BBC Series

[Amulek]

45 minutes ago, Dario_M said:

If somebody tells you that you may not do something then you wanna do it ten times more indeed.

In that case, you may not buy me a brand new Aston Martin.

 

[jkwilliams]

The Guardian weighs in: 

The Mormons Are Coming review – lovely, kind and deeply unsettling

Edited March 1, 2023 by jkwilliams

[smac97]

23 hours ago, mrmarklin said:

https://www.bbc.com/news/us-64790111

 

BBC seems to be reporting on the Church in the UK.  So far, the article attached is positive.

This Guardian article is a bit less positive: The Mormons Are Coming review – lovely, kind and deeply unsettling

Imagine if the reporter, Lucy Mangan, wrote a comparably-titled article "The Muslims (or Jews, or Blacks, or Gays) Are Coming review - lovely, kind and deeply unsettling."

Ah, well.

Some further excerpts:

Quote

You can’t fail to warm to the cheery young Mormons in this unprecedented documentary … even as they try to fill your emotional void with their beliefs

Yeesh.  Someone who presumes that everyone else has an "emotional void" will understandably be a bit cynical.

Quote

We meet Elder Cook, an 18-year-old from an LDS family in Utah who is devoted to his mother, who fought for his ADHD diagnosis when school was ready to give up on him. He is happy to leave home for two years to try to spread God’s word. Similarly eager, if slightly more daunted, is 19-year-old Sister Cooper from a Mormon family in Hertfordshire. Her faith helped her deal with anxiety and depression, and the Heavenly Father has told her she can use her experience to bring comfort to others.

Everyone we meet is lovely – gentle, kind, sincere. It is hard not to warm to them each individually, and generally to a faith that chose not to protest about The Book of Mormon musical (which leans hard into the essential absurdity of a religion based on a book made of golden plates revealed by an angel to a 24-year-old farmer’s son 200 years ago) but chose instead to stand outside theatres cheerily asking exiting crowds if they would like to hear about the real thing now.

"Essential absurdity."  Oh.

Again, a slight re-wording: "...which leans hard into the essential absurdity of a religion based on a book, the Qurʾān, purportedly revealed by the angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad in the West Arabian towns Mecca and Medina 1,400 years ago."

I'm not exactly holding my breath to see this kind of treatment of Islam in the Guardian.

The next paragraph she really lets loose:

Quote

And yet. To an atheist especially, which I am, there is something so unsettling about the ranks of shining faces beaming atop crisp white shirts and black ties or modest dresses awaiting instruction on how to persuade people to their way of thinking. Or, to put it more strongly, convince them of a falsehood. Or, to put it more strongly still, fill people’s emotional voids with their lies. Which description you feel most apt will depend on your own upbringing, temperament and voids of course, but you will probably find yourself swinging between at least the first two...

I wonder if she feels equally at liberty to conclusorily declare the Qurʾān to be "a falsehood" and Islam to be an attempt to "fill people’s emotional voids with their lies."

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited March 2, 2023 by smac97

[The Nehor]

7 minutes ago, smac97 said:

This Guardian article is a bit less positive: The Mormons Are Coming review – lovely, kind and deeply unsettling

Imagine if the reporter, Lucy Mangan, wrote a comparably-titled article "The Muslims (or Jews, or Blacks, or Gays) Are Coming review - lovely, kind and deeply unsettling."

Ah, well.

Some further excerpts:

Yeesh.  Someone who presumes that everyone else has an "emotional void" will understandably be a bit cynical.

"Essential absurdity."  Oh.

Again, a slight re-wording: "...which leans hard into the essential absurdity of a religion based on a book, the Qurʾān, purportedly revealed by the angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad in the West Arabian towns Mecca and Medina 1,400 years ago."

I'm not exactly holding my breath to see this kind of treatment of Islam in the Guardian.

The next paragraph she really lets loose:

I wonder if she feels equally at liberty to conclusorily declare the Qurʾān to be "a falsehood" and "lies."

Thanks,

-Smac

BUT….but……Islam!!!!!

Why does this person who reviews TV shows not take down Islam? Also the gays! Why won’t they mock the gays? It is basically a religion right?

[The Nehor]

37 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

The Guardian weighs in: 

The Mormons Are Coming review – lovely, kind and deeply unsettling

Lovely, Kind, and Deeply Unsettling

I think I just found the new title for a future dating profile.

[jkwilliams]

3 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

BUT….but……Islam!!!!!

Why does this person who reviews TV shows not take down Islam? Also the gays! Why won’t they mock the gays? It is basically a religion right?

Obviously, the scorn is reserved for the true church.

[jkwilliams]

4 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Lovely, Kind, and Deeply Unsettling

I think I just found the new title for a future dating profile.

That might be an attractive description on some sites. 

[ttribe]

7 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

That might be an attractive description on some sites. 

Many, many, sites John. Trust me on this one.

[jkwilliams]

2 minutes ago, ttribe said:

Many, many, sites John. Trust me on this one.

Oh, I have no doubt. 

[The Nehor]

18 minutes ago, ttribe said:

Many, many, sites John. Trust me on this one.

It would be tame on my favorites.

So tempting to go back.

[jkwilliams]

Just now, The Nehor said:

It would be tame on my favorites.

So tempting to go back.

Well, we’re not trying to tempt you. 

[The Nehor]

2 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Well, we’re not trying to tempt you. 

I know. I am tempting myself.

[bluebell]

49 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Obviously, the scorn is reserved for the true church.

I think it’s just hard when unfair judgments are levied at us personally compared to when it’s a different group being treated less than fairly. Especially if we already don’t like that group for some reason.

I’ve heard many ex Mormons express the unfairness of being judged for leaving. Many on here, like you and ttribe, make jokes about how “evil” they are now that they aren’t members, constantly reminding people of the many unkind things that have been said about them, even if those things haven’t been said for years.

Unfair and unkind words sting, and it’s reasonable to want to pushback against them, or question why one group is treated differently than another.

If one group is allowed to discuss unfair treatment, then all groups should probably be granted the same right without derision. 

[jkwilliams]

3 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I think it’s just hard when unfair judgments are levied at us personally compared to when it’s a different group being treated less than fairly. Especially if we already don’t like that group for some reason.

I’ve heard many ex Mormons express the unfairness of being judged for leaving. Many on here, like you and ttribe, make jokes about how “evil” they are now that they aren’t members, constantly reminding people of the many unkind things that have been said about them, even if those things haven’t been said for years.

Unfair and unkind words sting, and it’s reasonable to want to pushback against them, or question why one group is treated differently than another.

If one group is allowed to discuss unfair treatment, then all groups should probably be granted the same right without derision. 

I understand that. I just find it odd that anyone would be surprised that a left-wing paper like the Guardian would say anything negative about Mormonism, a conservative American religion. 

Edited March 2, 2023 by jkwilliams

[bluebell]

4 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I understand that. I just find it odd that anyone would be surprised that a left-wing paper like the Guardian would say anything negative about Mormonism, a conservative American religion. 

I don’t know that smac found it odd either though (but maybe he did use that term and I missed it).

It seems like he was pointing out some hypocrisy on the author’s part. Which seems relevant given that left wing anything is supposed to care about treating minority groups fairly.

[jkwilliams]

Just now, bluebell said:

I don’t know that smac found it odd either though (but maybe he did use that term and I missed it).

It seems like he was pointing out some hypocrisy on the author’s part. Which seems relevant given that left wing anything is supposed to care about treating minority groups fairly.

I dunno. The Guardian does have a history of criticizing religion of all kinds.

How the idea of hell drove me from Islam

It just seemed to me that Spencer was opining that the paper was singling out Mormonism and wouldn't dare offer any criticism of another religion, particularly Islam. 

As for the article itself, it's not uncommon for some people to find the scrubbed, clean image of the church "unsettling." I've certainly seen that in my lifetime. I wouldn't take it personally.

[MiserereNobis]

3 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

I'm sorry, I was not flexing, I was trying to mock the BBC writing. When the BBC list factoids that missionaries can't do, what might be strange to their "normal" audience, next saying we're different from other Christians, with no follow up, probably without intention, it seems like the LDS+missionary rules are how we differ from other churches. Catholics have celibacy, Presbyterians don't drink. Sarcastically saying it's weird, I was saying it shouldn't be too "weird" to religious people. A still small voice tried to tell me not to, I didn't listen or know why, now I do.

And I'm sorry, too. I was feeling grumpy for some reason and misread your post, and Ken's, too. I apologize.

[Kenngo1969]

27 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I don’t know that smac found it odd either though (but maybe he did use that term and I missed it).

It seems like he was pointing out some hypocrisy on the author’s part. Which seems relevant given that left wing anything is supposed to care about treating some minority groups fairly.  [Bold edit added by Kenngo1969]

There!  All fixed!  

[Kenngo1969]

For the record, in case anybody missed it the first twenty or so times I reiterated it and similar points on the Board, if someone is an honest, decent, caring, moral individual who believes in doing unto others as one would have others do unto him or her, in loving one's neighbor, and in making life as good as one can make it for himself or herself, for one's loved ones, and for those around him or her before (from that person's perspective) "succumbing to the void," more power to him or her. 

If one adheres to [fill in the blank with religious tradition here] one should strive to be the best adherent one can be, to do all that person can to love, to serve, and to help others, and to become the kind of person that his or her Higher Power wants that person to become.  As the Lord says in the Doctrine and Covenants, "Inasmuch as men [and women] do good [including men and women of whatever religious persuasion or even those of no particular religious persuasion whatsoever], they shall in nowise lose their reward."  Doctrine and Covenants 58:28.

I think the time is coming [in fact, in some ways, it may already have arrived] when the gravest threat to the devout, to their respective faith traditions, and to their volition to live openly according to their religion will not come from other believers.  Rather, that threat will come from those who are antipathetic toward religion writ large.*  It is that threat that believers of all stripes should unite to combat, albeit with as much meekness, love, and goodwill as possible.

____________________________

*And I think, in some ways, that the Guardian piece is an example, albeit not of a call for people to rise up and oppress the devout, but, nonetheless, of a less virulent and less extreme strain of attitude that motivates such oppression.

Edited March 2, 2023 by Kenngo1969

[The Nehor]

42 minutes ago, Kenngo1969 said:

I think the time is coming [in fact, in some ways, it may already have arrived] when the gravest threat to the devout, to their respective faith traditions, and to their volition to live openly according to their religion will not come from other believers.  Rather, that threat will come from those who are antipathetic toward religion writ large.*  It is that threat that believers of all stripes should unite to combat, albeit with as much meekness, love, and goodwill as possible.

An alliance with the megachurches, the televangelists, and the prosperity gospel preachers? I suppose that is one way to make sure the antipathy increases. No matter who wins they will try to destroy us next.

I also think you vastly overstate how oppressed the Church is right now. If you want to know what that is like talk to Christians in China or Pakistan.

[Calm]

On 3/1/2023 at 10:39 PM, The Nehor said:

also think you vastly overstate how oppressed the Church is right now. If you want to know what that is like talk to Christians in China or Pakistan.

I agree going to “oppression” or persecution is an overstatement in the US.  I see it as more losing its place of default respect.  Some may have even a default disrespect mode towards religion, but that isn’t oppression.  It means you may get mocked or ridicule or even bullied a bit, but if you can freely proactively live your faith even if people try to embarrass you for doing so, that is not oppression imo.Even if it is somewhat difficult, but always possible, not oppression.  Prevention of worship is oppression.  Jailing someone to stop worship is oppression.  Not being able to get a job anywhere so you can’t support yourself or family very well simply because of your faith is oppression.

Someone feeling uncomfortable and not liking being laughed at for being different is in an unfortunate and likely unfair situation, but if they can tell the others to bug off while they attend to their worship however they desire, even if they choose not to because they don’t want to risk drawing more negative attention, that is being thin skinned…and that would likely be me because I do not like that kind of attention at all…but still not oppression.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Calm

[Dario_M]

8 hours ago, Amulek said:

In that case, you may not buy me a brand new Aston Martin.

 

Next week you have a brand new Aston Martin!!!!🚘

[jkwilliams]

5 hours ago, The Nehor said:

An alliance with the megachurches, the televangelists, and the prosperity gospel preachers? I suppose that is one way to make sure the antipathy increases. No matter who wins they will try to destroy us next.

I also think you vastly overstate how oppressed the Church is right now. If you want to know what that is like talk to Christians in China or Pakistan.

I think the "gravest threat" to religion, at least in Western countries, is apathy. Seems like more and more people are happy to live their lives without giving religion much thought. 

[The Nehor]

13 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

I think the "gravest threat" to religion, at least in Western countries, is apathy. Seems like more and more people are happy to live their lives without giving religion much thought. 

That tends to be what the apostles talk about. Not active oppression but being written off as silly and unworthy of attention. An attitude of “you weirdos do what you want” but I don’t care about what you have to say.

[smac97]

On 3/1/2023 at 6:30 PM, bluebell said:

I don’t know that smac found it odd either though (but maybe he did use that term and I missed it).

I did not find the article "odd."  To the contrary, I found unsurprising, perhaps even de rigueur in some segments of society.

On 3/1/2023 at 6:30 PM, bluebell said:

It seems like he was pointing out some hypocrisy on the author’s part. Which seems relevant given that left wing anything is supposed to care about treating minority groups fairly.

Yep.

Thanks,

-Smac