It’s a terrible discredit to label LDS with the ole “Believe as we or go to hell” stigma when it is we (rather Christ) who are the ONLY ones with a plan of salvation which covers every inhabitant of this world from Adam/Eve to the last born at the end of the millennium. Whether living now on earth, or now in heavens. Would Christ’s true church exclude anyone from salvation? No! The above verses does not ignore Christ’s saving ordinances, The purpose of LDS temples is to provide Christ’s saving ordinances to all those who have ever lived on this planet.First of all, why would Adam need a "plan of salvation" if the most prestigious Mormon university is named after somebody who taught for over 25 years that "Adam is God???"
Secondly, do you want the short bubble-burster version as to why it's not possible for the Mormon "retro salvation" plan to work, or the longer version?
Well, here's both: Elsie said it in a simple nutshell about three months ago: Logically; this is IMPOSSIBLE, for all of the NAMES of these people are NOT accessable and will NEVER be accessable. THEREFORE; the MORMONic ritual of Baptism for the Dead is a definite FALSE teaching.
Here, was my longer version recaptured below...note especially what I've bold-faced:
Are you serious? You think pre-Gutenberg printed records will drop out of the sky, or be dug up etched in golden plates in Hill Cumorahs all over the world? You seriously think that the vast records of people in the Dark Ages and before the Dark Ages, down to their very birth name (required for Lds baptisms), will be found? (If not, then drop this silly idealism of "saving" whoever has ever lived!!! It's a false ideal part of a false hope of a false gospel. You & Lds leaders make this magnanimous appeal to "fairness" that ALL will have the opportunity to receive the gospel in the after-life, except Mormons then never seem to get around talking about the "fine print" of their claims & this legal obligation...* "uh, it's kind of dependent upon us finding all their birth records & such...you know B.C...early A.D....dark ages...unliterate people...etc. etc. etc.")
It’s a terrible discredit to label LDS with the ole “Believe as we or go to hell” stigma...
Lds believe that "...hell...is a temporary state in which spirits will be taught the gospel & have the opportunity to repent & accept ordinances for them that are performed." (True to the Faith, 2004, official Lds publication, p. 81)
Now what's wrong with this statement?
(1) It negates Hebrews 9:27 "For it is appointed for man to die once, and then the judgement"
(2) It creates a false sense of security for earthly man: "Oh, I can repent AFTER I die"
(3) In light of what I said above -- the vast majority of Dark Ages & before will never have their records found, how can the Lds church turn around and say this is MANDATED for EVERY spirit before they can be judged? Joseph Smith taught that "ALL those who have not had an opportunity of hearing the Gospel, and being administered unto by an inspired man in the flesh, MUST have it hereafter, BEFORE they can be finally judged. (Lds Presidents book on Smith, p. 471)
(4) Lds assume not only can they arrange eternal relationships with God and Jesus Christ post-death, but they can do marital match-making for the deceased. (Someone start the Halloween Morg music): "In the temple, we can perform ALL the ordinances necessary for the exaltation of those who have died. This includes temple marriage." (Official Lds teaching pub -- Gospel Principles, p. 248) [Yeah, all: Think of The Addams family performing ghoulish eternal wedding rituals for the dead]
(5) It treats mere men as "saviors". Citations from former lds "prophets":
...we are the only people that know how to save our progenitors, how to save ourselves, and how to save our posterity in the celestial kingdom of God;...we in fact are the saviours of the world..." (Lds "prophet" John Taylor, Journal of Discourses, vol.6, p.163).
"... mortals have to be saviors on Mount Zion, acting by proxy for the dead." (LDS "prophet" Joseph Fielding Smith, The Way to Perfection, p. 325)
"We know something about our progenitors, and God has taught us how to be saviors for them by being baptized for them in the flesh, that they may live according to God in the Spirit." (LDS "prophet" John Taylor, March 20,1870, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 14, 3/20/1870)
a plan of salvation which covers every inhabitant of this world from Adam/Eve [n00b]
Logically; this is IMPOSSIBLE, for all of the NAMES of these people are NOT accessable and will NEVER be accessable [elsie via colofornian]
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My favorite faith promoting rumor when I was LDS was that “so and so” did their genealogy ALL the way back to Adam.
ROFL. And I heard this from several different people.
I pointed out to one of them that this was impossible, that at a minimum...
1) birth and death records were not kept for most of history.
2) the linguistic barriers even if they had been.
3) many cultures that did not keep any type of written records and the earliest written records are always economical rather than biographical.
4) and then the names of those who existed before the invention of writing.
He just kept responding, “well I KNOW they did and I have a testimony it is possible”.
Eyeroll.
It will never be possible.
This is how I understand it anyway - it could change.)