I posted as BlakeGarten at Houstonpress.com. Check the response I got from a Mormon. How can a Mormon say with a straight face that all I have to do to attend my child's wedding is become a Mormon but then the Mormon can't understand why there are hard feelings about the LDS church? The fact that the church happily alienates children from non-member parents is completely missed: I am just blamed, incorrectly, for tying my love for my children to my love of money. I probably should have developed the point further: I have worked hard to raise my children and pay for all sorts of things for them. That hasn't affected my love for them, as "trytoseeitmyway" would have it. My ire is directed at the church: I was good enough to raise my kids but now I'm not good enough to attend their sealing. Of course a "wedding" costs more than just a sealing.

http://www.houstonpress.com/2011-11-03/news/mormons-whether-we-should-hate-them-or-not/

BlakeGarten 1 day ago
I despise Mormons. They stole my family. My two teens are knee deep in the LDS horse manure. Jews in America before Christ?! Swords and huge battles, steel and iron in "ancient" America? Elephants? The word "Bible" appears in the Book of Mormon, supposedly before there WAS a set of agreed upon books called a "Bible"! The whole thing is obviously Joseph Smith pulling people's legs. My teens have been brainwashed against their own family and their own Christian upbringing. They are being told to only marry a Mormon. I can't see my children "married" in the Mormon temple unless I become a Mormon (but I can pay for the wedding!) No wonder people ran Mormons out of Illinois and Missouri. Mormons should be ashamed of themselves. They treat Jesus like a figurehead to give them cover in a Christian land and then run around about all sorts of other things that don't have anything to do with Jesus really: temples, genealogy, priesthood just for men, living prophets, worthiness interviews, eternal plural marriage, spying on fellow members by "home teachers" and "visiting teachers;" special underwear. Mormons call everyone else "gentiles"--even Jews! I think Mormonism would be able to get along just fine if the New Testament didn't exist. They are really more about the Old Testament anyway, especially with their emphases on works and law. They seem like the Pharisees that Jesus tried to warn people against.
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trytoseeitmyway 1 day ago in reply to BlakeGarten
It is always interesting to see how reference to Mormons and their Church brings out such anger and hatred. This one is so telling: "They" (Blake says) "stole my family." How did "they" steal his family? Well, his children are converts. You would wonder how they could become converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints IN THE FACE OF ALL OF THE HATRED, AND IN THE FACE OF ALL OF THE RIDICULE AND MISINFORMATION. Despite all of this, so prevalent in our culture, some of us manage to penetrate the hatred, ridicule and misinformation to find beauty, truth and the will of God. And yet, this turns people like Blake against his own children.

Hey, Blake, does it help to let you know that a Temple wedding "costs" zilch, zero, nada? Since your love for your children is affected by your love for your money ("but I can pay for the wedding!") you might want to know that each of them can be sealed to their spouse for time and eternity at exactly no charge. And you would be welcome to attend; all you need to do is repent, be baptized and live in a manner worthy to enter the Lord's house. I've done it, and it is not hard at all. It is actually really very good.

When Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments, he was inviting us to live in such a manner. He didn't warn against keeping his commandments; he asked us to do so. Hope that clears this up for you.

repent according to who?
be baptized according to who?
i know some one who joined the church so she would be worthy to go to her daughters wedding. They forgot to tell her she had to do the whole temple thing herself. She knew nothing of garments and the other commitments that went along with that. She eventually realized she wouldn't be able to go to her daughters wedding because she had joined the church 11 months before her daughters wedding. Can you blame her for not having hard feelings?

"you might want to know that each of them can be sealed to their spouse for time and eternity at exactly no charge. And you would be welcome to attend."

NO CHARGE..... BS my there buddy, it will cost you and everyone else in that room 10% of their gross income and more after that and you know it and deny it.
Read the new tithing slip it has 9-10 categories now that you are "admonished" to donate to.
The tithing category is audited to the penny- yearly though as
it is the key to the success of the church.They are all about the money!!

THE BOOK OF MORMON
CHAPTER 8
32. Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be churches built up that shall say: Come unto me, and for your money you shall be forgiven of your sins.

Nice answer to the temple entry not costing any money. The Mormons are right in there, selling salvation just like the selling of indulgences.

When you have to pay for saving ordinances, that's when you know something is amiss.

I mostly just didn't like the cheapshot assumptions: that there was no "cost"; that I must love money more than my kids. It's a pretty twatty assumption to reckon that b/c someone objects to paying for a "wedding" that he can't go to (there are hidden costs to going to the sealing, just as Mia says above, but any reception or other consolation events are going to have immediate financial costs), that therefore he loves money more than his kids. Dumb really.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/12/2011 10:43PM by derrida.

I know that the word "indulgence" had a special meaning in past Catholicism, but essentially it boils down to a top down financial abuse by the church inflicted on its members.

The funny thing is I was taught in mormonism that the selling of indulgences was a bottom up corruption of the members of the catholic church. In other words, I was taught catholics in the middle ages were allowed to buy their salvation by donating money. In fact, the church used this method to raise money to fund things like building large cathedrals or funding the crusades.

The modern day practice in mormonism is essential the same thing as the selling of indulgences. Church doctrine requires you to the temple and perform ordinances for the dead. In order to perform these ordinance, you must first pay tithing. It's like an indirect selling of indulgences.

Wow - the response to his post reeks with name calling, spitefulness, pettiness and anger. Seems like the Mormon here is just plain sick - a narcissist attacking in narcissistic rage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_rage_and_narcissistic_injury

If I were to comment I would mess with their heads a bit and say something like "Please ignore the message by trytoseeitmyway. I am a Mormon and I know not all Mormons are so spiteful and hateful to people who disagree with them. I promise not all Mormons are this petty. Please do not think tryto is typical Mormon. This person obviously has issues and is unable to play nicely with people who have differing opinions. Please don't judge other Mormons by this behavior. In fact, it's probably just someone pretending to be a Mormon, trying to make the church members look like bad people."

Now, you and I know that's some serious BS, but can you think of a better way to piss off such a hateful hag of a Mormon?

Maybe trytoseeitmyway's reply will stand as its own placard of turdiness.

The parallel to Catholic indulgences is good b/c Mormons want a full tithe (an "honest tithe"), not just a partial tithe, to get into the temple. Most Americans would see that, especially as your full "worthiness" is established in an interview, as invasive and creepy. That's why there is "milk before meat."

It's interesting how a lot of mormons treat their own beliefs as so important and so unbreakable.....yet they act like everyone else's beliefs (or lack of beliefs) are so trivial that they can easily be tossed in the wastebasket in favor of mormonism.

Good point summer kites. I guess the assumption is that "I have a rock solid grip on reality and the nature of God, and everyone else is delusional with beliefs that amount to nothing." I guess that's a good example of black and white thinking.

Interesting that a cult that prides itself on following Christ and his notion of charity, neighborly love, mercy for the afflicted, going among the publicans, etc., has no room in its tiny worldview for the possible veracity or even real significance of other people's beliefs.

I think a lot of Western ideas of toleration come out of a liberal view of Christianity, with a respect for the individual soul (as well as ideas of reason inherited from the Greeks). Richard Packham will make the point that missionaries go to other people, asking them to throw away their own beliefs, so why shouldn't he be able to tell a Mormon that her beliefs are wrong? I'm not trying to say Packham is intolerant. I'm just saying that he throws the Mormon principle of non-charity toward others' beliefs back at the Mormons when they attack him for presenting counter-evidence for Mormon beliefs. (I'm thinking in particular of his interview with Van Hale.)



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2011 12:55PM by derrida.