Mitt Romney's Religion Speech

[brianeyci]

Sure Mormons are Christian, they say they are Christian and it is good enough for me. The Mormons who converted my brother, and whom my brother dumped a month later, sure didn't mention the perpetual pregnant, denied that polygamy exists unless God tells you to have more than one wife, and presents themselves as Christians. This is in Canada, but the missionaries are definitely Mormon from Utah and my brother even got a letter from the head honcho Mormon himself.

Mormons have tried to moderate themselves to attract new viewers. For example, on Mike's creationism pages, there's a reference to Mormons being racist or some such, pointing to their homepage as proof. I looked for that a few months ago, and the homepage is completely changed. They code their webpage so bots from the wayback machine can't go back to their old site and archive it. The Mormons revise their holy book every now and then to take out politically incorrect wordings, like the stuff about black men. You can go around looking for different versions of the Mormon book, and see subtle but clear differences pointing to the masters of the church trying to make themselves more acceptable.

I believe there is also a Mormon training camp for missionaries. There are several canned responses to certain kind of questions.

1. "Need help, give money please!"

Answer: "Church is not a charity." Even though they present their church as going around helping people .

2. "I'd like to quit the church."

Answer: "You have to talk to the bishop, he's the one who has the records on file and you MUST get them back from him." They make you sign something, and try and make you think it's a legal document.

3. "The Bible said.."

Answer: "The Bible has inconsistencies, the Book of Mormon is perfect."

4. "Doctors, scientists say..."

Answer: "It doesn't matter what they say because this or that guy in our church says this or that..."

There are also certain tactics they use to sex people over, and keep doubters away and keep their missionaries on the right path. Missionaries are generally people 20ish - 25ish, young people, my age. If a missionary has too many doubts, too many questions, they can be transferred to another church. Entire churches are physically moved from one building to another, so they can bond as a community. I suspect this is so the person has no friends except in the church, so if he ever considers quitting the church he will be alone and desperate.

There is also a creepy title of "investigator." I didn't figure out what the fuck an "investigator" was, but I imagine it's like Scientology, to dig dirt up on people to use it on them.

[SpacedTeddyBear]

"I have visited many of the magnificent cathedrals in Europe. They are so inspired ... so grand ... so empty," he said. "So many of the cathedrals now stand as the postcard backdrop to societies just too busy or too 'enlightened' to venture inside and kneel in prayer."

I have to call complete and total bullshit on this one, well in the case of Italy anyways cause that's the only European country I've been to ( that'll change this summer if the value of the dollar doesn't slip anymore). Not only is there a church in the center of almost every single city and village, but there are at least a dozen small cathedrals within a kilometer radius of the main one in some of the larger cities. These so called small cathedrals aren't exacty prayer shacks as well; they rival in size to the largest cathedral in my home city. From what I can tell, there were at least a dozen or so locals in those churches at any given time.

I think you may have misunderstood. His point was that the many churches and cathedrals in Europe are empty of people, not that there are so few buildings. Of course, many of us here may not see this as a bad thing, but to religionists like Romney, this is a Bad Thing.

Oh no, I meant to suggest that because of the large number of churches within a given area, it would appear that not many people go to church during the regular workday. And it would be difficult for a tourist to gauge how often the common man there would go to pray at any particular church. But there were at least a dozen locals inside at any given time whenever I walk into one, and I walked into a lot of them. Not to pray or course, I liked the architecture and the sculptures. There was one particular one in Rome where apparently they had ran out of money to build a dome, so they hired someone to paint the roof so that it looked like it had a dome on the inside. I would've taken a picture, but it was a Sunday........

"We cherish these sacred rights, and secure them in our Constitutional order. Foremost do we protect religious liberty, not as a matter of policy but as a matter of right. There will be no established church, and we are guaranteed the free exercise of our religion. "

And he's pandering this to people who want to have Christianity be this nation's established religion.

The establishment of state religions in Europe did no favor to Europe's churches. And though you will find many people of strong faith there, the churches themselves seem to be withering away.

Some of those churches are hundreds of years old, some of which are in a constant state of restoration. So of course they're gonna look withered you dumb shit. Unless by withered, he means people don't go, then in that case, read earlier post.

America took nothing from that century's terrible wars — no land from Germany or Japan or Korea, no treasure, no oath of fealty. America's resolve in the defense of liberty has been tested time and again. It has not been found wanting, nor must it ever be. America must never falter in holding high the banner of freedom.

Only because we took all we could in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries.

[Guardsman Bass]

*snip*

One of the things the Mormon Church has gotten good at as they attempted to move heavily into the mainstream is running their missionary program like they would run a good marketing and sales program. Depending on how you look at it, it's either a more effective means to conversion or a de-humanization of the converts into names on a list through a five-step conversion process (the five or six discussions). Without getting into too much of a derailing or the like, I'm inclined to believe the latter, particularly since going out the other way - getting your name off the list- is a very annoying process (the Church actually got sued over it a while back), so many people who either don't care or don't believe anymore in it (like me) just go inactive, leaving our names on the membership list (which doesn't differentiate between active members and inactive members).

As for the title of "investigator", it's actually a term the missionaries use to refer to people who answer the door or phone from them, who show interest in investigating the church and meeting with the missionaries.

[Gerald Tarrant]

I'm not trying to defend anything, I'm just going to try and give a perspective of a no longer active member.

Also I'm just sticking this in because I don't want to go back and change it. The official name of the Mormons is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and although the leadership doesn't like it, it's usually just abbreviated LDS, I use LDS and Mormon interchangeably. Also when I use The Church (or uncapitalized versions of the same) please understand I'm referring to the LDS church.

Sure Mormons are Christian, they say they are Christian and it is good enough for me. The Mormons who converted my brother, and whom my brother dumped a month later, sure didn't mention the perpetual pregnant, denied that polygamy exists unless God tells you to have more than one wife, and presents themselves as Christians. This is in Canada, but the missionaries are definitely Mormon from Utah and my brother even got a letter from the head honcho Mormon himself.

Mormons have tried to moderate themselves to attract new viewers. For example, on Mike's creationism pages, there's a reference to Mormons being racist or some such, pointing to their homepage as proof. I looked for that a few months ago, and the homepage is completely changed. They code their webpage so bots from the wayback machine can't go back to their old site and archive it. The Mormons revise their holy book every now and then to take out politically incorrect wordings, like the stuff about black men. You can go around looking for different versions of the Mormon book, and see subtle but clear differences pointing to the masters of the church trying to make themselves more acceptable.

I believe there is also a Mormon training camp for missionaries. There are several canned responses to certain kind of questions.

Yeah it's called the Missionary Training Center. Many Missionaries go to non-English speaking areas, and that's one of the big things that goes on in the MTC is learning foreign languages. But the missionaries that will go to English speaking missions pretty much spend their time doing spiritual preparation.

1. "Need help, give money please!"

Answer: "Church is not a charity." Even though they present their church as going around helping people .

There are actually charitable programs that the church administers.

The principal one is what's known as fast offerings. Faithful members are encouraged to go without food and water for 3 meals (although the length and seriousness of The Fast vary person to person, I usually chewed gum so I didn't feel hungry) once a month. Then the money that they would have spent on the meals they skipped is donated to the church as "fast offerings". These are the principle charitable funds that the Church uses. Some of them are sent around as outright donations. But I believe the bulk of the funds get distributed to local congregations where the local leadership decides how and when to disburse them, I never participated in those but they're run by the head of the congregation (Bishop) and called Welfare Councils.

There are other church charitable institutions, Deseret Industries is one They refurbish donated items and resell them, while employing people who might not otherwise find employment. There are also special funds that are set up every now and then, the church occasionally runs employment and training centers in various parts of the world.

I'm not listing the tithe that members pay as charitable, because it's used primarily in running the Church including building maintenance and such.

2. "I'd like to quit the church."

Answer: "You have to talk to the bishop, he's the one who has the records on file and you MUST get them back from him." They make you sign something, and try and make you think it's a legal document.

One of the things that's kind of odd about the LDS Church is how organized it is. There are manuals that give instruction on how most of the offices in a local branch should be run. Directives on how meetings should be conducted come out every now and then. Despite the fact that it's a lay clergy the LDS church probably has more internal structure than any other church, mostly due to the Priesthood organization that almost all male members are part of (exclusion based on age and worthiness).

It's odd to find bureaucracy in religion, but when I was a member I'd occasionally find myself doing one or two hours of planning meetings a week, outside of normal church attendance. Your above complaint is a symptom of the churches tendency/mania for organization. Every member is actually recorded somewhere on the records of the church. And with any such organization you get red-tape. Although in this case it's religious Red-Tape.

3. "The Bible said.."

Answer: "The Bible has inconsistencies, the Book of Mormon is perfect."

Yeah, that's pretty much the doctrinaire answer. The actual answer is this

We believe the Bible to be the Word of God as far as it is translated correctly. We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the Word of God.

There are an official 13 articles of faith that most young LDS folks memorize, which is where the above came from. The actual position is that due to historical loss and "political stuff" (various councils and diets by the early church that decided on doctrine), The Bible is actually not in it's original inspired form. Instead correct doctrine has been removed, and incorrect doctrine inserted. That's the church line. You'll notice in the above, there are no caveats about the Book of Mormon. While instead there are reservations about the correctness of the Bible.

Additionally Mormons have 3 more pieces of religious texts. The Doctrine and Covenants are a collection of specific commandments, included in there is one called the Word of Wisdom, which includes injunctions against Coffee, Alcohol, Tea, and Tobacco, and a recommendation about meat (the latter was debated very feverishly every time it came up in Sunday School when I attended ).

Another piece of Mormon specific religious texts is the Joseph Smith Translation. Since the Bible is (in Mormon Theology) thought to be mis-translated Joseph Smith went back and did a retranslation of parts of it. Most of the changes are minor, and included in the footnotes of the King James Bible.

The last one is the Pearl of Great Price. It's the story of what Abraham does between not getting sacrificed to his Father's pagan gods, and him not sacrificing his son. I can't remember the origin of that, but I believe the story is that Joseph Smith was sold an authentic ancient scroll and translated it, resulting this part of Mormon scripture.

4. "Doctors, scientists say..."

Answer: "It doesn't matter what they say because this or that guy in our church says this or that..."

A couple of things about this. First there's an requirement in one of the LDS religious texts that members learn about ...stuff.

78 Teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend you, that you may be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient for you to understand;
79 Of things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth; things which have been, things which are, things which must shortly come to pass; things which are at home, things which are abroad; the wars and the perplexities of the nations, and the judgments which are on the land; and a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms—

When I was more religiously inclined I always interpreted that as a commandment to learn, among other things, how the world works: including actual knowledge of biology, physics, geology etc. The current head of the church has also continually counseled members to get as much of an education as they can.

One of the funny things that happened when I attended BYU for a year was a BIO class where the teacher asked us to explain how the world could have been repopulated with current biodiversity from the animals that could have been kept on Noah's Ark. The only zeros that were given for the paper went to people that claimed it could have happened. I won't claim that the LDS church doesn't have its share of uneducated ignoramii. but I had little experience with them, and more experience with the church wide educational push.

The second thing which will probably weird you out, is church levels of Canon. The LDS church has something like "Papal Infallibility" in regards to religious statements made by the current Prophet. The paraphrase I remember is that "God will not allow his members to be lead astray by their prophet". It's always in my hearing been interpreted to mean that the Prophet is always correct in matters of doctrine.

I believe at one point the above caused The Church to have an official position on Evolution. I think that's no longer a church wide policy.

There are also certain tactics they use to sex people over, and keep doubters away and keep their missionaries on the right path. Missionaries are generally people 20ish - 25ish, young people, my age. If a missionary has too many doubts, too many questions, they can be transferred to another church.

Well missionaries can actually be sent home too, if they're not sure that they are on the right path. There's a lot of pressure against this sort of thing, but it does happen.

Entire churches are physically moved from one building to another, so they can bond as a community. I suspect this is so the person has no friends except in the church, so if he ever considers quitting the church he will be alone and desperate.

I'd never viewed it as that sinister. But yes, the Mormon church does tend to be kind of clique-ish. Because the church can provide all the social interaction you need, it's easy to just socialize within your ward (local congregation). It's kind of eerie how much influence church membership has on social lives in Utah. Some of my room-mates from USU were very possessive about the few friends they made, because the LDS monoculture didn't really promote connections outside The Faith.

There is also a creepy title of "investigator." I didn't figure out what the fuck an "investigator" was, but I imagine it's like Scientology, to dig dirt up on people to use it on them.

Sorry you're amusingly wrong about this. Investigator is the term for some one who's interested in Mormonism. Mormon Lingo and culture in the US has been standardized mostly by BYU, and also by the semi-annual Conferences. Investigator is a church wide term for someone who's being actively proselytized.


Oh and I apparently took so long formulating my reply that other people beat me to the punch on some points. Oh well, sorry for the repeat info.

[Darth Wong]

It's odd to find bureaucracy in religion ...

You're kidding, right?

[Gerald Tarrant]

It's odd to find bureaucracy in religion ...

You're kidding, right?

Well my non-Mormon friends always reported that things were much less structured for them. The fact that all the congregations in the LDS church are connected to each other means that Mormon's do it to a whole different level. There's an official member record transfer form. And they officially transfer the records to your local Bishop. There are official forms for most things that get done. My non-LDS friends said all they had to do to get a new congregation was prove that they'd had a Christian Baptism.

Things may be more organized if you're Episcopalian or Anglican communion or Catholic. But further evidence of the bureaucracy is that donations must be accompanied by an official donation form, every time I watch Catholic churches portrayed in movies they just stick the money in the collection plate =P. I don't have much experience with the larger Christian churches, so my understanding about the way things are done is colored by the fact that I'm only familiar with the smaller churches where all they really cared about is that you were baptized.

Oh and one little side note about Mormons=Christians.

The baptism conferred by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints cannot be considered a valid Christian baptism, said the Vatican's doctrinal congregation.

The ruling by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was published in the July 16-17 edition of the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, after being approved by Pope John Paul II.

While the Mormon baptismal rite refers to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Mormon beliefs about the identity of the three persons is so different from Catholic and mainline Christian belief that "one cannot even consider this doctrine to be a heresy arising from a false understanding of Christian doctrine," said a Vatican explanation of the ruling.

Link

[Guardsman Bass]

That's interesting that the Vatican would officially issue a statement like - although the LDS Church has considerable financial resources for its size, it still isn't that large of a religion, amounting to only about, what, 13 million total, if that? I'd wager the Catholic Church produces more than that amount each year in newborn children christened into Catholic families.

[Gerald Tarrant]

That's interesting that the Vatican would officially issue a statement like - although the LDS Church has considerable financial resources for its size, it still isn't that large of a religion, amounting to only about, what, 13 million total, if that? I'd wager the Catholic Church produces more than that amount each year in newborn children christened into Catholic families.

I didn't quote the entire article (sorry I didn't really think it was topical). Cardinal Ratzinger (now pope Benedict XVI) was the head of the committee which made the ruling. The little I heard about Catholic politics was that he was a Hard Liner/Conservative. This ruling is more consistent with a rigorous interpretation of their doctrine. And 13 million is nothing to sneeze at. Catholics might get quite a few converts from that pool, so an official decision on how to treat them was probably overdue.

It's odd to find bureaucracy in religion ...

You're kidding, right?

And I guess I was wrong in the above bit of conversation with Darth Wong, Catholics do bureaucracy too. I was just too uninformed, or had too little experience with many other faiths to know that.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The Catholic Church is more or less the world's longest continuously functioning bureaucracy. It shows.

[brianeyci]

I'm not trying to defend anything, I'm just going to try and give a perspective of a no longer active member.

Also I'm just sticking this in because I don't want to go back and change it. The official name of the Mormons is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and although the leadership doesn't like it, it's usually just abbreviated LDS, I use LDS and Mormon interchangeably. Also when I use The Church (or uncapitalized versions of the same) please understand I'm referring to the LDS church.

Yes, that's what they called it, LDS. I wish I had said LSD over and over to get a rise out of him.

Yeah it's called the Missionary Training Center. Many Missionaries go to non-English speaking areas, and that's one of the big things that goes on in the MTC is learning foreign languages. But the missionaries that will go to English speaking missions pretty much spend their time doing spiritual preparation.

Mindfucking Truthkilling Crock is more like it.

This is what I imagined a missionary doing: individually, one by one converting a guy over a period of two years. Not some six-day program. If I was, and I am not, but if I was searching for a faith, it seems rather stupid to try and gain the trust of a man in six days or a few months. They have it entirely wrong. I can understand a place to teach languages, but some formal training program is bullshit. Faith isn't something you can bottle up and dispense like a commodity.

There are actually charitable programs that the church administers.

The principal one is what's known as fast offerings. Faithful members are encouraged to go without food and water for 3 meals (although the length and seriousness of The Fast vary person to person, I usually chewed gum so I didn't feel hungry) once a month. Then the money that they would have spent on the meals they skipped is donated to the church as "fast offerings". These are the principle charitable funds that the Church uses. Some of them are sent around as outright donations. But I believe the bulk of the funds get distributed to local congregations where the local leadership decides how and when to disburse them, I never participated in those but they're run by the head of the congregation (Bishop) and called Welfare Councils.

There are other church charitable institutions, Deseret Industries is one They refurbish donated items and resell them, while employing people who might not otherwise find employment. There are also special funds that are set up every now and then, the church occasionally runs employment and training centers in various parts of the world.

I'm not listing the tithe that members pay as charitable, because it's used primarily in running the Church including building maintenance and such.

Sounds more like the tithe is used to pay off the guys at the top of the pyramid scheme. LDS balance sheets are not made public. Charity I have a very hard time believing, mostly because of the way they sell their religion. The first day they brought some guy, who was an engineer. He said he lost his job, but then through the power of praying, he got it back and a promotion, or something close to this. It never occured to him that even if it was true, his praying fucked over the other guys who might have been more qualified and wanting, and if it wasn't then God wasn't responsible for it at all. Even if God helped him out, he just fucked over others in the process. This seems like the mentality of the church, God will provide, because if you go to them in a time of need I doubt they would help with cold, hard cash. And that's what matters. You cannot get an exception for tithing, even if you are broke to fucking shit, as long as you're working.

One of the things that's kind of odd about the LDS Church is how organized it is. There are manuals that give instruction on how most of the offices in a local branch should be run. Directives on how meetings should be conducted come out every now and then. Despite the fact that it's a lay clergy the LDS church probably has more internal structure than any other church, mostly due to the Priesthood organization that almost all male members are part of (exclusion based on age and worthiness).

It's odd to find bureaucracy in religion, but when I was a member I'd occasionally find myself doing one or two hours of planning meetings a week, outside of normal church attendance. Your above complaint is a symptom of the churches tendency/mania for organization. Every member is actually recorded somewhere on the records of the church. And with any such organization you get red-tape. Although in this case it's religious Red-Tape.

I see the church run as a corporation more than a faith or spiritual power, and that turns me off. It turns me off so much in fact, that if I was searching for a faith, I would look for something extremely local, maybe a Buddhist monastery where I could hide out and learn kung-fu or just meditate all day. I certainly do not think of air conditioned, fully modern community center like churches that would remind me constantly about how much money was being wasted.

I see the bureaucracy as a deliberate attempt to keep track of and make quitting the church extremely difficult, akin to forcing a pregnant woman to go to "counselling" sessions should she decide to get an abortion. If someone has made up their mind to quit, there are forms, interviews where they have to make you feel guilty, etc., etc., from what Guardsman said and I have picked up. When I think of church I think of something with no strings attached, I go there when I want whenever I want, for spiritual solace. Apparently even the most enlightened organized religion, the Moromons, don't allow this, so I think most organized religions are bull shit (a lot of people think the Mormons are "better" than other religions due to their more kind, welcoming nature, but underneath the varnish it is all the same.)

There are an official 13 articles of faith that most young LDS folks memorize, which is where the above came from. The actual position is that due to historical loss and "political stuff" (various councils and diets by the early church that decided on doctrine), The Bible is actually not in it's original inspired form. Instead correct doctrine has been removed, and incorrect doctrine inserted. That's the church line. You'll notice in the above, there are no caveats about the Book of Mormon. While instead there are reservations about the correctness of the Bible.

Additionally Mormons have 3 more pieces of religious texts. The Doctrine and Covenants are a collection of specific commandments, included in there is one called the Word of Wisdom, which includes injunctions against Coffee, Alcohol, Tea, and Tobacco, and a recommendation about meat (the latter was debated very feverishly every time it came up in Sunday School when I attended ).

Another piece of Mormon specific religious texts is the Joseph Smith Translation. Since the Bible is (in Mormon Theology) thought to be mis-translated Joseph Smith went back and did a retranslation of parts of it. Most of the changes are minor, and included in the footnotes of the King James Bible.

The last one is the Pearl of Great Price. It's the story of what Abraham does between not getting sacrificed to his Father's pagan gods, and him not sacrificing his son. I can't remember the origin of that, but I believe the story is that Joseph Smith was sold an authentic ancient scroll and translated it, resulting this part of Mormon scripture.

The tea thing was one of the factors for my brother quitting. They seem to want to change certain things to make themselves more politically acceptable, like the mention of whites to purity in the Book of Mormon, but they don't want to change unscientifically unsound bullshit like tea is bad for you.

A couple of things about this. First there's an requirement in one of the LDS religious texts that members learn about ...stuff.

78 Teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend you, that you may be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient for you to understand;
79 Of things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth; things which have been, things which are, things which must shortly come to pass; things which are at home, things which are abroad; the wars and the perplexities of the nations, and the judgments which are on the land; and a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms—

When I was more religiously inclined I always interpreted that as a commandment to learn, among other things, how the world works: including actual knowledge of biology, physics, geology etc. The current head of the church has also continually counseled members to get as much of an education as they can.

One of the funny things that happened when I attended BYU for a year was a BIO class where the teacher asked us to explain how the world could have been repopulated with current biodiversity from the animals that could have been kept on Noah's Ark. The only zeros that were given for the paper went to people that claimed it could have happened. I won't claim that the LDS church doesn't have its share of uneducated ignoramii. but I had little experience with them, and more experience with the church wide educational push.

The second thing which will probably weird you out, is church levels of Canon. The LDS church has something like "Papal Infallibility" in regards to religious statements made by the current Prophet. The paraphrase I remember is that "God will not allow his members to be lead astray by their prophet". It's always in my hearing been interpreted to mean that the Prophet is always correct in matters of doctrine.

I believe at one point the above caused The Church to have an official position on Evolution. I think that's no longer a church wide policy.

Yeah, I heard something about a "prophet" coming to some meeting, some bigshot, then a "president" and I was wondering was this some kind of Benny Hinn knockoff.

The problem with saying that their religion encourages you to learn how the world works is it's only good compared to other religions that are completely close minded. Their idea of it is it's okay to learn how the world works, as long as it doesn't contradict Mormon teachings. Comparing cow shit to chicken shit and it's still shit. An example would be the Jesus in South America and the... what the fuck are they called, Nevii? I can imagine going to BYU and writing an essay about how the first man really came over the Alaska land bridge, and I'd probably get expelled or get a bad grade. Academics and learning are predicated on the idea of conflict, of finding the truth despite all else. Dawkins told a story about one of his professors, spent the better part of his life on some theory or another and found out he was wrong. The professor went up and shook the guy's hand, saying thank you. That is real integrity. The Mormon way of learning is just piggybacking on what was discovered already by other scientists and free thinkers over the centuries.

Put it another way, if the Mormon way of thinking existed when trying to disprove heliocentrism, they would've said it contradicted church teachings and supressed it.

Well missionaries can actually be sent home too, if they're not sure that they are on the right path. There's a lot of pressure against this sort of thing, but it does happen.

What happened was the physics major out of the two (one was a law the other a physics from BYU) started asking about the church policy on gays, when my brother started questioning whether they accepted gays.

I guess he pushed the wrong buttons, asked the wrong questions or asked them the wrong way, because he was quickly moved and replaced by another guy who said, and I quote: "scientists took far longer to discover what priests discovered because they were using physical means, as opposed to spiritual means." I wanted to kick him out of the fucking house for that baldfaced lie, but at that time my brother was still deep into LSD er LDS.

I'd never viewed it as that sinister. But yes, the Mormon church does tend to be kind of clique-ish. Because the church can provide all the social interaction you need, it's easy to just socialize within your ward (local congregation). It's kind of eerie how much influence church membership has on social lives in Utah. Some of my room-mates from USU were very possessive about the few friends they made, because the LDS monoculture didn't really promote connections outside The Faith.

All I had to know was if your family was half Mormon, you can't go to their wedding or go to the Mormon temple. Which was strange, because I went to my brother's baptism. The idea is to make you dependent on the church so in the end they have you. The law guy was shoving the signature and paper in my face the day of my brother's baptism, like a victory trophy. He thought he won, but I had the last laugh.

Sorry you're amusingly wrong about this. Investigator is the term for some one who's interested in Mormonism. Mormon Lingo and culture in the US has been standardized mostly by BYU, and also by the semi-annual Conferences. Investigator is a church wide term for someone who's being actively proselytized.

It is still fucking creepy. If... and I say if, because if I do need it, it will be in a period of weakness (I wonder why religious people think that "no athiests in foxholes" is something good, all it proves is religion is only attractive to desperate crazy people), if I want a faith, I will not want to be treated as a number or a barcode or a stamp or have standard terms applied to me as if I was a cog in a big machine. This is not faith to me: it is a corporaton, with the leaders of LSD laughing all the way to the fucking bank and fucking as many women as they want.

I will be looking for that monastery when I want a faith, not some corporation that forces me to pay money to some inbred hicks in a different country so they can drive SUV's.

[brianeyci]

By the way I feel a certain measure of relief that "investigator" doesn't mean somebody who goes around digging into your private life to find dirt to blackmail you. The last big argument I had with the law dick, who strangely enough writes like an 8 year old and can't spell decisions (he spent it "diecisions") he said:

"We will never give up."

Just like fucking Picard or a Trektard, this far and no further the line must be drawn here your brother is ours. That freaked me out to no end, and I was wondering what shti they might pull. It's only been a month or two since he quit, or more like went inactive.

[FSTargetDrone]

I think you may have misunderstood. His point was that the many churches and cathedrals in Europe are empty of people, not that there are so few buildings. Of course, many of us here may not see this as a bad thing, but to religionists like Romney, this is a Bad Thing.

Oh no, I meant to suggest that because of the large number of churches within a given area, it would appear that not many people go to church during the regular workday. And it would be difficult for a tourist to gauge how often the common man there would go to pray at any particular church. But there were at least a dozen locals inside at any given time whenever I walk into one, and I walked into a lot of them. Not to pray or course, I liked the architecture and the sculptures. There was one particular one in Rome where apparently they had ran out of money to build a dome, so they hired someone to paint the roof so that it looked like it had a dome on the inside. I would've taken a picture, but it was a Sunday........

Gotcha. It's just a standard complaint from religionists like Romney (but maybe even more so from the Catholic commentators and authorities) who decry the lack of people attending church in Europe.

You know, sometimes it still amazes me how this primitive behavior such as worshiping a deity survives in the first world, in the US, but just look around...

[The Vortex Empire]

Religion doesn't support freedom. Look at the Bible. It supports nothing but Monarchies and Theocracies. And Freedom doesn't need religion. Look at Sweden, 70% Atheist, and they're one of the most free countries in the world.

[Gerald Tarrant]

Yes, that's what they called it, LDS. I wish I had said LSD over and over to get a rise out of him.

Old Joke. It crops up in Star Trek 4 too. Someone makes a comment about something bizarre that Spock does. Kirk answers "He did a little too much LDS in the 60's" (paraphrase)

Sounds more like the tithe is used to pay off the guys at the top of the pyramid scheme. LDS balance sheets are not made public.

Only a few folks in the LDS church receive salaries, some full time administrators do, and the folks who run missions do as well. Also the Leaders of the Church, President/Prophet and the quorum of the 12 receive living allowances or salaries. I've never seen reliable information that they're skimming, and most indications are that they're not wealthy from their church service. Twice a year the churches accounting department reports on the finances of the church, as to whether the money is used in accordance "with established principles". As you said the balance sheets aren't published, but there are plenty of existing assets that need to be maintained. And BYU is supported partially by tithing money. If Millions of dollars were leaking away to support the Prophet's many wives I think the accounting department would have something to say. You're more than welcome to believe shadowy conspiracy theories about them, but there's not much evidence in support, and there are some contrary indicators.

Charity I have a very hard time believing, mostly because of the way they sell their religion. The first day they brought some guy, who was an engineer. He said he lost his job, but then through the power of praying, he got it back and a promotion, or something close to this. It never occured to him that even if it was true, his praying fucked over the other guys who might have been more qualified and wanting, and if it wasn't then God wasn't responsible for it at all. Even if God helped him out, he just fucked over others in the process. This seems like the mentality of the church, God will provide, because if you go to them in a time of need I doubt they would help with cold, hard cash.

Sorry for the snipping and pasting of your paragraph, it just has a few ideas that all deserve separate responses.

I guess doctrine could have changed since I was there, but the way you're explaining their stance on miracles sounds like you missed something. This is the way I learned things when I was a member. When praying for a problem to be solved you first of all had to do everything in your power to resolve it on its own. Next pray. Continue to do what you're capable of to solve the problem. If God intends to help you with your prayer, then, after you've done all you can, the miracle will come. If He doesn't intend to help, then at least you've put some effort into solving your problems. So yes the LDS Church is kind of evangelical with regards to faith. I.E. they believe in miracles, the power of prayer, etc. But they also believe in action and personal responsibility on problems. Try to solve your problem on your own, and pray about it too.

This seems like the mentality of the church, God will provide, because if you go to them in a time of need I doubt they would help with cold, hard cash. And that's what matters. You cannot get an exception for tithing, even if you are broke to fucking shit, as long as you're working.

Not really, the fast offering fund is used specifically to help members in need. The church is one of those who believes in the spiritual benefits of labor, so often a hand out is accompanied by work assignments. The church had some unhappy experience before where the generosity of neighbors wasn't sufficient. So the current church tries to be as self sufficient as it can. Included in this is its own welfare program. Although at the moment the policy is that you first seek help from your government, then the family, then the church.

As to tithing... Well that's kind of funny. Once a year there's a meeting with the Bishop where you look at what you've paid. The bishop will ask if you're a full tithe payer. If you're not you can either pay what you missed or say you're a full and honest tithe payer anyway. There really aren't any investigative methods to test if this is true. If you're not earning an income, than 10% of nothing is nothing, so Bishops usually say that you're an honest tithe payer there. Also the church has no official position, but there were always arguments on whether you should pay on Gross (pre-tax earnings) or Net (after tax earnings). The only test is if you can tell your Bishop that you think you've paid an honest tithe.

Yeah, I heard something about a "prophet" coming to some meeting, some bigshot, then a "president" and I was wondering was this some kind of Benny Hinn knockoff.

The head of the church is called the prophet, they also refer to him as President (INSERT NAME HERE). There are 12 apostles who are also referred to as President (WHOEVER). Although there's only one guy who is "The Prophet" In retrospect the lingo seems a little odd. But it never really bothered me when I was growing up.

The problem with saying that their religion encourages you to learn how the world works is it's only good compared to other religions that are completely close minded. Their idea of it is it's okay to learn how the world works, as long as it doesn't contradict Mormon teachings. Comparing cow shit to chicken shit and it's still shit. An example would be the Jesus in South America and the... what the fuck are they called, Nevii?

Nephites is what they're called, and amusingly my Fire Fox spell checker doesn't recognize that or LDS as actual words.

Among other things the Mormon church doesn't have many official positions on Science anymore. Actually the only official statement I found about Science was that the Church regards Adam as the first Human. There might be more, but I haven't heard them. Actually I don't know if you'll believe this, but in Seminary (supplementary religious instruction for young folks) one of my teachers made a statement that implied the church had an official position about evolution. My High School Bio teacher (who was also LDS) found out, walked over and had a bit of a shouting match. The next day my religion teacher retracted his previous claim and said that evolution was a 'Scientifically valid' theory, clearly unhappy about the admission and trying to downplay it as much as possible.

I can imagine going to BYU and writing an essay about how the first man really came over the Alaska land bridge, and I'd probably get expelled or get a bad grade.

I never had that experience at BYU, more specifically I never experienced academic censorship at BYU aside from issues of language (cursing, and what sort of images are appropriate were important).



The above is taken from the BYU Library Link I'm not sure if the link will expire or not. If it does expire just go to the library and search author Dawkins. Maybe the above was just a trap 1984 style and everyone who checks it out gets thrown out of BYU, but that was not my experience when I attended, when I was there BYU did a credible job of honest inquiry.

There were a few "WTF moments" though. In two of my Freshmen classes we'd always open and close the sessions with prayer. Also, all students are required to take a certain number of religion classes. Lastly the campus honor code requires regular religious observance by the students.
That said, I never experienced any academic censorship.

Academics and learning are predicated on the idea of conflict, of finding the truth despite all else. Dawkins told a story about one of his professors, spent the better part of his life on some theory or another and found out he was wrong. The professor went up and shook the guy's hand, saying thank you. That is real integrity. The Mormon way of learning is just piggybacking on what was discovered already by other scientists and free thinkers over the centuries.

Put it another way, if the Mormon way of thinking existed when trying to disprove heliocentrism, they would've said it contradicted church teachings and supressed it.

Can't say for sure about that. But I think this is enlightening. Link

Murphy drew attention in the media and from the leadership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after the publication of his essay, "Lamanite Genesis, Genealogy, and Genetics." This essay discussed available genetic evidence regarding the geographic origin and lineage of Native American groups. It relies primarily on evidence regarding mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited directly from the mother.

This DNA suggests that all Native Americans are descendents of individuals from northeastern Siberia—corroborating conclusions that anthropologists have long held on the basis of linguistic, physiological, and other anthropological evidence. Murphy notes the 99.6% absence of any genetic heritage outside of known indigenous Native American haplogroups. (The remaining 0.4% is near universally agreed among anthropologists and biologists studying the issue to represent genetic markers that were introduced after the year 1492.)

To most DNA researchers--including an increasing number of researchers who identify themselves as Latter Day Saints--this evidence raises issues regarding the historical accuracy of the Book of Mormon, a work of Mormon scripture that records the experiences of a group of Middle-Eastern Jews who emigrate to the Americas, and that the evidence contradicts the dominant and widely accepted view among Latter Day Saints that the Book of Mormon is a true and accurate account of the people whose history it purports to document. In his essay, Murphy writes:

From a scientific perspective, the BoMor's origin is best situated in early 19th century America, not ancient America. There were no Lamanites prior to c. 1828 and dark skin is not a physical trait of God's malediction. Native Americans do not need to accept Christianity or the BoMor to know their own history. The BoMor emerged from Joseph Smith's own struggles with his God. Mormons need to look inward for spiritual validation and cease efforts to remake Native Americans in their own image.[1]

Murphy concluded that "DNA research lends no support to traditional Mormon beliefs about the origins of Native Americans" and he has likened the Book of Mormon to inspirational fiction. Murphy has reaffirmed this point several times since the initial publication of his essay in interviews and in videos produced by Living Hope Ministries, a Utah-based evangelical Christian ministry specializing in Mormon outreach.

There was an attempt by local leaders to excommunicate him (read the rest of the article). But apparently protests by LDS members stopped that from happening. The guy in question is still a member. So yes, there may be some members who want to bury their heads and ignore science, and there are some who are engaged in credible research. I mostly had experiences with the latter.

That said, the Church has a very bad record when it comes to outspoken feminists. Wiki has a good list, but the basic gist is any member Feminist who is sufficiently vocal in criticism of the church will find themselves kicked out.

What happened was the physics major out of the two (one was a law the other a physics from BYU) started asking about the church policy on gays, when my brother started questioning whether they accepted gays.

I guess he pushed the wrong buttons, asked the wrong questions or asked them the wrong way, because he was quickly moved and replaced...

He probably was transferred for reasons of faith. Transfers also happen at regular intervals though, so while it's unlikely, the timing could have just been coincidence. Again, I don't think that's likely, but it could have happend that way.

I guess he pushed the wrong buttons, asked the wrong questions or asked them the wrong way, because he was quickly moved and replaced by another guy who said, and I quote: "scientists took far longer to discover what priests discovered because they were using physical means, as opposed to spiritual means." I wanted to kick him out of the fucking house for that baldfaced lie, but at that time my brother was still deep into LSD er LDS.

Yeah I've seen some of that silliness too. Essentially later doctrine states that all knowledge comes from God. Also claims are made that spiritually attuned people are better researches as a result of their spirituality

The church is pretty bad about homosexuality. I had a room-mate who was LDS (inactive) and gay. He believed in LDS doctrine, which meant that he believe he was going to hell for who he was. It was pretty depressing how matter of fact he was about the whole thing.

All I had to know was if your family was half Mormon, you can't go to their wedding or go to the Mormon temple. Which was strange, because I went to my brother's baptism. The idea is to make you dependent on the church so in the end they have you. The law guy was shoving the signature and paper in my face the day of my brother's baptism, like a victory trophy. He thought he won, but I had the last laugh.

That's sort of correct about the wedding. Mormons believe that there are some ceremonies (ordinances in the LDS lingo) that are so sacred they need to be conducted in a sacred place. The basic idea is that these ceremonies will have an eternal impact, and so because of their nature they need to be done in an extra-holy spot. That's what the temples are. Marriages are performed there. A couple of other ordinances are done there. People are excluded based on worthiness. One of my brothers is getting hitched in a couple of weeks, but since I'm inactive and not really practicing/worthy I can't attend the wedding. So while I'm nominally Mormon I can't attend. But I want to note that the point isn't really exclusion for it's own sake, but exclusion to satisfy some doctrinal points of LDS theology.

This is not faith to me: it is a corporaton, with the leaders of LSD laughing all the way to the fucking bank and fucking as many women as they want.

I'd like to note again, that there are some contrary indicators against the Leadership embezzling church funds, and there aren't many indicators that they are doing that.

For the record, when I'm pointing out disagreements, it's not because I like this religion. I've voluntarily dissociated myself from it. It's because there are probably sufficient reasons to not be a member without manufacturing vague notions of conspiracy, or misrepresenting the LDS church. If you're actually curious, wiki has a good overview of the related stuff Link it's probably a good starting point for scholarship about the church.

[Zablorg]

Religion doesn't support freedom. Look at the Bible. It supports nothing but Monarchies and Theocracies. And Freedom doesn't need religion. Look at Sweden, 70% Atheist, and they're one of the most free countries in the world.

Not neccessarily. While it is true that many religions do oppress freedom, it wouldn't actually have to to be a religion.

[Rye]

[uote]Not neccessarily. While it is true that many religions do oppress freedom, it wouldn't actually have to to be a religion.[/quote]

Uhhh, nobody said a religion would have to oppress freedom in order to be a religion. Vortex said religion doesn't support freedom, and this is generally true, most of them (i.e. the important issue) get incredibly shirty about apostasy and rejection.

[Zablorg]

Ah, I see.

Same thing applies, however. You theoretically could believe in a deity that supports freedom.

[Rye]

So? Hippie religions will never replace the domineering ones because people like to be dominated, hence my second sentence.

[Gerald Tarrant]

"We will never give up."

Just like fucking Picard or a Trektard, this far and no further the line must be drawn here your brother is ours. That freaked me out to no end, and I was wondering what shti they might pull. It's only been a month or two since he quit, or more like went inactive.

Oh sorry I missed responding to this comment earlier. Pollicies of the church should be understoond to relate to some bit of doctrine called the Threefold mission of The Church. Unfortunately I can't remember the scripture, but the three goals of the church are set out. "Perfect the Saints, Redeem the Dead, and Proclaim the Gospel." As I remember these goals all have equal weight.

Perfect the saints is what you might refer to as normal church operations, regular church attendance make someone a better person. That's a goal that's probably shared with most religions.

Proclaim the Gospel is a goal that's not so universal among Christians. Mormons (and some other faiths with evangelical bent) believe that they are unique in possessing the whole of religious truth. There are a few LDS scriptures which say that someone with the truth has an obligation to share it. Also LDS beliefs about being the only completely true religion mean that the proselytizing is done with the goal of helping their prospective members, that's why the missionary effort tends to be so tenacious, "It's for your own good" is the attitude. And in LDS theology it has equal weight with self-improvement.

Redeem the Dead is as far as I know something that's unique to the LDS faith. And the church has actually gotten in some trouble over this. The LDS church believes that God is just and gives everyone an opportunity to hear the truth and decide for themselves. As part of this, the church believes that dead individuals need to go through all the ordinances that living individuals go through. Also it's kind of odd but there's almosst a checklist of things you must do to receive salvation, LDS theology requires every individual to have had those ceremonies performed. The way they get around this and concepts of fairness is by allowing these ordinances to be performed by proxie, so an individual won't be disqualified from salvation just because they didn't have an access to the Mormon ordinances of salvation. The long and short of it is, the Mormon interest in Genealogy is so that they can find people who haven't gone through the salvation checklist, and make sure they have an opportunity to receive them. THe most common one is what are called "Baptisms for the Dead". Now the way the LDS church managed to get in trouble with this is Apparently they baptize every name they can. And Israel apparently discovered that the Church was baptizing Holocaust victims without asking anyone's permission. The church has a few prophecies that need to be fulfilled, and one of them is I believe "A temple in every land". They've got land in Israel, it's nominally BYU-Israel (just a Satellite campus) but the more conspiracy minded members think it could be turned into a Temple pretty quickly. In any case Israel threatened to suspend the Church's rights to do anything in Israel if the LDS church continued to baptize Jewish names. And when other people find that there ancestors may be getting baptized without their knowledge or permission well it almost always causes a furor of one type or another.

[brianeyci]

I can't think of much more to say Gerald that wouldn't take an hour to key, except that maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to judge BYU.

Nevertheless, the aspect of accepting only people who sign an affadavit that they are worshipping a god, any god, disgusts me.

The idea that LDS members see it as their presumptuous right to save other people disgusts me too. It's a form of disempowerment, similar to saying that native people need to be saved, or barbarians and savages need to be saved by the civilized people.

One final question I do have that I'm curious about: do you have problem finding work with your BYU degree? Because from what I hear, everybody fucking hates Mormons.

[Elfdart]

Mormons aren't Christians, and they're a far more dangerous, lock-step group than the worst baptists could be. Romney is by far the worst Presidential candidate of the lot, certainly the most threatening to the Republic. Of course the thought of Huckabee as President is also repulsive in all respects.

When the Mormons firebomb abortion clinics or black churches I'll stop laughing at this one.

Romney's speech was nothing but the last bundles of hay stacked together to form a colossal straw man, which he's been setting up for weeks. The push-polling that mentioned Romney's religion turns out to be the work of Romney's own campaign (the people who got these phone calls just happened to be Romney's staffers -yeah, right), and is just another case of skullduggery from this smarmy prick (until recently, he had a goon who pretended to be a cop pushing people around).

The point of this farce was to ape John Kennedy, head off people from asking questions about the loonier bits of Mormonism, to provide an alibi for why he's not doing so well right now and most importantly, to get hack journalists to gush over him. Romney isn't doing so hot right now and it has little to do with his religion.

I'm sure there are fundies in the Chigger Belt who think LDS is one step away from witchcraft, but those people aren't going to vote for Romney anyway, sinch he was pro-abortion rights until a year or so ago. Those same people wouldn't vote for Benito Ghouliani or Frederick of Hollywood, either -for obvious reasons, though the wrong ones. They might hold their noses and vote for Huckabee, though that isn't a sure thing since he's against purging the children of illegal immigrants.

Romney is a slimy douche nozzle, and even the most cretinous fundies know it.

[Gerald Tarrant]

I can't think of much more to say Gerald that wouldn't take an hour to key, except that maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to judge BYU.

It's a good University considering Utah is such a backwater state. College rankings regularly put it in the top 100 in the nation academically. BYU mostly gets attention for it's value/cost. Since it's partially funded by tithing everyone gets a heavily subsidized education.

Nevertheless, the aspect of accepting only people who sign an affadavit that they are worshipping a god, any god, disgusts me.

The idea that LDS members see it as their presumptuous right to save other people disgusts me too. It's a form of disempowerment, similar to saying that native people need to be saved, or barbarians and savages need to be saved by the civilized people.

Yeah the aspect that only Mormon's have the truth, doesn't sit well with most othe Christians when they hear it.

One final question I do have that I'm curious about: do you have problem finding work with your BYU degree? Because from what I hear, everybody fucking hates Mormons.

I was only there for two years. Among other things I switched degrees and colleges.

But I imagine your real question is, "Does a BYU degree hamper people's work prospects?" Not really. There are always rumors about BYU grads having trouble getting hired at the University of Utah in Salt Lake, the story is that hiring rates of BYU grads @ the U are lower than random selection would suggest. I don't think that represents any particular prejudice, it's just that the U of U's desire to appear religiously neutral may lead to some slight prejudice against BYU grads.

The placement of the BYU grad's I know has more to do with their degree than where they got it. I.E. Social science people aren't as in demand as hard sciences or engineering. But that doesn't have anything to do with where they got their degree. The current low unemployment helps too, any hiring prejudices are more costly when there's a smaller labor pool to draw from.

There is one area where BYU degrees may lose value. The Americany Psychological Association has always had a very liberal and atheist outlook. As such heir accreditation board has had issues with Religious Honor codes. I think the line is "Any discrimination which has nothing to do with the practice of psychology is prohibited." For the APA's entire history they've included an exemption for religious colleges. However some time between 2002 and 2004 the APA started talks to remove the religious exemption. Secretary Rod Paige stepped in and stopped the removal of the clause. But It's unlikely that the next Secretary of Education will take that view. So long term BYU will probably shut down it's psychology program/lose it's accreditation so that it can maintain its religious honor code.

But in general no. Some people think LDS folks are a little strange, but it usually doesn't translate into not hiring. Essentially if someone would hire a practicing Jew they'll hire a practicing Mormon, most dislike of Mormon's that I've seen comes from Baptists. For a couple of years the Souther Baptists held a convention in Salt Lake City and took every opportunity to protest outside Church HQ about how Mormons aren't Christian. Really the most common prejudice in hiring in the US is against Atheists. Since BYU is a pretty good school, anyone that experiences any prejudices has a good shot of being hired somewhere.