1. Romney's Mormonism is fair game

Comment #90354 by jhylkema on November 24, 2007 at 1:16 pm

Comment #90292 by Duff on November 24, 2007 at 3:26 am
I'll only say this once, so pay attention! Warren Jeffs is NOT a mormon. Did you get that?

He would tell you different though. He would argue that his is the "true" path and that the mainstream church has "fallen away" from the teachings of Joseph Smith et al. Of course, to Jeffs' warped mind, those teachings involve forced marriages (spell that "rape") between 12-year-old girls and men old enough to be their great-grandfathers in many cases. Again, the only reason we're not able to simply dismiss him and give him a one-way ticket to PMITA (think Office Space) prison is that "freedom of religion" gives him some cover.

I'm not saying mormons didn't used to be that way, but they have become so mainstream, so homogenized they are in no way the same as those crackpots who live on the Utah Arizona border.

The only reason they're not that way now is that they had to renounce polygamy in order to gain statehood. This, of course, was couched in terms of the then-church president, Wilford Woodruff, allegedly receiving a revelation from god. And make no mistake about it, they believe that so-called "celestial marriage" will be practised by those fortunate few who make it to the Celestial Kingdom.

This is only the first example of the church receiving a "revelation from god" to reverse a long-held, sacred position that was deemed repugnant by civilized society. The Civil Rights Act passed in 1964. As late as 1978, the LDS church officially did not allow non-whites to hold the "priesthood." 14 years later, the church reversed its official racism.

I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that the church faced loss of its tax-exempt status for non-compliance, a la Bob Jones University. BJU went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court - and lost - to keep both their tax status and officially racist policies. Hell, in 2000, interracial dating there was prohibited under pain of instant expulsion. That policy was quietly dropped when then-candidate George W. Bush visited there.

At least BJU gets points for courage. Disgusting thought it was, they went down fighting what they thought was the good fight. The LDS church took the chickenshit way out by claiming to receive a "revelation" from some nonexistent deity(ies).

Yes, they are a bunch of deranged crackpots who need to be ignored for their (and our) own good. A good place to start would be to subject the Church to punitive taxation.

Do we really want a president who is a dues-paying member of this nutcase organization? Methinks not.

2. Romney's Mormonism is fair game

Comment #90284 by jhylkema on November 24, 2007 at 12:49 am

Comment #90231 by Duff on November 23, 2007 at 3:40 pm

However, having grown up as a mormon, I can tell you that the average mormon is a very considerate, kind, thoughtful citizen of which ever country he comes from.

Like Warren Jeffs?

The trouble is, views such as yours gives cover to the real crackpots like him. Were it not for the hold religion has on our thinking, Warren Jeffs would be viewed as the wicked, evil, sick, power-mad baby-raping false messiah that he actually is.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that mormons aren't going to become suicide bombers or anything sick like that. There are a lot more seriously delusional religious types out there whom we should be afraid of.

Mormons actually believe that the highest level of heaven consists of becoming a god themselves, engaging in plural marriage and spending eternity banging their plural wives to populate their planet. Many of them succumb to the temptation to put that into practice on Earth. If that isn't crackpot, I don't know what is.

3. Romney's Mormonism is fair game

Comment #90283 by jhylkema on November 24, 2007 at 12:43 am

Comment #90117 by tybowen on November 23, 2007 at 4:18 am

I think mormonism is getting its undue share of blame here.

No, it's an entirely legitimate question whether we want a president who is an adherent of Brother Joseph's ridiculous cult of prosperity and polygamy.

I was raised mormon

I am deeply sorry you had to endure that psychological trauma.

(i'm not anymore, but because of deep philisophical questions (Does god exists type of stuff)). I think it explains many of the holes in christianity very well (Where God came from, why are men here, why does god even care about men).

No, it doesn't answer any of those questions at all. You're using an even more asinine set of mythology to explain Christianity and the buy-bull.

The problem is religion itself. Christianity has talking donkeys, prophets summoning bears to eat children for calling him bald, racism, flying firey serpents, absurd amounts of death and murder (genocidal levels) in the name of righteousness, sacrifice, etc.

And a convicted con man blatantly plagiarizing the Egyptian Book of the Dead is less absurd?

There is nothing more outlandish in mormonism then in the regular testaments (which I read after the BOM and found much harder to swallow).

I'm surprised you didn't gain an encyclopedic knowledge of the buy-bull while you were in. Most mor(m)ons are as good or better than the average hard-shell Baptist in that regard.

Oh, and do you all what people asking you about what underwear you are wearing? I don't.

Don't flatter yourself. I'm not the least bit interested in what underwear you have on.

Attack the creed and try to make people see reason, don't attack the person.

Trouble is, the creed is often inseparable from the person.

4. Romney's Mormonism is fair game

Comment #89482 by jhylkema on November 20, 2007 at 11:18 pm

11. Comment #89426 by RickM on November 20, 2007 at 5:03 pm

Please correct me if I'm wrong. It's my understanding Mormon's believe that if they live the righteous life they will eventually become a God and rule their own planet.

You are correct. "As man is, god once was. As god is, man may become" is the Mor(m)on mantra. You reach that, of course, by dutifully paying your 10% extortion money to the church, among other things.

It's even nuttier than that, though. Once you get there, you get to practice what is known as "celestial marriage." This, of course, means that you get to marry lots and lots of women and get to spend eternity boning them to populate your planet. That's right, folks, it's all about SEX SEX SEX!

It should be noted that Joseph Smith was a liar and a fraud who made money convincing farmers that he could use dowsing rods to find treasure buried on their farms. He was actually convicted of a crime for this. Of course, the charges were false and it was all a big anti-Mor(m)on conspiracy.

I sure as hell am not voting for Romney or any other member of that crackpot cult.

5. The Stupidity of Fox News is Truly Beyond Belief

Comment #52955 by jhylkema on June 28, 2007 at 5:32 pm

Comment #52236 by silent_brook on June 26, 2007 at 2:36 pm

Oh, and I've known a few pregnant women, and I know they don't see pregnancy as a miracle.

What do you expect from a guy who (1) wears a dress, (2) is committed to lifelong celibacy except where altar boys are concerned, and (3) whose church is committed to having women pump out as many kids as is humanly possible?

Don't forget, we're talking here about a church that excommunicated a nine-year-old girl who had an abortion after she was pregnant from getting raped. Need we any more examples of just how misogynistic and outdated Catholic ideas are?