Originally Posted By dshyates But what you share with the terrorists is that you can not discern that their edicts are wrong and hurtful. I have the feeling that if the church told you to load your magic panties with plastic explosives and walk into a gay bar, you would.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***I may share a dedication to a faith with the Terrorists but that's about it*** You've stated without equivocation that you would follow the directives of your church leaders without hesitation, whatever those directives may be and even if you personally disagreed with them. How is that so different?
Originally Posted By Mr X ***I have the feeling that if the church told you to load your magic panties with plastic explosives and walk into a gay bar, you would.*** I don't believe that Josh is capable of such a thing. I really don't.
Originally Posted By ecdc On another September 11th, this time in 1857, on the orders of Church authorities, Mormons murdered a wagon train consisting mostly of women and children. All told, 120 people were literally butchered with hatchets and knives. They did it because they just KNEW that their leaders wouldn't lead them astray. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_Massacre" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...Massacre</a>
Originally Posted By Lady Starlight See what their magic panties did! Magic panties are WRONG! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude,ok well, I really just wanted to say " magic panties".
Originally Posted By gadzuux Well wow ... that's quite a skeleton to have in your closet, especially when you purport to be a christian church. >> All of the party except for seventeen children under eight years old — about 120 men, women, and children — were killed. After the massacre, the corpses of the victims were left decomposing for two years on the open plain, their children were distributed to local Mormon families, and many of their possessions auctioned off at the Latter Day Saints Cedar City tithing office. << >> Col. William H. Dame, head of the Iron County Brigade of the Utah militia, ordered their annihilation. Intending to leave no witnesses of Mormon complicity in the siege and also intending to prevent reprisals that would complicate the Utah War, militiamen induced the emigrants to surrender and give up their weapons. After escorting the emigrants out of their hasty fortification, the militiamen and their tribesmen auxiliaries executed the emigrants. << >> Historians attribute the massacre to a combination of factors including war hysteria fueled by millennialism and strident Mormon teachings by senior LDS leaders including Brigham Young. [T]he predominant academic position is that Young and other church leaders helped create the conditions which made the massacre possible. <<
Originally Posted By ecdc BTW, I think it's unfair to say what Josh may or may not do. It's difficult not to get personal since Josh represents to many people the LDS faith on these boards, but let's keep it away from getting personal. What is obvious and what is demonstrable, is that Josh's statement that following Mormon leaders no matter what is error free and won't go "amiss" is completely false. There's plenty of evidence that in the past it HAS gone amiss. There's evidence that church leaders have used their positions of authority for immoral causes. There's evidence that they don't agree with one another. In short, there's evidence that they're human. And humans make mistakes, no matter how well intentioned, which is why we should never surrender our free will or thinking to them.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***Philip Klingensmith, a Bishop in the church and a private in the militia. He participated in the killings, and later turned state's evidence against his fellows, after leaving the church.*** That's interesting. If the church leaders are indeed infallible, how do things like this happen?
Originally Posted By dshyates "I don't believe that Josh is capable of such a thing." So what part do you believe would stop him? The thought of killing himself (see Jonestown)? The thought of killing hundreds of heathen (infidels)? Or the thought of actually walking in a gay bar?
Originally Posted By Mr X ***Brigham Young, appalled at what had taken place, initially ordered an investigation into the massacre but in the end it must be acknowledged that through his own unwillingness to work with Federal authorities contributed both directly and indirectly to the blunder of justice, and was part of the reason two trials were necessary.*** This bears a striking similarity to what the current Pope did in terms of stalling justice and fighting the authorities in the coverup of all the molestation cases. Strikingly similar.
Originally Posted By mele <<I don't believe that Josh is capable of such a thing.>> Well, it's extremely doubtful that the Mormon church would turn violent (as a whole) but IF they did...I am not so sure that most of their followers wouldn't accept the violence as "God's Will". Very scary, indeed.
Originally Posted By Mr X <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_vengeance" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...engeance</a> Holy crap, an Oath of Vengeance!? All the way up to the 1920's? Josh, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss people claiming your group has commonalities with the terrorists, this IS an oath of terrorism. Yikes. I'm officially freaked out now.
Originally Posted By gadzuux What they do instead is to foster an environment of fear and division that allows for the violence and persecution to happen. And they don't just do this idly or half-heartedly, they devote tens of millions of dollars and countless man-hours in pursuit of this goal.
Originally Posted By Mr X "You and each of you do covenant and promise that you will pray and never cease to pray to Almighty God to avenge the blood of the prophets upon this nation, and that you will teach the same to your children and to your children's children unto the third and fourth generation."
Originally Posted By Mr X The Oath of Vengeance was referenced by John D. Lee in his confession of his involvement in the Mountain Meadows massacre. Lee stated, "I believed then as I do now, that it was the will of every true Mormon in Utah, at that time, that the enemies of the Church should be killed as fast as possible, and that as this lot of people had men amongst them that were supposed to have helped kill the Prophets in the Carthage jail, the killing of all of them would be keeping our oaths and avenging the blood of the Prophets."
Originally Posted By Mr X This oath continued til the 1920's, but were instructions revoking it ever ordered? I'm just starting to wrap my head around the implications, but it seems to me that any Mormons around today who had great-Grandparents in the religion have been taught this, and that they are teaching it to their kids (fourth generation). Is this true? I sure hope not, but an oath is an oath, right?
Originally Posted By ecdc >>This is sick stuff!<< Look, I'll be as critical as the next guy when it comes to Prop 8, hypocrisy, etc. But it's always "sick" to outsiders, never to insiders. It doesn't matter the religion or the practice. Taken within a cultural context, it's really not that bad. It was also removed in the 1920s by George F. Richards. No religion can withstand the scrutiny of its past - especially one as new as Mormonism. I really have no problem with the Oath of Vengeance or much of anything else that happened. That's not what Mormonism is today or what it's about, anymore than the Catholic church is about the inquisition. The larger point is that humans should not rely on other humans, with brains no bigger than theirs the way Josh is proposing.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>I sure hope not, but an oath is an oath, right?<< It's not taught and it's not part of it. Mormonism has undergone a serious transformation throughout the 20th century to get away from this kind of isolating thing. Opposition to the United States as a "heathen" government has given way to supra-patriotism within the faith.
