The Dark Side of Organized Religion

* This is my second attempt at this essay. Be glad you aren’t reading the first version, which was one of the first essays I wrote here; it’s funny how bad I was at writing when I first started this site.

In this essay I explore a few common problems I see in religious organizations. Particularly, I believe that to be saved we must try to repent and improve our heart posture (by striving for purity, love, and diligence, as described in Aligning our Hearts with God). However, religions often distract from this goal, by 1) teaching that we are saved by merely having a correct knowledge of God and a good feeling about him (and therefore our sins don’t matter); 2) overly focusing on works and church callings, to the point where members become complacent regarding the matters of the heart (such as striving to avoid pride and cruelty); and 3) distracting us with many tangential doctrines or neglecting essential doctrines to avoid unpopularity.

Popularity vs Truth

Unfortunately, I have often seen religions pursuing popularity over truth and God. This clearly goes against the scriptures (Galatians 1:10, John 12:42–43), though this corruption does fulfill prophecy (2 Timothy 4:3–4, 2 Peter 2:1–3). I especially see this regarding lgbt (discussed in Uncovering Deceptions, I also discuss this problem within the Mormon church in Part 1 – Politics).

A Personal Relationship with God over Church Participation

Going to church each week—especially while taking on sacrificial roles—can give believers a false sense of being right with God. However, what God really desires is a personal relationship with us and for our hearts to align with him, rather than for us to participate in a religious bureaucracy (Isaiah 29:13, Hosea 6:6, Psalm 51:16–17, 1 Samuel 15:22, Jeremiah 7:21–23, Mark 12:33).

That relationship requires daily time with Him through scripture study and prayer (Joshua 1:8, Psalm 1:2–3, Luke 5:16, 1 Thessalonians 5:17). It’s in this space that God transforms our hearts to align with His will. We are born with impure hearts and cannot change them on our own (Jeremiah 17:9, 1 Corinthians 2:14, Romans 8:7–8, Ecclesiastes 9:3, Mosiah 3:19); therefore, we need divine help to be “circumcised of heart” and become overcomers (Ezekiel 36:26–27, Romans 12:2, Philippians 2:13, Deuteronomy 10:16).

Church work isn’t bad, but it should never replace knowing God personally. As shown in the story of Mary and Martha, it was better for Martha to sit and connect with Jesus than to be consumed with tasks (Luke 10:38–42).

Knowledge vs Heart Posture

A problem I have seen in many denominations is the idea that we are saved by our knowledge rather than our heart posture. This comes because (I think) preachers want to maintain popularity by not offending their congregations. Therefore, rather than calling them to repentance, they praise their flock by telling them that they are already good enough since they had the faith to go to Church.

However, this doesn’t logically make sense – after all, everyone will have a proper knowledge of Godly things after death (especially considering baptism for the dead which I discuss in Cosmology). It makes more sense that our salvation status is more determined by our heart posture – whether we are selfless and have chosen to obey the spirit of God – since this character element changes not after death:

Alma 34:34-35
34 Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world.
35 For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked.

Moreover, there are many scriptures that suggest that heart posture is more important than knowledge.
James 2:19
Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
* this entire chapter of James is really good, so you should read it.Matthew 7:21–23
21 ¶ Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
1 Samuel 16:7 – “man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.”
Psalm 34:18
The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.
Isaiah 66:2 – “but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.”
2 Nephi 2:7
Behold, he offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit; and unto none else can the ends of the law be answered.

It’s also worth noting Romans 10:9, which is often quoted out of context to mean that all we need to do is believe to be saved:
9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

However, we get the more complete picture in the next verse:
10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

It says we believe with the heart. When we believe with the heart, that isn’t just an empty knowledge since the heart motivates us to act and change our ways.

Vain Works vs Heart Posture

The opposite problem to believing we are saved by our knowledge is believing that we are saved by our works. I think this is often motivated by religious leaders seeking to guilt trip their congregations into providing more service for their Church; however it also is motivated by pride, or Satan trying to get us to give up on our journey with God.

Logically, this likewise doesn’t make sense. After all, almost of our works ultimately become undone and pointless after the millennium or death. As before, it makes more sense that we are saved by our heart posture, since our heart posture predicts our conduct in the life to come, and is more representative of who we are as a person.

Moreover, there many scriptures that likewise indicate heart posture to be more important than works (Ephesians 2:8-9Titus 3:5Galatians 2:16Isaiah 64:6). This discussion leads to the more popular “faith” vs “works” debate, which I dislike since I believe popular culture has twisted the meaning of the word faith – I think faith is more than just a good feeling, but rather a meaningful change to our heart which leads to changes in lifestyle and actions (discussed more in Aligning our Hearts with God).

So, I encourage the reader to deeply reflect on their thoughts, desires, actions, and heart posture. Unfortunately, I have seen many people fail to do so because they are convinced that they are already good with God due to their works.

Ultimately, there is a temptation to believe on one side that we are saved by possessing the correct knowledge, and on the other side that our works save us. Neither side is true; it is a mockery of our love for God for us not to strive to follow his commandments, but it is also a mockery of his love for us to say that we need to earn his love. God is our parent, not our friend or our boss, and he wants us to come to him by us rooting out the parts of ourselves which don’t align with his will.

Spiritual Vegetables vs Desert

Another way organized religions have gone wrong is by focusing on what I would call “Spiritual Desert”, rather than the essential “Spiritual Vegetables”. Essentially, spiritual vegetables are the things that ensure salvation, while spiritual desert is the cool and desirable parts of religion that are not essential to salvation.

So, in my view, the primary way to gain salvation is by correcting our heart posture, which involves:
love – putting God above self, and loving others like unto yourself; not feeling the need to punish others when they wrong you.
diligence – allowing your love to motivate action and change. Spending time with God through prayer and scripture study.
purity – not committing serious sin. Always being willing to accept correction and avoiding pride.

So, all of these elements I would count as spiritual vegetables (I discuss this more in Aligning our Hearts with God).

Let’s now go through spiritual desert:
– Patting each other on the back for being good Christians who will go to heaven.
– Deep Doctrines / Controversial Ideas / Lore / Eschatology
– Learning the history of the Church
– How the Gospel can help our Career
– Church social events
– Advice on how to be happy
– Relationship advice

While all of these are still good, it is important that they don’t distract us from the core goal of trying to return back to God after death. That is unfortunately what I have seen occur in religions – probably because pastors prioritize “interesting” content over vital content since they seek fame.

Christian Truthers

Similarly, if you’re like me, you might sometimes get caught up in Christian lore — like decoding prophecy or exposing Satan’s works. But Paul warns about this in 2 Timothy 3:7, describing people as “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

When people only seek esoteric knowledge from religion and don’t allow religion to realign their hearts, they become somewhat like a person who regularly watches exercise videos without actually exercising themselves. Ultimately, God shouldn’t be a means to an end (either to attain greater knowledge or to gain safety or success on Earth), rather he should be the end in itself – our highest goal being to return to him.

Pride

I believe the biggest item Christians have been distracted away from is avoiding Pride. Pride leads us to not read the scriptures – since we think we already know everything, and to not pray – since we think we don’t need prayer. As said, these things are necessary because spending time with God allows him to change our character, but pride leads us to think that we are already good and don’t need change or correction from others. Thus, pride can also be a barrier to our removing serious sins (like addictions) from life.

Similarly, humans tend to want to embarrass others when they are annoyed by them, often denying this impulse by claiming they’re “teaching an important lesson.” But as 1 Corinthians 13:1 teaches, words without love have no power to change hearts. Ironically, these people often delusionally claim they are motivated by “love” – trying to “improve” their target – even though their true motivation is to make people who annoy them “know their place”. Ultimately, if you spend most of your time being cruel, but then occasionally mutter euphemisms about how you actually do love those around you and are trying to help them, this will only come across as self-righteous or passive aggressive to others, since actions speak louder than words.

Of course, as Christians, we should be encouraging others to repentance – since we should desire the welfare of everyone’s souls (James 5:19–20, Ezekiel 3:18–19, Ezekiel 33:8–9, Luke 24:46–47, Matthew 28:19–20, Alma 29:9, Mosiah 28:3). However, the utmost care most be taken to make others feel embarrassed, and to vastly outbalance negative words with words of comfort and deeds of service (Galatians 6:1–2, 1 Thessalonians 5:11, 2 Timothy 2:24–26, Moroni 7:45-47, D&C 121:41–43). And we must be very vigilant to never let wrath, pride, or spite creep into our hearts (James 1:19‑20, Ephesians 4:31–32, 1 Peter 2:1–3, Proverbs 16:18, Colossians 3:8, 3 Nephi 12:22). Therefore, we must always be willing to forgive our enemies and not revile against those who revile us (Romans 12:19, D&C 64:10, 1 Peter 3:9, Proverbs 20:22, Matthew 5:44, Matthew 6:14–15, Colossians 3:13, 1 Peter 2:23D&C 19:30D&C 31:9D&C 98:23–24), since we already know that God will right all injustices (Ecclesiastes 12:14, Hebrews 10:30, Psalm 37:28, Mormon 3:15), and instead we should overcome evil with good (Romans 12:14-21).

Mans Authority vs God’s Authority

Another way Church can distract us is by subtly replacing the authority of God in our minds with the authority of religious leaders. As this spirit of bureaucracy and legalism creeps into our hearts, we start to conflate the will of God with the will of spiritual leaders. This leads to strange places, such as thinking that following directives of spiritual leaders is more important than trying to choose the right, or that disobeying Church leaders is like unto disobeying God, or that we earn salvation by following spiritual leaders.

This is a grave mistake and a thought disease in my view. At root of this belief is the idea that leaders will not make mistakes because they are called of God, however many scriptures prove this is false (D&C 3:6–10, D&C 50:4–8, D&C 84:54–57, D&C 112:24–26, Galatians 2:11–14). Ultimately, whenever we are presented with decisions, and have the options between “good”, “better”, and “best”, we should always choose “best” even if spiritual leaders tell us to choose “good” (Good, Better, Best).

I think people want to conflate church leaders with God because they want spiritual affirmation in their decisions. Since God often feels inaccessible, they turn to man. On the other side, I think pride leads spiritual leaders to believe their will exactly aligns with God. Ultimately (if it isn’t obvious), the only keeper of the way to God is Jesus Christ – not any man (2 Nephi 9:41, 1 Corinthians 3:6–7, Acts 14:11-15, Acts 5:29), therefore:

Unfortunately, much of the scolding of the rabbis by Jesus seems like it could easily apply in our day.
Matthew 23:8–12
3 All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.
4 For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.
5 But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments,
6 And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues,
7 And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.
8 But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.
9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.
10 Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ.
11 But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.
12 And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.

I have a more extensive discussion of this in Part 3 – Prophecies within LDS Scripture. I believe many of the prophecies of corruption coming in the last days may also apply to the Mormon church, because I have seen such things with my own eyes as a missionary; here are some examples:

  • Spiritual leaders rebuking me for helping other missionaries without permission.
  • Spiritual leaders rebuking me for daring to ask for permission to leave mission boundaries to teach a family.
  • Leaders removing couches from missionaries homes (during the pandemic when we were forced to stay inside) even though they still had couches in their dwellings (they also removed exercise equipment strangely).
  • Leaders lying about missionaries (including me!) to shift blame or credit according to their agenda.
  • Leaders punishing missionaries for breaking rules that they themselves were not keeping.
  • Disrespectful and dismissive attitudes towards people because they are lower ranked in the hierarchy (as though their authority permits them to put others down).
  • General abuses of power – making rules that don’t even make sense just for the thrill of it (like excessively detailing which scriptures we must study, and which we cannot study) or excessive punishments for very minor things (like missing a phone call).
  • Also, often the leaders were exactly right, and the subordinates were wrong to go against the council of the leadership.

So, what should we conclude from this:

Leaders: don’t be lifted up in pride; avoid hypocrisy, power trips, rudeness, cruelty etc. strive to serve your stewardship, not just in words, but also in deed. Don’t get in weird competitions to be the most righteous, often involving inflicting strange rules on others that make everyone’s lives worse. Avoid excessive rules or requirements for permission.

To those led: Don’t put yourself above others by siding with authority; always strive to do what is right, with or without permission (Luke 9:49–50); you don’t need to obey leaders if you know (for sure) that they are false. But don’t get lifted up in pride accusing everyone of being false that you personally don’t like. And don’t get caried away trying to climb the hierarchy.

This scripture explains the topic better than I can: D&C 121:34-43
34 Behold, there are many called, but few are chosen. And why are they not chosen?
35 Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honors of men, that they do not learn this one lesson—
36 That the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness.
37 That they may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.
38 Behold, ere he is aware, he is left unto himself, to kick against the pricks, to persecute the saints, and to fight against God.
39 We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.
40 Hence many are called, but few are chosen.
41 No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;
42 By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile—
43 Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy;

And lastly, I would like to expose the pernicious idea that people cannot receive revelations unless they are high up in the Church Hiearchy. Firstly, this clearly goes against scriptures (Joel 2:28, Luke 2:36–38, Acts 21:9, 1 Corinthians 12:7-10, 1 Corinthians 14:1, Romans 12:6, Moroni 10:13, D&C 46:22), and secondly it logically doesn’t make sense – after all, it is not up to man to dictate to whom God is allowed or not allowed to grant revelations (I discuss this topic further in Truth in Dreams).

Unfortunately, there is very little we can do to fix the church hierarchies presently; all we can do is wait for the millennium – when the Church hierarchy is perfectly just and virtuous, and injustice is no more.

God is the Answer

My hope is to encourage the reader to put God above everything else – including spiritual leaders. We shouldn’t blindly obey leaders unless we feel their will aligns with God; we should always ask for permission from God before man; we should read the scriptures before listening to sermons; and whenever we have a question or a need, we should always go to God before anybody else. A parable that comes to mind is the story of the 10 virgins. The foolish virgins didn’t go directly to God (represented by the sellers of the oil) to attain oil. Rather they went to man – their fellow virgins – to attain oil. In essence, we shouldn’t let other people mediate between us and God, but should go to God directly, and the role of leaders is to redirect us to God.

Condemnation due to lack of Knowledge / The Trinity

To return to my original claim that heart posture is more important than knowledge, I believe the more extreme form of this is the idea that we are condemned due to having incorrect knowledge. The motivation for preachers teaching this is the same as before: they want to gain popularity with their congregation by telling them they are already good, but also because they want to make cheap attacks against other religions.

The preeminent example of this is the obsession I have seen with the trinity among some Christians. So, I will quickly disprove it:

Moreover, in early Christian history, not believing in the trinity was actually pretty common. In fact, the trinity only became the established doctrine following the Council of Nicaea (325 AD), which was convened by Roman Emperor Constantine I to standardize Christian believes. Ironically, Constantine (who of course was a Christian) did not believe in the trinity.

Another point worth mentioning: yes, there are scriptures that discuss how Jesus is one with the Father. However, the subsequent verses then tell us how Jesus’s disciples can become one with Jesus if they follow his commandments (John 17:20-26John 14:20). Likewise, we also see that the Father is one with the word (scriptures), and his spirit is one with the water and blood (baptism and the atonement) in 1 John 5:7-8. Therefore, being one with God means being aligned with him, not that you are literally the same entity as him.

To be clear, I am not saying Jesus is only like a prophet or something. My view on Jesus exactly aligns with the scriptures: Jesus is the only begotten son of God (John 3:16, Matthew 16:16, 1 John 4:14-15) and Jesus is the creator of the world (Mosiah 3:8, Hebrews 1:2, Moses 1:33). We can only gain salvation through Jesus (2 Nephi 2:6–8, John 14:6, Acts 4:12, 2 Nephi 31:21, Mosiah 3:17, Alma 38:9), because he bore our sins (Alma 11:40, Isaiah 53:4–5, 1 Peter 2:24, 1 Corinthians 15:3, Mosiah 14:4–5, Alma 7:11–13, Jacob 4:11) and overcame death for all (1 Corinthians 15:20–22, Revelation 1:18, 2 Timothy 1:10, Hebrews 2:14, 2 Nephi 9:6–7, Mosiah 16:7–8, Helaman 14:15–17).

Ultimately It Doesn’t Matter

I highly doubt your beliefs on the trinity have any impact whatsoever on your eternal salvation status. After all, belief in the trinity doesn’t really influence your character or heart posture, which, as said, is what I believe determines salvation.

Worshipping things other than God

And a final problem I have seen in organized religions involves the times where they try to get us to worship other things than God.

Catholicism

My understanding of Catholicism (which could be incorrect) is that they sometimes pray to Mary and the saints, asking these figures to intercede for them to God. This is just apostasy – according to the scriptures, we only have one intercessor with God, and that is Jesus Christ, not anybody else (1 Timothy 2:5, John 14:6, 2 Nephi 9:41, 2 Nephi 31:20–21).

But just to make it even more obvious, the apostles in the scriptures even explicitly tell us not to worship themselves, only God (Acts 10:25–26, Acts 14:11–15).

And Beyond

Another strange deception I have seen is the idea that there is a “divine mother” who we could also pray to.

All I can say is, there is no scriptural references to this at all, and so this “divine mother” would most certainly count as an “unknown God”. And many scriptures tell us to not go after unknown Gods (Deuteronomy 13:1–4, Deuteronomy 32:16–17, Jeremiah 19:4–5, Jeremiah 44:3, and many more).

The larger problem with all of this is: there likely is a feminine demonic spirit that has gone across the world deceiving people into thinking it is good. So, if you pray to heavenly mother, you might actually feel like you received a response – but the response is from a demonic entity pretending to be your Mom, nothing more. I suspect there likely are spirits that have similarly gone out pretending to be saints to get Catholics to pray to other entities besides Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, Satan is very clever at distracting us from Jesus, which is why we must always maintain vigilance and pursue attaining the light of Christ.

Light of Christ

In this essay I have tried to delineate some of the biggest problems I have seen in organized religion. However, I’m sure there are many problems beyond this, and that I likely misstated a few things here. Hence, the importance of developing our own spiritual senses that will allow us to determine on our own what is true or not.

Here is a quote from 7 Principals that guide Christian Worldview regarding the light of Christ:

“As we strive to follow Christ, we will receive the Light of Christ. The Light of Christ helps us judge good from evil (Moroni 7:16-19), overcome deception and turn to the truth (Alma 19:6), and reveals all things according to prayer (D&C 84:46).”

This quote from Aligning our Hearts with God provides even greater detail:

“Scripture warns us not to trust what the world embraces (2 Nephi 9:28–29Jeremiah 17:5-6Romans 12:21 John 2:15–17James 4:41 Corinthians 3:19-20). Instead, our morality should come from the light of Christ, which teaches us true right from wrong (Moroni 7:16-19Moroni 10:52 Nephi 32:5). Here are a few attributes that help us to identify the spirit.

However, we must be careful not to confuse the feelings of our own heart with the spirit, given that the heart is deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9Proverbs 28:26Ecclesiastes 9:3Matthew 15:19). For me, discerning the difference can be difficult. However, we are promised that as we strive to follow the directives of the gospel, we will gain greater access to the holy spirit  (Acts 5:32John 14:15-18Mosiah 2:36Helaman 4:24). Another tip in recognizing good from evil is the following principle: Satan teaches us that nothing is wrong (2 Nephi 28:22), other than to accuse others of doing that which is wrong (D&C 29:36Amos 5:10Isaiah 5:20-21Helaman 7:22).”

Thanks for reading all of this! I hope you have a great day!


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