Judaism is full of very similar prohibitions as islam,but most modern western Jews belong to versions of it that rationalize away most of the minutia. Orthodox and other fundamentalists try to do it all, including the multiple times a day prayers, devaluing and covering up women, eating specialized food with rules almost same as halal, worshiping one God and acting like that is a big virtue, etc
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I have a Nibley lecture on NEPHI's heritage or some such thing where Nibley finds amazing parallels with ancient literature. Its fun sometimes.
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Pretty intense. I wonder how Dan and his fans read that. I mean its plain english, but I wonder if they can understand it.
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This is a religion too. Beyondashadow sounds like an evangelist for this religion, albeit the nice kind of evangelist that actually has a dialogue with skeptics rather than just resorts to repeating their "testimony". I love words like "testimony" and "witness" as a verb. As if.
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"If non-Mormons watched these shows, what ideas are they getting about Mormons??? Mormons are just being shown as these "outside the norm" sex people. I mean what's next? Mormons who love screwing cantalopes and cored apples! I can see the interviews, "Mormons don't believe in touching themselves, but dry humping or rubbing down on a naugehyde couch is fine!" That is h
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Sexuality is not a binary gay/straight switch. Plenty of people have some degree of "SSA" in that they are or have been attracted to a person of the same sex. I think that the illusion that some of these gay to straight conversion stories work is because the gay or "not gay" spouse is attracted to the the opposite sex spouse. I guess we could say that they weren't actually g
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I like the Islam comparison. I think that its apt. Both are started by self proclaimed prophets who authored and or promoted bible fan fiction. In both cases an awful lot of reverence is given to these prophets. Both societies, as practiced by fundamentalists, treat women as property to aquire or dispose as one might a cow, to paraphrase Brigham Young. Islam of course has a much longer hist
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Hilarious.
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Since your wife has potentially hundreds of thousands or millions of ancestors back in that era, I'm sure there are plenty of kings. If she is of western european descent, I'm sure she is descended from Charlemagne among them. So are you if you are of european descent. All those "grandfathers" are equally her ancestors. There is no such thing as a direct line. Everyone of them contr
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The church should say that the BOM stories happened in a parallel universe. That would explain a lot of things.
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Some religions, particularly Christianity and Islam act as if "faith" is a virtue in itself. The Koran goes on ad nauseum about how its true and you better believe it, because if you don't believe it you'll meet a carefully described bad fate, and if you do believe it (and do good works) you go to a carefully described paradise. Christianity is a little lighter on the graphic descrip
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When I watched Big Love I thought, "These people are bending over backwards to portray their life style as normal, but it is bizarre and the women know it on some level." It irked me that these women "freely chose" to be married to one guy because they believed that their eternal happiness depended on it. They were brainwashed. They felt all kind of jealousy and anger, but
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I know what you mean. It used to bug me too for the same reason, but I've accepted it. Regardless of its literal roots, it now means "hatred of gay people". The only thing is that I still like to think of gay people as homophiles, or homophilic whenever people are throwing around terms like "homophobe". Technichally, homophobes hate homophiles. The term "homosexual
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The funniest thing is that the essay is written like the only problem is the discrepancy between the extant papyrus and the text of the B of A. Of course even if all of the papyrus was lost forever,the text of the B of A itself is an obvious 19th century fabrication. The closest parallel I can think of is the fabrications by the Twain characters in Huck Finn, the Duke and the Dauphin telling th
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In a lot of those middle eastern language, they only write the consonants. They think that NHM is a Nahom. I believe that it is actually Anaheim. It is a prophecy of Disney Land.
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Trinidad is a nice name. I have only heard it as a man's name. I've known at least one. He went by Trini, you know, like Trini Lopez. The name means "trinity"in Spanish, referring to the Christian Trinity.
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The other problem with family history, beyond maybe your great grandparents, is that you start to have a ridiculous number of direct ancestors. You already have eight great grand parents. In 10 generations you already have over a thousand direct ancestors. You don't have to go back very far until your ancestors are everyone in a given region. You are a direct descendant of the whole ancient po
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It is an illusion that Kody Brown's wives are into it voluntarily. The illusion is created by glossing over their religious beliefs. There so called "lifestyle" is focused on like its some kind of choice that is not so different from regular marriage. But it is no choice if you want celestial kingdom and to be become a goddess. Its mandatory. The only sign of problems is occasional
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The only family significant to any of us, that any of us would call loved ones, are people that we knew and loved when we and they were alive. The ones that died before we knew them are part of the anonymous mass of our ancestors: 8 great grandparents, 16 great greats etc. etc., all their children, all their children's children etc. etc. on and on. All these people are your family too. You don
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That was interesting. It is interesting the Joseph Smith may have taken such a live and let live attitude toward the sexual category of "sin". I like the idea. I do have to say though that 19th century ideas of sexuality were different. Sexuality was the same, but the ideas were different. I've read many things where people discuss beloved people of the same sex in terms that tod
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Interesting that some Mormons like to take photos of the dead. I think that could be a cultural carry over from the 19th century. At that time such photographs were relatively common. Sometimes cultural traits of the larger society get preserved in small groups that become isolated from the larger culture. I've heard for example that Appalachian English contains lots of archaic features owing
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I don't think it is a part for the kid at the top. He has "pure thoughts". That's not normal for a young male. His must be a lobotomy scar.
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Sickening. The most deluded people have the most children. In evolutionary terms that makes them the most successful. It does not bode well for the future of humanity.
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An apostate? He is a myth. The bible old and new testament are myths. There is some history there but it is hard to tell how much. Any history also gets mythologized to accomplish certain things. You really think someone had to talk a Roman administrator into crucifying someone? Give me a break. If the Jewish Establishment wanted "Him" dead, they'd have had him stoned (with actual
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Yes, barbaric. We had our first son circumcised by an orthodox mohel. I don't think there is any other kind. He used sterile surgical instruments. The kid was strapped down. I held a napkin with a little sweet wine soaked into it for the baby to suck on. The mohel did the actual cutting very quick. Nobody sucked on any part of the baby. I'm not saying it isn't somebody's tradition. But I'
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Faith is believing what you know ain't so. --Same guy who coined the phrase "chloroform in print"
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I think the "wives" and children would still qualify for benefits. However, that could be offset by forcing the men to pay child support. In some cases that could completely offset it. Those guys shouldn't mind supporting their own children. Perhaps the state could offer monetary awards to whistle blowers who busted these clans, maybe 10 or 20 percent of any recovery that the state m
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I didn't exist during the time period between the big bang and the spring of 1959. There were no feelings, thoughts or memories during that stretch. I expect to resume my non existence after I die. Anything else would be very surprising. The amazing thing is not non-existence. It is that we exist at all and we seem to be aware of it. I don't know why we should expect to exist forever.
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The article reads like a rationalization for fraud and support of fraud. "Like I am going to type out a list of my personal questions! I would never do that. Why? Because my questions might become your stumbling blocks — just as your questions could become my stumbling blocks. That is why we discuss things that build faith — not create doubt. What kind of brother would try and des
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A couple of years ago I bought a some main stream news magazines like the Atlantic and Newsweek from the day my Mom was born in November of 1934. It was a birthday present for her. Its easy to find readable old magazines on ebay and places. Anyway, of course I read them and of course they seemed sort of prophetic. They talked about Hitler and Mussolini and facism in japan and the Soviet sta
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