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Author Topic: The New Jews
steven
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I'm with you, Euripides. Catholic doctrine seems, if anything, almost more nonsensical than holy underdrawers. I only go easy on the Catholics here out of a real fear of hurting their feelings, making them sad, etc.
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Jutsa Notha Name
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quote:
Originally posted by steven:
I'm with you, Euripides. Catholic doctrine seems, if anything, almost more nonsensical than holy underdrawers. I only go easy on the Catholics here out of a real fear of hurting their feelings, making them sad, etc.

So, it is persecution to think the Mormon faith is odd but is sensible to think the same of the Catholic faith?
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The Rabbit
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Any religion can be made to look ridiculous when viewed in an overly simplified form.

My experience has taught me that rational, intelligent, thoughtful human beings can be found in virtually every religion. I conclude that there must be more to these religions than can be grasped by a simplified view from the outside. Those who conclude that religious people are all too naive to spot a ridiculously obvious con, are arogant and immature.

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Euripides
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quote:
Originally posted by Synesthesia:

Weren't Mormons percecuted in the past?

The level of persecution was a couple dozen orders of magnitude lower than the Jews', and you'll also find that Rigdon made threatening statements about extermination himself, and that some in the Mormon militia (Edit: corrected from Nauvoo Legion; thanks Rabbit and Blackblade. I apologise for the mistake) guilty of what we today would call war crimes - see the Mountain Meadows massacre, for example.

As I said, I find the attempt to buy sympathy through this 'New Jews' analogy to be nothing short of repulsive.

[ April 08, 2007, 01:21 AM: Message edited by: Euripides ]

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Jutsa Notha Name
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quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Any religion can be made to look ridiculous when viewed in an overly simplified form.

My experience has taught me that rational, intelligent, thoughtful human beings can be found in virtually every religion. I conclude that there must be more to these religions than can be grasped by a simplified view from the outside. Those who conclude that religious people are all too naive to spot a ridiculously obvious con, are arogant and immature.

I would agree about arrogant, but I don't necessarily like using 'immature' in the pejorative, so I almost compltely agree with you.
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Mucus
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Rabbit: Why do you limit that statement to "virtually every religion"?
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Euripides
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quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:
I'm willing to bet that the writer of the article is a secularist. But he qualifies his stronger bias against a Mormon president who allows his faith to colour his politics (as opposed to, say, a Catholic one who allows his faith to colour his politics) by pointing out how recent and obvious a con the story of the origins of Mormonism is.
Such a statement is deeply insulting to anyone whose Mormon. I hope Euripides that you intended only to quote the slate article and were not implying that you found Mormonism to be an "obvious con story". Otherwise, you are directly insulting a good proportion of the hatrack members as well as our host.
I was paraphrasing the Slate article.

quote:
My experience has taught me that rational, intelligent, thoughtful human beings can be found in virtually every religion.
I agree. Mormonism included.

quote:
Those who conclude that religious people are all too naive to spot a ridiculously obvious con, are arogant and immature.
I never made such a claim.
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The Rabbit
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quote:
Nauvoo Legion is guilty of what we today would call war crimes - see the Mountain Meadows massacre, for example.
The Mountain Meadows massacre wasn't commited by the Nauvoo Legion. John D. Lee orchestrated it in Utah long after the Nauvoo Legion had been disbanned. Get your facts straight.

I have yet to see the Nauvoo Legion accused of any crime other than the destruction of a printing press, which hardly qualifies as a war crime. In contrast, Mormon leaders were murdered by mobs. Members of my family were driven from their homes. Many died. What happened to the Mormons in Illinois and Missouri is not comparable to the Holocaust, but it is extremely similar to the Pograms.

You should be aware that you are treading on very thin ground. This site is owned by a Mormon and the unsubstantiated and disrespectful claims you are making are in violation of the site rules.

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Jutsa Notha Name
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quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
You should be aware that you are treading on very thin ground. This site is owned by a Mormon and the unsubstantiated and disrespectful claims you are making are in violation of the site rules.

I ask once again: it is forbidden to make marks that someone might interpret as disrespective to the Mormon faith, but it is okay to do so about other faiths?

Listen, I have seen several threads with comments made that could be easily interpreted as disrespectful to other religions here. This thread by virtue could be viewed as disrespectful to the Jews with respect to comparing to the Holocaust and other Jewish examples of persecution.

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The Rabbit
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quote:
Originally posted by Euripides:
quote:
Those who conclude that religious people are all too naive to spot a ridiculously obvious con, are arogant and immature.
I never made such a claim.
That was a response to the slate article and stevens post. As I indicated initially, it was not clear whether you were stating your own opinion or simply repeating arguments made at slate.
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BlackBlade
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Euripides: A few things,

I totally agree with you that having a, "My martyrs are more persecuted then yours!" is an extremely foolish argument at best, and strongly reprehensible at worst.

But attempting to justify persecution by painting the victims in the worst possible light is I think you will agree, not wise.

While I agree that Mormons are not perfect, many even now are far too self righteous and condescending of outsiders, nothing they did justified the horrors that were inflicted upon them, forcing them to endure the hardships of their cross country trek.

Some small corrections to your statements. Sidney Rigdon, did indeed make some very inflammatory remarks when he spoke before a large group of Mormons, and some were certainly influenced by it. You should also remember that Rigdon at the time was very close to being released from his duties as his mental faculties seem to be deteriorating, (some have speculated it started as a result of terrible head injuries he sustained while being abused by a mob.)

I know of nothing the Nauvoo Legion did that could even approach a war crime, in fact they were one of the most underused group of armed men I have ever seen. The accusation of them being used by Smith to oppress the non Mormons of the area was a smoke screen used to disarm them and allow for the eventual assassination of Joseph Smith and his brother. There were no retaliations to the murder btw.

The Mountain Meadows massacre was not committed by the Nauvoo Legion, indeed the legion had long been disbanded by then. Nor was it caused by the Mormon Battalion as they never saw any action.

There WERE Mormons involved, but as far as can be reasonably proven and demonstrated by historians, their actions were not sanctioned beyond a stake level, or shall we say 2 tiers out of 7-8 tiers of church leadership.

Let me reaffirm I too do not like to play the "Who has been persecuted most game," as I find nothing of productive value to be found by doing so. Not to mention that I think if we take the Jews and put them up against Mormons that the comparison is virtually a no contest that Jews win. But again, vilifying one side to make a case for another is certainly not the best course of action.

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Euripides
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quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:

The Mountain Meadows massacre wasn't commited by the Nauvoo Legion. John D. Lee orchestrated it in Utah long after the Nauvoo Legion had been disbanned.

Sorry, you're right, I meant Mormon militia.
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Euripides
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quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:

I know of nothing the Nauvoo Legion did that could even approach a war crime, in fact they were one of the most underused group of armed men I have ever seen. The accusation of them being used by Smith to oppress the non Mormons of the area was a smoke screen used to disarm them and allow for the eventual assassination of Joseph Smith and his brother. There were no retaliations to the murder btw.

The Mountain Meadows massacre was not committed by the Nauvoo Legion, indeed the legion had long been disbanded by then. Nor was it caused by the Mormon Battalion as they never saw any action.

Yes, I stand corrected on that, and am very sorry I made the mistake. I honestly meant to say 'Mormon militia' there, and mistakenly equated them with the Nauvoo Legion.

I only brought it up because this thread seemed dedicated (despite claims to the otherwise in the OP) to inflaming a 'persecution of the innocents' mentality. I have no doubt that many or most of the Mormons who did meet persecution were innocent of any crime, and see many of the actions of non-Mormon authorities during the Mormon wars to be reprehensible.

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Mucus
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quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Those who conclude that religious people are all too naive to spot a ridiculously obvious con, are arogant and immature.

I would never agree to such a statement. Some religions are obvious cons and some religions are very elaborate and persuasive cons. Some religions are not cons at all. The difficulty lies in determining which is which since many claim their legitimacy from very similar prices of evidence and concepts.

I must admit that I had a quick KoM-like tongue in cheek impulse remark, but I managed to divert that impulse into a quote:
quote:
Caesar: I have conquered Gaul! I have defeated Pompey Magnus, I think I can handle a small boy and a eunuch.
Pasca: A small boy with 100,000 men.
Caesar: I'm aware of that! He's still a boy nonetheless.
Mark Antony: You seem to forget that our war is not over yet. Cato and Skippy are still at large, given time they will raise another army.
Caesar: And when they do I shall crush them.
Mark Antony: I'm glad you're so confident ... some would call it hubris.
Caesar: It's only hubris if I fail.

[Smile]

Anyways, back to to the discussion, seriously why did you use the qualifier "virtually every religion"? I can think of two very different reasons why you might have used that statement and I do not want to assume either (or you might even have a third)

One reason might be that you have no personal experience with "every religion" and thus would have no evidence for such a broad general statement. Therefore, you generalised your actual experience to "virtually every religion."

The other reason might be that you have experience with certain specific religions that you think *are* lacking in rational, intelligent, human beings.

What was your actual reason for using that qualifier?

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The Rabbit
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quote:
Originally posted by Jutsa Notha Name:
quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
You should be aware that you are treading on very thin ground. This site is owned by a Mormon and the unsubstantiated and disrespectful claims you are making are in violation of the site rules.

I ask once again: it is forbidden to make marks that someone might interpret as disrespective to the Mormon faith, but it is okay to do so about other faiths?

Listen, I have seen several threads with comments made that could be easily interpreted as disrespectful to other religions here. This thread by virtue could be viewed as disrespectful to the Jews with respect to comparing to the Holocaust and other Jewish examples of persecution.

That question needs to be addressed to Papa Janitor. In my experience the site administrators have always tried to use an even hand and have requested respect for all religions. At the same time, however, the site owners are far more sensitive as to what represents a disrespectful attack on Mormonism because they are Mormons.

I know that some Jews are offended by any comparison made to the Holocaust. I regret having started a thread about this a few weeks back which degenerated so badly the admins locked it. That was not my intent. I was trying to get an explanation from Jews who I respect at the site. Perhaps I should have forseen that such a thread would attract anti-semitic slander but I did not.

Still, I see a significant difference between making flawed comparisons between two religions and making obvious fallacious and denegrating claims about a religion. My comments to Euripides were made because I don't want to see this thread get locked.

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steven
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Let me say I don't think Mormonism is as obvious a con as Catholicism. I don't necessarily think it's entirely a con. No smoking? No drinking? No caffeine? Fine by me. I never smoke, rarely drink, and have coffee maybe twice a year. Jews in Central America? Maybe, although I doubt it went down exactly the way Joseph Smith says.

Catholicism jumped the shark several centuries ago, and hasn't gotten completely back on yet. The catholic response to Galileo is disgusting.

Again, it's not so much people's beliefs I have a problem with. It's more the Galileo situation which sickens and scares me. I rarely trust big structures, particularly when they persecute intellectual dissent with physical force. it's not a hard and fast rule, exactly....but they will get no help from me. I tithe to none, more or less.

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BlackBlade
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quote:
Originally posted by Euripides:
quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:

I know of nothing the Nauvoo Legion did that could even approach a war crime, in fact they were one of the most underused group of armed men I have ever seen. The accusation of them being used by Smith to oppress the non Mormons of the area was a smoke screen used to disarm them and allow for the eventual assassination of Joseph Smith and his brother. There were no retaliations to the murder btw.

The Mountain Meadows massacre was not committed by the Nauvoo Legion, indeed the legion had long been disbanded by then. Nor was it caused by the Mormon Battalion as they never saw any action.

Yes, I stand corrected on that, and am very sorry I made the mistake. I honestly meant to say 'Mormon militia' there, and mistakenly equated them with the Nauvoo Legion.

I only brought it up because this thread seemed dedicated (despite claims to the otherwise in the OP) to inflaming a 'persecution of the innocents' mentality. I have no doubt that many or most of the Mormons who did meet persecution were innocent of any crime, and see many of the actions of non-Mormon authorities during the Mormon wars to be reprehensible.

That's good enough for me [Smile] I think we both agree in principle.
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The Rabbit
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quote:
Originally posted by Mucus:
Anyways, back to to the discussion, seriously why did you use the qualifier "virtually every religion"? I can think of two very different reasons why you might have used that statement and I do not want to assume either (or you might even have a third)

One reason might be that you have no personal experience with "virtually every religion" and thus have no evidence for such a broad general statement.

I have had found intelligent, rational and thoughtful people who I respect in every major world relgion and many of the minor ones. I said "virtually all" solely because I can not claim to have experience with all.

I am not at all sure what you find objectionable in my statement "Those who conclude that religious people are all too naive to spot a ridiculously obvious con, are arogant and immature."

Your comments seem to agree that at least some religious people are not too naive to spot a ridiculous obvious con, which would imply it was incorrect to assume that all religious people were too naive.

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The Rabbit
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quote:
Yes, I stand corrected on that, and am very sorry I made the mistake. I honestly meant to say 'Mormon militia' there, and mistakenly equated them with the Nauvoo Legion.
I think "Mormon militia" would be also be inaccurate. Although John D. Lee who lead the attack was a major in the militia, the Colonel who commanded the militia is reported to have ordered that no attack be made. Hence it would be most accurate to say "members of the Iron County Militia" and not rather than the militia itself.
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The Rabbit
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quote:
Originally posted by steven:
Let me say I don't think Mormonism is as obvious a con as Catholicism. . . . Catholicism jumped the shark several centuries ago, and hasn't gotten completely back on yet. The catholic response to Galileo is disgusting

Steven, Now you are crossing the line. At Hatrack we show respect to all our members and to claim that Catholicism is an obvious con is very disrespectful to the intelligent, rational and thoughtful Caltholics here.

I don't see a problem with expressing your disapproval of the Catholic church's treatement of Galileo but you cross a line when you claim this make a religion cherished by members of our community an obvious con.

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MattB
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quote:
The Mountain Meadows massacre wasn't commited by the Nauvoo Legion. John D. Lee orchestrated it in Utah long after the Nauvoo Legion had been disbanned. Get your facts straight.
This is incorrect. The Utah militia was formally known as the Nauvoo Legion until it was disbanded by the federal government during the polygamy prosecutions, and though Lee was integral in organizing the massacre, local officials in the Legion such as Isaac Haight and William Dame had as much to do with it as he did. They were simply never prosecuted.

I also find it silly and simplistic to call Mormonism a 'con.' It's a religion; as with any such, there's a whole lot more complicated psychological, sociological, and spiritual stuff going on with everyone involved than the word 'con' involves.

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The Rabbit
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quote:
Originally posted by Euripides:
[QUOTE]I only brought it up because this thread seemed dedicated (despite claims to the otherwise in the OP) to inflaming a 'persecution of the innocents' mentality. I have no doubt that many or most of the Mormons who did meet persecution were innocent of any crime, and see many of the actions of non-Mormon authorities during the Mormon wars to be reprehensible.

Its sort of ironic that I was the first to take offense at your statements even though I had been the one arguing that we Mormons are largely responsible for any persecution that is currently going on.
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steven
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"claim this make a religion cherished by members of our community an obvious con."

I'd really say it's more the obvious profiteering from the enslavement and murder of hundreds of thousands of Native Americans. The fact that the church to this day refuses to apologize for past abuses makes me think that things just as bad or worse could happen again.

Then, there's the Spanish Inquisition.

Need I go on?

I don't trust structure.

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The Rabbit
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steven, No you need not go on in fact you've gone way to far. Hatrack is not a site where we tolerate bashing other peoples religions.

P.S I have thus far not alerted Papa to whats going on here because I thought the people participating were mature enough to reign in their inappropriate behavior. Are you or do I need to whistle Papa?

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Mucus
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quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
I am not at all sure what you find objectionable in my statement "Those who conclude that religious people are all too naive to spot a ridiculously obvious con, are arogant and immature."

I never said that I found anything objectionable in that statement, I just wanted to clarify that while your statement was technically true, it also does not preclude the possibility that some religious people *are* too naive to spot the fact that their own religion is a con.

As for the "virtually every" qualifier, you seem to have managed to post while I was editing my admittedly wonky initial wording.

I would note that while the sentiment is admirable, your justification means that your initial statement is pretty inaccurate.

If you only have experience with members of all major religions and many (I'm assuming you mean many as being defined by less than say, a hundred) minor religions, you should actually have said,
quote:
"My experience has taught me that rational, intelligent, thoughtful human beings can be found in several large and a handful of small religions"

The reason being that there are by one count, at least 4200 religions and I severely doubt you would have had experiences with members from a majority of the 4200.
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The Rabbit
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quote:
Originally posted by MattB:
quote:
The Mountain Meadows massacre wasn't commited by the Nauvoo Legion. John D. Lee orchestrated it in Utah long after the Nauvoo Legion had been disbanned. Get your facts straight.
This is incorrect. The Utah militia was formally known as the Nauvoo Legion until it was disbanded by the federal government during the polygamy prosecutions, and though Lee was integral in organizing the massacre, local officials in the Legion such as Isaac Haight and William Dame had as much to do with it as he did. They were simply never prosecuted.
The involvement of any individual other than John D. Lee in the Mountain Meadows Massacre is a controversial subject that is unlikely to be resolved here at Hatrack.

It is unfortunate that the subject was ever brough up in this thread because it is one which has long been a favorite of Mormon bashers and is certain to cause most Mormons to feel persecuted.

There was one man who was prosecuted and convicted for the Mountain Meadows Massacre. There likely should have been at least a few more although given the National anti-Mormon fervor at the time its difficult to argue that the federal bodies involved wouldn't have been anxious to prosecute more people if they had strong evidence against them.

I'd also like to point out that one is one more than was ever prosecuted or convicted for crimes commited against Mormons in Nauvoo or Missouri. In fact, the law making it legal to kill Mormons stood on the books in Missouri until 1976.

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MattB
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steven -

I really have no idea how atrocities committed in the name of religion make religion a 'con.' The conclusion doesn't follow from the examples.

Perhaps if you were to provide more sophisticated arguments than the standard shocking dead horses that village atheists have been beating since the Enlightenment, we'd be able to have a more enriching discussion.

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The Rabbit
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quote:
Originally posted by Mucus:
[If you only have experience with members of all major religions and many (I'm assuming you mean many as being defined by less than say, a hundred) minor religions, you should actually have said,
quote:
"My experience has taught me that rational, intelligent, thoughtful human beings can be found in several large and a handful of small religions"

The reason being that there are by one count, at least 4200 religions and I severely doubt you would have had experiences with members from a majority of the 4200.
I don't think generalizing based on a large number of experiences is normally considered a logical flaw. In fact it is the basis of science. If you have evidence to the contrary showing that many religions have no intelligent, rational and thoughtful adherents, then I will recant my original assertion. I do think such evidence would be very difficult to come by even if it were correct since it would require knowing all the adherents of many different religions well enough to verify that they are neither rational, intelligent nor thoughful.
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Amanecer
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quote:
I also find it silly and simplistic to call Mormonism a 'con.' It's a religion; as with any such, there's a whole lot more complicated psychological, sociological, and spiritual stuff going on with everyone involved than the word 'con' involves.
I can agree with this sentiment. But other people in this thread seem to be implying that if you verbalize your own opinion that a religion is clearly false, you're doing something horrible. I can understand that cushioning such statements is important to making and keeping friends, but I think it's problematic to act like verbalizing the thought is tantamount to persecution.
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The Rabbit
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quote:
Originally posted by Amanecer:
I can agree with this sentiment. But other people in this thread seem to be implying that if you verbalize your own opinion that a religion is clearly false, you're doing something horrible. I can understand that cushioning such statements is important to making and keeping friends, but I think it's problematic to act like verbalizing the thought is tantamount to persecution.

Amanacer, I assume that you are referring to my comments among others. They began in specific reference the statement

quote:
a belief in Mormonism is a reflection of the believer's fundamental inability to reason through a transparent con.
While I have no objection to people arguing that a particular religion is wrong, claims which indicate that the flaws are so obvious as to bring the reasoning ability of any adherent into serious question are disrespectful and insulting. Its a very thinly cushioned way of saying you think all adherents to that belief system are stupid and/or naive. Such prejudiced ad hominem attacks are not welcome at hatrack no matter how well they are cushioned.

And I don't think its at all problematic to say that verbalizing the idea that all members of any given religion are stupid represents a form of persecution. If I claimed all Jews were foolish and naive, I think most would agree it was anti-semetic even if I couched in prettier language. Why is it any less offense to claim that belonging to the Mormon church is evidence of stupidity?

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Euripides
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quote:
quote:
a belief in Mormonism is a reflection of the believer's fundamental inability to reason through a transparent con.
While I have no objection to people arguing that a particular religion is wrong, claims which indicate that the flaws are so obvious as to bring the reasoning ability of any adherent into serious question are disrespectful and insulting. Its a very thinly cushioned way of saying you think all adherents to that belief system are stupid and/or naive. Such prejudiced ad hominem attacks are not welcome at hatrack no matter how well they are cushioned.
The full context of that quote was:
quote:
The Slate article does make the second accusation that a belief in Mormonism (as opposed to a Mormon heritage which a politician sort of leaves at the door when he enters his office) is a reflection of the believer's fundamental inability to reason through a transparent con.

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The Rabbit
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Euripides, I'm sorry. In editing your original quote, I did not intend to imply that this sentiment was yours rather than the slate articles. I fully accept your original answer to my queries on the subject.

I was simply trying to give a concise explanation of the specific type of criticism I find to be inappropriate. I hope that is clear.

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Euripides
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Okay, thanks. That's clear.
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MattB
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quote:
The involvement of any individual other than John D. Lee in the Mountain Meadows Massacre is a controversial subject that is unlikely to be resolved here at Hatrack.
Not particularly controversial among historians of the subject (including several who teach at BYU). I can provide references if you'd like.

The federal investigators were eager to prosecute as many as they could. Most under threat hid from investigators in rural southern Utah. Brigham Young stonewalled for twenty years then turned in Lee under intense pressure.

Now, this is not to say Young had anything to do with the massacre itself; attempts to link him to it have, in my opinion, failed and rather miserably. The evidence shows, however, it was reasonably well organized at the local level.

I agree that tensions were high for good reason, and it's difficult to get inside the minds of those involved.

My apologies for my rather hiccupy responses - my connection has been questionable tonight.

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Mucus
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quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
I don't think generalizing based on a large number of experiences is normally considered a logical flaw. In fact it is the basis of science. If you have evidence to the contrary showing that many religions have no intelligent, rational and thoughtful adherents, then I will recant my original assertion...

More accurately, what you're doing is generalising as a form of inductive reasoning, which while admittedly forms the basis of science, the problem is that unlike science, you're claiming a degree of certainty which is contrary to science as it is normally performed.

A symptom of this is the fact that your burden of proof is all wrong. I never claimed anything about "virtually every" religion. I do not need any evidence for my assertion because I have not made one about "virtually every" religion. On the other hand, you have made such an assertion thus you need to present your proof.

Please inform us as to which members of which major and minor religions your experiences have covered.

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The Rabbit
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I think I have identified a parallel to Godwin's Law, I will dub it "The Rabbits Rule".

"Any discussion of Mormonism will eventually lead to accusations regarding the Mountain Meadows Massacre"

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Morbo
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Wait, so when Mormons discuss Mormonism they always end up accusing each other about Mountain Meadows?

And I thought a self-flagellating albino hit man was odd.

Wow, my spell-checker knows "self-flagellating".

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The Rabbit
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I didn't specify who would be accused.

And yes, if discussions regarding Mormonsims go on long enough eventually even Mormons will begin accusing someone of the Mountain Meadow Massacre.

To be faithful to Godwin's law, I should rephrase "The Rabbit's Rule"

In the limit as the length of a discussion regarding Mormonism approaches infinity, the probability that accusations regarding the Mountain Meadows Massacre will be raised approaches one.

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MightyCow
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quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Any religion can be made to look ridiculous when viewed in an overly simplified form.

I would go further, and say that most systems of belief look ridiculous to those who believe differently.

Heck, if you delve too deeply into your own system of belief, you often find parts that don't make any dang bit of sense. Of course, most people would rather not think about those bits. It probably just means something that I don't understand anyway, I'm sure it makes perfectly good sense to someone who's smart enough. I'll just get back to thinking about the bits I like [Smile]

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The Rabbit
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quote:
Originally posted by Mucus:
Please inform us as to which members of which major and minor religions your experiences have covered.

I will assume that you actually want me to identify the religions and not each the intelligent, rational and thoughful members.

Major Religions: I have been personally acquainted with intellegent, rational, and thoughtful people who were associated Buddhism, Hindu, Islam, Sikhism, Jainism, Tauism, Shinto, Christianity, Judaism and Bahai.

Minor Religions are more difficult because there is disagreement about where dividing lines should be made. For example: Are different sects of Christianity different religions or just varients on the same religion? Is Mormonism a Christian sect or a separate religion? Are Shias and Sunnies different religions or not? I'm fairly confident that the those who come up the 4200 different religions are counting each sect of Christianity as a separate religion.

I have known intelligent, rational, thoughtful people who were Wikkans, Pagans, Church Universal and Triumphant, New Age, Gnostics, as well as numerous native American religions. Add to that a pretty good smattering of different Christian sects.

Although my experiences do not include virtually every religion, I can say the following, 1. I have found intelligent, thoughful and rational people among a broad sampling of many different world religions include some that are considered "fringe" by many people. 2. I have yet to find a religion where I have known more than one or two individuals well and have not found members who were intelligent, articulate, rational and thoughtful.

I believe that given my broad sampling, I am justified in concluding that intelligent, rational and thoughtful people can be found in virtually (or perhaps nearly) all religions.

I'm willing to admit that there may be a very few minor religions that contain only irrational fools. I suspect that some of the fringe religions which have been involved in mass suicides might include only such people but since I have not known any, I really can't make that judgement.

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Morbo
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MightyCow, I think no one can completely examine all of their own core beliefs for rationality and grounding in reality because many beliefs are formed when we are children, in a pre-rational mind-set, and a resistance to change of personality or an inertia of personal philosophy is critical. Otherwise, consciousness would be become too fragmented and more schizophrenic, and no one could have any long-term plans or goals.

True, some people do change philosophies as often as they change their hats, but how are they thought of by most? Flaky.

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MightyCow
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Morbo: I'm not well enough versed in psychology to be able to comment directly, but what you say rings true.

I think being flaky is an extreme though. There's nothing unhealthy about considering and refining your beliefs. That's healthy growth.

While I agree that many basic beliefs are probably largely formed during our youth, that certainly doesn't apply to the complex teachings of an adult belief system. Do 3 year olds, when they're learning that hitting people is bad, also learn the core belief that the world is 4,000 years old and was at one time completely under water?

I would suggest that it makes sense for a person to seriously examine the tenets of their chosen belief system, and fully understand them, to the best of their ability.

Lots of people change beliefs as they mature. Most religions rely on this for converts. Once you're an adult though, you don't have an excuse if you espouse a belief system with a doctrine that the earth is flat, or that one sex should be subservient to the other, or that certain demographic groups are of inherently less worth.

True, some people do believe anything that an authority figure tells them without thinking about it for themselves, but how are they thought of by most? Suckers.

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Morbo
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Considering and refining your own beliefs is healthy, I agree. But it's rare for most. I meant people are considered flaky if they frequently change religions and philosophy.

Also, I added the part about children and a pre-rational mind set. My main point was about a neccesary inertia to change in philosophy. Not that it's impossible, just difficult and usually time-consuming.

Sure there are converts. But most don't keep converting. People might convert to a religion, maybe once more (or back to their original one) , then they're usually done.

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Occasional
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Here is the thing about Sidney Rigdon's [edit: Independance Day Sermon. The "Salt Sermon" was a month earlier and even more problematic, although the Independance Day Sermon was what seemed to lead to a general persecution against the Mormons.] As was mentioned, there is a question of what state of mind he was in when making the comments. To me, that sidesteps the issue. For myself, I think his speech was perfectly acceptable considering what he was talking about.

His speech was made AFTER the Mormons had already been mobbed, beaten, ridiculed, and kicked out of parts of the country. He himself, along with Joseph Smith, had been dragged out of home and beaten, then tard and feathered. The point of the speech was that after such trials the Mormons were not going to sit around and get pushed around anymore. The most problematic statement was that if the mobs were going to repeat the offenses, "then it would become between us or them a war of extermination." Not the most diplomatic of comments and the excuse that has been used even until today that Mormons deserved what they got.

[ April 08, 2007, 12:50 PM: Message edited by: Occasional ]

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steven
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"Are you or do I need to whistle Papa?"

Please do whistle.

My complaint is that a religious organization should not have more money and power than many governments. The Vatican clearly does. That might be acceptable, if that organization weren't so clearly willing to kill/lie/cheat/steal.

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Qaz
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quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
I find it interesting the Harry Reid gets so little attention for being Mormon while Mitt Romney gets so much.

I think that arises because Harry Reid is a democrat so 1. He doesn't fit the stereotype of mormon or conservative religious politics and 2. He's not trying to court the fundamentalist christian vote. That makes the fact that he is Mormon politically uninteresting.

Mitt Romney on the other hand is trying to pursuade fundamentalist christians that he shares there values. Fundamentalist Christians are the only group I've observed who have a specific bias against Mormons. Many liberals have a bias against religious people in general but that isn't stronger against Mormons than against others.

...

I wonder if you are saying here that it is the public that is uninterested in Reid's church affiliation but interested in Romney's. Until Romney was running for President I had never heard that Reid was LDS so I doubt most of the rest of us had. We can't be interested in something if we have never heard of it. The media decided that Romney's Mormonism is interested and Reid's is not.
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Occasional
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"That might be acceptable, if that organization weren't so clearly willing to kill/lie/cheat/steal."

Wow, that is just. I don't know what to say. What a horrible opinion.

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Amanecer
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quote:
Amanacer, I assume that you are referring to my comments among others. They began in specific reference the statement
While I'm not certain about the viewpoint expressed in some of your posts, what spurred my comment was Occasional's statment that:

quote:
but everyone so far has said basically it is alright to slander, look negatively, say inacurate things about Mormons.
Nobody has said it's okay to slander, but if people view the religion negatively, it's their right to form such an opinion without it being called bigotry.

Rabbit, like I said before, I agree that calling a long standing religion a con is overly simplistic. I think out world perspectives are so profoundly shaped as children that it's near impossible to completely rid yourself of your way of seeing the world. What seems clearly false to one person will seem like the absolute truth to somebody who has been taught to view the world in that way. Calling that a con is silly. Calling it clearly false is not so silly. In the same way people believe their religion is the absolute truth and an experiment can be performed to prove it, people can believe a religion is absolutely false and research can be performed to prove it. I think both ways of thinking require different assumptions about the world and calling either naive, arrogant, or immature is really just throwing the buck back and forth.

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aspectre
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errrmmm... steven, you do know that The DaVinci Code is fiction, right?
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Qaz
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Name-calling is not good reasoning anyway, even when the names are deserved. I could point out that someone's belief that the earth is flat is disproved by the angle at which the sun hits the earth at solstice, or by Magellan's voyage, or by NASA's photographs. Or I could call the belief primitive, ignorant, and crazy, but that would be insulting and isn't a good proof anyway.
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