Author Topic: And I thought there could be nothing that I could agree with Xtian fundies on  (Read 8922 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Mucho

  • Guest
"....and Mormons don't control their members in any way other than through church status.  "




Mormans have a mistique , is this not so?

Is the public perception of Mormans as more then usually disaplined a plus or a minus for a serious politician?

You mean like this?
A sphinx with the head of LDS founder Jospeh Smith, carved by a devout mid-twentieth century artist named Thomas Child. Feast your eyes:


http://themasticator.blogspot.com/search/label/art

yellow_crane

  • Guest

While it is true that the various religions all contain some comparatively goofiness, we as a whole are protected by the bigger picture, the great meld, in political translation.

But all this tolerance depends on the amount, the degree of control within any of those religions.

What disturbs me most about the Mormon issue, and the one that I do not find culled by summary of the various opinions, is the amount of over-all control they have in their individual lives. 

At least from the standpoint of the scope of that obedience through individual control, I would agree that the Mormon religion lies within the parameters of the label of 'cult.'

One of the salient defining characteristics of any cult is that over-riding control that each member is subject to, and Mormons live under the mantle of their own collective, strongly enforced, down to very small detail in their lives. 

In the Mormon religion, any approach to politics that would include holding individual opinions that vary from their common creed would be antithema.

It is one thing to fling from an outside, goofy stance the label of 'cult,' but there are a lot of disparate groups of people who are suspicious regarding this issue. which lends to establish the case for legitimate concern.

Knowing this, it becomes an issue on its face, and it is incumbent for any Mormon politician running for office to address this issue openly, and not try to obfuscate it like Romney seems to be doing ("the details don't matter").

 

You have an incredibly skewed - and wildly inaccurate - view of Mormonism.

My Bishop is a liberal Democrat.  So is Harry Reid, who happens to be a Mormon and Senate Majority Leader.

My religion has no control over me whatsoever, except that which I choose to give.  The highest value in Mormonism is that of Free Agency.  We are taught that choice is the most important thing we have. We can give nothing to God, since he gives us everyhting in the first place, except our will - which is the only thing that comes solely from us.  In that regard, Mormonism has no more control over its members than any religion.  e learn what is right and choose to follow that course or not.  The consequences of our choices are NOT ours to choose, but that is true in any situation.

I've been a Latter-Day Saint for thirty years, and I always get a chuckle out of the warped views that many people seem to have of my faith.

Ami is right, the church has control only on membership status, nothing else.  Most churches reserve the right to promote certain kinds of behaviors, and many to discipline within the ranks.  Catholicism imposes exactly the same sort of disciplines.  Indeed, most Christian churches share a history of far more serious disciplinary measures - such as beheading and burning.  And the political control that was imposed over a century ago when Utah was still a territory is no different from the political control practiced by mainstream Christianity over several centuries.

Catholics don't burn heretics anymore, and Mormons don't control their members in any way other than through church status. 

I pay no attention to Knute's nonsense, it is designed to be silly.  But I expect something close to rational debate from yellow.


I have found that a rational debate regarding religion and politics is rarely possible on the internet, and in the political clubs.

A lot of this is true due mainly to the easily recognizible tactical advantage that religious institutions who are actively engaged in the political world in America employ.  When their religion is discussed in political terms, many, and especially including the Jews here, will decry that their very 'faith' is under attack, no matter how harmless or carefully worded the questions are asked.

But I am willing.

Mr postulation, before the reactionary snipes, was that Romney did indeed have the responsibility to discuss the details of his religion, based on the structure of his church, one that a lot of Americans find extremely secretive and carefully controlled, because he is running for the highest job in the land.  

I could post sites of former Mormons who decry at length just exactly the point I made--excessive control of its members, and the discussion of helping others trying to extricate themselves from the control of the church which is framed in terms of intervention and shaking the baggage of inculcation, but that is not where I see a rational discussion.

When I use the term "cult" and "cultist," I do so knowing I am far from solitary is using these terms.  Whether or not I am 100% accurate in ascribing the word 'cult' to the Mormon Church, there is enough certainty in my perception (I grew up with Mormons, and may have known more Mormons than most) as well as a prepondering repeating of the charge from society at large to give the question cred.  In light of what I find true, what in the world would legitamately prevent a free press from asking:  "Mr. Romney, many have deemed the Mormon Church a cult . . . how would you respond to those assertions?"  Americans are sick and tired of automatic spin, imho, and a response of " . . . . the details are unimportant . . ." from Romney serves to diminish his credibility.  One then is left to wonder what he does not want to discuss.


But even if this were amiss, it is still incumbent upon Romney to explain the errors of perception regarding this label.  It is incumbent upon Romney to not run from the issues regarding his church since at least one in four Americans, before a sunlight discussion,  say they would not vote for a Mormon period.  It would seem that Romney would seek to rectify the misunderstandings in detail, to broaden his church's appeal, and when he spins with a quick dismissal, I think many wonder why.

When you say my views are 'skewed,' 'warped' and 'wildly inaccurate,' I am reminded of another small r republican who characterized my views on the Iraq War, which were reinforced by a majority of Americans who were polled over several years, as 'radical,' 'foaming' etc etc etc.

So discuss a few points to begin:  

When you say that Ami is right (usually a fair assertion) about what you describe doctrinally as 'Free Agency,' could you discuss any possible variation of that concept when considered in the ranking system of your church?  What I mean here is the 32 degrees of positions or rankings that members in your church attain?

If the assertion of "contol" is so philosophically off the mark as to motivate you to dis them in flashpoint rhetoric, why do you think this misperception is so widely extant in America?

And can you tell all if your church still holds black Americans as unable to go beyond the first degree?  Since minority concerns and possible racism is so important in America (remember Virginia), does your church's dogma still assert that the black race is the enemy?

Both these initial points, as all can see, are asked because they pertain to politics, and are not random pot shots to 'attack your faith.'



 


yellow_crane

  • Guest
"....and Mormons don't control their members in any way other than through church status.  "




Mormans have a mistique , is this not so?

Is the public perception of Mormans as more then usually disaplined a plus or a minus for a serious politician?


I can think of no other time in history when perceiving a politician as 'disciplined' is as important as now, but to answer your question--depends upon to what agenda the discipline is applied.

Arguably, the Japanese are as highly disciplined as most, and were during the early forties.  But look at what they applied this discipline to.

The Mormons are, I would argue, as disciplined as any organization in America, religious, poltiical, etc. 

They were disciplined when they surrounded Nixon, and were when they put Howard Hughes in the back room to take pills and watch "Ice Station Zebra" eight hundred times, while his Mormon aides (he hired them for their pure cleanliness) took over.  Many of his funds are still in question.  I make no accusations.  But I certainly think these things should see the light of day.

And I might ask, Plane:   how much of a factor is disciplince in cult mentality?

Plane

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 26993
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
"....and Mormons don't control their members in any way other than through church status.  "




Mormons have a mystique , is this not so?

Is the public perception of Mormons as more then usually disciplined a plus or a minus for a serious politician?


I can think of no other time in history when perceiving a politician as 'disciplined' is as important as now, but to answer your question--depends upon to what agenda the discipline is applied.

Arguably, the Japanese are as highly disciplined as most, and were during the early forties.  But look at what they applied this discipline to.

The Mormons are, I would argue, as disciplined as any organization in America, religious, political, etc. 

They were disciplined when they surrounded Nixon, and were when they put Howard Hughes in the back room to take pills and watch "Ice Station Zebra" eight hundred times, while his Mormon aides (he hired them for their pure cleanliness) took over.  Many of his funds are still in question.  I make no accusations.  But I certainly think these things should see the light of day.

And I might ask, Plane:   how much of a factor is discipline in cult mentality?


  When President Clinton wrote of the stuff he had done he said he did it "because I could".

   I would like to see self controll in a person who is going to be vested with great power , but not necessarily controll imposed from a poorly understood organization.

    The LDS Church certainly encourages self control , that is positive .

        Do they exert leverage on adherents who are elected to responsible positions ? his would be negative to the extent that the Church organization was not trusted.

      This is very like the candidacy of John F Kennedy , it seemed that the people back then were ready to believe that a Catholic President was not unduly under the thumb of Rome but was schooled in morality sufficiently.

Stray Pooch

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 860
  • Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Crane, you are confusing Mormonism with the Masonic Order.

There are not 32 degrees in Mormonism.

Blacks were, indeed, prohibited from holding the priesthood in the past.  But that policy ended thirty years ago.

I am not claiming my religion is under attack.  I am claiming that you have an appalling ignorance of the topic.  Your perceptions about Mormonism (as is often the case) are not only skewed by your obvious lack of actual research into the topic, but also confused with other groups.  I have been told that "Mormons are the same as Quakers, Jehovah's Witnesses, Masons (which is not even a religion) and Mennonites.  We are not in any way related to any of those groups.

XO also stated a false doctrine, claiming that "there is no way to avoid becoming a Mormon in the afterlife" and citing proxy baptism as proof.  That is untrue, but it is at least an honest misunderstanding of the doctrine - not the creation, wholesale, of myth.  Your long, rambling diatribe was filled with nonsense.  I don't have time to answer it all. 

BTW, I teach Gospel Essentials and I drink Diet Pepsi every day.

Oh no, I'll bet the Pepsi Police are gonna read this and excommunicate me!

Perhaps you should try attending a few LDS church services (anyone can - only the temples are members only) and taking a few classes to actually meet a few of us robots.  At least take the time to visit www.LDS.org or some other sites to at least get a working knowledge of the church that isn't culled from skewed observations and anti-LDS publications.
Oh, for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention . . .

Xavier_Onassis

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 27916
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
XO also stated a false doctrine, claiming that "there is no way to avoid becoming a Mormon in the afterlife" and citing proxy baptism as proof.  That is untrue, but it is at least an honest misunderstanding of the doctrine

=========================================================================
I am happy to know that my misunderstanding is honest.

I was actually saying this in jest. I was thinking that is someday, one of my descendants decides to become a Mormon, then they would submit the family tree and seal the whole tribe into the LDS Church, despite the fact that none of us in life was sufficiently enthused to seal ourselves.

Could you explain what it is I have misunderstood about this?

My father was a genealogist and a historian in Clay Co., MO, and was rather glad that the Mormons had such an excellent genealogical database. Personally, I don't imagine it would bother me it I were baptised in proxy. I am sure it is painless and I can't see God complaining, either.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Amianthus

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7574
  • Bring on the flames...
    • View Profile
    • Mario's Home Page
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
BTW, I teach Gospel Essentials and I drink Diet Pepsi every day.

And you weren't even the Mormon that I mentioned...

So, I know another one that drinks Pepsi now...
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

_JS

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3500
  • Salaires legers. Chars lourds.
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
I find this entire conversation disgusting and tasteless.

We all know that Coke is far superior to Pepsi.

Friggin Pepsists.
I smell something burning, hope it's just my brains.
They're only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains
   So stuff my nose with garlic
   Coat my eyes with butter
   Fill my ears with silver
   Stick my legs in plaster
   Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Amianthus

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7574
  • Bring on the flames...
    • View Profile
    • Mario's Home Page
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
I find this entire conversation disgusting and tasteless.

We all know that Coke is far superior to Pepsi.

Friggin Pepsists.

Well, I try to convince people who drink Pepsi to stop - but it's got nothing to do with religion or caffeine.
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

gipper

  • Guest
Crane and Michael identify the salient questions regarding Mitt Romney's Mormonism and its potential effect on the presidency and the nation. The scrutiny, as Michael points out, must be centered on the individual not on a guilt-by-association model. Crane focuses on the flip side of this issue, concentrating on the degree of control one's sect exercises both over you but also generally. This latter aspect matters perhaps in subtle ways, maybe as a default, revert-to-form response to severe stress, which is sure to come, or as a more placid organizing principle in the first, innocent instant.

Catholicism is perhaps an equally "cultish" religion, save for its longevity, its wide acceptance, its spread as a numerically dominant branch of Christianity, and thus its familiarity through endless vetting, and its fertile seasoning with "American" (wider, more "sophisticated") principles through the agency, partly, of more its "liberated" members (like JFK?), who nod in the direction of the Church yet pursue more earthly aims "on the sly" yet consistent with a (non-hypocritical) continued communion. This amalgam, the individual's autonomy negotiating the religion's dictates in artful embrace, seems to me to be the stuff from which character is forged. Thus, within reason and an appropriate degree of politeness, Romney's "details" should matter as the raw material of a (potential) election decision. It ain't beanbag folks (but it can be polite). Indeed, giving Romney a pass on his "religious details," which are self-proclaimed to be central to his life, would a renunciation on the voters' part of their "sacred" trust.

_JS

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3500
  • Salaires legers. Chars lourds.
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Domer,

Believe it or not, this is not a criticism at all!

I noticed your response and I wanted to ask you a question.

Would you not also agree that Catholicism has added a great deal to the intellectual realm, and with that quite a bit of lattitude has been tolerated in her theologians and thinkers?

Karl Rahner, for example is considered one of the modern masters of theology - even by non-Catholic Christians and he certainly challenged the Church's views on many topics. Hans Urs von Balthasar is another well-regarded theologian, who has not always been 100% lock step with the Church. Liberation theologists, despite right-wing American myth, are still a part of the Latin American Church and are not persecuted (their work is only condemned when it does something drastic like denies the divinity of Christ).

My point being that I'm not sure the Mormons, Quakers, Jehovah's Witnesses can claim the academic integrity of the Church. Though, that does not make any of them "cults." I think it does lessen the effect of that term when used on the Church.
I smell something burning, hope it's just my brains.
They're only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains
   So stuff my nose with garlic
   Coat my eyes with butter
   Fill my ears with silver
   Stick my legs in plaster
   Tell me lies about Vietnam.

gipper

  • Guest
JS, I am closely familiar with Catholic intellectual traditions, having been educated at leading Catholic institutions, but there is vast room for improvement in my alienated judgment. What Catholics have that Mormons don't is a long history of intellectual contributions. But from what I understand, on most other bases of intellectual merit, the Mormons are competitive. To my understanding, Brigham Young University is a fine university. Beyond that I can't speak. Certainly Mitt Romney and our own Stray Pooch may be pointed to as examples (how typical I don't know) of the life of the intellect being compatible with Mormonism.

Stray Pooch

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 860
  • Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
I am happy to know that my misunderstanding is honest.

I was actually saying this in jest. I was thinking that is someday, one of my descendants decides to become a Mormon, then they would submit the family tree and seal the whole tribe into the LDS Church, despite the fact that none of us in life was sufficiently enthused to seal ourselves.

Could you explain what it is I have misunderstood about this?

Gladly.  The doctrine of ordinance by proxy does not negate free choice.  Here it is, in a nutshell:

Everyone needs to have a chance to hear and understand the gospel of Jesus Christ.  If they do not, how can they be judged by it?  There are many faiths who preach that anyone who, through no fault of his own, never hears the gospel is condemned to hell, or at the least to "limbo."  But if that is true, God would be awfully unjust.

We believe that anyone who has not yet had the opportunity to hear and understand the gospel in this life will be given an opportunity in the next life before the final judgement.  But the Bible clearly states that one must be baptized to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Since this and other ordinances (such as marriage, which the Bible states is not to be done in heaven) must be done on earth.  Proxy ordinances are done in the name of the deceased person.  But that person may choose to accept it or not.  You do not lose your choice in the next life.  Just being listed as "baptised by proxy" on the rolls of the church does not make you a member.  This church does not have dead members.  It simply indicates for those who may be seeking to do the ordinances that these people have already been given the opportunity.

Now of course, this raises the question "Why would anybody reject the gospel in the NEXT life, having already seen that there IS a next life?"  I'll tell you - I dunno!  But we believe that in the next life we keep our free choice, and we also keep many of the traits that we had on earth.  Sometimes people just can't accept that something is right, even in the face of strong evidence.  Some are stubborn, some are afraid, some simply do not want the responsibilty that comes with commitment.  This is also true on earth.  Many say "I would be a Christian if i didn't have to give up [insert your weakness here]."  Some say "I would join your church, but my family would disown me."  It happens.  Since we have free choice on the other side, we can choose to say "Lutheranism was good enough for me on earth, it's darn well good enough for me here."  Unlike many other religions, we do not presume you will go to hell for such a decision.  We believe that you will still receive a reward if you were faithful to whatever you believed.  You simply will lose the opportunity to advance beyond a certain point.  There is a "Hell" for the worst, those who knew better but rejected there own knowledge.  So yeah, Hitler probably isn't going to heaven.  However, someone here on earth may well have submitted his name and the work may be done (I have heard rumors to that effect).  Don't worry.  If a person rejected truth on earth even a proxy Baptism will not help him.  If you hear and understand the gospel on earth and reject it, you have had your chance.  Your ancestors may do your temple work, but it will only be obedience on their part.  You will have already made your choice.

In effect, if Mormonism is right, a cosmic dilemma is solved - and nobody loses their choice to accept or reject it.  If they are wrong, no harm is done to the person for whom the proxy stands.  After all, if a good Christian dies in Christ, what difference would some odd rite done after he is dead make?  But if that same good Christian finds that, while his faith was good there is more to know and accept, he has not lost the chance to have the fullness of the gospel.

Hope that clears it up.


Oh, for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention . . .

Stray Pooch

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 860
  • Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Certainly Mitt Romney and our own Stray Pooch may be pointed to as examples (how typical I don't know) of the life of the intellect being compatible with Mormonism.

Praise from Caesar.  :)

Oh, for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention . . .

Xavier_Onassis

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 27916
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Wow. I find this most interesting.  I imagine that many of my ancestors might have had a CHANCE to have the LDS explained to them, but they heard it was rather goofy, and declined, just as many refuse to even read the Watchtower (which isn't Mormon, I know), On the other hand, we have all had  tons of ancestors who bought the farm before the Angel Moroni made his appearance to Joseph Smith.

The Mormons sound a bit like Jesuit theologians discussing purgatory and what goes on there. Free will always causes so much speculation among theologians everywhere.

Except, of course for the temple garments.


I doubt that Romney's Mormonism would influence his behavior as president, but I wager that there are a lot of Fundies that do not agree with me.

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."