LDS = Mormon = The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, for those of you lucky enough to not be familiar with the religion.
I normally keep my opinions on religion to myself (except when drawn into debate), but this particular sect of Christianity is so amazing and riddled with incredible happenings that I feel compelled to talk about it.
Let's start with the founding father / prophet figure of the religion: Joseph Smith. Now, Mormonism was founded in the mid 1800's, which makes it even more shocking. Anyhow, Joseph Smith not only practiced black magic (scrying and fortune telling), but this practice led to his founding of the religion.
The way the story goes is that an angel came to him while he was scrying, and eventually said angel (Moroni, I think?) gave him some gold plates, from which the book of mormon was transcribed - naturally, these plates were in a secret language which only Smith could read (with divine lenses).
The story gets better - according to the Book of Mormon, the Garden of Eden was, in fact, located around Idaho/Utah. And apparently, god frowns upon the dark skinned races of humans because they are sedentary and materialistic.
Now, the coupe de grace - polygamy. Talk to any mainstream Mormon today and they'll exuberantly berate you for even mentioning the word. Some history is in order here - after Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, he continued receiving revelations from god, which he published in another book. The most controversial was the one stating that pluralism was divinely ordained.
This belief eventually led to Smith's murder in the mid 1800's, but the church continued to practice polygamy until ~1900 - the mainstream would still be practicing if it weren't for serious government intervention.
Perhaps less surprising is that women are publicly subjugated - these LDS folks don't beat around teh bush about that.
Now, all this would be fine but for one thing - the missions; the mainfest destiny; whatever you want to call it. Mormons aren't content with knowing that their religion is right. No. They have to actively attempt to spread it to every niche and crevice of society. This is perhaps the worst aspect of the entire religion.
Let's run down here for the people who don't like to read stuff in paragraph form.
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI>Founder practiced black magic
<LI>Bigoted, both religiuously and racially
<LI>Chauvanistic
<LI>Total obedience to the church is required
<LI>Strong 'manifest destiny'
<LI>Very strict sect of Christianity
<LI>Polygamists at heart if not in practice
</UL>
And the kicker? the kicker is that this religion was founded in the age of the printing press, practically in the age of modern science. It shocks me that such obvious deceit is the groundwork ofr such a successful religion.
Thoughts/comments?
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