2: The Tangents and Confessions of Glenn Ostlund

Maybe…. but there is a reason High Priests sleep through that third hour on Sunday.

- That’s too bad.  Oh well.  Sorry John!

- This guy is one of those guys who had to shave by lunchtime to take a test.  I never had that problem as I didn’t hit puberty until sometime on my mission. 

- I’ve put a bunch of my oddball theories in previous comments.  I think my favorite one so far is the one about the Holy Ghost being an office, rather than an actual ‘God’, so Heavenly Father could delegate all the prayer answering and guidance.  I mean… what are all the faithful doing before they receive their thrones of glory?  

This honestly went into overdrive for me when I encountered the writings of Avraham Gileadi.  I was really disappointed to hear he got exxed. 

I’ll say to you what one of my goodie-goodie friends said to me when I decided not to go to a church school: “If you were living your life right you wouldn’t have a problem following the rules.” 

Wow. You hepcat.

I acknowledge the simplistic beauty of the idea of a God who has “been there done that” and wanting us to come along just as a parent can see their children advancing along the same path they did. I just don’t see how Mormonism helps. If anything it teaches that the trivial is important, lying is noble, and the institution itself is what is important, not people.

That’s what I meant by Mormonism, and for that matter all religion, being very human and un-Godlike. A God would not need ritual. He could present the facts to the dead and say all who agree move to this side of the room, and all who don’t move to the other. The ordinances, if they are really needed, could be done en masse and there would be no need for Temples etc. The church already acknowledges that this will be done for those who’s work can’t be performed in this life. So, temples are there to control the living, and the main sticking point it seems is tithing. You can’t lie when records are kept. Tithing is needed in part to build and maintain temples which are there to control the living and force people to pay money if they want to attend the temple. No God has anything to do with this I am certain.

Many of the beautiful ideas of eternal progression were being discussed at the time Mormonism was established, especially amongst Freemasons. Very little of Mormon doctrine is original, and that part which made Mormonism unique is being eroded by people like Hinckley.

I mentioned how I saw the humanity and absurdity of Mormonism by thinking how a perfect parent would act. Would a perfect parent erase the  memories of his children, send them to a place where the punishment begins at birth for some who were less that valiant, where they have less chance of being valiant and hearing about him in this estate, and placing them in families where the idea of Christ as redeemer and God will never be discussed? Would a benevolent parent use someone like Joseph Smith to bring the information needed for salvation to the entire world? What’s the point of erasing our memory at birth if you are to send information that has been erased to a few prophets who also spout hate and demonstrable lies? How is that a fair test? Talk about a disinformation program! 

There is also the problem of perfection and eternal progression being mutually exclusive concepts. Eternal progression sounds nice until you think that means the guy running the show is still learning. It also places into question the obsession with perfection here on Earth. Mormons don’t believe God is perfect yet (in some of their doctrine) so why the pressure on us humans?

Anyway, I just wanted to say that the ideas of Mormonism that seem nice were being discussed in other faiths at the time of “restoration”, and even these, when you really examine them, are problematic and human.

Take care Glenn.