Why Are Mormons More Asininely Stupid than Catholics?

The catch-all forum for general topics and debates. Minimal moderation. Rated PG to PG-13.
IHAQ
God
Posts: 1533
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2020 8:00 am

Re: Why Are Mormons More Asininely Stupid than Catholics?

Post by IHAQ »

Don Bradley wrote:
Wed Mar 01, 2023 5:00 am
*Latter-day Saints: 74% are Republican; 46% of them believed Trump's fraud claims - 62%
- Thus, 62% of Latter-day Saint conservatives believed Trump's lie.
Yeah, "less gullible" also reads as "the majority of LDS Republicans believe Trumps' fraud claims". And you think that's a positive statistic?
User avatar
Physics Guy
God
Posts: 1557
Joined: Tue Oct 27, 2020 7:40 am
Location: on the battlefield of life

Re: Why Are Mormons More Asininely Stupid than Catholics?

Post by Physics Guy »

Rivendale wrote:
Tue Feb 28, 2023 10:09 pm
Transubstantiation isn't so far removed from a seer stone.
The whole point of transubstantiation was and is to say that the change in the consecrated elements is real despite not being physical. One can imagine a lot of ignorant peasants missing the Scholastic subtlety of substantial versus accidental properties, but those peasants munched a lot of those transubstantiated wafers. Not many of them can really have gone on thinking that what they were eating was literally meat.

Something like the catalyst theory of how Joseph Smith used that roll of papyrus to get a vision of the Book of Abraham—that would be more in the direction of transubstantiation, arguing that the meaning of the old scroll really changed for Smith, even though the hieroglyphics did not. Is Mormonism on its way from seer-stone thinking to catalyst-theory thinking? Or is the seer stone a permanent core fact of Mormonism and the catalyst theory already a footnote?
I was a teenager before it was cool.
User avatar
Doctor CamNC4Me
God
Posts: 8981
Joined: Wed Oct 28, 2020 2:04 am

Re: Why Are Mormons More Asininely Stupid than Catholics?

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

Joseph Smith shoulda used that iStone to translate2.0 them papyri. Egypt is called Egypt because a woman named Egyptus founded the country? Really? And Joseph Smith, BY, and Taylor taught the “curse of Cain was passed through Egyptus so that "the devil should have a representation upon the earth as well as God".”

This is what Mormons purport to believe.

- Doc
Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
User avatar
Kishkumen
God
Posts: 6121
Joined: Tue Oct 27, 2020 2:37 pm
Location: Cassius University

Re: Why Are Mormons More Asininely Stupid than Catholics?

Post by Kishkumen »

IHAQ wrote:
Wed Mar 01, 2023 8:00 am
Yeah, "less gullible" also reads as "the majority of LDS Republicans believe Trumps' fraud claims". And you think that's a positive statistic?
In an era of political tribalism run amok, most definitely.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
User avatar
Kishkumen
God
Posts: 6121
Joined: Tue Oct 27, 2020 2:37 pm
Location: Cassius University

Re: Why Are Mormons More Asininely Stupid than Catholics?

Post by Kishkumen »

Don Bradley wrote:
Wed Mar 01, 2023 5:00 am
Notably, among the few Republicans to resist Donald Trump's attempts to interfere in our election system are Mormon Republicans--among them Rep. Rusty Bowers, Sen. Jeff Flake, and most notably Mitt Romney: the first United States Senator in history to vote against party lines in a presidential impeachment.
Those three made me especially proud of my people. Mitt Romney continues to hit it out of the park by confronting the amoral loonies of his party, such as George Santos.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
User avatar
malkie
God
Posts: 1478
Joined: Wed Oct 28, 2020 2:41 pm

Re: Why Are Mormons More Asininely Stupid than Catholics?

Post by malkie »

Kishkumen wrote:
Wed Mar 01, 2023 1:02 pm
Don Bradley wrote:
Wed Mar 01, 2023 5:00 am
Notably, among the few Republicans to resist Donald Trump's attempts to interfere in our election system are Mormon Republicans--among them Rep. Rusty Bowers, Sen. Jeff Flake, and most notably Mitt Romney: the first United States Senator in history to vote against party lines in a presidential impeachment.
Those three made me especially proud of my people. Mitt Romney continues to hit it out of the park by confronting the amoral loonies of his party, such as George Santos.
And Santos claims that was not very Mormon of Mitt!
You can help Ukraine by talking for an hour a week!! PM me, or check www.enginprogram.org for details.
Слава Україні!, 𝑺𝒍𝒂𝒗𝒂 𝑼𝒌𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒊!
dastardly stem
God
Posts: 2259
Joined: Tue Nov 03, 2020 2:38 pm

Re: Why Are Mormons More Asininely Stupid than Catholics?

Post by dastardly stem »

Don Bradley wrote:
Wed Mar 01, 2023 5:00 am
Nomomo wrote:
Tue Feb 28, 2023 8:18 am
Why Are Mormons More Asininely Stupid than Catholics?  
46% of Latter-day Saints believe the “Big Lie” while among Catholics only 35% believe the "Big Lie".
https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2021/05 ... nd-oh-say/
Nomomo,

Suppose we looked at the statistics on how many Republicans believe the Big Lie vs. how many Democrats believe it. What would you expect to find? Take a sec to think about that.

What we would find - which I'm sure is exactly what you predicted - is that a majority of Republicans believe it--about 65%--while a negligible number of Democrats do. (In fact, I've yet to find a study that cites any significant percentage of Democrats believing the Big Lie.)

Now, let's note how many people in these religious groupings are Republican/Republican-leaning, and then we can compare that with the statistics you cite above:

Republican/Republican-leaning:

White evangelical Protestants: 78%
Latter-day Saints: 74%
White mainline Protestants: 54%
White Catholics: 48%

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/20 ... rtisanship

White evangelical Protestants tend to believe the Republican candidate's election fraud claims because they are overwhelmingly Republicans. Non-evangelical white Protestants tend to believe Trump's lies less because they are less likely to be Republicans. Similarly, Catholics believe Trump's election lies still less because they are still less likely to be Republicans.

Thus, the reason that more members of certain religious groups believed election fraud claims by the Republican candidate is that more members of those groups are Republicans. And the reason that fewer members of certain religious groups believed election fraud claims by the Republican candidate is that fewer members of those groups are Republicans.

Alongside acknowledging the pernicious character of Trump's election lies, it also to be acknowledged that--realistically--opinions on claims of this nature tend strongly to break down on partisan political lines. For instance, after the 2000 election, a majority of Democrats, but not Republicans, thought George W. Bush had not been legitimately elected. And, similarly, after the 2016 election, a majority of Democrats, but no Republicans, thought Donald Trump had not been legitimately elected.

With that reality in mind, let's look again at the statistics you cited:

*White evangelical Protestants: 78% are Republican; and 61% of white Evangelicals believed Trump's fraud claims 
- 61% divided by 78% is (coincidentally) 78%, meaning that 78% of white Evangelical conservatives believed Trump's lie

*Latter-day Saints: 74% are Republican; 46% of them believed Trump's fraud claims - 62%
- Thus, 62% of Latter-day Saint conservatives believed Trump's lie

*White mainline Protestants: 54% are Republican; 37% of them believed Trump's fraud claims 
- Thus, 69% of white mainline Protestants believed Trump's lie

*White Catholics: 48% are Republicans; 35% of them believed Trump's fraud claims 
- Thus, 73% of white Catholic conservatives believed Trump's lie

The question in the OP has been answered:

It's quite clear why more Latter-day Saints believed the Republican candidate than did white Catholics - because more Latter-day Saints than white Catholics are Republicans.

Now that question needs to be turned on its head to raise a much more interesting question: 

Why did far fewer Latter-day Saint Republicans (62%) believe the Republican candidate's election lie than did white Catholic Republicans (73%), white mainline Protestant Republicans (69%), and white evangelical Republicans (78%)? 

Notably, among the few Republicans to resist Donald Trump's attempts to interfere in our election system are Mormon Republicans--among them Rep. Rusty Bowers, Sen. Jeff Flake, and most notably Mitt Romney: the first United States Senator in history to vote against party lines in a presidential impeachment.

So, reworking the OP question in line with the statistics above and in light of Mormon Republican leaders taking the strongest stand against Trump and his 2016 and 2020 attempts to subvert our elections, we might also phrase our new question:

Why are Mormon Republicans less extreme or less gullible--or maybe just more honest--than white Catholic, mainline, and evangelical Republicans?

Don
Nicely done, Don. I made a similar point but without all the actual analysis. Home run.
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
Alphus and Omegus
Area Authority
Posts: 603
Joined: Thu May 13, 2021 8:41 pm

Re: Why Are Mormons More Asininely Stupid than Catholics?

Post by Alphus and Omegus »

Yes, Don's points are all good. Notice also that there is a significant difference between evangelicals and Catholics as well.

While the centralization of LDS Mormonism and Roman Catholicism causes a number of problems, I think one thing it does is helps protect those religions from external false claims. These gigantic corporate churches must exist in reality across multiple countries and cultures and this helps them gain perspective that sensationalistic and greedy individual pastors cannot obtain.

That perspective allows leaders and members to see themselves as apart from regional or national politics, which can provide a measure of protection against particularist ideas which are unfounded, eg Trump's election lies or false claims about vaccines.
kairos
CTR B
Posts: 149
Joined: Fri Nov 06, 2020 9:31 pm

Re: Why Are Mormons More Asininely Stupid than Catholics?

Post by kairos »

For a true comparison on stupidity, Can we please see the numbers on who was so stupid as to believe the Covid vaccine would prevent one from getting Covid and prevent one from spreading it-please present percentages by Mormon, Catholic, Protestant, agnostic, atheist, Muslim! I bet you will be surprised who believed that and who said it was all BS!
k
User avatar
Salvete
CTR A
Posts: 133
Joined: Fri Dec 16, 2022 6:27 am

Re: Why Are Mormons More Asininely Stupid than Catholics?

Post by Salvete »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:
Antidepressant drugs are prescribed in Utah more often than in any other state, at a rate nearly twice the national average.
What is it with conservatards and just saying stuff?

- Doc
This you, knave? 👇
Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:Comparing living in a geographical region to a voluntary association is absurd. It’s specious reasoning.

- Doc
From the end spring new beginnings.
Post Reply