The Plan of Salvation

[Minyan Man]

I've been thinking about the different doctrines taught by our church.
I started with the "The Plan of Salvation". A very brief outline of this teaching is:
. Before our birth into this life, we lived in a Pre-Mortal Existence.
. At the time of our birth, we came through the Veil of Forgetfulness.
. We make choices in this life that determine where we end up after our earthly experience. For example, Paradise or Spirit Prison.
. We go through the Resurrection.
. We go through the Final Judgement which determines whether we go to the Celestial Kingdom, the Terrestrial Kingdom, the Telestial Kingdom or
Outer Darkness.

When I joined the church & did missionary work, this made perfect sense to me.
At the present stage of my life, I find myself questioning the teaching. Maybe some of you can help me understand.

I understand the idea that we must live this life in faith. This means to me, completely giving myself to the teaching of the church &
accepting Jesus Christ as my personal savior.

This is my problem. In this stage of my progression, why did we need the pre-existence if everything was going to be forgotten?
It seems to be like saying to someone graduating High School, now you are going to forget everything you've learned coming to this point
in life. You will now go to college & start over. (I'm assuming that includes grades K thru 12.)

Are there any other religions that teach the principle of a Pre-Mortal Existence?

[AmyJ]

I always figured it was more like pre-school was the pre-existence and our earthly experience was any of the higher grades where specific topics are taught. Some of the early skillset doesn't translate to the higher grades (like no one cares about how good a finger painter you are), but some of the skills (such as social skills) are super important.

Now, I figure it is an appeal to authority/reassurance bid that the soul was so "good" (always "good") that they qualified for something (extra rewards/privilege and/or extra challenges).

[Minyan Man]

Amy, I understand what you're saying. Using the pre-school example for the pre-existence then (in my opinion) we loss
the lesson of "getting along with others" because of the vail. It seems to me that the plan should be "eternal progression".
Meaning you're aware & learn from previous experiences & lessons. Not, just a test on faith alone.

From a superficial view, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

[nibbler]

In this stage of my progression, why did we need the pre-existence if everything was going to be forgotten?

In my orthodox days I rationalized it by believing that the time during our premortal existence set our natures and dispositions. We forgot everything but the decisions we made in the premortal phase established patterns making us more likely to be a certain way. Like there was something about us that was or became intrinsic, habits that couldn't be lost despite forgetting everything.

These days I'm much more in the camp you're in. It doesn't make much sense to me. It's become a simplistic answer to a complex question that does more to make us feel good that we know an answer than it does in actually describing reality.

Are there any other religions that teach the principle of a Pre-Mortal Existence?

I think it greatly depends on how we define a premortal experience. Hinduism has reincarnation. Hinduism also has a concept of forgetfulness. Memories die with the body but impressions carry on to your next physical incarnation. Not too dissimilar to what I was trying to describe above with habits.

Buddhism also has reincarnation but they don't believe in a permanent soul. I'm not 100% sure what that means. Buddhism is big on impermanence, when they say they don't believe in a permanent soul it's unclear to me whether they believe that an individual "soul" isn't carried forward from one incarnation to the next or whether that means a soul does carry forward but that soul does not remain the same (capable of change).

Buddhism is tricky. I think they also have an angle where they'd say that attachment to the idea of an eternal soul is yet another thing that brings suffering so saying there's no eternal soul is their way of balancing that equation. To put that in LDS terms, people experience quite a lot of anxiety over their standing with god in the afterlife but if there was no "you" in the afterlife then you'd spend less time in this life worrying about what happened to you in the next. I don't know, I'd need someone better versed in Buddhism to help me out.

I think even atheists have some concept of premortal life. For example, the atoms that make up my body came from stardust. That only really focuses on the physical side and doesn't really answer the question over people's psyche.

[Minyan Man]

Is it possible: to move onto the next life & we forget what happened previously?
Another clean slate!

How sad would that be?

[AmyJ]

Is it possible: to move onto the next life & we forget what happened previously?
Another clean slate!

How sad would that be?

When viewed through a perfectionistic lens focused on how much an individual screwed up, a clean slate sounds heavenly:)
The flip side is starting a new school - new (to you) supplies, and a chance to be different, to have a different identity.

From a metaphysical perspective, I choose to hope that there is some form of spiritual DNA that the most important stuff to transfer between existences carries the code for. We broadly culturally refer to this as "the soul" when individuals are speculating about any of this.

I hope my spiritual DNA codes the scent of my kids' heads after a bath, the strength of a hug from my spouse, the stubbornness and adaptation that my female ancestors had escaping abuse, some really great sunsets, memorable meals, and apple cider.