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Date Posted: 02:44:45 06/20/05 Mon
Author: Leif Erlingsson, heretic®
Subject: If religion should be shielded from investigation, why not politics?
In reply to: Leif Erlingsson, heretic® 's message, "As has been stated, that is your privilege (to delete)" on 14:53:50 06/19/05 Sun

Latter-day Saints don't live by ``I want no association with things that cannot be talked about and will not bear investigation.'' (John Taylor, Journal of Discourses 20:264.)  Rather, LDS are conditioned to automatically block any "negative" thoughts.  I hope that there is nothing controversial in stating this fact, I can quote any number of general conference statements to support it.  The logic is that we must keep our mind -- our inner stage -- pure from anything that might corrupt.  Not controversial yet, I hope?  But if it's OK to suppress "negative" thoughts concerning the people and leadership in the Church, why should it then be OK concerning the people and leadership in the country?  "Well, they are not the Church," someone might reply, "they are the world."  Yet even the Church leadership warns us not to distrust public leadership.  ``That can result in doubts about laws and rules and lead to skepticism about the ties that bind society.'' (Elder Dallin H. Oaks, during a devotional address at Brigham Young University Tuesday, November 9, 2004.)  (The address is described in Deseret Morning News the day after, at http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595104224,00.html.  I became aware of it because it was quoted in the Swedish LDS monthly magazine, the Liahona, in the local pages in March 2005.  In the Swedish comments, the message was amplified even further:  "If this trend continues, citizens will doubt those rules and principles that public officials, teachers, priests and others present. ``It will lead to us questioning or eliminating those ties that bind us together as society, family or private organization,'' said Elder Oaks." (Swedish Liahona March 2005 Local pages ("Kyrkonytt"), page 10, translated back from Swedish by Leif Erlingsson.))

So, if we are not to investigate or question neither political nor Church leaders, what are we doing here in this forum?  Should we not block every "negative" thoughts about all our leaders?  Should we not love "Big Brother", like Winston Smith finally does in the last sentence of George Orwell's "1984"?

Leif Erlingsson, heretic®.

``Ignorance">http://doc.lege.net/the_mormon_mind_set-20050618.html"``Ignorance is Strength.'' -- George Orwell

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