Mormons believe that God is a physical human-being from another world near the star of Kolob, who ascended to god-hood after dying and being resurrected. He maintains a body of flesh and bone. We are his literal spirit children, and we also have a literal heavenly mother (who almost nothing is known about). They sent us to earth to receive bodies and be tested so that we too may attain godhood
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There is in the sense that scientific advances could disprove most of Mormon belief...and in that sense it already *has*. In another sense, no, no discovery could do that, because the belief isn't based on logic and evidence, therefore isn't totally vulnerable to it. They believe what they choose to believe, so no matter what evidence is allied against the church, there are those will believe
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I totally agree with you that we shouldn't paint everyone with the same brush, even though I myself am guilty of it way too often. For me it's a matter of impatience rather than genuine prejudice. It's easier to say "Mormons" when I'm talking about general trends than to clarify every single time that I don't mean all Mormons. Still, with time and impatience the way we talk about the
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It's because they are taught to fear outsiders as potential threats to their salvation, but also that their salvation requires working hard to bring others into the fold through sheer force of friendliness. They are simultaneously trying to become your friend in the hopes that their presence will show you the light and turn you Mormon, *and* to keep you at arm's length so that Satan doesn't ge
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The End of Faith is another good one.
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In a way I'm lucky in that most of my family is out, and has been for most of our lives. Still, three years ago I lived in a heavily Mormon area, and had a lot of trouble making friends when everybody seemed to have their lives immersed in the religion I had no desire to be a part of. So I attended just to be around people. Family is one thing, non-family friends are another.
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It depends on the person, but there's always a transitional period. When my mother left, she said it took her two years to even feel like she was on solid ground again. I left 10 years ago, sort of re-entered as a nonbeliever 3 years ago because I was desperate for a sense of community and got hurt by the church all over again. I'm still adjusting. I think it depends on how well, over time,
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"I see the universe running down there is only a limited amount of energy contained in the sun . If there were a big bang the energy will be depleted eventually." The energy *will* be depleted eventually. The sun is going to run out of energy, and eventually the universe will cool and experience heat death. Inserting God to prevent that makes no sense. Saying "if x then y, I don
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I'm not sure how many "millions" there are, given the massive over-inflation of membership and conversion numbers the church engages in.
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I don't disagree with you about any of that, I just begin to feel disturbed whenever people start with the "all Mormons are evil" talk. That's a very slippery slope of prejudice to go down, and it can very quickly escalate to full-blown bigotry. The language on this board can become rather dehumanizing at times. You're absolutely right though, that Mormons who have their own values m
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There are definitely real conspiracies in this world, don't get me wrong. But most popularly believed "conspiracies" are completely ludicrous. Ironically, if they were true, we wouldn't be nearly as aware of them (i.e., Illuminati).
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Don't paint everyone with the same brush. That's called prejudice, and in case you hadn't heard, it's kind of morally frowned upon. Lots of Mormons have a strong moral compass. The key thing to remember is that there is a huge difference between "Mormons" and "Mormonism". One refers to people, the other refers to a system of beliefs. No, Mormonism does not promote or engend
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Well then I guess I will be there!
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What's the median age of people attending? I'm 25, I'm worried I might feel out of place as a young man with no children.
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It's that way by design. It makes it harder to communicate with them about problems in the church. It also allows them to talk about their religion to outsiders at relative length using phrases that sound entirely innocuous, without ever revealing the underlying craziness, because it sounds like a standard religious speech about God and Jesus and the usual stuff. They can talk about the Garde
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Chicken N. Backpacks Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hmmmmmmm--no mention of Moroni or Nephi on > Jeopardy tonight. > > Strange they missed that. Oh, you, pretending that Mormonism is even slightly culturally relevant to the rest of the world. :P It could disappear forever and the world wouldn't even notice.
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But remember folks, they're all about religious freedom! They complain about it all the time on TV! In all seriousness, I'm not sure if this is real or not. It sounds just plausible enough to be true, but my sense of credulity is being stretched a bit. Not even the church is this domineering. Then again, I guess BYU is a different beast.
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Well, not exactly "fine". My parents were pretty violent at times, and my father had a nasty temper (they're good people, just flawed). Still, even those things became worse, not better, when we came to Utah.
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It's impossible to say. My family was inactive until my teens. My dad was disillusioned with the church after serving in Japan in the late 70s/early 80s, and seeing the shameless dishonesty and fraud with which the mission was conducted. He gradually became inactive, LDS in name only except for a dinner-time prayer. My first real exposure to the church was after we moved back to Utah to be
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I fail to see how the etymology of an English word debunks an English translation of a text. Maybe that was the closest word the translator could find. The book of Mormon also uses the word "adeiu" at one point, but no one would have thought the Nephites actually used that word, it's a translation. Of course, it's *not* a translation and the Nephites never existed, but the use of Fre
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Maybe it's because my family was inactive until I was a teenager, and by then I had already lived enough of a normal life to see through the bs, but I never found *any* character in the Book of Mormon particularly compelling. From the first few pages I could see that I didn't like Nephi much. He was a pompous Marty-Stu who seemed to almost brag about his own "humility", whose only ch
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Funny thing? I never brought up 911 in this thread. You did. By conspiracy theories I wasn't referring to that at all. I'm not denigrating any inquiry. I'm saying that they are *not* seeking honest answers to obvious questions, but rather trying to poke any hole in the existing story they can and not listening to any answers that are given. For instance, Shummy asks a question like "Wh
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The key point with the idea of martyrdom is that he wasn't murdered for his *beliefs*, but for other motives. The gun and self-defense have nothing to do with it. I don't fault him for defending himself either. I would also have smuggled a gun in if I were in his shoes. Yes, he was murdered, and no it probably wasn't justice. I also think he should have appeared in court and been tried, bu
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I don't believe for a second that you or Shummy really believe I was attacking or undervaluing the concept of truth. Of course everyone should demand the truth of their government. Indeed, my problem with the whole 911 truth movement is that it is notoriously intellectually *dis*honest. Every "documentary" I've seen advocating it is guilty of deceptively editing video footage, inte
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Actually, I think it's entirely possible the big 15 do believe, though it's not a given. From everything I've read about belief formation and cognitive dissonance, I've learned to never underestimate the power of the mind to rationalize away what it doesn't want to see. So, they may sincerely believe in the church, but I wouldn't be willing to bet money either way.
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Oh boy, I seem to have opened a can of worms in here. Yes, the phrase "conspiracy theory" can be used as a thought stopper that people use reflexively to imagine that nothing untoward or strange sounding or ominous ever happens. However, most of the popular conspiracy theories that get spread around are based largely on a desire to feel that one is in the loop. They're based on
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My username should make my opinion on the matter pretty clear.
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Oh, I don't disagree at all, what the founders intended is totally irrelevant to modern society, as many of them were totally backwards by modern standards. What I was getting at is that even when you take them into consideration, as conservatives constantly insist you should, it doesn't help their case. The conservative "founders' intent" argument is based on pure mythology, not
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There is no Big Foot. There is no Loch Ness Monster. There is no Illuminati. The Free Masons do not control our government. Our politicians are not reptilioid aliens. JFK was *just shot*! And we went to the freaking moon. ...which is why it is so strange for me that I believe, even tentatively, that the LDS church could be a front organization for a sprawling multi-layered shadow-corporation
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The LDS church proper is exactly the same way, it's just better at hiding it. Whereas the FLDS church maintains the "organized crime" structure of Joseph Smith's time, the LDS church has graduated to a giant corrupt shadow-corporation with multi-billion dollar revenues.
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