What is the best way to learn about other beliefs?

[Chris-WA]

Now that’s a thing…

Personally?

I’ve been an internet researcher for awhile, and I have figured out a hierarchy of ‘trust’ for sources. For religion, I figure it would go like this:

First trust the websites that are published by the belief system itself.

For Mormonism, that would be “lds.org.”

For Catholicism, I imagine you know what those would be better than me, but the official catechism published by the church would be trustworthy, I think, as well as other websites specifically published by the church, OFFICIALLY.

Next…and further enough down so that I would confirm whatever is on them with the official sites…are websites that are “pro-” whatever religion it is; sites published by true believers, but which are not officially sanctioned by the church.

Next…and a lot further down…would be sites that attempt to examine many different religions and faith systems, like, oh…ReligiousTolerance.org, or national publications that at least attempt to get both believers and non-believers involved.

Then, waaaaay far down the line, are the “oh, you poor dears, how deluded you are; come see what’s REALLY true” sites. You know who they are. The 'treacle anti’s"

Finally, there are the Walter Martin/Jack Chick sites; the out and out “these people are evil incarnate and it’s our job to defeat them by any means necessary.” sites.

Are you protected ‘just because’ you are Catholic? No more than I am because I’m a Mormon. I’ve seen a LOT of anti-Catholic sites that, at first glance, seem objective and even polite…until you get to the insidious and deceptive nature of them. When even I can tell that they are lying through their teeth about what your beliefs are…and doing so for the purpose of discrediting Catholicism and Catholics, well…

Yeah. It ain’t pretty.

I think the most important thing is not so much the source of the information but the information itself. One must research from a wide variety of sources. There are ridiculous extremes like the Jack Chick tracts that immediately reveal their outright malice, but they tend to go way off the deep end and their information can be analyzed and easily disproven. In some cases, however, you are going to get better information from a source that is critical of the religion than from the religion itself. A prime example would be LDS.org. They are not going to tell you ‘the rest of the story’ when it comes to many issues regarding the LDS faith. For example, you are not going to learn from their website that Joseph Smith had at least 33 wives, some of which were teenage girls and some of which were already married to other Mormon men. You are not going to learn from them that Joseph mistranslated facsimiles in the Book of Abraham, if not the entire Egyptian papyri scrolls as well. You are not going to learn that DNA research has proven that native Americans are void of any ancestral genetic ties to Hebrews, but that they instead come from East Asia. And you are certainly not going to learn from them that no person, place, or event in the Book of Mormon has ever been corroborated by any historical, archeological, or linguistic scientific discovery, nor any other source outside of the BoM. So if you were to rely primarily on information found on their website, you would miss a huge amount of critical information.

So regardless of the source, the information must be examined on its own merits. Many LDS will not look deeper into these types of issues because they are taught not to seek any information that could be labelled as ‘anti-Mormon.’ What does that mean to the average LDS? Pretty much anything that’s not published by the church itself and certainly not anything written by non-Mormons, especially apostate ex-mormons. It’s a strategy the church uses to keep members from looking. Fortunately, with the internet that strategy is failing as more and more LDS are seeking answers to questions their own leaders have been unwilling/unable to answer.

P.S., good video on BoM DNA evidence: youtu.be/svfxSscxh8o

 

[zaffiroborant]

I think the most important thing is not so much the source of the information but the information itself. One must research from a wide variety of sources. There are ridiculous extremes like the Jack Chick tracts that immediately reveal their outright malice, but they tend to go way off the deep end and their information can be analyzed and easily disproven. In some cases, however, you are going to get better information from a source that is critical of the religion than from the religion itself. A prime example would be LDS.org. They are not going to tell you ‘the rest of the story’ when it comes to many issues regarding the LDS faith. For example, you are not going to learn from their website that Joseph Smith had at least 33 wives, some of which were teenage girls and some of which were already married to other Mormon men. You are not going to learn from them that Joseph mistranslated facsimiles in the Book of Abraham, if not the entire Egyptian papyri scrolls as well. You are not going to learn that DNA research has proven that native Americans are void of any ancestral genetic ties to Hebrews, but that they instead come from East Asia. And you are certainly not going to learn from them that no person, place, or event in the Book of Mormon has ever been corroborated by any historical, archeological, or linguistic scientific discovery, nor any other source outside of the BoM. So if you were to rely primarily on information found on their website, you would miss a huge amount of critical information.

So regardless of the source, the information must be examined on its own merits. Many LDS will not look deeper into these types of issues because they are taught not to seek any information that could be labelled as ‘anti-Mormon.’ What does that mean to the average LDS? Pretty much anything that’s not published by the church itself and certainly not anything written by non-Mormons, especially apostate ex-mormons. It’s a strategy the church uses to keep members from looking. Fortunately, with the internet that strategy is failing as more and more LDS are seeking answers to questions their own leaders have been unwilling/unable to answer.

P.S., good video on BoM DNA evidence: youtu.be/svfxSscxh8o

And you will never ever learn from an official LDS website what you are expected to do or promise to do in the future when you attend the temple. The LDS church is absolutely unwilling to discuss any aspect of their temple. Members are cautioned to not even discuss it with fellow members who have “been through the temple”.

How can you go to an institution for information when they adamantly refuse to divulge it? Some how I just can’t manage a lot of sympathy for a church that keeps saying just look to what we say and don’t worry about the things we won’t tell you.

 

[Peter_J]

Good post, dianaiad.

Are you protected ‘just because’ you are Catholic? No more than I am because I’m a Mormon.

Alright, but let me put it this way: would the majority of your fellow Mormons admit that they can be biased?