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Forums - Politics - Is Mormonism a Cult?

 

Is Mormonism a Cult?

Yes, Mormonism is a dangerous cult! 42 38.18%
 
Yes, Mormonism is a cult,... 32 29.09%
 
No, Mormonism is not a Cu... 30 27.27%
 
I don't know. 4 3.64%
 
Total:108
Player1x3 on 20 June 2012
EdHieron said:
richardhutnik said:
EdHieron said:
richardhutnik said:
Chris Hu said:
In my book all organized religions are cults.

In a general sociological sense, that is true, along with any collective philosophical school of thought, that has followers and common practices that make it unique:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult

Now, if one wants to start saying that the negative associations with the word "cult" apllies to all major religions, that is subject to MUCH debate.


Well, when you look at the history of all major religions in the Western World which is basically the same thing as the history of all major cults in the Western world, there are definite reasons to apply negative associations to them.  How many people did the Catholics and the Protestants kill from the beginning of the Inquisition to the end of the witchcraft craze and today how many people have they denied their rights by playing a major role in trying to stop women from being able to get abortions and by keeping gays from being able to get married?

Considering that Marxism was the single greatest ideology of death during the 20th century, and due to population size, ended up causing more deaths than religions beliefs in other centuries combined, I am not going to say it is religion that did it.  Apparently, there is something that happens when you combine any ideology with government, that causes mass death and other horrors.  This should be expected, since the role of government is to act as collective coersion against its population, for the greater good.

In regards to abortion, the other side, if you want to pay attention, is that abortion takes a human life.  That is the argument.  You go down a big huge long line of arguments involving the meaning of viability and so on.  If you don't want to think or understand this, it looks merely like there is a desire to make life difficult for women.  The desire to block homosexual civil unions comes out of evangelicals who can't even figure out how to get married, so their collective guilt needs to get channeled somewhere.  And I say it this way, because the calling it marriage is part of the reason why it also gets blocked.  Idea is for homosexuals who want the full benefits of marriage, to get those benefits, not to suddenly cause people who think marriage is this, to change their definition of what they think marriage is.  If I had my druthers, I would have everything called marriage today, in civil courts relabelled "Civil Unions" by the way, and leave people calling it marriage on a personal level.

Re:  Marxism Stalin aspired to be an Orthodox Monk and Hitler though not a Communist did profess a devout believe in Catholicism and the Nazi's belt buckles said:  "God with Us", plus they received a great deal of financial support from the Catholics and other Christians.

Well, on its way to being a fully fledged human being an embryo passes through quite a few stages that resemble other animals far more than they resemble anything human, and while in these earlier stages, I think the bulk of scientific evidence would support the contention that it's not a human life at an earlier stage of development.

Catholic church was severely against Hitler's party. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mit_brennender_Sorge



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Player1x3 on 20 June 2012
EdHieron said:
Player1x3 said:
EdHieron said:
Player1x3 said:
Runa216 said:
Jumpin said:
EdHieron said:
Jumpin said:
EdHieron said:

One of the leading US Presidential candidates this year is Mitt Romney.  Romney belongs to a religion whose adherents all practically claim that they are Christians like most of the other citizens in the US; however, there is a significant portion of the population that thinks their religion is quite a bit more mysterious than that, and it has even been stated in some circles that Mormonism is actually a cult.

 

Do you think that Mormonism is a cult?

Asking if "Mormonism is a religion or a cult" is the same as asking "Is Elton John a homosexual or a fag?"

It's just plain impolite disparagement to the group to label them as a cult considering the implication of the labels these days.


Not really, one has to remember that the beliefs of religious groups tend to be on the extreme right wing and there's little ( if any ) scientific evidence to support them.  On the other hand such a question about Elton John would tend to come from someone on the far right like the Mormons which is why they supported Prop 8 and most scientific evidence would indicate that being homosexual is not an abberration of any type; however, staunchly supporting an ideology that has no basis in reality is quite an aberation.  

It's way simpler than that; nothing to do with science or politics. If you call Mormonism a cult instead of a religion, you are insulting them in the same way as you be if you were calling Elton John a fag instead of a homosexual. It's just out of pure ignorance to use either of the insulting terms.

They kind of deserve to be insulted, dude.  They follow unsupported theories and try to push it on people worldwide by harassing us at our homes, being weird and creepy, and borderline aggressive about it.  

If they can't handle the heat, get out of the fire. 

At least homosexuality is a natural thing that's been scientifically proven to be normal in a certain percentage of the population.  Calling Elton John a fag is a hate crime.  Calling a crazy religion (or any religion) a cult is pretty accurate.  


So its accurate because you believe so?


I've listed its characteristics and highly regarded books, etc, that confirm that those are its characteristics, so I would say its accurate because its accurate.  When people believe in things that are patentlt untrue, continue to hold those believes when presented with scholarly evidence of why they're untrue, and attempt to bring others into their ideology, that's cultish behavior.

Now if anyone could present scholarly evidence from the majority of the Biblical Critics and Archaeologists at the highest rated universities that Mormonism is really the one and only true religion as Joseph Smith said it was, I would have to revise my contentions.


I look beyond that and see an organization that has done tremendous amount of good in this world, and whose followers are generally know to be very friendly and helpful


But do you ever look at the fact that its higher-ups want to fulfill Joseph Smith and Bringham Young's goals of overthrowing the United States and setting up a Mormon Theocracy?  And I've had LDS ( not even talking about the kookier offshoots like the FLDS ) tell me that when Jesus comes back they're going to bring back polygamy, and I've heard them say about a woman going to their church that apparently did something they considered to be a sin that she should've been stoned to death.

Why would i bother myself with what some individuals who are in minority are doing/saying, when most people who are in LDS are generally very friendly and helpful people who have done lots of good in this world ?



Player1x3 on 20 June 2012
Aielyn said:
Player1x3 said:

Atheism says higher power couldn't possibly exist based on NO EVIDENCE OR REASON THAT POINTS TOWARDS IT = IRRATIONAL

Theism say higher power most certainly does exist based on NO EVIDENCE OR REASON THAT POINTS TOWARDS IT = IRRATIONAL

Agnosticism says higher power could or couldn't exist, BASED ON LACK OF EVIDENCE OR REASON FOR BOTH IDEAS = RATIONAL

Two points, here.

First of all, there's such a thing as "weak atheism", which is taking the position that a higher power doesn't exist purely due to lack of evidence otherwise. As I like to put it, it's absence of belief rather than belief in the absence. This could be called the scientific form of atheism, which posits that something shouldn't be expected to exist if there is no evidence supporting its existence. Should such evidence (strong enough to be convincing) be found, a "weak atheist" would have no problem accepting the existence.

 

Second of all, there are logical arguments that challenge the idea that a "higher power" of the descriptions given in pretty much every religion could exist. For instance, a common challenge is the challenge to omnipotence - can god create an item that even god cannot destroy? If so, then there is something that god cannot destroy, and thus god is not omnipotent. If not, then there is something that god cannot create, and thus god is not omnipotent.

This second point is best described by the classic argument, "think of the reason why you reject the existence of every other god of every other religion - for the same reason, I reject the existence of yours".

Oh, and it's also possible to rationally be a theist. Subjective evidence in favour of the existence of god is still valid for rational belief. Some people have experiences for which the best explanation that they can find is that it must be a higher power. That this evidence cannot possibly be shared with others in any sort of objective sense is irrelevant to that point.

And agnostics are as capable of being as irrational with their position as anybody else.

ra·tion·al

1. Agreeable to reason; reasonable; sensible

2.having or exercising reason, sound judgment, or good sense

Thus when there is no reason to reject a certain idea (in this case existence of higher being), as well as any evidence that points towards the idea, we can conclude that both Atheism and Theism are irrational because they are both accepting one idea without any reason or logic behind it.

And there are numerous logical arguments that challange the idea of non-existance of higher power as well. One on top of my head would challenge of First Cause -

  1. Every finite and contingent being has a cause.
  2. A causal loop cannot exist.
  3. A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
  4. Therefore, a First Cause (or something that is not an effect) must exist.

According to the argument, the existence of the Universe requires an explanation, and the creation of the Universe by a First Cause, generally assumed to be God, is that explanation.

  1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
  2. The Universe began to exist.
  3. Therefore, the Universe had a cause.

 That cause being God, which is a timeless, infinite, causeless deity that could exist out of this universe

However, this is highly off topic, so i wont debate it here (so don't bother responding to that part). I was just trying to say that there are numerous logical arguments to support both sides.

Dr. William Lane Craig raised some good points on this matter, you can watch the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TmO71e4YUQ

 

 





The Fury on 20 June 2012
Slimebeast said:
The Fury said:
They believe Christ is God (or part of) that makes them Christian and a religion. Whether or not the religion was founded on true principles doesn't change the fact that Mormons follow the teachings of Christ and God, in the Old and New testament, and are within their right to do so. They don't do any harm to anyone (I don't see them standing outside military funerals protesting saying it is God's work that they died), they just have an extra book.

Cults are something else entirely. LDS isn't a cult.

No, Mormons believe that Jesus Christ is a separate god, a distinct individual separate from God the father.

Traditional Christianity (Catholics, Lutherans and Eastern Orthodox) believes in the Trinity, namely that Jesus, God the father and the Holy Spirit are three persons but one being. Traditional Christianity believes there is only one god. Mormons believe in several gods.

And traditional Christianity treats those who don't acknowledge the Trinity as heretics and cults.

Several? After God, Jesus and Holy Spirit there aren't any others. So their understanding is instead of 3 entities but one being, it's 3 beings? They still follow the teachings of Christ more so than other 'christian' faiths even if they have an extra book.

As far as I knew, most faiths treat other faiths as heretics or cults (well as wrong anyway), this is even down to different forms of Christianity.

 



Hmm, pie.

EdHieron on 20 June 2012
Player1x3 said:
EdHieron said:
richardhutnik said:
EdHieron said:
richardhutnik said:
Chris Hu said:
In my book all organized religions are cults.

In a general sociological sense, that is true, along with any collective philosophical school of thought, that has followers and common practices that make it unique:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult

Now, if one wants to start saying that the negative associations with the word "cult" apllies to all major religions, that is subject to MUCH debate.


Well, when you look at the history of all major religions in the Western World which is basically the same thing as the history of all major cults in the Western world, there are definite reasons to apply negative associations to them.  How many people did the Catholics and the Protestants kill from the beginning of the Inquisition to the end of the witchcraft craze and today how many people have they denied their rights by playing a major role in trying to stop women from being able to get abortions and by keeping gays from being able to get married?

Considering that Marxism was the single greatest ideology of death during the 20th century, and due to population size, ended up causing more deaths than religions beliefs in other centuries combined, I am not going to say it is religion that did it.  Apparently, there is something that happens when you combine any ideology with government, that causes mass death and other horrors.  This should be expected, since the role of government is to act as collective coersion against its population, for the greater good.

In regards to abortion, the other side, if you want to pay attention, is that abortion takes a human life.  That is the argument.  You go down a big huge long line of arguments involving the meaning of viability and so on.  If you don't want to think or understand this, it looks merely like there is a desire to make life difficult for women.  The desire to block homosexual civil unions comes out of evangelicals who can't even figure out how to get married, so their collective guilt needs to get channeled somewhere.  And I say it this way, because the calling it marriage is part of the reason why it also gets blocked.  Idea is for homosexuals who want the full benefits of marriage, to get those benefits, not to suddenly cause people who think marriage is this, to change their definition of what they think marriage is.  If I had my druthers, I would have everything called marriage today, in civil courts relabelled "Civil Unions" by the way, and leave people calling it marriage on a personal level.

Re:  Marxism Stalin aspired to be an Orthodox Monk and Hitler though not a Communist did profess a devout believe in Catholicism and the Nazi's belt buckles said:  "God with Us", plus they received a great deal of financial support from the Catholics and other Christians.

Well, on its way to being a fully fledged human being an embryo passes through quite a few stages that resemble other animals far more than they resemble anything human, and while in these earlier stages, I think the bulk of scientific evidence would support the contention that it's not a human life at an earlier stage of development.

Catholic church was severely against Hitler's party. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mit_brennender_Sorge


There is a great deal of evidence to support the contention that the Catholic Church supported the Nazis at various levels:

 



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Aielyn on 20 June 2012
EdHieron said:

There is a great deal of evidence to support the contention that the Catholic Church supported the Nazis at various levels:

As I understand it, the German portion of the Catholic Church strongly supported the Nazis, but the Pope and most of the Catholic Church outside of German was quite against them.

So I think you guys are arguing something that is a matter of perspective, and nothing more. It's kind of like how the Catholic Church in America rejects evolution, even though the pope himself says that the overall Catholic Church considers it to be fact.



EdHieron on 20 June 2012
Aielyn said:
EdHieron said:

There is a great deal of evidence to support the contention that the Catholic Church supported the Nazis at various levels:

As I understand it, the German portion of the Catholic Church strongly supported the Nazis, but the Pope and most of the Catholic Church outside of German was quite against them.

So I think you guys are arguing something that is a matter of perspective, and nothing more. It's kind of like how the Catholic Church in America rejects evolution, even though the pope himself says that the overall Catholic Church considers it to be fact.


Would a church that was strongly against Nazism elect a former Hitler Youth to its top position, and as Hitchens says in the video I posted the Vatican was silent during Hitler's final solution.



EdHieron on 20 June 2012
Player1x3 said:
EdHieron said:
Player1x3 said:
EdHieron said:
Player1x3 said:
Runa216 said:
Jumpin said:
EdHieron said:
Jumpin said:
EdHieron said:

One of the leading US Presidential candidates this year is Mitt Romney.  Romney belongs to a religion whose adherents all practically claim that they are Christians like most of the other citizens in the US; however, there is a significant portion of the population that thinks their religion is quite a bit more mysterious than that, and it has even been stated in some circles that Mormonism is actually a cult.

 

Do you think that Mormonism is a cult?

Asking if "Mormonism is a religion or a cult" is the same as asking "Is Elton John a homosexual or a fag?"

It's just plain impolite disparagement to the group to label them as a cult considering the implication of the labels these days.


Not really, one has to remember that the beliefs of religious groups tend to be on the extreme right wing and there's little ( if any ) scientific evidence to support them.  On the other hand such a question about Elton John would tend to come from someone on the far right like the Mormons which is why they supported Prop 8 and most scientific evidence would indicate that being homosexual is not an abberration of any type; however, staunchly supporting an ideology that has no basis in reality is quite an aberation.  

It's way simpler than that; nothing to do with science or politics. If you call Mormonism a cult instead of a religion, you are insulting them in the same way as you be if you were calling Elton John a fag instead of a homosexual. It's just out of pure ignorance to use either of the insulting terms.

They kind of deserve to be insulted, dude.  They follow unsupported theories and try to push it on people worldwide by harassing us at our homes, being weird and creepy, and borderline aggressive about it.  

If they can't handle the heat, get out of the fire. 

At least homosexuality is a natural thing that's been scientifically proven to be normal in a certain percentage of the population.  Calling Elton John a fag is a hate crime.  Calling a crazy religion (or any religion) a cult is pretty accurate.  


So its accurate because you believe so?


I've listed its characteristics and highly regarded books, etc, that confirm that those are its characteristics, so I would say its accurate because its accurate.  When people believe in things that are patentlt untrue, continue to hold those believes when presented with scholarly evidence of why they're untrue, and attempt to bring others into their ideology, that's cultish behavior.

Now if anyone could present scholarly evidence from the majority of the Biblical Critics and Archaeologists at the highest rated universities that Mormonism is really the one and only true religion as Joseph Smith said it was, I would have to revise my contentions.


I look beyond that and see an organization that has done tremendous amount of good in this world, and whose followers are generally know to be very friendly and helpful


But do you ever look at the fact that its higher-ups want to fulfill Joseph Smith and Bringham Young's goals of overthrowing the United States and setting up a Mormon Theocracy?  And I've had LDS ( not even talking about the kookier offshoots like the FLDS ) tell me that when Jesus comes back they're going to bring back polygamy, and I've heard them say about a woman going to their church that apparently did something they considered to be a sin that she should've been stoned to death.

Why would i bother myself with what some individuals who are in minority are doing/saying, when most people who are in LDS are generally very friendly and helpful people who have done lots of good in this world ?

Because the Mormons themselves believe in them so strongly that they've donated enough money to them to make them one of the wealthiest Mega Cults in the entire world especially in comparison to the number of members of the cult.  Like Jim Jones at Jonestown, all their church leaders have to do is give them a different order than they have now and the majority of them will do something different since that's the way that cults act, and even if that's not the case, the potential danger should be too great to allow anyone to seriously consider voting for Mitt Romney for President especially since Romney's own father George Romney believed in such things as Joseph Smith's White Horse Prophecy which states that it's America's destiny to be a Mormon theocracy.



Slimebeast on 20 June 2012
The Fury said:
Slimebeast said:
The Fury said:
They believe Christ is God (or part of) that makes them Christian and a religion. Whether or not the religion was founded on true principles doesn't change the fact that Mormons follow the teachings of Christ and God, in the Old and New testament, and are within their right to do so. They don't do any harm to anyone (I don't see them standing outside military funerals protesting saying it is God's work that they died), they just have an extra book.

Cults are something else entirely. LDS isn't a cult.

No, Mormons believe that Jesus Christ is a separate god, a distinct individual separate from God the father.

Traditional Christianity (Catholics, Lutherans and Eastern Orthodox) believes in the Trinity, namely that Jesus, God the father and the Holy Spirit are three persons but one being. Traditional Christianity believes there is only one god. Mormons believe in several gods.

And traditional Christianity treats those who don't acknowledge the Trinity as heretics and cults.

Several? After God, Jesus and Holy Spirit there aren't any others. So their understanding is instead of 3 entities but one being, it's 3 beings? They still follow the teachings of Christ more so than other 'christian' faiths even if they have an extra book.

As far as I knew, most faiths treat other faiths as heretics or cults (well as wrong anyway), this is even down to different forms of Christianity.

 

There is still a chism between Catholics and Protestants but in general they still accept each others as Christians (there are exceptions, some Evangelicals believe that Catholics are too far away from the right path to be regarded as righteous, and vice versa. So to be safe they recommend the other denomination to convert to the right path).

Catholics see Protestants as "wandering around in the desert" so to speak, but they acknowledge them as Christians and believe they have a good chance to be saved and accepted by God. And vice versa, Protestants are critical of the Catholic Church but they see them as Christians with a good chance to be saved.

But, neither Catholics or Protestants acknowledge Mormons (or Jehovas Witnesses for that matter. These are the two big cults in the eyes of Catholics and Protestants) as Christians, and they definitely don't acknowledge them as righteous and saved by God.



Aielyn on 20 June 2012
EdHieron said:

Would a church that was strongly against Nazism elect a former Hitler Youth to its top position, and as Hitchens says in the video I posted the Vatican was silent during Hitler's final solution.

The church now isn't the same as the church of the time... but more importantly, as it points out on wikipedia, membership in the hitler youth was required by law for all 14 year old german boys. In other words, it was mandatory, and you're basically saying that no german male who turned 14 during WWII can be considered anything but a Nazi.

As for "Hitchens", I wouldn't consider what an active atheist (meaning, one that is fighting to end religion) says about the Vatican to necessarily be accurate. Indeed, Hitchens is likely referring to what was described in a book called "Hitler's Pope". It's the main source of the claim that Pope Pius XII said nothing against Hitler's actions. But other sources claim quite the opposite, that he was very much opposed to it, and vocally so. Now, I'm not certain either way, but I'm more inclined to tend towards the Pope vocally opposing it, if only because if he had done otherwise, he would have well and truly brought the catholic church into disrepute at the time as a result.

Here's a catholic website article about a book countering Hitler's Pope. I'm not saying it's true, but it's always best to hear both sides of the argument before making a declaration about what you believe to be the truth, and the article seems reasonable and well-written, from what I gleaned from a skim through.

I should note, in case it isn't clear from what I've said before, that I'm very much an atheist. I just like setting facts straight, or pointing out weaknesses in arguments.