The Mormons are doing it wrong
This is in no way a life post. This is an essay based on a series of thoughts that crossed my head after being approached by a Mormon.
We've all experienced walking down some random street, being stopped, kindly asked your name and then being invited to talk about Jesus Christ by some Mormon. Many people find it annoying and go out of their way to be rude. I don't. I don't particularly hate Mormons - I don't hate any religion - and unless I'm in a terrible rush, it's just polite to give them a couple of minutes of my time, I guess. If I'm in a particular rush, usually it's a "sorry, I'm in a hurry! Bye!" Point is, I actually listen to these people and I've discovered something: they're doing the marketing completely wrong.
Let's take a step back and think about the key characteristics of Mormonism. According to Wikipedia, Mormons have a culture which "includes a health code that eschews alcoholic beverages, tobacco, coffee, and tea. Other distinctive practices include active proselyting, participation in weekly worship services, obedience to a strict law of chastity, and opposition to same-sex marriage." Now, the key thing here is 'active proselyting,' also known as 'actively approaching people and trying to convince them to convert to Mormonism.' More or less though, their goal is to save as many people as possible before Judgement Day by directing them to the 'true Christianity.' As far as I know.
Another key concept I want to introduce is that of marketing. In general, it is a lot better to market certain goods to certain groups of consumers as they're more likely to care about it. When you were little and watched your Saturday morning cartoons, did you see lots of ads for toys? How about when your mum forced you to watch the news with her? What you would have found is that the toy advertisements dominate Saturday morning cartoons and weekday afternoons until around 5pm. Why? Because that's when kids watch TV. You wouldn't see toys being advertised at news time because the majority of viewers would be too old to care about the latest Matchbox. It's a waste of money.
Now, here's where my problem lies. If you want to save as many souls as possible, shouldn't it be more efficient to take these marketing rules and aim for the ones who are most likely to convert first? While I have no intention of assimilating any religion with a cult, take cults for example. The people who are most likely to be influenced by cults are the ones who:
1) Long to be different
2) Are experiencing some form of emotional instability (eg: a loved one just died and you are offered to pray for your souls to exist together in eternity)
While, due to their inherent mainstream qualities, most religions can't support the first group, the second group is ideal. Indeed, I've found that it's during my worst times that I comfort myself with thoughts of God and Jesus Christ; I'm a terrible Christian.
Taking that into account, the best places to proselyte Mormonism would be among the distressed. Think about a chaplain. Someone like that is ideal. Comfort them through their ordeals and remind them that God (and whoever's the head of the Mormon church) is always there to listen to them. Then, let them proselyte among their friends, and create a tree of followers through friends. Of course, that last step is highly theoretical and I've no idea how well it'd work in reality.
That all being said, let's imagine a city centre. For simplicity's sake, let's condense the population of potential listeners to four people: a man, a lady, a boy and myself (a girl). The man is frantically powerwalking, looking at his watch and looks very anxious. He's muttering some things and rarely looks up. There's the lady who's strolling along, carrying her shopping and possibly on the phone to a girlfriend. The boy is walking slowly, obviously sulking about something. And then there's me, who is infectiously happy 80% of the time, to the point where I don't really deserve to be a classification because no one expects to see a 19 year old girl skipping with her head held high through a city centre. Who should you, the Mormon, approach?
The man is an obvious no, because he's late for something and talking to him will irk him. The lady is a maybe, but depending on whether she's on the phone, maybe not. In my opinion, provided you can get the guy talking a bit, he's the ideal target. But I'm not. Sure, if you want to have a little conversation about the weather or something, I'd be a great choice. But if someone is obviously that happy with their life, they either already have a religion to help them or they don't feel that they need it. It's like mixing paints. Imagine you received a tin of white and blue mixed paints (ie a pale blue) and you wanted to make it more blue. You add more and more blue until you get to a point where adding a little more blue makes a slight change, but almost insignificant. I'm like the paint at that stage. Sure there could be benefit for me of converting to Mormonism, but the marginal benefit is minimal.
So at the end of this essay, I'd like to reiterate my point. If the Mormons want to succeed in their duty to convert the world to Mormonism, they need to change their approach to a more efficient one before Judgement Day.
(PS: there were a lot of economics references and allusions in this. Subtle converting attempts to 'economicism?')
We've all experienced walking down some random street, being stopped, kindly asked your name and then being invited to talk about Jesus Christ by some Mormon. Many people find it annoying and go out of their way to be rude. I don't. I don't particularly hate Mormons - I don't hate any religion - and unless I'm in a terrible rush, it's just polite to give them a couple of minutes of my time, I guess. If I'm in a particular rush, usually it's a "sorry, I'm in a hurry! Bye!" Point is, I actually listen to these people and I've discovered something: they're doing the marketing completely wrong.
Let's take a step back and think about the key characteristics of Mormonism. According to Wikipedia, Mormons have a culture which "includes a health code that eschews alcoholic beverages, tobacco, coffee, and tea. Other distinctive practices include active proselyting, participation in weekly worship services, obedience to a strict law of chastity, and opposition to same-sex marriage." Now, the key thing here is 'active proselyting,' also known as 'actively approaching people and trying to convince them to convert to Mormonism.' More or less though, their goal is to save as many people as possible before Judgement Day by directing them to the 'true Christianity.' As far as I know.
Another key concept I want to introduce is that of marketing. In general, it is a lot better to market certain goods to certain groups of consumers as they're more likely to care about it. When you were little and watched your Saturday morning cartoons, did you see lots of ads for toys? How about when your mum forced you to watch the news with her? What you would have found is that the toy advertisements dominate Saturday morning cartoons and weekday afternoons until around 5pm. Why? Because that's when kids watch TV. You wouldn't see toys being advertised at news time because the majority of viewers would be too old to care about the latest Matchbox. It's a waste of money.
Now, here's where my problem lies. If you want to save as many souls as possible, shouldn't it be more efficient to take these marketing rules and aim for the ones who are most likely to convert first? While I have no intention of assimilating any religion with a cult, take cults for example. The people who are most likely to be influenced by cults are the ones who:
1) Long to be different
2) Are experiencing some form of emotional instability (eg: a loved one just died and you are offered to pray for your souls to exist together in eternity)
While, due to their inherent mainstream qualities, most religions can't support the first group, the second group is ideal. Indeed, I've found that it's during my worst times that I comfort myself with thoughts of God and Jesus Christ; I'm a terrible Christian.
Taking that into account, the best places to proselyte Mormonism would be among the distressed. Think about a chaplain. Someone like that is ideal. Comfort them through their ordeals and remind them that God (and whoever's the head of the Mormon church) is always there to listen to them. Then, let them proselyte among their friends, and create a tree of followers through friends. Of course, that last step is highly theoretical and I've no idea how well it'd work in reality.
That all being said, let's imagine a city centre. For simplicity's sake, let's condense the population of potential listeners to four people: a man, a lady, a boy and myself (a girl). The man is frantically powerwalking, looking at his watch and looks very anxious. He's muttering some things and rarely looks up. There's the lady who's strolling along, carrying her shopping and possibly on the phone to a girlfriend. The boy is walking slowly, obviously sulking about something. And then there's me, who is infectiously happy 80% of the time, to the point where I don't really deserve to be a classification because no one expects to see a 19 year old girl skipping with her head held high through a city centre. Who should you, the Mormon, approach?
The man is an obvious no, because he's late for something and talking to him will irk him. The lady is a maybe, but depending on whether she's on the phone, maybe not. In my opinion, provided you can get the guy talking a bit, he's the ideal target. But I'm not. Sure, if you want to have a little conversation about the weather or something, I'd be a great choice. But if someone is obviously that happy with their life, they either already have a religion to help them or they don't feel that they need it. It's like mixing paints. Imagine you received a tin of white and blue mixed paints (ie a pale blue) and you wanted to make it more blue. You add more and more blue until you get to a point where adding a little more blue makes a slight change, but almost insignificant. I'm like the paint at that stage. Sure there could be benefit for me of converting to Mormonism, but the marginal benefit is minimal.
So at the end of this essay, I'd like to reiterate my point. If the Mormons want to succeed in their duty to convert the world to Mormonism, they need to change their approach to a more efficient one before Judgement Day.
(PS: there were a lot of economics references and allusions in this. Subtle converting attempts to 'economicism?')