clbent04

@Grunt You are spot on with your response 100 percent. Completely agree. It is impossible. All we can do is read, question, and pray with whatever we come across or what happens to fall in our lap in this life. You explained the exact flaw in my proposal that I have been grappling with for so long. A predicament that has no sure tell way of being methodically resolved by measurement of the Holy Spirit. And yet it is the very claim of the LDS Church that they have they greatest prominence of the Holy Spirit that prompts me to this line of questioning

@Just_A_Guy Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. I won't get caught up on this or anything, but I'm just grasping at the idea of imagining a forever "child" (physically speaking).

@Grunt Thanks for clarifying. I see your point, but for someone who has yet to gain a testimony of the truth of the LDS scriptures, I can't fall back on the what the LDS scriptures say to help guide me. I'm still at the early phase of letting the Holy Spirit guide me to whichever religion God would have me be a part of. Therefore the Holy Spirit seems to be my best bet to start with for receiving confirmation for a set of given beliefs. If I was more advanced in my own testimony of the LDS church, and had already accepted the LDS scriptures as gospel canon, I would be able to accept your advice. But I'm in the early stages of finding God's one and only true religion if any one religion exists.

@Grunt Sorry I'm not sure if I follow your point. Could you rephrase what you're trying to say so I could understand better? Thx

@Sunday21 Thanks for sharing. I read both talks. If I'm understanding correctly, Elder Maxwell is saying Matthew 7:14 doesn't refer to those who will inherit the Celestial Kingdom, but rather those who will find the true path to happiness in the life? Is that the takeaway?

Tells us what?

That's exactly what I've reasoned must be the case - God must know that each and every soul who died before reaching 8 years old would have lived a life worthy of the Celestial Kingdom. But then I defer back to the kindergarten class example and remain skeptical that the entire class would've lived lives worthy of the Celestial Kingdom. For me it makes more sense that all Celestial beings exempt from this mortal test of sin would all be brought forth together in the Millennial Reign. I'm not saying Mormon teaching of God's way with children dying early on has to make sense to me to be true, I'm just questioning it since it doesn't jibe with me

Not to say that all emotion is equivalent to the feeling of the Holy Spirit. But obviously people of other faiths are experiencing the Holy Spirit to some extent, and it seems impossible to discern across the board where the Holy Spirit most abundantly abides

@Mike When I say "feeling" or "feel", I'm not just saying how much emotion a religion invokes upon you, I'm referring to my original post of feeling the greatest prominence of the Holy Spirit which is always in accord to what is truth

@Just_A_Guy I would respond with the same response I wrote @Mike above

@Mike Which leaves us with this predicament. I've seen people of faiths outside the Mormon church just as fervently converted and dedicated to their own teachings. What is that feeling they feel when they so passionately live their beliefs day in and day out for their entire lives?

@Mike An acceptable fate is for them to be judged by God as if they had been allowed to live out their lives, to allow God with His omniscience to see beyond their mortal deaths to judge them based on the type of people they would become

@Vort I'm asking sincere questions to something I earnestly would like to understand better. I'm not saying I'm right, or your wrong, I'm only saying I want to understand more so I more fully study something out in my mind that bothers me. I don't need to know the answer to every question, but this particular question among others are important to me which is why I'm asking people such as yourself for more perspective

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints declares that the way to find out which church is the true church of God is through the Holy Spirit. The true church of God will have a greater presence of the Holy Spirit than any other religion. One of the greatest claims that the Mormon Church advocates is that the Holy Spirit has the greatest prominence within the Mormon Church in comparison to other religions. The Holy Spirit can still be felt and experienced in other religions, but to a lesser extent. This is because the Mormon Church lays claim to representing Christ’s gospel in its pure form, not one that has been corrupted over the years. In order to truly accept this claim as a member of the Church, consider the following: How can we identify that the Holy Ghost has a unique and most prominent presence in the Mormon religion if we have never experienced anything else? And even if you started now to try and compare religions side by side, how would you do so without bias? Is it not likely that your views will be skewed in favor towards whatever you grew up with? Thousands of religions exist in the world today and there is no way one person could dedicate the necessary time and effort in this life to each one in order to fairly cross examine all religions. I think you would need to experience life under the roof of a Baptist family, a Buddhist, Jewish, and Muslim family and so on to be able to honestly assert the prominence of the Holy Spirit in one religion verses another. Studying a religion’s beliefs on paper may not capture what its members find significant about it. After all, the greatest reason mankind has been drawn to religion lies with the unseen. Fairly cross examining all religions in relation to the prominence of the Holy Spirit is a daunting task which I don’t think is possible for anyone to accomplish.

Matthew 7:14 states "Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." So does this mean less than half of us under God's realm will ever make it to the Celestial Kingdom? Since there are very few who will be going to Outer Darkness, and not a high percentage of us who are murderers and rapists (Telestial Kindgom - not that all murderers and rapists can't be forgiven and possibly qualify for a higher kingdom), I think most of us will be in the Terrestrial Kingdom. How would you interpret Matthew 7:14, and if you interpret it the way I do, how do you define "a few"? Because I define a few as not more than 20 percent.

@Just_A_Guy Matthew 7:14 is actually another topic I wanted to address to see want the general understanding is. I'll address in another post so this thread won't start veering off subject too much

@Just_A_Guy how else do you interpret Matthew 7:14 "Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." So at least less than half of us, right? I'm not saying numberless concourses of heavenly beings won't be surrounding God, I'm just saying the majority of us under God's realm will not make it back to live with him in the Celestial Kingdom per Matthew 7:14. Since there are very few who will be going to Outer Darkness, and not a high percentage of us who are murderers and rapists (Telestial Kindgom - not that all murderers and rapists can't be forgiven and possibly qualify for a higher kingdom), I think most of us will be in the Terrestrial Kingdom.

@Just_A_Guy Great response. I like your rewording of my question. And I'm still left wondering why God would ever reveal the principle of Polygamy to Joseph Smith in the first place. Some say it served it's purpose for the time being, that it helped spur the growth of the Church's population considering the shortage of men at the time; but how much difference did practicing polygamy for that short time really make in relation to the Church's membership today? I don't buy that answer.

@Vort thanks for the thoughtful reply. I really like your perspective on considering other factors that may have led up to the ban on practicing polygamy. As far as your response to when has God ever introduced something as a true eternal doctrine only to later restrict it until further notice, most of your examples are not doctrine or principle specific, they are blessings or promises. While some may say the practicing of Polygamy is a blessing, it is not simply a blessing, it's an eternal principle. I have yet to find an example in this thread that is on point to other instances outside the Mormon Church where God has introduced something as a true eternal principle only to later restrict it until further notice

@Sunday21 The United Order was a good example from your point of view embracing all Mormon teachings. But from my point of view, someone wanting to understand how Mormonism makes sense in relation to the Bible, I remain skeptical when the only other relevant examples lie within the Mormon church

@Sunday21 I don't think Mark 10:2-6 is a a good example. Divorces were permitted as part of a learning curve for mankind, not something that was meant to be eternally practiced. Polygamy is meant to be eternally practiced

@Sunday21 the United Order is a good example, but I was looking for an example outside the Mormon religion. it's not really supporting example if it's coming from the same source. Is there an example in the Bible where God introduces an eternally true principle and then restricts the practicing of it until further notice?

@zil the Law of Moses was built upon with a higher law, correct? this is not the same as introducing an eternally true principle and then restricting the practicing of it until further notice

@zil the Law of Moses was never an eternally true doctrine. God did not intend for "an eye for eye" to be practiced forever.

@zil I agree. You can't really talk statistics when you're talking about a God of miracles. More than talking statistics though, I'm talking about living in the real world, where I see the majority of people following less than righteous lives. I see the wicked tendencies of man affecting all of us. The majority of people who live on this Earth long enough will be pulled down by these wicked tendencies. And to think that all the children who die before reaching 8 years old aren't subjected to this mortal test and any other test is hard for me to comprehend. The Bible says there will be very few who make it to the Celestial Kingdom. And how many children have died before reaching 8 years old? 100 million? 1 billion? It's a huge number whatever it is. I used the kindergarten class in my original post to break it down on a more simple, comprehensibly level. Can we not discern the temperament and level of obedience a child will have in this life by the time they are 8 years old? Even though a child's disobedience does not translate into committing a sin, you can gauge a general trajectory path for a lot of kids. Sure kids continue to develop and we are continually surprised who they may turn out to be, and their early behaviors are not always indicative of how they will live out the remainder of their lives, but for a lot of kids you know early on who will be the stubborn ones, the easy to raise, the more difficult, the sharing, the selfish, and so forth.