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Subject: 
Re: Mormon bashing again
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Mon, 6 Mar 2000 04:15:39 GMT
Viewed: 
449 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Jeremy H. Sproat writes:

In fact, legislating morality goes against the concept of free agency, which
is core to our beliefs.

What is this?

And my church is anything but monopolistic nor is it imperialistic.
Missionaries  aren't given conversion quotas.  We aren't instructed to
alienate non-member neighbors and friends (rather, just the opposite).

I had a couple of very charming young women come to my apartment door a couple
of weeks ago and ask if I'd ever heard of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-Day Saints.  They were surprised when I told them that I had and that
I'd toured Nauvoo, and visited the jail in Carthage where the first prophet was
murdered, and followed their trail across southern Iowa.  I was busy packing to
move into my new house (YAY!) so I had to blow them off (and I knew they'd
eventually want to talk about God), but I actually have some questions.  Maybe
you'll field them?  (See below.)

Still, because I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints, I am marked as a zealot

Anyone who discusses their religion is a zealot, right?

If anyone here in lugnet.off-topic.debate wants to flame
me for the religion I practice, please feel free to do so.

It seems you've bee gypped.  No one did.  If you'll supply me with some nasty
religion-appropriate things to say, I'll flame you.

I'd really love to
have a rational discussion about this with anyone who harbors negative (or
neutral) feelings towards Mormons.

OK, well, I mostly have positive feelings, so maybe you're not interested, but
here goes anyway.

Smith revealed the doctrine of celestial (and multiple) marriage at some point,
right?  It was divinely inspired and harkened back to some pretty well
documented tradition from the old testament.  It was - to put it mildly - a
difficult (personally and politically) thing for the church.  Substantially
later, Young reversed this policy, right?  Did the Lord change his mind, or
what?  Was one of the prophets wrong?  (Is it correct that any president of the
church is considered to be a prophet?)

One of my friends is a born-again Christian who grew up in a rural area not far
SW of SLC.  Some of his siblings are LDS.  He feels that the church actively
encourages members to turn away from and almost shun non LDS friends and loved
ones.  Is that your (or anyone else's) experience?  Do you approve?

What about all the weird stories that (I think) appear in the BOM?  Joseph's
discovery of tablets, magical translation glasses, Jesus in the new world with
native cities of gold, etc?  Are these assumed to be true verbatim, or do you
take some kind of allegorical stance on them?

How does mission success compare inside and outside the US?

Maybe I'll come up with more if you deal with these and seem interested.  I
won't be converted because I ultimately don't have need or time for a diety,
but I really do like the story of the Mormons, and I respect you (plural) for
having achieved so much success in the face of so much adversity.

Sincerely,

Christopher Weeks



Message has 1 Reply:
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Message is in Reply To:
  Mormon bashing again
 
Arg. I gotta vent. Slashdot is carrying an article (1) on how the Utah legislature is trying to enfore internet filtering in public libraries. Somehow, this topic has become a Mormon-bashing extravaganza. I was going to post there, but I suspect (...) (25 years ago, 1-Mar-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

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