The Mormon Religion--not necessarily the members--but the religion itself is 100% Racist

This religion to me is a cult period! I never trusted these people.
 

Oh look, BR started another thread attacking religion.  And surprise!--he also tried to use the Holy book of *that religion to make a case against it.  

 

 

 

*Does not apply to Islam. 

 

Are you saying that he should not comment on religions, or just that he should not use their written doctrine as ammunition? Not wishing to take sides or anything - but you guys spend plenty of time attacking the Democrats on the basis, amongst other things, of their manifestos. Why is this different, or wrong?

 

Well as SDW noted, fIrst he hits religion from two angles hypocrisy and his own ignorance. Secondly he gives free pass to Islam since it is the special interest group du jour in liberal circles for the last couple years.

 

He doesn't bring logic to the process. We do discuss political events here and while no one is perfect, we do point out reasoning fallacies. BR often doesn't even make a real assertion. As an example today, the only way you can disagree with him it to be......partial since he has declared no one impartial can hold anything but his view.

 

I mean I can predict how the thread will go right now. Anyone who disagrees with him is partial. They are biased. It need not even be discussed because he will just repeat (and personally attack them) that he is right.

 

If past claims prove current thought models, even if the past claims have been completely disavowed then obviously BR would be subject to the same criteria he has presented. Well clearly the Democratic party has a TON of racism in their past and most of us would argue in their present. BR will declare it a false equivalence. He will declare he isn't really a hypocrite for supporting Democrats and he will declare that all the racists magically left and that in his particular case, he is excluded from his own assertion, that past claims created a present stain.

 

I don't think it is helpful either to assert what BR might argue, nor to argue that it is unreasonable for him to criticize one religion just because he doesn't criticize another. You criticize the Democrats without attracting the rebuttal that you give a free pass to the Republicans. That is not hypocrisy. If ignorance is the problem, then the correct (IMO) response is as you allude to in your last paragraph, assuming it to be true that they have disavowed those old views.

Well BR notes that regardless of the justification that position was changed in 1978. He notes this but then gives himself a reason to justify his hatred. He declares 1978 to be "spin" that they are hiding behind and that if they were "impartial" instead of partial, they would just admit they are hateful racists.

 

Also I give plenty of criticism to Republicans. Any search for Pax Americana or removing people from the tax rolls via Bush tax cuts will turn up results where I have criticized. I also criticize on fair vs free trade. So you're a bit wrong there.

 

Yes - not clear to me why he does not accept their change in position. I'd like to hear that argument. I don't see anything in his post implying hatred though, and in general, atheists and agnostics do not have strong anti-religion feelings of that kind.

 

 

Fair enough, but my point stands - you don't have to have a history of criticizing Republicans to be able legitimately to criticize Democrats. Provided the foundation of the criticism is not a flawed comparison then the arguments stand on their own merits and are independent. In this particular case his comments about Mormonism, true or not, are quite unrelated to Islam, and the fact that he has not commented on Islam, or Buddhism, or any other religion, is irrelevant.

 

Sure, but the foundations and history of many mainstream religions include all kinds of crazy stuff. People, and religions, do change. What could they do that would convince you they have changed - are you arguing that they need to rewrite the Book? The regular Bible still contains ideas that are no longer espoused by the modern churches, and typically they are not assumed still to hold those views.

 

OK - but the question remains - what do you think they should do about the problem if they have now abandoned their racist views? Or are you simply asserting that they have not?

 

OK - so you think that if they have really abandoned those views then they cannot continue to claim the book to represent perfect morality. That seems reasonable. However, in the absence of admitting that, but also in the absence of direct evidence of racism in the church today, it seems more likely that they are just guilty of logical inconsistency than that the religion remains racist. Do you have a strong reason to presume the latter?

 

Agreed - I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt though, primarily because I have not seen any contemporary evidence of racism. Not that I know for certain that it does not exist, which is why I wondered if you had evidence to suggest that it still does.

 

I agree - but I thought this was about racism. Presumably you are not concluding that they are racist because they do not support same sex marriage?

 

Right - I understand that, but if they claim to have changed, disavow those beliefs, and discontinue the behavior in question, leaving just an inconsistency with their Bible, I tend to follow the convention that actions speak louder than words.

 

That's fine, but as I said, their current behavior, in my opinion, counts higher than any of those other considerations. I've read the letter, and it looks to me like a weasely attempt to change their position without admitting past errors. But while that would imply that they do not wish to admit to past racism - it does not follow that the change was not real or that they are still embracing racism.

 

Well after my nap (I've been sick for half a week) it appears you've heard it and while he is trying to be as nice as possible, and even giving him every benefit of the doubt you can see there isn't much sound reasoning there.

 

 

Well that provided is a pretty big point. It is exactly what I would say as well. The arguments stand on their own as you note and I haven't meant to imply otherwise if that is how you took it.

 

You have to understand that BR's criticism of religion goes much deeper than just an argument, logic or holding up a principle though. He goes straight into a religious bigotry strong enough that he believes said parties unfit to participate in our democracy. He doesn't throw reasoning at it but straight up hate speech.

 

Here are some of the labels just on the front page of PO.

 

anti-sex religious nutbags...

100% Racist

Sick fucks.

fucking idiots.

Spineless idiots

 

 

The language inside is worse of course.

http://www.blacklds.org/

 

That is the case because Islam is a clear and present danger to free speech and freedom of religion.

And rightly or wrongly, Mormonism isn't really taken seriously by the majority of Christians.

 

 

On the overall thread, you're quoting the religious source text (and I'm assuming doing so accurately), you've managed to keep profanity and character assassinations out of the thread title and the original post, and you've made an allegation that is at least defensible from a certain pov. It's also separate from the political discussions (though I understand why you are posting it now.)

 

I don't really see any problem with this thread.

I often engage LDS missionaries in discussion when they land on my door, though I've never really gone at it from this angle.

 

If a group of Mormons decides to hijack a bunch of planes and fly them into buildings, murdering thousands, in the name of their religion, and if there are terrorist attacks committed by Mormons almost every single day, then I would guess that we'd probably hear more criticism.

 

Even though many people have woken up to the dangers and reality of Islam, which is truly a backwards and primitive religion, I think that it should receive even more criticism. It is by far the worst large religion on the entire planet. It's a danger to all civilized and free people.

They are hypocrites these Mormons and have a lot of money which backs their church and their weird concepts about marriage and abortions and religion.I reiterate I do not trust them period!
 

 

I'm saying it's comical to watch BR pretend to be a religious scholar for the purpose of attacking religion.  Hilarious, in fact. 

 

 

 

My ilk?  Who is that and when do "we" rip Islam?  And because  there is other criticism of Islam, you feel it's OK to only target other religions?  I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose.  I mean, you liberals do love making things "fair."  

 

 

You realize you just made an incredibly bigoted statement, correct?  

 

I'd have to disagree with you there. You appear to be implying that one must be a religious scholar in order to read and criticize religious works. If BR is not permitted to read a Bible and draw simple inferences from plainly written statements, then what would you allow him to do? He may or may not be wrong in his conclusions, but that does not invalidate his method.

 

Come people...  Everyone needs to give BR a break here.  I mean it's not like the Mormon church changed their views on racism decades ago or anything, right?  I mean this just happened in the last couple years such that Romney would be a palatable candidate for the US Presidency. 

 

Oh wait...  The change was almost 3.5 decades ago?!?!  Well, I wonder how long BR feels it appropriate to hold the sins of the father against the child.  Let's just take this logic back another decade and a half to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  The bulk of the votes against that particular piece of legislation came from the Democratic party.  Therefore, I suppose the Democratic party is racist and hates black people. 

You guys are killing me. Do you know how painful it is to have to defend BR in a thread about religion?

 

He's pointing to the original source document for the Mormon religion, and pointing out it's not even close to perfect in its original form. That's valid.

 

They did change it a few decades ago, after they saw how the world's demographics were turning out.

But the charge of outright racism in an original religious source text is still a problem, and speaks to whether the founders of the religion were truthful in their claims of divine inspiration.

 

No, I am not implying that at all.  He's going way beyond criticizing religious works.  His track record indicates he uses, say, the Bible to cherry pick information to paint Christians as racist, stupid, bigoted homophobes.  His posts indicate long history of anti-religious attacks.  He uses sacred texts as his ammunition.  He is not interested in actually studying the texts, forming conclusions, and sharing them.  His is not an academic pursuit.  His "study" is intellectually dishonest and born of his own anti-religious biases. 

 

Oh, except for Islam.  We won't see him pulling sections of the Koran to plaint a negative picture of that religion.  Why?  'Cause there's enough criticism of that religion in his view.  Gotta make things fair, right?  

 

Why exactly are you so upset about Prop 8?  It's the people in Ca who VOTED to support Prop 8.  I'm sure that plenty of those individuals not only weren't Mormons, but I'm sure a ton of those voters weren't even Christian (since you're pointing to the Bible).  Besides, you have won on that issue since the judicial system out there is so far left they didn't bother to consider the message they were sending my simply over-riding the will of the people.  I wonder which would have been more horrendous in your mind, the way it went or if the situation was reversed in that the vote stuck down Prop 8 but the court reversed it the other direction.  For me, the fact that the court over-rode the vote of the people to impose this in Ca is the bigger problem.

 

I'm just wondering when the left is going to succeed in truly ruining this country by making a mockery of it.  I'm not sure where the lawsuit stands now, but some animal rights activists were seeking to have whales at SeaWorld (I assume it was SeaWorld at least) granted human rights and force SeaWorld to release the animals on the grounds of the 13th amendment and prohibition of slavery.  Let's assume that this law is passed and these animals are granted human rights.  Does this mean that someone could marry one of these animals?  Especially if we are going to start fiddling with the definition of marriage.  Can't the argument then be made that since marriage is no longer exclusively between a man and a woman and animals now have human rights, what's to stop some nut from marrying his pet goat?  What happens if the nut dies?  Are we now going to be paying Social Security survivor benefits to the goat?  Yeah, it's a cooky and far-fetched at best scenario, but some crazy things have happened in the past.

 

I'd have to argue that once again, you are attacking him and his posting history (as you view it) rather than addressing the merits or otherwise of the question in hand. I don't care what his, or anyone else's track record might be - I prefer to consider each post on its content. If you feel that Islam needs some criticism then start a thread on it - don't attack BR for not doing it.

You call it cherry picking, and others would call it prioritizing and/or picking your battles. I suppose you don't have children or you would have a clue that you can't simply control every aspect of their lives, you have to pick your battles. You don't let them play with matches, but you let the bedtime slide 20 or 30 minutes every now and then. Marriage and life are a couple of items that are on the higher end of the priority spectrum. To equate those items to tattoos, adultery, and horoscopes is a bit ridiculous.

 

I agree that the example is unlikely, at least in the near future. However, this isn't some tenuous example of completely unrelated things being spliced together. Once the definition of marriage has been altered, it would then have judicial precedence for further alterations. Once an animal is granted human rights for the purpose of being freed from "slavery", judicial precedence has been set to expand those human rights. Again, I agree that the above scenario is unlikely but marriage is a religious covenant between a man and a woman. It has been that way throughout human history, and I don't see any reason to change that now.

I don't think that it's a big deal if gay people can't get married. There are far more important issues to worry about in the world today, besides gay marriage, IMO.

 

It's not like two same sex people can procreate and raise a family. If the whole world suddenly turned gay, the human race would go extinct.

 

My views are not based on any religion, they're based on science. You need a man and a woman to make a baby and two gay married people don't do anything to preserve the human race, and they shouldn't be given the title of "married", because it just confuses things, as marriage has always traditionally been between a man and a woman, even if BR managed to dig up something vague and unproven on Wiki. I'm ok with the title of "civil union" for two gay people.

 

In a marriage, there's a wife and a husband. I don't want to meet two dudes at a party and some guy presents their significant other as their wife, that would be extremely lame. Let them have a civil union, and then they can say that that is their partner. That's less awkward and less confusing.

 

And before somebody jumps on me, and accuses me of something, I will say that I don't give a crap at all as to who people choose to screw and I don't discriminate against any gay people, unless they personally sexually harass me. I will say that I am disappointed in many liberal gay people who seem to always defend Islam, and I would advise that those people move to someplace like Iran, where they would very likely find themselves hanging from a crane.

Edited by Apple ][ - 10/15/12 at 3:30pm