This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Mr Etaoin Shrdlu: Hate to interfere with this little project you've got going here, but I put it on the Useful Notes index so it wouldn't be an orphan.
Madd-the-Sane: That's fine with me.
Mormonism cannot be considered Christianity because the key doctrines are not in line with Christianity. It is a Christian Cult (a cult with the trappings of Christianity).
The Evil Oboist: Have to disagree with you there. Do some research, and come back later.
Bobfrank: Wrong mistake trope, Oboist. It's not a matter of Did Not Do The Research; choosing to define "Christianity" as "those who believe in my favorite doctrines" instead of "those who believe in Christ" is a perfect example of a whole other trope.
Sean Tucker: The point is, it's so far removed from any other denomination that calling it Christianity is a little off. Mormons don't even believe in the Bible being the true Word of God, which is one of the key tenets of Christianity.
Madd-the-Sane: Um, you haven't read the page proper, have you? Look under the section The Bible.
Bobfrank: *sigh* I go and explain why something is not an example of Did Not Do The Research, and what do I get for my trouble? A genuine example! Do the research, please, Sean!
Zordauch: This is what happens when lumpers and splitters show up in religious matters. In the Lumper department, Latter-day Saints can be considered Christians because they believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, was born of a virgin, and died and rose again so that humans could be reconciled with God. On the Splitter side, Latter-day Saints ignore post-biblical traditions (including the Nicene creed), believe in authoritative revelation from God through prophets, and subscribe to a substantially different cosmology. Contemporary religious scholarship currently agrees with the Lumper perspective: That Other Wiki considers The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as part of the Mormonism movement, itself part of the Restorationist movement in Christianity. It's possible that, in the future, religious scholarship will see Mormonism as different from Christianity as Christianity now is from Judaism.
Bobfrank: Removed the following on factual accuracy grounds:
- Of course there is no such language as "Reformed Egyptian". Smith's "translation" of The Book of Abraham and the discovery of the Rosetta Stone really proved that.
Eryk The Red: The statement "'Mormon' is not politically correct" rubs me the wrong way, because the truth is "'Mormon' is not ACTUALLY correct". It's the name of a prophet. Not the name of the religion or its adherents. I'm ok with mentioning that it's a common term used to refer to LDS, but that sentence infers that it's a meaningless quibble, which it is not.
Jonny D: I moved the explanation of the use of 'Latter Day Saints' instead of 'Mormon' into its own paragraph to give it a better explanation, rather than saying it's "politically incorrect". Hopefully this is clearer and more accurate.
Franklin Shepard: I'm wondering why the reference to FLDS are so obviously biased. After all, wasn't Joseph Smith accused of being a con man and a liar, with multiple arrests and several convictions? It seems we should give the FLDS just as much of the benefit of the doubt.
Bobfrank: No, he was accused of being a con man and a liar, with multiple arrests and not a single conviction, in any court, before any jury.
Franklin Shepard: Ok, my bad about not looking up my facts before posting, but I don't think it fully negates my original point. After all, doing about an hours' worth of research shows that at the very least, there's some doubt over whether or not he was found guilty in 1826. Obviously, both LDS sites and anti-LDS sites put their own spin on it, but there are a few seemingly non-biased sites that raise a few questions.
Franklin Shepard: Also, just for the record, I don't want to sound like I'm defending Warren Jeffs, who is by all accounts a horrible man. I just don't think the article has to be so biased towards the FLDS church in general.
Zordauch: Franklin Shepard, did you mean "biased against?"
Jonny D: I edited the section on the FLDS a little, removing the part about "con-man and a liar" which felt like name calling and replaced it with statements that are a matter of public record... which actually ends up painting Jeffs in an even more negative light; as you said, not a nice guy by all accounts.
Xander77: The history section is just a TAD biased. There's a minor difference between being a persecuted minority oppressed by the wicked government and engaging in several minor civil wars / massacring the living hell out of your opponents. I would suggest someone more "impartial" edit that info in.
Before someone goes "Uh... massacring your opponents? Surely you jest, the mormons never did that":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre
The Evil Oboist: No one's denying that it happened. It's just that it was a drop compared to the bucket of persecution carried out against Mormons both in the past and present.
Jonny D: That the massacre happened is undeniable, but is hardly representative of the actions of Mormons in general, in past or present. Those who committed the murders were clearly in the wrong, just as those who committed such acts against the Mormons were; being the victims of atrocities does not justify committing atrocities in return. The predominance of persecution in the churches history has been committed against the members; unprovoked attacks by members would not be condoned.
Falconfly: I think I saw somewhere that there was a group within Mormonism that fought against Proposition 8 (and failed, sadly and obviously) while the rest of the religion was in favour of it, and I find it would be worth a mention if I actually could find the site again. That said, it could just be an organisation excommunicated from the religion and thus making mormons Always Chaotically Homophobic.
Canvas Wolf Doll: We don't excommunicate thos who opposed Prop 8, all the church did was say, "look, we prefer you guys vite yes, but you're free to choose." And we aren't Homophobic. We are not afraid of things that are the same.
Unknown Troper: Really? "We are not afraid of things that are the same." You must be joking, seeing as how homophobia is defined as "an irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals." Did you think that [taking the definition of a word to be the combination of the meaning of its roots] was clever? Certainly it isn't any more clever than me reading out of a dictionary, but that isn't the point. Back on topic: There's no denying the LDS Church's long history of discrimination, particularly against homosexuals. I'm not saying that they're the only ones, not by any means, but they're definitely more outspoken about it than some.
