If we take the case of the infant who dies a day after birth, you’re saying that they really didn’t do any preparing to meet God.

No, I am saying they didn’t use this life to do any preparing to meet God.

So, I’m wondering, in your opinion, how much experience someone needs to have in order for life to have been a time of preparation?

I don’t know. Presumably sometime around eight years old, but I would guess God would ultimately be the judge of that since he can discern thoughts, intents, desires, and the like.

Does someone need to experience the sensation of their five senses at least once?

As a mortal? I don’t think so. Assuming of course, we have all five senses once resurrected.

Does someone need to be able to make a single decision, or perhaps a dozen?

I presume it would be related to how much preparation the person made in the premortal life.

It is related to opportunities to commit sin?

Exclusively? I doubt it.

If we take the case of the infant who dies a day after birth, you’re saying that they really didn’t do any preparing to meet God.

So, I’m wondering, in your opinion, how much experience someone needs to have in order for life to have been a time of preparation? There must be a cutoff or a threshold.

And, what counts as experience? Does someone need to experience the sensation of their five senses at least once? Does someone need to be able to make a single decision, or perhaps a dozen? It is related to opportunities to commit sin?

I have just always thought that it’s a necessary step, therefore part of the preparation.

Sure. Having a body is necessary. Doing anything beyond that is not. Or rather, it’s not necessary for everyone.

What would be the experience threshold for preparation?

I’m not sure I understand what you are asking.

What would be the experience threshold for preparation?

I can see where you’re coming from. I have just always thought that it’s a necessary step, therefore part of the preparation.

I also don’t see how something that is a free gift is part of our own efforts to prepare to meet God. After all, Amulek says, “this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God”, not for God to prepare men to meet him.

But I disagree about the first thing. A part of preparing to meet God involves getting our mortal body, experiencing the second estate, and dying.

If an infant lives to be a day old and then dies of natural causes, who is to say that this infant didn’t do all the preparing that was necessary for them to do?

Right. Which means, this life wasn’t the time for him/her to meet God. That preparation was done before or will be done in the Spirit World.

Perhaps we are both saying the same thing.

. . . you are evaluating the experiences you have had in your life. You are evaluating how much you have learned and how beneficial that would be to someone else. You are then concluding that anyone who is deprived of similar experiences isn’t getting all of the benefit out of life that they could have.

Correct me if I’m wrong . . .

You’re wrong. ;)

If an infant lives to be a day old and then dies of natural causes, who is to say that this infant didn’t do all the preparing that was necessary for them to do?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but you are evaluating the experiences you have had in your life. You are evaluating how much you have learned and how beneficial that would be to someone else. You are then concluding that anyone who is deprived of similar experiences isn’t getting all of the benefit out of life that they could have.

But the unknown here is that we don’t know what experiences each individual needs to prepare to meet God. For that infant, all they could need by way of preparation would be that single day they were given. We really have no way of knowing.