# South Park Mormons **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 21, 2003, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-park-mormons/214578 "2003-11-21T21:37:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2003, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-park-mormons/214578/41 "2003-11-22T06:17:50Z")
I think you’re right, **Apos**. I just rememebered it had Satan in it and I forgot about two part TV ep. I stand corrected. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2003, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-park-mormons/214578/42 "2003-11-22T06:30:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Beagle \* > Does anyone know why the South Park crew chooses Mormons for everything? They do? I haven’t seen every episode, but this is the only one I’ve seen where Mormonism is even mentioned. And what **Diogenes the Cynic** said is the only other instance I’ve ever heard of. Here’s a question I haven’t seen answered in this thread. **emarkp** said that Martin Harris claimed to have lost the pages from the book of Levi, and that Lucy Harris was skeptical of the whole thing. But is it accepted, as was shown in the episode, that Lucy Harris actually took the pages to test Smith’s claim? ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2003, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-park-mormons/214578/43 "2003-11-22T06:45:49Z")
I think the Mormons have indeed only been mentioned in the two instances already named. Satan, of course, has appeared before: he had a big wrestling match with Jesus! ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2003, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-park-mormons/214578/44 "2003-11-22T07:10:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Beagle \* > **Does anyone know why the South Park crew chooses Mormons for everything?** They don’t, really. They take a lot more shots at other faiths, comparatively speaking. Judaism, for example. Kyle is Jewish, and Cartman constantly refers to it. One of the creators, I think Stone, has a Jewish family background. So they did an episode that took the kids to an orthodox Jewish summer camp (all the kids had the little sideburns; sorry I don’t know the terminology) and the Master Control Program came out of the campfire and… Anyway, as far as other religious traditions, there was also that one episode about Catholic priests who were up in arms because their right to have sex with little boys was being infringed and then that giant spider dragon appeared and… er… Oh, and if you take New Age bullshit as a pseudo-crypto-faith-y type thing, remember that John Edward is the Biggest Douche in the Universe! Anyway, they hardly focus on LDS to the exclusion of other options. ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2003, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-park-mormons/214578/45 "2003-11-22T07:54:23Z")
> [@](#): > > While they won’t make me change my personal beliefs, they at least taught me quite a bit about a religion I knew close to nothing about. Well, who said anything about changing your beliefs? Fightin’ ignorance is what we do 'round here. And you have not learned “quite a bit,” but only a little about us. It’s a decent first step, though. 🆒 > [@](#): > > Here’s a question I haven’t seen answered in this thread. emarkp said that Martin Harris claimed to have lost the pages from the book of Levi, and that Lucy Harris was skeptical of the whole thing. But is it accepted, as was shown in the episode, that Lucy Harris actually took the pages to test Smith’s claim? I would not say _accepted_; it has been a point of speculation, but no one seems to know what exactly happened to them. Martin Harris bugged Joseph Smith, on behalf of his wife, for weeks, and when Smith finally gave in, Harris promised to show them only to his wife. Instead, everyone and their grandmother came in and saw them. They disappeared, and Harris, who certainly did not know who had taken them, was afraid to go and tell Smith (who was by then caring for his very ill wife and grieving for the stillborn baby). If Lucy Harris knew who took them, or was involved herself, she doesn’t seem to have told anyone AFAIK. Eventually it all came out and Joseph was in despair. A revelation told him not to retranslate the pages, since it was a double bind; if the new translation was identical, whoever had the pages would rewrite them, so it was a losing proposition. A scientific test it was not–the pages were not stolen by someone wanting to do an unbiased, fair evaluation. Mob violence (‘mobocracy,’ as Joseph Smith put it) was more what was going on here. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2003, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-park-mormons/214578/46 "2003-11-22T08:23:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dogface \* > \*\*Catholics are Christians. \*\* Yes, I know; my point was that I originally contrasted Mormons with Christians, which was the wrong way to phrase it, since Mormons are a _subset_ of Christians. Mormons are _not_ a subset of Catholics, however. _South Park_ has made fun of Catholics AND Mormons at different times. Clear now? ---
**Author:** ![emarkp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3be4f8/32.png) [@emarkp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emarkp)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2003, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-park-mormons/214578/47 "2003-11-22T08:31:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic \* > It didn’t address doctrine it basically just showed an LDS character on a mission who falls into making porno movies. See, you have to understand that statement is simply other-worldly. A missionary is screened beforehand, and he simply is not allowed to serve if he’s got moral problems. While I’m not saying all missionaries are perfect, they are engaged in work that we consider sacred (the sharing of the Gospel) and they strive to not only live the highest moral standards, but also not even give the impression of sin. Members of the LDS church are urged to keep themselves morally pure, and avoid pornography. To [quote the LDS president] ([http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/2000.htm/ensign](http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/2000.htm/ensign) june 2000.htm/recurring themes of president hinckley.htm#LPTOC12): > [@](#): > > “Leave it alone! Get away from it! Avoid it! It is sleazy filth! It is rot that will do no good! You cannot afford to watch videotapes of this kind of stuff. You cannot afford to read magazines that are designed to destroy you. You can’t do it, nor even watch it on television. … Stay away from it! Avoid it like the plague because it is just as deadly, more so. The plague will destroy the body. Pornography will destroy the body and the soul. Stay away from it! It is as a great disease that is sweeping over the country and over the entire world. Avoid it! I repeat, avoid it!” Second, IIRC the plot is that he decides to do this to raise money for his temple wedding. This is strange both because of the fact that most missions are self-financed, and because of the cost of a temple wedding. How much does an LDS temple wedding cost? Take a guess. That’s right: $0.00 exactly. No ordinance in the church is for sale. Furthermore, after prostituting himself to the pornography industry and abandoning his mission, a person would no longer be allowed to enter the temple, let alone be married there. He would most likely be a candidate for excommunication, which is very serious (though unlike other churches, excommucants may still attend Sunday meetings, they are not allowed to participate by partaking in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, say prayers for the meetings, etc.). Those were the biggest issues I recall from what I read about it. It managed to not only mock much that we hold sacred, it presented a false image of the church (the cost of temple weddings, etc.). ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2003, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-park-mormons/214578/48 "2003-11-22T08:42:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Darwin’s Finch \* > \*\*Is there any archaeological evidence to support this claim (specifically, that people from Israel came to the Americas ~600BC, not whether the Book of Mormon is their record)? \*\* I doubt it, but then there’s little archaelogical evidence for most of the claims in the Bible, either. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2003, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-park-mormons/214578/49 "2003-11-22T08:46:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by filmyak \* > But at least the older, more established religions claim that their defining miracles were generally witnessed by a lot of people. God made himself visible to all the Israelites at Mt. Sinai in Judaism, Jesus had several witnesses view his miracles, To be more precise, there are anonymously-written _stories_ about people witnessing those things. There are no independent eyewitness accounts. ---
**Author:** ![filmyak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@filmyak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmyak)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2003, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-park-mormons/214578/50 "2003-11-22T09:26:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Beagle \* > I thought the episode was pretty interesting. On the one hand, the South Park episode does ridicule the bizarre nature of theology. If you really read religious texts, sorry, they’re all pretty freaky. I’ve always been amazed that XXX (pick your religion) followers are quick to dismiss other religions’ stories as mere tall tales, while they believe theirs are factual, if just as unbelievable on the surface. So we end up with folks who find it absurd that Zeus throws lightning rods and bangs women that his wife then turns into sheep as punishment, but plausible that the sun stopped in the sky and some poor fellow was swallowed by a giant fish. So yes, Beagle, I agree with you completely. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by blowero \* > To be more precise, there are anonymously-written stories about people witnessing those things. There are no independent eyewitness accounts. True. But at least the stories pretend to have lots of witnesses. As I said before, I don’t necessarily buy it, but if I wanted to convince people of something I’d tell them that 100,000 other people also witnessed the event. Especially if I was writing it 100 years after the event and no one could contradict me with first hand evidence. ---
**Author:** ![pd444](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e19adc/32.png) [@pd444](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pd444)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2003, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-park-mormons/214578/51 "2003-11-22T14:55:35Z")
I have a few questions that I’d like your take on: Who lynched Joseph Smith? Assuming leadership of the church after Smith’s death, why did Brigham Young and many members of the church promptly leave the United States? Assuming that BY fled to avoid a similar fate as Smith, what’s your take that some followers of the Church, including Smith’s family, remained in the Nauvoo area practicing the basic tenets of the church as they had been before Smith’s murder, with no persecution? Do you believe polygamy was a tenet of the church before BY’s departure or was it established to rapidly increase the population of the Church? It may seem obvious that some of my questions are rhetorical and I’m just stirring the beehive. Am I spreading mistruths about Mormonism, the RLDS/CoCers or Christians in general? No more than the mistruths they all spread daily. Keep the faith. No really, I mean keep it. Yours burning in hell, pd ---
**Author:** ![Super\_Gnat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Super\_Gnat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Super_Gnat)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2003, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-park-mormons/214578/52 "2003-11-22T15:11:28Z")
To continue the hijack somewhat, ISTR the “Mormons are the only ones going to heaven” joke being on the Simpsons. Some relatively recent ep, when they all went to hell in the little room, and Flanders wanted to know what the one true faith was, and the Chief Wiggum lookalike was like “Mormon. The correct answer was Mormon.” And I watch South Park very rarely, and havn’t seen any of their movies. Anyone remember that? ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2003, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-park-mormons/214578/53 "2003-11-22T15:12:56Z")
ummmm Your first post on these boards should be something like your favorite tv show, or something LESS controversial like Why Evolution SHould Be Taught in Schools… ---
**Author:** ![pd444](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e19adc/32.png) [@pd444](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pd444)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2003, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-park-mormons/214578/54 "2003-11-22T15:30:01Z")
Sorry. The Simpsons are my favorite TV show. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2003, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-park-mormons/214578/55 "2003-11-22T15:52:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by filmyak \* > \*\*In addition, there are more preposterous claims (again with zero evidence or witnesses) that the native Americans were white folks from Jerusalem (how did they get to America? I dunno.) \*\* My question about this is why were the Isrealites supposedly white? I had always understood that they were rather dark-skinned, especially before all of the interbreeding with Europeans. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2003, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-park-mormons/214578/56 "2003-11-22T18:54:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic \* > \*\*It _was_ the movie that showed all the newly damned souls going to hell. When one of them asked a demon what the true religion was the demon answered, “The correct answer is…the Mormons, the Mormons.” > \*\* Actually, no. The movie only shows kenny going to hell and Hell having an expotential increasing population, while Heaven’s remains static at about a thousand or so. It was an 2 parter episode called “Do the handicap go to hell?” and “probably” that asked and answered that question. Though At the end, Saddam is sent to heaven because they want to get him out of hell. He seems to find being surronded by mormons pretty abhorrent. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2003, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-park-mormons/214578/57 "2003-11-22T18:58:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by blowero \* > \*\*Yes, I know; my point was that I originally contrasted Mormons with Christians, which was the wrong way to phrase it, since Mormons are a _subset_ of Christians. Mormons are _not_ a subset of Catholics, however. _South Park_ has made fun of Catholics AND Mormons at different times. Clear now? \*\* Catholics are considered a branch of Christanity, though weather Mormonism is considered under Christanity is quite debatable. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2003, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-park-mormons/214578/58 "2003-11-22T19:23:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by HPL \* > Catholics are considered a branch of Christanity, That’s because they, in fact, are a branch of Christianity, as are the LDS. > [@](#): > > though weather [sic] Mormonism is considered under Christanity is quite debatable. Regardless of the climate, only the ignorant (read: bigoted) dispute the fact that the LDS are also a branch of Christianity. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2003, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-park-mormons/214578/59 "2003-11-22T19:34:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by HPL \* > \*\*Catholics are considered a branch of Christanity, though weather Mormonism is considered under Christanity is quite debatable. \*\* Um no, no it’s not. Debatable, that is. ---
**Author:** ![laigle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ce7236/32.png) [@laigle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/laigle)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2003, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-park-mormons/214578/60 "2003-11-22T21:01:12Z")
Catholics aren’t considered a branch of Christianity. It’s their show as far as America and Western Europe go. The Nestorian, Egyptian, or Eastern Orthodox Church might be able to bicker over the point with them, but it’s ludicrous for Protestants to do so. It’s like saying that the King James Version is the only real bible, but the original text might be a tolerable substitute. Not that I haven’t heard that one too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-park-mormons/214578.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-park-mormons/214578.md?page=4)