The Website that Decimated Oxygenadam's Testimony

[_Themis]

When applied to Nazism, since it is clear that Nazism clearly harms people, it would not be immoral to try to stop it.

I may not care for those protesters by temple square, but they truly believe Mormons are going to hell. This means the church does a lot of harm in their eyes so they are doing a very morally correct thing in trying to help us out:) So who gets to decide which organizations are harmful? What about just wanting someone to have more correct information about what they think are incorrect beliefs, and even though they may not consider them harmful, they may consider the person better off by knowing they are incorrect.

Why is it some people always feel nobody should challenge their beliefs even if they think they do no harm. I think it is wrong to promote hatred or violence against any group.

[_Runtu]

Why is it some people always feel nobody should challenge their beliefs even if they think they do no harm. I think it is wrong to promote hatred or violence against any group.

There is a huge difference between honest criticism and promoting hatred and violence. It's weird that some people think that all criticism is immoral. If I find an institution, organization, or belief system harmful, I reserve the right to say so and explain why. There's nothing immoral about that.

[_moksha]

If there were a large group of people who genuinely asserted Santa Claus exists, and in fact believed their eternal continuance were based on said belief, would you not question their psychological stability? Of course you would.

Very Respectfully,

Doctor CamNC4Me

If the belief in Santa Claus helped give meaning to their lives and made them better people, then I would say Doctor Grinch that comparatively speaking they are just fine believing in Santa.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Hello Mr. Moksha,

Whether or not they feel good about their psychosis or whether or not they are free to do so is beside the point. They are still mentally unstable. They have chosen to indulge in a fantasy that clouds their fundamental ability to distinguish between reality and make believe. That process carries over to other people who are now subject to said delusions.

Faithful Mormons, for example, believe homosexuals are immoral. They derive that belief from their system of worship. They believe their god does not like homosexuality. Thus, faithful Mormons indulge their mass delusion and actively attempt to counter homosexuals from marrying one another in California. Homosexuals suffer at the hands of faithful Mormons due to the latter's psychosis. Other parallels for women and African-Americans can be drawn, too.

So. There you have it. I would not expect someone who is mired within the Mormon mindset to have the ability to distinguish between their delusion and reality. In layperson's terms a crazy person does not know he is crazy.

Very Respectfully,

Doctor CamNC4Me

Post Script- Perhaps Mr. Oxygenadam would like to review some of the tapir-Mopologetica in order to understand how one's delusion can lead to unrealistic worldviews...

[_Chap]

It is not a value judgment to say that most thoughtful people (in the sense of people who try to give serious attention to the grounds for believing or disbelieving in a proposition put to them) would be likely to agree with Sethbag that the distinctive claims of the CoJCoLDS are probably fictional.

It is definitely a generalization. In order to make it sound, you'd have to take a sample of "thoughtful people" from all walks of life, and from all geographic locales, as well as all socioeconomic statuses. The sample size should be at minimum 30, but in order to be more accurate, it would need to be many more.

I could, for example, just as easily say that most thoughtful people I have encountered have accepted the truth claims of the CoJCoLDS outright. Of course, I could have taken my sample from the BYU campus where LDS scholars abound.

Need a really big sample of people drawn from all over the world?

I think that there are pairs of Elders out there making that large-scale trial right now, and have been for years Wonder what kinds of results they are getting from their survey? Either thoughtful people (in the sense explained above) are very, very rare, or it looks like I'm right, doesn't it?

Yup, growing from one person to over twelve million people in under 200 years is a testament to your correctness.

Please.

Did I not make it clear that I was not talking about the reception of the claims of the CoJCoLDS by people in a long-ago time when many normal Americans believed in 'slippery' treasure and magic rocks to find it with (or so we are often assured on this board), but about the situation 'right now' (see above), when people have the benefit of a modern education and modern access to information sources?

(Thought: is there any evidence that missionary success in getting baptisms correlates negatively with the general education level and information richness of the society that the missionary is working in? If so, that would be relevant to this discussion, would it not?)

[_EAllusion]

http://www.infidels.org/library/histori ... elief.html

I find the notion that a belief is fine even if it is unwarranted so long as it makes the people harboring that belief happy to be insidious.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Oh, and need we start a thread on how utterly stupid atheism is? I thought not.

You should, if you really believe that. I'd like to see it, and what if you convince someone it is utterly stupid and they accept the restored gospel? I would think you would have a duty to share the gospel with anyone who would listen.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Hello,

I, too, would like Mr. Oxygenadam to start a thread on Atheism. I am very, very curious to see him lay out an argument against the validity of Atheism and/or why it is "stupid".

Very Respectfully,

Doctor CamNC4Me

[_oxygenadam]

I do not think atheism is stupid. I was merely illustrating a point that I can be carelessly offensive, too. It does not take much brainpower to do so.

Did I not make it clear that I was not talking about the reception of the claims of the CoJCoLDS by people in a long-ago time when many normal Americans believed in 'slippery' treasure and magic rocks to find it with (or so we are often assured on this board), but about the situation 'right now' (see above), when people have the benefit of a modern education and modern access to information sources?

You did not make it clear that this was your view.

Your view is still incorrect, as a simple visit to LDS.org will easily disprove your claim.

I recommend that you try to be somewhat educated about the matter before you make an argument about it.

http://www.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news ... ady-growth

[_Chap]

I do not think atheism is stupid. I was merely illustrating a point that I can be carelessly offensive, too. It does not take much brainpower to do so.

Did I not make it clear that I was not talking about the reception of the claims of the CoJCoLDS by people in a long-ago time when many normal Americans believed in 'slippery' treasure and magic rocks to find it with (or so we are often assured on this board), but about the situation 'right now' (see above), when people have the benefit of a modern education and modern access to information sources?

You did not make it clear that this was your view.

Your view is still incorrect, as a simple visit to LDS.org will easily disprove your claim.

I recommend that you try to be somewhat educated about the matter before you make an argument about it.

http://www.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news ... ady-growth

I think it was eminently clear that I was not talking about the 'glory days' of large-scale conversions which are long gone, but about the much sparser mission harvest of the present day.

But anybody who can read that article and come away convinced that large numbers of well-informed and reflective people are being baptized and retained as active members of the CoJCoLDS has special reading skills. They are also a bit uncritical in assuming that the accounts of its own growth by the CoJCoLDS are the last word in reliability ...