no sexual desire or sex in the resurrection, what then is the purpose of eternal marriage?  I believe that men and women need one another for the same reason that a body needs a spirit.  You need both for a fullness of joy.  There's the complimentary nature of men and women. 1 Cor. 11:11.  Yin and Yang. 

 

So the only way I can see gay marriage fitting onto our theololgy is to say that gay couples are simply an exception to the way things usually work out.

We're given sexual attraction so as to have a desire to procreate; otherwise no babies, and we die out.

There are more than one levels of resurrection. Telestial and Terrestial beings are not resurrected with a sexual gender. They do not reproduce and thus gender is irrelevant to them. Celestial beings in the highest level are resurrected as male and female, but I rather doubt that sexual intercourse is involved. At least the kind we are familiar with here in mortality. I suspect what husbands and wives experience as eternal beings is indescribably higher and better.

[Coreyb]

Why not? All of this is so silly! Why wouldn't we still experience hunger, thirst and sexual desire, as well as the pleasure that comes from the fulfillment of those desires. Why receive a tabernacle of flesh capable of giving our spirit the sensations that are available in the cosmos, only to be resurrected into some higher state where all such things are irrelevant and absurd? And Stargazer, there is no revelation of which I am aware that says same sex attraction is not an eternal characteristic (if you want to point to The Proclamation, let me state that it does not address this issue, and it's status as a revelation is dubious at best IMO), so you are beginning whith an assumption every bit as unwarranted as mine.

[Brian 2.0]

We're given sexual attraction so as to have a desire to procreate; otherwise no babies, and we die out.

There are more than one levels of resurrection. Telestial and Terrestial beings are not resurrected with a sexual gender. They do not reproduce and thus gender is irrelevant to them. Celestial beings in the highest level are resurrected as male and female, but I rather doubt that sexual intercourse is involved. At least the kind we are familiar with here in mortality. I suspect what husbands and wives experience as eternal beings is indescribably higher and better.

So two of the 3 kingdoms of glory come with castration? I get every hair on my head restored, but not my privates?

[california boy]

Is this really the informal, unstated policy of the LDS Church, that God is damning you from the Celestial Kingdom?  As though there is no effective preaching, repentance, and ordinance work beyond the veil?

The church actually at this time has no official position on what happens to gays when they die.  It is ALL speculation.  There is certainly no revelation from God on the subject.  And that is really the only thing that ultimately is of any importance.  So we are all just guessing.  What is clear and undisputed is that the church damns gay members in this life by not allowing the very human need for companionship and sharing of this life.

 

 

Is it statistically true that most gay members have left the LDS faith?  Or does it simply "seem" that way?

Is it statistically true that most gay members are willing to accept that separation?  Is perception everything?

There are no official numbers of how many gay members stay in the church and live a celibate life.  But quite frankly I personally know of no gay members who have chosen this route.  I do know of probably 30 or 40 who have left the church.  Almost all of them that are older are divorced, having tried the churches now changed counsel to marry as a cure to homosexuality.  But that is just me.  Perhaps you know of 30 to 40 gay members who have chosen the celibate route. 

 

 

Is it true that LDS leadership is OK with that loss?  Wheat from tares, etc.?  Once again, as though only this life exists in which to resolve all such questions?

 

 

I don't see any movement within the church leadership to change their position or seek for more light and knowledge from God at this time, do you?  They certainly have not given me any hope of a change in policy.

 

 

Aside from the fact that there are Mormons in Utah unhappy with the strong LDS Church support for gay civil rights in Utah, upon what do you base the notion that the LDS moralistic position on homosexual conduct will cause the Church to lose religious popularity or lose members in large numbers?

 

 Perhaps this article from CBS News will shed some light on this subject.

 

From the article

 

 

Spencer W. Clark said his beliefs began shifting when he became friends with gay and lesbian classmates in high school and college, and he eventually became the leader of a group of faithful Mormons that supports same-sex marriage.

He, Munson and others hope that same-sex couples will become visible, active members of their communities, allowing more Mormons to get to know and appreciate families led by gay and lesbian couples. Even if Latter-day Saints don't accept same-sex marriage right away, that could help break down barriers, Clark said.

"This helps people be more comfortable with it because it's no longer the big, scary unknown," said Clark, executive director of Mormons for Equality, who lives in Washington D.C. with his wife and three children. "They'll find out this isn't the doomsday scenario."

 

 

 

 

Numerous surveys have been done on what changes peoples attitudes.  Every one has said that the single most important thing that changes peoples attitudes towards favoring gay marriage is knowing someone who is gay.  When church members actually know a member, who was perhaps their seminary teacher, a member of the bishopric, young men's president, in the high counsel, or their teachers quorum advisor (I was all of those things when I was an active member) they see the person as not some rebel angry against god, but rather a saint who was trying to do all he could to serve God but left solely because he could not live a life the church demanded he live.  One of celibacy and loneliness without companionship.  It changes hearts towards acceptance, love, compassion and hope for their eternal happiness as well.  Across the country there has been a steady support for gay marriage to the point where the majority of American support gay marriage.  Do you not think this same acceptance is not occurring within the Mormon church? Especially among the younger generation who are growing up with gay friends? 

 

Thus far, in matters of religion, the churches and synagogues losing the most members and dissolving the fastest are precisely those which adopt soft positions on morals -- that nearly anything goes.  It is the Orthodox synagogues and traditional churches which are maintaining and even growing membership, while the others are slowly disappearing.  After all, when tolerance and compassion are seen as justifying nearly any model of behavior, the very fabric of a religious organization can become so diaphanous that it ceases to exist.

 

 

There are a LOT of reasons why religion is failing people.  I don't think you can point to one issue and blame it all on whether they have accepted gay marriage.  A topic for another thread perhaps.  What is growing is the increased change in policy amongst traditional religions supporting gay marriage.  That trend will most likely increase.  It is hard for a church to be inclusive of all of God's children, yet demand some have different rules of chastity than others simply because they are gay.

 

I am just giving you something to think about.  Like you said, there is no real hard numbers about most of the questions you ask. But it is pretty hard to see the trends and try to pretend they do not exist.

[california boy]

So two of the 3 kingdoms of glory come with castration? I get every hair on my head restored, but not my privates?

I am with you.  I think I care less about having hair then I do losing my privates.  Is that so strainge?

Edited December 26, 2014 by california boy

[Stargazer]

Why not? All of this is so silly! Why wouldn't we still experience hunger, thirst and sexual desire, as well as the pleasure that comes from the fulfillment of those desires. Why receive a tabernacle of flesh capable of giving our spirit the sensations that are available in the cosmos, only to be resurrected into some higher state where all such things are irrelevant and absurd? And Stargazer, there is no revelation of which I am aware that says same sex attraction is not an eternal characteristic (if you want to point to The Proclamation, let me state that it does not address this issue, and it's status as a revelation is dubious at best IMO), so you are beginning whith an assumption every bit as unwarranted as mine.

Oh, no, I'm not. Will I be resurrected with astigmatism? With my ADD intact and as distractable as ever? Will those suffering from schizophrenia still hear voices that come from inside their heads? Will those born with vestigial arms have vestigial arms still?

Your opinion as to the Proclamation is dubious, at best, IMO.

Edited December 26, 2014 by Stargazer

[mfbukowski]

Why suppose it is a sudden attraction?  Could it not be something that grows upon them as they become closer to God and align their wills with him just as those men and women who lust for the opposite sex in mortality may slowly lose that desire as they become purified and sanctified?  We lose the desires that impeded our progression and our desires that God will use to draw us to him will be nurtured and grow beyond our ability to understand them completely, imo.

I see it as no different than other sexual desires we seem to be "born" with which are socially unacceptable, from which we must repent. (Perhaps sadomasochism, etc)

Homosexuality used to be socially unacceptable, but is no longer and society cannot tolerate pedophilia obviously. I am only comparing pedophilia to homosexuality as a sexual orientation, without value judgment- and yes I totally understand the difference.

Further I think this is the 800 pound gorilla in the room. Everyone is thinking it, but no one dares say it.

[Garden Girl]

We're given sexual attraction so as to have a desire to procreate; otherwise no babies, and we die out.

There are more than one levels of resurrection. Telestial and Terrestial beings are not resurrected with a sexual gender. They do not reproduce and thus gender is irrelevant to them. Celestial beings in the highest level are resurrected as male and female, but I rather doubt that sexual intercourse is involved. At least the kind we are familiar with here in mortality. I suspect what husbands and wives experience as eternal beings is indescribably higher and better.

 

Hello Stargazer...

I have never heard such a teaching before... Will you please give me a scriptural reference or revelation?  Even the Proclamation on the Family posits that gender is an important factor of our identity... are you saying that ceases upon judgment to a lower kingdom?  I guess this is a CFR...

Hope you have had a good holiday, and looking  forward to the New Year...

 

GG

[california boy]

Why suppose it is a sudden attraction?  Could it not be something that grows upon them as they become closer to God and align their wills with him just as those men and women who lust for the opposite sex in mortality may slowly lose that desire as they become purified and sanctified?  We lose the desires that impeded our progression and our desires that God will use to draw us to him will be nurtured and grow beyond our ability to understand them completely, imo.

The only problem as I see it in this concept is that there doesn't seem to be one bit of change in sexual orientation in this life by drawing closer to God.  If that were the case, then there would be a way to change or even diminish our sexual orientation in this life.  It is a promise even the church has stopped giving.

[Robert F. Smith]

We're given sexual attraction so as to have a desire to procreate; otherwise no babies, and we die out.

There are more than one levels of resurrection. Telestial and Terrestial beings are not resurrected with a sexual gender. They do not reproduce and thus gender is irrelevant to them. Celestial beings in the highest level are resurrected as male and female, but I rather doubt that sexual intercourse is involved. At least the kind we are familiar with here in mortality. I suspect what husbands and wives experience as eternal beings is indescribably higher and better.

That raises  the very touchy question of how Mother Mary conceived Jesus.  What does it mean to be overshadowed by the Holy Spirit?  Was it like a lightning bolt from the blue?  Or is Brother Brigham's more earthy concept applicable?  Mainstream Christians claim to be shocked by the Mormon notion of a true reproductive conception of Jesus, but is that truly the Mormon doctrine?  If so, doesn't that verify sexuality in the Celestial Kingdom?  Or not?

[Stargazer]

Hello Stargazer...

I have never heard such a teaching before... Will you please give me a scriptural reference or revelation?  Even the Proclamation on the Family posits that gender is an important factor of our identity... are you saying that ceases upon judgment to a lower kingdom?  I guess this is a CFR...

Hope you have had a good holiday, and looking  forward to the New Year...

 

GG

Thankyou for the CFR, and I thought it was going to be a quick search, but it is not. I definitely remember reading this in a source which I believe was authoritative. But perhaps I was hallucinating. I will get back with you on this. If I misremembered, I would definitely like to correct my error of understanding.

[Brian 2.0]

Thankyou for the CFR, and I thought it was going to be a quick search, but it is not. I definitely remember reading this in a source which I believe was authoritative. But perhaps I was hallucinating. I will get back with you on this. If I misremembered, I would definitely like to correct my error of understanding.

 

Thought I'd look it up and found this on the folklore.  It's also referred to sometimes online as "TK Smoothie" referencing that Telestial Kingdomers will be smooth (without genitalia)

 

"Some of the functions in the celestial body will not appear in the terrestrial body, neither in the telestial body, and the power of procreation will be removed. I take it that men and women will, in these kingdoms, be just what the so-called Christian world expects us all to be – neither man nor woman, merely immortal beings having received the resurrection. (Doctrines of Salvation. vol. 2, pg. 287-288.)"

 

"is not the sectarian world justified in their doctrine generally proclaimed, that after the resurrection there will be neither male or female sex? It is a logical conclusion for them to reach and apparently is in full harmony with what the Lord has revealed regarding the kingdoms into which evidently the vast majority of mankind is likely to go. However, if members of the Church are faithful and true to the covenants and commandments of the gospel, there is no reason for them to worry about the condition which will prevail in these several kingdoms.

(Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 5 vols., 4:, p.66)

 

I would think the Proclamation on the Family saying gender is eternal would trump these.  

[JLHPROF]

Thought I'd look it up and found this on the folklore.  It's also referred to sometimes online as "TK Smoothie" referencing that Telestial Kingdomers will be smooth (without genitalia)

 

"Some of the functions in the celestial body will not appear in the terrestrial body, neither in the telestial body, and the power of procreation will be removed. I take it that men and women will, in these kingdoms, be just what the so-called Christian world expects us all to be – neither man nor woman, merely immortal beings having received the resurrection. (Doctrines of Salvation. vol. 2, pg. 287-288.)"

 

"is not the sectarian world justified in their doctrine generally proclaimed, that after the resurrection there will be neither male or female sex? It is a logical conclusion for them to reach and apparently is in full harmony with what the Lord has revealed regarding the kingdoms into which evidently the vast majority of mankind is likely to go. However, if members of the Church are faithful and true to the covenants and commandments of the gospel, there is no reason for them to worry about the condition which will prevail in these several kingdoms.

(Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 5 vols., 4:, p.66)

 

I would think the Proclamation on the Family saying gender is eternal would trump these.  

 

I can think of NUMEROUS doctrinal issues with those teachings, sorry Pres Smith, but nope.  Personally I am pretty sure gender is eternal.

As for sexuality, I believe that like ANY other feelings, physical or emotional, that come with mortality, any that are not eternal in nature (according to the order by which God lives) simply will not be able to exist in the eternities.  Perfect bodies don't have imperfect feelings as our mortal ones do.

 

At least, that's my opinion on the whole subject.

[Calm]

"Some of the functions in the celestial body will not appear in the terrestrial body, neither in the telestial body, and the power of procreation will be removed. I take it that …."

 

"It is a logical conclusion for them to reach and apparently is in full harmony"

 

I would think the Proclamation on the Family saying gender is eternal would trump these.  

Since he states this as opinion, I would definitely agree.