The Plan of Happiness

A Message from God

~ Mormon Mouse ~ Leave a comment

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?

Dear President Nelson, 101522

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To: President Russell M. Nelson, President and Prophet, Seer, and Revelator of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

From: Mormon Mouse

Re: Eternal Progression and Inheritance

Dear President Nelson,

Hello again! I hope all is well with you and Wendy and your familes. Thank you for speaking in another General Conference of The Church. It is always interesting to hear from you. I often find myself wishing I could have a private conversation with you though, because there are so many things I have sincere questions about that it seems only you should be able to give a definitive answer on.

I have some questions about The Plan of Salvation.

Over the course of my life in the The Church, if I’ve understood what I’ve been taught correctly, I’ve learned that we all had to come to Earth and pass through a mortal probation because we’d reached a point in our pre-mortal existence where we could not continue to progress otherwise. And if we are faithful in this life and endure to the end, properly repenting of our sins and worthily receiving all the necessary ordinances, we can gain eternal life and exaltation and eventually inherit all The Father has.

But didn’t Jesus progress to inherit all the Father has and become a God himself without ever having been born? Or am I misunderstanding the Gospel of St. John? And if Jesus became a God without first passing through a mortal probation, doesn’t that show that mortal probation is not required to progress to godhood? Or was Jesus simply a one-time exception to the rule for all eternity?

On a related note, how many people can inherit all The Father has? Even if what The Father has is infinite and eternal, if each person who qualifies to inherit all of it inherits all of it, wouldn’t that mean that no one inherited all of it? Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that the exalted ones inherit a share of all The Father has? In Doctrine and Covenants 84:38 it says “all that my Father hath shall be given unto him.” But if all that The Father hath is given to another, then The Father dothn’t hath it all anymore doth he?

Sincerely,

Mormon Mouse

A Very Mormon Memory Game

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Dear Believers in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,

In regards to The Plan of Salvation, what is the point of testing someone if you begin the test by erasing their memory?

I’ve often heard it said in The Church that Heavenly Father took our premortal memories because he wanted us to have to rely on our faith in order to be accurately tested and to qualify to return to live with him again. But if all our memories were erased and we were all born into a great variety of different circumstances beyond our control, where we were subject to a great variety of different influences that were beyond our control, many of us would never have an equal opportunity to learn about and develop this all-important faith that is the supposed reason for which we all lost all memory of our premortal life together in the first place. Were all premortal memories taken from all of us so that only some of us would have the blessing of using faith to pass our test?

I’ve also heard it said in The Church that in his great wisdom Heavenly Father removed our memories of premortal life because he knew that if we remembered what it was really like, we would all kill ourselves to get back to it. One problem with this theory is, wouldn’t we also remember how we all shouted for joy in The Grand Council when we learned of The Plan of Salvation? Wouldn’t we also remember how badly we wanted to come to Earth, and then realize we can’t kill ourselves, and so go on with our mortal probation?

And where did all those premortal memories go, by the way? If God removed them, where is he storing them now and when and how will we get them back? Will they be AirDropped back into our minds after we die? Sounds shocking. To have millions of memories of premortal experieces to which you have no prior connection suddenly show up in your head? Maybe if they slipped them in slowly over time the feeling of being posessed would be a little easier to deal with. On second thought, maybe it would just last longer.

And at what point do people who die get their premortal memories back? I would think it would be right away or at least sometime soon after they die, but what about the billions of people who still haven’t had their temple work done for them? If they get their premortal memories back before their temple work is done for them, isn’t that sort of an unfair advantage over everyone back on Earth who has to go without? On the other hand, if the dead get their premortal memories back at some point after their temple work is done for them, after their faith on the question of their temple work has been tested, what are they told in the meantime? Do they even know they’re dead while they’re waiting? Maybe they know they’re dead but they’re quarantined somewhere and only fed information on a need-to-know basis?

If I die tomorrow and I pass into the so called “Spirit World,” if and when my premortal memories come either flooding or trickling back into my mind, how will I know if they’re my authentic premortal memories if my premortal memory was erased? In other words, if you completely erase someone’s memory and then an entire lifetime later you give it back, how will they know it’s their memory when they get it back if they don’t remember anything about it? Especially when they’ve developed an entirely new and separate sense of identity and whole lifetime of memories in the interim.

Members of The Church are often taught that they attended a big meeting in Heaven before everyone was born, a “Grand Council,” and that’s when Jesus volunteered to be our Savior in The Plan of Salvation, and we all voted for him and got really excited about having our memories erased and being turned into single-celled organisms…wait, I mean, we all shouted for joy. Well, the sons of God did I guess, but it doesn’t say anything in Job 38:7 about the daughters of God.

Much is often made in The Church of this premortal Grand Council in Heaven, and there is usually some emphasis placed on the idea that we all freely chose and freely agreed to follow Jesus and The Plan of Salvation, and that many of us were even premortally ordained and trained for special jobs in The Church on Earth. This apprarently all happened before our memories were erased and we were turned into single-celled organisms.

“And we will prove them herewith,” as the scripture in Abraham 3:25 goes, “…to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them;”

But again, I ask you, what is the point of testing someone if you begin the test by erasing their memory? And besides, if you take all of a person’s memories, what is there left to test against? Without any of the premortal memories, only the mortal can be tested, but then why send premortals to be tested as mortals if you’re just going to test the mortal, indeed can only test the mortal?

What kind of all-knowing God holds mere mortals to a plan and agreement they don’t remember making, especially if he is the one who completely erased all of their memories and prevented them from remembering the plan and agreement in the first place?

Brothers and Sisters, my dear friends (as Edler Uchtdorf would say), we can know something is wrong when someone tries to control us by telling us that we already planned and agreed to obey them before we were born, but that we just don’t remember doing that because our memories were erased.

Why would anyone be required to voluntarily agree to have their memory erased before taking a test, especially with eternal consequences hanging in the balance?

Sincerely,

Mormon Mouse

Dear President Nelson,

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To: President Russell M. Nelson, prophet, seer, and revelator of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

From: Mormon Mouse

Re: Two Questions about Three Doctrines

Dear President Nelson,

Why would an all-knowing Heavenly Father send his children to Earth to be tested if he already knows all of the results of all of their tests?  

And if he already knows all of the results of all of their tests, in what way are they free to choose anything other than those choices that will lead to the results that he already knows will occur?

It seems to me that these two questions indicate a potentially serious conflict between The Church’s teachings about free agency, the omniscience of God, and the purpose of our mortal life on Earth.

I am sincerely interested in knowing what you think about these issues and I would give polite and thoughtful consideration to any answers you might provide in response.

Sincerely,

Mormon Mouse

You Are That Vehicle

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(As a lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, one of the things I have been most frequently taught as if it were an indisuptable fact is that I am a spirit body from another world inside a physical body here on Earth, and that I am here in this physical body in order to be tested, to see if I will use it to do whatever God tells me to do through his authorized agents.)

I assume I experience the illusion or something like it as much as anyone. It feels kind of like I am riding around inside the vehicle of my body, freely making it go where I want and do what I want as best I can given whatever circumstances I find myself in.

I look out through the windshield of my eyes at the world. I look down at my vehicle, my body, and I see some of my parts and I can move them, arms and legs for instance, but I can’t move around inside my vehicle.

I can’t tell how I got inside this thing, and even though I can obviously move it around I don’t know how I do it, not really, because I can’t perceive or access the controls anywhere.

Can I really be inside a thing that has no entrance? There are access points, yes, but those serve other purposes. There is no soul hole from what I can tell, no place to blow my spirit body in from the outside.

Can I really be in control of something that has no controls, at least none that I can perceive or access? There is no steering wheel on this thing, no keyboard or touchscreen interface, no neuron controller on board for me to operate, that I am aware of.

And so the illusion continues, every day, and for most of the day I feel like I have a body and that I am inside my body, running the show from the inside. But I try to see past it when I can, and at times I can feel the truth directly and it’s a tiny thrill that can reoccur to me again and again – this thing works on its own – look Ma, no hands!

You can believe whatever you want about whether there is really anybody home inside your body, but I hope you’ll remember this:

If you ever find yourself traveling stuck and alone in a vehicle with no entrance and no accessible controls, and you can move it but you can’t move inside it, then most likely you are not inside that vehicle, most likely you are that vehicle.