 Roger Hansen is currently the planning group chief at the Provo Area Office of the Bureau of Reclamation where he has worked as a civil engineer and a planner for over 30 years. His principal professional interest is the application of real-time monitoring and control technologies to water districts and canal companies in the inner mountain west. Additionally, his colleagues in here working to bring water and power to Navajos living in very remote locations. Roger Hansen. I'm a technophobe at this, so I think I came to the wrong conference. I may do this without a PowerPoint. Should I try it again? Okay. I had a joke, but it was visual, so I can't start out with my big number here. My presentation is, what if Joseph Smith Jr. had lived longer and how might that have changed the LDS cosmic view, that we have today? My name's Roger Hansen as they pointed out. I've worked 35 years for the Bureau of Reclamation in Provo, Utah. We're in the water resource business. I'm a fifth generation Mormon, although I'm currently not active. I blog at a website called Tired Road Warrior. So if any of you get the idea that you want to have a conversation, feel free to log in. I write under the name of our Dennis Hansen because some people work have complained that they didn't want my opinions associated with the organization. So if you see an R. Dennis Hansen in the newspaper, that's me. Historians love to play what if games. It gives them a chance to make wild speculations. Some of the subjects that historians have discussed include what if the South had won the Civil War? What if D-Day had been a failure? What if the Marcian heresy triumphed over Christian proto-Orthodoxy? Along these same lines, I've frequently wondered how the LDS church might be different today if its founder and first president had lived longer. Benjamin E. Park makes the following observations about Smith's unfulfilled earthly mission. To quote, he says, Joseph Smith's premature death at age 38 presented the completion of his religious revolution. Though he had been the recognized prophet one later for nearly a decade and a half, the explosive theological development during his last three years showed no sign of slackening. And it can be assumed that much of, and it can be assumed that much of his religious vision was left unfulfilled, unquote. Three months before his martyrdom, Smith delivered his most compelling oration, the King Follett Discourse. In it, he started to develop Mormon theology of theosis. Included, according to Wikipedia, quote, Mormons believe that humanity may not, excuse me, Mormons believe that humanity may not only be given, that humanity may not only be given God's holiness and perfection, but also his essential divinity and godhood. This doctrine stems from the movements founder, Joseph Smith, Jr., who taught that God the Father is an advanced and glorified man. According to Smith, through the obedience to Christ and the gradual acquisition of knowledge, the faithful may eventually become God's in the afterlife. Since Joseph Smith's death, his doctrine of divination is morphed into the possibility of the worthy having an opportunity to terraform. The idea was recently brought to the forefront in the wildly successful Broadway musical, The Book of Mormon. In the song, I believe, Elder Price intones, I believe that God has a plan for us all. I believe that plan includes me getting my own planet. I don't know how many of you have seen it. It's coming to town. I enjoyed it, but if you can't handle a crudity, I suggest you not go. The publicity surrounding this concept, mostly derisive, must have been partly responsible for the timing of the recent quasi-official LDS encyclical title, Becoming Like God. While the LDSS say it's generally appealing, it is unnecessary in its present form. For my point of view, it's overly defensive about the human potential and about getting your own planet. To quote from the encyclical, quote, while few Latter-day Saints would identify with the character of having your own planet, most would agree with the awe inspired by creation hints at its collective potential for the eternities. I think I murdered that one, unquote. The timing and defensive nature of the 2014 Divination Essay seems unfortunate. At the time when scientists are beginning to comprehend the vastness and diversity of the universe, there will never be a time to be defensive about in the future anyway, about our belief in an unlimited potential of both mortals and post mortals, including the derivative idea of getting your own planet. The important points of Joseph Smith's cosmological view are more timely than ever now. Reporting on a massive telescope system in the Chilean Highlands, a system that scientists hopes will allow astronomers to see back almost to the first moments after the universe was formed. A National Geographic author ends his article with the following almost spiritual statement. On an arid plateau, a few miles from where shepherds once slept, our eyes will open upon an unseen universe. Instead of overreacting to Christian fundamentalism, Mormonism needs to highlight the beauties of its cosmic views. Having said that, I cannot help but wondering how the 2014 encyclical might have been different if Smith had lived longer and been able to fine tune his divination theology. Here are four of my wild speculations. I believe that if Joseph Smith had lived longer, the nature of God, particularly the issue of whether he is progressing, would be better understood. The 2014 LDS essay ignores this issue. However, crows from Brigham Young indicate a strong belief that God the Father, and everyone and everything is eternally progressing. However, this idea was rudely discounted, and I say rudely, by Bruce R. McConkie. He wrote an extremely nasty letter to Eugene Englund. But on this issue, Eugene Englund and I side with Young. If Joseph Smith had lived longer, the idea of eternal progression would be given a stronger emphasis. John A. Woodstow, who was an apostle who died in 1954, was a strong advocate for the doctrine of eternal progression. He likened it to organic evolution. He tied it to the need for continued personal advancement in both spiritual and secular matters. Woodstow saw everything as being in a state of flux, much like modern day process philosophers and theologians. I suspect that if Woodstow were alive today, he'd be very interested in attending a conference like this. If Joseph Smith had lived longer, the question of whether Mormons or Polytheists would be better understood. The section on this issue in the 2014 LDSSA is sketchy at best. It deals largely with the relationship between the father and son, but does not deal with God's relationship, or with God's spouse, and with the future status of his other children. And fourth, if Joseph Smith had lived longer, the role of the mother in heaven would be better recognized and understood. I think that Smith would have eventually received revelation on her existence and role, but while Smith may have been able to illuminate the role of the mother in heaven, it seems unlikely he would have solved Mormonism's current feminist problem. Smith, like Young, was very much a product of his own time, and it probably wasn't time for a redefinition of women's roles. Smith's untimely death left a lot of questions related to theosis unresolved, and the LGS church is having difficulties answering them all. The leadership is trying, but questions remain, but for me it's fun to play what if games. Richard Butchman made the following comment about the church's 2014 encyclical. The posting defines a boundary of what we truly believe and also tries to make it as appealing as possible. It sort of puts the caricature of Mormons owning their own planet in perspective. In a way, it dismisses it, but it goes on to say this is a respect for the powers of God in creation and suggests that we may have a part in it. I guess I'd say hooray for Bushman. It is critical that we all understand the enormous potential that humanity has, both here on earth and in the hereafter.