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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 ...
That doesn’t make them false prophets. That makes them wrong men. And it is an invalid metric by which to disqualify a prophet from legitimacy, even by Biblical standards.
Wow! can you put any of this into plain English?
The Bible is rife with examples of prophets who made human error. That doesn’t mean their prophecies are any less valuable or true.
I would like to know HOW it is that ONLY you mormons actually have the inside track as to just what is valid and true and the rest of us have to go through all this reasearch and HTM posting for nothing just to have you call it lies?
Is there another secret, sacred ritual that gives you the power of divination? Perhaps handed down with the keys of the Priesthood?
Elsie asks and asks for explanations and never gets an answer, MHG posts a perfectly visible contradiction, and the response is always the same! Colorcountry and I post examples of personal experience, and doctrines we have personally seen practiced, but it's all lies! Or crickets chirping!
And the answer is always the same, It is SO, because WE say it is SO!
To use y'all's favorite expression, SHEESH!
The most sad thing about this is that folks who have developed an informed point of view based on serious study and reason, get kicked in the teeth by certain holier than thou types, just for telling their own truth; their own perspective.
If one tries to point out a few actual faults of the Mormon point of view, we become bigots. Blind believers really are starting to bore me.
Now if Mitt had the courage to actually admit a few things that he truly knows, well.................He could say he was “brainwashed”
brainwashed...LOL, just like his daddy.
But I must agree that Mitt IS brainwashed.
“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.”
This is great example of attacking us, Mormons without even understanding the topic. Brigham Young talks about celestial beings on the Sun. God can damn well be anywhere he wants to be! He sure isn’t limited to walk on the Sun or the Moon or anywhere in the universe if he wanted. Now, it is also clear that us, terrestial beings, are temporarily and corruptible. He makes such a point further on! He also makes a point that God dwells amongst glorious light. It is very clear for us Mormons this is analogy! He ain’t talking about Quakers or someone commonplace nonsense typical amongst mainline Christianity from the 1800’s.
I wish the criticism of our beliefs had substance, but they hardly do. They mostly generate criticism from distortations and it is getting tiresome for anyone to labor through them and through their stupid agenda.
Why don’t you guys get to substantive issues? You know like what really matters, like how does God save us and how should help one another.
It’s amazing how intelligent people can be sweeped up in the bigotry, but when they learn firsthand, invariably their opinion soften considerably.
http://www.adherents.com/lit/article_Doyle.html
When A Study In Scarlet introduced Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, to the world in 1887 it provoked no great stir as a story nor did it especially signal the immense popularity for which its author and his creation were destined.
Published in London, it did, however, rankle Mormon missionaries to England, and sorely tested the tolerance of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in America.
For at the height of anti-Mormonism on the continent, Arthur Conan Doyle, a struggling 26-year-old Portsmouth physician, had employed less than accurate research in using the Mormons in Utah as a backdrop for his short story.
As far as British readers were concerned, Conan Doyle’s drama of unrequited love, murder and vengeance only bolstered what they long suspected — that Danites, the Avenging Angels of Mormondom, were steeped in the assassination of apostates, and that polygamy was white slavery.
From the Latter-day Saint point of view A Study In Scarlet was another in a long line of antagonistic Mormon-hating books that made for popular reading. Conan Doyle was not high on their list of favorite people.
And he was aware he had provoked the animosity of Mormon faithful; but unlike other authors whose books were bought and burned by well-meaning Saints, Conan Doyle’s skyrocketing popularity made it impossible to smother A Study In Scarlet.
Sherlockians of five generations have revered Conan Doyle for bringing the master criminologist to life, though the author himself came to despise his creation for dominating his literary image. But it was not Holmes or his chronicler, Dr. John H. Watson, that ultimately calmed the roily waters existing between Conan Doyle and the Mormons.
It was spiritualism.
In May 1923 Sir Arthur (he had by now been knighted for his literary achievements) was booked on a second American lecture tour (the first came the year before); this was to be his initial foray into the West — and Utah. Sir Arthur, billed as an “eminent British psychic, would lecture under the auspices of the Extension Division of the University of Utah on the subject of psychic phenomena and his long-time efforts to obtain tangible proofs of communications with “those who have departed from this mortal sphere,” according to the Salt Lake Telegram of May 11.
Michael W. Homer, attorney-at-law in Salt Lake City, a published Sherlockian and member of the Arthur Conan Doyle Society, in conversation with Dame Jean Conan Doyle, Sir Arthur’s daughter, in London in 1991 discussed that American visit 70 years ago.
“You know father would be the first to admit that his first Sherlock Holmes novel was full of errors about the Mormons,” she said. “ My brothers Denis, Adrian and I were all very apprehensive when we got near Utah. We thought we would be kidnapped or something.
“We were all so relieved to find out how friendly the people really turned out to be.” Dame Jean was 10 at the time; her brothers were 14 and 12.
Sir Arthur was to speak in the Salt Lake Latter-day Saint Tabernacle, and he would be introduced by Levi Edgar Young, U. of U. professor of Western history and Mormon general authority! It was also a full house.
In later years, Prof. Young, in casual conversation with a Salt Lake Tribune reporter, was asked how Conan Doyle could have been so well received in Utah in light of A Study in Scarlet.
“He apologized for that, you know,” Young replied. “He said he had been misled by writings of the time about the Church.”
Sir Arthur’s appearance was challenged, even criticized, by individual church members, but not officially by the First Presidency. Charles W. Nibley, Presiding Bishop of the [Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints], in a letter appearing in the June 5, 1923 San Francisco Chronicle, blistered the novelist for accepting a speaking fee:
“Rather than be called narrow and intolerant, we permitted his lecture, and Sir Arthur left Salt Lake City several thousand dollars richer. I think he had a lot of gall to take Mormon money when he attacked us so bitterly in his book, A Study in Scarlet, which was published early in his life.
“To Sir Arthur and his ectoplasm, the product of dimly-lighted seances, I answer that the only light that he has discovered was born in darkness and is not light to me. . . . “
In the same edition of the newspaper, was the knight’s response:
“I have great respect for the Mormons, who treated me very liberally in allowing me to use their hall, and, therefore, I am more sorry that one who is a bishop among them should utter such an uncharitable and false statement. . . .
“He says that I left Salt Lake City several thousand dollars richer. I have never in my life taken one cent for any work which I have done on the platform for spiritualism. [dividing my profits among spiritual organizations in Australia and England.] . . .
“I trust therefore, that Bishop Nibley will apologise for his utterances, which I look upon as a statement of one ill-informed and uncharitable man, and not as representing the friends whom I left behind me in Salt Lake City.”
Michael Homer noted in the spring 1991 issue of The Journal of the Arthur Conan Doyle Society that there is no record of an apology by Nibley.
Sir Arthur and Lady Doyle the day after the lecture, were guests of honor at a luncheon in the Alta Club in Salt Lake City, attended by some 40 representative men and women of the community. Prof. Young was toastmaster.
In the crowd could be found such luminaries as John A. Widtsoe, former president of the University of Utah; Rabbi Adolph Steiner of Congregation B’nai Israel; Dr. George M. Marshall, Dr. and Mrs. George Emory Fellows, Prof. and Mrs. B. Roland Lewis, Mr. and Mrs. A.N. McKay, Noble Warrum, Mr. and Mrs. H.E. Crockett, Mr. and Mrs. W.R. Wallace, Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Pearsall, Mr. and Mrs. J.M. Adamson, Mr. and Mrs. F.W. Reynolds, Mrs. W.W. Riter, Miss Lucy VanCott, Mayor C. Clarence Neslen, W. R. Wallace Jr., Lafayette Hanchett, Parley L. Williams, Wallace Erskine (secretary to Sir Arthur), Miss Helen Greenwood, Rose Catherine Reynolds, A.L. Fish, Henry W. Lawrence, and J. B. Miller.
At the luncheon, Sir Arthur expressed his appreciation for the way he and his family had been welcomed to the city. “We are profoundly grateful for the tolerance and cordiality with which we have been received. Frankly, I did not expect to be allowed to speak in the Mormon Tabernacle.”
He also spoke of touring the church museum and examining its pioneer relics. “One thing that held me,” he said, “was the group photograph of many of the earliest pioneers. I knew then I had seen them before — at last it came back to me — it was at the time of the Boer War in South Africa. The same types, the rugged, hard-faced men, the brave and earnest women who look as if they had known much suffering and hardship — these are the types of pioneers in Utah and in South Africa, and I suppose everywhere that . . . go out and develop a state or an empire. . . . “
During his brief stay at the Hotel Utah, Sir Arthur received a letter from a Dr. G. Hodgson Higgins, who as a non-Mormon, explained that his first impressions of the church had been tainted because of A Study In Scarlet, which “gave the impression that murder was a common practice among them.” Higgins suggested the author “express his regret at having propagated falsehoods about the Mormon Church and people.”
Sir Arthur responded that in the future he would write of the Latter-day Saints as he found them on his visit. But, he insisted, “all I said about the Danite Band and the murders is historical so I cannot withdraw that tho it is likely that in a work of fiction it is stated more luridly than in a work of history. It’s best to let the matter rest.”
That and his praise of the pioneers was as close as he would come to a public apology.
In his 1991 visit with the novelist’s then 78-year-old daughter, Michael Homer was told by Dame Jean that her father “relied on anti-Mormon works by former Mormons because he believed these accounts to be factual.”
Homer and others since have speculated Conan Doyle, a voracious reader, would have access to books by Fannie Stenhouse, William A. Hickman, William Jarman, John Hyde and Ann Eliza Young among others.
While Sir Arthur was never one to dodge an issue, Homer was curious as to why the children were so frightened on visiting Utah. The answer was startling — and revealing. It was the governess, a Miss French.
“On our way to Salt Lake City [by train] she told us the most horrible stories about the Mormons and that the city was not safe, and that we should not go out of the hotel or we would be kidnapped. . . . When our parents found out, they were absolutely furious with the governess. Even if the stories were true, which they weren’t it was not right to frighten children.”
Sir Arthur fired the governess.
True to his word, in subsequent writings or remarks whenever the subject broached on Mormons or Mormonism, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle treated them with new-found respect.
As for Sherlock Holmes and his inestimable colleague, John H. Watson, M.D., one can only wish there might be in the good doctor’s celebrated dispatch box an unpublished case book on The Curious Matter of the Ravenous Gull, or somesuch . . . .
There, fixed!
And he was a lousy writer, too.
Charles Dickens for a brief period of time believed the lies spread about Mormons in the 1800’s. When he met real life Mormons and saw for himself he view changed radically in their favor.
http://www.meridianmagazine.com/historybits/041223dickens.html
Household Words, Dickens’s publication, derided Mormons for their “fanaticism” and “the absurdity of seeing visions in the age of railways.” James Hannay wrote these words, but we know Dickens read and approved them. Already he was making a distinction between beliefs and practical accomplishments. “What the Mormons do, seems to be excellent, what they say is mostly nonsense.”
We jump forward into the next decade. Missionaries had continued to preach the gospel in England, and thousands of converts made their way to their Zion in America. In 1863, Charles Dickens visited the ship Amazon as it prepared for departure with a company of English and Welsh Mormon passengers. After observing the cheerfulness of the emigrants as they bustled about in final preparations for the voyage (and interviewing George Q. Cannon), Dickens admitted he was surprised. “I went on board their ship,” he said, “to bear testimony against them if they deserved it, as I fully believed they would; to my great astonishment they did not deserve it.”
Dickens did not believe their religion, but he was impressed with their sense of direction, their ability to organize, their attitude of hopefulness. “In their degree,” he said, these people were “the pick and flower of England.” As far as we know, he made no further comments on the subject before his death in 1870.
Another typical example of substantive criticism.
Gonna spam the thread, NAL?
It is nice to see how the calm anti-Mormon intellectuals have progressed. Let’s see here is the typical language of this crew from the 1850’s. Origen Bacheler advocates murdering, or getting rid of Mormons with any means possible because they are devoid of any authentic religion or belief.
Do anyone of you feel the same way?
http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-9.html
In his theorizing about deceivers and society, anti-Mormon Origen Bacheler articulated the often-unspoken social logic that underlay decades of anti-Mormon polemics. “I respect the rights of conscience;” he wrote, “I am opposed to persecution for opinion’s sake.” But, he cautioned, it would be a grave mistake to extend the same “forbearance and compassion [due the] dupes of the Mormon imposture” to the “lying knaves who dupe them.” Joseph Smith, he argued, was “entirely out of the pale of charity” and could be “viewed in no other light than that of [a] monsterous public” nuisance. Bacheler’s contention that such a nuisance “ought forthwith to be abated” - he left to readers to figure out how - rested on the assumption that among the “social obligations” that fell to every “member of the community” was the responsibility that “he shall not knowingly deceive and impose upon that community.” Not surprisingly, Bacheler charged that Smith had done precisely that and, as a result, all of the trouble between Mormons and their neighbors could rightly be blamed on him and other leading Mormons: “By their deception and lies, they swindle [their followers] out of their property, disturb social order and the public peace, excite a spirit of ferocity and murder” (48
I got some material, but I think it is relevant. I will hold back now and let the discussion ensue!
It’s funny how you post reams of material showing Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens practically in love with Mormonism, yet neither joined the Church, and neither considered it true.
Why do you think that is?
“AMPU, that video is outdated and incorrect. It’s about 30% accurate.”
OK, great! 30% is current. Do you know of a more recent
video you can recommend?
“So, what, exactly, was the point of bringing that up? Decided the pot needed a little stirring?”
No. We are talking about the Temple. People wonder what
happens there. Heck, even the majority of mormons don’t
know.
ampu
“So... Mormons can ride in the bus. Just as long as they stay in the back of the bus.”
No. The point is... Mormons have a problem with the American
voter - not the Republican party.
Grig,
thank you for your response. I simply did not know
if that was standard practice or not and wanted
clarification.
best,
ampu
I have many favorable feeling about Catholics and yet I am not a Catholic.
But that means you have found incomplete truth in Catholicism. Isn’t that bigotted?
I have a book written by Leon Skousen that lists all the Hollywood stars and all British Royalty and many great and influential people who have received copies of the Book of Mormon, yet NONE of them converted to Mormonism.
Just because a couple of people (as published by your LDS Meridian magazine) think Mormons are “nice,” doesn’t mean that they are. I wonder what the survivors of the Fancher party thought of Mormons.
It’s great when you can show your “good” face to the world like you did during the Olympics, but that is a far cry from the day to day realities and the history of Mormonism taken as a whole.
Posting faith promoting stories like Doyle’s and Dicken’s actually doesn’t mean a thing....except to some mormons who tout every “famous” Mormon they can think of. It is just more public relations BS. Let’s see we’ve been told that Gladys Knight, the Osmonds, Glenn Beck and Thurl Bailey (WHO??) are Mormons. And that Doyle and Dickens had some nice things to say. So what?
Unless you want to spam the thread and possibly kill it???? That might work. ;)
I'm watching though, and if it dies, I will try a little CPRT..."Christian Practical Resuscitation of a Thread".
The last question in a temple recommend interview is “Do you feel worthy to enter God’s House?”
Guess what happens when you say “No.” Since that would have been my answer, I didn’t even ask for a recommend. When I feel worthy, I’ll ask. I’ve been giving, cheerfully, by the way, since December. Things have started looking up in that time. I’ve no objection to tithing, as it helps build and maintain meetinghouses and temples, both of which I think are good things. I just let my spending get away from my income for a while there, and found myself short.
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