What has Mormonism contributed to the world?

[_Buffalo]

Catholicism preserved literacy and great literature/philosophy through the Dark Ages, and gave Europe a tiny thread of social cohesion it needed to barely survive intact after the fall of the Roman empire, and through the centuries of plagues and constant warfare that followed. Occasionally it even advocated for the rights of the people in the face of Ducal abuses.

The struggles and ideals of Protestantism arguably were the catalyst that helped bring about the Enlightenment.

What has Mormonism contributed to the world?

[_Darth J]

And the board waited anxiously to see who would be the first person to make the comparison to what viruses contribute to the world........

[_Ceeboo]

Hey Buffalo,

What has Mormonism contributed to the world?

MDDB, MDB, LDS.Net.


Peace,
Ceeboo

[_DarkHelmet]

1) A 1000 year history of ancient America. Before the Book of Mormon was revealed, the Native Americans were a mysterious race of people. We didn't know their history. Now we do.

2) Additional scriptures. The Book of Abraham was discovered and revealed to the world, as were additional revealed scriptures found in the Book of Moses and the D&C, not to mention twice a year we add more revealed scripture. Where would the world be if these new scriptures were never revealed?

3) Polygamy. Polygamy was introduced to the American west by Mormons, and continues today.

4) Blacks receiving the priesthood. You could argue that Mormons created the problem and then solved it later, but still, it's one of their great accomplishments.

5) BYU sports. BYU is one of the few schools in the nation to still field mostly white teams.

[_lostsheep]

[_lostsheep]

[_Buffalo]

Of course, that's not to say that the Catholic church or the protestants are contributing anything now. They're really holding humanity back, at least in the first world.

[_lostsheep]

Of course, that's not to say that the Catholic church or the protestants are contributing anything now. They're really holding humanity back, at least in the first world.

That's what the Communists thought too. Just some reactionary institutions trying to undermine the revolution by advocating an outmoded view of the human person.

And they were right to be concerned:

'Again and again, people told us that it was. John Paul II's 1979 trip was the fulcrum of revolution which led to the collapse of Communism. Timothy Garton Ash put it this way, "Without the Pope, no Solidarity. Without Solidarity, no Gorbachev. Without Gorbachev, no fall of Communism." (In fact, Gorbachev himself gave the Kremlin's long-term enemy this due, "It would have been impossible without the Pope.") It was not just the Pope's hagiographers who told us that his first pilgrimage was the turning point. Skeptics who felt Wojtyla was never a part of the resistance said everything changed as John Paul II brought his message across country to the Poles. And revolutionaries, jealous of their own, also look to the trip as the beginning of the end of Soviet rule.

It took time; it took the Pope's support from Rome--some of it financial; it took several more trips in 1983 and 1987. But the flame was lit. It would smolder and flicker before it burned from one end of Poland to the other. Millions of people spread the revolution, but it began with the Pope's trip home in 1979. As General Jaruzelski said, "That was the detonator."'

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/pope/communism/

[_BartBurk]

Twilight?

Seriously, it did accomplish settling much of the western desert of the U.S. That might have taken a lot longer without Mormonism.

[_Buffalo]

Twilight?

Seriously, it did accomplish settling much of the western desert of the U.S. That might have taken a lot longer without Mormonism.

That sounds plausible. Although I'm sure the various native groups feel it didn't need settling.