Eternal Perspectives

Birth and death are parentheses that mark our current state of being. We call it life. Many with any sense of awareness will ponder the meaning of it.

Philosophy can't answer the questions of death and eternity and neither can science at this point. Science will never be able to tell us the purpose of life.  It is a theological matter.  Is there a God or not?  The same thing happens to all of us when we die no matter what we individually might think or believe.  It is not an arbitrary thing according to our personal whims or any undefined individual belief systems. How can you find that answer?

The earth's recorded written history is only around 6000 years old. Why isn't it 100,000 years old or millions of years old?  How old is the past after all? Some scientific theories speculate that the cosmic horizon is some 13.8 billion years ago and so began the universe as we know it. It is just theory and speculation, however, the past would go beyond that in a never ending path.

Where do we begin to contemplate eternity? To what do we compare it? Can you imagine a ping pong ball in the ocean? This doesn't even begin to compare to the earth in the infinite cosmos where it floats. We are chained by gravitational forces that we can't see to a sun that gives us life in a finely balanced environment. This is in a galaxy so large and surrounded by a sea of galaxies we can scarcely comprehend.

Archaeologists speculate as to the development of humans, but they don't really know. After all, they are only digging on a single planet in a universe so vast it is less than a child in a sandbox.

Some scientists tell us that the process of formation of the earth is hundreds of millions, if not billions, of years old. How is it that we only came to a state of being able to write sufficiently to record our history six millennia ago? Do they suppose that any have unlocked the mysteries of the universe in the last two hundred years?

When I was a young man and did some backpacking in the mountains of Idaho, the clear nighttime sky would reveal the infinite stars. I would ponder where I could go if I traveled a billion miles. I later learned that not even to the nearest star beyond the sun, which is about 23 trillion miles. (4.88 light years)

How long had time gone on before I was born and how long would it go after I die? It was obvious to me that eternity was all around us. This life is a subset of that eternity, a mortal journey surrounded by an infinite past and endless future.  If there is a God over all this, would he, or she, they or it be like? 

If choices and actions do not find meaning in the eternity all around us, are we not missing an important part of the equation of life? Can we even begin to develop a full purpose without this knowledge?

You don't need to be a brilliant mathematician to figure it out. You just have to see where you really are.  Factor in that over the next 100 years or so, six billion people will die from all of the various causes and be replaced with hardly a ripple in society.  You don't need to be a prophet to see the end of your life on earth.

Our minuscule planet is in a solar system in a galaxy free floating in an endless sea of galaxies traveling at 1.2 million miles an hour. They are so far away from each other, it will be billions of years before we would approach another.

I didn't even begin to ask myself, "what if my space travels were for a trillion miles or a hundred trillion or a billion trillion?" It didn't cross my mind to think of what had happened a hundred trillion or billion trillion years ago.

Most of the speculating scientists have some eight to twelve years of post-secondary education and only a few decades of experience. They don't use trillions in their theories when contemplating the unending nature of space and eternity. How can the elements of creation not be timeless? Matter cannot be created or destroyed. Creation exnihilo or creation out of nothing is a theory of faulty theology not scientists.

The math of the cosmos is for the most part out of our daily reasoning, and so most people don't even bother to contemplate it with any real intent.

People factor out death and live life in a fog of limiting views, pursuing routines that preoccupy their every moment. The bubbles of metal, wood, and glass, of cars, planes and buildings that we live in give us a false sense of power and security that is more temporary than we know.

The theoretical concepts developed by philosophers and theologians regarding the cosmological equation of no beginning and no end to space or time are often contradictory.  Constructed on on mystery and incomprehensible creeds causing people to be even less inclined to think in eternal terms. 

If the heavens are in fact endless, then the only theological conclusion that makes sense is that God's creations are also endless.

The philosophical conclusions of theologians have been that for all of eternity God did nothing and then appeared on a whim, about 6000 years ago decided to create people. The age and creation of the universe and this planet are debated among scientists and orthodox theologians inconclusively in their respective fields.

Theological scholars in contemplating the existence of a divine being have looked to their own imaginations.  Because they had a book that said there was a creator of this vastness they needed to find a way to fit some of the descriptions.  In their limited vision, they have developed a one planet creator with limited ability to create and save souls. This being they say cannot create after its own kind as this would somehow introduce conflict.  How could this be if God is love?

Is God really a being like the deity of creedal sectarian scholars? Was the natural order of the heavens a single incorporeal intelligence enjoying a solitary existence for eons of eternity?  

If we are the result of God living and creating in his image, even that of the natural family for all eternity why would scholars think it just started six thousand years ago? Why would Christian scholars put limits on God saying he does not bring salvation to his children on worlds without end in an endless universe.

Their doctrinal conclusion is that salvation is limited to the beings on this planet and no others. It seems not logical that the theologians of the orthodox persuasions could conclude that God had saved no beings until this earth was created if he were, in fact, an eternal being.

The orthodox theology to which the vast majority of scholars hold is that God only created this planet with life on it. Because they claim that only the Bible is the word of God unto salvation and it makes no mention of other planets with life on them. 

They limit God's power to create and they also limit his love and salvation to a finite system of saving souls. They claim that he is incapable of producing after his own kind.  The gender pronoun his is used because that is what scripture attributes to God. Their doctrinal conclusions, however, contradict this as they claim God is actually genderless, celibate and single. An eternal bachelor of sorts.

The Orthodox concept of salvation consists of a limited number of souls that will praise and worship a being that should by all rights need no praise or worship. Many are condemned to an eternal torment in hell is what they teach. Such assignment could only possible after they were created. What kind of being would create something, like a person with the possibility that their life would make them worse off than before they were created?

Of course, science has shown the fallacy of the one planet conclusion and common sense should dispel the other myths. Orthodox scholars are realizing the fallacies of their theological positions and now look for ways to use the truth of science and not lose control of the mysterious deity they have imagined. At one time they burned people at the stake for thinking that the cosmos were unlimited.

They have closed both God's mouth and the heavens in their theological seminaries. They limit God's word to a single book. They deny the biblical pattern of prophet-leaders by which the information in the Bible came to be.  Now their only credentials are their seminary degrees and the honors of fellow theological professors. They neither have nor claim authority from God but attribute their authority to the Bible itself since it can't stop them from assuming it.

By determining that there is only one book wherein deity speaks they claim themselves to be his mouthpiece. They say that prophets are no longer necessary and their scholarship is the way to know God.

Call it science or religion, truth exists on a level that is a holy order of knowledge and power when it comes to eternal creation.  It is guarded and held only by those that adhere to covenants and laws of eternal and immutable existence. Love is the driving force of its power and holiness is its guardian.

There are natural building blocks that are the substance of eternity. Man's intelligence is one of them. They exist because they do. Some of the elements we are familiar with and some of which we are not.  They exist in endless supply. There are elements that are organized to be acted upon and intelligence of our soul even an eternal will or ego is brought to life to act upon them. 

The infinite galaxies that we see in the visible expanses of space through powerful telescopes were not brought into existence out of a void for no purpose. The elements of creation have always existed in an infinite supply. Through powers held by God to direct the elements, they can be organized and brought to a habitable form like our earth.  The process isn't magic.

We as mortals do create in a similar fashion in our creations of buildings and cars and anything we build.  We don't make them out of nothing. The same with the creation of other humans.  They are in the likeness of their mortal parents.  It is science, not magic.

One of the most wonderful of understandings is who we are as eternal beings.  Where did we come from if we were not created out of the nothingness of a void?  We are literal sons and daughters of heavenly parents, created in their image, male and female by the power of their union. 

The substance of our souls, our eternal intelligence, our ego, our will, like the elements of the cosmos is individual and endless in supply.  We refer to it as intelligence for the fact that it is capable of progressing.  How does it exist?  It just does. It is truth and light, an energy of which we are not yet acquainted. The full nature of its existence has not yet been revealed.

Mortality is the phase of testing for eternal beings.  It is the subset of eternity where we demonstrate whether or not we will honor covenants and heavenly eternal laws and prepare to receive the greatest power of all.  That of eternal increase in the likeness of our Creator. 

This would include I imagine the power and the ability to organize the unorganized elements of infinite space into worlds. It would seem that is what God does. Creating worlds to be inhabited for the purpose of advancing the souls of creation for all eternity. What else would we be doing? Endless kingdoms of boundless proportions. There is no reason for them not to exist.

Creation is endless and God's desire is to give all that he has to those that would follow him and his ways.  He has no limits in that respect.  They are the highways of the universe. The higher ways of living and being.   They lead to eternal happiness. The eternal love of parents for their children and being able to progress to their greatest potential is their purpose.

Prior to 1820, the common theological teachings of creation were that things were spoken into existence on a one-time basis. Why then were the endless galaxies created if not to be inhabited by intelligent beings?  

In 1820 a seeker of truth, a young man named Joseph Smith wanted to know which religious denomination was correct.  Confused by the myriad of Bible based denominations, philosophies and divisive contentions of then current Christianity, he decides to resolve his confusion by turning to prayer. Here is a short video of his experience. Here is the story.

His testimony of the answer, is that God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to him. They are actual people, glorified and exalted. We are actually created in their image.

God gave him understanding and revelations that any person can study and then follow the pattern of turning to God for answers. We only seek to teach those that are looking for truth.

A second witness of Christ was given.  A companion to the first. The Book of Mormon testifies that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.  It confirms the testimony of the Bible and clarifies that errors that have developed from uninspired scholars.

Many more prayers were offered by Joseph Smith and events followed that one can read about in his history.  The result is that the theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was and is quite distinct from that of the orthodoxy that had existed for thousands of years. 

The wonder of eternity isn't that God is a solitary self existing mystery but that He lives in the family unit. His fatherhood is real and literal. Motherhood is co-eternal with it. The prophet taught that God is an eternal creator and not alone in the universe as the only glorious exalted being. 

The family unit as we know it is patterned after the likeness and image of God.  Whether it began a hundred trillion years ago or has no beginning which we cannot fathom, it is the natural existence of life in the universe. 

It is a course of never-ending love between actual people, exalted and glorious beings capable of giving life forever and creating endlessly.