Fair enough. I suppose I have a slightly higher standard of "nice" than interpersonal superficialities. Although in the case of openly deriding others, yes, I've seen it. Certainly not at a higher rate than the general populace, probably, though I'm hard pressed to say it's any lower, at least in my frame of reference.

Yeah, madnak makes a valid point. I would say my dad qualifies as homophobic and misogynistic, but I imagine most people who know him in a superficial way - or who agree with his worldview - think he is nice.

Well, I think a higher than normal proportion of Mormons do put effort into helping others. But interpersonal superficialities are what it's all about for the majority, at least in Salt Lake. Avoiding what we call bigotry is decidedly not what it's all about.

Where in that chapter does it talk about paying 10% of your income if you want to participate in temple stuff?

Nice how tithing is tax deductible though.

OK, let's be clear here. Joseph Smith came up with something he called the "endowment" which was based on a bunch of secret handshakes and incantations that were used by the Masonic Lodge he belonged to. He rewrote the script so instead of these rites symbolizing the bonds shared by Masons, they became the secret passwords to enter heaven (the Celestial Kingdom) through a veil staffed by God's servants. Smith required all adult members of his church to go through an initiatory rite where they would learn the secret handshakes and symbols that they would use when they died.

Smith attached "penalties" to this endowment. These were promises that if Mormons revealed the contents of the endowment, they would agree to have their lives taken in violent and brutal ways. Those of us who are cynical and non-Mormon might infer that the reason for the penalties was to prevent Mormons from revealing to the public the content of the ceremony so that everyone would know that Smith stole the ceremony from the Masons.

Over the years, the Church softened up the ceremony, including by removing the penalties. Fine. But the church has fought bitterly against the publication of the ceremony on the Internet, even though (1) the ceremony was actually published several times over the last hundred years, so we even know the changes that the Church has made to the ceremony, (2) numerous websites have published transcripts of the ceremony, and (3)-- and this is the most brazen-- tape recorded AUDIO of the ceremony is available online.

So I encourage everyone to listen to the audio and then e-mail "mithrayk" at his address, asking him why he would come onto this website and lie to us so brazenly. He deserves a good flaming for this.

Why are Mormons so nice? I say this half jokingly because I know most of them are just as homophobic as the evangelical Christian set, but they're nicer about it. I've had them come to my doorstep on a summer morning before and try to preach to me, and they are always well-dressed and polite. You won't see the local Mormon dude preaching on a college campus about how gays are going to hell. Mormons may believe it, and they may focus their resources on defeating gay rights initiatives, but at least they aren't in your face homophobic or with any of their other beliefs. Kinda like the orthodox Jews I guess, who like the Mormons have the same beliefs on this issue, but keep their cool about it.

I will also say this about groups, particularly evangelical Christians, that think that the Mormons are full of ****. How are they any less full of **** than you are? Or any religious group that you can name? No one has any proof that a god or gods actually exist. Sure, it seems far-fetched to think that this <200 year old religion that is Mormonism could be correct, but it's no more ridiculous than believing as most Christians and Jews do that a man lived in a whale for three days, or that someone turned water into wine (I know Mormons believe in these stories too but just wanted to give examples).

Well, the Mormon church is very focused on proselytizing. All Christian religions are to varying degrees, but in the good 'ol days you could gain converts by threatening to chop people's heads off. Newer religions are going to need a serious emphasis on public relations training right down to the young children, because that's the only way to gain converts in today's world.

Bahá'í is another example of a young religion experiencing great success through slick PR and marketing imo. Remember all the tv commercials a few years back?

I'm trying to figure out how Scientology fits into my theory.

Scientology is VERY well marketed. Indeed, when you think about what a celebrity-driven society we live in, where Oprah recommends a book or goes on a liquid diet and millions of people follow her, the Scientology marketing strategy of having a huge presence in Hollywood is brilliant.

I Understand mormons enjoy baptyzing dead people.Do you think I could get my dead uncle vern dunked.

I only got his ashes, will that work?

It will get the water dirty, and he'll end up in the filter.

Another cool thing I didn't learn about the endowment until the past couple of years is that until about 1927, the ceremony included an oath of vengeance against the U.S. govt., who they blamed for the death of Joseph Smith (lol). This was one of the reasons that the Senate attempted to have Senator Reed Smoot removed from office (since as a practicing Mormon he had taken this oath himself). http://1857massacre.com/MMM/oath_of_vengeance.htm

I also understand that an actual sword was used to reinforce the severity of the death oaths until about that time as well.

How does the church currently handle the general lack of historical and archaeological evidence for tribes and events depicted in the BOM? I know they have their own research arm but there doesn't seem to be much evidence that any peoples in the BIN existed, so what is the church's stance on this?

Its obviously supposed to be interpreted allegorically.

Ah, if only that were the case, but mormons certainly do believe their book depicts a real history of the americas. Unfortunately, unlike the bible that does contain actual people and tribes generally supported by historical evidence, the BOM does not.

The Mormons don't handle historical inaccuracies any worse or differently than any other major religious groups does. The only problem for Mormons is that because the history took place more recently, it's easier to poke holes in the story. (This is the same problem Scientology faces-- Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all have the convenient fallback position that God only shows up at times and places where there is no accurate way of recording events.)

But when a Christian or Jew says "well the seven days didn't have to be 24 hours each", that's not really that different from what Mormons say about the Book of Abraham.

Cool thread, thanks OP. I'm going to read all of it before I ask anything.

Since Mormonism is bound to be in the news more often in the next couple of months, thought I'd bump this thread.

I asked this in the JW thread, and didn't get a response, so maybe it's a dumb question but:

Most Mormons I've known have been really nice and kind people. Raised protestant christian myself, I can definitely say the ratio of nice mormons I've known (100%) is much higher than that of normal christians (though much smaller sample size, of course). While I think that a lot of what the mormon church does or has done is immoral (prop 8, breaking up families over beliefs), I have to think that something is working right within its structure to produce these relatively kind people. ?

Hue (and others),

I assume you are no longer a member?

If yes, how did you get out?

I'll echo this question. Those damn Mormons are always so damn happy/helpful. And imo they're actually genuine, too. I think this is one of their main drawing points for people who aren't born into the religion.

btw, my favorite personal Mormon experience. I'm out in Taiwan with about a dozen Baptist college kids, doing missions for the summer. We get sorta tired of the culture and to escape, we go to the one Tex-Mex style restaurant in the city. While we're having a great American time eating ribs, etc..., we notice there are two other white guys (obv ~20 yr old Mormon missionaries) sitting across the restaurant. A friend and I decide to go say hey. Sit down next to them in their booth, and the following conversation happens:

me: hey guys, we saw you across the room, thought we'd come over and say hey!
friend: yeah, I'm Jordan and this is Joe. What are yall's names?
mormon dude: My name is Elder Thompson, and this is Elder Gordon.
friend and i: .....
friend: WOW, THAT'S CRAZY! You both have the same first name?!!?
mormon dudes: .....

Made for a pretty short conversation.

Technically I'm still a member because I haven't pulled my records, but I just stopped going. I really don't feel the need to go through the whole process of removing my records because I just don't care enough either way. For the most part that's enough.

Some guy went into the Temple with multiple hidden cameras and filmed portions of the temple ceremony.

Here's a summary video (this includes the secret handshakes to get into heaven):



A temple prayer circle:



No, doesn't seem cult-like at all.

are Mormon chicks easy?

maybe its just the cult-like attire, or the demeanor/inflection of the leader of the prayer circle but this seems like pretty scary stuff. Not a horror movie you know isn't real scary but terrifying holy **** this actually happens scary