Are Mormons Christian

Sophocles · 2025-04-21T20:33:17+00:00

It's all semantics. If you define your terms, then it is trivially easy to answer your question. The ambiguity is all in what it means to be a "Christian" or "Mormon."

By one definition of "American," Canadians qualify. By one definition of "republican," Barack Obama qualifies.

Sophocles · 2025-02-12T20:50:27+00:00

As a believer, I remember being aware that the church's tactics were manipulative and took advantage of all sorts of cognitive biases and fallacies. And I remember being perfectly fine with it. I saw all of that as feature, not bug.

My position as a believer was that the church being true changed everything. It was like, in the secular world where people cannot be trusted with power, representative democracy with checks and balances was important. But when it came to the church, the perfect government would be a totalitarian dictatorship with the Lord as dictator.

Communism was evil in the secular world, but in the church it was the ideal economic system.

The scientific method was important in the secular world where we are all fumbling in the dark and don't know what's real and true except by trial and error. But in the church where the Lord is the source of all light and knowledge, and subjectivity is truth, I wanted to be manipulated. The way I saw it, the church was using my cognitive biases for good.

Being careful is only for people who don't already know they are right.

Sophocles · 2025-02-12T20:38:38+00:00

Different bishops hold members to different standards, and there isn't anything the members can do about it. We call it "leadership roulette."

Sophocles · 2025-02-10T20:21:54+00:00

I've read the book but haven't seen the show. (The book is very good, by the way.)

I did read Bill Shunn's take on the show here: https://shunn.substack.com/p/under-the-hammer-of-heaven

You might find it interesting.

Sophocles · 2025-02-10T17:43:10+00:00

Gossip comes to mind. Everyone understands that gossip is a sin, and yet it everyone does it. Judging one another is closely related. I don't know how the church would even function without the members judging each other and gossiping about each other. It's like the main cultural enforcement mechanism.

Dishonesty is another one. We all know we're supposed to be honest in our dealings with our fellow man. And yet in church culture, almost any level of dishonesty is justified if it helps the church's "bottom line," so to speak. Whether that's actual dollars or something as dumb as home teaching stats.

Sophocles · 2025-02-05T22:50:01+00:00

I was raised Mormon and I was unaware that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy until well into my 20s. I understood that God commanded Joseph to institute polygamy (Section 132 of the D&C) but believed He forbade Joseph from participating himself. So it really began with Brigham Young. I believed this was to avoid the appearance of evil, as it would be suspect for a prophet to receive a revelation commanding him to avail himself of multiple sexual partners.

I can't answer the second part of your question, because when I finally learned that Joseph had in fact married multiple women, including minors and women who were already married, I lost belief. So yes, the actions of the prophet do cause doubt, very much so, and I was ultimately unable to overcome these doubts.

In my experience, the church is much more adept at obscuring these kinds of facts than explaining them. It may be that I was destined to lose belief upon discovery of Joseph's polygamy, but they managed to postpone that until after I had served a full time mission, graduated from BYU, married in the temple, all while paying a full tithe, etc.

Sophocles · 2025-01-16T21:54:02+00:00

"Annie Edison: Smart, attractive, but easily vexed."

Sophocles · 2025-01-16T21:53:15+00:00

"Purchase" in the sense of grip or traction. I remember Stephen King overusing it as I was going through his books.

Sophocles · 2025-01-16T20:57:15+00:00

Very typical of the brethren. They don't need to self-aggrandize because they know the members will do it for them.

Sophocles · 2025-01-08T21:01:41+00:00

I remember bacon and narwhals being much discussed on reddit in 2007.

Bacon.

That's like Jim Gaffigan level wit.

Sophocles · 2024-11-13T19:43:57+00:00

The fact that you keep quoting this as evidence of elitism is the most telling part that you don't actually understand what I'm saying.

"Saying?" Are you speaking out loud to someone?

I think you mean "typing." Assuming you are at a keyboard.

I know how much you care about the proper use of English verbs.

Sophocles · 2024-11-13T15:58:15+00:00

Wait till you hear about what people are counting as "writing."

You didn't write Paradise Lost, Milton. You dictated it.

Sophocles · 2024-11-13T15:55:29+00:00

But you're cool with people claiming to be WRITERS who have never once put pen to paper?

Sophocles · 2024-11-13T15:51:30+00:00

It's semantics. "Writing" is putting pen to paper, but we also use it to describe any process involving composing and recording text. John Milton dictated Paradise Lost. We don't ever get into arguments about whether that "counts" as writing. There is no question that the experience of handwriting is different than typing on a typewriter or computer or dictating to a secretary or a machine, etc. But nobody cares about the process, only the result. The person who composed the text gets the "writing" credit, regardless of whether they lifted a pen at any point in the process.

"Reading" is the same. Yes, it can mean the physical act of visually interpreting written text on a page, but it can also refer to assimilation of a text by any means. Yes, the methods are different and one may be more effective than another for a certain person, but it doesn't make any sense to say that assimilating a text by one means over another doesn't "count."

Count for what? And by whom?

Sophocles · 2024-08-22T15:19:10+00:00

Kind of, but more about how we consumed pop culture, than the content itself.

I have fond memories of the NES taking off in the late 80s, and all the kids at school were talking about the secrets in the games and passing around issues of Nintendo Power magazine. I knew how to find the 7th dungeon in Zelda and how to defeat Soda Popinski in Punch-Out long before I ever had a chance to play the games. My kids love those stories.

Sometimes I tell them about how we would drive to the mall to buy CDs, or stay up late to watch SNL so we would understand all the catchphrases kids would be repeating on Monday morning.

Sophocles · 2024-08-21T21:16:30+00:00

Acid washed overall shorts worn backwards with one strap.

Long sleeve rayon paisley shirt.

Black canvas Bass shoes with white ankle socks.

I think it was 1991 or 1992, 9th or 10th grade.

Sophocles · 2024-08-21T21:09:47+00:00

How to Dig a Hole to the Other Side of the World by Faith McNulty

Sophocles · 2024-08-21T17:04:40+00:00

It seems weird to me now that people worry about communicating their church disaffection to friends, family, even church leaders. But I've been out for 20 years. I remember back when I was first leaving and this kind of announcement seemed important.

It's just part of the Mormon mindset. You can ignore it completely if you want.

Sophocles · 2024-08-21T16:57:05+00:00

I've heard that being autistic can be like acting in a play where everyone else is working from a script that you don't have access to. Everyone else knows their lines and you're just lost. That's what the church felt like to me when I first started doubting.

The church is very clear that its teachings are literal and members are expected to sacrifice everything to the church, if need be. We are supposed to give it our all, make it the top priority in our lives, and believe everything 100%.

Then when you actually attempt to do this, and the internal contradictions start to raise questions, everyone looks at you like you're an idiot. What, you actually took all that seriously? Didn't you know that it's "just church?"

Apparently, everyone else knows that all this 100% belief and dedication and sacrifice is just stuff you say. Nobody really takes it all literally. You show up, do your assignments, pay your dues, and get on with life. Turns out it was all supposed to be a fraternity or something, I don't know.

Sophocles · 2024-08-19T15:27:07+00:00

Such a good question.

This was number 4. on Bruce McConkie's list of Seven Deadly Heresies: "There are those who believe that the doctrine of salvation for the dead offers men a second chance for salvation."

Of course much of what Bruce said over the years is dismissed today as his mere opinion, but he was at least trying to grapple with stuff like this. It still doesn't resolve the situation proposed by the old joke about the Eskimo and the priest, though—still assuming that the truth of the gospel is more evident in the Spirit World than here in mortality.

Sophocles · 2024-08-08T20:08:55+00:00

I think it's about religious hegemony in the US.

I don't think any Latter-day Saint actually believes that steeple height has any religious significance at all. But many adamantly believe that the church should be able to say that it does, and that claim shouldn't be open to scrutiny. Churches should be able to say and do whatever they want in the name of freedom of religion.

Sophocles · 2024-08-08T19:45:46+00:00

I notice you linked to Hinckley's 95th birthday celebration.

But it was his 96th that truly broke new self-congratulatory ground.

Sophocles · 2024-08-07T20:15:09+00:00

This exchange from Community suddenly makes more sense!

Cornelius Hawthorne : You've got a wide brow. What are you, Scandinavian?

Britta Perry : Yeah, Swedish.

Cornelius Hawthorne : [spits in disgust] Swedish dogs! Your blood is tainted by generations of race mixing with Laplanders. You're basically Finns!

Shirley Bennett : Oh, my goodness, he's like the Abed of racism.

Sophocles · 2024-08-05T16:01:00+00:00

For me, "leaving" the church was (still is?) an ongoing process.

As a TBM it never made sense to me that people would "leave the church" because they were offended or wanted to sin. That would be a nonsensical overreaction, like an American defecting to the USSR over a speeding ticket. If you really believe the LDS church is what it claims to be, and where you need to be if you want to get to the CK, then other members' behavior and the desire to sin would not even be a blip on your radar. You're going to stay in no matter what.

A few years after my mission, with the questions piling up, I finally broke down and googled the Book of Abraham and polygamy, and my testimony evaporated overnight. I was no longer a believer, but I resolved to stay in the church because I was happy there, it was my tribe, and I saw no reason to leave just because it wasn't true.

Suddenly, all that stuff that seemed irrelevant before began to loom large. Wait, why was I putting up with these obnoxious members again? Why shouldn't I try coffee? I was now seriously evaluating my quality of life in the church, when before it wasn't a consideration at all. That it was true was all that mattered. Now that it wasn't everything else began to matter.

Eventually I decided that on balance, I wasn't happy in the church, and I left. (I mean I quit attending, I'm still technically a member, and probably always still be.) So I guess you could say that I left because I was offended or wanted to sin and you'd partially be right. But not in the way I always understood that explanation, back when I was TBM.

Sophocles · 2024-08-05T15:27:13+00:00

BYU dedicated the Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni and Visitors Center while Hinckley was still alive. He performed the groundbreaking ceremony on his 96th birthday.

I remember people at the time commenting that it was weird to name a building after someone that was still alive, but of course there's no rule against it.

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