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.

[colorcountry]

Well, that isn’t a very “productive” encounter, I must admit. But that kind of interchange is what made me curious enough to attend the Saturday Vigil (BTW, I was overdressed!)

This is the type of conversation I have experienced on the Mormon threads.

Joseph Smith had 33 wives

..No he didn’t

Your Mormon genealogy site lists 26 of them

...He didn’t have sex with them

Brigham Young had 56 wives.

....It was given as a law to protect women. It is wonderful and glorious when practiced as God commands. God directed we should not practice polygamy in 1890, only those nasty fLDS do it. You guys keep bringing up old stuff. You are haters and bigots. You’re just doing this because you don’t like Romney.

Actually no, I am telling you what I have learned about Mormonism. That information is posted on the following site. (link)

....That is an ANTI site. You can’t believe the lies you find on those thousands of anti sites. They just hate us. We are persecuted just like the Jews, remember Nauvoo, thousands died when the Mormons were forced to leave.

Did the Mormons do anything to instigate the emotions that lead to the expulsion of the Brighamite group?

I love my Savior. I love the Book of Mormon. We are the restoration of the gospel of Christ that was taken from the earth shortly after the Apostles of Christ died. You don’t know all our plain and precious teachings.

Will you tell me about the temple and the ordinances?

...No, it is sacred. We don’t talk about it.

Well, colorcountry who has been there told me you wear special clothing, have handgrips much like the masons and watch a film. Is that true.

....Colorcountry is a liar. She is weak, she couldn’t live the commandments. Something in her life made her bitter. She lies about the Church. She is hateful...

Did she tell me the truth?

.....{silence}......

[prayforpeaceofJerusalem]

True.

Is the point of this thread to proselytize, without restraint and refutations being allowed?

[prayforpeaceofJerusalem]

Because of why?, do you think?

[colorcountry]

In all fairness, I have posted opposition to the LDS dogma.

I was drummed out, ask to leave my heritage behind, and called every vile name that came to their pretty little heads.

I’ve been told here on FR, to never call myself Mormon, in fact I was booted from a Mormon caucus thread just the other day. The thread was about the Prophet asking people who are no longer members to come back into the fold.

I wonder if any of the Mormon supporters here have actually seen this. I could provide links.

[MHGinTN]

“He didn’t have sex with them.” Bwahahahaha, you might be a hit on the comedy circuit, Resty! However, we are taking note of the times you call others ‘liar’ ... didn’t you ask that we let you know when you aren’t ‘doing all that you can do’ to earn salvation from Jesus Christ? BTW, did you ping the mod for your ‘making it personal’?

[MHGinTN]

I meant to ping Resty, but that's okay, she'll be lurking and see the post. :^)

[prayforpeaceofJerusalem]

How were any of those quotes taken out of context? They plainly stated the beliefs of the Mormon leaders at the time they spoke. Where is there one “lifting out of context” statement and what is the context that it is lifted out of....show surrounding and supportive passages, by all means.

BTW: I do not bash Mormons, but why should a Mormon promote their religion as the cause of their being “nice people”, when any Athiest can be a “nice people”, on purpose?
I mean, Mormons seem to be taking special delight to claim that they are “the people’, and that they are “the people” because they are “Mormons”.
RC and Protestants and other branches of Christianity do not make those claims here, like Mormons do, from my observations.

[MEGoody]

I hope that your dead relatives are never bothered by another religion.

They've passed on - they won't be. Yours aren't being bothered either. Maybe you think there is validity to the Mormons baptising dead people by proxy, and that's why you think they are bothering your dead relatives. Relax. There's no validity to it.

[pandoraou812]

Thanks I feel so much better now as long as there is no validity to it....

[Eva]

I mean, Mormons seem to be taking special delight to claim that they are “the people’, and that they are “the people” because they are “Mormons”. RC and Protestants and other branches of Christianity do not make those claims here, like Mormons do, from my observations.

You're joking, right? Well actually the RCs and the protestants don't actually call themselves the chosen ones, but they do claim to be the only ones. I've been known to make that claim, myself, until I read some of the threads criticizing Mormons on this web site and realized just how it sounded to others. The threads, criticizing Mormons have been way over the top.

[Marysecretary]

Awww, that’s so cute. Thank you.

[Marysecretary]

Ah, yes. And WE become more delightsome as the years go by as we imitate Christ. Well, at least that’s the goal!

[Marysecretary]

I never see chipmunks in the front yard. They seem to congregate in the back. One day hubby saw a whole family of them sitting on our stone fence. It was so cute. I wish I’d had a camera then.

[netmilsmom]

>>I seems to me that your efforts on this thread are to protect Mormonism against Christian challenge, not that you are promoting their specific beliefs.<<

Well it seems to me, that you are overlooking the fact that I have never said a word about “Mormonism” just Mormons.

>>I don’t see any effort for Christianity or Catholicism, in fact you seem to me a little hostile to Protestant Christianity in your defense of Mormonism.<<

I am exasperated by anyone who thinks that they are better than anyone else. Mormon nor Jewish FReepers come onto Catholic threads to tell us how wrong we are. When they do, trust me, being one of the Anti-Catholic troll hunters, I will be on them too.
And I will and do thank and sing the praises of those Non-Catholics who are kind and reasonable.

So if you think I’m Anti-Protestant and before you throw the word around again, talk to my husband or other Non-Catholic members of my family. Or if you like, cruise through my posting history. There is a tale to tell there and it isn’t Anti-Protestant.

Here is the answer to your question per Jimmy Akin. I reference it because it gives a Vatican document in it.

http://jimmyakin.typepad.com/defensor_fidei/2006/05/pastoral_conseq.html

Therefore if one would like to become Catholic, one must be rebaptized.

However, you must also look to the Vatican documents that state (as I referenced before) that this does not mean that Mormons will not go to heaven. So, why should I care how they worship?

[Colofornian]

Statements about an everlasting hell (Hel. 6: 28; Moro. 8: 13) must be interpreted in their proper context in the light of D&C 19: 4-12, which defines eternal and endless punishment.

Why? Why must statements about an everlasting hell be re-interpreted by Smith's later words?

If FastCoyote starts having some of his revelatory visions again of the same "nature" he had last year...
...& he pulls a "Joseph Smith" on us & redefines "eternal" or "everlasting" the way Joseph did...as "temporary" and the exact opposite of endless
...only, mind you, instead of applying it to hell like Smith...FastCoyote applied this new definition to heaven...
...would we all mindlessly say, "Well, I guess all those passages in the Bible & Book of Mormon about eternal, everlasting heaven need to be filtered through FastCoyote II, chapter 19, verses 4-12" ???

In just one fell swoop, Smith contradicted every Biblical writer, prophet, apostle who used that word not to mention every dictionary & every etymologist treatment of that word. All by Joseph Smith edict. On one side of the balance is God's people for thousands of years, reinforced by the vocabulary & rules of being able to communicate in a straightforward way...on the other side was a 25-year-old man who objected to hell being eternal...and decided then & there to redefine the term "endless."

May I suggest all Mormons reading this do their own Bible & BoM study on how often heaven & hell are mentioned in a chapter where either eternal or everlasting is used to describe both places.

Just think about all the folks the past 175 yrs who've been encouraged to read & pray about the BoM minus a handy D&C available. Was there any sain reason for them to take the words "eternal," "everlasting" or "endless" at their face value in describing the beyond?

Most of them read thru it thinking, "This sounds like the Bible." Little did they realize that Smith at times used Doctrine & Covenants like a "decoder ring" where you take a fine biblical word like eternal or everlasting or endless and twist it into meaning exactly its opposite.

[prayforpeaceofJerusalem]

quote JRochelle:The reason that Mormons are not mainstream to this day is for that reason. Polygamy.
They don’t understand how disgusting Protestants think it is and when they go and defend it as somehow from God, well they won’t ever win that argument.”

That is just one part of the whole problem of Mormonism being accepted as a branch of Christianity. The root is who they say Jesus is, and who they say God is.
By all means I would ask that Mormon apologists tell us who Jesus is and who God is. We cannot agree on that point of essewntial doctrine and therefore, we do not worship the same God -though President Bush would try to convince us that even Allah is the one YHWH worshipped by Jews and Chritians, we don;t buy it, nor do we buy a god who has evolved and who has sex forever with multiple wives in heaven.

Those who are born again in Christ and who follow His Word worship Him as Creator, YHWH Himself, in the second Person [and the only Person in YHWH who is seen, ever, by any created being]; who is come in flesh as the second Man, and Kinsman/Redeemer of the first man.
cannot accept an evolving godhood and sex in the heavens among the gods

[Invincibly Ignorant]

The threads, criticizing Mormons have been way over the top.

Ya but to the credit of most Christians on FR its the same ol' insecure 10-11 carpet bombers who never mis an LDS thread.

[commonguymd]

lol

[commonguymd]

lol

[andysandmikesmom]

I noticed that as well...