Do Pre-existent Spirit Babies Choose Their Parents?

When I was a Mormon I was taught that I had chosen the earthly parents I would be born to while I was still a spirit in the pre-existence.  This teaching always made me wonder just how trustworthy the doctrines of the Church were if this was true.

While writing an article this week I came across another Mormon dilemma that just goes to show there is always something in Mormonism that contradicts itself.  How can you trust any of these leaders when they’re always teaching opposing views?

This scenario reminds me of the one-hit-wonder song “Should I stay or should I go?”

Now there are many Christians who disagree on simple things in life and that’s the beauty of mankind.  The problem here is when you have the leaders of the Mormon Church who declare from the pulpit of God two very different teachings and expect the adherents to accept their words.  After all, the teaching that all members of the Church should follow the prophet’s words is ever present in the back of each Mormon’s psyche.

Journal of Discourses 2:117; “So, when those spirits come to take bodies, where will the noble and high order of them go? Will they take bodies that have come through a low and degraded parentage? No, no more than the righteous man will take up his abode with the vile and wicked. Where will he go? “Why,” says that noble spirit, that is swelling with light and intelligence, “I will take a body through an honorable parentage; I will have a body that will correspond with my mind; I will go to the place where purity and righteousness dwell.”

…Do good spirits want to partake of the sins of the low and degraded? No; but they will stay in heaven until a way is opened for purity and righteousness to form a channel in which they can come, and take honorable bodies in this world, and magnify their calling. Let us take that course…” – Orson Hyde, Salt Lake City, September 24, 1853

Journal of Discourses 4:56; “Do you understand this? I have told you many times that there are multitudes of pure and holy spirits waiting to take tabernacles, now what is our duty?—to prepare tabernacles for them; to take a course that will not tend to drive those spirits into the families of the wicked, where they will be trained in wickedness, debauchery, and every species of crime. It is the duty of every righteous man and woman to prepare tabernacles for all the spirits they can; hence if my women leave, I will go and search up others who will abide the celestial law…This is the reason why the doctrine of plurality of wives was revealed, that the noble spirits which are waiting for tabernacles might be brought forth.” – Brigham Young, Salt Lake City, September 21, 1856

For Behold Ye are Free, pg. 42; “…as intelligences, we voluntarily agreed to the proposed action of God the Eternal Father and his companion – we consented to our being born as sons and daughters of them, understanding the laws and consequences of obedience and disobedience to those laws that obtained in that kingdom…Now as spirit sons and daughters of God, after we had taken that step to become the literal offspring of celestial Parents, we read in the Doctrine and Covenants, an item pertaining to our freedom of choice as spirit beings.  “…for, behold the devil was before Adam…”” – Lynn A. McKinlay

Way to Perfection, pg. 44-45; “NO SCRIPTURAL PROOF OF PRE-MORTAL CHOOSING We have no scriptural justification, however, for the belief that we had the privilege of choosing our parents and our life companions in the spirit world. This belief has been advocated by some, and it is possible that in some instances it is true, but it would require too great a stretch of the imagination to believe it to be so in all, or even in the majority of cases. Most likely we came where those in authority decided to send us. Our agency may not have been exercised to the extent of making choice of parents and posterity.” – Joseph Fielding Smith