The Mormons are Coming

And yet. To an atheist especially, which I am, there is something so unsettling about the ranks of shining faces beaming atop crisp white shirts and black ties or modest dresses awaiting instruction on how to persuade people to their way of thinking. Or, to put it more strongly, convince them of a falsehood. Or, to put it more strongly still, fill people’s emotional voids with their lies. Which description you feel most apt will depend on your own upbringing, temperament and voids of course

Fill people’s emotional voids with their lies? I guess she does declare her own bias as an atheist, still I wonder if she would feel that free to describe the Catholic or Presbyterian church in that way.

I wish more people understood that missionaries are young and naive, and are not some sinister army intentionally trying to spread lies or harmful beliefs. They are just teenagers and young adults trying to do good in the world by doing what they’ve been taught to do. Even if you believe the church is a fraudulent and malicious organization, I think it’s a stretch to describe missionaries this way.

Fill people’s emotional voids with their lies? I guess she does declare her own bias as an atheist, still I wonder if she would feel that free to describe the Catholic or Presbyterian church in that way.

As a self described atheist I doubt they’d have any compunction about applying much of this to other churches – if they believe God is a deception/falsehood designed to get people to do certain things it doesn’t matter who teaches it. They might take issue with applying it to atheism because there’s no way they’re deceived – just ask them).

I guess that a good analogy for all this is this:

A high school student who is great with mechanics and passionate about the physical work of fixing things and the physicality of repair work being told that they need to take a business administration statistics minor in order to get their “dream job” – and that is the only way to get it. There is only “1 path” (non-technical college) and they need that “exact minor” (one of the least “hands on” repair degrees possible).

At best, the student will jump those hoops, do the extra, non-intuitive work and find something meaningful from it while continuing to make/repair things as a side hustle/serious hobby/day job.

At worst, this path will completely screw the kid up and they will swear off of an education or being passionate about work for life.

Conversely, if you are the dean of statistics at the college, you “may” on some levels understand the challenges this student experiences on a path that isn’t really designed for them – but you still need them invested in your path and paying the tuition. You really don’t want them to find a technical college that doesn’t fit your template of “business administration statistics minor”. Since you are day-in-day-out breathing and thinking about statistics and how it describes everything else – the physical intuition of fixing mechanical parts and manipulating objects through space to achieve something isn’t something that fits your world very well.

On some levels, this analogy doesn’t do justice between the gap of “God being relevant” and “God being non-relevant” in the conversations between fervent believers and atheists (and to degree, a agnostics). For some, the “true path” through religion to the “promised heaven” isn’t the “heaven” they want (to be in charge of worlds and all that). For others, it’s a “I want my experience to be immersive for me and adapted to who I am and my identity” instead of a “I need to match my experience to a template experience (without regard to and/or peripherally utilizing the strengths of my personal identity)”.

DISCLAIMER: I know there is a need in the world for both statistics and people good with machines (I am horrible at both of them). I also know that this example has limitations and simplifies emotionally-laden thought processes.

I am also convinced that both extremes are talking past each other more often then not.

Interesting that the guy writing the review hasn’t been able to see it. He basically writes a review of the TV guide listing. 😆

I agree that missionaries try to convince people. I suppose we LDS might say that missionaries try to create opportunities for the HG to testify to people but I wouldn’t expect any non-LDS publication to echo that.

“The Chorley boot camp also teaches missionaries how to use social media to find people for conversion by creating targeted Instagram Reel videos and Facebook posts. And they’re expected to send at least 50 social media messages per day to potential converts, based on who has engaged or interacted with their posts.”

That explains a lot. I interact with the Facebook posts of the missionaries sometimes as a purely supportive gesture. Then the missionaries get really chatty and contact me on messenger and try to have a conversation. It feels really unnatural and forced. Maybe they are trying to meet a social media engagement quota.

lol, just about the entire church experience is trying to convince people the church is true, even for people that are already members. We’re a deeply, deeply insecure church.

So the review is basically, “Well I don’t know what they said, but I bet it’s bad so I better defend against it.”

Which is what I’m doing because I haven’t even read the review.