Hi Observer,

Jews have a saying that goes something like this. "Happiness is having something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to." I think that that's largely right.

Mormonism provides people with lots to do, lots of people to interact with, lots of connections useful for finding a mate as well as business opportunities, and emotional comfort in the form of a celestial glory to work toward.

Mormonism is a culture. No matter which group we affiliate with, we wind up participating in a culture. Mormonism is just one flavor. Where people get hung up has to do with dogma, authority, and the dark side of Mormonism: its anti-gay actions, its view of women and blacks as second-class citizens, etc.

If you're a white, heterosexual male with a wife and children, and you're not troubled by historical or intellectual problems having to do with the Church, the chances are good that the Church will benefit you, if you fit in (i.e. pay, pray, obey, and have a likable personality). If you're not, then it probably won't do much for you.

What it ultimately peddles is social support. If you fit the culture, you'll get the support. If you don't, you could well earn significant hostility.

It's not about truth, but myth--a myth that feeds people's emotional needs. If it weren't Mormonism, it would be something else. The suffering of humans wouldn't evaporate if the Church did. Early followers believed Joseph Smith because they were desperate. Maybe they didn't believe him at all; maybe they actively aided in the fraud. But they did so because of the benefits: the cameraderie, the sense of divine purpose, the powerful emotions, a common goal, etc. The myth grew into something larger than life. This happened again with Scientology.

But reality is different. I remember being in an emergency room once when I was in my early twenties. Although the curtain was closed, I knew that there was an elderly woman next to me. Doctors were trying to persuade her to allow them to insert a tube through her nose to identify why she had abdominal bleeding. She didn't want them to do it, even though the bleeding could well have killed her. I don't know what happened, but I do know that I was 21, and she could well have been more than 60 years older than me. No matter how successful the doctors were, by now, she has run out of runway and is dead.

That's the brutal reality of our world. It's not the optimistic Mormon myth, but an unceremonious and frightening end from which there's no escape. People intuitively know this. Is it any wonder that we hide behind our youth, if we're young, and behind myths, while they still captivate us, until that terrible end comes?

As Mormmons age, the myth becomes an ever larger source for hope. Their desperation and knowledge that the end is closer than the beginning impels them to believe, participate, and contribute.

Were I straight, the Church would be highly appealing. But I'm not, and I know fully well the opposite side of that: being destroyed by the Church. I'm not exaggerating when I say that my friend, Doug Stewart, was murdered by the Church.

It's important to put it that way..."by the Church," and not by a single individual. It's not just an individual at fault. It's a complicated tapestry of myth, tradition, values, rituals, fear of out-groups, and other sociological phenomena.

Why does Mormonism work for some people? I think it's because certain institutions (cookie cutter patterns of organizing human beings) have proven to work well to fulfill important social needs, such as education or "justice."

Imagine that you're playing a board game, and you have millions of people, spanning different abilities, at your control. Which goals would you pick? How would you organize the humans most effectively? Lone individuals won't be able to accomplish much, but large numbers can. There's much greater power in large numbers, and the history of human beings is a history of shifting coalitions and conflicts, as if an invisible--and too often visible--general were orchestrating the alliances and battles.

What are the sources of power? I think it begins with numbers of people that belong to a particular group: sheer size. And then there are other factors, such as knowledge and precious resources. The value of a thing is partly derived from who can get access to it and who controls access to it. Controlling access to a precious resource--whether a person or gold--is a source of power. Being able to manipulate emotional attachments is another source of power. (Children do it to their parents all the time.) Controlling the core myth around which people orient their lives is another source of power, and it's at the heart of rhetoric.

Really, we're no different than ants in an ant farm. The value that any one life has really is a matter of how the individual feels about his or her life. "Man is the measure of all things."

Once you understand that much of the drama that plays out in life comes from power games, things start to make sense. To have separated psychology as a distinct field apart from zoology (the study of animals, of which Homo sapiens sapiens is a member) is an act of narcissism. If you want to understand human behavior, study zoology.

No, Mormonism isn't true. Of course not. But is it useful? Yes, to some people. Just like Scientology or Catholicism to others. It's a rule set within which people play out power games, and power games form the basis for drama, a critical component of meaning in life. I contend that meaning is a function of people, drama, and passion (emotions). The rule set, such as Mormonism, provides the framework in which people passionately participate in a drama.

If you don't like the rule set (the game of Mormonism), there are lots of other games to try. Unfortunately, if you evict yourself from the board, you can't necessarily take the other pieces still on it--people that you love--with you. In fact, they might grow to hate you. There are consequences for trying to leave--to abort playing the game.

I'm still very desperately trying to find a game that works for me. I think most of us try to do the same, but lacking any better ideas and opportunities, we play the hand that we've been dealt as best as we can. Casualties are expected, just as chess pieces get captured and removed from a chessboard.

When I liken life to a set of games, I should add that they're bloody games. The pieces aren't just removed. They bleed. And they die.

If you're starting to gain an understanding of just how brutal life is, if you look at it from a bird's eye view, then you'll begin to understand how I see it and what I feel about it. I'm scared. I'm horrified. I'm traumatized by the unfairness, especially as I know that there's nothing that I can do about it as an individual.

Instead, I write. I try to explain to you what I think is going on, so that maybe, together, we can find a better way to live. Even the slightest improvement would be a significant victory.

I'm very afraid that large nations are a very, very bad way to organize society. Enormous concentrations of power, whether in the form of nations, governments, or corporations, cause awesome harm. I long for a kind, gentle, loving mode of living, not for the biggest paycheck or largest mansion. But capitalism has forced us into what seems like a terminal state of endless consumerism and boundless materialism from which we can't seem to escape.

Perhaps another reason that Mormonism works for some people is that it provides emotional comfort from horrifying observations such as mine. We all want social support. We all want love. I don't think that it's an exaggeration to say that most of us would go to the ends of the earth to find these.

I didn't arrive at my beliefs overnight, but slowly. I was born gay. I was a scrawny weakling who was always picked last, and only reluctantly at that, in gym. Not only did I never feel a part of any group, but my own father turned out to be a monstrously abusive nightmare. With no brothers or sisters, there's no inbuilt support system that I can lean on. Friends can only do so much. The consequence of all of this is devastating for me, except in one regard: society has forced me, through no fault of my own, to stand far apart from it, and from my isolated vantage point, I've stared back at it and observed. And I've told you what I've found.

But it doesn't really matter very much because no one will listen. People are busy working, or having sex, or hatching plots to open businesses and make lots of money, or taking care of children. Generally, they won't read what I write. And even if they do, my perspective is far removed from how most people experience life. They're embedded in it. I'm an outsider observing it with horror, knowing that alone, I'm powerless. And everything that I have to say seems like bad news.

I say that the core myth around which most people base their lives is a comforting lie. It's false. I say that we're just one species of animal, and that life is exactly like an ant farm, while we flatter ourselves into thinking that we're somehow special. I say these things to you.

And I say to myself: I got "here" through no choice of my own. I came into being through a long series of causes and processes stretching back billions of years, all of which have created the current situation of profound injustice and a rule set that causes me--and the rest of us--so much suffering, but my suffering is somewhat amplified. Life is much, much harder for a gay man compared to a straight man. You wouldn't want to trade.

The fact is that Mormonism does "work" for some people. I wish that something could "work" for me.

I tell people I care about that I wouldn't wish philosophy on them. I'd much rather have swallowed the blue pill.

Steve