Subject:
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Re: Mormon bashing again
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 1 Mar 2000 22:56:53 GMT
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Viewed:
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459 times
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James Brown wrote:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Jeremy H. Sproat writes:
> > Arg. I gotta vent. • <mucho snippage>
> > Still, because I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
> > Saints, I am marked as a zealot seeking political leverage using my church as
> > the crowbar. Fume. If anyone here in lugnet.off-topic.debate wants to flame
> > me for the religion I practice, please feel free to do so. I'd really love to
> > have a rational discussion about this with anyone who harbors negative (or
> > neutral) feelings towards Mormons.
> >
> > Okay, venting over. I feel better now.
>
> Zealot. :)
"My Life for Aiur!" :) Somehow, I don't think that's the sort of Zealot you
meant...
> I don't really have any significant beefs with the LDS - at least, no more
> than I have with any other organized religion(1), including my own. I have
> beefs with some individuals, but I make a distinction between a church and
> it's members. Something I think more people could use... I skimmed that
> thread on /. and noticed a whole lot of broad strokes.
As a historian, one truly marvelous thing about the LDS church is the
recordkeeping. It's stunning, and with good doctrinal reason. It's the only place
to find definitive lineages for a lot of African-American and Native American
families, and it often picks up right where the DuBois Institute database leaves
off in the former case. The most diligent genealogists and recordkeepers I've met
in the course of my own research have been Mormons, almost without exception.
> The only thing I would say that might be "negative" is that one of the local
> Mormon groups seems very insular - in that I have met several Mormons with
> *huge*, apparantly church-bred, misconceptions about everyday society. OTOH,
> I have also met Mormons with a very good idea about what's going on.
Same here. I think that's true of any group, however. (Lord knows, it's true of
academics--supposedly, the academy isn't a religion, but it's hard to tell the
difference some days!) In the Mormon case, I'm not surprised there's a strong
sense of community and insularity in the core group. A couple of times before
reaching Utah the Mormons tried to settle but were forced to move by local
officials and laypeople who decided it would be better to take the law into their
own hands and exterminate the entire group both for being "heathens" and for being
friendly to the Indians. (Joseph Smith was lynched on one of these occasions, at
Nauvoo/Commerce, IL IIRC.) There's definitely a strong Mormon presence in the
wider world, though--it's not a cloistered faith.
> 1:Except Scientology. Legal status aside, that is NOT a religion.
I'm trying to remember the source of the quote about the difference between
something being called a cult and a religion being the number of practitioners and
who's using the term. It might have been Bertrand Russell, which would fill in all
the other blanks by itself. :) Then again, Unitarianism has been called a cult
before too.
best
Lindsay
ObInterestingThing: There's a huge LDS church/mission on Exhibition Road in South
Kensington, London (SW7), right behind the Victoria and Albert Museum and across
the street from Imperial College and the Museum of Natural History. It's a nice
building in itself, but it's surrounded by Victorian architecture on both sides, so
it looks kind of odd in situ. A great piece of real estate, in any case!
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Mormon bashing again
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| In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Lindsay Frederick Braun writes: <ka-schnip!> (...) of real estate, in any case! The local LDS haunt near my office is right off of the freeway; a large white marble fantasy-castle looking building sitting by itself in the (...) (25 years ago, 1-Mar-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: Mormon bashing again
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| (...) :-, (...) Yes, it was this more than anything else that got my goat. (...) Same here. There's a cliche for a Utah Mormon; e.g. "the Church is true, but even more so in Utah". I know a few induhviduals who have earnestly earned that title, but (...) (25 years ago, 2-Mar-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Mormon bashing again
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| (...) <mucho snippage> (...) Zealot. :) I don't really have any significant beefs with the LDS - at least, no more than I have with any other organized religion(1), including my own. I have beefs with some individuals, but I make a distinction (...) (25 years ago, 1-Mar-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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