Why so many LDS threads?

08-May-2008 | Grig

[Grig]

I am posting this on behalf of many LDS freepers. They will post their own 'signature' to this in the comments below. --- Some of you have noticed lately a lot of LDS (ie: Mormon) threads here on FR. I'm going to tell you why.

For many years there have been several active LDS freepers here. We post to all the forums on relevant issues, and were happy to have a site where conservative values were so openly welcomed.

Those conservative values include faith in God, and freedom of religion. We fully respect the rights of all posters to express their opinions and views on religious matters, even when people choose to use those rights to express criticism of our own faith. We also support the ideas embodied in FR rules against religion bashing. There is no need for hostility and there should be no room for bigotry on FR. Every religion has it's miracles and mysteries. Every faith has things in it that are not or can not be proven, and things that run contrary to what secular science would have us believe. Someone mature and confident in their own faith generally doesn't feel the need to belittle the faith of others.

We have, to the best of our ability, conducted ourselves with civility and dignity. We do not feel that that respect has been returned by some posters (putting it mildly).

When Mormon missionaries were murdered, the moderators were kept busy pulling jubilant posts off the thread. When Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her home, we contended for months with posters who appeared to be motivated by religious bigotry doing all they could to smear the family and accuse the father. Several posters openly admitted their religious motivation in opposing Mitt Romney and confessed that no matter how conservative any Mormon was, they would never vote for one for President of the USA. When the Pope died, I don't think any Mormon poster posted anything unkind, yet the thread about the passing of our President recently needed many comments removed.

Nearly every thread having any connection with Mormons, or Utah winds up being hijacked by anti-Mormon activists who copy and paste the same false accusations over and over even when it has been clearly and factually pointed out to them on multiple occasions that they are bearing false witness against our faith. Everything possible is done by these activists to make FR a hostile place for Mormons, and for at least some of them, bashing Mormonism is all they do here. Their most recent project is trying to blur the fact that the polygamous FLDS is a separate and distinct religion from ours, just as Lutherans are a separate and distinct religion from Catholicism.

In our opinion, such poster do a great disservice to FR and to their fellow freepers by spreading disinformation and promoting hostility towards a people known for walking the walk of conservative values.

Why the moderators here don't see the behavior of these anti-Mormon activists as religion bashing is a mystery to us, but it is the moderators call to make and we respect their right to do so. That doesn't mean we have to be passive however. We have all spent many hours refuting the accusations leveled at our faith, but these wind up buried deep in a flood of comments, effectively shouting us down.

Recently some of us have decided to take a more proactive approach. Rather than try to wrestle the pig into taking a bath, we are just going to hose it down. We will actively define our faith here rather than just respond to accusations.

So expect to see lots of Mormon threads, now and for as long as we see fit to keep posting them (although probably not as many as there are Catholic threads). They will be about our basic doctrines and responses to common accusations. If you want to know what our faith is about, read the articles we post. We will post them as open threads and I encourage you to compare the difference in tone and spirit between what we post and what our critics say.

[ansel12]

Too bad that you should ignore the mention of the Mormons that have been helped and even saved, and the many freepers that have been helped, and then be dismissive of the help that I have received with such an important matter.

Not to mention that you were wrong in your post to MHGinTN.

[MHGinTN]

And now for something positive:,P.
One of the young men who came to our door as Mormon missionaries decades ago was a son in the family of the Vermeer family from Canada. He and his sidekick were fed sandwiches, cake, pie and milk by my then wife. We saw them fairly regularly, since they knew they could get a cold glass of water or Apple juice at our house anytime they were in the subdivision (Birmingham, AL is sweltering in the summer, especially to Canadians on bikes). They ‘confessed’ that they enjoyed the visits probably more than we did because they were from caring families and ours seemed close knit and welcoming ... and we were. Those were two fine young men and their families have every right to be proud of their behavior on mission. I am certain that Vermeer boy has grown up to be a successful business man probably in Canada, and honest to a fault, too!

[Grig]

“In my opinion, you (probably) will not get way with your (supposed) censorship attempt on Free Republic”

Posting articles is censorship? I haven’t silenced anyone, in fact I posted them as open threads where critics can come and spew their bile all they want.

I’ve done nothing more then describe the state of affairs here on FR as I and many other LDS freepers see them, and announced what we plan to do in response.

Many of the comments to this thread validate what I said. Simply announcing an intention to post reliable information about my faith brings out anger in others. How telling. How sad.

“of Christians who you (allegedly) alluded to as dirty pigs who need to be hosed down.”

The ‘dirty pigs’ are those loud few who constantly resort to the dishonorable tactics I spoke of. It has nothing to do with what church they go to and everything to do with their behavior here. All those who have not acted in that way have no reason to feel the comment was directed at them.

[Grig]

I haven’t had time to do that yet.

[Elsie]

weak

Gimme a nickel and we'll try to discern the source of this weakness that you have...

[CharlesWayneCT]

I'm not trying to start a Catholic-bashing session here either. I could have chosen Transubstantiation, which some have derisively called a form of cannabalism, or the concept of the perfection of Mary, or maybe I should have chosen some more obscure religion, or maybe something from an earlier century so at least it wasn't modern belief.

My point, which may be hard to make with one who is a strong believer, is that every religion has aspects which look crazy. There is a true religion, there is one true God, and yes, I believe there is a way, and that many do not find it. My defense of the oddities of man-made religions is a philosophical one, not a religious one.

[Flo Nightengale]

Yes, I just emailed this to my sister. She likes to laugh at the same silly stuff I do.

[CharlesWayneCT]

That’s a twist on what I said. I said there are some denominations which do not reject MORMONS as Christians. I did NOT say that there were denominations that do not reject MORMONISM as Christian.

I hope you see the difference. In the first, the question is whether an individual who has been in the Mormon church could be accepted as a member of the new denomination.

The second is whether the denomination recognizes the other denomination as adhering to Christian principles.

I believe the United Church of Christ will accept the Mormon baptism for membership. I also know that some United Methodist churches were accepting it, and the church leadership eventually issued a declaration to require Mormons to be re-baptised. So that probably doesn’t count any more.

I’m sorry my attempt to be more specific provided a statement prone to a specific argument, when I wasn’t providing information to raise a debate. I wasn’t trying to counter someone’s claim.

[Invincibly Ignorant]

Too bad that you should ignore the mention of the Mormons that have been helped and even saved, and the many freepers that have been helped, and then be dismissive of the help that I have received with such an important matter.

Not to mention that you were wrong in your post to MHGinTN.

Right. Document all these successes please.

Oh and I was absolutely right. You think I consider the carpet bomber brigade dishing out tongue lashing "love" for ten years searching for and finally supposedly garnering one measley convert a success? lol. That's rich.

[Saundra Duffy]

“one measley convert”

That’s me! Glory be to God.

[SkyPilot]

The ‘dirty pigs’ are those loud few who constantly resort to the dishonorable tactics I spoke of. It has nothing to do with what church they go to and everything to do with their behavior here. All those who have not acted in that way have no reason to feel the comment was directed at them.

Un huuuh..........

[Religion Moderator]

This thread is in the Religion Forum. AFAIK, religion threads are not now being moved to the News Forum.

[Tennessee Nana]

Helps to have the Religion Mod in your pocket, evidently.
Legitimate questions, framed within forum guidelines, were recently deleted from one of your threads, questions as to the inordinate numbers of doctrinal harangues appearing under the News/Activism banner.

Kept in the Religion forum where they belong, y’all can obviously post all the 50,000 word nonsense the Robinsons and/or your ISP will tolerate.

But the deluge of this stuff in the ‘News/Activism’ forums seems to me not only to be a flagrant disregard for the very same forum guidelines the rest of us are supposed to operate under, but also diminishes the credibility and integrity of FreeRepublic as one of the few legitimate forums for the conservative political thoughts/views of the average joe.

If this post gets me banned from the site, so be it.

I’ve been around this site since ‘98 under a long forgotten login, and since ‘00 under this one.

I’ve logged a couple thousand miles and a couple dozen hours helping man the barricades against the marxist scum in DC.

I’ve also contributed financially to this site over the years.

I’ve never aspired to be one of prolific pens of FR because frankly my other interests and work keep my time too limited to allow it, but this is where I’ve chosen to get my NEWS for some time, posting random thoughts as they struck me, most often in a (hopefully) humorous vein, as God knows we’ve needed some smiles the past couple decades for sanity maintenance.

Having been a loyal and supportive FReeper for a long time, it’s my considered opinion that the tacit policy decision to allow so much religion spamming in the News/Activism section works to the detriment of this site in particular, and conservatism in general.

If I had any inclination to find out more about LDS, there’s a whole Internet out there and I can do my own damned research.

But if I’d had no previous exposure to FR and got here by whatever circuitous route and saw 14 threads about mormon stuff on my first visit, it’d be a real good bet I’d think I’d stumbled into a big mistake and would NOT be back.

If the Robinsons have chosen to take a different tack re the religious/secular, it is of course their site and their right; I do however find oddly ‘coincidental’ the timing of this apparent policy shift in the midst of Jim’s recent hospitalization/recovery.
(which I hope is quickly better, Jim :)

This wasn’t/isn’t intended to be an opus, but if that’s the way it plays out, life will go on and I’ll find something else to take it’s place and/or just burrow deeper into the ol’ bunker.

Cuz in the end I’m just one old guy who works with his hands out here in flyover; and folks like me have gotten kinda used to being ignored, and I’ve never been under any delusion that FR or the RightFight in this country can’t manage without me.

And not that it’s anybody’s business, but I do believe in a God, but certainly not the one represented by these LDS threads/adherents.

/10yrs ?
___________________________________________________________

Signed by Tennessee Nana

[Invincibly Ignorant]

That’s me! Glory be to God.

Carpet bombed into the kingdom. Glory be.

[Elsie]

Hell, as thus defined, will have an end, when all the captive spirits have paid the price of their sins and enter into a degree of glory after their resurrection.

Sounds about as 'everlasting' as polygamy was.

---

 Mark 3:29
  But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin."

 

 

Mark 9:42-48
 42.  "And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.
 43.  If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.
 45.  And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell.
 47.  And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell,
 48.  where "`their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.'

 

 

 Mark 10:15
  I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."

 

---

 

And just as unChristian.

[Saundra Duffy]

Yeh, I’ve been posting since 1998, too. We should get some kind of an award or something.

[Elsie]

As I said before, personal experience is the one thing people can’t argue with.

Personal experiences can be deceiving...

[CharlesWayneCT]

Again delving too far into the religious side of the argument, but as one who believes God chooses people first, I don’t find any conversions tricky, because my job is to tell people what I believe the Bible teaches about salvation, and if God has chosen them they will be saved.

Further, I just don’t see where even a belief that Jesus is God is necessary for salvation. He obviously is God. But if you believe in Jesus (and he was a man), and you believe God raised him from the dead, and you confess Jesus as Lord, it seems you could be saved, even if you don’t know yet that Jesus was God, part of a Trinity, or existed from the foundation of the world.

I’m not trying to argue for a permissive gospel, or to doubt the Godhood of Jesus. I’m just saying that I am not ready to claim a requirement on a person that I don’t clearly see spelled out in the Bible.

[Elsie]

I thought this was posted in the FR religion forum. ?

Sounded to me like he's not happy that such a place even exists!

After all, the TITLE - Why so many LDS threads? - should have been a warning: STAY AWAY if you don't want to hear something RELIGIOUS that may conflict with your veiwpoint!