Plural marriage, the priesthood, and exaltation

[nuclearfuels]

On 12/4/2021 at 2:48 PM, TheTanakas said:

Why are virgin females the focus of plural marriage? (v. 61).  Is 10 an ideal number of wives
or just a maximum? (v. 62).  Why is polygamy necessary for exaltation? (v. 63).  

Men are not able to concieve, gestate, delivery, nurse, or mother children.

10 is the minimum for me  I think it's in this verse as a general reference - like fasting for forty days.

I don't know why / if it's necessary for exaltation but creating spiritual bodies for billions of intelligences - who wil then obtain physical bodies on a future earth - seems to be more pragmatic / reachable with multiple women who are able to convcieve, gestate, delivery, nurse, and mother spirit childen. 

Why the rush since eternity lasts forever? 

I don't know. Ask God. He's kind of a big deal

 

[Calm]

7 minutes ago, nuclearfuels said:

with multiple women who are able to convcieve, gestate, delivery, nurse, and mother spirit childen. 

Why the need for them to be impregnated by one man?  Why not one exalted man for every exalted woman?  Same amount of children would be produced. 
 

Unless there are planets out there with practically all women, where are these mothers needed to gestate bodies for these billions of intelligences going to come from?

Edited December 12, 2021 by Calm

[The Nehor]

4 hours ago, nuclearfuels said:

Men are not able to concieve, gestate, delivery, nurse, or mother children.

10 is the minimum for me  I think it's in this verse as a general reference - like fasting for forty days.

I don't know why / if it's necessary for exaltation but creating spiritual bodies for billions of intelligences - who wil then obtain physical bodies on a future earth - seems to be more pragmatic / reachable with multiple women who are able to convcieve, gestate, delivery, nurse, and mother spirit childen. 

Why the rush since eternity lasts forever? 

I don't know. Ask God. He's kind of a big deal

 

This assumes there is only one Father.

[nuclearfuels]

8 hours ago, Calm said:

8 hours ago, nuclearfuels said:

with multiple women who are able to convcieve, gestate, delivery, nurse, and mother spirit childen. 

Why the need for them to be impregnated by one man?  Why not one exalted man for every exalted woman?  Same amount of children would be produced. 
 

Unless there are planets out there with practically all women, where are these mothers needed to gestate bodies for these billions of intelligences going to come from?

When one attends a session at the Temple, typically there are more females than males. It seems they grasp and accept the restored gospel more readily than males.

Of course, one man would not need to have multiple wives. I am not sure how God remains just, pure, true, holy giving the alternate option: women living single for eternity. To me that sounds like damnation - or the absence of progress. 

1 man: 1 woman, exalted shoudl work fine - assuming a 50/50 ratio of genders in the Celestial Kingdom. Not sure males are going to make it there in those kinds of numbers.

Same amount of children would be produced: True - just over a much longer span of time - which for eternal beings woudl be fine, unless the Intelligences / Spirit Children are tired of waiting and sing for joy at the thought of progress.

As to planets of women out there - not sure I understand your question but I believe many, many more women will be in the Celestial Kingdom as compared to men. That leaves us with misisonary work in the Spirit World followed by Temple work and/or polygamy - otherwise God condemns faithful women to be single for eternity which a just, loving, all-knowing God would not do. 

 

 

[The Nehor]

3 minutes ago, nuclearfuels said:

When one attends a session at the Temple, typically there are more females than males. It seems they grasp and accept the restored gospel more readily than males.

Of course, one man would not need to have multiple wives. I am not sure how God remains just, pure, true, holy giving the alternate option: women living single for eternity. To me that sounds like damnation - or the absence of progress. 

1 man: 1 woman, exalted shoudl work fine - assuming a 50/50 ratio of genders in the Celestial Kingdom. Not sure males are going to make it there in those kinds of numbers.

Same amount of children would be produced: True - just over a much longer span of time - which for eternal beings woudl be fine, unless the Intelligences / Spirit Children are tired of waiting and sing for joy at the thought of progress.

As to planets of women out there - not sure I understand your question but I believe many, many more women will be in the Celestial Kingdom as compared to men. That leaves us with misisonary work in the Spirit World followed by Temple work and/or polygamy - otherwise God condemns faithful women to be single for eternity which a just, loving, all-knowing God would not do. 

 

 

There are all kinds of assumptions about time and how spirit beings are created. If it is done one at a time it would be a long time. One estimate was just above 100 billion for the number of people who have ever lived on this planet so far. Seems like a tedious process and brings back to mind the old anti-Mormon snubs about being pregnant forever in “Mormon heaven” and asking how that sounds for a form of eternal bliss.

I suspect that there are a lot of men and women that make up what we call Eloiheim.

[nuclearfuels]

4 hours ago, The Nehor said:

This assumes there is only one Father.

Yes. 

True

[nuclearfuels]

6 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

being pregnant forever in “Mormon heaven” and asking how that sounds for a form of eternal bliss.

I suspect that there are a lot of men and women that make up what we call Eloiheim.

Being pregnant forever in a mortal body vs immortal, perfected, resurrected body I imagine are two very different things. 

I wish the old anti-Mormon snubs good health and weatlh and I won't be changing my views based on thiers.

I thought E. was a councel of gods and Gods. Interesting to think it might include everyone who's casting a sustaining or abstaining vote. I'd never thought of it like that before

[MacGyver]

I think there's a very good chance that those who inherit the highest degree of the Celestial kingdom will be practicing plural marriage at some point. 

But I also don't think this is something we should be worrying about right now. 

 

 

 

[The Nehor]

42 minutes ago, MacGyver said:

I think there's a very good chance that those who inherit the highest degree of the Celestial kingdom will be practicing plural marriage at some point. 

But I also don't think this is something we should be worrying about right now. 

Telling people you have a place of pure bliss prepared for them if they are faithful and throwing in a casual mention of having a practice there that seems utterly repellant to some of them but that they shouldn’t worry about it is not particularly helpful.

[MacGyver]

59 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Telling people you have a place of pure bliss prepared for them if they are faithful and throwing in a casual mention of having a practice there that seems utterly repellant to some of them but that they shouldn’t worry about it is not particularly helpful.

They shouldn't worry about it because God isn't going to force them to live plural marriage if they don't want to. If living plural marriage is required to continue progressing at some point, then people can choose to do it or to remain in their current state. 

The question of plural marriage in the eternities doesn't effect our lives in the here and now one bit one way or the other. So why get worked up about it?

[Tacenda]

I've asked this before, I believe, but what other churches believe in an after life where the woman will conceive over and over again, and be a goddess over her own world? Where in scripture besides the LDS canon, does it say that men/women will create bodies?

[The Nehor]

57 minutes ago, MacGyver said:

They shouldn't worry about it because God isn't going to force them to live plural marriage if they don't want to. If living plural marriage is required to continue progressing at some point, then people can choose to do it or to remain in their current state. 

The question of plural marriage in the eternities doesn't effect our lives in the here and now one bit one way or the other. So why get worked up about it?

Because they don’t want to waste their life following a religion that, if true, will give them something they do not want.

[JLHPROF]

42 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

I've asked this before, I believe, but what other churches believe in an after life where the woman will conceive over and over again, and be a goddess over her own world? Where in scripture besides the LDS canon, does it say that men/women will create bodies?

Other Churches make no claims or statements on how we will spend eternity in heaven beyond praising God and Christ.

Most of them don't believe in a creation or an peopled earth other than ours or in anything before God created this earth from nothing.

Billions and billions of years ahead and previous and they have no idea what we'll be doing there or what happened in the eternities before God created the earth.

I give praise to God for the "LDS canon".

[JLHPROF]

1 hour ago, MacGyver said:

They shouldn't worry about it because God isn't going to force them to live plural marriage if they don't want to. If living plural marriage is required to continue progressing at some point, then people can choose to do it or to remain in their current state. 

This exactly.  But the idea that ANYONE is living plural marriage in the eternities just becomes unacceptable to many members.  Despite scripture, sealing ordinance, and teachings.  The idea that Father Abraham might be there with Sarah, Hagar, and Keturah and his children is unacceptable for some reason.  Or that President Nelson's eternal kingdom might include both his wives...😲

Quote

The question of plural marriage in the eternities doesn't effect our lives in the here and now one bit one way or the other. So why get worked up about it?

Fear. Plain and simple.

[Stargazer]

1 hour ago, Tacenda said:

I've asked this before, I believe, but what other churches believe in an after life where the woman will conceive over and over again, and be a goddess over her own world? Where in scripture besides the LDS canon, does it say that men/women will create bodies?

Actually, nothing in LDS scripture teaches that exalted men and women will create bodies. It is spirit children that will be created, and as to the process we are told nothing at all. But I would go so far as to say that it won't resemble what we do to create mortal children. 

So all this deep concern over one's husband having more than one wife seems a bit like being unable to see past our own mortality. And quite counterproductive. We can't see the end from the beginning. Obviously Heavenly Father isn't a cruel being, and whatever He blesses us with will be utterly wonderful.

[Stargazer]

31 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Because they don’t want to waste their life following a religion that, if true, will give them something they do not want.

That's a weird sentiment. So, if true but they don't like one aspect of it, they would rather live in eternity having something of lesser glory instead? That is rather like trading one's birthright for a mess of stew.

One might as well say that one doesn't like icky bodies, so being resurrected is a hard NO. Eternal spirit is the ticket. 

[JLHPROF]

1 minute ago, Stargazer said:

That's a weird sentiment. So, if true but they don't like one aspect of it, they would rather live in eternity having something of lesser glory instead? That is rather like trading one's birthright for a mess of stew.

One might as well say that one doesn't like icky bodies, so being resurrected is a hard NO. Eternal spirit is the ticket. 

You're right, except is it really a weird sentiment?  One of the principles of multiple kingdoms of glory is that people will go where they are most comfortable following the applicable law. 

However, a Joseph told Brigham's sister Fanny, most of us speak very foolishly here, we have no idea what we'll really want when we get there.

[JLHPROF]

8 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

So all this deep concern over one's husband having more than one wife seems a bit like being unable to see past our own mortality. And quite counterproductive. We can't see the end from the beginning. Obviously Heavenly Father isn't a cruel being, and whatever He blesses us with will be utterly wonderful.

If Christ and Heavenly Father really are polygamists and we want to become just like them the must be joy and happiness and love involved.  Not cruelty.  Cruelty would be if our current perspective was an accurate one.

[Tacenda]

24 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Actually, nothing in LDS scripture teaches that exalted men and women will create bodies. It is spirit children that will be created, and as to the process we are told nothing at all. But I would go so far as to say that it won't resemble what we do to create mortal children. 

So all this deep concern over one's husband having more than one wife seems a bit like being unable to see past our own mortality. And quite counterproductive. We can't see the end from the beginning. Obviously Heavenly Father isn't a cruel being, and whatever He blesses us with will be utterly wonderful.

Well, don't the spirits go into bodies?

[bluebell]

29 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

 

Fear. Plain and simple.

No, not simply fear.  Describing it that way makes it easier to dismiss but for most women who struggle with this concept it is the equivalent of a straw tiger.  You get members patting each other's back for vanquishing the pretend foe while they are still emotionally being mauled.  It's not a great way to mourn with those who mourn.

For a lot of women it goes back to what their worth is as a daughter in God's kingdom, and more specifically, how God views them.  It hits right at the heart of their relationship with their Father in Heaven.  In some sermons in the past and even in the scriptures, women are described as existing solely to benefit or bless men in some way.  They are rewards for men.  They are wombs for men.  They are expendable to men who claim to be prophets of God.   

Polygamy often is described in that way (that it exists to provide men with more children, which will bless that man's lineage, for example.  In such descriptions polygamy is a multiplication for men but a subtraction for women.) Being confronted with the idea of a Heavenly Father that seems to care more about His sons than His daughters--A Father who blesses His sons at the expense of His daughters--can be devastatingly confusing and painful for women. 

For a lot of women, it's already hard to trust how Heavenly Father feels about you when you read scriptures.  You mostly get silence or examples that make it easier to doubt His love than depend on it.  Polygamy can be a huge handful of salt into that already tender wound.

This is why polygamy is a problem that very much impacts their lives and their relationship with God here and now, whether those women ever have to personally live plural marriage or not.

[bluebell]

43 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

So all this deep concern over one's husband having more than one wife seems a bit like being unable to see past our own mortality. And quite counterproductive. We can't see the end from the beginning. Obviously Heavenly Father isn't a cruel being, and whatever He blesses us with will be utterly wonderful.

Yes, it can seem like that, for those who don't take the time to actually understand where these women are coming from, or worse, don't actually care where they are coming from.

[bluebell]

39 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Well, don't the spirits go into bodies?

They go into bodies that are created here on earth by mortal men and women.  

Edited December 12, 2021 by bluebell

[JLHPROF]

4 minutes ago, bluebell said:

They go into bodies that are created here on earth by moral men and women.  

Hopefully moral. 😉

[Stargazer]

13 hours ago, Calm said:

Why the need for them to be impregnated by one man?  Why not one exalted man for every exalted woman?  Same amount of children would be produced. 
 

Unless there are planets out there with practically all women, where are these mothers needed to gestate bodies for these billions of intelligences going to come from?

Who says that exalted women will gestate spirit children in their exalted bodies? Who says that impregnation is even a concept for such beings? And why are we all caught up in imagining that what we do here on earth to produce mortal bodies for children is the same process that Heavenly Father and Mother(s) use to produce spirit children? And every single one of these spirit children have to be taught, nurtured, and sorted until the point where they are ready to be released into a mortal world to be tried and tested. And then there's the logistics of creating and operating a universe consisting of billions of galaxies, each containing hundreds of billions of stars, each trailing tens of planets, millions of asteroids, and trillions of cometary bodies. 

And here we're fussing, in the middle of all that business, about how much we don't want to share our spouse. Do we really imagine that eternal life will even vaguely resemble mortal life with all its limitations, on time, space, and sociality?

We're like ancient Egyptian farmers trying to imagine visiting the planet Mars, and think it's done by harnessing a thousand geese and driving them into the sky, pulling our oxcart! And then one of us objects, saying that there's no way that's possible, because there would be too much goose dung flying all over us, and it would get so slippery that we'd slip off the oxcart!

I once tried to tell someone with no computer skills at all how I created computer applications that could process thousands of records per second, doing the work of armies of clerks. The person in question had seen the film Star Trek: The Voyage Home, and imagined that engineers and computers could produce transparent aluminum with just a few quick keystrokes.

Can't we just trust that if it actually came to plural marriage as a part of exalted eternal life, that it will be just fine, and that our puny mortal imaginations and brains just can't span the gap? And if it didn't actually come to it, then great. Because in either case, the church is true, Christ is the savior, and Heavenly Father's work and glory is bringing about, if possible and if we can get past the things we cannot yet understand, our immortality and eternal life.

Most of that above isn't directed at you, Calm. I'm just venting. Again.

 

[Stargazer]

47 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

You're right, except is it really a weird sentiment?  One of the principles of multiple kingdoms of glory is that people will go where they are most comfortable following the applicable law. 

However, a Joseph told Brigham's sister Fanny, most of us speak very foolishly here, we have no idea what we'll really want when we get there.

Yeah, I remember the story about a rather ignorant man, of whom it was said, that when God handed out the brains, he thought He said trains, and decided he'd rather walk.