You have to admire the persistance of Mormons
 

in town today, two Mormon missionary's came up to me and tried to get me interested in their religion. Which is normal I suppose - except I am wearing a tee shirt that has Hebrew writing all over the front, and still they try and convert me and talk to me about their church!

They do kind of annoy me, but they have a right to preach their religion, and they were very polite and everything.

Well, maybe if those were dyslexic missionaries...nah. Heh, I guess they're just trying too hard and weren't payin' attention. No biggy.

Your shirt makes you the perfect person to convert - someone who isn't Mormon yet. They'd be wasting their time if they hung out and recruited where people were already Mormon.

I live in Tokyo and I walked past a couple of glum looking Mormans on the train station wearing their psuedo-agent uniforms.

I couldn't help but laugh to myself as I walked by...

heh - ubertuber's point is illuminating.

I guess they figured they'd go as far away from Utah as they could get, and work their way back in, because I get a shitload of them down here in Florida.

I do not begrudge them their perceived duty, what I am unhappy with is the way in which they present themselves and their material. They basically will tell you to your face that you will go to hell because you're not mormon.

Of course, i've had baptist and several other religions' missionaries tell me the same thing. That is horrible.

I don't have to admire anyone who wont accept me for who I am, how I live my life, where I'm going, and the fact that I'm fuckin' OKAY with all of it.

Sure they were Mormon and not Jehovah Witnesses? We have friends who are devout Mormons and they NEVER push their religion on anyone.
Jehovah Witnesses, on the other hand, go door to door and solicit. One of my dearest friends in the world is a JW minister and we get into some heated debates at times.
Some of the personal values of these religions are the same, in considering alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, etc.
Jehovah Witness do not celebrate anything, from Christmas to birthdays. They do not call it 'heaven', it is 'paradise' and only a chosen few will go.

Um well...wasn't a part of the Bible written in Hebrew or something?

I've actually seen more mormons go door to door than JWs. I have no beef with them, they can do whatever the hell they want. If they want to come to my door, that's cool, I usually just say I'm not interested and I'm very happy with my religion. Mormons are usually very polite and nice.

The Old Testament was written in Hebrew.

i've never understood that type of thing, why do churches or religious people have to try and convert people, like the signs outside of churchs with there little "slogans". do they get comission from the church or something? and why the need to knock on my door at 8am sat mornings.....grrr

Aramaic and Hebrew are actually two different languages.

I have had some of the rudest mormons at my door. I do not want to listen to thier speach or join their Billion Dollar Tax Free Corporation. IMO - They need to declare their earnings and be taxed. Any church with that pile of money and their corporatism has no right to a tax exemption. If the athiests got together and worshipped trees would they get the same benefits?

They won't take no thanks for an answer. So I just tell them to leave before I call their boss or the police.

Actually I've never had a problem with the mormons. They knock, you answer the door and say "No thanks I'm not interested" and they politly excuse themselves and leave. Its the friggin Jehovah's Ninjas that make me insane. I think the whole fuckin crew of em (in my town anyway) are brain dead. From now on when I see them hiking it up my driveway I'm gonna strip off and answer the door in the buff. If that doesn't scare em off I don't know what will.

actually, the original texts from which the bible was culled were written in Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Aramaic, depending on which of the books to which you are referring.

the mormons over here seems to get the hint after the first time...

Exactly.

Unfortunately, this is true for me as well. I just wish they would come back, I miss the conversation!

I expect you'll find they'll welcome you if you want to come to them. It's not illegal to do that. :)

Good old Mormons...thinking we care and all...they need love too

A good mormon man will spend a few years trying to convert people (on "mission") sometime around the age of 20.

Most religions believe those who do not follow the belief will go to hell, or some equally undesireable result. And those who follow the religion will get some desireable result. Some religions disagree, and believe that desire itself is not a goal, but that's just a flaw in my use of language: apologies.

There are 3 ways for a religion to grow. The first is breeding and indoctrinating your kids. The second is converting others to your faith actively. And the last is converting others to your faith passively. And religions that do not grow eventually die: the religions you see around are all very good at growing (or, at the least, preventing shrinkage).

A neat example of a religion that failed in this was the deists of the time around the American war of Independance (having amoung it's members a number of the USA's revolutionary fathers). It failed to continue to propagate, and it died out.

Hehe, you might be seeing a friend of mine soon, He just got his mission call, and it's for Florida.

I live in a heavily Mormon populated town, and many of my close friends are Mormon. They are respectful of all of my beliefs, and those of my other non-Mormon friends, albeit if deep down both sides realize the Mormons think our beliefs our subordinate to theirs. Which doesn't really bug me, as we all quietly think their beliefs are crap, too.

But I'll hand it to them, for the most part, they really know how to raise kind, caring people, such as evidenced by my friends and their family's, so, long as they know i've no interest in converting, i've got no qualms with them.

They believe that you WILL go to hell if you don't find God. In theory at least, they are trying to save you eternal torture. Now I'm sure there are missionarys that have less noble motivations, money for the church, heightened standing with their peers, their own sense of self-satisfaction, etc., but the real reason for evangelism is to spread the word and save souls from hell. Seriously, if you were about to walk down a stairway that someone at the top knew had a pack of hungry tigers at the bottoom, wouldn't you want them to tell you about it?

It's your choice whether or not to believe these missionarys, but you shouldn't be offended by them approaching you. In their mind, they're trying to do you a favor.

i dont mind them, i actually enjoy talking to them... i tell them right off that i dont believe the same as them. but that i wouldnt mind talking to them about it if they are bored and just want to talk.

or... if i am having a bad day i come to the door in only my boxers and try to work the words "fuck" and "shit" into every thing i say...

...and yet one more reason I have strayed from any and all religion.

I simple "no thank you" and closing the door on their face will usually suffice.

go onto the lds (latter day saints) website and order a book of mormon. that puts you on a list to have missionaries come to your door. fun thing to do as a joke on one of your friends.

I had some mormons come to the door a few months back and I promised them I would look into their religion online. I sure was surprised on the information I found.

Has anybody else done research on the history of the Mormon church??


Small link of what I was talking about. I spent hours going through this site. link

Sorryto interject...
 

I know that I'm going to be farely rare here, but I'm LDS (Mormon) and I have some light to shed...

1. We do not believe that you go to hell if your not Mormon. We don't even really believe in the normal Christian kind of hell. We believe more that Hell is a state of mind.

2. If ANY Mormon Missionary ever tries to force his or her religion on you - more than just asking you if they can have a moment of your time - and you say no and they keep pushing... PLEASE contact a local authority with that Elder or Sister's name. This is a BIG no-no. We're not out there to force, we're out their to invite.

Sorry to interject... thought all your comments were hillariously well put.

Rachel

my sister is mormon and when her friends from the ward call and she isn't around they always try to ask me about my beliefs and are surprised to hear that I'm not mormon. They ask me about this and that, and say "oh yeah, that's cool..." and try to link it back to mormonism... I call it the obnoxious passivism approach

kind of reminds me of military recruiters, only a bit less intense :)

Heh - sounds about right. I used to do that, don't anymore. After getting bamboozled by Army recruiters...

Hey, MrsRight,

Don't mormons believe they are one of the lost tribe of Israel?

From my short experiences in SLC, I'd think that the mormons talking to Strange Famous were feeling a type of affinity more than anything else.

Mormans believe that the church as Gods institution died with the apostles. While Jesus was on earth for his 40 days of ressurection, he dropped by some cave in New York and had the book of mormon written on some gold plates in a cave in new york. Joseph Smith recieved a vision from an angel to go get and translate these plates. 12 people saw them. It was then Smiths job to restart the church. So that means that no one went to heaven from ~100 AD to ~1830 AD. Anywho, I asked the Mormans that stopped by here one day about a few passages in the Bible where it says "and 3000 were saved that day" and a few other things that dispelled their entire religion and they never came back.

No, we believe we are adopted into the covenant people by the covenant of baptism when we take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ. Just as a baby is adopted into a family, with all teh rights therein, we are adopted by taking upon ourselves the name of Christ into the promise that God gave Abraham.

Not quite. The Book of Mormon, the modern day translation of the golden plates you are referring to, is a record of the people of Nephi from 600 AD until 400 AD. After Jesus's resurrection he visited the people of Nephi on the American Continents. We don't know where on the continent.

I'd love to hear what scriptures you referred to. Please pass them on!

Rachel

then why was christianity new to the native americans? The scripture was in Acts, Ill dig it up. BTW, I am not looking for trouble, as I am sure you are not either. ;)

If you look at the legends of the Natives in South America, you find that there are MANY legends that support the Book of Mormon. Especially among Peruvian Natives. And just like any oral record things have changed over the years. However, when Cortez landed and was welcomed so whole heartedly it was because they believed he was the god their legends promised would return to them.

Also - at the end of the Book of Mormon - 200 years after Christ visited the Americas, the Nephite people were destroyed by the Lamanite people - both descendants from the same family because they had slipped into wickedness. The plates were buried by Moroni - the last prophet of the Nephites after the war.

Look forward to the scriptures and no, I'm not looking for trouble. I am just talking with some new acquaintances on one of the must mature boards I've ever found. I've got some great jokes about my religion if you wanna hear them. :-)

Rachel

OK, I'm confused because I'm not Mormon. But I read some of the book of Mormon and I read some of their history. Then here you are referencing the Nephites and Lamanites.

So I googled around and found this:
--http://www.jefflindsay.com/BOMIntro.shtml#9

and this:

-- http://www.johnankerberg.org/Article...s/AP1W0903.pdf

And I'm wondering whether the mormons don't trace their lineage back to Lehi? That's what I was referring to in my comment about being another literal tribe of Israel--not metaphorical as you responded. But maybe there are different denominations of Mormon? I just picked this stuff up while I was in SLC and talking to people, I don't really know too many practicing Mormons. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what I'm reading. Thank you for explaining some aspects of your religion to me.

Sorry for the formatting, it's coming out all wonky.

No. Some Native Americans of pure desent can be traced back to Lehi's line - which is the line of Ephraim and Mannasah (sp?). Being Mormon is not a lineage like being a Jew.

Rachel

BTW - Sorry about jumping ahead and referencing to Lamanites and Nephites - Iforget that not everyone is versed in those terms. LOL - My 23 year old brain getting ahead of me again.

I've lost track of how many times I've been told I'm going to hell.

Fortunately, I've been forgiven at least that many :D

http://www.exmormon.org/tract2.htm
Not scripture, I know, but intresting reading none the less.

Thanks for clearing that up. Is it a mission of mormons to gather up the lineage of Lehi so the coming can occur?

I think you posted after I edited and added the article of faith that I was stumbling over.

ah, after reading this newest link it looks like the Book of Mormon is believed to be written by one of the lost tribes--as in, that's its authenticity.

But followers of the Book of Mormon do not claim to be the actual descendents, except metaphorically.

Just a point for you that you might find interesting: being jewish, in the correct sense, not common usage, is also not lineage related. Being an Israeli is lineage. So christians (especially the earliest ones) made claim that they were "jewish" and in fact the truest jews, being chosen and all that. So you would have a lot in common with christian fundamentalists along with some mainstream denominations if you believed that you are a 'true' jew (in the metaphorical sense). (and some jewish people support that ;) ).

Oh yeah, and even the Jewish faith allows that converts were really just 'lost' jews. So it's interesting in all the mix of seperating ideas so often attributed to religious movements that the people within those movements have established a theological underpinning for unification.