Interplanetary Travel & The LDS's

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, rodheadlee said:

What was that theory by a Hilton about our planet traveling from a different solar system to get to this solar system? Also the theory was that our God was the God of our galaxy and that each of His relatives was a God of the other Galaxies. One galaxy per God.

Then when our Milky Way galaxy collides with the Andromeda galaxy they suddenly have to share?

[The Nehor]

I don’t think there are extraterrestrial craft showing up and successfully covered up. That kind of conspiracy requires WAY too many people to know about it and never say anything which is not how people work.

[blackstrap]

 

[Teancum]

7 hours ago, Sara H said:

Because there has been so much discussion recently about extraterrestrial life in space and here on earth, I want to start a new thread that is connected to the one I started a few days ago. I believe that if it turns out in the next few years that governments all over the world are covering up the truth that extraterrestrial beings have actually visited our planet, many different religions and the people who subscribe to the doctrines of these religions are going to have a tremendously hard time embracing the fact that aliens do exist. If there are extraterrestrial beings out there in the universe, then it stands to reason that they are not descendants of Adam and Eve like we are. How will the Christians feel about beings that didn't come from the lineage of Adam and Eve?

But from the perspective of my church, the Latter-day Saints, our faith provides explanations for any question that could arise if extraterrestrial beings really exist. From what I remember from when I was growing up, back when we used to actually talk about the non-Christian portions of our gospel, I believe that there are many planets that have their own Adam and Eve, as well as their own redeemed savior exactly like the one that we have. This is because many of these other worlds have a similar version of the gospel as we do. My theory is that there are a number of gods who, right now, are working together to build planets. Because our doctrine teaches that matter is eternal and can be organized and reorganized, but not destroyed, I believe that the Gods rely on their spirit children to collect eternal matter that has always been co-existent with God. Furthermore, I think that faithful spirit children travel through space in order to collect matter from different planets. This is because our doctrine teaches that matter can be organized and reorganized, but it cannot be destroyed. If we believe that people and God both existed as a form of everlasting matter before we existed in our physical state, then would it be a true statement to say that we hold this belief? 

To declare that we think our Father God was first spirit matter, then went from spirit to human, lived on a planet as a person, died, and then finally attained his status as God, would this be a true statement? If this is the case, then our doctrine demonstrates the ability to travel between planets, right? And if there is interplanetary travel, is there a religion that explains it better than the one we practice? Not in my opinion at all! 

To tie in with my other thread, the one where I'm being ridiculed for saying that our God may not be the most powerful God out there, I think there's a good chance that one day we actually see the aliens that have visited our planet like many important people are now saying, and that when we do, we will see a more perfect version of a spirit child that was formed from a different God than the one that we worship. If they are able to go in a spacecraft, penetrate our atmosphere, then there is a good likelihood that the God they follow is probably further along the path of eternal progression than our God. Perhaps the extraterrestrial will be green, or perhaps it will be blue. Who knows? But if they are able to do so, then there is a good chance that their God will be more advanced than our God. 

I also believe that if we discover that extraterrestrials have visited our planet, there is a really good chance that we will discover that many of the people mentioned in the Bible who lived to be between 600 and 1000 years old were probably the spirit children of another God who came to earth to assist our God in establishing his everlasting gospel. This is something I believe will be the case if we discover that extraterrestrials have visited us. They were able to live for such a long time because the DNA of their god was more evolved than the DNA of our god, which gave them the ability to live for a longer period of time.  

I also believe that the aliens that travel by spacecraft are most likely beings that have not yet been exalted to the Celestial Kingdom. Because of this, I believe that one of the aspects of their eternal punishment is that they are unable to teleport from one planet to another like the more advanced beings that reside in the Celestial Kingdom. 

In comparison to the bulk of the world's religions, I have no doubt that the structure of our church makes it easier for its members to embrace the idea that it is possible to travel between the planets in spacecraft. The only thing that could derail the plan that I just laid out for you is if extraterrestrials revealed to us that there is no God and that human beings descended from apes. If that is accurate, then I'm going to start drinking heavily and continue doing so until the arthritis that has affected sixty percent of my body's joints becomes unnoticeable to me.

Well given the enormous vastness of our Universe there is a strong probability that there is other intelligent life out there.  But since there likely is no god these intelligent beings likely do not look anything like us.  Also I am skeptical that other intelligent life has visited our world.  I am not a physicist but what little I know about it it seems interstellar travel is very difficult.  I love Star Trek and the idea of a warp drive engine.  Whether it would really work or not I do not know.  But even in the world of Star Trek travel was limited to our galaxy and travelling great distances in our galaxy still took a really long time (think Star Trek Voyager) .

[Teancum]

5 hours ago, teddyaware said:

Since Father Adam lived to be nearly 1,000 years old

THere was no father Adam.

 

5 hours ago, teddyaware said:

 

\, does this scenario of yours indicate that he is also one of the spirit children of a more evolved God, and that, contrary to the teachings scripture, we are not the literal DNA descendants of Father Adam?

7 billion humans are not the direct descendent of one man and woman that lived 4000 or 5000 thousand years ago.  It is simply not feasible.

 

 

5 hours ago, teddyaware said:

 

 

But if Father Adam isn’t one of the children of a one of your more evolved Gods, why was he able to live to be nearly 1000 years old? Further, if Father Adam did indeed live to be nearly 1000 years old without being the son of a more evolved God, why wouldn’t his immediate descendants also be able to live to be nearly 1000 years old? In light of this glaring inconsistency in your reasoning, it’s difficult to imagine that this isn’t just another one of your tongue-in-cheek spoofs.

You say you’re suffering from expensive arthritis throughout your body (very sorry to hear it), and this has me wondering if you’re using medical marijuana?

Edited to add: I see Tacenda just beat me in the mention of medical marijuana.

When you believe in fiction anything is possible I guess.

[Teancum]

5 hours ago, Sara H said:

When it comes to matters of religion, there are really no glaring inconsistencies in my reasoning, in your reasoning, or in the reasoning of anybody else; everyone is just guessing at what occurs after we die; have you not worked out yet that this is the case? You appear to have an abnormally high level of sensitivity to thoughts that do not fit the narrative that you have crafted in your head. What other reason could there be for you to argue that my thread is a parody? 

 

You are similar to me in that you are unaware of Adam's true identity. Adam is God, according to the teachings of Brigham Young. 

 

Ah this is fun.  Teddy is about the most literal LDS person on this board. He is like Samuel the Lamanite preaching from the top of a wall.  You and he can have a lot of fund together. Yes BY, lunatic that he was, said Adam was god.  

[Teancum]

7 hours ago, Sara H said:

The only thing that could derail the plan that I just laid out for you is if extraterrestrials revealed to us that there is no God and that human beings descended from apes. If that is accurate, then I'm going to start drinking heavily and continue doing so until the arthritis that has affected sixty percent of my body's joints becomes unnoticeable to me.

Better start drinking.  We are just hairless apes. We did descend from hominids.  THere was no Adam or Eve.  You do not need extraterrestrials to prove this.  Science already has.

[Teancum]

2 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I always wondered if there were planets with people that look just like us. And when you put it in perspective it does seem like it's a huge possibility. 

There is absolutely no reason the think that intelligent life on other planets in our galaxy, or other galaxys look anything like homosapians.

 

 

[Navidad]

When I take a break from writing the conclusion to my thesis, I am enjoying reading John H Walton's book, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate. I think many of you would enjoy reading it as well. I find it really interesting and well-written. Oh, well back to "in conclusion . . . "

[Calm]

8 hours ago, Sara H said:

but you seem upset by my idea that the Gods can learn while still moving forward.

Absolutely not.  In fact if you were paying attention, you would notice my current premise is about a God who isn’t that great yet at creating surrounded by Gods who are much better at it than he is.  Where we are disagreeing is in what he would choose to do about his less developed ability to create.  Would or would he not ask for help and would or would not the more advanced Gods be willing to help? 

I don’t know how many times I need to say this before it gets paid attention to, but I will do it once more at least.
 

I take issue with the lack of compassion and love the Council of Gods and God our Father must have in order to be okay with him creating crappy bodies that are full of malfunctioning that leads to the extreme suffering of his children, such as my daughter who has about 4 different genetic disorders with diabetes type 1 thrown in to make things really fun that each feeds into each others so that most of her life since she was 12 has been spent in bed.  Or the nonsense that happened to my mother (and her mother and her mother’s mother from what I heard) after a lifetime of taking very good care of herself and others healthwise (she was a health nut of the intelligent type since the 1960’s, if not 50s which I wasn’t around to witness; no packaged food full of additives, salt, and sugar for us; she had records for an exercise and a yoga routine before there were cassette tapes and videos when the weather was too bad for her morning jogging/walks) where not only was she crippled by pain to where she could barely manage to shuffle down the corridor, but her magnificent brain that had served her so well now deserted her when she needed it most and she ended up doing things like mindlessly sitting in the middle of her room on her walker, naked while her nose was bleeding all over because she couldn’t handle making a decision to push a button on her pendant for help.  Or my nephew whose spinal cord and life was smashed because his bones grew in malignant ways. Or my other nephew who was born with a heart that was not much more than a little balloon. 

And my family has it easy and really, really good compared to most in the history of the world where often more children died before they hit adulthood than survived from diseases like pneumonia, malaria, and dysentery and let’s not forget birth defects.  Then there is the elderly, who after struggling for their families to survive for their entire lives get to enjoy their last years with overwhelming pain and dementia. 

Why would a Council of Gods who are capable of ensuring that resurrected, immortal beings are perfected enough when it’s time to be exalted (which must be much harder than getting a mortal body to not have a brain that disintegrates in less than 75 years) and where there are eons of examples of doing it the right way allow a relatively new God to create a world where his children are stuck with bodies that are set up for pain and craziness from the moment of conception?

If you had the cure for arthritis available to you and all you had to do was ask for it from a good, solid friend who loved your children as if they were their own, would you be okay with withholding the cure from your children because you want to see if you could manage their suffering on your own as a parent (assuming here you lived long enough to see them enduring years of it) or would you be begging anyone who listened for help?

I have known parents who have spent practically every waking moment of their lives trying to keep their kids healthy and happy. Why wouldn’t God be willing to do the same thing if it was possible?  Why wouldn’t he ask for help if he wasn’t able to do it on his own?

There is no logic in a loving and compassionate God not doing everything he could for his children, including asking for help in his work from Gods who are better at it nor in even more loving and compassionate grandparent Gods standing by and allowing their mortal grandchildren to suffer needlessly at the hands of their young adult child. 

Edited August 11, 2023 by Calm

[blackstrap]

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

There is absolutely no reason the think that intelligent life on other planets in our galaxy,

Remember that it is extremely difficult to prove a negative. With 400 billion stars in our galaxy and 2 trillion galaxies in the known universe the odds are that there COULD exist intelligent life out there , even intelligent enough to direct the creation of other life. I recently listen to a podcast wherein the example was given that if the universe was the size of all the earth's oceans, what we know of it would be the equivalent of a 12 oz glass full. We are told that the bright stuff we see is only about 5 % of all there is, given the existence of dark matter and dark energy. I lean toward agreeing with that Moses guy who said '" Now I know that man is nothing " Of course one is free to argue the existence of a Moses too. 

[Calm]

8 hours ago, Sara H said:

You or I could guess why the Gods let the world be so messed up. I learn more when I'm going through hard times. How about you?

I am learning I am even more willing to try anything that might work in order to see my child have a normal, happy life. Why wouldn’t God be doing the same?

[Calm]

7 hours ago, ksfisher said:

Why would this be of any benefit to those beings?  Our mortal existence is only one step, why would it need to be prolonged?

 

Because mortality can be fun when you don’t have a body riddled with disease and disorders?

[Calm]

6 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I'm sorry that happened Calm, and here I thought cannabis was 100% safe, good to know! I'm glad you reacted as you did, I don't think I could live knowing I was probably instrumental on you giving it a try. Or partly. 

Tacenda, it would not have been on you at all. I love that you care enough about me to keep pushing me to try stuff that helped you or others.
 

We are all different. Obviously my situation was unusual or it would be better known. It is not the first time doctors have royally screwed up in my life, thankfully no harm came of it this time unlike others. The cannabis made the first year of my Ménière’s disease bearable, so I am glad I had it available. It is quite possible that my doctors would have refused to let me try it if they had known and that would have been bad. 
 

You did good. Don’t beat yourself up over possibility that didn’t happen. 

[bluebell]

30 minutes ago, Calm said:

Because mortality can be fun when you don’t have a body riddled with disease and disorders?

But isn’t the point of mortality to deal with oppression?

Edited August 11, 2023 by bluebell

[Calm]

9 minutes ago, bluebell said:

But isn’t the point of mortality to deal with oppression?

So we are told. I am talking in the context of this thread with Sara’s proposition/thought experiment*** though where at least disease and disorders are not because they are necessary for our mortal experience to prepare ourselves somehow for eternal progression, but are instead the result of a God who should stick with cosmic Duplos rather than playing with his older brothers’ Technic.****

***https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/75460-is-lumen-output-an-indicator-of-our-gods-power/

Quote

. Other signs that our God is a new God include the imperfections that are present in our mortal bodies, such as cancer, male pattern baldness, arthritis, and a great deal of other diseases and conditions. If you give it some serious consideration, there is a good chance that there is another earth out there somewhere in the cosmos that is governed by a more experienced God that has way more knowledge than our God. This would mean that he is better at constructing mortal bodies than our God, which would mean that there is a good chance that the mortal bodies he creates on that earth are far more advanced than the mortal bodies that our spirits inhabit while they are on this earth. 

 

****Got my Lego catalog yesterday. 

Edited August 11, 2023 by Calm

[The Nehor]

48 minutes ago, Calm said:

I am learning I am even more willing to try anything that might work in order to see my child have a normal, happy life. Why wouldn’t God be doing the same?

I think you just hit the theodicy issue from a different angle. I just don’t find “God is incompetent” a good explanation. I am more prepared to think God is a monster or so unknowable He might as well be a monster than to believe He is a bumbling fool.

19 minutes ago, bluebell said:

But isn’t the point of mortality to deal with oppression?

Then why is it framed as a test instead of as an experience?

[Calm]

1 minute ago, The Nehor said:

Then why is it framed as a test instead of as an experience?

Because humanity screws up again due to complexity of a dynamic language and God tolerates it because somehow it works for his purpose? (D&C 19 for an example)

[Tacenda]

20 minutes ago, Calm said:

So we are told. I am talking in the context of this thread with Sara’s proposition/thought experiment*** though where at least disease and disorders are not because they are necessary for our mortal experience to prepare ourselves somehow for eternal progression, but are instead the result of a God who should stick with cosmic Duplos rather than playing with his older brothers’ Technic.****

***https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/75460-is-lumen-output-an-indicator-of-our-gods-power/

 

****Got my Lego catalog yesterday. 

I heard yesterday we are getting a Lego store in Farmington Station Park. This made a lot of people happy!

[Calm]

1 minute ago, Tacenda said:

I heard yesterday we are getting a Lego store in Farmington Station Park. This made a lot of people happy!

We had one up in Canada. It was fun. 

[Navidad]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

I am learning I am even more willing to try anything that might work in order to see my child have a normal, happy life. Why wouldn’t God be doing the same?

Maybe He is doing the same and is doing it through you? I say that as the adoptive father of a six month old child who is now 45 and still living with us. We do all we can to provide him with a normal, happy life, knowing all the time that there will always be limitations to that. I think we are the tools God uses to provide that for our son. At the same time I am acutely aware of the challenges, joys, and disappointments. Thank you for caring so much for your child. We have that in common, and it makes up for all the religious doctrinal differences in the world! Blessings on you, if you will accept a blessing from someone who isn't a member of the LDS church.

[mfbukowski]

10 hours ago, Calm said:

Teddy is quite familiar with the Adam God claims, I believe.  We have discussed them on this board quite a bit over the years and my memory is he has contributed to the discussion. 

Agree.  This is old stuff, well discussed.

The idea that God was also "Adam" works with the idea that the word "Adam" is a TITLE rather than the name of an individual, and the church, for years, stated that the temple account was strictly figurative "insofar as the man and woman are concerned".

Remember Christ is also referred to as the "second Adam" because we are saved and live again due to his Resurrection.   Teddy certainly has done a lot of studies on this topic.

There are many ways one may interpret the first Human as being El, imo, without also maintaining that El/Jehovah was the literal person called "Adam" in the scriptures.

Worst case interpretation is that President Young was mistaken.   Many prophets have been- even that is no big deal imo.

[bluebell]

54 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I think you just hit the theodicy issue from a different angle. I just don’t find “God is incompetent” a good explanation. I am more prepared to think God is a monster or so unknowable He might as well be a monster than to believe He is a bumbling fool.

Then why is it framed as a test instead of as an experience?

Because it can be more than one thing?

[mfbukowski]

10 hours ago, Sara H said:

What's this extreme suffering you are talking about?

Have you ever been nailed to a cross so that nails held your  body weight? Have you ever felt like the sins of the whole world was on your back? Have you ever had to take responsibility for everyone's mistakes and die to pay the price? Have you ever been whipped 39 times? Have you ever had to carry a 165 pound cross 2000 feet on your back? If we think about what Jesus had to go through, it's possible that your idea of extreme pain isn't the same as God's.

I think you set the bar too high for becoming a God. It seems like you're okay with the Gods gaining status and power along the path of eternal progression, but you seem upset by my idea that the Gods can learn while still moving forward. If what you think is true, it seems a little self-centered to me for the Gods to be able to progress without gaining knowledge. 

You or I could guess why the Gods let the world be so messed up. I learn more when I'm going through hard times. How about you?

 

It's rather rude, at least, to compare someone's pain to another's.   Yes it it is said that Christ's agony was the worst possible but that is irrelevant to actual pain being felt right now by an individual.

Image feeling excruciating pain under extraordinary circumstances, and then someone telling you it was nothing next to Christ's.

Yes, probably true- BUT what good does that do for anyone at that moment in their lives?

Calm has just mentioned SOME of her medical problems and her trials.  Attacking her in this way, imo, is way out of line.

[mfbukowski]

10 hours ago, Calm said:

Even if this is true, it doesn’t explain why we, his descendants, somehow messed up DNA when his was top notch.  If anything, assuming Adam is God makes your theory even less likely.

This is discussed here all the time.