Jason King If Mormons told the truth, and admitted that Joseph Smith...
· Comment — Archer T. Ships replied to his own comment. · View on Facebook · Markdown source
Jason King If Mormons told the truth, and admitted that Joseph Smith was a con man, that the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, etc are just fables cooked up by Smith, and if they didn't promote the church as a path to literal eternal life, I would have much less problem with the Mormon church. But the Mormon church members don't regard the stories in the Book of Mormon to be metaphors. They regard them as the literal truth. They believe Nephites and Lamanites actually existed on the North American continent, that Nephi (and other prophets) literally wrote their history into brass plates, that Moroni buried them in upstate New York. They also believe that Joseph Smith was literally led by Moroni (now an angel) to their location, and that Smith (with God's assistance and some seer stones) translated some of the plates. They also claim that a literal God exists, and that we have souls that will live on after we die. Unfortunately, there is no independent evidence that any of the above claims are true. But as a result of their belief in such fables, my parents are complacent about death. Instead of putting time and money into strategies that _do_ have some chance of combating death (cryonics, uploading, anti-aging medicine), they do nothing, secure in their faith that they will be resurrected and become Gods in the afterlife. Instead, they donate 10% of their income and days of their time every month to the Mormon church. Mormons also believe that their prophet is in direct communication with God, As a result, they treat whatever the prophets command as God's commandments. Unfortunately, the prophets to date have preached in favor of harsh punishment for drug use. So my parents support harsh punishment for drug use, even after suffering from a) the death of my younger brother from a fentanyl overdose, and b) the year long imprisonment of their grandson for weed possession / distribution. Whether or not Mormonism would be "better" somehow if they treated their scriptures and theology as "subjective truth", the facts is that they treat their theology as literal truth, and this has a number of pernicious real world consequences.