Three quarters of his teachings are false.
| This is one of a series of web pages I created between 2001and 2006. I was angry and frustrated at the LDS Church. Since then I have moved on and calmed down. So please remember, if you read these pages, that they reflect my past and not my present feelings. Thanks for your understanding! - Chris Tolworthy |
Where he needs to repent: 1-10 | 11-20 | 21-30 | 31- 40
Three quarters of Hinckley's teachings are false (see below). Gordon B. Hinckley is always telling people to stand a little taller and be more honest. I wish he would take his own advice. He needs to be more honest.
But everyone makes mistakes, myself included. Why pick on Hinckley? Because he claims to be a prophet of God. A prophet of God should set an example. A prophet should be more honest than other people, not less.
I have been accused of saying mean things about Gordon B. Hinckley. Is it mean to ask a prophet to tell the truth?
I have spent many years listening to Gordon B. Hinckley speak, and reading what he writes. Unlike many people, I check up on what he says. Most of his teachings are not true. Note that this only applies to his teachings: much of what he says is just small talk or reporting on events. He says things like "it is so good to meet here... we have just got back from dedicating another temple... I remember when..." and so on. When I say "teachings" I mean the times when he says "this is true" or "you should do this."
So is Gordon B. Hinckley consciously lying? Many people think so, because the lies are so obvious. But I don't think he is conscious of hs lies. He has spent most of his life working for the church in the area of public relations. I don't think he knows the difference between selective reporting and lying.
Gordon B. Hinckley's statements can be divided into four roughly equal parts:
- The good: One quarter of everything he says is true and uplifting and important and good.
- The bad: Another quarter is just plain wrong.
- The ugly: Another quarter sounds good but if you look very carefully it is actually false.
- The soothing words: Another quarter sounds good but is meaningless. And taken in the context of the bad stuff, it becomes misleading.
Gordon G. Hinckley talks a lot about respecting others' views, about being tolerant, about trying harder, about being kind to others, and so on. This is good! Nobody can argue about that. But does that make him a prophet? Should we listen to him more than we listen to other people?
It is good that he says these things. But you can get the same things from any other preacher, teacher or politician who wants to attract followers. Listen to any successful politician and they will say the same things. Listen to any successful preacher and they will say the same things. Listen to any successful teacher and they will say the same things. Listen to any successful motivator, or anyone who needs to impress people, and they will say the same things. These teaching are a natural result of living in groups. The most successful leaders always teach these things, or they would not be successful.
It is good that these good things are said. They do need to be said. But saying them does not make you a prophet. The interesting thing is, Hinckley never calls himself a prophet. He only calls himself the President of the Church. And he never says "thus saith the Lord." He seems to know what his job is as a leader, not a prophet. I think this is how he gets past the problem with lying - he is just doing his best as a leader whose job is to strengthen the church. However, he runs a church that tells everyone that he is a prophet, so that is no excuse. He may not claim to be a prophet, but he tells other people to say it, and that is just as bad.
Gordon B. Hinckley says a lot of things that are plainly not true. I don't think he consciously lies, but psychologically he wants to believe that the church is good. So he twists and distorts the facts to make the church look good. I think it is a psychological thing. His need to support the church is absolute. Everything else must be sacrificed to that central goal.
This web site lists some of the things he says: The top ten, items 11-20, items 21-30, items 31-40
Hinckley often repeats popular ideas that nearly everyone believes, but they are still not true. I classify these things as ugly or dangerous, precisely because they are so popular. It is easy to disprove a simple lie. It is much harder to disprove a popular myth that everyone else believes. The hardest part is that you, the reader, probably believe these things! You can see why I will never be popular. Unlike Hinckley, I am willing to offend my readers.
To show how popular ideas can be wrong, here are some popular ideas from the past:
Racism. To many Europeans, Africans seemed to be inferior or primitive. It was natural to believe that God had withheld his blessings from them, and this was how God intended it. Mormon scripture still teaches that a black skin is a curse, and some races should not have the priesthood, though Hinckley has tried to put that into the past.
The class system. For thousands of years, a strict class system was seen as the basis of society. If people did not know their place, society would fall apart! But gradually people are learning that democracy is better. The Mormon church is still not a democracy, but other churches have learned that lesson and have meaningful votes (not just sustaining of the leaders' choices).
Blind obedience. For thousands of years people saw no point in educating the lowest classes or women. The best thing these people could do, it was believed, would be to obey their superiors. Their superiors understood better, and it was wrong to question them. Thankfully this belief has changed, and people are encouraged to question and challenge their leaders. Except in the church.
Vain pride. Everyone wants to believe that God is on their side. It makes people feel very good it think that their society or nation or church is the only true one and other people are less fortunate. But if we want peace in the world, we have to give up this prideful idea. There is nothing wrong with loving what you have, but we must always accept the possibility, even if we don't believe it right now, that one day we may find something even better. Mormon pride, the vain idea that there can never be anything better than Mormonism, blinds them to their own faults and to the good things in others.
I have used these ideas not because the church pushes them today, but because it pushed these ideas in the past and they illustrate how a false idea can be very popular. Most of these ideas are now being downplayed by Hinckley. In each case, the world changed its ideas first and the Mormon church changed its ideas later. Hinckley relies on many ideas that are still popular today, but are just as false as racism, the class system, or vain pride. I will discuss one example as a footnote to this essay, but only read it if you have a strong stomach - you probably believe in this thing yourself!
Hinckley mainly talks to church members who have given a great deal of time and money to the church. They need to be reassured that they have done the right thing and have not just fallen victim to a cult. So he frequently says things like "Isn't it wonderful," "It is a marvelous thing," "This is a great people," "We live in a time of great blessings," and so on. People like to be flattered.
When we realize that the church itself is not true, then statements like "isn't it wonderful" are also untrue.
But isn't is it a good idea to accentuate the positive? Shouldn't we look for the good, even if the church is imperfect? Yes we should, and there are better, more honest churches and belief systems than the Mormon church. If we want to look for the good, we should be praising those other churches and belief systems. If we praise the Mormon church we are not choosing what is good.
But what about the non-church related things? What about when Hinckley says we should all try a little harder, be a little better, and so on? Read what Hinckley says. Most of this is in the context of the church. Sometimes Hinckley says genuinely good things, and I have included those in the "good" quarter of his words. But much of the time when he says "do better" he means in the context of the church. He means try harder at church teachings, bring more people into the church, try hard so that people will admire and respect the church, and so on.
If we want to accentuate the positive, to try harder, to do better, we must leave the church behind. It is true that the church does some good. But if we want to stand a little taller, we must do more good. We cannot "Stand a Little Taller" while being dragged down by the evil half of church teachings.
Hinckley makes use of many false ideas that are still popular with the world. Some of these ideas have been popular since time began, and are not likely to change very soon. Yet they influence every part of our lives. That is why they are the most dangerous of all ideas. They still have the ring of truth for most people, and Hinckley uses them to full effect. May I be highly controversial here? May I suggest one false idea that most people believe, that YOU probably still believe, to illustrate what I mean?
Mormonism relies on the promise of life after death. No matter how much you have to sacrifice to be a Mormon, it is worth the price because you will be rewarded after you die. Life after death is the foundation of Mormonism. Nearly everyone wants to believe in life after death, even though there is no evidence for it. When you examine the evidence, it disappears. For example, some people have near-death experiences (NDEs), where they almost die and they report seeing dead loved ones. Except children who do not not know many dead people - they tend to meet their living friends in heaven. So NDEs are not a glimpse of the dead. The drug LSD has been reported to sometimes trigger a similar experience. Electrodes in the brain can trigger the same visions. (Sources: Susan Blackmore, "Near-Death Experiences: In or out of the body?" Skeptical Inquirer 1991, 16, 34-45. "Electrodes trigger out-of-body experience" Helen Pearson, Nature, 19 September 2002. LSD: comments by Karlis Osis, on the results of his famous large scale study on NDEs.)
If there were no death, there would be no higher life forms. The world would never have progressed beyond single celled organisms. Except that even single celled organisms would not have evolved. We would just be random chunks of DNA (or some far simpler protein) floating in some primeval chemical soup. You cannot have new life while the old life is still around, using all the resources. Or if you do not believe in evolution, imagine if immortality were discovered today...
Imagine if humans learned how to live forever. All the rich and powerful people would be even richer and even more powerful, and the rest of us would have no chance to compete with their superior experience. We would effectively be their slaves. Why should heaven be any different? Just because you want it to be good, does not make it so. Death is the great leveler. It gives each new generation a chance.
Happiness comes from helping others (mainly our children) and forgetting ourselves. So if we forget about life after death, if we stop caring about our personal survival and instead focus on our children, we will be happier. We will be heroes. Heroes give their lives for others and they are the happiest people on earth. But those who care for their own lives are selfish.
Personal survival does not make us happy. We are not wired that way. But you say, "Ah, but in the eternities we would care for our children!" Maybe. But most of God's children go astray, and most of our children would go astray. Even if we escape the eternity of slavery (see previous point), we would be condemned to an eternity of heartache and disappointment.
Would we really help our children in the eternities? Because of death, grandparents are forced to be humble, and to think of their children. But with immortality, there would be no reason to be humble, and no reason to care for the young ones, except to control them. And with immortality, the older people are always more powerful than the younger people because they have had longer to accumulate experience and property. When does caring become interfering? When does guidance become slavery?
Life after death is fundamentally immoral. It is selfish. Instead of thinking of others, we think of our own survival. And it is unethical. Instead of doing things because they are right (because of the good they do for the world) we do them for personal reward. The whole topic is nasty and mean spirited and I want nothing of it. I want to be remembered as someone who gave his life for what he believed in, without any care for his personal safety. I do not want to be remembered as an old guy who is still hanging around telling his children what to do.
The belief in life after death prolongs misery in this life. People never come to terms with loss because they see it as bad and temporary. The short term relief (you will see them again!) is less than the long term heartache ("I wish it was now!"). Finally, life after death would be a crushing disappointment. Living people constantly change. Are you the same person you were as a child? Of course not. At least, I hope not! If you are reunited with your grandparents, if they had been alive for another fifty years on the other side, would they be the same people? Of course not.
In summary, life after death has no basis in reality, it would be horrible, and is immoral and unethical. It brings misery. Yet most people want to believe in it, just as for thousands of years people believed in the class system, racism and blind pride. Hinckley makes use of this belief. I am sorry if this offends you. Unlike Hinckley, I do not need to have millions of people agreeing with me. And unlike Hinckley, I have a need to tell the truth even if it does not make people feel warm inside.
Bad stuff, 1-10 | 11-20 | 21-30 | 31- 40