The only good part about repententing (sincerely) sometime prior to death is that it should avoid having a tenure in spirit prison, a primary purpose of which is to help persons realize what the natural state of man is cut off from the presence of the Lord. As soon as one is prison sincerely turns to God, he is saved with a preliminary salvation, generally known as justification.

I actually think the sauce of my #53 obesity analogy has a great deal more kick tho it than you are giving it credit for. See my #74.

I suspect you don’t mean this. God doesn’t change so the requirements for exaltation can’t actually change either…

So contra to normal LDS beliefs, the guy laying on his death bed can repent, accept Christ and be received into heaven the same as someone that spent a life time doing good works,

I simply think this wishful thinking and incorrect doctrine. I mentioned in the other thread that I think that if God were even to try to change our charters in the way you describe here it would be a form of compulsion and therefore it would be amen to his priesthood or authority. If we have free will then change must be a personal choice — no one, including God, can change our characters but us. But the good news is that God is gracious and loves us and will do everything to persuade and help us change for the better and become one with him. The methods he tell us he can use are “by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile-”.

I anticipated someone would pull these conversions out in opposition to my assertion that true character does not change over night. I believe I headed it off a bit in my #53 when I said that character is probably iceberg-like with only 10% showing to most people. (This in contrast to the obesity anaolgy I used because obesity is obvious.) So I would say that Alma and Paul were not through and through scoundrels — they were largely sincere people who were misguided. (The iceberg analogy with them being that they were 90% good characters already but 10% misguided so the mighty change did not interfere with their free will in the least.) For instance, Paul was a devout Jew who thought he was serving God by persecuting Christians. When he received his vision it was not a massive character change for him at all — he just shifted his efforts and began to promote the cause of Christ with zeal instead of zealously opposing it. Further, we have no evidence the Alma Jr. was a lying stealing, murdering, raping, type of scoundrel. Rather that he was a non-believer who was zealously preaching against Christianity. When he saw the light he simply shifted re-applied his skill and zeal in the service of Christ. (He tells his son in Alma 36:14 “Yea, and I had murdered many of his children, or rather led them away unto destruction;” so I take that to mean he never killed anyone but rather caused apostasy through his persuasive philosophies.)

It works if the parable is primarily a foreshadowing to the primitive church preaching to the gentiles in the first century AD. I think that is the main thrust. The Jews were there from the start and the gentiles were invited to the party relatively late in the day. (But you are right that is doesn’t take into account the last days and great apostasy and all.)

The laborers = various nations or people with the first called being the Jews/Israel.

The problem I have is that reading the parable itself, one gets the impression that the laborers who were called first were actually working for the householder all the day long.

In the case of the Jews/Israel, I don’t think we can say that they were working for the householder all day. More like, they were laborers who agreed to work but then wandered off and did other things as the day wore on.

I do not believe in magic – I majored in physics after all, with an psuedo-minor in electrical engineering. I don’t believe that ordinary material (electrons and protons) is occulted by any sort of intelligence beyond what is acheivable through technology.

So when I speak of the earth being transfigured, it must necessarily be a metaphor for something that can be accomplished by human or divine intervention, and I don’t believe that God breaks or can break any first order natural laws (e.g. the laws of physics).

However the greatest transformation is not in the material by any means, but in the hearts of the people. Now while I should say that spiritual unity causes people to literally glow, I should also say there is a natural explanation for that. No magic required, just love – not hormones, but real love – spiritual love. The spirit that couples all of us together, for both good and for evil. There is a decent quantum mechanical explanation for that – it is called nonlocal phase correlation.

In #45 I said, “Geoff, I agree with some of what you say, (salvation is not a gift) and what Mark has been trying to explain (albeit by your own admission, you don’t seem to get it).

In #47 Hal says, “Dean, I like your points and how you state them. However, the way I read Geoff’s comments don’t suggest to me that he ‘doesn’t get’ what you have taught.

In #51 I was trying to clarify for Hal that it wasn’t “my thoughts” that you ‘didn’t get’ but it was Mark’s thoughts that you didn’t get. I’m pretty sure you get what I’m saying. You may not agree with me, but you understand what I’m saying.

In your #53, when you say “I had no idea what he [Mark]was talking about” sounds like “I don’t get it” to me, regardless of the reason. I didn’t get all of what Mark was saying either, mostly because of the same reason you stated.

In the words of my son Nate, the analogy of weight change and character change is, “weak sauce” (chalk it up to brainstorming). CEF seems to explain the problem with your analogy in #66, not to mention that I know of one person who found his way when he was in his late 70ties and I think he is way ahead of me. I suspect that is why Alma describes his father’s conversion as a “mighty” change. I think our nature is to view the issue like weight change, hence the reason for the parable. I’m afraid we’re headed for the back of the bus again…Dean

When I first read your comment, I thought you were saying that the parable was not about grace, but after rereading it, I realized that is not what you said. However, I will try and explain how I see the context of what Christ was trying to teach.

IMO, Christ came to establish a complete change it the paradigm in how we are suppose to understand the requirements of entering heaven. The old law was based upon keeping the commandants, hence the question what do I have to do to go to heaven? His answer represents the paradigm shift.

The law of Moses was still in effect, so, first was the ten commandants. The rich man says, I have done all of that. Okay, so start on this new order I have come to establish. Namely, I want everything you have, your heart, mind and will. Peter recognizes the obvious. That is hard to do. Christ told him it is impossible to do, but with God’s help anything is possible.

So Christ gives the parable to help show the new order of things. Getting to heaven is no longer based on what you do as in earning your reward in heaven, but is based on the generosity (graciousness) of God, and your accepting that gift in your life.

It seems that the acceptance of the gift, ( believing Christ can do what He says He can do, not just believing in Christ) is the heart changing factor. With this new heart, you are willing to give all you have unconditionally to the building up of the kingdom.

So contra to normal LDS beliefs, the guy laying on his death bed can repent, accept Christ and be received into heaven the same as someone that spent a life time doing good works, because again, it is not about how much you do, but about giving your heart to the Lord that really matters. Hence to all of the Peters of the world, don’t be surprised to see someone in heaven that did not spend a lifetime working in the kingdom, but came in at the last hour.

I gotta hand it to you for being willing to stick your neck out on these sorts of things. Your view of planets literally transforming and becoming immortal sounds way too much like magic for my tastes. I am much too much of a naturalist to follow you down that path.