wanted to do a little thread on the question of "do mormons believe you get a planet when you die?" because i think it's one of the questions i hear most often about mormons

just as a disclaimer, i was raised mormon but no longer believe or practice it. now i mostly just make dumb jokes about it on twitter.

the first thing i'll say about the planet when you die thing is that it's weird because it has some elements of actual mormon belief in it, but framed in a very non-mormon way. no mormons phrase or understand it as getting your own planet. that's a very gentile perspective.

first, in order to understand this, you have to understand that mormon theology is really weird. so weird in fact that mormonism is not really monotheistic and if you're christian you might characterize it as "extremely heretical"

the mormon conception of god is very strange. god is less of a infinite and incomprehensible being and more like an organism (mormons don't phrase it like this but i think it's the best way to understand it).

like other organisms, the goal of god(s) is to reproduce. while christians take the "children of god" thing as a metaphor, mormons take it very literally. each person's soul or spirit is the literal offspring of a heavenly father and heavenly mother.

human beings can be seen as "gods in embryo" or if you want to make it sound really weird, humanity is like the larval stage of gods. part of becoming a full-fledged god is to receive a physical body by being born and living a mortal life.

mormons believe that our heavenly father and heavenly mother(s?) (yay polygamy) once were people just like you and me before becoming perfected and exalted beings.

but not everyone gets to become a god. there's a certain standard of conduct expected of godhood. this is where more standard christian belief comes into the picture. jesus helps perfect and cleanse you from sin so you can attain godhood.

so the deal is that if you follow god's plan (as laid out by his One True Church™) including things like getting a legit mormon baptism, not drinking coffee or tea, etc., you get to become just like him

so yes, i suppose as part of this deal you "get a planet" because god certainly controls many planets, but you can see that just focusing on the planet bit is kind of missing the point.

you become a heavenly parent of your own heavenly children, continuing the god reproductive cycle.

those of you familiar with more normal monotheistic theology at this point have probably realized that this idea is pretty nuts and insanely heretical and blasphemous.

mormons understand that other people think this belief is weird, although i would argue that they don't quite fully understand why, so they tend to hide this belief around non-mormons, speaking very obliquely about it.

the mormon idea of god is really more like a superpowered organism who is also really good at following all the rules. and the mormon idea of heaven is that you get those cool superpowers too as long as you prove you're good at following the rules too.