Vort

I think we have a communication gap here, AI. I was not trying to beat you down, not in any way. I was responding very literally to your invitation for opinions. I gave mine. I wasn't trying to tell you that you were naughty for even asking such a thing. You aren't. To use Carb's example, I consider the idea of "progression between kingdoms" to be a snake pit, and I was labeling it as such.
As for the state of your husband, I cannot judge such a thing. A great many good, honorable people will never join the Church. I daresay many of them will never even hear of the Church. But I am quite comfortable in my knowledge that those people who sincerely seek after God and his truths will eventually find what they're looking for. Always.
So yes, your husband must repent and come unto Jesus, just like all the rest of us. But we are in no position to judge when and how that must happen. My opinion on that topic is that you shouldn't worry too much about it. Just love your husband and keep being a good example.

Let's consider an extreme example: Murder is an effective way to get money. Is it permissible to reject this idea out of hand as dangerous, regardless of whether or not it's true? Or shall we say that we are not afraid of differences of opinion, so go ahead and consider the possibility that murder is in fact a good path to riches?
Dangerous things are those things which lead to an evil end. Nowhere in scripture is it taught or even hinted at that we don't need to worry about being celestial, because we'll have all eternity to achieve those things. We are taught the polar opposite: THIS life is the time to prepare to meet God. Our actions have ETERNAL consequences.
Yes, the idea of "progression between kingdoms" is a dangerous one, even if you're open-minded and unafraid of differences of opinion. It leads to a cavalier attitude of "play now, pay later". I personally know more than a few people who have fallen into this trap and embraced this falsehood. I hope they get past it, and I hope that happens sooner rather than later. But in any case, it is a dangerous idea and should be rejected.

Everyone has the light of Christ. Everyone can choose to extinguish that light or consciously turn away from it. That is not a thing limited to Saints and angels.
I am very uncomfortable with this idea. I do believe that any sincere person who seeks after God is approved of God, at least insofar as he seeks. If that seeking leads him to a sectarian faith, I believe he is blessed for that as far as he can be. I think that other faiths may thus serve a divine purpose. But I do not believe that God tells people to embrace falsehood, only truth. Therefore, I do not believe that God would inspire a person to reject the gospel of Jesus Christ as carried by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and instead join another body. I do believe that people's abilities and sensitivities change and grow (or diminish), and that a person who before was not ready to hear God's voice might become ready later.
We have no possible way to judge such things. I do believe that more Latter-day Saints will receive the blessings of exaltation than those who are not -- else why be a member of the Church at all? It is my opinion that a minority of mankind will receive exaltation, based on Christ's teaching that the way is strait and narrow, and few find it. Since I have no way to quantify "devoutness", I can't answer your question even with an opinion.
This is false doctrine, period. I do not know whether or not it is true -- I strongly suspect it is not -- but it most certainly is not the teachings of the Church. I would urge you or anyone else to reject this doctrine as a dangerous, Mormon-oriented version of "Eat, drink, and be merry; nevertheless, fear God—he will justify in committing a little sin; yea, lie a little, take the advantage of one because of his words, dig a pit for thy neighbor; there is no harm in this; and do all these things, for tomorrow we die; and if it so be that we are guilty, God will beat us with a few stripes, and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of God."

You need to use a fountain pen.

For the record, I do not pray to a state of being. I pray to an individual person.

In one sense, it's easy to focus on God the Son; because He is the one who lived on this earth like us; it is His example we seek to emulate; and in the vast majority of scripturally-recorded cases where people saw "God", they were seeing Jesus Christ. 
But when we say our morning prayers, and our meal prayers, and our family prayers, and our evening prayers--it's to the Father, not the Son, that we pray.  We love, revere, and emulate Jesus; and we look to Him as a source of power and grace.  But as some Church leaders--notably Elder McConkie--have forcefully observed; it is with the Father, not the Son, that we seek to build an intimate and personal relationship.  The more meaningful we can make our prayer life, and the more confident we become in the revelations we have received individually; the less worried we will be that we may be over-emphasizing the Son at the expense of the Father.

I think it's been said in a number of ways in this thread already; but to make the point a little more succinctly:
We don't.

This is a pointless point. We teach that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ. Implicit in the idea of atonement is the acceptance of that atonement. Of course those who will be saved will accept that salvation!
You clearly believe that the Church's leaders are failing in their duties. In this, you are gravely wrong. But I'm curious: What would you have the Church do in order to comply with Rob Osborn's vision of How Things Should Go?

Depends on the person. But yes, I think there is a real danger. We say "Santa loves you, he watches your actions, and he gives you gifts," then later we say, "Just kidding!" Then we tell them "God loves you, he watches your actions, and he gives you gifts." Um...I see a problem here.

You need to use a fountain pen.

Not sure what your point is. Going strictly by the words you have written, I agree. The Church has the fulness of the gospel, but that is not the same as having "the full truth" -- a condition which does not exist on this earth. I agree that there is a great deal more truth in other churches than the Latter-day Saints sometimes recognize, and I also grant that the LDS Church (meaning the membership and its understanding) is not without flaws.
But I sense an implication that the Church somehow isn't as true as we make it out to be. If that is only my own inference, so be it, but in any case I very strongly disagree with that idea.
In Section 1, the Lord said that the LDS Church was "the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth, with which I, the Lord, am well pleased". Unless you want to argue that the wording implies that maybe there were other true and living churches on the face of the earth at the time, but that God just wasn't well-pleased with them -- and I assume you are not arguing any such point -- the only reasonable reading is that the LDS Church is indeed the uniquely "true" Church. Or at least it was in 1831.

I think in this particular discussion, an easy trap to fall into is assuming that the scriptures (and even official church publications) were laid down with the precision of a legal code--that words are used in consistent ways throughout, that any rule statement must immediately be followed by a list of every possible exception to that rule, that they build on a universally-interpreted set of symbols and metaphors, and that literary devices like hyperbole are entirely absent.
I agree with you that a number of church manuals foster the impression that the telestial are ultimately saved by their own suffering and (by implication) that Jesus' atonement does not reach them.  I further agree that such an impression is both unfortunate and theologically incorrect.
What I would disagree with, is the notion that orthodox Mormonism says that the Telestial are unchanged by their sufferings and that they emerge from Hell and enter into their salvation as impenitent and rebellious as ever they were.  I don't think such a notion is part of Mormonism at all.
To clarify your overall paradigm, though--it sounds like you are saying that the Telestial/Terrestrial are states of *mortal* existence, that the Celestial is the natural ending state of those who engaged the process in mortality, and that those who fail to engage with that process in mortality will wind up in perdition.  Is that accurate?

I heard The Arrival was a great movie, and lots of fun for linguistic types (especially for SF-geek linguistic types).

Today's "I'm doing some Deep Thinking" is tomorrow's "Wow, I really had no idea of what I was talking about, did I?" And every time you come back to the principles you learned about in Primary and realize you understand it in a way you never did before, you really have managed to dig one shovelful deeper. So don't worry if you think others in your institute class aren't where you are at. They probably aren't. Many of them have not yet dug as deeply as you have; some have already dug much deeper. One of the small but important miracles we witness every week is how fifty people at fifty different levels of spiritual development and understanding manage to sit in the same class, yet each of them gains from the lesson.

And @Eowyn is no man.

The underlying assumption here is that physical war is "real", what with the killing and maiming and torture and suffering and such. So we think of the premortal "war in heaven" as somehow being less real, or more accurately, less a real war. People say it was a "war of words", which is itself a figurative expression. But my opinion is that the "war in heaven" was much more "warlike" and awful than even our mortal wars are. I suspect that both the immediacy of present suffering and the consequences in the aftermath are far more severe in the premortal and future war between the Saints and the devils.

My cousin started out wanting to be a college physics professor.  He was disappointed in the quality of the students he was meeting in college, so he decided to teach physics, chemistry and math in high school instead.  When he retired, about a third of the teachers in the school system here had been his students, and a large part of the district's high scores in math and sciences were due to his teaching ability.  He also managed to do a pretty good job of raising four kids and teaching Sunday School at the local Methodist church.
His funeral filled three churches, and donations in his memory funded a new science wing at the high school.  Just imagine if we all did even half as much to make the world a better place.

Not sure what your point is. Going strictly by the words you have written, I agree. The Church has the fulness of the gospel, but that is not the same as having "the full truth" -- a condition which does not exist on this earth. I agree that there is a great deal more truth in other churches than the Latter-day Saints sometimes recognize, and I also grant that the LDS Church (meaning the membership and its understanding) is not without flaws.
But I sense an implication that the Church somehow isn't as true as we make it out to be. If that is only my own inference, so be it, but in any case I very strongly disagree with that idea.
In Section 1, the Lord said that the LDS Church was "the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth, with which I, the Lord, am well pleased". Unless you want to argue that the wording implies that maybe there were other true and living churches on the face of the earth at the time, but that God just wasn't well-pleased with them -- and I assume you are not arguing any such point -- the only reasonable reading is that the LDS Church is indeed the uniquely "true" Church. Or at least it was in 1831.

Not sure what your point is. Going strictly by the words you have written, I agree. The Church has the fulness of the gospel, but that is not the same as having "the full truth" -- a condition which does not exist on this earth. I agree that there is a great deal more truth in other churches than the Latter-day Saints sometimes recognize, and I also grant that the LDS Church (meaning the membership and its understanding) is not without flaws.
But I sense an implication that the Church somehow isn't as true as we make it out to be. If that is only my own inference, so be it, but in any case I very strongly disagree with that idea.
In Section 1, the Lord said that the LDS Church was "the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth, with which I, the Lord, am well pleased". Unless you want to argue that the wording implies that maybe there were other true and living churches on the face of the earth at the time, but that God just wasn't well-pleased with them -- and I assume you are not arguing any such point -- the only reasonable reading is that the LDS Church is indeed the uniquely "true" Church. Or at least it was in 1831.

Coincidentally, here is my Facebook posting from a couple of months ago.
 
 
A few hours later, I equivocated:
 
I like this guy's analysis better. My analysis was wanting: The gravitational heat of formation would certainly vaporize the water and probably much of the iron, too, and I didn't even consider whether liquid water would exist at depth on such a planet. But my posting was off the cuff, so if it loses a head-to-head with this guy's essay, so be it. (The self-consoling words of the loser: "It's not like I really tried! I don't care anyway!")
By the way, since I like you, I voted for Mary. I don't actually watch Dr. Who, but I figured you needed the vote, and I'm part of that corrupt political engine. Maybe we can rename Dr. Who as "Showy McShowFace".

This bears repeating, and should be kept in mind by both scientists and religionists.

This is an old idea, and fun to think about. But it does not stand up to even casual scrutiny. The earth's crust is similar to an apple's skin in relative thickness. Since we terrestrial creatures basically have no direct access at all to anything except the crust (and only a tiny percentage of that), we would have to assume that God created the earth by somehow gently overlaying an iron-nickel core and thick basalt mantle with a fragile crust, such that all the fossils remained undisturbed. I do not claim any great understanding of how God accomplished his creation of the earth, but I do not believe it was by magically lifting existing, fossil-filled crust material and gently laying it on top of a core.

IIRC, Jews understood the creation narrative as meaning that the land basically rose up out of a world that had previously been covered in water.  If the Nephites operated under the same assumption, the statement in Ether might just as easily refer to the creation as to Noah's flood.

The standard church interpretation of D&C 76 doesn't claim this either.  It is crystal clear that at the final judgment *every* knee shall bow and *every* tongue shall confess.  Only the sons of perdition remain eternally rebellious--the rest DO repent, which is why they are to some degree redeemable.  Hence, the common saying about how God forces no man into heaven.