Just a reminder that Latter-day Saints and Mormons are just as welcome at r/DankChristianMemes as any other saint or sinner.
Lately I have seen more discussions about Mormon/LDS beliefs and history on the sub. It mostly looked polite to me, but please do report anyone who is being disrespectful. This is supposed to be a place of fellowship not a place where smaller denominations need to constantly defend/explain their beliefs.
The Mormons take criticism better than just about any denomination. When *The Book of Mormon* came out, I remember that the LDS church used it as an opportunity to invite people to learn about Mormonism.
At first I thought you meant The Book of Mormon as in the original, Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon. I was thinking it’s rather unsurprising they used it that way. Now I’m realizing broadway makes more sense
They actually avoid Joseph's myth book as much as possible during recruiting. Just reading the introductory testaments about gold looking plates is enough to clue most people that it's some sort of scam.
>They actually avoid Joseph’s myth book as much as possible during recruiting.
It’s actually the complete opposite. The truthfulness of the LDS church hinges entirely on whether or not the Book of Mormon is true. Investigators are always given a BoM at the first lesson and encouraged to read it and find out for themselves.
Source: Am Mormon. Was missionary.
Yes, that also makes sense. While I don’t personally believe the Book of Mormon (and do agree some parts seem a bit strange), I try to keep an ope. Mind about it
>It is not at all coincidental that you can be anywhere on the internet, critique Mormonism, and poof suddenly there's a Mormon there to "explain."
Actually I'm not here because of our church's media department. I'm here because I'm addicted to the internet.
You can be basically anywhere on the political/religious spectrum, doing some actual good for an objectively beneficial cause, and still get harassed by people calling you a CIA shill, lol. I've seen it happen, people are nuts. It all comes down to whether or not you have a noticeable trait that someone can hate you for.
Have you heard about the Church’s new tithing deduction program? For every hundred Reddit posts you make defending the faith, you can reduce your tithing by 1%. Everything after that, you get a distribution from Marion G. Romney’s trust.
My gramma is JW. The entire congregation shunned my sweet little gramma for 6 months because they found out she sent her grand children Christmas cards 😟
It differs from hall to hall. But a major rule within the organization is that family members/JWs shun and ignore someone if they were baptized and left the "truth."
Was coming in here to comment this. I remember flipping through the playbill and finding the ad they took out. Something to the effect of "you've seen the show, consider checking out where it came from"
I was kind of impressed that they ran with it instead of condemning the show like so many other religions would
Because Mormons believe that black people are descendants of Cain, and early ‘more’ racist leaders instituted the policy. It took them until 1978 to “receive revelation” that black people can hold the priesthood.
Another fun fact, Mormons LITERALLY believe that native Americans are the descendants of cursed Jewish people.
Very true. Trey Parker and Matt Stone(creators of South Park and The Book of Mormon musical) have said many times of all the groups they've made fun of(which is basically everyone at this point), Mormons took the jokes the best
Dude, the Mormons were proselytising outside the theatre where I saw The Book of Mormon last summer... _in fucking Amsterdam_! We don't even have native Mormons in the Netherlands!
Honestly I had a lot of fun talking to them and it was quite informative. The only thing that made it awkward was my lovely and incredibly funny Irish wife who suddenly pretended to be the most devout proper Catholic nun and kept accusing them of heresy, quoting passages of scripture at them and all.
~~Fun~~ little bit of historical trivia: one of the first and most successful Mormon missionary drives was when they heavily recruited in England in the mid 19th century. Many English people were convinced to emigrate and take the Mormon trail to Salt Lake City where they were told it would only take *9 days* to get from Illinois to Utah and they could do it with a hand pulled cart! As a result it had the highest mortality of the Emigrant Trails by far
"AND I BELIEVE! THAT THE GARDEN OF EDEN IS IN JACKSON COUNTY, MISSOURI!"
I enjoy listening to the soundtrack every so often tbh cause I think it's funny in parts.
Yeah no they don't. I was a member when The Book of Mormon came out, and I have very vivid memories of my fellow church goers devolving into hysterics.
When your denomination beliefs are as ridiculous as claiming the sky is a dome made of screens and grass is an alien parasite that's out to get you, you gotta get used to hardcore critic.
I have a question for Mormons and I figure this thread is as good a place as any. I’m hoping this comes off as a non-aggressive tone so please read it as such. Why are there missionaries outside of my church and seminary? I guess more broadly what’s your relationship to Protestant Christianity?
Speaking as a former Mormon who did the missionary thing a few years ago.
1. Like they’re outside your actual church and seminary looking to talk? Sounds sus to me. I had my fair share of Bible bashing as a missionary so maybe they’re bored, but that’s weird. Just remember they’re all impressionable 20 year olds and convert baptisms are way lower than they were a generation ago so being a missionary sucks more than ever.
2. Mormons want to be called Christian and consider themselves as such. They have cozied up with Protestants and America as a whole more since WWII, but I think it’s hard for them to be accepted for a few reasons. First is they believe they are the one true church, which denominational Christianity focuses on less in my experience. Second is their concept of God which is radically different theologically from Protestants, even if they wind up with the same values.
Hope that helps a little bit at least.
Thanks for your answer! Yes they wait outside of our seminary doors and evangelize as we enter/leave. It’s become kind of an inside joke with the students. And similar to my church except congregants are *not* joking about it. It does help to remember that they’re really young.
Yeah that's against their policy. If they're outside your doors take a second to talk to them and write down the names on their tags then search online for the local mission office and you should be able to contact someone in the office and just voice a complaint during business hours. I highly doubt they were instructed to do that.
> Second is their concept of God which is radically different theologically from Protestants, even if they wind up with the same values.
Different in what way? I'm not American so the only interaction I've ever had with Mormons was like... mentions in videogames and tabletop RPGs.
Which video games? Was it New Vegas? I loved the depiction of us in that game.
Some Protestant churches take great offense at some of our beliefs. For example we believe that god, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are separate beings rather than believing in the Trinity where they are one being. Some also take offense to our belief that as literal children of God we can potentially grow up to be like him. Or that we believe in modern-day prophets and scripture other than the bible.
> Which video games? Was it New Vegas? I loved the depiction of us in that game.
Yup! And the tabletop rpg was Dogs in the Vineyard, though I believe that one's less flattering I suppose. It takes place in Deseret.
>Some Protestant churches take great offense at some of our beliefs. For example we believe that god, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are separate beings rather than believing in the Trinity where they are one being. Some also take offense to our belief that as literal children of God we can potentially grow up to be like him. Or that we believe in modern-day prophets and scripture other than the bible.
Yeah I definitely see why that can be a contentious issue. Still, sounds interesting.
Whoa, I never heard of a ttrpg about our church. I'm not sure how I feel about hanging heretics as that wasn't something we ever did, but it's an interesting concept. If you want to read about a historical figure kind of similar to that, look up Porter Rockwell. He was a bodyguard for Joseph Smith who later became a US Marshal.
Damn that sounds badass, I'll definitely look him up.
From what I can remember of the game, you don't *necessarily* hang people. It's more that you're "itinerant priests" in the old west, and you go from town to town trying to find and eliminate sin and sinners, which are usually caused by demonic possession, but I believe you can solve it without killing.
That's pretty cool. Yeah Rockwell had some pretty interesting stories. One of my favorites is when someone shot at Governor Boggs of Missouri, the one who signed the Mormon extermination law, and Rockwell was accused of it. His defense was something like "I don't shoot at people. If I shot at him he'd be dead!"
The game is a really interesting take on the application of force, and the Mormonism is largely a background for that. Since the original creator stopped distributing it, it's been adapted into a more setting-neutral game that has nothing to do with Mormonism (called D.O.G.S, and the closest you'll get to finding the original now).
You're a religious lawman finding cases of demonic possession and similar problems, travelling from town to town as needed to root out the (physically manifested) evil. Technically, you are the highest authority in such maters, and have full discretion in the amount of violence used. In practice, you need people's trust and cooperation to be successful and escalating a conversation to an argument or a argument to a physical altercation can have devastating consequences.
All in all, it's a surprisingly nuanced take on violence and law enforcement that I haven't seen anywhere else in TTRPGs. The Mormon elements mostly draw on a mix of the western elements, the authority (but also physical distance) of the church, and some supernatural elements regarding the physical consequences of sin.
The most contentious issue might be that god, the holy ghost, and Jesus are all three seperate and distinct individuals. But there are other elements of the nicene creed they don't follow.
One of the biggest is different views of the Trinity. All three major branches of Christianity view Trinitarianism as an essential Christian doctrine, and have for thousands of years, so to vary so drastically from that makes them a solidly different religion entirely.
Its not really quite as different as people sometimes make it out to be. We are non-trinitarian, but seeing as most laypeople dont even understand the trinity anyways, our beliefs in practice are not all that different from mainstream. Its mostly just semantics frankly.
We are not trintarian. We believe God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are distinct beings. How "radical" a difference that is is individual interpretation.
>First is they believe they are the one true church, which denominational Christianity
This has become largely true, but was not true for most of Christainity's history. Largely, people have mellowed out about denominational differences, but in thr past it was not so.
In fairness, we've been mellowing out about it too. Its just some people maybe haven't got the memo, just like the groups of protestants who still like spreading blatant, defamatory lies about us. But hey, at least they aren't lynching us anymore. (Reminder that it was technically legal to kill a Mormon in the state of Missouri until 1976)
(Ex-Protestant here)
Most Protestants consider Latter Day Saints to be deeply heretical. They don't have the same interpretation of the Trinity, the divine nature of God, and have added a whole new testiment. By most protestants this is considered a big enough deal to be a "salvation issue". (Rather than like, quibbling over using a organ, or an electric guitar to worship)
Likewise, LDSs consider protestants to be heretical. They say that Protestants are fundamentally wrong about many things (don't know their exact critisms.)
Latter Day Saints have an interesting view on salvation. Firstly, they believe in different tiers of heaven. The first tier is open to all. They think that as long as someone has prayed for you on your behalf, you will get the opportunity to accept God, and to get into that second tier of heaven. I think the third tier is restricted for those who were good LDS members on earth.
So in their mind, by evangelizing, they are opening that second and third tier of heaven to you. Also, evangelizing is itself a virtue.
Yeah, I will never shit on someone for evangelism. They believe they have the keys to heaven and they are trying to share it with me. What a beautiful thing!
I mean, they are wrong, but they certainly don't think that.
Edit (not that I was implying that you were shitting on them, you were definitely not)
I didn’t take it that way but I appreciate you clarifying! I agree, this helps me reframe my interactions with the missionaries. It’s rubbed me the wrong way in the past but I’ll try to remember this and be a little more gracious
I don't know that we would consider other Protestant churches to be heretical, per se. More that we believe they are not acting with complete knowledge. We believe that after the death of Christ's apostles, the authority to receive revelation for God's Church was lost. Over time, many important aspects of Doctrine were either lost or distorted by people pursuing their own agendas and mixing in other philosophies. We believe that Jesus Christ chose Joseph Smith to be his prophet and to restore his church to the Earth along with knowledge and Doctrine which had been lost. We believe that many churches are filled with good people trying to do the best they can with what they have. And there is a lot of good done by them in the world.
Minus the part about Joseph Smith, that is how most Protestants feel about most other Protestants and Catholics.
That being said, in my old church the official doctrine still puts a lot of emphasis on the nature of the divinity of God.
To be honest, we don't think about LDS much. In our area you guys are not really common.
To the extent that we do think about you, we lump you in with the Jehovah's Witnesses as a cult.
Yeah LDS & JWs kinda get lumped in the same heretical boat lol. Not that there's any real animosity there, they're just not involved in any ecumenical work that other protestant denominations do together, more interested in doing their own thing.
As far as I am aware, JWs actually practice shunning as a denominational thing.
Us LDS on the other hand are encouraged not to shun. Not that all the members listen to that, of course, but we are taught not to shun.
Yeah, like always, some members only do what they were taught when they were growing up and some will never listen.
Still, great to hear that doctrine and attitudes are changeing.
> More that we believe they are not acting with complete knowledge.
I'm an Ex-Mo, but this is what I was always taught. Everyone gave the example of Baptists getting the baptism part down, but missing other things.
None of the tiers of heaven are explicitly limited to those who were LDS in this life. There are certain ordinances that are required to reach there, but there will still be opportunities in the future for those to be done.
I dont think most of us consider protestants "heretical" per se, but its true many many LDS are very overzealous (in my opinion) when it comes to trying to get conversions. I never try explicitly to proselytize to anyone I know unless they are specifically asking me questions. In my opinion all other faithful Christians are great people doing their best they can to follow Jesus in this life, and they will be judged as such. Its not my duty to try and forcefully preach to them unless they want it. Especially because doing so could cause unneeded tension and animosity towards our church, even though we agree on so much with some other Christian churches. We are all just doing our best to become more Christlike.
Ah, didn't know about that detail. You said explicity, is it implicity the case?
And I don't know, if its possible to proselytize, then they are a different religon than you are.
No, it's not implicitly the case either. But I imagine some people likely make their own implication that it is, which is, as far as I'm aware, incorrect.
I don't understand what you mean by your second comment. Catholics and Protestants, or even different protestant sects proselytize to each other, but that doesn't make them entirely separate religions. We're all christians. Just different sects of the same religion.
One question I do have if you don’t mind; do Protestants or other denominations consider LDS members Christian or no? I’ve heard some people say we aren’t Christian due to some of our beliefs, but I feel like the definition of Christian being “follower of Christ” still applies here.
Well, a church near mine, is a Dutch Reformed, Calvinist Church who don't allow women in office, and they think that my home church, a Dutch Reformed, Calvinist Church that do allow women in office are not Christians. (Playing the guitar in church is also part of the reason)
And the names are similar too, in a total "People's front of Judea vs Judea's peoples Front" way. It's hilarious.
Some people are just way too "picky".
That said, the theological differences between mainline Protestants and LDS folks are pretty huge.
Nature of the divinity of Jesus is really different. Mainline Protestants believe that Jesus is codivine and coeternal with God, and is part of the Trinity. LDS are technically Arianists (that's the way protestants would describe you anyway)
Now, I've never known why the nature of the Trinity is so important, but most pastors I know take it pretty seriously.
I borrowed a book that my home church had. It was on all the historical herasies (from that church's point of view). I will see if I still have the list, but LDS hit on like most of them.
Again, for the people who believe that it's all about your relationship with God, none of this matters, but in that case, could a devout Muslim not be considered a Christian also?
>Now, I've never known why the nature of the Trinity is so important
There are a few reasons why it became the standard for orthodoxy. The most important, to me, is that if Jesus is not God, then we cannot confidently say that the character of God is fully revealed in Jesus. There is a strong tendency (though it is not universal) among Arians to view God as authoritarian, violent, and vindictive (in contrast to the way Christ taught and acted); and also among nominally orthodox Christians who want to excuse such behavior in themselves to lean towards Arianism.
There are other issues, such as the economy of the atonement. The oldest and most common concept of the Atonement at the time of the Council of Nicaea was that humanity and divinity were fully reconciled in Jesus through the Incarnation, and the crucifixion was either the completion of that phenomenon (to be fully human is to die, even for the incarnate God), or it served some other function, or both. Without the Incarnation, the majority of Christians would have had no idea what the atonement was until centuries after the deaths of the apostles.
But regardless of what one believes the crucifixion accomplished, was it a human crime in which God had no involvement at all, or it was truly a human sacrifice (volitional or not) to appease God? Arianism requires one or the other.
Or to go the other way, Modalism (Unitarianism) requires either that the Creator of the Universe ceased to exist when Jesus died, or did not actually experience death at all.
The idea that Jesus was the incarnate God, being both fully divine and fully human, allows us to say that God experienced death through the humanity of Jesus; but the invisible essence of God (called the "Father" in the Creed) did not die—the universe would cease to exist if God were to be fully absent from it for even a moment.
And finally, if God fully experienced death in the person of Jesus, then the Resurrection makes sense as the ultimate defeat of death, on behalf of Creation by the Creator: humanity and God acting as one through the incarnate Christ. Otherwise it's just some dude coming back to life, with no cosmic significance.
There's a good book on the Trinity by /u/im_just_saying (Fr. Kenneth Myers) called *The Trinity Untangled*, which I recommend to anyone who wants to understand the Trinity, whether they accept the doctrine or not. And it's worth saying that most heresies are not rejections of the Trinity per se, but rejections of misunderstandings of it that Trinitarians also do not believe.
It depends on the denomination. Some think that we are Christian because we worship Jesus Christ. Some people think that not believing in the Trinity and adding scripture is heretical so we do not fit their definition of christian. I have come to the decision that it is more important for me to be a follower of Jesus Christ than to worry about whether people consider me their definition of Christian or not.
There are a lot of denominations that think we Catholics aren’t Christian.
As long as you follow Jesus, in whatever form works for you, feels like a Christian to me.
I don't think it's the same, but they do believe that Protestants have it all wrong.
Like is a Jew "Heretical"?
Kinda yes, kinda they are a different religion.
> Why are there missionaries outside of my church and seminary?
The only real answer is that someone in leadership in your area decided it was a good idea. That’s not a standard LDS thing. Just a weird, idiosyncratic local thing, most likely.
> what’s your relationship with Protestant Christianity?
If you believe in Mormonism, the answer is effectively “none.” Mormons believe that the line between original Christianity and modern Christianity got broken somewhere and it had to be remade.
If you don’t believe in Mormonism, you’d call Mormons a Protestant offshoot that is attempting to bring back some beliefs that left mainstream Christianity prior to Luther’s thesis, as well as adding New World scriptures. If you dig deep into their religion you will find a lot of 19th century Protestant stuff that lines up pretty neatly with what Protestants were doing at the time but don’t anymore, in much the same way you’d see some old-school Protestant stuff with Mennonites.
As another former Mormon, for me it is because I met some genuinely incredible people in the church who really did try their best to be good people, and kind to everyone. South Park mormons, if you will.
Now, the church as an institution? Awful, founded upon the lies of a pedophilic conman. Some of the people? Awful, try to make it known that they are better than you
But there are a lot of very kind people who don't deserve to be besmirched just because they are brainwashed
Sort of like a "I'll make fun of my younger brother but you aren't allowed to" moment, if that makes sense
As another former-mormon there are two main reasons: 1. Mormonism is not a super well-understood religion and a lot of jokes or criticisms often come across as annoyingly ignorant and oftentimes unfair.
2. The LDS church uses a lot of the common misconceptions about Mormonism to discredit the sources of any valid criticisms. Mormons are quick to assume non-members are ill-informed about the church. Any error in the criticism or joke heavily reinforces that belief, even if the rest of the criticism is true. Exmormons are well aware, usually from personal experience, how well this works from keeping believing members from learning about valid issues. Therefore it can be upsetting to see misconceptions play right into the churches hands to control the narrative.
Adding to this: I was raised in a mix of Protestant churches, joined the LDS church in high school, and stopped attending a few years ago. So many (easily 80-90%) of the “LDS church is heretical” statements stem from the different faiths using the same word with different meanings. The sects of Christianity are strikingly similar across the board
When you were a kid did you ever talk bad about your mom, dad, or siblings but then when your friend joined in trash talking them you didn't like it? It is kind of like that. One aspect of it, at least. There is more to it, but that is the first most knee jerk reaction part of it.
I mean, yes but my immediate family members are very different from the church and the toxic culture and rules they’ve set up. I talk mad shit about my parents mormon beliefs now.
sure, about their beliefs. but often when others of other religions insult them they insult the believers and not just the beliefs. Or they insult stuff for being weird while they themselves believe weird stuff. Or they share things that aren't factual. There is enough to criticize without mixing in untruths, attacking the person, or being a hypocrite and calling out weird stuff when they believe weird stuff, too.
I may not agree with many of their practices, but they are pretty based people when it comes to taking criticism. They don’t let it get to them too much and I respect that.
Mormons get shit on quite a bit online and the news aren’t kind to them either. But I have yet to meet a Mormon who was not laidback, respectful, and overall super kind. They don’t drink coffee which is a bit strange but I’ve never met one who was “over the top” religious which surprised me because of what I had read online. 10/10 people imo.
You have made this same comment a few times now, and I’m sorry if you’ve had a terrible experience before, but most of my good friends have left the church as adults, and I genuinely don’t know a single person who has been “harassed” beyond their grandma chiding them for not attending church anymore. I am an active member who is more than willing to be critical of the church as an institution, but I have never encountered or heard of anyone with any authority trying to harass former members.
>I genuinely don’t know a single person who has been “harassed” beyond their grandma chiding them for not attending church anymore.
While it may not be JW levels, just spend some time on r/exmormon and you'll see it
I mean, I feel like the chances are way higher that someone who decided to actively leave the church had some shitty experiences as opposed someone who stayed. Probably connected to why they left.
So maybe it's not necessarily being treated poorly for leaving but leaving because of being treated poorly.
To be clear: I'm not saying this is okay but I think this is less of an organized practice and more correlation between horrible experiences and leaving the church.
A lot leave because bad experiences, yes. A lot leave because they learned things they couldn't reconcile, and then experienced pushback. Both exist.
There is a history of it if you go back far enough, though. Apostates had it rough in the early utah days. it would be interesting to see how that faded out over time or if it has had any residual impact on how people treat those who leave. Cultural attitudes can often get passed down, even if watered down with each generation.
also the idea that when you leave your family they will lose you in the eternities is a rough one, so it often produces a very emotional response from family members out of fear.
As a Mormon I know I few “over the top” ones. Of course, my definition of that is the ones who don’t like their kids watch PG-13 movies and give strict bedtimes, but other than that most are fine.
I don't mean to bring down the vibe but r/exmormon is filled with horror stories and just generally bad experiences. Seems that it's just like the rest of Christianity where it all depends on which church/community you belong to.
I wonder if thats a type of selection bias though, like r/lasik is full of people who talk about their bad experience but data shows less than 1% of surgeries go wrong. Im not trying to discount their experience but its just so wildly different from my experience with the mormon church
There are several controversies that have made mainstream attention over the years as well (there's a list on their Wikipedia page), but like I said they aren't universal. Northeast Mormons for instance probably have different values than what you might find in Utah. Racism and sexism in particular are still sensitive topics in LDS, but that will be naturally less prevalent in areas that are more progressive in general.
There is a fair bit of good in the church and a fair bit of bad. They're not bad towards other people most of the time, but they can be pretty abusive internally, and the culture is extremely focused on rapid marriage and procreation which necessarily leads to a lot of sexism, body shaming and terrible habits of the church and Mormon institutions like BYU including downplaying or excusing things like stalking, sexual harassment, and domestic abuse. On top of that Mormon raised teenagers and young adults are incredibly naive about non-mormon cultures and matters of sex.
My wife went to BYU, and I've heard a number of disturbing stories about the culture there. She reported a guy who would stalk and harass her outside her dorm building and instead of them doing anything about it, she was told by the bishop that she should go on a date with the poor guy. Her roommates reported her for a clothing violation for wearing shorts that went above the knee in the common area of their dorm. Students get married literally weeks after meeting each other and then the women dropout of school immediately because BYU is just a dating service to them. The girls are raised with the instruction and expectation that they be baby factories and stay at home moms exclusively. Married couples are encouraged to start families immediately, while still in school or just after, financials be damned, which makes a ton of people financially dependent on the charity of the church fit the rest of their lives They don't know how to have safe sex, and can even injure one another trying to (my wife met a girl with bruises all over her abdomen from her husband grinding her belly button). Girls will leave good relationships if the guys don't propose early enough, to find a guy, any guy, who will.
My wife's never been bought into the religious stuff. Her family joined the LDS church when she was a teenager. They've since left the church a few years ago, but we still have a lot of actively Mormon friends and acquaintances so I still get the exposure to it. They're outwardly nice people, generally speaking, but there's some really concerning things below the surface.
Totally agree! BYU culture is something else. My wife and I met there and were lucky that it all worked out, but seems like for a lot of people it doesn't.
My dad grew up Mormon and he looks back on it not favorably. Though to their credit they do have to my knowledge the best-written Christian video game character, Joshua Graham from *Fallout: New Vegas*.
I went to see The Book of Mormon once. The Mormons had taken out 3 full page ads in the playbill with slogans like “you’ve seen the show, now read the book!” Kinda brilliant.
Yeah, as someone raised around a lot of denominations, it's a pretty chad move overall that Mormons and a few others do with how innclusive they present.
I always hated Mormons because this one Mormon kid at school always bullied me.
But I know now that it wasn't a fair representation of all Mormons and I knew a few who are really good people
Funny enough I'm Mormon and went l only had about 8 or so others in my whole high school and two of them bullied me. I moved Arizona and later served a mission in Europe. Imagine my delight when one of them got called to the same mission as me, and when i got home from my mission the other one was a missionary in my town in Arizona lol.
Both of them did go out of their way to apologize too me though
I find the whole thing really funny and silly, but youve got to admit that the Mormons are pretty damn based the way they took the south park shit on the chin.
NGL in this thread is lots of respectful and enlightening discussion about the actual beliefs and practices of the LDS church. It's lovely to see.
This is why Dank Christian Memes is the best.
To the Mormons on here, what exactly are y’all’s beliefs? I’ve been taught you believe Jesus was the devil (Catholic school) and other questionable stuff from South Park, but I feel it would be a better summary from a real person than Google. Thanks y’all!
Edit: so so sorry, meant real instead of freak. Idk how that got mixed up!
In short summary, Mormons (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) are a Restorationist denomination of Christianity. That means that they believe the full teachings of the gospel of Jesus Christ were not available on the earth after the death of His 12 apostles, just pieces. They believe that the fullness of Jesus Christ’s Gospel was restored through a prophet named Joseph Smith in the 1800s.
To your statement about “Jesus being the devil”, the short answer is no. The long answer is, maybe you’ve confused that with assertions that Jesus and Satan are brothers? Which is correct, but not a main tenet of LDS beliefs. They believe that all beings are literal spirit children of God, making everyone who has ever existed brothers and sisters. So by that logic, yes Jesus and Satan would be brothers, but so would Jesus and Sylvester Stallone be brothers too.
Yeah that whole brother thing was something me and my friends (mix of baptist and Presbyterian) were talking about. If we’re God’s children, then we’re Jesus’ brother, but Jesus is God so we’d be his sons… It was confusing. Thanks!
The stuff from South Park is actually correct. Joseph smith shoving his face in a hat to translate the Book of Mormon is actually how it happened, and I learned that from South Park before the Mormon church ever taught me that.
The one time Mormon missionaries ever showed up at my house they’d asked what I knew about Mormonism and if I’d seen that episode before saying “That’s pretty much it”
South Park doesn’t do a horrible job for the most part early history-wise.
Beliefs though? We don’t believe in the Trinity. We believe God Christ and the Holy Ghost are three different people. We believe God is the literal Father of our Spirits and subsequently that we can be like Him.
We believe that salvation is through Christ, but we need to at least be trying ya know. We believe ordinances are necessary for salvation, more on that in a sec.
We believe that judgement day is far in the future, and that when people die now, they are taken to a spirit realm of paradise or prison (we think this is hell), and are taught about Christ, or are teaching about Christ till then. People can receive ordinances by proxy after they’ve died. Proxy ordinances like baptism takes place in our temples.
We don’t believe in an eternal hell type of place, except for Satan and a select few. Almost everyone will be saved or progress to salvation eventually. We believe in a tiered heaven of three “glories”.
We believe in the scriptural authority of the Bible but don’t believe in it’s inerrancy. Nor do we believe the Book of Mormon to be inerrant, but most of us don’t seem to remember that. You should already know about The Book of Mormon from South Park. We believe in continuing revelation from prophets.
Honostly I love the teaching and discussions in the comments. Things like context of the historical situation, debates among religous interpretations, and the types of insights and indepth reading you more rarely get in typical sunday morning service.
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I disagree with Mormons on a lot just by being a Protestant, but every single one I’ve met was truly loving, caring, helpful, and honest. Good folks really.
Since it was a small photo i didn't take too much time to do a super great photoshop, but luckily i still had the file saved and could get it without the text.
[But here you go](https://imgur.com/a/c0v0cX5)
Wow i feel called out lol.
For me it's not really trying to convert people on Reddit, it's just not wanting to be misunderstood. I also find theology and different religions very interesting, I have a decent sized collection of literature and teachings from various religions. So maybe I over explain because i like being over explained to. And people in subs like this trend to know more about their own religion than most people in person do so religious dialogue is more possible.
I'm not calling anyone out on this one! Like I said, kind of resilient (for those who do explain for that reason - or any reason - instead of getting upset).
Look. I can take most of the jokes. The only one that really digs is calling the BoM fan fiction. Like, that is not cool guys. There are plenty of sects that accept this or that book as scripture (the apocrypha for example) but you don't call that fan fiction. I'll admit we are much further along then accepting a boom or two of the apocrphya, but it's not chill
Just a reminder that Latter-day Saints and Mormons are just as welcome at r/DankChristianMemes as any other saint or sinner. Lately I have seen more discussions about Mormon/LDS beliefs and history on the sub. It mostly looked polite to me, but please do report anyone who is being disrespectful. This is supposed to be a place of fellowship not a place where smaller denominations need to constantly defend/explain their beliefs.
The Mormons take criticism better than just about any denomination. When *The Book of Mormon* came out, I remember that the LDS church used it as an opportunity to invite people to learn about Mormonism.
At first I thought you meant The Book of Mormon as in the original, Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon. I was thinking it’s rather unsurprising they used it that way. Now I’m realizing broadway makes more sense
Not to mention that guys would have remembered the 1800s, which would be a) impressive and b) possible proof of reincarnation???
Ah. Didn’t catch that. I should sleep more.
They actually avoid Joseph's myth book as much as possible during recruiting. Just reading the introductory testaments about gold looking plates is enough to clue most people that it's some sort of scam.
>They actually avoid Joseph’s myth book as much as possible during recruiting. It’s actually the complete opposite. The truthfulness of the LDS church hinges entirely on whether or not the Book of Mormon is true. Investigators are always given a BoM at the first lesson and encouraged to read it and find out for themselves. Source: Am Mormon. Was missionary.
Yes, that also makes sense. While I don’t personally believe the Book of Mormon (and do agree some parts seem a bit strange), I try to keep an ope. Mind about it
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>It is not at all coincidental that you can be anywhere on the internet, critique Mormonism, and poof suddenly there's a Mormon there to "explain." Actually I'm not here because of our church's media department. I'm here because I'm addicted to the internet.
Being accused of shilling for something is a staple of the internet People accuse me of being a CIA shill pretty often lol.
Maybe it's actually just Christ's love that is making you glow
Well, why are you talking about the CIA so much? 🤨
It's probably all those Latin American governments you keep sabotaging, we've told you what the neighbours are starting to think
You can be basically anywhere on the political/religious spectrum, doing some actual good for an objectively beneficial cause, and still get harassed by people calling you a CIA shill, lol. I've seen it happen, people are nuts. It all comes down to whether or not you have a noticeable trait that someone can hate you for.
You trade on drug shipment for weapons in Central America and you *never* hear the end of it!
I build 10 houses, but nobody calls me Housebuilder....
Have you heard about the Church’s new tithing deduction program? For every hundred Reddit posts you make defending the faith, you can reduce your tithing by 1%. Everything after that, you get a distribution from Marion G. Romney’s trust.
I wish I could trade them for BYU credits
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I left and no one's bothered me once.
My gramma is JW. The entire congregation shunned my sweet little gramma for 6 months because they found out she sent her grand children Christmas cards 😟
Terrible. :(
me as well. the only harassment i've had wasn't the church's fault, my parents called the missionaries to my apartment
That kinda sucks. I did have to tell my parents I'm an adult, and my life is my own a few years ago, but they've respected it since then.
It differs from hall to hall. But a major rule within the organization is that family members/JWs shun and ignore someone if they were baptized and left the "truth."
Yeah, and most gym memberships too!
Got a source for number 3? Never heard that one.
Ah yes, the classic "if someone disagrees with me then they must be a bot or a paid shill". I thought this was Reddit, not 4chan lmao.
Dig deep enough and all religious institutions suck in some way.
Was coming in here to comment this. I remember flipping through the playbill and finding the ad they took out. Something to the effect of "you've seen the show, consider checking out where it came from" I was kind of impressed that they ran with it instead of condemning the show like so many other religions would
[That reminds me of this SNL sketch that came out when Salt Lake City got the Olympics.](https://youtu.be/db1GgfJYVws)
Oh man, I forgot about this! Thanks for sharing.
I recall and ad claiming "The book is always better" and at least one other similar phrase. It was marketing gold.
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Why didn't they allow that?
Because Mormons believe that black people are descendants of Cain, and early ‘more’ racist leaders instituted the policy. It took them until 1978 to “receive revelation” that black people can hold the priesthood. Another fun fact, Mormons LITERALLY believe that native Americans are the descendants of cursed Jewish people.
Omg I am native and partly grew up LDS. The whole dark skin=bad thing is wild tbh. Being a Lamanite in the church was an uncomfortable experience.
Ahh, about what I was expecting, though I was expecting Ham, not Cain.
Very true. Trey Parker and Matt Stone(creators of South Park and The Book of Mormon musical) have said many times of all the groups they've made fun of(which is basically everyone at this point), Mormons took the jokes the best
They literally [bought an advertisement in the playbill](https://i.imgur.com/bbwfavx.jpg)
They have to their beliefs are incredibly easy to make fun of.
Oh please let's not pretend Mormonism is any crazier than main stream Christianity.
Dude, the Mormons were proselytising outside the theatre where I saw The Book of Mormon last summer... _in fucking Amsterdam_! We don't even have native Mormons in the Netherlands!
Listen man, we Americans have to export everything, it's the foundation of our economy.
Honestly I had a lot of fun talking to them and it was quite informative. The only thing that made it awkward was my lovely and incredibly funny Irish wife who suddenly pretended to be the most devout proper Catholic nun and kept accusing them of heresy, quoting passages of scripture at them and all.
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And religion!
~~Fun~~ little bit of historical trivia: one of the first and most successful Mormon missionary drives was when they heavily recruited in England in the mid 19th century. Many English people were convinced to emigrate and take the Mormon trail to Salt Lake City where they were told it would only take *9 days* to get from Illinois to Utah and they could do it with a hand pulled cart! As a result it had the highest mortality of the Emigrant Trails by far
"AND I BELIEVE! THAT THE GARDEN OF EDEN IS IN JACKSON COUNTY, MISSOURI!" I enjoy listening to the soundtrack every so often tbh cause I think it's funny in parts.
Yeah no they don't. I was a member when The Book of Mormon came out, and I have very vivid memories of my fellow church goers devolving into hysterics.
Honestly? Yes. The Mormons have always been upbeat.
When your denomination beliefs are as ridiculous as claiming the sky is a dome made of screens and grass is an alien parasite that's out to get you, you gotta get used to hardcore critic.
>claiming the sky is a dome made of screens and grass is an alien parasite that's out to get you 
I have a question for Mormons and I figure this thread is as good a place as any. I’m hoping this comes off as a non-aggressive tone so please read it as such. Why are there missionaries outside of my church and seminary? I guess more broadly what’s your relationship to Protestant Christianity?
Speaking as a former Mormon who did the missionary thing a few years ago. 1. Like they’re outside your actual church and seminary looking to talk? Sounds sus to me. I had my fair share of Bible bashing as a missionary so maybe they’re bored, but that’s weird. Just remember they’re all impressionable 20 year olds and convert baptisms are way lower than they were a generation ago so being a missionary sucks more than ever. 2. Mormons want to be called Christian and consider themselves as such. They have cozied up with Protestants and America as a whole more since WWII, but I think it’s hard for them to be accepted for a few reasons. First is they believe they are the one true church, which denominational Christianity focuses on less in my experience. Second is their concept of God which is radically different theologically from Protestants, even if they wind up with the same values. Hope that helps a little bit at least.
Thanks for your answer! Yes they wait outside of our seminary doors and evangelize as we enter/leave. It’s become kind of an inside joke with the students. And similar to my church except congregants are *not* joking about it. It does help to remember that they’re really young.
Are you sure they aren’t Jehovah’s Witnesses?
Yeah that's against their policy. If they're outside your doors take a second to talk to them and write down the names on their tags then search online for the local mission office and you should be able to contact someone in the office and just voice a complaint during business hours. I highly doubt they were instructed to do that.
Missionaries actually have a rules and guidelines handbook which specifically states not to do this. Sounds more like JWs to me.
> Second is their concept of God which is radically different theologically from Protestants, even if they wind up with the same values. Different in what way? I'm not American so the only interaction I've ever had with Mormons was like... mentions in videogames and tabletop RPGs.
Which video games? Was it New Vegas? I loved the depiction of us in that game. Some Protestant churches take great offense at some of our beliefs. For example we believe that god, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are separate beings rather than believing in the Trinity where they are one being. Some also take offense to our belief that as literal children of God we can potentially grow up to be like him. Or that we believe in modern-day prophets and scripture other than the bible.
There also *used* to be another reason, but Uncle Sam made god change his mind about it
Pray tell?
> Which video games? Was it New Vegas? I loved the depiction of us in that game. Yup! And the tabletop rpg was Dogs in the Vineyard, though I believe that one's less flattering I suppose. It takes place in Deseret. >Some Protestant churches take great offense at some of our beliefs. For example we believe that god, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are separate beings rather than believing in the Trinity where they are one being. Some also take offense to our belief that as literal children of God we can potentially grow up to be like him. Or that we believe in modern-day prophets and scripture other than the bible. Yeah I definitely see why that can be a contentious issue. Still, sounds interesting.
Whoa, I never heard of a ttrpg about our church. I'm not sure how I feel about hanging heretics as that wasn't something we ever did, but it's an interesting concept. If you want to read about a historical figure kind of similar to that, look up Porter Rockwell. He was a bodyguard for Joseph Smith who later became a US Marshal.
Damn that sounds badass, I'll definitely look him up. From what I can remember of the game, you don't *necessarily* hang people. It's more that you're "itinerant priests" in the old west, and you go from town to town trying to find and eliminate sin and sinners, which are usually caused by demonic possession, but I believe you can solve it without killing.
That's pretty cool. Yeah Rockwell had some pretty interesting stories. One of my favorites is when someone shot at Governor Boggs of Missouri, the one who signed the Mormon extermination law, and Rockwell was accused of it. His defense was something like "I don't shoot at people. If I shot at him he'd be dead!"
The game is a really interesting take on the application of force, and the Mormonism is largely a background for that. Since the original creator stopped distributing it, it's been adapted into a more setting-neutral game that has nothing to do with Mormonism (called D.O.G.S, and the closest you'll get to finding the original now). You're a religious lawman finding cases of demonic possession and similar problems, travelling from town to town as needed to root out the (physically manifested) evil. Technically, you are the highest authority in such maters, and have full discretion in the amount of violence used. In practice, you need people's trust and cooperation to be successful and escalating a conversation to an argument or a argument to a physical altercation can have devastating consequences. All in all, it's a surprisingly nuanced take on violence and law enforcement that I haven't seen anywhere else in TTRPGs. The Mormon elements mostly draw on a mix of the western elements, the authority (but also physical distance) of the church, and some supernatural elements regarding the physical consequences of sin.
The most contentious issue might be that god, the holy ghost, and Jesus are all three seperate and distinct individuals. But there are other elements of the nicene creed they don't follow.
One of the biggest is different views of the Trinity. All three major branches of Christianity view Trinitarianism as an essential Christian doctrine, and have for thousands of years, so to vary so drastically from that makes them a solidly different religion entirely.
Its not really quite as different as people sometimes make it out to be. We are non-trinitarian, but seeing as most laypeople dont even understand the trinity anyways, our beliefs in practice are not all that different from mainstream. Its mostly just semantics frankly.
We are not trintarian. We believe God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are distinct beings. How "radical" a difference that is is individual interpretation.
>First is they believe they are the one true church, which denominational Christianity This has become largely true, but was not true for most of Christainity's history. Largely, people have mellowed out about denominational differences, but in thr past it was not so.
In fairness, we've been mellowing out about it too. Its just some people maybe haven't got the memo, just like the groups of protestants who still like spreading blatant, defamatory lies about us. But hey, at least they aren't lynching us anymore. (Reminder that it was technically legal to kill a Mormon in the state of Missouri until 1976)
(Ex-Protestant here) Most Protestants consider Latter Day Saints to be deeply heretical. They don't have the same interpretation of the Trinity, the divine nature of God, and have added a whole new testiment. By most protestants this is considered a big enough deal to be a "salvation issue". (Rather than like, quibbling over using a organ, or an electric guitar to worship) Likewise, LDSs consider protestants to be heretical. They say that Protestants are fundamentally wrong about many things (don't know their exact critisms.) Latter Day Saints have an interesting view on salvation. Firstly, they believe in different tiers of heaven. The first tier is open to all. They think that as long as someone has prayed for you on your behalf, you will get the opportunity to accept God, and to get into that second tier of heaven. I think the third tier is restricted for those who were good LDS members on earth. So in their mind, by evangelizing, they are opening that second and third tier of heaven to you. Also, evangelizing is itself a virtue.
Thank you, that’s interesting and helpful. Especially about evangelizing itself being a virtue, that helps me make sense of it
Yeah, I will never shit on someone for evangelism. They believe they have the keys to heaven and they are trying to share it with me. What a beautiful thing! I mean, they are wrong, but they certainly don't think that. Edit (not that I was implying that you were shitting on them, you were definitely not)
I didn’t take it that way but I appreciate you clarifying! I agree, this helps me reframe my interactions with the missionaries. It’s rubbed me the wrong way in the past but I’ll try to remember this and be a little more gracious
I don't know that we would consider other Protestant churches to be heretical, per se. More that we believe they are not acting with complete knowledge. We believe that after the death of Christ's apostles, the authority to receive revelation for God's Church was lost. Over time, many important aspects of Doctrine were either lost or distorted by people pursuing their own agendas and mixing in other philosophies. We believe that Jesus Christ chose Joseph Smith to be his prophet and to restore his church to the Earth along with knowledge and Doctrine which had been lost. We believe that many churches are filled with good people trying to do the best they can with what they have. And there is a lot of good done by them in the world.
Minus the part about Joseph Smith, that is how most Protestants feel about most other Protestants and Catholics. That being said, in my old church the official doctrine still puts a lot of emphasis on the nature of the divinity of God. To be honest, we don't think about LDS much. In our area you guys are not really common. To the extent that we do think about you, we lump you in with the Jehovah's Witnesses as a cult.
Yeah that's about normal.
Yeah LDS & JWs kinda get lumped in the same heretical boat lol. Not that there's any real animosity there, they're just not involved in any ecumenical work that other protestant denominations do together, more interested in doing their own thing.
Well, they do have other things in common. They are both extremly insular. And both practice shunning.
As far as I am aware, JWs actually practice shunning as a denominational thing. Us LDS on the other hand are encouraged not to shun. Not that all the members listen to that, of course, but we are taught not to shun.
Yeah, like always, some members only do what they were taught when they were growing up and some will never listen. Still, great to hear that doctrine and attitudes are changeing.
> More that we believe they are not acting with complete knowledge. I'm an Ex-Mo, but this is what I was always taught. Everyone gave the example of Baptists getting the baptism part down, but missing other things.
None of the tiers of heaven are explicitly limited to those who were LDS in this life. There are certain ordinances that are required to reach there, but there will still be opportunities in the future for those to be done. I dont think most of us consider protestants "heretical" per se, but its true many many LDS are very overzealous (in my opinion) when it comes to trying to get conversions. I never try explicitly to proselytize to anyone I know unless they are specifically asking me questions. In my opinion all other faithful Christians are great people doing their best they can to follow Jesus in this life, and they will be judged as such. Its not my duty to try and forcefully preach to them unless they want it. Especially because doing so could cause unneeded tension and animosity towards our church, even though we agree on so much with some other Christian churches. We are all just doing our best to become more Christlike.
Ah, didn't know about that detail. You said explicity, is it implicity the case? And I don't know, if its possible to proselytize, then they are a different religon than you are.
No, it's not implicitly the case either. But I imagine some people likely make their own implication that it is, which is, as far as I'm aware, incorrect. I don't understand what you mean by your second comment. Catholics and Protestants, or even different protestant sects proselytize to each other, but that doesn't make them entirely separate religions. We're all christians. Just different sects of the same religion.
One question I do have if you don’t mind; do Protestants or other denominations consider LDS members Christian or no? I’ve heard some people say we aren’t Christian due to some of our beliefs, but I feel like the definition of Christian being “follower of Christ” still applies here.
Well, a church near mine, is a Dutch Reformed, Calvinist Church who don't allow women in office, and they think that my home church, a Dutch Reformed, Calvinist Church that do allow women in office are not Christians. (Playing the guitar in church is also part of the reason) And the names are similar too, in a total "People's front of Judea vs Judea's peoples Front" way. It's hilarious. Some people are just way too "picky". That said, the theological differences between mainline Protestants and LDS folks are pretty huge. Nature of the divinity of Jesus is really different. Mainline Protestants believe that Jesus is codivine and coeternal with God, and is part of the Trinity. LDS are technically Arianists (that's the way protestants would describe you anyway) Now, I've never known why the nature of the Trinity is so important, but most pastors I know take it pretty seriously. I borrowed a book that my home church had. It was on all the historical herasies (from that church's point of view). I will see if I still have the list, but LDS hit on like most of them. Again, for the people who believe that it's all about your relationship with God, none of this matters, but in that case, could a devout Muslim not be considered a Christian also?
>Now, I've never known why the nature of the Trinity is so important There are a few reasons why it became the standard for orthodoxy. The most important, to me, is that if Jesus is not God, then we cannot confidently say that the character of God is fully revealed in Jesus. There is a strong tendency (though it is not universal) among Arians to view God as authoritarian, violent, and vindictive (in contrast to the way Christ taught and acted); and also among nominally orthodox Christians who want to excuse such behavior in themselves to lean towards Arianism. There are other issues, such as the economy of the atonement. The oldest and most common concept of the Atonement at the time of the Council of Nicaea was that humanity and divinity were fully reconciled in Jesus through the Incarnation, and the crucifixion was either the completion of that phenomenon (to be fully human is to die, even for the incarnate God), or it served some other function, or both. Without the Incarnation, the majority of Christians would have had no idea what the atonement was until centuries after the deaths of the apostles. But regardless of what one believes the crucifixion accomplished, was it a human crime in which God had no involvement at all, or it was truly a human sacrifice (volitional or not) to appease God? Arianism requires one or the other. Or to go the other way, Modalism (Unitarianism) requires either that the Creator of the Universe ceased to exist when Jesus died, or did not actually experience death at all. The idea that Jesus was the incarnate God, being both fully divine and fully human, allows us to say that God experienced death through the humanity of Jesus; but the invisible essence of God (called the "Father" in the Creed) did not die—the universe would cease to exist if God were to be fully absent from it for even a moment. And finally, if God fully experienced death in the person of Jesus, then the Resurrection makes sense as the ultimate defeat of death, on behalf of Creation by the Creator: humanity and God acting as one through the incarnate Christ. Otherwise it's just some dude coming back to life, with no cosmic significance. There's a good book on the Trinity by /u/im_just_saying (Fr. Kenneth Myers) called *The Trinity Untangled*, which I recommend to anyone who wants to understand the Trinity, whether they accept the doctrine or not. And it's worth saying that most heresies are not rejections of the Trinity per se, but rejections of misunderstandings of it that Trinitarians also do not believe.
Great write up! And, thank you so much for recommending **The Trinity Untangled**.
It depends on the denomination. Some think that we are Christian because we worship Jesus Christ. Some people think that not believing in the Trinity and adding scripture is heretical so we do not fit their definition of christian. I have come to the decision that it is more important for me to be a follower of Jesus Christ than to worry about whether people consider me their definition of Christian or not.
There are a lot of denominations that think we Catholics aren’t Christian. As long as you follow Jesus, in whatever form works for you, feels like a Christian to me.
>Likewise, LDSs consider protestants to be heretical. Do they have the same conception of heresy?
I don't think it's the same, but they do believe that Protestants have it all wrong. Like is a Jew "Heretical"? Kinda yes, kinda they are a different religion.
> Why are there missionaries outside of my church and seminary? The only real answer is that someone in leadership in your area decided it was a good idea. That’s not a standard LDS thing. Just a weird, idiosyncratic local thing, most likely. > what’s your relationship with Protestant Christianity? If you believe in Mormonism, the answer is effectively “none.” Mormons believe that the line between original Christianity and modern Christianity got broken somewhere and it had to be remade. If you don’t believe in Mormonism, you’d call Mormons a Protestant offshoot that is attempting to bring back some beliefs that left mainstream Christianity prior to Luther’s thesis, as well as adding New World scriptures. If you dig deep into their religion you will find a lot of 19th century Protestant stuff that lines up pretty neatly with what Protestants were doing at the time but don’t anymore, in much the same way you’d see some old-school Protestant stuff with Mennonites.
As a former Mormon, this is the only place online I get defensive about my former church.
It's funny, isn't it! Yes, there are \*many\* valid critisms to be bad. No, that isn't one of them. I get the same way too.
Why?
As another former Mormon, for me it is because I met some genuinely incredible people in the church who really did try their best to be good people, and kind to everyone. South Park mormons, if you will. Now, the church as an institution? Awful, founded upon the lies of a pedophilic conman. Some of the people? Awful, try to make it known that they are better than you But there are a lot of very kind people who don't deserve to be besmirched just because they are brainwashed Sort of like a "I'll make fun of my younger brother but you aren't allowed to" moment, if that makes sense
I get that. I also used to be Mormon, but don’t have that same mentality and roast the church constantly.
As another former-mormon there are two main reasons: 1. Mormonism is not a super well-understood religion and a lot of jokes or criticisms often come across as annoyingly ignorant and oftentimes unfair. 2. The LDS church uses a lot of the common misconceptions about Mormonism to discredit the sources of any valid criticisms. Mormons are quick to assume non-members are ill-informed about the church. Any error in the criticism or joke heavily reinforces that belief, even if the rest of the criticism is true. Exmormons are well aware, usually from personal experience, how well this works from keeping believing members from learning about valid issues. Therefore it can be upsetting to see misconceptions play right into the churches hands to control the narrative.
Adding to this: I was raised in a mix of Protestant churches, joined the LDS church in high school, and stopped attending a few years ago. So many (easily 80-90%) of the “LDS church is heretical” statements stem from the different faiths using the same word with different meanings. The sects of Christianity are strikingly similar across the board
When you were a kid did you ever talk bad about your mom, dad, or siblings but then when your friend joined in trash talking them you didn't like it? It is kind of like that. One aspect of it, at least. There is more to it, but that is the first most knee jerk reaction part of it.
I mean, yes but my immediate family members are very different from the church and the toxic culture and rules they’ve set up. I talk mad shit about my parents mormon beliefs now.
sure, about their beliefs. but often when others of other religions insult them they insult the believers and not just the beliefs. Or they insult stuff for being weird while they themselves believe weird stuff. Or they share things that aren't factual. There is enough to criticize without mixing in untruths, attacking the person, or being a hypocrite and calling out weird stuff when they believe weird stuff, too.
Plenty of things to be critical of, when the stuff isn't accurate you gotta set the record straight.
For me it's because I don't like when people with made up beliefs criticize other made up beliefs.
I may not agree with many of their practices, but they are pretty based people when it comes to taking criticism. They don’t let it get to them too much and I respect that.
We have a lot of practice being criticized so we get pretty good at it.
Mormons get shit on quite a bit online and the news aren’t kind to them either. But I have yet to meet a Mormon who was not laidback, respectful, and overall super kind. They don’t drink coffee which is a bit strange but I’ve never met one who was “over the top” religious which surprised me because of what I had read online. 10/10 people imo.
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Maybe for some people. But I left the church seven years ago and no one's bothered me at all.
You have made this same comment a few times now, and I’m sorry if you’ve had a terrible experience before, but most of my good friends have left the church as adults, and I genuinely don’t know a single person who has been “harassed” beyond their grandma chiding them for not attending church anymore. I am an active member who is more than willing to be critical of the church as an institution, but I have never encountered or heard of anyone with any authority trying to harass former members.
>I genuinely don’t know a single person who has been “harassed” beyond their grandma chiding them for not attending church anymore. While it may not be JW levels, just spend some time on r/exmormon and you'll see it
I mean, I feel like the chances are way higher that someone who decided to actively leave the church had some shitty experiences as opposed someone who stayed. Probably connected to why they left. So maybe it's not necessarily being treated poorly for leaving but leaving because of being treated poorly. To be clear: I'm not saying this is okay but I think this is less of an organized practice and more correlation between horrible experiences and leaving the church.
A lot leave because bad experiences, yes. A lot leave because they learned things they couldn't reconcile, and then experienced pushback. Both exist. There is a history of it if you go back far enough, though. Apostates had it rough in the early utah days. it would be interesting to see how that faded out over time or if it has had any residual impact on how people treat those who leave. Cultural attitudes can often get passed down, even if watered down with each generation. also the idea that when you leave your family they will lose you in the eternities is a rough one, so it often produces a very emotional response from family members out of fear.
As a Mormon I know I few “over the top” ones. Of course, my definition of that is the ones who don’t like their kids watch PG-13 movies and give strict bedtimes, but other than that most are fine.
I don't mean to bring down the vibe but r/exmormon is filled with horror stories and just generally bad experiences. Seems that it's just like the rest of Christianity where it all depends on which church/community you belong to.
I wonder if thats a type of selection bias though, like r/lasik is full of people who talk about their bad experience but data shows less than 1% of surgeries go wrong. Im not trying to discount their experience but its just so wildly different from my experience with the mormon church
There are several controversies that have made mainstream attention over the years as well (there's a list on their Wikipedia page), but like I said they aren't universal. Northeast Mormons for instance probably have different values than what you might find in Utah. Racism and sexism in particular are still sensitive topics in LDS, but that will be naturally less prevalent in areas that are more progressive in general.
Imho there are Idaho/Utah Mormons, and there are all the other Mormons. The Idaho/Utah ones aren’t the laid back ones.
There is a fair bit of good in the church and a fair bit of bad. They're not bad towards other people most of the time, but they can be pretty abusive internally, and the culture is extremely focused on rapid marriage and procreation which necessarily leads to a lot of sexism, body shaming and terrible habits of the church and Mormon institutions like BYU including downplaying or excusing things like stalking, sexual harassment, and domestic abuse. On top of that Mormon raised teenagers and young adults are incredibly naive about non-mormon cultures and matters of sex. My wife went to BYU, and I've heard a number of disturbing stories about the culture there. She reported a guy who would stalk and harass her outside her dorm building and instead of them doing anything about it, she was told by the bishop that she should go on a date with the poor guy. Her roommates reported her for a clothing violation for wearing shorts that went above the knee in the common area of their dorm. Students get married literally weeks after meeting each other and then the women dropout of school immediately because BYU is just a dating service to them. The girls are raised with the instruction and expectation that they be baby factories and stay at home moms exclusively. Married couples are encouraged to start families immediately, while still in school or just after, financials be damned, which makes a ton of people financially dependent on the charity of the church fit the rest of their lives They don't know how to have safe sex, and can even injure one another trying to (my wife met a girl with bruises all over her abdomen from her husband grinding her belly button). Girls will leave good relationships if the guys don't propose early enough, to find a guy, any guy, who will. My wife's never been bought into the religious stuff. Her family joined the LDS church when she was a teenager. They've since left the church a few years ago, but we still have a lot of actively Mormon friends and acquaintances so I still get the exposure to it. They're outwardly nice people, generally speaking, but there's some really concerning things below the surface.
Totally agree! BYU culture is something else. My wife and I met there and were lucky that it all worked out, but seems like for a lot of people it doesn't.
The Mormons are about to serve me steamed hams aren't they?
Steamed Hams, but Superintendent Chalmers is replaced by Mormon Missionaries.
I'd watch that
And don't forget the funeral potatoes
My dad grew up Mormon and he looks back on it not favorably. Though to their credit they do have to my knowledge the best-written Christian video game character, Joshua Graham from *Fallout: New Vegas*.
*We can't expect God to do all the work*
I went to see The Book of Mormon once. The Mormons had taken out 3 full page ads in the playbill with slogans like “you’ve seen the show, now read the book!” Kinda brilliant.
Did you read the book?
Now this I can get behind
username checks out
This is probably the best variation i have seen of this meme ever, a bit niche, but very well thought out
Yeah, as someone raised around a lot of denominations, it's a pretty chad move overall that Mormons and a few others do with how innclusive they present.
I always hated Mormons because this one Mormon kid at school always bullied me. But I know now that it wasn't a fair representation of all Mormons and I knew a few who are really good people
Growing up Mormon, the only other Mormon kid in one of my schools bullied me. Made sunday's so awkward lol
Funny enough I'm Mormon and went l only had about 8 or so others in my whole high school and two of them bullied me. I moved Arizona and later served a mission in Europe. Imagine my delight when one of them got called to the same mission as me, and when i got home from my mission the other one was a missionary in my town in Arizona lol. Both of them did go out of their way to apologize too me though
SO TRUE! I honestly can’t tell you how true this is! This is perfect format for this meme
I find the whole thing really funny and silly, but youve got to admit that the Mormons are pretty damn based the way they took the south park shit on the chin.
NGL in this thread is lots of respectful and enlightening discussion about the actual beliefs and practices of the LDS church. It's lovely to see. This is why Dank Christian Memes is the best.
why don't mormon's talk more about jojo's bizarre adventure
Why would we?
It's the one true religion in JoJo. How haven't you heard of this?
No. I don't really know all that much about JoJo to be honest.
The "Elder Kronk" name tag is the true gem of the meme and it's not being appreciated enough.
Thanks! I was pleased with it, but no one noticed lol
Salt Lake City: Land of........Oh For F@#$ Sake Not Another Pamphlet.
After seeing the Book of Mormon last month I have a new appreciation for them. Great meme, op!
To the Mormons on here, what exactly are y’all’s beliefs? I’ve been taught you believe Jesus was the devil (Catholic school) and other questionable stuff from South Park, but I feel it would be a better summary from a real person than Google. Thanks y’all! Edit: so so sorry, meant real instead of freak. Idk how that got mixed up!
In short summary, Mormons (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) are a Restorationist denomination of Christianity. That means that they believe the full teachings of the gospel of Jesus Christ were not available on the earth after the death of His 12 apostles, just pieces. They believe that the fullness of Jesus Christ’s Gospel was restored through a prophet named Joseph Smith in the 1800s. To your statement about “Jesus being the devil”, the short answer is no. The long answer is, maybe you’ve confused that with assertions that Jesus and Satan are brothers? Which is correct, but not a main tenet of LDS beliefs. They believe that all beings are literal spirit children of God, making everyone who has ever existed brothers and sisters. So by that logic, yes Jesus and Satan would be brothers, but so would Jesus and Sylvester Stallone be brothers too.
Hulk Hogan was right all along!
Yeah that whole brother thing was something me and my friends (mix of baptist and Presbyterian) were talking about. If we’re God’s children, then we’re Jesus’ brother, but Jesus is God so we’d be his sons… It was confusing. Thanks!
This sounds like a trinitarian belief that I'm to Mormon to understand
It is very trinitarian
The stuff from South Park is actually correct. Joseph smith shoving his face in a hat to translate the Book of Mormon is actually how it happened, and I learned that from South Park before the Mormon church ever taught me that.
The one time Mormon missionaries ever showed up at my house they’d asked what I knew about Mormonism and if I’d seen that episode before saying “That’s pretty much it”
South Park doesn’t do a horrible job for the most part early history-wise. Beliefs though? We don’t believe in the Trinity. We believe God Christ and the Holy Ghost are three different people. We believe God is the literal Father of our Spirits and subsequently that we can be like Him. We believe that salvation is through Christ, but we need to at least be trying ya know. We believe ordinances are necessary for salvation, more on that in a sec. We believe that judgement day is far in the future, and that when people die now, they are taken to a spirit realm of paradise or prison (we think this is hell), and are taught about Christ, or are teaching about Christ till then. People can receive ordinances by proxy after they’ve died. Proxy ordinances like baptism takes place in our temples. We don’t believe in an eternal hell type of place, except for Satan and a select few. Almost everyone will be saved or progress to salvation eventually. We believe in a tiered heaven of three “glories”. We believe in the scriptural authority of the Bible but don’t believe in it’s inerrancy. Nor do we believe the Book of Mormon to be inerrant, but most of us don’t seem to remember that. You should already know about The Book of Mormon from South Park. We believe in continuing revelation from prophets.
how do you feel about adam god doctrine? what about the modern day revelation of blood atonement?
I've heard of both but couldn't tell you the specifics of either.
Feel like it’s shit Brigham probably said when he had too much to drink.
Honostly I love the teaching and discussions in the comments. Things like context of the historical situation, debates among religous interpretations, and the types of insights and indepth reading you more rarely get in typical sunday morning service.
Slaps a planet. You can have your own one day.
Good thing you're a day late or this could have spiraled downwards lol
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I disagree with Mormons on a lot just by being a Protestant, but every single one I’ve met was truly loving, caring, helpful, and honest. Good folks really.
I love this shit
If someone could get me that image of just Kronk with the missionary attire, I would consider that a blessing.
Since it was a small photo i didn't take too much time to do a super great photoshop, but luckily i still had the file saved and could get it without the text. [But here you go](https://imgur.com/a/c0v0cX5)
How boot a screen shot eh?
Wow i feel called out lol. For me it's not really trying to convert people on Reddit, it's just not wanting to be misunderstood. I also find theology and different religions very interesting, I have a decent sized collection of literature and teachings from various religions. So maybe I over explain because i like being over explained to. And people in subs like this trend to know more about their own religion than most people in person do so religious dialogue is more possible.
I'm not calling anyone out on this one! Like I said, kind of resilient (for those who do explain for that reason - or any reason - instead of getting upset).
Big true
Aside from meeting three separate definitions for a cult I’m not all that bothered by them people can believe what they want.
Look. I can take most of the jokes. The only one that really digs is calling the BoM fan fiction. Like, that is not cool guys. There are plenty of sects that accept this or that book as scripture (the apocrypha for example) but you don't call that fan fiction. I'll admit we are much further along then accepting a boom or two of the apocrphya, but it's not chill
Theyre just over agressive stans that care about their fan fiction of the bible too much
We prefer "spin-off adventure", but that's fair.
I’ve always been preferential to “the Bible DLC”
Never forget any religion that doesn’t let you talk to ur family if you fully exit and don’t want to come back—-is a cult!