Do Spirits Have The Same Appetites And Desires That They Had When They Lived On Earth?

[amo]

While reading about post mortal conditions, particularly about the state of our post mortal spirit, I came across the following in the Gospel Principles Manual, under the subtitle : 

What Is the Nature of Our Spirits? ,

2011, pg 240-44 https://www.lds.org/manual/gospel-principles/chapter-41-the-postmortal-spirit-world?lang=eng

 

 

"Spirits carry with them from earth their attitudes of devotion or antagonism toward things of righteousness (see Alma 34:34). They have the same appetites and desires that they had when they lived on earth.

 

 

Any thoughts on this -red- ?

 

 

Amo

[JAHS]

Remember the movie "Ghost" and the ghost from the train who would give anything for a drag on a cigarette? 

That's why our appetites and desires should be righteous and healthy in this life or life in the spirit world won't be so happy.

[amo]

Remember the movie "Ghost" and the ghost from the train who would give anything for a drag on a cigarette? 

That's why our appetites and desires should be righteous and healthy in this life or life in the spirit world won't be so happy.

And you base this on what scripture or teaching ?

Amo

[The Nehor]

I believe it is accurate. I think it is often misinterpreted. 

 

It has been suggested that addicts take their addictions which does not make a lot of sense. I think the biological impetuses that drive us will be gone but what we desire and want is imprinted on our spirits. Brigham Young taught that the spirits of the damned walk the earth seeking pleasure in the places they found it in life. Even with the biological impetus or addiction gone the habit remains. Our desires for righteousness or evil will be stripped bare when the biology through which they appeared is gone and the purely biological urges will be gone.

 

I don't think the 20 year old boy who dies on a mission will feel the biological urge for sex he felt in life but the desire for intimacy will survive. I do not think the alcoholic will have the reward centers of their brain craving alcohol but may crave it simply because that to him is a source of pleasure. I do not think someone suffering from OCD will deal with the compulsions they fought. I do not think the person who loved physical exercise will feel that need in spirit form. I think someone who hates will continue to hate and someone who loves will continue to love.

 

We will long to have our bodies back though not as they were. Brigham Young said that death will seem to us a great advantage over mortality as our power and faculties will be enhanced. The righteous at least will long for their perfected bodies which will have all the advantages of being a spirit with all the advantages of physicality. Then we all get a body that makes the supermodels of mortality look like raddled drug addicts by comparison. We have all the advantages of life with all the life stages manifested together: the exuberance of childhood, the passion and virility of being a teenager and in your 20s, the practicality we develop in our middle years, and the wisdom that often comes with age.

[JAHS]

And you base this on what scripture or teaching ?

Amo

"for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world."  (Alma 34: 34)

[JAHS]

And you base this on what scripture or teaching ?

Amo

Here's what Brigham Young said:

"Suppose . . . that a man is evil in his heart—wholly given up to wickedness, and in that condition dies, his spirit will enter into the spirit world intent upon evil. On the other hand, if we are striving with all the powers and faculties God has given us to improve upon our talents, to prepare ourselves to dwell in eternal life, and the grave receives our bodies while we are thus engaged, with what disposition will our spirits enter their next state? They will be still striving to do the things of God, only in a much greater degree—learning, increasing, growing in grace and in the knowledge of the truth." )Discourses of Brigham Young, 379)

[amo]

"for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world."  (Alma 34: 34)

Isn't  that verse talking about the devil, as explained in the following one :

 

Alma 34:

 35 For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have becomesubjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked.

 

Amo

[amo]

Isn't  that verse talking about the devil, as explained in the following one :

 

Alma 34:

 35 For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have becomesubjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked.

 

Amo

 

In other words, & this is how I see it, the devil -a spirit- possesses your body if you don't repent (verse 35)  at the time that ye go out of this life (verse 34)

 

Amo

Edited April 11, 2015 by amo

[The Nehor]

In other words, & this is how I see it, the devil -a spirit- possesses your body if you don't repent (verse 35)  at the time that ye go out of this life (verse 34)

 

Amo

 

That explains zombies.

[amo]

That explains zombies.

Does it, really ?

amo

[JAHS]

In other words, & this is how I see it, the devil -a spirit- possesses your body if you don't repent (verse 35)  at the time that ye go out of this life (verse 34)

 

Amo

 

If you read verse 33 I think it's clear that 34 is talking about your own personal spirit that has decided to procrastinate:

 

33 And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed.

 

 34 Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world.

 

Then verse 35 starts talking about how Satan can posess our bodies if we have procrastinated.

 

"if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil,"

Edited April 11, 2015 by JAHS

[The Nehor]

Does it, really ?

amo

 

Well, if the devil possesses your body as soon as you leave this life then your spirit is gone and only the devil spirit is left so the body is dead. Therefore, zombies.

 

It was a joke.

 

In reality the wicked are turned over to the power of the devil on death until they repent.

[amo]

I believe it is accurate. I think it is often misinterpreted. 

 

 

What's accurate but often misinterpreted ?

[The Nehor]

What's accurate but often misinterpreted ?

 

The idea that I believe came from "Embraced by the Light" that ex-smokers have their spirits follow around living smokers desperate for a whiff of tobacco.

[JAHS]

 Elder Melvin J Balard said, refering to the Alma 34 scripture:

"Do not let any of us imagine that we can go down to the grave not having overcome the corruptions of the flesh and then lose in the grave all our sins and evil tendencies. They will be with us. They will be with the spirit when separated from the body." (Melvin J. Ballard, "Three Degrees of Glory.")

[amo]

 

 

If you read verse 33 I think it's clear that 34 is talking about your own personal spirit that as decided to procrastinate:

 

33 And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many witnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed.

 

 34 Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world.

 

Then verse 35 starts talking about how Satan can posses our bodies if we have procrastinated.

 

"if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil,"

 

 

I don't see it that way. I see that verse 34 talks about an unrepentant person being possessed by a spirit and then this same spirit having power over this same unrepentant body in the eternal world. Then, verse 35 explains that because of procrastination the spirit of the devil has become your master.

That's how I see it.

amo

[JAHS]

I don't see it that way. I see that verse 34 talks about an unrepentant person being possessed by a spirit and then this same spirit having power over this same unrepentant body in the eternal world. Then, verse 35 explains that because of procrastination the spirit of the devil has become your master.

That's how I see it.

amo

 

There could be a little of both of these idea going on, but please refer to the Elder Ballard quote above.

Edited April 11, 2015 by JAHS

[amo]

 Elder Melvin J Balard said, refering to the Alma 34 scripture:

"Do not let any of us imagine that we can go down to the grave not having overcome the corruptions of the flesh and then lose in the grave all our sins and evil tendencies. They will be with us. They will be with the spirit when separated from the body." (Melvin J. Ballard, "Three Degrees of Glory.")

 

Ok, but then again he may have misinterpreted the verse. Moreover we know that most "evil tendencies" are more of a hormonal / biological origin, in most cases.

amo

[JAHS]

Ok, but then again he may have misinterpreted the verse. Moreover we know that most "evil tendencies" are more of a hormonal / biological origin, in most cases.

amo

We all have weaknesses of the flesh to various degrees, but I don't think that is what is evil about us. It is our unwillingness to want control those biological urges that makes our spirit weak and "evil".  That attitude is what our spirits will take with us when we die.

[The Nehor]

Ok, but then again he may have misinterpreted the verse. Moreover we know that most "evil tendencies" are more of a hormonal / biological origin, in most cases.

amo

 

They are but when spirit and body are combined the choices made while in the body change the spirit. Our spirits are almost frighteningly sensitive to what we do to them here. Cultivated evil will survive the separation of flesh and spirit even when the urges that originated the sin are gone. We have to learn to subdue the body.

[CV75]

They have the same appetites and desires that they had when they lived on earth.

 

Any thoughts on this -red- ?

I agree, but on non-physical levels such as emotional and spiritual. I that includes missing what the body offers to a fullnes of joy (D&C 45;17; 138:17 and 50).

[CCRW]

They are but when spirit and body are combined the choices made while in the body change the spirit. Our spirits are almost frighteningly sensitive to what we do to them here. Cultivated evil will survive the separation of flesh and spirit even when the urges that originated the sin are gone. We have to learn to subdue the body.

So what about after the resurrection? Will I still be able to have my cup of coffee?

[JAHS]

So what about after the resurrection? Will I still be able to have my cup of coffee?

Depends on when you are resurrected. If you are resurrected as a terrestrial being during the millennium then the answer is probably yes. 

[The Nehor]

So what about after the resurrection? Will I still be able to have my cup of coffee?

Possibly, I do not know what the ressurected eat and drink but the Word of Wisdom does not appear to be a permanent commandment.

[Bobbieaware]

While reading about post mortal conditions, particularly about the state of our post mortal spirit, I came across the following in the Gospel Principles Manual, under the subtitle : 

What Is the Nature of Our Spirits? ,

2011, pg 240-44 https://www.lds.org/manual/gospel-principles/chapter-41-the-postmortal-spirit-world?lang=eng

 

 

"Spirits carry with them from earth their attitudes of devotion or antagonism toward things of righteousness (see Alma 34:34). They have the same appetites and desires that they had when they lived on earth.

 

 

Any thoughts on this -red- ?

 

 

Amo

I had a very vivid dream once where a deceased relative pleaded with me to get him a Rueben Sandwich, a double order of french fries and a large diet coke, no ice. The expression on his face told me he was in dead earnest.