Did mormons really believe that...

Many of the things we "know" about what members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS, or "Mormon") are not settled matters. They have a rich history of theological musings by leaders, and there's disagreement among Mormons on many of those issues. Because Brigham Young said something does not make it accepted theology, so you have to be careful with many of the anti-Mormon sources.

They do believe in continuing revelation, so their doctrines can change from time to time. Most Mormons accept the three books given to Joseph Smith as scripture, and one of them (the Book of Mormon, I believe) does talk about a great civilization here in N. America around the time of Jesus. So they believe that, but it isn't a core doctrine that would destroy their faith if proven false.

They differ from most of Christianity in that are polytheists rather than monotheists. Otherwise, they share a lot of belief with Christianity in terms of treatment of the poor, giving to help the church, assisting your brother or sister in need, seeking God's guidance, prayer, praise in singing, etc. They have an active and effective church welfare program that provides for the needs of their members. And they truly do care about others.

And they have been persecuted in this country because of their religion, so the ones I know value the freedom and rights this country should always have (but alas, did not have when they were hunted and killed). I disagree with their theology, but I am not "scared" of a Mormon being President any more than I'm "scared" of a Catholic, Protestant or Jew.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Feb 18 2007, 08:56 PM) [snapback]392662[/snapback]</div>

I've known and have worked with many Mormons. They're good people and they take care of each other. They don't believe in drinking, smoking, cussing or the like, and, for the most part, live good clean lives. For all this I admire them.

I could care less about their beliefs that run contrary to my own. That also goes for every other religion as well. From my perspective, religions that professes miracles or other forms of magic involving any creatures of the earth are either teaching stories that started out as plausible and then changed with time, or are teaching stories that were invented by some wise individual who was looking for a way to better mankind. Also, all the religions that I'm aware of have sects that contradict each other, including the Mormons. Interpretation of text defines the sect. Beliefs run the gambit. Who's to say your beliefs are any more right than anyone else's. Of course, the universal answer is always the same, "God".

John F. Kennedy convinced us that his religion (he was Catholic) would not dictate the manner in which he did his job .. and there's no evidence that it did. As long as any candidate, whether Mormon, Jew, Muslim, Protestant, Catholic, or whatever can convince us as Kennedy did I don't see a problem.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(loveit @ Feb 18 2007, 06:33 PM) [snapback]392622[/snapback]</div>

My name has lots of meanings. The meaning in Hebrew is "god is my judge," but that doesn't bother me, because the meaning of my last name is worse. (As a matter of policy I never print my last name on an open forum. But its meaning in its original language is not at all pleasant.) But as Shakespeare said: What's in a name? The meaning I prefer is also from the Bible: Daniel means "Kitty doesn't bite." No literate cat will ever bite anyone named Daniel, and that thought gives me great pleasure.

But I'm sure you would not assert that I ought to take my name as a proof of the existance of god???

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Feb 18 2007, 07:56 PM) [snapback]392662[/snapback]</div>

Would that include the (at least) tens of thousands of girls under age 18 (many under 15) who have been forced/threatened/brainwashed into marriages, sometimes polygamous, sometimes not?

You might also want to check out the Mountain Meadow Massacre.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(loveit @ Feb 18 2007, 01:31 PM) [snapback]392495[/snapback]</div>

"God"'s not an idea?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Feb 18 2007, 02:53 PM) [snapback]392533[/snapback]</div>

"Your" missionaries lied to you. Not only do you have to be LDS, but "in good standing", which includes having paid all your tithes and "special assessments" (such as contributing to the construction of new Ward buildings in your new neighborhood) and having been granted Temple privileges by your local Bishop.

Why do you suppose many Temples hum 24/7 with "baptisms for the dead"? It's ONLY because you can't get into the Celestial Kingdom without the "key".

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jack Kelly @ Feb 18 2007, 10:59 PM) [snapback]392709[/snapback]</div>

You're slamming the Mormons pretty severely. Is there a particular religion that you believe is the right religion or, at least, a good religion?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ken Cooper @ Feb 19 2007, 02:30 AM) [snapback]392740[/snapback]</div>

You didn't ask me, but I have to say no, which is why I'm an Agnostic.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ken Cooper @ Feb 19 2007, 12:13 AM) [snapback]392693[/snapback]</div>

And there's the rub. Too many candidates hide their faith and their agenda until after they get elected, then it all comes out. Our current president comes immediately to mind.

Locally two school board members (not in my district thank god) were suddenly fundamentalist and creationist after being elected. They worked on "revising" the science curriculum to include creationist teachings. Not only did they not succeed, but they were both recalled. Now had they been up front and honest about their beliefs and their agendas, they never would have been elected. So yeah, I have a real problem if a Mormon wants to be elected to a postion as Judge or a political position where there would be a conflict. I'd have the same problem with a Catholic or fundamentalist undermining Roe v Wade. Or a Hindu trying to legislate vegetarianism. Or a creationist rewriting Science curriculum. I probably wouldn't vote for a devout Scientologist either.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Feb 19 2007, 12:45 AM) [snapback]392746[/snapback]</div>

Touche! You're absolutely right. But in actuality Bush is definitely the exception rather than the rule. I think when he announced his Faith Based Initiative we all finally understood, many of us with heavy heart, that this guy would make every effort to break from that cherished concept of separation of church and state. I think we'll all be on our toes to guard against this kind of thing in the future. From now on, candidates will be questioned strongly on this subject just as Kennedy was.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ken Cooper @ Feb 19 2007, 12:18 AM) [snapback]392753[/snapback]</div>

During my entire adult life, candidates have lied through their teeth, and every time the public acts surprised. Not only is the public not on its toes, it seems to have cut off its own feet. Candidates may be questioned, but then just about everyone believes their answers. And when the candidate gets elected, and those answers turn out to have been lies, everyone is surprised again.

We could save a lot of grief if we simply jailed all candidates for all public office the moment they announce their candidacy.

*Edited to remove the duplicate post, due to PC's flaky behavior this morning.*

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Feb 18 2007, 06:53 PM) [snapback]392533[/snapback]</div>

The trouble is.....who's to determine the definition of a "perfect life". It all boils down to interpretation. What one group or inidividual may believe to be perfect, another may think condemns one to hell. I would say that if every single person on this planet stopped infringing, judging and imposing on others, we'd be further along to a perfect life and world, but that's evidently beyond our human capacity.

 

I grew up in a mormon family, I went to mormon church every Sunday until I was old enough to both form a coherent and strong self-image, and stand up to my parents enough to really let them know that my feelings about the church went beyond just "I would rather go out and play on Sunday." Which happened to be when I was about 12 years old.

Here are some points from a former insider:

1. Mormons aren't really poly-theists, they believe in the same trinity that catholics believe in, but they don't quite push the idea of "trinity" the way others do, so to your average mormon, Father-Son-Holy Spirit (or as is more typical to mormons, the "Holy Ghost") are 3 distinct entities.

2. Mormons don't believe that any old jerk off the street can get into heaven. That's why they have a VERY extensive genealogical library and perform "baptism for the dead." They send missionaries all over the world to do more than proselytize. They collect family documents such as old bibles, or anything that typically has family trees written down. Then they have people go to a temple and get baptized in the name of those who were unfortunate enough to die without being baptized into the mormon church. The logic is, those people are all waiting around for judgment day, and once they're baptized mormon they'll have a choice to accept or reject the one true faith, even though they've already died. If they choose to reject it, they'll still go to one of the lower kingdoms though (hell is not really a word mormons use).

3. Mormons believe in personal revelation, meaning, God can talk directly to any old person, not just a prophet. However, you'll still get funny looks if you start talking about how an angel came to you in the night and told you that you were Jesus reincarnated.

4. They believe that you can achieve a god-like status in heaven if you're good enough, but not that you can "become a god."

5. They don't believe in "strong drink" which has been interpreted very loosely to include coffee, because of the caffeine, but somehow not to include many other beverages that include caffeine. Some mormons have recognized the hypocrisy and choose to avoid all sources of caffeine. I think even those ones still eat chocolate though...

6. They are pretty strict about not cursing, but many have just substituted other words for curse words, for example: heck, dang, frick, shoot, and lots of other fairly creative ones. Personally I think it's idiotic, because it's not the word that's bad, it's the feeling behind it, so if you're using fake curse words in anger, I see that as identical to actual curses in the eyes of God.

7. Joseph Smith was a well documented nutcase, practiced black magic, alchemy and the like, but mormons have done a very thorough job of collecting the evidence of his weird behavior and destroying it or vaulting it in Salt Lake City. The mormon story on his life is that he tried a lot of other religions in search of the one true church and was dissatisfied with them all until God told him where to find some golden plates with an ancient scripture written on them, along with some magical stones that allowed him to interpret the writing. The scripture was presumably from the great civilization that inhabited North America around the time of Christ.

8. Some still practice polygamy. It's officially frowned upon. There was a large group of polygamists that lived down the street from me where I grew up. they had about 5 or 6 houses in a normal suburban neighborhood, but their houses had a tall fence that enclosed them all into a single compound, tall trees around the outside, so it seemed like a fortress to me. It was common for me to give directions in my neighborhood by saying things like "down the road, and make a left just after the polygamists." It's less common in Salt Lake these days, but I don't know by how much.

9. Mormon children are baptized at 8 years old. Presumably because at that age you're old enough to make the decision yourself, rather than being forced into it as a baby. When I was 8 I was old enough to recognize that I had problems with the faith, but not old enough to withstand the social pressure, or tell my parents in a convincing way that I didn't feel right about it.

10. "Good" mormons give 10% of their income to the church. As a result, the mormon church is wealthier than many large corporations, and doesn't have to pay tax. Their money doesn't all go to philanthropy either. For example, on the street outside the Salt Lake City temple, they wanted to be able to enforce a dress code. They wanted to keep the riff raff off of public sidewalks that happened to be positioned right next to the temple. That didn't fly with local lawmakers. It turns out that the mormon church owns a lot of the land in downtown Salt Lake, including the section of Main Street that runs past the temple. So rather than bother with the law, they just TORE UP MAIN STREET... the literal center of Salt Lake City, they tore out the street and put in some gardens and fountains. So now it's privately owned and they can enforce a dress code there. And now if you want to drive from one end of main street to the other, you have to go around the temple and the church's office building (the tallest building in Utah, which has a couple of large globes picture at the bottom and, I kid you not, looks like a giant phallus).

A great book to read is "Under the Banner of Heaven" by John Krakauer. It's a very engaging book, fun to read, and loaded with some bits of US history that you probably have missed in your studies. It deals largely with the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and also with some more recent events involving mormons, murder, and multiple spouses.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ken Cooper @ Feb 18 2007, 11:30 PM) [snapback]392740[/snapback]</div>

I'm not "slamming" Mormons; I'm describing what happens/has happened. I lived in Salt Lake City, where the LDS religion is always topic of conversation #1, for 19 years. I fell in love with an LDS woman and, in an honest effort to see if I could go at least half-way toward her, submitted myself to missionary "lessons" and read the Book of Mormon. I attended church with her for a year, hearing members "bear their testimony" once a month. I became familiar with the full complement of "in-house" Mormon meetings (priesthood, Relief Society, Home Visitors, etc.)---the Mormon "lay bureaucracy" is another topic in and of itself. So I do not "trash" the LDS as either an ill-informed "outsider" or a vituperative ex-Mormon.

I have investigated many religions since my (until age 13) Catholic days. The closest I've found to a religion that I could work with is the Bahais. It was the first denomination to proclaim (1870's) the equality of men and women AND the equality of all "races"/ethnicities. "Services" are held unostentatiously in members' homes. It accepts past Jewish, Christian and Muslim prophets as all manifestations of the same single God. Most notably, its actual members are consistently among the best perople I've come across, taken as a whole.

But I backed away from the Bahais when I discovered that, despite their blather about women being equal, all the members of their ruling body are, by tradition and to that time (1980) men. That may have changed in the last 25 years.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ichabod @ Feb 19 2007, 01:14 PM) [snapback]392878[/snapback]</div>

I lived in Mo-Town(not detroit) for 8 years. 4 way down south by colorado city, and 4 in the provo/orem/draper/saltlake area, so I picked up a few things on the way.

Don't they believe Jesus and Satan are brothers.... Which then causes some problems in the whole "Only begotten Son" and if Jesus is God with God's powers and knowledge, do you think that Satan is also God with same powers?

Stay away from immorality, unless you are 16-20 and spending spring break in St. George Utah walking the BLVD having sex with just about anyone you meet. The tighter and shorter the shirt, and the shorter the shorts, the better for the boys who are not supposed to be looking (or touching).

The culture in general has a high rate of teen pregnancy, and a high rate of suicide. Interesting with everything going so uniform.

 

Theres a very good HBO drama series called "Big Love", about a contemporary polygamist Mormon family .Its produced by Tom Hanks.The first season is on DVD

 

I hate that show precisely because of how inaccurate it is at portraying a polygamist family. To my eyes, it's a show made by someone who said to themselves "Hmm, what happens if we put semi-intelligent big-city-type folks into a polygamist-family type of situation?" The attitudes displayed and language used are way too geared toward the "smart" HBO-watching crowd.

More specifically, the women are not "put in their place" the way real women in that situation are treated. It almost glamorizes the whole thing, as if you or I could be in that situation if our society's moral structure didn't prevent it. In reality it's a lot of young girls being forced into semi-incestuous (or flat out full-blooded incestuous) relationships with older men against their will.

Yes, they believe Lucifer is God's other spoiled son. Jesus and Satan don't have quite the same powers as god.

And yes, ignorance about sexual practice, caused by a staunch refusal to talk about such things, results in a lot of teen pregnancy.

Oh and one point to add to my list:

11. The "special underwear" is called "temple garments" and is only worn by adults (men and women) who have permission from their bishop to enter a mormon temple. Regular Sunday worship is done in a "ward-house", and the temple is reserved for special things like weddings and baptism for the dead. Also you can't go in a temple if you're not a mormon with permission from your bishop, which can be revoked for doing sinful things that presumably you wouldn't lie to your bishop about in the hope of not having your temple recommend taken away. Since I'm not a practicing mormon, I couldn't attend my sister's wedding. Neither could my mother or brothers. We're all still a bit angry about that.

 

Excellent observations, Ichabod.

 

I've also heard that mormons only have sex to procreate.....

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ichabod @ Feb 19 2007, 02:14 PM) [snapback]392878[/snapback]</div>

So then Mormon's are poly-theists just like Christians. If you have three distinct entities that are God then you have three gods and as such are polytheists. I'm not sure why Christians fight this so much. The bible clearly shows god the father having a conversation with god the son during Jesus’ baptism.

It really doesn't matter; everything was really created by the FSM. Check out http://www.venganza.org/about/ for the truth.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(livelychick @ Feb 18 2007, 11:39 PM) [snapback]392647[/snapback]</div>

Us poor country kids were dressed in Wranglers. I think when I was 14 or so I had some Jordaches, but only for "special" occasions. The City Kids (Eg, those that actually lived in a town like St George) thought they were really cool in their Jordaches.

I guess this trip down Memory Lane is only serving to make me look FAR older than I want.