Infymus wrote:Mr. Scratch - just as Nehor, Harmony, Gaz and Jason Bourne here have also supplied - the insistence on the fact that the member is to blame will always be the first card played by Mormons.
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I can't comment on all the posters you mentioned, but I don't think Jaosn Bourne fits that profile. My impression is that he enjoys and benefits from aspects of the church while ignoring beliefs that don't fit with his own sensibilities. I could be wrong....
I don't expect to see same-sex marriage in Utah within my lifetime. - Scott Lloyd, Oct 23 2013
Infymus wrote:Mr. Scratch - just as Nehor, Harmony, Gaz and Jason Bourne here have also supplied - the insistence on the fact that the member is to blame will always be the first card played by Mormons.
.
I can't comment on all the posters you mentioned, but I don't think Jaosn Bourne fits that profile. My impression is that he enjoys and benefits from aspects of the church while ignoring beliefs that don't fit with his own sensibilities. I could be wrong....
You are correct. Jason and I both do this, and because of this, we take flack from both sides of the aisle.
Infymus wrote:Mr. Scratch - just as Nehor, Harmony, Gaz and Jason Bourne here have also supplied - the insistence on the fact that the member is to blame will always be the first card played by Mormons.
.
I can't comment on all the posters you mentioned, but I don't think Jaosn Bourne fits that profile. My impression is that he enjoys and benefits from aspects of the church while ignoring beliefs that don't fit with his own sensibilities. I could be wrong....
You are correct. Jason and I both do this, and because of this, we take flack from both sides of the aisle.
;)
Does that make the both of you bastard children of the discussion boards? Ha ha, sorry - couldn't resist!
I don't expect to see same-sex marriage in Utah within my lifetime. - Scott Lloyd, Oct 23 2013
Thus the effectiveness of a doctrine should not be judged by its profundity, sublimity or the validity of the truths it embodies, but by how thoroughly it insulates the individual from his self and the world as it is. What Pascal said of an effective religion is true of any effective doctrine: it must be “contrary to nature, to common sense, and to pleasure”.
The bolded words show that Pascal had it all wrong. Mormons have more "fun" than anyone else.
When studyiing "happiness" one researcher wrote: "What do they find? In a nutshell, they find that people who are involved in religion also report greater levels of happiness than do those who are not religious. For example, one study involved over 160,000 people in Europe. Among weekly churchgoers, 85% reported being "very satisfied" with life, but this number reduced to 77% among those who never went to church (Inglehart, 1990). This kind of pattern is typical -- religious involvement is associated with modest increases in happiness."
beastie wrote: Charity is a good demonstration of this. On this board, her arguments are so poorly constructed in that she ignores half of what others post and can't construct an overall coherency in her theories that would prevent her from contradicting herself frequently. And you think that her arguments are so excellent she laughs at us? You have remarkably poor judgment.
I don't respond to every post in a thread because I don't have time for shotgun attacks and tag teaming. You are trying to poison the well. My theory is completely consistent and coherent. Your main strategy whenever I put up an argument you can't knock down is to scream that I am incoherent.
And I don't laugh at you. You are too sad and pitiable to call forth laughter. I am much more likely to cry over the situation.
Infymus wrote:Mr. Scratch - just as Nehor, Harmony, Gaz and Jason Bourne here have also supplied - the insistence on the fact that the member is to blame will always be the first card played by Mormons.
.
I can't comment on all the posters you mentioned, but I don't think Jaosn Bourne fits that profile. My impression is that he enjoys and benefits from aspects of the church while ignoring beliefs that don't fit with his own sensibilities. I could be wrong....
You are correct. Jason and I both do this, and because of this, we take flack from both sides of the aisle.
;)
Does that make the both of you bastard children of the discussion boards? Ha ha, sorry - couldn't resist!
With so much 'funmaking', why such heavy use of prozac type medication in Utah? I believe they have been or are currently national leaders in this category.
I don't expect to see same-sex marriage in Utah within my lifetime. - Scott Lloyd, Oct 23 2013
Gadianton wrote: if it were really God's work, why not just shrug your shoulders at the mockers and move on?
Maybe because the critics won't "move on", and some find it "fun" to engage them? I don't believe any TBM (emphasis on "true") will ever lose his/her testimony. They are having fun with you, when you think it's the other way around. Charity probably laughs herself to sleep.
Oh I have no doubt many of the apologists see this is a game. DCP has outright said it himself. And for those that it's not a game for, it's a serious intellectual hobby with little risk. But if what you were saying though were true, then the church wouldn't encourage members to avoid anti-lit like it does. President Kimball wouldn't have given that talk where he describes the depressed Mormon kid losing his testimony who had read "selections by atheists" in college. I would bet money that you can't find a GA who would agree with you that no one can ever lose a testimony. In fact, my mission president once gave a talk where he cautioned against bearing the "unshakeable" testimony, noting a member of his ward who would bear testimony like that, and this mission president and his wife would look at each other with concern. He later left the church, according to MP. I've never seen the church teach that a true testimony is unshakeable and the member can try and test it by dabling in fun that exposes them to negative information about the prophets.
I really don't think there is an advantage for the church to have a growing body of anti and apologist lit. I'm personally all for it.
Lou Midgley 08/20/2020: "...meat wad," and "cockroach" are pithy descriptions of human beings used by gemli? They were not fashioned by Professor Peterson.
LM 11/23/2018: one can explain away the soul of human beings...as...a Meat Unit, to use Professor Peterson's clever derogatory description of gemli's ideology.
Back in the day when I was just starting to disbelieve, I had an epiphany that blew threw the barrier that implied that Mormons are happier than everyone else, Mormons families are closer or better than everyone else, Mormon parents love their children more than anyone else, Mormon lifestyle make them healthier and more fulfilling than everyone else.
It was actually quite empowering to discover that there was not a single thing about Mormonism that made their product more superior to any other belief system in the universe. And in fact, the byproducts of higher expectation with its nasty shadow of guilt darken the quality of the product. Oh yeah. And the absolute arrogance that comes when people live in an environment that states their belief system makes them happier, healthier, closer families, and more loving than everyone else.
"I think one of the great mysteries of the gospel is that anyone still believes it." Sethbag, MADB, Feb 22 2008
Kevin, Thanks for replying and proving my claim. You have a hard time speaking of Islam rationally.
Then it should be easy for you to point out one single "irrational" remark in my post.
You can't.
I simply state the facts.
You know, of all the yapping and moaning about my so called negative attitutde towards Islam, you have not been able to prove me wrong on any given point. None of you have, including Dan Peterson. Instead, you fall back on the perception game. Just keep calling me bitter, irrational, bigoted, etc., and hopefully that will somehow deflect the force of the truth.
“All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it...Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality." - Albert Einstein