“I wouldn’t leave the church – Even if it was false. It does too much good!” I heard this from several people during my transition.

Many people in the LDS church do not feel that it is worthwhile to investigate any problems with the church because no matter what they find, the good that the church has done and continues to do for outweighs any negative that they imagine they could discover. I covered this idea in more detail in the Parable of the Counterfeit Coin.

The Church magazines used to regularly publish page sized “memes” giving good values to the readers. One memorable one was that of a delicious looking Ice Cream Sundae that happens to have a big ugly roach right in the middle of it.

“It’s Great!” the heading reads, then continues “Except for the bad parts…” The poster is intended to warn church members against things which seem appealing but have horrible things accompanying it.

Anyone who investigates the history and doctrine of the church cannot avoid seeing how this message, applied to the church, should warn everyone away from it. So I made a version of the poster which is more pointed and targeted for the Church.

Chiasmus

As a treat, I incorporated multiple examples of chiasmus into the meme. (You may remember that apologists and General Authorities of the LDS church consider the presence of chiamus in the Book of Mormon is proof of it’s authenticity)

Chiasmus is defined as:

“a verbal pattern (a type of antithesis) in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first with the parts reversed” Link

There are at least 2 types of chiasmus in the meme. The first is the list of bad parts. If you start at the beginning and the end and work inwardly, each pair of issues is related to each other in some way. They start and end with the overwhelming point – pride and it’s effect (judgement) and the whole list turns on greed which is at the center.

Here is an explanation of how the elements fit together:

• Pride & Judgmental – Pride is at the root of LDS theology. The idea that men can be elevated to the level of God. It is the central goal or mormonism – to become a god. In that pursuit, a works based theology creates a system where men swelled up in the pride of how righteous theyare start to pass judgement on those who do not have the appearance of success that they do. Furthermore, the concept of a pre-existence where there are some intelligences which are more valiant or intelligent than others sets up a culture where people’s birth station and wealth are translated to be a reflection of their righteousness in the pre-earth life.
• Racism & Blacks-Priesthood – Self explanatory. see this page for more.
• Blood Atonement & Justified Murder – The doctrine of blood atonement is that Christ’s sacrifice was not enough to cover all sin and that there are some sins that one must shed their own blood for. Brigham Young was referring to this in his famous quote as well as many other times. This was a form of justification of murder, but it is not the only one that mormon’s endorse. The story of Nephi murdering laban to get the brass plates is another example.
• Misogyny & Patriarchy – Patriarchy is the concept that men have authority and priority over women based solely on their penis. It is the ultimate form of misogyny. The inability of Women to hold the priesthood or offices of authority in the church reflect this. The temple ceremony wherein the man covenants to obey God and the woman covenants to obey her husband is a perfectly distilled vignette of this.
• Polygamy & Polyandry – One is a superset of the other. Joseph Smith did both.
• Lying 4 Lord & Mantle>>Intellect – “The Mantel is far far greater than the intellect” is a classic talk given by Boyd K Packer criticizing historians for sticking to the truth. The preferred position of the church is to exclude, distort or misrepresent challenging issues for the church in order to promote the Lords work – hence lying for the Lord.
• Homophobia & Hypocrisy – Gay Presiding Patriarch. First being Gay is not a natural phenomena and all sorts of guilt, shame, electroshock therapy and family abandonment are condoned – Then it is suddenly not a choice.
• Secret Finances & City Creek Mall – the church assures us that it did not using tithing money to build the mall that is a temple to materialism and consumerism – but since they keep all their finances secret – we will never know. Not that it matters anyway whether tithing itself or the interest off of tithing was used.
• MMM (Mormon Mountain Meadows Massacre) & Courts of Love – Two forms of church instituted justice.
• D&C 132 & D&C 111 – Two revelations in LDS scriptures that reveal the true motives of Joseph Smith – Sex, Power and Money.
• KJV Plagiarism & Masonic rituals – two instances of copying things from pre-existing sources and claiming them as revelation.
• Egyptian Papyri & Kinderhook – two instances where the fraud of Joseph Smith’s claims to be a seer and translator have been exposed.
• Greed – this is at the center of it all. Greed for power, money and sex.

The second chiasmus is the phrase:

“What is good in the church is not unique. What is unique in the church is not good.”

Also you could say there is a third, conceptual chiasmus here where you take a Mormonad that takes the point from the church to the people about the media being bad and uses the media to make a point to the people about