Posted by:
NormaRae
(
)
Date: August 21, 2011 08:49AM
I loved the thread about mormons getting their holy panties in a wad about Pasternoster "telling the truth in a way that makes the church look stupid and cultish," a statement that actually sums it up in a nutshell.
But it got me thinking. There are starting to be so many articles about TSCC, with the elections heating up and as we've seen and get frustrated with, so many of them are written by mormons who have coated it with so much sugar your eyes get sticky just reading it. Even the negative articles will attract a swarm of TBM comments to it that are gross misrepresentations at best and out-and-out lies at worst. So I often try to make a comment to bring the truth or the things that have purposely been left out to light. Which, of course, starts a string of stupid TBM attempts to discredit you with ad hominem attacks.
But I think I'm going to take the Pasternoster approach instead from now on and comment as I might have if I were one of a bazillion TBM women I know who were lucky to graduate from high school, but know everything about "the gospel." And just put myself in their brain and think "how would Mollyanna comment"?
For example, when someone posts "Don't the mormons believe their underwear has magical powers"? I'd comment, "No we do not believe that. We believe God has magical powers. We keep ourselves worthy to enter His holy temple by never partaking of coffee, tea, alcohol or tobacco, by giving a full 10% of our income to our Heavenly Father in the form of tithing to his one and only true church, by sustaining God's prophet, Thomas S. Monson, as the mouthpiece of God on this Earth and keeping ourselves morally clean, not only in deed, but in thought. This allows us to enter the most holy of places, the actual house of God on this Earth. While there we make sacred covenants on behalf of ourselves and most often, for people who died without knowing of or accepting His gospel, as outlined in not only the Bible, but the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price, which are all equally important as the word of God. When we do this, a garment is placed on us that we wear throughout our lives, to remind us of our commitment to share this message with the entire world, so all men can have the chance to come to God's holy temple and make these covenants and be able to live with Him in eternity. Yes, by wearing this garment, God often shows his power to us by causing miracles to happen in the lives of people who are wearing it. There are many stories of people who have be spared from injury, succumbing to the temptation to sin or have even been cured of cancer who were wearing the holy garment. The garment doesn't have magical powers, but wearing it shows God that we are deserving of His power. If you would like to know more about how you can share in God's work on earth, you can log on to mormon.org and speak to a missionary in real time."
I mean, that's the kind of post that just made me want to cringe when I was a Mormon, but how does a TBM respond to it? There's nothing to refute and no way to tactfully say "don't take what this person says out of context," because it's not that they're saying anything wrong, they're just saying the crazy stuff we don't want people to know.
After that post, the non-mormons are just rolling their eyes and saying "yeah. ok, honey. Tell me more about how mormons are not a cult."