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I\u2019m late in calling attention to this brief article, which went up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation on Friday, 5 May 2023:\u00a0 \u201cInterpreting\u00a0Interpreter<\/em>: A Dark Mark,\u201d<\/a> written by Kyler Rasmussen<\/a>.<\/p>\n This post is a summary of the article \u201cUnderstanding the Lamanite Mark<\/a>\u201d by Clifford P. Jones in Volume 56 of\u00a0Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship<\/em>. An introduction to the Interpreting\u00a0Interpreter<\/em>\u00a0series is available at\u00a0https:\/\/interpreterfoundation.org\/interpreting-interpreter-on-abstracting-thought\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Takeaway:<\/strong> Jones argues that descriptions of the Lamanites\u2019 dark skin may be best explained as sacrilegious tattoos prohibited by the Law of Moses, potentially aligning with a common Mesoamerican practice and with how the wording used in the Book of Mormon would have been understood anciently.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Some time ago, my friend Tom Pittman passed on a link to me \u2014 to an article in MarketWatch<\/em> entitled \u201cRise in middle-aged white \u2018deaths of despair\u2019 may be fueled by loss of religion, new research paper argues\u201d<\/a> \u2014\u00a0that I have been delinquent in sharing.\u00a0 Very plainly, it comes from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial \u201cHow Religion Poisons Everything\u201d File<\/em>\u2122:<\/p>\n It appears that so-called \u201cdeaths of despair\u201d \u2014 such as those from suicide or alcohol abuse \u2014 have been skyrocketing for middle-aged white Americans.\u00a0 This spectacular increase has been blamed on various factors, including opioid abuse.\u00a0 But a still relatively new research paper identifies a different potential cause \u2014 the concurrent decline in religious practice.\u00a0 The paper in question \u2014 \u201cOpiates of the Masses? Deaths of Despair and the Decline of American Religion\u201d \u2014 was written by Tyler Giles of Wellesley College, Daniel Hungerman of the University of Notre Dame, and Tamar Oostrom of The Ohio State University, and is available on a website of the National Bureau of Economic Research<\/a>.<\/p>\n Giles, Hungerman, and Oostrom look at the relationship between religiosity, on the one hand, and mortality from deaths of despair on the other.<\/p>\n They note that many measures of religious adherence began to decline in the late 1980s \u2014 and that that large decline in religious practice happens to have been driven by the very same group that is experiencing the subsequent increases in mortality: white middle-aged Americans without a college degree.\u00a0 Moreover, states that experienced larger declines in religious participation over the last fifteen years of the twentieth century also saw larger increases in deaths of despair.<\/p>\n Against attempts to blame the epidemic of opioid abuse as the principal driver of the increase in middle-aged white mortality, they observe that OxyContin was first introduced as a prescription drug only in 1996, by which time deaths of despair for middle-aged white Americans were already well above what statistical trends would have suggested.<\/p>\n How did the authors measure religious participation?\u00a0 They looked, in particular, at the repeal of \u201cblue laws.\u201d\u00a0 What are \u201cblue laws\u201d?\u00a0 They are laws that limit commerce, typically on Sunday mornings. \u201cThese laws,\u201d the authors report, \u201chave been shown to be strongly related to religious practice, creating discrete changes in incentives to attend religious services that are plausibly unrelated to other drivers of religiosity.\u201d<\/p>\n According to their data, the repeal of blue laws had a five- to ten-percentage-point impact on weekly attendance of religious services, and they argue that this seems to have increased the rate of deaths of despair by two deaths per 100,000 people \u2014 thus accounting for a \u201creasonably large share of the initial rise in the deaths of despair.\u201d<\/p>\n The impact on the middle-aged white male mortality rate seems to be driven by actual formal religious participation, rather than only by belief or by personal activities like prayer. \u201cThese results underscore the importance of cultural institutions such as religious establishments in promoting well-being,\u201d say Giles, Hungerman, and Oostrom.<\/p>\n They add, further, that they are aware of no other cultural phenomenon that matches the mortality patterns, which are seen primarily for middle-aged, less-educated white individuals but also appear (admittedly with reduced clarity) in the data\u00a0 women in both rural and urban settings, but not in other countries.<\/p>\n \u201cThe decline in religiosity matches mortality trends in all these characteristics,\u201d they maintain.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Dr. Lynn Johnson has also kindly shared materials with me from the apparently inexhaustible Hitchens File<\/em>\u2122 on the correlation between religion and health, and I\u2019ve fallen behind on noting these.\u00a0 Here\u2019s one of them:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cFor Boosting Self-Control, the Research Is Clear: Nothing Beats Religious Belief: Fascinating though seldom-drawn-upon research from the field of psychology has demonstrated the unique power of religious belief in fostering self-control\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n The full academic article on which the shorter piece is based is \u201cReligion Replenishes Self-Control,\u201d Psychological Science<\/em> 23\/6 (May 2012): 635-642<\/a>, written by\u00a0Kevin Rounding, of Defense Research and Development Canada; Albert Lee, of Nanyang Technological University; and Jill A. Jacobson and Li-Jun Ji , of Queen\u2019s University.<\/p>\n Framed, conceptually speaking, in terms of evolutionary psychology and on the basis of no discernible religious commitments, the study\u2019s findings (in the authors\u2019 own words) \u201coffer strong and direct evidence for the replenishing effect of religious concepts on self-control.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cReligious beliefs refuel self-control resources,\u201d they write, and \u201cmay provide important psychological \u2018nutrients\u2019 necessary for a variety of socially beneficial behaviors.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was religious terms alone that did the heavy lifting,\u201d says the brief summary article, and the results were \u201cstriking.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just that religious concepts had some kind of effect, perhaps tenuous or minor. It was a sizable effect\u2014huge, even.\u201d<\/p>\n In the first experiment, which involved subjects\u2019 ability to exercise willpower (in this case, by \u201cenduring discomfort\u201d in the form of drinking an intentionally repulsive vinegar-and-orange-juice concoction of the researchers\u2019 own making!), those who were \u201cprimed\u201d with religious concepts did 91 percent better than those in the control group. (To clarify, \u201cpriming\u201d means surreptitious exposure to certain words\u2014like \u201cGod\u201d or \u201cthe divine\u201d)<\/p>\n That\u2019s almost double the strength of will, from just a moment\u2019s exposure to a sacred term or concept.<\/p>\n The subsequent experiments similarly bore out the positive power of religious terms, such as when measuring subjects\u2019 ability to delay gratification (another form of self-control) and work away at an impossible puzzle after having first been, by design, mentally \u201cdepleted.\u201d<\/p>\n In these two experiments, those being exposed to religious terms did 76 percent and 70 percent better, respectively.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And here\u2019s a really<\/em> surprising result:<\/p>\n [P]erhaps most incredibly, . . . the participants represented a wide swath of beliefs and religious backgrounds\u2014ranging from Catholics and Protestants to Buddhists, Muslims, and atheists as well as agnostics. The latter two, in fact, made up 34 percent of participants in each of the [four] experiments.<\/p>\n In other words, the observed effects weren\u2019t just a reflection of participants\u2019 firm religious beliefs or prior commitments.<\/p>\n Just the opposite, in fact, \u201cthe pattern of results did not vary with religious affiliation in any of the studies,\u201d the researchers observed. \u201cMoreover, results for religious and nonreligious participants showed the same pattern.\u201d<\/p>\n To put that in other terms, even a self-avowed atheist would experience a near doubling of fortitude or self-control just by being unknowingly exposed to a term like \u201cspirit\u201d or \u201cGod.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Moreover, in view of this appalling additional<\/em> item from the Hitchens File<\/em>\u2122, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> has a very great deal to answer for:\u00a0 \u201cWhy Latter-day Saints and mainline Protestants have the highest social capital rates: A new AEI report explores how Latter-day Saint doctrine and Protestant cultural relevancy matter\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n But even that<\/em> horror by no means exhausts the ongoing tale of crime and depravity that is chronicled in the Hitchens File<\/em>\u2122.\u00a0 Consider, for instance, this<\/em> collection of infamies:\u00a0 \u201cRelief Society in Action: May 2023:\u00a0\u00a0Members celebrate Relief Society\u2019s anniversary and International Women\u2019s Day\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Finally, something that comes from at least the vicinity<\/em> of the Hitchens File<\/em>\u2122:\u00a0 My friend Bahman Baktiari<\/a> published an interesting piece in today\u2019s edition of the Deseret News<\/em>.\u00a0 A central figure in it is Dr. John A. Widtsoe<\/a>, who eventually served as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1921 until his death in 1952:\u00a0 \u201cOpinion: Despite political tensions, Iran\u2019s bond to Utah goes back over a hundred years: It all started at a Utah State University graduation ceremony\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \u00a0 I\u2019m late in calling attention to this brief article, which went up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation on Friday, 5 May 2023:\u00a0 \u201cInterpreting\u00a0Interpreter: A Dark Mark,\u201d written by Kyler Rasmussen. This post is a summary of the article \u201cUnderstanding the Lamanite Mark\u201d by Clifford P. Jones in Volume 56 of\u00a0Interpreter: A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":39983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1104,2412,10027,6240,31924,743],"class_list":["post-99849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-death","tag-health","tag-mental","tag-mortality","tag-rate","tag-religion"],"yoast_head":"\n