I think we should continue the discussion:

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,337395,337711#msg-337711

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kolobian's comment:

I feel for you, Pista. I don't like being the position of having to defend the church either, and you're absolutely right on. Mormons talk about jesus too much, if you ask me.

These arguments that mormons don't emphasize jesus enough never really pan out and when the christians get called out on it they always get reduced to "then what about Praise to the Man?"

It's grasping at straws. It's "Praise to the man who communed with JEHOVA. JESUS anointed that prophet and seer."

Why praise the man? Because he got to commune with Jehova.

Why is he special? Because he was anointed by Jesus.

The whole song is based on this dude being one of Jesus' chosen prophets. Without the Jesus part there is no praise to be given. He's just another dude.

It's these kinds of arguments that strengthen kolobian testimonies because they know for a fact that they are being purposefully misrepresented so they feel justified in not listening to anything else we have to say.

I wish the christians would just try to back up their own claims instead of constructing straw arguments about kolobianism in order to make themselves feel better.

Newsflash: NOBODY gets it right. And as long as baby jesus remains silent on the subject the kolobians have just as much right to say Jesus lives in the star system kolob as christians have of saying jesus is his own father and lives outside of space & time but somehow also lives in your hearts.

As for me and my house: we keep the car keys in the drawer by the microwave so we have no need of any supernatural cartoon characters.

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The response made me giddy inside. Well done.

Early X-tian sects fought viciously over who Jesus was, what he actually said, and what being a "follower" of his meant.

Some of the sects believed that Jesus was first and foremost a Jew, and that the law of Moses was still to be followed in order to "truly" be a follower of Jesus.

Other sects came along to challenge that idea.

Even after the "church" became "universal" a century after Jesus was jumping to new continents and giving his standard stump speech to inferior races, different sects emerged and challenged the idea of who Jesus was.

These ideas had already been voted on (and I'm not joking about that. Jesus' divinity, the virgin birth, the meaning of the crucifixion, a literal vs. symbolic resurrection, the trinity, and the gospels that were considered to be cannon were done pretty much by voting), so the new sects were considered Heresy and the Universal Church went out of their way to ban and often destroy the rival sects' writings.

Some of those writings were gospels that had just as much "authority" than the ones that got the pass into what would eventually become the New Testament.

And here is another fight. A new sect comes along with a differing view on Jesus, and......HERESY!!!

What's interesting is that there are exmos who see no value at all in engaging in debates between Christians and Mormons, and I understand that position--I would even agree with it generally except in a political season where Mormons have come out of the woodwork to deceive the public in an effort to improve the chances of Mormon presidential candidates.

What's even more interesting is to see exmos who will actually defend the Mormon works interpretation of the Bible against the culturally dominant Christian grace interpretation of the Bible. Of course, we all seem to acknowledge that that there is no true resolution to the debate. Many good exmos are atheists with no special regard for either Mormons or mainstream Christians. The only reason to engage in the debate between Mormons and Christians, to me, is to do damage to Mormons and to limit their chances for any political or public success.

There is no point to EVANGELIZING for atheism in public political forums like CNN.com or the HoustonChronicle.com or Slate.com when the topic for debate is how Christian Mormons are or whether Mormonism is an abusive organization. I hope that this point at least is recognized by exmos that I hold in high regard here at RFM.

Bringing these debates to the attention of exmos at RFM isn't about seeking what the true Biblical import of grace or works is. The intention is to test arguments that can be used against Mormons in public debate, Mormons who claim they are Christians while they cherry pick the Bible just as much as Christians do. Christians of course haven't screwed me the way Mormons have and I am more than happy to side with them in public debate if it means I can publicly hurt and embarrass Mormons.

So the point is not to argue for the true interpretation of grace versus works b/c there cannot be one. As an atheist in particular I see the whole discussion as a waste of time, such a waste of time in fact that I would not bother with the discussion at all, not even to mock people who engage in it, except for one small problem: Mormons have abused the f*ck out of me, stolen my family, put many of us here on this board in a position of needing to "recover" in order to regain a semblance of normality in our lives, etc. The list of grievances against Mormons is a long one.

Bob McCue makes the point that the reason many of us exmormons are so p*ss@d off is that we feel that in some sense we have been "cheated" by the LDS church. No small measure of this sense of abuse was enabled no doubt by the LDS church's emphasis on works righteousness.

Because the dominant culture is "Christian" in a sense that is typically withheld from Mormons, much to their consternation, when they enter public debate--as has been rife in a political season with two presidential candidates who happen to be Mormon--the discussion of whether Mormons are "real" Christians or not has been UNDERSTANDABLY a common topic of discussion.

Obviously one of the contested doctrines in this public debate between grace focused Christians and works focused Mormons is that of the primacy of faith or works. The point is not to decide which one is true. The point is to publicize the Mormon position and to not let them obfuscate their differences from the dominant Christian voting public.

Those of us who have attacked Mormons in these public debates have attacked them along a number of fronts, one of which is the grace/works controversy, where Mormons appear to be very vulnerable: 1) because they are so extremely works focused, 2) because they are shown to be so unfocused on Jesus and therefore NOT as Christian as they would like to claim, and 3) because their extreme works focus does open them to easy charges of organizational abuse, calling for recovery from Mormonism sites that the public is usually ignorant of.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/2011 08:14PM by derrida.

I get why you choose the Christian side over the Mormon side. As you said, Mormonism screwed you, Christianity in general really hasn't.

...though, I think there is a decent argument to be made that Christianity has screwed us all plenty in the larger scope of things.

However, I think that the Mormon interpretation of the Bible is just flat out more interesting than the Christian interpretation. Ignoring the huge "god doesn't exist" flaw that is inherent in both doctrines, I find the Mormon side of the interpretation to be a lot less flawed than the Christian interpretation as well.

Either way, it is always an interesting discussion.

> What's even more interesting is to see exmos who
> will actually defend the Mormon works
> interpretation of the Bible against the culturally
> dominant Christian grace interpretation of the
> Bible. Of course, we all seem to acknowledge that
> that there is no true resolution to the debate.

This is why emos will "defend" the "works interpretation." But it is not a defense as much as just pointing out the facts that the Bible allows for a works interpretation, and so did certain sects of early X-tianity. It's not about RIGHT or WRONG though. It's just about "different."

> There is no point to EVANGELIZING for atheism in
> public political forums like CNN.com or the
> HoustonChronicle.com or Slate.com when the topic
> for debate is how Christian Mormons are or whether
> Mormonism is an abusive organization. I hope that
> this point at least is recognized by exmos that I
> hold in high regard here at RFM.

What it's about is looking at the "differences" between the two organizations. And just being truthful. I think the boat is missed (in the context of damaging the church) when the argument even begins at "Whether Mormons are X-tian?" While the doctrine of the church NEEDS to be discussed to show it being authoritarian - those doctrines should be discussed without a lot of comparisons. Damaging doctrines are damaging regardless of whether or not they are X-tain. "Everybody else is doing it" doesn't fly. So, it is better to simply highlight the damaging doctrines and explain why they harm people.

> Bringing these debates to the attention of exmos
> at RFM isn't about seeking what the true Biblical
> import of grace or works is.

Not MY intention and it would be presumptuous for me to put that intention on others. MY intention is to simply share information. Early X-tianity fascinates me. And theology (while similar to D&D discussions) also interests me.

>The intention is to
> test arguments that can be used against Mormons in
> public debate, Mormons who claim they are
> Christians while they cherry pick the Bible just
> as much as Christians do.

Which is where it's odd to hear someone say they "side with the X-tians on this."

>Christians of course
> haven't screwed me the way Mormons have and I am
> more than happy to side with them in public debate
> if it means I can publicly hurt and embarrass
> Mormons.

X-tianity has screwed me, but it also fascinates me as well.

> So the point is not to argue for the true
> interpretation of grace versus works b/c there
> cannot be one. As an atheist in particular I see
> the whole discussion as a waste of time, such a
> waste of time in fact that I would not bother with
> the discussion at all, not even to mock people who
> engage in it, except for one small problem:

It isn't a waste of time to me because I'm not trying to prove a correct interpretation. I do like pointing out to X-tians though that their history has been rife with this sort of crap.


> Obviously one of the contested doctrines in this
> public debate between grace focused Christians and
> works focused Mormons is that of the primacy of
> faith or works. The point is to decide which one
> is true. The point is to publicize the Mormon
> position and to not let them obfuscate their
> differences from the dominant Christian voting
> public.

Yes, I agree. But I also get to say to X-tians that their interpretation isn't correct either, and that they have been obfuscating their past. In fact, if we were to hold a contest about obfuscating, their asses would win.

> Those of us who have attacked Mormons in these
> public debates have attacked them along a number
> of fronts, one of which is the grace/works
> controversy, where Mormons appear to be very
> vulnerable: 1) because they are so extremely works
> focused, 2) because they are shown to be so
> unfocused on Jesus and therefore NOT as Christian
> as they would like to claim, and 3) because their
> extreme works focus does open them to easy charges
> of organizational abuse, calling for recovery from
> Mormonism sites that the public is usually
> ignorant of.

While I understand pointing out the differences it's the "siding with" that confuses me. I'm more than happy to point out the differences between "mainstream X-tianity" and Mormonism, but it won't be on the side of anyone other than me.

I think here on RFM I am definitely not about siding with the dominant Christian interpretation. I mean to me Jesus was just a militant political Jew who saw too clearly the problems of Roman rule and orthodox (Pharisee) Jewish law and custom. They killed him for being a rabble-rouser. Neither Socrates nor Jesus wrote. They were both killed for causing trouble and upsetting the status quo. Their teachings were taken over, used and abused--Jesus's more so--by various "students" and "disciples" who, in Jesus's case have bequeathed to us the textual stitchery and interpretive construction that is known as the Bible.

But in public political debate, the sort that goes on at the sites I mentioned, I will make EXPEDIENT and TEMPORARY rhetorical alliance with Christians as they take Mormons to task for being cultish, deceptive, and works-based. I have no problem with that: "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

I hope that at least makes my position clear.

Why not?