♪ Follow The Public ♬ ♪ Follow The Public ♬

Recently, the LDS Church released this statement in its "Race And Priesthood" topic article:

 “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was restored amidst a highly contentious racial culture in which whites were afforded great privilege. ... The justifications for this restriction echoed the widespread ideas about racial inferiority that had been used to argue for the legalization of black “servitude” in the Territory of Utah.”

In other words, they were just following the crowd.  Wait, I thought the point of having a prophet was to lead the people!

Mormon Apostle Elder James Talmage wrote in his “Great Apostasy” about the Great (western) Schism of the early 15th century, in which three men simultaneously claimed to be the true Pope. Their claims were political, not theological, and each disavowed the others, until some were forced to resign or be excommunicated.

We now seem to witness the beginning of a Mormon Schism, which resulted from an apostasy of doctrine against racism, as God is no respecter of persons.  From Brigham Young through ten prophet administrations until the 12th prophet, Spencer Kimball, the current prophet disavows each as leading a whole race to damnation.  They also disavow their own scripture, telling us that God never cursed anyone with dark skin.  However, they waited to tell us this decades (if not more than a century) after the public already knew it.  The Mormon Church is woefully behind the times.

The Catholic Church has had its list of “behinds” and has now apologized for slavery of Mesoamerica and Africa, injustices against women, for preaching geocentric doctrines, for inactivity during the Holocaust and many more.  The Mormons haven’t apologized for anything yet.  In any event, it shows that mainstream religions tend to walk paces behind public secularism.  Most of us expect the Catholics to announce their acceptance of gay partnerships and perhaps even gay marriage.  The Mormons will eventually cave on this.

The bible and Mormon scripture have outdated ideologies with morals that even children can see are distasteful, if not repugnant.  Leaders of churches have in past time given fiery rhetoric against various classes and people in ways we find disgraceful today.  They have hidden physical, emotional and sexual abuse enacted by their leaders or hidden by their priests and bishops, only to admit them when the voluminous public voice decries them.

Given the public leads the “Church” (used generally), it seems I should like to encourage my fellow secularists to avoid reading their scriptures and singing their hymns from this time forward.  Don’t go to their meetings and don’t interact with their believing members.  Avoid praying, fasting or otherwise listening to them.  They will lead you astray.  Trust the secular public. 

♪ Follow The Public  ♬ Follow The Public  ♬  It knows the way… ♪

Ok, I know, that’s absurd.  We secularists don’t go around telling you to avoid studying the religions, avoiding their members and meetings or not to pray.  We tell you, go ahead, do all those things, decide for yourself.  We’re cocksure that if you keep an open mind when you experiment with religion, your head will clear and you’ll decide to follow the (secular) public.

And no, I'm not declaring secularism infallible or always right. But like science, it works out the correct path by self-correction and way ahead of educts from religious prophets who are supposedly infallible mouthpieces of God.  As I've written before, the reason science and secularism works so much better is because science has labs, the Church has only belief systems. 

The schism at play right now is very interesting.  Most Mormons don’t even know it exists, but you can be sure the leaders do. They’re disavowing and, if it were possible, would posthumously excommunicate Brother Brigham.  By the end of the Great Mormon Schism, you can bet current leaders will be characters of controversy for their policies against gays, for denying priesthood to women, for mall profits, for ignoring the poor and generally changing a lot of money.  Members will look back and the public will retroactively cleanse the temple.

Like spring deer, members are unknowing abandoned to the hunters next fall