posted
Thanks, Dog. I don't know how I forgot that group! They're all over the fricking place!
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quote: So we're like E. coli? Harmless and even necessary in small quantities, but causing violent diarrhea when populations expand beyond certain levels?
I really don't think the sarcasm is neccessary, Yozhik.
[ June 09, 2004, 06:15 AM: Message edited by: Kama ]
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quote:i know inside jokes and cultural references can definitely exclude people, but i suppose my back was still raised about the whole secrecy thing and wanted to make sure it was understood that there is no secrecy in what is discussed here at hatrack.
Unless I'm horribly mistaken, a post I wrote last night replying to this comment was deleted, making the irony a tad amusing.
Posts: 1839 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
"If you knew the extent of it, you might exclaim that we are a church of anal-retentives."
I MIGHT, but I think that would make porce even more mad at me.
--------
Seriously, Yoz, I think there are aspects of the church that, while downright wholesome and healthy and helpful when a minority influence, become oppressive and destructive when majority is attained. This isn't actually an uncommon phenomenon, and certainly not unique to Mormon culture. IMO, as long as Mormons are in the minority, they're a useful voice; once they become the majority, I believe they tend to stagnate very rapidly.
posted
Uh, I don't really like the Utah culture, and I don't think it has anything to do with a disdain for order. It's because...there are just as many human weakneses and failings there are anywhere else, and they are justified just as much as anywhere else, only the thing they are using to justify the bigger house than they can afford/posturing/lack of respect for others/chauvinism is a twisting of the gospel. Especially if you're trying to figure out what it means to be a disciple, that can be very confusing when things that are distinctly NOT part of the gospel (women's prayers are always subject to question of the nearest guy around) are passed off as essential.
I hate that.
I don't like the mixing of tradition, culture, and doctrine.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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Edit: Or maybe "your-WELCOMEEEE!!!!" has a better ring to it.... I'll have to try it the next time I feel a need to explain my people to someone through song and dance.
posted
When I left last night, people were joking about "all your base." When I came back this morning, the thread was to 3 pages.
Richard, I seem to remember your post, on page 1, right? To tell you the truth, I didn't understand it, so I ignored it. Maybe that's an example of the type of unexplained reference we are trying to avoid?
Just wanted to comment on some of the other things people said. For example, Tom seems to have ignored this comment by Occasional, but I admit I am mystified by it:
quote:From my limited experience, Tom D. has caused a lot more people to pack up and leave than the number of Mormons who happen to be here has. Just a personal observation.
Maybe I am just clueless, but I can't think of a single example of someone who left because of Tom. Tom speaks his mind, but it has been my observation that he tries to do it without offending people.
quote:Down in the south, I have seriously had people surprised that I didn't have horns. Yes, kids had been taught by their parents that Mormons have horns, "just like the devil."
Plenty of people think Jews have horns, too, MPH, and not just in the south.
quote:So are people on Hatrack threatened by Mormons but not by Jews? Why is that? Is it because of the terrible suffering the Jews have faced and that it is considered extremely rude and un-PC to even suggest anything bad about them? Is it because of the fact that what goes on in the LDS temples is not ever discussed outside the temple? Is it that Mormons proselyte and Jews don't? Is this a Hatrack issue because there are more Mormons than Jews on Hatrack?
Probably all of the above reasons, beverly.
I want to make a comment, though, about proselytization. I have a tendency to become a bit cautious when first meeting someone of a proselytizing Christian faith, especially when the subject turns to religion. Sometimes I even feel uncomfortable around someone I know well, if they talk about religion a lot and I know they are secretly hoping that I will convert to their way of thinking. Maybe this is because missionaries of many Christian faiths specifically target Jews for conversion. They have tracts specifically aimed at Jews and Jewish way of thinking. So it's a topic that gets my hackles up. (I am not aware of any such programs specifically aimed at Jews within LDS, btw, but I know that the Baptists have one.)
I have a lot more to say, here, but I have to go run and pick up my son from school.
posted
This happened a while back, but I've been sick and not on top of things.
Ralphie:
quote:Then no one is rankled.
For some reason, I read this as "Then no one is spanked." Suddenly I had an unexplainable urge to start throwing around religious jargon if that's what it would take to get spanked by Ralphie.
posted
Another thing that rankles is people offering up the sacred or esoteric knowledge of their own faith, or people asking about the sacred knowledge of another faith and refusing to be satisfied.
Of course, making light of that sacred knowledge is offensive.
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote: But we do face a lot of questions and verbal attacks over the course of our lives, and so we typically get a bit jumpy about it, and make sure we know the answers to the questions.
And where this becomes a problem, and tends to stifle discussion, is when you hear something that sounds like a question or attack you’ve heard before, and go into your pre-prepared answer to it, without reading closely enough to realize that it wasn’t, in fact, an attack, or was a different question altogether. (That was a general “you,” btw, not aimed specifically at Dog.)
I hate generalizing, but I also don’t want to point fingers, so I’m not sure how to phrase this. The “secret” thing is a good example. Anytime the word is used in connection with a religious discussion, whether or not it’s being used as a critique, someone will pop up with the “it’s not secret it’s sacred” defense. I remember that happening when a non-LDS poster was talking about something in his church that is kept secret, and an LDS poster felt the need to post a long defense of LDS “sacred, not secret” things. Which was completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
The same thing happened in the last two baptism threads – in both of them there were posters who came in several pages into the discussion, hadn’t read the thread, but “knew” what all the non-LDS objections to posthumous baptism were and gave their answers to those objections. It seriously made me wonder why I bother writing in-depth posts at all.
**
And now I feel like all I’ve been doing is whining. *sigh* I wouldn’t have brought any of this stuff up on my own. But since the discussion was already going, I had to throw my 2 cents in. *grin*
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I think...that this is what makes Utah culture so annoying. The very traits and habits of a sub-culture that make it possible to survive are a bit oppressive when it turns into the dominant culture.
When I first came to Hatrack, I honestly don't remember so many Mormons being there. Maybe I wasn't paying attention, or maybe there was a different balance of threads, but for whatever it was, it seemed like the balance of things has changed. That is not bad, but...this is what I was trying to say in the other thread and apparently did not explain well enough.
When the circumstances change, the dynamic needs to. If you're the only Mormon voice amid 20 others, then having only one or two notes is often not bad, and have just one person chime in is heart-warming. Those same characteristics in 10 of the 20 voices is overwhelming. Maybe we need to change from seeing ourselves as a sub-culture here to aknowledging that it's the largest bloc? I'm still not sure if its a majority, but it's definitely the largest coherent bloc.
In that case, the obligations change. There's a responsibility to pay attention outside yourself. There's always that onus, of course, but it's even greater when circumstances have given you a measure of conversational power.
quote:So are people on Hatrack threatened by Mormons but not by Jews? Why is that? Is it because of the terrible suffering the Jews have faced and that it is considered extremely rude and un-PC to even suggest anything bad about them? Is it because of the fact that what goes on in the LDS temples is not ever discussed outside the temple? Is it that Mormons proselyte and Jews don't? Is this a Hatrack issue because there are more Mormons than Jews on Hatrack?
When it comes to the issue at hand, non-LDS people at Hatrack feeling left out/threatened by the growing Mormon population here, the proselytizing may be a factor. The LDS church is famous for wanting to expand its flocks, with the huge numbers of missionaries going door-to-door and the encouragement to have as many children as possible. It's no secret that they want people, as many as possible, to join their ranks. Am I wrong?
The religion you've chosen to compare to, on the other hand, has NO apparent interest in drawing in new converts. If anything, I've gotten a sense that the Jewish religion isn't particularly interested in anyone new joining, and they certainly don't seem to actively recruit.
When it comes to a community like this where diversity is supposedly encouraged and differing opinions are the point of conversations, it can seem a little threatening to see the number of members who you know are looking for new recruits suddenly spike.
It's especially unsettling, for me, to see recruitment actually happening here. I grew up in a non-proselytizing faith, and I'm marrying into another one, and the concept of actively trying to convert people is totally foreign and unsettling to me. I know that religions have every right to do it, but it still makes me really uncomfortable to wonder if person X of proselytizing faith Y is going to spring Jesus on me when I'm not looking, or if person Z of p-faith Q is thinking to themselves that I would be way better off as a Q.
posted
Uh, that's a good example of why people get defensive. For every what-harm-I-didn't-mean-that, there's always someone who thinks profanity is hilarious.
posted
Whenever I get too inundated with all things religious I tend to toss out some profanity for good measure to even things out. If only in my own mind.
And boy howdy, I've gotten A LOT more profane in the past few months.
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posted
Did the profanity get deleted? I got all excited when Katie mentioned it and kept scrolling up, looking for some. But there wasn't any. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Are you seriously complaining that what I wrote was profane? Am I not allowed to use the name "Jesus" in a way that isn't 100% reverent and worshipful? What?
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Main Entry: pro·fan·i·ty Pronunciation: prO-'fa-n&-tE, pr&- Function: noun Inflected Form(s): plural -ties 1 a : the quality or state of being profane
Main Entry: 1pro·fane Pronunciation: prO-'fAn, pr&- Function: transitive verb Inflected Form(s): pro·faned; pro·fan·ing Etymology: Middle English prophanen, from Latin profanare, from profanus 1 : to treat (something sacred) with abuse, irreverence, or contempt : DESECRATE 2 : to debase by a wrong, unworthy, or vulgar use
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Sorry. There are a few things about which I have no sense of humor. The culture is completely up for grabs, but not everything.
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Dagnabbit, don't tell me this is going to overshadow what I wrote about the dynamics between community members needing to change when the circumstances do.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
k:"I think...that this is what makes Utah culture so annoying. The very traits and habits of a sub-culture that make it possible to survive are a bit oppressive when it turns into the dominant culture."
I don't know. I think that about 95% of the annoyance factor of Utah Mormon culture comes from one single thing. That thing is confusion between Church and culture.
When the majority of the people in your community are of your faith, it is too easy to look at all of the things you have in common with them as if they, too, were a result of your shared faith. In fact, a lot of the commonalities are likely to be a result of geography, or climate, or history, or the stores you shop at, or the local political scene, or any number of other things. But people don't pay enough attention to that.
So, making the mistaken assumption that it's all about Mormonism, people blunder into all kinds of other errors and end up upsetting a lot of people inadvertently.
Mormons who live in other places easily can see that many of the things they share in common with their neighbors have nothing to do with Mormonism, because they're not Mormons. Likewise, people who convert to Mormonism later in life rather than being raised in it can more easily see what parts of their life are connected to their new faith and which were always there.
I grew up a Utah Mormon, but I hate to be called that. I was shown the difference between my religion and my culture in my early teens, and the process of separating the two in my mind was occasionally a painful one. It left enough scars that, even now, I tend to be overly sensitive about the issue. I get quite perturbed when I hear other Utah-type Mormons make what I consider to be silly mistakes about it. But I also see where they're coming from, so I also try to speak out in their defense when they are lambasted by others, particularly other Mormons (not saying you, kat, are doing any lambasting).
Posts: 1652 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Hey, any Jesus I'd consider following would have a sense of humor about his status. You worship him on a pedestal in a sealed glass box, if you like, if you think your Jesus is fragile enough to wilt in the sun, but MY Jesus would at least like some holes put in.
Seriously, kat, if you can't joke about God, what good is God at all?
posted
Well heck, "Jesus" isn't sacred to me, and I doubt it's sacred to Tom... so it's not profanity, right?
I mean, is your set of beliefs so rigid that you can't stand to be in the presence of those who would use the name Jesus with humorous intent? Because if that's the case, then nervousness about a growing LDS population here might just be spot-on.
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For me, it's more of a question of to what extent your lack of humor about an issue I find totally innocent and lighthearted leads you to consider me a threat that must be put in its place.
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posted
Ayelar, I think with the several recent conversions of Hatrack members there comes the assumption that there is pressuring going on. You are making an accusation without knowing the actual situation. I guess people are assuming that that *must* be what is happening. Is that really fair? Don't judge when you don't know the story.
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
Tom, Ayelar, I would not crack jokes about Alah around a Muslim. I would not crack jokes about Yaweh around a Jew. Buddah around a Buddist, etc. It seems impolite, disrespectful. If you do it around others who hold those things sacred, you are doing it to shock them. That isn't playing nice.
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posted
Ayelar, didn't you about freak out because you didn't think Fiddler on the Roof treated Judaism respectfully enough?
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
So then kat..... using the name "Jesus" in a lighthearted manner around you is disrespectful. Personally, I don't see a darn thing wrong with a simple use of the name in a way that sounds amusing, though I would avoid spray painting "JESUS SUX" on an overpass or something. The phrase "sprung Jesus" doesn't even come close to crossing my "offensive" line, or the lines of anyone I know in real life.
However, since it is a disrespectful use of the name within your faith, you say that I am disrespecting you, and pulling a "sucker punch"? Which leads me to feel like, yes, I have to conform to YOUR standards of morality and social acceptability when I'm here. The standards which YOUR religion leads you to follow, not mine. It makes me feel like there's a huge line that I can't cross without getting slapped down, a line that's drawn on LDS terms. But I'm NOT LDS, and I don't want to have to follow its rules.
Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
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posted
You know, I'm NOT a big fan of "Buddy Jesus," precisely because I think people misunderstand what's being mocked -- and because it's being mocked at all. The idea behind those "Buddy Jesus" dolls, as I understand it, was to poke fun at the increasing "mainstream" nature and commercialization of Christianity; the idea that Christ can be added to a shopping cart like a household cleanser. I think it's the same reason that the "popener" -- and I own one -- is so fascinating to people; the idea that someone would turn the Pope, the highest official of one of the largest churches in the world, into a face on a bottle opener is just baffling and horrifying.
THAT, to me, is disrespect. And so "Buddy Jesus," by trying to address that disrespect in a humorous way, is (oddly enough) intended to be respectful.
But the message gets twisted too easily. For one thing, a LOT of people buy popeners -- real Catholics, people who visit the Vatican and want a souvenir and really, really want something with the Pope's face on it because they love him so much. People buy those "Jesus playing soccer" figurines for their grandchildren, not because they're fascinated and horrified by the kitsch factor but because they honestly think sending little Billy a resin mold of Jesus will help him think about God more often.
So when SOME people see "Buddy Jesus," they're not shocked; they just see another statue of Jesus.
And then here's the problem: there are people out there who will buy a statue of Buddy Jesus not because they're horrified by the commercialization of a beloved prophet, but because they're horrified by the kind of people who would buy Popeners. The "Buddy Jesus" thing or the Darwin fish or similar bits of ironic kitsch become direct personal attacks on what the owner BELIEVES is the kind of person who'd own one; it's an accusation that faith does not exist, and has been replaced by fad.
It's more hostile than the kind of humor I generally enjoy.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Kat, before we get too far away from it, I appreciated and agree with your thoughts on community dynamics and recognizing conversational power. I read that post and thought, “yep, she hit the nail on the head.”
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
There go the non-Utah Mormons, up on their Rameumptom again. (Rameumptom is a term for someone who believes theirs is the only true way). I actually grew up outside Utah, but I married a Utah Mormon. And I lived downtown, where only 25% of the people who are Mormon go to church. I imagine it is similar to being a Catholic in some parts of Europe.
Mormonism in Utah is just as complex as it is outside. Kama is correct, Utah is just over 2 million people. I believe 75% are Mormon. But the more rural, the higher the percentage. In Salt Lake city, I think the membership rate may be 50%, and in parts only a quarter of that 50% is "active" (churchgoing). So you've got one in eight, which is higher than the national average, but with those you have three in eight who are for whatever reason disaffected with the church. This is only in cental city. I don't know what it's like elsewhere in Salt Lake or in Utah Valley (Provo) or elsewhere in Utah. I imagine each neighborhood and community is different. Lumping us all together as Utah Mormons, and you're so happy you're not one of us, is kind of prideful. IMnsHO.
Posts: 383 | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
So Ayelar, if you made a light comment about a girl's headscarf and she asked you nicely not to talk about her headscarf that way you would ignore her request because she was asking you to act in accordance with a morality you don't personally hold? That's very mature of you.
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My family lives in and I went to high school in 97% LDS, 90% active Farmington. I'm not working on someone else's stories.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
I will start joking about Utah culture again once I have lived away from Utah for about 5 years. It's a bigger deal to people in the "mission field" anyway. Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
Hey, kat! I had no idea we were such close neighbors growing up. I grew up in Layton, just ten minutes up the road from you.
Posts: 1652 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
beverly, that wouldn't be lighthearted, that would be a personal attack on the girl.
As I said, I wouldn't go out and actively demonize Jesus or start screaming at Christians that Jesus sucks, but my "springing Jesus" phrase did nothing of the sort.
As anyone who's been around here for a few years probably knows, I'm one of the first people to cry foul on the part of the offended. However, when a group of people decides that EVERYTHING offends them, and lumps general lighthearted remarks in with actual attacks, I can't help but feel they're being oversensitive and taking advantage of the current culture of political correctness. And when this belief that ANYTHING I say on a certain topic is going to be offensive is also the majority view.... it's enough to make a person feel pretty unwelcome.
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posted
afr, here's something I've wondered about for a long time. Does anybody actually still use the term "mission field" in the sense that you used it? I mean, I know that it used to be used to mean "all of the U.S. outside of the Idaho-Utah-Northern Arizona corridor," but I haven't heard it used that way seriously in decades. The only people I hear use it anymore are those who make fun of Utah Mormons for using it.
But I figure, if the Utah Mormons don't use it anymore, is the joke still funny? And then I think, maybe some clueless Utah Mormons are still using it, but always outside of my presence.
So do you still hear it used seriously? Does anybody?
Posts: 1652 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Ayelar, neither I nor kat were bothered by your comment. I can see how the misunderstanding could crop up if you thought we were. It was the sexual reference by Tom that caused the concern.
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
Oh man. I hear "mission field" all the time to refer to "outside U-daho". I kinda cringe every time.
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
The "Sprung Jesus" comment made me uncomfortable. Not that anybody asked.
-o-
Tom, I wish I could understand your discourse on religion and kitsch well enough to figure out if I agree with you or not.
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posted
Okay, now that I've gone and looked it up, I get it. However, until it was mentioned that it was a sexual reference, I didn't.
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posted
I totally didn't see it as sexual either. Did Tom? Is it only the religious people who saw it as a sexual reference? That would be hilarious. Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
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posted
That's the thing, U of U. I don't really have my finger on the pulse of Utah culture to know if the phrase is still in vogue or not. I was using it as a codeword—a shibboleth, if you will—in the context of this thread.
I thought it was funny the first time I heard it, and it's still vaguely humorous, I guess, like Utah's comeback for all the jibes aimed at Utah culture. I don't think it's used seriously by anyone, and definitely not that frequently.
I've been less and less critical of the culture here the longer I've lived here, mainly because people who come to Utah and criticize it always sound like such boors. And I don't represent all of Utah, and frankly, I don't care if there's supposed to be an overall culture, and there's really nothing I can do about it. I certainly won't apologize for it (in the classical sense).
You have to live somewhere, and wherever you live, there's a "culture" that gets joked about. Utah doesn't have the monopoly on that, not by a long shot. Heck, when I moved here from Minnesota, everybody would try out their best Swedish Chef accent on me. Yeah. Ha-ha. No, I've never heard anyone actually talk like that. Yes, they give you a lake when you move there. No, I don't like ice fishing and I suck at hockey.
Tom, I see where you're coming from. There's a "commercial" Jesus that has pretty much nothing to do with anything I hold sacred, and that Jesus gets tossed around and joked about, made into bobble-head dolls, etc. It's like all the jokes about God as a stodgy, absent-minded bearded old guy who is totally out of touch with modern America. The kicker is that from a purely human standpoint, I've heard very few of these kind of jokes that are actually funny. The spirit they're told in usually negates any humor that they possibly could have had as well. *shrug*
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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Did Tom? Is it only the religious people who saw it as a sexual reference? That would be hilarious. 
