AspieXLDS wrote:
I live in Utah, though not by choice (don't have the funds to move elsewhere) and even if this was a move made based on financial issues, I can guarantee that the cruelty element in this case was likely borne of Mormon teachings. I was raised in the Mormon faith and there's one point that stands out poignantly in regards to this case. First, background information: Mormons believe that after the Final Judgment, the souls of men will be separated into three separate kingdoms: Celestial, Terrestial, and Telestial. Celestial is the highest one where their Doctrine and COvenants teaches men can become Gods (or rather, that God was once like us and we can become like Him), Terrestial is similar to our current world, and Telestial is just shy of hell, which is referred to as Outer Darkness.
My ward (the term for a Mormon parish) had an activity based around these kingdoms. They set up a whole bunch of stalls with candy and little dollar store trinkets, and stuff like that, gave everyone, adults and children, tickets and told them to 'go through life'. We did so. The adults were all very frugal, the kids not so much. The end result? when it came to the 'judgment sequence', most of the parents went on to "Celestial Glory" while myself and most other kids my age (I think I was eight or nine at the time) ended up in the room of the churchhouse designated to be the Telestial Kingdom. I remember being in the hallway in a line with my parents and being tapped on the shoulder by a member of the Bishopric, telling me I needed to go in this other door, not stay with my parents.
The moral of this activity was that if you took part in all the joys of life (lived in the world and ignored the "but not of the world" part of Mormon teachings) you would be tarnished and unable to attain "Celestial Glory". Adults can handle that sort of thing. Kids, not so much. This was a rather cruel activity, looking back on it now, and while it's not the same exact situation, the cruelty towards children, punishing them for the 'sins of their parents' is something I can't help but think is borne of a similar situation to that ward activity I attended so long ago.
For the record: if I had spent all those 'tickets' in that activity, I would've been in 'Outer Darkness'.
Living in Utah, I can tell you that no matter how much a financial issue might be just that, financial, high-level government tends to act in the way they were raised, as Mormons and with a more 'eternal' outlook than a 'temporal' one. When I was going to school, if you were behind on payments for lunch, the schools just accrued it and your parents were required to repay it before the end of summer if they wanted you to continue on at school.
Geez, how could parents stand to have their children separated from them like that?
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-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer
01 Mar 2014, 2:35 pm
