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Wonkette says the Giuliani campaign has sort of apologized for widely e-mailing a Salt Lake Tribune story about how nutbar Mormon fringe types have dug up and been circulating an old Mormon legend, which tells how Joseph Smith prophesied that in the Last Days the Constitution “will be hanging by a thread,” and a Mormon or Mormons will save it. The nutbars have been speculating that this refers to Mitt Romney.
If I had to make a guess as to why Giuliani’s campaign repented of this, it would be that one of them finally gave the Salt Lake Trib article a close reading, and discovered it was debunking the story.
I don’t much care about Mitt Romney. What interests me is that everyone’s referring to the legend in question as the “White Horse prophecy.” There are a number of spurious prophecies circulating in Mormon folklore, and the one about the Constitution’s probably the oldest of the lot. I heard it myself as a kid. But when did that horse get into the story? It was never there before.
The story clearly came from a high White Horse souse.*
* I steal from the best.
I would guess because a White Horse Prophecy is better than a Dark Horse Candidacy. And I guess it gets traction because many conservative christians believe we are in other days of prophecy.
As I told Bill, I am so gonna bust the "hanging by a thread" part out at the next family reunion and somebody starts talking about Bush. After all, if the Consitution is hanging by a thread, there's a damn good reason. It certainly behooves all my Mormon relatives to remember THEY voted for the guy who has been taking an axe to ye olde threads.
If anyone reads Jon Krakauer's "Under the Banner of Heaven", they would probably be unable to vote for Romney...
And I want someone to ask, "in the spirit of Bill Clinton's 'Boxers or Briefs' question, Do you wear 'Sacred Long Underwear', Mr. Romney?"
Never mind the sacred underwear; I want to know if Romney supports expanding adding the punishments for betrayers of the secrets of the endowment ceremony to the CIA's list of approved interrogation techniques.
(Because, I should add, it's clear Giuliani would, if he only knew what they were.)
And perhaps the 'white horse' alludes to the Revelations, 6:8 "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth."- KJV
"But when did that horse get into the story?"
Perhaps from the idea of the hero riding into town at the last minute and saving the day? The Lone Ranger being one such hero, who is well known and rides a white horse?
Teresa, for what it's worth, there is apparently a version of the legend recorded in the unpublished diary of one John J. Roberts, of Paradise, Utah (1850), which talks about "the White Horse of Peace and Safety." I found an article on the subject here: www.fairlds.org/pubs/whitehorse.pdf. (Sorry, I'm no good at creating links.) The reference is on page 3, about halfway down the second column; on a quick scan, the article's author doesn't seem to accept either the prophecy or this particular version of it as particularly authoritative.
Metaphorical white horse? Why bother? I think it would be far more interesting if Mitt Romney went with it--made his entrance to meetings and press conferences on a white horse. If you don't have much chance of winning anyway, might as well make a statement.
Metaphorical white horse? Why bother? I think it would be far more interesting if Mitt Romney went with it--made his entrance to meetings and press conferences on a white horse. If you don't have much chance of winning anyway, might as well make a statement.
"Pale horse" in Rev. vi is Death. "White horse" is the first horseman, traditionally interpreted as Pestilence, or as Conquest. (Or Pollution for all you Pratchett/Gaiman fans).
1. And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.
2. And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
Another White Horse, ridden by the Messiah, turns up in Rev. xix:
11. And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.
12. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his bead were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.
13. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.
14. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
15. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
16. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.
"I am that oft-defeated King
Whose failure fills the land,
Who fled before the Danes of old,
Who chaffered with the Danes with gold,
Who now upon the Wessex wold
Hardly has feet to stand.
"But out of the mouth of the Mother of God
I have seen the truth like fire,
This--that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher."
-G. K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse
The latter part of a pale horse... So that's where the rest of that horse went, in The Godfather.
Mr. Bill, #4: Do you wear 'Sacred Long Underwear', Mr. Romney?"
I never see why people get so fussed about this detail of Mormon faith. It's no stranger than growing long earlocks or covering your hair.
Well, to some of us, wearing prescribed undergarments (especially long drawers) seems a little Sikh.
As an endowed wearer of the Magic Undies, I should inform you guys that you are missing out. Not only are they hella comfortable, they impart some pretty nifty powers to boot. Especially the military ones that come in Army ACU color. Moisture wicking! Outstanding!
Does anyone remember "The Greatest American Hero"? It's sort of like that, only without the slapstick and Robert Culp.
BTW, this "white horse" business is news to me. I guess I didn't catch that particular fireside when I was a lad.
The big one that I always heard was that the government was eventually going to force everyone to carry some kind of card (national ID card?) or get a chip implanted or have a barcode tatooed on themselves; and that this would be one of the hinge points at which the followers of Christ would have to rebel against a U.S. government clearly fallen into the hands of Old Scratch.
If this post seems a little tongue-in-cheek, it is.
Mary called it. Why do people obssess over my unmentionables? How is this any different from a yamulka or the many other kinds of religiously proscribed rament found around the world?
It isn't. Next subject, please.
#18: +1 Funny
"Why do people obsess over my unmentionables?"
I think it's the contrast between the LDS reputation for being nice, hardworking, and maybe a little square, and a little-known detail that's kind of old-world and Masonic-flavored.
I suspect that after the inevitable round of Daily Show type razzing resulting from Romney's run, the gag value will die of overexposure and the whole deal will be worth a shrug.
Seriously, Mary, I think part of it comes from the (as far as I know false) belief that Mormons never, ever take The Garments off. Makes it seem real freaky, and that's probably exactly what the people who made it up intended it to do.
PRV 18: This is one of those cases where you need to be very, very careful which word of a similar-sounding pair you use. 'Prescribed' means "required" in this context, but 'proscribed' means "forbidden." You don't want to be saying that you're forbidden to wear the magic underwear; that gives a mistaken picture of your status with respect to the church.
Actually, I'm having a hard time coming up with examples of proscriptions about raiment; the only one I can think of so far is that Orthodox Jews aren't supposed to wear blended fabrics ("garments of two stuffs").
Sadly, there really are some beknighted LDS folk who truly do think you can't ever take your garments off; not even for sex. My wife had a girlfriend who was told this by her mother, the day before she got married in the temple.
Thankfully, my wife's friend quickly concluded that her mother was full of crap.
At my house, my wife and I generally treat the garment the way we treat a jacket. You put it on for protection outside the home. Inside the home (it can be our home, a friend's home, our parents' home, etc) the garment is optional. Be comfortable. Dress down. Or not at all, depending on the occasion. (e.g: foolin' around!)
I pity my brothers and sisters who suffer the notion that the garment must remain plastered to your skin 24/7. That's just not healthy IMHO.
Xopher @ #21: Whoops! Sorry for the syntactical (grammatical?) faux pas.
re: obsession with the Gs* - I thought it was because any time you asked a question about the garments, you get the "sacred, not secret" response....and that includes when talking to your Mormon kids. Not necessarily so with the yarmulke or the earlocks. See, generally if you ask about the purpose of religious clothing, or symbols, people explain it has to do with some kind of religious contract, or that it reminds them of a theological tenet or something.
"Mommy, why does your underwear and Daddy's have the funny marks on it?"
"You'll find out when you're older."
It doesn't precisely alleviate the curiosity. If anything, it inflames it more. When you find out your mother has specific ways of getting rid of her underwear, as well as requesting that you not handle it in the laundry, and she won't tell you why, then well, I'd say it's setting you up for some pretty hardcore curiosity. The most I ever got was "It's a symbol of our covenent with the Lord." And the next logical question from the mouth of a curious kid is going to be, "Why?" or "What does that mean?"
*Gs = Garments. Also called Garmies until your elderly great-aunt overhears you and tells you to stop blaspheming.
Xoph: Prescriptions about rainment - it's not exactly codified, and obviously standards have changed over time, but Mormons are generally advised against wearing clothing that reveals their garments. (Those that have garments. The rest of us were told its a good idea to pretend that we already have them, so we could practise being temple-worthy.)
This is why adult Mormons run around in knee-length shorts, and most won't wear tank tops even during the hottest summer days. You're allowed to not wear them for purposes of gym, swimming, various sports, and as noted by PRV, there is a special set that is issued to those serving in the military...I've heard they have ones specially coloured for wearing under camo, so that if your shirt slips, you won't have blinding white versions that get you killed.
Er. Damn. Proscriptions, not prescriptions. Right after you explained it too. I promise I know the difference.
PF,
It's been interesting, growing up LDS and observing how strictly different families handle the whole "sacred but not secret" rule. My parents never had any issues about my sister or I seeing the garment, touching it in or out of the laundry, etc. When we asked about the marks, we were told we'd find out in the temple some day; That they were part of what made the garment different from regular underwear of the same design or of similar cloth.
Some families were more rigorous than ours. Far more. Others, less so.
I try to be pretty up front with non-LDS folks, without getting into the minutae of the Endowment itself. Being in the military and having military garments, you tend to get asked about it a lot.
The new beige garments the church makes for us Army guys are cool in that the marks are now woven(?) or dyed(?) into the fabric in a way which doesn't make them nearly so obvious as those which are stitched. Unless someone knew better, when I am on-base and changing for PT in the latrine, my garments look like just another Army-issue t-shirt with matching boxer-briefs.
Oh, and my Dad always called them Garmies. LOL! Blasphemy? We LDS families can be so funny sometimes, with all the internal standards we set for ourselves and our children, thinking we're doing God's Will.
Regarding military Garmies,
Are there any LDS folk here who can tell us if the church makes garments in OD for Marines, or black for the USAF? White does not seem to be a problem with the Navy, nor for any branch of service when in dress uniform.
I have two kinds now for Army use: the old "browny" version with the traditional stitching which used to get me all kinds of questions, and which can only be worn with the old-style foliage camo BDU; and the new high-tech "moisture wicking" sand-beige colored version with the hidden marking, for use with the new pixelated camo ACU.
It just seems that in the not-inconsiderable list of things that set Mormons apart from non-Mormons, the underwear is the one that gets the most attention (Which is possibly, now that I think about it, because we're a nation of puritans).
Meanwhile, the "no caffeine" thing seems to pass without comment, even though it's shocking.
Mary Dell: No caffeine isn't precisely codified either. It's an interpretation, and has been spouted by the General Authorities at the pulpit, but it's not actually in the Word of Wisdom section of the D&C. (The actual Word of Wisdom can be found here, and believe me, people ignore a lot of it. Like the bit about eating of meat sparingly, except in winter or times of famine. I broke that out when my family looked askance at my boyfriend's vegetarianism.) Hot drinks are verboten, so while coffee isn't mentioned by name, most Mormons don't drink it. (But I drank plenty of hot chocolate as a kid, so go figure.)
That's one of those things that people decide to abide by on a more individual basis. My family didn't drink coffee or coke, but my friend's family felt it was okay to drink coke.
Mary @ #29,
At the risk of turning this thread into a free-for-all on Mormonality (maybe it's too late already?) the Caffeine Wars are one of the great in-jokes of LDS culture.
One the one side, you have those who believe absolutely that caffeine is proscribed (wink) by the LDS 'Word of Wisdom', by way of caffeine's connection to coffee, and because of more recent Church leadership admonishment that LDS members ought to avoid any ingested substance which can be habit-forming or addictive. This includes chocolate and pop and anything which has caffeine in it, including energy drinks and teas and "stay awake" pills.
On the other side you have all the rest of us who, while abiding by the letter of the Word, in that we don't drink coffee, don't have much of an issue about drinking caffeinated sodas. Or eating chocolate. My Mom has been a Diet Coke addict for almost 3 decades now. A friend likes to tell a story about how he was on his mission and got turned in by a fellow missionary for drinking a coke. The mission president dealt with the issue in a rather remarkable fashion IMHO. He finished the coke right in front of the plaintiff. Case closed.
Of course, the Caffeine Wars cannot be discussed without mentioning the epic Battle Of Hot Chocolate....
PRV: My dad yelled at my mother once for letting us drink a coke when we were all trapped in a horrible traffic jam in Phoenix and we had no other beverages. Some nice lady offered them to my mom, and my mom thought at the time that it was better than nothing.
I've had friends who know vaguely about the Word of Wisdom if I am okay to drink Nyquil
PRV 23: Lexical, if you wanna get technical. But who's counting?
Mary 29: I'm not allowed caffeine (or decongestants, or anything that can possibly help a sinus headache or migraine, dammit) for medical reasons, and yes, people think that's deeply weird. They think that's even weirder than the fact that I don't drink alcohol for similar reasons, or that I don't eat meat, which is the closest thing to a religious dietary proscription that I have.
I thought the Mormon proscription was against "hot drinks," which to Joseph Smith meant coffee and tea, but is interpreted by some to mean anything with caffeine, by others to mean anything hot, by others to mean BOTH (so that they won't drink Diet Coke OR Red Zinger, though iced RZ might be OK as long as the neighbors don't see, because you know what YOU'D think if you saw your neighbor drinking something dark red in a tall glass, by golly)?
PF, you were way ahead of me on the caffeine thing.
If you don't mind my asking, how would you classify yourself, in church terms?
I'm a pretty lazy LDS guy, in that I don't like callings and use every excuse I can to get out of meetings on Sundays. I'd probably drop out entirely if I didn't feel like being LDS is written into my bones on some intrinsic level. In fact, I did try to drop out in my teens, only to have my (eventually to be) wife get me back into it.
One thing I will say: being and practicing the LDS faith outside Utah is a whole other animal compared to being and practicing inside Utah. In many ways I have come to prefer the former. As much as I loved and miss Salt Lake and the glories of the mid and lower Utah national parks, the Utah LDS culture is a bit too claustrophobic and hermetically-sealed for my sensibilities.
Oh, and KRCL-FM über alles!
...because you know what YOU'D think if you saw your neighbor drinking something dark red in a tall glass, by golly)?
Wildberry Kool-Aid, of course.
Being a gentile myself, I always thought the prohibition was of caffeine. (Not that the LDS members I know best pay any attention to it, either way.)
(Methodists are supposed to abstain from alcohol. Don't assume that they do.)
PRV: I am an official heretic, by my own request. I have the letter and everything. My family (parents, sibs, grandparents, most of my cousins) and many friends are still all Mo' and I'd like to stay on good terms with them, so I'm not as fire-breathing as I used to be. My sibs know, my parents don't officially know, although if they asked point blank, I would tell them. But I find the culture I grew up in anthropologically interesting, and I don't mind explaining my experiences within it to others. (So we don't hijack the entirety of Teresa's thread, if you have further questions, you can email me or go through my website.)
At the risk of derailing a fascinating conversation, a white horse is the symbol for my part of the world, Kent. It was the symbol of the Saxon* Kingdom of Kent, supposedly from the semi-legendary brothers and kings Hengist** and Horsa***.
I doubt this has any bearing on this prophecy, but I seem to remember a tale about Hengest that involves a prophecy... will try and find it.
* They were actually Jutes, but that's how local histories always refer to it.
** IANA Anglo-Saxon Scholar, but I'm told it means stallion.
*** IANAASS, but derived from horse, which certainly begs some questions about what their parents were thinking when they named them.
PF @ #32: Dang, he yelled at her? Sounds like someone needed to take a chill pill. (wink)
My dad's side of the family tended to be more strict about WoW (Word of Wisdom) than my mother's. Dad was from a pretty devout LDS family in Salt Lake. Mom was from Moroni, UT, and while her family had roots in the faith going back to polygamy, her dad was quite the jack mormon. Grandpa drank coffee and alcohol and tea. Even showed up somewhat drunk at my uncle's reception after being married in the temple.
Perhaps because of this, my mother had a little fling with cold coffees in the 1990's. She claimed her bottled frappucinos were the only thing that helped get her out of bed in the morning, and aided her with arthritis pain. She did wine tasting when they went and toured the California vineyards, too.
I'm more like my Dad than my Mom. I drink Coca-Cola Classic, and that's about it for caffeinated beverages. I think coffee tastes bad, as does beer and most wine; though my wife sometimes has us use non-alcoholic wines over french or italian dishes.
I draw the line at recreational substances. Have never used them, and find them repellant on some deep level of my being that cannot be accounted for simply because of the church.
Which makes my wife's marijuana love something of a raw bone in our house. Mostly she's managed to stay clear since joining the church. But there have been a few "off wagon" adventures, one of which put me in therapy to deal with my angst and anger over the issue. Eventually I had to just let the whole thing go. It's her body and her life, and she's never exposed our daughter to any of it. I can't ever say I am 'fine' with her using pot, but it doesn't drive me into fits like it used to. I suppose I am just glad she doesn't have a taste for anything harder; and that she's mostly successful in her efforts to abide by her personal feelings and her want to heed church admonishment where rec drug use is concerned.
NyQuil... Now there is an interesting question. My family never thought twice about the alcohol in many cough medicines. I suppose it came down to intent? Nobody drinks booze to clear up a cough. Is alcohol for medicinal purposes breaking the spirit of the WoW?
Only the Lord knows, I guess.
(grin)
And I agree with everyone who raises an eyebrow at the meat and sugar consumption statistics, where Utahns and LDS folk are concerned. We all tend to ignore and overlook the WoW too much in this aspect, in that we pound down the meat and the refined sugar to excess. I'm 100% guilty here, and always blush a little when I re-read the WoW.
PF, I will visit your site.
Teresa, sorry for the hijack.
PRV 31: Nah, we're not going to have a free-for-all on things Mormonic. You can find plenty of threads in ML where the Mormons and ex-Mormons (or is it "former Mormons"?) giggle about the in-jokes while the rest of us do the textual equivalent of staring openmouthed in fascinated horror. Been there, done that.
Besides, every religion looks like a wacko nut-cult to a person sufficiently outside its sphere. I've been at some difficulty explaining that we don't really worship stone idols as such, since the carving of a stone into an idol doesn't make it more sacred, just more obviously sacred, but the people I've explained this to don't seem to think it makes a whole lot of difference. I've never understood why.
And my personal favorite story is of a little Pagan boy, brought into a Roman Catholic church for the first time at the age of four; he burst into hysterical tears at the sight of the crucifix at the front. His mother at first thought it was because a crucifix is a damned scary-looking piece of art if you've never seen one, but as she calmed him down she discovered that he thought that's what they did there.
In reality, of course, Roman Catholics are fundamentally opposed to crucifixion, in general. As are most Christians, except those kids we heard about in a previous thread who seem to think that symbolically crucifying their non-(or insufficiently-)Christian friends is a way of showing love for them.
Now see, I think that crosses the line. Your right to swing your religious fist ends where my spiritual chin begins. Doing bad magic against other people is just plain wrong even, or maybe especially, "for their own good."
Long as it's within those bounds, though, I'm pretty tolerant. Don't call Ganesh-ji a "vain idol," and I won't call Joseph Smith...what I think of him.
Xopher @ #33:
I'm not allowed caffeine (or decongestants, or anything that can possibly help a sinus headache or migraine, dammit) for medical reasons, and yes, people think that's deeply weird. They think that's even weirder than the fact that I don't drink alcohol for similar reasons, or that I don't eat meat, which is the closest thing to a religious dietary proscription that I have.
I simply do not drink caffeine in the form of coffee, tea, or soda, though I do have the occasional hot chocolate in the winter. I also do not drink alcohol except when under severe stress (in 2005 when my cat died) or an occasional sip at a wedding when no alternative for toasting is provided. People find this even more deeply weird than if I were doing it for religious reasons. I do eat meat.
PRV #40, nobody drinks booze to clear up a cough?
When I was in high school, I had a lingering unproductive cough after a cold that was seriously interfering with daily life. OTC cough meds weren't helping. In frustration, my parents offered me a cordial glass of Kahlua.
It worked a treat at suppressing the cough. Probably because of alcohol being a CNS depressant.
They wound up taking me to the doctor for a prescription for codeine cough syrup, because there was no way I could take Kahlua to school, even for medicinal purposes.
The doctor agreed that Kahlua was actually a pretty reasonable remedy for the sort of cough I had. And much tastier.
Xoph: Good to know. I myself feel a little weird when I get going on a good discussion of what it's like to grow up Mormon, because for a period of a few years, it was kind of a bee in the bonnet, and I didn't realise I was maybe boring everybody in earshot. (Hopefully that hasn't been the case here.)
BTW, I am very fond of Ganesha...I assume Ganesh-ji is a variant spelling.
Xopher, your story about the little boy in the church reminds me of something I read about one of the first Jesuit priests to arrive in China in the seventeenth century. His baggage was searched by Chinese customs officials, who found a small crucifix in it. The priest narrowly escaped being executed as a black magician, because what other conclusion do you draw about a person who carries about with him a tiny tortured fetish stuck through with nails? I can't remember how he talked his way out of the situation.
The anecdote was in The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci by Jonathan D. Spence, a really good book.
Xopher@42: I agree with your basic call for keeping the fists off other people's chins.
However, and this is, I must say, something I've almost only experienced with Mormons - I tend to drop the caution in one particular situation.
If you stop me on the street, while I'm headed somewhere, and start telling me about This Fantastic Faith I could buy into, then I'm going to enthusiastically talk to you and explain all the ways in which I think you're plain wrong.
If you, after hearing me tell you that I find the mere concept of a god to be completely without impact on my own life, and am very happy indeed as an atheist, still invite me to your church to get a copy of your book and get to talk about the things it says, I'm going to come as invited, and then actually argue the points you make. And at this point, I'll be wearing my thin gloves. So if you start talking about how Joseph Smith wrote his book, I'm actually going to challenge the possibly verifiable statements you make.
If you tell me that praying gives you a hot, pleasant, almost feverish feeling, I'm going to be hard put not to make a pretty offensive pun out of it.
And if you tell me that without a vengeful God watching your every step, all of mankind will break down into a chaotic society where property means nothing and the streets will have more orgies than traffic, I'm going to conclude that you have a particularly icky view of humanity, and distance myself from these ideas quite explicitly.
And, being a mathematician, I do not believe that "A truth as true as that 2+2=4" goes very far. Consider Z/3Z for instance.
All the above based on actual encounters.
MJ @ #47,
Proselytizing is one of the areas of LDS life with which I am not comfortable at all. I'd actually prefer it if the church was not so aggressive in recruiting new members. Maybe as a small church trying to escape "cult" status, it has to be aggressive? But the "used car salesmen" aspect of LDS missioneering has not earned its reputation on accident. And it's this reputation which, I think, has in fact hurt recruitment to a certain extent. Nobody likes to be hard-sold. Hell, very few people like to be "sold" anything at all. Our culture (in America anyway) has become very much a, "Don't bother me right now, I will seek it/you out when I need it/you!" kind of culture.
I think the church ignores this reality to its detriment; and thus people continue to be turned off.
Just my opinion.
#5 - IIRC revised about 1990 so you'd want the old fashioned version - and Latin Mass no doubt.
#20 - As you surely know Bob for the last word around here on "the holy underwear of the Lord" see:
God and I included in a NESFA press collection and on the web from a teacher of writers on the board.
Though I'd be as reluctant to take the Salt Lake Trib as the last word on this as I would be to take Wikipedia still the article mentioned must be balanced and correct for it agrees with my own understanding - for the curious I could point to folks who believe something along the lines suggested was said but not infallibly and not exactly and who are hoping for and soon. On the other hand it wasn't until I went looking that I came across the white horse reference - I wonder if it isn't a back formation from "a man on a white horse" and never intended to be literal in that respect.
PF 45: Ganesha is His Sanskrit name. Hindi has dropped the final -a in those kinds of places (though it's still sung, just not spoken), so his name comes out Ganesh. -ji is an honorific, meaning something like "beloved." A Hindu coworker came to my desk one time, and saw the tiny and very stylized image of Ganesha atop my monitor. "Is that Ganesh-ji?" she asked.
Jennyanydots 46: A delightful example.
Mikael 47: See, I think by importuning you in the street, they're "leading with their chins," to follow my metaphor. In other words, I think if someone is trying to convert you, you have a perfect right to self-defense, short of escalation. Anyone who declares their own religion better than yours for you has thrown open the door for any kind of criticism of their religion you care to level at it. The skinny little Mormon "Elders" steer clear of me, probably because I smile at them, but they'd get an earful if they started up with me.
A friendly, civil earful. I'm a pretty nice person, despite looking like Nosferatu. But I doubt if my comparison of Joseph Smith to Gerald Gardner (the founder of (one substream of) my religion, thank you very much) would go over well, no matter how carefully I phrased it.
Um...doesn't Z/3Z == 1/3 for all Z? I don't get that part.
MJ @ 47: The proselyting is fairly hard-wired into the Mormon culture as well. When I was little, we were told, "Every member a missionary." And of course, all the boys are pretty much told that they must go on a mission at 19. (A mission which they themselves finance for the most part, although I understand the LDS church has gotten better at subsidizing them. My brother paid for his mission by selling hoar-frost cloaks on his old Asheron's Call account, btw.)
I once had a not-so-fun taste of the proselyting fervor gone amiss myself. Our Primary teacher decided we were going to be "every member a missionary" and gave us Book of Mormons which we were supposed to put our name and testimony in, and then give to a non-Mormon friend. She was so gung-ho on this idea, that she was also ignoring the fact that we were ten year olds in the most Mormon county on Earth, and if we knew any non-Mormons at all, it was bound to be the exact same person in all cases. In any case, I couldn't find anybody to give my Book of Mormon to...and it weighed heavily on my conscience for several years. Or at least until somewhere in my mid-teens, when normal teenage attributes asserted themselves and I said, "Hey, this is stupid, feeling guilty about this."
PRV@48: Those I get aren't that much used car salesman as completely incapable of adjusting their language to the person they're talking to. They expect me to pray and be told that what they say is true, and I'm having issues with the concept of prayer as such, et.c. I'm constantly fascinated that they expect the pitch they deliver to convert anyone who doesn't already believe.
Xopher@50: I must admit though that I'm pretty happy sparring with them once their chins are lifted.
By Z, I meant the ring of integers. It turns out that many important examples of rings - i.e. "Methods to calculate with +, - and *, though not necessarily /" - are on a form inspired by the clock: if you add 3 hours to 22, you don't get 25, you get 1. Similar, the entity known to mathematicians as Z/3Z works. You wrap around so that 0 = 3, and thus, obviously, 2+2=4=(wraparound)=1.
So, in the ring Z/3Z, we have 2+2=1. Which, accidentally is also equal to 4, but depending on how you build the ring, 4 doesn't necessarily make any sense whatsoever.
Oh. I was taught that as "modulo 3." It was the notation Z/3Z that I was unfamiliar with.
Yes, I'm familiar with the phenomenon of nonsensical answers to questions I haven't asked, and of being asked questions that make no more sense than "what's 91 degrees north latitude?" (Like "what happened before the Big Bang," but that's another kettle of eyeless deep-sea fish.)
Xopher@53:
but that's another kettle of eyeless deep-sea fish -- mmmm, sounds tasty!
The notation Z/3Z is used to introduce a way to talk about these things that makes more sense for weirder areas. Thus, the solution set to a system of polynomial equations form a geometric object - similar to the way solution sets to linear systems form hyperplanes, these form curves and surfaces and things like that.
These objects can be studied by studying the set of all sufficiently nice functions from them to, say, the real or complex numbers, and these functions can be added, subtracted and multiplied.
So, you end up with something that's written like
R[x,y,z]/(equation system), and read more or less like "The polynomial ring in x,y,z modulo the equation system".
But in order for this to be .. sane, you don't want the "something modulo something else" to follow you all the way through - you want to think about it and be able to forget the modulo, making it an intrinsic property of these "numbers" instead of something you paste on top of them.
Mikael, that whooshing sound you just heard was all that going way over my head. I'll read it again in a few hours and see if it makes more sense. I think I see what you're driving at in a general kind of way, but the hologram is pretty blurry so far.
MJ @ #52,
Sometimes I think this is the biggest reason why sending young men into the world to preach the gospel, backfires. They're barely out of their parents' households, and some of them have a shakey hold on their own faith; or at least their understanding of it, and their ability to explain it to others. They go to MTC (missionary training center; boot camp for missionaries) and learn the lessons and the lines, but I am not sure how much time they spend preparing to handle intricate, probing, or even combative questioning.
During my limited time doing splits (splits: common ward members going out with full-time missionaries, sometimes "splitting" the typical two-person missionary pairings and thereby doubling the amount of ground that can be covered during door-knocking) I sometimes frustrate the young guys I am with because I won't stay "on message". If a person doesn't seem ready to dive right into discussions about Jesus and Joseph Smith and whatnot, I tend to take a more conversational approach, and don't really care about hammering on Lesson 1 or whatever it is they want the kids to do.
Ultimately, my personal philosophy is that the Silent Sell is the only "sell" that's worth anything. As LDS people we speak far more loudly with our actions, than our words. If we claim to be emissaries of the Christ, how Christian are our actions to our fellows; especially those outside the faith? Do we truly abide by our own strictures, or are we just "Sunday Mormons" who skip the rules during the rest of the week? If we ask others to respect our 'minority' faith and respect our 'unusual' customs and beliefs, are we not bound to do the same for them?
IMHO hypocrisy is the greatest enemy of the LDS church, and perfection of the saints the church's greatest overriding mission; beyond recruitment. If the church stopped all active proselytizing and turned inward and simply shaped up the existing membership and got people off their high horses and got them to walking more of their talk, how much more would this aid the quest to attract new members?
Food for thought.
Neil Willcox #39: The modern German word for 'stallion' is 'hengst'.
(I am reminded of Sellars and Yeatman's 'and his wife (or horse) Horsa'.)
Mikael Johansson #47: The last time I encountered a Mormon missionary I left her in tears. She simply couldn't answer any of my questions about the racist history of the LDS church, or explain to me why I was under a curse for the first twenty-two years of my life, or why the church condemned both my marriage and my parents' marriage.
PRV #48 & 56 - I deal with the call for proselytizing in my own church (not LDS), by faithfully attempting to spread the faith to anyone who comes to my door trying to convert me.
So far the score is Cindy:3 Door-knockers:0, and the JW's haven't knocked on my door in more than 8 years. I've seen them cross the street to avoid our house. LDS missionaries are more fun, since they apparently don't pass on warnings about the welcome they'll receive. My favorite single moment was when, after about two hours of intense discussion, the older of the two missionaries all but bodily dragged the younger out of the house as he protested. ("But, wait! That sounded interesting!")
fragano,
She simply couldn't answer any of my questions about the racist history of the LDS church, or explain to me why I was under a curse for the first twenty-two years of my life, or why the church condemned both my marriage and my parents' marriage.
yup. my common-law mum-in-law has some funny stories about growing up japanese buddhist in mormon alberta.
Xopher,
The point PRV intended to convey, I think, is that Truth is a more slippery concept to mathematicians than laypeople often imagine. They see a statement like "2+2=4" and suddenly all kinds of open questions pop into their minds that don't occur to normal people. What do all those symbols really mean? By deploying the quotient notation, PRV pointed out that the statement "2+2=4" is nonsensical without also specifying a particular algebra, hence not as "true" as it might seem at first glance. Most normal people assume the statement is about conventional integer arithmetic, and mathematicians are trained not to do that.
p.s. now, for a real fun time, cue the discussion about Gödel's incompleteness theorem.
It was Mikael.
And yeah, like why should I believe in mathematics, when the greatest mathematicians agree that it's not complete? (Or contradictory, which is even worse.) Am I supposed to believe in "Math of the Gaps"?
The next pair of Math Missionaries to come knocking on my door is gonna get an earful, let me tell you!
I gave Math a try, but it never really spoke to me...
The next pair of Math Missionaries to come knocking on my door is gonna get an earful, let me tell you!
"Excuse me, sir... but have you heard the good news about the Church-Turing thesis? If you just repent of your superstitions, embrace the strong Church-Turing conjecture, and place your true faith in the theoretical power of universal Turing machines, then your mind might be saved from experiencing the eternal void when the Singularity comes! Please give a small donation to help fund the work of discovering mathematical proofs to that effect."
Rikibeth @ 44, I suspect the chocolate in the Kahlua may have helped as much as the alcohol--some recent research seems to show that chocolate works as a cough suppressant. I've never tried it myself, though.
By the by, this is the first time I've posted here since the adoption of the spelling reference, and I think it's delightful.
Except that it turns out the flavoring in Kahlua is coffee, not chocolate. So much for my theory.
S. Dawson @65, Kahlua's coffee flavored, not chocolate!
Interesting, though. When the Kahlua worked, I did sample several of the other liqueurs my parents had, and one was Vandermint, a chocolate mint one in a blue Delft bottle. It ALSO worked.
And was yummy.
My mother came from a group called the Free Methodists -- they left the Methodists because they were too worldly -- which has become more average these days. But they didn't believe in stimulants, so no caffeine or theobromine, etc.
Mikael Johansson @54: All that math talk makes me want to eat your brains (but not in a zombie way; think 'Skylar' from 'Heroes').
I've always felt that math education could do better by telling better stories. We got a couple of vague and unconnected stories thrown in (there was this guy, his name was Pythagoras...), but it could have done with more of that. What were the problems people were struggling with, that these particular techniques developed as solutions to? More context would not only have been more fun, but made the whole more memorable.
I guess I'm remembering high school math; I went to an art college...
I do recall some artist friends who claimed that geometry was the only math they got, because you could draw diagrams to figure it out (although I understand drawing diagrams was denounced in some circles).
What is the favorite math of musicians?
On the Mormon thread, a Mormon SF writer compared his appreciation of SF fandom to his Mormon upbringing; both vital and interesting sub-cultures.
I appreciate the views into the culture.
I would like a world where it was well understood that religion = story, and we could appreciate the story told well for its own sake. What you should do when they're encouraging you to sell the farm and journey to Jerusalem? (you should probably keep the farm).
jh woodyatt @ 64
ROFLMAO!
(and once a year we get into completeness and the Halting Problem?)
j h woodyatt @ 2^6
Ah, but I belong to the Reformed Church of Turing. We believe the Church-Turing Conjecture to be false, thus invalidating Turing's analysis of the Halting Problem, and meaning that not only is P = NP, but that P = Quantum NP. This means that all algorithms are computable in a single step, given the right hardware, which is God.
Ah, but I belong to the Reformed Church of Turing...
Blasphemer! HERETIC! There is no machine but the universal Turing machine, and Stephen Wolfram is its new prophet!
my only intolerance of Mormon Missionaries were the pair that Would NOT stop ringing the bell when I still worked at home. They rang that bell in the peevish sort of way a small child rings the doorbell.
I was on deadline. I normally would not have even answered the phone at the time (I had a period of about five year where got to work at home, I was Very Spoiled). They would not stop ringing the fsking doorbell. I had seen them coming too, JWs don't wear black pants and white shirts, they usually wear suits if male or church dresses if female. My experience with JWs is that they don't usually keep ringing the bell if no one answers.
I stomped downstairs cell phone in hand. All transactions were through my front door's window.
"Get the hell off my porch!"
"But Ma'am, don't you want to hear the word of Salvation?" (or some other such statement, on that I'm not clear)
"Get the hell off my porch. I'm working, I'm on deadline, and you've interrupted me. Get off my fscking porch!"
"But ma'am....?"
"I am dialing 911. If I get to the final 1 and you're on my porch, when the police come I'm going to press charges for trespass." I press "9" and the number
"But ma'am...?"
"How stupid are you, get off my fscking porch now!" I press "1" and say the number.
They bolted. I went back upstairs and met my deadlne. It STILL Makes me hot to remember it.
Thus ends my last experience with Mormon Missionaries, they appear to have marked my street address as a Place To Avoid. But since I work out at the office now, I may not know about it (JWs tend to leave a Watchtower in our front door screen, Mormon's don't leave anything).
Paula @ 73
Sounds like they were inexperienced Mormonaries. Most of them are more polite (and smarter) than that, in my experience.
(I had a friend who would tell JWs he was a Druid.)
The only missionaries that knocked on my door politely left after I politely said I wasn't interested. I wished them good luck on the mission as they left. No hard feelings.
Missionary: Excuse me, sir, have you heard of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints?
a younger ajay: Er...yes. Aren't you the guys from "A Study in Scarlet"?
(Exeunt missionaries).
Fragano @57 - So much for my GCSE German*.
I've seen Hengist and Horsa translated as Stallion and Mare, and also Gelding and Mare, which is a slightly strange image for a pair of warrior kings. Assuming they weren't King and Queen, or Horsa got retconned in later as a sidekick, or that they weren't made up to add focus to the stories of the Jutes arrival in Kent, in which case it makes some sense.
* Although I can still ask the way to the train station, if only because I had the nickname bahnhof for a while.
Mr. Bill, #4: Do you wear 'Sacred Long Underwear', Mr. Romney?"
I never see why people get so fussed about this detail of Mormon faith. It's no stranger than growing long earlocks or covering your hair.
My interest is simply an attempt to keep Mr. Romney from becoming president, and in calling attention to this bit of Mormon life, think the Fundies who are the Republican base (and my neighbors) will be less likely to vote for him. Cynical, and I'm not against Mormons generally, but there it is.
Rob @69:
I've always felt that math education could do better by telling better stories.
Our reading today is from the Book of Physical Measurement, Chapter 2
2:1 And he spake in parables to them, saying, there once was a king named Hi-ER-on. 2:2 And this king had commissioned a crown, made of gold, in the shape of a laurel wreath. 2:3 But Hieron suspected that the crown had been adulterated with silver, and commissioned Ar-chi-ME-des to determine its true nature. 2:4 Hieron forbade Archimedes from destroying the crown in his investigations, for it was beautifully wrought.
2:5 Archimedes knew well that gold and silver have divers densities, that is that a cubit of gold weighith more than a cubit of silver, yea, nearly twice as much. 2:6 Yet though he could weigh the crown, he could not easily determine its volume, for it was irregularly shaped. 2:7 He pondered the problem for many days.
2:7 Now, while pondering, he ventured not unto the public baths at Syracuse, but remained at home. 2:8 And upon realising that this had made him wondrous smelly, he decided to pause in his thoughts and take a bath. 2:9 Therefore did he draw a bath in his tub, and remove his raiment.
2:10 Then did Archimedes step into his bath, and as he did so, a quantity of water spilled out. 2:11 As he came to sit in the tub, more water overflowed. 2:12 Then though he, more water spilleth out when I lower more of my body into the tub. 2:13 The tub holdeth only so much volume, and if my body is to occupy some of the tub, then therfore the water cannot. 2:14 And the volume of water is the same as the volume of body that displaceth it. 2:15 Then did he run through the streets of Syracuse shouting, "Eureka", which meaneth, "I found it." 2:16 And he did this naked, which alarmed the horses.
2:17 And the students said, Teacher, why speak you this parable to us? 2:18 And one student, who was a confirmed smart-alec, said, Teacher, is it that we shall do our best thinking in the shower? 2:19 And the Teacher threw a chalkboard eraser at the smart-alec.
Here endith our reading.
abi... And he did this naked, which alarmed the horses.
Was one of those horses the one referred to in this thread's title?
Miriam Beetle #60: Now there's got to be an interesting story behind that!
Paula #73: What I've always wanted to do is ask them why, if the tablets of gold were given to Joe Smith by an angel named Moroni, they don't call themselves 'Morons'.
Neil Willcox #77: Of course, it is entirely possible that they were either culture heroes (in which case they might not have had a real existence), or clan chiefs of the horse clan, or priests of a horse cult. I've no idea.
Abi #79: Or one could take an approach in Scots.
#74: It's rather apocryphally, but I heard at a gaming con about someone who said he'd politely listen to the LDS missionaries if he could then tell them about his religion. About 10 minutes in, he interrupted, saying it was his turn, and began reading from the Simon Necronomicon. Supposedly they never came back.
47: However, and this is, I must say, something I've almost only experienced with Mormons - I tend to drop the caution in one particular situation.
If you stop me on the street, while I'm headed somewhere, and start telling me about This Fantastic Faith I could buy into
Presumably this is region-dependent--I only get it from Southern Baptists. Even the Jehovah's Witnesses around here will leave you alone if you brush past the copy of Watchtower they thrust at you; I've never had one, either on the street or the one I know personally, attempt to talk me into religion.
Southern Baptists, OTOH....
I had a very simple strategy for getting rid of LDS missionaries. Almost the first thing they asked was if I had heard of their church; I said yes, but I had never actually read the book, and did they have a copy I could borrow? So of course they gave me one.
Then I started looking back and forth between them and the book, as if to imply that I would start reading it, except it's rude to read in front of guests. They took the hint and left. I still have the book around somewhere, I think, but never bothered to open it.
They went away happy, because they thought I was going to read it; I was happy because they went away without anyone getting angry. And the chance of me being converted by reading the book isn't really that different than the chance of me being converted by not reading it (IMO), so no harm done from the sort-of-misleading.
j h woodyatt #72: I'm reading ML on Stephen Wolfram's time! Have you been sent to drag me back on task?
"I'm reading ML on Stephen Wolfram's time! Have you been sent to drag me back on task?"
The Machine displays complicated behavior that can only be comprehended by running it and seeing what it does.
This Wolfram-Turing thread reminds me it's time to do Laundry.
All this talk of Mormons and recruiting remind me that as a teenager in Southern Alberta who was not Mormon, I seriously envied them the dances they seemd to have all the time. But I could never figure out why all the older boys seemed to named Elder.
"This Wolfram-Turing thread reminds me it's time to do Laundry."
I suppose I should get around to reading one of Mr. Stross's books too... I'm told they really are quite good. Alas. Busy busy busy.
Noelle (#91) -
If you'd ever gone to one of the dances, you would have ceased envying them - when I was a Youth (in the 80's) the guys were smug in their superiority, knowing that the gals were being taught we couldn't get into heaven without one.
The one guy who was actually respectful and had a sense of humor (there was always exactly one per ward) was almost never available to all but the Molly-est of Mormons.
PRV, I love reading your input on this thread; much like PiscusFish, I am a voluntary non-mormon with a few beloved family members still of that faith. My mom's observation the other day about being Mormon in Utah, vs everywhere else is pretty much exactly as you describe. (also, re: your wife's weed usage - doesn't the WoW state that everything god put on the earth is good for mankind, so long as it isn't abused? I'm paraphrasing, and I'm sure it wouldn't fly during a temple interview, but providing she's not doing it to excess or in front of your kids, she's probably not much worse off than serial Jello abusers.)
cellist @ #93,
Thanks! It's been fun talking about this whole thing.
Regarding dope, the last time my wife had a major use period (e.g: actually brought some into the house) she was going through a MAJOR bout of anxiety-slash-depression. So in that sense, I think the pot was probably medicinal.
It was during this time I had to get some therapy for my own anxiety; it was driving me crazy knowing she was smoking/toking most nights after I put myself and my daughter to bed. I was seriously pissed-slash-appalled. But what could I do? She wasn't harming herself or the baby, was never stoned in the presence of her family or outside the home; in every way she was the "responsible" user. I had to try and find a way to let it go.
That was two years ago, though. She's in a far different place, mentally and emotionally, so it's not an issue anymore. I think she said the last time she smoked was last year at a party her university girlfriends were throwing. Since then she's been trying to not partake, simply because she feels it's important that she set an example for our daughter, who is four years old come October.
My personal take is that most "illicit" drugs, and just about all legal drugs/intoxicants, do have value. Pot especially seems to be a proven boon for chemotherapy and cancer patients who need something to help them through the horror of the side effects caused by the chemo. Why we have not, nationally, legalized marijuana for this use, is beyond me.
But then this is a subject for a whole other thread.
Your church dance story was sad and amusing. Most of the young men in my ward when I was a Deacon and then a Teacher were total dickheads. Like, bad. Sunday Mormons, all of them, and they were rude and had no manners, and most of the young women thought they were trolls. Because they were.
Being one of the few "nerds" in that motley bunch, I actually got a lot of action from the young women, aged 14 through 16, simply because I could carry on a conversation and was polite and respectful and could make them laugh sometimes.
(NOTE: 'action' being defined in LDS terms as interaction, just so the non-LDS understand...)
As for gals not being able to get into heaven without a guy, I've never heard that. If the idea was being circulated in your ward/family, I'd sure wonder who came up with it? Probably more Mormon folklore, like the "white horse" thing that sparked this thread.
IMHO it's probably the other way around. Speaking only as a former Mormon Young Man, we were (are?) an unfinished and rough bunch, much in need of training and refinement and a good swift kick in the ass. I'm always telling my wife that the reason I think LDS men need women especially is so that you can grow us up and give us some polishing and make us presentable.
Because without you, Lord, it 'aint pretty sometimes.
(wink)
One note on that: I am grateful that my wife is a convert and was not born and raised LDS. Not only did she not have the usual LDS woman fetish for RMs (Return Missionaries) she wasn't afraid to talk frankly about subjects like sex, prior to the marriage. Most "good" LDS girls/women I knew as a young man, would sooner turn to stone than openly discuss sex. Sex? SEX??!! (insert scream of horror) Good girls never talk about that!!!!
PRV -
I can't remember whether it's in scripture, and if so, where, but the women-in-heaven thing is far too widespread to be just another FPR (faith promoting rumor, for those outside the fold). In fact, there were many YW lessons around it. The deal is, to get into the Celestial Kingdom you need the priesthood. Either you are ordained a priest, or you must marry one in the temple. Women of course have been denied the priesthood through having Magical BabyMaking Properties. Therefore, the guys-in-suits would tell us, we didn't need it, and in fact, the whole "priesthood" thing was just to give men equal footing with women. Never mind that we still couldn't get into the CK without one.
To mollify us, we were told that any extraneous women who were unable to be married in this life would be assigned a worthy priesthood holder in the next. Since, as we all know, women are more righteous than men. (ahem) This justified the whole polygamy thing.
To be fair, an unmarried (or un-priesthood-married) woman could get into the other two levels of heaven, both millions of times better than earth with no problems; we are only barred from the tippy-top level.
The belief of individual mormons may vary; when I was younger and crankier, I used to confront my mom with these sexist and horrifying teachings. She would just get uncomfortable and and say that maybe all would become clear in the afterlife.
True missionary story- heard directly from the source (and I've seen the illustrations)- re Nathan @85, PJ@74:
I have an acquaintance who does illustrations. He works from home, and will usually have models of things-to-be-illustrated scattered about his workdesk.
Years ago, he was working on his version of Dante's Inferno.
Missionaries came to the door. He, needing a break, went to the porch and spoke with them. He likely did claim some rare religious belief, but missionaries get that all the time.
The talk became a negotiations, ending with him saying "ok, you can come in and talk, and then have a prayer for me, as long as you agree for me to then have a prayer with you, based on my religion."
The missionaries agreed. They came in, they talked, they prayed.
It was then his turn: "Now I'm going to pray: you'll pray with me." He went to the curtain that blocked the view of his desk. He pulled it back to reveal the many skulls, candles, knives, hooks and other models needed for the Inferno.
They (he says) ran. They (corroborated by his wife) never have returned. Not even after moving, not even after the kids grew from toddlers to teens.
"They (he says) ran. They (corroborated by his wife) never have returned. Not even after moving, not even after the kids grew from toddlers to teens."
You know... this arouses my curiousity. When I was younger, up until a couple years after I was fresh out of college, I used to be the recipient of several unsolicited invitations per year to discuss religion with missionaries of several odd American stripes, Mormons, Witnesses, YouNameThem™. Then, one day, it stopped. I haven't had a visit for, let's see, almost twenty years now.
It didn't occur to me to think about the circumstances of my last encounter with missionaries until just this moment. I suppose it might have been somewhat traumatic for the missionaries, though I don't really know. Do they keep lists of people never to bother ever again once they've been declared officially Lost?
In my case, it wasn't quite as good as that of your friend, the illustrator. I had merely fallen asleep on the floor of my then SignificantOther's loft apartment in Long Beach, California after having been awoken at 0600 to be sexually ravaged and left to fend for myself for the rest of the day. There I was, lying completely nude on the floor, hung the hell completely over, the door to the apartment thrown wide open— how did that happen? I don't know, and I probably never will— with the sunlight gently warming me into a pleasant pre-wakeful lightly dreaming sleep... and that's when the nice, conservatively dressed man with his twelve- or thirteen-year-old daughter in the tasteful floor-length peasant dress came to ring the doorbell.
I stood up. I walked casually to the door, smiled and greeted them with as much pleasantry as I could muster under the circumstances. Apparently, they were shocked by my easy lack of modesty. They handed me some copies of some tract or another and promised they'd come back when I was more presentable. They never did. I was really disappointed, because most of my friends had really wonderful stories to tell about freaking out the missionaries, and I was really looking forward to having one of my own. Alas... no.
To this day, I'm still a little confused when I see the Mormons in my neighborhood in San Francisco. They always skip my door and leave my family alone, and I wonder why that is...
cellist,
Hmmmm, the "version" I always got was that neither a woman NOR a man could enter the CK w/o temple marriage; hence there was a ton of speculating in my LDS circle that Christ was, in fact, married before he was crucified--since it seemed plainly obvious that a CK without Christ was a bass-ackwards arrangement.
My wife the Womens Studies major always gets hit with questions from her university cohorts about the church and its patriarchal structure.
She agrees with the church-sponsored idea that women enjoy a sort of exhaltation-by-default on account of being able to give birth. She also believes that the Priesthood is a way to give men a higher purpose beyond their base and selfish desires; something that will force them to step up and be responsible.
And yes, she tends to take a pretty dim view of the male gender et al. How she ended up and remains LDS is a question of spirituality and her own individual path she's chosen.
Anyway, I won't debate the feminist POV on the church, mostly because I can see why lots of women think it's bullshit. The #1 reason my aunt is bitter and angry and left the church is because of the patriarchy, and from a non-LDS perspective all her arguments make sense.
woodyatt,
We're not totally clueless. If we get the (strong) hint that people don't want us around, we try to pass on the hint so that other LDS don't make fools of themselves, or make you angry.
Again, I am not a fan of proselytizing. I don't like doing it, and avoid this 'responsibility' because I don't really believe in it for myself. But some of us do try to not be total dolts about it.
I can't speak for the JW's or other proselytizers. Dunno what their system is, or if they have a system.
And here is a message for the whole thread:
When next you get accosted by the LDS missionaries in particular, and feel like making a bit of sport out of it, please remember that these are very YOUNG men and women, many of them none too comfortable with what they've been asked to do; not a few of them out there at the stern behest of parents and grandparents and whatnot. They have no interest in being the object of sport, and if you think their being LDS and/or on a proselytizing mission makes them fair game for your assholery, I think that speaks poorly of your generosity as a person.
Just be polite and demure and, if necessary, express firmly that you have no interest in the church, don't want the pitch, would like very much not to be visited in the future, etc. If they are caring about the job they are doing, most LDS missionaries will respect your wants and will let you alone.
Being a jackass about it means they'll just walk away muttering, "Dang, Bro, that guy/gal was a total loser!" And they'd be right.
PublicRadioVet #99 wrote:
"When next you get accosted by the LDS missionaries in particular, and feel like making a bit of sport out of it, please remember that these are very YOUNG men and women, many of them none too comfortable with what they've been asked to do; not a few of them out there at the stern behest of parents and grandparents and whatnot. They have no interest in being the object of sport, and if you think their being LDS and/or on a proselytizing mission makes them fair game for your assholery, I think that speaks poorly of your generosity as a person."
I want to make something clear. If, as a result of my response to their proselytising, an LDS missionary again bursts into tears that will not be the result of my "assholery" but of the racist doctrines which have been officially promulgated by the Mormon church and are contained in Mormon scripture. If you are going to try to persuade people of the truth of your religion, you have an obligation to know what you are talking about. This is not a matter of "making a bit of sport about it", it is an issue of confronting an organisation and a doctrine that is racist and opposed to interracial marriage when a member of that organisation deliberately intrudes themselves upon me. As a product of an interracial marriage, and a participant in such myself, I don't consider pointing out racism to be sport.
For an interesting presentation on racism in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints you might look here. It's particularly interesting that a text which is supposed to be the direct word of god was later altered to suppress a particularly racist statement.
I have had some experience as a victim of racism, and for that reason I am implacable in my opposition to it. If that makes me an "asshole" in your opinion, I'll take that as a compliment.
Just be polite and demure and, if necessary, express firmly that you have no interest in the church, don't want the pitch, would like very much not to be visited in the future, etc.
I'm polite to salespeople on my doorstep. Too polite, my co-houser would say. But demure? Why do you use the word "demure"? That I should be shy and modest at my own door? Piffle.
If I'm busy, I tell them that. If not too busy, I'll ask questions just as I'm asked questions. If, for example, they don't know how easy it is to look up genetic sequences they'll get to find out. If they don't know the past 100,000 year history of modern humans, or the past 5,000,000 years of happenings in geological America, I'd like to know. They can leave any time they want to.
But I think they have an obligation to see that they're the interruption. I don't have to understand their motivations, and purity-of-intent doesn't change the results.
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