Wow how can BYU's team be legit?

heyyo wrote:

What exactly did I generalize? I don't feel the need to run through details on letsrun, but you have no idea what the experience of my family in Utah. The only person generalizing is you.

Your argument insinuated that you were persecuted like the early Mormons. This argument fails in that if you were "persecuted" as early Mormons were, those who persecuted you, would be locked up. However, for the early Mormons, such laws were not on the books, allowing such horrible persecution.

Secondly, you did generalize by referring to the entire body of people that constitute the Mormon faith, in the Utah valley, as all persecuting you for not being Mormon. That is a generalization.

Trust me, I have been on the end you speak of before, but all I am saying is that it does not compare to the persecution the early Mormons went through in which much violence, physical harm and death were inflicted upon them because of their beliefs.

Why do you insist on taking this thread in this direction? Let it go.

I don't really see how you can think one religion's backstory is any more weird or wacky than another's. They all require leaps of faith and believing in things that sound ridiculous to an outside observer. How can you think some guy talked to God inside a whale or some dude turned water into wine and then completely discredit someone for believing something equally irrational. Mormons just believe something different and I don't get why they deserve to be criticized so harshly. Every Mormon I've met has been exceptionally nice and fun to be around (minus the church service invitations) and the chicks are smokin. Who cares if they are older, it's a race about beating people, your fitness and talents against theirs. You might as well have races for each individual age, Kenyans, people who grew up at altitude, people with better coaches, etc. All this crap in the name of fairness is just people not confident in their abilities, talents, and work ethic. Winners find a way.

wow you caught me. I used the general you to refer to a group of people! How about this... You people, i.e. you mormons cannot compare being chased out of a state, because of your crazy beliefs, to the holocaust and slavery.

Christmahaunakawanza wrote:

I don't really see how you can think one religion's backstory is any more weird or wacky than another's. They all require leaps of faith and believing in things that sound ridiculous to an outside observer. . . . Mormons just believe something different and I don't get why they deserve to be criticized so harshly.

This.

Mormonism gets the bad rap mostly because it's younger than most other religions--that's all.

Look, belief in god(s) and the supernatural is inherently irrational. (Or non-rational, to use a less value-loaded term.) The fact that Mormons have been around for just a couple of hundred years does not perforce make their religion any wackier than others that have been around for a couple of thousand.

I think any god-belief deserves to be criticized--religion poisons everything, to borrow a phrase--but I don't think LDS folks deserve *more* (or less!) criticism than other true believers.

As an ardent student of mormon history, I would like for you to tell me how the South Park episode is "so inaccurate [you] couldn't believe it."

I am not trying to bait you into anything, but I have heard the same thing from the lips of several other mormons, but when we got into the details, the South Park episode was quite accurate for the most part (particularly so with regards to the "weird" elements of mormonism).

topped so Unbelievable! can answer my question

Isn't there a Heavenly Mother who lives with the Heavenly Father in Heaven?

There is one other thing that I would like to extract from Unbelievable!'s post - the idea that religion should be exempt from criticism.

He first (wrongly) asserts that the South Park episode is "so inaccurate [he] couldn't believe it", and then proceeds to state that even if the previous poster knew a great deal about mormon history he should refrain from criticising it.

Why do the religious feel like their beliefs are to be exempt from criticism? What is their justification for that belief? When should something be or not be open to criticism?

If at all, beliefs held in the face of evidence to the contrary should be even more heavily criticized. I'd like a religious individual to tell me why they feel entitled to an exemption? Honestly.

Seriously you all. Lets just allow people to believe in what they want, while they let us believe in what we want and let it be.

Criticism should only take place when someone TELLS you what you should believe (ie those door knocking punks on missions which most religions have). If we all just let our neighbors believe what they want there is no need for debating religion. Everyone has the right to believe in what they want as long as they don't impose on others in a harmful, destructive or threatening way.