Most personally convincing reasons you don't believe.

[vorlon13]

To be honest it really scares me when people do stuff like that... argue the truth of one thing when its contradiction is right there in front of them essentially on the same page. It doesn't even seem like ignorance but rather a wilful act of stubborn defiance... like saying 'I know it's there but I will never admit it'. It just freaks me out.

It is frightening. It's watching someone turn their own intelligence against itself.

After practicing polygamy for a while (even as the Book of Mormon prohibits it) the LDS poobahs (Joe and the inner circle, so to speak) decided they needed some rules and guidelines.

Rather than just rely on a specific one time revelation from God on the matter (and really, after years of changing shit willy nilly, why would they suddenly start doing it that way?) (even though then as now, they claim that is precisely how they do do it) the matter went in to negotiation.

The starting point (and actually how it was presented to everyone else) was to copy the Old Testament rules precisely.  Well, suddenly there is a problem, several in the Mormon hierarchy either wanted to or were already married to sisters, and/or mother's and daughters, which the OT clearly prohibits.  So there is some back and forth how to manage their take on polygamy, and it is entirely all about what the men wanted, with no consideration for the wives (real and potential) or for anything God might (supposedly) have ordained on the topic, and also of no concern, was what the supposed rules for it that were presented to the flock and to the world at large regardless of how they were actually going to do it.

So we saw decades of Mormon contrivance, befuddlement, and lying on just how their version of polygamy was set up, how it worked, and what the actual rules were.

And realize, absolutely none of this chicanery would have occurred in any plausible incarnation of an actual One True Church, even had the deity in charge of that one actually desired it for his believers, as obvious as this 'Religion 101' lesson is to everyone else, it eluded the combined intellectual grasp of all the Mormons behind their polygamous skullduggery.   Particularly in regards to doing it the way they did, and then FUCKING DOCUMENTING IT FOR POSTERITY.

They couldn't be bothered with managing their religion with even a glance at how an actual One True Faith would, and compounding their foolishness, they didn't realize, they at the very, very least, needed to announce they had done it that way regardless of how they had, so that their fucking believers (and critics, LOL) wouldn't have in evidence the smoking gun of their prevarications.

[emjay]

Yeah, it just seems like there's no way it could be ignorance because no-one could be that blind. It has to be wilful, so it's scary as fuck.

I think it's similar to the way people can willfully de-humanize other humans, based on their race, sex, beliefs, etc. If you can deny the undeniable humanity of another person, you can deny any number of inconvenient contradictions in your creed.

Yeah, definitely. I think the Nazis were a prime example of that; there's no way they could have created such extreme hatred and lack of empathy in an entire nation without dehumanising the Jews by comparing them to rats and lice etc. And I think it was wilful... a deliberate and calculated ploy by their propaganda machine.

[vorlon13]

weird mispost, sorry, nevermind

[vorlon13]

To be honest it really scares me when people do stuff like that... argue the truth of one thing when its contradiction is right there in front of them essentially on the same page. It doesn't even seem like ignorance but rather a wilful act of stubborn defiance... like saying 'I know it's there but I will never admit it'. It just freaks me out.

If they admit it, they have to resign from the church or be excommunicated.  It does happen to Mormon apologists from time to time (what a GRIM job that is!!).

As for the pew warmers, Mormon doctrine provides them with cover for any particle of official church error.  As long as they are sincere, God won't hold them responsible for that particle of error.

So, the ones lying, just add one more lie to the pile, and then you have a viable religion, regardless of there being absolutely no foundation to it at all.  And LDS has no foundation as the church poobahs from day one with Joe Smith have documented, everything they have is not only subject to change, it HAS been changed, and they will never admit it because they don't have to.


Multiply by 78,000 and there in a nutshell is how the whole dog and pony show of Christendom works.

[emjay]

To be honest it really scares me when people do stuff like that... argue the truth of one thing when its contradiction is right there in front of them essentially on the same page. It doesn't even seem like ignorance but rather a wilful act of stubborn defiance... like saying 'I know it's there but I will never admit it'. It just freaks me out.

If they admit it, they have to resign from the church or be excommunicated.  It does happen to Mormon apologists from time to time (what a GRIM job that is!!).

As for the pew warmers, Mormon doctrine provides them with cover for any particle of official church error.  As long as they are sincere, God won't hold them responsible for that  particle of error.

So, the ones lying, just add one more lie to the pile, and then you have a viable religion, regardless of there being absolutely no foundation to it at all.  And LDS has no foundation as the church poobahs from day one with Joe Smith have documented, everything they have is not only subject to change, it HAS been changed, and they will never admit it because they don't have to.


Multiply by 78,000 and there in a nutshell is how the whole dog and pony show of Christendom works.

Wow! It's even built into it and they've covered everything haven't they... it's fucking scary, it really is. It sounds much more like a cult than a religion (though personally I see all religion as like a cult but you know what I mean)... do you see it as a cult?

[vorlon13]

Believe in Jesus.

There, you're covered too.

[emjay]

I take it you were in it, judging by how much you talk about it? If you were, how did you get out?

[Gemini]

They couldn't be bothered with managing their religion with even a glance at how an actual One True Faith would, and compounding their foolishness, they didn't realize, they at the very, very least, needed to announce they had done it that way regardless of how they had, so that their fucking believers (and critics, LOL) wouldn't  have in evidence the smoking gun of their prevarications.

For the Mormons, especially, they have no claim to rationality, plausibility, or justification. Despite that, they go on believing. This shows how little religion has to do with reality.

[GUBU]

Going back to the OP, I would say that my confidence that the specific god characters mentioned in the Bible/Quran etc. are fictional is as close to 100% as makes no odds. I'm as confident about that as I could reasonably be about anything.

I'd wager my life against a donut.

Trying to get back into the thread now, I agree with that but you come from a very different perspective... well almost very different. I'm like you are for every other religion other than Christianity... can just dismiss it out of hand as a bunch of silly, made-up characters... but since I have a background in Christianity I can't do that here so much, though I wish I could, believe me. If I hadn't grown up with it I'm pretty sure I'd see it just as you do, and just as I do about other religions, but as it stands it's too deeply entrenched to be able to treat it like that, and needs something more. Tbh I think it probably needs a psychological intervention - somehow - to defeat rather than reason alone. The question of how to unlearn something... the brain moves forward so (imo) when you forget something, you only forget how to trigger it, not the actual thing... so it's still laying there dormant even if you no longer think about it.

I'm a lot luckier than you, as soon as I junked christianity I never looked back, never had doubts and am not plagued by voices telling me I was wrong. The closest I've ever come is using the phrase "bless you" or Jesus as a swearword on occasion.

[vorlon13]

I take it you were in it, judging by how much you talk about it? If you were, how did you get out?

No, never Mormonized. 


I just find them to be ESPECIALLY false, and unusually lamely inspired.   Joe Smith was particularly inept at birthing a religion, that he succeeded is a tremendous disappointment and provides a disturbing look into the unfortunate compulsive gullibility endemic then as well as now.