Has anyone else seen the billboards around town? I've seen 2. One is at Stafford on Webster road inbound near the bridge. The other i've seen is on Settlement road going to the Gap from Keperra. I would hope that this religion doesn't make any headway in Australia. The campaign is supposedly trying to dispell myths about the mormon faith.
It's hard to imagine the appeal of Mormonism working on anybody except Americans. It's up there with scientology imo, probably all religions really, except that its recentness allows anybody with two neurons to see through the bullshit level of the claims. /non-diplomatic
I have a mormon friend on facebook, he's a guy I knew from high school. He's been posting mormon advertising on there too. I went to his going away party a few years ago when he was going on his crusade to utah or whatever the heck they do, it was in an area I bet was all mormons, somewhere out past Chandler.
There's a few mormon church things around the place in Brisbane, there's that big arse one at Kangaroo Point.
Because they're a cult that encourages ostracisation of people who want to leave their religion. That means if you were born a Moron and grew up with at least 3 whole brain cells and worked out that it is full of shit and wanted to leave, your friends and family are meant to shun you.
They are up there with Scientology as crazy cults that everyone knows are fucking crazy yet because so many people are "into it" people don't make a big deal out of how crazy it is in order to not offend John Travolta.
i see the "i'm a mormon" youtube viral thingo heaps :( it's almost as bad as being rickrolled... almost.
they got as much right to buy advertising as any religion i spose.
seen some anti-mormon youtubes in response too :P
At the end of the day, religion is generally bad in any guise but the gross superficiality of the mormon church (as proudly displayed in their garish monument to marble and gold @ kangaroo point) is hard to stomach. 10% of every club members earnings donated and they spend it on that shit? they could at least buy some of the homeless on the other side of the bridge some breakfast :P
LDS is a crock of shit (speaking as one who went to LDS churches from the ages of 9 to around 12).
But then, all religions are a crock of shit. Just because some are newer and thus aren't as familiar in general to most people and so their crazy claims *sound* crazy doesn't mean that the crazy claims by older religions aren't just as crazy.
I love Bill Maher. I wouldn't go as far as he does at times though to call it a mental disorder to believe in something such as god but he's right that religion these days does more harm than good and gives way to lots of killings and evil shit.
EDIT - He has a segment on mormons in his movie Religulous which is a great watch. Funniest shit about them is that mormons are supposed to wear magic underwear which looks like old cowboy style long johns which are apparantly said to protect you from fire, gun and knife attacks as well as satan.
Well that's fair enough MatchFixah. Since you're quite religious, it would be a remarkable feat for you to accept his views without calling your own into question.
what the fuck is this some type of ultra evangelism? religions are a waste of time, all of them, and they create more problems than they solve. Can't we all just believe in safe, warm science?
I once had a girl working for me who was a Jehovah's Witness, she basically went through one of their ostracising processes because she kissed a boy or some such and it was horrible to behold. All her family/friends were JW's, and they all basically acted like she was dead, so she literally had no-one to turn to - turned her life inside out.
Took about 3 months but she eventually dealt with it all and sorted her life out as a non JW, the emotional damage from that BS though. Her family still don't speak to her.
Yeah it's funny how some of these cults like scientology are outcasted, but the more mainstream ones are allowed to happily coexist in out communities. That ostracizing process you mentioned is exactly the same as the one used in scientology.
they say freedom of religion is a human right.. but aren't we at the point of human development where we can say.. 'hey, this is a damaging belief. It causes harm to it's followers with anarchic practices. You are not permitted to follow it."
Eradicating Islam/Judaism/Christianity/Catholisism would be the single biggest advancement the human race would have even made.
The last 2000 years of shit have mainly been to these big 4 causing shit.
General Rule : If it has ever caused violence or harm, gone.
The only problem is, with religion gone, what is there for these dildos to believe to take the pain away from their pathetic lives. That's why we need scientific advancement to come in and make life better.
Because they're a cult that encourages ostracisation of people who want to leave their religion. That means if you were born a Moron and grew up with at least 3 whole brain cells and worked out that it is full of shit and wanted to leave, your friends and family are meant to shun you.
I don't think I had ever even heard of Mormonism (or at least paid any attention to it) until I was in the US in 1999 for E3. (Note: as this story is over 10 years old I might have some minor details wrong, but the broad strokes are all right.)
I was staying with my uncle and aunt in Menlo Park, near Silicon Valley. In the very short amount of time I had there where I wasn't playing q3test, I met some of the other people in his apartment complex - they had a big BBQ and everyone came out and ate and drank beer and stuff.
One of the guys I met was this dude dressed like your classic artistic type. I can't remember the details, except he was wearing one green shoe and one red shoe. I ended up talking to him for a while and found out he used to be a Mormon (a real live one from Utah).
At some point prior to that he had decided the whole thing was a crock of shit and he wanted to move to California to seek his fortune, as so many people often do. He talked pretty calmly about how his whole family basically gave him an ultimatum that if he moved away and abandoned them and the faith they wouldn't ever talk to him again.
That is basically what happened; he hadn't spoken to his parents for years and they refused to talk to him. I think he still had some contact with a sibling on and off but I got the impression it was a little frosty or at least weird.
He was a really cool guy (he took us on a tour through where he worked - PDI, now PDI/Dreamworks, and we got a sneak peek at the still-in-development Shrek movie on which he was working and saw a bunch of other awesome stuff) and seemed completely normal and well adjusted, so I remember listening on in horror to the story that it was basically part of this "religion" for people to so callously discard family members just because they had a disagreement of opinion on matters of faith.
He seemed to pretty much at peace with the whole thing; he didn't talk about his parents scathingly or negatively, just matter-of-factly. I'm sure though that it was a source of constant pain at some level. Hopefully he has reconciled with them.
Obviously this is just one story; I am sure there are many tales of happiness somewhere. But as with pretty much all religions, this one largely survives by brainwashing you as soon as is reasonably possible and seems to have a really, really strong focus on ostracising those who attempt to leave the fold to make sure there is strong, strong pressure to stay. It is sad, and scary.
(On a pseudo-related note, if you have not seen the TV show "Big Love" I recommend it. It is about a Mormon polygamist family. Not all Mormons are polygamist (I'm sure it's a tiny minority, so the show isn't exactly representative of Mormonism in general), but it's a really interesting drama that shows the trials and tribulations that poly families have to go through in a society where the background radiation of crazy is much higher than normal anyway because such a high percentage of them are regular Mormons. It is an HBO show so it has awesome production, great cast, etc. )
I was in the LDS church from around 1984 to 1988 or something like that. It's been in Australia for a while. Was here in the '60s too.
I could be wrong but it didn't seem as extreme as in the US. I say this because when we joined the church our family were friends with another Mormon family where the mother and the children were all Mormon but the father was ex-communicated but they still all lived together etc. So, at least as an 8 or 9 year old I didn't see any of attempts to cut ex-believers out of the lives of their families. Certainly wouldn't surprise me that it happened elsewhere of course.
I think about my point about religion has some logic behind it.
If there is a belief which gives people a justification to do harm to others, should it be allowed?
If there is a belief which causes family's to be destroyed, should it be allowed?
I can give examples of almost every religion where it has been used as a justification to kill.
Catholic - Crusades
Islam - Terrorists/Crusades
Christianity - Lions
Mormonism - Read the history, they had some full on wars
If you had a bunch of people trying to survive and one person in your group was following crazy, irrational beliefs which were putting everyone at risk, would you kick him out of the group? Yes, you would.
Look at Tony Abbott. His religion obviously influences his policy. So he is against abortion. Abortion is a scientific way of ending a pregnancy and therefore shouldn't it be allowed in certain circumstances? Cloning is fantastic and could make giant leaps in medical science, yet it has been banned because of secular pressure.
These ancient beliefs which pervade our society are just what they are, ancient. The are inhibiting human advancement and causing harm.
If you were dying and scientists could clone you a new lung, wouldn't you want them to do that? The thing is, they can't, because there are people in power who are ethically against it.
If you had a bunch of people trying to survive and one person in your group was following crazy, irrational beliefs which were putting everyone at risk, would you kick him out of the group?
Because they're a cult that encourages ostracisation of people who want to leave their religion. That means if you were born a Moron and grew up with at least 3 whole brain cells and worked out that it is full of shit and wanted to leave, your friends and family are meant to shun you.
I think that's a family decision, the church won't tell you to do anything in relation to that.
I was a Mormon from about age 7 to around 11. I saw the bullshit, and my parents got mad at me and made me go to church. Then when I was about 14, I just refused to go. They didn't ostracise me or anything.
so judging by the advertising the women and just meant to stay at home ?
all the adversiting on tv has women saying that they used to do whatever their job was but gave that up because now they are a mormon..
as if it makes a difference to their job, assuming they are allowed job - which i'm guessing they aren't
Women can do whatever they want. There are a lot of large Mormon families though. I knew one family that had 24 kids. Amazingly, the father wasn't a Mormon.
Mormons are very focussed on the family unit though, and have things like "family home evening" to encourage families getting together etc.
Don't get me wrong, i think it's a massive self perpetuating money making machine, and everything they do is in order to make more money. They encourage making babies, because that increases their membership, which increases their tithe.
When I was in the church, my parents paid 10% of all their earnings to the church. I specifically remember them having a discussion about it in the lounge room with the local bishop because they had gotten behind, and had to catch up. I also remember my Mum and Dad stressing about the mortgage, but they were still giving 10% of their money away. Blew my mind.
I was also expected to pay 10% of my pocket money from age 8 when I got baptised, and then 10% of my paper run money when I got that.
That's in addition to all the work we did for the church as well. My Dad was a 2nd Counsellor in our Ward, which basically meant he was 3IC of all of the logistics of running a church, the accounting, people management, up keep of the facilities etc etc... and he did this in addition to a full time job... for free. Every role across the entire church is volunteer until you get to a certain level. From memory, that was an Area President, but I could be wrong. And even then, I think they're only reimbursed for travel expenses.
Basically a large scale rort, which if it make reference to Jesus would be considered illegal.
As I became a young teenager, i could see them grooming us all to go on "a mission", which are the guys you see running around on bikes in suits. These guys actually pay their own way to do this, and we were encouraged to start saving early on to do our bit.
Everything in relation to being a Mormon is about making more Mormons.
Wow Mantra, you must have extreme mental strength to have been able to break away from all that grooming, established friendships, and brainwashing.
Have you met many others who did the same thing as you?
Meh, I was stubborn I think :)
It's not as bad as all that, and the people that are in the church are actually happy to be in it. It provides a massive social network for all sort of different people, and the general idea of being nice to people isn't a bad thing to teach people. I just didn't agree with all the fairy stories.
I think of all the kids I used to hang out with from that time, probably 5-10% of them have left eh church. So not a large amount really.
My entire family has now left, but it took my Mum the longest, and I think if you still asked her if she was a Mormon, she might say "yes".
Wow Mantra, you must have extreme mental strength to have been able to break away from all that grooming, established friendships, and brainwashing.
Have you met many others who did the same thing as you?
To be honest, I've wondered if these things might have a neurological basis, similar to sexual orientation, and if some people can't help being either way.
Similar story here, raised in super-Christian environment, lots of censorship, naive misinformation, and what one would call "brainwashing", as well as the whole 'belonging to a faction' deal. Took an interest in greek mythology, realised that I considered Bible mythology on the same level, was never interested in religion again beyond being decent historical fantasy literature. Rest of the family is still very religious (oh the conversion attempts).
I'm not particularly smart, and there are some very intelligent people who do believe in supernatural concepts. To me, the creditability of all religions is equally non-existent (since to me they're all obviously the exact same thing! - wishful human-created fairy tales which don't hold up to realities revealed by research since unless you really twist it), and so it is literally impossible for me to understand why others would put any stock in these stories at all - even when they are intelligent and informed - and so lately I have been wondering if it's simply a difference of brains.
It's possible that building on KP cliffs is a little over the top heh. I don't know much about it all to be honest but every time I speak to a person of Mormon faith we have a chat and a drink and they are on their way! I did take a religious photo the other day though! :)
I love how everyone is in such an uproar about the ads syaing things like "omg disgusting" and picking on thier beliefs.
Yet, if the same comments etc were being made about islam, screams of "RACIST!" would be echoing throughout the forum from the very same members.
I haven't seen 1 thread about islam being ridiculous (islam is way worse than christianity and mormons, hell, even worse than scientology) yet not a single thread. Why? Because it's not politically correct.
When it comes to muslims it is "oh just let them be"
Actually I was about to suggest that Mormons perhaps don't deserve any more shit than any other religion, and perhaps are safer to have around since they seem so committed to being nice folk. ^_^
Besides moist, you have shown your nature in several threads, and it's definitely got just such a bias as you're accusing of in being quite pro white & Christianity and quite anti everything else. Nobody is going to take your whinge seriously because all you want is a platform to be biased on, and not rational discussion about anybody.
where is the massive advertising campaign for the islamic faith?
they would cop it just as sweet here if there was "i'm a muslim" style advertising plastered all over my youtubes.
not double standards.
I love how everyone is in such an uproar about the ads syaing things like "omg disgusting" and picking on thier beliefs.
Yet, if the same comments etc were being made about islam, screams of "RACIST!" would be echoing throughout the forum from the very same members.
I haven't seen 1 thread about islam being ridiculous (islam is way worse than christianity and mormons, hell, even worse than scientology) yet not a single thread. Why? Because it's not politically correct.
When it comes to muslims it is "oh just let them be"
Double standards.
if you weren't such a giant raging noob, you would have seen plenty of threads and plenty of posts from plenty of people where those of us that think religion is stupid also apply it to Islam
You just think we (or I, I assume your comments are targeted at me) are pro-Muslim because once or twice I jumped on someone's (probably yours) racist bigotry fuckwittery, I guess
keep on truckin' though tiger! You should move to somewhere in the middle of the US where you never have to see a brown person, you'd fit right in
Also, that thing on the KP cliffs is a temple, so it's not the standard church, but a particularly holy place where god often hangs out. Guess he likes golden statues of Moroni and a nice view of the Brisbane river.
That's also where they get their underwear, or temple garments. It's a big deal to visit the temple, and not everyone gets to go right away. You have to be particularly Mormontastic to get in.
You know, sometimes they make strange noises I don't understand. It's like they're talking another language or something! Good thing you escaped Hoggy :)
When it comes to muslims it is "oh just let them be"
NO, it's more like "OH shit watch what you say or they'll fly a plane into our shit".
All religions are silly, in my opinion. However, some are 'worse' than others by social standards, as they encourage people to excommunicate quitters, kill people for believing in a different sky daddy or blow themselves up along with others.
Religion can be peaceful or it can be Extremist.
Extremism can exist in all Religions just as with Ideologies. (like Watermelons)
You should always be sceptical of ppl who want you to make sacrifices.
It only stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting the sacrificial offerings.
Where there’s service, there is someone being served.
The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master. -Ayn Rand
Religion can be peaceful or it can be Extremist.
Extremism can exist in all Religions just as with Ideologies. (like Watermelons)
You should always be sceptical of ppl who want you to make sacrifices.
It only stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting the sacrificial offerings.
Where there’s service, there is someone being served.
The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master. -Ayn Rand
But you'd make the 3rd worlders sacrifice for your economic gain m i right? (given what crazy you're trying to imply :P)
Religion exists to control peoples lives in a way that benefits the Religion
Or maybe it exists to rid the world of violence, debauchery, sloth, greed, gluttony, hatred, crime, addiction, envy, illness, pride and terror! At least that's what some of those entities try and stand for isn't it? :)
Or maybe it exists to rid the world of violence, debauchery, sloth, greed, gluttony, hatred, crime, addiction, envy, illness, pride and terror! At least that's what some of those entities try and stand for isn't it? :)
In my experience it exists because people really like fairy tails. I was in a woman's house the other day who had astrology posters and art everywhere on the walls, I no longer see the difference between that and mainstream religions.
However I don't agree that no "good" comes of religion, it's impossible to balance, but there is some sizeable charity work which comes of it (albeit, imo nearly always "tainted" with indoctrination, and people can be helpful/charitable without religion too). On a side note, which I just remembered, some religious group helped me out after the floods with an enormous de-mudding effort, I can't remember which (the council and army somehow missed our street, despite being in the top few worst hit in the city :/), was possibly even the church of latter day saints.
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