Mormons and criticism

Many Mormons do not like to hear or read criticism of their church. They believe they have a God-given right to correct what they see as misinformation about the Mormon church.

If we are to believe Mormons there was never any blood oaths in the Mormon Temple ceremony, Joseph Smith only had one wife (and if he did have more than one wife, including women already married to other men and young, nubile girls under the age of 16, it did not matter as they were only ever 'spiritual' wives) and Mountain Meadows was only an attack by Indians on a wagon train of people passing through the territory. And in any case, it did not matter, as did you know that some of those people on that wagon train were actually part of the mob that martyred Joseph Smith?

And did you know that neither Joseph Smith or Brigham Young ever ordered a group of men called the Danites (which didn't exist, anyway) to murder people? And even if Joseph Smith and Brigham Young HAD ordered the non-existent group to murder people, it would not have mattered as they would almost certainly have deserved it, and blood atonement was never preached or practised.

When Mormons tell or pass on these lies, do they know they are lying? OR do they really believe what they are saying? I remember one former Mormon mentioning the blood oaths in the temple ceremony to someone who had gone through the temple at roughly the same time as them. They were shocked when the practising Mormon denied there had ever been blood oaths as part of the temple ceremony, and challenged the former Mormon asking them why they would make up such a story? It was, they reported, as if part of the memory of the practising Mormon had been surgically removed. Unless, of course, the Mormon was just a liar? Which tends to indicate that some Mormons do "Lie for the Lord."

COV for Sunday 24 February

Welcome to the COV for Sunday 24 February.

We start this time with a submission from the blog South Bay Soliloquies

http://south-bay-soliloquies.blogspot.com/2008/02/ugly-american.html

"I've been having a couple instances of culture shock recently. Here's an anecdote.

I was relaying a story from my vacation today to someone I know. The story involved my grandmother saying something to me in Chinese that I didn't understand.

The person laughed and said, "so she was like, [unintelligible babble that an average American would think sounded like Chinese]"."

(MATT: There’s a lot of that about. It happens in Britain too, sadly.)

And in his blog, Doug looks at misplaced environmental concern. And makes a good point, too…

http://www.eighthourlunch.com/2008/02/misdirected-environmental-conc.html

“It has now been snowing since 3:30 this afternoon in what I'm pretty sure is the BILLIONTH fucking snowstorm of this never-ending winter. As I looked out the window at the buckets of fluffy stuff falling from the sky, it got me thinking about just one thing—global warming.”

And Sister Mary Lisa sends her very welcome submission concerning an email someone has sent her:

http://sistermarylisa.blogspot.com/2008/02/dear-sml-falling-for-someone.html

Dear SML - Falling for Someone

Dear SML:

I'm in a quandary. I've got a problem and could use your sage advice. You see, I've been married for a long time. Always faithful and true. Never strayed. Never thought I would even be tempted to, honestly. Most of that time, I was in the Mormon church and believed that the issue of marital fidelity was, like almost every moral issue, "black and white" with no shades of gray. I left the church (mentally at least) a couple years ago, and now I see moral ambiguity and nuance everywhere.

I love my wife and my family. But the last few years have been tough marriage-wise. We don't have the same spark we once did. She has trouble talking to me about things that are important to me, and does not respect my "hobbies," which she finds a waste of time. We are more like roommates (with "benefits") than an intimate partnership. Last year, my wife had an emotional affair (EA) (at least I am 95% sure it did not escalate to physical) with a co-worker that she has had a crush on for a few years now. She stopped working with him after I found out about it, and I think she was scared that if she had kept seeing him daily it would escalate. Lately, she has begun communicating with him again.”

SML offers some sage advice. Take a look, see if you can add some of your own advice and experiences.

This next blog post is from the Doc

http://locokazoo.com/2008/02/21/america-the-big-lie-wheres-the-apple-pie/

“Intro - Americans have bought the lies of unscrupulous politicians who are running a “protection” scam based on invented threats - Politicians who promote fear in order to REDUCE FREEDOM so that they and their benefactors can rape the public. I am amazed at the resentment I engender by sticking up for my supposedly protected rights (freedom and liberty) and for the rights of others. It seems that Americans have no idea what America is all about anymore.”

And this is from KitaKazoo

http://www.religioustattoos.net/

"Intro - It could it be that tattoos are more than just “a way for people to express their uniqueness and set themselves apart,” as Salt Lake City Tattoo Convention sponsor C.J. Starkey claims. With a history of over 6000 years of use in spiritual & religious ceremony they could become, the new symbol of spirituality for twenty first century America."

(MATT: Here’s a question for Doc and Kita, who are tattooing experts. And anyone else who happens to read this note: The Mark that was given to the tribe of Cain. Could this mark have been a way of explaining why a particular tribe chose to wear a tattoo? Just a thought that has occurred to me on and off for several years…)

And now a post from Emerging From the Ashes

http://emergingfromtheashes.blogspot.com/2008/02/homophobia-in-utah.html

“Homophobia in Utah

Visiting Utah has its advantages, like spending time with my family, letting my son play with his cousins, and frequent DAMU meet-ups. But then there's the Utah conservatism, the Sean Hannity on the radio, the church on every corner, the weird looks you get for ordering alcohol at dinner. And every time I'm here, I somehow end up in a frustrating conversation about homosexuality with some member of my family. I'm probably guilty of starting these conversations, to be fair. But then I ask myself, why? Why do I bother?

Yesterday I had a long conversation with my mom and a couple of my sisters about homosexuality. My mom kept calling people who are bisexual and anywhere on the spectrum except the two extremes "not particular" about where they get sex. As if that's all there was to it. It is so totally offensive. She also has this idea that gay people just sleep around with anybody and everybody. She accepts that "some people are just born that way" but thinks that most are just influenced by culture and want to experiment and "get it anywhere they can."”

(Matt: Oddly enough, your sister would have been right if she had been talking about a woman I knew at college. She decided to experiment with homosexuality. She slept with a female student who was openly gay, “just so I could see what it was like,” she said, afterwards. (She was an utter loony who had decided to use her own life as a social sciences experiment. She was doing a degree in Social Sciences) She next decided to experiment with the idea of seducing a younger man, and then deliberately dropping him "to study his reactions." He was also a fellow student in our year.

Both victims of her experiments were of course utterly crushed and devastated by her ‘experiments’ and the lies she had told them, and it cost her a lot of her friends. But I feel she was the exception, and not the rule…)

And now here is my blog submission

http://notamormon.blogspot.com/2008/02/persecution-persecution-persecution-oh.html

“Persecution, persecution, persecution! Oh! You poor Mormons!

The flowing question was posted on Yahoo! Answers, the other day:

“Mormon haters, why do you hate the mormons? what did we do to you?

i want to know why you dislike or hate the mormons. dont give me the stuff about they said this and this and this so i hate them, because newsflash, people are going to say things you disagree with. so cry me a river, build me a bridge, and GET OVER IT. otherwise tell me why you vow our downfall and suffering.”

Oh, the arrogance of youth!”

That’s it for this issue. See you in a fortnight’s time!

Persecution, persecution, persecution! Oh! You poor Mormons!

The flowing question was posted on Yahoo! Answers, the other day:

“Mormon haters, why do you hate the mormons? what did we do to you?

i want to know why you dislike or hate the mormons. dont give me the stuff about they said this and this and this so i hate them, because newsflash, people are going to say things you disagree with. so cry me a river, build me a bridge, and GET OVER IT. otherwise tell me why you vow our downfall and suffering.”

Oh, the arrogance of youth!

There was a boy at my school –lets call him Jim- who was constantly whining about how unfair it was that he was always being hit and beaten up by other pupils at the school. Jim complained to his mother who complained to the headmaster about how her dear little boy, Jim, who never did anything wrong, was always being picked on and how it was terrible that the teachers would do nothing to help Jim or to look after him.

His mother and father were so concerned that they asked for the headmaster to arrange a meeting to discuss what the school could do about the terrible problems their son Jim was facing.

This presented the headmaster with something of a dilemma. He had to find a way to tell Mr and Mrs that the reason their angelic little son Jim was a great, hulking brute, who kept being bested in fights was because he would goad and bully other children, who were usually much younger than he was, and would goad and deliberately start fights with pupils of his own age or slightly older.

He would land the first two blows and when they instinctively hit back, Jim would thrown himself onto the ground, curl up into a ball and start yelling and screaming at the top of his lungs that so-and-so was beating him up. (Eventually the teachers got wise to this and ignored it as much as they could.)

Nobody ever was able to work out what Jim’s problem was and I think his parents refused to have Jim seen by the school psychologist, the service of whom was offered by the headmaster. Well, after all, they knew that it wasn’t their son’s fault, so why would HE need to be seen by the school psychologist?

I think this genuine case is a good analogy for the so-called persecution of the Mormon Church and the Mormons. In the early days of its history, the Mormon Church was by-and-large welcomed with open arms by the local people who they came to live near. But the leaders of the church began to covert the goods, land and property of their neighbours and plotted to steal it from them. With violence and murder if needs be.

When the so-called gentiles found out about this they decided to defend themselves against the Mormon menace as it had become.

“Persecution, persecution, persecution!” screamed the Mormons. “Why are you persecuting us?”

“Because you are members of a dangerous robber-cult lead by a murderous set of crooks, criminals and fraudsters who plan to kill us, drive us from our homes, take our widowed wives to marry for yourselves and also steal our lands and property!” was the perfectly reasonably reply.

The Mountain Meadows Massacre was a perfect example of what happens when a religious cult is founded and operated by bad men.

In more recent years (with the several exceptions of Mormons like Ted Bundy) the Mormons have tended to concentrating on killing their own, so the idea of Mormons (usually, though not exclusively, the traditional Brighamite Mormon groups) as murderous thugs has faded somewhat from the conscious mind of the public. Though a vestigial memory of Mormons as dangerous and murderous thugs might still be part of folk law memory of some areas. And finding out that Great-great Uncle Zeke was taken out and murdered by Danites and his body never recovered might upset some people to this very day.

The Mormon exclusion of non-Mormons from temple weddings is very upsetting for non-members and baptism for the dead is perceived by many as being morally wrong, repulsive and evil at worst and at best, culturally offensive.

Mormons cannot conceive that they are offensive and arrogant. That in fact they, the Mormons persecute other Mormons and non-Mormons on an almost continual basis. So when someone snaps and response to the goading and proddings of the Mormons or the Mormon Church, the wail of “Persecution, persecution, persecution!” is raised up and the Mormons put this down to the wickedness of the world. Not to their own wickedness, of course.