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I grew up reading accounts of alien abductions and swallowed it whole. Considering that I was used to magical thinking and reliance upon personal experiences of others and how they recounted them for evidence I was a good mark for this hysteria. I thought to myself that these people were deeply sincere about their fantasies of anal probes and the Grays but when it came down to it they were just touched in the head, in a bad way.

Along the same lines I now use to knock out other laughable systems of belief I overcame my fear of aliens. This was the clencher, as once the fear dissipated I could think clearly about the matters of the possibility that these bastards were making it up so people would pay attention to them and (gasp) give them money.

What I began to see were individuals who were unstable, prone to fantastical stories and just charismatic enough to have someone write down their story and popularize it. Furthermore the first time I bought a MUFON-related publication i was taken aback by the amount of "tinfoil hat" products. I felt assinine and stupid, as if I just was suckered into a promising sounding job but found retards staffing the management ranks and barely functional mentally retarded serving as clientelle.

Also I knew a lot of people who worked out at area 51...that helped debunk alot of the bull too.

So...paralells between the UFO craze and Mormonism lie along the stories of individuals talking to nephite warriors guarding the temple, prophets talking to angels and (for me at least) family members recieving witnesses. If it doesn't pass the sniff test your dealing with retards.

I think you're missing one point or didn't fully draw it out. Magical thinking is part of our cognitive development. When certain concepts are presented to us as fact in specific stages of our development as children, and then those concepts are reinforced as fact through real life experiences (the modeling of our parents and other authority figures, for example) we tend to "keep" those concepts as fact throughout our lives and it doesn't occur to us to question them.

Jersey Girl

Jersey Girl wrote:I think you're missing one point or didn't fully draw it out. Magical thinking is part of our cognitive development. When certain concepts are presented to us as fact in specific stages of our development as children, and then those concepts are reinforced as fact through real life experiences (the modeling of our parents and other authority figures, for example) we tend to "keep" those concepts as fact throughout our lives and it doesn't occur to us to question them.

Jersey Girl

My daughter craps her pants and luckilly we have diapers to take care of that. Humans employ magical thinking but luckilly we have logic and reason that calls out this malignant safety net left over from 6000 years ago.

Those who rely and champion this thinking are dangerous to society and should be called out at every chance.

How do you account for all of the people who put Moronis challenge to the test and receive a revelation that the Church is true? Over, and over, and over again?

Gazelam wrote:How do you account for all of the people who put Moronis challenge to the test and receive a revelation that the Church is true? Over, and over, and over again?

Gawd damn Gaz shut up and think first!

For every Mormon who got a boner from Moroni, there are THOUSANDS of other who receive the same feeling about being born again, following Allah, becoming a nun or priest or minister, becoming a Buddhist.

Most of those supposed investigators who got a boner from Moroni where coached by high pressure bicycle riding dweebs from LDS Inc.

Gazelam wrote:How do you account for all of the people who put Moronis challenge to the test and receive a revelation that the Church is true? Over, and over, and over again?

They are trying to fill an empty space in their lives. Sometimes it works out pretty well for them. Sometimes not.

Lucretia MacEvil wrote:

Gazelam wrote:How do you account for all of the people who put Moronis challenge to the test and receive a revelation that the Church is true? Over, and over, and over again?

They are trying to fill an empty space in their lives. Sometimes it works out pretty well for them. Sometimes not.

Correction, they are trying to fill what the Mormons have convinced them is an empty space in their lives.

Correction. Many of those people (I assume we're talking about new converts) were convinced they had a void in their lives prior to their initial encounter with the missionaries. The missionaries pointed out a way for them to fill the void. The missionaries were not the ones who created the void, nor were they the first ones who noticed it.

harmony wrote:Correction. Many of those people (I assume we're talking about new converts) were convinced they had a void in their lives prior to their initial encounter with the missionaries. The missionaries pointed out a way for them to fill the void. The missionaries were not the ones who created the void, nor were they the first ones who noticed it.

I disagree. As a missionary I helped convince people that (like scientology) theres a bad scary thing in the closet (death) and that in order to get the best return for ones time you have to allign yourself with the Mormons. And ONLY the Mormons.

Gaz, I spoke with MANY people who took the moroni "challenge". well over 95 percent did not recieve a witness. Those that did not recieve it knew that it was bunk. Those that recieved a "witness" were borderline retarded, emotionally scarred or too young to know that we were manipulating them.