Queridos Amigos,
This one is inspired by my January 30, 2022 post titled “Braces for Your Brain,” which you can read here.
Sincerely,
Mormon M. Mouse
Mormon Mouse Memes – Braces for Your Brain
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Mormon Mouse Memes – You Didn’t Come Into This World
In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we are taught that before the Earth was created we all lived with Heavenly Father and Jesus and Satan somewhere else, in a “premortal” existence. As part of the Father’s “Plan of Salvation” for us, the Earth and everything on it was created so that He could have somewhere to send us off to, where we could be placed inside of mortal bodies and be tested, to see if we will do what He wants us to do, and if we will prove ourselves worthy to return home to live with Him in Heaven after we die. And, if we are extra, extra good, we are promised that we will become like Him and inherit all that He has. It sounds nice and makes some kind of logical sense on the surface. It can also be comfortably familiar, like the idea of children leaving home to go off to college and find their own way in the wider world, so they can return home someday, wiser and well-seasoned, ready to take over the family business.
But you cannot arrive from elsewhere into a world that you have always been connected to any more than an apple can arrive from elsewhere onto its own apple tree. In other words, in the same way that apples aren’t grown elsewhere and then placed onto their tree, people aren’t grown elsewhere and then placed into this world. Thank you to the late philosopher Alan Watts for this idea and for the metaphor of the apple tree. As Watts once said in his 1965 talk “Myth of Myself:”
Look: here is a tree in the garden, and every summer it produces apples. And we call it an “apple tree” because the tree apples; that’s what it does. Alright, now here is a solar system inside a galaxy, and one of the peculiarities of this solar system is that—at least on the planet Earth—the thing peoples, in just the same way that an apple tree apples…Because, you see, we grow out of this world in exactly the same way that the apples grow on the apple tree.
Have you ever had an experience that was not connected to this world in some way? If you have, congratulations, but you are presumably reading this right now from your point of view in this one, so you decided to come back? It seems you can’t get away into other worlds without your body remaining in this one, not counting astronauts in space. Even in the case of space exploration though, you must take your Earth-grown body with you and you must reproduce certain Earth-like conditions in order to keep it alive and continue having an experience as whatever “you,” that you feel yourself to be. If anyone is reading this from their location in any world other than planet Earth, please let me know. And if you are, are you a human being, and did you grow your body on Earth?
In thinking about how we have always been connected in some way to our home-grown bodies, consider the following five points. Let’s give them a name just for fun. How about the FIVE POINTS OF FOREVER?
- Every part of every thing is connected to some part of some other thing, in some way. This is true because something cannot be connected to nothing, and nothing cannot be connected to nothing either. And why can’t something be connected to nothing? Because there is nothing there to connect it to. But not only is there nothing there to connect it to there is also nothing there to not connect it to. True nothing is nothing at all and cannot be represented in our minds and language without making it something in some way. True nothing is an idea and not an experience. Because true nothing does not exist on its own in objective reality (or if it does it cannot perceived), everything just goes on forever, or at least it does as far as we can know, because we cannot experience non-experience. Space will continue to open before us, and we will never get to the fence at end of the Universe, because we cannot perceive a final boundary if there is truly nothing beyond it.
- There are no gaps in objective reality. Even if there were, we could never detect them because we cannot detect nothing in objective reality, because there is nothing there to detect and there is nothing there not to detect. We can only detect nothing (or a lack of something) in relation to other things, and we cannot detect it on its own or in relation to nothing. A black hole, for example, is not a gap in reality, it is a feature of reality, even if it looks like a gap in reality. Darkness is something, light is something, “empty” space is something, even if it doesn’t have anything “in” it. Every thing is some thing and no thing is no thing. To say there are no gaps in reality is to say there are no gaps in space.
- Everything goes on forever in all directions, in a sort of endless, all-ways, ocean of the universe. Imagine you are floating underwater, in the center of an ocean of transparent water, an ocean with no bottom and no top, an ocean that seems to both hold you where you are and stretch away from you in all directions, forever. Now replace the water with “empty” space and populate it with everything else in the universe. Hopefully this helps create some visual sense in your mind of how everything can be connected and go on forever. In the same way that water connects everything in the ocean, space connects everything in the universe. Everything that exists in the ocean is touching water, and water is touching everything that exists in the ocean. Everything that exists in the universe is touching space, and space is touching everything that exists in the universe. The ocean and its contents go together in the same way that space and its contents go together. And if a container and its contents always go together then there is a sense in which the container and its contents are connected and are simply different aspects of the same thing (another Alan Watts idea). With this metaphor we also can find an interesting difference between an ocean of water and an endless all-ways ocean of space, and that is that things can be dropped in or pulled out of water, but things cannot be dropped in or pulled out of space. No thing can be dropped into space from outside of space because there would be no space to hold it in before it is dropped in. In the same way, no thing can be pulled out of space, because there would be no space to place it in after it is pulled out. It could only be moved from one location in space to another.
- God exists and everything (and everyone) is connected to and a part of God already. And if everything is a part of God already, and there are no gaps in reality, then there is a real sense in which everything IS God already. As an added benefit, if everything that exists is God, then God definitely exists, because everything that exists definitely exists. If that is the case, then God could truly be all-powerful, for the only way to possess all power is to be everything that possesses power. That is, if each thing that exists is the only thing that possesses the power to be itself, which is the same as the power to do what it does.
- God is that which is common to all that exists. The only thing that is common to all that exists is the space in which it exists. We can say that God is space. More specifically, God is space and its ever moving contents, since space always come with its contents, its contents always come with their space, and everything is always moving on some level. God is that which brings all things into existence by allowing all things to come into existence. And how does God do this? Simply by being the space in which everything comes into existence on its own. In stark contrast with the God of Christianity, the one all-powerful God of objective reality does not hold all power by creating all things and then trying to control them, but by being one and the same with all things, and not trying to control them at all. God is all-powerful not by interfering but by not interfering. That which does not interfere at all is always welcome at the party. Or better yet, that which does not interfere at all IS the party, because it is the space that makes all things possible and in which anything can happen, forever and in all directions. The never-ending, formless form of God is what gives rise to all possible forms, and it does so without any judgement, other than that judgement which its many forms may conceive of for themselves.
Maybe the only God that is really real is the ALLTHING that is thus no thing in particular.
Okay, it’s time for me to stop twirling around in this topic for now and move on. I’ve probably plagiarized Alan Watts more than enough for one post here. So, until next time, keep doing what you’re doing at your particular place in space, and enjoy being God, the true master of your own little domain of the Universe. After all, you so rarely get to enjoy it as your true self, instead of as the self you’re so often busy pretending to be.
Mormon Mouse Memes – You Must Love Me
Mormon Mouse Memes – The Whole Truth
The Hand on the Head of Harold B. Lee
Mormon Mouse here, reporting back on the sequel to my General Conference Reading Project. Since I completed my original project to read every General Conference talk given in my lifetime (1978 – present), I’m now working my way through the years 1971 to 1978. Recently I came across an unusual story by Harold B. Lee that got my attention. He shared it in his April 1973 talk entitled “Stand Ye in Holy Places” as follows:
May I impose upon you for a moment to express appreciation for something that happened to me some time ago, years ago. I was suffering from an ulcer condition that was becoming worse and worse. We had been touring a mission; my wife, Joan, and I were impressed the next morning that we should get home as quickly as possible, although we had planned to stay for some other meetings.
On the way across the country, we were sitting in the forward section of the airplane. Some of our Church members were in the next section. As we approached a certain point en route, someone laid his hand upon my head. I looked up; I could see no one. That happened again before we arrived home, again with the same experience. Who it was, by what means or what medium, I may never know, except I knew that I was receiving a blessing that I came a few hours later to know I needed most desperately.
As soon as we arrived home, my wife very anxiously called the doctor. It was now about 11 o’clock at night. He called me to come to the telephone, and he asked me how I was; and I said, “Well, I am very tired. I think I will be all right.” But shortly thereafter, there came massive hemorrhages which, had they occurred while we were in flight, I wouldn’t be here today talking about it.
I know that there are powers divine that reach out when all other help is not available. We see that manifest down in the countries we speak of as the underprivileged countries where there is little medical aid and perhaps no hospitals. If you want to hear of great miracles among these humble people with simple faith, you will see it among them when they are left to themselves. Yes, I know that there are such powers.
After reading thousands of conference talks, I’ve learned that one of the things I am most drawn to is the miracle-type stories. The kind of stories where there is some kind of supernatural or divine communication or intervention. This is where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. Will the next one I read be the one that rescues me from apostasy, or will it be one more feather in my rational thinking cap? I think I am open to going either way, but I just keep getting more and more feathers in my cap, and this Harold B. Lee story is no exception.
As I was reading President Lee’s story for the first time, I thought it would turn out that one of the Church members on the plane with him had given him a blessing, or at least that they were praying for him. Why else would he mention that other Church members were on the plane with him and his wife Joan? But, strangely, the members end up having nothing to do do with the story. Unless he is implying that it could have been one of them who put their hand on his head, and even if he himself thought that might be the case at first, he makes it pretty clear that it was not a member on the plane who touched his head, as both times it happened he saw no one when he looked up, and he adds, “Who it was, by what means or what medium, I may never know.” And what would be the likelihood of a member of The Church anonymously touching the head of their prophet? And this brings us back to why the members are mentioned at all. Maybe he mentions that they “were in the next section” as a way or showing that it was not one of their hands he felt twice on his head. But if it wasn’t a fellow Church member who touched Harold B. Lee’s head, then who was it?
Well, it was obviously some kind of heavenly messenger, wasn’t it? I mean, what would be the point of this story if no one on the plane touched him and no one from Heaven touched him? And he can’t blame it on Satan because it’s a blessing and it’s a good thing. So who else is there? The Father, Son, or Holy Ghost? If it was one of the big three, I’d like to think President Lee would know so and would say so, because they would have an unmistakable presence. But if it has to be a heavenly messenger (and I think we’re safe to using the term “angel” now, instead), then again I ask, why wouldn’t President Lee just say so? He got a blessing from an angel. There, I said it for him. He was “Touched By an Angel” – just like the TV show.
But why did the angel bless him twice?
Maybe the angel needed to take a couple cracks at it to get it right. Or maybe the angel was interrupted and had to come back later. Perhaps two angel blessings is just better than one. But wait, he’s not implying there was both an anointing and a sealing, is he?
Why does Heaven touch Harold B. Lee not once, but twice on the head during the same airplane flight? Especially when it only gives him enough strength to make it home and begin “massive hemorrhages” that, presumably, nearly kill him? What kind of angel goes to the trouble to part the veil and invisibly place their hand on a human’s head twice, but only blesses them just enough to put off massive, life threatening hemorrhages for a few more hours? If anything it should be the other way around, shouldn’t it? Why can’t the doctors be the ones who help just enough to get President Lee to a priesthood blessing from the healing hand of an angel just in the nick of time? Some might say it could and should be that way, maybe even that God wants it that way, but he just can’t make it that way because of that darn lack of faith amongst the children of men.
There is a certain strain of Mormon Miracle Story in which God provides more of a full-meal miracle rather than just a snack to tide someone over until they get to the doctor. It tends to involve situations where spiritually ignorant or faithless doctors have done all they can for a person, and a worthy priesthood holder steps in and in and uses their power and authority from God to save the day. One example of this would be Henry B. Eyring’s story about healing a girl in New Mexico back when he was a lot younger, as described in the November 06, 2017 LDS Living article titled “When President Eyring Proved Doctors Wrong with a Prayer and a Priesthood Blessing.” Curiously, in President Eyring’s story, he and his companion have to give two blessings to the girl – one to save her from dying, which took several days to come true, and one to save her from being paralyzed, which came true, “slowly, but surely. Two blessings for Harold B. Lee, two blessings from Henry B. Eyring. I wonder if there is any scriptural evidence or support for the power and authority of God needing a double-dip or a do-over once-in-awhile. Maybe The Lord and his servants just prefer more of a belt and suspenders approach sometimes.
This speaks to a concept I’ve been struggling with for years now as I’ve continued deconstructing my childhood faith in The Church. Ever since I started to realize that all things divine have another side to them which the faithful seem to be ignoring, whenever I hear a story of divine intervention I can’t help but wonder why God, if he’s all he’s cracked up to be, doesn’t do a more thorough and distinctive job of helping his children. If he is a personal, embodied God who is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good – basically the best at everything – then why isn’t his brand so distinctive that everybody knows it’s Him for sure? In other words, I don’t know it’s Him in this story (or in the Henry B. Eyring story), and I’ll bet I’m not the only one.
I actually believe President Lee is telling the truth about his experience, and that he did in fact feel a heavenly hand on his head, even if he is unwilling to explicitly say so. But I am only willing to grant this truth to him and him alone. It was an entirely subjective experience – it happened, but it only happened to him. From my own subjective point of view, I don’t believe it actually occurred, at least not in our shared objective reality, and that is the only space we can occupy with other conscious subjects. The hand on the head of Harold B. Lee was not really there inside of the airplane, except for in the space occupied by the mind of Harold B. Lee, and it’s also there in the space occupied by every other mind that hears President Lee’s story and believes that it too could feel the touch of an invisible hand.
A Slip of the Tongue of Angels: Alma 36:9 and the Very Confusing Commandment
(This one’s for Radio Free Mormon and Bill Reel)
I was reading an old General Conference talk when I found a very confusing commandment in The Book of Mormon. The speaker was Vaughn J. Featherstone, and the talk was “The Sure Word of God” from the October 1972 General Conference. When he quoted from Alma Chapter 36, something about verse nine suddenly stood out to me in a new way. It’s the story where Alma the Younger and the sons of Mosiah are going around seeking to destroy the church of God, so an angel appears and they all fall on the ground. The angel tells Alma to get up, preferring to set him straight while he’s on his feet I guess, and then Alma tells us what happened next:
“And he said unto me: If thou wilt of thyself be destroyed, seek no more to destroy the church of God.”
What does the angel mean here? He basically means “stop seeking to destroy the church of God, or you will be destroyed” – right? I’m pretty sure that’s what he means, because in verse 11 Alma confirms it:
“And the angel spake more things unto me, which were heard by my brethren, but I did not hear them; for when I heard the words—If thou wilt be destroyed of thyself, seek no more to destroy the church of God—I was struck with such great fear and amazement lest perhaps I should be destroyed, that I fell to the earth and I did hear no more.”
But here’s the thing; if the angel’s message is that Alma must stop seeking to destroy the church or else he will be destroyed, why doesn’t he say so? After looking at what the angel says more closely, it doesn’t look like he is actually saying what he means. Let’s read the line again:
“And he said unto me: If thou wilt of thyself be destroyed, seek no more to destroy the church of God.”
In other words, isn’t the angel actually saying, if you will destroy yourself, stop trying to destroy the church? So, if Alma wants to destroy himself, he should stop trying to destroy the church? So, if Alma continues to try to destroy the church, then what happens – he doesn’t get destroyed? It seems like Alma could be forgiven if he’d gotten a little confused here, but fortunately for him, he knew exactly what the angel meant, even if it’s not what the angel said.
Maybe Studio C should do a sketch on this.
ANGEL: (In a voice of thunder) If thou wilt of thyself be destroyed, seek no more to destroy the church of God
ALMA: (Stunned silence, then a double-take). Wait, whaaat?
ANGEL: You heard me, stop trying to destroy the church, or else…
ALMA: Or else what?
ANGEL: Or else I’m gonna destroy you. Or, you will be destroyed. Or, thou wilt be destroyed of thyself. Something like that.
ALMA: But that’s not what you said.
ANGEL: It isn’t? What did I say?
ALMA: I think you said if I will destroy myself, I should stop trying to destroy the church.
ANGEL: I did? Well, uh, whatever, you know what I mean.
ALMA: I think so…but I guess I’m still a little confused.
ANGEL: How so?
ALMA: So, if I stop trying to destroy the church, I will be destroyed?
ANGEL: Exactly. Wait, what? No, if you stop trying to destroy the church, that would be good, so I won’t destroy you in that case. If you continue trying to destroy the church, that’s when there’s gonna be trouble.
ALMA: So, you’re not going to destroy me if I stop, but if I don’t stop, that’s when you destroy me, or that’s when I wilt be destroyed of myself, right?
ANGEL: Exactly.
ALMA: But you can see why I was confused now?
ANGEL: Oh yeah, definitely. Sorry, I just pulled a double shift over in Jerusalem and I guess I’m a little off my game.
ALMA: I understand. And thanks for talking this through with me. I just wanted to make sure I heard you right.
ANGEL: You know, I appreciate that, I really do.
ALMA: Well, I’m going to fall to the ground in great fear and amazement now.
ANGEL: Oh, that would be great. Thanks again (Alma falls to the ground). Oh, and, little heads up, you might not be able to talk or move or anything for a few days, but if you keep your chin up, everything will turn out ok in the end (nudges Alma’s lifeless body with his toe). Out cold. Man, that was fast. The guy’s a natural. (Blows rapsberry) Jeez, I kind of fumbled my line there, didn’t I? I hope he makes me sound better than that on the plates…
Possible Reasons for the Very Confusing Commandment by the Angel in Alma 36:
- The angel misspoke. Even angels experience a slip of the tongue from time to time.
- Alma got it wrong.
- Mormon got it wrong.
- The seer stone got it wrong.
- Joseph got it wrong.
- Oliver got it wrong.
- There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s a perfectly clear and authentic commandment by an angel, but Mormon Mouse is ignorant of the Middle and/or King James English used by angels, and furthermore, he is blinded by his evil, apostate desire to find fault with The Book of Mormon.
Whatever the reason for my current confusion over this particular passage of scripture, after all the thousands of changes The Church has made to The Book of Mormon over the years, it seems like it wouldn’t hurt much, and might even help in some way, if they’d tidy up Alma’s angel’s big line. Maybe try something like this:
“Seek no more to destroy the church of God or thou shalt be destroyed.”
Call me crazy, but I think that sounds a lot better.
The Son of Some Other God
Matthew 16:15-16
15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
If Jesus Christ is Yahweh, or Jehova, the God of the Old Testament, as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches, then who is Jesus talking about when he refers to his “Father which is in heaven,” in Matthew 16:17?
Is Jesus’s “Father which is in heaven” different than Peter’s? Is Peter’s “living God” different than the God of the Old Testament?
It seems like in order for Jesus to be both the God of the Old Testament and “the Son of the living God,” that he would have to be the Son of some other God or he would have to be the Son of Himself.
Why would Jesus refer to himself as his own Father? Or, why would Peter refer to Jesus as “the Son of the living God” if he meant any God other than the one from the Jewish scriptures? If both Jesus and Peter are referring to some other God, perhaps they would have been wise to provide a little further expanation to kind of clear things up a bit for future generations.
I would think most faithful Mormon responses to this argument would appeal to some kind of supposedly lost knowledge that didn’t make it into the Bible, or perhaps include a list of comparative scriptures from the Bible that they feel indicate a match between Jesus and Jehova. To me, either type of response would still fail to explain why the Jesus of the New Testament would teach his own Jewish people that he is the Son of any God other than the same living God who is found in their own scriptures, or why he would teach them that he is the Son of Himself.
If Jesus is the God of the Old Testament, as The Church teaches, then what does God the Father, who is supposed to be the all-powerful Master and Creator of the Universe, even do in the Bible? For such a dutiful Son who supposedly was chosen to be the Savior of the world because he was willing to give all glory to the Father, Jesus sure gets an awful lot of attention. Apparently he even got to play the role of God Almighty before he was ever even born, leading his people out of Egypt and doing all kinds of amazing things, but I guess he just never could get them to understand who he really was. If the Mormons are right, then I guess those silly ancient Jews just never could figure out who they were really dealing with for all those years – here they thought they had a special relationship with the boss, and come to find out it was really just the boss’s son all along.
D&C 124 and the Mask of The Lord
In Doctrine and Covenants Section 124, verse 144 it reads:
“And a commandment I give unto you, that you should fill all these offices and approve of those names which I have mentioned, or else disapprove of them at my general conference;”
It’s a very curious statement and one I will return to. It appears in the second to last verse in the longest section of Doctrine and Covenants, a section in which The Lord speaks and commands on a wide variety of things, including the following:
- A calling to proclaim the gospel to every king in the world, the President of the United States, the governors of The United States, and every country in the world.
- A commandment to the “kings of the earth” to give gold and silver to The Church so it can build a temple.
- The Lord’s assignment to and endorsement of John C. Bennett (who later was discovered to be a fraud and a serious enemy of The Church).
- A commandment to build a boarding house called “Nauvoo House” that Joseph Smith and his descendants can live in forever.
- A commandment to build a new temple in Nauvoo.
- A teaser about the great, hidden things the Lord wants to reveal in the new temple.
- A warning that baptisms for the dead will not be acceptable outside of a temple after an unspecified “sufficient time” has been provided to build the temple.
- An ominous declaration by the Lord in verse 32 that “if you do not these things at the end of the appointment ye shall be rejected as a church, with your dead, saith the Lord your God.”
- A pardon for failing, due to persecution, to build a temple in Missouri.
- The Lord’s will that various named individuals (including Joseph Smith) purchase between $50 and $15,000 of stock in Nauvoo House in order to fund its construction.
- Messages from the Lord to various individuals instructing them in what they should do and promising them blessings for their obedience. Temple building, missionary work, family relocation, elements of a Nauvoo House business plan, and a new translation of The Bible are all mentioned by the Lord.
- Offices and callings in the priesthood and who should fill them and what they should do.
- Some particularly important and special counsel, commandments, and blessings for Hyrum Smith, William Law, and Sidney Rigdon, including giving the sealing power and the office of patriarch, prophet, seer, and revelator to Hyrum Smith, and giving the power to heal, cast out devils, and resist poison to William Law. Oh, and the Lord includes an extra, coy little aside for Law in verse 100, saying “And what if I will that he should raise the dead…”
God the Father seems to be the speaker throughout Section 124, due to the last phrase of verse 123, that reads “…which is after the order of mine Only Begotten Son.” However, at times it sounds like Jesus Christ is the speaker, due to references to “the day of my visitation” (verse 10), “Presidency of my Church” (verse 84), and ‘”my everlasting gospel” (verse 88) – all things typically named after or associated with The Son and not The Father. This fluidity with the Divine point of view occurs elsewhere in Doctrine and Covenants, such as in Section 109. verses 1-5 when Joseph Smith addresses God as if he were both Jesus Christ and God the Father, or Section 49 where The Father who speaks of “mine Only Begotten Son in verse 5 also says :”…I am Jesus Christ…” in verse 28.
The number of subjects and level of detail The Lord gets into (right down to the business details of stock purchases) is interesting and worthy of its own analysis and discussion. Some might say it’s a specificity of detail somewhat unbecoming for the Supreme Being, but of course there is precedent, and we find a similar fixation in The Old Testament, where The Holy One of Israel gets very specific about a whole spectrum of special rules pertaining to everything from animal sacrifice to monthly menstruation.
But the biggest curiosity almost seems to be hiding in plain sight from the more casual, or more faith-inclined reader. I myself never really noticed it or thought about it until now. Apart from the impressive list of subjects and details in this section, there is a record-scratch worthy moment in verse 144, the second to last of the section:
“And a commandment I give unto you, that you should fill all these offices and approve of those names which I have mentioned, or else disapprove of them at my general conference;” (emphasis added)
Say whaaat?
Is it just me, or did The Lord God just give a commandment to either approve or disapprove of his own revealed will?
If God gives the name of a person to serve in a specific role in His church, isn’t that a revelation from Him? Wouldn’t that make it his will that that person serve in that role? Or does God just give suggestions sometimes, take ’em or leave ’em? Even if he did, if you knew a name was from God, why in God’s name would you pick someone else?
If I counted correctly, between verses 123 and 142 God “mentions” forty-four names of individuals He wants to serve in specific roles in His church. While it’s very progressive of Him to be so democratic and teach the people to vote on things, wouldn’t commanding The Church to vote on these names in this case be a little like Einstein commanding some children to check his math? It’s almost as if God himself doesn’t know if the names he has given are the right names. And while a good argument could be made as to why The Lord might command His church to vote to approve revelation from Him, I don’t know why God would want His church to disapprove of revelation from Him, unless the revelation may not really be from Him after all, in which case He is not really the speaker in this section of Doctrine and Covenants.
But if God is not really speaking in Section 124 of Doctrine and Covenants, then who is? Well, it’s Joseph Smith, of course, dictating revelation in the first person singular voice as if he himself is God. It’s one of his personas. And it’s rather like the ancient Latin sense of that word, “persona,” which was a mask worn by an actor performing in an open-air theatre, a mask which was constructed in such a way as to amplify the sound of the actor’s voice so he could be better heard by the audience. When Joseph Smith is speaking as God, the mask of The Lord goes up, and often it’s such a convincing performance that one could be forgiven for forgetting that it’s just a mask. But once in a while, Joseph reminds us who is really speaking, by saying something completely out of character for an all-powerful master of the Universe.
Inside of the Body Inside of My Body
The philosopher Alan Watts once said:
“Really, the fundamental, ultimate mystery — the only thing you need to know to understand the deepest metaphysical secrets — is this: that for every outside there is an inside and for every inside there is an outside, and although they are different, they go together.”
If that is true then it would spell trouble for one of the most fundamental parts of Mormon doctrine – the idea that we are all eternal spirit bodies sent from our Heavenly home to be born into and tested inside of our physical bodies here on Earth. The Church would have us believe that we are spirit bodies in the same form as our physical bodies (Ether 3:16), residing in and controlling our physical bodies from within.
But if every outside has an inside, then there are at least two main problems with this idea.
First, the outside of our physical bodies implies that there is an inside to them as well, and we all know that there is. So, if on the inside of our bodies we find only the inside of our bodies, where is the spirit body? Take a look inside anyone’s body and all you will ever find is the inside of their body and nothing else – no separate spirit body is ever anywhere to be found (but please let me know if you find one). But whether it can be detected or not, even if we do have a spirit body that is separate from and inside of our physical bodies, then that spirit body would also have an outside and an inside. But what’s on the inside of our spirit bodies? As far as I know The Church doesn’t say.
If I have a body inside of my body that is controlling my body to some degree, what’s inside of the body inside of my body? Another body controlling that body? And if I have a body inside of my body that is controlled by a body inside of it, what’s inside of the body inside of my body inside of my body? Another body controlling that body? And so on and so forth, ad infinitum. And which one am I, or am I all of them? Or am I none of them, but something else entirely?
To postulate that a human body has a controlling body in the same form inside of it, like some kind of Russian nesting doll, only answers a question by creating another question. And either we get caught in an infinite regression of an outside found inside of an inside which implies an inside inside of that, or one of these bodies doesn’t have a matching body nested inside of it. Maybe one of these bodies has only its own inside inside of it, and not the outside of another body. I pick the first body.
The bodies we already have, our physical bodies, have an outside and an inside. On the inside we already find plenty of inside systems of parts that make us tick, taking up space and telling us, that although we may still want to believe it for various reasons, we don’t really need another body inside of our body to control us or to explain anything about us at all.
If the outside of another body such as a spirit body is not detectable on the inside of a human body by an outside observer, then the human body is only one human form, with its own inside, and not two human forms with one, spiritual, placed inside of the other, physical, as in the traditional Mormon belief. The human body does contain elements of itself inside of itself which have their own outsides and insides and outsides inside of that, but they are there in the body to be found and studied as far as the methods of scientific inquiry permit, as opposed to the Mormon spirit body which supposedly is there but can only be discerned by “purer eyes” (see Doctrine and Covenants 131:7-8), which is probably just a fancy way of excusing why it’s invisible. And 179 years after Joseph Smith instructed the world as to why it’s invisible, even with all of our advanced science and technology, it’s still invisible.
Not only is the Mormon spirit body invisible, it is undetectable in any way, except when we believe that it is detectable. Some might say that it is detectable because they believe or even know that they feel it, and to that I would say, that may be true for you, but it is not true for me, at least not anymore, because I now have other explanations for the spiritual feelings I had before. And if it’s not true for both of us, then it may be true for one of us, but it’s probably not true on its own.
Humans bodies are living organisms, and, true to their nature, they grow from the inside out, from a single cell into trillions, and they do so on their own as part of and in relationship to their environment, because that is what organisms do. Self-organizing, self-replicating, self-maintaining – living organisms. They do not rely on an outside agent to inhabit them in order to do what they do. The agent is not inside the organism, the agent IS the organism, because the organism has grown into the agent.
By teaching that each of us is really an immortal spirit body inside of a mortal physical body, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints separates and hides us from our true selves. Rather than fully understanding and appreciating what our bodies are already doing naturally on their own, The Church stubbornly clings to the archaic idea that the experience of human life is too important, too complex, and too sacred to allow it to explain itself as it is on its own, rather than as The Church thinks it should be. Ironically, as the church that places the most emphasis on living prophets and continuing revelation, it is the one best poised to evolve in the direction of science and philosophy on this issue of the spiritual vs. the physical, what they really are, and which one really makes the other move.
If anything, it would make more sense to say that the physical human body itself is a spirit body. If it can’t experience itself before its own birth or after its own death, then its experience of itself is eternal to itself. If at the subatomic level the body is mostly made up of “empty space” or something more like electron clouds, then it is ghost-like at some level. And as far as we know from our own direct experience, we need our physical human bodies in order to even experience the spiritual. Even with a near death experience, although the experiencer may feel they have had an out of body experience, they never would have had it, and they never could have told anyone about it, without their physical body.
If we cannot know the spiritual without the physical, then isn’t a physical which controls the spiritual far more likely than a spiritual which controls the physical? And if the physical body is eternal in some way, ghost-like in some way, and always there in some way during a spiritual experience, what more do we need to call it spiritual? Do we need it to do any other tricks for us? How about healing itself? Or healing others like it? And what about its brain, widely considered the most complex object in the known universe?
In thinking about the human brain, the control center of the body, we can come back to the problem of outsides and insides. Does The Church’s spirit body include a spirit brain inside of it? If so, does that mean my physical brain has a spiritual brain inside of it? If it does, what is on the inside of my spiritual brain? I could outside/inside my brain for a few steps or for forever to try to get to the brain that has only its own brain matter inside of it, or I coud just admit that the physical, human brain inside my head is the only one I have. And there is a very real sense in which I don’t actually have it at all. The one body with one brain that I feel myself to be stirs my soul with a mystery, wonder, and appreciation that I’ve realized is far more spiritual to me than to pass the buck to a spirit body.
As I’ve heard the late Christopher Hitchens observe, “I don’t have a body, I am a body.” And if I am one body, then I cannot be another at the same time. Whether I am physical or spiritual, although I will not last forever in this form to others, I will last forever in this form to me…and how could I ask for anything more?
A Message from God
If God has access to all of our minds, and he wants everyone to receive the same message about him, why doesn’t he just deliver it to us directly? Wouldn’t that be more effective than relying on fallible human messengers to deliver it, especially when there always seem to be plenty of competing messengers around who are delivering contradictory messages about God which appear to be equally well meaning and sincere?
Why would it be so important to God that we get our information about Him and His will for us from someone other than Him, especially if you believe, as in Mormonism, that God will speak to us through the Holy Ghost to confirm the truth of all things? If God has the time and means to tell us if a message from Him through a messenger is true or not (as well as to monitor everything we think and do), why doesn’t He just give us the message from Him directly in the first place?
Imagine that God has an email address and that you regularly email Him and He emails back.
Then from time to time you get emails from various prophets, ministers, and missionaries with a message they claim is from God, for you and for the world. You email God to ask Him if any of the messages you’ve received from these various messengers are really true and from Him, and eventually you get an email back letting you know that yes, indeed, one of the messages is the truest and best and is the one you should listen to. So you do.
But at some point you realize that millions of other people have been emailing God for years asking the same question but getting a different answer in reply.
If your understanding was that it’s extremely important to God that all of his children receive the same message about him, at some point wouldn’t you wonder why He doesn’t just email His message to everyone directly, especially since He is already emailing with everyone directly about so many other things?
Does The Lord really want everyone to get the same message about Him, or does he want everyone to try and figure out which is the true message and who are the true messengers and then ask Him what he thinks so He can answer everyone differently ?
If you have to go to the original source of a message to find out if the message is originally from that source, why not simply get the message from the original source in the first place, especially if you are already connected to that source in such a way that it knows everything about you?
And if God is all-powerful, has one consistent message for the world, and already has full access to our minds, why would He need messengers at all?
Mormon Mouse 