PBS Mormons Part 2 Thread

[Anonymous]

Just a few thoughts:

Wow, they really make the missions look like they're mandatory.

Other missionary thoughts from Part 2 (basically a running commentary):

1) Songs about going on a mission sung by a bunch of small kids.
2) An interview by someone saying it is de facto mandatory to go on a mission in order to survive in his culture, to get married, to keep parents respect.
3) How to do all kinds of things to be a be better missionary.
4) Footage of missionaries bugging the hell out of people...ad nauseum.
5) Someone saying it's expected from age 4 or 5 that he would go on a mission.
6) Saying that more than 50% of converts go inactive and that conversions have slowed over years---"church is good at finding converts, but not good at helping them on their spiritual journey" (or something like that)
7) de facto milk before meat ("converts don't know about the tithe, loss of almost all free time")
8) Story of a missionary being told his mother died (by a written note from the Stake President---"your mother died...call home")
9) dangers to missionaries in hostile places (kidnappings, torture, killings...going to tough places, bad water, dangers)
10) Tal Bachman on Argentina mission (see number #9 ie tough place) he said he would "willingly be a suicide bomber" he was that into being a missionary---(I thought that was over the top in this day and age but ouch!) Great sound byte about not letting his kids go on a mission for something false!!!
11) an old black lady bearing her testimony who was a former drug user who changed her life around (good for her!!!)....she called it the LSD Church ("that's the church for me") I thought that was funny---moving part

Ouch---making Mormonism look anti-intellectual
1) thousands are probably currently googling "Boyd K. Packer, intellectuals, feminists, gays"
2) excommunication of intellectuals
3) "church isn't afraid of intellectuals, just if they public disagree with leaders or doctrine" (or something like that)
4) lack of evidence for Book of Mormon
5) Dallin Oaks sound bytes
6) "Mormon archaeologists have never found anything"
7) "Stuff in Book of Mormon sounds like 19th century record, not ancient record" (something like that)
8) September 6

[_beastie]

I was very touched by the part about how fast LDS moved during Katrina. I didn't realize their impact. In fact, the failure of our government seemed only to emphasize how various religious organizations stepped up to the bat. (of course, was that the point of governmental failure?) That is one thing that the church does very well - it is structured, organized, and extremely responsive to leadership directives. That's what you need in an emergency.

oh, gotta go back to watching, they're talking about women, pressure, and anti-depressants

[_Bond...James Bond]

I was very touched by the part about how fast LDS moved during Katrina. I didn't realize their impact. In fact, the failure of our government seemed only to emphasize how various religious organizations stepped up to the bat. (of course, was that the point of governmental failure?) That is one thing that the church does very well - it is structured, organized, and extremely responsive to leadership directives. That's what you need in an emergency.

Yeah...I liked that part...I just wasn't on the computer when it was on.

LDS Church good at storing food! Yeah LDS Church! You guys rock a natural disaster.

[_Bond...James Bond]

Temple stuff:

1) Woman demonstrated the penalties
2) Baptism for the dead and proxy baptism
3) Baptism of Dead Jews "Shock--How can they do it? Why do they do it? 6 million Jews, family members, friends were killed. I wanted them to be Jews, remain Jews. I didn't want them baptized as a Mormon. It was painful" --Holocaust Survivor (if I quoted correctly)
4) 2 billion names collected, more than 100 million names baptized for dead by LDS Church
5) genealogy stuff

[_beastie]

I was thinking some more about Mormonism's strength in that it is so organized and responsive to command, which is why they excel in emergencies. It seems like this is part of some ying and yang in life, that every benefit has a cost. The cost of such an organized, controlled community is well, control and intrusiveness into private lives. It's just a shame that we human beings don't seem to be able to work out good compromises between these yings and yangs.

The program discussed, at length, the importance, to Mormons, of knowing they will be a "forever family". At the same time I'm listening to Teryl Givens or the others go on about how wonderful that is, I can't help thinking about how content they are to realize that the "others" - you know, the bad guys like us - will be forcibly separated from OUR families, because we didn't believe the right thing, or act in just the right way. On some level they realize that the vast majority of human beings, even if they believe the "wrong" thing or sometimes act the "wrong" way, still love our families and would choose to retain familial bonds in whatever next life there may be. But it's ok that those bonds are severed - as long as "mine" aren't, because I believe the right thing, and act the right way.

I'm an atheist, so I don't believe any of this is going to occur after death, anyway (although obviously it offers great comfort to us to imagine it does and some situations, like the young women with the heart disease, are so heartbreaking that it seems merciful to have some notion like this to cling to) - so what bothers me isn't that I'm going to be forcibly divided from my family, or submitted to involuntary divorce (from children, too) as I've called it in the past, it's rather that believers are happy to believe that I would be.

It bothers me in the same way when EVs I know are happy to believe - or at least able to believe without great difficulties, and believe it to be just in some way - that I'm going to go to hell and burn for all eternity because I didn't believe the right thing. It's what it says about us, as human beings, that bothers me about that all.

[_The Nehor]

I'm an atheist, so I don't believe any of this is going to occur after death, anyway (although obviously it offers great comfort to us to imagine it does and some situations, like the young women with the heart disease, are so heartbreaking that it seems merciful to have some notion like this to cling to) - so what bothers me isn't that I'm going to be forcibly divided from my family, or submitted to involuntary divorce (from children, too) as I've called it in the past, it's rather that believers are happy to believe that I would be.

If they were happy to believe that would they want to go out for 2 years and be stoned, ridiculed, ignored, and attacked.

[_Mercury]

I was very touched by the part about how fast LDS moved during Katrina. I didn't realize their impact. In fact, the failure of our government seemed only to emphasize how various religious organizations stepped up to the bat. (of course, was that the point of governmental failure?) That is one thing that the church does very well - it is structured, organized, and extremely responsive to leadership directives. That's what you need in an emergency.

Yeah...I liked that part...I just wasn't on the computer when it was on.

LDS Church good at storing food! Yeah LDS Church! You guys rock a natural disaster.

One of the talking heads said they had the efficienc of the Wermacht. Very fitting but I don't think he knows about Goodwyns Law...Hahaha

[_Bond...James Bond]

I was very touched by the part about how fast LDS moved during Katrina. I didn't realize their impact. In fact, the failure of our government seemed only to emphasize how various religious organizations stepped up to the bat. (of course, was that the point of governmental failure?) That is one thing that the church does very well - it is structured, organized, and extremely responsive to leadership directives. That's what you need in an emergency.

Yeah...I liked that part...I just wasn't on the computer when it was on.

LDS Church good at storing food! Yeah LDS Church! You guys rock a natural disaster.

One of the talking heads siad they had the efficienc of the Wermacht. Very fitting but I don't think he knows about Goodwyns Law...Hahaha

Yeah...that was good. I was thinking "Being compared to the Nazis has to make Mormons cringe".

[_Mercury]

I'm an atheist, so I don't believe any of this is going to occur after death, anyway (although obviously it offers great comfort to us to imagine it does and some situations, like the young women with the heart disease, are so heartbreaking that it seems merciful to have some notion like this to cling to) - so what bothers me isn't that I'm going to be forcibly divided from my family, or submitted to involuntary divorce (from children, too) as I've called it in the past, it's rather that believers are happy to believe that I would be.

If they were happy to believe that would they want to go out for 2 years and be stoned, ridiculed, ignored, and attacked.

Id like to be stoned for two years

[_The Nehor]

One of the talking heads said they had the efficienc of the Wermacht. Very fitting but I don't think he knows about Goodwyns Law...Hahaha

Not to go way off-topic but the wehrmacht were hardly a model of efficiency or intelligent planning. Their saving grace during the war was in the beginning everyone else was even worse.