Thursday, March 02, 2006

Mormons are encouraged to lie... to themselves

Why Fake It ‘til You Make It?

Isn’t that one of the stupidest little maxims of Mormonism? Fake It ‘til You Make It. Why? Why would you want to ever considering Faking It ‘til You Make It?

The strange thing is that this does seem to have some very deep resonance with the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith Junior. After all, Mr. Smith was well-known for faking things. He was found guilty of pretending to be a “glasslooker” and received a sentence for this offence.

So from even before Smith created the Mormon Church, he was quite the adept at “Fake It ‘til You Make It.”

After the faked his visitations from ‘Celestial Beings’ (was it an angel or God? God and Jesus, or just God?) he then went on to mastermind the faking of a bank. A great many Mormons lost all their savings. But, strange to relate, Smith still seemed to continue in his own not very sweet way.

He also faked revelations from God, especially about his being excluded from the Biblical and moral strictures against adultery.

There was the United Order (linked with the fake bank fiasco) which Joseph Smith seemed to want to share everything a man had. Including his wife…

This reminds me of a song by Scots singer-songwriter B A Robertson, about life in a commune. Something along the lines of “you can share my rice, but hey man, I’ll share your wife.”

And make it Smith certainly did. Had he not allowed himself to get killed by a lynch mob, it is likely that Smith would have been very rich by the time he died.

But is it not sad that Mormons are advised to: Fake It ‘til You Make It?” advised by their church to lie to themselves? It is a sort of self-applied brainwashing technique and really does wash whiter.

1 comment:

Matt said...

Now, Anglican, that is cool!