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Posted on 05/08/2008 5:04:47 PM PDT by 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.
I just wish that many of the good conservative values of Mormonism could be more widespread, without the repression, forced conformism, false doctrine, resentment against questions, etc., of Mormonism.
Ask yourself, Saundra, why would some continue to oppose mormonism after so many accusations just like your specious one? ... Because Jesus commissioned Christians to do it regardless of the aspersions folks like you try to use to silence the opposition! I sincerely hope you get to read this post before the thread poster pleads the moderator into deleting this post. We really do care about your immortal soul, Saundra. Think of it along the same lines which cause Mormons to be baptised for dead people ... they do it--so I'm told--because they care about the dead. Without The Grace of God in Christ, Saundra, you are counted amongst the dead, spiritually!
The poster says there were bad posts in a thread that were deleted.
And you call him a liar, and for proof you point to a thread where there are a dozen posts deleted, and references to them that indicate they said exactly what he said.
Obviously, if the bad comments were deleted, they would not be IN the thread anymore. And he didn’t say anything about why the thread was locked, he said the moderators had to delete posts because of their content. And while I can’t tell what the content was directly, it appears he’s closer to the truth than you give him credit for.
BTW, I’m an ex-Lutheran, and my wife is an ex-Catholic. And my reasons have nothing to do with what particular people who were Lutherans or Catholics may have done on an interenet thread.
Hate is a strong word, but then again, their resentment against what they had endured was (Jerald Tanner died a couple of years ago) pretty strong.
Yahoo for Post 102.
And I stated what I and others are doing too. As long as you want to supplant Christianity with mormonism, you will face resistance and challenges. And you can post 100 pages of FARM/FAIR materials at a shot, but a whine is a whine.
But that makes me wonder WHY you felt it necessary to be so misleading. Did you think you were actually being accurate, or did you think nobody would follow the link?
Anyway, here is the entire quote. For the record, if you put a period INSIDE a quote, in a place where there was no period before, you are supposed to put three dots (...) to show you are deleting stuff.
from the link you gave:
Alex, I don't appreciate the participation with the little cabal that you've exhibitted, but I have seen you elsewhere and in other contexts we have agreed.I don't know what to think about those like you. Religion-bashing is apparently not your hobby, but you've said some hurtful things.
Your partial quote gave the misleading impression that he was saying you were a mystery because you didn't bash religion.
When in fact he was trying to be NICE to you, noting that he had not previously seen you as someone to bash people for their religion -- but one who had nevertheless done so in this case.
I am NOT making a value judgment on whether his claim about you were true or not. I am noting that your quote is out of context, and left out an important part, and the period misled people to think you gave an entire sentence of the quote, which gave it an opposite meaning from the one he meant.
And also, just as a courtesy, you should have pinged Illbay since you were attacking something he said.
Can you have decaf?
I really don’t know the answer to that.
Hate = meticulous documentation of mormon doctrines and teachings and having the willingness to make it available for all to see and evaluate.
And going back to the original post (and how it fits in with Gov. Romney), the fact that someone can believe these absurdities says a lot about the person--what it tells is up to interpretation, but some would say that means the person is "loyal to his family's heritage"...while others might say he is "a gullible loon." I don't mean to insult my FRiends in implying any specific interpretation, but it sure is relevant--and understandable as a criterion of judgement for selecting a president.
You are correct, and that was rediculous as well. Sure, there is freedom of speech, and people have the liberty to think and say what they want (as the forum owner has the right to have things deleted).
But I think the more we tolerate, condone, or make excuses for attacking other conservative’s peculiar religious beliefs, the fewer fellow conservatives we will have to sell the conservative ideology.
We are a small enough group already that we really can’t afford to be throwing people off the raft because we don’t agree about things outside the conservative ideology.
These people (Mormons) are trapped in Satan’s lair, have empathy for them, a great man once said “Forgive them for they know not what they do.”
You’re quite right and many of the nastiest Mormon bashers are not here...yet.
Actually Catholics and Mormons have a lot in common - being misunderstood, being persecuted, made fun of, reviled. We also have the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, in common. Hallelujah! Here’s some good news:
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0802159.htm
“Ecumenical meeting marks first time Mormons join in papal gathering”
Cuz Dan Brown's next book is gonna be out soon and they just want to keep their skills sharp! ;-)
You wrote, “We will actively define our faith here rather than just respond to accusations.”
I welcome that. The clearer you are about what you believe, the more evident it is that it is a non-Christian cult, a perversion of Christianity.
And yet the Branch Davidians at Waco ended up dead.
Of course, I don’t equate the BDs with the 7th Day adventists. I’m guessing some people here might have, I wasn’t here, but recent history shows a desire by some to link people through religious genealogies.
I agree about 7th Day Adventists. For a few years, my church met in an SDA church, and I found their members were very accomodating.
Quite liberal indeed. I often wonder what our founding fathers would have thought about their thoughts & actions. I pray for them none the less. I do believe many of them are good people at heart & they believe what they're doing is the work of the Lord. They've been mislead as to what Christ taught about interaction w/ their fellow man & how to preach the gospel.
I finally reached the conclusion that Romney isn’t as deeply vested in Mormonism as we were at first led to believe. I actually turned to supporting him ahead of Huckster and McCain because I believe he would have been a far better administrator of the nation. It would have been a busy four years however, refuting the absurdities in Mormonism. Romney’s liberal positions on issues of life and social policy were off-putting, but he still stood taller in my estimation than McCain and Huckabee. I was convinced his mormonism background would have impacted his election, but in light of the amazing war occurring in the “D” realm perhaps his religious beliefs would have been a zero-sum.
It happens!
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http://scriptures.lds.org/en/js_h/1/19#19
17 It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him! 18 My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong)—and which I should join. 19 I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.” 20 He again forbade me to join with any of them; and many other things did he say unto me, which I cannot write at this time. When I came to myself again, I found myself lying on my back, looking up into heaven. When the light had departed, I had no strength; but soon recovering in some degree, I went home. And as I leaned up to the fireplace, mother inquired what the matter was. I replied, “Never mind, all is well—I am well enough off.” I then said to my mother, “I have learned for myself that Presbyterianism is not true.” |
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