According to my understanding of Mormon theology, you won't be able to have spirit children unless you become exalted in the Celestial Kingdom. Those children will be immortal, but they will have spirit bodies not resurrected bodies. Your spirit children will have agency, and not all of them will choose to follow you. Our Heavenly Father had one-third of his spirit children choose to not follow him. Thus, in his case, two-thirds of his spirit children will receive mortal bodies and later resurrected bodies. As I understand the sequence of events in Heavenly Father's plan, after all of those two-thirds have been resurrected (many of them won't be resurrected until after the Millennium) they will live in the peace that you hope for, although many, probably most, of them won't be living with you in the Celestial Kingdom, and they won't have the fullness of peace. This model of multiple universes doesn't include agency, because in forming the model I was focusing on the existence of multiple universes not the characteristics of those universes. Concerning the characteristics, agency is apparently a key component. Heavenly Father had a plan for our salvation, but he didn't force that plan on us. He allowed us to exercise our agency. Agency was involved in the choice of a Redeemer (Jehovah vs. Lucifer). Agency was involved when Lucifer rebelled against the Father when he wasn't chosen. Agency was involved when all of the spirit children had to choose if they would follow Jehovah or Lucifer. Agency was involved in the war in Heaven. From Revelations 12:11 we learn that Jehovah won the war because of his atonement and the testimonies of the children who followed him. The "testimonies" part implies the use of their agency by the children who followed Jehovah. "And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death." As long as your children have agency, you will never have the peace that you desire with all of your children. We can see this with our children now. We teach them and show our example to them, but they choose for themselves, and some of them choose to take different paths than you would have them follow. What can you do about this, other than teaching them and demonstrating righteousness to them? Nothing. They have to make their own decisions about their lives. If you were to deprive your spirit children of their agency, you would cease to be god (the scriptures don't say it that explicitly, but that is my interpretation from an extension of Alma 42 to the atonement and not just to repentance. Take away agency, and your children become robots, doing your will because they have no choice.

It is my hope that I will some day (perhaps in a few hundred or so years) travel to and populate worlds with 'spirit children' ( 'spirits' as defined in this [http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6 Consciousness is Representational and Real camp].) And it is also my faith and hope that I will never have to hide from such children, and that these children will never have to die and that they will be far better even from birth than us still primitive animals. (i.e. they will never do anything like crucify each other.) Is such a faith and hope completely incompatible with this view? Can I hope to some day bear such spirit children that I will never have to hide from, and that will be immortal from the get go? Or must I give up such faith and hope if I accept this view? Brent Allsop

So far, the characteristics of this model of Multiple Universes is standard Mormon doctrine. Now, however, we come to the position of this model that our scientists can not extract information from spirit or resurrected matter. This is a controversial topic. This position is based on the following. Spirit matter is different than physical matter and can not be discerned by our natural eyes. Joseph Smith said spirit matter was different from physical matter and could only be discerned by purer eyes. Moses said that if he had tried to see God with his natural eyes, he would have been destroyed. He did see God because he was transfigured before God. God in this case was Jesus Christ who had a spirit body not a resurrected body. I don't recall the scriptures specifically saying that resurrected matter can only be discerned by spiritual eyes via transfiguration, but I think it is a reasonable assumption that the same could be said of resurrected matter as is said of spirit matter. Resurrected matter will exist forever, and resurrected persons will live forever. In contrast, all matter that is observable to scientists is physical or mortal matter. It is true that physical matter can be transformed into energy, and vice versa, but organisms composed of physical matter will die. Scientists have instrumentation to extract information from physical matter, but they have never had the opportunity to test those instruments on spirit or resurrected matter. As illustrated by the examples given above, resurrected matter behaves in different ways than physical matter, implying resurrected matter is controlled by different laws than physical matter. Moses said that if he had tried to see God with his natural eyes, he would have been destroyed. I think this implies a barrier of some kind that separates spirit and resurrected matter from physical matter, and I see no reason to expect that scientific research could breach that barrier. Of course, if the scientists and their instruments could be "transfigured" in some way (what ever that means) they might be able to extract information from spirit and resurrected matter. Some people say that if there is an interaction between spirit or resurrected matter and physical matter, then scientists can extract information about the spirit matter. Actually, I think that all the scientists can do is extract information about the effect of the interaction of the spirit matter on the physical matter. For example, suppose a person were undergoing a brain scan while seeing spirit or resurrected matter. The scan would give information about the person's brain during that experience, but it would give no information about the spirit or resurrected matter itself. The question that needs answering is, "If a spirit or resurrected person were to undergo a brain scan, or other testing by scientists, would the scan or tests show anything?" Nobody can answer that question, and any attempts to characterize spirit or resurrection matter, in my opinion, is just speculation. This is my last post to explain this model. This thread is now open to any and all comments.

The LDS scriptures teach that all of the persons who are redeemed by the Atonement will live in one of the three kingdoms of glory (the Celestial, Terrestrial, and Telestial kingdoms). This is taught in Section 76 of the D&C as well as in other scriptures. Section 76 teaches that the Sons of Perdition are the only ones who are not redeemed, which I think includes their not being resurrected since resurrection is part of the redemption provided by the Atonement. The earth will become the celestialized home of those who inherit the Celestial kingdom. Apparently, those who inherit the Terrestrial or Telestial kingdom will go elsewhere.

The scriptures teach that Jesus Christ would be resurrected from the dead and that subsequently all persons except the Sons of Perdition would be resurrected. We can learn a few of the characteristics of resurrected persons from the visit of the resurrected Christ to his 11 Apostles and the visit of the resurrected Moroni to Joseph Smith. Both scriptures are given in the Mormon or LDS Theology camp. Resurrected persons are not limited by physical matter. Jesus didn't enter the upper room via a door or a window. He just suddenly appeared there, and the Apostles thought he was a spirit. A similar thing happened when Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith. The bedroom became light and there was Moroni standing in the air next to the bed. As demonstrated by the visit of the resurrected Christ and the visit of the resurrected John the Baptist when he ordained Joseph and Oliver, resurrected bodies are flesh and bone and are thus tangible and can be touched and felt by mortal persons. Resurrected persons will live forever, that is, never die again. I didn't put any scriptures about living forever in the Mormon or LDS Theology page, but there are numerous scriptures that teach that. Resurrected persons can eat physical food. As explained in Luke 24, the resurrected Christ asked for food and ate the food. In summary, the following characteristics of resurrected persons are important to the religious model being explained in these posts. Resurrected persons aren't limited by mortal matter. Resurrected bodies are flesh and bone and can be touched and felt by mortal persons. Resurrected bodies can eat mortal food.

The most detailed knowledge given in the scriptures about the spirit world is from the experience of President Joseph F. Smith. He saw in vision the Savior's visit to the righteous spirits in the spirit world. These spirits were waiting for Jesus to come to the spirit world and to declare their redemption. President Smith explained that Jesus organized the righteous spirits to teach the unrighteous spirits.

In the camp on Mormon or LDS Theology, two scriptures are given that for the basis of Mormon belief in a pre-earth life and in the foreordination by God of some of his leaders here on earth. Jeremiah was told that God knew him before he was born and that he was ordained before he was born to be a prophet. LDS assume that that ordination was via the laying on of the Father's hands, but the scriptures don't say that. Abraham was told that he was chosen [LDS assume he was chosen to be a prophet] before he was born.

Inherent to this discussion is the concept of spirit matter. Spirit Matter is being discussed in its own topic, so I will just give a comment that is critical to this model of multiple universes. Joseph Smith said, "There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes; " (D&C 131:7) Three things from that scripture are important to this model. First, spirit matter does exist; second, spirit matter is different in some way from physical matter; third, spirit matter can only be discerned by purer eyes, implying that spirit matter can not be discerned by our natural eyes.

The Mormon or LDS scriptures refer to several states of existence. The following model is based on my interpretation of the appropriate LDS scriptures. Religious Model of Multiple Universes: Not an Extension of Physical World 1. Each person who is born on this earth will go through four states of existence. (a) A spirit who lived with God. This is referred to as our Pre-existence or Pre-earth life. (b) A mortal person living on this earth. (c) A spirit who lives in the "spirit world" after death. (d) A resurrected person who lives in one of the Father's three kingdoms of glory or in "outer darkness", the domain of Satan. States of existence labeled (a), (c), and (d) involve matter that is different from the physical matter of mortality. This model takes the position that because of these differences, scientists can not extract information from the spirit or resurrected matter. In subsequent posts, I will explain my understanding of the scriptures that leads to this model. I am breaking my comments into relatively short posts, because I think that makes the comments more readable. I will appreciate it if folks will refrain from replying to this thread until I have finished my explanation of the model. This will allow visitors to read the model and its basis in LDS scriptures before they read detailed pro & con discussions of the model.