Commentary: Discussion on Mormonism

Elind said:
Sorry to hear that.:(
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It's not that bad now. I thought I was going to lose my mind at first. Pain used to wake me up in the middle of my dream cycle and I felt like hell. After awhile my body started to adapt. It's ok. :) When I first wake up is when I take care of a lot of no brainer job stuff (my office is my home). After a few hours I go back to sleep for about an hour. That seems to work for me.
 
RandFan said:
It's not that bad now. I thought I was going to lose my mind at first. Pain used to wake me up in the middle of my dream cycle and I felt like hell. After awhile my body started to adapt. It's ok. :) When I first wake up is when I take care of a lot of no brainer job stuff (my office is my home). After a few hours I go back to sleep for about an hour. That seems to work for me.
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I presume you mean the no brainer stuff being your posts here?;);)

Let us know if we can help with the anything other than cheap medications from Canada.:D

PM is fine too.
 
Elind said:
I presume you mean the no brainer stuff being your posts here?;);)
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:) No, there's a lot of clerical crap associated with my job that I have to do. Believe it or not, when I come to the forum in the morning I usually can't get back to sleep. It wakes me up. That's why I say my clerical work is brain dead. It's just non-thinking-going through the motions stuff that I can, literally, almost do in my sleep until the pain subsides.

Let us know if we can help with the anything other than cheap medications from Canada.:D

PM is fine too.
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Funny thing, I was ordering vicodin from Canada but I can't get a prescription for it anymore. I don't have insurance and I think the doctors at the clinic think I became addicted. I was doctor shopping for awhile but I think they have a database and they just want to prescribe for me prescription strength Ibuprofen (what a joke, you can get that over the counter and just take larger doses) and it doesn't do a thing for me. I haven't had vicodin in over a year. Never had withdrawal symptoms, just pain.

I'm lucky, I've found a way to adapt. I don't know what I would do if I was in chronic pain for longer periods.
 
I hope you are all checking out www.lds.org and www.mormon.org as well as the anti-mormon sites and videos to even out the bias.

One of the problems that people run into when trying to find information about the Mormon church is that a lot of the information out there that I've seen is just plain incorrect or twisted half-truths. And then there are some people who cherry pick strange ideas from individual members of the church and throw it into a cartoon or article about "what all Mormons believe."

If you want to find out what Mormon's believe, go to the sites listed above too and go to their church meetings on Sundays. Surprisingly, you'll not find anything like what you're finding out on the internet. Most of what I've seen on the internet are ridiculous strawmen that are pretty easy to knock down and they don't really resemble what Mormon's believe nor what the Mormon church considers to be their doctrine. The main source of Mormon doctrine is in the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, Articles of Faith, Proclamation to the World on the Family, etc.

Just thought I'd poke my head in for a second to balance out the dumb cartoon. It is freaky. I think some of the disinformation in that cartoon is just misunderstanding, but some of it is blatently and purposefully false and that's what bothers me most about it.

It's like mixing 10 parts cow poop (can I say poop?) with 1 part cookie dough, baking it up and calling it a cookie.
 
You are no doubt correct in much of what you say, but I would like to point out that we do not need the sensationalist stories to be skeptical, or more. Your own words here are enough for that.
 
My purpose wasn't to tell you to not be skeptical any more, it was to correct disinformation. That's all.
 
rcronk said:
It's like mixing 10 parts cow poop (can I say poop?) with 1 part cookie dough, baking it up and calling it a cookie.
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Thank rcronk,

You have some great points. Sadly there is often untruth in critical assesments of Mormonism. I think the reason for that is that much of the anti-Mormon propaganda is from other religious organizations and they are not always rigigorous when it comes to their arguments.

The cartoon is very poor and I would be glad to say that it offers a very skewed image of the church.

That said, not all evidence and sources are like the cartoon.
 
RandFan said:
On the continuum of least-cult-like to most-cult-like, Mormons are more to the extreme than most mainstream Christian Churches. I think they have some valid points about that.

But you are right, once you get past that they are all pretty much the same with their irrational beliefs.
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I agree. I consider them all to be cults. Here's a definition I have used for years now, which works well for me.

Religion: A cult which has outlived its founder.
 
RandFan said:
Thank rcronk,

You have some great points. Sadly there is often untruth in critical assesments of Mormonism. I think the reason for that is that much of the anti-Mormon propaganda is from other religious organizations and they are not always rigigorous when it comes to their arguments.

The cartoon is very poor and I would be glad to say that it offers a very skewed image of the church.

That said, not all evidence and sources are like the cartoon.
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Did you think the podcast was pretty balanced?

I'd like to find out more... but I wouldn't go to a Scientology site to find out about Scientology or a Speaking in Tongues site to learn about speaking in tongues. I thought the 2 part podcast on Mormonism was pretty clear and fair-- I'm eager to have misperceptions corrected but not "explained away" or told I need to wait until someone hears back from their apologist organization. I don't believe in prophets getting messages from god and I think it's manipulative to tell people they can pray to know if the book of Mormon is true and a "subjective experience" will confirm it. I do think it's very interesting the way they indoctrinate and the ernestness with which they try to be true to their faith. But it sure doesn't make it true. And it seems terribly hard to unlock a mind that believes they've been given a "sign". I don't believe in "signs"-- but I understand why humans would evolve to seek them and allow them to guide them. It must feel comforting to think that in the big wide universe, your little ol' self is "chosen" and on the path to a greater purpose.

Does it matter if it's true? Can anything change the mind of someone who believes they can know something true by subjective feelings? By faith? By trusting that it IS true? By believing with all their might that it's true? I think it's interesting that he divides knowledge in Mormon vs. Anti-mormon... and I divide it into fact and evidence based information vs. everything else (opinions, semantics, myths, beliefs, stories, delusions, mottos, anecdote, hearsay, feelings, illusions, perceptions, etc.) The key is to have a person believe that the "faith" matters more than the "truth", I think.
 
articulett - I'm about 1/4 through the first podcast and it sounds accurate so far. The gentleman being interviewed sounds sincere and his story sounds like what an encounter with missionaries would be like. His description of Joseph Smith and the first vision (where He saw God and Jesus Christ) sounds correct and straightforward. I look forward to listening to the rest of it. Thanks for the links.

P.S. The reason I said Mormon and anti-Mormon was because those are the main sources of information about Mormons. People have set up fake religious organizations whose sole purpose is to publish false anti-Mormon literature - I even got a nice DVD on my doorstep from one of them this past year for free! From my own experience, I have rarely seen unbiased accounts of the Mormon church from third parties. This podcast is starting out pretty good though.

P.P.S. Ironically enough, I have been debating 9/11 "truthers" (even Steven Jones via email and face to face) for a few years and other conspiracy theorist friends for about a decade now and I have also been trying, like you, to figure out what motivates them and I have learned several things about what motivates them, etc. When I get a little more time, I'll write up what I've found. As I went through that process, I had to apply my accusations against them to myself to make sure I wasn't doing the same thing in defending my beliefs with regard to Mormonism, etc. It was a very healthy exchange for me and I learned a lot about them and about myself.
 
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great post rconk...

I know we've been putting you through the paces... but usually believers just start getting testy and preachy... so we never get to quiz them for very long, and I am curious.
 
diogenes - Yes.

articulet - Thanks. I have found one interesting thing in the podcast that I'm looking into about the Book of Mormon being written in "reformed Egyptian" (it's between 1/3 and 1/2 way throught the first podcast). "The Papyrus Amherst 63 contains a text of Psalms 20:2-6 written in Aramaic (the language of Jesus) using Egyptian characters. This text was originally dated to the second century B.C., but this has since been extended to the 4th century B.C" and "More significant, however, was an ostracon uncovered at Arad in 1967. Dating "toward the end of the seventh century B.C.," it reflects usage from shortly before 600 B.C., the time of Lehi. The text on the ostracon is written in a combination of Egyptian hieratic and Hebrew characters, but can be read entirely as Egyptian. Of the seventeen words in the text, ten are written in [Egyptian] hieratic and seven in Hebrew. However, all the words written in Hebrew can be read as Egyptian words, while one of them, which occurs twice, has the same meaning in both Egyptian and Hebrew. Of the ten words written in hieratic script, four are numerals (one occurring in each line). One symbol, denoting a measure of capacity, occurs four times (once in each of the four lines), and the remaining Egyptian word occurs twice. Thus, while seventeen words appear on the ostracon, if one discounts the recurrence of words, only six words are written in hieratic (of which four are numerals), and six in Hebrew." - link
 
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Diogenes said:
Do you think Mormans might be a little biased towards Mormonism?
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Obviously, yes - but I have to tell you, whatever bias anyone has, the information presented on the LDS website is accurate and straightforward. It might be somewhat biased, but at least I don't think the official website has any hidden agendas - it's mostly informative, if anything.

Having said that, the official website is lacking some information in some areas, but their search engine, while not as good as Yahoo!'s, should yield many results into what you're looking for.
 
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