Mormons are wack

[justdrew]

yeah, the Seer stones were great, until the damn followers started getting into the act.

Other early Mormons valued seer stones, among whom were Jacob and David Whitmer, Philo Dibble, W. W. Phelps, and Elizabeth Ann Whitney. In 1830 Hiram Page, one of the Eight Witnesses to the Book of Mormon, claimed to have had a series of revelations through a black seer stone. After Smith announced that these revelations were of the devil, Page agreed to discard the stone which, according to a contemporary, was "Broke to powder and the writings Burnt."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seer_stone_%28Latter_Day_Saints%29

actually breathing into the hat like for an extended time probably induced hypoxia. So seeing shit isn't totally improbable.

[Hammer of Los]

...

There are a wide variety of breathing exercises which can bring about altered states.

They can enable us to make contact with higher levels of consciousness.

...

[82_28]

Heavenly Father’s Favorite Drugs
By Living in Zion
Feb. 3rd, 2012 at 10:52 am

My daughter safely returned back home from serving a church mission in Portland, Oregon. She is slowly getting desensitized back into the real world. As with all newly returned missionaries, we have enjoyed hearing stories of her service.(1)

During a recent car ride she was reminded of a mission situation that is unique to Oregon and a handful of other more liberal states. That is the church position on the use of medical marijuana.
Her mission handbook states:

“ The fact that Oregon state law allows doctors to prescribe the smoking of marijuana for “medicinal” purposes does not change the fact that marijuana remains an illegal drug according to the federal laws of the United States, and the Supreme Court of the United States specifically ruled in 2005 that federal law take precedence over state legislation in this matter. Therefore, the Church Handbook statement quoted above (“members should not use any substance that contains illegal drugs”) applies in this situation. Unless we receive different instructions from the Brethren, no individual who smokes marijuana for “medicinal purposes” can be baptized a member of the Church in this mission. The prescription drug Marinol (synthetic THC), a capsule approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, provides legal relief to those who take it. Its use under competent medical supervision is not a violation of the Word of Wisdom and therefore does not prevent a person from being baptized.” (2)

This statement brings all kinds of interesting questions into my mind. I think it is fascinating that taking a synthetic drug, a profit-generating substance created by a drug company, is fine but the natural occurring substance is against God’s will. The argument presented in the last sentence, that the prescription drug is ok because it is recommended under medical supervision, also makes me take pause. In Oregon naturally occurring marijuana is legal under medical supervision so what is the difference? Heavenly Father wants to protect profit margins? (3)

Back to the states rights idea. The federal laws regarding illegal drugs take precedence over state laws. Does the church also back the federal immigration laws, ignoring the new harsh immigration state laws enacted in Alabama, Arizona, etc.? Can they keep a church member in good standing if they are breaking state immigration laws by feeding or housing an illegal alien in states that outlaw it?

I am also thinking about the Relief Society President who I struggled to understand. She was always ‘spacey’ at church meetings, slow to respond to questions and just didn’t seem very together in decision-making. I assumed it was one of those “Heavenly Father called her to this position because she needed to grow, not that she was going to do much for anyone else” kinds of callings. I was assigned to be her visiting teaching companion. As she was driving us to a home visit she fell asleep at the wheel and we veered off into oncoming highway traffic. I screamed and she woke up, jerking the wheel back just in time. As I recovered from our near death experience she confessed that she has a bad back that causes chronic pain. Her doctor prescribed Oxycodone (Percocet) for the pain. It makes her drowsy and unable to think straight, but it does kill the pain. She has taken it for years and has no intention of stopping. That completely explained all of her air-headedness.

She is not the only person I know who takes major drug prescriptions just to make it through church meetings. I had one friend who had to be released from teaching in Primary because her medication made her hyper, acting worse than the 7 year olds she was in charge of. How many bishops are hooked on major narcotic painkillers?

Years ago my brother, a stalwart member of the church, was dying from a brain tumor. He was suffering intensely. A good friend of mine suggested marijuana to ease his stomach pain, which was due to the massive steroid medication he was taking to control the tumor growth. She was nice enough to hook me up with a tea box size sample to try. I had no experience with marijuana so I couldn’t decide how to prepare it. Should I chop it up and bake it into cookies? Should he just smoke it like a cigarette? This was before I had the internet to solve my life problems.

I asked my husband, who had brushes of experience with marijuana in is youth, for advice. He was horrified that:
A. I would consider bringing illegal drugs into our house with young children at home.
B. I would think it appropriate to give an illegal drug to a dying man.
C. I wasn’t batting an eye at the moral implications, i.e. The Word of Wisdom.
He was right. I wasn’t thinking of anything other than easing my brothers suffering. (And a state trooper friend reassured me the cops weren’t interested in interfering with a hospice cancer patient’s treatments.)

My husband convinced me to give back my friends love offering and to stick with the prescription drugs, side effects and all. He pointed out that the hospice workers who were at our house daily, would surely notice what I was doing and that was the real risk. That and I realized my Word of Wisdom, law-abiding brother would never knowing take marijuana because Heavenly Father said no. But morphine was great and heaven approved.

She almost makes some sense in the middle there, but then gives up to the "Word of Wisdom" which was goddamned motherfucking MORPHINE. Yeah, Mormons never cease to amaze me with how "wack" they are. I mean, just read that.

http://www.mormonmentality.org/2012/02/ ... -drugs.htm

[Joe Hillshoist]

Saying wack is wack, get thee back to the 80s.... oh wait a minute.

I knew a couple of Mormon missionaries (in the 80s as it happens. We used to get them playing cricket all day instead of door knocking - they much preferred it. both were young 18 - 20 and in the Marines. Funnily enough they were genuinely nice people (as others have mentioned) tho I guess that is what you look for when picking missionaries.

[Luposapien]

Technically I'm a Mormon, with the designated rank of "Priest" no less, though I'm sure I'd have to undergo a bit of rehabilitation before they'd let me bless the bread and water again. This sounds more impressive than it actually is, though, as it's pretty much a distinction granted to every male member once they reach a certain age, and make it through the interview with their bishop. Haven't set foot in an LDS church in about 20 years, but was never excommunicated or went through the trouble of having my name stripped from the roles.

In any case, yes, many people in the church are very kind, but in my experience, in that sort of 1950's-fantasy-America-that-never-really-was way that sort of creeps me out.

And though not every one does, pretty much every male member of the church is expected to do a 2 year mission once they reach the age of 19. This was actually my breaking point with the church, as it forced me to confront the fact that I didn't really believe any of it, which was sort of a deal-breaker when it came to dedicating a couple years of my life to convincing other people that it was the One True Church.

[yathrib]

Mormonism is a Christian heresy. What this means is that it's founders earnestly tried to make sense of absurd, crazy making dogmas and beliefs like the trinity and were shunned and anathematized by the guardians of orthodoxy for their trouble. Mormonism is whack, insofar as it is a funhouse mirror image of Christianity. To the extent that it is more whack than Xtianity itself, it's because they are not yet far enough from their founders historically to pick and choose, as ALL mainstream Xtians do.

At least the Mormons had the sense and decency to ditch the absurd and morally repugnant doctrine of eternal punishment, which is more than can be said for even the "nicest" conservative Xtians.