Mormonism is a cult

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

I guess my question is this : What is the shelf life of the sins of a cult so that it’s considered a church, instead? If a tweak is made so that a cult is more palatable, does that negate all the awful realities of its history?

Does removing an oath to disembowel oneself if you reveal signs and tokens negate that cultic history? Ok, but keeping an oath to give everything you have to the cult keep it a cult?

Does a Mormon prophet sealing to himself 267 women and children and throwing himself a big bash to commemorate it not make a cult a cult? And if the current iteration of the ‘church’ doesn’t disavow it, but rather hides it (I believe in 2020 they, and I mean they as in a GA doing it, deleted from the record his mass sealings), isn’t this tacit admission of cultiness?

Do cult members marrying 14-year-olds make it cult? What about protecting cult members who rape and sexually abuse minors? What about danites? Hiding billions? Secretly using fast offerings (or some other non-tithing fund earmarked for humanitarian purposes) to bail out City Creek and its insurance business?

Sure, we can whatabout other cults, but this is a Mormon discussions board, and I’m interested in whether or not this cult is still a cult? I have no idea what the metrics are.

- Doc

[Gadianton]

Nice work, Dean Robbers. But, for the sake of argument, doesn't this apply equally well to any committed believer finding himself in an alien, pardon the pun, culture?

This is the question. I tried to answer it but perhaps where I was going wasn't clear, by mentioning the security requirements for some sensitive military operations that (allegedly) require the inductee to never have strayed beyond US borders. Restrictions regarding mingling with the outside world betray a lack of true control over the individual. And so when thinking about traditional NRMs that barricade themselves off from the rest of the world, the question is what happens when the authorities break it up? Because look, universities, military training, prisons, kidnappings can all cut a person off from contact with the real world to varying degrees and people can break for the time of their confinement and even to some degree beyond that.

A lot of traditional folks are corrupted immediately by Western materialism up on experiencing it. I went out with this girl a couple of times back in the day who was from Iraq. I wouldn't have ever guessed that. She wore the most trendy expensive clothes of anyone I'd ever gone out with, went to jazz concerts all the time, had lots of expensive modern furniture, and would sometimes take pot shots at people's professions as being inferior -- it was really weird. She eventually revealed that her parents were traditional Muslim that wore the full garb and everything.

We must account for individual psyches. I get that. But broadly, I want to say that it's Mormons vs. the Amish. I'm not an expert on the Amish and so take this with a grain of salt, but I want to say the most cults retain power by geographical insularity. By forbidding mingling with the world. If you have a predatory cult, such as the Reptilians or Mormons, one that goes out there into the world to expand its power, then you need a better brainwashing program than a cult that keeps people in line by physical isolation. The evolutionary pressures are much more intense for the expansive cult, and we'd expect they'd fail more often, yet Mormonism has thrived.

It was suggested flippantly that Fox News and Trumpism is a cult. Not so sure. Look at the pleas of the capitol rioters going to prison for a few weeks-- "I can't believe I got sucked into that!" Now contrast that with Branch Davidians who went to prison for years and still believe in Koresh. Fashion can be called a cult, wokism can be called a cult, all kinds of things that trap a person into group-think could be called a cult, but then the term gets watered down. I'm suggesting the real cult power is a function of internalized incorruptibility to the core identity, values, and agenda of the group.

[Gadianton]

I guess my question is this : What is the shelf life of the sins of a cult so that it’s considered a church, instead? If a tweak is made so that a cult is more palatable, does that negate all the awful realities of its history?

From a more traditional way of looking at it where an NRM starts off with a bunch of weird stuff and then has to water down to appeal to a larger segment of society, you know, that's a great question in terms of arguing a "modern" follower is really much different than non-members. I want to say that it's important to hold the sins of the past sacred in order to earn its designation as a cult, and to what extent has Mormonism done this? I'll have to put some thought into this, it's a good point.

[Gadianton]

MG 2.0, just like Salvete, you've come to disrupt the thread without having read the OP. Your protests don't connect with anything that I've said so far.

When you can cite something specific that I've said and respond demonstrating that you understood the point, then we can have a conversation.

[MG 2.0]

Yes, the church is peculiar, but it’s not a cult. As you have separated yourself from the church you find yourself of/in a different ‘world’ than that which a Latter-day Saint lives in.

Your mistake is in accepting that cults are necessarily bad.

I don’t.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

MG 2.0, just like Salvete, you've come to disrupt the thread without having read the OP. Your protests don't connect with anything that I've said so far.

When you can cite something specific that I've said and respond demonstrating that you understood the point, then we can have a conversation.

If your intent is to use the word ‘cult’ as a pejorative term I am simply calling you out on THAT. You can weasel word your way this way and that to make a predetermined point based on your current worldview. THAT was the point of my post and the highlighted portions of the RSC article I linked to.

You now live in a different ‘world’ than an active believing member of the church.

You are mistaken, sir, in calling the CofJCofLDS a cult in the pejorative sense.

And of course you are well aware that the word ‘cult’ has taken on a pejorative connotation since the 1970’s. In other times the word ‘cult’ has not had the same connotation that it has taken on in the last 50 years or so.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/cult

Someone mentioned the LDS temples as ‘cultish’. Temples in ancient times were also cultish.

https://rsc.byu.edu/glory-god-intellige ... fter-70-ad

Anyway, I won’t continue to rain on your parade.

Regards,
MG

[Physics Guy]

I see two ideas in the OP and I wonder how to relate them. The first is the idea of secrecy, with people who share an unusual background recognizing each other by secret handshakes, as it were, and blowing dog whistles to find each other without anyone else noticing. The second is the idea of people caring much more about something than most people would. The two ideas are connected because people who care especially much about something may try to find each other without betraying their unusual interest to outsiders. I’m not quite sure which idea Gadianton really meant to express in calling Mormonism a cult.

My guess is that his thought was that the secret-handshake dog-whistle behavior of Mormons shows their extreme, cult-like investment in their religion. This is how I interpret the Reptilian analogy. If you just think that of course Reptilians are monsters because they’re Reptilians, duh, then it’s not surprising that they would reveal themselves to each other secretly and chuckle inside about it. If you think about it more seriously, though, it seems childish for a few Reptilians, far from home for so long, to be so excited about eating humans while pretending to be humans. Evil isn’t just banal, it’s idiotic. The Reptilians must in fact be brainwashed culties, and their oh-so-clever signaling to each other just betrays this.

“Cult” is a debatably mis-applicable term because how much commitment is too much is in the eye of the beholder. The Kingdom of Heaven is like a pearl of great price, and the merchant who gives all he has for that pearl is not the mark but the smart guy. Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare.

Armies are cult-like, for sure. Men will stand up in air full of lead to keep their place in the tribe: that’s the extreme of unusual commitment, and it’s the military technological secret more potent than iron blades, black powder, or drones. If you ever need to win a war, that’s a good kind of cult. Guys who know the military acronyms will drop them in speech for decades, just in case someone in the audience also knows how to strip and assemble an M16—or an AK-47. It’s a permanent bond.

People broadcast lots of other affiliations subliminally: craft beer, role-playing games, languages. For much of history in much of the world, gay people have had to rely on secret language to find each other. So the practice itself can’t be bad.

What I think this also means, though—and where Gadianton may have been going with this—is that a cult doesn’t have to have a compound. You can take the Marines out of Parris Island and they’re still in the Corps, decades later. So while that in itself doesn’t necessarily mean that any particular commitment to any particular thing must be cult-like, it does mean that one might have to reconsider some arguments that Mormonism isn’t a cult. Maybe some of those arguments are in effect only saying, Look, there’s no fence.

Effective cults need no fence. Is this your point, Gadianton?

[huckelberry]

......
Think about the Reptilian plot to take over the world. The thing about that plot is that the reptiles are successful people. They represent some of the best in every area, but it's all a ruse. Once revealed, the reptiles will admit that none of that other stuff ever mattered, it's all about the ritualistic eating of people. For Mormons, it's about the foundation story of Joseph Smith and his restoration. Trades, specialties, money, political posts; none of these things are real, success is granted by the Lord to draw interest to the fullness of the Gospel.
........

So back to the podcast, it's so weird to think about, because here's this guy's dad, a brilliant and highly original engineer, and nothing he did really mattered in his own way of thinking about things, because it's all about this other guy, Joseph Smith, and his over-active imagination. Here is a world-class engineer who centered his life around a guy who couldn't even cook up a fake set of plates that would convince anybody and just used a tile brick as a prop most of the time. It's really mind boggling.

Anyway, I don't mention specifics about the podcast out of respect for the guy, they do some really cool stuff. And we can still respect people who unquestionably believe they are reptiles in a plot for world-dominance because that's what they were raised to believe. Their manner of doing anything at all should reflect good on the plot because they were raised to look at the world through this lens, and can't conceive of the world in any other way.

Gadianton. This is a pretty tight cage you are describing. I am sure I never got into such a cage and perhaps that has something to do with why I quit participation and belief at age 18. Yet as I step back to think of it I can see that location as a possibility. I actually doubt that a majority of Mormons are all into that cage but some are.Those that are would form the solid institution.

Sharpening a definition of cult is not really as interesting as the observation and its question that you are making. You note that beyond the sense of being in a group there is an insulation against outside influence that is strong. Mormons are not isolated in space or even in most varieties of learning yet the world view is held apart, held by the purpose and objective of the institution.
///
after posting this I see Physics Guy's spot on observations about the military.

[Dr Exiled]

MG 2.0, just like Salvete, you've come to disrupt the thread without having read the OP. Your protests don't connect with anything that I've said so far.

When you can cite something specific that I've said and respond demonstrating that you understood the point, then we can have a conversation.

If your intent is to use the word ‘cult’ as a pejorative term I am simply calling you out on THAT. You can weasel word your way this way and that to make a predetermined point based on your current worldview. THAT was the point of my post and the highlighted portions of the RSC article I linked to.

You now live in a different ‘world’ than an active believing member of the church.

You are mistaken, sir, in calling the CofJCofLDS a cult in the pejorative sense.

And of course you are well aware that the word ‘cult’ has taken on a pejorative connotation since the 1970’s. In other times the word ‘cult’ has not had the same connotation that it has taken on in the last 50 years or so.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/cult

Someone mentioned the LDS temples as ‘cultish’. Temples in ancient times were also cultish.

https://rsc.byu.edu/glory-god-intellige ... fter-70-ad

Anyway, I won’t continue to rain on your parade.

Regards,
MG

I don't think you should take offense to the church/cult comparison. It's a good thing, assuming it's true, to have members putting obedience over all else, to have them act as worker bees toward a cause, ever moving toward the common goal, and definitely not questioning the leaders and their SEC actions. This is the way to get things done. You should be lauding efficiencies and how obedience, militaristic obedience, is the way to make the most with the least. You know the stone cut without hands that will eventually fill the earth needs a lot of worker bees blindly attacking those that want to disturb the hive and lots of worker bees to make honey while the stone is getting going.

Too bad it isn't what it claims to be. And this is where blind obedience to a farce gets troubling. Organized mischief is good at creating mischief, better than those disorganized cretins that try to create mischief.

[Gadianton]

You can weasel word your way this way and that to make a predetermined point based on your current worldview. THAT was the point of my post and the highlighted portions of the RSC article

My OP wasn't about the RSC article. Please start a new thread if you'd like to discuss that article. If the article relates to any of the points I made in the OP, please go back and actually read the OP and then cite the portion of my OP that relates to the RSC material.

As you can see, this board is very tolerant, and so I don't want to hear complaints from you in the future about being discriminated against when you derail , troll threads without reading the OP, and avoid the OP like Salvete at all costs, and are allowed to do so without consequence.

Enjoy the generosity of the moderators, MG.