Give the religion a thousand years to age and it will seem equally credible to all other religions.
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Arenât they going out on a limb revealing a picture? Seems to me keeping something hidden is part of the mystery of a religion. Showing it to everyone risks people saying âBut itâs just a damn rock.â
Nonono. Not damned rock, a holy rock. Different, see?
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OMG, that video. Good people are born âwhite and delightsomeâ, but the blacks are a curse for those who didnât fight valiantly for Elohem. The good white Indians were all killed off by the evil dark skinned ones. FânâA I didnât realize Mormonism was so racist! That is really messed up.
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To some of us, it already does.
My magic rock, which is also invisible and intangible, protects me from being savaged by rogue elephants. Iâve had it for 11 years, for as long as Iâve lived in Wisconsin, and I have yet to be savaged by an elephant. Iâm considering starting a religion based on this fact.
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Theyâre not racist. They just had instructions from God about no black members of clergy. Who reversed His Holy Policy in 1978. But did not apologize for it. Because God.
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A chance to use a (paraphrased) Voltaire quote that actually comes from Voltaire (unlike that âdisagree with what you sayâ thing):
Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.
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And you naysayers thought it wasnât real!!
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will this new religion include the possibility of older gentlemen who get in on the ground floor being able to bang as many 18 year old âspiritual wivesâ as possible? Because I might be interested.
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Yes and no. What older religions have going for them is that they had the benefit of the stories being passed down orally for generations, working the wrinkles out, and then often generations more of reworking the stories once they were written. They could retroactively insert elements, remove troublesome elements, invent entire new bits and generally edit everything for maximum believability, internal consistency and emotional punch. Plus thereâs enough linguistic distance that people can argue - and believe whatever they want - about what the original meanings were, what was metaphor, parable, joke⌠In this case, it was written soon enough after the fact that all the damning details of an awkward con are there - all the screw-ups and attempts to recover, all the âmiraclesâ that are just someone saying that a miracle occurred and it was too bad you didnât see it, all the âfactualâ assertions that sounded like convincing bits of history if you were an ignorant 19th century American but today not only donât function as supporting evidence but require enormous suspension of disbelief to accept on any level, etc.
Itâs like having a version of the Bible that goes something like, âAnd Jesus did hold but one ball in his bare hands, and he did point and say, âLook yonder!â and the multitude did look but beheld nothing, but when they cast their gazes back upon Jesus, he held not one ball but three in his hands, and they marveled at this miracle.â
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Keep in mind that video is a little bit biased. Itâs made by some super-conservative evangelicals.
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oh, good to know. i thought it was produced by the mormons. any idea if those two statements that freaked me out are actually part of the mormon belief system? i look it up later, when i have some time, just wondering if you or anyone else knows off the top of your head.
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This is exactly so. Iâm an exmo, and my wife is still TBM.
It is incredible to me, looking back, how much I went along with really wild shit in the name of religion. And what bugs me still is that I knew it was crazy in places, but it took the whole thing catastrophically tumbling down with one doctrinal problem for me to see the dozens on the way there.
I could have left sooner and been happier!
So much more I could talk about. Well said sir.
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The Church has been doing a lot of this lately.
They have a very clear pattern of lying to the membership about doctrinal evolution (not the doctrine of evolution), early church history, reasoning for policies, and items they do or do not possess.
The Mark Hoffman fiasco really burned them.
I think the leadership are trying, to a degree, to out the Churchâs minimally dirty laundry to bolster the faith of the righteous.
âSee? Yeah we lied about Smith for 150 years, but that was 150 years ago! Weâre over it now so you should be too!â
EDIT: Over it!
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Iâll field this. Sorry for all the posts.
âOMG, that video. Good people are born âwhite and delightsomeâ, but the blacks are a curse for those who didnât fight valiantly for Elohem. The good white Indians were all killed off by the evil dark skinned ones. FânâA I didnât realize Mormonism was so racist! That is really messed up.â
Ok. White and delightsome. The Church pushed the idea that Native Americans have darker skin because their Isrealite ancestors that came over to the Americas with Lehi were unrighteous, and the Lord turned their skins darker to mark them. The extension of this to all nations and whatever I think is linked to the doctrine of the Curse of Ham.
The stuff about blacks in particular has been heavily downplayed since the 1978 statement about Blacks and the Priesthood. But I do remember the Native American dark skin theory getting a lot of air time in meetings up through the 90âs at least.
Didnât fight valiantly for Elohim. âElâ is Hebrew for âGodâ, and the âhimâ on the end makes it plural. Jews still regard this word as a singular form for God, but Mormons do not. Elohim is the âintelligencesâ that, with his heavenly consort that Mormons donât talk about, created all of the spirits of the humans on this planet and many others. One of those spirits was Jesus, and one of them was Adam, and one of them was you. Jesus was called by Elohim, âThe Fatherâ, to create the world (with the help of Michael the Archangel who later becomes Adam) and later serve out the atonement.
Another spirit child, Lucifer doesnât like the Jesus deal. He whines, gets one third of everyone in heaven on his side, and then Elohim just throws them all the fuck out. Those are the devil and his servants. They get to spend eternity after judgement in Outer Darkness.
You are one of the righteous two thirds, and thatâs why youâre here today. Also you were probably especially valiant in that war in heaven, and thatâs why you were held in reserve for these Latter Days.
Yes, at the end of the Book of Mormon, the dark Lamanites win and kill all of of the white Nephites except one (Mormon), and thatâs how we got the book.
Hope this wasnât shit. Let me know if you want more.
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Kathleen Madigan did a stand-up bit about Mormons where one of the punchlines was, âYeah, but we made up our shit a long time agoâ
Yes itâs true. The doctrine and the church actually did say that dark skinned people were cursed for the sins of their ancestors.
They reversed it in 1978, under immense external pressure, and have been trying to expunge any mention of their in-built racism ministry-of-truth-style.
Remember, to a Mormon, ignorance is strength, for the ignorant donât know better than not to question the absurd and instead accept it, because theyâre also taught from birth that itâs a sin to think critically.
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I prefer what Gang of Four said - âSave me from the people who would save me from myselfâ.
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wow. thanks for the detailed answer. that was very helpful!
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For the right donation, anything is possible! Cash only, please.
(Actually, Iâm polyamorous, so my real answer, should I ever go completely insane and actually fancy to forge yet another religion that we donât really need, would be âas long as everyone in the relationship is agreeable [consenting, legally able to consent, etc.] to your arrangement, then sure, why not?â)
