I just got back from lunch in the company cafeteria. I sat near a pair of grandmotherly types who were deep in conversation. I didn't hear a lot of it, so what I did hear could have been taken out of context. With that caveat, here is what I did Hear:

"I mean... if I had to choose between my children dying before age 8 and living longer but leaving the church, as much as I love my children, I'd have to choose early death..."

Great Zeus Almighty! I'm sure glad she isn't my mother!

Stunted

I can't help but wonder if my inlaws feel that way about their son. When my sister-in-law was a teenager she went through a phase where she didn't believe in the church and that upset her parents much more than the fact she was sexually active with multiple partners and she'd tried to commit suicide. Forget therapy, just take her to the bishop!

I'm listening to a CD where the author is thinking about how the FLDS (and Brigham Young period Mormons) looked on Blood Atonement as something that could save an erring child from being outcast from HF by having them killed to "save them".

She thought that probably the Inca parents whose children were sacrifieced to the Sun God as the frozen child mummies in the Andes probably thought the same.

Don't Give Me That Ole Time Religion

I had a conversation some time ago with a guy who was very well educated, well read (much better than I), and for the most part thoughtful. He participated in a creation vs evolution discussion forum on-line and he accepted evolutionary theory but continued to claim that religion was "useful". He did not expound beyond that even when asked to explain his comments.

I struggled to understand his viewpoint. I came to think of him as feeling that religion could be used as a tool to coerce the less educated, less philosophical to behave in ways better than they might otherwise because it set standards for them to achieve and provided a carrot - something desirable to hope for - as incentive to achieve the goal.

I was coming from another viewpoint having left Mormonism some time before joining and still searching somewhat. I took a viewpoint that I was more interested in discovering what was real and true - what could be verified as real and true - rather than pretending that I knew what would happen to someone when they died. I saw it as part of my recovery from Mormonism.

The situation we have here with these two grandmotherly types is that a concept which I think was introduced to bring comfort to grieving parents who lost young children gets extended to a logical conclusion. All the information provided would lead someone thoughtful enough to ponder the concept to come to similar conclusions. Even Brigham Young developed a similar sort of conclusion with the introduction of Blood Atonement. With BA, a person would be required to give up his life in a brutal and bloody way - having his throat slit - in order to be saved in the next life. Part of the justification BY offered was that someone to be blood atoned would be grateful to kis killer in the next life because there he would realize that being killed in this way was the only way for him (or her) to regain their place in the CK. We might assign a slogan of something like "Better to die and go to the CK than live and be sent to hell (or outer darkness for a mo slant)." This is after all what these grandmotherly types were discussing and what the one had decided.

Thankfully, she did not have charge of her kids when she came to this conclusion. Didn't Andrea Yates murder her kids (while suffering severe post portum depression) because she thought they were possessed and she was going to save them by taking their lives. I'm not certain about Ms Yates, but if I am correct, it's the same basic thinking as Brigham Young and Blood Atonement, and the conclusion of this one woman. Better I think to accept that I don't know what will happen after we die and to treasure the life we have here even though it may bring trepidation for parents whose young children die prematurely.

This reminds me of the Morg idea that it is better for a (daughter/son) to be brought home in a body bag than to (lose their virtue/return from a mission dishonorably). That sort of thinking makes me ill.

“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.”

- Lucius Annaeus Senaca