List of things that make Mormonism a cult

[_Coggins7]

One may be very interested but struggle with issues and problems. Oh and let us here note that tithing was not always a requirement for temple participation, and it has not always been consistently applied in the Church. Same for WoW.

And neither animal sacrifice or the shewbread offering is required on a day of atonement. And your point is?

[_Coggins7]

So yes there is a mandate, duress, and even subtle force. "If I fail to tithe I will be denied the ordinances I need to be exalted...so I better tithe...."

You try very, very hard to avoid the logical, inferential content of an argument and miss the central point, and all too many times, somehow, you succeed.

[_Church Mouse]

The author of this piece doesn't understand LDS doctrine particularly well, so perhaps there is no point at all.

Troll. I don't feed the trolls once I recognize them. Good luck in your continued trolling; the number, length, and intentional obtuseness of your posts give you away.

Have fun kicking this particular anthill and seeing who scurries!

[_Scottie]

Behavior Control

* Regulation of individual's physical reality - Check

Care to explicate this in an intellectually coherent manner?

Well, the church teaches much that isn't based in reality, but merely a belief system within that church. Examples, The flood was the baptism of the Earth, Kolob is where God lives, Jesus appeared to the Native Americans, all the misinformation in the Book of Mormon (horses, swords, etc), paying tithing is "fire insurance", the priesthood can actually heal you, shall I go on? The LDS reality is in stark contrast with the rest of the world.

* Major time commitment required for indoctrination sessions and group rituals Between church meetings, church callings and temple work, Check

This is true of all religions of any substance, as well as work, family, fraternal organizations, or serious hobbies. And you may as well stop using emotion laden terms like "indoctrination sessions" to mean classes, talks, and worship.

No it isn't!! Most religions have a simple 1 or 2 hour meeting on Sunday. Which, by the way, is prepared by a paid clergy. They don't have excessive callings that take up inordinate amounts of time.

Where did I ever use the term "indoctrination sessions"?!?!!?

* Need to ask permission for major decisions Not sure about this one. If you want to count asking the Mormon concept of the spirit, then yes, but the leaders don't have any say in what members do.

Intellectual vacuity number 1. Onward we go...

What??? Oh right, you have no argument, so you simply claim that it is so stupid as to not warrant an argument. Got it. Onward we go....

* Need to report thoughts, feelings, and activities to superiors Check

Care to elucidate on this, as, as it stands, its meaningless.

I know that you are an expert in all things LDS, so I'm assuming you know that you are supposed to confess serious sins to your superiors (meaning your Bishop and Stake President, and possibly a court of love).

* Rewards and punishments (behavior modification techniques—positive and negative) Well, there are eternal rewards, but I don't see many church related rewards. Punishments include disfellowship, excommunication

If you see no Church related rewards than you are utterly in the dark regarding the Church and why people find so much meaning and happiness within it. I won't check this as an intellectual vacuity, just as a the subjective bigoted ignorance that it is.

Please enlighten me on what temporal, church related rewards the church offers for obedience?

* Individualism discouraged; "group think" prevails check

Not in the Church I've been in all of my life. You really need to get out more scottie, and start, well, thinking for yourself.

If you honestly think the church fosters an environment of free thinking, your rose colored glasses are magnificent!!

* Rigid rules and regulations check. Mormons pride themselves on being a pecular people with higher than normal standards. WoW comes into play here too.

This is another complete semantic rape of the term "cult" that moves the entire debate here beyond irrelevance and into self parody. Pointless responding.

Again, no argument, because I'm right. Dismiss it as so stupid as to not warrant a response. Very nice.

* Information Control

Obviously irrelevant

Why??

* Use of deception check. Only positive church history is taught.

Flat footed falsehood, for which I will let you off as being only ignorant, and not a liar. Church book stores are chock full of books detailing the plethora of arguments and difficulties of Church history. Sunday worship, Seminary, and Institute, indeed, are not places for that kind of study, nor should they be (and anyway, much, very much of the Signature Books type history is just as manufactured as they claim ours is, its just wrapped in much more sophiticated cloth).

Just because the information is out there doesn't mean the church isn't deceptive. I dare you to find me one mention of Joseph Smith's plural wives on LDS.org. Or in any lesson manual. And don't tell me that it isn't the place to talk about it. We sure talk about Brighams wives in church. Well, we used to, but even that is being removed from the manuals.

* Access to non-cult sources of information minimized or discouraged check

No it isn't or there wouldn't be any Church bookstores containing books that engage criticism of the Church, nor would there be a Neal A. Maxwell Institute. Some things, yes, are discouraged, and I would discourage it as well for the spiritually immature or for those not intellectually sophisticated enough to work through and digest the arguments and information. The lying and deception that characterize so much of the historic criticism of the Church, especially from the EV side, is reason enough to warn the general membership.

Lets break down this sentence, since you seem to disregard the most important parts of most sentences.

Access to non-cult sources information minimized or discouraged

Yes, LDS bookstores have CULT approved sources of information. Anything other than that is deemed to be anti-Mormon lies.

* Extensive use of cult generated information and propaganda check. Book of Mormon, D&C and PoGP. Ensign, Friend.

Oh my goodness scottie, you forgot the Bible did you not? How could you have missed that? Brownie point for you scottie.

So? They use the Bible. Big deal. How many times have the members been challenged to read the Bible? I can think of several challenges to finish the Book of Mormon by the end of the year.

* Need to internalize the group's doctrine as "Truth" check

This is true of all religions and belief systems whatever. You see, what we have here is a term (cult) that means everything, and therefore, means nothing. and that's the bottom line to this entire contrived issue.

I agree with you on this point.

Ergo, end of pointless debate.

Well, except that you left out over 1/2 of the other points of what makes a cult. I guess you just didn't have a good response for those ones?? And you figured if you ignored them that you had automatically won the argument because you could debunk a few of them (which you painfully failed at).

However, I agree. Pointless debate.

[_Moniker]

Information control:

The LDS website that I first sought answers to my questions didn't really present "reality" when it came to Joseph Smith. I then went to the official Joseph Smith website -- same deal.

http://www.josephsmith.com/

http://josephsmith.net/josephsmith/v/in ... 5e340aRCRD

There are LDS (met 'em and talked with 'em) that vehemently deny that Joseph Smith had more than one wife. Their understanding of LDS persecution and Joseph Smith's death (outside any knowledge that polygamy was even practiced) is very skewed since they're unaware of the history that led to the persecution and subsequent jailing of Smith.

Go to talk to a missionary online and ask about polygamy and you will get the run around.

[_Coggins7]

Troll. I don't feed the trolls once I recognize them. Good luck in your continued trolling; the number, length, and intentional obtuseness of your posts give you away.

Have fun kicking this particular anthill and seeing who scurries!

I'm not baiting you. Your post indicates quite clearly that your understanding of LDS doctrine lacks both nuance and depth.
It was you who said the following:

If you do not pay, you do not get a recommend, you do not go to the Temple, you do not receive your saving ordinances, and you are damned (LDS definition: stopped up) for eternity. One definition of "coerce" is to use the threat of force. Damning one's soul for all eternity if they do not pay a full tithe seems to fit that definition.

This shows not only somewhat restricted reasoning ability (a rather tendentious, in my view, attempt at straw grasping by trying to make the Church's identification of the consequences of choices in mortality appear as the use of fear to coerce the payment of tithing, a neat little cynical slander that may make you feel like the big cock in the hen house, but ruins your ability to think through your arguments clearly).

Your quite clear evasion of the substantive points I made in my criticism of your claims, as well as your labeling me a "troll", makes it obvious you do not have the intellectual ammunition to debate the issue you raised in a serious philosophical manner.

As I'll say again, if you understood LDS doctrine at any depth, you would not have made the simplistic comparison of a requirement regarding acceptance of certain Gospel standards and disciplines for entrance to the Temple as a form of fear creating threat. If you do not want to pay tithing, you do not have to. The question is: why would a faithful LDS who understands what the Temple is and wants to go there not want to pay their tithing?

[_Coggins7]

Here are the substantive points and arguments in my post once again:

One definition of "coerce" is to use the threat of force. Damning one's soul for all eternity if they do not pay a full tithe seems to fit that definition.


This argument could only work under conditions in which Damnation is understood as a threat, and in which the threat of force is understood itself to be predicated upon an unwillingness to comply. The thorough misunderstanding of LDS doctrine here is critical. Damnation, in varying degrees, is simply the consequence of the level of knowledge and light we were willing to receive in mortality. It is not a threat so much as a statement of the cause and effect relationships inherent in spiritual realities.

Further, there are a body of requirements for entering the Temple, of which financial support of the physical Kingdom of God is only one. Why focus on only this? The Word of Wisdom, law of chastity, honesty in business dealings, support of the Brethren and local leaders, and others are requirements as well, and all are fall under the "threat" of damnation if one ignores them. Indeed, in LDS doctrine, damnation is a consequence of any degree of rebellion against light and knowledge when it has been revealed. Damnation comes then, in a wide variety of forms and in different degrees.

Further, all forms of damnation except damnation in Outer Darkness, involve kingdoms of glory. We are blessed and damned to the degree of our willingness to accept truth in this life.

Our intrepid Church Mouse then, is selling philosophical snake oil. We are free agents unto ourselves here, and have many options in choosing to obey the voice of the Lord, or to go our own way and follow the Yellow Brick Roads of Babylon. What Mouse, as so very many critics (and, in particular, the more secular and liberal among them) seem intent on doing, is confusing threat and coercion with the simple act of pointing out the consequences of certain actions or choices in relation to other acts and choices against a background of alternatives. Thus, when it is seen that negative consequences are said to result from transgression of God's commandments and counsel, This is perceived (especially by those for whom such requirements are indeed a threat to self concept of world view) as a threat of force.

Of course, after several generations of being taught, through the pop culture and media that, indeed, bad things should never happen to us, regardless of our behavior, I can see the internal conflicts that result when faced with a philosophy that says yes, in point of fact, there are negative consequences that follow, inherently, from certain actions and choices.

All the Gospel does is identify the choices and their effects; it does not impose by force, that one make one choice over another.

What mouse and other critics of this general persuasion here are really looking for is a church without standards at all; a church for the masses in which all participate at all levels of worship regardless either of what they think, or how they behave.

Frankly, to paraphrase Groucho, I'd never want to be a part of any church that would have me as a member, if by that is meant opening its entire system of doctrine, philosophy, and worship to me as I am at this time.

This is not trolling: its a substantive rational criticism of your own argument. Are you going to dance around it, or engage the substance of the counter-argument?

In other words, from an intellectual perspective Church Mouse, are you a man, or a...?

[_Mister Scratch]

If you do not pay, you do not get a recommend, you do not go to the Temple, you do not receive your saving ordinances, and you are damned (LDS definition: stopped up) for eternity. One definition of "coerce" is to use the threat of force. Damning one's soul for all eternity if they do not pay a full tithe seems to fit that definition.

This shows not only somewhat restricted reasoning ability (a rather tendentious, in my view, attempt at straw grasping by trying to make the Church's identification of the consequences of choices in mortality appear as the use of fear to coerce the payment of tithing, a neat little cynical slander that may make you feel like the big cock in the hen house, but ruins your ability to think through your arguments clearly).

Your quite clear evasion of the substantive points I made in my criticism of your claims, as well as your labeling me a "troll", makes quite clear you do not have the intellectual ammunition to debate the issue you raised in a serious philosophical manner.

As I'll say again, if you understood LDS doctrine at any depth, you would not have made the simplistic comparison of a requirement regarding acceptance of certain Gospel standards and disciplines for entrance to the Temple as a form of fear creating threat. If you do not want to pay tithing, you do not have to. The question is: why would a faithful LDS who understands what the Temple is and want's to go there not want to pay their tithing?

(emphasis added)

Yes, a requirement. That's good. At least we see acknowledgment that it isn't really a "choice" in any meaningful way. Sure, a faithful LDS who "understands what the Temple is" would "want to pay their tithing." But this assumes there is only one kind (Morgbot, anyone?) of "faithful LDS". There are plenty of different types of LDS, and not all of them are 100% jolly and cheerful about the temple and tithing. (MAD's juliann, for example, has repeatedly complained that the temple ceremony is far too long, and ought to be shortened.) I mean, what about the 18-year-old kid who grew up in the Church, has his doubts, but has essentially been frightened into paying his tithing?

Yeah, it's true: you get a "choice" about whether or not to pay tithing, but this "choice" sounds rather like one of Don Corleone's "offers you can't refuse." Sure, you don't have to sign the contract---you have the choice. But, if you choose not to sign, your brains will be blown out. What, at base, is all that different (besides severity and duration, of course) between eternal damnation/denial of salvation/exaltation, and getting your head blown off? We are talking about similar, very serious kinds of consequences.

[_Coggins7]

The LDS website that I first sought answers to my questions didn't really present "reality" when it came to Joseph Smith. I then went to the official Joseph Smith website -- same deal.

"reality" according to whose interpretational filter?

[_rcrocket]

Information control:

The LDS website that I first sought answers to my questions didn't really present "reality" when it came to Joseph Smith. I then went to the official Joseph Smith website -- same deal.

http://www.josephsmith.com/

http://josephsmith.net/josephsmith/v/in ... 5e340aRCRD

There are LDS (met 'em and talked with 'em) that vehemently deny that Joseph Smith had more than one wife. Their understanding of LDS persecution and Joseph Smith's death (outside any knowledge that polygamy was even practiced) is very skewed since they're unaware of the history that led to the persecution and subsequent jailing of Smith.

Go to talk to a missionary online and ask about polygamy and you will get the run around.

My nine year old denies that there is a professional football team in Michigan. Therefore, all nine-year-olds are idiots, as well as all members of my family.

My 55-year-old secretary, a devout Catholic, has never heard of the massacre perpetrated by the Church at Languedoc. Therefore all Catholics are ignorant and choose not to know the truth of their faith.

On the other hand, every member of my LDS study group knows that Joseph Smith had more than one wife, that some of them were married civilly to other men, and know all about the Nauvoo Expositor. Therefore, I must conclude, all Latter-day Saints know the truth of all things pertaining to their religion.

I am not a logician, but there is something wrong with your logic.

rcrocket