Thinking For Yourself

I was always a big believer in thinking for yourself.

Even as a true-believing Mormon, I always placed a high value on thinking independently, coming to your own conclusions and making your own decisions.  It's part of the reason why I felt like I belonged in the LDS church.  I loved being part of the peculiar people.  I felt that, unlike my peers, I had the truth, and I was using that truth to make my own choices.

The choices that I made for myself were mostly not to participate in the sinful activities that the kids I knew from school were participating in.  Because I was enlightened, I realized that my choices not to smoke, drink, do drugs, bully people, cheat, and have sex made me better than those kids.  Those kids were blindly following the urges of human nature and human biology, but I was choosing to be different because I was actually thinking and making my own decisions.

But what I slowly began to realize, after an embarrassingly large number of years being a self-righteous prick, that I wasn't any better than they were.  In fact, I was exactly the same:  a product of my environment.  While many of the non-Mormon kids did the things that was normal and acceptable in their families and backgrounds, I was doing what was normal and acceptable for mine.

I was raised in the Mormon church by two parents who were also raised in the Mormon church.  I was the product of multiple generations of indoctrination and brainwashing.  I grew up thinking that the worldview I grew up was purer than and superior to everyone else's.  I was conditioned the believe that the non-Mormon kids were sinful, evil and ignorant.  When I saw them doing things that contradicted what I'd been taught were wrong, that reinforced my understanding that my belief system was better.  It took me a long time to realize that this was circular logic.

Growing up in the Mormon church taught me not to think for myself and it also taught me that doing so was thinking for myself.

That doesn't seem right to me.

1 Nephi 11: The Tree of Life, Digitally Remastered

Oh Look, More Visions
Nephi has a vision of what his dad saw in the vision of the Tree of Life. I've already touched on how many freaking visions have taken place so far, and the trend seems to be continuing.

Why Is Mary Beautiful?
In Nephi's vision, the angel shows him Mary and asks him what he sees. His answer? "A virgin, most beautiful and fair above all other virgins." I don't understand why he makes a big deal about how beautiful she is. Why didn't he just say "a virgin?" Or, to be less creepy, why not "a young woman?"

In fact, assigning Mary an almost supernatural level of beauty kind of demeans some of the important aspects of Jesus's birth. As one of the most notable lessons of what power and greatness really mean, Jesus--the King of the Jews, Savior of Mankind, Son of God, etc, etc--was born into extremely humble circumstances. His father was a carpenter, not a member of the wealthy class. He was brought into the world to little fanfare in a stable. Saying that his mother was the most beautiful of all virgins makes those circumstances seem less humble. The whole point is that he was born to parents who were totally average and unremarkable to the world, but they were good people in the eyes of God. What we're supposed to learn from the story of Jesus's birth is that what the world sees isn't what is important--that greatness comes from character and not from wealth or social status.

But if Mary is a total babe...well, let's just say that's something the world definitely notices. It waters down the meaning of the story. So why bother to mention that Mary is beautiful at all?

Origins of the Superiority Complex
In the closing verses of this chapter, Nephi learns that the "great and spacious building" which Lehi saw in his dream (the one with the people who mocked the ones who followed the iron rod to the tree and ate the fruit) represented the pride of the world. And, apparently, in Nephi's version, this building fell. And then the angel told him:

Thus shall be the destruction of all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, that shall fight against the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

Nice. So Joseph Smith writes a book that he claims contains the word of God. The book also contains statements like this ("Anti-Mormons...you'll get yours!"). Then Smith begins preaching that the religion he built around this book is the only religion on the entire planet that's actually right about stuff.

And a century and a half later, Mormons have this weird theological superiority complex and an "us versus them" mentality. That sounds a little bit like cause and effect.

Adolescent Priesthood

I became a deacon at age twelve, just like the rest of my buddies at church.  It was never questioned--I'd just turned twelve, so the logical progression of events was for me to receive the priesthood and be ordained to the office of deacon.  It's just how things were.

Why?

This mass exodus of twelve-year-old boys into the priesthood created bad priesthood.  As my peers and I progressed through the ranks of the Aaronic Priesthood, we developed into actors of varying skill whose true beliefs and behaviors had varying levels of alignment with the official church image.  I wasn't technically worthy from the beginning, a fact which I managed to hide very well for a very long time.  I believed in the church but I didn't really have anything invested in it besides culture and family.  

Looking around at my friends, I could tell that most of them had just as little invested in the church, and many didn't really believe or care at all.  There were some that believed and probably lived up to the expectations of the church, but I think more than half of us were in the Priesthood mostly to avoid appearing different or defective.  We hid our doubts and our sins and played along.  

One (of the many) problems with this was that when it came time for us to, as a Priesthood Quorum, do something important, we usually fell flat.  Once my Priest Quorum went to visit a less active priest to try and fellowship him so that he would come back to church.  In the Mormon mindset, this is a super-important mission:  save the soul who has strayed!  But we visited him and failed miserably.  The oldest of us was suitably engaged in the objective, but his social skills were poor and he didn't relate well to the kid we were trying to fellowship.  Then there was me, who also really wanted to help, but I was shy, awkward, and uncomfortable in the unfamiliar surroundings, and I didn't contribute much.  Then there were the other two who were hiding their unbelief but who abandoned their feigned belief in the awkward, uncomfortable house.  They remained mostly quiet and completely unhelpful.

Not surprisingly, in our efforts to reactivate our priesthood brother, we were a collective failure.  I don't know how much else could have been expected when the priesthood is composed of adolescents whose main goal is to be accepted instead of ostracized.  Many of us were goaded into the priesthood by societal pressure and our actions as priesthood holders were governed by our understanding of how much we had to do to maintain the appearance of piety.  That doesn't seem like an effective way to run a church.  

And that doesn't seem right to me.

1 Nephi 10: Who's Confused?

More Useless Prophecy
Lehi sure was one smart guy. In this chapter, he makes boatloads of already-fulfilled prophecies about the destruction of Jerusalem, the slavery and liberation of the Jews, the coming of John the Baptist, as well as the coming of Christ, his role, baptism, and death. But, of course, this should impress no one, as the record of these prophecies didn't see the light of day until almost two thousand years after the predicted events had already happened and the existence of that record as an artifact was only verified by a few witnesses and not examined in any detail by any actual historians.

Nephi Mixes Up His Books
Nephi makes a strange comment in verse 15:

And after this manner of language did my father prophesy and speak unto my brethren, and also many more things which I do not write in this book; for I have written as many of them as were expedient for me in mine other book.

But Nephi just told us, in the previous chapter, that he's created two separate sets of records--one for the history of his people, and this one, for "the ministry" of his people. So, if the Book of Mormon is the sacred record of "the ministry" of his people and the other record is the secular history of the "reign of kings" and "wars and contentions," then why does he claim here to have made a more detailed account of his father's extremely religion-related prophecies in the other record? Wouldn't it have belonged in the sacred record that later became the Book of Mormon?

Yesterday, Today, and...Actually Only Yesterday
In verse 18, Nephi teaches that the Mormon God "is the same yesterday, today, and forever". Not only does this contradict the Mormon doctrine of eternal progression (that God was once a human like us who proved his faithfulness in life and entered the celestial kingdom after his death, at which time he became a god), but it also causes the Book of Mormon to clash with the modern church.

If God's behavior is constant, why did he send Nephi an angel and a magic ball (the Magical, Mystical Liahona) and tell him to kill Laban? When's the last time a modern prophet claimed to have been visited by an angel in the presence of at least two non-believers, or took direction from a mysterious artifact or committed what he claims to have been justifiable homicide? Why would God give his prophets revelation for polygamy, denying the priesthood to blacks, or the law of consecration, only to have his prophets later repeal or withdraw these decisions?

The Mormon God seems to change his mind and his methods a lot.

1 Nephi 9: A Shell Game...with Plates

Holy Naming Convention, Batman!
The second verse of this chapter is pretty lol-worthy. Observe:

And now, as I have spoken concerning these plates, behold they are not the plates upon which I make a full account of the history of my people; for the plates upon which I make a full account of my people I have given the name of Nephi; wherefore, they are called the plates of Nephi, after mine own name; and these plates also are called the plates of Nephi.

Let's break that down into the modern vernacular:

The plates I'm writing on right now are not the ones I'm using to record detailed history. I've named the history-related ones "The Plates of Nephi," after myself. And I've also named these plates "The Plates of Nephi."

Why bother naming your journals anything if you're just going to give them identical names? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of giving them names at all? This brings to mind two comparable examples of poor naming.

First, George Foreman. He named all five of his sons George. Going beyond the charming tradition of naming one child after yourself just seems narcissistic. Similarly, Nephi naming not one, but both sets of records after himself seems like going out of his way to ensure himself a legacy.

Second, the TV show "Newhart." Whenever Larry introduces himself, he also introduces his brother Darryl, and his other brother Darryl. It was funny. The reason it was funny, of course, is because it's freaking stupid to give two separate, closely-related things the exact same name.

I have one question for you, Nephi: Seriously?