|
Post by schizophonic on Mar 20, 2009 15:37:55 GMT -5
] Which are you attacking? The book changing or the reason the book changed? I'm pointing out that just attacking the book for changing is as valid as attacking Science for it's books changing. See the difference? Except Science is not professed to be the inerrant Word of God. Sicence is not professed to be inerrant by its general base of "followers." Your analogy sounds good, superficially, but falls apart with any real thought. Again, you're trying to reinforce a contradiction based on one thing "you've seen," as though that is some sort of general rule or truth. That's a bad way to argue things, especially since we have only your word on the context of this specific comment. And artificially bolstering it. I mean, finding one person who disagrees with my statement, and it was my statement, doesn't prove a trend of hypocrisy. Saying "well, HE did it," with no proof or context for us to determine, is also specifically bad. 3...2...1 Houston, we have strawman. Seriously, Death explained herself well here, and there was no reason to make that statement.
|
|
|
Post by skyfire on Mar 20, 2009 15:52:46 GMT -5
Watched the South Park vid.
The original episode got things about 80% correct, and had Parker & Stone dug a little deeper and had a little more of an open mind the percentage might have been a little higher.
As for their commentary? The incessant giggling just got on my nerves; it's like they had a few beers before recording it and so thought their remarks were funnier than what they really were.
I'll get to the other clips in due time.
|
|
|
Post by schizophonic on Mar 20, 2009 15:58:17 GMT -5
The lay belief is that many "hot" drinks contain chemicals and other items that, when taken in the quantities the items are often consumed, can do a number on the body. You mean like, say, caffeine. I'm confused. If a glass or two a day is fine, why is tea outright banned? You then go on to offer that So why isn't chocolate outright banned? For that matter, since the caffeine in cola, combined with the other items (for example, the acid damages teeth and even your bones, potentially; asparatame is borderline toxic, so diet sodas are even worse), can do a number on your system.... Caffeine is addictive, potentially harmful, and present in soda. So why is tea, which can be fine in moderation, any worse than soda or chocolate? So...Kinda like caffeine. Is caffeine only okay because it's less harmful? If so, I go back to tea. And Coffee. Also, why do you think the Church is so hesitant to rule on this? I don't smoke. I don't do drugs. I try and avoid caffeine, though it's not always completely possible. I try and treat my body well, though not because some arbitrary rules were cast upon me. That doesn't change the fact that there are many substances of which that could be said, and only tobacco is explicitly off-limits of them. What if they were to become legal? Could you do weed if it was made legal, for example? What do you think? That's like asking "Conspiracy theory sites or non-conspiracy theory sites?" It's not an attack, it's a reasoned systematic evaluation. Scripture shouldn't get special treatment. If anything doesn't pass it gets rejected, religious or not. As would any scientific change that was done in the fashion many religions change their scriptures. In fact, if we were to accept changes in scientific doctrine without criticism, science would be pretty much worthless. I suppose that's why scientists don't elect a single ruling party to dictate scientific doctrine. So if a church makes changes in teaching/doctrine/text that makes it less offensive or back-words they should not be given any credit for that, just because some of there other teachings ect. are still back-words? Sounds like another strawman. Do you actually believe this to be what's being argued?
|
|
|
Post by m52nickerson on Mar 20, 2009 16:18:41 GMT -5
Watched the South Park vid. The original episode got things about 80% correct, and had Parker & Stone dug a little deeper and had a little more of an open mind the percentage might have been a little higher. As for their commentary? The incessant giggling just got on my nerves; it's like they had a few beers before recording it and so thought their remarks were funnier than what they really were. I'll get to the other clips in due time. If they had dug a little deeper it might not have been as funny.
|
|
|
Post by JonathanE on Mar 20, 2009 16:28:35 GMT -5
"The brilliance of science is that it can change theories at the drop of a hat, simply by accepting new facts..."
This is a non-sequitor. Accepting facts that alter a scientific theory is whole different kettle of fish from changing basic doctrines in a religion, which is entirely NOT fact based. The comparison is invalid. It does sound nice, but it starts with an incorrect premise.
"I'm sorry, but when there are people on the main page who attack religions because they REFUSE to change their holy books based on new information, it becomes a farce when others attack a person because his holy book DOES change based on (what they will call) new information."
I have never personally read anything of the sort. Perhaps you meant to say that people's faith can be altered by reality, or that a literal reading of holy writ can be difficult to defend when scientific knowledge negates the premise of said literal interpretation. Changing holy writ and basic doctrine seems a bit bankrupt, ideologically, when such holy writ is supposedly the revealed word of god, given directly to a prophet of god.
Adding to a holy book, through new revelation is one thing, but wiping the slate clean of a doctrine because said doctrie becomes illegal or totally negated by factual evidence is a different matter.
The premise of the Christian god is that he, and therefore his laws and teachings are unchanging and eternal. What you are defending as OK negates the "eternal god" idea, and the obvious result is that rational people recognize the dogma for what it is, man-made meaningless claptrap.
That is the basic difference between a religion like Mormonism and science.
It's not the refusal to "change" holy writ that is attacked, it is the irresolute refusal to recognize reality, by refusing to believe that "scripture" isn't totally literal. This applies to any religion that claims any book as holy writ, Mormons included. I think that most would agree that the problem is not "changing" the bible words themselves, but to merely consider that the literal interpretation may be totally incorrect. Mormon holy writ doesn't allow for that to happen, so, when it is convenient and or expedient, basic doctrines are changed, often negating the original intent of the religion's founder.
Do you understand the difference, or am I not being clear?
|
|
|
Post by JonathanE on Mar 20, 2009 16:30:35 GMT -5
Watched the South Park vid. The original episode got things about 80% correct, and had Parker & Stone dug a little deeper and had a little more of an open mind the percentage might have been a little higher. As for their commentary? The incessant giggling just got on my nerves; it's like they had a few beers before recording it and so thought their remarks were funnier than what they really were. I'll get to the other clips in due time. If they had dug a little deeper it might not have been as funny. Yes, it would have, M52N. The deeper you dig into Mormon doctrine, the more humourous it becomes.
|
|
|
Post by skyfire on Mar 20, 2009 16:37:57 GMT -5
Truth exposed:
This clip is one part of the "Godmakers" movie.
As I've already explained, the movie has already been denounced as little more than a farce and so the links posted about the film as a whole still stand. Even a token amount of research on Julian's part should have yielded this information.
In regards to the clip itself:
*What's that overhead shot at the very beginning supposed to be of? It's of no LDS facility that I recognize.
*Names? How about some names to go with the faces? Are the people speaking all actors, or is Decker too afraid of people actually trying to fact-check the presented stories?
*In the event that one spouse leaves the church or you have a part-member family, the council from the church leadership is actually to try and keep the family unit together. My personal experience is that if the family unit disintegrates there's a good chance that it is because the ex-member did something above and beyond leaving the church to cause the family to dissolve (such as adultery) or the non-member refused to be sufficiently flexible.
*As mentioned before, Decker was no victim. Rather, he was a serial adulterer whose wife was tired of putting up with his antics. In addition to filing for divorce, she also got the local clergy involved. Decker chose to flee the church rather than face ecclesiastical proceedings for his sins, and according to the legal paperwork presented by his wife Decker didn't have the guts to show up in court.
*"Occult" is little more than a buzzword owing to how often it gets thrown around nowadays, such that the average LDS apologist can dispense with the word itself in short order (for example, apologist Jeff Lindsay once did a piece noting how the definition as used by counter-cult groups is so fluid that high school athletics could fit the bill). Decker's charges of Satanism have been repeatedly shown to be utter hoaxes.
*Did they say "positive family image" or "Osmond family image?" For that matter, why dredge up a narrator that sounds like a guy from Dragnet if not for the sake of trying to get an in with people subconsciously?
*The vast majority of active members will actually be able to go through the temple at some point in their lives. The "elite few" is a gross exaggeration of the actually rather simplistic process of having a pair of interviews to establish orthodoxy (20+ standardized questions) and receiving a card stating a person's status within the church.
In short? Not impressed.
I've got an anti-spyware going, so I'll hit the final two later on.
|
|
|
Post by JonathanE on Mar 20, 2009 17:08:00 GMT -5
Again, you obsfuscate. The first four paragraphs are meaningless claptrap, consisting of ad-hominem attacks on the authors, but negating none of the claims. The fourth paragraph is also nothing more that smokescreening and ad-hominem attacks on the messenger, not the message. The fifth paragraph is just stupid. Your own "narrators" of things like the temple endowment ceremonies uses similar tactics. The "tone" of the words does not negate the truth contained therein. Non-sequitor. In your last paragraph, you are avoiding the truth once more. The vast majority of Mormons never see the inside of a temple, you being a prime example, not to put too fine a point on it.
In short, not impressed at all with your latest round of bullshit. Humourous, but not very impressive.
|
|
|
Post by Oriet on Mar 20, 2009 17:25:01 GMT -5
*What's that overhead shot at the very beginning supposed to be of? It's of no LDS facility that I recognize. What, so just because you don't recognize a flyby of that particular facility means it's not official? How does this address the validity of the vid? *As mentioned before, Decker was no victim. Rather, he was a serial adulterer whose wife was tired of putting up with his antics. In addition to filing for divorce, she also got the local clergy involved. Decker chose to flee the church rather than face ecclesiastical proceedings for his sins, and according to the legal paperwork presented by his wife Decker didn't have the guts to show up in court. This is an ad hominem against Decker, nothing more, and does absolutely nothing to address the points he raised. *"Occult" is little more than a buzzword owing to how often it gets thrown around nowadays, such that the average LDS apologist can dispense with the word itself in short order (for example, apologist Jeff Lindsay once did a piece noting how the definition as used by counter-cult groups is so fluid that high school athletics could fit the bill). Decker's charges of Satanism have been repeatedly shown to be utter hoaxes. So they're using a buzzword. I'll give you tip; so is the church. In fact, I'd wager the church is using more buzzwords, as well as verbicide (meaning distorting or destroying the actual meaning of a word, so much that it has an entirely different meaning, and is thus incomprehensible, between members and non members). But aside from both sides using buzzwords, this does nothing to address the validity, or lack there of, of what's presented in the vid. Stop with the distraction techniques and actually address the points. *Did they say "positive family image" or " Osmond family image?" For that matter, why dredge up a narrator that sounds like a guy from Dragnet if not for the sake of trying to get an in with people subconsciously? What does this have to do with the whether the clip is factual enough? Would you have preferred they found a narrator that sounded like Steve Irwin? Would that have been less derogatory? And like I said, what does that have to do with whether it's points are correct or not? *The vast majority of active members will actually be able to go through the temple at some point in their lives. The "elite few" is a gross exaggeration of the actually rather simplistic process of having a pair of interviews to establish orthodoxy (20+ standardized questions) and receiving a card stating a person's status within the church. Majority of LDS members perhaps, but in no way the majority of people, so it is still an elite if they hold themselves as superior in any way to non members (such as, oh I dunno, believing they'll have greater heavenly or earthly rewards?). Also, a process does not have to be difficult or extremely rare to count as being "elite." From here: wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=eliteAll it means is that they were accepted or selected to receive some special status, that is all. Even whether one is baptised or not in the Mormon church sets apart their "heavenly social status," as has been told to me by several Mormons (and if it's wrong then you need to inform the head elder, or whatever the position is called again, of the Princeton, MN Ward), and I know that's not nearly as much of a distinction as they have for if a person has been through the temple ordinances or not (as, to the best of my knowledge, that's a requirement for sealing). Skyfire, please don't continue to attack unimportant details (such as the voice actor their chose to narrate) or against the character of the person making the claims. Instead you need to address the claims themselves. I don't know if you've been paying attention to the threads in Flame and Burn, but it's the exact behaviours of attacking someone's character and bringing in completely irrelevant points while avoiding the immediate issues being discussed that others have been chastised for doing to you that you are doing to Decker here.
|
|
|
Post by skyfire on Mar 20, 2009 17:47:54 GMT -5
What, so just because you don't recognize a flyby of that particular facility means it's not official? How does this address the validity of the vid? It's more of a WTF? thing as no labels or names were used. Actually, it goes right to his credibility and motivations. The narration regarded Decker as being a "victim" when, in fact, the real victim was his wife and family. It also stated that Decker's victim status was the motivation for his filing the lawsuit, but as he was no victim then it raises questions as to the real reasons why he might be trying to execute a suit. It also, by extension, casts doubt upon whether or not any of the people depicted were likewise victims or if they, too, had details in their past that they'd prefer not be known. For the first part of my complaint, if you have a narrator that cannot properly communicate then you risk things getting lost between the narrator and the audience. For the second part, if you pay close enough attention to the media you can see that even subtle nuances can, even if only subconsciously, affect how an audience takes things. In this case, having someone with an Australian accent would have given the film an entirely different tone; as the film was supposed to have been American-made, the accent would have grated on the average viewer and thus deadened the possible dramatic impact. The connotation of the film was that only a slim margin of Mormons would ever enter a temple, and it is at that level which I addressed the clip. In that regards, the clip is, indeed wrong, since the average active Mormon stands a pretty fair shot at getting in. As you yourself noted, it's only an "elite few" in the sense of non-members being excluded.
|
|
|
Post by Sigmaleph on Mar 20, 2009 17:56:07 GMT -5
Crazalus: Doubt was not cast just because the book changed, but because the book that changed was supposedly God's word. Change to reflect new information is a good thing. We all agree on that. However: A book inspired by God cannot change to reflect new information because God already has that information. God can't be wrong. Claiming a book contains divine (and therefore perfect) knowledge and then changing that book to reflect information that shouldn't be new to God is holding contradictory beliefs. A belief system with an internal contradiction is a bad thing. I assume we all agree on that. You claim that the book was attacked just because it changed. This is not so. The book was attacked because it claimed to be God's word and it changed. Here's the relevant part of the post, emphasis mine: Polygamy has been recanted officially, but was a part of the doctrine before another retcon due to popularity. Aside from the question of why God's word needs so much revision,... That part addresses method, which you claimed it didn't, and the fact that the book is allegedly God's word, which was my whole point from the beginning
|
|
|
Post by crazalus on Mar 20, 2009 17:56:07 GMT -5
I have never personally read anything of the sort. Then you need to take another look... over and over again, people keep saying the Bible/Quran/*insert any holy text here* is no longer relevent because it hasn't changed since it was written... And now, doubt is cast on a holy book... not because of what is in it, not because it's a load of crap, but simply because it's been changed! No... no no no no no! I meant EXACTLY what I said... stop trying to suggest I didn't.You think I don't know this?? Do you think it excuses the attempt to cast doubt on something JUST BECAUSE IT CHANGED AND NO OTHER REASON?None of which has any bearing on the issue... that doubt is being cast on something JUST BECAUSE IT HAS CHANGED! Is it relevent to the issue? Does it in any way at all excuse the attempt to cast doubt on something JUST BECAUSE IT HAS CHANGED? Am I being clear here?
|
|
|
Post by crazalus on Mar 20, 2009 18:09:42 GMT -5
Again, you're trying to reinforce a contradiction based on one thing "you've seen," as though that is some sort of general rule or truth. That's a bad way to argue things, especially since we have only your word on the context of this specific comment. I have not said it was a general thing... I pointed out that someone subtly cast doubt on a book because it had been changed... The fact you don't seem to have notived that the only one to do that in this thread is YOU doesn't bode well. You asked "Aside from the question of why God's word needs so much revision" That was very much like the common Fundie question... "Why do Science books need so much revision?" They use it as a way to cast doubt on the books... totally avoiding any kind of mentioning of the method behind said changes... You also avoided any kind of mention of the method behind said changes, which has led to the impression that the fact the book has been changed is a valid reason to reject it. If you are going to word things in the way that common Fundie arguments are made, don't be too surprised if anyone says "Hey... don't we attack Fundies for doing that?" Houston, we have strawman. Seriously, Death explained herself well here, and there was no reason to make that statement.[/quote] Nope... you yourself managed to cast doubt on something just because it had changed... I want to know, Do we class that as a valid reason to reject something, (which allows Fundies to say "Science can't be trusted, it changes!) OR, do we make sure we don't start using their tactics?
|
|
|
Post by nausea on Mar 20, 2009 18:51:00 GMT -5
Strawman. As far as I can tell, no one is casting doubt on something just because the thing has changed. Rather, the thing that has changed is not supposed to do so by its own claims.
|
|
|
Post by ausador on Mar 20, 2009 19:17:25 GMT -5
What a truly amazeing amount of fail in one thread. I'm really impressed with how much like a bunch six year olds a few posters can make this board appear.
You guys need to grow the hell up and get over yourselves.
<snip> Seriously, don't preach at them right after you make personal attacks yourself. For that matter, you're not a mod. Instead of trying to enforce the rules yourself, why not let a mod know your concerns?
~NtC
You can not possibly know how sick I am of seeing you children bad mouth each other over nothing, I'm seriously glad the Mods are starting to crack down and I can only hope they get harsher. Stop derailing the damn threads with your personal bullshit!
Just to say something on topic I agree with several others here, the mormon faith is no weirder than belief in any other fairy tale faith. People have believed in all kinds of weird shit over the ages, I personally don't see much difference in any of them.
|
|