Ticketyboo Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 I don't venture my opinion onto the board very often, but I struggled to get to sleep last night, and am still pretty incandescent about the BBC programme aired here in the UK last evening (27th March).It purported to investigate Mitt Romney & the cult which the probable next Republican candidate was a member of.To be honest, I half expected a hatchet job, but I didn't believe that the dear old BBC was capable of commissioning, let alone airing such puerile rubbish.From the seemingly inevitable nudge, nudge, wink, wink questioning of the polygamists sleeping arrangements, to the unquestioned statements of the disaffected, given the oxygen of finally acheiving their 15 minutes of fame.Some were introduced as never having been interviewed on TV before, I guess there was a reason for that, especially those who should have been easily verified as liars.Throughout, there lurked the underlying menace of the former CIA operatives now employed under the Strengthening the Members committee, even Mitt's cousin had been followed twice in the last month.It is indeed fortunate for me that I have been subjected to the very highest levels of brainwashing that is available in such a far off small Branch in Wales & that this potentially Testimony exploding expose has only left me angered, not apostate.
Bill “Papa” Lee Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 I don't venture my opinion onto the board very often, but I struggled to get to sleep last night, and am still pretty incandescent about the BBC programme aired here in the UK last evening (27th March).It purported to investigate Mitt Romney & the cult which the probable next Republican candidate was a member of.To be honest, I half expected a hatchet job, but I didn't believe that the dear old BBC was capable of commissioning, let alone airing such puerile rubbish.From the seemingly inevitable nudge, nudge, wink, wink questioning of the polygamists sleeping arrangements, to the unquestioned statements of the disaffected, given the oxygen of finally acheiving their 15 minutes of fame.Some were introduced as never having been interviewed on TV before, I guess there was a reason for that, especially those who should have been easily verified as liars.Throughout, there lurked the underlying menace of the former CIA operatives now employed under the Strengthening the Members committee, even Mitt's cousin had been followed twice in the last month.It is indeed fortunate for me that I have been subjected to the very highest levels of brainwashing that is available in such a far off small Branch in Wales & that this potentially Testimony exploding expose has only left me angered, not apostate.You know my wife's family tree extend to 13th century Wales. As to the post, I live in the so-called" Bible Belt" where prejudice of Mormons is still high,
mercyngrace Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 By Common Consent published a response http://bycommonconsent.com/2012/03/27/dear-bbc/To: James Jones, Producer, The Mormon CandidateRe: This World: The Mormon Candidate (BBC2)Dear Mr Jones,If we are to follow the educational philosophy of Charles ****ens’s Thomas Gradgrind — “In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but Facts!” — then we would find little to complain about inJohn Sweeney’s BBC account of Mitt Romney’s Mormonism. Sweeney, the BBC’s go-to cult hunter, famous for his with Scientology, provided a number facts about Mormonism that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints simply cannot deny.They are, inter alia: Mormon prophet Joseph Smith married upwards of 30 women. The Egyptian of the extant fragments of the Book of Abraham is not directly related to Smith’s translation. Mormons once swore blood oaths in their temples. As a conservative religion, Mormonism can be a rather alienating place for those whose faith wanders from orthodoxy. The church maintains its own Vatican-like Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. &c.Some of these facts, and others besides, are bound to make uncomfortable viewing for Mormons. Some are defensible, others are not. Many strike at the heart of Mormonism’s curse as a pre-modern religion that has come of age in a modern and post-modern age. The patina of history has rendered benign the strange beliefs and practices of some more ancient religions. Mormonism is not so lucky and this is why facts, polemically deployed, are not always as truthful as Gradgrind, and Sweeney, would have us believe.Facts shorn of context can mislead. The obsolete blood oaths once sworn by a young Romney were visceral commitments to a fraternity of faith. As Mormon historian Samuel Brown has noted by reference to similar oaths among Freemasons, “by pledging their mortal fates to the fraternity, candidates bestowed on the order a symbolic power over life and death.” In a similar way, Mormons understand their belief in Christ to be a matter of eternal life; they also understand their rituals to be symbolic, a nuance Sweeney was not keen to explore.Mormonism is, unapologetically, a covenant religion. Its crime in BBC eyes seems to be that it has, in the past, symbolised its covenants in distinctly pre-modern ways. Ancient rituals performed by Zoroastrian priests or Orthodox patriarchs are acceptable; similar rites performed by western moderns are not. The underlying belief seems to be that educated folk like Romney should know better. This is an unfortunate kind of secular paternalism. It also bears repeating that these oaths are long dead.That Mormonism is a conservative religion is obviously a fact and its occasionally fundamentalist tendencies can be difficult for some to endure. However, the Mormon church is not the gulag that the malcontents so gleefully interviewed by Sweeney would suggest it to be. The church would be the first to admit that it is a challenge to retain its members. Probably less than 30% of those who have received Mormon baptism in the UK are still active in the religion.Sweeney might want to ponder on how a religion that is apparently so difficult to escape lost President Obama’s own Mormon ancestors. And what of Marco Rubio, a rising star in the Republican Party who has journeyed from Mormon to Catholic? Mormonism is also not monolithically conservative: Britain’s first Mormon MP, Terry Rooney, was old Labour, and the current leader of the Democrats in the US Senate, Harry Reid, is a Mormon convert. If Sweeney would like to see what a committed Mormon feminist looks like, he might watch Kristine Haglund’s recent performance on C-Span (http://www.c-spanvideo.org/kristinehaglund).As we can see, facts are often deployed as caricature. Martin Luther King Jr’s sexual peccadilloes, whilst factual, say nothing useful about the rightness of the civil rights movement. The RAF’s bombing of Dresden is not the summum bonum of Britain’s war against the Nazis. And so it was with Sweeney’s documentary. He has excavated every possible Mormon misadventure and presented it as an indictment against the contemporary faith. Muslims, Catholics and others would rightly find similar caricatures of their faith upsetting. It ably showed why many Americans will not vote for a Mormon, but where were the counter voices, not just ambushed officials who rightly felt defensive but the contented rank and file? And what about the academics who could provide context? The programme was stacked in favour of Mormon foes 10-1.The real fact is that at the core of Mormonism is a rather plain, low church Christianity, with decaffeinated adherents who go about their lives paying their taxes, loving their families, serving in their communities, helping the poor, and making mistakes along the way. The vast majority of Mormons would not be able to see themselves at all in Sweeney’s documentary. The British public, who could do with a sensible education in this interesting faith — let alone the tens of thousands of British Mormons who help fund the BBC — deserved much, much better. 4
zerinus Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 I live in the UK. I don't normally watch TV, so I missed it. But I was able to download and watch it using the BBC iPlayer. If you live in the US, or outside the UK, you may still be able to do the same. If you are interested, this is what you have to do:Download and install on your computer the BBC iPlayer Desktop from here.Go to BBC iPlayer website and do a search for "Mormon," which I have already done for your here! The program name, The Mormon Candidate, appears in the search results.Hover your mouse over it and a download link appears. Click to download via BBC iPlayer Desktop.It is a 637MB file (hour long program), so you need a good connection to download it at good speed.Once downloaded, it will appear on your BBC iPlayer Desktop when you open one of the tabs at the top.Click on it to play. The files are DRM protected and will expire after a few days.To strip the DRM and keep the file, you need to turn to crime. Can't help you with that unfortunately! The program does not appear to me to be quite as bad as some have made it out to be. It sensationalizes things a bit, which is what viewers demand nowadays of TV programs. He does try to present both sides of the case--although the "other" side gets to be heard a lot more than the LDS side.
Ticketyboo Posted March 28, 2012 Author Posted March 28, 2012 Thanks Mercy, that open letter voices my argument much more succinctly than I ever could.It is also true that the poor Church PR man & even Elder Holland were left flummoxed at times, but this was due to the inanity of the questions, not because they'd been caught between a rock & a hard place.I do have to admit that it drove a pretty big wedge between my ex-member wife & myself as we watched, as well as my less active 25 year old youngest daughter chiming in as she passed through!!!Fortunately, I'm nothing if not resilient, but it was very disheartening that they could not even see the outright lies, that they were fully aware of from their own experience, so quite what the unaware would make of it, I shudder to think.
cdowis Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 I am of the opinion that any publicity is beneficial to the church. The antis are doing us a very big favor. Most people become curious about the church and they look into it with an open mind. Those who close their minds.... well, we can't help them anyway. It helps to sort out the sheep from the goats. 1
David T Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 I understand Elder Holland, when asked about the Egyptian Papyri, said something that expressed a possible openness to the Catalyst theory. Anyone with access able to give Elder Holland's quote, and the question he was responding to in this portion?
David T Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 (edited) There is a YouTube video from a portion of the production out there, featuring part of the interview with Elder Holland in his office. I won't post a link to it, because the beginning of the video features a man demonstrating certain of the pre-1990 Temple Penalties. The Elder Holland portion is... very awkward. He is directly asked about the aspects of the penalties, masonic connection, and makes an unfortunate, "Osama...err, Obama" gaffe. - I'm sure this is a clip that will be significantly making the rounds, just as an FYI. Edited March 28, 2012 by David T
Stargazer Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 I live in the UK. I don't normally watch TV, so I missed it. But I was able to download and watch it using the BBC iPlayer. If you live in the US, or outside the UK, you may still be able to do the same. If you are interested, this is what you have to do:Download and install on your computer the BBC iPlayer Desktop from here.Go to BBC iPlayer website and do a search for "Mormon," which I have already done for your here! The program name, The Mormon Candidate, appears in the search results.Hover your mouse over it and a download link appears. Click to download via BBC iPlayer Desktop.It is a 637MB file (hour long program), so you need a good connection to download it at good speed.Once downloaded, it will appear on your BBC iPlayer Desktop when you open one of the tabs at the top.Click on it to play. The files are DRM protected and will expire after a few days.To strip the DRM and keep the file, you need to turn to crime. Can't help you with that unfortunately! The program does not appear to me to be quite as bad as some have made it out to be. It sensationalizes things a bit, which is what viewers demand nowadays of TV programs. He does try to present both sides of the case--although the "other" side gets to be heard a lot more than the LDS side.I lived in England from 1969-71 and during that time the Church held one of (if not the) first regional conferences there. As part of that, apparently, the BBC aired a hit piece as well. It wasn't as bad as the one the OP brings up. One of the things it covered was a female inactive member who claimed to have received a Patriarchal Blessing that, among other things, told her that she would be free from cancer as long as she kept the Word of Wisdom. When interviewed, she mournfully told the interviewer that she had gone inactive from church, started smoking and such like, and -- oddly enough -- came down with cancer. As this was presented as a negative against the Church, I was left shaking my head as to how it could reasonably be seen as such, since she had gotten exactly what she should have expected, if the Church were true and PB's were valid personal revelation from God.I suppose the BBC is trying to cause Mitt to lose the election by making non-Mormons not want to vote for him. Oh, wait. The number of US voters is Britain couldn't be THAT high, could there? Well, live in learn.Zerinus, are you registered to vote in the US?
zerinus Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 Zerinus, are you registered to vote in the US?Unfortunately not; but I can tell you how I would vote if I was. It is a bit early to tell right now of course; but as things stand at the moment, I would vote for Obama, because I think that he is a better candidate, and is doing a great job already, and deserves a second term. Mormons shouldn't automatically vote for someone just because he happens to be a Mormon. 1
BCSpace Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 Mormons shouldn't automatically vote for someone just because he happens to be a Mormon.So likewise one shouldn't assume that just because a Mormon votes for Romney said Mormon is voting for Romney because he's LDS. 1
Popular Post Deborah Posted March 28, 2012 Popular Post Posted March 28, 2012 I would vote for Obama, because I think that he is a better candidate, and is doing a great job already, and deserves a second term. Wow have you been fed a line. He is one of the most incompetent presidents we've ever had. I will vote for whoever the candidate is who opposes him.I know, slap my own hand for bringing in politics. 7
zerinus Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 Wow have you been fed a line. He is one of the most incompetent presidents we've ever had. I will vote for whoever the candidate is who opposes him.I know, slap my own hand for bringing in politics.LOL! I would never tell somebody else how to vote; but I definitely like the man, and think he is doing a great job, and would not hesitate voting for him a second time. Only a very exceptional new candidate would persuade me switch sides, and Romney doesn't cut it--so far.Also, I never vote along party political lines. I vote for the man--not the party he supports--or is supporting him.
ERayR Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 LOL! I would never tell somebody else how to vote; but I definitely like the man, and think he is doing a great job, and would not hesitate voting for him a second time. Only a very exceptional new candidate would persuade me switch sides, and Romney doesn't cut it--so far.Also, I never vote along party political lines. I vote for the man--not the party he supports--or is supporting him.Whether you think so or not you always vote for the party. When it comes to voting in congress it is a rare bill that is not passed along party lines.
KevinG Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 Be prepared for more treats like this in the media. The campaign season is just warming up.
David T Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 For those interested, the entire program can now be found on YouTube. If it weren't for that segment with the penalties, I would present a link. As is, it's against board policy to do so.
zerinus Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 Whether you think so or not you always vote for the party. When it comes to voting in congress it is a rare bill that is not passed along party lines.How decisions are made along party lines because of the nature of the system is beside the point. I vote for the man, other factors be as they may.
Minos Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 Giving information about who you are voting for and why will likely result in a thread shutdown.
David T Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 (edited) Part 2/6, featuring first interview with Elder Holland, at 7:45 (on book of Abraham)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6v1EwUo924(I see that he has the Joseph Smith Papers: Revelations and Translations series in his bookshelf!) Edited March 28, 2012 by David T
David T Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 (edited) Part 4/6, featuring second interview with Elder Holland (on Temple oaths) - NOTE: Part 3 is the part that contains, at the end, an individual doing a pseudo re-enactment, and quoting from the ceremony which I mentioned above. This clip (Part 4) does not contain this, and does not quote from the ceremony. If the mods are still uncomfortable with this interview with Elder Holland, I would understand its removal.Also at 7:35, Elder Holland speaks of the Strengthening Church Members Committee, shunning, etc..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLRzdeKEEII Edited March 28, 2012 by David T
zerinus Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 (edited) Giving information about who you are voting for and why will likely result in a thread shutdown.I am not a US citizen, and in fact live outside the US, and cannot vote in US elections. So I am not giving information about anything, just saying how I would if I had the Chance! Edited March 28, 2012 by zerinus
Zakuska Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 (edited) I just watched the first 3 videos. Over all its been pretty balanced. Im just passed the "Cult" claims and started hitting the temple content.I find it hard to beleive that the Lawyer woman went to the temple and got her endowments and some how had no idea what the symbols were?Open your eyes and read you Bible for heck sake! Then theres her forboding claim <Que Scary music!> they are "Pagan" signs. I wonder if she has done any examination at all on religious signs and the Pagan nature of such things as the 'T t' cross used in Christiandom.Now Im to the motions that were removed from the Temple ceremony the year I went through for the first time. And the forboding blowing out of purportion of "cross my heart hope to die stick a needle in my eye".So lets see just a couple minutes before we are told that the temple stuff is Masonic/Pagan in Nature, highlighted by all the people claiming because of this they don't trust Mitt etc. etc. Yet the father of our Nation, George Washington was a Mason and according to their own narative because he would have made similiar oaths as a Mason "couldn't be trusted".!Me thinks somebody has an over active fear factor!Who ever said us rank and file Americans were rational Creatures! Edited March 28, 2012 by Zakuska
Zakuska Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 (edited) Part 2/6, featuring first interview with Elder Holland, at 7:45 (on book of Abraham)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6v1EwUo924(I see that he has the Joseph Smith Papers: Revelations and Translations series in his bookshelf!)I think his Answers in this part could have been much stronger. He came off as either hiding something or innept and oblivious to the contraversy. Edited March 28, 2012 by Zakuska
Zakuska Posted March 28, 2012 Posted March 28, 2012 (edited) I REALLY like what he says in the first video...RE: Mitt... "He's a Mormon... and Mormons beleive that Jesus came to America"What a better way to introduce to the world the Book of Mormon! Millions will hear that?!However he did mix up "Temple" with "Chapel" a couple times. Edited March 28, 2012 by Zakuska
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