12 myths about Mormons - Tribune

[_Infymus]

12 myths about Mormons - by Peggy Fletcher Stack

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54959 ... d.html.csp

1. Mormons practice polygamy.

Answer: True, Mormons are still practicing polygamy just not temporally. Three current living Mormon apostles are celestial polygamists.

2. Mormons are not Christians.

Not in the traditional sense. In Mormonism Jesus and Satan are brothers, temple ceremonies, three degrees of glory, garments, celestial polygamy, masonic rituals, etc .... The list goes on.

4. Mormons don’t dance.

Got me there. No idea where this one came from.

5. All Mormons live in Utah.

Most of the TBM Mormons do, but no, they live everywhere.

6. Women can’t be leaders or speak in the LDS Church

Women can only be Relief Society Presidents or presiding Relief Society President. And even then their offices are still presided over by a man. Women were only allowed to pray in Sacrament meeting since 1978. They are not allowed to give opening and closing prayers at GC. They can't hold major leadership positions. They can't hold the priesthood. They can't baptize. But they can stay at home and have lots of babies.

7. All Mormons are Republicans.

Pretty much they are, but not all. There are some hard core TBM Mormon Apologists who believe that Mormons who are not Republican should be excommunicated.

8. A Mormon U.S. president would be a puppet of the LDS prophet.

Puppet? Not likely.

9. Mormons baptize corpses.

Pretty close but bad use of words. Mormons baptize dead people by proxy - not by digging up their bodies and what not. A guy in a white jumpsuit stands in a Mormon temple baptismal font - and a speaker reads off the name of a dead person, and the Mormon in the jumpsuit its baptized as if he/she were that person. Necro dunking we call it.

10. Mormons can’t use birth control.

The Mormon Church Handbook Of Instructions states that a male member should not have a vasectomy. Any Mormon will tell you that birth control is really wrong because the Cult wants you to have as many babies as possible. Future tithing payers are very very important. Truth is, it's one of those unspoken doctrines of nod your head, uh huh, yeah, we really "know" but wont "say".

11. Mormons get naked in the temple.

Yep they ARE NAKED just before they put on their white pajamas because they can't wear street clothes. And prior to 2005, they were completely NAKED under a white poncho. They were also touched on their naked bodies by temple workers as part of the endowment ceremony. These temple workers reached around inside the poncho and touched them. There are hundreds of posts from men who said the old guy accidentally touched their genitals. Don't lie about this Peggy.

12. Mormons don’t believe in the Bible.

They don't. They believe in the JST version. The Book of Mormon is far far more stressed. Any time I ever looked at the Bible it was always - was this translated correctly? The Book of Mormon always supersedes it.

[_MsJack]

4. Mormons don’t dance.

Got me there. No idea where this one came from.

It comes from conflating Mormons with certain brands of fundamentalist Christianity. Mormons do share some similarities with fundamentalist Christians (they're effectively King-James-Onlyists, for example), so people get confused.

While it is true that the church’s lay priesthood is restricted to males 12 and older, Mormon women lead the women’s, young women’s and children’s organizations, teach scripture study and other classes, pray in services and preach from the pulpit.

Pretty much every Christian tradition in the world will allow women to lead its women's and children's ministries, so pointing out that Mormon women are leaders of women and children really isn't answering the charge. That Mormon women teach coed Sunday school classes and pray in services makes the LDS church more flexible than some conservative Christian denominations. The routine speaking from the pulpit is one of the few places where the LDS church is doing something that isn't at all common in most other Christian churches.

[_just me]

Any Mormon will tell you that birth control is really wrong because the Cult wants you to have as many babies as possible.

Um, no. I disagree. "Any Mormon" will not tell you that birth control is really wrong. I'd wager that 99.8% of modern LDS couples use some form of birth control at some point in their marriage. (not including couples who know they can't conceive)

[Anonymous]

Up until at least the 60s or even 70s the church actively discouraged birth control.

Here's a good example of a statement from the First Presidency given just a few months after I was born.

Here's another page full of quotes.

And another one.

I don't have any evidence that this was ever enforced in any way, other than through condemnation from the pulpit, or in private counselings with bishops or whatever. I've not read of anyone, for instance, losing or being denied a temple recommend because they used birth control. But the condemntation was certainly there, and it was pronounced to be against church teachings.

That was then. In recent decades they've pretty much stopped talking about it. Certainly they've stopped condemning it. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Mormon married couples today overwhelmingly practice some sort of birth control at the start of their marriages. It's been an almost unremarked-upon cultural revolution within the church.

[_Stormy Waters]

Anecdotally I know two couples that outright refuse to use birth control because of statements like those quoted by Sethbag. If the church has ever repudiated or taken back these statements please post it here so I can pass it on to them.
I don't think it's fair to label this one a "myth" when really it's just a discarded teaching.

[_just me]

Anecdotally I know two couples that outright refuse to use birth control because of statements like those quoted by Sethbag. If the church has ever repudiated or taken back these statements please post it here so I can pass it on to them.
I don't it's fair to label this one a "myth" when really it's just a discarded teaching.

I wouldn't call it a myth, either. I would say that modern LDS would not "all" say that birth control is wrong, bad or evil.

It is old and outdated. I know tons of LDS men who have been snipped. I don't know a single fertile LDS couple who has not used a form of birth at some point in their marriage.I'm talking people under 45. I can't speak to the older sets, although my parents used a form of bc.

[_Sethbag]

Keep in mind that birth control used to be condemned far more widely in the general US population, and by more than just the Catholics. I think the LDS leadership was just echoing broader religious sentiments of the time against birth control. For heaven's sake, it wasn't until the 1965 Supreme Court ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut that state laws banning the use of contraceptives were overturned.

Anyhow, the LDS church certainly didn't stand out from the crowd over their past stance vis a vis birth control, and for the most part, they don't stand out from the crowd now either since they stopped talking about it and younger LDS couples stopped giving a damn what David O. McKay and his predecessors said about it.

[_Markk]

12 myths about Mormons - by Peggy Fletcher Stack

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54959 ... d.html.csp

1. Mormons practice polygamy.

Answer: True, Mormons are still practicing polygamy just not temporally. Three current living Mormon apostles are celestial polygamists.

2. Mormons are not Christians.

Not in the traditional sense. In Mormonism Jesus and Satan are brothers, temple ceremonies, three degrees of glory, garments, celestial polygamy, masonic rituals, etc .... The list goes on.

4. Mormons don’t dance.

Got me there. No idea where this one came from.

5. All Mormons live in Utah.

Most of the TBM Mormons do, but no, they live everywhere.

6. Women can’t be leaders or speak in the LDS Church

Women can only be Relief Society Presidents or presiding Relief Society President. And even then their offices are still presided over by a man. Women were only allowed to pray in Sacrament meeting since 1978. They are not allowed to give opening and closing prayers at GC. They can't hold major leadership positions. They can't hold the priesthood. They can't baptize. But they can stay at home and have lots of babies.

7. All Mormons are Republicans.

Pretty much they are, but not all. There are some hard core TBM Mormon Apologists who believe that Mormons who are not Republican should be excommunicated.

8. A Mormon U.S. president would be a puppet of the LDS prophet.

Puppet? Not likely.

9. Mormons baptize corpses.

Pretty close but bad use of words. Mormons baptize dead people by proxy - not by digging up their bodies and what not. A guy in a white jumpsuit stands in a Mormon temple baptismal font - and a speaker reads off the name of a dead person, and the Mormon in the jumpsuit its baptized as if he/she were that person. Necro dunking we call it.

10. Mormons can’t use birth control.

The Mormon Church Handbook Of Instructions states that a male member should not have a vasectomy. Any Mormon will tell you that birth control is really wrong because the Cult wants you to have as many babies as possible. Future tithing payers are very very important. Truth is, it's one of those unspoken doctrines of nod your head, uh huh, yeah, we really "know" but wont "say".

11. Mormons get naked in the temple.

Yep they ARE NAKED just before they put on their white pajamas because they can't wear street clothes. And prior to 2005, they were completely NAKED under a white poncho. They were also touched on their naked bodies by temple workers as part of the endowment ceremony. These temple workers reached around inside the poncho and touched them. There are hundreds of posts from men who said the old guy accidentally touched their genitals. Don't lie about this Peggy.

12. Mormons don’t believe in the Bible.

They don't. They believe in the JST version. The Book of Mormon is far far more stressed. Any time I ever looked at the Bible it was always - was this translated correctly? The Book of Mormon always supersedes it.

Mormons can't dance?...have you ever been to a ward dance? I can remember going to them in the late 60's and we were trying to dance to the Iron Butterfly's in-a-gadda-da-vida...LoL...believe me... unless things have changed Mormons can't dance. On a side note I told my folks the words were "in the garden of eden."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIVe-rZBcm4

[_Elphaba]

8. A Mormon U.S. president would be a puppet of the LDS prophet.

Puppet? Not likely.

I agree a Mormon US president would not be a puppet for the Church, but I think that is mostly because the president is under such scrutiny it would be discovered and disclosed, and that would be horrible PR for the Church.

However, I do believe there is a "perfect storm" possibility where: a) the US president is a believing Mormon, b) the Church's current prophet is a Packer-like fanatic, and c) the country is threatened by something truly catastrophic. In such a situation, I believe the president would ask the prophet to pray and ask god what he should do (I say "he" because I cannot conceive of the Church allowing a Mormon woman to be president), and that prophet would think whatever popped into his head was "god's answer." Given the president is a believing Mormon, he would do whatever god, via the prophet, commanded, even if it meant going against his government advisers' (human) counsel.

I admit it would have to be a truly unusual event, but given Mormon beliefs about personal access to god, as well as the covenants made in the temple, it IS possible.

[_zeezrom]

Mormons are Christian in every sense of the word.

Some need to learn to read the New Testament a little more. Frankly, the Book of Mormon is a horrible substitute.