Pre-life - Standing on the fence?

[Carborendum]

8 hours ago, mikbone said:

yeah, the term fence-sitters is frowned upon due to its prior association with racist commentary.

This is just another wokeism based on zero facts.  It is born from false equivalence and ignorance of the true etymology.

[laronius]

Having been alive for possibly eons of time before coming to earth I don't think people just suddenly change when coming to earth. So if a person is perdition here those seeds were likely planted long before now. When God presented his plan to His children it was for all of them, not just those who met some righteousness threshold. Even Lucifer was invited to be born into mortality but he and others rejected it. I have no problem believing that there were others who were just as bad but decided it was better to be born than not.

[mikbone]

 

3 hours ago, Carborendum said:

This is just another wokeism based on zero facts.  It is born from false equivalence and ignorance of the true etymology.

Fence-sitter is also not found in the standard works.  So I’m not going to use it to besmirch a group of people that don’t have my point of view.

Lukewarm is a better term.

But then again lukewarm is used in reference to members of the church.

Fence-sitter is almost always used in LDS lexicon to describe a group of people in the pre-mortal existence that squeaked thru into mortality.

It didn’t happen that way.

Edited January 9 by mikbone

[Anddenex]

11 hours ago, zil2 said:

How do you get that out of the text?  That's not how I read it.  The "for thou was also before the world." isn't saying, "You were Perdition before the world."  It's saying "You existed before the world - in the pre-mortal realms."  Because Cain, like all of us, is an eternal being, his loss is a tragedy.

Bruce R. McConkie may have interpreted it the way you do, though that portion of his talk was not delivered in General Conference (watch the video, he skips that and the following two paragraphs).  I couldn't find anyone else who interpreted it this way.  Anyway, I'm not seeing it.

Meanwhile, read this thread - holy rampant unsupported speculation, Batman!

Every time I read this verse, I have interpreted it the same way @mikbone that its referencing Cain's proclivity in the pre-mortal life.

The connection is Satan being the father of lies and Cain being the father of "his" lies (I understand his to be Satan's lies). We know from scripture that Satan was a liar from the beginning (pre-mortal).

I see the dual meaning:

1. You were just like all of us existing before this world

2. Like Satan, you were a liar in the beginning and his proclivity lead him to be Perdition (which could also mean he always had the heart of Perdition if the right circumstance resulted).

"was also" what? "before the world." The verse is speaking about lies (a liar) and Perdition, so the "what" for "was also" makes sense it is referring to our pre-mortal life and Cain's tendency toward lying and Perdition.

I'm good with either interpretation or both, because it isn't fully clear, but someone will say, "Oh its perfectly clear," and give their justification and that is fine also. I'm just more saying he isn't the only person to interpret it this way. I have heard this interpretation given by multiple people also.

[Anddenex]

2 hours ago, laronius said:

Having been alive for possibly eons of time before coming to earth I don't think people just suddenly change when coming to earth. So if a person is perdition here those seeds were likely planted long before now. When God presented his plan to His children it was for all of them, not just those who met some righteousness threshold. Even Lucifer was invited to be born into mortality but he and others rejected it. I have no problem believing that there were others who were just as bad but decided it was better to be born than not.

As far as we know, the only threshold was accepting Christ. We can also see how polarized humans can be with topics, policies, and decisions. With our given moral agency, the outcome was for sure -- stay with Satan remain as you are -- or choose Christ and have the "potential" to become like the Father. I'm amazed with the assured outcome for Satan that people followed him, but as in this life, we have people who will make a choice for the blessing that is seen, and deny the blessing that is not see (faith). The earthly reward is seen, so our true nature can be shown (what we always were in the beginning) not what we professed it to be.

So, I agree with you.

Edited January 9 by Anddenex

[Still_Small_Voice]

From my understanding in the pre-existence there were three divisions or parts of the many spirit sons and daughters of God there.  These three parts were the following:

1 - The valiant spirits

2 - The less valiant spirits

3 - The rebellious spirits

The rebellious were cast out with Lucifer and the heavens wept over them.  The valiant and less valiant spirits will enter this life, receive mortal bodies and be tested to see if they will keep their second estate by following Christ.