Replies

I spent more time than I wanted reading what Willard Mitt said. He just appears to be a real believing latter day Saint. His charitable giving beyond tithing to the LDS is consistent with being a good Mormon. His statist acts also fits in with Mormonism. The LDS combines a unique set of beliefs in individual responsibility with a form of church oriented collectivism which is shared only by a few of the pietist groups such as the Amish (the real Amish). Being an observant temple going Mormon obedient to the church leadership and a charitable but hard working self respecting individual is the core of LDS behavior. Willard is all of this and his relentless cheerfulness is all a part of the rather panglossian mentality that envelopes Mormon true believers.

Your typical LDS true believer is pretty similar to the true believers among the Church of the First Born with which Joseph Smith had relations ~ back when he was seeing divine beings and such.

They have been exceptionally legalistic since their first founding in the 1500s by Russian Orthodox priests in lapland. They are just as legalistic now since their arrival in America in the early 1600s. And the new, reformed model in Sweden and Finland (Old Apostolic Lutheran Church ~ First Born) is also very legalistic, and pietistic.

Swedenborg studied the phenomenon, organized it along more Masonic lines, and introduced it as the Church of Swedenborg. Sometimes Mormons are accused of having copied Swedenborg, but I think it's more a fact of their all copying the same source ~ the pre-laestidian Church of the First Born.

Not that there's anything wrong with being legalistic, but sometimes it can be carried to extremes that are harmful to the individual ~ e.g. COFB in Oklahoma, Idaho and elsewhere have a very, very high rate of infant and children ~ worse than in any third-world country. They wouldn't take you to the doctor if your life depended on it ~ literally.