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‘MormonWikileaks’ website launched, seeking transparency in LDS Church

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Re: ‘MormonWikileaks’ website launched, seeking transparency in LDS Church

#31

Post by patch_collector »

wavefunction wrote: post #13
zeroer wrote: post #4

The beliefs are batshit crazy, but in my personal experience, Mormons are consistently the nicest most welcoming people you'd ever meet. It makes me sad that the church leadership doesn't reflect that. :(

"Meekness" is encouraged among the faithful corpus. I would agree that I have met many kind and decent members of the LDS church, but I have also seen how the Church urges families to threaten or enact shunning of their relatives who choose to leave the Church, and their forays into political activism are inhumane.

I come at this as an active Mormon, but I see a consistent effort on the part of the leadership to make it clear that shunning shouldn't happen. I definitely see individuals with issues on this, but I haven't seen it as institutional, even though I've had a number of family members leave the church.

Re: ‘MormonWikileaks’ website launched, seeking transparency in LDS Church

#32

Post by zeroer »

scintill76 wrote: post #24
zeroer wrote: post #4

The beliefs are batshit crazy, but in my personal experience, Mormons are consistently the nicest most welcoming people you'd ever meet. It makes me sad that the church leadership doesn't reflect that. :(

As a fairly active Mormon... I'm curious what you see as the difference between the leaders and the people. I would think most of the Mormons you know support most of the things you find distasteful in the leaders. (Edit: I don't mean to say the nice Mormons are secretly as horrible as you think the leaders are, although that's one possible conclusion. Just trying to figure out how a group of supposedly-vile leaders…

Well, I've never had interactions with the leadership, or at least not anyone more senior that holding some sort of small leadership position in a local temple. My experience with "church leadership" is just from reading the news or leaks. And since it's news, it's pretty much all negative.

And with the Mormons I meet in real life I try pretty hard not to get into theological or controversial topics. This is the same way I'd treat anybody else in real life, so maybe the Mormons I meet hold some horrific views that would disgust me? All the better that I don't get into that with acquaintances.

I'm just trying to comment on this very weird phenomenon that Mormons are unusually nice when compared to other groups of people. I don't know why this is. I'm speaking of my own personal experience here, but I know I'm not the only one who perceives this.

Re: ‘MormonWikileaks’ website launched, seeking transparency in LDS Church

#33

Post by [deleted] »

zeroer wrote: post #32
scintill76 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fairly active Mormon... I'm curious what you see as the difference between the leaders and the people. I would think most of the Mormons you know support most of the things you find distasteful in the leaders. (Edit: I don't mean to say the nice Mormons are secretly as horrible as you think the leaders are, although that's one possible conclusion. Just trying to figure out how a group of supposedly-vile leaders…

Well, I've never had interactions with the leadership, or at least not anyone more senior that holding some sort of small leadership position in a local temple. My experience with "church leadership" is just from reading the news or leaks. And since it's news, it's pretty much all negative. And with the Mormons I meet in real life I try pretty hard not to get into theological or controversial topics. This is the same…

[deleted]

Re: ‘MormonWikileaks’ website launched, seeking transparency in LDS Church

#34

Post by innocentoldguy »

goda90 wrote: post #26
innocentoldguy wrote: post #21

As a Mormon, I have a hard time imagining this site being very interesting. Between fairmormon.org, lds.org, all the anti-Mormon sites, and the missionary duos, just waiting to knock on a door near you, I think the world already has a pretty clear view into the workings of the Mormon church, their history, and their beliefs. Sure, the Mormon church "hides" things, but most of that stuff has to do with disciplinary co…

I've often seen people get worked up over the for-profit businesses linked to the Church. Carefully structured leaks can make such businesses look shady, and inspire knee jerk reactions of people claiming tithing is used to build malls, and that somehow tax exempt status is magically extending to the businesses.

Yeah, that happens. People like to have their boogiemen to blame for everything in life that doesn't suit them. I do it too. Personally, I blame everything on Orrin Hatch.

Re: ‘MormonWikileaks’ website launched, seeking transparency in LDS Church

#35

Post by Flammy »

There were a significant number of leaks recently posted to the "ex mormon" subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/545v5n/leaks_mega...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/552yzo/update_on_...

Re: ‘MormonWikileaks’ website launched, seeking transparency in LDS Church

#36

Post by sbuttgereit »

wavefunction wrote: post #13
zeroer wrote: post #4

The beliefs are batshit crazy, but in my personal experience, Mormons are consistently the nicest most welcoming people you'd ever meet. It makes me sad that the church leadership doesn't reflect that. :(

"Meekness" is encouraged among the faithful corpus. I would agree that I have met many kind and decent members of the LDS church, but I have also seen how the Church urges families to threaten or enact shunning of their relatives who choose to leave the Church, and their forays into political activism are inhumane.

Ehh.... I come from a family with a long Mormon history dating back to at least 1837-39 (depending on source) with multiple divisions of the family migrating to Utah during the mid 19th century from the U.S. East Coast, England, and even Iceland for religious reasons. Point being it's a culture I'm a bit familiar with (I was born and raised in Utah myself). I am not Mormon myself, and never joined the church, though I did attend for some time.

I never felt any overt pressure from any family or friends to join the religion. Sure, some expressed disappointment, and certainly tried to nudge me that direction earlier in life. But I certainly was never ostracized or shunned in any way, even after it was clear I was not going to be a "prospect" for conversion (and yes, everyone gave up trying long ago).

I have heard one or two stories along the lines of your assertion. And I have known a family that were not the "nice, warmhearted" stereotype being painted generally here either: though the misery they inflicted was primary directed inward and belief was not the issue.

As much as I have come to find all religions at fundamental moral fault, it would be wrong not to say something here about a people, who in my experience, generally don't match what you're describing.

Re: ‘MormonWikileaks’ website launched, seeking transparency in LDS Church

#37

Post by slv77 »

zeroer wrote: post #19
ksenzee wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might rethink that "batshit crazy." Mormon beliefs are your standard "God told prophet to write things down and start a church." No crazier than any other religion.

> No crazier than any other religion. Yea, I believe that's what I said.

Compared to what?

Elon Musk and his belief that "we're all living in a simulations" versus the religionist's belief that God created the world as a test or classroom?

Stephen Hawking and his belief that there may be super-intelligent life forms out there that may destroy humanity versus the religionist's belief of an omniscient God that will return and destroy humanity?

Richard Dawkins when he tweets "Suppose your descendant migrates to Mars, whose colony then loses contact with Earth. You could be ancestor of all on Mars, none on Earth." versus the religionist's story of Adam and Eve?

Re: ‘MormonWikileaks’ website launched, seeking transparency in LDS Church

#38

Post by zeroer »

slv77 wrote: post #37
zeroer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No crazier than any other religion. Yea, I believe that's what I said.

Compared to what? Elon Musk and his belief that "we're all living in a simulations" versus the religionist's belief that God created the world as a test or classroom? Stephen Hawking and his belief that there may be super-intelligent life forms out there that may destroy humanity versus the religionist's belief of an omniscient God that will return and destroy humanity? Richard Dawkins when he tweets "Suppose your de…

I don't have anything genuinely new to contribute to this conversation, so per HN guidelines on classic flamewar topics, I'm bowing out.

Re: ‘MormonWikileaks’ website launched, seeking transparency in LDS Church

#39

Post by henrikschroder »

innocentoldguy wrote: post #30

@henrikschroder - Would you mind giving a citation that links Utah's issue of depression with Mormonism? After all, there are a lot of non-Mormons living there too. The last I read, scientists believed that the mountain states suffered from depression due to altitude and thin air ( http://www.livescience.com/50813-low-oxygen-increase-depress... ) Also, I couldn't find any statistics on just teen suicides, but accordi…

Ask the fine people here: https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/

You'll get a lot of answers.

Re: ‘MormonWikileaks’ website launched, seeking transparency in LDS Church

#40

Post by henrikschroder »

scintill76 wrote: post #24
zeroer wrote: post #4

The beliefs are batshit crazy, but in my personal experience, Mormons are consistently the nicest most welcoming people you'd ever meet. It makes me sad that the church leadership doesn't reflect that. :(

As a fairly active Mormon... I'm curious what you see as the difference between the leaders and the people. I would think most of the Mormons you know support most of the things you find distasteful in the leaders. (Edit: I don't mean to say the nice Mormons are secretly as horrible as you think the leaders are, although that's one possible conclusion. Just trying to figure out how a group of supposedly-vile leaders…

Here's a leaked video of a briefing for the Q15 about Chelsea Manning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpVh24_wGoY

Yeah, let's focus on whether Chelsea Manning is gay or not. Really important. Very enlightened.

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