The Mormons

In conclusion, condemning homosexuality, the very idea of missionary work, the use of a faith to back up a political opinion, all of this is rubbish, and as history has taught us, quite disastrous.

Example and case in point: My friend's mother (who has a gay son) is very religious, a simple woman, salt of the earth human being. Her religion brings a certain quiet sancitude to her life, she enjoys religion for the peace aspect. Making grand assumptions of religious people is extremely off-base and off-putting.

This woman's son is gay. He is not as "look at me, look at me, I'm queer, say it loud, I'm a fag and I'm proud" (why is militant queerness, put up with in society, if it were asians, blacks, jewish whites, it is wrong, but it is fine (I'm digressing, cause militant anything gets on my tits.)

But, she did not repel cause he was gay. Alot of religious folk I know make allowances for how beautiful and varied humanity truly is.

To write of all religions based on a bad experience is prejudiced and ill-informed, cause you are writing off some fantastic folk.

I guess anthony is a regular, he must feel good to have you defending him. But I don't believe I've been 'cruel,' per se. This is an internet discussion forum, however, and this discussion has been less flammatory then some topics I've read in the short time I've been browsing here. Looking back maybe I did come on too strong, for such a sensitive subject. I think there's an equally strong ad hominem coming from the "other side," however, as partially evidenced in your post.

I guess it's definitely a fallacy that I don't care about this issue. I thought I didn't, but it just irks me to see unfair attitudes and insulting statements made about the Mormons. Imagine if someone told you "blacks should stay out of college, they don't have the intelligence to compete with caucasian kids," do you think you'd argue against that? Or how about if someone told me "I feel sorry for your wife -- after all, mexicans all beat their wives don't they?"

"His experience is far more in-depth than yours. But you didn't back off, you continued attacking from your stance of limited knowledge and assumption."

I don't know anthony; and I'm loath to say this, but I am kinda suspicious that he knows so much about the mormons. Some of the things he's said are utterly ridiculous.

"So don't start apologising for his mistreatment, because you've just repeated it and come across to us (well me, at least) as a heartless bastard. "

You know, maybe you're right. Looking back maybe I -was- hammering him, piling on paragraphs of text on him. But so what? Like I said before, this is a web board, I should hope everyone here is used to the often combative air of these discussions, no matter what the topic. if there's any rules that prohibit strongly disagreeing with someone, I didn't see them on my way in.

"Also the whole "get over it for getting kicked out, it's a club, obey the rules or else" mentality falls down when you remember they're teaching this stuff to their children."

NOT THE CHILDREN!!! It's all a matter of opinion, bub. I don't see what's so wrong with what they teach their children. I wish I'd had some of those teachings, and anthony and thousands of others is proof they can always change their mind later. Unless you think that it's wrong to teach your kids anything, just let them grow up totally free to choose their own principles? Forgive me if I'm putting words in your mouth, but that's the philosophy my own parents used, and it's total bullshit.

"A gay teen, kicked out of a church-based community when EVERYONE that person knows is part of that community? That's fucking sick, chum and you should see it, even if you are a homophobic apologist for a corrupting faux church."

First of all, anthony clearly said he was an adult when he was exed. Second of all, I don't think that they'll just automatically ex you; they'll work with you and see if you want to change your ways, and then if you don't they cut you loose.

For the record, I don't believe in discriminating or being unkind towards gays. I don't believe that gay people are evil, and neither do most of the religious people I know, mormon or otherwise. They just believe in that queerness is unnatural and wrong and that people who are queer are misguided.

Now I don't know if I agree with that; I don't know very many gay people now. One of my best friends dad was gay and I used to have a good friend in college who was gay. I knew some of his buddies too. I got along with all these famously; I didn't judge them and it didn't get in the way of us being friends. So I don't think gays are evil people; I _am_, however, very sure that homosexuality is learned behavior.

My friends Dad that I mentioned was gay in college, then he got married to a woman, apparently "going straight," and now that he's divorced he's exclusively gay again -- what's up with that? Jeff, my friend from college, said that he didn't start being attracted to men until after he was (what he later knew to be) abused by his stepdad. How people can think it's not enviromental and learned is beyond me.

And another thing; condemning a group for "child abuse" for teaching principles that were the norm for 90% of American society forty years ago is absurd. Of course, you may think everyone who came of age before 1967 was abused. Maybe so, but then how did this country become "great," a vague term but most people I know agree with it.

The ballooning of this response and it's existence show that was once again lying when I said I had no more interest in this. Oh well.

Re: hans, I don't need an "excuse" for my viewpoint, I think it's correct. And your statement that organized JC has caused more harm than hard drugs is not an informed one.

The idea that religion shouldn't teach morals is ludicrous. That's religions _job_. If religion doesn't do it, SOMEONE or SOMETHING else DOES. People aren't DON'T live their lives "born free" on the african plains, with this glorious human intelligence guiding their paths independant of all outside sources. We all have our morals; it's vital for us to try to peacably, voluntarily impose our morals on the world.

I think one problem I have with discussing this crap with people is that a lot of people believe in "many truths" ; they don't neccesarily believe in absolute truth, absolute wrong and right.

Some background information

Surely this is more your parents’ job? Although idyllically when you come to be a little older, and you have the capacity to reason for yourself, you should be able to structure your own set of morals. That’s why religion, the dinosaur it is, is becoming extinct -- it refuses to adapt, to evolve, to think. It’s a brainless dictator.

Oops sorry I misread it!

ST. GEORGE, Utah — Abandoned by his family, faith and community, Gideon Barlow arrived here an orphan from another world.

At first, he played the tough guy, aloof and hard. But when no one was watching, he would cry.

The freckle-faced 17-year-old said he was left to fend for himself last year after being forced out of Colorado City, Ariz., a town about 40 miles east of here, just over the state line.

"I couldn't see how my mom would let them do what they did to me," he said.

When he tried to visit her on Mother's Day, he said, she told him to stay away. When he begged to give her a present, she said she wanted nothing.

"I am dead to her now," he said.

Gideon is one of the "Lost Boys," a group of more than 400 teenagers — some as young as 13 — who authorities in Utah and Arizona say have fled or been driven out of the polygamous enclaves of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City over the last four years.

His stated offenses: wearing short-sleeved shirts, listening to CDs and having a girlfriend. Other boys say they were booted out for going to movies, watching television and staying out past curfew.

Some say they were sometimes given as little as two hours' notice before being driven to St. George or nearby Hurricane, Utah, and left like unwanted pets along the road.

Authorities say the teens aren't really being expelled for what they watch or wear, but rather to reduce competition for women in places where men can have dozens of wives.

"It's a mathematical thing. If you are marrying all these girls to one man, what do you do with all the boys?" said Utah Atty. Gen. Mark Shurtleff, who has had boys in his office crying to see their mothers. "People have said to me: 'Why don't you prosecute the parents?' But the kids don't want their parents prosecuted; they want us to get the No. 1 bad guy — Warren Jeffs. He is chiefly responsible for kicking out these boys."

The 49-year-old Jeffs is the prophet, or leader, of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The FLDS, as it is known, controls Hildale and Colorado City.

The sect, which broke from the Mormon Church more than a century ago, has between 10,000 and 15,000 members. It believes in "plural marriage," that a man must have at least three wives to reach the highest levels of heaven. The Mormon Church forbids polygamy and excommunicates those who practice it.

Polygamy is also illegal, and in recent weeks law enforcement has turned up the heat on the FLDS.

On Friday, Jeffs was indicted in Arizona on charges that he had arranged a marriage between a 28-year-old man, who was already married, and a 16-year-old girl.

He faces two years in prison if convicted, though he hasn't been arrested and is thought to be in Texas.

Article continues at that link above...

Inbreeding among polygamists along the Arizona-Utah border is producing a caste of severely retarded and deformed children

a plastic waterfall

at the end...it seriously made me cry. Touching.

Someone tell me how Big Love is if they watch it. FLDS folx are fucked-up. I have a hard time believing real polyamory/polgamy/polyandry exists, but if it's among consenting adults, that's one thing. All these scary-ass go-nowhere towns out in BFE that are basically incest mills are creepy and evil as anything. That's FLDS polygamy. Growing up Mormon is scary enough, and sexually awkward enough, without your uncle claiming to be prophet of the whole town so all the little daughters can marry their dad's brothers at 14.

Although I must admit to thinking of Harry Reid while watching it.

MORMONS ARE JERKS

thats a stereotype

We get a lot of American Mormons on my street doing missionary work. This must be their version of being sent to the Russian Front.

apparently they send them everywhere

i mean, if you've heard that origin story about the Joseph Smith, the golden plates, and martin and lucy harris and you still think they have a valid point...

(i feel this way about all religions, but with mormons and scientology, its just a whole new lever of stupid)

If I had a big enough lever of stupid I could lift the whole Earth.

swin burning for you? wtf does that mean?

damn! level*

wtf @ u

i mean, if you've heard that origin story about the Joseph Smith, the golden plates, and martin and lucy harris and you still think they have a valid point...

waaahhhht? That is like one of the more clearly dubious parts!

do you believe Adam and Eve were from the midwest, chaki?

I don't know what the hell yr on about...are you mormon?

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT??
xpst

lol

He has discovered that some religions might not be very plausible.

And now we're all living in the aftermath of that discovery, minds blown, jaws agape.

bcz they are "jerks" hahahaha

chaki Mormons believe the Garden of Eden was in Missouri...I think he is thinking you share that belief because you said 'wtf' at him as he is clearly making almost no sense

honestly, im just looking for a fight...

and i think im making tons of sense. mormons are jerks.

well this is one fucking retarded attempt @ a flamewar bcz I don't think you'll find any mormons here, for real

swinburning is basing his theories on a couple of South Park episodes, conveniently forgetting that the Mormons are actually portrayed fairly positively in their twenty minutes of parker/stone treatment.

The ones I meet are polite, well turned-out young men. Or hotties.

have you met mormons new harranguey duder?

oh, i forgot, south park wrote the book of mormon...thanks for reminding me.

abbott, i was pretty sure i wouldn't find any mormons, but i was willing to give it a shot...

and there are plenty of attractive jerks of all religions

I rly think the only way you could say they are "jerks" is if you've been in the system like 10+ years and seen all the behind the scenes shit but yes they are often quite kind people

go to a fucking mormon board then, jesus

im a handsome jew

This is from Doctrine and Covenants.. basically the 'bitch be cool about polygamy' passage imo

51 Verily, I say unto you: A commandment I give unto mine handmaid, Emma Smith, your wife, whom I have given unto you, that she stay herself and partake not of that which I commanded you to offer unto her; for I did it, saith the Lord, to prove you all, as I did Abraham, and that I might require an offering at your hand, by covenant and sacrifice.

52 And let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph, and who are virtuous and pure before me; and those who are not pure, and have said they were pure, shall be destroyed, saith the Lord God.

53 For I am the Lord thy God, and ye shall obey my voice; and I give unto my servant Joseph that he shall be made ruler over many things; for he hath been faithful over a few things, and from henceforth I will strengthen him.

54 And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave 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.

55 But if she will not abide this commandment, then shall my servant Joseph do all things for her, even as he hath said; and I will bless him and multiply him and give unto him an hundred-fold in this world, of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, houses and lands, wives and children, and crowns of eternal lives in the eternal worlds.

56 And again, verily I say, let mine handmaid forgive my servant Joseph his trespasses; and then shall she be forgiven her trespasses, wherein she has trespassed against me; and I, the Lord thy God, will bless her, and multiply her, and make her heart to rejoice.

http://mic.com/articles/104096/there-s-a-suicide-epidemic-in-utah-and-one-neuroscientist-thinks-he-knows-why

oh ffs

To those who analyze violent death data, it's known as the "suicide belt."

ime using a belt for suicide is setting yourself up for failure
do better, rocky mountain west

it's clickbait garbage science. any remotely responsible hypothesis-making in this direction has huge sampling issues unless you can somehow get this kind of data for basically the entire world. idk how blind you have to be to think 'altitude' before 'shared culture' as an indicator for suicide rates in the u.s.

meanwhile return missionary roommate can't stop yammering on about the church. i forget that this is such an issue for these poor souls who leave the flock, i know because i was one, but i just want them to get over it sooner for the good of themselves and everyone else. i get really annoyed these days by "ex-mormons", they are the worst and can't discuss anything except how much they fucking love science or w/e.

i'm bored and frustrated, time to find something to do.

listen to techno imo

man if i lived somewhere i could hear a decent set on the weekends

but i mean, good idea.

Feds fine Mormon church for illicitly hiding $32 billion investment fund behind shell companies
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/mormon-church-multibillion-investment-fund-sec-settlement-rcna71603