Really, I think I should start a new thead: Do Mormons have religious defensiveness, sometimes seeing insult where there is none?
(grin)
I would answer…yes. We do. Rather like the kid who has to run the gauntlet of bullies in order to get to the lunch room sometimes flinches when (for once) the fist ISN"T aimed at his ribs.
On the other hand, because we’ve had so much experience with this sort of thing, we are also rather good at seeing insults that actually
are there, no matter how sweetly presented or veiled.
I don’t mean to be insulting here! However, at times my friend has surprised me, when I’ve boldly asked her things like, 'You can’t do that on the Sabbath?" or, “You can’t drink tea either?” (I’d thought it was just coffee). But we communicate well, and we straighten things out.
She sounds like a very good source to go to for finding out what’s what about Mormonism.
With the first statement, I was so surprised to find later she thought I was insulting her or her religion, or supposing she should do things differently, when I just was genuinely surprised and wanted clarification. The latter question came up at a later time, whenI offered her some iced green tea, and I saw the hestatiion after my surprised question “You don’t drink tea, either?!?” (I was surprised, becasue green tea is healthy), and afraid that it was the beginnings of the look of, “I’ve been insulted” on her face, and was able to clear it up right away – I was not judging her belief, just asking what her beleif was, and I completely respect her for following the rules of her faith. Obedience is a virtue. Jesus honors what we do for Him!
Good for her…and yes, green tea IS healthy. On the other hand, so is a can of beer if you are nursing, or the occasional class of wine. We still abstain.
But as I have gotten to know my friend I do assume a defensiveness and look out for that - that my statements or questions just might be taken as intended insults when they are not. I never assumed this was a culturally Mormon defensiveness; I thought it was my friend’s own senstivities. However, after this dialougue with Dianaiad, I am wondering otherwise!
Eliza…
Please take some time and REALLY look at our history. Not from some anti Mormon source; look at our history from our point of view, as you look at Catholic history from a Catholic point of view. Consider that it was just a couple of years ago that Mitt Romney went down in flames as a presidential candidate because people didn’t like Mormons. Consider that, because a group of people were MORMONS (yes, I know, they weren’t LDS, but they were Mormons and were certainly percieved as such) that the state government raided their compound and quite literally kidnapped all the women and children, taking the children away from their mothers, separating families and causing GREAT harm to them: sometimes, it turns out, physical harm. The courts have since condemned the vast majority of those actions as being unconstitutional and absolutely unjustified, but that didn’t stop the Texas CPS from DOING it, did it? Because the folks around them were ANGRY (you don’t have a problem with that, I remember) at the thought of them living polygamous lives.
Turns out that Texan children outside the compound were ten times more likely to be abused than any child inside it…and children in the foster care system were 70 times more likely to be abused than children inside it, but because the CPS didn’t like polygamy, the state put all those children in the foster care system.
You may not have read my own personal experiences with anti-Mormon acts, but others here have. I haven’t exactly been reticent. Suffice it to say that I have been stoned (with real rocks), spat upon, run away from, had to wade through people mocking our most sacred symbols in order to get to the Temple doors, had my children physically shoved out of "Christian’ bookstores because the clerk saw the CTR ring…
Yeah, Eliza. sometimes we see insult where there is none. Most of the time, though, when we SEE one, it’s because there is one.
