Overcoming Borrowed Light

Not to be a troll, but I just gotta say something.

Maybe the Doctrine of the Three Degrees of Glory isn't what it seems...

In 1784 Emanuel Swedenborg wrote a book about his visions of the afterlife titled “Heaven and Hell and its Wonders”.

Swedenborg insisted: "There are three heavens," described as "entirely distinct from each other." He called the highest heaven "the Celestial Kingdom," and stated that the inhabitants of the three heavens corresponded to the "sun, moon and stars."

By Joseph Smith's own statements, he was familiar with Swedenborg's writings. Smith told a convert by the name of Edward Hunter that "Emanuel Swedenborg had a view of the world to come, but for daily food he perished."

In other words, Smith liked Swedenborg's concepts of the afterlife, but criticized him for not profiting from them.

The book describes the three Mormon degrees of glory to the tee, along with many other concepts including "the veil," "sprit prison," "celestial marriage," and more.

Polygamy is natural for primates and most mammals. Monogamy is usually the domain of birds... but this is kinda misleading. Could the propensity for polygamy, like our residual tail and other vestigial parts, actually hearken back through evolution to a primate ancestor??? If that is the case, wouldn't it be natural that we would rationalize that propensity and include it in our world view and our spirituality?

So, what I am asking here is “Does our belief in polygamy and celestial marriage actually support and present evidence for evolution? AND, if it does, could it be a function of evolution and our attempts to explain and rationalize the behavior rather than acknowledge it as such and dismiss it as a function of less evolved states of existence?

It makes sense that our genetic memory would be incorporated into our memes and beliefs as we reached sentience, doesn’t it?

SOOOOOOOOOOOOO

IF the concept of the Three Degrees of Glory and Celestial Marriage was borrowed from Emanuel Swedenborg who wrote a book in 1784 about his visions of the afterlife titled “Heaven and its Wonders and Hell”…

AND the Doctrine of Plural Marriage was borrowed from the Cochranites that introduced the concept to Oliver Cowdery while passing through the town of Scarborough, New Hampshire as a missionary in February of 1817…

AND a conference was held by the leaders of the LDS Church in center of the Cochranites in 1834 and 1835…

AND Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon condemned the practice in 1844, after it had been received as a revelation in 1843 as an admonition to Emma Smith who claimed that the very first time she ever became aware of the 1843 polygamy revelation was when she read about it in Orson Pratt’s booklet The Seer in 1853….

AND was condemned by Wilford Woodruff in 1890…

AND was condemned and called “not doctrinal” by Gordon Hinckley in 1998….


THEN

WHY ARE WE STILL DEBATING AS TO ITS DOCTERINAL VALIDITY???

I’m just sayin…

Maybe it was just a phase, or a social glitch. Shouldn’t we just get over it, like Pres Hinckley says?
Is it that important anymore, really? Unless your testimony is based on early doctrine an the infallibility of the brethren…then you have a problem…