I’ll take this one. Basically, the idea is to have a one year supply of food on hand. It used to be more of a second-coming-preparedness thing, but the focus has shifted more to general emergency-preparedness. Dad loses his job, you can still feed the family while he’s out of work. In that sense, it’s not bad advice. That said, there are a LOT of Mormons who have a basement food storage full of unprocessed wheat. Emergency comes, they have no idea what the hell you’re supposed to do with unprocessed wheat.
Edit: You’re also supposed to have a ‘72-hour kit’ that contains food, water, clothes, toiletries, a blanket, flashlight and batteries, etc. Again, basically for general emergency preparedness.
I have a question for pepperland girl and probably Erdosain. What’s it like being an atheist in Utah?
And by the way, there is nothing ungentlemanly about an honest answer (that hurts no one) to a reasonable question. I don’t understand what kind of God would demand such a secret be held anyway.
There have been some outspoken people, but there’s not much interest outside of Mormon circles. After all, it’s really not that large of a religion. If Steve Young came out of the closet, then you’d see some media coverage! But no, no one in the top 150 or so of leaders has ever defected, at least in modern times. In Joseph Smith’s day, he managed to excommunicate and then readmit just about all the original bigwigs.
I missed a couple of Furious Marmot’s questions.
There is a rumor that there is something called the Strengthening Members Commitee, but they haven’t really been active in a while. In September 1993, six feminists and historians were excommunicated from the Mormon church. The church got a ton of negative publicity and since then they’ve kept a much lower profile. However, for example, the guy who made the sexy Mormon Missionary calendar got excommunicated recently and they’re refusing to grant his degree to BYU, even though he already graduated. If you do speak out against the church, and are prominent, they don’t like it. If nothing else, it is a VERY media aware church. They are obsessed with good publicity, which is why Prop 8 has been such a disaster for them.
As for the sex obsession, it seems a pretty common religious fixation. I’ll leave it to sociologists to debate the reasons. I think Mormons feel particularly threatened by homosexuality because the Mormon afterlife is dependent on having a man and his wives procreate (spiritually) to create new spirits and new worlds. If there is nothing wrong with homosexuality, it undermines the whole architecture of Mormon theology. That’s why they teach that if you’re gay, you should just be celibate in this life, and then you’ll get a wife (or more accurately, wives) in the afterlife and go about your creating new worlds business and forget about this silly gay stuff. I think that explains at least some of their obsession with homosexuality.
Look, like I said before, I’m Catholic myself. Moreover, I’m a Catholic who converted as an adult - so I’m pretty clear on the concept that one-size-fits-all religion isn’t the way to go. To this day I probably have more respect for my grandmother than most religious people I know - and she has been a Baptist all of her life.
Latin America was once a traditional Catholic monolith - but in recent years pretty vibrant evangelical (mostly Pentacostal) movements sprung up there, leading to a corresponding interest in Charismatic Catholicism. Now, aren’t these people exploring these faiths entitled to do so? Or should they just remain Catholics forever because their parents and grandparents were?
If I followed that logic, I’d be a Baptist today - and it wouldn’t exactly be a good fit.
You people rolling your eyes at missionary work don’t really get it - the fact that someone is already Catholic doesn’t matter - you want to build your own church. And this is a good thing, because a faith home that may be an uncomfortable fit for someone could be a perfect fit for someone else. And yes, that includes atheism, which places faith in the temporal world and not in the unseen.
Argentina is depressed economically, as is most of Latin America, which makes it a promising spot for converting people. To be honest, rich people are rarely looking to make huge changes in their life. It happens, but not that often.
Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines get large numbers of Mormon missionaries because they have the most conversions. It’s no coincidence that they are also depressed economically and have an already Christian population. Just for example, there are ten Mormon missions in Argentina (total pop. 40 m). In Italy (total pop. 60 m), there are only three Mormon missions. Those missionaries who go to Europe usually only get a handful of conversions. Also, those they do convert are usually immigrants. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I’m just pointing out the lack of interest in the native European population.)
I just wanted to thank pepperlandgirl, JustThinkin’, and The Mighty Richard for their input on this thread. I’m by no means an expert.
The Mighty Richard, how was the mission in South Africa? Did you tell people about the pre-1978 ban on African males holding the priesthood, or was such a thing already common knowledge? Or did you completely ignore it and hope it never came up? Who were you teaching? Did a lot of people get baptized? I have to say that I know next to nothing about Mormon missions in South Africa.
That is true, and I understand your point. I was raised evangelical-ish, and I’m now Anglican. I guess I just reacted badly to a bunch of 14-year-old girls evangelizing to people through a play on the main square. And I do see it as a form of American religious-right imperialism, especially knowing that many of them do not accept Catholics as Christians, which might not be fair of me.
I just think that there are cultural factors too deep for teenagers to understand when it comes to introducing (or even talking about) religion in a foreign country. I doubt many of them knew much about the religious culture of Poland. In the end, it comes off as wanting to make others not just Christian, but American.
It’s not a particularly trying experience. I’ve never had a person ask me what religion I belong to. At work, everybody is Mormon and things got a little weird during the election (Mitt Romney is apparently a God-King). Actually, probably the stuff I put up with daily and shrug off would be very strange or off-putting to people who aren’t used to it. Mormons here have the tendency to talk amongst themselves like everybody is LDS (and politically conservative) and I tend to ignore them. I don’t engage them on religious or political views at all, and if somebody tries to engage me, I give them the appropriate non-answers. I do not mention my atheism to my family at all, except a few select members. My dad knows, and my youngest sister knows, and I think my other sister should know. But it behooves me to keep it to myself because Erdosain’s above list is absolutely accurate. People never leave the church because they’re rational human beings. If I admit to being an atheist, then I am implicitly admitting to A)never having a true faith (and thus being a dishonest person), b) only being interested in sinning without consequence (I suppose writing porn is a sin) C) being the victim of the Devil’s influence, either knowingly or unknowingly. Where I grew up, it was commonly held that everybody believes in God, but people who claim to be atheists are really saying “I know God exists but I choose to be sinful and not worship him.” I never understood that real atheists even existed until I joined the SDMB.
So I don’t feel like I’m directly persecuted because of my lack of belief, and I’ve never met anybody gauche enough to make it a topic of discussion. On the other hand, it’s not information I would volunteer without a very good reason.
As for the indirect LDS influence on my life, I’ve learned to roll with it. I don’t think they’re worse than “blue laws” anywhere else in the country.
I personally baptized exactly zero people on my mission. Maybe ten people I taught ended up getting baptized after I left the area. In other words, South Africa is no Brazil or Argentina in LDS church terms.
At the time I was there (1993-94), we weren’t focusing on any particular demographic. Missionaries were in the townships as well as the white suburbs - I personally spent endless hours knocking on doors in beautiful Cape Town neighborhoods. And getting nowhere. Almost all of the baptisms came from the black and mixed-race communities.
The pre-1978 priesthood situation was never mentioned. At that time, we had a very specific set of ‘discussions’ that we gave about the basic church principles; any time the discussion strayed from the talking points, we were supposed to bring it back to the script as gracefully as possible. And in reality, as a black South African, the fact that the church you are thinking about joining used to prohibit people like you from holding leadership positions is really not that much of a concern - being denied privileges based on your race was already a fact of life for you; and I suspect that if you did learn about it, the fact that it was in the past would be good enough for you - after all, your own country was just then coming to grips with the notion of equality. Also, the Internet was not a factor in anybody’s life at that time, so most of the unpleasant information was unavailable to people. I have no idea how missionaries do it these days. The information is so readily available.
I was lucky to be in South Africa during the whole campaign/election/inauguration phase of its history. Despite what I may feel about the things I told people while I was there, witnessing that was one of THE formative experiences of my life.
Thanks for letting me contribute!
pepperlandgirl will have to take that first one. I spent most of my adolescence in Utah, but obviously I was still a believer then. Now I live on the East Coast. I imagine it must be very frustrating for non-Mormons that each piece of potentially controversial legislation in Utah (especially including liquor laws) is basically run by the Mormon church to see if they have any objections. That would make me batty.
Thank you for the second part, Captain Lance Murdoch. For the life of me, I don’t understand why Mormons try to pretend the temple ceremony is a secret when any third-grader with an internet connection can look it up online. Also, the only parts you have to promise not to reveal are masonic handshakes, hand gestures, and words. Guess what Mormons, millions of masons already know your secret signs!
We bought our house from Mormons, and they had a room separate from the house with a separate door, for this. The first thing we did was to smash through the wall and make a bedroom a decent size. Erdosain, did you go to SLC? We passed through, and took the Temple tour. The two little brainwashed girls who gave it never said the word “God”. What’s up with that? Before this, I stayed in the hotel next to the Temple, and discovered the virgin only floors. What’s up with that also.
I live in a town that has a lot of Mormons, and my daughter was friends with some. When you were growing up did the local temple push you into Mormon-only social activities? I had the impression that they were working very hard to get kids to marry only inside the church.
I’m involved with a fairly big conference, and we went to SLC to check out the Salt Palace. As part of this, we saw the SLC convention and visitors bureau standard movie. You’ll be amused to know there is more drinking in there than in any such movie I’ve ever seen. The CVB wants to make it very clear to potential conventioners that you can get a drink in SLC!
It’s almost as if the LDS Church was founded in a time when women and blacks weren’t considered citizens with rights, and when a rash of cults, secret societies, and Utopian communes were being founded throughout the country as part of some larger religious movement. Some sort of “awakening.”
I’m not trying to defend or justify the church, but really, a lot of things could be explained if people tried to put Joseph Smith and the early members in the proper social, political, religious, and historical context.
I grew up in SLC. As you noted, there are only female missionaries working at Temple Square. The rumor in Mormon circles is that they select young women who speak many languages or that are better looking than average to serve there, in order to put our best foot forward with visitors. I don’t know why you don’t remember them saying “God.” Mormon missionaries are always talking about Jesus and God.
That’s one of my gripes about the Mormon church: nothing can just be an informative tour, it has to be a selling opportunity. If you go to any Mormon-owned historical site, there won’t be tour guides, just missionaries giving tours. Why does everything have to be a missionary opportunity? I imagine that this hard sell probably turns a lot of people off.
I think you’re going to have to explain “virgin-only floors”, as I don’t know what you mean!!! Seriously!
For your final question, yes, they really want young Mormons to marry other Mormons. Where do you think Mormons come from? There is a pretty heavy amount of pressure to do so.
Doing a bit of ‘devil’s advocate’ here but, there’s lots of things that are just plain wrong in just about every religion. Discrimination against gender, sexual orientation, core belief systems, whatever. But the thing is. They’re religions. And you’re hard pressed to get any religion to change how things have been because they’re not held to the same standard as everyone else modern society. The whole, allowing churches to discriminate based on sexual orientation is a biggie nowadays but it happens because churches are kinda exempt.
I have a question or two about the Mormon missionary missions - I’ve heard that the missionaries are limited in contacting their families, to Mother’s Day and Christmas or something like that, only once or twice a year, during their mission. Is that true?
Now I’ll admit that about all I do know about LDS is what I’ve learned since starting to watch the HBO show, “Big Love,” but not everything I’ve learned has come via the show. It’s a fascinating show and very well done, imho, but truthfully the religious beliefs turn my stomach, especially with regard to women and the status of women. Hell the lack of status of ahem a single woman in her mid 50s (moi for instance) would probably be like the lowest of the low or thereabouts. Sad.
I too am very interested in the intense desire to do well in the afterlife. So are Joseph Smith and Brigham Young (and others) on some planets somewhere, waiting for others to join them? Who gets a planet? What do you have to do to get one? Heh, I’m more curious than I thought, I guess.
I too wish to be on the “do not baptize posthumously” list, btw.
I just wanted to pop in and say what a great thread. I also am a former Moron… I mean Mormon I was, unlike you guys, excommunicated and wiped from the records at age 12. I don’t hold any grudge – I had stopped believing long before I was excommunicated. Actually, I am sure that was part of the reason for my excommunication.
I still have many friends that are Mormon, and I find it fascinating that they can reconcile an intelligent mind with some of the teachings – like the whole planet thing. The magic underwear = weird, but who am I to judge, I don’t wear underwear My father stopped going to church when they excommunicated me, he felt that the way it was done was underhanded and unacceptable. He still loved to entertain the missionaries and he still believed. We actually called and asked them to dress him for his funeral.
Now, even though I have not gone to church since I was about 11 years old, I still think that the Mormons (just like many other sects) have some good points – do you feel that way as well or are you disillusioned enough to consider them pretty much bunk?
Oh, and did you ever feel goofy doing the anointing with oils bit? I remember my father doing that to me when I was sick and thinking “gods, Dad, now I’m sick and my hair is greasy!” It just seems even stranger than the whole “oh, you have long hair and some of it floated to the top of the font when we baptised you, so we have to dunk you again in the middle of winter” routine I went through at my baptism!
If only they’d had some sort of guidance, some sort of Higher Power on their side that could have showed them the light and changed things, whatever the time period…
I was, unlike you guys, excommunicated and wiped from the records at age 12. I don’t hold any grudge – I had stopped believing long before I was excommunicated. Actually, I am sure that was part of the reason for my excommunication.