Mormonism: it's insights, it's distortions, it's negative and postive influences

I met and shook hands with Danny Ainge at the Hannaford supermarket in Waltham MA during the month of May 2009.

Later I discovered that when I met him, he had just had a heart attack, a big thing for an athletic relatively young man. I sort of marvel at the coincidence of meeting him right after he had the heart attack.

I shook his hand, told him about the emails that I had sent the Boston Celtics. He twice told me that he gets "thousands of emails". I gave him a chance to volunteer a method by which I could communicate with him. He did not reject the idea of further emails being sent, or of paper letters being sent.

I told him about me shooting at rates of up to 40% from up to 27 feet from the basket with my eyes closed when shooting basketball shots; I told him about me sprinting 20 yards keeping the soccer ball off the ground but close to my body. I told him I realized that if everyone was as talkative as me, life would become unbearable for him. I felt as if it would be improper to take too much of his time talking.

After I met Danny Ainge, I read up about him on the internet, discovered that he was an active Mormon. So I read up on the Mormon religion on the internet.

My first reaction was that people who criticize Mormons develop tunnel vision as a result of which, they lose a sense of perspective proportion and relativity, failing to take into account how protestant christianity, Catholicism, and non-Christian religions can also be found to be defective and faulty.

Seems Mormons consider the Book of Mormon to be some kind of fictional novel inspired by God, similar to how Christians consider the text in the Bible to be inspired by God. Question becomes, what is the influence of people who ignore the fact(?) that the writer of their special fiction novel 'holy scripture', pretended to be transmitting words dictated by angels when in fact he was just creating a special work of fiction?

I do not claim to be an expert on Mormonism so you can forgive me if I spew out a little humor, exaggeration, and mistakes setting forth my understanding of Mormonism having spent a few hours tonight reading about it:

My Idea as of now re The Book of Mormon Story:

Long ago, (c. 600 BC) half of a group of white jewish immigrants to America turned black due to their wickedness and fought with the good white half; they went through a unified phase after Christ visited America; then there developed division between anti-christians and Christians and the anti-christs won and exterminated the Christians; goodness turns a person's skin white, and wickedness turns it black; the lighter-color a person's skin is the better a person he is; c. 1800 AD Mormons arrived and discovered this history of skin color in America, which according to them, contains the most profound lessons ever revealed to mankind.

Mormonism's Message to Mankind (most important message ever, they say):

1) Dark-skinned people like American Indians are genetically evil, white-skinned persons are genetically good;

Extrapolations based on Supremely Important Mormon message to mankind:

1) In modern times, whites are good and stay good whatever they do, and dark-skinned people are evil and stay evil whatever they do. This is because when whites become evil their skin color turns dark and when dark-skinned people become good their skin color turns white; at the same time there have been no reports of person's skin color changing. True some evil dark Lamanites joined the Nephilites and vice-versa, but when they changed sides there was a corresponding change in skin color.

2) In the old days things were different, good white people used to become evil and dark-skinned, and evil dark people used to become good and light-skinned. This we know from the inspired Book of Mormon.

3) The whiter a person's skin is, the better a person he is. This can be understood as follows: God cursed the Lamanites with dark skin because of their evil conduct; in the old days, people's skin would turn white when they were good and dark when they were bad;

4) Exposing oneself to sunlight is a sin because it turns the skin dark (recent word is a little sunlight can do wonders for disease prevention through the promotion of the production of natural vitamin D).

5) People with white skin are beautiful whereas people with dark skin are ugly. This based on the book of Mormon repeatedly associating white skin color with attractiveness and beauty but dark skin color with ugliness and repulsiveness.

Book of Mormon's Message from a more realistic, sympathetic, perspective:

The Book of Mormon sends the message that the white man, who is in a precarious position and has a tragic victimized past, has even more of a natural right to be in America than the American Indian, because: the white man's presence avenges historical wrongs perpetrated on more ancient white men, regarding which the white man feels a deep sense of loss and a justification for revenge; and because the white man is racially superior to the 'chosen people' the American Indians as evinced by his lighter skin color signifying moral superiority.

Ways in which Book of Mormon reflects current realities:

If any ethnic group is genetically special it is the group containing the descendants of the Jewish Christians who merged with the Gentile populations

There exists in America, the offspring of the Jews who rejected Christ, and the offspring of the Jews who accepted Christ (found amongst the Gentiles).

There exists friction between the two groups, the descendants of the Jews who rejected Christ (Lamanites(?)) and the descendants of the Jews who accepted Christ (Nephilites(?)).

The descendants of the Jews who followed Christ who are found amongst the Gentiles in America, are from the genetic/Christian perspective (I realize this perspective can be overemphasized): the true Israel, have the dignity of being the current chosen people second to none; through this dignity, are a natural and dignified presence in America; their dignity imparts dignity to the white Gentile peoples; they have had a tragic past and face a precarious future (Americans tend to overestimate the security of their own position).

Past migrations of caucasoid/white types to America are under-reported, seemingly due to a political correctness (PC) prejudice that results in 'scientists' acting like lawyers attempting to prove that the presence of white-man-types in the Americas prior to Columus was minimal. Conceivably, these white-man types were overpowered by East-Asian types in the struggle to survive in the Americas.

The PC-scientists would have us believe that all of the American Indian Y-Dna and MtDna is from haplogroups such as Y-dna haplogroup Q which are characteristic of the majority of the native-American population. However close inspection of the subject reveals that many different haplogroups are significantly represented in the American Indian population and that the haplogroup composition varies significantly from tribe to tribe.

Joseph Smith grew up in a time and place featuring speculation that the builders of the ancient mounds found in Smith's area, were white men not American Indians. The majority scientific PC-opinion is that these mound-builders were ancient ancestors of the American Indians.

However, there are reports that: male skeletons found in the mounds were around 7 feet in length and female skeletons around 6 feet in length at a time when the average American Indian was 5.5 feet tall (which translates to men being 7.5 feet tall compared to the 5'10" average of today); artifacts such as arrow-heads found in the mounds resemble early European artifacts; legends relate that the moundbuilders preceded the Indians and came from Mexico and prior to that from a land named 'Mu' that was submerged in a flood.

The de-glamorizing factoid is that several tall skeletons found in the mounds, had skulls containing two rows of teeth in both the upper and lower jaw.

Haplogroup Y-dna R is characteristic of whites of european ancestry and a large segment of the population in India. The recent advances in genetics-based history show that the Mormon instincts re whites and American Indians being closely related to each other, may not have been so far off the mark. the relative closeness of the American Indian Y-dna to white european Y-dna, tends somewhat to support the idea that white Americans are a natural part of the American landscape.

Symbolically speaking, haplogroup R (white europeans) is like:

A brother to haplogroup Q (American Indians); a cousin to haplogroups N (northern Asia) and 0 (E. Asia, China/Japan); a second cousin to L (India), and M (E. Indonesia/Papua-New Guinea; a third cousin to I (white Europe) and J (Arabs); a fourth cousin to G (Caucasus) and H (India); a fifth cousin to C (northeast Asia); a sixth cousin to D (Tibet/Japan) and E (Africa); a seventh cousin to B (Africa), and an eighth cousin to A (E. Africa).

Societies such as ancient Israel were able to maintain themselves as top-notch societies, despite suffering gigantic losses of men in wars and civil wars. This may have been due to the presence of polygamy, which allowed such societies to bounce back from the losses sustained. Ancient Israelite kings such as King David and his son King Solomon had so many wives and children that one suspects a deliberate plan to, so-to-speak improve the 'crops' by using the 'best seeds'.

Modern war could be said to damage the population even more than ancient wars, because in modern war it is so easy to kill off the best soldiers. In modern war, a significant percentage of the young men are excused from military service (about 30% of American youth in WWII). In modern war, the most competent men often receive the most dangerous assignments. Perhaps the societal insistence on monogamy is interfering with society's ability to bounce back from massive losses of males in wars.

Mormonism, sets forth the idea that persons of different skin colors can be genetically similar (the dark Lamanites and the white Nephites). Modern PC science may be correct in emphasizing genetic similarity of those who have different skin colors.

Mormonism's idea that the good and the evil are genetically similar would be applauded by the PC scientists and reflects current notions regarding the nature of reality.

Ways in which Mormon attitudes might promote psychological health in America

Looking at Danny Ainge's career one wonders whether Mormonism has effects like some kind of super-psychiatrist.

Seems that Mormonism may counteract ideas that can damage the psychological health of Americans such as: white people are bad guys; the white presence in America is unnatural; the white presence in America is not digified; white people are just somebody compared to the superior special race the Jews; a man having children with more than one woman is evil.

Mormonism forbids coffee, tea, tobacco and alcohol. Abstention from such can promote an individual's economic well-being hence his psychological health. Americans are well-known to consume excessive quantities of mind-altering substances. Persons are beginning to suspect that abstention from consuming substances often consumed in society, can result in improved ability to attain to supernatural states of mind.

Those who radically underestimate the dangers threatening them, could be said to be psychologically sick. The Mormon legend re the disaster that befell the good white Nephites, on the other hand, could be said to promote a reasonable sense of insecurity. One could say that the idea that white people and good people are never endangered is hubristic madness.

Ways in Which Mormonism may have damaged America

The Mormons for a long time have been associated with whiteness, repubicanism, conservativism.

The conservative republicans like to blame anybody but themselves for the nation's problems. They tend to excoriate groups other than themselves for allegedly causing the despised societal problems that actually they themselves have caused. The conservative republicans: agitated to remove tariffs; agitated for tax cuts giving themselves more spending money; and spent excessively on imports. Thus in a sense they single-handedly generated trade and budget deficits that threaten to collapse the US economy.

(Ron Paul would retort that the problem has been US govt borrowing of money. However, the money was borrowed because of pressures generated by tax cuts and trade deficits. The borrowing of money did not cause the tax cuts and the trade deficits; in reality, the tax cuts and the trade deficits led to the borrowing of money. Fact is, that it is obvious that individuals families and societies can financially ruin themselves without borrowing money).

The money that was borrowed from foreign nations as a result of tax cuts are what 'stimulated' the economy and made the tax cuts look as if they had improved the economy.

There seems to be in Mormonism undercurrents of: a lack of rigor in terms of demands for precision with regards to 'facts' and words presented by others; a lack of emphasis on precision with regards to one's own words and actions; a devaluation of important criteria as a result of a hyper-emphasis on skin color. I wonder if such influences through their effect on the political process have damaged the United States.

Note: To be fair to the conservatives, the most recent dream I had: I was running 220 yard runs at Stagg Field on the campus of the U of Chicago. I was doing really well, improving very fast, becoming one of the fastest 220 runners in my age group in the US, getting into the top dozen or so in my age group. Rush Limbaugh was sitting on a park bench right outside the fence that surrounded the field. He was wearing a colorful suit and tie. His face was pink, almost red as if was blushing. He was sitting on the bench facing away from the track, but the reason he was sitting there was that I was doing great things in track and he is a sports fan.

@2009 David Virgil Hobbs