I would see these young men riding their bikes up and down the hills of Hilo, Hawaii, dressed in their black slacks, white shirts, and ties in 80 degree temperatures, and think to myself that for that reason alone it was a religion to be avoided at all cost.
When I lived on the island I could barely wear clothes without being reduced to a puddle of sweat.
While we are on the subject I should probably admit that I have often had a rather adversarial relationship with the Mormon church though in my defense I don't think it was all my fault.
I don't really have any more against them then I do other religions (You know I dislike them all equally.), but it just seems that we have crossed paths more than a few times and I have always been left with a bad taste in my mouth.
And this was BEFORE Mitt Romney.
Hey, maybe it's just me.
I doubt very seriously if it is just you, Gryph. Considering these kids are almost everywhere, it is almost inevitable there would be multiple crossings.
ReplyDeleteAnd I have always disliked ALL proselytizing - especially from ignorant pushers who are incapable of thinking for themselves.
By the way, what I have always told all the kids that come to my door from this group of nuts is simple: "Learn to THINK for yourselves!"
I understand they are so brainwashed as to be fully lost - most of the time. I understand they really do believe the crap they are fed. But even ONE glance at the entire belief structure would collapse the house of cards for any serious looker.
One would think these fools would be able to see a con job when they look at one, but any time they see anything logical that cannot be refuted, they react just like a creationist.
"You just don't understand, but if you would listen...."
The saddest thing is, even if most of them do find out it is all bull shit, they'd still stay in their cult. Why? Because it makes them feel part of a community of like minded "individuals" in a very complex and ever changing world.
DeleteBeing able to give over your decision making facilities to some "higher authority" is very comforting to some types of people. Why worry when you can give that over and just be?
Having read the Book of Mormon,
ReplyDeleteI find it difficult to believe that anyone could read that steaming pile of nonsense and go, "oh YEAH! THERE we go! THAT'S the truth I've been searching looking for!"
Word!
DeleteCongratulations on reading that book. I tried, and quit. I did come away from that thinking that whoever did write that book really, really like the phrase "...and it came to pass"
DeleteThe Mormons, a cult based on a ludicrous text, is a Ponzi scheme -- all those missionaries finding more and more gullible people around the world to pledge to send 10% of their tiny incomes, forever, to Salt Lake City, no questions asked. The money keeps piling up, in the hands solely of the self-annointed "elders." In secret.
ReplyDeleteDelve even a little into the history of Joseph Smith, the Golden Tablets, the Angel Moroni -- you'll wonder that any sane person could be taken in by the hoax. But it offers what all cults offer -- a circle of like-minded people to reinforce the stories and to protect its members from the doubts and difficulties of the outside world.
See also, but not exclusively: Scientologists, and rabid, fringe "christianists," like Palin's gang.
I point people to two excellent books on the subject:
DeleteFawn Brody's No Man Knows My History and Richard Abanes One Nation Under God. The later details the LDS's plan for world domination (and you thought Mitt wasn't a long term plan... WRONG!)
And an oldie but goodie: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 19th c. take-down of these charlatans, which I read as an impressionable teenager back when I was being smiled upon by my local Mormon "bishop."
DeleteA couple of sweet Mormon boys showed up at my house a few years ago and offered to finish scrubbing my kitchen walls for me as they'd interrupted my spring cleaning. I refused but asked them why their church didn't think black people were good enough to be in it until the 70s.
ReplyDeleteTheir little foreheads crinkled then they said . . . .Well, its okay now. Before they could say anything else I politely sent them on their way.
At the time my next door neighbor was almost a snake handling pentecostal who was afraid of me because I was an atheist—but he hated every other religion in the world. I almost warned them not to go up the sidewalk to his house.
But I suppose a trial by crazy pentecostal would be good for them..
Succinct...and almost brutal enough......almost
ReplyDeleteMormonism is a pedophile cult established by a man who liked to have sex with a lot of teenage girls and invented his own religion so that he could do just that. As these perverts got old they were able to send all the younger men far, far away to convert heathens while the old perverts "married" as many young women as they wanted. Mormonism is no more a religion than Scientology is.
ReplyDeleteBesides scientology, you can add in the Jehovah Witnesses, the entire Christian Dominionist movement, all the so called Christian white power/separatist groups.
DeleteAlso too, the Quiverful bunch, who truly oppress women in appalling ways.
Like Michelle Duggar, who's had 19 kids and counting?
Who has daughters that are not allowed to work outside the home, and who can't go to college?
Those girls are supposed to keep house, raise mommy's kids, find a male master to breed with and BREED another 20 kids.. THAT is their sole purpose in the quiver movement.
Then we have extreme fundamentalist Christianity, Pietism, Evangelicalism, Pentecostalism and the Holiness movement
And consider the Catholics, both mainstream and the extreme offshoots like Opus Dei. I have a branch of the Opus cult a few miles away, and they are constantly fighting with the town because they insist that zoning and building codes don't apply to them. Delve into their belief systems, and you'll find anti-semitism that is endemic
I wonder if the Pope has ever contemplated selling just some of the treasures of Vatican to help educate and feed his flock?
Let's not forget the 100's of groups that target the young and vulnerable in the military, college, and high schools, like Campus Crusade.
Finally, we have the thousands of TV and Radio preachers who prey on the elderly, the ignorant, and the vulnerable to separate them from their money and their freedom. The worst of these are charlatans like Pat Robertson, Joel Osteen, Charles Dobson, Tony Perkins, Ken Copeland, and the hateful, nasty, vicious, bigoted bastards like Bryan Fischer.
Oh, I almost forgot the Christian religious lobbyist groups like the "Family" who's members include many in Congress, like our pious and famous John Ensign, who, when he was done fucking his mistress, had his parents pay her off to keep quiet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ensign_scandal
You may ask, who does that leave among Christians who are appearing to follow the teachings in the gospels, and who are not in the business of fleecing or fucking over the flock,, and who are not in the business of forcing religion based laws on others, or pushing into everyone else's lives to proselytize?
Damn few, but even as a confirmed atheist, I salute you for your brave stance and willingness to defy the insanity and moral vacuum of organized religion!
Try the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Episcopalians, the Lutherans, the Northern Baptists -- who are guided by tradition, who wait for their congregations to choose their clergy, and, often, their doctrine. Democratic, loving, generous, inclusive denominations. And, if they aren't all the way there yet, they're debating it and getting there.
Delete9:06- not long ago, I was at the Lutheran church I grew up in, on a Sunday when the sermon was "stump the pastor" (basically, a q&a). Someone asked about something, and the pastor went off on a mini-tangent about how our church believes certain things- one of the examples he gave was homosexuality/same-sex marriage. His comment was basically "we don't agree with that, and if you do, maybe this isn't the place for you." Had I not been sitting next to my grandparents, I would have walked out. Another comment (and he was the guest on a local radio station talking about said comment the following week) was about the "truth of Islam." I avoid that place as much as I can while still keeping the peace with my parents. I won't have to go there for Christmas Eve service, thank goodness. The pastor before this "new" one (he was just an idiot, or at least he didn't make any homophobic/Islamophobic comments known) forced the extremely talented music director out. Now we go to the church the music director's working at, a Methodist church where the pastor in 08 told my brother he liked his Obama button.
DeleteOh, I have something against them over other religions. It's a period scheme. All they do is collect money from people, who have to go out on missions, not to help people, but to get more people signed up for their church. They don't build schools, they don't teach people how to read, they don't help bring people fresh water. All they do is prosletyze. When was the last time you heard about a hurricane happening and a bunch of Mormons arrived to help. Say what you want about Catholics, but Catholic Charities does a lot of good stuff -- I'm not really a Catholic, I'm just laying out what I hate about Mormons.
ReplyDeleteThen, with all this month that they raise from their people, they purchase businesses -- for-profit businesses, and they then don't have to pay taxes on this. I read about construction a lot and I just read a story about the Mormon church buying land to build apartments -- that they're renting at market rate. So…it's not going to be low-income housing or anything helpful for society. They own half of Utah, it seems, and then they go and develop private, for-profit housing, without having to pay taxes. It's a croc of shit. It's Scientology, but with the air of respectability because it's been around for more than a hundred years. And I bet that when you're a Mormon businessman -- because I doubt there are any Mormon businesswomen because who's going to raise all the Harpers and Gynnyfurs -- that you have pressure to hire other Mormons. For example, during the election, there was the minor story about people -- men, of course -- who used to work for Bain and went off and started their own private equity firm, well…the men who did this are getting sued for discriminating against non-Mormon workers. So…there you go. Bain must have had a lot of Mormons working there…
Can you imagine if there were a Jewish or Catholic business man who only hired other Catholics and Jews???
So, in short, it's a pyramid schemes that doubles as an employment agency that purchases private land and develops it, for profit, and then doesn't have to pay taxes. So…yeah…Scientology.
My F-I-L was hired by Nature's Sunshine - an international herbal / vitamin supplement company (They have great products) but they are owned by the Mormon Church. My F-i-L moved out to SLC to work as their VP of Quality control and new products division. They would be very upset when he wouldn't go to church with them on a Sunday and instead went fishing. They basically used him to get his info and expertise and then after a few years pushed him out because he isn't Mormon and wouldn't convert. And even though his work was 110% and he created some very popular, best selling products.
DeleteThose little robots can be arrogant and rude to women. A few years back, while waiting at a school bus stop for my child, I was approached by a pair of these brainwashed morons. I spoke up before they got to me and told them I wasn't interested, and they replied that it was THEIR RIGHT to speak to me and I HAD TO listen to them. I told them to get the f*** away from me and kept up the cursing until they fled in terror. You're welcome for that anti-Mormon tip.
ReplyDeleteHow about the part of the story where the charlatan pissed off the locals so badly that he had to move several times just to stay ahead of the pitchforks (which eventually caught up to him). Excuse me while I pull these golden tablets out of my ass and by the way, I am the only one who knows how to read them and nobody else can see them or they lose their magic.
ReplyDeleteI just started reading part two of Double Down (the mittens part).
We have some fresh ones in Belgium at the moment, they look like a pair of frightened kittens.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest they'll look like that no matter what country they are precariously placed in...sigh.
DeleteFools, such wasted feeble minded fools.
No Jesse, you're not alone at all. They were founded with the values of power & greed & have become rich even beyond Joseph Smith's wildest dreams & continue on their march to turn America into an LDS Theocracy.
ReplyDeleteAnd it was the hand of the Mormon church that got Proposition 9 passed in California in 2008, revoking the right of gays to marry for five years until the Supreme Court corrected things last June.
ReplyDelete*
I was in Catholic school from grade 1 to grade 6, always taught 'the Catholic religion was the one true religion,' never taught others felt the same way about their religion and that I should accord them equal respect. No organized religion dares teach that: to do so is to plant a fatal question inside the presumed and proclaimed infallibility of the religion you're shilling. When a nun was fed up with us, the worst thing she could threaten was our expulsion to the local public school, as if it were a fate worse than death. Money had something to do with the decision, but I'm grateful my parents pulled me away from that brainwashing factory before they could destroy my mind on matters sexual.
*
I've no more respect for Mormons, but I feel on wobbly ground castigating them, given my own indoctrination in a religion that celebrates the birth of a child to a virgin impregnated by a spirit, typically represented as a bird. If I'm not a complete atheist yet, I've got the Boston pedophile explosion of 2002, and the continued survival and freedom of Bush and Cheney to thank for pushing me as close as I've ever been.
Whoops - Prop. 8. Sorry.
DeleteYeah, but the Mormons believe in this myth, too. They also believe that Jesus was born in MISSOURI and that dark-skinned people are being punished for being evil. They also believe that magical gold plates appeared, then disappeared. And they think that if you are a man and you're a Mormon and you tithe your 10 percent and abstain from caffeine all your life, you'll be given a planet where you will be god and you'll be reunited with all your family. This is crazy on top of crazy with a helping of extra crazy on top.
DeleteI also went to Catholic school until grade 6 when I insisted my parents let me transfer to the public junior/senior high school.
DeleteFrom the time I was in first or second grade, I had a very hard time understanding why the nuns kept saying that all Jews were evil and were going straight to hell. At the time my best friend in the whole world was Jewish and her family was the nicest on the block.
Of course, anyone who wasn't Roman Catholic was also going to hell since our church was apparently the only one that counted. I never understood why, at the tender age if 6 or 7, I could figure out that most of what I was taught was nonsense but adults one or two generations older all believed it.
And now, in all the batshit fundagelical sects, anyone who's not them is going straight to hell, and the only use they have for the Jews is to round them up in one place so Jesus can come and kill them all.
DeleteThe last time the Mormons (may have been the Jehovah Witness folks came to my remote country house, I greeted them nicely at the door.
ReplyDeleteThey had their kids with them. That's a very typical ploy to try and appeal to soft hearted folks, and to put you at your ease that they are not con artists (ha!)
They started their typical talk, but I stopped them and warned them that they should never drive up my long private road, because we are NUDISTS, and often my girl friend and I are NAKED in the yard or house.
You should have seen the looks on their faces. That was at least 5-6 years ago, and they have not been back since
Since I work with deaf kids, I am fluent in sign language. When I get one of those people at my door, I just start signing to them without using my voice. It doesn't matter WHAT I sign, as long as I don't speak. They usually get so flustered they stammer an apology and quickly walk away.
DeleteLike you, I must have been placed on some 'Do Not Visit' list because I've seen them pass right by my house since then!
Try being raised Southern Baptist. Even though Dad was in the military, there was still Baptist churches in every state where we moved. There is a difference between Baptist and Southern Baptist. When we were in Georgia, we had to go to the SOUTHERN Baptist church and attend the tent revival meetings.
ReplyDeleteBelieve me, they were about a step and a half up from handling snakes!
Don't forget: the second "m" is silent.
ReplyDeleteHere's an article from MotherJones about a book that is even worse than Sarah Palin's book.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/11/ann-romney-family-cookbook-review-recipes
I love when they bother to drive out to our ranch. Snce they aren't invited I usually just watch them try to figure out if they should get out of their vehicle or not. I have a few dogs, including 2 retired K9's, a catahoula and a pitty mix ( all adopted) that "greet people at their cars. While they would never harm anyone, most people won't get out without me telling the dogs to go lie down. I like to time them, once a couple of suited young men sat there for over 10 minutes before driving away. The one time they got out I decided to have more fun.
ReplyDeleteI called the dogs off, but ordered my K9's to "be alert" (which usually involves some excited whining and a little teeth baring) then as they walked forward I told them to stop, about 20 ft from their car and 15 ft from me and ordered the 2 GSD's to "hold" Now that was funny as they stood in front of those 2 young men and snarled and warned them they meant business.. I again warned them not to move at ALL.
I then gave them a lecture on arriving at people's homes not invited. I then called back the dogs and told those men to leave. They ran faster than Olympian runner Mr Bolt and I swear one pee'd his pants.
I must have gotten on some sort of list after that because I haven't seen anymore Morons on my ranch.
BTW I should tell everyone that those 2 dogs would NOT have done anything more without a command from me, those Morons were in no danger at all.
Hahaha! Been there - done that too! I was a caretaker at a rural horse farm in N. Ga. Almost every spring Sunday a car would show up with suited and skirted youngsters trying to convert the heathen woman at the horse farm. The farm dogs wouldn't have hurt them, but they sure circled the car like sharks. The dogs seemed to know that these particular people weren't very welcome and played up the ferocious protectors to the hilt, glancing at me totally laughing about it - anyone who speaks dog will understand what I mean...
DeleteIt's the height of arrogance for these idiots to go to other communities and other countries and try to persuade the locals that they're "doing religion wrong".
ReplyDeleteIt makes me so sad to see you people missing out on the wonderful blessing that the gospel is. I am not mad that I see all of these far-fetched lies on this website, but it makes me sad to see you people missing out on such a wonderful thing. These diligent young men leave their whole lives behind for 2 years so that they can share this wonderful thing and all they get is slammed doors and rude comments. You don't realize how much they sacrifice to do this. We aren't forced to do anything, we choose to do it because we believe it is the right decision.
DeleteYes, the Mormons spent big money to make sure ERA was squashed and Prop8 passed. They "love" LGBT folk and women as long as they "know their place".
ReplyDeleteIt's great place for straight, white men who don't mind being fleeced for 10% so they can be taught the special handshakes and pass words (Pay Lay Ale) to make it to the highest kingdom. (Poor idiots.)
I like to invite them in. Then I offer them coffee. They politely refuse, and while I fix myself a cup, I talk about my background, and about things I have read aboout their church. As I am pouring whiskey into my coffee, I tell them I am very interested in a few things I have read about them. By the time I sit down, they are smelling the whiskey and feeling a bit terrified. Then I talk about Sonja Johnston, who was excommunicated from the mormon church (back in the 80"s it was real news) because she asked what exactly it was about the ERA that the church found so objectionable. So I ask them again, What is it about your church that demands that women cannot be seen as equals under the law?. They are usually out the door by then. If not, I start to ask why the morman church is so opposed to gay marriage, because the supporters of gay marriage claim it will lead directly to mormon-type plural marriages.
ReplyDeleteSimply slamming the door on them is effective, but messing with their heads is always so much more fun.