Welcome and Introducing Today's Host

Carah Burrell [00:00:00] Hi. Welcome to Mormon Stories podcast. My name is Carah Burrell. I am your one and only host for today. I kicked the other men out of the. No. Just kidding. Hey, it's John Dehlin.

John Larsen [00:00:10] You're back.

John Dehlin [00:00:12] What the freak? You're back.

Carah Burrell [00:00:13] Yeah. And because of the very special episode that we had today, I thought that I would break my. No. Working at Mormon Stories, brand new.

John Dehlin [00:00:22] That didn't last very long.

Carah Burrell [00:00:23] Yeah, I know. Only on special occasions.

John Dehlin [00:00:28] No. Carah, we're so thrilled to have you back.

Carah Burrell [00:00:30] I'm so thrilled to be. Honestly. Yeah, I'm kind of a silly gal, and I don't, like, feel a lot. Just kidding. But, like, it actually feels very nice to be invited back so soon and with the guest we have today.

John Dehlin [00:00:42] And who would that be?

Carah Burrell [00:00:43] John Larsen.

John Dehlin [00:00:44] Hey, John Larsen. Welcome back.

John Larsen [00:00:46] Hi, guys. Nice to be here.

John Dehlin [00:00:48] Yeah. So, basically, yeah, Carah, you spread your wings to fly. What's up with that?

Carah Burrell [00:00:54] I believed I could fly. I believed I could touch the sky. I thought about it every night and day. I spread my wings to fly away. I'll quit. And other lyrics from people that are in jail. I know. Just dodge that one. Just know that the lyrics mean a lot to me. No.

John Dehlin [00:01:09] Do you want to start doing Bill

Carah Burrell [00:01:10] Cosby impressions now, John, when did you get funny? Hey, I'm supposed to be whatever. I peaced out after the Rod Meldrum episode. Everyone knows. And I thought, you know, I don't need to do this. I don't feel like doing this. I got other things in my lane I can do. John and I have been good friends before. We'll be good friends forever. I took him out to lunch today, and John Larsen has, like, this monthly thing that he's coming on to do, and John Larsen.

John Dehlin [00:01:35] John's like, I'm not. I'm. No, I'm not doing this podcast without Carah.

Carah Burrell [00:01:39] I didn't know if you wanted to say it in such serious terms.

John Dehlin [00:01:42] Too brilliant. Carah's too witty. He's like, it won't be fun. John De Lynn, you're too boring. Was that it? John Larsen?

John Larsen [00:01:48] I kind of did say that.

Guest [00:01:49] Yeah.

John Larsen [00:01:50] You got a little thing. And I said, but Carah still gets to come on with me. Right?

Carah Burrell [00:01:55] So then John Larsen asked me, and I was like, I just feel like. Just. I don't. I just don't. I don't even want to have my headspace in it. But I was like, I love the John from the very first John Larsen episod episode I was ever on, I was like, I love this dude. I love his energy. I just want to be in the room or virtually in the room when he's talking. So I will always do it.

John Dehlin [00:02:12] It takes a John Larsen to get Carah Burrell to be in the room with John de Lynn. That's basically what just was said.

Carah Burrell [00:02:18] Yeah, he's. He's like the handler and stuff.

John Larsen [00:02:22] Well, and. And also, Carah, I. There's. You can run with the dogs.

Guest 2 [00:02:28] You're.

Carah Burrell [00:02:28] You're.

John Larsen [00:02:28] You're smart, you're well spoken, and that means a lot.

Carah Burrell [00:02:32] Thank you.

John Larsen [00:02:32] You need to be here.

Carah Burrell [00:02:33] Thanks. You're the only one I called, John. Don't you feel good about that? He got demoted to JD when working. When we're talking about each other, I'll take it. And then I call you Johnson.

John Dehlin [00:02:42] But he just called us. He just called you just called us dogs. John Larsen. What's up with that?

Carah Burrell [00:02:46] The big dog.

John Dehlin [00:02:49] All right. So anyway, welcome, Carah. Glad to have you as a co. And we can expect you at least once a month as long as John Larsen. You know, the John Larsen thing's going on. So, yeah, thanks for being here.

Carah Burrell [00:02:59] And for anyone who is a John Larsen fan and not a Carah fan, sorry to tell you, it's not your day.

John Dehlin [00:03:05] Also tell. Tell people about NuanceHoe and Patreon really quick.

Carah Burrell [00:03:08] Oh, and I really love doing my own thing and I started a Patreon and a lot of people really came through. I have about like 200 and I call them my hoes. And then there's another level at 25 called my funeral Potatoes. And then there's another tier that's called the second annoying Toes. So if you like the content that I create, whether it's on Tick Tock or Instagram and just want to help support me financially to keep doing this on my YouTube channel, which I'll be pumping out a lot of videos there, and then exclusive content on Patreon. If you're just like, deserves to eat, just sign up for Patreon. Just like Mormon stories. You set it and forget it. You put the money in the button and then it just takes it out every month. And if I get enough small donations over amount of time, that can literally replace my income of what I was doing here. Working for the man. Female led. You know what I say? Women empowerment. Jen's fixing the camera right now. Woo, women. Everyone shout out to Jen. She can't see this, but yeah, anyway, so doing it female led. Doing it my own thing on my terms, and having a ton of support from fabulous gentlemen like John de Lin and John Larsen. And Bill Real. And I have tons of cool collabs that are coming up in this month. I have more love than I know what to do with. More people, more connections, and just have tons and tons of cool content coming out on my own channel now. So if you're wondering where I am, I'm over on YouTube on new on, so.

John Dehlin [00:04:21] And Carah, I give you permission to post a link to your Patreon right now in the comments. But. But just so people. And also just so. Number one, we're excited to have you back, Carah. Number two, just so people understand, Carah is going to be appearing with John for as long as John is continuing to appear as long as your financial support supports it, which it does. So that's what makes this possible.

Carah Burrell [00:04:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:04:41] And. But we're also going to still have Jen and Gerardo and Nemo and others as kind of rotating co hosts. Co host or co hosts? What is it? Co host?

Carah Burrell [00:04:50] He got funny when I left. Look at them dropping all these jokes.

John Dehlin [00:04:54] What are you going to say? John Larsen and John Larsen, you've got a great team.

John Larsen [00:04:57] You've done well assembling your folks, John.

John Dehlin [00:04:59] Thanks, man. John Larsen, why have you been away for so long? That's, like, unacceptable. You are like, super loved, people love you, and then you, like, disappear for two months. What the hell?

John Larsen [00:05:08] I think I have a text to you dated February 28th saying, I'm ready to go, John.

John Dehlin [00:05:14] All right, well, it must be.

John Larsen [00:05:15] Oh, no, I don't want. I don't want three under the bus. I'm still, you know, getting unpacked and moved and all that kind of stuff. But you look good. Hard to get schedules lined up, so

John Dehlin [00:05:23] you look and sound good.

John Larsen [00:05:25] Well, thanks. This is thanks to the donations of your fans and. And patrons, we were able to set up a little studio here in my house in Oregon. So I appreciate that Studio.

John Dehlin [00:05:36] Fist in the face do. Is that right?

John Larsen [00:05:39] Studio undisclosed location is what I'm calling it.

John Dehlin [00:05:42] So Bunker second coming. Bunker Studio, Second coming. Bunker. Anyway, yeah. So if you want to support, if you. If you really value John Larsen, those of you who are making this possible have all donated to MormonStories.org Mormon expression. And of course, we want to always reference John Larsen's amazing library of podcast episodes that are now all on Spotify or Apple podcast app or wherever you consume your podcasts, check out that amazing library of content.

John Larsen [00:06:10] Speaking of fading to black John, tell us about the emo. The emo thing going on.

John Dehlin [00:06:15] I dress like I feel. So when I feel like I'm Dark in a hoodie. I dress dark in a hoodie.

John Larsen [00:06:20] And I will up my donation level if you wear guyliner next time.

John Dehlin [00:06:25] You want me to look like Marilyn Manson?

John Larsen [00:06:27] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:06:28] Okay.

John Larsen [00:06:28] All right.

Carah Burrell [00:06:29] I leave and I come back and I'm like, wow, John's going really through an angry phase about me. You're right.

John Dehlin [00:06:33] Goth Marilyn Manson John, who's trying to be funny, basically.

Carah Burrell [00:06:36] Yeah.

Introducing the Plan of Salvation Extended Edition

John Dehlin [00:06:37] Okay, so. So, you know, just for those who are joining us for the first time or have not been in a John Larsen episode before, Mormon Stories is doing a few things these days. They're doing kind of like heartfelt, sincere truth claims stories. That's our bread and butter. We've started this new episode with. With LDS discussions. It's about. Did I say truth claims? The heartfelt stories about people's faith crisis journeys. That's our bread and butter. We've started a new faith crisis thing with LDS discussions. That's. That's all about Mormon Church truth claims. Generally, we try to keep those kind of friendly for people who are newer to the struggle. But occasionally we like to just feel free to emote and share anger, frustration, or vitriol or humor or sarcasm, and even occasional profanity. And that's what the John Larsen Mormon expression episodes are about, right, John?

John Larsen [00:07:34] I guess so, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:07:35] So only watch this if you love intelligence, love wit, and are okay with some profanity and occasional sarcasm and probably a little bit of a sharper elbow approach to the church. Is that all right, John? That's a little content.

John Larsen [00:07:51] Sure. I really try to not ever attack people, and when I do, I need to repent from it. It's not right. But I have no love for institutions, John De Lynn. And the Mormon Church is an institution, and it deserves no mercy.

John Dehlin [00:08:05] Yeah. Yeah. So. So viewer discretion is advised. Listener and viewer discretion is advised. So, John Larsen, any. Any announce into today's episode?

John Larsen [00:08:19] Not. Not that I can think of. Oh, yeah, we have. We. I was always giving, like, little advice and hints. I've got one. Because we've talked a lot about bias and research. Here's one that you can all take home with you if. Whenever you're doing a web search, if you type the word site, S, I, T, E, and then a colon, and then you type the word.edu, it will limit your web searches just to edu domains, just to universities. So when you're out there trying to verify facts or trying to learn things, and the Internet can be full of junk, that's a great way to filter things out and just see what have been said by academic institutions. Now, I'm not saying academic institutions are always right, but they have safeguards that other web people do not have. So take my advice. Type site colon edu and then limit your searches that way.

John Dehlin [00:09:11] Wow, that's, that's, that's a good tip. Thanks, John.

John Larsen [00:09:15] It's a pro tip. Next time I'll talk about the best way to shave your balls.

John Dehlin [00:09:20] Shout out to Justin Rich for his super chat. For those of you who aren't familiar with YouTube, first of all, love you, Justin. Thank you for the support. Also thank you, Justin Rich, because you helped us set up a Discord channel that has become a really meaningful community to people, to Mormons everywhere who need a way to text and to voice chat with people who are working through stuff or just trying to find friends and community. So shout out to Justin Rich. Let's include a link to the Discord channel in our show notes and, or in the chat here. But thanks for the super chat. If any of you want to support Mormon expression, John Larsen, Carah, you can also click on that little dollar sign button in your YouTube and donate a little bit to support this John Larsen love on Facebook there. This little stars feature you can click on as well. So enough announcements. John Larsen, what's the topic for today?

John Larsen [00:10:12] Our topic for today is the Plan of Salvation extended edition.

John Dehlin [00:10:17] All right, so what is your intention?

John Larsen [00:10:20] Well, you know, I, as I was researching this, I want to talk about the Plan of Salvation and kind of, you know, go through. It's a key element of Mormon theology and Mormon doctrine. And I wanted to deal with it. And I just found it really hard to break into all the scriptures and nuances. And so tonight we're just going to tell it as a story. All right, so everybody get their popcorn, get their blankies, kind of gather around. We're going to go through the story of how we came to be and how our celestial, eternal parents made us. Are you excited?

John Dehlin [00:10:53] Yeah. Let's do it. Let's, let's.

Carah Burrell [00:10:55] Like family home evening almost.

John Dehlin [00:10:56] It's like story time. It's like story time with John Larsen. Celestial story time with John Larsen.

A Mind-Bending Look at Mormon Cosmology

John Larsen [00:11:01] All right, so I have to start with something that I am calling a mind bender. Mind bender. And maybe somebody's already done this research and named this thing. And if anybody has, then I want you to let me know. What a mind bender is, is when you're trying to reconcile your views of reality and your theological views and you reach a point in your construction of your vision of reality. What's around you, how you put that together and your theological construction. And then sometimes they come into conflict and they're irreconcilable. You only have one of five things you can do at that point. You ignore it. That's what most people do all the time. So when we talk about, like, cognitive dissonant theory, they're talking about how people ignore things and they have dissonance and that sort of stuff. The second thing you can do is you can abandon your religion. That's what I did. Eventually you say, holy crap, this doesn't work. And then you walk out. You can abandon your view of science or whatever is in conflict with the. With the religion, which is what cults do. They. They tend to diminish people's view of reality and, and make them question anything about reality or. The other two things you can do is modify your religious belief or modify your world belief. And those two are the things that I'm defining as mind bending. So when you're. When your world belief runs into your theological belief, and then you have to suddenly modify your belief in reality, that's a mind bender. So I'm bringing this up at the beginning because I want you all to listen for places here this evening that we'll talk about where the apologist in particular would employ a mind bend, or you have to mind bend either the theology or reality to get out of the conundrum. Does that make sense?

John Dehlin [00:12:49] Yeah, but was there a fifth? Was there a fifth thing? Did I miss it?

John Larsen [00:12:52] Oh, my fifth were. Ignore it, abandon your religion, abandon science, modify your religion, or modify your scientific worldview.

John Dehlin [00:13:00] Okay, got it, got it, got it. Okay. All right.

John Larsen [00:13:03] I think, I think this is kind

John Dehlin [00:13:04] of cognitive dissonance management, right?

John Larsen [00:13:06] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I, I think that's. That's what we all do all the time.

John Dehlin [00:13:10] Yep, we all do it. Well, I mean, the. The rest of you do that. We've kind of got it figured out, right?

John Larsen [00:13:16] Oh, we do. All right. So first of all, what are we talking about? Well, for a long time it was called the plan of salvation, and then they started calling it the plan of exaltation. The problem is salvation is kind of a. Not a very well defined word in Mormonism theologically. And there's a lot of others who use the phrase plan of salvation. Protestants and others sometimes use that. So there's confusion.

John Dehlin [00:13:44] I didn't know that.

John Larsen [00:13:46] So then they started calling it the plan of exaltation. And exaltation, of course, is when you become a God in. In Mormonism. That Was used for a while, but when you're trying to explain that to new people, it just is confusing as, as plan of salvation, if not more. Now, what the church calls it is a plan of happiness. Now, if you remember, like, last, last time we got on, we were talking about. We were talking about the, the. We were talking about the straw. Straw men.

Speaker F [00:14:15] Remember?

John Dehlin [00:14:16] Logical fallacies.

John Larsen [00:14:17] Yeah, yeah, Logical fallacies. And this is, this is one. Or this would be an example of no true Scotsman where you say, okay, hey, this is the Mormon plan of happiness. And you say, well, wait, this doesn't make me happy. Then they would say, well, you're not really happy. Which is, which is the trick that religions pull all the time. They can just. They can just throw the whole thing out and say, hey, this is how you become happy. And you listen to the plan and say, that doesn't sound like happiness at all to me. And then they say, you're doing it wrong. Because then they don't have accountability. Because if they say, hey, if you follow what we say, you're going to be happy. And you say, well, I'm following what you're saying. I'm not happy, I'm miserable. Then you have to say, well, you're not. You're not. You're not actually happy. So, so yeah, Orwellian way. This is called the plan of happiness.

John Dehlin [00:14:59] Now, I'm actually, I'm actually hearing a couple things there and tell me if I'm wrong. John. One is the blame reversal, where they, where the prophet or the leader makes the promise to get you on the treadmill. Like the, the hamster wheel of worthiness or of happiness chasing it. And then when. Or they make the prophecy of when Jesus is going to come or whatever it is. And then when the thing doesn't come true, the blame reversal happens where they say, well, you're not righteous enough. Pay more money, give us more devotion. And that gets you on the hamster wheel. It reminds me of Joseph Smith's treasure digging, honestly. So that's the blame reversal. But then, but then, yeah, the no true Scotsman I think of with people who leave the church, they're like, not happy in the church. They leave it, actually become happy. And then when, when they kind of tell their mom or their sister, I'm actually really happy, it's like, well, you know that's fake happiness, right? Carah?

John Larsen [00:15:47] That's not.

Carah Burrell [00:15:48] Yeah. And you know, it also reminds me of is. I remember that, like, that long established idea about morality and God. And like, is God good? Because he's is. Is God God because he's good or is what's good because it comes from God? And it's the same idea in Mormonism, that same exact logic of like, is it happiness because God says it's happiness in Mormonism?

Speaker F [00:16:08] Yes.

Carah Burrell [00:16:09] Like the plan is what we established. The brethren have said they change it a little bit over time as we'll probably get into. But this is happiness because this is what we say. If you have a different opinion on it, then that's not happiness.

John Dehlin [00:16:19] Yeah, happiness is whatever God says it is.

Carah Burrell [00:16:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:16:22] Instead of how we feel.

Carah Burrell [00:16:23] How we feel or the brain that he gave us to interpret the data, information and the emotions that, that are in our bodies. That is absolutely not as important as what the Q15 have told us.

John Larsen [00:16:33] Yeah, I think that's all true, but I, I think it bears saying that you have happiness, which is an internal state that can be assigned to dopamine and some other things like that. And then you have the church and then you have leaving the church. The church and leaving the church and happiness are completely disconnected. There is no, like, like there's people who leave the church and feel like now I have to be happy and if I'm not happy having left the church, then I need to go back to the church.

Carah Burrell [00:16:58] Yeah, that's a great point.

John Larsen [00:16:58] Or, or they say, hey, people have left the church and I see that he's never really happy, therefore the church is. True. Now there's happy people inside the church, happy people outside the church. It has nothing to do with it.

John Dehlin [00:17:09] Yeah. Only one other thing I just wanted to say really quick, John, I don't know if you know this because you're not necessarily as plugged in. They're calling it the Covenant Path these days.

John Larsen [00:17:19] Oh, there's a new name instead.

John Dehlin [00:17:20] Yeah, like with. Under Nelson, they've really, they've really, they've really moved to the Covenant Path now. I think that's probably smart.

Carah Burrell [00:17:29] The plan of salvation went, went through the temple and it got its new name and now it's called the Covenant Path and the Risen fourth in the first place. Morning of the Resurrection.

John Dehlin [00:17:36] Either that or they work shopped it and they, and they realized that like Plan of Happiness wasn't. It wasn't happy. It wasn't leading to enough happiness. So we better call it something.

Carah Burrell [00:17:46] There's also somebody at the meeting who was like, it sounds like a badass rock name too. Covenant Path for like a Christian band

John Dehlin [00:17:52] and then like a Harley motorcycle.

Carah Burrell [00:17:57] Yeah, exactly.

John Dehlin [00:17:57] No, but also it's more about your commitment than it is your happiness right at the end of the day.

Carah Burrell [00:18:02] Oh, that's a good rebrand.

John Larsen [00:18:03] When we get to the end of this, let's ask ourselves, who in any of this is happy?

John Dehlin [00:18:06] Okay.

John Larsen [00:18:07] And I think that's probably part of the problem.

John Dehlin [00:18:09] Okay. All right, John, keep going.

Heavenly Parents and the Premortal Existence

John Larsen [00:18:10] Are we ready to go?

John Dehlin [00:18:11] We're ready.

John Larsen [00:18:12] We have to pick a point to start this story.

John Dehlin [00:18:15] Okay.

John Larsen [00:18:15] And the story that we're going to start is when our Heavenly Father and our Heavenly mother had achieved their exaltation. They had done everything they needed to do in their. In their world, and they had come to the point where they had. They had left their heavenly parents as a. As an exalted couple with their. With their exalted bodies and had gone through all that, and they're ready to start this whole thing. That's. We're going to start our story, and we're going to do it from our heavenly parents.

John Dehlin [00:18:49] Okay.

John Larsen [00:18:50] Now, of course, there's a question that is begged, which is, well, how many heavenly parents do we have collectively? Is there just a father and a mother, or is there a father and multiple mothers? Now, I'm going to put that question aside because I'm just going to go with mainstream Mormonism and say we'll just talk about it as if there's one mother. It's actually worse for her. I'm going to put that out there. This would be a lot better for her if there were multiple wives, but

John Dehlin [00:19:18] she has less birthing to do. Why are you nodding, Carah?

Speaker F [00:19:21] I don't know.

Carah Burrell [00:19:21] Well, tell John. You tell me where you're going with that.

John Larsen [00:19:25] Well, yeah, just that we're gonna. We're gonna get into the birth rate here in a second.

John Dehlin [00:19:28] But there is some question. The churches, it seems like these days, are trying to walk back that God was once like us. You.

John Larsen [00:19:35] You know, they're not trying to walk back deadly. They're just trying to bury it.

John Dehlin [00:19:39] Okay, all right. Okay. As you were. As you were.

John Larsen [00:19:43] All right, so the first thing they say, goodbye, our. Our heavenly parents say goodbye to their parents, and then they would say goodbye to their children because assuming that their children were saved the same way they are, their children would be leaving the fold and doing the same thing they are. Right. Because they would have achieved exaltation. Also.

John Dehlin [00:20:03] I've actually never thought of them before. I've never thought about Heavenly Father and mother's actual parents from their previous life. Are they like assistants in their new creation or are they just left behind? Because wasn't the promise you would be with your family forever. Now I'm confused already.

Carah Burrell [00:20:20] I came here for religion, not math.

John Larsen [00:20:23] I left my Encyclopedia of Mormonism upstairs. I apologize. But I was reading the article on the. The plan of salvation or the, the whatever this is. And the, the. I think it's Gerald Lund who wrote the article and he just leads right straight with a lie. First of all, he says, okay, this whole thing was designed by our Father in Heaven. The church says that all the time and it's a blatant, flat out lie. And they know it is that our Father in heaven designed nothing. Our Father in heaven was part of the same plan.

Carah Burrell [00:20:52] He's a franchisee.

John Larsen [00:20:54] He's a franchisee at best. Yeah. So. And the other thing they say, you know, in, in the Encyclopedia Mormonism, the exaltation is us living with our eternal family. But, but if my children are saved. Exalted. And their children are exalted. And their children are exalted. And their children are exalted. And my, and my mother and father, my brothers and sisters are all exalted. And their parents are exalted. And their parents are exalted. Their parents are exalted. What, what does it even mean for together? Yeah, and, and we're going to come back to that, that theme a couple more times. So we'll say that, that everybody just kind of. They say goodbye to everybody. And the other thing that I don't know if they had a little ceremony, but I'm sure Father in Heaven having loving his wife, said, I am so sorry he said her name to her. But this is the last time anybody will ever say your name or even really acknowledge that you exist other than as a shadowy figure. Because from right now you've, you've done all this life, you've lived, you've lived, you've been exalted, you've gone through and now you're going to disappear. I'm sorry, but we will actually excommunicate kids in the next earth if they even talk about you.

John Dehlin [00:22:01] And you know, John, this is super timely. You know about the past month or two, what's going on in Mormonism?

John Larsen [00:22:06] No.

John Dehlin [00:22:06] Oh, you don't? Oh, listen, dude, we've had a resurgence of don't talk about mother in heaven in modern progressive Mormonism, where literally apostles not only are going around at area conferences telling members to cut that stuff out, but in general conference this very last April, one of the apostles got up in general conference and said, stop, Stop praying to mother in heaven and chill out on talking about her because we don't know anything about her. And all the progressive Mormons and Carah are up in arms.

Carah Burrell [00:22:41] Yeah, me. And then me in the corner.

John Larsen [00:22:43] She's very problematic.

Carah Burrell [00:22:45] Yeah.

John Larsen [00:22:45] Right. Because she. She.

Carah Burrell [00:22:47] Me or heavily mother.

John Larsen [00:22:48] No, she played this. This role. You know, assuming that. We're gonna. Again, assume modern Mormonism is correct. That means they either went through the temple or somebody went and did their temple work for them. And, you know, she went and did all this stuff. She birthed babies. Maybe in the, in the real life, but maybe not. We'll get. We'll get back to that. Probably not. The. The odds that she had children is actually very, very low. And. And yeah, we. We don't have a place for her. Okay. So you'll recall that Satan in the temple gives us a doctrinal snippet and. And they come down and say, what are you doing down here? And Satan, Lucifer says, I'm doing that. Which has been done in other worlds.

Guest [00:23:32] So.

John Larsen [00:23:32] So not only do we can. We can glean a few things from that. The, The. The Lucifer who was one of the offspring of Elohim and his wife had observed or read about or at least understood something of what had happened in previous instances of this. Of this life, and he was repeating it. And because of that, and I'll come back to this. He. He strikes me as the dumbest man who's ever existed in the history of dumb men because it. The. He had the easiest path ever. He could have thwarted this whole plan by just doing nothing. If he had just gone and played backgammon for 7,000 years, the whole thing would have fallen apart.

Guest [00:24:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:24:09] Because according to our theology, Satan plays a really important role because he provides the adversity.

Carah Burrell [00:24:14] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:24:14] So if he were smart, he would just stop doing that.

The War in Heaven and the Fall of One-Third

Carah Burrell [00:24:17] I literally. I know I don't want to plug, like, my own stuff this whole time, but my favorite TikTok I've ever made is on that subject. It's me doing a retelling, like, acting out how the. How that started that war in heaven thing. And when. When Lucifer's like, oh, fine, I'm going to take, like, one third of my brothers and sisters with me. And God's like, would you. Because I already had that in mind for you. How does, like, whoever writes this theology does not think that, like, okay, God would know that that's kind of what Satan needs to do. He needs to be the puzzle in this place. And Satan is just playing into the plan that he's not even for. Like. Yeah, he could just be Playing Scrabble in the background, chilling out.

John Dehlin [00:24:52] And Heavenly Father's like, come on, Satan, you're not doing your job. You got to help me out here.

Carah Burrell [00:24:56] Yeah. Does he does it because he gets, like, a degree of glory like Satan would rather? Is that the idea, the logic there?

John Larsen [00:25:01] Well, I want you to put a pin in that. We're gonna get. We're gonna get there in a second. You have. You have an excellent point, and we're gonna come back to it.

John Dehlin [00:25:06] Okay.

How Many Spirit Children Were There?

John Larsen [00:25:07] Okay, so now we start what I call the next phase of our. Of. Of this plan of salvation, which is the conception. All right. I actually did a little bit of research here, and I went through and asked myself, well, how many people have been born on this planet? And there's been a lot of researchers who've done really good work on that. And I'm. I'm basically using the data from the Population Reference Bureau in Washington, D.C. and they actually broke down through the centuries. Now they go. They go back a lot longer than 4000 BC, but if I look at their numbers and we cut it off at 4,000 BC, then the. The estimate they have is about 120 billion people. Now, I need to apologize. I have kind of a sore throat, so you're gonna hear my voice crack and things like that.

John Dehlin [00:25:57] But it comes off, John. It comes off as emotion. It comes off as, like, I already

Carah Burrell [00:26:02] made that joke to him before we started.

John Dehlin [00:26:03] And devotion.

John Larsen [00:26:04] I thought it was coming across as like my second puberty, but. Okay, so. So we. We have to start the conception.

Guest [00:26:12] So.

John Larsen [00:26:12] So 120 billion people. I am. I want a side on. I want to err on the side of Mormons on all these. So I'm going to play all these numbers that I'm about to give you conservatively. So we're going to assume that there were 100 billion people who've lived on this planet. Pretty good evidence. I found two different sources. One about 120 billion. One about 106 billion. Population reference Bureau. You can look it up yourself. So. So we're going to say that there were a 100 billion. That's. That's one followed by, let's see, three, six, nine, nine zeros. 12 zeros.

John Dehlin [00:26:46] 12 zeros.

John Larsen [00:26:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:26:48] Okay.

John Larsen [00:26:48] Okay, so our.

John Dehlin [00:26:50] It's nice. It's nine zeros. Oh, 1 billion. 10 billion. You're right.

John Larsen [00:26:56] Yeah, 100 billion. Okay. So I went. I was really curious about the miscarriage rate. Now there's. There's several different things that we have going here. Traditionally, they call it. They talked about the quickening. And the quickening is in traditional cultures, and it occurs around about five months of pregnancy. And that is the point at which usually the mother will feel the baby movement. And in traditional cultures, in our culture, I'm talking about English culture, that was part of things. And before the quickening, things weren't really considered to be a baby. As a matter of fact, abortion was widely practiced in Europe. It was okay. The church accepted it as long as it was done before the quickening. Now, even the Bible talks about abortion since. Well, we're going to get to abortion in a second. But it identifies as a property crime, as not a capital crime. Like, if you kill a mother, that's a capital crime, but if you kill a baby, you just have to pay him recompense for the property.

Guest [00:27:57] So.

John Larsen [00:27:58] So, but we've got miscarriages that happen to about that 20 weeks, and then after that, they're. They're generally known as stillborns. And so there's been a lot of research done on miscarriages and stillborns, generally speaking. And I'm pulling this figure from the University of Utah that they give a miscarriage rate of about 25%. So of. Of all the pregnancies that happened during the 6,000 years of this mortal existence, 25% of those pregnancies ended in miscarry. Okay, Are you with me?

John Dehlin [00:28:29] Yep, I'm with you.

John Larsen [00:28:30] The next number we have, it comes from the March of Dimes. And they. And this figure, a lot of figures. I was able to find historical data. They don't have a lot of historical data. So we're just using the modern figure. March of Dimes says that one out of every 160 live births today in the world is a stillborn. Okay, so, and then abortion is the. Is the next thing that would take an infant in the womb or before birth. And the rate, according to Yale University, is that there is one abortion in this world today for every 3.2 live births. Now, and like I said, I did a little bit of research on historical abortion. Abortion is widely practiced all across the world. It has been for time immemorial. And I'm using the rate of one in every 10, which is much, much, much lower than everything else. Everybody would say. So if we have 100 billion births, the number of miscarriages is 33 billion 333 million. The number of stillborns is 628 million, and the number of abortions is 11 billion 111 million 111. So the total number of Humans conceived that went to the womb or went to this earth is 145,000,075. 73,000,375. 262. And if anybody really wants, I can. I've got a, like a Google spreadsheet. I put this in, I can share it if anybody really wants to check my math. Okay, well, once we get to our 145 billion, those are the number of humans conceived. We know from scripture that one third of the total didn't come to this planet. So then we have to bring those guys back in. And that is 72,536, people for a grand total of 217,610,062,893 people that were conceived by our father and mother in heaven.

John Dehlin [00:30:31] That's their fertility rate.

Carah Burrell [00:30:35] Heavenly father got game.

John Larsen [00:30:37] So I did a little math. Say the pregnancy is the same. They're having spiritual babies, not physical babies. But let's say it's a nine month pregnancy. And let's say that the second mother in heaven gets. Has her baby at nine months. Father pregnancy impregnates her again. So she's having nine months. Nine months. Nine months.

John Dehlin [00:30:59] Nine months. Wait, John Larsen, I gotta call you on, I gotta call you on this one. Like, don't you think? I mean, first of all, I mean, you're probably gonna get to this. This assumes that. That the anatomy that heavenly mother or mothers are born with are used in the birth of spirit children.

John Larsen [00:31:15] Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:31:16] And you would assume that. Oh, Carah, what are you doing? Karen, what are you. Because I'm using my.

Carah Burrell [00:31:20] Because the anatomy of mother in heaven with these milkers that she's got.

John Dehlin [00:31:27] That's not what I was trying to do.

Carah Burrell [00:31:29] That's why you're talking with your hands did not come in handy.

John Larsen [00:31:32] If they took no break and just had one baby after the other after the other after the other for nine months, it would be 163,207,547,170 years to. To birth the. The. All of us.

Carah Burrell [00:31:46] Yeah. Do you know what the, do you

John Dehlin [00:31:48] know what the, what's the gestation period for a celestial spirit is? The question is it nine months?

Carah Burrell [00:31:53] And that kind that came from just intelligence. They were just floating around bumping into each other like, you know, like the pre existence has that we were just intelligences before we even had the bodies. Before Heavenly Father we able to present his plan. So it's like. Yeah, what is the gestation of now? That's just these. I don't know. We're just bopping around the universe.

Divine Procreation and the Logistics of Eternity

John Larsen [00:32:10] Well, let's, let's say these guys are exalted God. Figures, right?

John Dehlin [00:32:14] I mean, you have to assume. John Larsen, to your point. I'm just trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. If, if, if we resurrect with the bodies that we have now, it's assumed that we need to use those body

John Larsen [00:32:26] parts while they're done.

John Dehlin [00:32:28] Okay. Okay. Okay.

John Larsen [00:32:29] We're going to get there.

John Dehlin [00:32:29] Okay, so. All right, we'll go.

Carah Burrell [00:32:30] I know John Larsen. He likes talking.

John Dehlin [00:32:33] Okay, so we got nine months.

Speaker F [00:32:34] We'll.

John Dehlin [00:32:34] We'll give you nine months. We'll give you nine months.

John Larsen [00:32:36] Ridiculous. Okay, there wasn't 163 years. A billion years of birthing. That's crazy. So let's assume that, that, that Elohim God the father can impregnate Mother God and that she can gestate, have the baby, and be ready to Procreate again in 30 seconds. Okay, so, so they can, they, they, they have their celestial sex. She gestates, she gives birth, she's ready to go again. 30 seconds. It would take 206,000 years. 206,869 to be precise.

Carah Burrell [00:33:13] But she doesn't have a period. Sounds great.

John Larsen [00:33:15] No, no, there's no periods. Yeah, and this is why.

John Dehlin [00:33:18] Why not?

John Larsen [00:33:19] I want to. Why not to this again?

John Dehlin [00:33:21] Well, I want 40.

Carah Burrell [00:33:21] I was just making a joke that at least she doesn't have to have a period. Like that's one great perk of being pregnant all the time.

John Dehlin [00:33:27] All things shall be restored. This is the restoration.

Guest [00:33:29] Oh, no.

Carah Burrell [00:33:31] In that 30 seconds you're just like changing tampons and pads. I hate this. I just hate it.

John Larsen [00:33:35] Now, now that 30 seconds goes for everything. So that doesn't give them any time to actually name the baby. Because the baby is born and then they have to procreate the next baby. So if your mother gave you a name like we were named up there, and she took 30 seconds to name everybody again, it would take 206,869 years for her to give 30 seconds to each person.

Carah Burrell [00:34:01] Huh.

John Larsen [00:34:01] So, so if, if during the pre existence you spent a grand total of four 32nd, third or. Yeah, 32nd phases with your mother in heaven, that would have taken close to a billion years.

Carah Burrell [00:34:17] What is time with mother?

John Larsen [00:34:19] Okay, now, now, now we can enter the mind bins, right?

Carah Burrell [00:34:23] Yeah.

John Larsen [00:34:23] We can say, oh well, Heavenly father's

John Dehlin [00:34:26] time is not our time.

John Larsen [00:34:27] They just had them all at once. They all just came out. Or, or, or you can Start because, because we, we use all this description and we talk about it in soccer meeting. The people are going to go on to have celestial families. Families are forever. This is what their forever family is because their children are birthing their own kids using the same math. So if their own kids take a pause and from birthing their spirit children to come visit, it's just going to delay the whole process by billions of

John Dehlin [00:34:57] years and it becomes selfish. It's like don't visit your parents. You're. You're stalling the eternal salvation of your own posterity to go visit mom and dad. Right.

Carah Burrell [00:35:06] Everyone is just in the bedroom. If the beds are rocking, don't come and knock in. We got earth's to populate here, right? Like you don't want to visit.

John Dehlin [00:35:14] Otherwise the salvation of man and human woman just ceases and stalls.

John Larsen [00:35:20] Okay, so good point. So let's, let's go beyond the conception for somehow it happened.

John Dehlin [00:35:25] Jen's laughing.

John Larsen [00:35:27] Billion of us sitting around waiting for something to happen. Okay. And we see the mother and father have these bodies and we think, yeah, that's pretty awesome. I want, I want one of those. So we all get together in a big circle. Now let's say we all occupied 24 square inches. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:35:56] This is like a wise guy's routine.

Carah Burrell [00:35:58] This is literally actually my tick tock about it. I started by saying, everyone gather in real close. There are like a trillion of you.

John Larsen [00:36:04] We're getting real close.

John Dehlin [00:36:06] Group hug.

John Larsen [00:36:06] No one gets more than 24 inches.

Carah Burrell [00:36:09] And the only the people close, close enough to see my nose hairs are the ones who are getting exalted. The rest of you are not even know about this plan.

John Larsen [00:36:13] Cheek to jowl in a big circle because that'd be the most efficient. We'd be in the absolute perfect circle. Okay? So the, the speed of sound is 1130ft per second at sea level. Why are you guys laughing? This is important stuff. This is Mormon doctrine. I'm just laying out. I'm just, I'm just doing the math.

Guest [00:36:42] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:36:42] Are there hugs in heaven? You want to think so, right?

John Larsen [00:36:44] Okay, so we start the grand council in heaven and we all gather. And I just want to be clear that it would take 7.76 minutes from the time the person in the middle of the circle speaks to the time the people on the outside can actually hear them. So you've got, you got an eight minute delay and if they have anything to say, it's going to be eight minutes coming back. So you kind of have a lot of weight cycles in this thing as you wait for everybody now, now you can, you can say, oh, well, there, there is no speed of sound. We don't, we don't talk using sound or there's no such thing as sea level in, in, In. In heaven. So what are you talking about, John? Well, that, that. Those are the mind bends. Because the church talks about all this stuff, the theologically, as if it's real, as if it really happened. These are real events that really happened. And if I look around at the world, because we wanted God's body, we looked at their body and said, that's what we want. We want that. That this was analogous for us, that we, we wanted to get there. So, so that means the things that go along with that, that go along with that world have to be incorporated in, right?

John Dehlin [00:37:55] Yeah. Like if there's a resurrection, your vocal cords are resurrected. And if your vocal cords are resurrected, it's because you're going to use them. So it's not ridiculous to think that your voice, Vocal cords that are resurrected are going to follow the laws of physics and, and, and use sound waves to communicate. Otherwise, why in the heck are you resurrecting with your vocal cords, Carah?

John Larsen [00:38:21] Okay, no, it's. Let's talk about the bodies for a second. You guys keep coming back to them.

John Dehlin [00:38:26] No, don't let us derail you, John. I'm just trying. I'm using logic to support your argument, that's all.

Resurrection, the Physical Body, and Mormon Scripture

John Larsen [00:38:33] Okay, so. Alma, chapter 11, verse 45. Now behold, I've spoken unto you concerning the death of the mortal body and also concerning the resurrection of the mortal body. I say unto you that this mortal body is raised to an immortal body, that is from death, even from the first death unto life, that they can die no more, their spirits uniting with their bodies, never to be divided. Thus the whole becoming spiritual and immortal. That. That they can no more see corruption. So. So it's very clear from that verse and others that it is this body, this body that I have, that will be resurrected. And that's what I want. I want this body for some reason that I can't quite figure out. So I want you all to help me understand why we're going to want this body. Because I did a little bit of research. The body is composed of 11 major systems, and we're going to go through those right now. The first one is the circulatory and respiratory system you breathe air in and that goes into your. Your lungs, and then it extracts oxygen which gets into your blood, which moves to the cells. Now cells have what we call cellular respiration. Every cell is alive and it produces toxins and waste products and it needs fuel. Every single cell. That's how you can have dead skin cells, because they died, right? So these bodies are made up of cells that are all living things, that all require life, they require nutrients, and they die. But we're saying when they're resurrected, they're not going to do that anymore, that the body can no longer die. So that means all of the cells will no longer need to function because they will no longer need to respirate on a cellular level. So breathing and the blood pumping through the system, our first body system, has no purpose because if I stop breathing, I won't die. So that means that the cells won't die and I won't die, and my blood doesn't need to do anything. So there's system number one.

Carah Burrell [00:40:51] And isn't there something about Jesus? When he was resurrected, he didn't have blood, right? He had, like, some spiritual juice in them.

John Larsen [00:40:57] Oh, a mind bend. Here's our first mind bend. Yes. We can say, oh, we didn't have blood. We had infinite spiritual juice. Right? But, but so if I were a God and I were to take my. My. And take my, you know, vein here and cut it so that it. It wasn't putting any blood to my hand, would those cells die? Because you're still saying that I could kill a God by just draining their infinite blood fluid. And I'm saying, no, you can't, because they can't die. It says in the scriptures that the body just keeps going forever.

John Dehlin [00:41:32] I have an answer. It's kind of the wolverine solution. Because if you cut. Wolverine it like, it cuts and the blood comes out, but then it heals again. I mean, I'm just saying prayer.

John Larsen [00:41:43] Yeah, that's more like Deadpool, I think, is here. Okay, you shoot him in the face.

John Dehlin [00:41:48] I'm just brainstorming.

Carah Burrell [00:41:49] Eric likes spiritual juice. Thanks. I came up with that off the fly because once I gave a testimony meeting and I said, and I just believe that the resurrection and Jesus and every. And he came alive again and his blood pumped through his body. And I got a talking to after church because he did not have blood in his body. The Mormons reminded me during my very spiritual testimony meeting.

John Larsen [00:42:06] Look, you guys clearly want to be here all night because I told you there are 11 systems and we've only been through one.

John Dehlin [00:42:10] He's just been going, keep going, Jon.

John Larsen [00:42:12] The second one is the digestive and excretory system.

John Dehlin [00:42:15] Oh, right.

John Larsen [00:42:16] So does God take a dump, no one's sure. But he doesn't have to, right? It wouldn't be necessary. If he doesn't have to eat, he doesn't have to digest anything besides that. We've already established that cells can't die. So if you were to take a fish in heaven and chew it up, like, doesn't everything just stay living? They can't. They can't die, right?

Speaker F [00:42:41] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:42:41] The very things you'd be eating are also resurrected. Like, where do you get food from and sustenance from in a godlike plane?

John Larsen [00:42:48] Yeah. I don't know. The third system, our endocrine system, which is responsible for our hormones, which makes us, you know, angry and sad and horny and all that kind of stuff. Does God have hormones?

John Dehlin [00:43:01] Well, according to the Old Testament, absolutely. He's got a lot of hormones. He's like a prepubescent teenager.

John Larsen [00:43:07] Are hormones necessary for God's cognitive and emotional process? They are for ours, but, so can, can his thyroid get out of whack and then he's really grumpy. Maybe that explains the Old Testament. I don't know. He needs some medication.

John Dehlin [00:43:20] Exactly.

John Larsen [00:43:23] Okay, the, the exocrine system. Skin, nails, sweat glands, skin, all that kind of stuff. The, you know, I guess we don't want God's guts falling around, so it needs that. But, but does, Does God have to trim his nails? Does. Do his nails keep growing? I mean, the, the. I, I, I know I'm sounding facetious, but when I read the scriptures, the whole point is, when we die, we get it all back. It all comes back. We don't lose anything. Right? So God sweats, right?

Guest [00:43:50] He.

John Larsen [00:43:51] He'd have to. And his sweat is gonna stink. It's gonna have bacteria in it. Is it? Or is there bacteria? Yeah, because we can't function without bacteria.

Carah Burrell [00:44:00] Does he have, like, pheromones that he sweats with that each heavenly mother responds to with her reproductive organs the same way that happens on her? Is he like a horny, sweaty dude that gets, gets done with, like, pumping iron at the gin and all and just goes and makes another billion babies for the day?

John Larsen [00:44:18] Is that, let's jump. You guys want to talk about the reproductive system? So we'll switch to that next. Does, does the mother in heaven produce milk? Does she have breasts? I mean, that's part of our bodies, like, female reproductive system, Fallopian tubes and eggs and a uterus and all that. All that stuff that we're. That were packing around with us. Does she, does she have it? And this is the question, why can I, as a teenager, make a physical baby? But can God? And if God did, who. Who are these beings? Where are they? If, if, if, if, if. If God has a directed being, has sex with his. His resurrected wife, can she get pregnant?

John Dehlin [00:45:04] Well, you know, John, that's a really important point in Mormon theology, because in Mormon theology, Heavenly Father literally had sex with Mary to make Jesus. So we know that his body can produce physical offspring. And, and how else would he have made the baby with Mary?

John Larsen [00:45:21] So I, I think it's a, it's a valid point because either either God loses the power to have sex and have children the normal way, or there is a whole nother order of beings that you don't even know about, that God and, and that were birthed, that were born as gods. Right? They. They would have been born from two perfected beings, so they would be gods. All right, the. We're still. We've only been through five of the systems. So the immune and lymphatic system. Does God have lymph nodes? Does God have immunity? Can he get sick? And if, if he can't, why is he packing this system around? So, okay, let's go through them fast. The muscular system, the nervous system, the renal urinary system. Does. Does God's kidneys clean his blood from toxins and does he piss it out? The reproductive system, we just talked about the respiratory system, we talked about the skeletal system. So those 11 systems that make up the body, as best I can tell, God needs none of them. So the whole point here is to get resurrected with a body that has limitations. I can't float. Except maybe in the Great Salt Lake. Oh, I'm sorry. Too soon? You guys used to have a Great Salt Lake before you just had a big pile of toxic arsenic poisoning you all.

John Dehlin [00:46:43] Oh, man. Thanks. Thanks for that, Joe Larsen.

John Larsen [00:46:46] Yeah, anytime.

John Dehlin [00:46:47] No, but why, yeah, why get resurrected if you're not going to use any of the body parts?

John Larsen [00:46:51] None of it. Yeah, none of it. Because we established the first thing that God and mother had to do was birth 217 billion spirits of which the body apparently has absolutely no function because there's nothing around here that can birth spirits.

John Dehlin [00:47:06] And by the way, in Mormon theology, isn't the spirit in body form.

John Larsen [00:47:13] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:47:13] Yeah, it's the spirits in body form because the body's so important. So if the body's so important, if the body's so important that spirits are shaped in body form, why is it that then when the body gets resurrected, none of it gets used and is necessary.

John Larsen [00:47:28] And I want to, I want to return to that question again. We're gonna go.

John Dehlin [00:47:31] Sorry, John, you're just making us, you're making us think, brother.

John Larsen [00:47:34] All right, we're trying to pay attention. We're in heaven, okay?

John Dehlin [00:47:36] We're in heaven.

John Larsen [00:47:37] We're going to go back there. We established that. We're all sitting around and we have to wait 7, 8 minutes for the sound waves to get all the way to the back. And it's just taken forever. So, so we've reached the end of what we can do here in this pre. Mortal existence. And, and, and we're coming together to hear and there's going to be two of us who stand up and give their shots. And I want you to remember, Jesus shot first. Okay? So that's very important theologically here because the Mormons tend to gloss over this. Jesus gets up and he says, okay, we're gonna go down to a physical planet and you're all going to be born into bodies. All 217 billion of us are going to be born and have bodies and we are going to go down and, and everybody's going to be judged according to their works, according to Jesus. If they're good, then they will be exalted like our Father and, and mother. And if they're not, they're going to be, they're going to be damned. And it's, it's free choice and free will that, that we don't want to mess with, that we want to make sure that everybody has an equal opportunity to get themselves saved. That was Jesus's plan. And he says, I, I will die for everybody's sins and all the glory will go to God. Yeah, I won't, I won't take one bit of the glory, says Jesus. It'll all go to God the Father. Praise be. Right. First of all, Jesus's first lie. Because I have been on this planet in 2022, and all the glory goes to Jesus Christ.

Carah Burrell [00:49:19] All the photos, all the drawings.

John Larsen [00:49:21] Jesus said in the beginning that all the glory would go to God the Father. Almost all Christian sects don't even acknowledge that there is a separate being from Jesus Christ, that God and Jesus Christ are the same person. So Jesus was absolutely fucking wrong right out the gate, right? Oh, come on, John.

Guest [00:49:42] This.

John Larsen [00:49:42] After everything you've.

John Dehlin [00:49:44] No, no, no, no.

Carah Burrell [00:49:46] John Larsen was in the back of that, you know, 8 billion long group and he going, traveled. It didn't get there.

John Larsen [00:49:52] Disappointed.

John Dehlin [00:49:53] If my third of us, if my turn on, if my turn on earth, is Mormon doctrine, which it kind of is. Yeah. Jesus is like, and father the glory to thee. And then Satan's like, to me, you guys. That's from My Turn on Earth. Carolyn Pearson. It's a musical.

John Larsen [00:50:11] Anyway.

John Dehlin [00:50:12] Yes, that's Mormon doctrine that Jesus is not supposed to get the glory according to My Turn on Earth. Okay, keep going.

God's Plan for Two Hundred Billion Souls

John Larsen [00:50:17] So God the father and, and our absent mother, our quiet or silent mother.

John Dehlin [00:50:22] Or mothers.

John Larsen [00:50:23] Or mothers. They. They set up this, this thing, this whole system. They have 217 billion children and what they want is to be worshiped. Isn't that what you want, John, you have kids. What, what do you do to your kids when they don't worship you?

John Dehlin [00:50:40] I.

John Larsen [00:50:40] Well, I mean, you, you of course, make them bow down, Carah. You make them bow down to you.

Carah Burrell [00:50:45] And I make them watch my tick tocks before bed and compliment me. Yeah.

John Larsen [00:50:49] You guys want to be godly, right? You want your children to worship you?

John Dehlin [00:50:52] Mormon me did, for sure. Really? I mean, I wanted to be respected, you know?

John Larsen [00:50:58] Right.

John Dehlin [00:50:58] Yeah.

John Larsen [00:50:59] Okay.

Carah Burrell [00:51:00] And you're just. John Larsen, you're making the point, like, I just want to make sure I'm understanding you that like they're setting this system up to be worshiped. And that is where they get their glory is from putting this whole motion into place, kind of dodging and not really being there to answer our prayers. But they still get the glory in some way, shape and form. And it's definitely Jesus is going to

John Larsen [00:51:19] hand the glory to them in some. In some way. Now there's a couple of ricochet glory, Jesus's plan. First of all, 217,610,000,000 spirits, they're all going to come to this earth and they're going to sin. And Jesus says, you know what? I. I will pay for Everybody's sin. All 217 billion, everything they do. I'll do it. I'll take all the punishment, I'll take all the whipping. And the rest of us are like, oh my God, Jesus, are you, are you certain that. I mean, that's a lot of sin. It took us 206000 years just to have mother name us. And you're going to take all of our sin on you. That's going to be like a long time, right? You're going to be like hundreds of trillions of years in eternal punishment as you suffer for every Indonesia. And, and we've been on this planet for a while, right? This place is a horror show. There are people who are tortured to death, who are raped to death, who are murdered to death. Everything you can possibly imagine that can happen has happened. And Jesus is going to take the licking for all of it. And how much is this gonna take? What's the cost?

Carah Burrell [00:52:31] Oh, can I ask you a couple questions on that? Tell me your thoughts on this. As even when I was at my most Mormon and I was. I remember being like 18, laying awake in bed, having this big, huge problem with the atonement, and feeling like, why couldn't God just forgive us like that? Why does Jesus need to have these, like, put our sins on us? And I had a bunch of things I wrestled with. So when you put it in the numbers like that, I'm glad you spelled it out with the whatever billion number. I'm sorry.

John Larsen [00:52:55] Billion. 610 million.

Carah Burrell [00:52:56] That's the one I used to think like, well, Jesus would still die if I was the only person on earth who needed it. But now when you put it in those numbers, it's actually like, like statistically irrelevant if I existed or not, because he still would have had to come and bring salvation and die on the cross for the other bajillion. Bajillion of people, whether I existed or not. So, like that tie to needing him to do it for me, I could have just rather have not existed. I'm a statistical, like, error at this point, right?

John Larsen [00:53:24] Oh, oh, you're absolutely right. And we're going to get there. Okay, so. So, yeah, absolutely. Okay, so Jesus says all the glory would go to God, but Mosiah, chapter 3, verse 19. Let's go, shall we? All of you, get your scriptures Flip,

Carah Burrell [00:53:40] flip, flip, flip, flip. I'm there. Scripture chase champion.

John Larsen [00:53:45] Mosiah 3, verse. Oh, I said 16. I meant 19. For the natural man is an enemy to God and has been from the fall of Adam and will be forever and ever unless he yields the enticings of the Holy Spirit and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord. And become as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord sees fit to inflict upon him, even as a child that submit to his Father. Okay, I don't know if Jesus actually outlined that in his plan, but he probably should have said, oh, by the way, in clause three of your eula down there, you're going to be the enemy to God. At the minute you're born onto this planet by your very nature, you will be the enemy to God. But we have Mosiah 16:10. If you want to flip over there? Even this mortal shall put on immortality, and this corruption shall put on incorruption, and shall be brought to stand before the bar of God to be judged of him according to their works, whether they be good or they be evil. If they be good, to the resurrection of endless life and happiness, if they be evil, to the resurrection of eternal damnation, being delivered up to the devil who hath subjected them, which is damnation. So you're gonna be. If you're good, then you will be saved. If you're evil, you will be damned. But Mosiah, chapter three tells us that we're all evil. And let's read the first sentence of that. For the natural man is an enemy to God and has been from the fall of Adam and will be forever unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit. All right, now we're going to get even further in the conundrum. In Mormon theology, you don't receive the Holy Ghost till you've been baptized. So Mosiah sets up this conundrum that one, by being born into this world, by being a physical being, you are the enemy of God. And the only way to get back to God is if you are enticed. That's an active verb. By the Holy Spirit. But in Mormon theology, you don't get the Holy Spirit until after you've been baptized and it has been bestowed upon you. You would only have the light of Christ. But Mosiah doesn't say the light of Christ will entice you. Mosiah clearly says it must be the Holy Ghost that entices you. So you were from the beginning in Jesus's plan that. I don't know if he told you that, but you're gonna go down there. He's gonna get. He's gonna get resurrected. He's gonna spend three days suffering for everybody's sin. But you're gonna be an enemy to God. And God is not going to forget about that. We're gonna. We're gonna get back to that in. In a minute. So. So the deck stacked. From the very beginning, I've always.

John Dehlin [00:56:31] On. In all seriousness, I've always been bugged by just that idea that we're. We're going to hell just because we're born. Unless the right com. Sequence of events happens. Not to mention the fact that Heavenly Father is so bad at design that a third of his kids are, like, damned from the start. Like all that has been always since. Since high school, that stuff.

Carah Burrell [00:56:53] Sure grateful I was born straight. And White. And in America and in the 21st century. That was lucky.

John Dehlin [00:56:58] And in Utah.

John Larsen [00:56:59] Oh, wait, no, you weren't lucky at all. Now it's time to go back to the numbers.

Carah Burrell [00:57:02] Oh, I wasn't lucky because I shouldn't have accepted this because now I'm actually imf is what I probably.

John Larsen [00:57:06] We established that there were. There's been about 100 billion people who've been on this planet, of which right now there are 7.8 billion here with us today. Okay, so the host of heaven, by the way, just as a parenthetical site, the host of heaven was 72,536,000,000. So there are 9.2 demons for every person walking around right now. So you. You've got 9.2 demons staring at you, by the way.

Carah Burrell [00:57:33] I thought you were gonna definitely have more, though.

John Dehlin [00:57:36] Yeah, absolutely. As. As Mormon Voldemort. And what are you? Bellatrix. Bellatrix.

Carah Burrell [00:57:42] I don't know about your nerd language, but I'll find out one for myself. Something cooler, John.

John Dehlin [00:57:47] I thought you were gonna go something about, like. Like the Holy Ghost being Flash Gordon or Flash, like, being able to, you know, how if the Holy Ghost has to inspire a gazillion people all at once, you know, I thought you were going to do something about the velocity of the Holy Ghost.

John Larsen [00:58:03] I don't wonder. I'll tell you. I've studied Christian theology and Mormon theology for a long time. I don't understand the Holy Ghost. It seems very superfluous to me because.

John Dehlin [00:58:12] More because the Mormon Church is taught the Holy Ghost can only be at one place at one time. Right.

John Larsen [00:58:16] Truly, I suppose.

John Dehlin [00:58:19] I don't know. That's what I was talking about.

Carah Burrell [00:58:20] That just reminds me of the transhumanism conversations that, like, the Mormon transhumanists were like, we'll find out through technology one day how we do all of this super magic.

John Dehlin [00:58:28] Yeah.

Infant Mortality, Demons, and the Mortal Probation

John Larsen [00:58:29] Okay, so let's talk about infant mortality rates. So we know 100 billion people were born on this planet, but as it turns out, 27 of the population never makes it past the year one. So. So of the 100 billion that have been born, 27 or 27 million, 27 billion would have died before they reached their first birthday. The second figure that researchers and anthropologists use is the age of 15. And I think it has to do with development, skeletal development. And they do research on this, and the estimate is that 47% of the global population never made it past 15. So if you made it past 15 from a. From a global perspective, you are already in the elite, half, half of everybody that was born here never made it past 15. Okay, so now we need to go and sort of recalculate the numbers. So given that, that we had 33 billion some odd miscarriages and 628 million stillborns and 11 billion abortions, and then we had one third the host of heaven, the 72,500,000 people there. And then we had 27 billion people who died before they were 1 and 20 more billion people who died before they were 15. So all together, those two figures add up to 47%. So what percentage of a father and mother's children actually made it into adulthood made it past 15? And the answer is 24.36%. So if we take God's Jesus's plan, his plan out the gate didn't apply to the majority of us, 75% would either be the 1/3 host of heaven. We're gonna get back to those guys in a second or they will have basically died before they made it past 15. Now, I did one little fancy math thing before I did that is I, I cut the number in half. 20 million people died between the ages of 1 and 15. And I said, well, 8 is about halfway. So let's just figure that 10 million of them die by the time they're 8. And that's how I got to the 24.36. Now we're gonna have to deal with those other 10 billion spirits that died between the time they were 8 and 15 to talk about what their fate is in the eternities. We'll come back to them, but only of Jesus's plan. It only applied to, to 25 of the population.

John Dehlin [01:01:08] Yeah.

John Larsen [01:01:09] So this is why our mother in heaven, assuming she went to through a similar thing, the odds are she died in utero or she died as a child. The odds are very much stacked just right off the top that she ever actually lived on this planet. Because the people who became adults on this planet are only 1 in 4 of all of the, all of the spirit children that were born to heavenly father and mother.

Carah Burrell [01:01:34] That's really interesting. So what you're saying is there's no real reason to even believe, if you are a Mormon, to think that your heavenly parents even lived on Earth. On earth in their sphere. Is that you're trying to say, well,

John Larsen [01:01:47] if you do, you know, statistics, and we're going to get into some bigger statistics at the end of this, you know, it's very well possible that our Father in Heaven is a 20th generation in vitro death, baby.

Carah Burrell [01:02:00] Sure. Whoa, that's mind blowing.

John Larsen [01:02:03] It's been, it's been, it could very well be that it's been 75 trillion years since anybody of our ancestors actually lived a human life.

John Dehlin [01:02:13] Yeah. Because, because John, you ever brought this up, and I'm, I'm fearful that you were going to bring this up later, but I keep doing this. It's Mormon doctrine that if you die before the age of 8. What do you remember, Carah?

Carah Burrell [01:02:24] Do I remember being Mormon? Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:02:25] Do you remember that teaching that you

Carah Burrell [01:02:27] are not accountable for your sins?

John Dehlin [01:02:29] You're. You're automatically going to the celestial kingdom if you die before the age of accountability.

Carah Burrell [01:02:33] And so there's, there's a lot of kind of scary stuff that goes into that thinking about like mountain metals massacre and different things like that.

Guest 2 [01:02:38] Right.

Carah Burrell [01:02:38] That just tell you that, like, kids are, are better to be like, killed when they're. Whatever.

John Dehlin [01:02:44] I don't know. Well, yeah, I mean, probably actually Mountain

Carah Burrell [01:02:47] men is not a good example. Don't listen to me. I'm fired already. So I'm out here.

John Dehlin [01:02:51] Well, John, I, this is probably where you're going. But what I'm. Yeah, what I, what I'm realizing is, is that if you combine all the number of, of Heavenly Father and Mother and mother's spirit children, how many of them died before they ever really had a feasible chance to even reach the age of accountability? They're most likely our gods.

John Larsen [01:03:10] 75%.

John Dehlin [01:03:11] Because if, if Jesus was right, that narrow is the gate and few there be that find it, that means all the rest of us, you're going to get to this too. All the rest of us who actually survived were the unlucky ones because our chance of actually becoming a God is infinitesimal. Whereas if you just freaking were like half of every. Okay, spirit children, you're, you're automatically exalted. Is that where you were going, John?

John Larsen [01:03:34] Yeah. Yeah. And we'll, we'll look at some, some, some figures spin on that.

John Dehlin [01:03:38] What I also just have to just note, John Larsen, is how callous does Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother have to be that so many of their spiritual offspring just don't make it like, well, gazillions of their children just don't make it. Oh, well, like, are they, are they grieving? Like, how much are they grieving for? The third, the, the full third of their spirit children that didn't make it. Do they just blow them off or

John Larsen [01:04:07] do they like two plans. Satan's plan was everybody get saved. Jesus's plan is most everybody Gets saved. Except this small, narrow.

John Dehlin [01:04:16] Except one out of three who happened

John Larsen [01:04:18] to cholera, you know.

John Dehlin [01:04:22] Anyway, I'm just saying, like, that have to, that has to make Heavenly Father and mothers extremely callous. How do they go on?

Carah Burrell [01:04:28] I'm going to argue with that on you because, like, every Mormon funeral has taught me that Heavenly Father has an eternal perspective. And so he just knows that. He knows that it's all going to work out. And so he's like, why would I spend a second grieving when I could be banging out another baby?

John Dehlin [01:04:42] Now you're, now you're going to the progression. Progression after post mortal.

Carah Burrell [01:04:47] I'm just saying, wouldn't Heavenly Father know that, like, it doesn't matter that, you know, everyone's just like dropping dead and having these miserable lives and like 10,000 children die every day and there's like tsunamis and stuff. And this plan isn't working for anyone because in the end, I'm God and I will make it all work. Maybe that's how he's thinking of it.

John Dehlin [01:05:01] Yeah.

Jesus's Proposal, Free Will, and Lucifer's Objection

John Larsen [01:05:02] Okay, so if we, we left the narrative with Jesus standing in the middle of the big circle of, of 217,610,000,000 of us and proposing his plan. Right. And I remember I pointed out that Jesus shot first. This is really important because in Jesus's plan, there was no devil and there was no one third host of heaven. Jesus. Jesus's plan was that we would go down and be judged for our own actions. Right. And that, that over and over and over again, we see doctrinally that, you know, why doesn't God commit miracles or show himself or give us unambiguous scripture, you know, and it's. Well, because then it would tip the fight. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:05:48] Yeah.

John Larsen [01:05:48] That it would be unfair.

John Dehlin [01:05:50] Yeah.

John Larsen [01:05:51] But when Jesus pitched the plan, there was no adversary. Because what happened next after Jesus sat down, this guy Lucifer, who we should give a little respect, who stands up and says, what the did we just hear? This plan is absolutely ridiculous.

John Dehlin [01:06:10] Yeah.

John Larsen [01:06:10] Like, most people won't even get the kind of body you're talking about. And they'll have deformities and they'll have mental illness. And, and, and we've seen what's been done in other worlds. People are insane, they're violent, they're greedy, that everyone's just gonna, like, kill each other. No one is going to actually get your, your, your exaltation. So the question is, was Jesus planning on this the whole time when he pitched this plan? Did he throw his brother underneath the bus and have a secret plan that he knew Satan would look at his plan. Lucifer would look at his plan and say, that plan sucks. Because it does. Jesus's plan is. It's annoying. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't. And it. And it's just going to get worse from here. We're not even done. We're only halfway through this podcast.

John Dehlin [01:07:02] Is it okay to say Mormon Jesus? Because I'm thinking about all my non, non Mormon Christian friends that are just. You're using the F bomb in the same sentence as Jesus. Can we say Mormon Jesus or can we, like, stipulate that it's Mormon?

John Larsen [01:07:15] He just hung out with publicans and prostitutes. He doesn't care.

John Dehlin [01:07:17] Okay, all right. So my Christian friends. Our non Mormon Christian friends shouldn't either. Is that what we're saying with John

Carah Burrell [01:07:23] Larsen on this one?

John Dehlin [01:07:24] Okay. All right, cool. All right, Proceed, John Larsen.

John Larsen [01:07:27] I. I believe that if there is a Jesus, he's bigger than my naughty words.

John Dehlin [01:07:31] The potty mouth. Okay, keep going.

John Larsen [01:07:32] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:07:33] All right.

John Larsen [01:07:34] So. So did Jesus know Lucifer would object? And since Lucifer said, I'm doing that, what's been done in other worlds, then he would know exactly what his role was. Why would he do that? We've already. We've already addressed this point to a degree. Why would he play along with Jesus's plan? Because if he doesn't play along with Jesus plan, Jesus's plan fails.

John Dehlin [01:07:57] I'm just stuck on the idea that Satan gets such a bad rap for trying to save everybody, and then Jesus gets all the glory for creating a plan that's, like, so poorly designed. Mormon Jesus, that. That so many people get. Get damned from the very start. Like, yeah, like, that's not a great plan. Why are we happy that Mormon Jesus

Carah Burrell [01:08:18] did that and that, like, the spooky like, oh, no, Satan didn't want you to have any free will. Jesus wanted you to. And that's why you're gonna sit and shut down and go to church for three hours a week and get all your covenants or you're out of the family. Like, it's this faux free will that Mormonism has anyway. That's like. At least Satan was up front. He was like, dude, I'm gonna tell you straight. This is how it is. Free will's an illusion anyway.

John Dehlin [01:08:40] Most of you aren't gonna make it. Yeah, trust me, Trust me. Go with my plan. Trust me. That other guy, it's not gonna fare well for you.

Carah Burrell [01:08:47] Yeah, there's no winning on, like, the way that you're gonna be born into different Places in the. This, there's like this faux idea of truth and be able to like, actually choose the things to be able to choose the restoration. It's obviously just like this facade that Mormonism has elevated in its mind that, like, this is the way that it goes. Jesus had the elevated plan. I think they're both kind of the same plan.

John Dehlin [01:09:06] I understand why you're swearing about Mormon Jesus, John. Keep going.

John Larsen [01:09:10] So again, we're looking at, we select, we select Jesus plan. And a third of us who are smart said, this is bullshit, we're out of here. This, this doesn't make any sense whatsoever. This is, this is wrong. It's evil, it's corrupt. We're not going to have any part of this.

John Dehlin [01:09:27] It's poorly engineered, it's super inefficient. Right?

John Larsen [01:09:30] And, and so I don't know about you, but if I was the master of the universe and I had one of the, one of the main guys of my children, a leader who is able to lead a third of the host of heaven, which as A reminder is 72,536,000,536 people. It's not a small number of people. I would not put him in jail in the place where I'm sending all my little babies to grow up. I would lock him up on Saturn

John Dehlin [01:10:01] to tempt them, right? To entice them. Like, they're all here. It's like, yeah, well, let's see. Heavenly Father's like, heavily, hey, hey, wives. What do we do with all these, all these outcast spirit children.

John Larsen [01:10:16] I know.

John Dehlin [01:10:17] Let's send them to where we're sending the rest of our kids and they can torment them and make it less likely that they'll return to us. Great idea.

Carah Burrell [01:10:23] Yeah.

John Larsen [01:10:24] That wasn't part of Jesus's plan. Because Jesus didn't know, because Jesus spoke first in this meeting. He didn't know that Lucifer was going to stand up, or at least we didn't.

John Dehlin [01:10:36] Unless he had. Unless he had foresight, you know, unless he, you know, right.

John Larsen [01:10:40] Which is a mind bend. We start saying it's the same sort of thing. We say, okay, we're. Our bodies were patterned after God, the Father's body. And we believe in Mormonism that God can read all of our minds. 7.8 billion minds. Do you know what kind of processing power it would take to be able to simultaneously process? But the scriptures tell us he knows. He knows every insect, every blade of grass, every hair. Can you imagine the processing power state of affairs it would be to be in God's mind that you Have a cognitive awareness of the inner thoughts of all 7.8 billion people, all insects, all animals, all blades of grass, every lily in the field is in your mind constantly. This guy is in hell.

Carah Burrell [01:11:29] And I'm supposed to aspire to that for eternity too. I can't even handle getting text messages from like more than four people a day. Like, gosh.

John Dehlin [01:11:38] All right, it's not sounding very fun. It's not sounding very fun.

John Larsen [01:11:41] Okay, so now, now we're up to the fun part?

John Dehlin [01:11:43] No, but I did. But the. Where we left off. God and heavenly mothers are sending all the evil spirits to earth to make it even harder for the children to return.

John Larsen [01:11:52] To make it even harder. Because remember, the. The Jesus is. Was Jesus's plan was that we would be judged by our works. That's very clear in Mormon theology. That we would separate. And I'll. I'm going to read you more scripture. Don't worry, I won't leave you hanging. That, that, that we were coming here to be judged of our own action. But the scriptures say we can't act unless we're enticed one way or the other. Alma says that and that. That it also says that the only people who are good are those who the spirit entice them to be good. So not Only was the 1/3 sent here to tempt us, the rest of us were sent here to die and be damned. Unless God interfered by sending the Holy Spirit to us. But Jesus said we can't interfere.

Carah Burrell [01:12:39] If there is a member of that, the LDS Church listening to this and they have a great argument of how this all makes sense, please write it to me@nuancehowgmail.com. i really want to hear how somebody makes sense of that. I can't make. I can't wrap my brain around. You're laying it out pretty, pretty awesome for me, John. I can't see the way that this makes sense after you put it like that.

John Larsen [01:12:59] Okay, so we have the. We have the big war in heaven. We clear out the 1/3, ne' er do wells, and now we're ready to execute Jesus's plan. Yay, Jesus. So we gather around the jump off spot. We're all in the clouds and we're playing harps and we're really excited because now we're gonna get bodies and now we can be like God. So we're sitting there watching. I assume we're watching and. And they start jumping off just like in my turn on earth.

John Dehlin [01:13:24] Thank you, children. Coming down, coming down. Keep going. I'm just gonna I'm gonna, we're sitting

John Larsen [01:13:32] up there in heaven watching this and I want to know the first see is this is like paratroopers over Normandy. Like one quarter of all babies die in utero. Boom, boom, boom, boom. We're throwing spirits down. Most of them never make it down.

John Dehlin [01:13:48] It's like crap. Oh no, Billy, no, not Sammy. What about Susie?

Carah Burrell [01:13:53] That make a very depressing. Yeah. Saturday's warrior.

John Larsen [01:13:56] Like, yeah, yeah, because remember I said the number of miscarriages with 33 billion. Right. You're just watching, you know, these are your brothers and sisters and your wife and then they come back the other side and they're like, oh, well, I, I guess, I guess I'm saved. I, I did it. I, I, I, I did it. I never, you know, I never really had a body, my body.

Carah Burrell [01:14:17] Crossing your fingers. Abortion, Abortion by my mother in five weeks.

John Dehlin [01:14:20] But so the spirit. No, literally, with this logic, you're up in those clouds hoping that when your turn comes, you get the abortion.

Carah Burrell [01:14:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:14:29] You're hoping for the pre 8 year old. You're hoping to start.

Carah Burrell [01:14:34] I'm thinking that my mom just got knocked up at the parking lot of a CVS and that she circled back there a week later to go get the pill that cost $50 and she's taking it. And I'm just like crossing my fingers being like, boom. Send me into this special heavenly father,

John Dehlin [01:14:48] can I get famine? Can I get famine? Can I get war? Can I get disease?

Carah Burrell [01:14:52] No pain. Just like we're zapped out, waiting for

John Larsen [01:14:55] our turn and we're watching what's happening down there. Now, you guys have studied history, right? The history of the world. It's been a bloody mess for the last 10,000 years. They were sitting up there in heaven like, oh, look, there's Susan. And then you watch her get raped as a child. You watch her get murdered. You watch war after war after war. You watch death and destruction and every terrible thing happening and these spirits are limping back into the other side, just, you know, just, just destroyed, mentally destroyed, physically destroyed. Death and sorrow. Cake. Everything. Now, according to Mormon theology, and this is really complicated, but there were periods of restoration and then a falling away apostasy. And this happened over and over and over again. But by my reading of Mormon theology, most of human history was in apostasy. And that especially if you take a global view because you have, have all that. You have the, you know, the Indians and Chinese and aboriginal Australians and all these people who, there's no sign that there was ever anything but this From a Mormon perspective, wickedness that they will be judged for.

John Dehlin [01:16:08] Yeah, yeah. Like, like I could see us all in the clouds, like, yay, Jesus formed his true church. And then like 10 minutes later, oh, it fell into apostasy for another 1800 years. Darn right.

John Larsen [01:16:22] And then it's like, you're next. Wait, I'm not going down. It's a bit of a plague.

Guest [01:16:27] Sorry.

John Dehlin [01:16:27] You get the plague, you get the Middle Ages.

The Mormon Church, Temple Work, and the Afterlife

John Larsen [01:16:31] Okay, so let's skip ahead to the Mormon Church.

John Dehlin [01:16:35] No. Can I just also add one thing? It's that, it's that the, the so like, you die, you get the abortion, you go right back to super VIP heaven. Your buddy Billy actually gets born and lives past the age of eight and it's like, sucker, you're screwed. Sucks to be you. You actually survived.

Carah Burrell [01:16:56] It's like when you do really good on the standardized test when you're a kid and then you have to go take the like honors classes and you're like, loser, extra homework. I get to still graduate with a low GPA.

John Larsen [01:17:07] Somalian from 10, 20 years ago, Somalian death forces, they would take 10, 9, 10, 11 year olds, they'd put Kalashnikovs in their hand, they'd send them off to war, they would take 9, 10, 11 year old girls and they would set them up as the Joy Division for the boy soldiers. These kids never had a chance. They never even hit puberty before they. But they sinned and they sinned seriously. And they are going to be punished for all of eternity. But we'll get there in a second. Okay, so let's talk about the Mormon's role in this. I, I looked for stats there. There aren't really any of. The question of how many Mormons have there been since the restoration of the Gospel for Joseph Smith? And I'm going to put a generous figure of 50 million that there have been 50 million Mormons.

John Dehlin [01:18:01] Okay.

John Larsen [01:18:02] I don't think he's been anywhere near that, but we'll, we'll give it to him. Right? The numbers, the numbers are so huge that it's like, you know, I was trying to calculate how long it would take to do baptisms for the dead, for everybody. And it's just another one of these enormous figures that just doesn't make any sense to anybody. Right?

John Dehlin [01:18:23] Yeah, yeah. If you just want to do the calculation of like the millennium, we're talking about tens of billions of spirits. If a baptism takes 10 seconds, 100 billion. And only the Mormons are doing the baptisms.

Carah Burrell [01:18:38] And Nelson's Got the calculations wrong because he's trying to give everyone a temple. I think he's building so many.

John Larsen [01:18:43] Well, you have to remember we always talk about baptism for the dead, but people have to be endowed for the dead too. That takes two hours. So let's go back to my figures.

Carah Burrell [01:18:54] Elsie said. On topic. Please, guys, sorry, not now, not ever.

John Dehlin [01:18:58] Okay. Okay.

John Larsen [01:18:59] Yeah, yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:19:00] So, like our podcast's long here.

John Larsen [01:19:02] Mormons do work for the dead. We know in the Bible there is a random reference to baptisms for the dead. There's no other work, a real reference to or any kind of real Christian history. That the idea that you had to have these saving ordinances to be processed into heaven even if you didn't have them, it's a modern and it's. They're not in the Book of Mormon at all. There is no mention of any kind of vicarious work for the dead in the Book of Mormon. So. So the idea that not only the purpose of this planet is to come here and be proven by your works, but there's a caveat. If you get these saving ordinances done, you get baptized. If you're a man, you get ordained to the priesthood and then you get your, your endowment and then a ceiling, a, a temple marriage, then you can be exalted too. You don't actually have to do it yourself. But that means the majority of people in heaven never even got baptized that, that it was done by some 12 year old in Spanish Fork for them. And that's how they, that's how they got there.

Carah Burrell [01:20:08] And I hope that that kid wasn't masturbating or else he doesn't actually have the ability to do work for the dead. That's a whole other spider web that we don't need to get into. But that does always bring up how do you do ordinations for other people if they don't have the worthiness but they lie their way through? Did it not work? Does they need to do it again in the afterlife of the millennium or something? Who knows?

John Larsen [01:20:29] All good points. Okay, so in Mormon theology, when you die, there is just two places

John Dehlin [01:20:37] there

John Larsen [01:20:37] is spirit prison and paradise. And here's the thing about Mormonism. You, you want to know that if Mormonism is up, I'm going to tell you how you know. Mormons themselves believe that Mormonism is so not obvious that even after you die, it won't be clear to you that Mormonism is the true church. So they have to go do missionary work in spirit prison for all. Which, which sort of makes sense. You know, like, let's say I was born in 862 in a brothel in Calcutta and I died of malaria at the age of three.

Guest [01:21:15] Read.

John Larsen [01:21:17] So I'm sitting there.

Guest [01:21:17] Or.

John Larsen [01:21:18] Well, let's. Let's fast forward. I died in malaria at the age of nine. I'm sitting there in spirit prison saying, what the.

Guest [01:21:23] What.

John Larsen [01:21:24] What just happened? I don't. I don't understand anything. I don't understand anything that's going on. And then these people come in and say, well, I got some news for you. 1700 years or 1200 years after you're born, there's going to be this little backwoods religion in conservative America out in the west, and they're going to do these ordinances for you, and it's all going to be all right. That's all the whole plan is. You got to get these ordinances, but they're going to do them for you. Just sit here for another thousand years and. And then it's all. It's all going to work out. Don't worry about it.

John Dehlin [01:21:55] Or five or six thousand years.

Speaker F [01:21:58] What.

John Larsen [01:21:58] What are you talking about? This can't be the nature of reality. This can't be that. I. I lived for billions and billions of years and I was procreated by a God who created 217 billion of these little spirits. And then I came down here and I was born to a single mother in a brothel. I lived a miserable life. I was malnourished. I had rickets. I. Whatever. I. I died. And now you're telling me I stay here for another thousand years and then it just all magically becomes. Right. How is that better than Satan's plan? Okay, rickets.

John Dehlin [01:22:42] He went with rickets.

Carah Burrell [01:22:46] All right, the man knows comedy and Mormon theology.

John Larsen [01:22:50] All right, so after. After, there's going to be another judgment after spirit prison. And then. Then instead of, like. Instead of having two places, there's three. See, See, Christianity has a lack of imagination because their heaven only has two places, but ours has three.

John Dehlin [01:23:15] Well, four or four, technically.

John Larsen [01:23:16] But what. What's. What's ironic?

John Dehlin [01:23:19] There's utter darkness. You forgot. That's why.

John Larsen [01:23:21] Yeah, that's what I'm doing.

John Dehlin [01:23:22] That's what I'm doing. So it's for.

John Larsen [01:23:24] What's ironic about it is like, the Holy Ghost, the. The terrestrial kingdom theologically serves no purpose in Mormonism. No one can really explain what it's there for, and I'm going to prove that to you. Let's go through some scripture. Let's go through the Book of Mormon because let's be clear, the Book of Mormon is the most true and correct book of any book that has ever been written on this planet. Except, of course, for my book which says that the Book of Mormon is the most true and correct book of any book on this planet. Okay, and, and actually they, with the Book of Mormon less than they have the doctrine Covenant. So that's a sign that the doctrinal theology in the Book of Mormon is more sound because it's lasted for 14, 15, 20, 2000 years without being modified. And you know, we don't even believe what Spencer Kimball said in the 70s anymore. Okay, all right, Mosiah 3:27 and their torment is as a lake of fire and brimstone, which flames are unquenchable, and whose smoke ascendeth up forever and ever. Thus hath the Lord commanded me. Amen. First Nephi 14:4 and the Great Pit, which hath been digged for them by the great abominable church, which was founded by the devil and his children, that he might lead away the souls of men down to hell. Yea, the great pit which hath been drinking dig. For the destruction of men shall be filled by those who digged it unto their utter destruction, saith the Lamb of God. Not the destruction of the soul, save it be casting into hell, which hath no end. 2nd Nephi 9:16 and assuredly as the Lord liveth, for the Lord God hath spoke it, and it is eternal word which cannot pass away that they were righteous, shall be righteous still, and they are filthy shall be filthy still, wherefore they were filthy. And the devil are the devil and his angels, and they shall go away into everlasting fire prepared for them. And their torment is a lake of fire and brimstone, whose flames ascendeth up forever and ever and half.

John Dehlin [01:25:25] No.

John Larsen [01:25:26] And Moroni 8:21.

John Dehlin [01:25:34] I love this John Larsen reading Scripture.

Carah Burrell [01:25:38] Yeah, because I could either, like, believe it because he sounds like a pastor is yelling at me, and I'm like,

John Larsen [01:25:42] I should believe that?

Carah Burrell [01:25:43] It sounds pretty serious. I should get on board with that.

John Dehlin [01:25:45] I'm just surprised the pages don't curl up whenever he touches them. They just like, singe. Like they turn brown and shrivel.

John Larsen [01:25:52] I aspire for that because I tell the truth. All right. Moroni 8:21 Woe unto such, for they are in danger of death, hell, and endless torment. I speak it boldly. God hath commanded me. Listen unto them and give heed, or they stand against you at the judgment seat of Christ. Mormon 88 oh ye pollutions. Ye hypocrites, ye teachers, who sell yourselves for that which canker. Why have you polluted the holy church of God? Why are you ashamed to take upon you the name of Christ? Why do you not think the greater is the value of an endless happiness than the misery which never dies? Because of the praise of the world. Helaman 5:12. And now, my sons, remember, remember that is upon the rock of our redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that you should build your foundation. That when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless woe, because of the rock upon which you're built, which is a sure foundation of foundation, whereon if men build, they cannot fail. Jacob 6:10. And according to the power of justice, for justice cannot be denied. You must go away into the lake of fire and brimstone, whose flames are unquenchable, whose smoke send it up forever and ever. Which lake of fire and brimstone is endless torment?

John Dehlin [01:27:11] Now surely, John, you're reading from the New Testament, not the Book of Mormon.

John Larsen [01:27:14] No, every one of those came from

John Dehlin [01:27:16] the Book of Mormon.

John Larsen [01:27:16] All seven of those.

Carah Burrell [01:27:17] Yeah, those Native Americans were really had some cool Protestant sermons.

John Larsen [01:27:22] They did. They were very hellfire and brimstone.

John Dehlin [01:27:26] Oh, no, but like, but like, keep going.

John Larsen [01:27:29] Leave off the cherry. Alma911. Yay. And if it not been for his matchless power and his mercy and his long suffering towards us, us, we should unavoidably have been cut off from the face of the earth long before the period of time perhaps been consigned to a state of endless misery and woe.

John Dehlin [01:27:45] Now you're obvious. Tell me if I'm wrong, John, but you're highlighting the contradiction between the celestial, you know, the afterlife theology in the Book of Mormon versus the current Mormon afterlife theology. Is that what you're highlighting there?

John Larsen [01:28:00] I don't even understand current current Mormon. I don't. The Mormon Church does not have a theology.

John Dehlin [01:28:04] I'll tell you. I'll tell you. I'll just tell you. The apologetics, and this isn't even apologist. This is just like your average bishop or your average Mormon seminary teacher. You say, wait a minute, the Book of Mormon says endless torment, endless punishment. You know what their answer is, right, John Larsen? Yeah, it's just they'll say endless is God. Endless. The word endless means of God. And so it's God's punishment, but it has an end. So it's endless, but it has an end. But they call it endless because God is eternal. And so. And that's how they get our care is looking at me like this.

John Larsen [01:28:37] No, Joseph Smith said that. Yeah, yeah, that, that he, he moved that and said, yeah, but, I mean, but, but, but the ice cream cone for dinner. And you're like, oh, your ice cream cone was tasty. No, I'm tasty because it applies to me because I am tasty and I'm the one who ate the ice cream cone. It's exact same construction. It's ridiculous and, and, and super convenient

Carah Burrell [01:29:01] to, like, bully children into never straying from the path ever, with some, you know, imagery there. So it's really convenient to misinterpret it as endless.

John Dehlin [01:29:10] Yeah, convenient. And what's really going on there is that Joseph Smith's theology starts out total, like you said, Carah, just total. Well, Lamanite theology starts out. Nephite theology starts out as very Protestant. Joseph writes that into the Book of Mormon. No, I'm kidding. Joseph Smith writes Protestant, the standard Protestant theology into the Book of Mormon in 1829. And then as his theology evolves, he's stuck with this Book of Mormon millstone around his neck. That's. That's having God and Jesus be one. That's having Mary be the mother of God, not, not the mother of Jesus and all of this hellfire brimstone, which doesn't match his more tolerant theology that comes later with three degrees of glory and celestial marriage and temples.

John Larsen [01:29:55] Here's what I just heard you say, blah, blah, blah. We have this really great wool blanket. And this wool blanket is really warm, but it's scratchy. We don't like wool. So what we're going to do is we're going to remove the wool threads one by one so we can have a blanket that is not made of scratchy wool. This is Mormon theology. There's no, there's no getting around it. There's no characterizing. It's no putting it away. It is baked into the system. You cannot have a Mormonism that doesn't believe in eternal punishment.

John Dehlin [01:30:29] You mean if you believe in the Book of Mormon?

John Larsen [01:30:32] Well, if you don't believe in the Book of Mormon, what do you have?

John Dehlin [01:30:35] Yeah, well, and, and this is. We covered DNC132, which you also did a Mormon expression so brilliantly. Like, the way Mormons deal with this is they don't read those verses in the Book of Mormon, they don't do their scripture study or they ignore it, or their seminary teacher says, these are not the droids you're looking for. Just like they don't bother paying attention to D&C132. And we just. We just ignore all the inconvenient scriptures, even though we're told they're scriptures in the word of God. Right.

Kingdoms of Glory and Salvation in Mormon Theology

John Larsen [01:31:00] This is where I started with the mind bends, because how many mind bends you have to do to make this thing work? Oh, well, sound doesn't travel through air in heaven. Oh, well, when people stand next to each other, they don't need 24 inches. Oh, when people are born, they don't need any time at all. God can spend all the time in the world with them and, you know, and you just start going further and further and further away from reality. But the. The irony is, the whole point is the reality of this life we're not willing to give up. We have these bodies here, even though they serve no purpose whatsoever that we can define after we die. The important thing is that you get the body after you die. For what reason? God knows you carry around this bag of meat that doesn't do anything. God the Father and Jesus Christ levitated before Joseph Smith.

John Dehlin [01:31:45] John Larsen. John Larsen. The body is as important in the afterlife as the golden plates were to Joseph Smith's translation.

John Larsen [01:31:54] Oh, see, that's worse than anything I've said, John.

John Dehlin [01:31:59] They're both, they're, they're. They're equally useful.

Carah Burrell [01:32:03] Okay, he's funny, you guys.

John Larsen [01:32:05] I know sarcasm. Well, we're gonna have to wrap this up soon because I'm starting to lose my voice, but how much are we losing?

John Dehlin [01:32:12] How much of your good stuff are we losing? Because Carah and I are occasionally commenting.

John Larsen [01:32:15] No, I love you guys. I love it. All right, all right. So if we want to boil down Mormon theology, there's really only two states. When. When you die. And I could take another two hours and explain this and connect all the dots, but I'll leave that as a. As a homework assignment. You are either damned, which means you're not exalted. You're.

John Dehlin [01:32:35] You're.

John Larsen [01:32:36] You're resurrected. Unless you're a son of perdition or you're one of the 1/3 hosts of heaven. They just get to stay in an ephemeral spiritual state for the rest of eternity.

John Dehlin [01:32:47] In torment.

John Larsen [01:32:48] In torment.

John Dehlin [01:32:49] In eternal darkness and nothingness. Which is torment. Right.

John Larsen [01:32:54] And some of the scriptures I threw at you really quick, it basically says in the Book of Mormon, other places that you will have a knowledge, a full knowledge of your failures. So. And you.

John Dehlin [01:33:05] You just marinate forever.

John Larsen [01:33:07] So anyway, there's only two groups. There's the breeders, the breeders and the non breeders. Okay. And no. No other nuance matters. Whether you're in the telestral kingdom or the terrestrial kingdom or an outer darkness. According to the Book of Mormon, you're. You're made aware of your failing. You get to spend all of eternity realizing that in the 24 or 36 or 84 or six years you were on this planet, you up and. And in return, you're going to spend hundreds of trillions of years thinking about that. That's what the Book of Mormon said is. Is the fate of those who are not saved. So. So there's those who become exalted, and then they're going to have babies and spiritual babies, and then there's those who don't.

John Dehlin [01:33:53] And by the way, you're. You're probably going to get to this, but there's the whole TK smoothie thing. That God removes your genitalia according to Joseph Fielding Smith, and that you're. You're literally a servant. If you're not a God, you're a servant. So it's kind of like slavery's bad. Except in heaven, where that's your. That's most of God's children, by the way. We don't even know what happens to Satan's spirits in the eternities. Do we even know what happens to the third of host of heaven out of darkness? They all go to outer darkness. Do we know that anyway?

Carah Burrell [01:34:26] I mean, God, if I know anything about the woman God, he's rational. And rationally speaking, it would be apostates and those demons, all us hanging around. Just. Why not put all of like the redheaded step kids together in one place?

John Dehlin [01:34:39] Yeah. Okay, so. So the one third of the hostess heaven go to the outer darkness with me and Carah and Jen and Gerardo and John.

Guest [01:34:47] Oh, it'll be so fun.

John Dehlin [01:34:49] But then, but then, John Larsen, you're talking about outside of outer darkness. Two states. Breeder or the other answer is servant is degenerate.

John Larsen [01:35:01] De.

John Dehlin [01:35:02] Genitalia eyes. Servants, slaves for eternity. Right? Yeah.

John Larsen [01:35:08] Yeah. That's what the Book of Mormon defines as hell. Okay, let's go through a couple numbers again and then, then we can, we can wrap it up. So 50 million Mormons, I said that represents.023% of the entire population. So less than, you know, it's not even 1%. It's. It's 0.02% of the population of the 217 billion are actually born into Mormons. So most people in heaven will have never met a Mormon. It's just statistically too rare to actually meet somebody who is a Mormon. So if we remember the likely saved are the 33 billion 333 miscarries, the 628 million stillborns, the 11 billion abortions, the 27 billion people who died before the age of one and the one half that died before the age of eight, the 10, 10 billion. So I calculate that the total automatically saved without having to get Jesus involved or any of that stuff is 82,730, 73,000,375, 262 and that represents 37.72% of everybody who was ever born to father and mother. So you take the, the, the likely damned, which is the host of heaven. 72,536,000,000 and that's 33.3%. So if you add those two together, you get 71.05%. Either is the, is the 1/3 host of heaven or those who are automatically saved based on their, their mortal existence. So the number that are died after 8 but before 15 is about 4.6%. They're kind of a sketchy group because is God merciful or not? And, and that's either their, you know, there's going to be a lot of them who are eternally punished for things they did as a child which, which we wouldn't do right now. If, if you found out there was, you know, somebody who had committed a crime when they were 11 and they spent 40 years in prison, you think, my God, what an unjust system. 11 year old doesn't even have a fully developed brain. But the scriptures don't have any problem with that. That's, that's a modern convention.

Carah Burrell [01:37:20] It really is a modern convention because I think we are projecting our ideas of what is moral onto the plan of salvation. Of like of course God wouldn't do X, but there's nothing in anything we just said that makes it rational or moral. So there's no reason to think that God wouldn't. My opinion.

John Larsen [01:37:36] Okay, yeah, I agree. Okay, so on to the eternities. So the, the aftermath we clean up from this mess and the, the highs and lows numbers. So the total number 217 billion. We have 72 billion 536 souls that we know are lost. They're gone. They're the 1/3 host of heaven. If everybody else gets saved, eventually reaches exaltation. The only People who aren't are the 1/3 host of heaven, then it'd be 145 billion people. If the minimum amount, which is my. My people that are auto saved, then anybody who made it past 15 is damned. Then there'll only be 82 billion breeders, and then there would be 72.5 billion lost souls. Okay, or I mean 63. Sorry, sorry. 63 billion. 72.5 is the 1/3 host of heaven. So the situation when we fast forward is at the end of this, let's say, best case, let's say no, no, Mormonism really is universal. Everybody's going to get saved.

Speaker F [01:38:46] Saved.

John Larsen [01:38:47] That means there's 145 billion souls that are going to pair up. So cut that, cut that in half. So you have 72.5 billion couples that are going to go back to where we started. But in creating this system, God knew that he would put 72.5 billion souls into outer darkness. Imagine, if you will, your favorite politician, your favorite king, your favorite leader ever, whoever that was. So for John, that's Ronald Reagan, right? That's. That's your favorite.

John Dehlin [01:39:27] What the. What is this? Where did. Where the heck did that come from? John Larsen. Reagan.

John Larsen [01:39:35] I'm just teasing you. Is that the worst thing I said tonight? So imagine you found out that the United States had this place like Guantanamo, and there were souls in there that had been there for 20 years, but they were in sensory deprivation chambers. They were intravenously fed. They don't eat, they just lay there. They can think, but they can't feel anything. Now, we've done experiments with putting people in deprivation chambers. They don't last very long before sanity starts to question them. So God, our Father, the Father of our souls, created a system where he knew that 72.5 billion souls would spend the rest of eternity in hell in a literal, insane and driving existence. He was willing to pay that price to get the maximum of 145 billion people saved. Now, half of those breeders are going to go on to have another 217 billion souls, of which there'll be another 72 billion that will do what was done in other worlds. And they will be cast into outer darkness. And so no matter how you divide the numbers, you have the breeders who. Their eternal fate is to pump out hundreds of billions of souls, of which most of them will spend their life in eternal, unending, unrequited torture. They will just think about the worst things for all of eternity. But. But this thing, this thing is growing by hundreds of billions every generation. So the next generation, if. If we have our. Our, let's say, 50 billion couples, they will each have that many, and they will have that many, and they will have that many. And, you know, in Mormon theology, if you die and you're a God, you say, I want to do my genealogy. So you ask Elohim, you say, who is your father? And he says, oh, that was a spasmaticon. And then you go to Spasmodicon and say, who is your father? You know, because we're going to run out of syllables. We have to come up with names for everybody. And. And, you know, and. And then you keep going back. You could do that for a trillion years, and then you will. You will come to the last God, and then you will find out that they don't know who their progenitors are, because they could do that for a trillion years and not reach the end. So in Mormon theology, what happened is at some point, this. Everything we had emerged into existence. And so we have breeding couples who just keep creating hundreds of billions of. Of sentient beings who can feel pain and suffer. And those create hundreds of billions and hundreds of billions and hundreds of billions. The nature of this universe is it is full of hundreds of trillions of hundreds of trillions of hundreds of trillions of hundreds of trillions of beings suffering endlessly so that some people can go on and create more spirits.

John Dehlin [01:42:48] But the growth. The growth is exponential, John.

Guest 2 [01:42:52] It's. It's.

John Larsen [01:42:52] It is infinite.

John Dehlin [01:42:54] It's infinitely exponential because billions are having billions, and then each one of those billions is having billions. And then if you add in all the people suffering, it's. It's like. It's worse than the Matrix. It's just.

John Larsen [01:43:06] And. And it's been going on for all of eternity.

John Dehlin [01:43:09] It makes the. It makes. And this sounds terrible, but it makes the Holocaust look like. Because at least the Holocaust lasted what, four years.

John Larsen [01:43:17] Like, this is part of this system, right? We keep having Holocaust after Holocaust after Holocaust after Holocaust.

John Dehlin [01:43:24] Eternal Holocausts, eternally, for billions of people in an exp. In exponential growth.

John Larsen [01:43:31] An endless train of blood, horror, rape, destruction. It just keeps growing and growing and growing and growing. Whatever imagination you can have of how. Of suffering, multiply that by the greatest amount you could ever have, and then multiply that again and again and again and again and again and again. And so if you are exalted, you're just going to keep cranking out hundreds of billions of spirits, and then they're gonna. They're gonna suffer, and then you're gonna do it again. And then you're gonna do it again and you're gonna do it again. And it's true. You can say, oh, we'll have family reunions. What does it even mean? After 14 generations and you have 700 billion trillion spirits of which most are suffering and now why the, the exalted couple's not suffering, I don't know. But if this doesn't piss you off, I don't know what's wrong with you. The, the people who I love believe this is the nature of reality, that we are just an endless factory to produce pain, suffering. It's, it's offensive on the deepest level. I can't, I can't imagine believing this. It's sick. Anyway, I'll be here all week. Try, try the deal.

Is This Really a Plan of Happiness?

Carah Burrell [01:44:52] That's why the rebrand from plan of happiness to covenant Path so important because they're like, is it a plan of happiness? You know, we're getting a lot of flag for that word choice.

John Dehlin [01:45:03] Yeah, well, I, and just to reiterate a point I tried to touch on earlier, John, if you're one of these breeders, if you're, if you're a celestial, if you're a exalted mom or dad, are you, did you just forget about the one third of, one third to 1/2 to 2/3 of your offspring that are in eternal torment? Did you just forget about them or did you just kind of blow them off? At what point are you grieving them? Do you continue to grieve them? If Heavenly Father, like, what we're sold on in, in the Mormon plan of salvation is that Heavenly Father loves each of us uniquely, that like every hair on our head, you're a little 13 year old girl and like you're, you're in a broken family and you're sad, but it's okay because Jesus can like look down on you and he loves you individually. And if Jesus and Heavenly Father and heavenly mothers all have that love for each one of their children, how do they go on? How do they go on breeding a gazillion more offspring knowing that they're creating so much pain and suffering, eternal pain and suffering for the majority of their offspring.

John Larsen [01:46:18] Well, remember, and this is a conundrum I bring up, God, according to Alma, has to do the, the right thing. God can't choose anything but the best or he ceases to be God. So God is locked into this pattern and cannot deviate from it.

John Dehlin [01:46:34] By the way, doesn't God have to repeat like, once God's done, he's not done doesn't he and his wives just start over again?

John Larsen [01:46:41] I would assume so.

John Dehlin [01:46:43] I like, like if this is all wrapped up. Judgment Day. Judgment Day. Everybody gets assigned. Do they just retire to celestial Miami, like where.

Carah Burrell [01:46:54] That is so funny.

John Larsen [01:46:55] John Dehlin, maybe, maybe this is the 73rd thousandth time he's done this.

John Dehlin [01:47:02] Yeah, like, don't they go, man, that could, could we improve the odds next time Wives like this?

Carah Burrell [01:47:09] We actually, this is the first time they're beta testing and they have so many problems in the, the system and they're just, we have to pray more to get it back to them. No, that's a really good point though. Nothing to add.

John Larsen [01:47:20] So the nature of reality. I want to belabor this point. Spirits take up physical space or spiritual say, and then everybody gets resurrected as a body. So the nature of the universe, the full universe is just billions and billions and billions of square kilometers just full of beings. Because this has been going on for eternity. All we're doing is we're, we're gonna fill up all the space of existence, which is beings who are either producing more beings or suffering. That's it. That's all it boils down to. And it's all based on what happens here on this planet for a very

Carah Burrell [01:48:02] short time with really like bad information. And like the method in which I'm supposed to even know about this, this from the very beginning, this get go, it just feels like it was set up to fail again. Not only do people not have access to the spirit or information or missionaries to be able to even inform them of this, but just the method in which that I am learning the truth about where I came from. The methodology is just based on my feelings that can be so convoluted with my own headspace and are conflicting with other people's. And that's the best system in which I'm supposed to know that I am a child of God and should be able to confront this plan.

John Larsen [01:48:38] And on top of that, you're supposed to believe things that are demonstrably not true. So you're supposed to faith, good evidence, truth, meanwhile actively selecting things that you know are not true.

Carah Burrell [01:48:50] Yeah, again, psyche is a wild thing, isn't it? It'll hold up a lot of stuff.

John Larsen [01:48:56] I find this, this cosmology to be not just ridiculous, to be offensive. It is, it is really a terrible thing. If it's tr. We only have one task. We have to hunt down the who, whatever being started this and we have to kill it.

Carah Burrell [01:49:16] This just turned into a really cool

John Larsen [01:49:17] movie where we are like, come on,

Carah Burrell [01:49:20] guys, post apocalyptic, like getting all of our cool weapons together in the back of a truck that's running.

John Dehlin [01:49:25] Let's get heavily fathered. Let's get him. And mothers. And mothers. Not just Heavenly Father, the mothers too. Right?

John Larsen [01:49:32] Yeah. This, it's, it's. This whole thing is just, it's, it's. It just gives me the creeps.

John Dehlin [01:49:38] Okay, John, really quick. Okay, really quick, listeners and viewers, we're going to try something I've been sharing endlessly the link for people to join this episode right now. I'm going to share it again. We want, we would love to hear from a few of you to just join the podcast and, and give your thoughts, give your comments, give your questions. So I'm just sharing the link now, both on YouTube and Facebook. If you want to just talk to John Larsen, ask Carah a question, opine about this plan, provide other insight that we didn't see. We're inviting you to join right now, and we would love to hear from you. You know, even for just 10 or 15 minutes. Have a kind of a call in show format at the end, check in the comments. But, John, back to the plan. What we're also not forgetting is what is. What is Heavenly Father and mothers, but eternal, right? And so that means not only do they have to live with the fact that they're creating endless misery for most of their spiritual offspring, but also they have to do this a gazillion infinite number of times, for it's like Groundhog Day, but forever. Like, at what point, how many gazillion times do you be Heavenly Father and multiple heavenly mothers pumping out hundred billions of offspring, going through the whole plan, seeing all the apostasy, seeing all the genocide, seeing all your spirit children, you know, be consigned to endless torment. And then when you're all done, it's like, all right, let's sweep it up and let's start it again. Like, at what billionth time does that become kind of like, on the one hand, boring, but like, I think, to your point, John Larsen, how about horrific?

John Larsen [01:51:26] Absolutely horrific. Can you imagine watching a movie, like a really terrible movie, like, I don't know, Titanic, and, And you cried every time that the ship went down. And then you watch that movie for a billion times, like, you're gonna stop crying at some point. I mean, the, the things that happen on this planet are just infinitesimally small compared to what, whatever the other existence is. Why God even cares. I can't. I can't understand. Because as we Just, we showed statistically the. The.

John Dehlin [01:51:56] The.

John Larsen [01:51:56] The rules that apply to us living in this world and us as human beings or as Mormons don't apply to almost everybody. We're just a little niche.

John Dehlin [01:52:07] Yeah. All right, well, I think it'd be fun to kind of get some of our viewer and listener reactions, so let's bring on our first guest. I can't read what name you have there, so welcome to the show, Mormon neurodivergent.

Listener Questions and Open Discussion

John Larsen [01:52:23] Can you hear me?

John Dehlin [01:52:24] Yeah. Do you want to tell us your name or. You don't have to if you don't want to.

John Larsen [01:52:27] No, it's fine.

Guest 2 [01:52:28] It's Mark.

John Dehlin [01:52:29] Hey, Mark, welcome.

Carah Burrell [01:52:31] Mark's, like, a super fan.

John Dehlin [01:52:32] You're on with. You're on with John Larsen and Carah Burrell.

John Larsen [01:52:35] Cool beans.

John Dehlin [01:52:36] So, what are your thoughts?

John Larsen [01:52:38] I heard you're begging for people to

Guest 2 [01:52:40] chat, so I decided to come on.

John Dehlin [01:52:42] Well, give us your best, best comment or question. Give us your best. Give us your best comment or question.

Guest 2 [01:52:46] So. So, John.

John Larsen [01:52:47] So one thing. The plan of salvation.

John Dehlin [01:52:50] What's. John.

John Larsen [01:52:51] Oh, can you hear me?

John Dehlin [01:52:52] Which John? You said John.

Guest [01:52:53] Oh, sorry.

Guest 2 [01:52:54] John Larsen.

John Dehlin [01:52:55] Okay.

John Larsen [01:52:56] Yes, sir.

Guest 2 [01:52:57] One thing I often thought about was, like, what happened with, you know, Elohim's dad and his.

John Larsen [01:53:03] His.

Guest 2 [01:53:03] Like, what about our eternal uncles, you know, and eternal ants?

John Larsen [01:53:09] I. You know, I thought. I thought about that. Of course they're doing the same thing, right? And logically.

Guest 2 [01:53:14] Right.

John Larsen [01:53:15] Do you think they would spare any time and to wonder what was going on in. In the other worlds, or would they just be so taken up with their own world? But, you know, it's. It's.

John Dehlin [01:53:24] Yeah. Like, if you're siblings.

John Larsen [01:53:25] God, think about if your parents and siblings.

John Dehlin [01:53:28] Like, you made the point, John, if your parents, siblings, and children happen to get exalted. Well, if they're all. All confined to eternal damnation, that kind of sucks. Which is most families, by the way, because very few Mormon families remain intact throughout their entire Life, especially in 2022, like, 2/3 of all people baptized Mormon have already left the church. So, like, you're your parents of your parents, siblings, and children, most of your family is already screwed. Right. If you even made it to Earth at all. But then, let's just say you all make it. We're all sold into the plan that we get to be with each other forever. We've already made this point. But do you have any time to be with your family when you're creating a gazillion offspring and worrying about every hair that falls from every head? Anyway, sorry, I don't. Is that what you mean?

John Larsen [01:54:20] Are you talking about John or me?

John Dehlin [01:54:21] You.

Guest 2 [01:54:23] No, not really.

John Larsen [01:54:24] I mean, I don't really.

Guest 2 [01:54:26] Or John Larsen? I don't know. I. I just think it's really interesting

John Larsen [01:54:30] to think about just the familial aspect,

Guest 2 [01:54:32] let alone what God according to scripture

John Larsen [01:54:36] is supposed to be doing with his time.

Guest 2 [01:54:38] I mean, I mean, I figured if

John Larsen [01:54:40] I was exalted, I'd.

Guest 2 [01:54:41] I'd be creating all sorts of crazy fun stuff.

John Larsen [01:54:44] Like someone mentioned celestial seahorses. That sounds really interesting actually.

Guest 2 [01:54:48] I wanna. I want to hear about that book of scripture.

John Larsen [01:54:52] Yeah, people taught that all the time when I was a kid. I remember, you know, people said, I'm gonna invent a world where you could ski all the time. It just always goes downhill.

John Dehlin [01:54:59] Go karts.

John Larsen [01:55:00] But Alma says that God does what he does because it's the perfect thing to do. So if we take Alma at his word, then this world is perfect. Now to me, the only apologetic out. I have not actually delivered what I think would be the best apologetic argument against myself. And I really like this one. It's kind of a multiverse because these are like multiverses, right? We keep repeating the same thing over and over again. What if the whole universe is not up? It's just our God is. We just got a bum God, right? So in the other worlds, things work really well. And there's a lot of people who are happy.

Carah Burrell [01:55:38] There's a lot of jet skis.

John Larsen [01:55:39] It's just that this one is a. So. So we have the misfortune because it could be. Be you could be the, the. The. You could find out. Hey, God, my father, tell us about your life on earth. I really don't want to talk about my life. Well, you know, I was born into really rough circumstances and I was actually a child molester. But luckily I wasn't during the time of Mormonism. So I. They did my temple work for me, I repented, and here I am, your God. Congratulations. It's like, well, that, that explains a lot. It would explain a lot, right? Like why? Because all the time they're saying, okay, well, God can't interfere, but he also sent the devil and all those one third the hosts. If that's not fucking interference. I don't know what interference is.

John Dehlin [01:56:29] What if one of those evil spirits just got super effective at their job, kind of like Thanos, and was able to like convince all.

Carah Burrell [01:56:37] Did we even think about if they were just really good go getters?

John Dehlin [01:56:42] Yeah. What if one of Satan's minions just really excited.

Carah Burrell [01:56:44] He had a vision board that he got to Earth and he just is crushing it.

John Dehlin [01:56:51] It's like one of the spirits just stamps it all out. Anyway, Mormon neurodivergent. It's so great to have you. Thanks for joining us today.

John Larsen [01:56:59] Thanks for coming on, man.

John Dehlin [01:57:00] All right, enjoy. You take care. Thanks for coming.

Carah Burrell [01:57:03] Can I ask a question?

John Dehlin [01:57:04] Yeah, please.

Carah Burrell [01:57:04] This is.

Speaker F [01:57:05] This.

John Dehlin [01:57:06] Only if it's. Only if it makes sense. Only it makes sense. Okay.

Carah Burrell [01:57:08] No. Oh, yeah, yeah. This is a rational podcast. Again, John Larsen. We didn't even bring up the ideas about evolution and that technically BYU mainstream, like, academic, church wings, not so much. Maybe like the Q15 on a good day, but except evolution. And so a huge self item for me was this idea that we're these spirits coming into these bodies. But at what point were, like, the Neanderthals coming through? What point was like, at the right ratio of. Of like, DNA to be technically a Homo sapien, that this is the body. Because we. You don't want to put spirits into eight bodies. You don't want to put them into, like, you know, the things, the. The. The different branches of the human tree that we all come from. I don't want to be inside, like, you know, a half, like, billy coat thing. Right. You know what I mean? So it makes me wonder, do Mormons even. Even have an opinion on at what point? Because we know Adam and Eve technically didn't happen. But like, educated Mormons who have to say at some point point, spirits were coming into these bodies, but at which point was God putting the spirits in bodies?

John Larsen [01:58:12] Well, I know there's a lot of Mormons who believe that their animals will be resurrected. That's a very common belief.

Carah Burrell [01:58:19] Sure. So.

John Larsen [01:58:20] Which is also its own form of horror. You know, if you're going to spend all of eternity as a tabby cat, you know, that whoever that or a rat or whatever. Whatever you are, and those spirits are

Carah Burrell [01:58:31] kind of just recycled. Wouldn't they just be. And, like, they have their own thing going on. But as far as, like, those spirit

John Larsen [01:58:36] babies, that would be the evolutionary answer. But.

Carah Burrell [01:58:38] But like the Father in heaven and mother those. Those spirit children, those billions ones that are those put into only Homo sapiens bodies.

John Larsen [01:58:48] I'm gonna cheat and say that. That. That Joseph Fielding Smith was right, that there can be no death before the fall, and so that evolution and Mormonism are incompatible. I believe that.

Carah Burrell [01:59:01] I believe it, too.

John Larsen [01:59:02] Evolution is real. So that means Mormonism is not. But.

John Dehlin [01:59:06] All right, we're gonna. We're gonna bring our buddy Justin on. But really quick, John Larsen.

John Larsen [01:59:10] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:59:11] I just also want to make the point that if there is eternal progression, which we were all taught, that supports the idea that there could be like screwed up gods and, and more efficient gods.

John Larsen [01:59:24] My theory.

John Dehlin [01:59:24] Yeah, yeah. Because eternal progression would support that. Justin Richard Rich, welcome, welcome. You're our, you're one of our fathers of our, of our Discord channel. Thanks for joining us today.

Guest 2 [01:59:34] Oh, no, I'm just a, I'm just a dude that's hanging out on there. But John, I had to. John Larsen. I had to say hi. I'm like a super fan. When John put out the call. John Dehlin put out the call to, to put your podcast up, I'm like, I gotta get those up there because I, I gotta stop like streaming. I'm gonna off of your website.

John Larsen [01:59:55] Just the one who did all the work. Well, I didn't do all of.

John Dehlin [01:59:58] I did half. Justin did half, basically.

John Larsen [02:00:01] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Guest 2 [02:00:02] No, but I've, I, I have to say I've listened to like 14 fundamentals for dummies like five or six times. Like anytime I need affirmation that like just the stuff is crazy. Like, that's so validating for me. So you just like my favorite right there.

John Larsen [02:00:17] But that I, I thank you for saying. I really enjoy hearing that. You know, it was, it's been a lot of work, but I know that it, it helps people. And I mean, I, to me, I, I'm not really trying to be a dick, I promise. This all just seems so ridiculous to me. All of this and, and for 30, whatever years. It was 38. Well, I kind of left the church in 2005. I guess that's 32. 32 years. I bought this hook, line and sinker I was in. I believed it. And, and that's why I speak so stridently. You know, it like in 14 Fundamentals because it's. The dummies are us. Yeah, that's a. When people, when people say, well, John, why are you so harsh about Mormons? I'm talking about myself. I'm, I'm usually pulling on my own experience, my own dumb ass or. Because being in a cult like Mormonism, it rewires your brain and makes you think screwy. And once you get out, you recognize this stuff is. It's utter nonsense. It just, I mean, if you take the story we told now, I mean, apologists would say, oh, you're exaggerating here, or you're being crude here, or they just do that as a way to not actually deal with what I'm saying. But you know, we're following Mormon, Mormon theology. Right. It's just weird. But we are all susceptible to it.

Guest [02:01:44] It.

John Larsen [02:01:45] There's nothing special about being in a cult. It can happen to the smartest people, it can happen to the greatest people. And, and it happened to all of us. Just part of.

Guest 2 [02:01:55] And, and, and one more thing I had to, I had to bring up. So if you read the scriptures and you take the prophet seriously, they say that, they say that our Earth, like there are other planets. We're not like, it's not in another universe that like they, they seem to think that people are on other, other places within our universe. And so then you got to beg the question, like, that's why we see so much evidence of life, like across the universe. Like it's just teeming. Like it's not a matter of when. Like we, we just need to communicate with them, you know. Oh, oh, wait. We can't like seem to find like any one.

John Dehlin [02:02:35] One.

John Larsen [02:02:35] Yeah, but, but maybe if you got a spaceship and drove across the universe, you keep going through these clouds of outer darkness, you feel really like prickly or something. Like something's going on.

Guest 2 [02:02:45] So many bastards. Well, thank you, John. I appreciate it.

John Dehlin [02:02:49] Justin, thanks for joining us and thanks for all the work you do at Discord. Make sure and share that Discord link. If you want community, text and audio community and your progressive or post Mormon, check out the Mormon stories. Discord community.

Guest 2 [02:03:03] We're gonna have RFM do a AMA on Saturday and then we're working with some of the, some other people who are doing just different interviews after they get done within a week or so because some people lag and take some a bit. We're gonna try to have like ask me anythings eventually if you have the time or any energy. Larsen, I'd love to have you on to do like an AMA or like a drinking game or something.

John Larsen [02:03:26] Sure, send me a line. I'm always, I'm always good for giggle.

Guest 2 [02:03:29] Sounds good.

John Dehlin [02:03:29] Thanks, Justin.

John Larsen [02:03:31] Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:03:32] Good to see you, brother.

Cult Dynamics, Patriarchy, and Animal Resurrection

John Larsen [02:03:34] All right. Sarah Bass posted in the chat something we should address. She said, wait a minute, I thought John Larsen has said the Mormon is, is not a cult. And Sarah, you're right. I, I switch back and forth all the time on that, on that position. I, I oftentimes don't like the construction of a cult because it is usually levied by evangelicals. And I don't like evangelicals any more than I like Mormons. I mean, I mean, as people, they're Fine. I, I have Mormon friends, I have evangelical friends or acquaintances. I don't know that I hang out with a lot of evangelicals, but they're, they're, they're, they're good people. But the, the mind control techniques are so pervasive in the church that I think sometimes the best framework is to understand them from the perspective of how cults do mind, mind washing and that sort of stuff. So that's why I use that construction sometimes. But generally when people are throwing it around, a cult is just a religion they don't like. But you know, when I went on a mission, I wasn't allowed to use my name, I wasn't allowed to dress how I wanted, I wasn't allowed to call my parents. Those are all isolation techniques that are full on cult like. And I don't know how anybody could spend any time in the mission field and not especially when I went in the early 90s, not say that's a cult because it was as culty as you could get. The haircut, everything.

John Dehlin [02:04:54] Yeah. Comment from kp KP writes, this podcast helps me. I will tell my family my truth for leaving. And then I feel guilty because I mentally still, I'm still mentally programmed Mormon. This podcast is such a relief of logic and reason. Thank you. Thanks for the comment, kp. All right, we've got another viewer or listener. Her name is Sheila or Lamb Chop. Sheila or Lamb Chop, we can't hear you. Is your microphone connected and turned on?

Guest [02:05:22] Is it because it didn't speak?

John Dehlin [02:05:23] Sheila, we love you.

John Larsen [02:05:25] Hi. Hi, how are you?

John Dehlin [02:05:27] You're joining us from down under. You're the Brit down under, right?

Guest [02:05:30] I am, yeah. No, I'm the Brit from. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Scott and.

John Dehlin [02:05:35] Yeah, the Scott. Scott down Under.

Guest [02:05:38] Scott Britt from down Under, Yeah. All right. John Larsen, you're becoming a hero of mine. I have to say. You really are a voice of reason. I just can't believe how gullible I was for so many years believing all this crap.

John Larsen [02:05:54] Me too.

Guest [02:05:55] I mean, I've got headache really listening to you. I don't know how you put it together. I've got real headache.

John Larsen [02:06:03] Well, you know, if you give it enough time and then go re. Engage it, it's just all ridiculous and weird.

Guest [02:06:08] It is, but it's not that. It's when you put it into an empirical argument, when you provide numbers and

John Dehlin [02:06:18] stats and thinking and logic. Right.

Guest [02:06:22] Is it that you have to start using your left brain? I don't know. Anyway, just turns your brain around. Karen mentioned something about Animals. Didn't Joseph F. Smith teach that in doctrines of salvation, probably animals would be resurrected?

John Larsen [02:06:39] I think so, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:06:40] Yeah, yeah. The Beatles, yeah.

John Larsen [02:06:43] Corrupt.

Carah Burrell [02:06:43] Yeah.

John Larsen [02:06:44] Well, and then you start getting the. The animals that have fast reproductive cycle rates, you know, that can reproduce every 14 days. How. What happens when you. Where are you going to get the matter? Because as beings on this planet, we've been sharing the same material for the past, you know, 10 billion years, but there's going to be. You're going to take all the matter that's ever existed on the earth just to recreate the mosquitoes.

Guest [02:07:07] Yeah. But then doesn't that. And then doesn't that bring another mind bend? That. Because part Mormon doctrine is that matter was taken from space to form worlds. So wouldn't the main benches apply to that as well? That they'll just, you know, from a Mormon perspective. Oh, we'll just get a bit of matter from an orb that's sitting. There goes another mind bend. Trillions of whatever away.

John Dehlin [02:07:37] Right.

John Larsen [02:07:37] It's a fun game, mind bending, because you just find. You just find a little excuse but you don't write it down, you don't incorporate in the theology to say, well, maybe this happened or maybe that happened.

Guest [02:07:48] Yeah.

John Larsen [02:07:49] Hey.

John Dehlin [02:07:49] Hey, Sheila.

Guest [02:07:50] I think I mentioned in the chat and Maven picked up on it and you were talking, naturally you're talking about families predominantly, but then there's those of us that are the single women who don't have the families and we were having a bit of a chat about who gets to change the nappies and feed the children, who gets to be the wet nurses because the sister wives might need a bit of help. I mean, it just, it just becomes crazier and crazier.

John Larsen [02:08:16] Right?

John Dehlin [02:08:17] Sheila, we love you. Your audio is breaking up, but we always love it when you call. Will you please call us Every single time

Guest [02:08:26] if I'm not at work, I'm off sick at the moment, so that's why I'm able to do it.

John Dehlin [02:08:31] Sheila, listen, I've already asked you to come on Warmer Stories and I think you said you would. Right. So. So write Jen. Write Jen J e n n@openstoriesfoundation.org she's going to get you on our calendar because you have to be interviewed. Is that all right, Jen?

Guest [02:08:45] Jen?

John Dehlin [02:08:45] Atopen stories foundation.org jenpenstoriesfoundation.org I'm going to make sure you get on the show because we want to hear from you.

Guest [02:08:54] You.

John Dehlin [02:08:54] Anyway, we, we love you, Shelia. Thanks for joining us and feel Better, Thanks.

Guest [02:08:59] Thanks for taking my call. Oh, by the way, Carah.

Carah Burrell [02:09:02] Yes.

Guest [02:09:03] Free Carah. No income, no restrictions. I like it. Excellent.

Carah Burrell [02:09:10] Thanks.

John Dehlin [02:09:11] Untethered Carah.

Carah Burrell [02:09:12] And that's why I can only come back on the John Larsen episodes because I've been untethered. Don't try to tether me for a faith crisis one because you know I'm gonna say something inappropriate.

Guest [02:09:19] Oh, yeah. I really felt. Felt so bad for you when you did that live feed with. Because you could tell that someone. I. I felt so sad.

Carah Burrell [02:09:30] I was flopping over like a teenager.

Guest [02:09:32] I was so upset. Anyway, I better go.

John Dehlin [02:09:34] All right. Thanks, Sheila.

Carah Burrell [02:09:35] Thank you.

John Dehlin [02:09:36] I hope your audio returns. We'd love to have you. Thanks for joining us. And now. And now, if that weren't cool enough, we have Maven. We have Maven in. In the house. Hey, Maven. Hi, John Larsen. Does the name Maven mean anything to you?

John Larsen [02:09:51] I don't populate online worlds, no.

John Dehlin [02:09:54] Yeah, we hear you. We hear you. We hear you. Maven. Can you not hear us?

Speaker F [02:10:03] Sorry, I'm a little bit behind, but I think. I think I'm good now. So I. I wanted to say, first of all, like, with the chat with Sheila, I think it was. Yeah, it was Lambtrop that said that the. I guess us single sisters would be slaves, so we would probably be the ones, like, helping out with the children. But then I thought. And my comment was, in that case, then we would be interacting with them more than their exalted mothers would be able to. So that would be interesting. But that's not why I decided to come in sans makeup and everything. It was just the thought that as much as I find a lot of problems with Mormon theology, including the plan of salvation and. And the harm and things that it causes, I still. This is one thing that I have to give the church over some of the more extreme evangelical and Protestant Christianity, you know, especially the ones that believe in a very literal hell and just eternal burner burning and torture just for not believing in Jesus. It's. I think that one is the most horrific to me. And just the. I guess. I guess what's the most shocking is just kind of how chill some of these people are when they're talking about it. When we're. When we are talking about such a level of suffering that they're just like, well, God is loving and he's moral, so it's like, it's immoral for that to happen. It just.

John Larsen [02:11:22] Yeah. I think what's fascinating to me is if you take whatever system, either evangelical or Mormon ascribes to God. And if you ascribe it to a human being, we would all universally agree that human being is morally correct, corrupt. And I think that's a, that's a tell that. That should, that should be a, A sign that something's off, something is stinky.

Guest [02:11:43] Agreed.

Speaker F [02:11:44] I guess I, I guess what I have to say is that at least for Mormonism, like, the one thing that I, I feel forced, I guess maybe to give is that like, even if you're not believing exactly what they believe, there's still some sort of an existence that is okay, that is decent afterwards compared to too, the literal burning and torture.

John Larsen [02:12:02] It's true. And I, I use the Book of Mormon. Excuse me, I use the Book of Mormon passages where they talk about hell. That was Joseph smith's theology in 1830. And then he walked it back. And as he got older and older and older up until 1844, he became more universalist. And then Brigham Young kind of went back to the dark side, and then the church has kind of swung back. So, so, but, but that, that was why I wanted to, to reduce it all down to breeders and non breeders, take the eternal punishment out. There'll be people who forever be stopped, who just get to watch this system go over and over and over and over again, and people will be forced to keep reproducing. So even if you take the eternal suffering out, the system is still horrific.

Speaker F [02:12:43] Absolutely. I'm 100% with you there. Yeah.

Women, Deconstruction, and Mormon Family Structures

Carah Burrell [02:12:47] Maven, can I ask you a question, lady to lady? I've been thinking a lot about this week about how There's a great YouTube video called what Women get. And, and just the idea that I was raised as a woman in the church and that my greatest role was to disappear. And I'm wondering if that ever played into any of your problems that I still have to deconstruct. I'm wondering if that's like any issue that you still have to deal with where you were taught your whole life that the ultimate, best thing that you can ever do, whether it's in this life or the next, as a woman or as a heavenly mother one day, is to disappear and how that can just hinder your talents. Wonder if you have anything to say to that.

Speaker F [02:13:25] You know, so this is funny. This is kind of like a blank thing for me as I'm trying to remember where in my deconstruction that I, I realized that I would not be creating worlds. I honestly don't remember if I realized while I still believed, you know, That I would be having a lot of children. And then that's what started because. Yeah. And it sounds really, really strange because it's a really big deal and it's a really important point. So. Yeah, I don't know if it's like, something I buried or some. Something like that, but I do know that, especially being, you know, getting older in the church and being a single woman, I remember, I mean, for a while, for a long time, thinking, like, I'll probably be somebody's second or third or, you know, hundredth wife or whatever if I stayed righteous and I still didn't marry. And that. That wasn't really a nice thought. And then, I don't know, eventually, after a while, I just remember becoming okay with the idea of being a single servant in heaven.

Guest [02:14:22] Really?

Speaker F [02:14:23] Yeah, I just. I seemed. I. And I don't know if it was the motherhood thing. I don't know, because I don't remember actually feeling as a believer that I would be invisible. So I think that's why I think maybe that was revealed to me maybe after my deconstruction and maybe even, like, up until then, I still actually thought I would have more, like, creative abilities, you know, outside of, like, procreative, you know, actions. I guess that's my guess there.

Carah Burrell [02:14:48] That's actually really interesting.

Guest [02:14:49] Yeah. What?

Speaker F [02:14:50] Women get video, like, today, and not in, like, a heavenly sense, but just in an earthly sense. And this could be something, like, talked about later. But I was just thinking about a Twitter exchange that I had where I was kind of being made fun of about being single, not because I'm single, but, like, I guess this person was mocking me as if I was, like, a baby hater, you know, like, oh, no, I would hate to have children. Then I'd have to be responsible, and I couldn't be free. Like, all these kinds of things, which is all just a whole bunch of sexual stuff being projected onto me. But I just remember thinking, like, that was never actually my choice because I was single in the church growing up, and it's not okay to have babies if you're not married. So. But then also just kind of this idea that. Yeah. That being single is selfish. That not having children is because you hate them and you don't want them or you want to be free. You know, when that was never even the case for me, I just remember thinking, like, no matter what happens, I mean, even, like, where I'm at, if I was still in the church, there's no. There's no winning for me because, yeah, Because I'm selfish, you know, or if I did, I could have kids, but I would either have to do it like the old fashioned way, which would be breaking the law of chastity. And, you know, then I'm kind of a slut or whatever for doing that. And then also, but if I didn't do it, let's say I met a more like medical route. That's still wrong. Because now, like a feminazi, you don't need a man. You're just. You're just having children, like, without. You know what I mean?

Carah Burrell [02:16:09] To lose.

John Larsen [02:16:10] Lose.

Carah Burrell [02:16:10] And Mormonism. Yeah.

Speaker F [02:16:11] Have children as a single again. I'm still wrong. I'm still bad for it. So I just was thinking, like, there's. There's no way to win here for me. According to the people.

Guest [02:16:20] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [02:16:21] No way to win for us ladies sometimes.

Speaker F [02:16:23] Nope.

John Larsen [02:16:24] Well said.

John Dehlin [02:16:26] Thank you, Maven. I have a question that I want to ask Maven, John and Carah and get everyone's opinion about. So, like, if, you know, you'll see these kind of area conferences or state conferences where like, Elder Holland is there and like some sweet member in Chile asks in Spanish, like, well, my husband died without the church, and, you know, like, my kids have left the church and, like, I'm going to be sad in heaven. And the answer that the apostles always give is, I don't know if you saw recently, Elder Holland literally did this. He gave a response to the member that was like, really tormented about family being excluded.

Speaker F [02:17:04] It.

John Dehlin [02:17:04] It's like, don't worry, Heavenly Father's fair. Everything's gonna be made right in the end. It's all gonna be fine. And what we didn't cover, John Larsen, in your episode is if that's true, why any of this? Why any of this? Why the war in heaven? Why a third being cast out? And how is that any different than Satan's plan, By the way, if Heavenly Father at the end is gonna be the great equalizer and just make sure that it's all kind and fair and loving in the end and that everybody goes exactly where they should. How is that any different than Satan's plan where everybody just gets saved?

Carah Burrell [02:17:40] It's gonna be all fine in the end. Just love people now on this earth life, because that's the only one that's absolutely guaranteed that you have stop being dicks to people.

John Dehlin [02:17:46] So I didn't mean answer for you, John and Maven and you care. I want to hear all that. Like, you go first John Larsen, then Maven, then Carah, I guess.

John Larsen [02:17:54] Well, I Think as listening to maven talk. What you have is formulated a very patriarchal view of family and love and, and possession. The, the Bible treats women and children as possessions. The whole thing does from front to back. And they're just one more thing that men own and control. But this gives a weak spot in the whole theology. If you remember in Game of Thrones, the, the movie, in the book book there was a. This, these killer soldiers had been captured as children and they've been made eunuchs to become this blood awful killers. So there's a character who was that way. He was a fella. And then there was another woman who when she was a young person, she'd been forced into prostitution. So they both spent their whole life denied the basics of humanity, you know, love, family, genitals, all that kind of stuff. Or have sex forced on them endlessly. But in the story they still found love. And the problem is that the patriarchs in charge of the church and the patriarchs who wrote the scripture can't conceive of any kind of love outside the possessive, property driven way they view women. So the, the idea that, that a single woman would come to the other side and have some sort of free will and not be able to love who she wants to love and not be able to form the relationships with who she wants to is the blindness of the patriarchy. They can't fathom it. They can't fathom that people can have love outside of possessive sex or outside of cranking out babies. And, and I think the, the, the hope is the church is so myopic, it can't really understand what it means to be human. And once as you're processing out of those things that the, the structure of the church gives you, as that drops away, I believe you can start to see that all those paths that you talk about being a single mother, that

Speaker F [02:19:56] they're, they're being single and being fine

John Larsen [02:19:58] with that, being single without being a

John Dehlin [02:19:59] mother in a series of relations, childless

John Larsen [02:20:02] by choice, basically having six lovers. They're all beautiful, they're all. And, and they can be done in a harmful way or they can be done in, in a loving way. And that's the problem with the plan of salvation. If we actually have any sort of free will which is required for thought, then we would just say it, we would just enjoy whatever existence we have. So, so I, I think there's, as we walk away, there's, you know, your existence is your existence and it can be just as beautiful as, as anything else. And it's it's, it's their fucked up construction that's wrong.

Carah Burrell [02:20:38] Amen.

Speaker F [02:20:39] Thank you. Yeah. And I mean, to answer John's question, I think, I mean, I'm going to. The more literal answer is that the church wants to have its cake and eat its too. It does want to be in control, like John Larsen was saying, just with the control over everything. But when it's, when it clearly doesn't work for people, that's when they want to fall back on this. Don't worry about it. You know, God will fix it. It's so that they don't have to answer or face the consequences of their own teachings and the very real devastating consequences that these are having on people. It's just a. Yeah, just a way, I guess, to wipe or just kind of shove away the harm that they're causing people and the hurt that they're causing people to just to not feel any responsibility for it. But when it's not somebody who's faithful and crying and asking this sincere question again, if it's somebody like me who's not following the structure and fitting the structure, they don't want to tell me that it's going to be okay in heaven. I mean, unless it's a personal friend of mine or a mentor of mine. Those are the only people who will tell me that. But, you know, like this stranger on Twitter, I'm going to be told that I'll die alone or that I. You can't be a responsible or even a loving person if you are later in life without. Especially if you chose it. Like it wasn't my choice. If I had been married when I was younger, I would have had children. It is my choice now. But, yeah, but just, again, just the idea that like you, you can't be anything but selfish if you're making the choice to not have children. And I mean, even the reverse isn't true. I think just having children doesn't mean that you aren't selfish. There are plenty of people out there who should not and should never have been parents, who are very awful to their children, who have abused or even murdered them or, you know, so just. They had children. But are they better than me? I mean, I have not ever harmed a child like that and I can't conceive of. So yeah, again, it's just, you know, this kind of thing, they want to judge who they want to judge and you know, and then again for the consequences that the hurt that it causes, they just want to push that off to be solved later. By somebody else.

John Larsen [02:22:43] Yeah. I think you're spot on. And here's the good news I have for you and everybody else. Heaven is here right now. You just have to embrace it. You just have to go find it, you have to build it and, and whatever, whatever love you want in your life.

Guest [02:22:57] Life.

John Larsen [02:22:57] I have four wonderful children. I did not pass a single kid from my vagina. I. I adopted. I adopted the first two when they were infants and the second two I adopted when I married their mother in my 40s. And, and my path was crooked, but it's a wonderful path. And who knows? I don't. You know, I'm. I'm 49. I don't know what the rest of this place, the rest this journey holds. All I know is I look back at my life, life, and I couldn't have predicted the things that gave me joy or the things that gave me sorrow. And I think if we can all free ourselves to say it's a short time and we don't know what comes next, let's do what we can with what we can. And having children to me is a diversion. Like love can come in all forms. You can love. I love my, my step kids just as much as I love my babies

Speaker F [02:23:54] and nephews that I love very much.

John Larsen [02:23:56] Yeah.

Speaker F [02:23:56] And they're pretty fond of me too, if I say so myself.

John Larsen [02:24:00] And I think that's just as beautiful and just as pure and, and that, I mean, that's all it boils down to, is just love and relationships. The rest of it's just bullshit.

Carah Burrell [02:24:10] Agreed.

John Dehlin [02:24:11] Mike. Mic drop. Mic drop. I won. I have one question. Maybe don't leave yet. Is that okay?

Speaker F [02:24:17] Okay. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:24:18] Oh, Carah, did you want to answer, respond to anything before I ask one? One more question.

Carah Burrell [02:24:22] No, I'm good.

Is Critiquing Mormon Theology Disrespectful?

John Dehlin [02:24:23] Okay, so here's a final question for everyone. John and Maven and Carah. What about the idea that this two and a half hours that we just spent is really disrespectful? Like, like this is sacred Mormon beliefs. God is all powerful, John. All your math, all your logic is silly because we don't know about God's power. God's ways are higher than our ways. God has all the power. If he wants to have a penis and still not use it or whatever it is, that's. We will figure it out when we get there. But most importantly, this entire exercise of like talking about the plan of salvation from a non believing perspective and poking holes in it is disrespectful to people's sacred beliefs. It's not a Good thing, John. Oh, Carah wants to go first.

Carah Burrell [02:25:20] Can I go first?

John Dehlin [02:25:20] Carah's gonna. Yeah, absolutely. Carah goes first.

Carah Burrell [02:25:22] Can I swear?

John Dehlin [02:25:24] Yeah, just warn people.

Carah Burrell [02:25:27] All right. I'm gonna swear on this one. Okay. Is it disrespectful to poke holes in this belief? It would be maybe if we were never Mormons and we were just like, looking from a different outside perspective, poking holes in. I was raised on this and, you know, as disrespectful as making me grow up in a church where I think less of myself because I'm a woman and I'm taught to disappear and I'm. It's disrespectful to give children this one access to their creator through following all of these loopholes that were not meant for human hoop jumping through all these loopholes. And so when we go to poke holes in it, it's gonna be disrespectful because the very nature of this religion was disrespectful to me from the get go. Furthermore, we're also stem from a religion where we have Elder Oaks. I think I remember he was like kind of bragging in this one speech one time where this woman was like, she brought up to me how, like, how will this work in heaven? Because I'm married to two men. And he like laughed it off. He laughed it off. A very serious concern that women have about what is our role as heavenly mothers and wives and polygamous wives in this religion. Elephant Oaks. And he was so disrespectful to her when. This is again, this is our lives, this is our salvation, our eternity. And our very leaders are so fucking disrespectful that they laugh in our faces when we bring it up to them. They started this war. They shot first, just like Jesus Christ in the pre existence. This was a system that we were born into. And it's not disrespectful to just call. Call it what it is.

John Dehlin [02:26:51] Bs. You want to say it, Just say it.

Carah Burrell [02:26:53] Call it, man.

John Dehlin [02:26:56] All right, thanks. Mic drop from Carah Maven's applauding. You want to go next?

Speaker F [02:27:01] Yes. I mean, that was really perfect. Honestly, it is extremely disrespectful to us. And they just. They frankly don't care because it's not their problem. Right. So. Yeah, but. And. And that's what my issue is about it. And my answer to your question or to a believer who would. Who would say these things is that it hurts. Hurts people. I. I really truly don't think that a family exists in the church that hasn't been harmed by it in some way because of these beliefs and these doctrines. I know plenty would claim that they haven't been, but the world is messy and families just don't always fit that mold. Right. No matter how righteous you can try to be. And so no matter who, how good and righteous you think you are, and maybe you've done everything right and you think everything's going okay, like you'll still have family members that don't and don't fit in and don't fall in. And I mean, this is kind of, you know, John de Lynn, you were voicing it, you know, voicing for a believer. And so maybe they wouldn't have worded this way, but I mean, the way you were wording it, I, I think they would do like it's God can do what he wants. Right. I just think it's very interesting that though they're willing to give God an all powerful supreme being who's got everything in the world and he can change anything he doesn't like, that's who. And again, like that you have to have faith in because he is not proving or demonstrating that he exists. You have to just believe in him on faith that he's even there. This person is who they'll give latitude to, to live the way that he wants and run things the way he wants to, but they won't offer that latitude to any other member of the church that's not fitting the mole, that that's not okay to them. And I just kind of find that a bit ironic that the being who's the most okay can do whatever, whereas the people who are most harmed by the church, I guess, continue to be entitled to be harmed by it. I don't know. So that's my issue is this hurts people. This hurts a lot of people. So.

John Dehlin [02:29:01] Thanks, Maven. All right, John Larsen, you get the last word on the question.

John Larsen [02:29:08] Well, to the, to the monsters. We're the monsters. The, the, the, the church teaches horrific things about people like me. And what it does is it says that if somebody loses their faith, they're going to become a monster. And they repeat that over and over again. And they tell it to little children and they tell it to families and they say it in scripture and they say it in their, their meetings and they just say it over and over and over again. And then what happens is somebody leaves the church in a family. Now a family has a monster amongst their midst and there are families who can see beyond Mormonism, but that's because they're better people than Mormonism is. Mormonism doesn't provide for that. So once you become a monster in a family, you'll be ostracized, you'll be marginalized, you'll be spoken ill of, you'll be dismissed, you'll be lied about, you'll be dragged through the mud, you will lose professional relationships, you'll lose job opportunities, you'll lose your career, you'll lose your client base and they'll happily let you hang. And people like me are created by the Church. The Church is a horrific, monstrous entity that needs to go away. It is causing pain, sorrow and destruction while accumulating massive amounts of wealth and power. Mike Lee, the son of Rex Lee, from the famous Lee family. Rex Lee was being groomed to be in the 12 when he died on unexpectedly as a member of the president of byu.

John Dehlin [02:30:53] You.

John Larsen [02:30:55] He two weeks ago got called lying, bald faced lying. And he appeared before the Utah legislature last week, which is 91% Mormon. And the lie is apparent. You can see it. It's clear. There's no doubt that he lied. And they gave him a standing ovation. You act as if the Church deserves any quarter whatsoever. And anything that's good about it is because people are good. And Mormons can be good people. But it's not from Mormonism. Mormonism is just a colossal, destructive, disgusting Ponzi scheme that chews people up and spits them out. The number of people I've seen at this stage who've died because of this is too many. The suicides, the alcoholism, the drugs, the. The destruction that it sows. And to have the gall to say that, you can say you believe these magical things and suddenly you get a pass. You don't get any pass. You don't speak for God. If the God exists that you say exists, the God can speak for itself. You won't even know if that God has spoken to me. For all you know, I have visions every night that tell me not to reveal the fact that I have visions every night. You can't tell me I don't because you believe that stuff's true. So to say that what we're saying as, as me, this lone little guy in this lone little house punching at this organization that controls hundreds of billions of dollars, millions of people, vast sums of lawyers and everything else, that somehow I'm doing some damage to them, that somehow I'm doing them some injustice. Give me a fucking break. It's like blaming Protestantism on the witches that got hung. I don't Even see how we can say this organization is redeemable at all. Because anything good about it, I can immediately point out that the neighbors to the Mormons are doing the exact same thing. So they're the ones that created the monsters. And we only seem like monsters to them because they are fucking monsters. Is that clear?

Carah Burrell [02:33:14] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:33:15] Did I stutter?

Carah Burrell [02:33:16] I like the point that you made about. About how people who leave like us and have anything to say that do want to speak truth to power, that were made out to be monsters and how disrespectful that is. Just as a human being who's asking for more rights or asking for a voice to be heard or asking for other people in your organization to have more rights and how we are pitted as the worst people were, you know, going to be sent to that outer darkness for doing that. And then the way that we're treated for it when, as we know, one day maybe the church will actually embrace what the people who are excommunicated are going to say in their gospel topics essays one day. Like it's all relative at the end of the day too. It's just really unfortunate that there's so many familial ties and so many problems and yeah, that, that just speaking out that's disrespectful that I don't have a pleasant family Thanksgiving anymore because I left and decided I wanted rights.

John Larsen [02:34:07] You know, who was it that, who was the feminist that said that men are scared that women will laugh at them and women are scared that men will kill them?

Carah Burrell [02:34:16] Yeah.

John Larsen [02:34:17] Which is true. I'm scared of men too. Men are violent. I've been assaulted by men more than once. But, but it's really true with the church. The church is scared that people like me will laugh at them. That's what I do is I, is I just. I quote their scripture back to them. Right. And, and, and it pisses them off to no end.

John Dehlin [02:34:35] You connect the dots, you today connect

John Larsen [02:34:38] into my life and they will try to my up. And I don't do that. You know, I don't break into churches or do anything like that. I just come on the Internet and talk into a can and. And they're so weak as a philosophical position that this is seen by Mormons as harmful. You got to be kidding. We're just sitting here talking on a zoom call. And if that's, if that impacts your worldview because I use some potty words, you gotta really think hard about thinking hard because you're not doing it.

Speaker F [02:35:13] Well, not just they think Everyone, we're all doing it for our own gain, for our own pride, or for money. You know, just the praise and the honor of the world. We've sold ourselves to Satan, and that's all that they see us doing it for, because they refuse to see the harm.

John Larsen [02:35:33] Right? They turn us into monsters. So whatever we're saying about them, they're saying worse things back, I guarantee you.

John Dehlin [02:35:42] I was just gonna say all you also. You're not just using potty words, John, but you're connecting the dots. And I just have to say, I don't know if this is the Mormon expression episode that Justin was referring to, but it was on a Mormon expression episode where I first remember you guys talking about the implications of celestial anatomy, basically. And you just made the point that Mormons have thought about their theology, like, a centimeter thick, but you scratch any point of Mormon theology, and it's about a centimeter thick, and it doesn't tie. And so what you're doing in these types of episodes is literally just connecting the dots and helping us all think through the implications of Mormon theology. We basically give our whole lives to this system. We give 10% of our income, our children, two years of a mission, all our lives, our posterity, and eternal commitment. And we haven't even thought it through at all, even a tiny bit it. Until. Until someone like you, John Larsen, like, just starts connecting the dots, and I'm. I'm like, how did I not think of that before?

Speaker F [02:36:44] D.C. one thing to your family, right? See the direct impact.

John Dehlin [02:36:48] Yeah, yeah.

Carah Burrell [02:36:49] And, like, what I was trying to say at the very beginning, like, us not being Mormons, like, it's hell for, like, our families, but the God that they worship, he doesn't care. We are, like, of, like, a margin of error in this. Billions and billions of people. He doesn't care. So many people are not Mormons in this life, or he set up that system is the whole point. John's trying to make this whole entire podcast so us not even accepting it, all it does is torment our families. Now my mom cries herself to sleep.

John Larsen [02:37:15] Our parents.

Carah Burrell [02:37:15] You know what I mean? Not just like, my mom cries herself to sleep. She's come to terms with it. But I'm just trying to say, like, the system in which Mormonism operates in is still torturing people for not even living something that I have no reason to even. Even live. And I don't think that God even wants me to live because he's not giving me the evidence. He's not giving me a good reason. To believe it. And then also it just statistically doesn't seem like he would care because there's so many people not living it.

John Larsen [02:37:38] You know, my mother is a wonderful woman who's devoted her life to the church in the most positive ways. She's, she's an inspiration and she never stopped, you know, caring for me or, or whatever. My mother, when I left the church, took a big hit to her own sense of value because there's no failure that can compensate for failure in the home.

John Dehlin [02:38:06] No success can compensate for failure.

John Larsen [02:38:08] Yeah, there's no success that I am her failure. I broke her heart, which I did. Because what she wanted more than anything was a celestial, eternal family. So my choosing to do what I thought was right led to an organization that in part destroyed my mother's sense of self worth and her sense of being. Yes, somebody up here in this thing, this other sheep.

John Dehlin [02:38:37] Really quick, really quick. Maven's got a bail. Maven, we love you. Join us anytime. We hope to see you again and finish our three part interview with you, by the way.

Speaker F [02:38:45] Thanks.

John Dehlin [02:38:46] All right, Maven, thanks for joining us. All right, John, go ahead. What were we going to say?

John Larsen [02:38:52] It was just that somebody in the chat called me a bully. Which is, which is really funny, you know, because I'm, I'm, I'm nothing. I'm, I'm nobody. I, I go to a regular job, I, I come home. I, I, I've said over and over again, I don't go into churches, I don't go to protests or anything like that. I tell Mormons not to listen to me. But you know, it's in that view of a bully is like somebody is sitting in their living room and has eight thugs come in and start kicking them in the ribbon and telling them they're a bully. I have paid and I'm not going to go into it because it's my personal life. I have paid tremendous prices because of not anything I did per se, but what the church told people close in my life. Much of my family is destroyed because I left the church, which I did as a matter of conscience.

Carah Burrell [02:39:44] Right.

John Larsen [02:39:44] And the idea that I take this lightly is insulting. They have fucked up my life and, but I've gone on and Sorry, other sheep. I see that I misunderstood. Yeah, we're good. But it's just frustrating to have people paint you as that kind of demon when we're literally taking on this huge organization with undue power.

John Dehlin [02:40:13] Yeah. I mean, and we have already made the point in this episode that the real, the real Thug is heavenly father and his wives because they're creating endless suffering. But also I think about Don H. Oaks and Russell and Nelson and Jeffrey R. Holland and all those apostles that have known about the, like this. The, just the suicide rate amongst LGBTQ Mormons in Utah from 2008 to now being two to three times the national average and being like, yeah, but you know, that could hurt our numbers or our, our income. So we're going to double down on marriage equality or we're going to double down on fighting same sex marriage or we're going to fund the overturning of. And I don't mean to get political, but we're going to fund the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which as I understand it is also the same sort of logic that, that marriage equality is built on. So as we see potentially Roe v. Wade be erased, which was the news that came out yesterday, the, the protection of same sex marriage could be just as easily erased. And guess who's lobbying in all the state legislatures and in the, at the federal government level, guess who's lobby lobbying for, you know, this sort of political, the political machinations.

Carah Burrell [02:41:29] The Buddhists don't stand Buddhists.

John Dehlin [02:41:32] The Unitarian Universal.

Carah Burrell [02:41:33] Sick of the universities, Presbyterians. Let me guess, is it a bunch of hippies in a commune?

John Dehlin [02:41:40] No, but that's, that's, that's a bully, right? A bully is Oaks and Nelson that will keep saying the super homophobic things and transphobic things that they say know the death toll is massive and just kind of shrug their shoulders and say, yeah, but we got to protect the church at all costs.

Carah Burrell [02:42:01] They need an ego death

John Dehlin [02:42:04] anyway.

Carah Burrell [02:42:05] Give them an Eckhart toll book.

John Dehlin [02:42:06] Yeah, that's good. Or shrooms, right? Is that what you're gonna say?

Carah Burrell [02:42:10] No,

John Larsen [02:42:13] listen, there's an old saying. And then I'll be done because my voice is gone. There's an old saying that says, you know, speak the truth even if your voice shakes. And I say speak the truth even if, if the liars find it offensive, you know, they, that it's. We need more people standing up to the powers that be and you'll pay a price. But you go to I sleep well at night.

John Dehlin [02:42:43] But John, what about the argument that this is counterproductive speech that you raging into the camera just like turns off believing Mormons and creates the backfire effect?

John Larsen [02:42:53] Yeah, fuck those guys. I don't care about believing Mormons. That I, I've said that over and over again and I know nobody believes me. I am talking to the people who realize this is false. And are trying to deprogram all this out of their heads. I do not care about believing Mormons leaving the church. It's painful, it hurts, and it's not something that I would ever wish on anybody. It's kind of like I work in a methadone clinic and I want to help heroin addicts. The idea that I would go distribute heroin on the street street to get more heroin addicts is, Is antithetical. And you say, John, are you comparing ex Mormons heroin addicts? I am. Because Mormonism them up, whether they realize it or not. It takes a while for, for them, to. Them to get better.

Carah Burrell [02:43:37] Right.

John Larsen [02:43:38] And, and I. This, the, the, the pain in recognizing the destruction of your entire worldview is so intense that it takes people like me to ease the pain a little bit. That's, that's all, like, that's all I care about. The rest of the guys go fuck themselves. They'll come when they're ready.

Carah Burrell [02:43:57] I'll tell you what you do, you do really well. John Larsen is. I get fired up and I could just think of a million ways that I am agreeing with everything that you're saying and that I'm more like, excited to just be in this space and continue these conversations on, you know, wherever platforms anyone will have me, whether it's here or my own own. Because the, the, the, this crux is the crux of the conversation. The plan of salvation that we were bought, we bought into before we've really had a choice that we were born into this religion. All of the problems that come up with it, like, I, I think this is one of the most important subjects that, like we were saying, Mormons don't scratch the surface on. And if I'm inspired, I know other people are to just, like, keep these conversations going and know that this is, this is, this is the problem of Mormonism, that people don't think hard about this theology, but the ramifications are evident and they just don't give it crap sometimes.

John Larsen [02:44:49] Here's the world we're in.

John Dehlin [02:44:51] You can swear. Carah.

Carah Burrell [02:44:55] So nervous.

John Larsen [02:44:56] There are people, There are people who have made a fortune off of lies, off of falsehoods, off of telling things that aren't true, off of manipulating people into things that aren't true, off of denying the reality of climate change and yeah, oils and capital, the evils of capitalism and the evils of socialism, the evils of common, all that stuff. Right? We, the next 20 years are going to be rough and we need people who can stand for truth. Because the liars are just going to double down into their lies and we have to have people fighting even though it hurts.

Carah Burrell [02:45:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:45:39] I have to ask you this, John. I know you want to go, and it is time to wrap up all of our audiences right now, as large as it's been all night. But yeah, John, you know, there's this. There, you know, under the Banner of Heaven, you know, is out. There's two episodes. We hope to cover it at some point on the podcast in just some way that's interesting and not, not like everybody else. But, you know, there's this. The, the apologetic criticism of under the Banner of Heaven is that it basically paints Mormonism or paints Mormon theology as like inciting violence. And then the response to that, whether it's Patrick Mason or the Deseret News, is that your average Mormon is just a peace loving, kind, friendly, happy person. Kind of like is depicted in the south park episode where it's like a bunch of blonde, blue eyed, happy people that just want to sing Donnie, Donnie Marie Osmond, eat popcorn and watch Disney movies. Like, John, sometimes you talk about the church like it's just this horrific machine of evil that's, that's generating only horribleness. What about the idea that, yeah, that the Church has a bunch of problems, but it also creates just a bunch of moral, ethical, happy, healthy people and united families that go on to be happy, healthy, contributing citizens that are often very peaceful and loving and compassionate.

John Larsen [02:47:02] I don't, I don't think the Church gets credit for that. I think there's happy, loving families all over. As a matter of fact, the Church just ramrods one nuclear version of a family down our throats and then tries to destroy families that don't follow that model. So the idea that the church is for families is ridiculous when they're actively looking to reverse. They're still on the Prop 8 thing. They want to take, take gay marriage away. They want to leave children without parents so they don't get credit for being family stuff. You're talking about under the Banner of Heaven. Here's my take. The Lafferties were sick. And no matter what your religion is, let me take Catholicism, there's people who invert that and, and turn it sick. Is Mormonism responsible for the Lafferties? No more than Catholicism responsible for all the serial killers who are Catholics. So I think, I think they represent an, an abnormal psychology. It's an interesting story. I read the book. I don't know that I'm planning on seeing the show because I find what they did to be so horribly distasteful that I just don't want to digest it again. I did it once.

John Dehlin [02:48:09] Okay, so you're not going to give any credit to the church for creating just happy families and good people?

John Larsen [02:48:16] No, not, not in particular. I don't, I don't think that if you compared other, like let's say United Methodist Church or something that Mormons have better families or happier or whatever, you know, you don't get credit for something that happens everywhere.

John Dehlin [02:48:31] What about the idea that some structure is better than no structure? The only thing better than an imperfect structure is like nothingness, where you're just alone and sad, have no community, no moral structure, no spirituality, and you're just kind of sad and lonely. Living is just a digit in the world.

John Larsen [02:48:51] What does that have to do with Mormonism, John? Do you think Christians are happier than Hindus or Muslims or Buddhists?

John Dehlin [02:48:57] No.

John Larsen [02:48:58] Okay, so. So Mormonism, which is a branch of Christianity, doesn't create happiness. You just said it.

John Dehlin [02:49:04] But like, if all religions were to disappear and then everybody just like, okay, well, I guess I'll watch Netflix and play video games. Like, are. Is the world going to be a happier, healthier place?

John Larsen [02:49:15] I am a very spiritual person. I believe in nothing spiritual. I mean, it's a very, it's very conundrumy thing. I don't think that the aspect of life where we find spirituality, we find meaning, we find connectedness, we find happiness comes from a religion. I believe that when I die, I'm dead and I won't be punished for anything I do. I won't be rewarded. But I still want to take care of my kids because I love them. I still want to take care of my neighbors because I love humanity. I still get distressed when I read what's happening in the world because it doesn't have to be this way. That's not religion. It's. It's. It's inside us. We're already good or we're already wicked or we're both. But religion, doesn't it just. It's just a. It's just a club, you know, there. There's plenty of good people who aren't Mormons. They're great people who are. But I don't think Mormonism could take credit for it whatsoever because you have to ignore, say, oh, well, they promoted this family. When I got married, my first wife, Zilf, and I couldn't have children. And people were just cruel, just casually cruel to us, questioning our devotion to the faith, questioning our devotion to God. Questioning our devotion to family and to each other. Just the casual cruelty in Mormonism to people who don't conform to the standard is something that only the people who didn't conform to the standard see be. You're only going to love Mormonism as a family centered thing if you are a white male with a white wife and kids. And I'm sorry, John de Lynn, that's you.

Carah Burrell [02:50:49] Yeah. I like the aspect of exploring like the COVID violence that Mormons don't often want to acknowledge. And it's things like that that wreck your psyche and that, you know, people seek like mental health counseling for a whole host of things. And is it physical bruises? No, but that it's, it's mental ones and like emotional ones and things that you almost wish were physical because it is, it's a covert version of violence. So when Mormons say that like happy, healthy, you know, these white smiling families, like the ones from south park and stuff, I'm like, that's a really easy dodge. When you're not talking about all the people who have sat in this Mormon stories chair and cried their eyes out about what it was like being LGBTQ in the church, they experience a type of COVID violence and sometimes it has physical bruises, but sometimes it's, you know, emotional. And that's the type of, type of like indirect. The doctrine, the practices, the theology of Mormonism that puts people in a box they were never meant to be within.

John Larsen [02:51:40] So true. And, and John, I hope you understand I'm not trying to beat up on you in particular. That's me. That's our privilege. That's what, that's what, that's what we, we, we got. And I got a, I got a view of it by not being able to procreate normally in the church, but you know, it, I, I, I don't, I don't think the church does a particularly great job. They fetishize a particular brand of family and ignore all the rest. When even without like the LGBT thing, there's so many people who are widows or widowers or you know, they lose their parents young or whatever or. Yeah, it's just if religion all disappeared tomorrow, spirituality wouldn't and maybe it would flourish.

Carah Burrell [02:52:24] Right. That's beautiful sentiment.

John Dehlin [02:52:28] Yeah. The only other thing I'll say to jump back on your side is like nowadays in 2022, the Mormon dream is a nightmare even for that nuclear family. Because chances are your, if you don't leave the church, your spouse is going to leave the church.

Carah Burrell [02:52:43] Right.

Does Mormonism Make People Happy?

John Dehlin [02:52:43] And chances are more than half of your Children, even if they're raised in Utah, are going to leave. So even for the intact nuclear Mormon family, white Utah family, they're living the eternal sad heaven nightmare because half of their chairs or more are going to be empty.

John Larsen [02:52:59] 20.

Carah Burrell [02:52:59] Yeah. I mean you think of it in terms of like 60000 missionaries out there in the world. If 60, 000 of those people each converted one person and there was, you know, 60, 000 new Mormons every year, are those people actually going to be statistically happier? Because then if their children, they're set up in this system again, this plan of salvation system where, okay, what if their children doesn't don't fit the mold and one of them is gay and one of them decides they want to have an opinion, you know, like, or wants to read church history or whatever, you have to wrestle with the idea that like is, is Mormonism in 2022 making anyone happier and is what missionaries are doing? I'm not saying definitively one way or the other. I'm just posing this as a question, like, are the people who are converting to Mormonism and then raising their families in it given this picture perfect idea that everyone's just going to get along and God's going to make it all work out and they're, you know, sold this idea about what Mormonism is by like what Patrick Mason and people like that were saying, like, no, it does breed the same specifically extra happy version of people. Are people converting based on a lie just around that it makes them happier and that their kids are going to be, you know, forced within this, this lane, in this system, in this box that they weren't actually meant to fit within. That's the most important question to me. Does Mormonism actually make people happier or are we converting? Do more D Missionaries convert people to Mormonism based on that presupposition that it's true and your happiness is actually irrelevant.

John Dehlin [02:54:20] Yeah, yeah, good point, Carah. And also how sad is it that let's just say on average, an affluent, you know, an average Utah Mormon family has a higher level of average of education, a higher than average level of socioeconomic status. As soon as half the family leaves the church, this family that's allegedly reached the pinnacle of happiness and health and well being, the believers spend the rest of their lives sad and trying to reconvert their, their family that's left and then. And or they spend distance and disconnected from not, not loving and enjoying their family members that have left. They're not like, oh, you're going to a different church, or oh, you don't go to any church at all, or oh, you get tattoos, or oh, you're single, or, oh, you're gay. It's not like, oh, let me just love you all as this big happy morning family. They're putting your names in. In the prayer rolls, like you said, John Larsen. They're crying about you when you're not around, or they're cutting you off, or they're taking you out of the text chats, or they're disinheriting you, or they're just. Or they're serving extra in the church because somehow if they're extra faithful as Mormons, somehow they'll be able to bring back their family members that have lost.

Carah Burrell [02:55:33] Every conference talks, talks about that. Don't give up on your family members. Still pray for them, still hope that they will come back, because the last life they're living is not something to accept.

John Dehlin [02:55:41] Like, so. So the Mormon dream becomes a nightmare, even for the ones that live it perfectly and remain believers.

Carah Burrell [02:55:48] That's the tea, you guys. That is the tea. God.

Guest [02:55:51] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:55:52] I gotta add some value to this podcast episode.

Carah Burrell [02:55:55] More than jokes. We already know those are plentiful today.

John Dehlin [02:55:59] John Larsen, you spent. I think my voice. I'm okay. John, it's great to have you back. We love you, brother. Dude, what's your next topic? Do you know?

John Larsen [02:56:13] I think I texted it to you.

John Dehlin [02:56:15] Let me look. All right, while you're doing that, Carah,

Carah Burrell [02:56:18] how fun was this?

John Dehlin [02:56:19] Welcome back.

Carah Burrell [02:56:20] I have no ptsd. I'm just like, hop back in. And I was like, love this. Not even looking over at that chair, just focused over here, hanging out. Jen's here having a great time. I will say that these cameras are actually a little bit better. Better than the microphone and me videoing from my iPhone, from my bedroom. I have to admit, you guys have a slightly superior step up on me. But basically, my YouTube channel and this, they're pretty much on the. Pretty much almost comparable.

John Dehlin [02:56:46] So your video is better than my video for the first ten Years of Mormon Stories podcast.

Carah Burrell [02:56:50] That's true.

John Dehlin [02:56:51] You're way ahead of where I was, Carah. Okay, really quickly, Carah, do a final plug for your Patreon channel.

Carah Burrell [02:56:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:56:57] And let people know what you're doing and how they can support.

Carah Burrell [02:56:59] Yeah, yeah. John and I are on super good terms. I took him out to lunch today. We filmed a YouTube video together about the top 15 things Mormon missionaries will not tell you when you want to join the Mormon Church or whatever. So we did a bunch of sources on that. That video is going to be out tomorrow on my YouTube channel, Nuanceo, and also on my Patreon. And I literally am just trying to make content full time. I love it. Some people say I'm good at it. I have my own perspective sometimes. So I have a good base and a good, good support system. So I'm really taking a full crack at it. So I have a Patreon. If you don't know what that is, it's like another social media platform that you can pay to be kind of like a subscriber and get my exclusive content before other people and sign up for different tiers. And I have to also admit that I think my Patreon is pretty legit. It's not a lame one and I give the people what they ask for. So if you go to patreon.com nuanceo you can sign up there and you'll have my undying love and devotion. Some people join just to get the free content and then they ditch. And you don't have to say about that. Those hoes ain't loyal. Those hoes ain't loyal, you know? So my first year is called my hoes. Second one is my potato, my funeral potatoes, and then my second annoy toes. So if you want any of those tears, just come be my friend, Come hang out. I think we have good content and I have a bunch of cool collaborations and stuff with a bunch of people coming up for the next month. I have, hopefully John will come, John Larsen will come out at some point and do a video with me. But I have Stacey Harkey, Mark Osland, blah, blah. So many other awesome people that I'm going to have on my YouTube channel. I'll just be making videos bi weekly probably because I learned how to be a workhorse when I was here at Mormon Stories and I just can't quit. So I'm just gonna be doing my own thing now with my own voice and I'm super excited. So thanks everyone for your support.

John Dehlin [02:58:37] Yeah, so support Carah, Margi and I each individually support Carah's Patreon. Carah and yeah. And you'll be joining us at least once a month whenever John Larsen comes on.

Guest [02:58:49] On.

John Dehlin [02:58:49] You and John are joined at the hip.

Speaker F [02:58:51] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:58:51] How does that feel?

John Larsen [02:58:52] I insisted, so. Oh, sorry. Our next episode is on the Tower of Babel.

Carah Burrell [02:58:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:59:00] Oh, that's a good one. If your voice returns at all.

John Larsen [02:59:03] Yes, indeed.

John Dehlin [02:59:05] Quick shout out to Jake. Jake has been on Mormon Stories. We love you, Jake. Jake just gave us 20 bucks and it looks like he wants Us to spend it on tacos. How do you feel about that, Carah?

Carah Burrell [02:59:14] Oh, for me?

John Dehlin [02:59:14] I don't know. It just says tacos and burritos.

Carah Burrell [02:59:17] Oh, better be for me.

John Dehlin [02:59:20] All right, thank you. Thank you, Jake, for that super chat and thanks to everyone who donated today. We did have several super chats. And that's how we pay John Larsen. That's how we pay Carah, that's how we pay Jen. And. And by the way, if you love John Larsen and Carah, keep joining in. Support MormonStories.org Mormonexpression. You can donate specifically to John. And because there's enough monthly donations to pay for both John and Carah, we're able to have both on, so. And people are always dropping off. So please, we'll put a link right now in the show notes and maybe even in the comments. Carah, if you want to do that, please, please support the Mormon Expression campaign within the Open Stories foundation so we can keep paying Carah and John for this work. And Tower of Babel. Sounds exciting. John Larsen.

Carah Burrell [03:00:12] Yeah, the mythical story that the entire Book of Mormon is built on. Can't wait.

John Dehlin [03:00:17] That's awesome. All right, John Larsen, we love you.

Carah Burrell [03:00:19] We love you.

John Dehlin [03:00:20] Thanks for everything you do. Hope to see you again soon, brother.

John Larsen [03:00:24] All right.

John Dehlin [03:00:24] And Jen will be getting with you to schedule it, if it hasn't already been scheduled. All right, he's done. Thanks, man. See you, John. All right, we're done. Carah, we're done. You ready to go home? It's 10 o'. Clock.

Carah Burrell [03:00:38] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:00:39] You done?

Carah Burrell [03:00:40] I'm ready to go get a taco and go tuck myself in and edit the video that I'm putting out tomorrow that we did. You guys should be really excited.

John Dehlin [03:00:46] You think it's gonna be ready by tomorrow?

Carah Burrell [03:00:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:00:48] Have you already been working on it?

Guest [03:00:49] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [03:00:49] I'm like a mini John de Lynn. I'm like, should I go to sleep or pop off my pillow and go get back to work? And I learned from the best.

John Dehlin [03:00:56] Well, Carah, it's great to have you back.

Carah Burrell [03:00:57] It's so great to be here. I spent like the whole day with John. I haven't seen him in like a month. So reunited and it feels so good. Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:01:05] Yeah. Keep up the good work.

Carah Burrell [03:01:07] Thanks, everyone, for sticking out so late too. I thought this was a super fun chat and really fun discussion about the most horrific things in the world. We did it. We made it through, guys. Yes.

John Dehlin [03:01:15] But, Carah, how do you shut off a 500 person live stream? Like it's not every day we've got 500 people on the live Stream, you

Carah Burrell [03:01:21] know, you just kept, like, pasting links to, like, Patreon slash nuance ho until everyone's like, I'm out of here. That's all it is.

John Dehlin [03:01:27] Quit spamming us.

Carah Burrell [03:01:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:01:29] All right.

Carah Burrell [03:01:30] Thanks, everyone, though. It's awesome. This is a really good turnout out. You guys are awesome. Mormon stories viewers are so legit.

Closing Remarks and Support the Podcast

John Dehlin [03:01:35] All right, well, Carah, thanks for coming. We'll see you again soon. Jen. Jen's. Jen camps in back. Jen, thanks for running the. The show notes and time codes. And Jen's just, like, brought so much organization to this organization. She's got, you know, spreadsheets going on with, like, all the episodes that are in the works and all the different roles that everybody plays. Jen's got it all running like a finely tuned.

Carah Burrell [03:02:00] First week that I came in here, I was like, these chords, this method mess. And I did my best, but I got just annoyed. I come in and Jen had like, every cord is just so beautifully, like, manicured. This place is so manicured.

Speaker F [03:02:10] And she.

John Dehlin [03:02:11] She cleans up. Yeah, it's true. So, Jen, you're awesome.

Carah Burrell [03:02:17] Donate to Mormon Stories.

John Dehlin [03:02:18] Thanks for supporting us, Jen. Thanks to Gerardo. Thanks to Jennifer. Thanks to Brooklyn and Nemo. So. So, like, if you love John and Carah, you can join them once a month. But we also have gotten so much good feedback about Jen as co host, about Nemo, about Gerardo, and. Yeah. And of course, we've got the wonderful series with Mike from LDS discussions. If you haven't tuned into that yet, we've released five episodes on the Book of Mormon golden plates, the Book of Mormon translation, 116 lost pages. And these are really in depth episodes. He's doing things that I think, think even John Hamer and Dan Vogel and Michael Quinn haven't quite done in the same way that Mike's doing it. And of course, Mike will be the first to sing praises to Brett Metcalf and Simon Southerton and, you know, and. And Michael Quinn and John Hamer and everyone. But check out our LDS discussion series. It's life changing. And of course, our series with Simon Southerton where we're with Gerardo talking about science and Mormonism and Mormon doctrine and, man, there's just too much good stuff going on. Carah.

Carah Burrell [03:03:24] Single tear.

John Dehlin [03:03:26] Well, you're part of it.

Carah Burrell [03:03:27] I'm part of listening to it at home alone.

John Dehlin [03:03:30] No, you're. You're part of our family still.

Guest 2 [03:03:32] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [03:03:33] Yeah. I'll be in here for my favorite episodes.

John Dehlin [03:03:35] You're still part of our family.

Carah Burrell [03:03:37] Yeah. That's some good content, though. I was like, will they ever be able to go on without me? Just kidding. Of course.

John Dehlin [03:03:43] The sad news, Carah, is that we're all expendable. Including me. No, it's true.

Carah Burrell [03:03:48] No, I will not. This is, that's, that's like a Mormon God thing. We're all beautiful individual snowflakes.

John Dehlin [03:03:56] Yeah. All right, well everyone, thanks for joining us. If you want to support this program, if you want to see it continue, you can support the Mormon Expression campaign. And of course, if you want to support Mormon stories generally, just go to MormonStories.org click on the Donate button and you can become a monthly donor. Of course, you can also give us a positive review on, on the Mormon. On the Apple podcast app, we have haters who have dragged our average review down from 4.9 to 4.8 without even listening to the episode. It's just like the church pays them to give us one star reviews and they say horrible things about us. So please go to the Apple podcast app, give us five star reviews, tell viewers and listeners winners that we do good stuff and drowned out the haters. Don't let the Mormon Church win. You can also give us positive reviews on Spotify and you can give us positive reviews on the Mormon Stories podcast Facebook page. You can subscribe us like to us. You can follow us on Tick Tock. We've got Tick Tock Back Up Mormon Stories podcast. Jen's helping out and, and we have another secret weapon that's been helping us but it's, I don't know if we're ever going to be able to, to get to where you, you got us.

Carah Burrell [03:05:05] So I'll be cheering you on.

John Dehlin [03:05:08] And you're still doing Tick Tock right?

Carah Burrell [03:05:10] When I have time doesn't pay the bills.

John Dehlin [03:05:12] Yeah, I know, it's just marketing. Anyway, follow us on Tick Tock, Instagram, maybe Twitter someday we'll get that going. We've got a Twitter and of course Facebook and but most importantly, support nuance. Ho.

Carah Burrell [03:05:27] Most importantly, just if you like content, pay for it. And whatever you listen to more, whether it's Mormon stories or YouTube nuance, whatever you like, pay for it. Because some people gotta eat. That's how you eat now. Even self on the shelf ends up on the shelf. Yeah, people like I, I, I'm the, the grandbaby of you because you gave birth to like Zelf on the shelf and they gave birth to me and I'll have my own little babies and grandbabies one day and this will be like the literal like Mormon ex Mormon version of like that celestial order of, like, you know, the generations going on forever and ever in this way.

John Dehlin [03:05:59] What about Bill Real?

Carah Burrell [03:06:00] Should they support Bill Real and Bill Real and rfm? Goodness gracious. I'm here because of Bill, who I get to go see this weekend.

John Dehlin [03:06:06] What about Mormonism Live? Do they support that?

Carah Burrell [03:06:08] Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:06:09] What about.

Carah Burrell [03:06:10] I feel like I'm probably the poorest.

John Dehlin [03:06:14] All right, everyone, we love you. Be good to each other. Take care, be nice, and we'll see you guys all again on another episode of Mormon. Thanks, everyone. Take care.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.