Several years ago I went to see the movie “Shindler’s List”. I do tend to forget myself around Mormons, however, and as I love history I mentioned the movie to someone who was an active member of the Church. I recommended it to them and I admit I was unprepared for their reply. In the most self-righteous voice
I have ever remembered hearing, they came back with “I don’t watch “R” rated movies. I find violence offensive”

Really! ? It was a true story and i’m More than positive that those Jews in the death camps found violence a little offensive and To be honest, if someone has seen some of the documentaries they Could attest to the fact that those people only knew an “X” rated Existence as they were stripped of everything including their clothing, their Dignity and their lives.

However, just listen to the same individual extol the virtues
Of the Book of Mormon as they read in family home evening how
God commanded Nephi to kill Laban and then watch that same individual back before 1990 go into a Mormon temple and call that
“Spiritual”

Some people are particularly sensitive to horrific accounts. Personally I have a distaste for anything bloody or sword fight scenes, Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean is beyond what I consider pleasant. The same can be said for saving private ryan. It's suppose to be some great movie celebrating soldiers dying and experiencing terror, but even some WWII vets refused to watch it when it came out.

There is nothing wrong with being offended by violence and I
Respect that. It’s when they say that and then turn around and
Remind me that the church leaders told us we should limit our movie watching to PG movies as they pick up their bible and Book of Mormon both of which are loaded with unspeakable violence.
That is what I call contradictory

I would argue that "Saving Private Ryan" did not celebrate the death of soldiers. It was a film honoring the sacrifice of those who fought in World War II (and all wars, I think). The realism of the violence also caused viewers to better understand the horrors of war. Of course many veterans did not want to see it. I imagine their experiences were far too painful for them to
relive in any way.

Don't forget about how the Stripling warriors cut off the arms and legs of the laminites, it was purely because of their faith that was taught by their mothers.

How about Abraham and his son?

What about the cruxifiction of Christ, that was grizzly.

Moses, how can we forget, not only the red sea, what about when he kill and egyptian soldier for beating a slave?

Oh yes, how about fire bombing a city, turning a woman into a pilar of salt, and flooding millions plus killing many animals in Noah's ark?

Of course, the sickest part of the bible for me is when the romans were ordered to kill all the babies by King herod.

Then there is the sick law that in Exodus, I think, where when your child is misbehaving, you should take him before the village and be stoned until death.

One final thought, all throughout the bible, it recommend inbreeding. Nothing wrong with marrying your cousins.

"And I think to myselfffff....What a wonderful world"

My son was 8 years old and he came home from a lesson in Sunday school with cookies and each one had some red frosting at the top. I asked him what the cookies were and he said they were the
Arms and legs of the Lamanites that were cut off by the Stripling warriors. I was speechless.

My children watched it in grade school as required viewing. Granted, parents had to sign permission slips for them to be included. But no one's parents forbade their kids from watching it for history classes.

Was it shocking? You bet it was. Not nearly as much as those who lived it. It's R rated for "reality check."

Mormons in Nazi Germany perpetrated some of the war crimes against the Jews by serving as SS guards and Nazis themselves. They used genealogy records to smoke out Jews in their midst who may have converted in an attempt to assimilate into German society. It didn't help them. Mormon genealogical records were handed over to Hitler to let them know who was hiding in plain view as a Jew in German communities. And converts. And children and grandchildren of Jewish parentage. Just turned them over to the Gestapo without so much as blinking an eye.

But they can't watch Schindler's List to see some of the carnage relived of the Holocaust? Wouldn't want to spoil their appetite much,, would they?

Right? Much of life is "R" rated, if not X rated. Shielding people, especially kids, from the harsh reality of life ensures that there will be future atrocities like the holocaust. The Bible is one of the most violent books ever written.

What I only recently learned was that J. Ruban Clark Jr., a counselor in the first Presidency hated Jews and when converts to the church who had been Jewish and joined the church in Germany begged SLC for assistance in getting out of Germany, they were refused.

He enabled the Mormon Nazis under Hitler however.

When WWII was ended, some of the SS guards and Nazis immigrated to the US, and of those were Mormons among them who were able to migrate to the US. Not Jews.

Clark was a lifelong virulent anti-Semite. How the cult's only law school is named after him, is another red flag of TSCC's outspoken bigotry during critical chapters of US history.

I have never understood how a man like that could have any position of leadership in any religion

to see Schindler's List. All the mormons I knew went to see it. But I know those who won't go to R rated movies, many R rated.

My TBM daughter, while she was anti-mormon, brought movies home for me to watch that I never watched as a mormon like "Midnight Cowboy" and "The Graduate." Now she won't go to any R rated movies.

Seeing the movie was far less distressing than listening to the stories of actual survivors we heard in World Studies in high school. I have several friends whose parents survived the camps. Their stories were painful to listen to. Made more painful because you know them.

I've read extensively on the subject for decades and the stories are a cautionary tale and horrific. Very scary and sad.

“Every stroke disarms a foeman!
Every step we conquering go!”

As a young boy, when we sang this (“Hope of Istael”) in church, I thought it meant we should cut off all the arms of our enemies. Yuk!

But my brother explained it meant to take away their weapons. Oh. Okay.

Then I read the BOM. Alma’s Ammon cut off the enemies’ arms. Yuk again!!

But “no violence”...,

Ha!

There was no reason or rhyme to their "the prophet says so." It made explaining dumb policies such as the WoW extremely difficult to non-members. That's why so many TBM's are only comfortable around their own kind.

I hated the continual challenge of being honest when serving a mission taught me the church's way was to lie through your teeth. As a ward clerk, I suffered numerous anxiety attacks when meeting with the bishop to reconcile church data. The bishop had his idea of what the ward stats should be and Salt Lake's data said another. I grew weary of trying to make the two sets of data "the TRUTH." The bishop always got his way and another dishonest church report went to SLC.

How could one be honest if the morg wanted growth data that didn't exist and yet we were being continually reminded that our every deed and thought was being meticulously recorded in heaven?

I was taught not to lie. My mother used to say “Angels above
Us are silent notes taking” if we forgot to be honest. Then I discovered as I grew older that lying was, in fact, very commonplace within the church. Both of my sons had the same experience you had On their missions.

One of my sons was excommunicated for being gay. The SP treated him miserably for telling the truth.

myself, I think the excuses & exceptions are more significant...

For me the experience with my son was strictly personal. it happened several years ago and he was reassured it was a “Court
Of love” which was the biggest lie I’ve ever heard. The SP was absolutely cruel to him. So much so that one man who was in
Attendance but is no longer active took it upon himself to write a letter of apology to my son for what transpired in that meeting.

The SP was both ignorant and contradictory and cared little to
Nothing for him as an individual. “Court of love” my a$$

I thought Paul H. Dunn defeated the Nazi's on D-Day.

I needed a good laugh, thank you. Yes Iam old enough to remember
His tales of glory. We just didn’t know they were “tall tales”
LOL

A few years back, I wrote on these boards that my TBM bro published a zombie novel. Aside from the book being unbearable to read, it exposed the contradiction OP speaks of. It was filled with disgusting details of zombie and nonzombie carnage, but TBM bro was careful to avoid references to nudity and even swear words. “Oh my god,” was always “oh gosh.” It was sad.

Schindler’s List is an incredibly important film, up there with Citizen Kane. I don’t believe people watch movies like that because they *enjoy violence*, they watch it to be moved. Schindler’s List depicts gore, and then goes on to redeem itself by showing Oskar Schindler’s response to it despite his profiting from it.

Game of thrones is another good example. I hate watching violence in media, and GoT shows some of the most uncomfortable things imaginable. The reason I keep going back to it is the way they make up for, set it right, and assist the viewer in tackling their own fears (for me.)

It’s different from Family Guy, where it’s just gore with no redemption. But hey, even Family Guy has gotten me to spend a little more genuine time with my 11 y.o. boy, with whom we don’t have many overlapping interests.

Whatever his vices were Oskar Schindler started out being fairly
Self serving as he attempted to save Jews. By the end however he
Cried uncontrollably, wishing he had saved more. His grief
Was sincere as was the gratitude of those who were still alive because of him.

We cannot sanitize history. The story of
The Boy In The Striped Pajamas serves to reinforce this very
Idea. We cannot always protect our children from knowing about the tragedies in life whether it is war, genocides, domestic violence, abuse.

Knowledge is power and we empower ourselves and our children by
Knowing history and sharing it honestly as opposed to hiding it
at the risk of history repeating itself

Remember going to church and hearing about how much God LOVES everyone at the same time being taught how God drowned everyone but a few of his more obedient pets?

Yet somehow we were conditioned to accept that level of contradiction and worse, perpetuated it.

This kind of thing somehow links and legitimizes needless force, obedience and violence with love and benevolence. It's sick.

We were talking in church about a God who could do anything, and that was how He acted? People somehow swallow this still. This makes me suspect people who "praise" such a God might actually be scared shitless of His contradictory and irrational behavior.

Maybe someday this kind of nonsense will be relegated to the world mythology section of education and away from the protected domain of religious dogma. Then maybe people will more readily question contradictions they are fed at church and everywhere else.

Stories and mythology from our history have captured who we were and how we tried to explain things which is important to understand. However, IMO, in this day and age we should be able to move past self-proclaimed divine knowledge and mystery-cloaked religious nonsense.

Not just Mormons:
A few years ago I was playing music from Schindler's List in an orchestra. The conductor said that he enjoyed the music, but hadn't been allowed to play it in the bible college he went to. It was against the rules to play music from R-rated movies. This is in the South.

Wow! I thought I had heard everything. I can only say this. My antenna goes up and my BS detector goes off every time I hear the
Words “we’re not allowed”........