quote:I dare say you haven't heard sentiments against other religions much because you are not paying attention much to what is said againts other religions
I see racism, and I'm not black. I have seen anti-semitism, and I'm not jewish. I've seen how hard it is to be poor, and I'm not poor.
I've never seen anything anti-Catholic. Not in Texas, not in Utah, not in Michigan - nowhere. If it happens around me, it is happening under the radar and in secret.
It's very judgemental of you to suppose that because I haven't seen an evil, it's because I'm self-centered and unaware. Come on.
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Not many, although one of my best friends in college was Catholic. The co-worker I work with every day is Italian and very Catholic, and my exercising buddy is Catholic. I suppose I could ask them, although we do talk about religion sometimes. I've never told them Mormons are persecuted, so maybe the topic just hasn't come up.
I have definitely never seen it, but then, I work at the Boy Scouts. I wouldn't see it there, would I?
I believe that you have seen it, I guess, since you seem so sure, but I haven't. No where. I have seen prejudice against pentacostals and JWs, but not Catholics.
What form does it take?
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I don't know how you've missed it, kat. Anti-Catholicism has roots in this country that go back practically to its founding. That's not surprising, since England was full of Anti-Catholicism before this country was ever colonized. (Surely, as an English major, you read all kinds of books that spoke derisively of "Popishness".)
In most places today it is not as rampant as it used to be. It really isn't. It has resurfaced to some degree in the wake of the child molestation scandals, but in most cases in the U.S. Catholicism is so mainstream that it isn't usually singled out for prejudice. But it still happens enough to be noticeable.
What form does it take? Sometimes people ridicule the idea of "blindly" following the Pope (sound familiar?). Sometimes people poke fun at the clergy, especially after the recent scandals. Sometimes it's nuns, which is funny because there are a lot of people who haven't ever seen one. A lot of times it comes from people with Protestant backgrounds, who are obviously sympathetic with the Reformers and think that the Catholics were wrong and evil then, and that they still are, or that they are at least ridiculous for clinging to a belief system that the Protestants were smart enough to have rejected centuries ago.
On top of all that, there are a whole bunch of conspiracy theories that include the Catholic hierarchy.
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quote:I dare say you haven't heard sentiments against other religions much because you are not paying attention much to what is said againts other religions
I see racism, and I'm not black. I have seen anti-semitism, and I'm not jewish. I've seen how hard it is to be poor, and I'm not poor.
I've never seen anything anti-Catholic. Not in Texas, not in Utah, not in Michigan - nowhere. If it happens around me, it is happening under the radar and in secret.
It's very judgemental of you to suppose that because I haven't seen an evil, it's because I'm self-centered and unaware. Come on.
It's just my observation that you react much more strongly at anything that you perceive as a threat or insult to the LDS religion. I don't think that you are self-centered and unaware at all, and that was not what I intended in my post. Sorry it came off that way.
Perhaps you have not seen anti-Catholicism in Texas because you are in a big city. A Hatracker who grew up in a small Texas town as told me about the anti-Catholic sentiment that person experienced. It may have been an isolated incident, but I suspect it was not.
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The city thing makes sense. We have our share of good ole boys, but since it's a 2 million + metroplex, it has more in common with other American cities than with the small towns around it.
Are movies like Dogma considered to be anti-Catholocism?
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All of which kind of misses the point that saying "If it were any other religion, no one would have made a fuss." is terribly disrespectful and, yes, self-centered. It's like someone complaining about how "No one else but me has any relationship problems."
I mena leave aside the Catholic issue, which was historically America's 4th most prominent prejudice (3rd if you combine it with the anti-immigrant sentiment that it often accompanied), does anyone think that someone suggesting that people in America don't react with disfavor to Islam actually is in touch with the real world? It's absurd.
What Tatiana said does not reflect reality and was disrespectful in dismissing the hardships that other religions go through. It is not so easy for everyone else while LDS have it so hard.
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I wonder if you're using a different definition for 'anti-' then a lot of people, kat.
To me, if one of my Baptist friends tells a joke ragging on, say, polygamous Mormons, or Mormons and their obsession with modesty or whatever, they're not being anti-Mormon. Because, in context, it's a joke.
When I was a kid in Texas, I remember a spoof on the radio about all the different college football bowl games. One of the spoof games was the Pacifist Bowl, Mormons vs. the Quakers. I don't consider that to be anti-Mormon either. It's a misunderstanding about our culture-- considering how many members we have in the military, a pretty big misunderstanding.
I don't consider preachers preaching against Mormonism to be anti-Mormon either; they're arguing doctrine.
Now, if a preacher devotes his ministry to destroying what one has called the 'Maze/Mask/Mumbo-jumbo of Mormonism' then, yeah, I consider his writings to be anti-Mormon.
If someone says, "You're Mormon, you're going to hell," that's anti-Mormon.
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I'm not linking this, by the way, because I think it has any merit It's just so people can see the kinds of crap that the Catholics have to take from the same people who go after Mormons.
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quote:Are movies like Dogma considered to be anti-Catholocism?
Only to the extent people considered "Angels in America" to be anti-Mormon, although obviously the Catholic Church was less peripheral to Dogma.
My take on Dogma: If you're basing the entire plot of a movie on a doctrinal position of the Church you're trying to ridicule, it would behoove you to get that doctrinal position correct.
I hated Dogma. Bunbun liked it. I didn't consider it anti-Catholicism so much as idiocy.
Anti-Catholicism has gotten much less severe in this country. One reason many people don't really know much about it is because it's no longer considered an "acceptable" attitude. OSC commented on an email (from someone purporting to be Mormon) he got after the Pope died that brought up all the old charges. He also commented that he thought that those ideas had died out.
They haven't. But they're much less commonly held, and those who hold it don't feel comfortable spewing it willy-nilly any more.
There's a reason the anti-Christ in "Left Behind" was a Bishop, even if they did have the Pope get taken up in the rapture.
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I'm surprised there kat hasn't seen much anti-catholicism in Texas, because here in the southeastern part of the US it's pretty prominent. I would say I see and hear about the same amount of anti-catholic, anti-mormon, and anti-semitic things.
Probably just a result of me living in the Bible belt. I mean, I know protestants who question the salvation of other protestants for crying out loud. It's ridiculous.
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Maybe I am using a different definition of anti.
Mormons are wrong != anti Angels in America != anti The Mormon church is fake and evil and a cult = anti
By that rubric, I just haven't seen anti against Catholics. Sorry if you're offended by that. I've heard a thousand nun jokes, but have never heard the insinuation that Catholics are a cult and/or the current church is fake/evil. Lots historicaly, but none currently.
Maybe the circles I run in are more polite. Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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Oh! Or, maybe, anyone anti-Catholic is highly likely to be not fond of Mormons, so I'm never close enough to them to get the chance to hear their spiel.
If an invective is uttered in a forest and no one hears it, is it still persecution?
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kat, if you follow my link, you'll see it I heard it all the time on my mission. I think it's good to get a perspective on the fact that we're not the only ones who have to take this crap ... though I think we are ALL taking it from the same group of idiots.
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I'll let you lecture me on tolerance when I drape myself in self-righteous victimhood. I haven't, so I don't need to be lectured.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Maybe I am using a different definition of anti.
Mormons are wrong != anti Angels in America != anti The Mormon church is fake and evil and a cult = anti
By that rubric, I just haven't seen anti against Catholics. Sorry if you're offended by that. I've heard a thousand nun jokes, but have never heard the insinuation that Catholics are a cult and/or the current church is fake/evil. Lots historicaly, but none currently.
Maybe the circles I run in are more polite.
By your rubric, I have definitely seen "anti" against Catholics.
Some examples were cited earlier in this thread, I believe.
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Sorry, kat, I wasn't trying to lecture you. Just wanted you to see it. I didn't mean for my post to have a patronizing tone, but rereading it, I can see how it might come across that way. Sorry.
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Many people thought the doctrinal inaccuracy in Dogma was what kept it from being offensive. The movie did, after all, acknowledge Catholic teaching on the validity of the apostolic succession.
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It's okay - sorry for taking it in a way it wasn't meant. I'll follow the link - it certainly sounds educational in a Sick, Sad World kind of way.
Hmm...I have a hard time taking Jack Chick seriously. He's like the homeless guy on the corner of my street, yelling about the conspiracies of the government.
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Just keep in mind that millions of Chick tracts are handed out every year -- he's got quite a good-sized following.
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Yep, but obtaining Chick Tracts often involves fairly decent sized expenditures of money (many are shipped out in groups over 10,000), and the people who get them don't keep them, they hand them out to people and leave them places for people to find in attempts to convert.
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I get e-mails offering to increase the size of my assets. I don't take those seriously either.
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Yss, but you have to admit, on this issue, everyone is saying that it exists and is conspicuous. The only person who is denying it is you...well, and Tat.
Fine, you say you don't see it. Do the testimonials from people from all over the place count for nothing?
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I believe that it is very important to you to make Tatiana and I look bad. Does that count for something?
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And I'm not sure everybody here has a clear grasp of the difference between being wrong and looking bad.
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Where was I wrong? I haven't personally encountered anti-Catholicism, by the definition I explained. By that definition, I actually don't encounter a lot of anti-Mormonism outside of Michigan. Are you telling me that I'm wrong for not experiencing it?
I think it's hilarious that you're upset that I haven't seen a group of people persecuted. Maybe Dallasites are just more cosmopolitan than the people in your world. Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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I've seen anti-Catholicism in Dallas. But I believe that either you don't or you just didn't notice because you were paying attention to something else; it does tend to be fairly subtle here in most cases I've encountered it in.
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I don't understand why people are so upset that I haven't seen it. Shouldn't they be happy about that?
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No, not really. But I do think that people edit: not /edit realizing that many religions besides their own suffer persecution and that statements like this
quote:The many tracts and warnings I've received are specifically attempts to rescue me from the evils of Mormonism by telling me negative things the people believe about the LDS faith. If I were Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Catholic, Buddhist, Jewish, or Islamic, there would have been no tracts delivered, no comments made, it seems clear.
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Squick, please stop harping on Tatiana. She left the discussion long ago, and this is your third post in a row trying to drum up condemnation for her. Leave her alone.
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When I was in high school in suburban Atlanta, the loudest proselytisers were southern Baptist. They were utterly convinced that a) Mormons were in a cult, b) Catholics worshipped the devil, and c) most other Protestants were on the right track, but still not going to heaven, thank you very much.
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As a relatively uninterested party, who has no interest in making kat look bad, I'm just going to throw in one thing.
kat, the question wasn't if the anti-Catholic stuff made sense or if it was likely to convince you. It was about it it existed. You've either never seen it before or never really noticed it, quite possibly because it is pretty silly and antiquated, and you dismiss it in the same way you dismiss spam email. That's fine.
But the people who are printing and distributing this stuff do take it seriously, and do mean it. Just because their methods are, frankly, laughable, doesn't mean that they don't have very nasty feelings behind them. I think that's all fugu and Squicky are trying to get you to acknowledge, that there are people out there who attack Catholics the same way that there are people out there who attack Mormons.
So it's not the same as Fear Factor, which is stupid but harmless. And I think you guys are talking past each other, and quite likely are just going to leave this with less understand of the other's position, and more entrenched in your own views afterwards. Which, in my opinion, is the opposite of what this forum can and should be.
So I hope that will provide some clarification... I'll butt out now. Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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I seriously think the upsetness here is a byproduct of the strain of enduring KoM.
Fine - I believe that you have seen people attack Catholics. I haven't, and it isn't because I'm self-centered or not paying attention or join in on the condemnation so I don't see a problem with it. I seriously haven't. I think it must have gotten a great deal better for me to never encounter it, because I've certainly encountered it against a dozen other groups. Even the people I know who get nervous about Mormons and JWs and Harry Potter didn't mention anything about Catholics. I could make up reasons for that, but since they didn't have a problem verbalizing against those other things, concluding that they didn't say anything about Catholics because they have nothing against Catholics is not unreasonable.
I think this particular tangent started because it looked like Ela was saying I was...something unpleasant for not seeing anti-Catholicism.
Is there some Persecutee's Club going on that people are so upset that I haven't seen their membership cards?
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I'm particularly bemused by kat never having seen anything anti-catholic, when anti-catholic chick tracts (death cookie, anyone? The repeated references to the evil "papa"?) have been linked repeatedly on hatrack.
I'm glad she's never seen anything locally.
I think that her assuming a strongly made argument is a personal assault is something she overdoes, though.
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"If any of you are Catholic, I'm sorry. Not that you were offended, I'm actually just sorry that you're Catholic." --Bill Hicks, Comedian originally from Texas, deceased.
George Carlin also has several routines that could be considered anti-catholic to varying degrees. Though both these comedians are more anti-organized-religion in general, really.
I'm sort of coming in on the tail end of the discussion here, I'd last read this thread when it was only half a page. So I'm not trying to prove anyone right or wrong, was just reminded of a few favorite comedians who make not-so-subtle anti-catholic jokes.
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Fugu, you are the last person in the world to have permission to pass judgement on my personal qualities. Don't even start.
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I think you're missing a "not" there, Squick, and my answer is yes, I do disagree. I don't think it's necessarily disrespectful. I think it's inaccurate, but not disrespectful in and of itself. Being unaware that it occurs is not disrespectful. Claiming that such persecutees (if I may assume they would call themselves that) are overreacting and that it's nowhere near as bad for them as for you could be (if not backed with some data).
I experience both anti-Mormonism and anti-Catholicism in my own church, and it saddens me. Scott said, "I don't consider preachers preaching against Mormonism to be anti-Mormon either; they're arguing doctrine." I certainly see that, too, and that I don't have a problem with. I may disagree, but I don't have a problem with it. I also may agree (clearly I disagree on some LDS doctrines, or I'd likely be LDS). My problem is with the misrepresentation of Mormonism or Catholicism and the attacks on it based therein, and against those I speak up.
<Realizes this thread has picked up pace again, so comments may already be behind the curve.>
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That you feel people need permission to "pass judgment" is likely a big source of that tendency. Particularly as I was making a relatively mild observation.
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Maybe it's the hellish, horrible thread you posted six months ago detailing everything you thought was wrong with me that the janitor deleted in horror.
You never, ever have permission to pass judgement about me. I'll let you know when/if that changes.
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Though I must admit to curiousity as to when you sought permission to pass judgment on Squicky and I. Also, it is it necessary to reapply for permission with each judgment passing? Because there have been more than a few instances.
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