So why so much opposition to Mormonism?

I was raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Different times in my life I have chosen not to follow all the precepts of my faith, but I have always felt an overwhelming reliance that the doctrine and concepts are correct and beneficial to anyone who wishes to experience joy and freedom in this life. What I'm saying is that when I've knocked, the door has been opened and I have always felt that the door would be opened if I chose to knock. Throughout the times when I was not obedient to the commandments as described in Church doctrine, I have always experienced a nagging that prevented me from fully enjoying my sin, but I certainly gave it my best effort!

The thing that I find most puzzling, though, is why so many people are so vehement in criticizing Mormonism. Only a very small percentage of the population belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. An even smaller group shows up to worship on Sundays and tries to follow the teachings to some degree of faithfulness. But just do a little Googling and you should be impressed with the number of hits you will find with anti Mormon material. Many of the sites attempt to look objective with titles like "LDS Teachings" or "Mormon Doctrine", but once you read a few words they are undeniably subjective and destructive in their words. There is no attempt at all to honestly explore any argument against their opinion (which is the hallmark of any scholarly treatment) and total negligence of the facts and opinions that contrary to their own. As I read, I find they can't even agree on how to be contrary.

Whenever I see such irrational exuberance opposing something, especially when the argument is emotional rather than scholarly, it just seems that this something is worth investigating. There is usually a concept or ethic in it that is honest and praiseworthy, but inconvenient for the pleasures or profits others are finding in living contrary to its principles. In my lifetime, some of these popular movements have been:

·         Promoting the use of recreational drugs in general and LSD specifically. Remember “turn on, tune in and drop out”? I agree with Bonnie Raitt that Stevie Ray Vaughan really hit his pinnacle after he cleaned up and I would argue that drugs did NOT enhance the abilities of Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison or Kurt Cobain, but we will never be able to prove that one way or another. This is, I believe, the use of drugs that DID play a part in us losing them and preventing us from knowing.

·         Free love. Remember when the big fear of promiscuity was herpes? STD s have far greater impact on women than men. Alarming trends indicate that younger women in poverty or without a good education suffer the most. Additionally, we have discovered that HPV is the source of almost all cervical cancers. Women contract HPV from sex with men who have been more free with their "love".

·         Separate but equal. We are finally realizing through genetic research, specifically DNA study, that racial bias has absolutely no justification in science. Remember eugenics?

Certainly the Mormon Church has experienced interpretations of scripture and revelation that I do not feel reflected the final word of God on the matter. I think the prejudices of people in general and Brigham Young in particular led to the unfortunate practice of relegating African Americans to a lower rung just as almost all other churches did at the time (Kudos to the Catholics). Again, the founder of the Church, Joseph Smith, never said or did anything to justify this action. I also believe that it is the faith in a modern prophet that allowed the Church to change its practices on this matter. We also believe that all men are imperfect and subject to fallibility.

Many charismatic Christians use the standing of the Church in its position on the Bible as fuel for their dissent and criticism. The Church does not believe the Bible to be absolutely correct or the word of God in all instances. There is a teaching and understanding that the Bible we use today is the work of imperfect men and more imperfect committees of men. Any open minded study of the Bible immediately reveals that the inclusion and exclusion of certain codices and texts was somewhat arbitrary. There are many contradictions in any translation of the Bible that you may select. Some writings were obviously meant to be metaphorical and fictional. Some telescope history and assign roles to people who either never existed on other records, or are known to have lived centuries earlier or later than recounted by the Prophets.

I have found that much of the criticism of the LDS Church has come from those who have apostatized and been excommunicated from the congregations due to some behavior or demonstration so contrary to Church doctrine or flagrantly and openly oppositional to leadership that they no longer regard the institution as inspired and legitimately fulfilling God's will. In doing so they have cut themselves off from the communication or the Church. This is what ex-communication means. It seems to me that these individuals have been formally released from any expectation to behave in ways supporting Church doctrine. Why, then, are they so vehement in opposing those beliefs? No Church action is being taken by membership or authorities to “reform” them or force compliance. Mormons believe that “Agency” is the first principle of our existence, that it is through the exercise of “agency” that we work out our acceptance of atoning salvation.

Most of the time when I encounter someone who is opposed to the Church, it is because of a misunderstanding of a particular doctrine or practice. Usually, this understanding has been developed through research of material published by those in opposition to the faith. I have learned a great deal more about Islam through study of the Qur’an than I might have by reading Salman Rushdie.
My father once told me that even if one did not believe in God, was agnostic or atheist, if they lived according to the principles taught in the Mormon faith, they had a great possibility of being happy and successful. Just to list a few of these off the top of my head we have:

·         Faith that anything can be made right through study, effort and humility. The key is humility which forces you to accept that you might be wrong and that you can always and eternally learn things to help you be more right.

·         Families are sacred. All of us want to be respected, taught and loved. Families and the principles that families stand for are the best structure to bring this to pass. Fidelity breeds trust and security which allows us to stretch beyond what is comfortable to become wiser, stronger and nobler.

·         Hard work is essential. The easiest path to riches is to take them from somebody else. This is the principle behind charging fees without providing a commensurate or equally valuable service or goods. Most millions are made by people who figure out how to get some of somebody elses money through commissions, interest or cornering a market. The moral of the story of Cain is that if you kill people, you can take their stuff. Civilization has developed many ways to kill people without taking their lives.

·         Give some of what you have away. Make the amount significant enough that you feel the sacrifice. If you aren’t giving anything up to make someone else richer (in happiness, knowledge or property), you have only opened your wallet, not your heart. Opening the wallet is easy.

·         Share the knowledge and wisdom you have that brings you joy. This does not mean to force it on someone else (remember agency?), but be willing to share. This includes the not terribly fun act of going door-to-door offering to teach others what you believe. We believe what we have can make you happier. We're willing to risk harsh treatment in its offer to accomplish this. We do NOT put a foot in the door or charge over an open threshold. We try teach and share mostly through example, but expect ourselves to be able to teach in whatever manner might be effective.

·         God loves you just as much as me. I do not get preferential treatment because I say or do some things that you may not say or do. Love is unconditional, complete and equal. Joy is the consequence of choices made and activities practiced, not favoritism on God’s part. 

(For a better account of LDS beliefs, read the letter Joseph Smith wrote to John Wentworth. Here you can read the publication and interpretation of it by the Church. Here you can read its treatment on Wikipedia. Wikipedia emphasizes that changes have been made to the original text. Note that the  principle of refining and evolving doctrine is the cornerstone of our faith - prophecy. These changes help us with a better interpretation and communication of messages through time of what was intended.)

It requires great pride and self-deception to believe you are so right about something, that you oppose something or someone that is doing you absolutely no harm, and do so vociferously. What an ego one must have to think they are going to save others from themselves by belittling them, mocking them and taking actions to prevent them from asserting their agency and following their conscience. Hypocrisy is expressed by someone demonstrates against and debases someone else practicing their first amendment rights, then justifying it as "only practicing their own first amendment rights. When this leads to trespassing, vandalizing property along with verbal and physical assault they have traveled well beyond their Constitutional privileges. It is incomprehensible to me how someone would find happiness in doing this. What inspires such behavior? From my study it certainly is not part of any Christian belief, or even that of another faith. Nor is it Social Contract doctrine.  History is full of examples of those whose pride and greed has led them to dominate, subjugate and exploit. The verdict on all of them has not been favorable.

Christian Existentialism

Christian Existentialism

Evolution

Most people seem to believe that you either except Darwin's Theory or you except The Bible. I don't understand their dichotomy. Science tells you HOW something happened describing the process in empirical formula showing cause and effect.  It's very "if p, then q". Science is physics. To be science something must be subject to precise description, repeatable and measurable. The theory of evolution continues to struggle with some of these in our experience (nobody has lived long enough to witness the creation of homo sapien from an amoeba), but by and large it is an acceptable theory. That is, we think we've got most of it right, but we're still refining our thoughts as our skills improve.  We don't expect something to come along and refute natural selection and sexual selection. We can apply this model reliably in other science and make progress. We explain how it happened: mutation (thank you, Mendel).

In The Bible we read a wonderful story of divine beings using the matter at hand and organizing it (I hope NOBODY still supports creatio ex nihilo [http://tektonics.org/af/exnihilo.html]). There are some wonderful "coincidences" in the biblical description (the discovery of the seven basic amino acids in clay that's bolted by electrical current or the progressive creation from dust to man), but God does not appear to be concerned with transferring knowledge of how this is done. He does want us to understand WHY it was done (search the scriptures for the words "try" and "test"). We are here on probation. The irony might be that this is a scientific experiment on God's part to see what "q"s will result from the "p"s when placed in an environment with certain (in His experience) controlled variables. In doing this, He would use the theories and laws of physics (My omnipotent god cannot break the laws of the universe any more than we can break the law of gravity. We fly because we put aluminum together in a particular pattern and apply thrust, not because we defy the law of gravity). This does not diminish His power any more than using standard American spelling diminishes my power to communicate. In fact, it enhances it.

Nature vs. Nurture

The logical next step is trying to understand why we are the way we are. We've really progressed in this area. My grandmother knew that my green eyes came from my grandfather, but she did not understand how it was the result of a genetic crossover or evolutionary algorithm. My wife and I have continued this scientific experiment to create humans with blue, green and brown eyes; red, blond and brunette hair. Modern religion seems to not be concerned about why I have green eyes, but in some social groups I might have been executed for this witch-like phenomenon. Science continues to get better and better at helping us know how to produce humans with certain physical traits and without congenital challenges.

Social Science, one of the great oxymorons attempts to explain why we have become what we are. As we continue to advance in this area we identify more variables and build theories that are better at explaining our behavior. It requires a great deal of faith to accept many social theories and our experience demonstrates that the vast majority of these have to be continuously revised. When this art evolves to a true science we should be able to explain how I became obnoxious and better yet, predict the environment where somebody will have a certain behavior. This prediction is the true value of science.

As I read books like Albion's Seed and other social history I can see patterns develop influenced by the social variables (often the result of physical variables) inherent to a group of people. We combine physical science with social science and we begin to predict the pattern of blond and red-headed people coming from a region besot with violence creating the warriors that we appreciate today. My father always said that the Japanese attacked the United States because they had been to California and thought all Americans were laid back and submissive.  If they'd bothered to explore Alabama they might have changed their ideas.

Religion

As an aside I comment that the world uses the expression “tradition” interchangeably with “religion”. To my point of view this defines religion as a set of behaviors or habits that a group portrays. I define religion in terms of faith: Religion is believing.  It is faith the way Paul describes it in the New Testament. It is the power of believing. Faith does not define a system of beliefs (an organization or a “church”), but a power and influence over matter and behavior. Contrary to its etymology, religion is a liberating force allowing you to go beyond what is scientifically described.

What all of these approaches lack is recognition of Divine Nature. This is where we can only find acceptance of principles through faith.  The religious experiment is to question an idea, principle or event, research and study with all the tools available and then present it to God for affirmation or disqualification. We call this process faith or spirituality, and like pain we have no way of determining its presence or measuring its intensity. I am an expert on pain and can verify the similarity in experimentation with both. I can also verify the power of belief in dealing with its attributes.

What honest religion does is accept the laws of thermodynamics: 

• Matter and energy are eternal and constant. The form may change, but the quantity remains the same. This is the genius of e=mc2. There is no more or less matter/energy in the universe today than there was at "creation" (organization). 
• The next law, entropy, states that "in all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state" (http://www2.estrellamountain.edu/faculty/farabee/biobk/biobookener1.html). This means that as you talk or stand by, your cell phone battery will die. Your phone will not work again until your battery is recharged (a transfer of energy).

What science cannot measure (yet), but our subjective observation affirms is a level of matter and energy that result in life and death. This is as much a spiritual state as it is physical.  Our common sense accepts this in all that we do. When animation ceases, we call the experience death. The spirit leaves the body. Spirits may account for other attributes. I have four children with the same woman. Genetics explains their various physical features.  They were all raised in the same environment (excepting the period of time which is different for them all as none are twins). They have very different personalities. The expression of this started with their first breath. Any parent knows this, but I defy you to explain it based on science. I posit that each of us has a divine nature or spirit. Everything on the planet expresses spiritual qualities. An influence in all the behaviors we exhibit is the result of this spirit.

At some date, we may be able to answer the why of everything in scientific terms. If I could do this, I would be a god among men.  Maybe, just maybe, this is why we're here. My faith confirms this. My science? It's still trying to figure it out.