The Land of Make-Believe

For [D. W.] Winnicott, play is acknowledged as other than reality: children grant that they are must playing. Play grants itself the right to treat a spoon as a train, and a parent is barred from asking whether the spoon really is a train. But once play is over, the train is again a mere spoon. Still, play is more than fantasy or escapism. It is the construction of a reality with personal meaning. It takes something from the everyday world - a spoon - and transforms it into something more - a train.

Mormon Barbie's sacred garments.

In Winnicott's terms, play is a 'transitional' activity. It provides a transition form childhood to adulthood, from the inner world of fantasy to outer reality, and from the known outer world to the unknown one. Just as a child clings to a physical object - a teddy bear - to create a safe world that then enables the child to explore with confidence the outside world, so an adult clings to an internalized object - a hobby, an interest, a value, or, I suggest, a myth - that then enables the adult to deal with a much wider world. Just as the child knows that the teddy bear is not Mummy yet clings to it as if it were, so the adult recognizes that the myth is not reality yet adheres to it as if it were. Myth is 'make-believe'. (Robert Segal, Myth: A Very Short Introduction, pp. 138, 139)

Mormon-style robes of the Holy Priesthood.

Admissions

So the LDS Church has finally admitted that:

"None of the characters on the papyrus fragments mentioned Abraham’s name or any of the events recorded in the book of Abraham. Mormon and non-Mormon Egyptologists agree that the characters on the fragments do not match the translation given in the book of Abraham [...]. Scholars have identified the papyrus fragments as parts of standard funerary texts that were deposited with mummified bodies. These fragments date to between the third century B.C.E. and the first century C.E., long after Abraham lived [...]."

But the brethren really want you to doubt your doubts on this one and believe that the words really are magically from Abraham and not from Joseph Smith's ass.

We should all definitely pray about it.

Words that mean everything and nothing

Mormons believe that essentially everyone will make it to heaven, but heaven is not created equally. In fact, there isn't just one heaven, there are three, each with its own degree of glory. The highest heaven is the Celestial Kingdom, which is typically compared to the glory of the Sun; the middle kingdom is the Terrestrial Kingdom, which is typically compared to the glory of the moon; and the lowest glory, compared to the brilliance of the stars, is the Telestial Kingdom.

Let's not get too caught up with the fact that this sun, moon, stars hierarchy does not reflect the actual height or distance of these heavenly bodies from the earth (otherwise the stars like Kolob would be our heavenly goal and the moon would be the lowliest of all glories), the comparison relies more on the amount of light given off with respect to our position. Fine.

What's most bizarre and most doubt-inducing for me is the etymology of the kingdoms' names. Calling something celestial means that thing is either like or somehow pertaining to the sky. That works great for the Celestial Kingdom as long as you still believe in the idea of the Firmament and God living in the clouds, otherwise you get stuck trying to reconcile the description of Kolob with current science.

The moon, as it turns out, is a horrible symbol for a place called the Terrestrial Kingdom. Terra means earth in Latin. If you want the moon, call it the Lunar Kingdom. Anyway, just how exactly is the Terrestrial Kingdom supposed to be like or pertaining to the earth? I thought even the lowest degree of glory was supposed to blow our puny earthing minds.

The least glorious heavenly realm is special enough to get a made up name. Telestial, like curelom and cumom, didn't exist as a word until Joseph Smith revealed it to us. The word seems to come from tele-, which is a Greek prefix for distant or far away, but it could also be going back farther to the root teleos, which means the end goal of a completed cycle, so basically the idea of perfecting a circle. If we go with the first possibility we get the notion that the Telestial Kingdom is the "Far Away Kingdom." Far from what? God? Hopefully not too far. If we go with the latter option, the Telestial Kingdom would seem to mean it's the designated end of the Plan of Salvation, but we all know that's not the case - the Celestial Kingdom is where we want to be. Maybe God should have given us his divine Adamic names for these places instead of misleading us with Latin and Greek.

It's pretty confusing. The meanings and explanations of these kingdoms come across as poorly thought out. And don't go to the temple hoping to sort things out. Take the rooms of the Salt Lake temple for example. You have the Creation [of the earth] Room, Garden [of Eden, which is on Earth] Room, World [a.k.a. Earth] Room, Terrestrial [= of the earth] Room, and the Celestial [heavens/sky/clouds] room. Why are there so many rooms for the same place? Why is there no discussion of the Telestial and Terrestrial Kingdoms in the temple, just a quick entrance through the veil into the Celestial realm? I thought the temple was where we go to learn the details of The Plan, but we're only given a partial view. So much for further light and knowledge!

Sun miracles

God's awesomest miracles happen in the sky. According to scripture the Sun, err... Shinehah miraculously did not set because Joshua prayed that it wouldn't. That's pretty amazing. We all know that the setting sun is really just the Sun fading from our view as the earth spins away from facing it, so saying the Sun stood still actually means the earth stopped spinning, and we know that if the earth were to suddenly stop spinning (coming to a halt in less than 24 hours is extremely sudden for a massive object like the earth to stop spinning at it usual speed of 1038 mi/hr along the equator if you're American or 2670 km/hr if you're not) anything that isn't bedrock would keep spinning around. think about what would happens inside a snowglobe when you stop shaking it - the internal atmosphere keeps shaking and splashing around for a while. We're talking about massive tsunamis and land upheavals that would trash the world worse than the Flood. And yet the holy word of God cannot be wrong! (For anyone tempted to play the "symbolic language" card, please explain how a symbolic reading is supposed to fit the context of this miracle.)

"C'mon, God! Please? We're not done killing people yet."

Then there was that time in 3 Nephi when the Sun set but it was still as bright as noon day. The star of Bethlehem hadn't even shown up yet to help illuminate the earth and some how no darkness fell at all that night. Amazing! What on earth or in heaven could equal the brightness of another star that's only 8 light minutes away from the earth? Don't worry about the science, just believe.

Plains Indians go to Mesoamerica to venerate the cross with the Nephites.

A little cash on the side

Why did the Smith family turn the whole Egyptian mummies and papyri purchase into a money making endeavor? Why in the tours offered by the Smith family did they say so many things about the artifacts that were horribly false? And why didn't they at least stick with the same false information instead of making up new bullshit from time to time? I thought this stuff was supposed to be ancient and sacred.

The leg of Pharaoh's daughter? The one who found Moses? Um... OK, Lucy. Sounds totally legit...

The Celestial Kingdom

Remember how Mormonism is so great because it answers those three really important questions: "Where do I come from?", "Why am I here?", and "Where am I going?"??? Thank God we have such awesome answers to share with the World because that whole Christian thing about there being no Pre-Earth Life and the Afterlife being either Heaven or Hell just didn't make any sense at all!

Mormons have answers! We know what to expect! That's why early on in my mission I really wanted to develop a seriously kick-ass spiritual thought about what's really in heaven to share with our many English class students who would come to the Church twice a week for free lessons.

We've got the three kingdom thing going on so Heaven's totally fair for everyone. Plus! if you make it to the Celestial Kingdom you get to learn and progress on into the eternities! WITH YOUR FAMILY!

"Welcome to Cloud City, Joe!"

We also know that the Earth will "receive its paradisiacal glory" and be turned into a giant Urim and Thummim (similar to one that God currently lives on) that we'll all live on it with Heavenly Father. Just think, you and every generation of your family living on a crystal ball! So cool!

I have to confess I never shared the spiritual thought, though. I just couldn't work it out. I think I got hung up on a few other questions. How will we be learning? Are there classes and stuff like that? Are they going to be more informative than Sunday School, Seminary, Institute, and BYU religion courses? What about all the science we'll have to learn? Will we have to sign up for labs? How is everyone going to live with their family? Will I be in my parents house, stuck with my in-laws, in my own house, or in one of my children's houses? I've heard that we'll still enjoy food even though we don't have to eat. Isn't that a little Hedonistic? Won't we have the power to Priesthood some delicious taste bud action right onto our tongues without all the mess of cooking? Will we still have to shit what we ate? What does the perfect shit look like, a type 4 maybe?

If we get to enjoy the things we enjoyed here on Earth, will they really be just as fun in the next life? I can't imagine riding a horse will be quite as fun when you can go inter-galactic whenever the hell you want, and hiking will be even less of a thrill than say crawling to your friends house when you could be flying a jetpack or something instead. I bet sunsets are going to be a total bore.

What do people do if they're not into the science of making worlds without end? Do they hang around making babies or something? How much baby-making happens in the Celestial Kingdom? If we already know everything down to its most intimate detail, why would we be wearing any clothing? Will we be so prudish that we'll be bothered by someone's nudity even when we are perfectly aware of each and every molecule of every fluid pulsing through each other's genitals? That might take the thrill out of climaxing.

Just what exactly do we expect of the next life? How does anything that has been revealed about it not sound absolutely absurd, like the kind of silliness little kids might dream up? What's really to look forward to? Why is hanging with the Father so great? Is he particularly funny or entertaining? Is he a good hugger? Is he just so smart that merely standing next to him makes our brains bigger? What is it we want from Heaven?