The Plan of Happiness or The Proposition of 'Bat Shit' Crazy! PART ONE

This is a picture of my family on June 4th, 2011 just after my oldest child's wedding in the Logan, UT Temple. I did not go inside to witness his wedding. It was a painful choice I had to make; six months earlier, I had gone through a 'faith crisis', a 'dark night of the soul' experience, and learned horrifying things about the religion I had loved, raised my children to believe wholeheartedly, and lived with every fiber of my being for 42 years. Those shocking things rocked me to my core, shook my world's foundation, and shattered everything I thought I knew for sure. 

       Because Alex was getting married in the temple, that forced me to ‘come out’ as a non-believer to my friends and my family sooner than I would have liked. I had a current temple recommend. I could attend their wedding. IF, I could pretend I still believed and had a testimony of their myths and fables. My problem was I had to choose between being true to myself, living with integrity and authenticity; Or, witnessing my first child get married and living a lie in order to do it. It was a nauseating choice for me to say the least! I wanted to be there with all my heart. I had been to all of my nieces and nephews weddings in the temple up to this point. But now, I would have to miss my own sons wedding. That sucked!! There is no other way to put it. What mother doesn’t want to see their child get married? I can’t imagine feeling that way. I felt cheated and robbed by the church. I was very angry that they forced my hand. The church’s deception had brought me to this place of pronouncement. It greatly troubled me to have to make that decision. However, integrity won. 

      Fortunately, I made it through my son's wedding very much at peace while I waited on the outside of the temple with our other children. Meanwhile, Randy was on the inside watching their Mormon wedding along with many close and distant family members and friends. I had to wait for hours until they all came outside before I could give Alex and Stacey a hug, or tell them congratulations. I had to shed my happy tears in front of the crowd trying to take pictures. There was no place to give me, the mother of the groom, a moment alone to congratulate them in the privacy of the temple. That is the only part I wish we would have done differently. If I could have had one moment alone with them first, before they faced the crowd of family and friends on the temple grounds, like Randy had had with them, it would have meant so much to me. I don’t regret my decision, and this post is not about why I missed their wedding per se. But rather, it is about what Mormons passionately believe that made it so I had to choose between my integrity or their blessed wedding. 

      I need to explain the fundamentals of what I believed as a faithful L.D.S woman, which is why this post will be in three parts. It is a huge endeavor to explain the 'bat shit' crazy of it all, or The Plan of Salvation, or the Plan of ‘Happiness’ as it is sometimes called in the Mormon religion. Describing this 'plan' is a good way of illuminating what it is that the Mormons believe about why we are here on Earth; and, what we must do in order to go to Heaven after we die. Bare with me, this post will be another LONG rant!

     I will not be sharing the story of Joseph Smith, about how he formed this religion in order to make a living, although that story is the only foundation of the Mormon Church. If that story is untrue, then the whole system crashes immediately. Gordon B. Hinckley, 15^th prophet of the Mormon Church stated, “Our whole strength rests on the validity of that [First] vision. It either occurred or it did not occur. If it did not, then this work is a fraud. If it did, then it is the most important and wonderful work under the heavens” (The Marvelous Foundation of Our Faith, General Conference, October 2002) The ‘first’ vision account would be more accurately stated as the ‘third’ vision account, and it is a mighty important story to the Mormons. It was a big part of my belief system. However, the Plan of Salvation is the most important part to shed light upon. It is these beliefs regarding salvation that were the hardest for me to re-examine, question, and thoroughly inspect. I will disclose ‘the plan’ the best I can, the way it was taught to me while growing up in the church; and, this is what I taught to my children as well. The truth be told, this ‘Plan of Happiness’ made my life quite miserable before I ‘broke’ from my crisis of faith. 

     The Plan of Salvation begins in Heaven where we all lived before coming down to this Earth. This heavenly estate is called the pre-existence, or our first estate. We lived there with our Heavenly Father and our Heavenly Mothers. Yes, you read that right, ‘mothers’. It’s plural; meaning we had more than one Heavenly Mother! Polygamy is practiced in the Mormon version of Heaven! We were their children in spirit form. We wanted to be like our Heavenly parents. We wanted to have a Celestial body too. Our heavenly parents had resurrected, perfected, physical bodies. Heavenly Father had a plan for us to become just like them. He would create an Earth for us to live on where we would obtain a body and be tested to see if we were worthy enough to come back and live with Him again for all eternity.

Mormons believe God was once a man who lived upon a planet similar to this one. God, our Father, achieved Godhood; and, we could too, if we followed His plan for us. Lorenzo Snow, 5^th prophet of the Mormon Church, once said, “As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may be.” God isn’t the same yesterday, today and forever. Our ‘God’ progressed from a mere mortal man into an eternal Heavenly Father. In fact according to Mormonism, there are countless Gods out there creating worlds for their children to live upon and be tested as well. The God of this world is not the only God out there. This cycle of a simple human being developing into a Divine God is repeated over and over ceaselessly.

Heavenly Father would give us all very specific commandments to follow. If we ‘sinned’ by breaking His rules, He would send us a redeemer. Jesus Christ would live a perfect life so he could atone for the sins of those people who would believe in Him and do His work. A human sacrifice, a BLOOD sacrifice, would have to be made in order for the believers to be worthy and clean once again. God would KILL his one perfect son, shedding his innocent blood, in order to save our imperfect Souls. Those who refused to believe in Christ would suffer for their own sins in Hell for a while, and then they would be resurrected too. God will order all Souls to live in one of three different kingdoms in Heaven, or to go to Hell. What kingdom we get to live in for eternity depends on how we live our lives here on Earth.  

I was taught that Jesus is our oldest brother, the first begotten child of God in the Spirit form from God’s most favorable wife. Lucifer is our brother as well. I’m guessing he’s from another mother. Lucifer had a curious idea. What if he came down to Earth and forced us all to behave? No sinning would be allowed under his plan. He would make us all choose the right, and then no Souls would be lost. Through Lucifer’s plan, we would all return back home to live with God in our perfected bodies and progress toward Godhood together. He would do this for God with one condition. Lucifer wanted all of God’s glory, and power, in exchange for saving everyone. Heavenly Father didn’t like Lucifer’s plan; so, this lead to a war in Heaven.

A war in Heaven is an oxymoron. If it is truly Heaven, how could there possibly be a war? This part of the story always bothered me. According to this tale, we were all fighting for either God’s plan or Lucifer’s plan. Heaven was divided between Christ and Lucifer. In the end, God’s plan won. However, 1/3 of God’s spirit children chose to follow Lucifer. They were all cast out of Heaven, and sent down to the Earth to tempt man to commit sins. Lucifer became Satan, the fallen angel. The Spirit children that followed him lost all possibility to have a body like God’s. They would forever be in spirit form and in Satan’s power as his demons. They could never advance any farther spiritually. Where we all stood during this war in Heaven determined the kind of life we would have here on Earth. I was taught that because I was born into a Mormon family, it meant I had been a valiant spirit child of God in the pre-existence fighting for God’s plan.

          Growing up in the church, I was taught that those who were born with physical, or mental, handicaps were not as valiant in the fight against Lucifer. They didn’t follow Lucifer when he lost the war, but they most likely did fight for him. That is why they were given a body with a disability. They accepted those bodies gladly because they were just so happy to have a physical body; it was that important. Nowadays, the church teaches the exact opposite idea, that these Souls were extra valiant in fighting for God, not Lucifer, in the pre-existence. They are rewarded with lesser quality bodies, or disabilities, because they were so courageous in fighting for God, and for Jesus, they no longer needed to be tested here on Earth. People with those kinds of mental and physical disabilities get a free ticket into the Celestial Kingdom because of their handicaps.

          Now that I have daughter with DS, I have experienced people from the Mormon faith who believe both ways. I have encountered older men in the church looking at her in disgust because of her disability, which truly broke my heart; and, I have been confronted by older women, after I left the church, telling me that I will never be with my precious daughter after we die. Since she is guaranteed to go to Heaven, because of her DS, and I am guaranteed to go to Hell, because I am an apostate. Raising a child with special needs has definitely helped open my eyes. I can see how people cling to their preconceived ideas about others, whether or not they are accurate or even true. I was also taught that people with a darker skin color were cursed. A darker skin tone was either a curse God could use on mankind because of their wickedness here on Earth; or, this curse could have come because of actions taken in the pre-existence, during the war in Heaven, that were not courageous in behalf of God’s quest.

          The Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith assures us, “There were no neutrals in the war in heaven. All took sides either with Christ or with Satan. Every man had his agency there, and men receive rewards here based upon their actions there, just as they will receive rewards hereafter for deeds done in the body. The Negro, evidently, is receiving the reward he merits.” This is precisely what I was taught at church and in seminary while growing up about people of color. They are receiving the reward they merit. I just want to be clear. I no longer believe these racist ideas concerning people of color! I am grateful for the beautiful diversity of the inhabitants of this planet! And, I am sorry that I ever considered these beliefs about race to be true. I love this simple statement from Dr. Brian Weiss about why some people have a difficult life. He says, “Sometimes a Soul will choose a particularly challenging lifetime in order to accelerate its spiritual progress, or as an act of love to help others who are also going through a difficult lifetime. A hard life is not a punishment, but rather an opportunity!” I agree with Dr. Weiss. I would rather believe that a Soul has chosen the life they have for their very own, very personal, specific reasons for growth than believe in a ‘God’ who is punishing or rewarding Souls based on actions taken in a so called ‘war in Heaven’.

          Joseph Fielding Smith was the 10^th prophet of the church. He was the son of the 6^th prophet of the church, Joseph F. Smith who was the son of Hyrum Smith, the brother to the original prophet Joseph Smith. George Albert Smith, 8^th prophet of the church, was a distant cousin of the founder Joseph Smith as well. When you look at early church history, it is very clear that Joseph Smith Jr. was building a family business which just happened to be a religion. It’s not what you know, but who you know in this church, and how much money you contribute to it. Many of the apostles and prophets are related still today.

          To clarify further that this belief of actions taken in the pre-existence determines where you will be placed here on Earth, here is a statement from Prophet George Albert Smith. On August 17^th, 1949, the first presidency of the church issued a formal statement about blacks and why they were excluded from holding the priesthood at that time, saying in part, “The position of the Church regarding the Negro may be understood when another doctrine of the Church is kept in mind, namely, that the conduct of spirits in the premortal existence has some determining effect upon the conditions and circumstances under which these spirits take on mortality and that while the details of this principle have not been made known, the mortality is a privilege that is given to those who maintain their first estate; and that the worth of the privilege is so great that spirits are willing to come to earth and take on bodies no matter what the handicap may be as to the kind of bodies they are to secure; and that among the handicaps, failure of the right to enjoy in mortality the blessings of the priesthood is a handicap which spirits are willing to assume in order that they might come to earth. Under this principle there is no injustice whatsoever involved in this deprivation as to the holding of the priesthood by the Negroes.”  Obviously, the Mormon Church has a very racist past. It becomes especially apparent when you study Brigham Young’s discourses; he was the 2^nd Prophet of the church, the one who lead the saints west.

          Mortality was given to those who ‘kept their first estate’ meaning they didn’t completely follow Lucifer in the war in Heaven. Everyone who has ever lived on earth kept their first estate. However, the conditions of which we are born into here on Earth depend upon our actions during that war in Heaven. Some were valiant, and were rewarded for that here on Earth by being born into a Mormon family. Some were not valiant, and they received their punishments here on Earth. That is how the church justified excluding blacks from the priesthood for so long. It was just God’s will and there was nothing they could do to change it. That excuse sounds very familiar. In another post, I will shed light upon why they did finally change this prejudiced policy regarding people of color.

So, Jesus Christ had won the war in heaven. He would make the human/blood sacrifice God required in order for us to return home. Every one needed to come to Earth to obtain a body, and to receive the eternal, life saving temple ordinances that would bring us back into God’s presence. Those were the next steps in our advancement towards becoming like God.

God promised to show his children the way back to Him, through scriptures, prophets, and the Holy Ghost, because living on Earth meant we would forget everything about living in Heaven with our Heavenly Parents, and the war that had been fought there. We were coming to here to be tested. If we remembered our life in the pre-existence then that wouldn’t be a fair test. According to Mormonism, we only get one shot at Earth life. That’s it. No reincarnation allowed. This Earth life is an assessment, one that determines our fate forever. While on Earth, Satan and his followers are trying to entice us to do wrong things and to make wrong choices. According to the Mormons, we really do have angels and devils constantly by our side influencing us to do good or evil works. Earth life is merely a test, a test that we only get to take once, and which determines our fate forever.

Part two and three will cover Jesus's atonement, the millennium, Judgement day, the three Kingdoms of Heaven, and outer darkness. It's going to be a wild ride! 

Happy New Year!

Namaste!

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