Take, for example, the concept of productivity. When I was just focusing on the dance academy, I was told by many that I wasn't being productive -- because I couldn't fully take care of all of my financial needs. But I had never felt more productive.
Happy and healthy each have their own skews as well.
To be honest, this is where the LDS concept of different degrees of heaven makes sense to me. The LDS idea of heaven is that all mankind is glorified (well except those who explicitly refuse and explicitly know God's grace) but also segregated into compartmentalized utopias that best fit with their ideals.
Granted, such would be my take of the LDS doctrines... it may not be the official stance.
I think if you read D&C section 88 carefully, it's pretty clear that that's exactly what this is about.
ReplyDeleteSo individuals who are willing to be governed by Christ's higher law of consecrated love will go to a place where that is the governing principle, while those who need to be "commanded in all things" (D&C 58:26) will go to a place where that lower law is the governing principle.
I think utopia is the social equivalent of a perpetual-motion machine in physics.
ReplyDeleteAs social animals, we are by far better off together than alone, but *all* social systems involve tradeoffs and competing interests to some extent. Perfection is an ill-defined concept when many people are involved. (Perfect from whose point of view?) A good social system should attempt to achieve balance and fairness as it copes with competing needs. It's never going to meet all needs even, I suspect, in heaven.
Just my $0.02.
Heh, beginning around...I don't know, my mission maybe, I thought of the three degrees of glory somewhat similarly: as being exactly what people wanted, in a way. I believed people will go where they not only are comfortable but where they believed heaven to be to begin with. No belief in Christ? Fine, you'll be where he isn't. Popular Christian belief that Christ is literally God the Father and that there is no marriage in heaven? Perfect, the Terrestrial should suit you just fine. Of course, I also was secretly pretty sure the relatively liberal idea that eternal progress includes progression between kingdoms was right, too.
ReplyDeleteNow, I suspect our energy and mass returns to the earth to be converted into different mass and energy, and we will no longer exist as the conscious individuals we are now, and unless we develop a way to make backups of all neurological/cellular connections in our lifetime, our thoughts and emotions will pass away with us. :-)
Um, I'm counting on getting my own Utopia when I die. How else am I ever going to have a pet unicorn? You think I'm joking, but I am like 60% serious.
ReplyDelete