TheDukester wrote:Redstar wrote:But the atrocity I always remember is the
Mountain Meadows Massacre, when an emigrant wagon train was attacked and 120 men, women, and children were killed.
Really? That's the one you "always remember"? So you lifted your description of the events, word for word, from the Wikipedia page? If it means so much to you, you'd think you could come up with your own words to describe it ...
Worse yet, you'll paint an entire religion — and quite a large one, too — based on an event from
150 years ago? Three words for that: complete fucking bullshit.
Do you actually have any experience in Mormon communities? I have quite a bit myself, being in the middle of quite the LDS region (I live not that far north of Genoa, Nev., the site of the oldest Mormon settlement west of Illinois) and having once been engaged to a Mormon girl. Here's what I've found, generally speaking, to be true about Mormons: they are big believers in the importance of family; they are law-and-order people; and they are big on education and faith. In my world, none of these are bad things. About the worst I can say about the LDSers is that I have to shoo a couple of them off my porch once every six or eight weeks when they drop by to talk about the Book of Mormon. Big deal.
Now, am I saying that all LDSers are like this Molly and Norman Mormon picture I'm painting? Of course not. Unlike you, I will not paint with that broad of a brush. As I said above, these have been my general impressions after having spent most of a lifetime in a strong Mormon area and around Mormon families. I'm sure there are Mormons in my area who are, right now, doing less-than-wonderful things, but I'm also sure I can say the same thing about people in any other religious group you can name.
Seriously, you and SwordMaster need to get a fucking grip before you start in with more of your nonsense. You're both coming across like a couple of 12-year-olds with grudges. If you want to
discuss religion, or even
debate it, that's fine,
but do some research and gather some facts (example: the LDS church has officially not sanctioned polygamy since 1890. So the very, very tiny percentage of Mormons who still practice it are part of splinter groups who are operating illegally and without church sanction. These are the types of groups who are profiled in the Krakauer book mentioned above. Great book, I've read it twice, but it represents the beliefs of about one-hundredth of one percent of all Mormons today. Do you guys even
get this? Do you understand that no one is more ashamed of these radical idiots
than the Mormons themselves?).
So, then: time to do your homework. Maybe come up with something better than a 150-year-old incident the next time you decide to rant about a subject you clearly know very little about. Fair warning: the next time you insult a number of people who I consider good friends (close to family, in some cases) with some weak-ass, childish bullshit, I will
go off. I will light you up like the Fourth of July.
The reason I "lifted" word for word from Wikipedia is because I had class to go to, so I didn't want to bother sitting around typing up my own words on something that doesn't require anything more than a direct quote. Not only that, but I provided the link to the Wikipedia page to acknowledge that that's where I took those lines from.
And yes, I'm going to paint the entire religion in that light. I wont go so far as to generalize every follower of that particular faith, but I will say that that religion was formed for nearly the same reasons as Scientology and therefore I do not consider it a true faith. Perfectly respectable and otherwise intelligent people can be gullible or conditioned to believe anything.
I realize that LDS practices have changed from their creation, but that still does not change the fact the it was originally bullshit. You can't just decide to change what "truth" you believe in and expect it to be any more true, especially when the truth you're trying to find is coming from a lie. If anything, the modern LDS church is a splinter group off of "true" Mormanism, and those people out their practicing polygamy are following what was clearly defined by Joseph Smith.
In any case, there is striking evidence
against Mormonism. Sure, there's evidence against practically every one of the Judeo-Christian-Arabic derivatives, but those are focused more on faith and metaphor than any established fact. Mormonism, however, claims such things as Native Americans being descendants of Hebrews crossing the ocean. This idea was disproved by a
MORMON follower, who was shortly thereafter excommunicated and sued. I seriously will not consider any religion formed by an oversexed pedophile as the true word of any God, unless we really are in a fucked up universe. Not only that, but he was a terrible writer.