>>no other prominent religion believes that dad and mom gods engage in celestial sex
Neither I not the Church (to my knowledge) teach this, Source?
People swear all the time, God the Father and Christ get maligned in every mouth that thinks they are cool, tough, or just rebellious. God didn’t want to have his wife trashed that way so he has never told us her name. (As an aside, swearing is not common in Chinese because it takes too long to describe which god you are swearing by.) People could swear by saying heavenly mother, but the ring just isn’t there. Mormons do teach about her, sing about her, and talk about her, but it is a subject held in much reverence and your light treatment of it here is very offensive. How would you feel if your mother was being described in the terms you so casually throw out here?
>>So literal sex becomes important in heaven
Did you question your parents as to there favorite positions? That like how god creates Spirit children is simply none of your business.
>>"literal paternity"
Can we mere mortals recreate a virgin birth? (Yes) then how much easier for God to be the literal Father of Jesus Christ without any of the “Naughty bits” you seem to want to impute to our brains being neccisary.
>>ya gotta wonder
Nope, I don’t wonder at all, I don’t spend much time thinking about it, and I think Mary would be very embarrassed to have you thinking about her like that. Her son might just be put out too. (You don’t spit into the wind, you don’t pull on superman’s’ cape and you don’t mess around with Jim)
I don’t know, no one has said how the actual deed was done, and it’s really none of our business, Jesus is half God so that death must be voluntary, but is possible, without sin so death is unjust, thus allowing Jesus Christ to reverse Adam’s transgression. You want to know the details, you ask him. I am just waiting for you to say the whole thing is just too convenient, like you would if it was purely Mormon doctrine.
Fact #1: LDS teach that spirit babies are born in heaven, right?
Fact #2: In fact, generations of gods have been "begotten" in this same manner. (See Snow quote below)
Fact #3: LDS teaches that the Heavenly Father is not Spirit (contrary to John 4:24 and other passages) but has a body of flesh and bones (and I would presume wings & feathers, too, since the OT talks about Him having that, too).
Fact #4: According to Genesis, God created man in his own image (Christians would say "spiritual image," but LDS include physical image here, reproductive system and all). Therefore, in making God to be in the image of man, God has a functional reproductive system that is not barren.
How do we know that LDS extrapolate God's reproductive system as being responsible for celestial sex and ensuing spirit births?
Exhibit A: LDS' shadowy doctrine of a Mother God, which LDS prophets acknowledge but don't emphasize.
Exhibit B: Take a look at LDS apostle Bruce McConkie's "Mormon Doctrine," p. 547 (published with approval of LDS general authorities, of which McConkie was one at the time):
"The birth of the Savior was a natural occurrence unattended with any degree of mysticism, and the Father God was the literal Parent of Jesus in the flesh as well as in the Spirit."
There ya have it. Just as the birth of Jesus had no "mysticism" but was a "natural occurrence" between Elohim and Mary, "the Father God was the literal Parent of Jesus in the flesh as well as in the Spirit."
McConkie equates a natural physical birth in the same "literal" terms as the literal Spirit birth of Jesus in heaven.
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Documentation of earlier "facts":
For those who don't know LDS teachings on Fact #1 above, here they are:
Brigham Young: "We were first begotten as spirit babies in heaven and then born naturally on earth” (Journal of Discourse, Vol. 4, p. 218).
Contemporary elaboration of being birth to parent gods in heaven via LDS Purpose of Life pamphlet: "Life for you did not begin here on earth. You lived before you were born you will live on in the spirit world after your mortal life is ended. We all once lived in the presence of God the eternal father. In the world before your were a spirit child of his. With this divine parentage, your destiny, through righteous living, is to become like your Father in Heaven and return to his presence. In your life before birth, before the earth was created God presented a plan to his children for their advancement. You were free to accept or reject this plan of salvation. Those spirit children who accepted his plan were given the opportunity to live on earth; those who rejected his plan were not privileged to enter mortality.”
Former LDS proph Lorenzo Snow:
"We were begotten by our Father in Heaven; the person of our Father in Heaven was begotten on a previous heavenly world by His Father; and again, He was begotten by a still more ancient Father, and so on, from generation to generation." (Millennial Star, vol. 54)
Not true. Many LDS general authorities have indeed "made it their business" for their followers to know how Mary was impregnated:
Brigham Young, 1860 speech: "The birth of the Savior was as natural as are the births of our children; it was the result of natural action. He partook of flesh and blood-was begotten of his Father, as we were of our fathers."
Former proph, Ezra Taft Benson: "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints proclaims that Jesus Christ is the Son of God in the most literal sense. The body in which He performed His mission in the flesh was sired by that same Holy Being we worship as God, our Eternal Father. Jesus was not the son of Joseph, nor was He begotten by the Holy Ghost. He is the Son of the Eternal Father."
Former proph Joseph F. Smith: "Christ is not the Son of the Holy Ghost, but of the Father." Doctrines of Salvation, Vol. 1, Page 18-20. "...how are children begotten? I answer just as Jesus Christ was begotten of his father. We must come down to the simple fact that God Almighty was the Father of His Son Jesus Christ...God the Eternal Father is literally the father of Jesus Christ." (Box Elder Stake Conference, 12-20-1914, as cited in Brigham City Box Elder News, 1-28-1915, pp. 1-2).
Apostle Bruce McConkie, "Mormon Doctrine," p. 742: "God the Father is a perfected, glorified, holy Man, an immortal Personage. And Christ was born into the world as the literal Son of this Holy Being; he was born in the same personal, real and literal sense that any mortal son is born to a mortal father. There is nothing figurative about his paternity; he was begotten, conceived and born in the normal and natural course of events, for he is the Son of God and that designation means what it says." p. 546: "Christ was begotten by an Immortal Father in the same way that mortal men are begotten by mortal fathers."
...how much easier for God to be the literal Father of Jesus Christ without any of the “Naughty bits” you seem to want to impute to our brains being neccisary...I don’t spend much time thinking about it...
Well, in light of the above quotes, I guess your general authorities have delved too far into the "Naughty bits", eh?
and I think Mary would be very embarrassed to have you thinking about her like that. Her son might just be put out too.
You know what, I agree with you 100%!!!
The fact that all of these LDS general authorities keep describing God the Father coming down to commit "natural action" (Brigham Young), to yield a birth "in the most literal sense" (Ezra Taft Benson & Joseph F. Smith), and that "There is nothing figurative about his paternity; he was begotten, conceived and born in the normal and natural course of events...Christ was begotten by an Immortal Father in the same way that mortal men are begotten by mortal fathers" (Apostle McConkie)...I think all of this is disgusting and VERY DISTURBING TO CHRIST AND his earthly mother, Mary.
I'll betcha one other thing: This is not "Missionary Lesson Plan #1" for LDS missionaries visiting heavy Roman Catholic countries like Latin America. (As a matter of act, it's probably not even in the LDS member lesson plans in those countries, either!!!).
There ya have it. More "tucked away" doctrines of the church.