Engaging Gospel Doctrine (Episode 143)

Lesson 17

“What Shall I Do That I May Inherit Eternal Life?”

Hook / What exactly will we do in heaven? How will we spend our days? Er, millennia? How do our Heavenly Great-Grandparents keep busy?
Manual Goal / To help class members understand that we must be willing to sacrifice the things of this world to obtain a place in the kingdom of heaven.
EGD Goal / To help class members understand the nature of “eternal life”, both here and the hereafter, as well as the relationship of wealth and well-being.
  1. Sunday School
  2. What is “Eternal Life”?
  3. Encyclopedia of Mormonism definition
  4. We each need to seek to understand what “Eternal Life” means. How does it relate both to the afterlife and this life? I love the idea of “life before death” and think Mormonism supports this idea. I think the temple supports the idea that this life *is* the afterlife in an important sense. We are in eternity. Once we have the Holy Ghost, we become spiritually alive, and the role of the HG is to sanctify us so we become more and more spiritually alive
  5. What is your personal definition? Sure we have vague ideas of “happy forever”, but what does that mean? (for me the most appealing aspect of the Celestial Kingdom has been the idea of intimacy, connection, being known, relationships that last forever. We never have enough time with those we love)
  6. Maximization of love, growth, peace, joy, freedom.
  7. Review the reading
  8. What kinds of wealth are there?
  9. Money, necessary to meet our physical needs (and also provide opportunities and experiences) (Refer to Kahneman quote)
  10. Again, PERMA. A life of health and well-being, above all peace of mind, can make someone “rich”. Lead to satisfaction.
  11. What responsibilities do the scriptures teach us we have in regard to wealth?
  12. Conclusion I
  13. Scripture Study
  14. Return to the Reading
  15. Wealth and apocalypticism (great reversal, living as if the kingdom had already come, Messianic Era and abundance)
  16. Study Notes
  17. Kahneman quote
  18. Buy experiences not things (5 principles in Forbes article)
  19. Wealth and wealth inequality (and how hard it is to challenge the status quo)
  20. How much wealth is ethical? 10x “sufficient for your needs”? 100x? 1000x? a million times? Deeply complicated issue that evokes strong reactions (strongest I have come across while doing this podcast)
  21. Refer to episode 67 with all of its resources and links

This is a serious “be challenged” by section when it comes to earthly wealth (I am glad that the lesson focuses on this, wealth disparity is a world-breaking problem) wealth, well-being, opportunities

EOM: Eternal Life

“To Latter-day Saints the phrase "eternal life" refers not only to everlasting life but also and more particularly to the quality of life God lives. Eternal life is available to all people who have lived on earth who accept this gift by their obedience to God's laws and ordinances.”

In their book Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending, authors Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton draw on years of quantitative and qualitative research to explain how we can turn cash into contentment.

The key lies in adhering to five key principles: Buy Experiences (research shows that material purchases are less satisfying than vacations or concerts); Make it a Treat (limiting access to our favorite things will make us keep appreciating them); Buy Time (focusing on time over money yields wiser purchases); Pay Now, Consume Later (delayed consumption leads to increased enjoyment); and Invest in Others (spending money on other people makes us happier than spending it on ourselves).

Daniel Kahneman: Sure.I think the most interesting result that we found in the Gallup surveyis a number, which we absolutely did not expect to find.We found that with respect to the happinessof the experiencing self.When we looked at how feelings,vary with income.And it turns out that, below an incomeof 60,000 dollars a year, for Americans --and that's a very large sample of Americans, like 600,000,so it's a large representative sample --below an income of…60,000 dollars a year, people are unhappy,and they get progressively unhappier the poorer they get.Above that, we get an absolutely flat line.I mean I've rarely seen lines so flat.Clearly, what is happening ismoney does not buy you experiential happiness,but lack of money certainly buys you misery,and we can measure that miseryvery, very clearly.In terms of the other self, the remembering self,you get a different story.The more money you earn, the more satisfied you are.That does not hold for emotions.

DK: You know I think that there is recognitionof the role of happiness research in public policy.The recognition is going to be slow in the United States,no question about that,but in the U.K., it is happening,and in other countries it is happening.People are recognizing that they oughtto be thinking of happinesswhen they think of public policy.It's going to take a while,and people are going to debatewhether they want to study experience happiness,or whether they want to study life evaluation,so we need to have that debate fairly soon.How to enhance happinessgoes very different ways depending on how you think,and whether you think of the remembering selfor you think of the experiencing self.This is going to influence policy, I think, in years to come.In the United States, efforts are being madeto measure the experience happiness of the population.This is going to be, I think, within the next decade or two,part of national statistics.

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