DiscussMormonism.com

Will in his posts has been explaining to us that we're just prudes and not liberal enough to understand that it's OK to take other women as your spouses and lie to your wife about it. It's OK to tell your friends that their salvation depends on their giving you their teenaged daughters to wife. This stuff reminds me that the worst thing about Mormonism is that it makes you rationalize this kind of crap. Most people would find it very difficult to rationalize such things, but the true believer must rationalize them, and in the process he or she must vilify those who cannot or will not rationalize them. In short, Mormonism turns people against their own consciences. LDS scriptures describe people with "seared" consciences who are "past feeling." Who knew that it was the church who made them that way?

This is precisely the reason why atheists say that religion is dangerous.

Who said we need to rationalize it? We Mormons are a decent and honorable people. Lying for the Lord has not been codified or become a precedent that must be followed. We are allowed to seek the truth as we can understand it and can admit to our mistakes. Our code is to live a Christ-like existence and to be true to that purpose.

Moksha, Runtu's post had nothing to do with "lying for the Lord."

What's your reaction to what he actually wrote?

moksha wrote:Who said we need to rationalize it? We Mormons are a decent and honorable people. Lying for the Lord has not been codified or become a precedent that must be followed. We are allowed to seek the truth as we can understand it and can admit to our mistakes. Our code is to live a Christ-like existence and to be true to that purpose.

Note that I didn't say that anyone but the true believer needs to rationalize it. These are the people who, against all evidence, cannot admit that anything in the history of their church has ever been anything but honorable and righteous. These are the people who scare the crap out of me.

Dr. Shades wrote:Moksha, Runtu's post had nothing to do with "lying for the Lord."

What's your reaction to what he actually wrote?

Look, when I climb up on a soap box it need not relate to anything other than a giddiness to heights. However, I do not feel a true believer has to rationalize any of this. The true believer mantle has obviously been applied in an off balance manner. Must I as a true believer subscribe to such rationalizations? No.

I like Sunstoned's quote from the other thread:

sunstoned wrote:He asked Hinckley about polygamy:

KING: You condemn it [polygamy].
HINCKLEY: I condemn it, yes, as a practice, because I think it is not doctrinal. It is not legal. And this church takes the position that we will abide by the law. We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, magistrates in honoring, obeying and sustaining the law.


emphasis added is mine.

moksha wrote:

Dr. Shades wrote:Moksha, Runtu's post had nothing to do with "lying for the Lord."

What's your reaction to what he actually wrote?

Look, when I climb up on a soap box it need not relate to anything other than a giddiness to heights. However, I do not feel a true believer has to rationalize any of this. The true believer mantle has obviously been applied in an off balance manner. Must I as a true believer subscribe to such rationalizations? No.

I like Sunstoned's quote from the other thread:

sunstoned wrote:He asked Hinckley about polygamy:

KING: You condemn it [polygamy].
HINCKLEY: I condemn it, yes, as a practice, because I think it is not doctrinal. It is not legal. And this church takes the position that we will abide by the law. We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, magistrates in honoring, obeying and sustaining the law.


emphasis added is mine.

You're not the true believer, moksha. Oddly enough, neither was Hinckley. ;) I am speaking of the Eric Hoffer kind of "true believer." What I worry about is that the true believers will push so hard for rigid acceptance of everything Mormon that they'll drive the reasonable folks like you out.

Runtu, could you elaborate on the Eric Hoffer type of true believer?

moksha wrote:Runtu, could you elaborate on the Eric Hoffer type of true believer?

I'm tired (it's late), but here's a little to chew on:

A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.
-- Eric Hoffer, The True Believer (1951)

Hoffer's true believer is a person who sees the world as it is supposed to be, according to the doctrine or movement or ideology he or she follows. What doesn't fit is simply denied or rationalized. Hence, a movement espousing fidelity and honesty has to come to grips with its founder behaving dishonestly and unfaithfully. The two most common responses we see on the boards are denial and rationalization. charity tells us that the things Joseph Smith is said to have done are simply not true; Will tells us they are true and they're perfectly moral.

He asked Hinckley about polygamy:

KING: You condemn it [polygamy].
HINCKLEY: I condemn it, yes, as a practice, because I think it is not doctrinal. It is not legal. And this church takes the position that we will abide by the law. We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, magistrates in honoring, obeying and sustaining the law.

Runtu,

This is exactly what you are talking about isn't it?

Hinkley is lying. It is doctrinal. I personally know one man that is sealed to his dead wife and the live one - a plural marriage santioned by the church in our day. It is legal because one mistress is dead but is nevertheless plural marriage.

It was a twist. It was a deception.

My friend with the two wives, what did he think when Hinkley said this? Where does the lie end?

Larry King is an ignorant softball player I have little respect for him.