If they had the vocabulary, they probably would say that they live by heavyweight axioms like “Joseph Smith was a prophet of God” and “The Book of Mormon is true”. From my experience, it is possible to exercise logic with flawed axioms so long as you steer clear of a liberal arts education (my mistake, lol).
Fun fact: “blood transfusions”-less techniques are useful to develop in case of blood shortage among other reasons. So Jehovah witness’s stubbornness at least have some benefits for medecine. Sucks that it also kills some of them though.
It’s always so hard to read and understand when people start using them/they when referring to a single person. Please stop, it’s okay to say him/her, nobody will die.
Examples of the singular “they” being used to describe someone features as early as 1386 in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and also in famous literary works like Shakespeare’s Hamlet in 1599.
“They” and “them” were still being used by literary authors to describe people in the 17th Century too - including by Jane Austin[sic] in her 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice.
And you completely miss the point where it’s much harder to comprehend what people are talking about. Had it said “he/him” it would have been 100% clear without a doubt immediately, and it would have insulted NOBODY.
Nobody was insulted by him/her since forever, now we can’t use that anymore because somehow it’s exclusionary, insulting or “assuming the obvious gender”
Professing to be a mormon is a logical decision if your culture is mormon.
Disinterest in pursuing a more empirical world view is not illogical if one would have to damage their relationship with those closest to them in its pursuit.
(Sorry about the pretentiousness of that (and this) sentence, I can’t find a more vernacular way of expressing these ideas succinctly).
What you said (and such defenses of religion) makes me think: If I see someone ready to jump off a bridge, and I can stop them against their will, should I? I mean, inside their brain they are ending their suffering. They don’t see value in life. But I do. Whose worldview is more important?
What if it was drugs, should I stop them? What if it was drinking every weekend? What if it was refusing to go outside without a mask in the middle of a pandemic?
What if it was following the cult of their parents, which encourages abuse & discrimination of women, opression of minorities, supression & regression of scientific advances and further indoctrination of future generations? If I have the power to get someone out of their cult against their will, should I?
Or what if it was continuing to feed a system that brainwashes people into thinking that monetary gain is what’s important in life, that the system is infallible, and no alternatives exist?
Should we act against what we perceive as wrong, even if it’s against the will of other persons? Where do we draw the line? Who decides what is right and what is wrong?
Reminds me of the rabbi whose congregation complained about his many vices, saying that he’s supposed to be better, he’s supposed to show them the way. So he brought them to the edge of the town and showed them a direction sign.
“Does it show you the way? It does. And do you want it to go anywhere?”
The funny thing is, I grew up with a bunch of Mormons for friends and one teacher I know of, and I never found out about most of the stuff they believe until much later. At least they (the ones I grew up with anyway) have the decency to not go around spreading their dogma to non-believers until they’ve already thoroughly roped them into their cult.
No, there are plenty that do it. Not weekly, but most do it yearly. I’ve known nondenominational places, lutheran, baptist, episcopalian, and methodists that do.
It is a little different when your origin story is very obviously a mediocre conman having his shitty cons described by multiple eye witness accounts and having your myths be 2000 years old with no first hand accounts.
Like I said, it’s different when you have the actual daily journals of people calling it a con.
Or his wife calling him a liar after he stuck his head in a hat to get his prophecies.
Like, regardless of the fact that to religious types the age of the belief has value, it’s just a whole different level of obvious bullcrap beyond simply believing in the supernatural.
Not just as easy. There’s a lot of room for someone to say “this was actually just metaphor” or even “these are just stories to convey values”.
Take the tower of Babel, for example, we know it never happened. However, a more progressive Christian or Jewish tradition can use the story to talk about how sometimes cultural differences are simply surface level, we are all ultimately the same people. Mormons aren’t so lucky because the book of Mormon was pitched as a literal history and part of the book has literal refugees from the tower of Babel.
Unlike the Bible, we have the author of the religion who very well documented how literal everything is. We don’t even know who authored nearly any book in the Bible or their motivations.
I’m not arguing for a god, I’m an atheist exmo. However, there’s a pretty big difference between a bunch of old stories compiled together into a book and a book of fiction that the author went out of his way to claim was “the most correct book ever written”.
I mostly agree with you, though the babble has the upper hand with older and better-funded propaganda campaigns spanning more time and regions and organizations using it for political manipulation. It’s had more polishing, rewriting, adapting, and state-backed proliferation (including by use of armies to wipe out competitors). It also borrowed many more mythical elements from other existing religions. Joseph Smith’s version is newer, and the mythology a bit sloppier, so the average person can conceivably judge the odd parts of its modern context easier. One is star wars and the other is an underfunded filler show on Netflix on its second season in 10 years by comparison. Which one has the better chance of having someone in your life convince you to give it a shot, and disincentivizes you from criticizing it in social settings more?
I hope she’s a good distance runner since there’s no mass transit in much of Utah. It also explains why Japanese internment camps were located there and modern juvenile detention centers can often be found in places like Blanding, Utah: it’s difficult to physically and anonymously escape.
Let’s assume I didn’t know about vaccines and I went to ask for advice to someone. How would I know if what they told me was good advice?
I would ask myself, are they an authority on the subject? Where do they draw the advice from? Who says they are an authority? What did they have to do to earn that authority? Do other authorities say the same?
Are mormons authorities on logic? Why trust advice about logic from someone that doesn’t follow logic?
A liar can say that lying is bad. A killer can say that killing is bad. It just so happens that the advice is good, in spite of who said it.
Yes, it’s emotional to disregard advice you know is good. However it is a logical reaction to have.
It is logical for humans not to trust or accept advice from a hypocrite, even if that advice may be good. It’s not about the advice itself, but about who gives it. That was my point.
Unfortunately humans have emotions, and those emotions factor into our so called “logical decisions”. To ignore our emotions is to pretend we are machines, and machines wouldn’t be in these situations, as a machine wouldn’t give advice it doesn’t follow itself.
Now, if we were machines, sure, if the advice is good, it’s good, doesn’t matter who gives it.
Furthermore, if I already know the advice is good, did I receive advice?
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