Mass Shooting at Mormon Church In Michigan

[canpakes]

Well, damn. Then the attack was by Christians, against non-Christians.

Someone needs to update the Administration.

The attack was made by an individual. Mormons can be Christians and still be their own sect.

The Giants aren’t football players. The Giants aren’t baseball players. The Giants are football players. The Giants are baseball players.

Someone needs to update the Administration.

[Gadianton]

Mormons can be Christians and still be their own sect.

So you're saying Mormons have accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior but are also members of a demonic, unchristian sect, yet credit their demonic sect for their Christianity?

And Sanford should have known this before he demanded his victims to accept Christ?

[Kishkumen]

Mormons are not Christians!

As people who believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, Mormons ARE Christians.

And you are a bigot.

[Whiskey]

Mormons can be Christians and still be their own sect.

So you're saying Mormons have accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior but are also members of a demonic, unchristian sect, yet credit their demonic sect for their Christianity?

And Sanford should have known this before he demanded his victims to accept Christ?

Eat poo, Gad. I said what I said. Now you say what you want to say. What is that makes you twist and manipulate words? What do you gain from speaking for and in behalf of people who are not dead instead of speaking for yourself?

ETA: Kish explained it. We are good. I understand.

[Kishkumen]

This bit by Barry Bickmore is very well done.

Well, now that it's pretty clear the shooter in Michigan was motivated by the belief that Latter-day Saints are the Anti-Christ, and that he went about demanding that people say whether they worship Joseph Smith or Jesus before executing them... I have a few thoughts.

1. There are a lot of people (most notably a very large fraction of Evangelical and/or Fundamentalist Christians) who are adamant that we are definitely "not Christian." The reason they usually give for this judgement is that we have a different concept of God and the Trinity. This cracks me up, given that the vast majority of these people are actually Modalists (which is classed as a heresy by mainstream Christians), because they don't understand the Trinity doctrine they are supposed to believe, let alone what they are supposed to believe about the "nature of God".

2. On the one hand, I don't directly blame such people for this atrocity, because if you aren't going around telling people to solve your religious disagreements via violence, I don't feel like I should be faulting you for voicing your sincerely held beliefs, even if they aren't flattering to someone else.

3. On the other hand, I have been to so many Evangelical and Fundamentalist churches in which they had an ENTIRE WALL of pamphlets about how awful everyone else (Mormons, Masons, JWs, Roman Catholics, mostly) is. In my sincerely held opinion, this exhibits a severely diseased mindset.

4. Also, while I won't fault them for arguing for their point of view and against others, it would be awfully nice if they would refrain from straight-up lying about us. Seriously, the people who write Evangelical/Fundamentalist anti-Others literature are, in general, a pack of deceitful charlatans... or at the very least unfathomably stupid. It's really pathetic, folks.

5. Part of the general deceit involves intentionally using language they know will be misinterpreted by their primary audience. For instance, if you ask an LDS person whether we are "Christian," we would say, "Of course." Why? Because (in addition to our strong belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ, etc.) if you look up "Christian" in a dictionary, our belief and practice fit all the general criteria for that classification. However, many Evangelicals/Fundamentalists have their own special definition of "Christian," which they are welcome to, but which confuses even some of them. To many of them, if you are a "Christian," then you are "saved"... period. But what does that mean? Well, then they have to come up with various boundaries that define "true" Christianity in their minds, and some of these are complex enough that Joe Sixpack in the pew doesn't come away with a clear idea of who does or doesn't fit the bill. For instance, as a teenager I told my boss at the pizza shop (a Methodist) that I was LDS. He said, "But I thought you were some kind of Christian." You see, he wasn't using the special definition his pastor was employing. Rather, he just heard "Mormons aren't Christian" and applied the regular dictionary definition. I have suggested to some of these pastors that they could instead call us "heretical Christians," or whatever, but they always take a pass. I think it's because they know exactly what most of their parishioners are coming away with, and they want to keep it that way.

6. So even if I don't directly blame people like that when some Joe Sixpack in the pew with PTSD decides that it would be a great idea to terrorize and execute Latter-day Saints, I think it's fair to say that they have contributed to the situation--not just by voicing sincerely held opinions--but by creating a culture where dishonesty about your religious rivals is normalized.

[I Have Questions]

The murderer seems to have been MAGA

The Mormon Church shooter who killed at least four people in an attack on Sunday had a Trump sign outside his house and wore MAGA merch.

Those people that went went hell for leather blaming the left wing for all the violence (despite the evidence pointing in the opposite direction), have they condemned MAGA and the right wing for this atrocity?

[Whiskey]

This bit by Barry Bickmore is very well done.

You see, he wasn't using the special definition his pastor was employing. Rather, he just heard "Mormons aren't Christian" and applied the regular dictionary definition. I have suggested to some of these pastors that they could instead call us "heretical Christians," or whatever, but they always take a pass. I think it's because they know exactly what most of their parishioners are coming away with, and they want to keep it that way.

Same as it ever was. Like I said, we may need to redifine define while we are working on words like woman and christian.

This bit by Barry Bickmore is very well done.

I think it's fair to say that they have contributed to the situation--not just by voicing sincerely held opinions--but by creating a culture where dishonesty about your religious rivals is normalized.

uh....... uh...... did you look around the room before you posted this?

[Whiskey]

The murderer seems to have been MAGA

The Mormon Church shooter who killed at least four people in an attack on Sunday had a Trump sign outside his house and wore MAGA merch.

Those people that went went hell for leather blaming the left wing for all the violence (despite the evidence pointing in the opposite direction), have they condemned MAGA and the right wing for this atrocity?

Have you confirmed these facts? Not saying they are not true, I have not confirmed them. But are you sure?

I would like to answer your question, but before I do, Who EXACTLY is MAGA and who EXACTLY is right wing? How can I differentiate those people from the not-MAGA and the not-right wing?

Thanks. With those clarifications of who you would like condemned, we can begin the condemnation. Thanks.

[I Have Questions]

The murderer seems to have been MAGAThose people that went went hell for leather blaming the left wing for all the violence (despite the evidence pointing in the opposite direction), have they condemned MAGA and the right wing for this atrocity?

Have you confirmed these facts? Not saying they are not true, I have not confirmed them. But are you sure?

I would like to answer your question, but before I do, Who EXACTLY is MAGA and who EXACTLY is right wing? How can I differentiate those people from the not-MAGA and the not-right wing?

Thanks. With those clarifications of who you would like condemned, we can begin the condemnation. Thanks.

Were you one of those posters to blame the far left for the Charlie Kirk murder?

[Whiskey]

Have you confirmed these facts? Not saying they are not true, I have not confirmed them. But are you sure?

I would like to answer your question, but before I do, Who EXACTLY is MAGA and who EXACTLY is right wing? How can I differentiate those people from the not-MAGA and the not-right wing?

Thanks. With those clarifications of who you would like condemned, we can begin the condemnation. Thanks.

Were you one of those posters to blame the far left for the Charlie Kirk murder?

Nope. I blamed the shooter. I think the “far” spectrum is nonsense.