So you got married in the temple and now have kids! Great, that's the picture perfect eternal Mormon family...

But then your kids get married and have their own kids. Great, now your eternal grandparents, so cool!

But wait, now those spouses are part of your eternal family too, of course. Well you can tolerate that for your grand kids just fine.

But those spouses have eternal families of their own, right? Other parents, and other grandparents, and other siblings? all also now sealed to you, your kids, and your grand kids for eternity!

Oh wow your eternal family just got pretty big. I hope everyone gets along alright even though there is a high chance you never met your new in-laws until the wedding reception(s).

Eternity will be awesome with all these random adult strangers and your adult kids and adult grand kids and adult grandparents you're so eternally attached to.

It doesn't even sound all that special; I don't know how I ever thought mormonism was so unique! When it's just nonsense.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2017 01:37AM by nonsequiter.

So true, it really isn't that wonderful sounding once you realize that chances are you will barely be able to tolerate one or two people for eternity, let alone a horde of them!

I'm rather attached to my family, truth be told.

Won't mind at all being related to numerous relatives/aunts/uncles/grandparents/etc, nor by degrees.

That gives me something to look forward to as in a very interesting hodge podge of relationships! As long as I have my own home to go home to at the end of the day, and don't have to spend eternity in a big cosmic fishbowl, I'm fine with that.

:)

But will your connection to say your grandparents be the same when the whole bond you have with them gets altered by eternity?

I have a secure emotional mental picture of my own grandma. Seeing her as my age would be odd. Thats different and therefore im not attached to that idea at all even though I do love my family and would like to see my grandma again.

I guess you have nice family then? Some of us not so lucky :(

When I really started thinking about this eternal family thing, I like you saw how the whole thing starts to break down.

The idea of being sealed together under one big umbrella with a bunch of "outsider" adults that are attached to my own children has no appeal.

The eternal family thing is emotionally attractive to those new parents who feel very protective of their babies and young children.

Also very emotionally attractive to people who have lost family members. Especially losing children. Yet I know a couple who lost a set of twins who did not survive their pre-mature births. She said that every year they'd visit the graves and be consumed with fear that even though they were sealed, they might not live a good enough life to be able to raise them.

She said the funny thing after they left the church and figured out where the temple stuff came from, she was finally able to let them go. She figured that if there's an afterlife, we'll all be together as the family of God and we'll all be with our loved ones. If not, we won't know. I have sure seen a lot of mormons who have had a very hard time letting their children go--even "knowing" they were sealed. Some of them being really bizarre. And I know families who have broken apart because of not being able to deal with a death. But often Mormons feel like they're being weak if they really grieve so they try so hard to cover it up.

If you want to go with the only mormons can have eternal families belief, hey, whatever. Just don't spend too much time thinking about it because, no, it makes no sense and falls apart quite quickly.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2017 11:58AM by NormaRae.

The real kicker is what it says in Doctrines of Salvation 288. "Some of the functions in the celestial body will not appear in the terrestrial body..."In the other worlds there will be "neither man nor woman merely immortal beings having received the resurrection."

http://www.mormonmatters.org/2009/04/27/are-we-going-to-be-eunuchs-after-this-life/

people in these other worlds will be like pod people. Like plastic Barbie and Ken dolls the article above asks these questions that are unnerving:

If you make it to the Celestial Kingdom how would you feel when you visit a Parent, Grandparent, Brother, Sister, Son or Daughter in the Terrestrial Kingdom with out any Gender?

If JFS doctrine is correct the word Brother and Sister takes on a whole different meaning in the Terrestrial and Telestial Kingdom?

Is it silly doctrine we should jettison?

If it is still true do you think if we emphasized it more it might motivate members to push harder for the Celestial Kingdom?
Doctrines of Salvation is most of it safe doctrine we can use in our talks and lessons ?

And aren't we all supposed to be on different planets if we are Gods and Goddesses?

It's insane.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2017 10:41AM by cl2.

Exactly. You can't simultaneously all be together and all be off doing your own thing in different solar systems. And also having all of those more distant outliers who are in the long, complex chain of who-is-sealed-to-whom all be eternally together, except that they aren't because they are sealed to some other family group and that family group is sealed to another whole set of groups, and....

But, fortunately for Mormons, everyone can fall back on the ultimate discussion stopper: "It will all be understood in the next life." Nothing has to make sense. And things that are obviously impossible or impracticable --- no need to even think about it.

The whole magic of Mormonism is that logic, reason, common sense, facts, honesty, knowledge --- none of that matters. Only that warm feeling that you get, if you are truly super righteous. And pay your tithing.

"It will all be understood in the next life."

There is no understanding that mess.

I got a big kick out of a Kirby column where he talked about those who don't make it to the CK and those who get to the CK end up living with the people they couldn't tolerate here.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2017 12:26PM by cl2.

You don't really think about this stuff as a kid. Then you grow up and have your own kids. You call your empty-nester parents twice a year, and you realize that's going to be you one day. Except, as cl2 pointed out, it's going to be worse. You'll live across the galaxy from your parents and kids that are doing their own god stuff. How could there be one celestial kingdom full of gods? There would be millions of goddesses constantly changing spirit diapers and a bunch of dipshit gods roaming around with their Bluetooth headsets in constantly trying to keep up with all the lost car key calls coming in. No thanks!

The worst part of the mormon fantasy:

It requires not having a real, honest, open, loving relationship with family here and now, supposedly in exchange for an "eternal" family (which, as you pointed out, is a rather silly idea in the first place).

Got a gay child? They can't be part of your family NOW unless they stop being gay (yeah, right), because no gays in eternity.

Got a non-believing spouse? They can't be part of your family NOW unless they toss out reason and drink the kool-aid -- because no non-believers in eternity.

Mormons trade actual family NOW for an imaginary eternal family.
It's both sad and ridiculous.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

It makes me irritated that mormons (my family) accept this ridiculous fallacy and then find comfort in it.

Its not comforting its indulgent.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2017 02:08PM by nonsequiter.

Oh, come on, you'll have all eternity to figure which BBQ to go to on the weekend--at your parents planet, your grandparents, your great-great-great-great grandparents, your great-great-great-great-grand grandchildren...

...even Hitler, who you discovered is your 14th cousin by way of the proto-Austrian branch of your family.

We're all related--and *that's* why God seems to be absent for long periods of time from the earth: He's either off visiting his favorite BIL who lives over in Alpha Centauri, or maybe His other BIL, the jerk with the really pretentious planet in the Gamma Quadrant.

One interesting thing about doing genealogy is the realization that once you get past a certain number of generations, you don't have a lot in common with your ancestors or with the time and circumstances during which they were alive. I appreciate my ancestors' grit and determination, but I don't always understand their decisions. They are family, but yet also strangers to me.

I want to be with my immediate family in the eternities, but the idea of having a dysfunctional family for all eternity never did appeal to me. It's not heaven if you have to do "what has been done on other planets",meaning: 1-Having a rebel son that throws a fit because he doesn't get his way and so creates misery for your other kids, and 2- having a son who is willing to be abused,tortured, and murdered on behalf of his siblings, and 3-being a cold,distant god who thinks that's okee dokee. Being at odds with about 1/3 of my kids for all time doesn't sound much like love and forgiveness. No thanks.

Jesus was directly asked about marriage in heaven and he stated that we will all be angels in heaven.

Good enough for me.

Ole Joe Smith is a damn liar.

Yep, nonsense. Though I didn't have to ponder eternity to realize the whole family thing is BS.

My folks and siblings spend 0.001% as much time with me and my kids as they do with ward members.

The church is the family, as I expect it would be in the eternities if such a thing were real.

Mormonism is not alone in running into this problem. Other religions have also run aground on it. A sample poser: spouse dies, the survivor remarries, what happens after they all die?

The problem seems to spring from a simplistic view of the afterlife: we can know it, it can be understood in terms of this life, specifics can be given. Which all seems pretty questionable, but when embedded in doctrine for a religion, yep problems like this come up.

Most religions take a very different view: it will be so far beyond what we can understand that putting it in terms of this life is silly.