Why I can't take organized religion seriously #1001001SOS

[Damn Dirty Ape]

Mormons get their Holy Undies in a twist:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/24/mormons.coffee.ap/index.html

[Oban]

The church informed Beazer that the angel's image is a registered trademark.

I think when a belief system applies for protection with the USPTO, it is pretty clear what it is and what it is not.

[Paelos]

I always found it amusing that the lead angel for Mormonism was Moron with an -i added to it.

[Damn Dirty Ape]

While I do give organized religions alot of shit for their demands for authority, I still like most of the people who adhere to their various tenants.  I think this quote from South Park sums up the situation best:

Look, maybe us Mormons do believe in crazy stories that make absolutely no sense, and maybe Joseph Smith did make it all up, but I have a great life, and a great family, and I have the Book of Mormon to thank for that. The truth is, I don't care if Joseph Smith made it all up, because what the church teaches now is loving your family, being nice and helping people. And even though people in this town might think that's stupid, I still choose to believe in it. All I ever did was try to be your friend, Stan, but you're so high and mighty you couldn't look past my religion and just be my friend back. You've got a lot of growing up to do, buddy. Suck my balls.

[Merusk]

Yeah.. they may all be batshit fucking crazy, but I can't think of a practicing Mormon I've met who I think, "wow that guy's a prick."  I can point you to innumerable practicing Catholics, Baptists, and others, however.  I've always found that a bit odd.. it's got to be a lack of #'s problem.

[Selby]

Yeah.. they may all be batshit fucking crazy, but I can't think of a practicing Mormon I've met who I think, "wow that guy's a prick."

Hey, if they try and convert you and you resist, they can be pretty damn hateful and spiteful.  I had to pull the other half away from their clutches a few times several years back.  They didn't like me much for it.

[Paelos]

Yeah.. they may all be batshit fucking crazy, but I can't think of a practicing Mormon I've met who I think, "wow that guy's a prick."  I can point you to innumerable practicing Catholics, Baptists, and others, however.  I've always found that a bit odd.. it's got to be a lack of #'s problem.

Try and get a deal done in Utah if you don't believe, then tell me they aren't the same. Christians just have the noticable "and well hindsighted" history on them, and the Mormons hide their predjuices well.

[Ironwood]

Yeah.. they may all be batshit fucking crazy, but I can't think of a practicing Mormon I've met who I think, "wow that guy's a prick."  I can point you to innumerable practicing Catholics, Baptists, and others, however.  I've always found that a bit odd.. it's got to be a lack of #'s problem.

Isn't OSC a mormon ?  He's a prick.

[Trippy]

Yeah.. they may all be batshit fucking crazy, but I can't think of a practicing Mormon I've met who I think, "wow that guy's a prick."  I can point you to innumerable practicing Catholics, Baptists, and others, however.  I've always found that a bit odd.. it's got to be a lack of #'s problem.

Isn't OSC a mormon ?  He's a prick.

Yes he is.

Edit: Err... he's a Mormon.

[Merusk]

OSC? *blank look*  Who the hell's that?

See, this is why I mention things.. people always come and point out their experiences.  Knew it had to be a lack of exposure.  :-D

[Tebonas]

Orson Scott Card.

I don't know him personally though and couldn't verify if he is a prick or not.

[Oban]

Ender's Game was not too bad, had to read it in High School. 

I tried to read one of the sequels recently and had a hard time believing the plot.  It seemed rather forced.

Never realized he was a Mormon.

[Righ]

There's only a handful of these shirts left and they are not making any more. You can't buy them online / mail order. So if any of you folks are near Salt Lake City, drop by and pick up some collectors items.

[Engels]

I would love to take all these nice ladies to a coffee shop we have here in Seattle called Coffee Messiah. The entire decore is Jesus and the heavenly host sipping java.

[Abagadro]

There's only a handful of these shirts left and they are not making any more. You can't buy them online / mail order. So if any of you folks are near Salt Lake City, drop by and pick up some collectors items.

I thought about it when this story was in the Salt Lake Tribune, but then decided I didn't care enough to trek over there.

Oh, and the "I haven't met any asshole mormons" is probably a sample size problem more than anything. There are legions of them here.

[Ironwood]

Ender's Game was not too bad, had to read it in High School. 

I tried to read one of the sequels recently and had a hard time believing the plot.  It seemed rather forced.

Never realized he was a Mormon.

Read Lost Boys.  He's so much a mormon in that it physically hurts.  It's like when koontz wrote that book about the aliens that turned out to be the rapture.

Fucking people call themselves writers.  Godammit.

[Damn Dirty Ape]

On the plus side, Mormonism brought us Battlestar Galactica, at least the original series.  I haven't seen the latest one to know if the religious themes are still there.

Edit:  Check out this teacher being carried out of a high school because he cracked the BYU=Breed 'em Young University joke in class and was fired but refused to leave.

http://www.columbiabasinherald.com/articles/2007/03/22/news/news01.txt

[Ironwood]

Oh, they're still there.

[Yegolev]

The thing that is funniest to me is how Mormons are not supposed to drink coffee.  Next they might offer shirts of the Pope handing out condoms.

[Lantyssa]

I believe it is the caffeine which they oppose.  I had a friend who was raised Mormon until around the age of ten.  He talks about it with alternating bile and incredulous amazement at some of their beliefs and what he has seen with those who stuck with it.

[Ironwood]

Wait, what ?  Coffee ?  Now it is my turn to ask 'Are you Serious ?'


My mind, she boggles.

[Rasix]

Ender's Game was not too bad, had to read it in High School. 

I tried to read one of the sequels recently and had a hard time believing the plot.  It seemed rather forced.

Never realized he was a Mormon.

I've read a lot of his work since my Mom's a huge fan. Most of his books/series borrow heavily from Mormon themes and a lot of his work just seems to Mormon lore/history wrapped in a fantasy/sci-fi package.  The Ender's series seems to have the least amount of overtness but it pops up all over the place.

I don't really mind when a writer interjects some of their personal beliefs in their work, but at times it can be a little cringe-worthy.  I'd rather they sometimes let the story speak for itself and not have the main character prattle on about his moment of clarity concerning abortion and the destruction of fertilized eggs for use in in-vitro. 

However, I can forgive the guy since he's a huge Firefly/Serenity fan.

[Numtini]

Caffeinated beverages are one of those things that fit into the "cultural" not "religious" category. It's pretty strong. But there's no actual prohibition. It's more that it's a tradition that has become associated with the religon, but is entirely unofficial. (Sort of like treating women as chattel or voting Republican.)

Honestly, I'm in the category that any religion that rejects coffee worships a false god.

And yes, OSC is VERY LDS. One of his series is little more than the Book of Mormon rewritten as an SF novel. (And OSC is definitely a better writer than God because his plots are a lot better than God's.) He's also written temple pageants and some other things for the LDS community.

And he's one of the best writers I've ever read, but from my experiences with him on AOL, yeah, he's a major prick with a lot of issues with himself.

[Abagadro]

The Homecoming Saga is the one that it straight ripped out of the Book of Mormon. I didn't know that when I picked it up after reading the 3 Enders Game books but about 100 pages in I was like "waaaaait a minute..."

The caffeine thing is a bit more than just "cultural" although that is a huge part of it. It is part of the Word of Wisdom that Smith came up with that prohibits, among other things, "hot drinks" which people have come to associate as coffee and tea, and hence caffeine (although bizarrely not hot chocolate). People sorta pick and choose on it though because domestic meat is on there (unless in winter or time of famine) and everyone ignores that and some people go further and say no caffeine in sodas either. You can't get a caffeinated soda on the campus of BYU for instance. Other's don't go that far and it is a bit of running joke how much Diet Coke Mormons around here drink.  It's sort of a sliding scale with some things very, very bad (alcohol, tobacco), some very bad (coffee), some bad (caffeinated soda) and some ignored with variations depending on what community you happen to be in. The running joke is you always take two Mormons fishing with you because if you only take one he will drink all your beer. One of the funnier things was when a colleague and I went to a deposition at the big firm here in town that does most of the legal work for the LDS Church. They asked if we wanted anything and our standard response from pure habit was coffee (which is also standard fare at any deposition as most lawyers will probably attest). We didn't get it and sort of forgot it as we dove into the depo. About 20 minutes later a guy came in with two cups of coffee from 7-Eleven. The incongruity of the glass & marble law firm atmosphere with our gas-station coffee cups was rather amusing.
 
Historically (just like everything else) Smith basically ripped off the Word of Wisdom from the health gurus of the 1830s who were advocating this type of thing such as the guy who invented the Graham Cracker as an anti-masturbation food.

[Ironwood]

'Treason' was OSC as well, wasn't it ?

That one went well out into la-la land.

I can't even re-read it as an adult before I run screaming.

[Murgos]

My version of the bible goes something like this:

Chap 1: Genesis.

1: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2: And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4: And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5: And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
6: And seeing that it was now morning God said, Where is the coffee?  And lo, there was coffee and it was hot.

[Riggswolfe]

It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion,
It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed,
The hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning,
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.

That's about as close as I get to a prayer these days.

[Endie]

My version of the bible goes something like this:

Chap 1: Genesis.

1: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2: And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4: And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5: And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
6: And seeing that it was now morning God said, Where is the coffee?  And lo, there was coffee and it was hot.

I think it was Blackadder that added something like:

"And on the fifth day the Lord created the creeping things that slither across the face of the earth, and the French ate them."

[Oban]

It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion,
It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed,
The hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning,
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.

That's about as close as I get to a prayer these days.

http://www.geocities.com/karenleigh74/frog/caffeine.swf

[HaemishM]

such as the guy who invented the Graham Cracker as an anti-masturbation food.

I don't even know where to start with that. Graham crackers are so yummy, but I don't think they could ever replace that empty gnawing that can only be quenched by rubbing one out.

[Dren]

I knew about the Graham Cracker thing too.  Very weird.  Look up the history.  It is all really there!

I had heard about coffee being discouraged not based on caffeine but that it was hot.  I didn't know what to think of it at the time other than, "Well, they believe lots of other crazy stuff, so why not this?"

I was told they will not consume anything that is hotter or colder than room temperature.  Why?  Because the horse thief told them so.

[Abagadro]

The cold thing is apocryphal. No restrictions on those.

[Paelos]

such as the guy who invented the Graham Cracker as an anti-masturbation food.

I don't even know where to start with that. Graham crackers are so yummy, but I don't think they could ever replace that empty gnawing that can only be quenched by rubbing one out.

Maybe you're supposed to put them in your pants or something. Those wacky 19th century people.

[Nebu]

I'm not a Christian, but I found this list to be interesting.  I found point 3) to be particularly disturbing.  Are mormons really this entrenched in their racism?   

[Numtini]

Like many other religions, LDS had a history of racism. In their case, this was institutionalized in the form of a stricture against anyone with any part "negro blood" being ordained into the Priesthood (which in LDS is really more akin to being confirmed, it's something that virtually all males receive). This was revoked in 1978 when a revelation was given that the practice was to end. One of the strengths of the LDS faith is that it believes that God is still speaking to humanity through the upper levels of the church, which allows them to receive revelations allowing them to change the basic strictures of their faith in response to social changes.

LDS is really not at all unique in holding racist views. Religion was one of the mainstays of racism throughout history and most Christian sects were following the same line of reasoning as the LDS was. For example, peeking at Wikipedia, we find that in 1968 only 11% of SBC churches would allow black members. The Christian Reformed Church in South Africa was also one of the main defenders of apartheid.