Do you find Mormonism to be less authentic than other major religions?

[m1ldslide1]

I also feel that mormons are no more or less authentic than any other religion - as an atheist / agnostic, I kind of have to have that opinion.

That said, I've really really liked just about every mormon I've ever met. I won't stereotype them as all being like that, but each one has been very personable, non-judgemental, and personally fulfilled (at least appears that way).

 

[Gothgar]

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
Everything I know about Mormons I learned from SouthPark. So, based on that I do think it's a bit loony. Other things I've learned from SouthPark are, Trapper Keepers are capable of becoming evil monsters, crab people are behind most plots against humanity, and if lava is flowing towards you duck & cover.

"lava!!!! duck and cover!!!"

*dies in a horrible fiery death*

 

[hanoverphist]

Originally posted by: edro
The three major religions, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, are all three based off of the Old Testament. They all three diverge after this relationship.
Of each, they further diverge into denominations and sects.

Mormonism, and similar religions follow one of these paths for a while and then diverge later, based on actual (or fictional) events. In Mormonism's example, it would be the actions and events surrounding Joseph Smith.

Does a religious sect that was created more recently hold less credibility with you?

Even if you are an agnostic, atheist or Buddhist, do you put more "faith" in someone who follows one of the major 3 religions' older sects, opposed to someone following one of the more recent sects?

they all, old and new, hold little credibility with me. they are all self-serving.

 

[sutahz]

Just because a religion is old doesn't make it more right or correct, it just means perhaps lots of people have been following a lie for a very very long time. We take comfort in familiarity so something new is alarming.
People are basically good but every religion has bad people in it's ranks (theives, molesters, etc). A religion that motivates people to go on suicide runs and other acts of terrorism, I do look down upon.

 

[thepd7]

Originally posted by: nakedfrog
It doesn't really seem that much wackier than most other religions to me, regardless of age. Genuine Mormons are usually really nice folks, too.

Originally posted by: thespeakerbox
Mormon arent accepted as Christians because they are not. They are mormons.

They believe Jesus was the son of God. Close enough for me.

That's a whole 'nother can of worms.

 

[PricklyPete]

Originally posted by: edro
The three major religions, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, are all three based off of the Old Testament.

I didn't realize how narrow people are. The three "major" religions huh. Forget about all those Hindus, Buddhist, etc...there's only a handful of them...

 

[hanoverphist]

Originally posted by: m1ldslide1
I also feel that mormons are no more or less authentic than any other religion - as an atheist / agnostic, I kind of have to have that opinion.

That said, I've really really liked just about every mormon I've ever met. I won't stereotype them as all being like that, but each one has been very personable, non-judgemental, and personally fulfilled (at least appears that way).

wow, ive had the exact opposite over the years. mormon girls in hs were the total closet partiers and sex hounds, the missionaries annoy the hell out of people all thru my area, and the day i moved into my house i was visited by a group of deacons that wanted to know my church affiliation while i was moving furniture. when i told them to let be get moved in before talking to me about it, they said ok and "blessed" my front yard and prayed for 10 minutes at the top of the guys lungs. i finally chased them out of my yard and told them to go find some lost sheep to try to herd. now, i do have friends that are mormons. they arent all that crazy. but the sane/nice ones are definitely the minority in my experiences.

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: PricklyPete

Originally posted by: edro
The three major religions, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, are all three based off of the Old Testament.

I didn't realize how narrow people are. The three "major" religions huh. Forget about all those Hindus, Buddhist, etc...there's only a handful of them...

That reminds me of that Simpsons episode... where Reverend Lovejoy is talking and says something along the lines of "be you Christian, or Jew, or... miscellaneous" (in reference to Apu)
Then Apu says "Hindu! There are 700 million of us!"

 

[torpid]

Even though I will soon have a sister-in-law who is mormon, I find the religion pretty strange and can't see the appeal at all. It has nothing to do with how old the religion is so much as the totally ridiculous way in which the religion came into existence. I am also greatly bothered by the way mormons deal with polygamy - at least from what I have seen, the common practice is to deny that Smith was a polygamist and pretend like Brigham Young wasn't, rather than accept that they were fallible people who were living a lifestyle that is no longer acceptable to mainstream LDS.

 

[KB]

Yes the more modern a religion the wackier/ less authentic it seems. If your book is the word of God, then it should be timeless and unchanging. There should never be any new revelations because that means God word is flawed or the people that teach it were teaching flawed policy.


On a side note:
Wow! Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1 billion! Nows our time to create a republic based on our lack of faith!

The problem is our lack of faith also means our lack of cohesion, so we aren't going to fight any religious wars.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Insane is as insane does. It doesn't matter if your fairy tales were written yesterday or 50,000 years ago, they're still fairy tales.

 

[Analog]

I find people who post such nonsensical polls on religion to be less authentic.

 

[meltdown75]

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt
Insane is as insane does. It doesn't matter if your fairy tales were written yesterday or 50,000 years ago, they're still fairy tales.

as useless as it is to reply to your trollish posts, can you humour me?

does faith = insanity to you? you realize just how large of a percentage of the human population - both past, present, and future - you are writing off based on that assumption, right? never mind, of course you realize that.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Originally posted by: meltdown75

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt
Insane is as insane does. It doesn't matter if your fairy tales were written yesterday or 50,000 years ago, they're still fairy tales.

as useless as it is to reply to your trollish posts, can you humour me?

does faith = insanity to you? you realize just how large of a percentage of the human population - both past, present, and future - you are writing off based on that assumption, right? never mind, of course you realize that.

Depends on how you define faith. I have faith the sun will rise in the east, I have faith my family and friends won't let me down, etc. That's not insane.

But if you define faith as believing in an invisible magic man that lives in the sky, then yes, I think that's insane. Deal with it.

If your "faith" was truly strong and you were utterly sure that your invisible man in the sky was real I wouldn't be able to bother you so much. But the fact that you resort to the pathetic "troll" excuse to explain away anyone that doesn't share in your fairy tales merely proves the shallowness of your own "faith". I bother you because I ask the questions that you can't answer and you're so shaken by your inability to answer that you're afraid of the questions even being asked. Tough.

Is believing in leprechauns insane? Is believing in dragons insane? Is believing that your shoes are haunted insane? Is believing that your thoughts are being controlled by men in back helicopters insane? The reason you think that the people who believe in those things are crazy is precisely why I feel that your belief in invisible men in the sky is crazy.

 

[BoomerD]

It ain't the Church of LSD fer nuthin...you GOTTA be high to believe some of the stuff the Mormons do...

 

[ViperXX]

Their background story is ridiculous - golden plates, dualing isrealites in america, come on now. Their leader, joseph smith was obsessed with himself and money. He supposed translated hieroglyphics with some stone and a hat, locked in his house for 3 months. He told no one else about his supposed discovery until he bounded the text in leather (at the time ...so stupid) and sold it for profit.

Proof that Jews were in America.
Link

 

[Miramonti]

Originally posted by: ViperXX

Their background story is ridiculous - golden plates, dualing isrealites in america, come on now. Their leader, joseph smith was obsessed with himself and money. He supposed translated hieroglyphics with some stone and a hat, locked in his house for 3 months. He told no one else about his supposed discovery until he bounded the text in leather (at the time ...so stupid) and sold it for profit.

Proof that Jews were in America.
Link

First I've heard of this rock, very interesting. What does it say?

 

[meltdown75]

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt

Originally posted by: meltdown75

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt
Insane is as insane does. It doesn't matter if your fairy tales were written yesterday or 50,000 years ago, they're still fairy tales.

as useless as it is to reply to your trollish posts, can you humour me?

does faith = insanity to you? you realize just how large of a percentage of the human population - both past, present, and future - you are writing off based on that assumption, right? never mind, of course you realize that.

Depends on how you define faith. I have faith the sun will rise in the east, I have faith my family and friends won't let me down, etc. That's not insane.

But if you define faith as believing in an invisible magic man that lives in the sky, then yes, I think that's insane. Deal with it.

If your "faith" was truly strong and you were utterly sure that your invisible man in the sky was real I wouldn't be able to bother you so much. But the fact that you resort to the pathetic "troll" excuse to explain away anyone that doesn't share in your fairy tales merely proves the shallowness of your own "faith". I bother you because I ask the questions that you can't answer and you're so shaken by your inability to answer that you're afraid of the questions even being asked. Tough.

Is believing in leprechauns insane? Is believing in dragons insane? Is believing that your shoes are haunted insane? Is believing that your thoughts are being controlled by men in back helicopters insane? The reason you think that the people who believe in those things are crazy is precisely why I feel that your belief in invisible men in the sky is crazy.

Whatever dude, you have never had an intelligent debate about religion on this forum in your life, so don't talk down to me like I'm some stupid fucking kid. Every damn time you rant about it, it's always "invisible sky fairy this" and all kinds of other "fairy tale" bullshit,
so don't act like you are operating with some profound knowledge on the subject.

As with every other time I question you, you lump me in with the fundies. I lost count of how many times I have told you that I'm not religious, but without pigeon-holing someone, you have no basis for your "sky fairy" attacks. It perplexes me how someone can rally SO HARD against something and never have ANYTHING intelligent to say about it. Frankly I question your stance on religion and think you just use it as an excuse to post your usual stuff. Don't forget to mention the diddling priests bit, your participation in a religion thread is null and void without it.

So you have faith that your family and friends won't let you down? You're insane by your own definition then. Can you prove your love for them? How can you provide me with quantifiable evidence that you love them? You can't, because it is impossible. Maybe if you wrap your noodle around that, you would stop challenging people of faith to "prove" the existence of "fairies" or whatever you refer to dieties as. It's no more possible for them than it is for you.

The only thing that bothers me is your attitude and presumptuous BS. The annoyance stems from the fact that your position is clear, your participation and outspokenness on the subject is plain for all to see, but you're as sharp as a bag of rocks.

 

[Sqube]

OP, you've been here long enough to know that every thread about religion inevitably becomes a thread bashing religion and everyone who believes in a deity.

Why the fuck do people insist on doing this shit over and over? There can be no reasoned debate about religion on ATOT. Ever. None. Period. It's:
- 90% "fuck all religion" people;
- a bunch of people who believe and just want to be left the fuck alone; and
- a smattering of people who feel the need to proselytize but are rarely, if ever, any good at it.

Just leave us the fuck alone, can't you?

 

[ViperXX]

The Ten Commandments, which were given to Moses.


I am Jehovah your God who has taken you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slaves. There must be no other gods before my face. You must not make any idol. You must not take the name of Jehovah in vain. Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. Honour your father and your mother so that your days may be long in the land that Jehovah your God has given to you. You must not murder. You must not commit adultery. You must not steal. You must not give a false witness against your neighbour. You must not desire the wife of your neighbour nor anything that is his.

 

[Vic]

My $0.02:
- Mormons are Christians.
- Its origins are more or less the same as any other religion, just more recent.

I find Mormonism to be fascinating as a cultural/historical study. It is IMO the one distinctly American religion. BTW, PBS recently did a documentary on the church, its history and modern culture, which I found to be both fair and unbiased.
The thing to keep in mind about the Mormon church is that the silliness of some of its beliefs is really not a concern to its members. That's not what they're there for, it's just incidental. The church is ALL about community and family. That cannot be stressed enough IMO. Everything is family and service to the community (what they call "callings"). The beliefs are just the nonsense they chant to keep them together, and it's for that reason only that they protect those beliefs. The church itself is like the only form of communism that has ever worked. And I predict that it will continue to work and grow stronger as time goes by.


edit: I don't see how anyone can lump it in with Scientology. They're so different it's not even funny. Mormonism's roots are more similar to self-sufficient Mennonite farm communities, like what the Amish are still like.

 

[NL5]

Judaism isn't in the Top 3. Not even close.

 

[zinfamous]

Mormons? no.

Mormonism? yes.

edit your title

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt
Insane is as insane does. It doesn't matter if your fairy tales were written yesterday or 50,000 years ago, they're still fairy tales.

And you live alone, bitter and angry and empty of belief. So who is more insane?

You see how this works? Religions are about community, not fairy tales. The fairy tales you get all worked up about are, for the religious, just the thing they all believe together to keep them together and happy. By getting all worked up over these fairy tales, you're not telling us that you're smarter than them or anything like that, because even they know that many of their beliefs are silly (which is why they frequently fall back on "the message"). What you are telling us is that you're bitter and unhappy about being excluded from their little reindeer games.

 

[OdiN]

I find you childish and pedantic.