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Frustrated Schadenfreude

Frustrated Schadenfreude

Last updated on: May 25, 2026 at 3:25 pm by Dan Peterson

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Frustrated Schadenfreude 2026-05-25T15:25:02-06:00 Dan Peterson

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The Kansas City Missouri Temple stands not far from where, in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, the Latter-day Saints were met with lethal violence and eventually driven from the state with the official endorsement of Missouri’s governor. (LDS.org)

The seventeenth installment of the Becoming Brigham series runs not quite eighteen minutes. Today, being the Sabbath, would be a perfectly appropriate day on which to watch it: Was Zion’s Camp Formative or a Failure?

Also, the 47-second “teaser” for the eighteenth installment of Becoming Brigham is up on line for your viewing pleasure: Was the persecution in Missouri inevitable?

And did you know that you can subscribe to Becoming Brigham at no charge? Just go to the official Becoming Brigham page and click on the button there that says Abandon hope, all ye who enter here Subscribe on YouTube.

The Star over Bethlehem, from the Christmas 1898 cover of Harper’s Magazine

(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

I was reading in the first chapter of 3 Nephi earlier today, and I was struck by several verses. In the ninety-second year of the reign of the Nephite judges, which was roughly equivalent to AD 1, “behold, the prophecies of the prophets began to be fulfilled more fully; for there began to be greater signs and greater miracles wrought among the people” (3 Nephi 1:4). Curiously, though, against the background of completed prophecies and increased signs and miracles, “there were some who began to say that the time was past for the words to be fulfilled, which were spoken by Samuel, the Lamanite” about the advent of the Savior, Jesus Christ (1:5).

On one level, of course, their skepticism is entirely understandable. In fact, the Second Epistle of Peter predicts that exactly the same kind of doubt will be occur prior to the Lord’s second advent:

[T]here shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. (2 Peter 3:3-4)

It’s unsurprising, therefore, that when the Savior comes again, his arrival will be comparable to that of “a thief in the night” (Revelation 16:15, Matthew 24:43, 1 Thessalonians 5:2, 1 Thessalonians 5:4, and 2 Peter 3:10), when people aren’t expecting it.

But that such skepticism should come, in the New World, precisely at a time when prophecies are being fulfilled and signs and miracles are increasing seems a clear enough illustration of the perversity of human nature. But it gets worse. The next verse shows the unbelievers actually taking delight in what they hope is the sorrow and disappointment of their faithful family, neighbors, and friends:

And they began to rejoice over their brethren, saying: Behold the time is past, and the words of Samuel are not fulfilled; therefore, your joy and your faith concerning this thing hath been vain. (3 Nephi 1:6)

Their exultant disbelief is reminiscent of the earlier story of the anti-theistic polemicist Korihor (from approximately 76-74 BC) that is related at Alma 30. At one point, the high priest of the land of Gideon, named Giddonah, asks Korihor, “Why do ye teach this people that there shall be no Christ, to interrupt their rejoicings?” (Alma 30:22)

I’ve observed this very phenomenon myself, and (I confess) with puzzlement. For a certain type of mindset, presuming human life to be fleeting and transient, bounded with a sleep, and presuming the world to be ultimately meaningless, why should it be so important to, as it were, rain on others’ parades? Why should it be so pressingly urgent to deprive them of their hope for ultimate meaning, the resolution of injustices, the reparation of sorrows and losses and wrongs? If such hopes are mere illusions, what ultimate difference do they make? The universe will grind on, pointlessly, whether human have hope or not, whether they are in miserable despair or not?

Naturally, though, the vocal skepticism of a substantial number in their community has an adverse impact upon the spirits of some of the Nephite believers, who begin to wonder whether their hopes might actually have been misplaced:

And it came to pass that they did make a great uproar throughout the land; and the people who believed began to be very sorrowful, lest by any means those things which had been spoken might not come to pass. But behold, they did watch steadfastly for that day and that night and that day which should be as one day as if there were no night, that they might know that their faith had not been vain. (3 Nephi 1:7)

But the worst is still to come:

Now it came to pass that there was a day set apart by the unbelievers, that all those who believed in those traditions should be put to death except the sign should come to pass, which had been given by Samuel the prophet. 1:9)

I’ve observed this, as well. On occasion, I’ve actually seen unbelievers, but especially former believers, who seem to want to inflict actual pain upon their former brothers and sisters, beyond merely destroying their hopes.

At approximately 82 BC, the leaders of the land of Ammonihah, having just burned many of the believers alive derisively demand of the prophets Alma and Amulek, whom they have forced to watch the carnage and whom they have been tormenting and torturing, “How shall we look when we are damned?” To which an appropriate answer would have been, “You will look very much as you do right now.” (See Alma 14.)

“The Star of Bethlehem”
Frederic Leighton, ca. 1862
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Later in 3 Nephi 1, a spectacular sign of Jesus’ birth in far-away Palestine is given, just prior to the date appointed for a holocaust of the believers, and the unbelievers realize that they had been wrong. But almost immediately “there began to be lyings sent forth among the people, by Satan, to harden their hearts, to the intent that they might not believe in those signs and wonders which they had seen” (3 Nephi 1:22). And within just a few months, the Gadianton Robbers are active in the mountains again and both Lamanite and Nephite dissenters begin to join them (1:27-30), setting up the eventual dissolution of the nations described in the Book of Mormon.

Plainly, humans are prone to disbelief. And, in the worldview of the Nephite prophets, Satan is always there to encourage such disbelief and the hatred and the strife that flow from it

Murchison Falls on the Nile River, in Uganda (Wikimedia Commons public domain)
Uganda offers places of great beauty, but, unfortunately, it’s also been marred by appalling human evils. Happily, though, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is growing rapidly in the country. A temple has been announced for the nation’s capital city, Kampala.

“U.S., Utah leaders respond to civil rights leader Robert Woodson’s death: Robert Woodson was a voice for personal responsibility, community solutions and ‘radical grace’ during decades of civic and political unrest”

This is a sad loss: “A Ugandan Latter-day Saint who had a ‘gift of talking people out of anger’: James Ojera Latigo, a Ugandan leader and peacemaker, dedicated his life to helping people reclaim and protect land after the war”

A Church choir in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Photo taken by Russell Richins as part of the Interpreter Foundation’s ongoing Not by Bread Alone film project)

The Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™ is devoted to chronicling the evils done by theists and theism around the world. Examples are easily to be found here: “Elder Gilbert Speaks of ‘the Majesty of This Moment’ in Africa: Elder Clark G. Gilbert meets with Africa West Area Presidency to discuss Church growth, BYU–Pathway Worldwide and seminary impact”

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