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[Atheists & Agnostics] know more about your religion than you!

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  • Cultural Geek GirlCultural Geek Girl Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    I'd say that the study reflects how the different groups tend to form opinions about religion. The atheists and agnostics tend to study and gather information, whereas the religious people tend to get their beliefs from authority figures. Thus if an authority figure hasn't told them that a particular piece of information is important they don't focus on it, whereas the non-religious people tend to read everything and form their own opinions/synthesize their own list of important facts.

    It would be interesting to see this broken down by different religions. Growing up in a liberal church in New England (my church is basically who they show whenever they're doing a piece on gay marriage and want to cut to a hundred+ year old church that has a minister who is performing gay marriages), everyone I knew had usually actually read the bible and made decisions about their beliefs on their own. I was really surprised when I left our little blue-state intellectual bubble and encountered other "Christians" who had never personally read the bible and believed without question whatever their religious authority figures told them.

    This is how you get churches that focus more on stopping gay marriage than helping the poor: they're getting information on what is important not from the book but instead from their established dogma.

    Cultural Geek Girl on
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  • Edith UpwardsEdith Upwards Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    Deebaser wrote: »
    Well, the more deeply you study religion, the more most people go "What the fuck?"

    Example:Most Catholic rituals actually have root in the worship Tammuz, (a Babylonian god), and Mithras(another messiah who predates Christ by six centuries and sacrificed himself on December 25).

    Edith Upwards on
  • nescientistnescientist Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    Elitistb wrote: »
    nstf wrote: »
    Not really much about the bible. And after that people sitting around praying in toungues and eating doughnuts (I'm a fan of boston cream!) followed by a ton of talk about what can be done to restore christian values to American.

    How the hell are they going to restore Christian Values when they themselves don't even know what those values are (because they don't actually understand their own religious affiliation)?

    Christian values (within US politics) is a dogwhistle for gay-hatin' and maaaybe some abortion-hatin' if they have time after all the gay-hatin'. But mostly just gay-hatin', really, what with Roe being more or less settled (with a few backwards states constantly trying to see what they can get away with then getting beaten in the courts) and gay marriage/gay military being imminent things.

    I would be terribly insulted, if I were a Christian, to be smeared with the frankly vile "Christian Values" as espoused by GOP types.

    nescientist on
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    There's also the matter of the results of this survey finding the correlation holds true even after controlling for education.

    True. If you'll look, you'll see that Hispanic Catholics are across the board the worst educated on religious matters. This, despite the fact that Latinos have the most religious saturation as a racial group, with 93% claiming themselves as Christians, with almost the entirety of that number spit 70-20 for Catholicism and Far-Right Evangelism.

    While the more academic questions of origination I won't get into right now, the data does seem to correlate a relationship between educational level, religious identification, and ecumenical knowledge.

    Atomika on
  • OptimusZedOptimusZed Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    Hachface wrote: »
    Leitner wrote: »
    Hachface wrote: »
    This really isn't surprising to me. We know that atheism (and probably also agnosticism) has a positive correlation with education. I am willing to bet that a test of general knowledge in any area is going to show atheists and agnostics (and Jews!) doing very well compared to other faith groups.

    It remains constant even when level of education is taken into account.

    Well how about that.

    I wonder what the order of cause and effect is here. Do people learn about world religions because they atheist or are they atheists because they learned too much about religion?
    This is way, way back, but;

    Most of the predominant cognitive theorist have proposed at least a correlation between critical thinking on a subject and the retention of specific information on that subject.

    And Atheists know more about Christianity than practicing Christians...

    OptimusZed on
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  • Mortal SkyMortal Sky queer punk hedge witchRegistered User regular
    edited September 2010
    As far as I've seen, my personal experience is that Episcopals/Anglicans (exact same church, just a naming convention due to the Revolutionary War and Sottish bishops beginning the American church) and Catholics seem to have the most knowledge out of the average Christians from my experience. Especially the Anglicans and Episcopals. There is a lot of very good and minimally biased (that is, mostly straight facts about the theology without many editorials) literature that I've seen in Sunday school and youth group and theological study over the years.
    I know more about Christian logic than I do about Buddhist logic. I should probably fix this. Fortunately, I live with a monk at the moment. Unfortunately, language barrier. I'm working on it.

    Mortal Sky on
  • Premier kakosPremier kakos Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited September 2010
    Ferrus wrote: »
    The study doesn't even say anything about the educational level of the people involved. So you can only come up with a few simple ad-hoc theses.

    My guess is that a) hardcore christians are often times homeschooled and b) as I said, hispanics and blacks lack education in general. On the other hand atheists and jews are likely from somewhat better-off backgrounds (like the educated middle-class) and thus more knowledgable in general.

    So it isn't education itself but rather the access to decent education.

    Man, RTFA. It DOES say something about the educational level. It says they removed for educational level as a extenuating variable.

    Premier kakos on
  • CorehealerCorehealer The Apothecary The softer edge of the universe.Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    My actual beef isn't with religion. It's insistence on special pleading to protect intellectual dishonesty.

    If there was a religion that was consistent and logical, I'd be in line right now.

    Zen Buddhism.

    Corehealer on
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  • Premier kakosPremier kakos Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited September 2010
    Corehealer wrote: »
    My actual beef isn't with religion. It's insistence on special pleading to protect intellectual dishonesty.

    If there was a religion that was consistent and logical, I'd be in line right now.

    Zen Buddhism.

    Yeah, no.

    Premier kakos on
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    Corehealer wrote: »
    My actual beef isn't with religion. It's insistence on special pleading to protect intellectual dishonesty.

    If there was a religion that was consistent and logical, I'd be in line right now.

    Zen Buddhism.

    I meant one with an appeal to dogmatic ritual and deity worship.

    Atomika on
  • CorehealerCorehealer The Apothecary The softer edge of the universe.Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    Corehealer wrote: »
    My actual beef isn't with religion. It's insistence on special pleading to protect intellectual dishonesty.

    If there was a religion that was consistent and logical, I'd be in line right now.

    Zen Buddhism.

    I meant one with an appeal to dogmatic ritual and deity worship.

    Ahh.

    Corehealer on
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  • Mikey CTSMikey CTS Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    Mikey CTS wrote: »
    KalTorak wrote: »
    But the study says that a lot of people don't even know basic shit about Christianity.

    That's what disturbs me about it. This isn't the kind of study that only people with theological doctorals know. This is layman common knowledge stuff. If it was questions like the problem of evil and free will, I might give a little more leway. But its questions like "Where was Jesus born?"

    I went to Catholic School for 12 years and that one would probably trip me up a bit. I always get a little confused between Nazareth and Bethelham. :P

    speaking personally, I know quite a bit about Catholic traditions and history, and I have at least a respectful non-believer's knowledge in Judaism and Islam, and then to a lesser extent, the eastern religions. I know actually very little about Protestantism. I would have gotten the Jonothon Edwards question wrong almost for sure, unless I was able to scrounge up reading him way back in AP English.

    Is there a stat for how many non-Catholics answered the Eucharist question correctly, for example? Because I'd at least hope to see that Catholics did better than average than non-Catholics on it. I would imagine that people know their own little sphere of religion relatively well, and then know a little about the world around them. I doubt it would surprise anyone to find that there's a strong xenophobic element in America today, which would lower the number of people knowing the Pakistan question, for example.

    The people I know that self-identify as Atheists/Agnostics as opposed to "low religious preference" or however Pew puts it, think a lot about religion, so I'm not surprised that they have a higher knowledge about religion. The same way that partisan Democrats know a lot more about what Republicans are doing in Washington than just a person with a generally liberal outlook on life.

    Edit: Thread took a big turn from where I thought it was going a few pages ago. My own thoughts on the whole "Cafeteria Catholics" is that to be Catholic you have to accept the authority of the Pope in Rome when he makes statements ex cathedra. You can't be a Catholic and disagree with the Immaculate Conception. (Since the Pope has not made a statement on abortion ex cathedra, you could be Catholic and be pro-choice.)

    I had a nun teacher back when I was going through 1st Communion who said something like "If you want to call yourself Catholic, you must take Communion at least twice a year, and go to Confession once a year" but I never heard anyone else repeat that, so she might have been a bit crazy. (Though, for a nun, she was pretty sweet.)

    That's probably because there are conflicting accounts about the birth of Jesus. I don't mean like the Dead Sea Scrolls or anything like that. I mean there's three different accounts right there in the Bible. The generally accepted location is Bethleham, though. That's what all my biblical cartoons back in Montesourri school told me, anyway.

    Yeah, the thread definitely seems to have derailed into a dogpile on Catholicism, which was not my intention. I had hoped to stick to just discussing the survey, but these things take on a life of their own.

    Arguing about whether someone is Catholic or not is largely irrelevant, though. Religion is a personal choice and if someone chooses to self-identify as Catholic or baptist or Scientologist I don't really care if they're actually members of those organizations. Because even if they were memberts they'd still have conflicting interpertations of their texts and things about it they just ignore. Well, okay, maybe not the Scientologists, but you get my point.

    Mikey CTS on
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  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    Corehealer wrote: »
    Corehealer wrote: »
    My actual beef isn't with religion. It's insistence on special pleading to protect intellectual dishonesty.

    If there was a religion that was consistent and logical, I'd be in line right now.

    Zen Buddhism.

    I meant one with an appeal to dogmatic ritual and deity worship.

    Ahh.

    No problem. It's just that no one here (or in mainstream culture, generally) gets into a row over vaguely deist practices of transcendentalism.

    The people looking to argue are the special-pleaders. And people like me, o'course.

    Atomika on
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    Mikey CTS wrote: »
    Arguing about whether someone is Catholic or not is largely irrelevant, though. Religion is a personal choice and if someone chooses to self-identify as Catholic or baptist or Scientologist I don't really care if they're actually members of those organizations. Because even if they were memberts they'd still have conflicting interpertations of their texts and things about it they just ignore. Well, okay, maybe not the Scientologists, but you get my point.

    I think it's important, as that was kind of the whole point of the original survey, right?

    I don't care about conflicting ideology as much as I do inconsistent and ignorant ideology. Someone who self-identifies as something they demonstrably are *not* is probably far more likely to be ignorant of or misunderstand dogmatic instruction, n'est ce pas?


    The only consistent argument that could be made in that context is that the sign of the devout is an ignorance of the source material, which is laughably pitiful. But the survey clearly shows an inverse relationship between understanding of religious writ and likelihood of routine practice. Which should be more ridiculous than people are playing it out to be.

    Atomika on
  • WinkyWinky rRegistered User regular
    edited September 2010
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    Hachface wrote: »
    Leitner wrote: »
    Hachface wrote: »
    This really isn't surprising to me. We know that atheism (and probably also agnosticism) has a positive correlation with education. I am willing to bet that a test of general knowledge in any area is going to show atheists and agnostics (and Jews!) doing very well compared to other faith groups.

    It remains constant even when level of education is taken into account.

    Well how about that.

    I wonder what the order of cause and effect is here. Do people learn about world religions because they atheist or are they atheists because they learned too much about religion?
    This is way, way back, but;

    Most of the predominant cognitive theorist have proposed at least a correlation between critical thinking on a subject and the retention of specific information on that subject.

    And Atheists know more about Christianity than practicing Christians...

    Anecdotally, I myself encountered a sort of snowball effect. I learned one thing that bugged me, then I lost faith which made me research more, and so on so forth. I continue to keep up with my religious education primarily for polemics and to further understand why people believe what they do.

    Winky on
  • JihadJesusJihadJesus Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    Corehealer wrote: »
    My actual beef isn't with religion. It's insistence on special pleading to protect intellectual dishonesty.

    If there was a religion that was consistent and logical, I'd be in line right now.

    Zen Buddhism.

    I meant one with an appeal to dogmatic ritual and deity worship.

    Strike the 'dogmatic' part and Neopaganism come pretty close, if only because you can make it logicially consistent yourself. It's heavy on ritual and oviously pays a ton of lip service to deities, but the people who actually practice it take 'deities' to mean anything from essentially atheistic pantheism to Jungian 'collective unconcious'. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say you can believe basically anything about the nature of God, and express is in basically any ritual way you want, within Neopaganism if you have a desire to do so.

    JihadJesus on
  • Mikey CTSMikey CTS Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    Mikey CTS wrote: »
    Arguing about whether someone is Catholic or not is largely irrelevant, though. Religion is a personal choice and if someone chooses to self-identify as Catholic or baptist or Scientologist I don't really care if they're actually members of those organizations. Because even if they were memberts they'd still have conflicting interpertations of their texts and things about it they just ignore. Well, okay, maybe not the Scientologists, but you get my point.

    I think it's important, as that was kind of the whole point of the original survey, right?

    I don't care about conflicting ideology as much as I do inconsistent and ignorant ideology. Someone who self-identifies as something they demonstrably are *not* is probably far more likely to be ignorant of or misunderstand dogmatic instruction, n'est ce pas?


    The only consistent argument that could be made in that context is that the sign of the devout is an ignorance of the source material, which is laughably pitiful. But the survey clearly shows an inverse relationship between understanding of religious writ and likelihood of routine practice. Which should be more ridiculous than people are playing it out to be.

    I don't dispute that it is ridiculous. I actually agree with you. My argument is that they are going to self-identify with that faith whether they know the dogma or not. They really should know the dogma, but the survey clearly says that they don't. The conclusion I agree with most here is that church is more of a familial, social, and cultural part of people lives. It's pointless to argue about that because they're going to self-identify with their religion regardless of the doctrine they do or do not know. That is what the survey says to me. We already discussed at length that most people just take what they like and discard the rest. Religion has an emotional appeal rather than a contextual one.

    Mikey CTS on
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  • Mikey CTSMikey CTS Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    JihadJesus wrote: »
    Corehealer wrote: »
    My actual beef isn't with religion. It's insistence on special pleading to protect intellectual dishonesty.

    If there was a religion that was consistent and logical, I'd be in line right now.

    Zen Buddhism.

    I meant one with an appeal to dogmatic ritual and deity worship.

    Strike the 'dogmatic' part and Neopaganism come pretty close, if only because you can make it logicially consistent yourself. It's heavy on ritual and oviously pays a ton of lip service to deities, but the people who actually practice it take 'deities' to mean anything from essentially atheistic pantheism to Jungian 'collective unconcious'. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say you can believe basically anything about the nature of God, and express is in basically any ritual way you want, within Neopaganism if you have a desire to do so.

    Except Paganism, including Neopaganism, is both dumb and stupid. Harmless mostly, because it's so decentralized, but so very stupid.

    Mikey CTS on
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  • Loren MichaelLoren Michael Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    There's also the matter of the results of this survey finding the correlation holds true even after controlling for education.

    While the more academic questions of origination I won't get into right now, the data does seem to correlate a relationship between educational level, religious identification, and ecumenical knowledge.

    I don't understand how that statement jives with my observation. Am I missing something or misunderstanding you?

    Loren Michael on
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  • JihadJesusJihadJesus Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    Mikey CTS wrote: »
    JihadJesus wrote: »
    Corehealer wrote: »
    My actual beef isn't with religion. It's insistence on special pleading to protect intellectual dishonesty.

    If there was a religion that was consistent and logical, I'd be in line right now.

    Zen Buddhism.

    I meant one with an appeal to dogmatic ritual and deity worship.

    Strike the 'dogmatic' part and Neopaganism come pretty close, if only because you can make it logicially consistent yourself. It's heavy on ritual and oviously pays a ton of lip service to deities, but the people who actually practice it take 'deities' to mean anything from essentially atheistic pantheism to Jungian 'collective unconcious'. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say you can believe basically anything about the nature of God, and express is in basically any ritual way you want, within Neopaganism if you have a desire to do so.

    Except Paganism, including Neopaganism, is both dumb and stupid. Harmless mostly, because it's so decentralized, but so very stupid.
    I'm not sure what makes a religion that allows for essentially atheistic beliefs more 'very stupid' than dogmatic faiths, but okay. Certainly there are some very stupid and very hippy people that claim it, but there are also very stupid and very intollerant people in more mainstream religions. And personally, I'd take stupid and tollerant over stupid and intollerant any day of the week.

    JihadJesus on
  • HachfaceHachface Not the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking of Dammit, Shepard!Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    What about neopaganism is "atheistic"?

    Hachface on
  • JihadJesusJihadJesus Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    Well alright, pantheistic if you really want to be technical. The point is more that if you're going to get down on people for stupid religious beliefs, I'm not sure paganism really rates - even if you take it at face value it's certainly not any MORE insane than the face 'literal truth' interpretation of something like Christianity, and the inherant lack of dogmatism means that there's no compulsion to take it at face value. Plus, the effect of their wacky ideas tends to be more hippy 'live and let live' and less "burn the gays/Jews/witches".

    This is a gigantic aside though.

    JihadJesus on
  • HachfaceHachface Not the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking of Dammit, Shepard!Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    I agree that neopaganism isn't inherently any sillier than mainstream religions, but but by the same token I don't think it is any more logically consistent. It is just another flavor of mumbo-jumbo, whether its adherents are pantheists or literal polytheists (which some are; as a whole neopaganism is an almost uselessly broad umbrella term).

    Hachface on
  • JihadJesusJihadJesus Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    Hachface wrote: »
    whether its adherents are pantheists or literal polytheists (which some are; as a whole neopaganism is an almost uselessly broad umbrella term).
    This is certainly true - I suppose I should have recognized that. The range of beliefs it supposedly contains makes it not all that useful. I'm not sure how pantheists at least are into 'mumbo jumbo' though - Dawkins for one doesn't see much of a difference between it an atheism with better messaging.

    JihadJesus on
  • Loren MichaelLoren Michael Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    Hachface wrote: »
    I agree that neopaganism isn't inherently any sillier than mainstream religions, but but by the same token I don't think it is any more logically consistent. It is just another flavor of mumbo-jumbo, whether its adherents are pantheists or literal polytheists (which some are; as a whole neopaganism is an almost uselessly broad umbrella term).

    What is logical consistency in the context of a religion?

    Loren Michael on
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  • HachfaceHachface Not the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking of Dammit, Shepard!Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    Hachface wrote: »
    I agree that neopaganism isn't inherently any sillier than mainstream religions, but but by the same token I don't think it is any more logically consistent. It is just another flavor of mumbo-jumbo, whether its adherents are pantheists or literal polytheists (which some are; as a whole neopaganism is an almost uselessly broad umbrella term).

    What is logical consistency in the context of a religion?

    That is an excellent question.

    Hachface on
  • CorehealerCorehealer The Apothecary The softer edge of the universe.Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    Hachface wrote: »
    Hachface wrote: »
    I agree that neopaganism isn't inherently any sillier than mainstream religions, but but by the same token I don't think it is any more logically consistent. It is just another flavor of mumbo-jumbo, whether its adherents are pantheists or literal polytheists (which some are; as a whole neopaganism is an almost uselessly broad umbrella term).

    What is logical consistency in the context of a religion?

    That is an excellent question.

    Corehealer on
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  • Loren MichaelLoren Michael Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    Facebook crowdsourcing gave me "Somewhere between creamy and gooey, with absolutely no lumps." and "Served on a wafer."

    There's a lot of meaning in those statements.

    Loren Michael on
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  • devCharlesdevCharles Gainesville, FLRegistered User regular
    edited September 2010
    I became an atheist as a result of going to a Catholic High School and talking to the Jesuit priests there. One thing they did that I thought was interesting was they told the Biblical stories without any of the flowery language. When you cut through that kind of stuff in the Bible, and you see the amount of sex and violence that abounds in there, it can be a pretty interesting time.

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  • lazegamerlazegamer The magnanimous cyberspaceRegistered User regular
    edited September 2010
    I've been reading a bit of the Jefferson Bible lately which, if you're not familiar, is mostly a collection of Jesus of Nazerath's sayings without the supernatural context. For example, the book ends with
    Jesus not coming out of the tomb after the resurrection.

    I'm only about twenty pages in, but so far it's pretty good. I particularly liked the part where he told some Pharisees who were giving him a hard time about picking food on Saturday to fuck off because the Sabbath was created for man, not the man for the Sabbath.

    Jefferson looked to Jesus as an ordinary philosopher who formulated a quality ethical system to replace the flawed Jewish tradition.

    lazegamer on
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  • Kipling217Kipling217 Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    Don't Mormon have to spend 2 years being a missionary as part of their religion? The guys at least, I have seen them around in my town trying to convert people on the street. Wearing white shirts and ties. They get training before they head out too, don't they.

    I would suggest that spending 2 years arguing your religion with total strangers makes you well versed in religion in general and your own in particular.

    Kipling217 on
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  • devCharlesdevCharles Gainesville, FLRegistered User regular
    edited September 2010
    Unfortunately, Mormonism has the same weaknesses as most Christian faiths that try to add on something extra. I believe there is a passage in the Bible in regards to denying someone that brings a false book into your house, and The Book of Mormon can be considered one as it's not The Bible.

    Mormons helped me out when I was in Japan though, and was lost, so I don't think too poorly of them.

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  • lazegamerlazegamer The magnanimous cyberspaceRegistered User regular
    edited September 2010
    devCharles wrote: »
    Unfortunately, Mormonism has the same weaknesses as most Christian faiths that try to add on something extra. I believe there is a passage in the Bible in regards to denying someone that brings a false book into your house, and The Book of Mormon can be considered one as it's not The Bible.

    Mormons helped me out when I was in Japan though, and was lost, so I don't think too poorly of them.

    Maybe I'm wrong, but that doesn't make much sense to me. Weren't all of the writings in the Bible pretty much set well before they were incorporated into the early Christian canon? It'd be pretty difficult for those writings to reference the Bible in that regard.

    I think the whole baptizing dead people is a bit in poor taste, though I think their motives are good. Also, Mormons are very handy when you want to do some genealogical research.

    lazegamer on
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  • Loren MichaelLoren Michael Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    Mormons are really nice folks.

    Loren Michael on
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  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    devCharles wrote: »
    Unfortunately, Mormonism has the same weaknesses as most Christian faiths that try to add on something extra. I believe there is a passage in the Bible in regards to denying someone that brings a false book into your house, and The Book of Mormon can be considered one as it's not The Bible.

    Mormons helped me out when I was in Japan though, and was lost, so I don't think too poorly of them.

    Did they bite you? Are you infected?

    I think we should quarantine him guys, if we don't he could erupt into an orgy of baking cookies and wanting to play family friendly games with us

    override367 on
  • Raiden333Raiden333 Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    Mormons are really nice folks.

    Mormonism has always confused me, because on one hand you look at the story behind the religion and want to laugh, but then you look at the people and almost feel like there's something there.

    I've never personally met a mormon who I could say isn't an absolutely wonderful person. They're all so damn nice.

    Raiden333 on
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  • lazegamerlazegamer The magnanimous cyberspaceRegistered User regular
    edited September 2010
    Raiden333 wrote: »
    Mormons are really nice folks.

    Mormonism has always confused me, because on one hand you look at the story behind the religion and want to laugh, but then you look at the people and almost feel like there's something there.

    I've never personally met a mormon who I could say isn't an absolutely wonderful person. They're all so damn nice.

    Well, they stopped using artillery on the armed forces of the federal government, so that's an improvement.

    lazegamer on
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  • Raiden333Raiden333 Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    lazegamer wrote: »
    Raiden333 wrote: »
    Mormons are really nice folks.

    Mormonism has always confused me, because on one hand you look at the story behind the religion and want to laugh, but then you look at the people and almost feel like there's something there.

    I've never personally met a mormon who I could say isn't an absolutely wonderful person. They're all so damn nice.

    Well, they stopped using artillery on the armed forces of the federal government, so that's an improvement.

    Listen, I know there are Bad People who are mormons (though I expected someone to bring up polygamists before that), which is why I qualified my statement with "personally met."

    I can't be 100% sure, of course, but I'm guessing I've never met a mormon who fought in that war back in 1838. Just a hunch.

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  • devCharlesdevCharles Gainesville, FLRegistered User regular
    edited September 2010
    lazegamer wrote: »
    Maybe I'm wrong, but that doesn't make much sense to me. Weren't all of the writings in the Bible pretty much set well before they were incorporated into the early Christian canon? It'd be pretty difficult for those writings to reference the Bible in that regard.

    The New Testament refers to the scripture in 2nd Timothy as the word of God. What does Paul mean by the word "scripture" though? Well, it's mostly believed he refers to the Old Testament. This was part of the initial decision in the early Christian church to determine whether or not they would consider themselves really connected to the Jewish faith.

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  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    edited September 2010
    I don't know, I grew up in a heavily Mormon area and the niceness always struck me as incredibly put upon and forced. They were an incredibly exclusive group, and the Mormons who made up our school board had no problem instituting rules based on their social norms.

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