Oh, come on, folks - what about that religion that holds that two huge green lobsters named Esmerelda and Keith are flying around in outer space? I doubt it’s true, but we could certainly make it true if we wanted, just by scheduling a Space Shuttle mission with a couple of Wood’s Hole’s finest. That religion is surely more plausible than any of the examples you’re citing.
Just FTR, BTW, there really is One True Faith.
[QUOTE=Voyager]
Your response would be just as correct for questions about the truth of just about any religion, don’t you think. Fortunately, when someone asks a question about the charge of an electron, he doesn’t have to be sent off to a site where fifty people argue about which of several charges is the right one.
You know, it is not necessarily true that someone question the truth of proposition X are calling the holders of X crazy. How would you feel if I accused you of calling me crazy for not believing?
[/QUOTE]
True. I simply felt that the OP was remarkably shallow and just looking for people to agree that yep, them Mormons are nuts. All he did was cut and paste some passages from a Wikipedia article. He didn’t ask whether the passages accurately reflect LDS beliefs or scholarship. He didn’t seem to have any thoughts of his own, there doesn’t seem to be much of a debate here. I don’t see much substance or thought, so I don’t want to invest time or energy in actually answering any of the issues so briefly listed–why bother when no one wants to hear it?
[QUOTE=OneCentStamp]
(FWIW, I was raised Mormon and attended until my early thirties, including going to Mormon-run BYU and serving a full-time mission.)
Two and a Half Inches of Fun, it seems we go through this argument here on the SDMB about once every six months or so. The prevailing sentiment is generally that Mormonism is equally as plausible (or impausible, depending on your POV) as any other religion, but has the misfortune that it makes historical and scientific claims that are easily disprovable, since it is such a new religion.
…
While these claims may vary in how absurd they seem to us, I think that’s probably a result of our background and biases. The big difference between them is that the Mormon claim can be contradicted, or at least be shown to have a conspicuous lack of support, through modern archaeology.
[/QUOTE]
I think this summarizes it well. Just within the last couple months, this topic came up at the lunch table when one of my colleagues who I knew to be a religious Christian said that Mormonism is a false religion. After nearly gagging on my food, I tried to get him to explain to me how it differed from other religions like, say, traditional Christianity. And, his answer as near as I can tell was along these lines. I.e., it amounted (in my interpretation of what he was saying) to the fact that Mormonism being young makes historical claims that we can with quite a bit of certainty say are false. The older religions make claims that seem just as suspect to me but since the historical record is so much feebler from that time (e.g., what do we really know about the historical Jesus?), they are harder to disprove.
[QUOTE=OneCentStamp]
While these claims may vary in how absurd they seem to us, I think that’s probably a result of our background and biases. The big difference between them is that the Mormon claim can be contradicted, or at least be shown to have a conspicuous lack of support, through modern archaeology.
[/QUOTE]
The Davidic Empire is pretty much kaput now, for the same reasons. The Roman census is also. We know the supposed prophecies didn’t say what the author of Matthew thought they said. The only difference with Mormonism is that there are fewer people to get their noses bent out of shape by claims of historical inaccuracy. I assure you that in my family and my predominantly Jewish neighborhood, Christianity was seen as just as wacky - but we didn’t examine our own beliefs all that closely. It’s religion if I believe in it and a myth if you believe in it.
[QUOTE=Sophistry and Illusion]
Aside from the outright factual errors in the Mormon Scripture (e.g., the false claims about Native American ancestry), there is the moral aspect. It wasn’t until 1978 that the Church admitted (in response to ‘revelation’ from God) that blacks were the equal of whites. Folks, that’s 14 years after passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Mormons claim their prophet has a direct line to God; and yet the Church was 14 years behind *the federal government * on racial equality issues. If the US government is smarter than your God, then I have doubts about your religion.
[/QUOTE]
To add to this, nothing that the LDS church has come up with has proven that Joseph Smith was anything more than a charlatan. Take the “Mormon Muders” of the 1980’s- a con man convinced the LDS church to buy forged letters, allegedly written by Joseph Smith (these were later admitted to be forgeries by Mark Hoffman). Yet, the church prophets bought into them-how come they had no "revelations’ telling them that the letters were false?
[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
You can line up the bizarre behaviors and beliefs that are dictated by any religion and one is goofier than than last. I was never indoctrinated into any religion, so I find them equally amusing. Some are more entertaining than others (it’s pretty tough to beat magic underwear in the grins department).
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I’ve never bought the “Religion X isn’t any goofier than religion Y, which you don’t consider goofy because you were brought up with it. Therefore, you can’t make fun of religion X.” I draw the opposite conclusion: let’s make fun of X *and * Y.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Is Mormonism false? Who knows? Mormonism has neither more nor less material evidence in its support of its spiritual beliefs than any other faith. Some of its historical claims are disprovable, but the same is true of Judaism, therefore of Christianity and Islam. Mormonism has, compared to other religions, a recent and highly suspicious origin story based on a set of golden plates found in a cave which only Joseph Smith and maybe a few of his closest associates ever got to see – but if you can swallow camels like the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection, why strain at gnats? Mormonism, at least, always has an out in form of a tradition of living prophets pronouncing a living (and evolving) revelation – they even had the recognized authority to ban polygamy, a practice Smith himself had decreed (and enthusiastically practiced) – so, in the face of archaelogical evidence incompatible with the Book of Mormon’s narrative of pre-Columbian America, they can always decide the BoM is being metaphorical or something. Just like the Catholics have the pope and cardinals, who can adapt doctrine and practices to contemporary sociocultural circumstances as they see fit, and have.
Again, it depends on what you mean by “false.” If the Mormons are right, all other faiths are false, or at least don’t have the whole truth. (But don’t worry, you can still be saved via posthumous Mormon baptism. 
How many religions offer a second chance like that?) If the atheists are right, then all religions are false as descriptions of the-Universe-as-it-is – but they still might contain elements that are “true,” or valuable, in a spiritual or ethical sense. I mean, who could quibble with the Noble Eightfold Path?
Another view, just for the halibut.
[/QUOTE]
Out of curiosity, how much evidence is there that J. Smith decreed or practiced polygamy? It seems to me that there is some controversy about that.
[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
Out of curiosity, how much evidence is there that J. Smith decreed or practiced polygamy? It seems to me that there is some controversy about that.
[/QUOTE]
Nope, there isn’t. Joseph Smith instituted and practiced polygamy during his lifetime.
[QUOTE=OneCentStamp]
(FWIW, I was raised Mormon and attended until my early thirties, including going to Mormon-run BYU and serving a full-time mission.)
Two and a Half Inches of Fun, it seems we go through this argument here on the SDMB about once every six months or so. The prevailing sentiment is generally that Mormonism is equally as plausible (or impausible, depending on your POV) as any other religion, but has the misfortune that it makes historical and scientific claims that are easily disprovable, since it is such a new religion.
Example:
Judaism: God killed all the firstborn sons in Egypt, including the firstborn of all the livestock, after which Pharaoh let Moses’ people go.
Christianity: Jesus of Nazareth rose from his tomb two days after his death and appeared to several hundred people before ascending into heaven.
Mormonism: From 600BC-400AD, there was a thriving civilization in America, complete with horses, paved roads and steelmaking. These people were descended from the Jews.
Scientology: Xenu sent the Thetans to Earth in spaceships that looked like DC-8s. They deposited the Thetans around several volcanoes, then blew up the volcanoes with nuclear weapons, thus dispersing them all over the world.
While these claims may vary in how absurd they seem to us, I think that’s probably a result of our background and biases. The big difference between them is that the Mormon claim can be contradicted, or at least be shown to have a conspicuous lack of support, through modern archaeology.
[/QUOTE]
That, and the fact that Mormonism was founded by a convicted charlatan and fraud.
[QUOTE=treis]
That, and the fact that Mormonism was founded by a convicted charlatan and fraud.
[/QUOTE]
…Whereas the founders of other religions were never actually convicted, I suppose?
(Actually, wasn’t Jesus sort of convicted?)
There’s a subtlety here that is overlooked. All religions make absurd claims and I don’t see any reason to believe any of them. However, there is a difference (perhaps irrelevant, but a difference) between something that I see no reason to believe, and something I have reason to disbelieve.
If some religion claims that in the year 3433 BC their founder levitated in front of a multitude I wouldn’t see any reason to believe it, but I couldn’t say it didn’t happen.
If some religion claims that their founder levitated in front of a multitude the week before last at Times Square, and the multitude are interviewed and all say it didn’t happen, I could say not only that I wouldn’t see any reason to believe it, but that as far as I’m concerned it didn’t happen.
I’m no expert, but I think that younger religions like Mormonism have more features that put them in the latter category than do older religions.
As I say that’s not to say that there’s any practical difference, but there is a logical one.
When you toss in the interplanetary beliefs ,like the planet Kolob, and magic underwear ,you do get into the crazy area.
[QUOTE=Princhester]
However, there is a difference (perhaps irrelevant, but a difference) between something that I see no reason to believe, and something I have reason to disbelieve.
If some religion claims that in the year 3433 BC their founder levitated in front of a multitude I wouldn’t see any reason to believe it, but I couldn’t say it didn’t happen.
If some religion claims that their founder levitated in front of a multitude the week before last at Times Square, and the multitude are interviewed and all say it didn’t happen, I could say not only that I wouldn’t see any reason to believe it, but that as far as I’m concerned it didn’t happen.
[/QUOTE]
Given that such miracles violate physical laws, you have at least as much reason to disbelieve ancient accounts as newer ones. Even if the multitude who are interviewed say that it DID happen; miracles that impress crowds at a distance have a tendency to evaporate with the presence of a sceptic close up. Especially if he knows stage magic.
Violations of physical laws are a better reason to disbelieve something than the testimony of a crowd, given the unreliability of eyewitnesses. And it’s a reason that applies to recent and ancient religions equally.
[QUOTE=OP’s quote from Wiki]
Joseph Smith fabricated the Book of Mormon, and that it was not divinely inspired.
[/QUOTE]
Ummm… Cite?
It seems like the author of this claim must think other religious texts are divinely inspired. How can they say that this book is inspired by God and that book is a work of fiction? Did God tell them?
I simply wish that vacant-eyed acolytes of the Church Of Latter Day Saints would quit showing up on my doorstep. As a disaffected Catholic, they have nothing to offer me that I do not already have, and their claims of inhabiting North America along with Native Americans as a lost tribe of Israel that possessed mettalurgy before it was even invented is just silly. Not to mention the fact that they claimed to cross the Atlantic before anyone else could, or the Golden Plates that nobody is allowed to see, or the magical underpants.
Yep, they’re fucking crazy allright.
At least MY religion is so clouded in obscurity that you can’t disprove such inane notions…harumph…
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Given that such miracles violate physical laws, you have at least as much reason to disbelieve ancient accounts as newer ones. Even if the multitude who are interviewed say that it DID happen; miracles that impress crowds at a distance have a tendency to evaporate with the presence of a sceptic close up. Especially if he knows stage magic.
Violations of physical laws are a better reason to disbelieve something than the testimony of a crowd, given the unreliability of eyewitnesses. And it’s a reason that applies to recent and ancient religions equally.
[/QUOTE]
This doesn’t really invalidate my fundamental point, although it may highlight a deficiency in the example I used. What if the event was simply a historical event, rather than a supernatural one?
[QUOTE=Princhester]
This doesn’t really invalidate my fundamental point, although it may highlight a deficiency in the example I used. What if the event was simply a historical event, rather than a supernatural one?
[/QUOTE]
A better example. Although even there, the ancient religions don’t have that much of an edge in the plausibility of their accounts. Quite often either they involve “historical events” that were supposedly supernatural ( and removing the supernatural part often makes the event meaningless, or an indictment of fraud upon the founder ), which leads back to the physical laws problem; or they contradict known archaeological/historical evidence. Not as much as more recent periods with more surviving evidence of course, but really, is the average person really that much more knowledgeable about the relatively recent past than the far past ?
And quite often ancient religions claim silly things right now, not in the past. Transubstantiation or gays attracting hurricanes is hardly less silly than magic underwear.
It’s a religion. All religions are false.
This can be proven with a lot of research. Take any three religions (to start with). Make sure they are widely separated by time and/or distance, so there is no similarity in the theologies. Analyze them from an historical and social perspective, and answer these two questions:
- What are the common goals of the religions?
- What are the common means used by the religions to achieve these goals?
Toss any other religion into the works and the answers will come up the same.
[QUOTE=dangermom]
Nope, there isn’t. Joseph Smith instituted and practiced polygamy during his lifetime.
[/QUOTE]
This is true.
One of the many ‘revelations’ Joseph Smith received from God regarding polygamy was specifically directed at Smith’s wife (it even named her, several times) and told her that if she didin’t agree (to allow Smith to have more wives), she would be ‘destroyed’. She was not happy about that.
From Doctrines and Covenants 132:
"54 And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and acleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law. "