Most personally convincing reasons you don't believe.

[emjay]

No, never Mormonized. 


I just find them to be ESPECIALLY false, and unusually lamely inspired.   Joe Smith was particularly inept at birthing a religion, that he succeeded is a tremendous disappointment and provides a disturbing look into the unfortunate compulsive gullibility endemic then as well as now.

I'd like to extend this thought a bit.

Clearly, all religions are equally false, false is false after all, I just find Mormonism 'especially' false since they have so conveniently and copiously documented all their bogus shit, whereas most other faiths have either lost their self-incriminating paperwork over the centuries, or, unlike the Mormons, were smart enough to not commit some/most/all their bullshit to paper in the first place, or if they did, they were then smart enough to not publish it and/or to just leave it out where anyone could find it.

Not realizing (for the most part) they were fucking up is icing on the cake. Joe Smith revelated from God the Mormons were to be a record keeping people, that some of his followers went a little overzealous and published way more of theose records than anyone in their right mind could/should/would have is actually unbelievable, but there we are. [chuckle, snort]

So that's why I find Mormonism to be 'especially' false; they amazingly enough, created a paper trail, and then, compounding their stupidity, published enough material to falsify their own religion literally one hundred times over.

Yeah but it just makes it all the more infuriating that despite all of that it still flourishes... that there are still people willing and/or needing to believe in it   Just like there are for all these other silly cults, or get rich quick schemes, or astrologers etc. So although it's great from the perspective that shows clear as day all the machinations behind a religion, the fact that it so blatantly and unashamedly exposes all its workings for all the world to see and still prospers just makes it all the more depressing because it just shows that there will always be some people who live by emotion alone... people who never take a step back, never think 'outside the box', are never mindful, and never examine themselves... people who are just happy to go with the flow as long as their needs and wants are met but have no tendency for introspection.

And I suppose it ultimately makes sense that that would be the case because not everyone across the world has interest in psychology or even access to it (in the sense of education or therapy)... and emotional mode is the default mode of living for any human (or animal). In a survival situation you wouldn't have time to sit back and reflect 'why do I do this? or why do I do that?' so you'd just be busy problem solving in the moment and focusing on the outside world. And in that situation emotions could save your life, acting as they do to provide instant information in the form of intuitions and insights, warnings (fear), indication of potential nearby resources (desire) etc way quicker than any reasoned process could ever do. So looked at like that, meta-awareness and introspection are something of a luxury that we can only really partake in once our more basic needs are met, which for the most part is what has happened with the development of civilization, but not everywhere unfortunately. But the flip side of that is that with civilization comes less urgent need to rely on our emotions for information and since for the most part our basic needs are met, left unchecked doing so can just lead to endless cycles of addiction and delusion and open us irrational emotional influence either by ourselves or by others and either wilful or not.