I read something and its giving me anxiety


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Traveler, I think you're making it too complicated. Free agency is not one choice for the entire journey. Therefore, in pre-mortal existence, the choice was simply - follow the Plan of the Atonement or follow Lucifer's plan. Complete free agency but with perfect knowledge of God. 2/3's of us chose to follow Christ and undergo a test of free agency without perfect knowledge of God. The rest didn't want to go through that.

Now, when we came to earth - we go through the trial by fire... to see if we continue to choose to follow Christ without perfect knowledge of God. Complete free agency. It's the only way we can really know if we are truly one with God on our own choosing, not God's choosing.

I see it as simple as that.

But we all fall short - no one follows G-d by exercise of agency; Not a single one of us. Without the atonement and correct me if I am wrong but there is no sin so great but that we can repent - thanks to the atonement.

So which is our true and real exercise of agency - to sin - or to repent?

The Traveler

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But we all fall short - no one follows G-d by exercise of agency; Not a single one of us. Without the atonement and correct me if I am wrong but there is no sin so great but that we can repent - thanks to the atonement.

So which is our true and real exercise of agency - to sin - or to repent?

The Traveler

I'm not sure how our mortal weakness makes it a "not real agency". When a child learns to walk, for example, he doesn't just start to stand up and walk. He stands up, stumbles along the way, until finally he learns to walk - and even then he might still stumble again. The agency is in the choice to stand up and walk, hoping not to stumble, but if he does stumble, another choice is made to get right back up and not stay fallen. The real exercise of agency is in BOTH taking up the challenge to do good and in the choice to repent if we do end up in sin.

The Atonement fulfills the price of justice - to make the consequences of our choices not so great that there is no path back to God. It doesn't make agency a farce.

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I'm not sure how our mortal weakness makes it a "not real agency". When a child learns to walk, for example, he doesn't just start to stand up and walk. He stands up, stumbles along the way, until finally he learns to walk - and even then he might still stumble again. The agency is in the choice to stand up and walk, hoping not to stumble, but if he does stumble, another choice is made to get right back up and not stay fallen. The real exercise of agency is in BOTH taking up the challenge to do good and in the choice to repent if we do end up in sin.

The Atonement fulfills the price of justice - to make the consequences of our choices not so great that there is no path back to God. It doesn't make agency a farce.

Ah - I see what the problem may be. We are using different concepts of agency. I do not see agency as just any old choice -random or otherwise. From the dictionary here is the definition of agency:

1

a : the office or function of an agent

b : the relationship between a principal and that person's agent

2: the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power : operation

3: a person or thing through which power is exerted or an end is achieved : instrumentality <communicated through the agency of the ambassador>

4: an establishment engaged in doing business for another <an advertising agency>

5: an administrative division (as of a government) <the agency for consumer protection>

Likewise free will means more to me that random choice. For example if we are "tricked" into something - it is possible we have made a choice that is not an expression of our will. Likewise if we are "tricked" we become agents to the one that tricked us and not their agent by choice.

The Traveler

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I have considered a number of concepts about agency in mortality. We agree that what happens in mortality is the result of agency but I am not sure to what extent we alter very much in mortality.

Let me give one possible example. Suppose one is making a trip from Jacksonville Florida to Los Angeles. While we are thinking about such a journey lets think about time. To compare time to distance let us think in terms of 1000 years equal to about a foot. If we are to consider that we are intelligences that have been involved with G-d since the creation of our universe then the distance that resembles that amount of time is about the distance from Jacksonville, Florida to Los Angeles. Our life in mortality should we live around 100 years would then be about one and half inches.

Now let us imagine that on our journey from Jacksonville, Florida to Los Angles California we make many free will choices in our journey so that now we have but 1 and a half inches left. With all the momentum and all our choices - what would it take during that last inch and a half in making choices to make that much difference?

I sometimes wonder if before we came to mortality we “programmed” out our lives. If we determined what our mortal journey would be then there is no loss of agency even if we had no power in this life to change much at all - like the last inch and a half in the journey from Jacksonville to Los Angles.

This would mean that we all understood very well - perhaps as well as did G-d what the results of our mortality would be. That would explain quite well why one part of heaven decided not to even participate in mortality. Thus their journey would not even come close to taking them from Jacksonville to Los Angles - and your scenario of one child left unborn would already have been considered and resolved long before we took on the last inch and a half.

The Traveler

But that is why, I think, most think of this world as a test as opposed to a journey. You are right, our spirits are matured and got to the point where we could make a decision about going onto the next step or not. Do you want to take the final exam or not? Most said yes.

Knowing that this life is a test, there is no reason to think that our mortal existence is any more similar to our "real" lives than would be if I took a final exam in a class and thought the questions on the test were because that is what will happen or has happened in real life. The question about "Jack and Jill traveled on a train going 30 miles an hour and made two ten minutes stops. How far did they travel in 3 hours?" Does not mean that in real life I am going to meet Jack and Jill or travel on a train going 30 miles per hour.

Similarly, our challenges and stewardships given here are for the purposes of testing. During a final exam, I suppose a person can learn some new material but one hopes to go into the test having learned all they can in preparation before the test begins. Part of the test includes what we do with what we are given including learning new material. But we shouldn't interpret that as meaning that what we learn here hasn't already be learned before, what is new is the process of learning, do we learn with spiritual eyes or let the carnal eyes cloud our learning? It is a test of how we learn not what we learn. So, the steps in your metaphor are not the same kinds of steps we took before. This is a different section of the journey. We had to fall to get to this section of the journey.

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Hitler is a very good example of what I am trying to understand. If, as you say, Hitler would be very stupid because of all the bad and not being able to get where G-d is – then the question is -- Did Hitler really execute agency and free will during his mortal life? The other question is – What is the purpose of the atonement of Christ?

When Hitler comes to realize all the “BAD”; I see only two possibilities. Either he very much enjoys all the bad – every bit of it – and has no desire to be where G-d is but rather to be where he can enjoy what he loves doing. Or he very much regrets all the bad – every bit of it – and desires to be rid of his sins and be where G-d is.

The only way I can understand that Hitler does indeed have agency and free will is if all of the BAD – every bit of it was because he carefully considered the possibility and made a clear choice. If he did not knowing make a clear choice – then our scriptures are false and man really does has not have actual and true agency. Man is not all that free to act – but is only subject to be acted upon.

The one good reason is so that man has agency. I wonder if the argument in the pre-existence concerning "no good reason" was the choice of those that divided the Kingdom of Heaven concerning the plan of salvation. If we all did not know the outcome - how could our choice be an exercise of agency and free will?

The Traveler

There is a gradation of knowledge and what is possible. This is why God has to judge our hearts and not just what we did in life. God, knowing what our spirit's desire is and knowing the limitation of knowledge we have in this fallen state, can see our purest of desires in this setting. He can see if we will really do the things we are told and where our heart is. Do we desire immediate gratification, self gratification or are we self sacrificing and obedient?

God is not testing the logic or our reason. That would not be a very good way to test that, to make someone fallen, as if they are under the effects of anesthesia, not their real self, to test their mental capacity. This life is not a test of mental capacity, it is a test of spiritual capacity. The test is between the choice of spiritual matters versus carnal, which side do we desire and to what extent. Logic and mental capacity in having full understanding would cloud the test with people following God for the wrong reasons, i.e. - Satan.

There are many things that we do that are not under our free will but out of survival or a number of other carnal instincts. God takes that into consideration when He judges our choices. We cannot see what those influences are very easily, that is why we cannot judge others. We do not know how much their body versus their spirit tells them to do what they do. If I get hungry on fast Sunday, it is not my spirit that is driving that desire. It is my body, but I listen to my spirit that tells me it is right to follow and obey the teaching of Christ. I make a choice despite the corrupted knowledge and desires my body gives me, I am able to see through the misinformation. The discernment between those things is what is meant by the knowledge of good and evil.

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Im reading a book called My Peace I give unto you.Its about a girl who dies and comes back and the veil is lifted. In her house she sees a man that use to live there and he never made it to the spirit world when he died.He never wanted to leave earth and is stuck here.Can this really happen?? Ive never heard this taught in the gospel. This book is about an LDS family. Gives me great anxiety knowing I might not even make it to the spirit world and that I will be stuck in between worlds. Has anyone else read this book?

Maybe I'm weird, but I actually find this strangely comforting. From what you wrote here, it's not that he was forced to stay "between worlds," but that he didn't want to leave the earth. In a way that is sad, of course, but maybe it also shows that Heavenly Father won't force us to go where we don't want to. Perhaps eventually he will resolve his issues and move on.

This is all speculation, naturally--we won't know for sure until we're there ourselves--but that's one possibility.

Peace, my friend.

HEP

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Ah - I see what the problem may be. We are using different concepts of agency. I do not see agency as just any old choice -random or otherwise. From the dictionary here is the definition of agency:

Likewise free will means more to me that random choice. For example if we are "tricked" into something - it is possible we have made a choice that is not an expression of our will. Likewise if we are "tricked" we become agents to the one that tricked us and not their agent by choice.

The Traveler

Uhm, Traveler, help me out here. It might be that my 3rd language English is not sufficient to get the nuance of what you're saying. I don't see a difference in your definition with how I understand free agency or free will means... Free agency/will is soooo not just random choice. It's an outward expression of who we are or who we want to be - and that can't be random.

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Angel333,

The Spirit World for us is here on earth, all around us (see Chapter 41: The Postmortal Spirit World).

Brigham Young taught that the spirits around us can see us but we cannot see them, unless "our eyes are opened" by God (see Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young [1997], 279-280).

So, it doesn't look like there is much of a choice as far as where we "go" after death. The distictions of "prison" and "paradise" in the Spirit World, are more conditions, or states of our being, rather than distict divisions - one being a state of misery and the other a state of happiness, until the resurrection when we are received into our permanent abode(Alma 40:11-21). Not unlike our conditions right now, the unrepentant experiencing a sample of the misery already, and the righteous experiencing peace and joy dispite their trials (Alma 34:34).

Regards,

Vanhin

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Im reading a book called My Peace I give unto you.Its about a girl who dies and comes back and the veil is lifted. In her house she sees a man that use to live there and he never made it to the spirit world when he died.He never wanted to leave earth and is stuck here.Can this really happen?? Ive never heard this taught in the gospel. This book is about an LDS family. Gives me great anxiety knowing I might not even make it to the spirit world and that I will be stuck in between worlds. Has anyone else read this book?

Yes, it happened to me, twice.

Then I woke up and reality set in.

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Angel333,

The Spirit World for us is here on earth, all around us (see Chapter 41: The Postmortal Spirit World).

Brigham Young taught that the spirits around us can see us but we cannot see them, unless "our eyes are opened" by God (see Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young [1997], 279-280).

So, it doesn't look like there is much of a choice as far as where we "go" after death. The distictions of "prison" and "paradise" in the Spirit World, are more conditions, or states of our being, rather than distict divisions - one being a state of misery and the other a state of happiness, until the resurrection when we are received into our permanent abode(Alma 40:11-21). Not unlike our conditions right now, the unrepentant experiencing a sample of the misery already, and the righteous experiencing peace and joy dispite their trials (Alma 34:34).

Regards,

Vanhin

I agree that most of the descriptions sound like a state of being but what about 1 Nephi 15:28-30; " 28 And I said unto them that it was an awful gulf, which separated the wicked from the tree of life, and also from the saints of God.

29 And I said unto them that it was a representation of that awful hell, which the angel said unto me was prepared for the wicked.

30 And I said unto them that our father also saw that the justice of God did also divide the wicked from the righteous; and the brightness thereof was like unto the brightness of a flaming fire, which ascendeth up unto God forever and ever, and hath no end." ?

And in the same chapter you gave from Gospel Principles it says "The righteous and the wicked are separated" referring to this scripture. Sounds like a physical separation there.

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I thought **this world** is where spirit paradise / spirit prison is located.

Is that not accurate?

The accurate answer is that it has not been revealed exactly where everything is physically located - neither pre-mortal world, spirit world, 3 heavens, nor outer darkness. It can very well be here... Or it may not.

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Joseph Smith explained that matter has existed and always will exist. That means that matter goes back in time from right now infinitely and will go forward in time infinitely, though the configuration of matter was different in the past and will be different in the future.

So even before the Universe existed matter existed. And after this Universe is gone then all the matter in the Universe will exist in some form.

A few billion years is chump change compared to the expansive understanding that Joseph Smith had about matter, and the Multi-Verse that we live in.

Furthermore Joseph Smith explained that there is two types of matter. One is Coarse-Matter, and the other is Fine-Matter. Coarse-Matter is what the temporal body is made of. Fine-Matter is what the spirit is made of.

All things in the Multi-Verse have a potential duality, that is they can have a Fine-Matter spirit component, that has a corresponding Coarse-Matter temporal body component.

Is there such a thing as immaterial matter?

Look closely at the illogical of that phrase. Science has never proven the existence of immaterial matter, yet so-called scientists continue to come up with ivory tower theories that start out with that ridiculous axiom, and yet that axiom has never been proven nor ever will be proven.

This shows you the danger of Global assumptions in the construction of logic philosophical theories. This is something that we all have to watch out for, whether in the research and development of science, or anything else.

What global assumptions do you have that are blinding you to the truth, even though it is right in front of your eyes?

One of the remarkable things about Joseph Smith was he was willing to ask God questions that others would not have asked because he did not merely accept what the sheeple believed, what the crowd wisdom said was the truth, rather insofar as possible Joseph Smith did everything he could to get beyond the superficial and into the very essence of truth, and the logic of truth, and how it all connected.

Is God therefor made of immaterial matter?

Since there is nothing that is made of immaterial matter, then no, God is not made of immaterial matter. Not even his spirit is made of immaterial matter because there is no such thing.

It is by definition impossible. Like 2 plus 2 equals 27, or something like that. God can not say 2 plus 2 equals 27 because that is not true, under any circumstance based on the definition of the sentence.

So God is a God of truth, above all else. Pitiful human minds can barely comprehend what that really means.

Therefor we can clearly see that 95% of religions have been proved wrong, because they hold to a false notion of the Multi-Verse, and also many scientist are proven to be unwise, because they hold to this easily determined FALSE belief. A belief that there is something called "immaterial matter".

Is the Universe speeding away from a central point in the cosmos, or is it going to travel back to its original spot and collapse on itself, sooner or later?

Joseph Smith would know the answer. There is another type of matter in the Universe. It is called Fine-Matter. So therefor there is much energy in the Universe that would not be accounted for by ignoring this truth of the Universe.

So therefor you would expect the Universe to be accelerating away from the central point of the Universe, because of the Extra energy that Fine-Matter provides.

Not just speeding at a constant rate from the center, and certainly not collapsing back on it itself toward the center, or reaching an equilibrium point. No. ACCELERATING because of the Fine-Energy that Fine-Matter provides.

And what did cosmologist find to be true? Who is shown to be right? Who has been vindicated completely in his view of the Multi-Verse?

No one that is who. Not one scientist proposed a model for an accelerating expanded Universe. Yet Joseph Smith's explanations of Fine-Matter imply just that. It is Joseph Smith that has been vindicated, and no one else, or at least no scientist was vindicated by these scientific discoveries.

There is a type of Matter, that is different than Coarse-Matter. This is Fine-Matter. Just as Joseph Smith explained it. And Joseph Smith has been shown to be a correct about the Universe.

The scientist are still so blinded from the truth they call Fine-Matter, Dark-Matter. This another global assumption not warranted by the evidence. There is nothing Dark about so called Dark-Matter. Just because you can not see something does not make it dark.

Joseph explained that the reason you could not see Fine-Matter was because it was too fine. And further he explained that Spirit was made of a material called Fine-Matter, that allowed it to have the properties that it does, to go through walls, and into a Coarse-Matter temporal body and so forth.

I found this interesting and thought i would share it on here.

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The scientist are still so blinded from the truth they call Fine-Matter, Dark-Matter. This another global assumption not warranted by the evidence. There is nothing Dark about so called Dark-Matter. Just because you can not see something does not make it dark.

Joseph explained that the reason you could not see Fine-Matter was because it was too fine. And further he explained that Spirit was made of a material called Fine-Matter, that allowed it to have the properties that it does, to go through walls, and into a Coarse-Matter temporal body and so forth.

I found this interesting and thought i would share it on here.

If one really believes this (bolded phrase), which I do, then it would be impossible and impractical to apply any of our known physics and theories about time-space, and passing through other material etc onto this "fine matter". We know nothing about the physics of this fine matter, we can't even see it.

In other words, the origins of this universe and everything we can see (as limited as that view is) may not have any direct application to the realm in which God lives. Trying to apply our known scientific knowledge onto some other form of matter seems really silly to me. We don't know if fine matter and course matter, or whatever you want to call the two types of matter, can physically exist together. We know the spirit interacts with the body, but how that happens and what the physics and science of that interaction are is unknown.

Would it really make that much of a difference in our gospel, for example, if the body was controlled "remotely" by the spirit? Even if it was controlled remotely, we could still talk about a separation of the spirit, the connection, etc. If we ponder that for a second, then saying that the spirits are all around us, if the body is controlled remotely, would have a totally different connotation. I am not saying that that is what we believe but we don't know how that interaction works. And we can't use our physical science to describe the physics of some other matter.

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If one really believes this (bolded phrase), which I do, then it would be impossible and impractical to apply any of our known physics and theories about time-space, and passing through other material etc onto this "fine matter". We know nothing about the physics of this fine matter, we can't even see it.

In other words, the origins of this universe and everything we can see (as limited as that view is) may not have any direct application to the realm in which God lives. Trying to apply our known scientific knowledge onto some other form of matter seems really silly to me. We don't know if fine matter and course matter, or whatever you want to call the two types of matter, can physically exist together. We know the spirit interacts with the body, but how that happens and what the physics and science of that interaction are is unknown.

Would it really make that much of a difference in our gospel, for example, if the body was controlled "remotely" by the spirit? Even if it was controlled remotely, we could still talk about a separation of the spirit, the connection, etc. If we ponder that for a second, then saying that the spirits are all around us, if the body is controlled remotely, would have a totally different connotation. I am not saying that that is what we believe but we don't know how that interaction works. And we can't use our physical science to describe the physics of some other matter.

I really don't think its by remote, and dark matter may not be the answer either I just saw this statement and wanted to share and get incite on others views. Dark matter does excite me as to think the minute we die we are already in the spirit world. But that could still be even if dark matter is really nothing. Just interest me, I don't find it silly unless you need evidence like that to build a testimony. Also for the most part science does not know much of anything about dark matter just that it in fact it is there. and it has major impact on the stars.

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Yeah, thanks for sharing. That is exactly what I am talking about. I think it is interesting how people try to apply known scientific principles to unknown matter. I like how the article says, "Until now, mainstream science has dealt only with what can be measured and touched." That is a funny statement (at least to me). Science can't deal with things that are not measured and it still hasn't and it never will because that would make it not science, by definition. If it is not measured and reproducible and results in testable and predictable explanations then it really isn't science, especially "mainstream" science.

We tend to believe that "fine matter" can see "course matter" but there is nothing in our teachings that says it is a two way road and to assume so I think goes against what is taught. To promote a concept that the teachings of man and through man's eyes we can see the things of God is not what LDS gospel teaches, in my view.

To me, this is as preposterous as saying I can see ghosts better in the dark or track them with an electromagnetic field meter.

I've heard people say that light itself is the fine matter, like photons. I think these ideas are interesting at best but shouldn't be labeled as possibly the material spirits are made of as we already know that we can't "see" it or measure it in any form through the use of "course matter" worldly instruments and worldly physical laws and theories. The only matter we know that can see this fine matter is through spiritual eyes, as "fine matter" can see "fine matter". But, we have many references to the fact that carnal eyes cannot see spiritual things other than the works of the spirit that are manifested physically.

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