King Follet and statistics

[jay santos]

I've evolved over time from being raised to take a conservative, hard-line, literal approach to doctrine to more of a liberal approach with a heavy dose of "prophet infallability" which I use to dismiss much of what JS and BY said that is no longer taught in the church.

The first hang up I had with JS was due to statistical probability of a doctrine JS taught in King Follet.

The idea is that Father in Heaven was a Savior in his mortal life. JS inferred this based on Jesus saying, "I have done nothing the Father hasn't done before" or something like that, sorry feeling too lazy to do my homework.

Being the stat/probability geek I am, as a lad I put together this model:

assumptions:
people lived on this world: 10B+
this world: one of worlds without number that are under Father in Heaven's management with Jesus as Savior
Father in Heaven's mortal world had similar numbers
all mankind may become like Father in Heaven in creating worlds, not just the Firstborn and Savior

So put that together, and I had a 1 in about a bazillion chance to be born in a world where my Heavenly Father happened to be a Savior in his mortal life.

This is statistically impossible to me, so there's got to be something wrong with the assumptions. I know JS didn't teach these assumptions, but they are commonly held beliefs in Mormon church. So, I'm going to just believe something in those assumptions are wrong, we don't have the whole picture, and it's highly likely that JS was speculating on this.

[All-American]

Originally Posted by jay santos

I've evolved over time from being raised to take a conservative, hard-line, literal approach to doctrine to more of a liberal approach with a heavy dose of "prophet infallability" which I use to dismiss much of what JS and BY said that is no longer taught in the church.

The first hang up I had with JS was due to statistical probability of a doctrine JS taught in King Follet.

The idea is that Father in Heaven was a Savior in his mortal life. JS inferred this based on Jesus saying, "I have done nothing the Father hasn't done before" or something like that, sorry feeling too lazy to do my homework.

Being the stat/probability geek I am, as a lad I put together this model:

assumptions:
people lived on this world: 10B+
this world: one of worlds without number that are under Father in Heaven's management with Jesus as Savior
Father in Heaven's mortal world had similar numbers
all mankind may become like Father in Heaven in creating worlds, not just the Firstborn and Savior

So put that together, and I had a 1 in about a bazillion chance to be born in a world where my Heavenly Father happened to be a Savior in his mortal life.

This is statistically impossible to me, so there's got to be something wrong with the assumptions. I know JS didn't teach these assumptions, but they are commonly held beliefs in Mormon church. So, I'm going to just believe something in those assumptions are wrong, we don't have the whole picture, and it's highly likely that JS was speculating on this.

Joseph Smith seemed to teach that this referred to mortal existence, rather than being the savior of his own generation. Truman Madsen inferred from this teaching of Joseph Smith the possibility of Heavenly Father being a savior, but I don't think you can completely put that on Joseph Smith's head.