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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) is notoriously secretive about the inner workings of its ruling hierarchy, the First Presidency and Quorum of Twelve Apostles. With an estimated annual income in the billions and assets in the tens of billions, the church does not release financial statements to its members or the general public. The meetings and decision-making processes of the Mormon leaders are similarly undisclosed.
That changed Sunday when a group called Mormon Leaks posted more than a dozen videos to YouTube, containing briefing sessions with the hierarchy. The briefings were apparently recorded "live" and include candid comments and discussion from the apostles in attendance. The leak appeared to be timed to coincide with the church's semi-annual conference that took place over the weekend.
Ironically, one of the briefings discusses WikiLeaks and the possibility of a similar leak targeting the church, but the apostles shown in the video appear to more concerned about Chelsea (nee Bradley) Manning's sexuality than they are about threats to their own secrets.
One briefing that is particularly troubling was given by a former U.S. senator from Oregon, Gordon H. Smith. Smith, a member of the church, admits that he values obedience to the hierarchy and loyalty to the church more than he does his office. He also describes using his office and staff to gain political favors for the church, and justifies the Iraq War by claiming that it will allow Mormon missionaries access to Middle Eastern nations. At one point (around the 26 minute mark), Smith possibly reveals classified information to the group, or at least his willingness to do so.
The videos appear to come from the same whistle blower who leaked a trove of church documents on-line about a week ago. Those documents are here and the leaker has announced that many more are coming.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday October 04 2016, @12:29PM
This might lead to another exposure of similar to the church of scientology's "operation snow white".
This is also a good time to reconsider laws which protect cultist and religious institutions from things like paying taxes. Fair's fair.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @01:30PM
Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb!!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by WizardFusion on Tuesday October 04 2016, @12:58PM
"When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion."
(Score: 3, Funny) by arslan on Wednesday October 05 2016, @01:57AM
Amen to that!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:15PM
Alleluia
(Score: 4, Interesting) by art guerrilla on Tuesday October 04 2016, @01:01PM
it is interesting how many mormons are found in unexpected places (besides broadway):
wikipedia:
Hughes' considerable business holdings were overseen by a small panel unofficially dubbed "The Mormon Mafia" because of the many Latter-day Saints on the committee, led by Frank William Gay.[69] In addition to supervising day-to-day business operations and Hughes' health, they also went to great pains to satisfy Hughes' every whim. ...
some hu-man:
Mormons and the FBI
April 30, 2014 by Matthew Bowman
The Associated Press reported in the early 1980s that “The CIA does some of its most successful recruiting in predominantly LDS Utah.”[1] According to this article, but also countless folktales and accounts in popular culture, the American national security complex has particularly recruited Mormons since the 1950s. According to the Associated Press, security agencies had entirely pragmatic reasons for this: Mormons’ command of foreign languages usually learned while on the missionary service Mormon young men are expected to provide in their college years, made them appealing to agencies like the CIA and FBI.
mormons: our origin story is not as fucked up as scientology ! ! !
(Score: 2, Informative) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @04:29PM
Education, honesty, kindness to others, service to others, and work are much encouraged in the Church. We hope that makes a positive, helpful difference wherever we may be, in spite of all our individual faults.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:58PM
Sure...
Education, as long as it doesn't make you doubt Mormonism's bizarre foundation myths. (Mormons are young-Earth creationists [reddit.com] who believe in archaeological fringe theories [wikipedia.org] about the population of the Americas.)
Honesty, as long as the church's interests are protected [i4m.com]. (Note the use of the term "church broke" [wheatandtares.org] in the Sen. Smith video.)
Work, as long as the church gets the benefit. Pay your 10% fire insurance [irr.org], skip time with your family while you do church callings, use yourself up in the service of the Lord by ignoring your grandkids to do senior missionary work for the church.
Service and kindness, as long as the church gets the credit [thoughtsonthingsandstuff.com].
No one doubts that individual Mormons are good people. Most people are good. The problem is the secretive group at the top, hell-bent on protecting the church's image and their own positions.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:19PM
"The problem is the secretive group at the top, hell-bent on protecting the church's image and their own positions."
I have met them, interacted with them somewhat, seen in a degree how they live. I know many others really well who have interacted with them more than I have. What you say is untrue. They put in many unselfish hours for the benefit of others, into their old age, getting in many cases essentially no retirement rest. They could have made a lot more money and enjoyed a more selfish life if they had not accepted these assignments, which as far as I can tell they did not seek. One in particular that I know (from the quorums of 70) isn't even well-off financially and his relatives help him sometimes (though most are well-off, from their prior careers, like one was a famous heart surgeon, so he's OK, another ran his own import/export business and left it, others give up law practices or other careers; one, not a top leader, but with heavy church responsibilities and a wonderful family, that I knew quite well was a marine colonel before we met, another an air force general, etc). For them to give up their positions and simply retire would mean a tremendous comparative rest from a lot of stressful, hard work. I've seen enough to have no hesitation about that. One can't nominate oneself for these assignments, but accept them if they come.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:50PM
The Quorum of Seventy doesn't have nearly the perks or power of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (a bit of a misnomer; there are currently fifteen of them).
It's not about money: it's about the power and adulation of adoring crowds. These men are unquestioned and not held to any account. They have all received their second anointing, allowing them to commit any sin (save the shedding of innocent blood, which is defined to mean betraying the church) and still get into the highest halls of Mormon heaven. In fact, because you haven't had the second anointing, you will be in a lower spot than they will.
"Lying for the Lord" is second nature to these "general authorities". While I'm sure they've been nice to you (if you've really met any of them), they have historically run roughshod over the church membership and everyone else they encounter. Read D. Michael Quinn's The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power for some great scholarship on the topic.
I know you'll disagree, but you're deep in a cult so seeing the cult leaders for what they are will be difficult for you.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @08:11PM
Nah, good thing I don't worship them. The stuff you say sounds weird and foreign to me. Like, the 2nd anointing bit isn't a worry because if I keep the commandments (which is up to just me), it's then between me and God, and I trust he will get it right, even if he delegates -- he will see that it is right. In fact scripture (D&C 76) says everyone who makes it is then equal (the details on definition of equal I don't know but it's good enough for me). Call me a cultist, we can still be friends.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @08:15PM
All Mormons are equal, but some Mormons are more equal than others.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @03:03AM
It can happen when allow overloading of the equality operator. Problems like this may be why some language designers do not allow operator overloading.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 04 2016, @09:21PM
I went with a friend to his church camp one time (reorganised church of Jesus Christ of latter-day freaking saints)(off-shoot of the Mormons): all was good.
They all wanted to help their fellow man, learned it is better to buy a sandwich for a homeles person than to give them money, etc.
All well and good.
Supper came, then clean up time.
Washing dishes got lots of volunteers because it is fun: singing, tossing dishes back and forth, fun!
Clearing the table, not so fun, but got volunteers.
Cleaning toilets?
You could hear the fucking crickets!!!
No hand went up. So I volunteered: the leader (minister???) looked all over calling for volunteers so that he didn't have to call on me.
I freaking embarrassed them into picking people who hadn't volunteered just so they didn't have to pick me.
PATHETIC!!!
Organised religion only draws the weak and the people who need to belong.
If you truly believe n a god, believe. Just don't rely on there to tell you what to think.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @09:52PM
As individuals, we are all definitely a work in progress, and need to keep trying to become better. That is what we are taught to do; the individual results are ... individual of course.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 04 2016, @11:18PM
And in that vein, why believe what you are taught by 'leadership'. Why not just commune with God yourself and let HIM tell you what to believe and how to act?
Why the need to be Christian or Buddhist or Removable organised Eiffel of tomato (or is it tomato??) Day saints or.....
Why not just be "I talk to God: I try to be good."
Too much of Organised Church is "believe how and what we say, and give us money/power".
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @11:27PM
Excellent question. He has an official organization on the earth to keep the doctrines pure & correct, to administer the ordinances like baptism with real authority under His direction, to help us all be stronger together than we could be separately, to teach us His laws, to keep records, to help us in so many ways that we simply couldn't or wouldn't do as individuals. Through many centuries, like the Bible shows, He has sent His representatives out to teach truth, but the people at various times have repeatedly rejected it as not agreeing with their own desires, so He later again sends prophets to give them whatever they are willing to receive at that point in time. We can do much more together, and He has commanded us to do it. Like serving the less fortunate. I'm not saying I'm remotely close to perfect or anything, but the Church really works at this. Truth isn't whatever each of us might prefer it to be, and one person couldn't teach the whole world. We can also try to help each other through the various kinds of hard times of life, what one person has called "to love each other in an organized way".
Importantly: we believe that families can be together as families forever, through the ordinances of the gospel. I can't go write valid traffic tickets just because I feel like it, because I don't have the authority. Similarly to the ordinances of God: This sealing of families as eternal units can only be done by proper authority, in the place and manner that the Lord has specified, to be valid. Of course, then we have to strive always to keep the commandments, or we could lose the opportunity to be in that family forever.
I hope that helps.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday October 05 2016, @02:08AM
One last:
How did HE let it get to Hillary vs. Trump???
:)
As Depeche Mode say:
"I don't want to start any blasphemous rumours
But I think that God's got a sick sense of humor
And when I die I expect to find Him laughing"
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by lcall on Wednesday October 05 2016, @01:42PM
I appreciate your sense of humor on that one. I'm probably going to vote for Evan McMullin (not because he's a Mormon but because he's makes the most sense of any I can find -- even the other 3rd-party candidates sound dangerous on some of their points, like Johnson's lack of knowledge on foreign policy). If you'll forgive my taking your question literally though, I think the reason it got to this point is 1) there are many prophecies that things will continue getting messier in the last days before His 2nd coming, so it's no surprise really -- expect more chaos and disasters, including some astounding ones; safety comes in repentance and following the prophet, just as in the days of Noah, and 2) He lets us choose, even badly until we get to the point of no return (see extended thread in another part of this discussion), I think so we have a chance to learn, consider our ways, and change by our freely given agency or our will, before it is really too late. I appreciate your questions.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday October 05 2016, @02:17AM
I don't know about that. Any institution managed by humans are corruptible. Especially ones with "secret" top level operations. The devil isn't going to be the ugly self-centered mofo with a bad attitude and bad haircut, it will be the charitable charming well mannered guy in the suit.
As someone else pointed out, it isn't about money, its about power. Some folks would do anything to covet it, especially once they're addicted, including giving up their retirement fund and well-earned rest to maintain or improve the status quo.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not painting this in absolute terms, so I'm sure there's portion of these folks who are genuine. The problem is though, without transparency, you can't really sort them out from the devil-in-disguise. So why would you want to be part of such a scheme?
If your faith is between you, yourself and your deity, go ahead with that but why participate in an organization that values its structural integrity above all else. Doesn't that smell wrong? Do you really think come judgement day that just because you have no direct part (or choose to be oblivious to it) in a power scheme which contributes to a number of sins makes you guiltless?
(Score: 1) by lcall on Wednesday October 05 2016, @02:40PM
You have well expressed a *really* important question, IMO, that some others have been asking too (and I didn't think then of what to say). I think I can see now. I strongly sympathize with your line of thinking. Like with the old Oliver "Ollie" North controversy from the Reagan years -- even though some called him a patriot for supporting some partisans while hiding information, my answer is that sunlight kills germs, and without openness, there's no accountability, and in a representative government, that kind of hiding just isn't safe to the system.
The deal here for me in my Church is, do I trust that our President Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God, or not? And why would I, either way? I simply don't have the information to answer in detail about the financial arrangements, so do I trust the leaders? That kind of trust has led to bad problems so *very* many times in history, that the examples are tiring to think about. So here are some thoughts on the logical sequence:
1) if the Book of Mormon isn't what it says it is, what is it and how did a work of such complexity and internal consistency get produced by a young person without formal education at the time, and with so many credible witnesses to what he was saying and doing and the state of his life at the time (not just the 3 and the 8, but many more in the early families, making observations in their journals etc)? And if the book is what it says it is, that means Joseph Smith was a prophet, a representative of God speaking on behalf of God like the ancient prophets did, and his successors are too, if they truly are his successors, and then logically it follows that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is God's official, authoritative organization on the earth. (Then there's the Book's influence on my personally, with a lifetime of study, but that's another topic.)
2) If #1 is true (and I have concluded after long searching that it is--membership is just too much work if it weren't), then how much accountability and transparency should there be? Well, if they are speaking for God, and it is not a representative democracy (I believe it is not, no more than Jeremiah in the Bible was elected by the people, rather he was sent by God), then that changes the whole picture. It is now for me to learn, and not to direct. To question is OK, as the apostles have taught repeatedly, because that is how we learn and act as individual agents for ourselves. But (in my wording) we have to remember who makes the rules, and it is God, not me.
3) What are their fruits? Examples like the Jamestown poisoning don't seem to fit here. Other examples have the signs of corruption (the purchasing of indulgences, leaders living large, building palaces to themselves). I'm not seeing them; nobody lives in the temples and they are closed on Sundays but there is work done there for doctrinal reasons mentioned in the Bible as well as modern revelation. Anyone can tour new ones before dedication to see what they are for, and I see that nobody is "living large" inside. Same for the meetinghouses. If any of the leaders is living large it is with money they earned in their own previous private careers, and some were quite successful. Most of them don't even get paid as far as I know, but I could be wrong, especially for the ones that used to be Church employees so didn't make a fortune their own career. What are the actual results of their doings? One might have to get to know some Mormons to know, realizing that we are all human individuals, but hopefully there's a trend, or see the humanitarian work, etc. Jesus said by their fruits ye shall know them. There will always be detractors, you have to look beyond that. They travel on weekends with heavy meetings schedules. I've known people who work in Church security and travel with them, and they work really hard, with no monetary rewards. I spoke briefly and privately with one of the twelve during a set of those weekend meetings where I lived at the time, and he had his security guy beside him, and probably tired (getting old) but was really nice to me even though I was kind of a nerd or a jerk at the time. So I have seen enough myself to dismiss all the "these guys are evil perverts out looking to cushion their own soft & corrupt lives" messages as nonsense. I've known others who travel with them, I've been at the meetings, and this stuff about "corrupt perverts" is complete nonsense. They found out that one of the 70 was consistently embellishing his storytelling ... and he was out of office in a flash. I lived in a small city with that guy's nieces and nephews, and they were all straight-laced, quiet, hard-working no-nonsense people, not rich. (As a young boy I got a job delivering for their twice-weekly local newspaper business, saw the printing and ad operations, they ran it frugally to support their large family. Years later one of their daughters was my high-schoolmate. I'll disclose here that my buddy and I soaped all their car windows one winter night as a prank on our friend; sometimes I was a stupid jerk back then.)
4) Business things, from what I can gather: For an example, the recent City Creek development in downtown Salt Lake was really expensive, funded by church businesses (not tithing, they said), and they said the purpose was to preserve the environment around the temple, which when one sees the history of the area makes total sense--the downtown could have had bad urban decay over time, and that temple needs to be in a good environment for a list of reasons. So where did those billions of $ to build City Creek come from? The Church has businesses. Good thing, that time at least. Also the bookstore chain -- it is a good influence, plain and simple, for us as members. And nobody has to buy there, the actual needed Church materials are sold very cheaply to anyone, at cost (per http://store.lds.org). [store.lds.org)] The ranches in Florida?--those help feed people, and I've worked as a volunteer in 2 of the canneries that work produce from the farms (it felt odd to be shoveling frozen meat onto a conveyor belt; canning peaches is nicer). And I've seen the process of distributing that food from large warehouses, to the poor, for free. The media properties?--I don't really know but I'm glad the Church will be able to have some voice in these corrupt, weird times we live in. And I see the results of what they do. I've been around enough that I think I'd have seen corruption, and I see the opposite, everywhere I look. I've seen how & when they hire and let go. They are always finding ways to help us as members see that we need to be kinder, better people. Anyone can read the conference talks for decades (online since at least the 70's, much online detailed historical info, essentially everything they can find to publish, goes back to the 1820's) and see the kind of influence they are trying to have.
Now anyone can certainly see it differently, and there are those who claim they've seen the corruption, but my eyes say otherwise and I'm getting older; I think the accusers have an agenda against the organization, but I'm really not their judge. But it really works for me, and I read a lot of history, from Genghis Khan to Hitler, Mother Theresa and that german doctor...Albert Schweitzer.
If God speaks, it's my job to pay attention. If He doesn't, or if He is arbitrary & can't be trusted to act in our best interest at all times, or if God doesn't exist, it's a whole different deal.
The Book of Mormon is the key, for me (again, free online). Yes there are bad apples in any org of almost 17 million, but I really believe the top 15, when they speak unitedly, will be removed by God before they go amiss, because He has said the Kingdom won't fail this time around, preparatory to His 2nd coming. It's OK to ask hard questions. Once we know we have a reason to trust (and each person has to decide for themselves) , then it is good to act on that trust, because God is perfect and trustworthy. Otherwise we simply couldn't believe what He says, like in the sermon on the mount.
That's a long answer, but that's where I am.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 04 2016, @04:47PM
Some possible reasons:
1. Mormons have some quality that appeals to the CIA or is a better fit than elsewhere
2. Mormons within the CIA deliberately manipulate the process in favor of recruiting Mormons
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @09:40PM
Anyone who would qualify as Alt-Right.
For God and Country. Big emphasis on the God, small emphasis on the Country, and no emphasis on their fellow citizens.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by jelizondo on Tuesday October 04 2016, @01:28PM
Very interesting remarks from Senator Gordon Smith, more interesting than probably revealing classified information is his outlook for economics, energy and climate change, as they relate to the ambitions of his church.
If you watch nothing else, these ~10 minutes [youtube.com] are worth every second. (Bear in mind that the recording dates back to feb 18, 2009)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday October 04 2016, @04:44PM
I will take a look at your link/timestamp, thanks.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by physicsmajor on Tuesday October 04 2016, @08:24PM
So... we're going to impeach Senator Smith then, right?
Right?!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ledow on Tuesday October 04 2016, @01:39PM
Any group that doesn't want you to know how it operates is going to be:
a) A group that EVERYONE should know how it operates.
b) A group that you don't want to be a part of if you have an ounce of morals.
c) A group that should receive special attention in regards to taxation, employment and other law.
d) Most likely on the con somehow, somewhere, sometime.
If schools are required to have things like parents on their board (in the UK, don't know how it operates elsewhere), independent governors, audits and oversight, why aren't religious groups that host children's activities - including babysitting, creche facilities, or activities offered in churches - required to do similar?
If you don't have an outsider on your board, or are audited and checked by outsiders, even if it's just to verify that the money is doing what's said WHETHER THEY PERSONALLY AGREE OR NOT, I can't see how you can operate an honest organisation.
And how does tax-exempt organisation have holdings in a for-profit, non-tax-exempt group? That can't be right, surely?
(Score: 4, Informative) by TheRaven on Tuesday October 04 2016, @02:02PM
And how does tax-exempt organisation have holdings in a for-profit, non-tax-exempt group? That can't be right, surely?
The Mozilla Foundation has a similar relationship with The Mozilla Corporation. It's fairly common. A lot of organisations do some things that are tax exempt and some that are not. For example, a donation is tax exempt, but money paid specifically in exchange for goods or services is (usually) not. If someone wants to pay for a specific feature in Firefox, for example, they can contract Moz Corp to do it, but the Foundation would not be able to do it - the company or person paying for the work, similarly, would not be able to make this a tax-deduction, but would still be able to get the work done. As long as owning the for-profit is not counter to the stated goals of the non-profit, it's usually fine.
sudo mod me up
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @02:50PM
But derpa derp muh freedumb of religion!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by melikamp on Tuesday October 04 2016, @03:31PM
Case in point: Roman Catholic Church. It is a transnational, for-profit corporation whose core business is brainwashing children and conditioning them for buying make-belief. It pays no taxes, proudly discriminates against women as an employer, and suffers no financial oversight, citing 2000 year old fairy tales as an excuse for everything. These guys got balls :)
RCC, please don't take it personally, I could have chosen any large denomination in any major tradition, they all operate just as the parent poster describes.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Tuesday October 04 2016, @03:58PM
This. You will find that every religion wants to keep their members in the dark. Otherwise, they might accidentally wake up and realize that there is no such thing as "god", and that everything they have been told is a lie created so the powerful can rake in money, molest anyone they want, and sell magic underwear.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @04:10PM
As a lifelong member, it's nothing like this. If you looked really closely at the internals by getting acquainted, you'd find out differently too. There is much information provided by the Church, or you can ask members yourself easily enough. Get to know some instead of making such awful claims.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @04:12PM
ps: of course, any organization with 16 million members is going to have some oddballs.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 06 2016, @03:02AM
ps: of course, any organization with 16 million members is going to have some oddballs.
Granted, it is just that usually it is not 16 million oddballs.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by melikamp on Tuesday October 04 2016, @04:55PM
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:14PM
My church regularly makes this information available, both for the church itself and the elementary school it's associated w/. I'm not sure if it's online but anyone can get it just by calling the church office. Additionally, when they have events (like a steak fry) they always let everyone know how much was brought in. All Mass collections are posted in the bulletin the following week.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:35PM
Meanwhile, other (and quite possibly the same) churches (as in religious base, rather than individual building) were found to have numbered Swiss bank accounts with millions in them.
Just because your single church might be upfront, it doesn't mean your RELIGION or the rest of the churches associated with that same organisation are.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:40PM
If your church is specifically associated with precisely one elementary school, then it is clearly not the kind of "large, well-established, religion" that is being discussed, and your protest makes me wonder about either your reading skills, or what you are hiding. (The wonder is just that, "a pause for contemplation of", so don't take it too seriously except as a criticism of your rhetoric style.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday October 04 2016, @04:59PM
Awful claims? As someone who was raised a member and became a non-believer, I can comfortably say that the church is an awful closed-minded fraternity with nothing to offer. Same goes for every other religious fairy tale nonsense.
It's 2016. Religion has run its course. It's time to get our heads out of the proverbial clouds of heaven and realize that there are more important things going on in the world. Stop worrying about the afterlife because for all we know, it doesn't exist unlike the here and now. We would do so much better by focusing our energies and do-good attitude on helping the various problems that plague humanity.
Maybe then we wouldn't have disgusting sub human garbage like Gordon H. Smith who approves of a war and all the destruction, death, pain and suffering it brings because it will allow you to convert more people.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:17PM
My experience has been (a lot of work but) wonderful really, in the literal sense. I'm sorry for whatever happened, and wish you all the best in everything.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @06:48PM
"Give me a boy until the age of seven and I will give you the man."
IOW, get them drinking the kool-aid early and they're yours for life.
Seems to apply to you.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @09:49PM
Sounds like a paedophile quote to me.
You pass me the boy, when I'm done with him you can have the 'man' (who probably crossdresses and cries like a little girl in bed when he things nobody can hear him... unless he's perpetrating what was done to him unto others.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @02:07AM
Studies show that those with the strongest anti-LGBT attitudes are the folks who are most aroused by gay porn.
ISTM that is a strong chance that your response reflects your own proclivities.
...and you can always Google something whose veracity you doubt.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by fliptop on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:04PM
Amen (no pun intended). Both my adult daughters went to Catholic school. I don't give my church any money now, but I volunteer when they have events, plus I sing in the choir. The "brainwashing" the OP mentioned - I really don't see the issue w/ teaching kids to be honest, respectful Christians and to love your fellow man. Just b/c we choose to follow the teachings of someone who died 2000 years ago and participate in the Sacraments we're mindless automatrons?
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @06:55PM
...and that anyone who doesn't live his life by the Nicene Creed[1] will burn in Hell for all eternity.
[1] Fabricated by the Romans, BTW, in order to use the Christian religion as a unifying construct for the empire.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org] (who spent 4th grade in Catholic school--a surreal experience--and had religion figured out as a total scam by age 13.)
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday October 04 2016, @08:13PM
There is a lot of good stuff in the teachings of Christ. Love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek, the Golden Rule, Christian charity, etc. The Jefferson Bible is a good distillation of the best of Christianity.
But, there is also a lot of wrong, mean, and just plain stupid stuff perverted into even meaner and stupider stuff by trolls who loudly proclaim their faith in Jesus while in fact practicing authoritarian control over their fellow humans, all too pleased to use God and Jesus as their whip hand, and resort to whatever tales the rubes will eat up to reinforce their status. If ordinary people are prone to seeing miracles, then these religious leaders would of course hoke up some miracles to wow them with. All that garbage about miracles worked great on the uneducated and illiterate of the times, and still works scarily well on them today.
For an example of the downright cruel, consider church teachings on sex, in which merely being homosexual is unnatural and a sin, sex outside of marriage is a sin, masturbation is a sin, having a wet dream is a sin, using a contraceptive is a sin, and heck even divorce is very naughty. Prince Charles may never become King Of England because he and Diana divorced, that's how negative they are about it. And today, we now know that homosexuality is natural, if not why it exists. As in, if evolution is so great at selecting, why hasn't homosexuality been selected out? Could it be that a low percentage of homosexuality is beneficial to the species as a whole?
Another example is government. We know that monarchy is not a good form of government, yet monotheists everywhere eat it up. God is King and Jesus is Lord. That appeals mightily to the authoritarian. Can't Jesus be President or Senator or Speaker of the House?
A big problem with religion is that it is all too prone to such evil perversions. Perhaps morality would be better couched in an Eastern style philosophy rather than a Western style church and religion and all the bad baggage it brings. Organized religion concentrates power. And as the saying goes, power corrupts. It's no surprise at all that the Mormon leadership is dictatorial and corrupt, and holds dear some profoundly wrong ideas about how life works.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @08:51PM
You say many things about religion that are very foreign to my experience. I realize there are bad people in the world, but it almost sounds like you're describing something from another planet, when I compare it with what I have seen and known personally in my religious experience.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Tuesday October 04 2016, @09:05PM
but it almost sounds like you're describing something from another planet,
Could it be, Kolob? Just asking. . .
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday October 04 2016, @10:28PM
I've spent most of my life in the Bible Belt, where I've seen a lot of that sort of hypocrisy first hand. Perhaps the Bible Belt is another planet.
Do you not get out much? Check out the Prosperity Gospel. Maybe you've never heard of it. The basic idea is really worship of money, in Christian clothing. They preach that prosperity is a sign of divine favor. God loves you and will bless you with prosperity if you are virtuous enough. You can earn virtue through charitable donations. They boil it down to a real simple chant, which I've seen preached, "give and you shall receive". Give money and it will be given back to you and more, at some unspecified future date. Sound like karma with money. That this line of preaching can so easily be totally self-serving for the preachers somehow goes unmentioned. Naturally, the preachers not only aren't poor, they are expected to flaunt their prosperity, to show that God has smiled upon them. Just have to flaunt it delicately. Instead if it being crass and greedy to drive around in an expensive luxury automobile purchased on the backs of poverty stricken followers, they've managed to pervert such acts into virtues. It's brilliantly evil. One of the biggest names in this is Joel Osteen. I don't know about his car, but his home is a $10.5 million mansion. I've watched a few of his sermons. The guy is all charm and smarm.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @11:11PM
Hmm. I wouldn't dare claim that what every religionist does is always good. I don't want to slam others. But I can say what I've seen and experienced in the Christianity that I am regularly taught (a very unofficial name; remembering that out of almost 17 million there are going to be oddballs, and we all are humans, have faults and should keep trying to improve), not to worship leaders of course, but seen & experienced enough that I want to learn to live the teachings better every day, because of peace in this life and eternal life in the world to come. I've got health problems. Family challenges. Financial uncertainties. But I'm learning, going forward, and it will be OK and life is good. I'm not giving up, because I'm happy and I believe it and I see real progress in the things that matter most to me, and will keep working on all of it.
I understand that others in other churches have seen or heard things that turn them off. But Christ is not an individual flawed person, nor a God of confusion. We believe he has restored the authority that was lost when the original apostles died, to act in His name, and that He directs His Church today, in preparation for His 2nd coming, and that it will not fail. There's the "stone cut out of the mountain" metaphor in Daniel that eventually filled the whole earth, which represents His kingdom in the last days. Small now, and there will be challenges, but I'm really glad, because things are good. Hard sometimes, but good.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @11:19PM
(oops: I had used the word Mormonism which is what I meant by "unofficial name", but then edited it out.)
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @12:13AM
the Christianity that I am regularly taught
Sorry, but if you are Mormon, none of what you are taught is really Christianity. It actually is a custom fork of the Temple of the Golden Dawn religion that Joe Smith dabbled in when he was young. The Jesus stuff was crufted on in a failed attempt to get people to stop hating mormons so much.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Wednesday October 05 2016, @12:24AM
We believe in following Jesus Christ, according to the teachings of the Bible, Book of Mormon, and authoritative living prophets. But not the Nicene creed. From there, people disagree on terminology. Sometimes others say that to be Christian you have to agree with the Nicene creed etc., but we think the creed disagrees with biblical Christianity. We believe that ancient prophets brought teachings very specific to their times (like Isaiah advising the king about alliances, or Noah telling the people to board the ark), and that the living ones similarly bring counsel specific to our times, which counsel we very much need, just as the ancients did.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Wednesday October 05 2016, @05:12PM
Fwiw I finally tried to answer this a little better as far as Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' businesses go, might not be adequate for you but is in 4 bullets at this part of the discussion:
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=15830&threshold=0&commentsort=0&mode=improvedthreaded&pid=410465#410618 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday October 06 2016, @05:49PM
Trust not in princes. Psalm 146:3.
Organized religions can have a great deal of power and influence. What do they do with it? Some of their activities are self-perpetuation, and that's okay. Some of it is good charitable work, and some is wasted on corruption of course. And then there is activity performed out of sincerely meant but wrong ideas and beliefs. Those range from the morals and ethics being doubtful and murky, possibly not wrong after all, to things we have hard science to tell us are definitely wrong. We know the Earth is far older than 10,000 years. We know Climate Change is real, caused by our CO2 emissions, and bad for everyone. We know the Earth is not flat nor the center of the solar system, galaxy, or the universe.
Of shameful and telling episodes in Church history, the persecution of Galileo is one of the most prominent. That they were such fools as to want to try force to make the universe conform to their preconceived preferences that turned out to be utterly unimportant as well as wrong, stooping to censorship to muzzle all dissent, speaks very badly not just of the occupants of the church hierarchy at that time, but the whole idea of how the church operates. They were members of an organization that professed to know the ultimate truth, had such faith in their interpretations of writings they insisted were the Word of God, and no tradition of the sort of tolerance in the principle of Freedom of Speech, that it would have taken some extraordinary leaders to buck their ingrained tendencies and not persecute Galileo.
Keep on asking whether the good that organization does outweighs the bad. We need some means of deciding what to do. Churches can provide guidance. However, it should be plain that they could benefit from guidance themselves, from listening better to outsiders. They're arrogant. They give guidance but won't take it. They ought to stop fighting Evolution and science. I've listened to Mormon missionaries heatedly tell me that we are not descended from monkeys. What does that matter to Jesus' messages of love, tolerance, charity, and humility? It doesn't, yet they got so wrapped up in that side issue. Clearly, they need better education and training. They made utter fools of themselves, and it was a sad sight. (I eventually realized that Evolution is not the whole of Creationists' problem, it's science itself.) Stop trying to cherry pick the science they like while dismissing the science they don't like. If they don't stop making asses of themselves, they may kill off their religion. Certainly Christianity is in decline, and I don't doubt that hard ass dogma is behind a lot of it, driving people away. One of the most baffling moves they've made is adopting climate change denial, pinning their religious belief on denying that we can affect the climate, insisting that it is in God's hands.
Trust not in princes. Especially do not trust self-appointed princes like Jim Jones and David Koresh of Branch Davidian infamy. You can't ever check your critical thinking at the door.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Friday October 07 2016, @01:09PM
You said: "You can't ever check your critical thinking at the door."
We agree on that and much more.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday October 05 2016, @07:51PM
This is why I say don't join a religion: just believe what you think is right and don't let others tell you what is right...thanks way, if they are wrong or the become corrupt, you don't have to reaffirm your beliefs etc.
Just be a good person, commune with God by yourself and HE will tell you what to believe. Not others: God Himself.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday October 04 2016, @06:47PM
“There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.”
― Fulton J. Sheen
To be fair from what I've read the Popes got a bit out of control back in the middle ages, but the world in general was pretty messy back then, too.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:45PM
I can accept that the quote is an accurate quote, but I've known enough ex-catholics to disbelieve it's accuracy. But most of the people I knew who hated the Roman Catholic Church were ex-catholics. And I will accept that they knew what they were leaving.
I, personally, don't hate them, but I do consider them a net social evil...as I do all other tax exempt churches. They have not lived up to their end of the deal under which they were given tax exempt status.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday October 05 2016, @08:00PM
Which pope? :)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Schism [wikipedia.org]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Interesting) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:18PM
you can ask members yourself easily enough
Yes, you can. And you can nearly die of laughter when they deny that the Church is in any way homophobic or transphobic. I don't have a problem with a group of kind, well-mannered, polite crazies pooling their money however they wish (not that I've ever claimed not to be crazy, myself), but it's not very nice to pretend there's a place for anybody who doesn't fit on the side of the aisle they were assigned at birth.
Does make me wonder. Now, it would be rude of me to use my advanced infiltrator woman suit to actually find out, but how dramatic is the excommunication when a trans woman fools ya'll for long enough about her gender at birth? Do they go full roid rage physical violence like some fundamentalist Christians?
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:26PM
As members, we are repeatedly reminded to be kind to all, regardless. The Golden Rule is a big deal. At the same time, membership requires that we maintain certain behaviors, because we believe God gives commandments and the integrity of those is important, and the organization has to protect its own integrity or lose its nature, and could put individuals in danger. Some behaviors, if universal, would end the race in a single generation.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:50PM
I'm sorry, but nearly all Christian Churches make that a part of their spiel, but in my observation the church members are actually slightly LESS kind to non-members than are non-Church members. It's not *usually* dramatic, but there's a definite shift in the mean.
That said, I suspect that this is true of every club where the members get to know each other, so it's not a direct mark against the Christian churches, so much as a claim that their propaganda about how decent they are is just propaganda. Perhaps it's mainly directed at the members, too, as I don't hear it very much as an outsider, but I hear it reported frequently by those who are members of some Christian church or another.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @08:06PM
No apology needed. So...I can only really say how we are taught to be. What we actually do is individual. In forums like our General Conference (lots of talks from leadership), this is often pointed out that we need to be better neighbors, all the time. We are all individually a work in progress (sounds a lot like "piece of work" I know...and some as individuals might agree, especially when one has really blundered at something). So true...
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:27AM
As an igtheist (yes, I'm in that extremist cult that makes Dawkins look moderate!), I'm generally more friendly towards other atheists than the religious of any flavour, simply because they have demonstrated an ability to critically analyse the world around them, and not base their views and attitudes upon unfounded woo-woo. (I include buddhism as a religion, as I don't believe wording everything in the passive and not naming the agent of the woo-woo processes as being superior to pinning a label on and defining it/them explicitly. In some ways it's weaker - it's a "we don't (and cannot) know" - but for a religion, perhaps that's a more honourable stance.)
Tons of atheists are arseholes, of course. Same as most groups.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday October 04 2016, @08:52PM
Some behaviors, if universal, would end the race in a single generation.
Thank you for at least being honest about the brand of hysteria present in the Church. I'll need to assume that discovering you've been invaded by an advanced infiltrator would elicit about the same response as John Conner's unit discovering a T-900 loose in the barracks. Anyway, blessed be~
(Score: 3, Informative) by art guerrilla on Tuesday October 04 2016, @04:24PM
you are correct: secrecy ALWAYS breeds corruption...
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @04:55PM
you are correct: secrecy ALWAYS breeds corruption...
What's wrong with corruption? (Saying this knowing that 95% of the people on this website are going to vote for HRC)
(Score: 1) by lcall on Wednesday October 05 2016, @05:15PM
Fwiw I finally tried to answer this a little better as far as Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' businesses go, might not be adequate for you but is in 4 bullets at this part of the discussion:
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=15830&threshold=0&commentsort=0&mode=improvedthreaded&pid=410465#410618 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @06:21PM
Churches I am familiar with here in the USA are run mostly by the efforts of volunteers. In fact, none of the churches I am familiar with could make their children's programs run without volunteers drawn from the church; I'm almost certain it works that way for many Christian churches throughout much of the world. Be wary of any church that does not allow any parents to participate as volunteers; such a church is a hyper-controlling cult, or worse! Parenthetically, due to unfortunate incidents of the recent past, many churches in the USA now also have requirements that people working with children and other vulnerable groups pass a background check.
The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) [wikipedia.org] was started in 1979 with the purpose of laying down seven standards of accountability for member organizations. Among these are standards on board governance, public disclosure of audited financial statements, and avoidance of conflicts of interest. Evangelical organizations that apply for ECFA accreditation need to meet these minimum standards to become members.
Now that one I agree with whole heartedly. It just boggles the mind how they can get away with that.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Wednesday October 05 2016, @05:07PM
Fwiw I finally tried to answer this, might not be adequate for you but is in 4 bullets at this part of the discussion:
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=15830&threshold=0&commentsort=0&mode=improvedthreaded&pid=410465#410618 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by tangomargarine on Tuesday October 04 2016, @02:57PM
One briefing that is particularly troubling was given by a former U.S. senator from Oregon, Gordon H. Smith. Smith, a member of the church, admits that he values obedience to the hierarchy and loyalty to the church more than he does his office.
Values it more than the office he no longer holds? Somebody ought to be slapped for the tenses in this sentence. Not sure whether they just suck at writing or they're purposely trying to mislead us that this is a thing that is still going on.
From the linked Wikipedia page:
United States Senator
from Oregon
In office
January 3, 1997 – January 3, 2009
Chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging
In office
January 3, 2005 – January 3, 2007
52nd President of the Oregon State Senate
In office
1995–1997
Governor John Kitzhaber
Member of the Oregon Senate
from the 29th district
In office
1993–1997
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:01PM
That video was from early 2009, just after he left office, so I guess past tense would have been better.
You win the grammar nitpick war of the day!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @04:02PM
I'm a Mormon and this is a link to a Church-owned general news source, but I think it can help everybody relax a little. If you understand what's going on, there's not much very interesting there as far as I can tell:
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=41706847&nid=148 [ksl.com]
The stuff about how decisions are made being secretive doesn't ring true to me. For example, the Quorum of the Twelve (highly qualified individuals all with diverse private backgrounds) have to agree unanimously before policy changes or major decisions are made. Do people expect to get weekly meeting minutes or something? There is a *ton* of public information at http://lds.org [lds.org] on how individual units are organized & run, etc etc. Even on how groups of units are run ("stakes", like a diocese). I can say from long experience that it is really how things are done. It's not meant to be a democracy or publicly-traded or something. For the financials, think about the cost of upkeep and construction on all the chapels, and it's not so complicated I think. Yah, there's more debate elsewhere, ok.
Now to try to gently preclude you saying I'm a lame brain and all the usual (which you still can of course, but here goes some more stream-of-consciousness stuff for anyone interested...):
I've been a Church employee at headquarters (not currently due to some long-term health issues but were very good about it), have known high-up Church leaders a little bit personally, and the more I learn, the more frankly and profoundly grateful I am. I'm not interested in long arguments where we each make sweeping claims and insist on more citations from the other person to the point of wearing out the other, but I'll say from a personal standpoint that as I'm getting older, have grandchildren, read news and other things from a wide variety of sources (I started reading the Quran but haven't got far yet; I have studied history enough to satisfy myself that there are good & evil people in the world, & religion can be a good or bad influence as we all know), and I participate a lot in the Church, as I'm able. I have ancestors who knew Joseph Smith personally and wrote in their journals, copies of which I own, and I see the effects of the Church's teachings on individual lives across many generations, and we are definitely better off & happier, in long-term sustainable ways, because of it, than we would be otherwise. And after long hard examination questioning many things, I really do believe it. The Book of Mormon, when closely examined to determine if it is what it internally claims to be, I find personally amazing. I'm not going to prove anything to anyone, you can go read both sides of long arguments if you want, been there; done that. There are experiences and learnings I personally can't deny. Now you can all call me crazy or mentally lame or whatever and we can still be friends, ok? But I think if you examine the effects of the Church, the service it does internationally, the level of volunteerism and donations to humanitarian relief worldwide, the general happiness by getting to know some actual Mormons, we could learn some things together. We are humans, therefore far from perfect individuals. But like in "hometeaching" and "visiting teaching": we are responsible to look after each other, and we work at it, consistently trying to help the invisible struggling ones through all kinds of hard times, in organized ways, providing counseling, food, etc etc. There is so much that goes on to help those less fortunate that is never seen. I'd better stop there. I'll just emphasize that from the inside, it looks pretty good. And it's frankly too much work being an active member, to bother with if I didn't really personally believe it after hard examination. Now go join my financial network (not!).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by TrumpetPower! on Tuesday October 04 2016, @04:56PM
When you understand why this is so, you will understand the desirously willful self-delusion of cognitive dissonance you are subjecting yourself to.
I can trivially prove to anybody that the acceleration of gravity here on Earth is about ten meters per second per second. All sorts of other equally fundamental facts about nature are just as easy to demonstrate -- we independently verified the temperature of absolute zero in a physics lab with equipment the ancient Romans could have manufactured.
Much of history, too. For about as much as you probably spend on a month's housing, you can buy for your very own personal collection a contemporary portrait of any of the Caesars, in the form of a coin. We've got Julius's autobiographical account of his conquest of Gaul, independently confirmed via modern archaeological digs.
But, when it comes to even more spectacular and fundamental and important stuff, such as the personal Creator of Existence who suffered horribly to convince us of the vital nature of his great teachings? You're not going to prove it to us, nobody's going to prove it to us, we've all got to take it on "faith."
Would you buy an used car on faith, or would you take it to your own mechanic to independently verify?
Religious faith is the same unverifiable confidence that scam artists play on. Trust but verify -- and those who insist verification isn't needed, or insufficient or irrelevant verification can or should be substituted...well, they're just trying to sell you something.
And, again...note that we're often the ones most desperately trying to sell something to ourselves, so there's no point in playing the blame game. Just recognize the con for what it is, leave your losses (however great) behind as the price of admission, and do your best to learn from your experience so you don't have to repeat it.
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:08PM
Thanks: I think you have well-described a common misconception. I think we agree that blindly following anything would be extremely risky, and a time when it would be a good idea is hard to think of. Faith, in my experience, doesn't mean that at all. It means that based on repeatable personal experiences, I can prove things true for myself, but not necessarily in a way I can transfer to you. You have to perform the test yourself, and may then act accordingly. The "act accordingly" part sometimes means following through on the lessons learned in the test, even though we don't know *everything* yet. For example, based on experience, someone could convince me that it is worth studying a new subject, trying an unfamiliar dish, or learning a new skill, even though I haven't learned it yet -- they can't give me the skill or the experience, I have to do it myself, based on some reason for confidence that it leads to something worthwhile. But I can still try it for myself and see. Having gained that small piece of experience for myself, I can determine if that was a good thing and if it is worth proceeding -- ie, acting on what I have learned to that point. That "acting on what I have learned" part is often called faith, but it really means something like confidence. There are very, very many witnesses of the things I'm saying, but they can't give it to you, you have to find out for yourself. The last chapter of the Book of Mormon (among others) describes the exact details. It's available free online.
(Score: 0, Troll) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:10PM
ps: it's like describing the taste of salt. You really have to experience it for yourself to know. I would have no idea how to do it without using the world "salt" anywhere. And doing it yourself requires action, in this case, like reading the Book of Mormon and asking God sincerely to help you know for yourself, which goes back to the reference at the end of my previous post.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by TrumpetPower! on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:31PM
Sorry, but that's a textbook example of a bait-and-switch.
"Personal experience" can, indeed, give you visceral knowledge of the taste of salt.
But you don't need to taste salt to know that it's a white crystalline substance with the chemical formula NaCl, that it's soluble (and ionic) in water, that it's the second major chemical in seawater, that it plays a significant role in all sorts of biological functions, and so on.
Show me these gods of yours, and then we can worry about what they taste like.
But all you're doing is asking me to imagine how they should taste, to the point that the visualization of the sensation of taste becomes overwhelming...and there's my proof that I'm actually tasting them. Never mind that everybody else describes the tastes of their own gods differently.
You do know that all the other religions have holy texts just as absurd as yours, with just as much in them to demonstrate their validity? And that their gods are revealed to their adherents in exactly the same ways as your gods are revealed to you?
Take your own advice. Read the Q'ran and ask the Archangel Gabriel to reveal unto you that Muhammad was the last of the Prophets and your Joe Smith was a two-bit conman. Then read the Egyptian Book of the Dead and ask Ra to weigh your soul lightly upon your death. Sacrifice a bull to Zeus to petition him for protection and favor.
But you won't do any of that, of course.
You owe it to yourself to understand why you won't -- if for no other reason than that you won't understand why nobody else takes your own superstition any more seriously, unless they're as thoroughly personally invested in it as you.
Because, when it comes right down to it, you don't actually believe -- and you can read the last chapter of Mark for the unambiguous proof that you don't, should you care. Instead, you believe it's a good thing to believe, and you sincerely try to convince yourself using the exact same techniques you're urging on the rest of us. And the main reason you persist in your belief in belief is because you're (probably justifiably) afraid that you'll lose all your family and social and professional connections should anybody else discover the fractured foundation of your faith.
The thing is, none of your coreligionists believe any more than you do. It's all an interlocking network of self-reinforcing delusion, exactly as described in The Emperor's New Clothes. All y'all're trapped in the web everybody keeps spinning. Everybody wants to escape, but is afraid to stop weaving....
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:36PM
I've got consistent answers and results, and peace amid really hard experiences of life. You can too. (And I'll plan to raise the priority of my Quran reading, thanks for your suggestion :)
(Score: 2) by TrumpetPower! on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:53PM
Nobody questions your own internal consistency, or that you gain personal benefit.
But you yourself have admitted that there's no consistency with the rest of reality.
Star Trek has more internal consistency than most religions, and lots of Trekkies will be happy to tell you the personal benefits they gain from the insights of Roddenberry and others. But we all agree that that's fiction and literary analysis, so consistency and personal benefit are -- again, obviously -- exactly the bait-and-switch I was referring to.
Now, if you want to admit that your holy texts are every bit as fantastical as Star Trek, and that you draw satisfaction and inspiration from them nonetheless, you'd find pretty much everybody would be cool with that. But that's not what you're doing; you're trying to convince everybody else that you really are a Red Shirt on an away mission, that Kirk really does speak to you on your communicator (which the rest of us can clearly see is a cheap plastic toy), and that Scotty really is going to beam you up as soon as the mission is over.
When you understand how unhealthy that degree of attachment in a Trekkie would be, you will understand how much unhealthier your own degree of attachment to your own religion is.
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:57PM
Actually, I am often delighted about how consistent it is with reality and ongoing scientific development. It all works. And when it seems not to, I just wait and things sort themselves out. Lots of times science changes (dietary & psychology come to mind...), and it's OK, we are still learning.
(Score: 2) by TrumpetPower! on Tuesday October 04 2016, @06:19PM
Still missing the point.
Star Trek is, too, just as often "consistent" with reality and ongoing scientific development. The original series had communicators that resembled flip phones decades before any public wireless telephone system existed. They had automatic sliding doors now ubiquitous in supermarkets. Lots more.
But they also have the Enterprise and transporters, neither of which is consistent with reality.
And that's your problem.
You keep trying to prove you're right, and look for evidence supporting your position. But any position, no matter how insane, can be proven right in such a manner.
What you should be doing is attempting to dis prove your position. It would be easy to disprove gravity, for example; just show something levitating in a way that's not being held up by something else (string, magnetic fields, airflows, whatever).
And, when you do that...
...well, you find that, centuries before the Caesars, Epicurus had already observed that there aren't any powerful moral agents with the best interests of humanity at heart.
You know how you'd call 9-1-1 if you ever came across, for example, a Roman Catholic priest raping a child, as far too many of them are known to be fond of doing? And how little effort it would take you to make such a call, how much it would do to mitigate evil, and how bad a person you'd be for failing to do so?
So what's Jesus's excuse for failing to call 9-1-1 every time one of his own official agents rapes the altar boy in the choir room just after instantiating Jesus in the flesh and blood? How can he answer the boy's mother's prayer that her breast augmentation surgery go smoothly but fail to answer the boy's own prayers to be spared from his assailant? Does he not have good cellphone coverage in Heaven? Can he not afford to pay the monthly service fees? Do church buildings block divine observation powers? Is the priest's free will to rape boys more valuable than the boy's free will to be free from rapists?
Note that, when you answer this, either publicly or simply to yourself, you will offer excuse after excuse for the incompetence and / or malice of your gods...and, in the process, you will vigorously argue that they are, indeed, powerless and / or heartless. And in a situation, no less, where you yourself could and would be overwhelmingly effective with minimal effort.
When you understand why you yourself are more moral and able than your own gods, you will understand the great disservice you do to yourself and everybody else by maintaining their edifice.
Back to the Trekkies...if they assured us that the Federation would make everything right in the end, you'd be very nervous about their moral judgement and trustworthiness, right? So why are you so surprised that everybody outside of your own cult is just as nervous around you as you are around everybody else?
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @06:42PM
You make intelligent arguments and I respect them. I really, really hope I don't make anyone nervous around me; if I do, I would want to fix that by being a better, kinder person. All your questions have answers. If you find some Mormon missionaries (or w/ online chats at mormon.org) they can answer them as I need to move on with my day. Or I guess we could exchange email addresses and take things one at a time if you wanted. Like, the purpose of life, where and what we were before we came here, how we can know for ourselves what is true, what happens after death (this life is really a short period, relatively), about judgement, justice, and mercy, and many really great, happy things. I'm sorry I've not been more help to this point. (BTW, in some ways maybe I have tried to disprove my position. And I keep coming back.)
I think your main point is that the presence of evil in the world is an argument against the existence and potence of God.
There are reasons that evil is allowed by God. Maybe I should answer that one now, as it's a classic and important question. He Himself has experienced the pain of evil and mortal suffering, to a further degree than any of the rest of us, so He understands. The really short (probably inadequately expressed right now) reason is that we are in a temporary probationary period to see what we will choose when goodness is not forced upon us. If our choices always had immediate consequences we wouldn't really show by our lives what we truly seek and desire. But the same omnipotent God that I believe in has said "Blessed are *all* they that mourn, for they shall be comforted" (emphasis added), and we believe he means it in a big way. He lets us choose, and our eternity depends on the choices, and everyone will eventually have the opportunity to know enough to make a fair choice, and the end will be better than the beginning. But you and I can't expect you to believe that just because I or anyone said so....
(Score: 2) by TrumpetPower! on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:00PM
Of course. Every question has answers. "42" is an answer to pretty much any question you might have, for example.
But not all questions are meaningful in the first place, and not all answers to meaningful questions are themselves meaningful.
Even more importantly, how much you like the answer is utterly irrelevant to its validity. Nor is its internal consistency.
If you want to know how correct your answer is likely to be, you've got to objectively test it against observations. Forget about "should be"; what actually is?
And, boy did I ever call it. Any parent as neglectful as your "Almighty" would be the poster child for abuse, and would have the children most rightfully taken away by the state. I mean, really? It's a blessing to a child to be raped by a priest so the child can mourn and be comforted? And we all know that justice delayed is justice denied; a police officer who knowingly let rapists run rampant for decades would again be the poster boy for official malfeasance.
Really, you should be ashamed of yourself. You'd be ashamed of acting according to the standards you're defending your gods by, right? So why aren't you equally ashamed of your gods for their horrifically incompetent malfeasance? Why aren't you ashamed for your public association with such monsters?
I mean, you'd be ashamed of wearing Nazi regalia, right? Of publicly identifying as a Crusader or an Inquisitor? Yet you've just described your "Almighty" as even more despicable than Hitler, Urban II, or Torquemada -- and in terms as horrifically glowing as any propaganda put out by any of those outfits.
When you understand why you can't make sense of why battered spouses stay with their abusers, you'll understand why you yourself shouldn't be making excuses for your pantheon, either.
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @09:19PM
He has promised that such things will pass and that He will heal and restore, for each individual. I trust that He can and will, even if it seems long, sometimes, while we are in the thick of it.
The things people are claiming here are very foreign to my personal experience. I'll thoughtfully and sincerely read the Quran. I challenge you to do the same with the Book of Mormon. :)
Best wishes.
(Score: 2) by TrumpetPower! on Tuesday October 04 2016, @09:44PM
So, let's say we've got one of these Catholic child-raping priests. And he kidnaps a child and keeps him chained in the basement and rapes him every day for a couple decades. If he promises the child that this will all pass and that he'll heal and restore him in a few more years, would that make it okay?
How about the priest's bishop. If the bishop knows all this is going on, and gives the same "will pass" line, does that make it okay?
And if the cardinal and even the Pope are all singing from the same sheet of music, does that still make it okay to keep the kid chained up?
No?
So why is it okay when it's Jesus, next in line after the Pope, who's the one who's refusing to call the police?
Look, I'm making it easy on you. You clearly reject the notion that the Papists have any sort of legitimate theological authority, and yet you can't deny that their hierarchy is responsible for committing some seriously heinous crimes and then conspiring to cover them up in a way guaranteed to create even more victims.
So why doesn't the Mormon Jesus call 9-1-1 whenever a Catholic priest rapes a child in Jesus's name? All y'all have an history of something akin to that, what with the official disavowals of the polygamous schisms.
And your own Jesus can't do the same, but instead goes along with the conspiracy?
...and you still worship him...why, exactly...?
I have.
And when you actually read your own holy texts, rather than read the Cliff's Notes and apply the Notes to the text, you might understand why the text is undeserving of respect.
No, really. You've read Mein Kampf, no? Thoughtfully and sincerely, presumably, as part of an history class or the like? Do you respect it?
So if you wouldn't respect a text justifying the slaughter of millions of Jews, why would you respect text that glorifies the slaughter of all the Midianites, to pick but but one of depressingly many examples?
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @09:55PM
I know you won't find this satisfactory, and I'm not intending a complete answer since it probably won't matter, but just to be clear: We must never condone such atrocities, and we should seek to punish the perpretrators according to law. And the ones we miss, God will punish, there is no doubt whatever.
(Score: 2) by TrumpetPower! on Tuesday October 04 2016, @10:10PM
But divine wrath is utterly useless to the victims of priestly rape. (And, of course, various other atrocities; I'm just focussing on this one example because it's so theologically clear-cut.)
Let's again say that the bishop learns about the priest's harem. The bishop does nothing to interfere, doesn't call the police. But when the priest finally retires, the bishop throws the priest in the dungeon and waterboards him every day for the rest of his life.
Would you even pretend to consider that morally acceptable behavior on the part of the bishop?
No?
So why is that same scenario writ immense something you're so passionate to promote?
I should note: you're writing from a presumption of your own moral righteousness, that you're fighting the good fight for the good guys, that you can't possibly be worng. You've got faith, after all.
But when your faith prompts you to justify infinite torture, praise it even as the ultimate moral virtue that excuses any and all terrestrial atrocity...you really, really need to look in the mirror and ask yourself if you're one of the baddies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKcmnrE5oY [youtube.com]
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @10:32PM
justify infinite torture
This was one of those things that never made sense with a "just" or "merciful" god. Even if someone lived to be 100 and was an evil bastard for every minute of it - the equation just doesn't balance if there's eternal punishment involved. This is even more obvious when someone is generally good, but not good enough by a certain religious standard (such as believing in the wrong god).
Do Mormons believe in a purgatory?
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @10:51PM
I don't know strictly how other religions define purgatory, but we believe there will be a just punishment for sin, unless one repents and chooses to keep the commandments, and chooses to qualify for forgiveness by behavior changes and obedience. Sounds tricky? That's why it's good that the judge has complete wisdom. He is not a God who wants us to be miserable, so He gives us commandments so we can be happy (like guardrails on a highway), but He lets us choose for ourselves. Not everyone had the knowledge to make the choices well, so they'll get a fair chance at some point. I hope the other post I just made in this thread helps a little on this. He doesn't expect us to get it right all at once either, but to do our very best and keep going forward.
If one knowingly chooses not to keep His commandments, the eternal reward will be limited according to what one was willing to accept. The punishments for sin are real and severe, if we choose not to follow Him, but eventually they will end and we can receive the level of reward we were willing to receive. In my own crass sort of way (not official doctrine, just me, imagining), I imagine that it is a perfect, complete, way of determining who can be trusted with how much, for eternity, by finding out what they truly desire, and giving them that, ie letting them be with those who want the same thing. Those who like chaos and destruction will get to be with others who like it, etc. (which sounds like a rather severe punishment to me), until they realize that doesn't work and stop it, then they get as much reward as possible, for them. But that's not the same reward as those who show by their actions that they desire things like honesty and the Golden Rule, etc, so there are different rewards. That last part is just me thinking aloud as to how I understand & visualize it, so forgive me if I'm off.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Thursday October 06 2016, @06:47PM
Wow, just wow. Post after post of nit-picking over all the little details, rules, and ins and outs of an "afterlife" and one small detail you completely overlooked is that IT DOES NOT EXIST!
You don't have the first shred of proof that it is even there, and yet you somehow think you already know every teeny-tiny little detail of how it operates.
That is one of many problems with religious nuts. You spin such fantastic stories to divert attention away from the root fact that what you are talking about is nonsense.
Where does a flame go when it is extinguished? Where does a bit in RAM go when it is powered off? It doesn't "go" anywhere, it ceases to exist. Same with human brains. And that simple fact makes all your fluffy-happy-dead-bunny stories, as the British say, complete ballox.
There is no such thing as an afterlife. Sorry about that :\
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:38AM
FWIW, Hell is often (and probably more logically) explained as a place the soul effectively chooses to go to once it realizes its overall incompatibility with God's Heaven. Yet because the soul is designed to have God as a necessary part for its happiness, even if in Hell there is nothing different to Heaven except for God's felt presence, multiplied by infinity it equates to an infinite unhappiness or unfulfilment, however mild. So I'd agree this hell as punishment per se is a convenient but illogical idea akin to revenge, whereas if it does exist, it is likely part of the whole free will thing. Earthly justice however is indeed described as God's vengeance, especially for such things as sodomy/rape/usury/murder/defrauding workers. That some or many seemingly die without ever being 'punished' in this life may well equate to a worse Hell, where the soul is forever aware of why it misses out on God, that it chose this and has to live with it. Whereas the reward for unmet justice to the victim is said to be given exponentially more greatly in Heaven, so the whole thing does have an internal consistency to it, be it true or not. I am not a Mormon by the way.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @10:39PM
I'm not expecting you to like this, but I'll try to explain.
I'm not saying the priest's torture would be infinite, in your scenario, just that there is a price to pay and it will be paid, unless the sinner repents, in which case Christ has paid the price by His tremendous suffering, and therefore has commanded us to forgive, because the price has been paid. It isn't fair that he had to suffer for our sins, when He was sinless. Many things aren't fair. But He has paid the price for everyone who truly repents, and He will judge, with justice and mercy properly applied in His infinite wisdom. Repentance would include confession, restitution where possible, and a change of heart and of behavior. As mortals we can't always un-do the harm, but we believe that Christ has paid and will provide full healing and restitution, in His time which is not always ours.
I think you're saying that it is wrong for God to allow the abuse to continue, therefore there can be no God.
The real question is whether God exists, and whether He deserves our trust. Each of us will have to answer this for ourselves, for now. If He exists, as I believe, then He knows the rules and will follow them, even if it takes a while for us to fully understand the wisdom of His plans. It's not for us to tell Him the rules, but He does guarantee it will be fully right in the end, including for the sufferers, even for those that you and I have offended, and for you and I who ourselves will need healing. I believe He will make it right for all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @01:12PM
Consistency, huh? Science (famously) allows us moments where it predicts things we haven't yet learned.
The LDS church (and all churches) claim guidance by an omniscient being, who can't predict very well at all.
There are the obvious 'got it wrong' moments: Slavery, great gobbets of the old testament like human sacrifice and killing for minor indiscretions. More recently, it's pretty transparently not divine how leaders seemed to be the ones god was instructing to co-opt others' wives when polygamy has been practiced. Church sanction of mishandling other cultures (indigenous peoples)
There are coincidences, or accumulated knowledge passed off as divinity, even when scientific process wasn't well-understood: rules on food and sanitation scattered throughout religions. Even the Word of Wisdom didn't say specifically the things that are now attributed to it. It disliked tea and coffee because they were HOT, and odd rules of self-deprivation were a central element of numerous sects and religions that sprang up around the same time as Joseph Smith.
But there are so many contemporary hurrying-to-catch up moments, and accumulating evidence of how often the LDS church really got it wrong:
-- no mitochondrial DNA evidence of the Americas being populated by people fleeing to the new world from Israel.
-- no archaeological evidence. Timelines all show the Americas populated across Bering, with limited incursions by Northern Europeans. No Book of Mormon cities, roads, etc., especially near NY and Vermont, where Joseph Smith began it all
-- homosexuality as a Lifestyle Choice
-- similarities between the Book of Mormon and 'The Late War' and other sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_Book_of_Mormon [wikipedia.org]
-- shifting policies on race and the priesthood
-- grassroots opposition to Climate Change action, while the LDS leadership is conspicuously silent
-- grassroots growth of antiscience sentiments over the last 30 years, not coincidentally in parallel with the religious right's doubling down as an ally to big business
-- a 'flip' from communal beliefs by Brigham Young to anti-socialism pro-mercantile pro-corporate policies (which one did God get wrong, in leading the church?)
-- grassroots young-earth views, with the LDS leadership again avoiding to quell the crazy
-- the church's handling of sexual abuse cases
-- positive policies on sex and birth control vs. repressive guilt-driven puritanical rules
-- Gender policy
I'm sure others have noticed others, and examples like these across all religions.
There should be a consistent drumbeat of divine advice that anticipates science, if god is helping the faithful. Instead, most church policy is depressingly reactionary: it generally seems to be resistant to new ideas, rather than offering a quirky framework that takes us a thousand years to grow and learn the scientifically-proper reasons for. That's the worst flaw, IMHO. If God exists, surely we'd get predictive advice. Decades or even a thousand years should be stupidly easy for a 16-billion-year-old omniscient to offer pro-tips and guidance on.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Wednesday October 05 2016, @04:05PM
You make a detailed set of points. There was another part of the threads where I answered about faith. I think God does want us to show our true desires, and if we had physical proof of everything right now, it wouldn't be the same kind of test. The proof is internal and personal, like in the other answers where I talked about the Book of Mormon and asking God oneself. And I know others have answered why they disagree with that. It's each one's choice. For the specific ~"predictions" you discuss, I think a lot of it has been discussed by others better than I could, at http://fairmormon.org, [fairmormon.org,] if you are really interested. To save time and be a bit lazy, I'll cherry-pick a few here. :) I'm not personally well-qualified on all of them.
But first, a key point (and another at the end): It is a mistake to think that God intends to prove things to us but can't or something. He allows opposition and we get to choose for ourselves. If one understands the nature of the Plan of Salvation, the role of the pre-earth life, the purpose of this one, and where we go afterward, it makes more sense. We are here to choose and learn in an environment of challenges. And, my overall take and the reason I'm not worried about every detail that comes up, I expressed in this part of another thread on this discussion, especially #'s 1 and 2 of the 4: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=15830&cid=410465 [soylentnews.org]
DNA, migration patterns, etc: there certainly could have been other migrations such as via the Bering Strait area. The text of the Book of Mormon discusses some DNA changes that were caused by God during the period it covers anyway (changes in appearance of peoples), so I wouldn't be surprised at much of anything.
Archaeological evidence is inconclusive, and seems likely to remain so for a while at leaset. In Joseph Smith's time I don't think they knew anything about all the mesoamerican stuff that is known now, so would have dismissed it on those grounds. I don't think physical proof would be enough for anyone who isn't interested it enough from the standpoint of my above link, anyway. You might find Nibley's books really interesting.
Word of Wisdom (dietary rules): we are calling that one differently. I see it holding up extremely well.
About race and priesthood: There are differences between doctrine about the nature of eternity, and policies for what is necessary to move forward right now. God is definitely in charge, and there are many changes in these last days, fortunately, as we become willing to learn & listen to God, and step by step. But changes are not to core doctrines expressed by the BofM and the combined official voice of the First Presidency, like that all humankind are children of God, and we should repent and keep God's commandments. I'm very glad that all worthy males can now hold the priesthood. (For gender stuff, it has been exhaustively discussed elsewhere such as in conference talks and I don't think I can do better. But both genders are equal in value and importance and opportunity for blessings and mutual interdependence, but that doesn't mean identical, in nature or assignment. Neither can have the highest blessings or progress in eternity without the other.)
Climate change: you're right that the Church hasn't taken an official position. Individuals choose their positions. My personal take is that God created the earth, we should respect it and we haven't, we should keep His commandments such as Sabbath observance and we haven't, and we are frankly as a global society not competent to solve the problems without His help, though we certainly should keep doing our best. But we'll do better at everything if we jointly seek and follow His counsel on these and other matters. The Church officially seems to be busy with other things right now; I'm not sure the world would listen on this anyway when they haven't listened to the key stuff like the fact that God does indeed speak. The prophecies do talk (very briefly) about the ice melting in the last days (D&C 88), and major changes happening in the earth. Hang on for a big ride; more on that below.
Science & big business: I really, really don't see members or leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints being antiscience, but quite the opposite! But mostly we all have to be humble and realize we don't know everything yet. Individuals choose how to vote or ally politically. I think sometimes big business can help with efficiency, but the Golden Rule should be used by *all* of us. I also think that we all cause problems for ourselves when we, as persons or businesses, mistreat others, because we wind up with so many laws to try to prevent the abuses, that it becomes a mess.
Communal vs. corporate policies: The law of consecration is compatible with private property but is incompatible with force or compulsion. It is a higher law that the people were not willing to live well enough at the time, so we do our best for now. We believe sometime we will again live the law of consecration, and individuals may try to attain the same virtues by using their means to do good for others.
Sexual abuse cases are turned over to the law by policy, and such behavior has always been incompatible with and has consequences for church membership. Where individuals have failed in this regard, that is sad and must always be corrected without exception. I assure you it is not ignored nor condoned by Church leadership. The Lord's statements in the scriptures are clear on this, and our behavior must also be, and He will judge.
On reproduction: as far as I can tell the core principles are taught about the eternal importance of families, with the final decision always being only between the individuals and the Lord. If culture says otherwise it should be corrected, but I don't see a problem in my experience.
And about predictions in general: the scriptures say many things about the signs of the times. They will continue, and some will be severe, until the 2nd coming of the Lord. That won't prove anything to anyone right now, but is for food for thought as time goes on right now. We need the prophets' counsel now just like the people did in the time of Noah. It is a dangerous time to ignore the commandments of God through His living prophets. If anyone studies them and is watching closely, it should be apparent.
Thanks & best regards.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Wednesday October 05 2016, @04:13PM
Sorry, I gave an incorrect reference on ice melting. Here's the right one if anyone cares:
https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/133.26?lang=eng#25 [lds.org]
--
Fast, free, open personal organizer for touch typists, with big dreams: http://onemodel.org [onemodel.org] .
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @07:42PM
So, TL;dr: there's no turning your attention back from wishful thinking, to PAST PERFORMANCE AS EVIDENCE. You've offered no defense for any of those mistakes.
And no, 'god scrambled the DNA' is not a scientifically-valid defense. It's ludicrous. The same god that can't be bothered to intervene to save millions of lives, arbitrarily monkeyed around with DNA without explanation just to preserve your faith in the book of Mormon. This is the slippery slope that leads to 'God hid fossils in the mountains when the earth was created 6000 years ago, to test our faith' young-earth-creationism. And FOR CRISSAKES, indians and black people DID NOT BECOME BLACK FROM SINFULNESS. My *GOD*, what a reprehensibly bad idea to cling to, not to mention it being scientifically baloney: Melanin isn't DNA.
No, not 'could be other migration patterns'... NO EVIDENCE OF YOUR PATTERN. ZERO. There isn't ambiguity in archaeological evidence. None exists. Zero. OTOH, Plenty of counter-evidence exists. Ruins, roads, tools, blades: all show a migration directly contradictory to what your church mythology claims. Science literally keeps finding additional mechanisms to confirm these results, while NEVER even hinting alignment to 'jews got on a raft and floated across the Atlantic to the Americas, where they flourished for centuries, including building cities'. Forty years ago, it started to become argued they went to South America (with claims made to Peruvian/brazilian prehistoric societies). Now, those claims have utterly collapsed.
Your entire post is faith and promises. I talked science. Since you agree they're still compatible (and yeah, lots of Mormons no longer do), we're done until you substantiate something. Better still, predict. Show me a church that consistently guides people to live ethically, predicts/guides things we later learn to be upheld by science, etc. Anything less is worth less than relying on ethics and science itself.
(Score: 1) by TheSouthernDandy on Tuesday October 04 2016, @06:57PM
The parent comment (b&'s) is really beautifully written. I know such frivolous observations aren't commonly offered on message boards, especially in discussions about religion, but thank you.
(Score: 1) by Frost on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:13AM
I concur. Nicely done.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @06:01PM
Humans don't normally communicate using taste. There is an entire area of science based around taste/smell. The food industry depends on that, and they certainly can communicate that information to those that need it. You probably think that lemon-lime beverage is flavored with real lemons and limes.
From the sound of it, you expect people who have not tasted this "salt" to believe it is somehow magically enchanted or something. And it is not permitted to look any closer, because if they did they might realize it is salt directly from your balls.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @06:07PM
Nah, everything I'm saying is that you have to look closer to know.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TrumpetPower! on Tuesday October 04 2016, @08:21PM
And what on Earth should make you think we haven't looked closely?
Statistically, atheists are far more likely to be knowledgeable about scripture and theology than believers.
Besides, I guarantee you you're far more ignorant of Islam and Judaism than you (incorrectly) think I'm ignorant of Mormonism. So on what grounds are you blaming my ignorance for rejection of your superstition, when your own much greater ignorance serves as your own basis for rejection of innumerable other superstitions?
No, don't bother replying; you'll only regurgitate a talking point.
The real answer, again, is that you only believe in belief, and you only hold your belief in belief out of fear of being ostracized. You wouldn't even pretend to yourself to seriously consider the merits of another religion, for you have nothing to gain and everything to lose. At best, you could hope to be persuaded by that folly and transfer your membership from one cult to another. At worst, you'd realize that all follies are equally fallacious, including your own -- and then where would you go for community?
Alas, you likely are quite trapped in this web you and your family have woven together and continue to weave. Most rational people, given a choice between pretending to go along with the talk about the finery of the Emperor's wardrobe and being shunned by their loved ones, will keep their loved ones happy.
But there are those who manage to find the way to be honest with themselves...and what family can truly be trusted if you can't be honest with them, either? And the good news is that, in today's increasingly secular world, your chances of succeeding at apostasy are better than ever.
Best of luck...you'll need it, whether you want to admit it to yourself or not, whether you choose the path of honesty or continue to pretend otherwise.
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:12PM
"Religion is the opiate of the masses" -Karl Marx
(Score: 1, Touché) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:26PM
Ah, Karl Marx's ideas really don't seem to make people happier as far as I can tell. (I have studied communism and know a little Russian; majored in their history, for a while and had a whole semester class on Josef Stalin at a midwestern university, had a Russian coworker, etc. My mother knows Chinese, teaches it a little, got a degree in asian studies or something, and has visited China more than once, and I have borrowed & read some of her books with biographical and historical stuff. My father was born & raised in a non-English speaking country, and I've been out of my home country extensively and talked with people at great length. It would be very hard to convince me at this that Karl Marx's ideas are generally helpful, though he probably had a few good ones buried in there, given the volume.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:08PM
Karl Marx's ideas [...] I have studied communism [...] Josef Stalin
One of these is not like the others.
(Stalinism is Totalitarianism; that isn't anything like Marxism|Communism.)
Why is it that I think you went to a parochial school to "study communism"?
Hint: Indoctrination is NOT the same as being taught analytical thinking.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:38PM
Republican voting trends to the contrary, Mormons are secret believers in Marxism. They have their own version, called the United Order [wikipedia.org], where the church membership has "all things in common". The Wikipedia page talks about the practice being voluntary, but nothing was voluntary under Brigham Young. It was obey and volunteer or suffer the consequences.
Mormons claim that their style of communism is different than others, and maybe it is because every version is unique. Mormons were very proud of their Marxist ways, until the red scares of the early 20th century when they whitewashed the United Order into meaninglessness.
When you get to the true heart of the matter, Mormons believe in communism as long as Mormon leaders run the show. It partly explains their theocratic desires, as showcased in the Senator Smith briefing video.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:47PM
Your comment reflects a common, unfortunate myth about Christianity. In any form of the United Order, as in any form of real Christianity, anyone can get out whenever they want. We do not believe in forcing anyone, ever, for any reason, to serve God.
In fact it is an article of faith for us to defend the freedom of others to believe or not, participate or not, as they wish, and to speak openly of their reasons for such in public and private, as they choose. Preferably, everyone could agree on that much at least.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @08:01PM
The lip service to freedom is nice, but Brigham Young used to hunt down and murder people who left his kingdom. (OK, he didn't by himself. That's what his "Destroying Angels" were for.)
Even when no physical duress is used, the church (both historical and current) uses persuasive techniques that are no different that any other confidence game. It's easy to do when you control an entire culture (e.g. the Mormon belt in the inter-mountain west). How many young men really want to serve two year missions and how many go because of the pressure? How many people really want to pay the church 10% of their income, and and many do it just to keep a temple recommend so that they won't be shut out of family weddings? The societal pressure is intense.
But yes, in modern Mormonism, people can leave. There is a huge social, emotional and familial cost to do this, however. Check out the many heartbreaking stories at exmormon.org [exmormon.org] for examples of the toll that leaving the Mormon church takes on people.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @08:25PM
Most of these thunderous statements (not all), seem to come from ACs.
I really doubt the BY murders you suggest. Not sure how to prove it either way though. Many people said bad things but that doesn't make them true. I do have family who was there through some controversies, which is about as good as what one could go on. Even scholars disagree on history, which I'm not, but I read a lot.
Three people in my immediate family have left the Church in my immediate memory. We still do lots of family stuff. That doesn't prove anything I know, but ... I see it, and it seems individual to me. Again, we really are supposed to be good to each other regardless, and when we are not, we should do better. We'll keep trying to do better, anyway. Also I'm not going to pretend I don't believe something just because I'm around them, and they likewise express their minds. For comparison, my son and I don't vote alike, but I still think we're really close and we have *tons* in common. When someone is exclusionary or cliquish, that is sad, definitely. (BTW, my son, w/ whom I usually disagree politically, made the best statement about the candidate from my party, for whom I won't vote, that I ever heard. Since then you've heard it elsewhere, but it really, really made me laugh.)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @08:41PM
Bill Hickman, one of the "destroying angels", admitted all and turned state's evidence. Google the book and read it for yourself: "Brigham's Destroying Angel: Being the Life, Confession, and Startling Disclosures of the Nortorious Bill Hickman". It's now public domain.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @09:05PM
Looks like his "confession" kept him from being prosecuted, and then the federal case he was enabling went nowhere. Seems to be one of those historical things where you have to decide whom to believe, based on one's view of their trustworthiness, and whether it can be corroborated in any way. Thanks for the reference.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday October 05 2016, @01:08PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by lcall on Wednesday October 05 2016, @03:16PM
Thanks. I'm all in, anyway. If I didn't answer and should have and you point it out, I'll retry. I admit sometimes I was tired. I had some time and this is important.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Thursday October 06 2016, @03:19AM
I just think it is sooo-o cute that SoylentNews has its own Mormon missionary assigned to us! Does this mean we are an "important" website now? Did we have to give up a Microsoft shill or an Electric Universe crazy to make room?
(Score: 1) by lcall on Thursday October 06 2016, @12:28PM
There were some strong statements and valid questions, and almost nobody else was answering. Is only one viewpoint allowed here?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday October 07 2016, @07:10AM
Cute, I said. Mormonism is not a viewpoint, it is not a theory of reality. As many have very politely pointed out, the entire religion is a delusion, and a scam.
Do I have to point out how many pyramid schemes originate in Utah, because it is perfectly alright to rip-off the gentiles? Do I have to mention the Salamander Papers, the assassination of their possessor? Do I have to mention the splinter groups, the Mormon war against the United States of American, the fact that Mitt Romney's father was born in Mexico for a reason?
Yes, your opinion is allowed here. But I do notice that you only pipe up when something prejudicial to the Saints comes up. And you are very polite. That does not make me uncomfortable. It just plain scares me. I sincerely hope you recover. There are people and organizations that can help.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Friday October 07 2016, @02:00PM
Ghandi, to make a remote comparison, was polite -- is he frightening? It can be good to learn from people like that when we can. I don't want to quit trying after all the effort to learn to be polite, especially since it's still a work in progress.
I do want to chime in when I see info that to me is very false or unbalanced, where I might know something. In this case I think I do.
With other issues as you mentioned, when one looks at the actual facts with depth, I have found to be not as you insinuate (in one case, personal acquaintances, etc: "que te vaya bien, y que no te machuque el tren", as one says -- google translate doesn't do well there). But all those things have been covered vigorously on both sides I presume, more thoroughly than we will here (including at http://fairmormon.org). [fairmormon.org).] Maybe I should have logged in when helping (just a little) with a tech/security question.
I also answered a large # of questions about my Free software -- where maybe I'll charge for some features later. (Since then, I made some improvements to the documentation, though not all that were suggested. I added some code to increase the convenience of creating consistently structured or semi-structured data -- in github but not in a released binary nor documented yet. When I'm able, I currently work on making it distributed, for exchanging data, structured or not, between instances, watching for data changes, etc. Then I'll probably try getting a demo video made, and sometime I hope, a pleasant web UI: http://onemodel.org [onemodel.org] .)
Best wishes.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Friday October 07 2016, @02:07PM
(Oh yeah, and this one... I know "https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=9684&threshold=0&commentsort=0&mode=improvedthreaded&pid=241222#241469 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by lcall on Friday October 07 2016, @02:12PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @09:21PM
Ah, Karl Marx's ideas really don't seem to make people happier as far as I can tell.
Of course not! Marxism is an economic theory, not an opiate of the masses like religion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:47AM
Thanks to Karl Marx one third of the world was enslaved and literally tens of millions of truly innocent people were tortured and killed for disagreeing with his theories. Atheism is such a great religion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:20PM
Whoever is leaking the videos and documents is (or was) also a church employee and they seem to disagree with you about how well things are run. And while the general organization of the Mormon church may be well known, the high-level decision making and finances are shrouded in secrecy. That's undeniable. Transparency in these matters is far more commonly the case in large churches.
As far as unanimity in decision making, that seems to be propaganda for the masses. Respected Mormon scholar D. Michael Quinn wrote a well-documented book on the subject called The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power. Here's the book's blurb from its Amazon page (linked in the original post):
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @04:49PM
Go ahead, please send more of your missionaries to war zones.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @06:21PM
Wait I think I recall reading about what Islam says should be done to missionaries... I just don't recall "off the top of my head..." Maybe someone can remind me.
(Score: 2) by snufu on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:37PM
Why didn't Mormon missionaries take their message directly to Saddam Hussein before the U.S. obliterated Iraq? Surely Saddam would have would have welcomed saving from Joseph Smith's revelation.
Of course its easier to proselytize a group of people after they have been decimated into 'peace' and their governing body stripped by American military and tax dollars.*
* Tax dollars of which none were derived from any church.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:54PM
Simply because it was illegal. Mormon missionaries must always obey the laws where they serve.
(To your other comment: it seems like the Iraq was because Saddam invaded Kuwait and lost, then convinced the whole world he had WMDs -- whether he did or not, he convinced about everyone that he did -- and had proven previously that he was willing to use such. Ie, convinced everyone that he was to be feared, and not following the agreements he made after Kuwait, until it was too late. To not depose him at that point would have meant we just make threats and never expect follow through on promises by dishonest belligerents who are a danger to everyone. Even though we have slipped to that point now.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @08:08PM
Obey the laws? That's rich given the extensive visa fraud that the Mormon church employs to place its missionaries in otherwise-difficult countries.
And when they can't get in "missionaries", they call people to China to "teach English", or to Russia as "volunteers". Make no mistake that the Mormon church is only interested in proselytization and converting people to Mormonism. Everything else is a pretext.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:04PM
The real Apostles: https://www.yakimawa.gov/council/ [yakimawa.gov]