Comment author: NancyLebovitz 14 June 2012 04:28:15PM 5 points [-]

From a relatively outside view (my upbringing was semi-secular Jewish), belief in heaven and hell is really strong stuff for some proportion of people-- I'm not sure how high the proportion is, but people can make themselves acutely miserable from fear of hell and/or fear of not getting into heaven.

Comment author: bradleyt 14 June 2012 07:00:30PM 4 points [-]

To be fair to Mormons, they don't have the concept of an eternal hell like most Christian fundamentalists. There is something called "outer darkness", but you'd have to work really, really hard to get there--like, harder than Hitler.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 13 June 2012 08:55:54PM *  5 points [-]

Well, you would know. Personally I've met maybe a hundred Mormons and noticed a distinct tendency towards apparent overall happiness, social wellbeing, et cetera. FWIW most of the Mormons I know are from Tucson, and some of them look on the Utahans as being a somewhat separate tribe.

It's probably like zero information, but the only Mormon who I know went to BYU, also happened to be the surliest one.

(And obviously this is all modulo huge selection effects on who I've met. I don't exactly live a normal life.)

Comment author: bradleyt 13 June 2012 09:21:51PM 5 points [-]

Yeah, I'm most familiar with Utah/Idaho Mormons who tend to be on the more extreme spectrum. The problem is that these are the guys who hold the power in the Church.

Something that hasn't been mentioned is that Mormons give 10% of their income to the church. AFAIK, the vast majority goes into building and maintaining churches and large, extravagant temples, and a very small portion actually goes to real charitable work. If you could convince a Mormon to leave the church but still donate 10% of his income to a more effective charity, I think you'd end up doing a lot more good from a utilitarian perspective.

It's also pretty well-known that the state of Utah has an abnormally high rate of mental illness, and a lot of people suggest that Mormons often claim that they're a lot happier than they really are. I tend to agree: as a Mormon, you're taught all the time about how the Church is so great and how it's the best path to happiness, so you're naturally going to want to appear happy to other people.

My hunch is that Mormonism tends to make certain people a lot happier and other people more depressed. I definitely fell into the latter group--when I was Mormon I was constantly wracked with guilt because I--gasp--masturbated. At the same time, because I held the Mormon priesthood, I was essentially told that I had magical powers, and that I had more authority to act in God's name than the Pope. So I think for some people Mormonism is a big guilt trip, and for others it's a big power trip. Both are unhealthy.

Comment author: Will_Newsome 13 June 2012 08:50:00PM 5 points [-]

Hm? I'm talking about already-existent benefits. Mormons are like the happiest, most fulfilled, most transhumanist-friendly people on the planet, and they're rapidly spreading those memes throughout the world. Maybe you have a deontological soft-spot for gays, or you have an egoistic preference for the wellbeing of gays. But from a right and proper utilitarian standpoint, Mormonism is a huge win.

/trolololol

Comment author: bradleyt 13 June 2012 08:52:48PM 4 points [-]

I am an ex-Mormon who attended BYU. Your description of Mormons is completely foreign to me.

Comment author: Alicorn 13 June 2012 08:40:40PM *  12 points [-]

besides the trademark polygamy

This is no longer a feature of the mainstream Mormon church (and has not been for a rather long time) except as regards sealing to a second wife after the first one has died. Spreading misinformation about groups you personally dislike is a bad mindkilling behavior.

Comment author: bradleyt 13 June 2012 08:51:06PM 5 points [-]

This is completely true, although it's probably worth pointing out that Mormons believe marriage is eternal, so in the afterlife polygamy still exists.

Comment author: stcredzero 13 June 2012 07:32:31PM 4 points [-]

Eh. Few "beliefs" and "belief-systems"—or more accurately, decision-policy-systems and social-signaling-systems—are as attractive as Mormonism. I don't think being Mormon is a sign of low epistemic standards so much as a sign of high instrumental rationality.

Without a single exception, every convert to Mormonism I've met (and this includes several colleagues) professes to have converted because they find Mormons to be kind, conscientious, and positively directed people.

I suspect this is how most people evaluate membership in a community. The "beliefs" and "belief-systems" are somewhat arbitrary to most, like the colors on the jerseys of sports teams.

In fact, in a population where most professed "beliefs" and "belief-systems" are mainly signals of group affiliation and less subjects for serious thought, this is arguably a more rational way of evaluating the desirability of group membership.

Comment author: bradleyt 13 June 2012 08:20:17PM *  4 points [-]

I grew up Mormon and attended BYU for a few years, and a lot of descriptions of Mormons I read on here are completely foreign to me. Knowing that the LDS Church was literally true was always an extremely important aspect of the religion when I grew up--it wasn't just about the community.

I suspect that the types of Mormons that people on LessWrong tend to come in contact with are very much outside the mainstream. While I can see that Mormon theology can be twisted to support a sort of trans-humanism, in my experience the typical Utah Mormon would find this very bizzarre.

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