With all that is happening in the US right now, it seems obvious that kindness is what we as a society lack, and what is desperately needed. It is also a behavior almost completely absent from LDS theology.

I have received vitriolic emails from TBM family members recently after I re-posted requests for help from our local food bank and about my support for racial equity and BLM.

Honestly, it just makes me sad. All that self-righteousness seems to block out the possibility of actual righteous behavior - you know, “love your neighbor” and such. Sigh.

Well said, I feel Exactly the same;

Kindness, Honesty aren't in the Pharisees play book either, that's no coincidence...

I know, the hypocrisy is so blatant it makes you want to scream, but what’s the point? They are too busy being righteous Lemmings to listen or have an original thought.

if can detach oneself slightly and look at circumstances as if from afar.
Not just the Mormons. This unforgiving harshness is global.

What is the cause(s) of this phenomenon?

Nietzsche foretold the last time something like this would happen..
The Enlightenment and hastened decline in the religious social scaffolding of the Dark Ages.
Nietzsche saw, in 1880, that the ensuing struggles for dominance between competing -isms -- as these sought to replace a dead God -- would result in the horrific cataclysms of the 20th century.
It is distilled in the Parable of the Madman.

It seems there is something similar happening here.

Dr. No Wrote:
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> This unforgiving harshness
> is global.

Not within some religious peoples and many other countries. Shared beliefs promote kindness.

Western self-centered societies lost the usefulness of strong religious beliefs as modernity motivated people to become more and more self serving. Our human nature is one of moving up a hierarchy.

Nietzsche saw the scaffolding of belief deteriorating in the face of an ever moving towards slave mentality to placate the growing isolation of self in a world devoid of gods.

The vitality of a Dionysian worshipping culture was overturned by the slaves of servitude towards self. No gods were needed now.

Elder Berry Wrote:
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> Not within some religious peoples and many other
> countries. Shared beliefs promote kindness.
===============================

These folks would agree with you

https://psyarxiv.com/ak642/

Accompanied by some diagrams

https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S1364661318300172-gr3.jpg

If look to our own experience, the tendency to immediately categorize a stranger into friend/foe (age, sex, race, class) is reflexive, not even conscious. "Value of beliefs" in the diagram is actually the vmPFC (particular to humans, interestingly). So goes the theory, we are genetically programmed to select for a "like, friendly" group - could be theorized it's a product of evolutionary biology/psychology, as those who grouped with friendlies survived to reproduce. Safety in numbers. Since humans do language, and language is the foundation of thought, so we can (perhaps unfortunately) think, a further friend/foe categorization is value system: do we think alike.

So what friction there is, seems in the boundaries between groups (or, when these become large enough, within groups - religions, political parties fracture all the time)

The biological foundation is why it is so hard to educate people into tolerance and acceptance.
Education can at best produce a cognitive scaffolding to govern responses, but does not cancel the biological impulse.

Or at least that's the theory.

Hypothesize the current global mean-ness divide centers on how to navigate the world: evidence vs. belief.

Great reply. Thanks.

Dr. No Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The biological foundation is why it is so hard to
> educate people into tolerance and acceptance.
> Education can at best produce a cognitive
> scaffolding to govern responses, but does not
> cancel the biological impulse.
>
> Or at least that's the theory.

Ironically, I think biological responses often take over in family, tribe, and extended family situations. I've hear people justify their not-like-minded relatives in regards to their political positions. More than beliefs and recognizing like-minded people is at play. Or at least that is my opinion.

> Hypothesize the current global mean-ness divide
> centers on how to navigate the world: evidence vs.
> belief.

Ayn Rand would have us in some rational evidence world that never has or could exist. We navigate through forebrain and feelings. And both Conservatives and Liberals in this country would have us place more stock in news than most people do. Fake or not, it is more entertainformation in our global world driven by corporations and legal understandings of things.

The human heart beats for more than numbers and words.

Agreed, it is a global problem and humanity does cycle.

Most people seem to want to have a reason to be kind.

I'm beyond reason.
It's the way I was born.

Be kind. Be calm. Be safe.

Those are the words of B.C.'s public health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, from the beginning of this pandemic.

I like that she put be kind first.

We aren't always achieving that goal but we try.

You're right - it does make life a lot better when kindness abounds.

A Utilikilt is one of those modern day kilts you see men wearing at renaissance fairs and hippie festivals.

Dave the Atheist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A Utilikilt is one of those modern day kilts you
> see men wearing at renaissance fairs and hippie
> festivals.

Umm! And at WORK.

I hope you don't see them at work. *LOL*

Only in the mirror Dave, and on other sculptors, artists, welders, pipe-fitters, GLASS BLOWERS, tree fellers, tattooers, fashionistas...

Come on.

You must have the luxury, or is it misfortune?, to either not be working, not be in the right kind of field or office somewhere, or retired or never travel much or thought you'd seen it all.

Where do you live?
Burmuda? Burmuda shorts, + WORK, + Freedom (what are you against)

Utility Kilt

They're just glorified shorts, with (utility) enough pockets, that let you- not always a man- hang low, be happy, breathe (down there).

(From one seller: Talk of kilts and what crosses your mind is durability, fashion dexterity, and style. ...

A true representation of fab. fashion and sleek style which allows you to go from the office to after-hours with ease looking polish and stylishly relevant.)

I like looking Polish. I like feeling that way too, sometimes.

I go out of my way to be kind.

Why not, what's the worst that can happen?

Missionaries could bear their testimony and give you a BOM to read.

You have given me much to think about!

Kindness & Honesty have Fallen into lip service from ChurchCo leaders & many members have followed them.

I think this is so sad to have a religion that kills your innate kindness. The church replaces real flowers with plastic ones.

They don’t even try to hide it, but claim that God’s love is conditional. Maybe your God. The thing about wearing dirty underwear is that everyone around you can smell it except you. But it’s okay if your friends all wear the same dirty underwear.

Bradley
...
> it’s okay if your friends all wear the same dirty underwear.

All my friends wouldn't fit.

It's NOT OKAY if your friends all wear the same dirty underwear.

If so, they should change!

Or I'll "change" them.

Yikes-