another installment in america's mad state of rebellion: korihor revisited

“…The heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live…”
(Ecclesiastes 9.3)
 
Wherewith shall I come before the LORD,
and bow myself before the high God?
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good;
and what doth the LORD require of thee,
but to do justly, and to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with thy God?
(Micah 6.6, 8)
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another installment in america's mad state of rebellion:
korihor revisited

“When I look at the States today, versus its peers in the rich world, an observation leaps out at me. America’s built a society on a kind of furious, single-minded dedication to one idea: Social Darwinism, or the survival of the ‘fittest.’
 
“Let’s begin with the obvious. Its economy is modern history’s greatest machine for survival of the ‘fittest.’ The ‘winners’ deserve extreme fame, fortune, and power — like the billionaires who gained $3.9 trillion during the pandemic while workers lost $3.7 trillion— but the losers don’t even deserve to live. Can’t afford insulin? That’s your fault. You don’t deserve to be alive. Immunocompromised? Not my problem if you get Covid and die because I refuse to wear a mask” (“How Social Darwinism Destroyed America From the Inside,” Umair Haque, Medium).
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Undoubtedly, there are any number of other explanations for the moral bankruptcy of America’s present economic attitudes, policies, and activities. Ditto for the pathetic and sociopathic response of tens of millions of Americans to COVID 19, 20, 21, and now 22—a pathology that has led to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths. On the day of judgement, we will all see the phlegm, and spittle and blood that defiles the filthy garments and unrepentant souls of those guilty of both sins.
                                                               
As one explanation, selfishness, is the first to come to mind. But such behaviors as those mentioned above, along with whatever vile character traits that produce them in the first place, require justification on the part of the participants. They require a doctrine. Mr. Haque’s identification of “Social Darwinism” with its accompanying “survival of the fittest” is as good a suggested doctrine as any. Perhaps he has been reading the Book of Mormon. Before turning to that great Book, though, I would like to share a couple of thoughts.
 
First, “the survival of the fittest” is a phenomenon of the natural world. It is a phenomenon that acts upon all earth life. But men were created to act rather than to be acted upon. Therefore, “social Darwinism” is a choice. The adoption, justification, and perpetuation of the unholy doctrine that only the “fittest” deserve to succeed and survive while “the least fit” deserve to suffer, fail, and, finally, die are choices.
Secondly, while Darwin gets the credit for identifying a force that is so clearly at work in the natural world, he wasn’t the first. While most members of homo-sapiens, if not all, unconsciously acted upon the doctrine for millions of years in their social relationships with others, one man who lived over two thousand years before Darwin articulated it and commended it as a “righteous” doctrine by which humankind should consciously live. His name is well known in Mormondom: Korihor. This brings us to the Book of Mormon and one of Korihor’s many “innovative” doctrines.
 
“Every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength; and whatsoever a man did was no crime.”
 
Tell me how this is not an articulation of “social Darwinism” and “survival of the fittest.” Fortunately, with this doctrine of Korihor, we are permitted to see its inspiration. It is obvious that this doctinre was intended as direct opposition and challenge to the doctrine of atonement. This doctrine advocated for an interconnected existence in which all acknowledged their inability to individually and adequately “manage” their lives in an enduring way and, at the same time, acknowledged a dependance upon others, not least of which was a dependance upon God. Only by acknowledging and living according to this doctrine of atonement and connectedness is it possible to live a meaningful, happy, and enduring life.
 
So, the Book of Mormon reader has been warned. “Social Darwinism” is anti-Christ. Acceptance of it and living based upon it is a rejection of Christ. It is a rejection of the kind of enduring life that he offers through the doctrine that he lives and teaches: the doctrine of atonement. No reader of the Book of Mormon can act upon the principles of “social Darwinism.” Every reader of the Book of Mormon knows and acts upon the truth that in God’s economy both the “fit” (if such actually exists) and the “unfit” can live a happy, successful, and enduring life through their connectedness with Christ—the only truly fit man to ever walk planet earth. Happy is he or she who find their “fitness” in him.