[tzs]

That's the thing I find most interesting about the Mormon church.

In most other churches if you don't get into heaven your afterlife really really really sucks. They tend to be very binary--eternity in paradise, or eternity of inconceivable torture and torment.

Mormon afterlife has four possible destinations: the Celestial Kingdom, the Terrestrial Kingdom, the Telestial Kingdom, and the outer darkness.

The Celestial Kingdom corresponds with heaven of other Christian sects.

The outer darkness kind of corresponds to hell in that it is where Satan resides, but I don't know if it is a place to torment like it is in other sects.

It's pretty hard to get sent to the outer darkness. It's for people who know that God is real, and choose to go against Him. Note that this does not include people that are told about God and do not believe--it is people who receive a personal revelation that He exists and still reject it.

Those who are merely told about God and reject those teachings, but who were decent people get the Terrestrial Kingdom.

Those who don't qualify for that because they were not decent, such as liars, sorcerers, whoremongers, etc., get the Telestial Kingdom. They are resurrected and given an immortal physical body. No torment or torture...the Telestial Kingdom is supposed to be a very nice place to live out your now eternal physical life.

The Telestial Kingdom sounds acceptable to me, and I'd probably actually make it to the Terrestrial Kingdom if Mormonism turns out to be right.

So what's the case to convert to Mormonism, or for people raised Mormon to stick with it? With the churches with the binary paradise/infinite torture afterlife, a Pascal's Wager type argument might work, even if I think there is a low probability that the church is right.

With Mormonism, if I think that there is only a low probability that it is right, a Pascal's Wager approach can tell me to optimize for my mortal life.

Even if I decide that some sort of Christian or Christian offshoot must be correct, if I narrow it down to a list that includes Mormonism and one or more of the eternal damnation sects, another Pascal's Wager like argument would tell me to pick one of the eternal damnation sects.

[miedpo]

For a simple answer to your question (you may have answered it asked it more rhetorically, and if so, sorry), the case to convert is just that we pray about it and get an answer.

There's a lot of reasons the church's teachings are good to believe in, but it's kinda useless if God isn't saying it's right if you know what I mean.

I grew up not believing in God at all. But when it came time, I asked God, if he existed, to give me an answer. And as best as I can interpret, he did.

So yeah, that's kinda why, if you wanted to know. The reasons are extra on top of the actual question if that makes any sense :p

Hope you're having a good day.

[beatgammit]

The torment part is from the individual guilt of knowing you could have received greater glory, and damnation is the halting of eternal progress. It's the same type of thing that leads people to want more and more things in this life, and knowing that you can never have the nice things your neighbor has is unacceptable to many and is why (IMO) so many people with good jobs live paycheck to paycheck. If your content with a pretty good eternal state and don't want to put in the effort to get to the highest state, then you have your reward (and it'll be pretty nice too), but you'll likely wish you did more at some point.

That being said, the whole point is that Jesus isn't trying to punish anyone, he just wants you to be as comfortable as possible, while meeting the demands of justice. What would be worse, the guilt of knowing you could have done better, or imposter syndrome of knowing you don't deserve to be in the presence of those who were more faithful?

Honestly, I find the binary nature of the afterlife of most religious traditions to be inconsistent with the idea of a merciful God. What does God get out of punishing you? Why would his love for you end just because you died? Is not getting baptized really bad enough to warrant eternal punishment?