| This thread has been locked, it will not receive new replies. |
|
Locked on 08/03/2007 6:34:01 AM PDT by Religion Moderator, reason:
Poor behavior |
Posted on 07/26/2007 5:03:33 PM PDT by tantiboh
Democratic political consultant Mark Mellman has a very good piece up today at The Hill on the baffling and illegitimate opposition among voters to Mitt Romney due to his religion. I liked his closing paragraphs:
In July of 1958, 24 percent of respondents told Gallup they would not vote for a Catholic for president, almost identical to Gallup’s reading on Mormons today. Two years later, John F. Kennedy became the first Catholic to assume the oath of office. Within eight months, the number refusing to vote for a Catholic was cut almost in half.
[snip]
Mellman also discusses an interesting poll he helped construct, in which the pollsters asked half of their respondents whether they would support a candidate with certain characteristics, and asked the other half about another candidate with the exact same characteristics, with one difference. The first candidate was Baptist, the second candidate was Mormon. The Baptist had a huge advantage over the Mormon candidate, by about 20 points.
[snip]
However, more recent polls have attempted to fix the anonymity problem. A recent Time Magazine poll (read the original report here), for example, got to the heart of the question by asking respondents if they are less likely to vote for Mitt Romney specifically because he is a Mormon. The result is not as bad as some reporting on the poll has suggested. For example, while 30% of Republicans say they are less likely to vote for Romney because of his religion, fully 15% of other Republicans say that characteristic makes them more likely to vote for him. And while many have reported the finding that 23% of Republicans are “worried” by Romney’s Mormonism, the more important (but less-reported) number is that 73% say they hold no such reservations...
(Excerpt) Read more at romneyexperience.com ...
Can we say “Double Standard”?”
nope. Mormons are those who accept the Book of Mormon as scripture, in addition to the Bible. The Reorganized Church of Latter-day Saints was Mormon, but not LDS. Now they’re not even that. They have changed the name ( new name escapes me right now; I’ll look it up and let you know if you’re interested) and dropped the use of the Book of Mormon. They still, however, have leaders who are collateral descendants of Joseph Smith. IIRC, several of the Church of Christ churches were LDS splinter groups, but have also dropped use of the Book of Mormon. That book is something of a key factor in being Mormon. So is accepting the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price. Doctrine and Covenants includes the Manifesto relating to Polygamy. People who don’t accept that have effectively resigned from the church, too. That is why they aren’t Mormons.
"So is it okay to proselytize Mormonism or any other religion on FR?"
49 posted on 07/29/2007 8:50:52 AM MDT by Aywad Zhebleaumeh
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]
This is just an update regarding moon men and Mormonism. While it may be true that the evdence of Joseph Smith’s teachings about men on the moon is specious, I give you this quote from Brigham Young.....
from Brigham Young:
“I will tell you who the real fanatics are: they are they who adopt
false principles and ideas as facts, and try to establish a
superstructure upon, a false foundation. They are the fanatics; and
however ardent and zealous they may be, they may reason or argue on
false premises till doomsday, and the result will be false. If our
religion is of this character we want to know it; we would like to find
a philosopher who can prove it to us. We are called ignorant; so we are:
but what of it? Are not all ignorant? I rather think so. Who can tell us
of the inhabitants of this little planet that shines of an evening,
called the moon? When we view its face we may see what is termed “the
man in the moon,” and what some philosophers declare are the shadows of
mountains. But these sayings are very vague, and amount to nothing; and
when you inquire about the inhabitants of that sphere you find that the
most learned are as ignorant in regard to them as the most ignorant of
their fellows. So it is with regard to the inhabitants of the sun. Do
you think it is inhabited? I rather think it is. Do you think there is
any life there? No question of it; it was not made in vain. It was made
to give light to those who dwell upon it, and to other planets; and so
will this earth when it is celestialized. Every planet in its first
rude, organic state receives not the glory of God upon it, but is
opaque; but when celestialized, every planet that God brings into
existence is a body of light, but not till then. Christ is the light of
this planet.” - Journal of Discourses Vol. 13, p.271.
There are many more quotes specific to humanoids on other planets. I don’t know why Mormons wish to hide and obsfucate the facts of the early teachings of Mormonism. I suppose because it is embarrassing.
Excuse me greyfoxx39, but after all that exposure the LDS had to endure for months on News/Activism forum no reason now should one object!
You know it would not be nice to deny the public right to know, right!:)
As the RM said the candidate should have a wide exposure in the news forum as long as possible.
“There has been a lot talk about the LDS on the News/Activism forum for several months now, so you are invited to come and investigate & listening for yourselves!”
~”I didn’t suggest that the Church inflates it numbers.”~
I’m sorry, did I misunderstand?
#398: “You and your Church are inflating your numbers...”
As for your Hinckley quote, it probably would have been more statistically accurate had he included the deaths in the Church. He used gross growth numbers, rather than net. It’s still 400,000 new members, whether the Church grows by that number or not.
He did not say that 160 new stakes were founded; he said that the equivalent of 160 new stakes had joined the Church. Since he was speaking to the members, this was a good way to quantify the number for them.
Assuming a life expectancy of 80 years, a population of 13,000,000 is going to lose 162,500 annually. This brings the numbers right in line. You’ve decided to interpret Hinkley’s remarks as an inflation of the numbers; that’s not what it was.
~”So after decades of missionary work in Mexico and all kinds of bragging about growth rates, the LDS badly trail Evangelicals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Adventists in members. They’ve hardly made any dent in the Catholic population. So much for the idea that Lamanites are going to blossom like a rose in Mexico.”~
I don’t accept the statistics you have provided, on the grounds of common sense. The several temples and many meetinghouses in Mexico refute the claims of your information - those are expensive investments, and the LDS Church doesn’t build them for the image of growth. It takes solid, active membership.
Here in Colorado, there are about 126,000 members of the LDS Church. We have one temple, in Denver. Some members in the western part of the state may go into Utah, but for many of the Saints in Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska, the Denver temple is the “local” temple. The estimate I’ve heard is that we keep the Denver temple about 20% busy.
Mexico has -12- temples.
http://lds.org/temples/geographical/0,11380,1899-1-—20,00.html
They don’t do that for 205,000 members. There may be differences such as temple attendance rates, etc. that account for some of it, but the numbers just don’t add up to support the claim.
The Church reports a membership of just over 1,000,000 Mexicans (in Mexico :-) ) as of 2005.
It appears evident that the statistics you cite were collected via questionable methodology.
In any case, the term “Lamanite” refers to people throughout Latin America - and with 1 in 6 in Chile, for example, being LDS, I’d say the “blossoming” is well on its way. We do outnumber Adventists worldwide by a significant margin. In Italy, JW’s outnumber LDS by about ten to one. Does that provide proof that the LDS Church is failing worldwide?
Perhaps we’re both seeing the world through the distortion of our own perceptions; but it must be said that the lenses you are peering through are just as thick as mine.
~”You have a real gift for hyperbole, Tantiboh. Unfortunately, it’s easily seen for what it is.”~
As is the anti-Mormon bigotry.
~”What makes you think that was actually filmed in a Mormon temple?”~
Indeed, the video qualifies the footage as a “reinactment.”
They even got a detail or two right. I don’t know what I’m complaining about...
That’s good advice, and I think yours was the right call.
From past experience, my assumption was that this thread would dive harder into the mud than it has; fortunately, that hasn’t happened. A fluke, or a new trend? I couldn’t say.
Absolutely, you are 100% right. I would like to see ALL the Romney and mormon related threads stay in the news section permanently.
See, we CAN agree on some things.
Another FReeper brought up a question, I was interested in the answer.
The figures below represents selected data as reported to the United States Census Bureau. It only includes the voluntary self-reported membership of religious bodies with 60,000 or more.
For The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Year: 1997
Churches reported:10811
Self Identified Membership:2,561,000
From The American Religious Identification Survey. (ARIS) 2001 was a random digit-dialed telephone survey of 50,281 American residential households in the continental United States. Adult respondents were asked the open-ended question, “What is your religion, if any?”.
Mormon/Latter Day Saints
1990: 1.5
2001: 1.4
As a total percentage of United States, Mormonism declined in that time period. Mormonism contains a significantly higher proportion of children due to its high birthrate. It would be difficult to extrapolate the number of registered voters who are Mormon, but it undoubtably is significantly less than the 6,000,000 you tried to pass off.
The proportion of the adult population that can be classified as Christian declined from 88.4% in 1990 to 81.1% in 2001. However non-denominational Christians increased from 4.7% to 7.2%
I don't think the above is correct: "Churches of Christ in the United States are historically linked to the Restoration Movement championed by American preachers/theologians of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, most notably Thomas Campbell and his son Alexander Campbell, Walter Scott, and Barton W. Stone. These and other leaders from various denominations were seeking original Christianity as they were independently finding several beliefs, practices, and restrictive dogmas in their respective church traditions to have no biblical basis."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churches_of_Christ
While the COCs originated during the restoration movement, and there have been some splinter groups, I haven't seen any evidence that they were ever part of the mormon church.
This may be the root of your statement: "The conversion of Sidney Rigdon to Mormonism in November 1830, in Mentor, Ohio, was something of a coup, bringing a modicum of respectability and a substantial flock of followers to the new religion, which had led a precarious existence since its founding in New York in April of that same year. A leading exponent of Reform Baptism, Rigdon had been close to Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone."
As a close associate of Smith and a member of the First Presidency, he stood a good chance of becoming the martyred prophet's successor, but found himself outmaneuvered by Brigham Young who, as head of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, was able to convince a majority of Mormons of his claims to leadership. Rigdon, unwilling to accept Young as Smith's successor, was excommunicated. His claims to leadership fell on equally deaf ears among many of those who refused to accept Young in the belief that the Prophet had designated his son Joseph III as his successor and who eventually formed the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."
It cuts both ways.
We will not however tolerate hate mongering - therefore sources such as Aryan Nations, Christian Identity, KKK, National Alliance, Jack Chick, the false Jesuit Oath aka oath for the Knights are Columbus, Islamic Fundamentalism et al - are strictly disallowed.
~”...but it undoubtably is significantly less than the 6,000,000 you tried to pass off.”~
I already conceded that quite clearly, CC.
Your self-identified membership number of 2.5 million is as of 1997. That sounds about right.
If you hadn’t noticed, this is 2007.
300 million * .014 = 4.2 million.
The only logical leap there is that the percentage has remained the same. Even -if- it has declined another .1%, that’s still nearly 4 million.
4 million > 2.5 million.
4 million < 6 million.
That’s what I’m trying to say. We were both wrong. I’ve given up my screwball estimate of 6 million. Stop clinging to your screwball estimate of 2.5 million. The data don’t support either.
Elsie, you can disregard much of my Post 441, my recollections were, shall we say, “inaccurate.”
"So is it okay to proselytize Mormonism or any other religion on FR?"
They do still accept and distribute the BoM as scripture; but belief in the BoM as the Word of God is no longer requisite for membership.
I’m not quite sure I follow that logical progression, but there you have it.
Could well be. It has been a while since I actually studied the subject. Tantiboh provided a link to the Wiki on Community of Christ, the former RLDS. That in turn provided a link to their site, and I was wrong about them, as well. Wasn’t the first time, won’t be the last. Thanks for the info.
I’m not quite sure I follow that logical progression, but there you have it.”
Could be their version of what Joseph Smith said about the Apocrypha: useful for further education, but not really necessary for salvation. They are, as far as I can see, trying really hard to become more like mainline Protestant churches.
Rigdon was a great man and a great contributor to the faith. It’s sad that he fell away. After what the mob put him through, I can’t say I can judge him.
During one incident in 1832, he suffered severe head trauma. According to contemporary accounts, that changed something in him mentally, and he never fully recovered.
It’s a good thing God’s the one who sorts that kind of thing out.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.