Mormons - How could anyone buy into it?

Great Debates
101

Hey, calm down, dude. We aren’t just talking about Mormons in this thread - we’re singling out Mormons as being ‘especially stupid’. I question that. I think once you accept the notion of a great diety in the sky that mucks about with the earth at his whim, the rest is just details. Trying to single out any believer as being any more gullible or stupid than any other believer is just a fool’s errand.

Faith is about ignoring the evidence of reason and logic, and believing in something ‘just because’. It is inherently illogical. Once you make that leap, all bets are off. Hell, you could show me incontrovertible evidence that I’m wrong, and I’d just respond “God works in mysterious ways”. Or maybe, “God is presenting this false evidence to tempt me.”

Believers believe. It’s their thing. It’s not about evidence and rationality, it’s about faith.

As for why so many people believe in Mormonism, I’d say it’s because it fills a need in their lives. I know a few Mormons. They’re some of the best people I know. Say what you want about the foundations of the faith, in practice the Mormon faith teaches people to take care of their families, to be loving and kind, to watch what they eat and drink, to be prepared to take care of themselves, and to be good members of the community. The root foundation of that ethos might be a wacky religion, but the practice of the religion seems to lead to significant success. And if Mormons keep having more babies than the rest of us, then by and by there will be more Mormons.

102

Just for the record:

  1. This board has a history of welcoming a large number of atheists who are capable of conducting a civil debate on the subject, backing their opinions with fact and cites. It also has a history of tolerating, with ill grace, some individuals whose apparent goal it is to save the world from religion by losing their temper and posting flames (which of course must be moderated out, with warnings), creating straw men, and other less-than-civil behavior. A large proportion of the latter, though hardly all, appear to be late-high-school and early-college level students. That’s not intended to exculpate Tom~ but to acquaint those who may be construed to be indulging in that behavior why he might regard them as such.

  2. Many Christians, in fact arguably the majority, do not regard the Bible as “the word of God” in any sense that requires blind adherence to its contents.

  3. If your goal is to disprove by ridicule, it is advantageous to your cause to get your facts straight. I’m quite confident that you could poll fundamentalists and not find a one who believes that Moses loaded every kind of animal on the Ark.

  4. Ambushed has a point. There is historical evidence for Assur-bani-pal, Sennacherib, Nabu-chad-usur (AKA Nebuchadnezzar), Cyrus, Quirinius (=Cyrenius) governor of Syria, Pontius Pilate, the Moabites, the Edomites, the Aramaeans, the Hittites, and other persons and peoples identified in the Bible. Whether they actually did what the Bible alleges, of course, is a different story – but the figures and peoples are historical. On the other hand, there is no evidence for Jaredites, Nephites, Ether, Moroni, and the rest of the Book of Mormon cast, other than the work of Joseph Smith Jr. and his supposed witnesses 1200 years after they vanished from the face of the earth without a trace of genealogy, or of historical records outside Ontario County, NY, that conveniently vanished into Heaven. There is no evidence for a dinosaur with a neck frill (cf. Jurassic Park I) and also no evidence for an eight-legged dinosaur. Yet every paleontologist in existence would regard the first as substantially more probable than the second, in terms of speculation on what dinosaurs might have looked like.

103

In at least one post (which I am not going to bother hunting up, since he is gone), Ammonius Saccus advocated stripping believers of their right to vote. In other posts he advocated similar actions that “we” should undertake to deprive people of their rights based on his personal views of their beliefs. That is persecution, even without burning at the stake.

If someone believes in God, the IPU, the FSM, or Cthulhu but pays his taxes, supports the teaching of evolution in school, ardently supports the separation of Church and State, behaves ethically in business, and otherwise behaves himself, I do not believe that some college sophomore with a poor grasp of philosophical constructs has the right to call for the disenfrachisement of that person simply because the kid does not want to walk on the same Earth as believers.

When a believer insists that laws be written and enforced to support those beliefs with no other reason behind those laws, then that action is legitimately opposed. To deny a person the right to act in society for beliefs when those beliefs do not impinge on society, is not only wrong, but stupid.

104

OK, I don’t have any business trips coming up (I would stay at a Marriott Hotel and consult the complimentary BOM). Anyway, how were these subs constructed? How were they propelled? And those “burning stones” what were they all about?
Man, Imagine the day when some Mormon archaeologist stumbles on the wreck of one of these subs (in the “bermuda Triangle”)!! :smiley:

105

( I’m gonna try to take great pains with grammar and phrasing so that it is extremely clear that I am not going after ambushed in any way- because I am not. I am using his/her quote to prove a point that applies to millions of people on the planet. So, with all due respect, no flame is intended, ok? :slight_smile: )

I believe you have articulated the core problem. Not just with this thread. Not just with all of the threads of this ilk that arise on SDMB regarding LDS or religions in general., but in any modern intelligent society and sadly particularly in the United States of America.

Folks who believe as the quoted person does see what someone else believes as a “problem”. That appears to be the height of hypocrisy. Either one believes in Freedom of Religion without persecution or one does not. There is no middle ground or issuing of qualifiers that go along with that belief.

The arguments that have populated many of these threads are distilled down to a simple statement: A few religions are based on societal situations that existed 2,000 + years ago. There is a lot of historical documentation and by dint of their age, the scraps of real data that are gleaned from ancient texts are given considerable weight in the religious communities that base their faith and lives upon them. Not so with LDS, which is relatively new to the planet.

Either one is respectful and tolerant of the beliefs of others or one is not. There can be no qualifiers without nullifying any respect that a person might be trying to prove they have.

I think it doesn’t matter what I believe and it doesn’t matter what you believe or the other person believes. It only matters that anyone can believe as they wish right up to the moment that they want to raise a hand up and shed the blood of a stranger for not believing just what they believe.

Cartooniverse

106

We don’t let insane people vote, do we? At least, not always.

That was the OP’s point, no? That Mormons self-identify as “loony”, right?

107

[QUOTE=CartooniverseEither one is respectful and tolerant of the beliefs of others or one is not. There can be no qualifiers without nullifying any respect that a person might be trying to prove they have.
Cartooniverse[/QUOTE]

You need to be clearer about what we must tolerate and respect.

  1. I respect (and I am willing to defend) **the right ** of ANYONE to believe as they wish about anything.

I do not respect people who hold irrational beliefs that contradict scientific reality because they pride themselves on faith, the ability to shove reason and logic aside and to believe irrational ideas. Faith is not something to be proud of.

If my neigbour below my condo wishes to worship a jelly doughnut, I respect his right to do so. If he and his family wish to hold 24-7 vigils of prayer before the altar of the holy doughnut, they are welcome to do so, and I will fight for their right to do so. Until they start singing loud hymns to the Holy Donught at 4 a.m., and then I will call the police and make them shut up.

But will I respect them and their beliefs? Not on your life. I will think they are fucking nut jobs, that their belief if sheer idiocy, and I will tell them to their faces.

  1. I will fight to stop believers from **actions ** that impose their beliefs on the rest of us, or attack the rights of others, because they have no right to do so, and I am not bound to show respect to any such attempt. Whether it is “In God we Trust” on a secular, public item like money, or a cult that believes they should cut off my head, or Mormon missionaries coming to my door. I will tell them they are fucking idiots (and homophobic ones at that – I am a gay man and I have yet to hear a Mormon give me a suitable answer to that.)

In fact, as a gay man, the spread of Mormonism or Islam or other homophobic beliefs is a direct threat to my dignity, rights and even to my existence and freedom.

I am somewhat in the same position as a Jewish member of the ACLU fighting for the right of Nazis to demonstrate in American cities. I must be true to my democratic principles, even if it means protecting the rights of people who are, by their very beliefs and “faith”, my enemies.

108

To the extent that insane people are prohibited from voting, it is based on their actions that prevent them from carrying out their lives, day to day. The guy who mumbles to himself as he stumbles down the street, who cannot maintain a house or a job and needs to be rescued from the cold whenever the city is hit by a winter storm has demonstrated by his actions that he cannot take care of himself and is probably denied the vote solely on the basis of his inability to register at a specific address. (Or, if he has been institutionalized, his inability to care for himself precludes his voting.) We have no sanity test for voting that demands that one demonstrate that a person can distinguish between windmills and giants–as long as the person can function in society.

So that was the OP’s point–which was clearly in error.

109

You can read the text of the Book of Ether starting here.

The gist of the story is that at the time of the tower of Babel, some guy named Jared and his brother Mahonri Moriancumer were instructed by God to take their families and all their animals & go to some secluded valley. God made a cloud around him so Mahonri Moriancumer couldn’t see him. That way he could hang out & talk with Jared & Mahonri Moriancumer without them seeing him. God made them swear allegiance to him before he told them about a wonderful land that he had reserved for his special peoples, but if they didn’t give him their blind obedience he would fuck them up. God then took them to live on the beach in tents for 4 years, coming occasionally in his cloud to scold Jared & Mahonri Moriancumer for not calling as often as they should.
Then God told the brothers to build barges that were “tight like unto a dish”, bottom, sides & top. When the doors were closed no water would get in, since they were “tight like unto a dish”. Then Mahonri Moriancumer notices that it’s awful dark in the boats and since they’re water tight, they’re also airtight, so he “cried unto the lord” (there’s a lot of crying when MM talks to God) to tell them how to fix it. God told Mahonri Moriancumer to drill a couple holes in each boat to let air in and plug the holes if water comes in (duh). God tells Mahonri Moriancumer that the boats will “be as a whale in the midst of the sea”, meaning that they will be totally submersible (It was already established by the “tight like a dish” reference, but in case you’re slow, there it is again). Unfortunately, there is no information on their propulsion or steering.
Mahonri Moriancumer starts crying that it will be dark in the boats, so God asks him “what do you suggest we do about that?” (since God is supposed to be omniscient, I guess this was something of a teaching exercise). MM “did molten out of a rock sixteen small stones; and they were white and clear, even as transparent glass” and after a couple paragraphs or crying about how wonderful God is, asked:

.
So God reaches out of his cloud to touch the stones. When he does that, MM sees God’s finger and marvels that it is a human finger. In fact, he’s so overcome with fear that he falls down on the ground. God is all “what’s wrong with you, MM?” And MM says “oh, thou who art so wonderful & mighty, thou hast a finger like unto a man, yea verily, with flesh & blood & all that”. God says"Is that all you saw, my finger?" And MM says “yea verily, that is all I saw, please don’t smite me for seeing it”. God is feeling generous, so he steps out of his cloud and says “feast thee thine eyes on this, thou with the crazy name. Behold, I am Jesus Christ. I am the Father and the Son”. Then God goes on to reiterate some points of Christian dogma, like that since he is a human being, that’s why we are all human beings too. He tells Jared’s brother (MM) to write this in a language that nobody can understand.
So Jared & MM & their families & all their animals got into the boats with the glowing rocks & pluged up the holes. God made a storm that washed the submersible boats out to sea, and winds blew them to the promised land (somewhere in the Americas). This took 344 days. No details are provided about sanitation in the watertight submersible boats.
The Jaredites set up housekeeping in the promised land, begat sons & daughters and grew exceeding rich. They had a king named Moron, invented steel, had wars with steel weapons, and had coups detat & politicians. There were prophets in their land and the Jaredites killed the prophets. They formed “secret combinations” and swore oaths. When they were righteous they had all kinds of animals that never existed in precolumbian America, but when the “secret combinations” people gained power God made poisonous snakes come out of the ground and bite all their animals. Having eaten all their livestock that had perished by snakebite, there was no more food. “They began to repent of their iniquities and cry unto the Lord” so God made it rain again & lifted the famine.
The people follow the usual BoM pattern of splitting into 2 groups, one very righteous, the other rather wicked. Both groups go through alternating cycles of righteousness > wealth > pride > iniquity > war/famine >repentance > rightousness > wealth >pride > iniquity until God finally got sick of them and they destroyed themselves in a civil war.
By the time that Lehi & family arived in the New World around 600BCE, there was only one Jaredite left alive and he dies shortly after the newcomers found him.

110

I never before realized what a gold mine of absurdity the Book of Ether (part of the Book of Mormon) is.

One special whopper passage is this one, from the Book of Ether, Chapter 15:

15:2 He saw that there had been slain by the sword already nearly two millions of his people, and he began to sorrow in his heart; yea, there had been slain two millions of mighty men, and also their wives and their children.

This means that somewhere in the pre-Columbian Americas, two million men, as well as their wives a children (reasonable estimate would be a total of 5 to 8 million people) perished by the sword. Yet not a single sword has been found in pre-Columbian America, except for a few that are Viking swords of European origin in the small Viking settlement that existed in l’Anse aux Meadows Newfoundland, a few centuries before Columbus. These we can find. But out of enough swords enough to slay millions of people, we cannot find one single example still in existence.

And the word “already” makes it clear that many more were ro perish. Where did these millions of people live? Archeologist find the remains of Indian settlements that contained a few dozen people thousands of years ago, but we cannot find a single sign of these millions?

What did these millions upon millions of people in pre-Columbian America eat? Why, another part of the Book of Ether makes that clear, in Chapter 9:

9:17 Having all manner of fruit, and of grain, and of silks, and of fine linen, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious things;
9:18 And also all manner of cattle, of oxen, and cows, and of sheep, and of swine, and of goats, and also many other kinds of animals which were useful for the food of man. (9:18-19) “All manner of cattle, of oxen, and cows, and of sheep, and swine, and of goats … horses, and asses, and elephants”
9:19 And they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms and cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants and cureloms and cumoms.

So there were enough of these animals around to feed millions of people. So why is there not a single skeleton of these animals found in pre-Columbian American setllement sites? Archeologists have gone over aboriginal trash heap sites and not one bone of the animals reported above have been found. We find lots of bones from deer and moose and other North American animals that the Indians killed and ate over thousands of years. Why not a single bone of these animals?

Apparently, the people in the BofM in ancient America also had unsuspected mineral and metal-working abilities. Consider this from Chapter 10:

10:23 And they did work in all manner of ore, and they did make gold, and silver, and iron, and brass, and all manner of metals; and they did dig it out of the earth; wherefore they did cast up mighty heaps of earth to get ore, of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of copper. And they did work all manner of fine work. (10:23-24)
10:24 And they did have silks

Brass, iron and silksdid not exist in the Pre-Columbian New World. Nor did silk.

All that fine work in iron and brass, produced for a society of millions of people, with huge slag heaps and deep mines for the extraction of iron and “all manner of metals”. And yet amazingly, not a single exmple of these pre-Columbian wonders has shown up in over 200 years of archeology in the Americas.

Yet Mormons continue to believe in the BofM! Isn’t faith wonderful, folks? :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

111

Agreed.

Disagreed- but impossible to debate, I fear. I would never dream of telling someone ELSE what to respect or how. I did urge folks in my post up there to respect such things, instead of holding them in a derisive light or seeing them as problems.

I do agree that the Donut-Worshipping neighbor needs to be a neighbor, as well as a Donut-Worshipper. There is a time and a place for such worship.

We have to agree to disagree. I see no good in standing in front of anyone and calling them names, nutjobs, idiots or anything else because of what they believe.

  1. I will fight to stop believers from **actions ** that impose their beliefs on the rest of us, or attack the rights of others, because they have no right to do so, and I am not bound to show respect to any such attempt.

In fact, as a gay man, the spread of Mormonism or Islam or other homophobic beliefs is a direct threat to my dignity, rights and even to my existence and freedom.

I am somewhat in the same position as a Jewish member of the ACLU fighting for the right of Nazis to demonstrate in American cities. I must be true to my democratic principles, even if it means protecting the rights of people who are, by their very beliefs and “faith”, my enemies.
[/QUOTE]

I must admit I had not looked at it in this light. I was raised a Jew and now am a Quaker. I don’t go out of my way to stand in front of Catholics and curse at them and scream at them and threaten to make them stop praying, because of either the Holocaust or the Inquisition. Then again, I’m a pacifist and am not inclined to stand in front of anyone screaming and threatening them.

I appreciate the tone and point of view of what you wrote, and can see how your dignity, rights and existence are threatened by the beliefs of others. We each find out own way to exist.

112

Why would I want to do that? I figured that out when I was about 12 years old. Then I realized that most of the people in the world are religious, and I didn’t have a snowflake’s chance in hell of talking the world out of their beliefs. So I got over it. If someone tries to tell me I’m wrong to be an atheist, I will patiently explain to them why I don’t share their religious beliefs with them. If they aren’t bothering me, why would I go out of my way just to ridicule what they believe in?

113

While I basically agree with you, that’s a pretty big if.

In my area of the US, many religious movements have banded together to help pass bans not only on gay marriage, but on any possible civil unions. They are battling against not only abortion rights, but access to contraception.

They tell me they need to do this to uphold the bible, and because we’re a christian nation, or should be.

114

A. My point is not to ridicule, which I would think would be patently obvious by this point. I don’t know how many times I’ve said this now, but my point is that it makes no sense to ridicule Mormons exclusively for illogical beliefs, when other religions also have illogical beliefs. I’m sorry that it becomes necessary to point out the illogical parts of the Bible, but others have forced me to do so in order to defend my point of view.

B. Do you have cites for points 2. and 3.? If you are making a case that all Mormons literally believe the BofM, and that few Christians literally believe the Bible, it is contingent on you to provide statistics to back up your claim.

115

Right, so why aren’t we focusing on important things like that, instead of wasting time with inanities like, “Gee, Mormons are stoopid cuz they believe in submarines.” :rolleyes: Who the hell cares?

116

Since dangermom refuses to come onto the other thread about Mormons to respond to the endless absurdities in the BofM (please see my recent postings about the Book of Ether, one of the books in the BofM on that thread), and since the only thing we are allowed to do here is go “Gee whiz, I didn’t know Mormons believed that, Golly gee!”, may I ask Tomndeb what this is doing on the Great Debates Forum. I see precious little debate going on. Would it not be better in “Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share”.

By the way, if I want to see what Mormons believe I have only to go to one of their web sites. In fact, I have already done so and I am already familiar with their theology. I do not need dangermom to act as my search angine.

117

Gee, you seem to be pretty confused. dangermom has posted pretty regularly in the other thread.

As to the rest: you are (deliberately?) misrepresenting my statements. I have already noted that you may challenge LDS religious theology. If you are only able to attack the LDS based on history, then stay here and do so. If you have an actual theological issue, I have already pointed out, more than once, that you may post it in that thread.

118

Actually, the tall tales were a big part of the hook for me. In answer to the original question, although treating it as an honest question at this point, rather than the rhetorical accusation/put down/superiority kick that it really was intended as is my own personal absurdity.
I was first exposed to mormonism in the early 70s at the age of 9. I was already into the fantasy genre: I loved the original Planet of the Apes films and had just started reading Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan novels. I was fascinated with cryptozoology, ESP and UFOs. One of my favorite books was a compilation of stories about John Henry and Paul Bunyan, another one ws My Side of the Mountain, a supposedly true story about an eleven year old boy who runs away and lives off the land in the Catskills for over a year. The legend of Boggy Creek was playing at the local drive in. When my father & his second wife converted to Mormonism I gladly read the Book of Mormon. I loved the tall tales. Since I already believed in bigfoot, it wasn’t that much of a stretch.
Being part of a close-knit outsider community was another perk. It was nice to feel like I belonged, especially when we had the answers that everyone else lacked.

Honestly, I don’t think pointing out the silliness of the stories or Joseph Smith’s arrest record or the changes in the reported history & dogma of the church or the vast business holdings will convince anyone to give up their beliefs. Over the last hundred-and-seventy-some years, mormomism has grown from a conman’s cult into a multi-billion dollar empire. The Church owns six blocks of downtown Salt Lake City and the Utah State Legislature. I believe there are currently more ex-mormons than active mormons in Salt Lake now. It is common for people to leave the church when they come of age only to return to the church for the wholesome community when they have children. Well, have fun beating that horse!

119

So let me see if I have this right. In the LDS theology thread, Dangermom can post long paragraphs saying that the total lack of any archeological evidence for Nephite cities makes no difference to her faith, and that is theological.

But her faith is based on a book which is either 1) a true or accurate representation of something that happened in America over the past couple of thousand years, or 2) it is a fantasy invented by a charlatan named Joseph Smith in 1827.

So that would seem highly relevant as a *sine qua non * of her theology.

But since the evident absurdity of the BofM from an historical and archeological point is the obvious achilles heel of Mormonism, dangermom has so far retreated safely to the LDS theology thread.

Debating theology is debating one fairy tale against another. Since I am in possession of no fairy tales that I believe, you will be happy to learn that I am staying in this thread.

Or I may just start another thread listing the many, many scientific authorities from the National Geographic Society to the Smithsonian Institute that have shown up the utter foolishness of the pretensions of the BofM.

I respect and will defend the right of anyone to believe anything whatever. I have nothing but contempt for those who lay down their precious human heritage of rational thought and proceed to believe anything whatever.

120

It is worth pointing out that given the enormous amount of scientific data available at my fingertips, if I were to wish to do so, I could quite easily reverse-engineer an entire religion.

Some in this thread, and in countless other threads like to point to firm archaeological proof of existence of this person, that town, this war, that natural event and so on- as irrefutable proof of the existence of the founding days/years of their religion.

I would counter with this: I could quite easily craft an entire religion using key natural events to “absolutely prove as fact” that certain miraculous events in my religious text occurred. Creating various tribes and groups to populate the text is simple work, and if I were crafty about it, nobody would be able to refute the “validity” of my text because of aforementioned “proofs”.

Such hypocrisy, I say. Have there been floods in the Red Sea over the eons? Yeah. Have there been droughts in the Middle East? Uh, yeah. Cycles of ciccada hatches that create huge clouds of locusts that lay waste to crops over an immense area? Um, yes. Scientific fact, made handy use of to show wrath of a Higher Power.

Vilifiying those who believe one set of stories while angrily demanding that the world bow to the “proofs” of another set of stories smacks of hypocrisy, IMHO.

The structure of faith has been debated in these fora many times in other threads and it ain’t worth opening that wound here.

Going back to the OP, I am wondering why there is such vitriol regarding LDS faith. After all, the same scientific proofs used to validate Old Testament and New Testament incidents show beyond any doubt that quite a few additional Gospels were unearthed by a man ( improbably named Mohammed Ali !! ). These are now known as The Nag Hammadi Library. And yet due to politics not faith, these additional Gospels are the stuff of heresay in the religious community.

A lack of archaology does not disprove a religion, unless your religion is science and not God.

Which writings are The True Words? Which are not? Why, if religious scholars admit that all are ancient writings ( with the Gospel of dating at 50 C.E. and the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament dating no earlier than the 4th century C.E. ) is it so upsetting to folks that another religion is based upon another set of writings?

It seems to me that using archaology to defend religion is a fools task. Faith defends religion. Archaology defends fact. Faith cannot be fact-based. At the end of the day, you believe what you believe.

Considering what today is on the Gregorian Calendar ( December the 24th ), I’ll end this post with this reminder: People of fact know that December the 25th was a significant day for a very verrrrrrry long time before the year 1 of the Common Era. People of faith know that it is the day of the birth of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

Both knowledges can exist in a framework of tolerance and respect instead of loathing and contempt.
( I came across a somewhat relevant Timeline allows a reasonable perusal of when certain things happened in the world of Sacred Texts. )