posted
"Even the people I know who get nervous about Mormons and JWs and Harry Potter didn't mention anything about Catholics."
Hm. In my experience, these do tend to be pretty much the same people. Maybe Catholicism just didn't come up.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Fugu: Yes, it's necessary. You've had it before, but not in this occasion. Sorry.
Tom: Exactly. Maybe it just didn't come up, or maybe it wasn't there. There were lots of Catholics around, so maybe they were being restrained. On ther other, I was there, so the restraint didn't extend too far. I could make up a list of reasons for it, but their having no problem with Catholics has to be on that list.
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Living in Utah, or any place where people interact far more with fellow Mormons than anyone else, it is easy for misinformation to get bounced about.
There have been a couple of times that our home teacher made a comment about "the way things are done" in another religion (contrasting to ours) and what he said simply was not accurate. So we corrected him politely.
I agree with Papa and others that if you are disagreeing with actual doctrine because you believe differently, fine. But I really dislike it when people mischaracterize another religion. Sorry guys, but Mormons do it too. At least, they do here. I haven't seen them be deliberately dishonest about it, though, and generally they gracefully submit to correction. They aren't *trying* to spread falsehoods, just repeating what they think are facts.
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Pop, Would you disagree then that someone saying something like, "You're so lucky that you don't have any problems, like I do." is disrespectful? I think this conveys a fundamental lack of respect for people as anything but scenery in your self-centered persecution fantasy. Respect, to me, involves an attempt to understand the reality of people or groups situation, which I really think was lacking here. And going beyond that, from a personal viewpoint to asserting that this is reality, as Tat did, is, to me, very disrespctful. It was, to me, like someone telling a jewish person, "Well, of course you don't really know what it's like to be a member of an oppressed group."
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posted
I would withdraw whatever permission I apparently gave at some point for you to call much of my past posting "BS" (and that was the edited, nice version), though since I don't hold with the principle, I won't.
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I hate that you phrase your questions with double-negatives, Squick. I always have to re-read.
I think there are multiples definitions, or perhaps levels, of disrespect. The statement could be unintentionally disrespectful, but that depends on motivations which as far as I'm concerned remain unknown. Then there's intentional disrespect, where (to continue the flavor of examples) someone tells a story of his own persecution and another person discounts or dismisses it.
Unintentional disrespect, to me, invites information. Intentional disrespect invites correction or perhaps rebuke (depending to some degree on the relationship between the people involved).
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posted
I do too, especially since I often forget one of the negatives. I'll try not to cease discontinuing that in the future...err never. Not.
Unintentional disrespect, to me, calls for inormation, yes, but also conveying that someone is being disrespectful. A consciousness raising if you will. In most cases, I think this is more important/productive then confronting those who show intentional disrespect. You have better prospects dealing with a generally well-meaning person who lacks perspective than with someone who is consciously being a jerk. But it still takes an often unwelcome effort on their part to admit the mistake they made.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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beverly- Mormons are infallible and I resent your implications to the contrary.
Everyone else- why is it so cool to talk about whether or not a person is insensitive? This seems to happen all too frequently at Hatrack.
Yeah, Kat and some other Mormons sometimes get into a bit of a persecution complex. Squicky is arrogant and Tom is passive-aggressive and Papa Moose is the peace maker I am overbearing. Everyone already knows this about one another and has for years. Does no one else realize this?
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quote: 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.
What I said was not meant at ALL in that spirit. I'm so sorry that I didn't make that more clear. I have the highest respect for all people's faith, or choice not to embrace any faith.
What I said is that it surprises me that some churches officially choose to spend time and resources preaching against and combatting Mormonism, which they find to be an evil doctrine.
I also said that I spent almost two decades as a Catholic and had no specifically anti-Catholic targeted tracts or protests directed at me or my church during that time. I've now been LDS for four years and seen anti-Mormon tracts and protests on multiple occasions.
No disrespect whatsoever was intended, and I'm very sorry if my words were so taken.
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posted
Members of the LDS Church themselves have not been innocent of Anti-Catholicism. I specifically remember a handful of books/tracts, not published by the Church, but pretty popular with missionaries nonetheless, that included rather strikingly ignorant and barbed discussions of the Catholic Church. Some were just annoying, but a few were quite offensive.
I remember one document that was passed around my mission (unofficially) that purported to be written by a former Catholic priest (or possibly monk), who had supposedly converted to Mormonism. It was several typewritten pages, and completely unverifiable. It went on at great length about the evils of the Catholic Church, and made allegations about widespread conspiracies that the Catholic Church was supposed to be orchestrating. It was pretty hideous, but some missionaries believed it was authentic. It obviously was not. But twenty year old guys do tend to be pretty dumb.
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Well then I took something very different out of it than you intended. So, you do believe that people actually do make fusses about people being in/converting to other religions besides LDS?
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quote:Members of the LDS Church themselves have not been innocent of Anti-Catholicism. I specifically remember a handful of books/tracts, not published by the Church, but pretty popular with missionaries nonetheless, that included rather strikingly ignorant and barbed discussions of the Catholic Church. Some were just annoying, but a few were quite offensive.
Aha! This may explain a discussion Kat and I had a little while back about Mormon missionaries receiving instruction in how to proselytize to specific churches (Catholics in particular). If my friend got such a book on his mission and identified it as such to me ("a book I got for my mission"), I may have interpreted it as something official. I would assume it was one of the "annoying" ones, not one of the hateful ones.
Mystery solved. I was sure this guy didn't lie to me. And I was sure Kat wasn't lying to me. My working theory before this was that they had changed the instruction in the 15-odd years since then.
posted
I never saw anything on my mission like that. But I did get that book that has two missionaries "on trial" for their beliefs, being accused of different things and answering them. It was basically a way of expressing defenses to certain attacks.
I also got some funky cartoons of "barrel chested angels" protecting missionaries.
I'm sure lots of Weird Stuff gets passed around on missions.
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I never saw any books that were solely about how to convert Catholics, but there were some that were about how to counter/answer arguments/doctrines of many different churches, and they each had a section on Catholicism. Such books are (were?) sold in LDS-themed bookstores, which don't exist in many places outside of Utah. They are often not published very professionally, with bad type and shabby covers, etc. They each seem to have an introduction that tells the story of how the book came to be written, which is clearly intended to be inspiring, but always fails.
One was based upon recordings of a series of debates which a pair of LDS missionaries had with ministers/members of other faiths, which recordings were transcribed and organized by the younger brother of one of the missionaries. The form which the actual book took was quite offensive. (This is the one Beverly mentioned, and it is called Day of Defense.)
Another was a collection of scriptures and quotations put together by an LDS man over his lifetime. It was a hobby of his to collect items which he thought proved other churches were wrong and Mormons were right. The book was published after his death in a crop-dusting accident.
Not every missionary has such books. I think maybe 10% of the people in my mission had something like that. They were usually gifts, and were seldom actually read, let alone used in the work. A few did read them, and got all worked up about them. They were nuts.
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quote: Squicky is arrogant and Tom is passive-aggressive
Bah. Not only am I also arrogant, I am in fact actually aggressive. It only seems passive because I'm not very good at it.
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posted
Not having actually served a mission... but it seems like there is such a limited selection of officially approved literature that it's inevitable that people will fill in with other stuff. As far as I know, Missionaries are only supposed to read the scriptures and 5 or 6 books written by apostles. Various apostles have written hundreds of books, but they are not official missionary literature. There are none that are cut and dried reference texts (such as Mormon Doctrine which in the original edition identified Catholicism as the Great and Abominable(tm) church).
Then there are thousands of inspiring works written by other folks, especially BYU religion faculty, which are also not approved missionary literature. But many, many of these are written specifically for the missionary market. I think there is one called Drawing on the Powers of Heaven that is quite popular as an all around motivational work. I don't know that there was much wrong with the book, just that a lot of people who use it seem to be converted to it, the book, in a way that I'd like to see them enthused about the scriptures.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Well then I took something very different out of it than you intended. So, you do believe that people actually do make fusses about people being in/converting to other religions besides LDS?
Mr. Squicky, I'm sure of it! I've heard my friends talk about individuals dissing on them for their beliefs (or lack of belief) many times. I doubt there is any religion or faith that hasn't had people harshing on them for their beliefs at some point.
What strikes me as so odd is, for instance, my former boss's church, who had a speaker in church meetings talk on the topic of "The Evils of Mormonism". It's the institutional, official position of their church that Mormonism is an evil that should be combatted. It's just strange, I think, seeing as how the LDS are generally so harmless and law-abiding and stuff.
Actually I've just realized what it's comparable to is the teachings against the evils of homosexuality, which I also find baffling. So there you go. Gays also are quite often model citizens and harm nobody. And they don't even send missionaries out recruiting.
Ah, that makes me happy to realize that! <smiles> I guess it makes sense to me now because I can see that it's just irrational. Is that a paradox? <laughs>
Oh, and my posts are always just what I happen to think and are not representative of LDS as a whole, or anyone at all besides just me.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
Interesting Parallel, Tatiana, and I think I see a common thread.
Mormons (and JW's) are threatening to some Christians, I think, because they actively proseletyze to Christian denominations... and most of the deeply anti-gay people I know belive that there is some sort of "recruiting effort" by Gays to get teens to join their ranks... this is often what people seem to mean when they talk about the "Homosexual Agenda".
IOW, a lot of anti-gay people really *do* believe they send out missionaries (there's a pun there, but I'm not going to make it ).
Catholics are a lot sutbler about their recrruiting (usually) and so perhaps aren't as high on the threat list... we're more considered more targets than threats by most of the people that disrespect us.
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Well, except for that whole ushering in the apocalypse thing. I'm pretty sure they find that threatening. Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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That's something I've never gotten into the culture into enough depth to understand. Some oft he rapture protestants are trying to bring on the rapture and some of them scream bloodly murder at anything that has a vague resemblence to the events of Revelations. I've never been able to tell whether therer are two competing groups (which isn't a bad idea for a story if you ask me, Eschaton Force or something) or whether it's the same people but regarding it differently based on a set of rules I don't understand. Anyone have any insight?
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posted
I actually see both attitudes within my own church. Some feel a need to try to prevent the horrible things we know will happen in the last days, and some feel the desire to speed the arrival of the great things that will happen.
I mostly fall on the side of being scared witless of the bad things that will happen.
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Dag, that's why they pick on us for that. I remember being told (by one of my bandmates for crying out loud) that JPII was a good pope, then there were going to be two more, and then the last pope who was the Anti-Christ.
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quote:What strikes me as so odd is, for instance, my former boss's church, who had a speaker in church meetings talk on the topic of "The Evils of Mormonism". It's the institutional, official position of their church that Mormonism is an evil that should be combatted. It's just strange, I think, seeing as how the LDS are generally so harmless and law-abiding and stuff.
See, I don't see that. I've had apologetics folks come in and talk about mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses and Islam in my former church, but it was never "Mormons are evil. JW's are evil. Moslems are evil."
It was "We believe their doctrine is flawed, and this is why" and then it undertook to study the various doctrinal positions, where they differed from our own, and how to approach and talk about those differences. That doesn't sound any different from what some mormons here are saying they do. If you're referring to the same types of services that I've attended, then I think you're overstating it. I'm a protestant in the Bible Belt and no one has ever gotten up on a podium that I've seen and called mormons evil. Individual members may do one thing, but let's be careful before we call it an "institutional, official position of their church that Mormonism is an evil," unless you are a member of that church and have firsthand knowledge or have seen written evidence that their doctrinal statements do indeed contain such a thing.
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posted
I take all the last days stuff as meaning chiefly "it can happen at any time, be prepared". Lots of "last days" type stuff has been going on for thousands of years. And nobody knows for sure when it will be. Might be thousands of years from now, or even millions or billions. Also could be this afternoon, I guess.
Either way it seems like the smart thing is to do whatever you can to make things better in the world, but be prepared for the best, as well as the worst. Look forward with a perfect brightness of hope, in other words, but know that trials will surely come, and will be for your ultimate gain.
<laughs> All that sounds pretty trite to me, reading over it. But really I guess I did have a point, which is that the present time always has seemed to those living to be crazy and out of control compared to the past. And many people have looked for the last days throughout all of history.
I think if we're smart enough and make good choices, we may well see exploration and colonization of the solar system and galaxy, as well as many other marvels wonderful to behold, before the last trump sounds. That's my vision of the future: a new flowering of freedom, exploration, and expression all that's good in the human spirit.
posted
As a non-Rapture believing Protestant (I am an amillennialist) I don't spend much time speculating on eschatology at all.
It's one reason we left our last church, because they were insistent on teaching eschatology, pariticularly premillennial dispensationalism, which both contradicted our stated written doctrine and contradicted our personal beliefs.
I just don't think there is much to gain about worrying over WHEN it will happen or even WHAT signs we need to be on the watch for. Our instructions in the Bible on the type of life we're to live is more than enough to guide us and keep us busy. No sense in worrying over things well beyond our control.
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quote:quote:What strikes me as so odd is, for instance, my former boss's church, who had a speaker in church meetings talk on the topic of "The Evils of Mormonism". It's the institutional, official position of their church that Mormonism is an evil that should be combatted. It's just strange, I think, seeing as how the LDS are generally so harmless and law-abiding and stuff.
See, I don't see that. I've had apologetics folks come in and talk about mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses and Islam in my former church, but it was never "Mormons are evil. JW's are evil. Moslems are evil."
It was "We believe their doctrine is flawed, and this is why" and then it undertook to study the various doctrinal positions, where they differed from our own, and how to approach and talk about those differences. That doesn't sound any different from what some mormons here are saying they do. If you're referring to the same types of services that I've attended, then I think you're overstating it. I'm a protestant in the Bible Belt and no one has ever gotten up on a podium that I've seen and called mormons evil. Individual members may do one thing, but let's be careful before we call it an "institutional, official position of their church that Mormonism is an evil," unless you are a member of that church and have firsthand knowledge or have seen written evidence that their doctrinal statements do indeed contain such a thing.
I have seen it, both on televised religious programs and in person during a sermon. My grandparents watched the televised religious programs while I visited them, and refused to turn it off while I was there, despite knowing that I'm LDS when the people on the program were talking about why Mormonism and Mormons are evil. It wasn't a discussion about differences in doctrine - it was flat-out Mormons are evil, they're going to burn in hell, they're Satan worshippers, it's not a church but a cult, and they're against everything good kind of thing. The sermon was pretty much the same.
And I have many relatives who apparently believe that crap. But then, these same people also tend to believe that all Muslims are evil and want to kill everyone who's opposed to them.
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My mom always said Mormons are a cult, mostly full of stupid people who have too many kids.
She's since backpedaled a little. (Although she may still believe the "too many kids" part, at least until we have a bunch more...)
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Belle... it's ok to be an Amillennial protestant????
(j/k - several of my deeply protestant friends make belief in the Rapture a near litmus-test for whether someone is "saved"... it's a little scary)
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Jim-Me, not only is it okay, but there's tons of us out there. I understand what you're saying - that near-litmus test is pretty scary.
quid, I'm not going to deny your personal experience which I'm sure was very hurtful, I just think it's going too far to call a doctrine of hatred such as was described part of the official doctrine of a Christian church. Like I said, if I can see where any church's written doctrine contains anything that equates mormons to evil people, then I'll retract my statement and join you in denouncing that particular church.
I'm telling you, in my experience, it's not like that. Your experience may be different, I acknowledge that, and I also submit that even a discussion about doctrine may seem hateful to you even when it's not intended that way. For example, if I were to sit in on mormons talking about the flawed doctrine of my particular set of beliefs, would I be offended? Most likely. Would that mean you hated me and thought I was evil? From your perspective, no, but maybe through my hurt I would interpret it that way.
As for calling mormonism a cult, sure it's done, but virtually any faith can be called a cult based on what textbook definition you use of it. Look at Jim-Me's post - I think he knows what I'm talking about - there are people (even in my own family) who think that I'm in some weird cult because how could we be really Christian if we don't believe in a rapture?
Again, I'm not denying you've had experiences that felt to you like mormons were being called evil. I do think it unlikely that "Mormons are evil and should be combatted" is part of an official church doctrine. That was what I took exception to in Tatiana's post - not that she heard things that were hurtful, perhaps even hateful from a church member, but that the church had an official position on hating mormons.
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posted
I know that both my grandparents (presbyterians) actually give people a great deal of respect when they find out they're LDS. They say they tend to be good people, decent, moral and all that.
I just think it's significant because my grandparents never pulled any punches and said what they meant.
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quid...was that a televangelist or a televised church service from a recognized denomination? Sounds weird either way, but I'd tend more to believe that some whack-job televangelist would spew that nonsense than I would believe that a program sponsored by a particular denomination would. Although I'm not really "up" on religious broadcasting these days.
UofU
quote:The book was published after his death in a crop-dusting accident.
For some reason I formed a mental picture of some errant field-spraying somehow causing a book to be published. Like this group of super-locusts got hold of an old printing press and the rough draft of this guy's stuff and just started cranking it out.
quote: 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.
While I'm no Carlin authority, I believe he grew up Irish-Catholic and has incorporated that into his comedy. I never got the sense that it was anti-Catholic, really.
Then again, I consider Carlin to be virtually a comedy icon, so I'm certainly biased.
posted
Bob, me too! I was thinking of thousands of copies of his manuscript accidentally floating down over Kansas after a mid air collision with migrating geese or something.
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posted
George Carlin did indeed grow up Catholic. His humor about those experiences is hilarious. Whether he is also anti-Catholic in real life, I have no idea.
I don't find his humor offensive, nor did I when I still considered myself Catholic.
by the way...catholic with a lower-case "c" means "universal" and is often seen in the creed recited by several denominations.
Catholic with an upper-case "C" refers to the Roman Catholic church (headquartered in Rome).
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Not sure who that was directed at, but I knew that.
I think most people who grew up and were/are in a certain group have funny stories they tell about that group. My father's side of the family all grew up Catholic and they love to swap nun stories from the Catholic schools they attended.
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I think being a member of the religion you're poking fun at (as in jokes) gives you immunity of some sort.
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If that's the case, then that would actually include Kevin Smith (director of Dogma), since he's Catholic in the same way that George Carlin is (at least, I'm relatively certain he is).
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"Am I the only one who keeps reading the title of this thread to the tune of that song that's the theme from 'Smallville'? "
Not having a TV, I've never heard the song. Which I guess is a good thing.
Has this thread title changed from something about being "saved?" If not, then there's a lot I don't understand.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Reposted for emphasis, since Kat seems to think she was accused of insensitivity by me:
quote:Originally posted by Ela: 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.
posted
To add on to the straight-edge versus ruler thing: a long time ago, it was common to teach kids in high school geometry class to do constructions. Contructing involves duplicating a drawing, or bisecting a segment or angle or some such task, with only the tools of a ruler and a straightedge. It's a great exercise (I think) in spatial thinking, and I used to have students do constructions when I still taught geometry. (The application Geometer's Sketchpad is a neat nmodern way of approximating this task, but there are some differences between sketchpad constructions and old-fashioned constructions.) Some geometry classes still do constructions to some degree--mostly honors level classes, in my experience--but I have noticed that a lot of them do it wrong. (It seems to be a disappearing skill.) Anyway, your compass should be a collapsing compass, meaning that if you lift it from the writing surface, the arms come together, rather than a firm one which would maintain its angle (and, unlike a collapsing compass, could be used as a measuring device), and your straightedge should specifically not have measuring marks on them. The idea is you use your knowledge of the properties of lines and circles to construct the objects, and not any measuring device.
This is where the word comes from--many of us instinctively group "compass and straightedge" together in our minds--and why it is not a synonym for "ruler."
posted
Now, as to the rest, I heard quite a bit of strongly anti-Catholic stuff growing up, and I never heard a single word against Latter Day Saints. I think it may have to do with part of the country. I didn't meet my first Mormon (that I know of) until I was at (Catholic) college. (FWIW, the most vehement anti-Catholic sentiment I encoutered personally came from "born again" Christians and Jehovah's Witnesses. I heard much more anti-Jewish sentiment from all corners than anti-Catholic sentiment, and I still do. The anti-Catholic stuff I encountered also could not begin to hold a finger to the anti-Latino sentiment in general and the anti-Cuban hate in particular I encountered in South Florida. And I'm sure the anti-Latino prejudice I encountered doesn't begin to compare to the racism encountered by most blacks. (If we want to get silly, for those of you who know what I'm talking about, I would say I definitely witness more anti-Celebration-resident prejudice than anti-Catholic [or Mormon] prejudice, but not as much as anti-Latino prejudice. I'm guessing that in Alabama or Texas, though, anti-Celebration-resident prejudice is virtually unheard of.)
I never was aware of any anti-Mormon sentiment whatsoever until I joined this board and heard LDS members from around the country relate their experience, and link to some hateful sites.
What was the point of that? Nothing. It was just a freewrite. Random mental wandering.
The people in this thread whom I have known here for some time are all capable of being insensitive, but none of them are insensitive. They are all capable of being oversensitive, but none of them are oversensitive. (Except perhaps me. I am.) They are all capable of being immature, but none of them are immature.
On the other hand, they all have a tendency to not let a topic drop, because they are hell bent on making sure people understand exactly what they said and why it was perfectly appropriate.
But none of them would intend to belittle anybody else.
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quote:On the other hand, they all have a tendency to not let a topic drop, because they are hell bent on making sure people understand exactly what they said and why it was perfectly appropriate.
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