Love is a celestial motivator

"Therefore, if you do not remember to be charitable, ye are as dross, which the refiners do cast out, (it being of no worth) and is trodden under foot of man." Alma 34:29

On an online community called Less Wrong, where folks try to improve the way that they think in order to be, well, less wrong, a returned missionary named Calcsam discussed his idea for the "governance structure" of a rationalist community whose members would, on a regular basis and in person rather than over the internet, support each other in all spheres. The entire thing was explicitly modeled after the LDS Church, right down to the manuals.

Less Wrong is a predominantly atheist community, notwithstanding the presence of such members as Calcsam, and one poster responded with something to the effect of "Sure, Mormons would sacrifice all that time and money to this kind of thing because of the perceived rewards and punishments, but atheists never would." I don't think that this is quite true, to begin with. A man named Eliezer Yudkowsky is the most prominent member of the community and himself an atheist. He is also someone that cares an awful lot about everybody, which fact hit me most strongly with a single sentence that Brother Yudkowsky used at the end of one of his blog posts: "I want you to live."

But this is merely the clearest expression of a love for others that I detect in Brother Yudkowsky across the board. He does not want any person to die or suffer, and he is willing to put in significant work to this end. You could argue that it is the purpose of his life's work, in fact. And that love, the potential to have which is part of our divine birthright, is why an atheist could do it. Fear shouldn't be a part of it, nor greed.

But this brings us to, well, us (that is, the LDS). Why do we do these things? I can't say for everyone, only myself, but even if I could there would be little point to doing so. What I want to do is ask. You see, there's no point to doing any of it if you don't do it out of love, and as Latter-day Saints we need to hold ourselves to as high of a standard as anyone else. When the two great commandments are centered on love, how can we think to get into the Celestial Kingdom of God by living for that purpose? That is to say, Jesus Christ lived not for the glory that we give Him but for others, and had He lived for the glory He would not be worthy of it. Similarly, our own motives must be not for reward but out of love, and so I ask you to look inside yourself and determine where you fall, and if necessary get onto the Lord's side of the line.