Mad Jax wrote: ↑Sat Jun 30, 2018 6:47 pm
Not too long before or after, I can't remember which, the issue of confessing masturbation came up in sacrament. The biggest issue on the planet for single members. And my god, the self loathing of some of those who struggled with it. The massive problems the church prioritizes such as becoming lackadaisical in scripture reading, or putting off home teaching until the second or even the third week of the month, or even the horror of leaving after sacrament and skipping the other two hours, all seemed to be of far more importance than somebody confessing something that actually hurt someone. And if a guy is prone to getting into fights, shouldn't the bishop be a little more concerned for his (or her, I suppose) likelihood of getting injured? (Which has happened by the way. I'm not Jason Bourne, people have gotten the better of me. I've suffered a few cracked bones during my time.)
I just wonder sometimes how it is that such issues have become so front and center, and the Occam's razor answer really does seem to be that those admonitions are all a system of control. Given all the assumptions necessary to conclude that the church has every member's best interest at its heart, the one that says they just want members to lockstep seems to require far fewer.
I think there are actually two questions, here.
I've been developing a theory about the first one, which is "Why are Mormons much more motivated to conform than to actually be good?" I think the answer relates to what the church values as a social group and how the church interprets common human emotions.
Basically, it's really about belonging and shame, but it's hard to tell because the church claims ownership of the associated psychological states on behalf of God.
Almost everyone in the world has felt emotions that Mormons claim are God's witnesses of truth or signs of his approval. All of them are to some degree self-transcendent, meaning that the self and its current pains and threats take a back seat for a bit. Not only do they feel great, but in my opinion, as intensely social creatures, we need them to in order to be mentally healthy, too. There are some, like the feeling that you're worthwhile and truly belong, that require you to feel that your tribe values you.
The Mormon tribe has explicitly defined how members who are valued think and act, and says that God demands it (more or less). The more you conform to these demands, the more you feel like you have God's favor - especially as you conform to requirements to enter the temple. The less you conform, the more you feel guilt for coming up short.
Or so you think. If that were actually true, habitual fighting would (ideally) be worse than habitual smoking. But I don't know any Mormon who would feel closer to God if he or she gave up fighting by smoking to keep calm.
Here's what's really going on. The more you conform, the more you feel like your tribe values you, unlocking more of that wonderful self-transcendent experience. The less you conform, the more you fear rejection by your tribe/God (same thing, really); i.e. you experience not just guilt, but also shame. It's hard to have self-transcendent experiences that depend on being valued by your tribe when you anticipate being less valued, leaving you to feel distant from God, which compounds your distress. Doctrines that tie closeness to God with personal righteousness, especially those about being saved by becoming pure on your own with a little help from Jesus, make this compounding effect worse.
On the other hand, if you don't regard thinking or acting a certain way as required to be valued by your tribe, you only experience guilt when you slip up. In other words, fighting makes you feel guilty, but smoking makes you feel guilty
and also ashamed, so it feels much worse.
I think the question "Why does the church value X, Y or Z as a social group?" is much harder to answer. In a sense, exactly what it values is unimportant. Visible in-group markers in particular, which mostly serve to maintain group cohesion, can be pretty damn arbitrary.
I have a hunch, though, that the church's obsession with personal purity has something to do with the anxieties of some of its past and present leaders. The church also seems to increase the value of some things in response to perceived internal or external threats. It also has to keep itself staffed and running. These things all get talked about, preached about, and doubled down on. The ones that are in some way measured, where the outcome of measurement is known to high-status members (e.g. ministering or home teaching numbers) or some aspect of the outcome is publicly observable (e.g. whether you take the sacrament) are the most salient, because they most directly engage the mechanisms behind belonging and shame.
Learn to doubt the stories you tell about yourselves and your adversaries.
