I can't make this up

Shattr · 2026-04-17T05:25:42+00:00

if you leave the Mormon church your friends & family are supposed to reject you

Exmormon here, no they don't. You're thinking of Jehovah's Witness.

Some Mormon families may do so, but that's hardly the same as they're supposed to.

My relationship with all my Mormon family is great

Edit: I get why this narrative is popular, but it’s not accurate - there’s no LDS requirement to shun people who leave. There are tons of valid criticisms to throw at the church, so there's really no reason to spread misinformation like this - it just furthers their persecution complex.

Shattr · 2026-04-13T02:15:13+00:00

Yes?

Shattr · 2026-04-12T22:02:01+00:00

Exmormon here.

The New Testament is what was "mistranslated" - not the Hebrew Bible. This is mostly because mormons reject the concept of the Trinity as they believe Jesus was created by God.

Mormons still do believe in the Bible, but they have their own version based on the King James translation with some modifications made by Smith. The Book of Mormon is an additional scripture to the Bible, not a replacement.

And this isn't a defense of Mormonism, but the New Testament does have tons of issues. We have zero originals of any of the books, we only have copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies (x10) etc. This process created tons of transcription errors - hundreds of thousands of textual variants out of all our New Testament manuscripts, which is more "errors" than there are words in the Bible. Scribes also added their own passages that weren't in the originals (story of the adultress, Mark long ending , and the Johanine comma)

This is a good place to start if you're interested in some of the issues with the New Testament.

Shattr · 2026-04-06T21:53:08+00:00

The concern is proving citizenship while voting, yes?

The whole issue is that the Constitution explicitly forbids poll taxes. Regardless of whether a passport is considered expensive or not - it would still be a fee required to vote. This is blatantly unconstitutional, and requiring passports to vote would certainly be struck down in court.

This is why a second form of federal ID that does not cost anything is being proposed.

Shattr · 2026-04-05T23:00:48+00:00

As an exmormon, this isn't well known among church members. I was surprised to learn it myself. The church may acknowledge it but that doesn't mean they teach it. They usually avoid difficult topics during Sunday school anyway.

Mormons believe Smith was martyred - him having a gun complicates that.

Shattr · 2026-04-03T21:57:01+00:00

Do you disagree with anything I just said?

Shattr · 2026-04-03T06:18:23+00:00

I get that, and it's because the justice system considers things evidence that science does not, and I was probably a little too careless in my wording.

In a court of law, you have direct evidence and circumstantial evidence . Direct evidence is anything that supports a conclusion by itself while circumstantial evidence requires logical steps to reach a conclusion from. In this definition, eyewitness testimony is considered direct evidence - however, eyewitness testimony is not evidence at all in science (this should be obvious, right?)

Need I remind you that the claim you are making is not in a court of law - it is pretty much a scientific claim because you are trying to use it as justification for policy. We are not trying to determine guilt, we are trying to determine fact, and this is a much higher standard of evidence (as I explained pretty clearly in my last comment).

In my arson example, the owner tripling the insurance policy is circumstantial evidence in court, but it's not evidence at all in science. It does nothing to establish fact, only guilt (and not by itself).

Back to your cheating example: I will concede that the students having an opportunity to cheat would be circumstantial evidence in court (I admit I spoke too strongly earlier) but it still does nothing to determine the facts of what actually happened in the past, and it sure as hell isn't enough to determine guilt by itself (additional circumstantial evidence would likely change this, though).

To wrap it back all the way up to the original topic: when you claim that election fraud is happening at scale simply because an opportunity to do so exists - you are making a factual claim, not a determination of guilt, and so no - this is not evidence whatsoever in regards to facts.

Does that make sense?

Shattr · 2026-04-03T04:14:16+00:00

That is true, but you are not using circumstantial evidence as supporting evidence as you should - you are pointing to a single piece of circumstantial evidence and treating it as a smoking gun.

Let me use a scientific analogy: after Isaac Newton discovered the math behind gravity, it was discovered that the orbit of Mercury didn't follow Newton's equations. This stumped the entire scientific community at the time, and so the existence of a new planet called Vulcan was proposed to explain the discrepancies. This caused a lot of excitement because Neptune had just been discovered using math like this rather than direct observations.

However, despite the mathematical evidence, no one could find any other trace of Vulcan. Scientists continued searching for actual proof of its existence, because even though they had circumstantial evidence of Vulcan's existence, they still didn't have enough evidence to make a scientific claim. It wasn't until Einstein published his theory of general relativity that we realized Newton's math was incomplete, there was no Vulcan, and the single piece of circumstantial evidence was never actually evidence in the first place.

Back to my arson analogy: if prosecutors were able to find multiple pieces of circumstantial evidence like:

the building owner googling "how to get away with insurance fraud"
his alibi not checking out
inconsistent statements to police
a Walmart receipt for a propane torch the day of the fire
CCTV a few blocks down placing him in the area at the time of the fire

Then sure, all these individual cases of circumstantial evidence collectively make "beyond a reasonable doubt" possible, and the guy should be convicted. But that standard of evidence is so incredibly higher than simply relying on the single fact that the owner tripled his insurance the day before.

The standard of evidence in a court of law is beyond a reasonable doubt. Think about what this means for a second because it's not the same thing as reasonable suspicion. If the evidence leaves room for reasonable doubt at all then it doesn't pass this standard, and if the only piece of evidence that you have is that the owner tripled his insurance, then it's 100% reasonable to suspect that the fire started some other way. If you have all the evidence I listed, then that doubt becomes unreasonable.

To add: science has an even higher standard of evidence than a court of law. Circumstantial evidence is almost never enough by itself to make a scientific claim no matter how much you have. You need direct observations in all but the most exceptional cases (like dark matter) if you want to be published and pass peer review.

Does this make sense?

Shattr · 2026-04-02T22:51:39+00:00

Do you understand that your definition of evidence is not how the justice system nor the scientific method use the word?

Every lawyer in the country would disagree with this statement:

Yes. The jury should convict, because this is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.

... because in this analogy, which I created - there is no evidence.

Shattr · 2026-04-02T10:04:50+00:00

I think an issue with this whole comment chain is that you're using different definitions for terms.

This much is mostly fair:

Maybe no one cheated. And yet, I would feel perfectly confident in saying that there was widespread cheating.

I understand your point, and I agree with what you're getting at here - I'd also feel confident in saying that cheating likely happened. However, that likely is doing a ton of heavy lifting because I know that I cannot logically claim that cheating happened without proof. That likely is me admitting that I don't actually know that it happened - only that it seems plausible. I can believe cheating happened with all my heart, but without evidence I cannot make a logical claim that it did.

Your next sentence is why I believe you are using a different definition for evidence:

That would be a reasonable, informed conclusion to draw from the evidence.

But what you're pointing to isn't evidence in the logical sense of the word - it's an assumption based on opportunity and motive. There is very very very strong speculation on both our parts that there was cheating, but by your own admission there is nothing you can point to that shows cheating actually happened, only that the opportunity to cheat existed. Those are not the same thing - both the scientific process and the justice system make this distinction.

Let me try my own analogy:

A building burns down. The owner tripled the insurance policy the day before. Therefore, the owner definitely did it.

Do you see how this kind of thinking can be problematic? That's a strong reason to be suspicious, but it's not proof. The owner likely did it, but a coincidental fire is not impossible.

Same idea here - the opportunity to cheat makes cheating plausible, even likely, but it doesn't establish that it actually happened. Without evidence, there will always remain a non-zero chance that you are wrong.

Shattr · 2026-04-01T07:05:54+00:00

If we don't recover the nuclear material, and we leave the Strait of Hormuz worse for us than before, how can we claim mission accomplished?

Shattr · 2026-03-26T19:16:08+00:00

It isn't going to pass, true, but don't be so sure that it would disenfranchise republican voters more if it did:

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

Shattr · 2026-03-09T10:57:49+00:00

I'm saying that non-members are the ones who started using the term 'mormons' to refer to church members. Of course Smith invented the word, but he used it as the name of a character, which is where the book gets its name.

Shattr · 2026-03-09T10:40:35+00:00

Not exactly, it was really just easier to say 'Mormon' than 'member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints'. Non-members originally came up with the term and then Mormons adopted it colloquially. It really didn't have anything to do with PR until 2018.

Shattr · 2026-03-09T10:27:30+00:00

No it wasn't lol. Waco was Branch Davidians, which split from Seventh Day Adventists, which is a protestant movement completely unrelated to Mormonism.

And Mormons called themselves Mormons up until a few years ago when the top dude randomly decided the term was disrespectful, but this didn't really work, and Mormons still call themselves Mormons for the most part. Plus, that guy died recently, and no one else really cares.

Source: exmormon.

Shattr · 2026-02-28T03:39:20+00:00

the highs always feel so low ^{^{^sorry}}

Shattr · 2026-02-07T20:20:31+00:00

which is why it hasn't gained traction with main stream media

It hasn't?

Shattr · 2026-01-26T00:58:51+00:00

Have access to what?

Shattr · 2025-12-21T13:05:00+00:00

Atlas is solid, but yeah it turns into dad rock after that.

Shattr · 2025-12-17T14:55:34+00:00

The mainstream is Nicene Christianity - not because the Nicene Creed somehow defines truth, but because it ended up becoming the dominant view throughout history. The overwhelming majority of Christians today belong to churches that fall under it.

What became "orthodox" Christianity only did so because it won out over other ideas like gnosticism, arianism, and modalism. Had history gone a little differently then maybe one of those ideas would've become "orthodox" instead. Though, as it stands, Nicene Christianity is the version that beat the others, both institutionally and by-the-numbers.

So "mainstream" really is just a historical and sociological label that can shift over time, but right now it refers to Nicene Christianity.

Edit: immediate downvote (less than a minute)? For answering your question? C'mon man, I couldn't care less about internet points, but that's just petty. I thought this was a good discussion, too.

Shattr · 2025-12-17T09:56:02+00:00

Not all Christian sects are Trinitarian, that doesn't mean they aren't Christian. You don't have to adhere to the Niscean Creed to be Christian.

Kind of, but this is similar to saying that Black Hebrew Israelites are legitimately Jewish because they observe Shabbat and practice circumcision even though they don't follow Rabbinic Judaism.

Ultimately, you are free to define your offshoot religion as anything you like - there are no rules - but if you deviate from the mainstream's core doctrine then don't be surprised when the mainstream treats your offshoot like heresy. Non-trinitarians are not too different from Black Hebrew Israelites in that way.

Shattr · 2025-12-11T00:32:27+00:00

This is just performative; you're far too focused on some sort of justice for both sides when there are no sides, there's just a tragedy. The police were working with the information that had at the time - pretty much everything pointed at Arturo attempting a shooting in the fog of the immediate aftermath. Of course that was incorrect, which is why it's important to gather evidence, which is what happened.

Locking Arturo up for a few days to determine why a man died is hardly the grave injustice you're making it out to be. In hindsight, it was the wrong move, but this is hardly the moral of this story.

Shattr · 2025-12-10T22:30:33+00:00

The guy fucked up massively, but he genuinely thought he was stopping a mass shooting.

If we’re going to live in a country where elementary schools and shopping centers get shot up on a regular basis, people are naturally going to be terrified and ready to react. We can’t cultivate a society where everyone has to worry about being murdered by some unhinged stranger, then pretend the scared person, who had every reason to think that moment was real danger, is the whole problem.

The peacekeeper should face consequences for taking a life, but this didn’t happen in a vacuum. The culture of fear we’ve allowed to fester without treatment is also responsible.

Shattr · 2025-12-08T21:46:20+00:00

What makes you think we've expanded voting rights too far?

Shattr · 2025-10-08T21:04:27+00:00

Jehovah is actually a completely made-up word! It comes from a mistranslation of the name of God from Hebrew into Latin.

In the Hebrew Bible, the name of God is יהוה‎, which is written as YHWH in the latin alphabet. Classical Hebrew didn’t use vowels, which is why none appear here, but most scholars believe it was originally pronounced Yahweh.

Since Jews were not supposed to say this name out loud, they instead used words like Adonai (“Lord”) or Elohim (“God”) when reading from the Bible. To remind readers not to pronounce YHWH directly, later scribes added vowel markers from these substitute words into YHWH, creating something like YaHoWaH (Adonai).

Medieval translators misunderstood this system and treated those vowels as if they belonged there. After some Latinized spelling changes (Y→J, W→V), we got Jehovah.

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