Mormon debunk a fallacy thread

Hey everybody, I'm a Mormon, and there is sure a lot of fallacy in peoples heads about what we believe in, so this is a debunk thread. Ask a question and I'll answer it.

Are Mormons actually nicer than non-Mormons, or is that just a weird perception thing?

Do you have to wear sacred undergarments?

Do you live in Utah?

I thought of a few more, sorry for the double post.

Do you believe in all the tenants, etc of your religion, or just a few?

Have you seen/heard of The Book of Mormon? If so, what are your thoughts on it?

Are you a convert, or have you always been a Mormon? Is your family Mormon?

I heard a while ago that there's a huge Mormon community in Alberta. Do you know if that's true?

Do Mormons believe that sinners or unsaved people will be free from Hell in 10,000 years and enter Purgatory, in preparation to enter Heaven? Don't Mormons believe there are several layers of Hell? Do Mormons believe that the Holy Spirit is present for people in Hell? How important is the Book of Mormon? How important is the Book of Mormon relative to the Bible? Isn't polygamy looked down upon by the Mormons now? I've had Mormons come to me several times, over and over again; sometimes, I couldn't tell them from Jehovah Witnesses.

Do you guys still go by the "no fun rule" thingy? No games, no music, no fun? I knew a mormon briefly and he wasn't allowed to play frisbee with the rest of us. Seemed like such a tortured little bastard. Oh also, do a lot of younger born-in mormons get fed up and run away from home?

Not a mormon, but mormons are awesome.

Refresh my memory, please: Mormons never supported slavery, right? Weren't they forced out of the south for refusing to stop speaking out against it?

@jacthripper: Is there any food you're not allowed to eat?

What's your (personal) opinion of the FLDS? Or whatever they're called these days.

Was that South Park episode accurate?

At least you're not a Jehovah's witness.

What's a mormon?

South Park is never wrong...

Is Blood Atonement still a thing?

Do you accept evolution? (I am asking you personally not weather mormons in general do)

But also do Mormons in general?

Views on people who do not believe in your religion?

Could we get a new Mormon in here? The first one seems unwilling to answer.

Do Mormons ride bikes to reduce pollution?

I am underwhelmed thus far.

OP will surely deliver

Oh snap!

What's up with Mormons and magnets?

@stormdriven: Batman......

I finally got the answer!

We believe that eveyone has a chance to accept the gospel in heaven if they didn't accept it in life. If they don't then they go to hell, but they get nigh-infinite chances for it. The Holy Spirit cannot exist in the prescence of sin. The Book of Mormon is In My Mind an additional scripture, you could be religious without it, but with it, stuff makes a lot more sense. Relativeto the bible, it is equal, because you can't have full knowledge without both. Polygamy has been outlawed by the Church since 1890, the US rule against it was in 1892. If they're wearing suits and have a nametag thatsays elder or sister, they're Mormon

Get to everyone elses questions later got exams now :(

@jacthripper: You really shouldn't have started this thread if you have exams to deal with.

@squares: I had them this morning, I'm done now

It depends on the Mormon, we just tend to grow up in a nicer enviroment, but I know some real jerks who are Mormons

"sacred" is an overexaggeration, we just happen to wear white underwear once we're married. I'm 16 and I don't have to.

Nope, Virginia

I believe in most to all of the rules

It's a joke, it was made by an ex-mormon who also created South Park

Born a Mormon, family is mormon since 1870's, have convert friends.

IDK, I've never been to Alberta. I used to live in North VA and in the region there were almost 2,000 14-18 year old kids. It varies.

Yes, just because it happened doesn't mean there isn't a god.

In general I think they do, unless they werte previously Baptist

Whatever, your choice.

No

Sorry had exams

Depends on what you define as fun. I was encouraged as a younger kid to play with my neighbors, that kids life sucks. As to people leaving a church, people do it if they don't believe, they just don't show up, or if their parents force them to, they don't give a sh!t.

I was just asking, since sometimes people tend to think evolution conflicts with their religion and therefore don't accept it.

Were you born into Mormonism or did you get into it yourself?

How do you know Mormons tend to grow up in a nicer environment?

@mrdecepticonleader:

I was born into it

I think they do, generally it's because their parents aren't divorced, don't drink, smoke, etc. so they can spend more time with their kids.

Have you heard the good word?

lol just kidding. I've got nothing. I'll get out.

Ah so you were indoctrinated from birth, I see.

Ha ha the irony that you set this thread up because supposedly there a alot of misconceptions about Mormonism but here you are generalizing yourself.

@mrdecepticonleader: There are misconceptions, but I can't speak for everyone in the church, there are actually more practicing Mormons than practicing Jews, that's a lot of people.

What does that have to do with the assumption you made?

I'm an unbaptised non-religious person who lived in Heber City, a smallish mountain town in Utah for a few years...1978ish to 1980ish to be only slightly precise. As such I like to correct some odd misconceptions about Mormons from time to time, some of which are at times at odds with random Mormons who deny them for some odd reason. Some of this is also mixes with "small town" misconception stuff.

• Hoo boy but they drink beer like it's going out of style! Though some of this is due to the lower than average allowable alcohol percentage in Utah, they will eagerly devour any out of state beer and when I lived there semi-regular beer run trips were made to Wyoming. This might have changed quite a bit as since then they have passed laws allowing very high alcoholic content to be sold in state (check out the Wasatch Brew Pub in Salt Lake City if you don't believe me) provided it's sold in specialty dealers.
• True they don't tend to smoke or drink too much coffee (this also might have changed a bit with the increase in the coffee culture), but the kids do smoke weed pretty regularly.
• They were friendly enough -- and the girls VERY friendly -- and regularly took steps to openly welcome new folks to the neighborhood in that old school way by inviting them over for dinner. They would do this especially once they became aware that you aren't particularly known or seen at regular events for fear you think they are snubbing you. They were incredibly desperate for anyone who wasn't white and/or from Utah. The more exotic you were, the more excited they were to have you. This might be just a teen thing though but hey...I was a teen then.
• Not sure where the "no fun" perception came from (perhaps confusing the Jehovah's Witness's tendency to not celebrate?), but they were mighty fun and liked to hold a lot of parties and get togethers. At the end of every school year we had a city wide water balloon fight involving car loads of kids trolling around looking for unsuspecting victims and many of the businesses would play along by letting us hide out on their rooftops to bomb incoming pickups full of students. It was very fun.
• Easily half of the brothers taking up missionary positions did so, not out of a strong religious belief, but just because they weren't sure what they were going to do with their lives and really just wanted to leave town and get the heck out of there while they tried to figure it out. Kinda like the old military service path.
• They couldn't cook chili
• Going to church was very much like that scene in 'Footloose' in which a lot of the girls are doing their nails and people here and there are reading books while everyone around them within eyesight read over their shoulder...it's basically pretty chill. It was very much like when I attended Episcopalian services in a private school I went to briefly during the busing scare, except at the end of the service someone from the community is picked to speak their mind to the assemblage. Not sure if they do this in the big cities or not.

I think the no fun thing came from Sundays. They're pretty strict about Sabbath. When I was a kid and my family was still in the Mormon church, I thought that coffee was a kind of alcohol. They're pretty anti it. They don't drink and are even anti "the appearance of evil" ie, you can't drink sparkling cider as it looks similar to wine. They don't drink Coke or any soda with caffeine, either. Going on missions is pushed and expected of young adults. A "Good Mormon teenager" wakes up and goes to a youth group every day of the week before school. My mom used to have to wake up at five or six am as a girl to go, apparently. The Mormons that we knew were very nice people, but expected a lot.

I haven't seen The Book of Mormon, but I did watch the South Park episode about Mormons and the story about Joseph Smith was very accurate.

@sumodaemon: busing scare?

And is the underwear requirement usually enforced?

@bsaa: Forced desegregation busing that took place in the late '60s/early '70s...my parents didn't want it to happen to his kids so for a year or two he put us in a private school.

That underwear thing...as far as I remember it only comes up as a tale that the missionaries tell about how so and so from some church had to move one of those darned blessed undergarments. They wear it when transporting it and eventually said person gets into a bad auto accident in which the only parts of him that are injured are those not covered by the underwear. Other than that I've never heard of a Mormon person mentioning any particular underwear ritual concerning the wearing of a specific type of undergarment.

You folks want some pancakes?

@sumodaemon: holy drawls

What are you views on masturbation?

Gays?

Masturbating gays?

Athiests?

Looney Tunes? Classic Looney Tunes, not modern.

Is this real ... this cannot be a real thread. I grew up in it, amigo, I believed everything about it, but as it turns out, when you get out there on your own, The Latter-Day Saints are firstly a corporation. Members pay ten-percent of their income, every month. The Book of Mormon, as the foundation of Mormonism, rests entirely on this belief--that a small family of white Israelites sailed west across the Atlantic, around the time of the Pharaohs in Egypt, claiming to have settled and populated the entire North American continent--including even a westward migration to Polynesia--prior to the Native Americans. It has been demonstrated this was not the case. America was settled by people trekking east on foot from Asia, tens of thousands of years ago--not by way of little wooden boats from the Middle East a few thousand years ago. I'm sorry to say this, friend, but the gold plates never existed, the Nephites, the Lamanites, the Liahona ... all of it was created by Joseph Smith in New York in the 1830s and collected in trade paperback since then. The South Park episode is painfully accurate. The real history of the church is almost kept in shadow from its members--I hope one day your enthusiasm for the Church leads you to discover this truth. The organization as a whole, is not what it claims to be, no matter how nice the individual Brothers and Sisters are.

Sorry if this post breaks the rules, delete if you'd like ...

Did you serve a mission?

do you think you will become a God some day?

it doesn't matter what you believe ,anyone can be annoying.

I'd imagine would be looked down upon.

Gays are excommunicated.

They say atheists won't go to heaven. Years ago they took the names of dead Jewish people and read their names aloud, baptizing them. They thought they were saving their souls. Luckily, they don't do that anymore.

I have no idea about Looney Tunes. They probably wouldn't like the violence, but Idk. Probably depends on the family, too.

@cable_extreme They don't think they'll become a god someday, they believe you go to heaven. Depending on how good of a person you are, there are different planes of heaven.

No religion. Unless you accept Paladine or Takhisis as being arguably more believable than Moroni (Dragonlance reference, because nerds :) ).

That's the biggest concern with this whole deal, the number of broken families left in its wake. The irony is tragic, that it purports to be about families in eternity ... when the reality here on earth makes you want to cry. At least I do. Hence the escapism with comics, video games, movies (The Winter Soldier was fantastic, by the way, Bucky Barnes could not be a more compelling character :) ). My brother, my sister, and I, consider ourselves survivors of the LDS church ... and if you've ever had your entire world-view turned upside down and evaporated, you might say the same.

The 'becoming a god' thing was absolutely taught to us as kids ... everyone in the ward, all members of the church at that time, were told if you gained entrance to the Celestial Kingdom, at some nebulous point afterward, we would be granted the power of Creation. The God they say is God now, was once a man, just like us, it was said. Although now, I think the Church has since removed that particular benefit. Just as they now say Native Americans are merely among the descendants of the Lamanites--where before, the church claimed they were the principal ancestors. Flip-flopping the facts is the result of an unstable foundation, I say.

My family is still close. The three of us kids are even closer now, with such a powerful binder as 'survival'. That's the only word for it, really. You wouldn't know it unless you went through it ... which I think is why there is such a bond between those of us who have. Us siblings are close with our parents, but in a different way. My parents are divorced yet believe it all, still, and since we both realize neither of us are going to 'save' the other ... we just leave it at that. Which is another Mormon hallmark: sweep it under the rug and everything'll be fine.

@wheatstalker: What convinced you to change religions?

I'm learning a lot from this thread.

My older sister was on a genealogy kick a few years back and although our family is first generation Italian, she was told that the local Mormon church/temple (sorry, I don't know what to call it) would have all the records she could want. And they did. Births, deaths, marriages, it was mostly all there and I am talking about Italian documents, not Canadian. She got to spend hours there, going through fiche machines until she exhausted all trails of our family and it took her back well into the 1800's. And we're not Mormon, just to make that clear. If there was such a thing as Roman Catholic Supreme, my family would fit the bill.

So, my question is this: Do Mormons make it a point to retain as much information about people through a genealogist's point of view? Our family is still so surprised over this. When she asked why (my sister) she was told it was just a library like any other library. And they didn't ask a penny for it, even a donation was flat out not accepted.

Just wondering and no worries if you can't answer this.

@sumodaemon: Pretty good description, only thing I might disagree with is out here, I've had some pretty good chili

@wheatstalker: It is a real thread, just because you don't believe it doesn't make it so. I do happen to read into what other people say about the church, and the start of the whole Lamanite/Nephite story. Also, if you read the BoM fully, it does point out that the first peoples in the America's were not the Nephites, but the Jaredites, who sailed there after the Tower of Babel went down, presumably 10,000 years ago. I do accept that its almost nigh-impossible to accept, but people join te church anyways, not because of the logic of it, but because of the spirit they feel because of it. I'm happy to be Mormon, not because of the knowledge of it, but because without for one, I wouldn't have been born, and two, the sense of peace I get from it. Don't worry, I won't delete your post.

One of the main goals of the church is families being together, and genealogy is one of the best ways for that, as you can know who your family is. The church doesn't accept donations, it's charity.

What's a Mormon

World Definition- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormons

FAQ- http://www.mormon.org/faq