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How can the Celestial Kingdom be the best heaven if neither of my Dad's kids are there with him? 
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Sep 15, 2016 22:07
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If I could just weigh in on the side of the JWs briefly... Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of cultish, misogynist, abusive religions. But if you're going to join one, I would vastly prefer you go with JWs over Mormons or Scientologists. Or Catholics, for that matter. There's some debate in the JW faith over whether or not they're even allowed to vote, and any sort of political lobbying whatsoever is totally taboo. And while they may treat their kids like poo poo, at least they don't have them kidnapped in the middle of the night and sent to gulags. And they haven't ruined the Boy Scouts. And they don't fight against gay marriage. Like, they treat their own membership like poo poo, but at least they leave the rest of us the gently caress alone.
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Sep 16, 2016 03:26
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Thanatosian posted:If I could just weigh in on the side of the JWs briefly... Yes politically and apart from the door to door visits they generally leave other people alone. I was coming from the angle of actually leaving the religion though, Mormonism does not have any shunning practice built into the religion.
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Sep 16, 2016 06:19
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You know what's always bugged me about the Mormon Church? The name doesn't parse. "The Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints" just sounds wrong. Has anyone ever suggested "The Church of Jesus Christ AND Later Day Saints"? Much better, frankly. I grew up Southern Baptist, which is the most anti-central-structure you can get without straight up being non-denominational. Each church is responsible only to its own members. New pastors are elected by the congregation. You can visit ten Baptist churches and find ten different ideas on faith and rules. There's a Southern Baptist Convention but it's basically a social club with no authority over anyone and you join by having your church go "yep, we believe in Jesus". It's lax as gently caress, so I've always been fascinated by things like Mormonism and those denominations that are way more structured and rigid. I'm agnostic now, but it's still interesting.
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Sep 16, 2016 17:01
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ComposerGuy posted:There's a Southern Baptist Convention but it's basically a social club with no authority over anyone and you join by having your church go "yep, we believe in Jesus". Well, also, historically, there's an 'and slavery' rider on there...
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Sep 16, 2016 18:55
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ComposerGuy posted:You know what's always bugged me about the Mormon Church? The name doesn't parse. "The Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints" just sounds wrong. Has anyone ever suggested "The Church of Jesus Christ AND Later Day Saints"? Loses the meaning. There are three nouns: Church, Jesus Christ, Saints. Latter-day is a an adjective describing the type of Saints. So it's a Church, whose Church? Jesus Christ's Church. Comprised of what? Latter-day Saints. ((Church of Jesus Christ) of Latter-day Saints). It's not super catchy or anything but it's grammatically accurate describing what it is. It can't be "Church of Jesus Christ [and] Latter-day Saints" because the Church belongs to Jesus, not to Jesus and the Saints. The Saints are participants who comprise the Church, which belongs to Jesus. "Jesus Christ's Church of Latter-day Saints" would work well, so any splinter cells hit me up for trademark rights. quote:It's lax as gently caress, so I've always been fascinated by things like Mormonism and those denominations that are way more structured and rigid. The LDS Church (which is what they usually go by because like you said Church of etc. is tedious and awkward) is the most rigorously centralized and hierarchical church I know of. Everything goes up to the Prophet, and they also keep their records well so that I have somewhere a line of priesthood succession from me to Joe Smith. Which is great because it's like "Jesus, Peter, Paul, Joe Smith . . . " Nevermind those other 1800 years, they hosed up man. The Catholic and other liturgical Christians have a hierarchical structure too, and of course in the Eastern religions we have the student-disciple relationship which creates a de facto hierarchy, but it's more linear than the LDS thing. The LDS thing is so standardized that you can go from any branch to any other branch and basically just plug right in. Everything comes from the same official channels, and like was said earlier, you can even head across the country catching the same lesson series in order in YM/YW/RS etc. They have satellite TV and projectors in all the wards and most branches so that when they do their yearly teachings with the Apostles/Prophets they can livestream it all to their local branches as if you were there. I mean it's really put together, they do have their poo poo together. I mean, not theologically but necessarily but their logistics is on point. Incidentally I left the Church because the "continual revelation" started conflicting with my own experience and that is a big problem. A lot of Mormon theology is very internally consistent if you accept all the premises, but one of the biggest and most important premises that it hinges on is the idea of continual revelation. The idea is that Peter was also called to be the Prophet, the mouthpiece of God who gives continual revelation. All through the Bible from beginning to end we have Prophets who give real-time advice, law, rules, etc. to God's people. After Christ we have the Acts of the Apostles and then we have the Letters (also from Prophets), but after that it stops. The Mormon line goes that it stopped because the Church done hosed up, and with the restored church (LDS Church) God went "okay, no more trying to go it without a Prophet, y'all gently caress it up when I do that so you will forever more have a Prophet now." The Prophet supposedly literally meets with Jesus in the Temple, like they hang out and have tea or something, and Jesus tells him what's up and how to run the Church. The Prophet and other Apostles I think also get to hang out with Jesus occasionally. The Apostles appoint the Quorum, and it goes down the hierarchy from there. So supposedly every Bishop of every Branch or Ward is supposed to be able to serve as the prophet, providing revealed guidance to the people of that branch. There's also as we mentioned the Patriarchs who provide the big picture revelation for someone's entire eternity. Anyhow, I was a "golden investigator" in that I sought out the missionaries and converted intentionally, but I quit over the issue of divine revelation being the lynchpin that holds that together. When I went to college I now had two bishops, one of which had said to me "nah you need to go to college, family is important, don't piss them off by going on a mission right away" and another going "nah, you need to go on a mission right now man, just wait 2 years for college" and my parents going "we will disinherit your rear end immediately idiot." So over all that I kind of came to the conclusion that it wasn't working out. I did become an atheist briefly after that, well, for some time actually, but now fell comfortably into Buddhism, where I am fulfilling basically all of my patriarchal blessing about being a leader and teacher of the truth and so on, it's just not the Mormon truth lmao
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Sep 16, 2016 18:57
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Solaron posted:That was also the beginning of my path to leaving the LDS faith and religion in general behind. I started to read more things that the church labels "anti" (anti-Mormon literature - not always anti-Mormon, but anything that doesn't agree with the LDS perspective was considered anti by my giant, extended family). I read stories about Zelph - a Native American skeleton found in a burial mound by a group that Joseph Smith was traveling with, and that he created a big backstory for - learned that when he died, it wasn't just a mob breaking into his jail cell, but that there had been guns smuggled in and a shootout, that he had destroyed printing presses printing things he didn't agree with, married young girls. So then I tried to justify my faith in general and talked to my Stake President (basically someone in charge of all of the local congregations for a group of counties or large city, etc) who answered my doubts by saying "Well, what's the worst thing that happens if the church isn't true? You're paying tithing - basically a membership fee - to be part of an organization that teaches you how to be a good member of society, how to be a good parent and how to be moral. Isn't that worth something"? This is random, but if you're into Sci fi you might get a kick out of The Star Fraction 
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Sep 16, 2016 18:58
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Do you get the Spooky Mormon Hell Dream?
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Sep 16, 2016 19:13
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Where does genealogy fit into the whole thing?
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Sep 16, 2016 20:32
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In case the name doesn't give it away, I'm a former mormon who grew up in not Utah, but eventually moved to Utah. I'm technically inactive although I'm really a teacup atheist. Most of my massive extended family is mormon, to varying degrees. I moved to Utah after I was basically done with religion, and it was a bit of a culture shock but it doesn't really bother me much anymore, I think I actually prefer it. To Las Vegas anyways, which I know isn't saying much. In Utah, everyone just assumes you're mormon unless they have a reason to believe otherwise, just like a lot of people would assume you're generally Christian unless proven otherwise in the rest of the country. I was a stickler about this at first, but I've learned that my life is easier if I don't go out of my way to correct people, particularly in any sort of business setting. There's plenty to roll your eyes about with it comes to mormonism, but I think it gets an extra scrutiny because most of the concepts are new to people, and all the supposed divine magical stuff happened more recently. Sure there's a ton of absurd poo poo, but faith is full of absurd poo poo, you've just heard most of it for so long it no longer seems dumb anymore. Is the fact that a dude who's banging his maid and suddenly receives revelation that he's supposed to marry her when he gets caught that much more or less believable than the unwed teenager who suddenly was told by an angel that 'god did it' when she has to explain to her future husband why she's already pregnant? I know that deep down I could never really believe in mormonism, but sometimes I do consider just going along with it. I know this is anecdotal as gently caress, but every member of my family who is really into mormonism is successful and happy. Some of them might be faking how happy they are, but at least a few that I'm close to I know are pretty pleased with their lives. Meanwhile the rest of us who are non religious are, to a man, total fuckups like me. And small town Utah is not without it's charms. I actually like how people tend to be nice to each other and say hello. Whenever I go back to Las Vegas and do that, all I get are confused looks or nasty glares. I know that using a sample size of my own family members and one non-Utah town is way to small to draw any real conclusions, but it's enough to bother me.
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Sep 16, 2016 20:43
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stubblyhead posted:Where does genealogy fit into the whole thing? Okay so Mormons believe that everyone is given a chance to learn and accept Mormonism in the next life. They also believe that you need to have certain ordinances performed (an ordinance is something like baptism for example). Of course this can't be done by the individuals because they are dead. So Mormons do baptisms by proxy in the temples. This is mostly done by 12-17 year olds. Dead people will also have the full temple ceremony performed for them again by proxy as well as being sealed as a family. Mormons believe God is essentially holding their ancestors to ransom. They are kept in a spiritual waiting area until the all the earthly ordinances have been performed, then they get let out and enjoy paradise and wait for the resurrection. For some people it can generate an awful lot of guilt if they aren't finding their ancestors through genealogy so the ordinances can be performed and they get released out of the prison.
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Sep 16, 2016 20:47
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I remember there was a whole hullabaloo a few years ago. Holocaust survivors were getting a bunch of help from the mormon church, or at least a genealogy company closely associated with the mormon church (note: that is basically all of them), with their genealogy and cataloging all the Jews that died and their families and poo poo. Then eventually the survivors found out that all their dead family members were getting posthumous mormon baptisms on the side.
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Sep 16, 2016 21:03
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counterfeitsaint posted:I remember there was a whole hullabaloo a few years ago. Holocaust survivors were getting a bunch of help from the mormon church, or at least a genealogy company closely associated with the mormon church (note: that is basically all of them), with their genealogy and cataloging all the Jews that died and their families and poo poo. Then eventually the survivors found out that all their dead family members were getting posthumous mormon baptisms on the side. There are large and comprehensive records of Jewish victims of the holocaust and the Mormon church basically went down the list. This caused a big stink because it was disrespectful to the Jewish people who died basically as martyrs to get (literally) dunked by Mormons, and the Church promised to stop. This actually was going on right around when I was in the Church and it was mostly a lot of under the breath "can't believe those Jews didn't want saved" along with a small minority going "well they were God's chosen people first, I'm sure they'll change their minds after we rebuild Zion." Mormons are literally Zionists, it's just they think that Zion is going to be in Missouri.
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Sep 16, 2016 21:19
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Paramemetic posted:Mormons are literally Zionists, it's just they think that Zion is going to be in Missouri. This is the most depressing thing I've ever heard. So, I'm guessing that the reason the Mormons didn't just settle in Missouri was that Missouri didn't want them? So they went to Utah because it had yet to really be settled by white people and they decided to use that as a base of operations while casting glances at Missouri and muttering "soon"?
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Sep 17, 2016 04:59
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ComposerGuy posted:This is the most depressing thing I've ever heard. Basically yes. They claimed a spot in Jackson County, Missouri and decided that was going to be the spot where when they build the temple it'll kick off the second coming. This prompted a bunch of Mormons from all over to move in to build it up. Then because so many Mormons were moving in and it was going to gently caress up voting for slavery, as most Mormons were from the North and pro-abolition, the locals basically evicted them from their town. The Mormons gathered up their posse and it turned into a series of skirmishes that ultimately resulted in Smith being arrested but then allowed to escape, and the Mormons all moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, where, fresh out of having their asses handed to them, they proceeded to build a bigass standing army for self protection. These days the Temple Lot in Independence belongs to the RLDS church, as it belonged to Smith's family and where the LDS Church recognized Young as the next in charge, RLDS followed Smith's ... Brother? Son? I don't remember. But anyways yes the Temple Lot is something that the LDS Church desperately wants so they can put a nice temple there and invite Jesus over for
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Sep 17, 2016 06:54
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ComposerGuy posted:This is the most depressing thing I've ever heard. Its also interesting that US Mormons are so gosh darn patriotic now. They went to Utah so they could get away from the US and practice polygamy freely. Members also conveniently forgot about the oath of vengeance against the US that used to be in the temple ceremony: "You and each of you do covenant and promise that you will pray and never cease to pray to Almighty God to avenge the blood of the prophets upon this nation, and that you will teach the same to your children and to your children's children unto the third and fourth generation." That wasn't removed until the 1930's.
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Sep 17, 2016 07:22
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Not spending money (or working) on Sundays is a nice family policy but it's terrible while traveling and you either have a sandwich in a cooler from yesterday or feel guilty buying a minimal dinner at a restaurant. And bringing church clothes to attend the local ward. My parents are coming next month and they'll probably tell the missionaries all about me. Again :/
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Sep 17, 2016 08:41
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peanut posted:My parents are coming next month and they'll probably tell the missionaries all about me. Again :/ I hate when I get assigned the really ambitious hometeachers who think they can reactivate me; It just gets uncomfortable when they ask if they can come in and I say no.
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Sep 17, 2016 20:29
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Anyway here is the brief write up of how mormons describe the priesthood. To start with mormons consider the priesthood to be the most important thing in the church (which only men can have). Their definition of the priesthood is that its "the power and authority to act in the name of God". Everything God does is through the power of the priesthood, the creation of the universe and the rules that governs it as well are all done through the priesthood. Jesus's miracles were done through the priesthood, the prophet today does everything through the priesthood. Blah blah blah priesthood priesthood priesthood priesthood. So yeah very important in mormon theology. The priesthood is split into two parts, each one supposedly traces back to Adam when he got them from God. 1. Is the Aaronic priesthood, this is called the preparatory priesthood and is given to young men at the age of 12. It has three offices (well technically the Bishop is the 4th office but we are getting into  there) which are split thus:Deacon - Given to 12 - 13 year olds and at this age they can given out the bread and water during the sacrament service. Teacher - Given to 14-15 year olds. You can prepare the bread and water (putting them on the little trays), you can also go out with an adult male companion to visit members of the congregation as a home teacher. Priest - Given to 16-17 year olds. At this point you can bless the sacrament (read out the prayers during the service) and you can also baptise people as well. So who are some famous dudes who held this priesthood? Well John the Baptist for one, he had the aaronic priesthood so he could baptise Jesus. How do you get this priesthood? The priesthood is given to worthy males and is given by the laying on of hands which looks like this:  I gave you this image so you could print it out and color it in. If I remember my church handbook of instructions a Priest can ordain and a deacon and a teacher. As the church believes they are the only ones who have the priesthood a 12 year old deacon holds more power and authority than the pope. Spend enough time in the church and you will hear this often. I will go into why the history of the priesthood and the Melchizedek (the best one) priesthood in my next post.
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Sep 17, 2016 23:28
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So like, is the priesthood given to ALL good Mormon males or just a select few? Like if you don't get it are you looked down upon?
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Sep 18, 2016 00:16
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ComposerGuy posted:So like, is the priesthood given to ALL good Mormon males or just a select few? Like if you don't get it are you looked down upon? You can be ordained at age 12 into the first rung of the ladder (Aaronic Priesthood). Brigham Young was not a fan of African members entering the priesthood. Although it was never an official church doctrine, but rather an unofficial one. Its pretty much given to any male members in good standing. Experience: Ex Mormon after 21 years of membership.
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Sep 18, 2016 01:17
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Just wanted to chime in and say thank you to all of the posters for shedding some insider light on this subject. I've been particularly intrigued by the inter-generational logistics of how this organization works. With what I've read here, I feel a bunch of mixed emotions but for now I'll say that I'm genuinely impressed.
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Sep 18, 2016 02:35
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ComposerGuy posted:So like, is the priesthood given to ALL good Mormon males or just a select few? Like if you don't get it are you looked down upon? When I joined the church at age 18 I was given the Aaronic Priesthood the week after and the Melchizedek Priesthood the week after that I think. Melchizedek Priesthood way better and cooler, but Aaronic Priesthood gives you command over angels so you know, still pretty dope. They give it to all men because you cannot have a family if you don't have the Melchizedek Priesthood.
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Sep 18, 2016 02:52
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CommieGIR posted:You can be ordained at age 12 into the first rung of the ladder (Aaronic Priesthood). Brigham Young was not a fan of African members entering the priesthood. Although it was never an official church doctrine, but rather an unofficial one. Now the previous 1978 thing is always referred to as the priesthood ban for black people, it was far more reaching than that. In Mormon terms it was a ban on exaltation. Black people could not go to temples pre 1978, so you would be unable to learn the handshakes and passwords to get past the angels standing as sentinels in front of heaven (yes this is a thing). So basically black people would have been unable to get to the celestial Kingdom pre 1978. The closest a black person got to this was Jane Manning. She was an early convert to the church and ended up in Utah. Throughout her life she begged to be allowed into the temple so she could be sealed to her family. Church leadership denied her request each time. Lucky for her though, the leaders created a special ceremony for her where she was sealed to Joseph Smith as his eternal servant, what a special blessing for her!!!!!! The more I learn about church history the more embarrassed I am for being a member for so long.
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Sep 18, 2016 09:09
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First of all, thank you for posting this thread and for everyone's comment on it. Mormonism intrigues me as an institution, but I'm happy with my current religion and I refuse to give up coffee or begin to consider women as nothing but babymakers. I have some questions on Mormonism: - Which countries outside the US garner the most converts for LDS? Which are the toughest customers for missionaries? I ask because when I lived in Kyiv, Ukraine, the locals were very suspicious of the local LDS branch and employees of an IT company I used to tutor said the Mormon missionaries "creeped them out". A lot of Kyivans seem to agree and commented that Mormons "were not Christians". Kyiv hosts several American-sponsored Evangelical churches which are fairly popular, so I was curious why locals were wary of the Mormons. - I heard a rumor that the US State Department is being infiltrated with Mormons. Is there any truth to this? - Is there a movement to allow women in the LDS church to be ordained to the priesthood?
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Sep 18, 2016 09:16
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GREAT WHITE NORTH posted:First of all, thank you for posting this thread and for everyone's comment on it. Mormonism intrigues me as an institution, but I'm happy with my current religion and I refuse to give up coffee or begin to consider women as nothing but babymakers. I have some questions on Mormonism: South America and Africa are the hotshots for the church these last few decades. North American growth is basically from births in the church. Europe is losing members year by year. The first temple that goes up for sale will be in western Europe. Never spent any time in the Ukraine so I can't comment. I don't know what the stats actually are but I think it's Mormon folklore that there are tons of Mormons in the government. Supposedly the cia likes the church because it creates people fluent in other languages and trained never to question authority. There is an ordain women movement, they are almost as batshit crazy as the leadership in the church and you can get excommunicated for supporting it.
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Sep 18, 2016 09:25
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Triggered posted:The more I learn about church history the more embarrassed I am for being a member for so long. Don't feel bad. Me too.
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Sep 18, 2016 12:11
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You can check stats by country. http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/facts-and-statistics/country/israel Those are official numbers, including inactive members. The internet estimates less/inactive members are around 50% in the US, 60% in Europe/Africa and 75% in Asia/South America.
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Sep 18, 2016 13:49
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Triggered posted:so you would be unable to learn the handshakes and passwords to get past the angels standing as sentinels in front of heaven (yes this is a thing). Do you have to get it right on the first try? I feel like I could probably get it with a few guesses.
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Sep 18, 2016 17:03
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stubblyhead posted:Do you have to get it right on the first try? I feel like I could probably get it with a few guesses. I've heard Mormon folklore where exmos are supposed to forget things in the temple ceremony after you have left the church. I could go through the whole thing now with no problem, or could I  ?
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Sep 18, 2016 17:09
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Presumably if it's just a set of lines and actions you have to know someone's put them up on the internet anyway.
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Sep 18, 2016 22:54
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If anyone wants to be thoroughly bored you can look up a guy on YouTube called newnamenoah. He has snuck a camera into pretty much every part of the temple ceremony. It's so incredibly dull I could not bring myself to watch it again.
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Sep 18, 2016 22:59
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You're still here?
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Sep 19, 2016 07:54
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feedmegin posted:This is random, but if you're into Sci fi you might get a kick out of The Star Fraction Ok, I'll check it out - the blurb I saw looks interesting.
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Sep 19, 2016 13:09
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I know reddit is unpopular on here but the exmormon subreddit can be a brilliant source of information. My exit from Mormonism was fairly tame but you will see the occasional wtf story on there as well as some stuff I had never heard of before. Many stories on there showing some Mormons just don't understand boundaries like doing underwear checks. I will answer the best I can on here but there are guys who obviously know far more than me.
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Sep 19, 2016 19:52
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Triggered posted:I know reddit is unpopular on here but the exmormon subreddit can be a brilliant source of information. My exit from Mormonism was fairly tame but you will see the occasional wtf story on there as well as some stuff I had never heard of before. Many stories on there showing some Mormons just don't understand boundaries like doing underwear checks. ...underwear checks?
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Sep 19, 2016 20:54
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Munchables posted:...underwear checks? When you go through the temple ceremony for the first time you get the garments to wear. So you wear white shorts that go down to the knee and Wear a white t-shirt. Just Google Mormon garments and you will see what they look like. Now then although this has never happened to me I have heard of many stories of a member coming up to someone and rubbing their upper arm in a supposed friendly manner. This is to feel for the garment line, if you are a good Mormon you will be wearing the garment and they will be able to tell. Also apparently girls dating Mormon boys would put their hand on the knee to feeliminate for the garment line on the shorts. I would understand the former happening more than the latter.
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Sep 19, 2016 21:02
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Well I think this thread has run its course, hopefully you have found some interesting things in here. My ability to browse the forums is going to further hampered so I won't be able to check for replies etc.
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Sep 20, 2016 04:08
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