Doubt it. My roommate comes from a church a lot like Joyce’s, and she’s stated in no uncertain terms that “Mormonism is a cult, NOT Christianity.”
DudeMyDadOwnsADealership
Ironic, considering Joyce and how she describes her upbringing is loaded with stereotypical Mormon mannerisms, the lack of polygamy being the one big exception.
Honestly, she just might find an anti-polygamist sect of mormonism to be to her liking.
Gdragon
You know Mormons no longer practice polygamy we have not for many years. those that do are not part of the main body of the church.
James Rye
So now there are Mormons and…uhm what do you call Mormons who practise polygamy but aren´t accepted as Mormons by the rest of the Mormon bmain body?
To me it looks like Christanity has more groups than any other religion in the world. XD
Zanosuke_Kurosaki
Those are called “Fundamentalist Mormons”. We’re honestly kinda ashamed of them, because you just know the second they get arrested for their polygamy(and their treatment of their wives, in several cases), it’s it’s every single “flavor” of the LDS church that gets tarred with the “OMG, look at these horrible Mormons!” brush. Also, hi Gdragon! 🙂
gangler
I don’t know why they decided that the Twelfth article of faith was such a terrible idea. What kind of organization says no to lawfulness?
Ah, so it’s kind of like having that one family member that nobody likes to talk about and makes the whole family look bad?
Zanosuke_Kurosaki
@Kernanator: Kind of, in a round-about “we’re alike in that we came from the same roots” way, but as gangler’s noting, very much not in the “the LDS church has an Article of Faith* that basically says, ‘thou shalt follow the laws of thy land and be a good citizen’ “(abridged version I think you could call my summary.) It’s why there’s, as Eddie Izzard noted, a bit of a “crowbar separation, there.” Polygamists? Yeah, definitely not us. *wince*
Kat
It’s like Muslims. There are regular Muslims, and there are the ones who want to suicide bomb all the American’s. They are few and far between, but they make all the Muslim’s look bad.
It’s also like Christians in general. The regular ones, and the ones who bomb Planned Parenthood and assassinate doctors while they sit in church.
Tara
I think the whole “Funding-Proposition-H8” thing is a better reason to say “OMG, look at those horrible Mormons.”
begbert2
Polygamy was NEVER legal in any part of the united states. The early mormons were as lawless originally as any of their spinoffs are today – possibly moreso. So even though most mormons today are basically lawful, criticism by them of other polygamous spinoff religions for lawlessness still sound hypocritical and/or woefully ignorant to me.
Slicey
Actually Polygamy had an important function. the chrch and its ideals tended to attract women and since it start in a time when women not only where not considered a people able to make their own decisions but where barely considered people to allow the new members of the church the right to move they had to be married. And there where more women than men. So they allowed men to have more than 1 wife so he women could travel. Then the land they settled in wasn’t a part of the united states and was a lawless territory meaning their laws where the laws of man. Once they became and important part of intercontental trade and after it was no longer needed to help women settle with the church they dropped it to accept the laws of the country they knew they where going to a part of. Some people didnt want o leave second wives as single mother so didnt seperate from them and in most cases relocated them help populate other fledgling states like arizona.
Thus while it is not legal and is not allowed by the church polygamy was an important part of american and church history.
begbert2
Years-belated note: Most of Slicey’s post is misinformation. (Albeit misinformation that is widely spread in the mormon church, and Slicey was no doubt repeating it innocently.)
1) Censuses show that there were always more men than women in the mormon church, during the times polygamy was practiced. This left young women struggling to get a single wife, while church leaders would accumulate several.
2) I know of nothing indicating that women were not allowed to travel on their own, particularly as part of a wagon train. Not that there were surplus women anyway.
3) All land the mormons traveled in was claimed by Mexico at the time of their arrival, and only one year later was won by the US in the Mexican War. In both countries polygamy was illegal. There has never been a time when polygamous mormons weren’t breaking the law of the country they resided in.
4) Mormons (well, mormon leaders) clung to polygamy with a vicelike grip. It was still official practice over thirty years after the government started cracking down.
These facts can be independently verified. This is all I wanted to say.
Kereth Midknight
@begbert2
Checked, and at least one major area of your facts needs updating:
Polygamy wasn’t universally forbidden in the United Status until the Morill Anti-Bigamy act of 1862, long after it began to be practiced among Latter-Day Saints (LDS here to distinguish from the smaller RLDS and FLDS sects). Once the law was instituted, LDS leaders challenged it in the courts on the grounds that it was a violation of religious freedom, a process which took decades. Once the Supreme Court finally ruled to uphold the act, the church abandoned the practice in 1890. Despite aggressive enforcement attempts by federal marshals and so forth, the “outlaw” claim doesn’t really characterize LDS activity on the question of polygamy.
DudeMyDadOwnsADealership
Either that, or we’re just the most observed case of this, mostly compliments of the United States.
Having the option of balkanizing our faith of one of the general reasons people of the 13 colonies followed the Founding Fathers’ whole independence venture in the first place.
The People are a heavily multiplied “Me” and
anyone who tells you different is either a fool who didn’t learn from history and is damned to repeat it, or someone who DID learn from history and plans to cash in on what they learned using their fool counterparts for that very purpose.
Beloggy
I call them the crazy people who live in the hills. . . .
Roary
They also no longer believe that being black means you have no soul. It’s good when a religion can adapt to acceptable behavioral patterns. Now how long do you think it will be before the ginger issue gets resolved? :-p
Mikehatesyou
Gingers are just leprechauns that never stopped growing.
KingofKings
It could be argued that they never really did. The whole anti-black thing sort of came in from the side. There were some very well respected black men in the early church, and their line persisted for a while outside of peoples racism that game in later.
Crumplepunch
It’s true, Mormons decided to no longer believe in Joseph Smith’s 1843 revelation. This happened shortly after the passing of the Edmunds-Tucker act, which would have allowed the seizure of church property if their leaders practiced polygamy.
They also started admitting black people to the priesthood in 1978, thanks to a timely revelation just a few years before the Supreme Court started revoking tax-exempt status for discrimination under the Civil Rights Act.
Chibi Squirt
Wait, that precedent exists? So why does Catholicism get away with it?
Crumplepunch
Bob Jones University lost it’s tax exempt status in a SC case against it’s admissions policy, 1983, I believe.
Catholics were rather ahead of the game in this case; Pope Paul VI repudiated the church’s official dogma of Deicide in 1964.
KingofKings
There were actually black priesthood holders before that too. There was an entire line of priesthood holders who were black who had received the priesthood from Joseph Smith, who continued to give the priesthood to their descendants and be in good church standing, in spite of general policy of the time.
As far as polygamy, anyone who’s read the Book of Mormon should know that it was never supposed to be a permanent thing anyways.
Katie
I’m so glad to see another Mormon in the comments. I was honestly afraid that I’d be the only one and have to fend off a bunch of negative comments and opinions.
Wanderer
Well. It seems there’s enough of us on the internet that we run into each other on occasion.
cobra5k
wink wink*nudge nudge.
lawzlo
Her mannerisms may be largely similar to Mormon manners, but I think that probably her biggest issue with Mormonism would simply be the Book of Mormon, which she would undoubtedly consider heretical (or at least apocryphal).
Either way, I look forward to Joyce doing some growing emotionally.
(By the way, I’m not commenting on the polygamy thing, because it looks like Zanosuke Kurosaki pretty much has that covered.)
lawzlo
Oops, I meant Zanosuke Kurosaki and Gdragon. I didn’t initially notice that they were different posters because they both have Joevatars.
Zanosuke_Kurosaki
That, and the fact that Joe’s expression has comically undermined my point quite a bit lately, are inspiring me to make my own. XD
All American Nightmare
okay just to clear this up. We do not practice polygamy, we are not a cult, we are Christians and we are normal people. We believe that all other churches such as the catholic church, Lutherinism, Bhudism, Shintoism, and all other religions are good and that we simply have more revelation to add. For more info visit lds.org
Brayden
That’s actually inaccurate.
Brayden
The main sect of mormonism is anti-polygamous.
The Precious Thing
It’s a good thing for Joyce, because in her eyes, that’s one more lost soul she can “save”.
Which is hilarious, considering that any religion is a cult.
Josh Spicer
True point is true, however debatable of a topic people try and make it.
Fraser
IGNORANT POINT IS IGNORANT!!!!!
At least in the academic sense. Silly Americans and their colloquially defined debasement of english.
Colleen
Languages tend to change when groups move around.
The process which created the American dialect is the
same process which created all the Latin based languages
in Europe. New people were met, notes were exchanged,
and everyone walked away from the encounter a little
different. That’s saying nothing of the culture affecting
language vs. the language affecting culture debate.
Thus it is no fairer to call American English a
“debasement” of the original English (which itself has
changed drastically over the years anyway) than it would
be to call French or Italian a “debasement” of Latin.
That being said, “cult” and “religion” are indeed different
terms, intended to mean different things, and with
different implications.
Colleen
Also, my apologies for the odd format, this is my first time commenting on here and the text box is behaving strangely.
PeterW
I’d say Mormonism is too mainstream to be considered a cult, but it’s not much more Christian than Islam is.
And makes adults start looking for a white van with candy.
Blob Marley
Kernanator, have I been reading your name wrong since forever? I could have sworn that was an ‘m’ in your name…
MacDiver
@ Blob Marley
And now I can’t stop thinking about Kermit the Frog riding up on a motorcycle, wearing sunglasses, and saying “COME WITH ME IF YOU WANT TO LIVE.”
Bit of a stretch. I mean, I’m pretty sure most of Christianity is in agreement that God predates the cosmos, what having created it and all.
But yes, there is a verse that names the planet he lives on.
Bek359
That’s Scientology you’re thinking of, if you’re thinking of Battlefield Earth.
MM
I dunno. I’m not too optimistic about the movie adaptation of Ender’s Game.
Andrusi
I’m not optimistic about it, either, but for a totally different reason.
abb3w
Actually, my impression is the Mormon church has a bit of that as well (what with the “everyone gets their own planet” bit); it’s just the SF is more of the tone of the Verne era… which makes sense.
Joraiem
Did Battlefield Earth have anything to do with Scientology?
I mean, aside from them both being sci-fi and being made up by the same guy. And being terrible.
Crumplepunch
The production of the film had some ties to the church, not least the involvement of Travolta. I understand some of the “profits” went to Scientology backed groups. They also backed the film with marketing, not that it did much good.
437 thoughts on “Catholic”
David Herbert
But… Joyce likes Twilight.
Jen Aside
Maybe that’s a GOOD fantastic…?
wynne
Doubt it. My roommate comes from a church a lot like Joyce’s, and she’s stated in no uncertain terms that “Mormonism is a cult, NOT Christianity.”
DudeMyDadOwnsADealership
Ironic, considering Joyce and how she describes her upbringing is loaded with stereotypical Mormon mannerisms, the lack of polygamy being the one big exception.
Honestly, she just might find an anti-polygamist sect of mormonism to be to her liking.
Gdragon
You know Mormons no longer practice polygamy we have not for many years. those that do are not part of the main body of the church.
James Rye
So now there are Mormons and…uhm what do you call Mormons who practise polygamy but aren´t accepted as Mormons by the rest of the Mormon bmain body?
To me it looks like Christanity has more groups than any other religion in the world. XD
Zanosuke_Kurosaki
Those are called “Fundamentalist Mormons”. We’re honestly kinda ashamed of them, because you just know the second they get arrested for their polygamy(and their treatment of their wives, in several cases), it’s it’s every single “flavor” of the LDS church that gets tarred with the “OMG, look at these horrible Mormons!” brush. Also, hi Gdragon! 🙂
gangler
I don’t know why they decided that the Twelfth article of faith was such a terrible idea. What kind of organization says no to lawfulness?
Kernanator
Ah, so it’s kind of like having that one family member that nobody likes to talk about and makes the whole family look bad?
Zanosuke_Kurosaki
@Kernanator: Kind of, in a round-about “we’re alike in that we came from the same roots” way, but as gangler’s noting, very much not in the “the LDS church has an Article of Faith* that basically says, ‘thou shalt follow the laws of thy land and be a good citizen’ “(abridged version I think you could call my summary.) It’s why there’s, as Eddie Izzard noted, a bit of a “crowbar separation, there.” Polygamists? Yeah, definitely not us. *wince*
Kat
It’s like Muslims. There are regular Muslims, and there are the ones who want to suicide bomb all the American’s. They are few and far between, but they make all the Muslim’s look bad.
WheresRocket
It’s also like Christians in general. The regular ones, and the ones who bomb Planned Parenthood and assassinate doctors while they sit in church.
Tara
I think the whole “Funding-Proposition-H8” thing is a better reason to say “OMG, look at those horrible Mormons.”
begbert2
Polygamy was NEVER legal in any part of the united states. The early mormons were as lawless originally as any of their spinoffs are today – possibly moreso. So even though most mormons today are basically lawful, criticism by them of other polygamous spinoff religions for lawlessness still sound hypocritical and/or woefully ignorant to me.
Slicey
Actually Polygamy had an important function. the chrch and its ideals tended to attract women and since it start in a time when women not only where not considered a people able to make their own decisions but where barely considered people to allow the new members of the church the right to move they had to be married. And there where more women than men. So they allowed men to have more than 1 wife so he women could travel. Then the land they settled in wasn’t a part of the united states and was a lawless territory meaning their laws where the laws of man. Once they became and important part of intercontental trade and after it was no longer needed to help women settle with the church they dropped it to accept the laws of the country they knew they where going to a part of. Some people didnt want o leave second wives as single mother so didnt seperate from them and in most cases relocated them help populate other fledgling states like arizona.
Thus while it is not legal and is not allowed by the church polygamy was an important part of american and church history.
begbert2
Years-belated note: Most of Slicey’s post is misinformation. (Albeit misinformation that is widely spread in the mormon church, and Slicey was no doubt repeating it innocently.)
1) Censuses show that there were always more men than women in the mormon church, during the times polygamy was practiced. This left young women struggling to get a single wife, while church leaders would accumulate several.
2) I know of nothing indicating that women were not allowed to travel on their own, particularly as part of a wagon train. Not that there were surplus women anyway.
3) All land the mormons traveled in was claimed by Mexico at the time of their arrival, and only one year later was won by the US in the Mexican War. In both countries polygamy was illegal. There has never been a time when polygamous mormons weren’t breaking the law of the country they resided in.
4) Mormons (well, mormon leaders) clung to polygamy with a vicelike grip. It was still official practice over thirty years after the government started cracking down.
These facts can be independently verified. This is all I wanted to say.
Kereth Midknight
@begbert2
Checked, and at least one major area of your facts needs updating:
Polygamy wasn’t universally forbidden in the United Status until the Morill Anti-Bigamy act of 1862, long after it began to be practiced among Latter-Day Saints (LDS here to distinguish from the smaller RLDS and FLDS sects). Once the law was instituted, LDS leaders challenged it in the courts on the grounds that it was a violation of religious freedom, a process which took decades. Once the Supreme Court finally ruled to uphold the act, the church abandoned the practice in 1890. Despite aggressive enforcement attempts by federal marshals and so forth, the “outlaw” claim doesn’t really characterize LDS activity on the question of polygamy.
DudeMyDadOwnsADealership
Either that, or we’re just the most observed case of this, mostly compliments of the United States.
Having the option of balkanizing our faith of one of the general reasons people of the 13 colonies followed the Founding Fathers’ whole independence venture in the first place.
The People are a heavily multiplied “Me” and
anyone who tells you different is either a fool who didn’t learn from history and is damned to repeat it, or someone who DID learn from history and plans to cash in on what they learned using their fool counterparts for that very purpose.
Beloggy
I call them the crazy people who live in the hills. . . .
Roary
They also no longer believe that being black means you have no soul. It’s good when a religion can adapt to acceptable behavioral patterns. Now how long do you think it will be before the ginger issue gets resolved? :-p
Mikehatesyou
Gingers are just leprechauns that never stopped growing.
KingofKings
It could be argued that they never really did. The whole anti-black thing sort of came in from the side. There were some very well respected black men in the early church, and their line persisted for a while outside of peoples racism that game in later.
Crumplepunch
It’s true, Mormons decided to no longer believe in Joseph Smith’s 1843 revelation. This happened shortly after the passing of the Edmunds-Tucker act, which would have allowed the seizure of church property if their leaders practiced polygamy.
They also started admitting black people to the priesthood in 1978, thanks to a timely revelation just a few years before the Supreme Court started revoking tax-exempt status for discrimination under the Civil Rights Act.
Chibi Squirt
Wait, that precedent exists? So why does Catholicism get away with it?
Crumplepunch
Bob Jones University lost it’s tax exempt status in a SC case against it’s admissions policy, 1983, I believe.
Catholics were rather ahead of the game in this case; Pope Paul VI repudiated the church’s official dogma of Deicide in 1964.
KingofKings
There were actually black priesthood holders before that too. There was an entire line of priesthood holders who were black who had received the priesthood from Joseph Smith, who continued to give the priesthood to their descendants and be in good church standing, in spite of general policy of the time.
As far as polygamy, anyone who’s read the Book of Mormon should know that it was never supposed to be a permanent thing anyways.
Katie
I’m so glad to see another Mormon in the comments. I was honestly afraid that I’d be the only one and have to fend off a bunch of negative comments and opinions.
Wanderer
Well. It seems there’s enough of us on the internet that we run into each other on occasion.
cobra5k
wink wink*nudge nudge.
lawzlo
Her mannerisms may be largely similar to Mormon manners, but I think that probably her biggest issue with Mormonism would simply be the Book of Mormon, which she would undoubtedly consider heretical (or at least apocryphal).
Either way, I look forward to Joyce doing some growing emotionally.
(By the way, I’m not commenting on the polygamy thing, because it looks like Zanosuke Kurosaki pretty much has that covered.)
lawzlo
Oops, I meant Zanosuke Kurosaki and Gdragon. I didn’t initially notice that they were different posters because they both have Joevatars.
Zanosuke_Kurosaki
That, and the fact that Joe’s expression has comically undermined my point quite a bit lately, are inspiring me to make my own. XD
All American Nightmare
okay just to clear this up. We do not practice polygamy, we are not a cult, we are Christians and we are normal people. We believe that all other churches such as the catholic church, Lutherinism, Bhudism, Shintoism, and all other religions are good and that we simply have more revelation to add. For more info visit lds.org
Brayden
That’s actually inaccurate.
Brayden
The main sect of mormonism is anti-polygamous.
The Precious Thing
It’s a good thing for Joyce, because in her eyes, that’s one more lost soul she can “save”.
John Harmon
Which is hilarious, considering that any religion is a cult.
Josh Spicer
True point is true, however debatable of a topic people try and make it.
Fraser
IGNORANT POINT IS IGNORANT!!!!!
At least in the academic sense. Silly Americans and their colloquially defined debasement of english.
Colleen
Languages tend to change when groups move around.
The process which created the American dialect is the
same process which created all the Latin based languages
in Europe. New people were met, notes were exchanged,
and everyone walked away from the encounter a little
different. That’s saying nothing of the culture affecting
language vs. the language affecting culture debate.
Thus it is no fairer to call American English a
“debasement” of the original English (which itself has
changed drastically over the years anyway) than it would
be to call French or Italian a “debasement” of Latin.
That being said, “cult” and “religion” are indeed different
terms, intended to mean different things, and with
different implications.
Colleen
Also, my apologies for the odd format, this is my first time commenting on here and the text box is behaving strangely.
PeterW
I’d say Mormonism is too mainstream to be considered a cult, but it’s not much more Christian than Islam is.
Malana
Bless her, she IS trying.
alicemacher
She really is. “I – will – be – accepting – if – it – KILLS – me.” Poor girl.
Zanosuke_Kurosaki
Perhaps it is best that I can’t meet this Joyce at this point then. I think the presence of two “Mormons” would make her poor little head go boom. :'(
Zanosuke_Kurosaki
… DAMMIT, JOE GRAVATAR, you undermine so many of my points lately without even trying! XD
a99steaksauce
haha cock joke
invisiblemoose
Something something femurs FAAACE whatever
Tenn
The Drunk Mike avatar makes it eleventy times betterer.
Oh, and um… Mom. Nickel. Blah.
Plasma Mongoose
Me thinks that you should start up a gravatar accound and create your own gravs for better results.
Osaru Sensei
Like mine and Mongoose’s.
Vabolo
But not mine. It frightens children and puppies.
Kernanator
And makes adults start looking for a white van with candy.
Blob Marley
Kernanator, have I been reading your name wrong since forever? I could have sworn that was an ‘m’ in your name…
MacDiver
@ Blob Marley
And now I can’t stop thinking about Kermit the Frog riding up on a motorcycle, wearing sunglasses, and saying “COME WITH ME IF YOU WANT TO LIVE.”
Digidestined of Trust (Tim)
We really do try. I also got that cringing feeling when Agatha said that.
BlueNight
THAT is what it looks like when the mind has a blowout.
(I’d probably react the same way: stunned surprise, badly covered.)
Khantalas
Oh no! This is too much religious variety for Joyce to handle!
Mkvenner
No it’s not the variety. Moromism is a more complex stubject.
MontyPla
And the plot of a bad sci-fi movie.
Mkvenner
Please elucidate.
Zanosuke_Kurosaki
Someone is confusing the Latter-Day Saints with Scientology. There’s your clearing up on that matter.
f.p.
It was the plot of a great episode of South Park though.
espanolbot
Great musical though.
gatocello
Battlestar Galactica.
MontyPla
Mormonism says Jesus, God, and Satan are aliens.
gangler
Bit of a stretch. I mean, I’m pretty sure most of Christianity is in agreement that God predates the cosmos, what having created it and all.
But yes, there is a verse that names the planet he lives on.
Bek359
That’s Scientology you’re thinking of, if you’re thinking of Battlefield Earth.
MM
I dunno. I’m not too optimistic about the movie adaptation of Ender’s Game.
Andrusi
I’m not optimistic about it, either, but for a totally different reason.
abb3w
Actually, my impression is the Mormon church has a bit of that as well (what with the “everyone gets their own planet” bit); it’s just the SF is more of the tone of the Verne era… which makes sense.
Joraiem
Did Battlefield Earth have anything to do with Scientology?
I mean, aside from them both being sci-fi and being made up by the same guy. And being terrible.
Crumplepunch
The production of the film had some ties to the church, not least the involvement of Travolta. I understand some of the “profits” went to Scientology backed groups. They also backed the film with marketing, not that it did much good.
Khantalas
I realize that. I’m just not sure Joyce does.
Kaylee
And the plot of an early Sherlock Holmes story?
sun tzu
Ironic that A.C.Doyle got slammed for his anti-KKK story, but not for his anti-Mormonism story.
Mkvenner