Something can be boiled down to it's barest essence; it's purest form--like you boil down something beautiful like a poppy and get rid of the latex and end up with opium or heroin.

If you boil down Mormonism would what is left be nothing more than a need to be superior to others?

“You can buy anything in this world with money.”

Satan had all the good lines in the Endowment.

Or, “you get a planet, and you get a planet, and you get a planet…”

That's Joseph Smith's greed speaking though an imagined Satan.

There are some things that can never be bought.

Mormonism forces people to make moral or immoral choices.

Those running the show made their choice long ago.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2023 11:19PM by anybody.

The cultivation of opium in the hill country of the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia and of Afghanistan is fascinating.

The poppies have a bulb of sorts right below the flower. The farmer will take a razor blade and scratch vertical lines about an eighth of an inch apart down the outside of the bulb. The next day small drops of sap will have formed on and below the lines. The farmer will then turn the blade horizontal and lift the drops off.

He'll return to his hovel, put the drops of sap onto a metal dish or a spoon and cook it over a low fire with maybe a couple of bricks holding the container in place. After a while, the organic sediments will separate out of the fluid and the farmer will collect the relatively pure liquid. That's but the first stage in the refinement; the fluid can't be used as a drug. So the farmer lets it cool down into a solid and then sells it on as rough bricks to the processors who, probably hundreds or thousands of miles away, put it through a much more complex refining process and then ship it on to Europe or the US for distribution.

The vast majority of the money goes to the processors and especially to the distributors. For the farmer, poppy cultivation yields twice the pittance that other crops do and his children are therefore able to buy shoes every few years and maybe a pencil. But that's all the local communities get. The farmers are uneducated and have no sense of the outside world; they don't have any idea what the drug will become or the harm it will cause.

I'm not sure this has any bearing on Mormonism, but it's definitely related to D&D's metaphor!

Your detailed expansion does sort of make the GA's look like the middle man making all the profit from those who just want to go to the top tier of heaven--as anyone probably would.

So economically, opium farmers are like Mormon missionaries, who don't see a dime of the church's insane wealth even though they do most of the work.

> If you boil down Mormonism, would
> what is left be nothing more than
> a need to be superior to others?

The 'need' to, at least, feel superior to others is probably latent in all of us but patent in too many.

And wanting to be in mormon leadership is what keeps the narcissists all trying to make something big out of a church that worked fine as a local community phenomenon.

And, they make it harder for us who actually are superior!

So many of us deep down do want to be "top of the heap, king of the hill and A Number One". Which is a weakness for the clever to prey on? I would not disagree. Self Help books anyone? You know the ones where you can learn to be a millionaire too if you just buy one?

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And, they make it harder for us who actually are
> superior!

HaHa!
>
Self Help books anyone? You
> know the ones where you can learn to be a
> millionaire too if you just buy one?

Years ago, there were stories, perhaps true, of ads in newspaper classified that read, "Sure-fire way to get rich in your spare time. Simple and tax-free! Send a dollar and self-addressed stamped envelope to....(name of party)..."

If you answered the ad, you'd get a sheet of paper which read, "Run this ad in your local newspaper:
'Sure-fire way to get rich. Simple and tax-free! Send a dollar and self-addressed stamped envelope to....'
There are a lot of suckers out there who will send you a dollar for a sheet of paper. You did, didn't you?"

I remember the seminars. Usually $200 and someone would tell you the secrets to getting rich and making it sound so easy.

The real secret to getting rich is to (1) have something or make something that everybody on the planet wants badly and these days comes with free shipping, or, (2) not really give a damn who you screw over."God wanted us to have the widow's mite."

Only one of those applies to the Mormon Gerontocracy. Hint: It's not number 1.

> The real secret to getting rich is to (1) have
> something or make something that everybody on the
> planet wants badly. . .

Yes!


-----------------
. . .and these days comes with free
> shipping

Yes!


----------------
. . . (2) not really give a damn who you
> screw over."


Heroin to a "T".

And Mormonism, of course.

I used to play bridge; I wasn't that good, but I loved the combination of the game and the conversations, including the bickering of "Well, you should have trumped his ace!!"

At this point in the life of this thread, there have been four Exmo-people who have posted ...

I bet we four would have a fun evening of bridge and blather, but whoever hosted would have to take care to avoid the damage all the acid we'd spew might cause.

And let us not descend into suggesting who would make the best dummy.



In reviewing this, it occurs to me to state that I would gladly spend an evening of bridge with anyone on this board, even The Cat, because I bet he simmers down quite a bit in person.  

But the acerbic asides from this innocently malicious foursome would be especially ... juicy.

Also, I don't like to talk when playing golf, so there's that...

I get my drug education here at RfM.

Mormonism is about becoming a God and only good Mormons will become Gods. That’s the pure dope.