Conversation with a Mormon

[dianaiad]

If one were to develop a formula wich would take into account time and number of persons involved, I would suspect, based on my research, that LDS has been responsible directly and indirectly for more suffering on earth.

Indeed?

Care to show me precisely HOW that would be?

Let’s see…

Even our most foam-at-the-mouth critics can find only one incident that could be at the level I’m talking about, and even that one was neither ordered, nor condoned, by the leadership of the church. I’m talking, of course, about the 120 deaths at Mountain Meadows.

But let’s include that. 120 people. In 179 years.

There are no other such incidents in the history of the church. You DO realize this, right? Nothing?

No murders?
No tortures?
No witch hunts?
Nothing even close to that?

In every single other incident of murderous intent in LDS church history, the members of the church served as the targets, not the perpetrators, of the events.

120 people.
In 179 years.

Whereas, using extremely conservative numbers, the Catholic church has been officially responsible for well over a million people in 2000 years. That’s adding the conservative estimates from the Crusades, the Inquisition, the witch hunts…all of it.

Let us do the math, shall we?

That means that, if we average it out as a ‘per year’ statistic, the LDS is responsible for about less than one death per year since its formation.

Whereas the Catholics have been responsible for an average of 500 deaths per year for 2000 year. Conservatively.

Of course most people put the death count far higher than that. I think even the Catholics admit that the death toll is higher than that…and you can’t even claim that the MMM was more horrific than anything the Catholics have done.

Not when you have the massacre of the Albegensians, the witch hunts and the Inquisition in your history.

Now I’m glad that the Catholics have ‘learned from their mistakes.’ May I very gently suggest that it took you, perhaps, a little longer than it should have?

So for you to sit there and have the…chutspa…to claim that the Mormons have killed proportionately more people than the Catholics have is ludicrous.

But please. Feel quite free to show us the research for this claim.

 

[dianaiad]

Dianaiad, we’re talking doctrine versus actions of sinful men in the name of the Church. Polygamy, blacks denial of priesthood were doctrinal and taught by your prophets–there has never been a reversal of dogma in the Catholic Church. The things that happened in the middle ages were never DOCTRINE but sinful men. Wherever humans are involved there will ALWAYS be sin and don’t use the example of “limbo” as dogma reversal because that never was DOGMA but a THEORY as we have no direct revelation on that topic and won’t make one up conveniently.

Pope Innocent VIII would have argued with you, y’know. So would Pope Gregory IX…

That is, they would argue with you that their actions were sinful and evil, and they were certainly, as Popes, and very proud of their actions, the ‘Catholic Church.’

To ignore this is to commit the classic “True Scott” fallacy.

.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Pope Innocent VIII would have argued with you, y’know. So would Pope Gregory IX…

That is, they would argue with you that their actions were sinful and evil, and they were certainly, as Popes, and very proud of their actions, the ‘Catholic Church.’

To ignore this is to commit the classic “True Scott” fallacy.

.

Please show this doctrine to which you infer.

 

[Stephen168]

Pope Innocent VIII would have argued with you, y’know. So would Pope Gregory IX…

That is, they would argue with you that their actions were sinful and evil, and they were certainly, as Popes, and very proud of their actions, the ‘Catholic Church.’

So you agree with her. Or is there some hidden meaning you are suggesting?

To ignore this is to commit the classic “True Scott” fallacy.

Do you mean the “No True Scott” fallacy… Like no true Mormon would have sex with his partner’s wife.

 

[zaffiroborant]

In case anyone is interested Mr. Fuller has taken his CARMite like rant over to the MAAD board, where one poster is countering his claims. He bluntly states there he has no interest in substantiating his claims. No he just wants to make inflammatory Anti-Catholic remarks.

Bukowski has joined with his assertion of “thousand(s)” of years of torture etc. perhaps Diane might like to contribute her assertion of “millions” of deaths. After all on that board you only have to substantiate claims about the LDS.

This puts all of Mr. Fuller’s “make nice” on this board in a whole new light. And at this point I don’t believe any LDS when they say they are only here to correct misconceptions or to have a friendly discussion. So many have proven otherwise.

 

[Jerusha]

LOL Hopefully, one day you might read my “little writing project”. Enough said.

 

[dianaiad]

So you agree with her. Or is there some hidden meaning you are suggesting?

Do you mean the “No True Scott” fallacy… Like no true Mormon would have sex with his partner’s wife.

Rather. like the one Jerusha was talking about, which seems to be that no true Catholic would commit murder, engage in a witch hunt or torture people who might be guilty of heresy, even if that Catholic who is not ‘true’ is the Pope.

(shrug)

But then I have noticed that there is a small difficulty here. You see, I’m not attempting to say that Mormons did not commit the MMM. They did. They were Mormons, and they certainly thought of themselves as ‘true.’ Nor have I ever played the ‘true scott’ fallacy (and your condescending attempt at correction is also noted…) in regard to the CoJCoLDS. I accept it, warts and villains and all. In fact, I do believe that I’m the one who published a list of infamous Mormons. (looking back) Yep, that was me.

It is Jerusha…and perhaps you…who are claiming that Catholics as people, and the Catholic church as an entity, is wholly free from such actions, since of course no ‘true’ Catholic would do such things.

It wasn’t ME who came right out and said that the Mormons were guilty of more horrors, proportionately (taking into account numbers and years) than the Catholics, even as someone else said that the Catholics have ‘learned from’ their mistakes.

I’m simply congratulating you on so learning, and correcting the notion that you guys make fewer ‘mistakes’ to learn from. That’s not exactly how it went, y’know.

I WILL say this: it is not fair to blame the belief system for the actions of those who break its rules. That’s why when others start blaming religion for all the deaths of the crusades, I jump in on the side of the religion; the crusades were about politics and power far more than they were about religion. Its harder to do that in terms of the Spanish conquistadors, since the most violent murders and destruction there was at the direct behest—and the hands of–the church, and because the huge cultural change in South America was mostly about the church. There are far too many Catholic churches plonked down on the top of Aztec temples. Far too much gold found its way into the coffers of the church in Spain, gold that financed religious persecution all over Europe.

The one thing I do admire about the Catholic church is that its members can overlook all that, and actually write something like: “If one were to develop a formula wich would take into account time and number of persons involved, I would suspect, based on my research, that LDS has been responsible directly and indirectly for more suffering on earth.”

I find that not only deeply offensive, but wildly inaccurate.

And ludicrous.

 

[Jerusha]

Your mind-reading of my line of logic is wildly inaccurate.

 

[Stephen168]

Rather. like the one Jerusha was talking about, …

Your response was to ‘sweetnay.’

She simple said that Catholics can be sinful but not our doctrine. Mormon doctrine has been sinful (racism, polygamy). You listed two sinful Catholics, but no sinful Catholic dogma, so I guess we all agree with sweetnay.

 

[sweetnay]

Dianaid/fuller etc:

catholicconvert.com/Portals/0/Documents/Infallible.doc

Here is an article from Steve Ray about whether or not a Pope can be sinful etc, he definatly is able to more eloquently state the position than I ever would.
Since I can’t figure out how to post this link from my phone, paste this in your browser,

 

[dianaiad]

Your mind-reading of my line of logic is wildly inaccurate.

I wasn’t reading your mind.
I was reading what you wrote. Do I need to quote it again, Jerusha?

Well, whether or not I need to, here it is: “If one were to develop a formula wich would take into account time and number of persons involved, I would suspect, based on my research, that LDS has been responsible directly and indirectly for more suffering on earth.”

Well, I DID develop such a formula.

By looking at history, and acknowledging that estimates like 9.000.000 witches murdered was more like 100,000, that the Inquisition was responsible for thousands, not millions, of deaths, and by looking at similar estimates of different events and body counts, it turns out that the Catholic church is DIRECTLY (as in, ordered by the Pope or his official representatives in church courts and the priesthood) responsible for about 33,000,000 deaths, counting some of the crusades (like the Albegensian), the 30 years war and the conquest of the Americas (just those deaths that were ordered by the church, not those which were the result of political conquest) over 2000 years.

That’s 16,500 deaths a year. By contrast, using the one and only incident of atrocity that can be put at the feet of Mormons (even though Brigham Young forbade it), Mormons have been responsible for .67 deaths a year. That means that we have been responsible for one death for every 22,110 that the Catholics are responsible for.

Using some very longwinded math, using estimates of the world population against the probable Catholic population since 1AD, it turns out that there have been approximately 25 billion Catholics on the planet. Long story shorter, that works out to 1.3 deaths for every 100 Catholics that have ever lived to adulthood.

What is the death per 100 rate for Mormons? I’m just using the present population of Mormons–which is to your advantage, by the way, not mine…of 13,000,000. Do the math yourself, of course, but that works out to 1 death for every 108,333 Mormons.

Wait. doesn’t that make the Catholic church, what, a thousand times more murderous than the Mormons?

…and that is taking into account population and time.

As I said, you were offensive, Jerusha.

Now you COULD use the argument that ‘no true Catholic’ would murder anybody, which of course means that more than one pope was ‘no true CAtholic’ and I might accept that.

IF, that is, you would also acknowledge that the same argument holds true for Mormons, especially since we have the letter from Brigham Young directly ordering the southern Utah Mormons to leave the Fancher train alone, and unlike the way the Catholics dealt with their murderers (rewarding them and making them, in some cases, Saints) the man who led the massacre at MMM was excommunicated and eventually executed.

Y’see, it’s not just the wild-*** accusation you just made that was offensive. it was also the double standard you are using; everything ever done by any Mormon is, in your view, the direct responsibility of the church. On the other hand, nothing done by ANY Catholic, even if that Catholic is the Pope, is the responsibility of the church if that action is something you don’t approve of.

Sorry, but that’s just not going to fly with anybody who actually thinks.

WERE those things done by sinful men? Of course they were. And those sinful men were not just Catholics; they were in some cases acting in the name of the Church, by the full authority OF the church–by the highest official IN the church. That makes it ‘the church.’

 

[ParkerD]

Diana,
I just wanted to say “hooray” for your comments. Keep it up!

 

[Jerusha]

And I have read “Mein Kampf”. It appears to me that he was very well acquainted with the negative aspect of Mormonism and the Book of Mormon, and may have been a Jack-Mormon. He pursued WWII thinking that his Mormon “friends” would have prevented the US from entering the war. Read it for yourself, unless you think it would inflame your Nazi tendencies more than they are.

 

[sweetnay]

Please provide your sources for your claims, and again you miss the point–DOCTRINE vs sinful actions of man acting in the name of the Church-your “prophets” are the ones who claim to have a direct relationship w heavenly father and as the last momissionarries stated “speak w god face to face” aka Moses-resulting in your ever- doctrine. The Church has never taught dogmatically in error, the Mormon church has. It is erroneous at its core. Despite mans best efforts to destroy the Catholic Church, inside and out-she has remained supernaturally preserved at her core as She is lead by the Holy Spirit. Humans as a race have changed much over the last 2000 years, but the eternal doctrine of the Church has not. I shudder to think of the bloody reign of Bring’ em Young and the Danites had they got their start 2000 years ago.

 

[why_me]

Y’see, it’s not just the wild-*** accusation you just made that was offensive. it was also the double standard you are using; everything ever done by any Mormon is, in your view, the direct responsibility of the church. On the other hand, nothing done by ANY Catholic, even if that Catholic is the Pope, is the responsibility of the church if that action is something you don’t approve of.

Sorry, but that’s just not going to fly with anybody who actually thinks.

WERE those things done by sinful men? Of course they were. And those sinful men were not just Catholics; they were in some cases acting in the name of the Church, by the full authority OF the church–by the highest official IN the church. That makes it ‘the church.’

You are doing a great job here.

Your analogy is one reason why I have preached on this board to recognize the goodness in the lds faith and not just be critical to the point of obsession. There are good in both the catholic and lds churches but the imperfections of human beings will always be with us. But how catholics can drag out mormon history with a straightface is still a mystery to me.

 

[why_me]

Please provide your sources for your claims, and again you miss the point–DOCTRINE vs sinful actions of man acting in the name of the Church-your “prophets” are the ones who claim to have a direct relationship w heavenly father and as the last momissionarries stated “speak w god face to face” aka Moses-resulting in your ever- doctrine. The Church has never taught dogmatically in error, the Mormon church has. It is erroneous at its core. Despite mans best efforts to destroy the Catholic Church, inside and out-she has remained supernaturally preserved at her core as She is lead by the Holy Spirit. Humans as a race have changed much over the last 2000 years, but the eternal doctrine of the Church has not. I shudder to think of the bloody reign of Bring’ em Young and the Danites had they got their start 2000 years ago.

Its apples and oranges, the chicken or the egg. If we go back into the past and look into catholic history, we will see much is left to be desired as good people mixed with bad people who used the church for evil purposes. And yes, doctrine of truth was used to kill people by catholic leaders, thus the inquisition and other happenings in church history.

Who has taught in error could be one reason for murder if this were the fifteenth century.

 

[sweetnay]

Again, we recognize the mess that humans are and always will be, speaking to the CORE of the mormon church, it has taught in error and completely reversed what was at one point considered eternal doctrine straight from the mouths of your prophets themselves!! The Catholic Church has NEVER done this because she is prevented from doing so by the Holy Spirit, her Core is preserved no matter how hard man tries to screw it up-- there will always be the wheat and chaff together as this is a fallen world. We’ve got hundreds of years more of human history then a religion started in the 1800’s. We take Jesus at his word, as he is God, when he established his Church and promised the gates of hell would not prevail against it.

 

[sweetnay]

Please cite this dogma that ordered killing whyme

 

[RebeccaJ]

A) Mormons are taught to be kind and friendly in order to gain converts.
B) Mormons are taught the the Roman Catholic Church is the whore of Babylon, the cause of a great apostasy that plunged the world in darkness for 1800 years.

As you have noticed, A and B conflict when Mormons are in conversations with Catholics. They start with A and gradually over time the biases coming from B emerge.

 

[why_me]

Please cite this dogma that ordered killing whyme

catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0029.html

Learning from our mistakes

Despite these facts, Pope John Paul II warns us:

Yet the consideration of mitigating factors does not exonerate the Church from the obligation to express profound regret for the weaknesses of so many of her sons and daughters who sullied her face, preventing her from fully mirroring the image of her crucified Lord, the supreme witness of patient love and of humble meekness. From these painful moments of the past a lesson can be drawn for the future, leading all Christians to adhere fully to the sublime principle stated by the Council: “The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it wins over the mind with both gentleness and power.”2

Now of course, this is a catholic defense website but the catholic church was responsible for some blood. Now I must say again that the church is made up of imperfect people as is the lds church and as is all churches. No one is perfect.