Yes, folks, you will meet the prevaricator, the equivocator, the disingenuously dishonest wordsmith in the following thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=109497#newpost
I give you Angelslantern. No, please no applause. This is not a good thing.
“Angel’s” interesting method of parsing the English language is no stranger here, though. Every other border-line illiterate with an agenda who has disgraced us with their prescence has attempted to dicate to the literate the usage of the language in question.
And I do mean “in question” when referring to lantern’s equestrian fruits[sup]1[/sup].
[sub][sub][sup]1[/sup]Horse apples.[/sub][/sub]
Monty, the dude is quoting the World Book Encyclopedia as a source, a practice generally frowned upon after grade school, so how seriously can you take him?
The LDS Churc h, if Joseph Smith’s revelation happened today, would certainly be regarded as a cult. OTOH, so would Christianity if Jesus were preaching today. It seems to me that using the word “cult” just to belittle the LDS is to misuse the word.
BTW,if I may hijack. I just read a rabidly anti-LDS book; I guess the title Out of Mormonism should have been a clue. The author claimed to be an ex-LDS who was “saved” from a life of spiritual darkness through embracing fundamentalism. Whatever.
The book was a semi-literate work that revealed the author to be a not terribly bright and easily led person, and something of a bigot.
I am curious about two items that other anti-LDS pamphlets mention.
Does the LDS teach that Jesus and Lucifer are brothers?
Does the LDS teach that Jesus was conceived through a sexual act betwen Mary and a flesh and blood God?
I won’t mention the Temple rituals that she described because that’s not appropriate for LDS folks to talk about.
I hope my questions are not offensive.
Gobear,
The way you phrase the questions, they’re not offensive. The way most of those types of books phrase them, it is.
Consider what you mean when you think of say, you and your brother. Same parents. Well, back in the pre-mortal life, there was (supposedly) this assemblage of spirits. One was Jesus and one was Lucifer. And you and I, not to mention a whole bunch of other folks, were there also. Next, Lucifer blew it and got chucked. So, in a sense, he’s not only the brother of Jesus but also my brother and your brother. But he’s the brother we can’t have anything to do with if we know what’s good for us. It’s kind of like that movie with the twins who become a priest and killer. Just because the priest is related to the killer does not mean the priest is a killer.
Regarding the Virgin Birth. Beats me. I’m not all that interested in how God got Mary pregnant. I just go by the Scriptures where it said He did. I figure that no matter how it was done, it didn’t include an assist by a mere mortal man and thus is a virgin birth.
If I may hijack back?
I’m of two minds regarding these folks. On the one hand, it’s driving me batty to listen to the illiterate (who worship a piece of literature they apparently don’t have the capability to digest) deign to dictate to me, you, and others not only what we should worship but how. On the other hand, I don’t care for their diatribes myself; however, I pity them since evidently they can’t find even one person in their group who can communicate in print.
Yes, but they also believe that everyone is a brother (or sister) spiritually, so that sort of relationship between Jesus and Lucifer isn’t very special. In fact, the only reason why the two of them were prominent was because they were both among God’s “elite”.
As in, did God stick his divine penis into Mary’s quite-human vagina, pump in and out for a few minutes until He had a Holy Orgasm? Nah. They just say stuff like “God gave her a child” and what-not.
As for the other things she mentioned - “baptizing the dead” were the words she used - she’s wrong. I don’t know if that’s how she heard it, or if she’s deliberately misrepresenting the facts, but there’s no “baptizing the dead” going on anywhere in Mormonism. What they do do is called “baptism for the dead”… also known as “baptism by proxy”. One aspect of Mormon belief is that a person must be baptized in order to completely be absolved of their sins. However, some people die before they get a chance to be baptized. So the Mormons have some of their members volunteer to go to the temple, where they are baptized (often several times in one day) in the name of someone else… an ancestor or a friend or a relative that never got a chance to do it.
Angelslantern made it sound like the Mormons go dig up corpses and throw them in a pond somewhere…
Thanks, Spoofe. BTW, I covered the proxy baptism in Responses to Bashing & the “Mormons and Mitochandria” threads (sorry, couldn’t find the link).
Essentially Baptism for the Dead is a prayer done in our own way. For those who don’t like the way we pray, there’s a simple solution: don’t pray our way.
With all due respect, MONTY, for Christians who consider the baptism a sacrament, the Mormon Baptism for the Dead is more than “a prayer done [your] way.” If that was all it was, it would be called a Prayer for the Dead. Unless Mormons don’t consider Baptism to be a sacrament? (This is not sarcasm, I don’t know – do they?)
And it is facile to say “if you don’t like our way of praying, don’t pray our way,” when people object not only to praying themselves, but to having others pray on their behalf. (Again, assuming we’re talking about a mere prayer and not a sacrament.) IIRC (and you can correct me if I’m wrong), the LDS gave up the practice of baptizing after death (or for the dead) Jewish people who never accepted Christ when they lived – precisely because the Jews very reasonably found it very offensive to be “baptized” (either dead or alive) into (or by) a faith they rejected.
I realize that the Mormon position on this is that the dead person can either “accept” or “reject” the baptism, but this in turn is not in keeping with the beliefs of other Christians that an adult baptismal candidate (baptisee?) should accept Christ prior to baptism, not after.
I absolutely respect the rights of Mormons to believe as they see fit, and to practice their beliefs as they see fit, but as a non-Mormon Christian I personally firmly reject the theory of baptism for the dead – to the point that I could never be a Mormon in part because of it. While this should not be interpreted as attacking the LDS, it is only fair to point out that for some, this is no mere quibble, and the Baptism for the Dead is most certainly not just “a different kind of prayer.”
Well, gee, Jodi…don’t the other Christians (some of them at least) pray on behalf of Mormons to “see the light and get out of that thar cult?”
Like I said to lantern in the other thread: the requirement that my faith not be unusual to you is not a criteria.
Oh, I will correct you on the giving up part. See the thread I linked above (responses to bashing). There’s a link to the joint declaration regarding the issue.
Oh Monty, just do as Angelslantern says: grow up and start mindlessly quoting a children’s encyclopaedia wouldya? 
Gee, MONTY, I’d imagine they do, but then they don’t say that they’re not doing that when they obviously are. That was my point (and my only point): To construe the Baptism for the Dead as merely a different kind of prayer actually misconstrues it, if I understand it correctly, and if the (Mormon) sites I just reviewed again are right. Again, I’m not quarrelling with your right to do as you like, I only took (mild) exception to your explanation of this particular aspect of Mormon faith because it was AFAIK oversimplified. Do you disagree?
Of course it isn’t. And I’m not saying that you’re wrong to categorize the BftD as merely “your kind of prayer,” but neither am I wrong to point out that others do not take it that way. To those of us for whom baptism is a sacrament, it is definitionally far more that “a type of prayer.” Is it just a prayer to you? Again, I’m just asking – I don’t know.
And I take your correction regarding the baptism of Jews only insofar as the LDS will continue to baptize dead Jews who have Mormon direct descendants who ask for the BftD for their Jewish ancestors. But the church has AFAIK entirely stopped BftD of any Jewish person not a direct ancestor of a current Mormon, and furthermore has stricken from the rolls of the posthumously baptized hundreds of thousands of Jews who were totally unrelated to any present Mormon.
Again, I’ll take correction on this if I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am. And again, I’m not attacking your belief, merely pointing out that the way you have chosen to describe it does not accurately illustrate why non-believers might very reasonably object to it. And I note that I participated in the linked thread from 1999 and raised the same exact concerns then. I hope I was respectful then, and I’m trying to be respectful now. But when you post “I believe X” you must be willing to allow others to post – respectfully – “I don’t belief X, and here’s why.”
Yes, because we all know that a children’s encyclopedia is the be-all and end-all of sources… there is none higher! ;p 
[sub]Beavis and Butthead reference intentional…hehehe[/sub]
I’m with Jodi-I mean, I have nothing against the Mormon faith, but that is one aspect I find somewhat unsettling.
I’ve read of baptisms of Jesuit martyrs who were killed by Native Americans when they first came to the new world, and such, proxy marriages of nuns and priests etc. Anne Frank has been baptised several times.
I don’t know-I just think it’s rather arrogant, at least.
But then, YMMV.
However, Angelslantern’s coments WERE offensive.
I should really get into the habit of quoting what other people say, in case other posters get to the thread before I finish my reply and make my post seem out of place… my post was in response to Mangetout. (or at least was intended as a humorous rejoinder)
Monty-besides, don’t you remember? You’re not a Mormon-you’re actually Catholic! And I’m not really Catholic-I’m ANGLICAN!!!
And don’t get me wrong, MONTY – I understand that no one has the right to tell you what you believe, or what your beliefs mean. I learned that lesson here, after becoming very pissed off with a Jewish poster who insisted that because I was a Christian (you know, the whole trinity thing), I was polytheistic, not monotheistic – a true insult, IMO, and a conclusion reached only by willfully interpreting my beliefs to mean something they clearly didn’t mean – at least not to me. So I am not trying to either attack or misrepresent what the LDS teaches or believes. I only tried to point out that to some (non-Mormons) it is seriously oversimplistic to view the DftD as only “the way you pray.”
That’s all. If I’ve pissed you off in making this point, I apologize.
Looks like yet another person who is here to educate without the benefit of knowledge.
Yay.
[sub]And this, dear reader, is why I rarely go to GD.[/sub]
Just curious as to whether any of you have proof that this guy/gal is a native English speaker.
Could it be that maybe, just maybe, he/she is using SDMB as a way to improve his/her English?
And maybe is using World Book because he/she has assumed that being an encyclopaedia it is a worthy reference?
It really burns me when people get chewed out for their bad English when there’s every possibility that they are doing the best they can.
AFAIC, the only ones on SDMB that have the right to laugh at Angelslantern are those who are fluent in two or more languages.
…or am I completely missing the point of the OP? (its been known to happen)
Tsubaki, while that is a good point when discussing someone’s seemingly limited grasp of lingual nuance, I don’t think that’s what the OP was criticizing. I looked back at lantern’s posts and what seems more evident is blunt closed-mindedness, not a clumsy use of English.
I swear to Buddha, I thought this thread was going to be about some revolutionary bran muffin or something.
… the latest fiber?
I guess, I’ll have to suffer with my inconsistant bowel movements a little longer.
Carry on.