Mitt Romney, the last of 2 Mormon candidates running for President, spent a couple of his early years as a missionary overseas. While on that mission he was proselytizing and living in a religious environment, during the time that his brain was going through a major change. For we homo-sapiens critical development of the brain is occurring from 18 to 22 years of age, where 30% of the neural connections are made. That sounds like a good environment to send a young person into while they develop their adult brains.
During those critical 18~22 years of age, Mormon kids enjoy safe and tranquil years thinking about peace and religion, while many of us are sending our sons and daughters into war zones to be immersed in fear and hostility. In the war zone our kid’s brains are washed in fear and anger peptides for prolonged periods of time, and as the body rejuvenates the new cells scream for more of the same, fear and violence peptides. Thus, such and environment creates a physical addiction to aggression and may very well permanently damage the neural connections. When our kids come home from the war zones, they bring their war zone brains with, and can disrupt our society with violent behavior and an inability to function normally.
We’ve got to wonder, why do we do this to our children and society? We have to think that the Mormons are smarter than we because they apparently have a higher regard for the well being of their offspring and our society as a whole. This is why I find this part of the Mormon lifestyle superior to non-Mormons. Their kids come home peaceful and well developed, and ours come home with brain damage of varying degree.
I abhor the idea of missionaries invading other cultures, but I think we need to learn the care of our offspring better from what the Mormons do. But do we need to become Mormons, or send our children on Missions to give our youth the same opportunity to develop outside fear and violence? We do not.
What we do need to do is first stand up for our children, when the money hungry in our nation start wars that aren’t necessary. This requires an amount of intellectual honesty, to stand back from the flag-waving fray and ask serious questions as to the validity of the government’s claim that any given war is necessary. The second requirement would be, if we find the war unnecessary, to stand up and declare the government liars and crooks, and to take a public and visible position against that war. The third requirement would be to make sure that our kids are not involved in wars that don’t need to happen.
How many of our children veterans must come home with brain damage of some kind before we begin to do what the Mormons do, and change the way we care for them?
