Joseph Smith taught that a person has the highest potential for happiness when his physical body and his spirit are united.
This is why we were sent to Earth, to gain a physical body. At this moment, my body and spirit are united. When I die, my body and spirit will temporarily be Ununited until the resurrection.
My question is: how do you believe this separation of body and spirit will feel? It sounds a lot like giving a child some candy, letting him taste it, and then taking it away and telling him he can't have it until later. Without my body, will my spirit still have the same capacity for joy that I have now? Or will it be a sort of hell? And if it is a sort of hell, then why does everyone, even the righteous, have to suffer it?
I am a Mormon, but have only been so for around 8 months. I would really appreciate answers- answers supported by GAs, if at all possible.
To Oli. If "To be out of the body is to be with God. " is a true statement, then why does Paul write many times about the reality of the resurrection? Are you saying that we will be with God after death, but then we will be separated from Him again once we are resurrected?
ciao GUI- I asked this question on here exactly because I have seen answers from Mormon posters that answered questions as beautifully as they did here. From my experience, many Mormons have no problems with answering the 'tough' questions when asked directly.
Muhammad was the final prophet of God. All subsequent "prophets" after him, such as the professional con-man Joseph Smith, weren't really prophets at all.
Ask the missionaries, the bishopric, the Sunday school teacher, and/or your quorum leader in your ward on Sunday (or any other day of the week). More likely, search the Scriptures --Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price-- and ponder them as well as pray in order to have an understanding. Even try the Church's web sites http://www.lds.org and/or http://www.mormon.org to find your answers.
If you wanted a question within a particular religion answered, you'd do best to go to a forum concerning that particular religion instead of an open forum like Yahoo! Answers. You aren't likely to find many Mormons with the information you need here. I have to agree with the guy above me, you should probably check out the resources he recommended.
I don't know how to answer this, except to say that if we follow the commandments of Christ, if we endure to the end, etc., then we will be supremely happy, as our Heavenly Father is happy. Yes, I do believe our spirits will be able to feel all the emotions we did in our physical bodies.
I don't think any have really said much about this subject - save that it will be a glorified and perfected body like unto that of Christ and the Father's.
I think both losing and regaining a body will feel like 'coming home again'.
personally I imagine it to be like after spending a day in hard physical labor, coming home and peeling off your muddy, dirty, caked-on clothes - realizing how tired and heavy and dirty you are, and wondering that you didn't notice before, then jumping in the shower to wash off the layers of dirt and sweat and weight.....to feel clean and released again. you move better and faster. you just 'feel' better.
and then gaining a new perfected and glorified body - something like when you get dressed in your best and you KNOW you look good and you could take on the world right now and win.......yea. I think it might feel something like that --- times about a hundred.
Interesting when I was a Mormon I had an out of body experience and I was most happy when my body and spirit were separated, when i was reunited with my body and spirit I was once again depressed.
The scriptures say that prior to the resurrection the dead will look upon their bodies with longing - we
ll miss them for sure.
However this is part of the eternal plan and must be.
Read the following and surrounding verses:
2 Ne 9:6
Hel 14:16
Alma 40
2 Ne 2:11
Alma 42:8-9
Death is called merciful and necessary.
It's a condition of the fall that we are still under and we need to pass through it for the chance to allow all men their opportunity in life as well as allowing ourselves to put off corruption and take up in-corruption.
Baptism is a symbol of many things, one of which being death - likewise death is like a spiritual ordinance and action - it's one step closer to where you want to be!
We've got work to do in the spirit world. We won't be sitting around waiting, we'll be on a mission and like the mission I served years ago I missed my family greatly and was anxious to be back with them, but needed to be where I was. Being separated from them I learned how much I missed them and you could say that my relationship with them was eternally enhanced by my absence.
One thing to remember is that during mortality - we are subject to the fall. Our bodies are significantly more limited than they will be after the resurrection.
IMHO - those who seek after spiritual things will rejoice to have many of the encumbrances of mortality stripped so that we can have a greater spiritual understanding. I also think that we will be so busy that although we will notice the lack of our physical bodies - understanding the promise of the coming resurrection, we will endure and make the best of it we can.
Just as we learn to not fear death because of the promise of the resurrection, we need not fear the natural separation of spirit & body at death because of that same promise.
I do not think that a lack of a physical body is painful. But there is allot that we cannot do or experience. It may be that loosing the physical body for a time may be part of the experience we need to go through.
For the dead had looked upon the long absence of their spirits from their bodies as a bondage (D&C 138:50).
When I got sick (Lyme disease) about a year and a half ago, I thought about what a burden having a body that is weak can be. I was in a lot of pain. Think about the fact that many people's bodies are broken, incapacitated, and diseased--but their spirits are whole. It is a relief to shed them and be rid of pain and limits to movement, speech, and thought. I don't think it will be hell--I think it will be a relief and a refreshment to be done with an imperfect, weak body that is subject to appetites.
The first time I realized that the body and the spirit are NOT the same is the first time I ever saw a dead body. If you ever look at a corpse, you would see none of the life essence there.
However, as promised in the Bible, we WILL be restored to a glorified body someday--a body that will probably have every ability we could possibly imagine.
I dunno--think about it like Pinocchio--Pinocchio could function as a puppet, like we do in imperfect bodies, but he got his dream of being "real" if he proved that he was worthy to be. Cheesy, I know, but I believe that's the way it will be.
LDS Mormons. Joseph Smith said...?
