Mormonism 101 Has Always Been At War With Eastasia

[_Tobin]

Well, Tobin, when you put it that way, I find it hard to disagree. However, being a pessimist, and being in my 60s, I don't expect to live to see such an organization - either as a transformed LDS church, or as a new institution.
Just wondering out loud - would it look something like the Salvation Army? Or, at least, more like the SallyAnn than like the current LDS church?

Have more faith. Not many in the younger generation is willing to put up with the current version of Mormonism. They find it as I do: BORING, judgemental, exclusive, MEAN, and often at odds with what we know. It must either change or die. In any event, the Church we know today won't be around.

We aren't helpless either and can change things. I myself am involved in changing things by introducing gospel music into the Church by providing financial support for SUV (http://www.suvchoir.org/) and I try to take advantage of any positive opportunity I have to influence the direction of the Church.

[_Kishkumen]

I like the group at Sunstone that is interested in yoga and Buddhism.

[_Equality]

They find it as I do: BORING, judgemental, exclusive, MEAN, and often at odds with what we know. It must either change or die. In any event, the Church we know today won't be around.

You sound like William Law circa 1844.

[_moksha]

No matter how many Gods we will become, we are still essentially Christian because we believe there will be One God to rule them all, One God to find them, One God to bring them all and the Priesthood to bind them. In the solar orbit of Kolob, where God's Planet lies.

[_Darth J]

Why make this about Darth J? He has provided us the quotes complete with citations. How else could we examine the claim made by the newsroom? After finding these quotations, should he have kept them to himself out of respect to the LDS church? I'm not asking rhetorically, I just don't understand where you are coming from here.
As for the citations. I eagerly await the apologetic response to this.

Darth is like Alma.

That's true.

My avatar is Darth Nihilus, a fictional character from a video game that is derivative from the Star Wars movies.

Alma is a ficitonal character in a novel that is derivative from the Bible.

He delights in persecuting the Church.

In fact, the reason I didn't respond to this post earlier is that I was out tarring and feathering the Relief Society president from my ward.

He doesn't believe in anything "supernatural",

You know, you keep saying this in the face of irrefutable contradictory evidence in the form of statements by me, which I have repeatedly shown you. Spoken like a true zealot, Ray.

and preaches his "gospel of rationalism" here to all the willing dupes who will swallow his dogma hook, line and sinker.

Just think of how many hapless suckers throughout history have fallen for the scam of rational, evidence-based thinking. Only superstition and gullibility can save us from this pernicious trickery!

The Book of Mormon actually warned us about such people.

That's because it is particularly self-serving for the Book of Mormon to encourage people to reject rationalism and evidence when being invited to believe certain factual propositions.

Oh, he'll never learn, no doubt about that. To me, he's almost a comical and tragic character who has won the allegiance of some here with his anti-God, and anti-Mormon rants.

He's got you all fooled about his "sincerity".

Ray, as the levelheaded and reasonable person that we all know you to be, perhaps you would like to share your favorite one or two of my "anti-God" rants from the past couple of years.

Have the space aliens who are secretly visiting the Earth been taking away all our lithium so we can't use it? Is that where the problem is coming from?

[_Darth J]

Since this thread has been hopelessly derailed, I'm just going to go with it.

I'm fully aware that the following clip may send shivers down your logical spine. I had to post it somewhere, sometime, and this is as good as any:

Joseph Smith and His first Vision of God.

Should you experience nausea, vomiting, or severe abdominal pain on viewing this, you may have an anti-Mormon virus.



(I'm actually quite sure you do, and I don't use this term lightly, or to anyone.)

Ray---

Here's a scene from the movie 300, where King Leonidas dies because he refuses to surrender, even knowing that he and his men are impossibly outnumbered. His motivation is to keep Sparta free from the Persians seeking to conquer Greece, even if all he can do is slow down the enemy forces a little bit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-6M5FukAoE

Note the artistic imagery, the evocative music, the emotions provoked by thinking about the bravery of Leonidas and these Spartans against overwhelming odds and the sacrifice they made for their people.

You know what this means? It means that the movie 300 is a historically accurate depiction of what really happened at the Battle of Thermopylae.

If you don't think so, then you hate Greek people.

[_RayAgostini]

So? You say this like it is obviously a bad thing?

A couple years ago you were going around recommending Shermer's books and promoting other skeptical/rational ideas. Were you evil or insincere?
In my opinion you were, metaphorically speaking of course,...sober.
I am patiently waiting for you to once again excomminicate yourself from the gospel of credulity.
Of course, I guess we will first have to wait until your acceptance of Mormonism reaches it's biannual peak.

For several years I have subscribed, and still do, to Shermer's e-skeptic newsletter. I read it with much interest. I'm almost always on the look out for anything new Dawkins has to say. I've already quoted Shermer's perhaps lesser known views, and how both he and Dawkins are actually "open" to ideas they seem to debunk in public (no doubt you will disagree). Lost count of how many times I've linked to This Classic Debate (Dawkins had to "disabuse" Collins of some "ideas" he had about him).

DAWKINS: My mind is not closed, as you have occasionally suggested, Francis. My mind is open to the most wonderful range of future possibilities, which I cannot even dream about, nor can you, nor can anybody else. What I am skeptical about is the idea that whatever wonderful revelation does come in the science of the future, it will turn out to be one of the particular historical religions that people happen to have dreamed up. When we started out and we were talking about the origins of the universe and the physical constants, I provided what I thought were cogent arguments against a supernatural intelligent designer. But it does seem to me to be a worthy idea. Refutable--but nevertheless grand and big enough to be worthy of respect. I don't see the Olympian gods or Jesus coming down and dying on the Cross as worthy of that grandeur. They strike me as parochial. If there is a God, it's going to be a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more incomprehensible than anything that any theologian of any religion has ever proposed. (page 9)

From my "library of quotations":

"Doubt everything or believe everything: these are two equally
convenient strategies. With either we dispense with the need for
reflection." - Henri Poincare

"Modern science should indeed arouse in all of us a humility before the immensity of the unexplored and a tolerance for crazy hypotheses." -Martin Gardner

"Man's greatest asset is the unsettled mind." - Isaac Asimov

"Science today is locked into paradigms. Every avenue is blocked by beliefs that are wrong, and if you try to get anything published by a journal today, you will run against a paradigm and the editors will turn it down" - Sir Fred Hoyle

Like most here, I've probably posted far, far more than I ever should have when at certain "junctures", or "thought stations" (not final destinations), or speaking your mind when it perhaps would have been better to say nothing. So yes, I'm "vulnerable", vulnerable to the truth, wherever it may lie (which I suspect will be a lifelong "state" for me), so I don't subscribe to "Mormon dogma" nor "scientific dogma" when I believe I see it. There are some things Mormon I will never defend here, and I see a similar sort of "dogmatic thinking" in commentators like Shermer and Dawkins, et.al.

Anyway, I'm tired of defending and explaining myself here. As Susan Blackmore said, "it never gets anywhere", whether you're on the skeptical side, or the "credulous" side. Though I have to say, it's not bad entertainment, but that's about all.

[_Infymus]

Leaders should seek to do what God wants. A Mormon Church transformed into a loving, accepting, welcoming place where anyone (and I mean anyone) can attend without judgement and where they can express their faith in God (in whatever form it takes) or seek aid (spiritual and temporal) is all the Church should be about. An organization so transformed and dedicated to the truth (scientific, philosophical, societal, and so on) is sorely needed in our day. Instead we have this monstorous judgemental organization falling into unnecessary things like Prop 8 and other fights. The Church should be above such things and be about doing what God wants.

Do they still have to wear funny underwear? Do they still have to raise their arms to the square? Do they still have to be assigned a new name? Learn the signs, tokens and passwords to get in heaven? Do they still have to get passed Joseph Smith who stands at the gates of the Celestial Kingdom?

ANYONE? did you say ANYONE? How about the millions and millions of gays and lesbians who work hard, pay their taxes, raise their children and just want to be accepted? Just think of all the blacks prior to 1978 who were NOT worthy.

Your billion dollar cult has a long way to go before anyone will see it as an accepting place.

[_Buffalo]

Lying to the "gentiles" is a time-honored Mormon tradition.

[_Buffalo]

I will leave it to readers to decide whether the LDS Church is honest or whether it is lying about itself and its teachings. We'll begin with this example:

I don't know who runs "LDS Newsroom", though I do think they put out many interesting things. One of my favourites is The Mormon Ethic of Civility.

However, I can't find anywhere on their website where it says something like: "Signed and approved by the First Presidency".

Even past First Presidency statements, such as the 1949 statement on Blacks, seems to be now null and void, and written with "a limited understanding" (corrected, incidentally, by a better understanding of what the Book of Mormon always taught).

But this is what I've always observed about you, Darth. You're a real disciple and fan of using quotations by Mormon leaders, and pitting them against one another, and "bingo!" - we should all abandon Mormonism because Darth J has shown us, unequivocally, that they are all "liars and dishonest".

I'd like to refer you to an old essay, relevant to you, I think, written by a then "anonymous Mormon historian", also known as "Dr. Clandestine", who happened to be none other than D. Michael Quinn.

JERALD AND SANDRA TANNER'S DISTORTED VIEW OF Mormonism: A RESPONSE TO MORMONISM--SHADOW OR REALITY?.

You, my friend, fall into the Tanners "distorted view of Mormonism", and the more you post here, the more you evidence that. And that's why, from day one, I haven't had a lot of respect for you, or your distorted and biased views.

Is accurately quoting LDS leaders (in official, recent LDS publications no less) a distortion now?