Posted by:
amos2
(
)
Date: March 18, 2012 01:04PM
is that it gives a false explanation of why things happen.
It's the rain dance thing.
I expect that for millenia humans have been coming up with reasons why things happens and ascribing them to some intentional hidden force.
I think it's natural since there are plenty of actual unintentional hidden forces if there isn't an intentional one.
Another innovation of religion, however, that makes it insidious if not sinister, is the invention of "authority". I don't mind if people conjure up their own theories about why things happen all day long, as long as they at least reveal the source...their own ass.
But when you get people claiming that God spoke to them, and claiming authority and privileges over others by virtue of their chosenness...whole new ballgame...now you've got DOGMA, because someone takes what they made up, and says they got it from god and that it's "gospel".
Then when it bumps up against reality, they make up even more reasons why THAT happened...and it mushrooms into this whole body of "doctrine" where people just piled one dogma on another until you've got this whole imaginary reality parallel to actual reality.
Then circular logic keeps it going. You've got a false explanation for why things happen...but they keep happening like clockwork, like they always have, and making the belated explanation look right!
Mormonism is filled with false explanations for things. Like, the reason a man is a good father and a good husband is because he "honors his priesthood". There are plenty of good fathers and husbands who reject "priesthood" as even being true, and plenty of dead-beat-dads and just sucky wimpy men who are all into their priesthood. But there are just enough losers who also happen to reject priesthood to give TBMs enough examples to keep the stereotype going.