Slate Refers to Mormonism's "Foundational Whoppers"

[_DrW]

Since the term "whoppers" is a favorite descriptive word for the nature of many of Mormonism's truth claims, I was amused to see it used by Slate Magazine and re-quoted recently in HuffPost.

--- Slate's Jacob Weisberg wrote a column saying he opposed Romney because of his faith, in large part because he believed the religion's founder, Joseph Smith, was "an obvious con man."

"I wouldn't vote for someone who truly believed in the founding whoppers of Mormonism," he said.

Weisberg predicted that if Romney was the GOP nominee in 2008, his "religion will become an issue with moderate and secular voters -- and rightly so."

More recently, columns from outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens and from New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd have delved into the stranger aspects of the Mormon faith and practice, some of them real, some not.

Dowd ran through a laundry list of things she found odd or objectionable about Mormonism in an Oct. 19 column: "Magic underwear. Baptizing dead people. Celestial marriages. Private planets. Racism. Polygamy."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/02/evangelicals-romney-mormonism-general-election_n_1069288.html?1320240178

While the term "lies" may seem a bit harsh to some when considering that many Mormons who tell them really believe them, the term "whoppers" seems to fit very well. It conjures up perfectly acceptable images of young children using their imaginations to explain things they do not understand.

If this "Whopper" terminology becomes part of the campaign for the general election, how can the LDS Church really defend itself?

[_Corpsegrinder]

If this "Whopper" terminology becomes part of the campaign for the general election, how can the LDS Church really defend itself?

I hope Romney runs for exactly that reason. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

[_Cardinal Biggles]

I think one popular approach is citing the nearly-as-bizarre beliefs of some of the religions of the voters. Unfortunately for Mitt, nobody ever seems to see his OWN beliefs as being weird.

Perhaps the biggest difference between the strange beliefs of Mormonism and the strange beliefs of other faiths is that the strange beliefs of Mormonism seem, at least on their face, to be more subject to falsification. You can look at those facsimilies and see that they're not what COJCOLDS claims that they are.

Unless you ask a Mopologist, who will assure you that nothing in Mormonism is falsifiable.

I dunno, sometimes I feel like maybe Mitt deserves a little slack. He was born into the faith, after all, and brainwashed from an early age. I know that it takes IMMENSE mental fortitude to deal with reality in that face of all of that. It's almost like being born with a handicap. I wouldn't hold congenital handicaps against others, so...

For all I know, Mitt is just another guy who secretly knows that his religion is wackity wack, but who is thoroughly trapped into it by familial and business and political relations.

I wish I could sit down and have a root beer with him in private and ask him, "OK, Mitt, now, off the record, just between you and me... you don't REALLY buy that story about the Jaredite barges, do you?"

[_maklelan]

If this "Whopper" terminology becomes part of the campaign for the general election, how can the LDS Church really defend itself?

I don't think it needs to. The Church is perfectly aware that its claims are uncommon. I take issue, however, with the notion that anything in Mormonism is any more of a "whopper" than the claims of any of the United States' fundamentalist Christian denominations. One collection of whoppers has just been around a lot longer than another.

[_Sethbag]

If this "Whopper" terminology becomes part of the campaign for the general election, how can the LDS Church really defend itself?

I don't think it needs to. The Church is perfectly aware that its claims are uncommon. I take issue, however, with the notion that anything in Mormonism is any more of a "whopper" than the claims of any of the United States' fundamentalist Christian denominations. One collection of whoppers has just been around a lot longer than another.

And with this I am in 100% agreement. Mormonism's whoppers just haven't been around as long as mainstream Christianities.

I think it's probably common for people who just recently apostatized to think the LDS church is especially egregious for some reason, but I don't think it is. Mormonism is just a particular flavor of the phenomenon of religion that's been around plaguing various societies for thousands of years.

I do think that Mormonism is pretty obviously not true, though the lens believers see through makes this far less obvious than it should be, but then that's true for all the other religions too. Seriously, I mean, almost all of the evangelical and many other Christians in the world think that I deserve to be tortured in Hell forever merely because I don't believe that the God they worship actually exists. How whacked is that?

[_moksha]

The nonbelievers on this board have pointed to the "whopper" of all religions being based upon a false premise. Slate itself is no stranger in promoting the concept of this falsity in publishing many essays on atheism.

Unless they are able to stand up and say this also applies to the faith of every candidate, then they are guilty of partisan reporting based on religious discrimination. That is no small feat for atheists.

[_Themis]

And with this I am in 100% agreement. Mormonism's whoppers just haven't been around as long as mainstream Christianities.

Mainstream Christian whoppers are also a part of LDS whoppers. It just that they tend to be more vague, while many LDS ones are just so obvious like the Book of Mormon, Book of Abraham, etc.

[_Some Schmo]

I think if this was the LDS sacrament they passed out every week, it would have much more accurate symbolic significance than bread:



Although I suppose LDS have enough whoppers to swallow.

[_Some Schmo]

Wendy Whoppers might get me back to church, however:

[_Infymus]

I dunno, sometimes I feel like maybe Mitt deserves a little slack. He was born into the faith, after all, and brainwashed from an early age. I know that it takes IMMENSE mental fortitude to deal with reality in that face of all of that. It's almost like being born with a handicap. I wouldn't hold congenital handicaps against others, so...

Wait... If Romney was born with a handicap, wouldn't that make him more valiant in the pre-existence and therefore having a guaranteed spot in the CK?

lol