Fifty shades of black and blue and grey?

[Guest]

You're comparing a religious text to a book about BDSM? 

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

Im with Eowyn. It's hardly the same. I don't need to wallow with pigs to know their pen stinks.

[RMGuy]

Many of our friends and neighbors believe the Book of Mormon is a work of fiction as well. I'm not commenting on the content of the book. I haven't read it. I'm commenting on the attitude that we don't need to read or watch to "know", that it is perfectly acceptable for us to judge content without reading or watching it, but not ok for others to do the same. Sorry folks, but that is the definition of hypocrisy. If you don't want to read or watch it...fine, I have no desire to do so either. But categorizing it when you haven't read it based on preconceived notions or the words of others is no better than your neighbor who knows you aren't Christians because their pastor told them that the Mormon bible is all about worshipping Joe Smith.

Sorry if that struck a nerve.

Edited February 15, 2015 by RMGuy

[notquiteperfect]

Isn't it interesting that when non-members denigrate the Book of Mormon because they just "know" how bad/evil/twisted it is that many times our answer is "have you read it." Yet we re very ready to do the same here.

I haven't read it, not really interested in it either...but the hypocrisy is jarring.

 

No, what's jarring is that you actually think this!  Wow!

[Guest]

Sorry RMGuy, I don't buy it. I think it's more a casing of looking specifically for something and so you find it. 

[RMGuy]

Truths don't get to work only one way. NQP. If you have to read it to understand it then it holds true across the board. If you need to ask a mormon to understand Mormonism, then you have to ask a Participant to understand BDSM...right?

[RMGuy]

So doesn't the same hold true then Eowyn? And if not, why do you get a special pass?

[Guest]

Not striking nerves here so much as rolling eyes. 

[RMGuy]

So it is ok to evaluate content without knowing or understand content?

[Guest MormonGator]

So it is ok to evaluate content without knowing or understand content?

No, but you also need to use common sense. Comparing 50 shades of Gray to the Book of Mormon is a little strange in fairness. You make a good point-we shouldn't judge on appearances, but you also do need to use a little bit of common sense. 

[Guest]

So doesn't the same hold true then Eowyn? And if not, why do you get a special pass?

 

Since you addressed me specifically, how is watching or reading a fictional piece of pornography the same as talking to a real person, or as you said, "participant". I'm not against having a conversation with someone. I am against peddling filth as normal and healthy and even romantic. Let's not get any delusions about what we're dealing with here. 

[Guest MormonGator]

Sorry RMGuy, I don't buy it. I think it's more a casing of looking specifically for something and so you find it. 

THIS! 

I remember in my Shakespeare class in college thinking "Wow! The Catholics are finding a Catholic Shakespeare, the Protestants a Protestant one. The Atheists, liberals, and conservatives are doing the same." 

 

That's what a MA in English will get you. Deep thoughts like that. 

[Guest MormonGator]

\ I am against peddling filth as normal and healthy and even romantic. Let's not get any delusions about what we're dealing with here. 

Agree totally. That book is sick. Reading that garbage is a wonderful way to poison yourself. 

[RMGuy]

How do you know it is filth? It maybe, but how do you know this? Again, my question is not content based, but process.

[PolarVortex]

How do you know it is filth? It maybe, but how do you know this? Again, my question is not content based, but process.

 

Please go to Amazon.com and read the top two user reviews for this book.  That's what I did a while back, and I feel perfectly qualified now to dismiss this ludicrous book as something bad even without cracking the book cover.

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

Its filth because it's not only erotica but BDSM ... bondage, domination, sadism, and masochism.

To be even clearer sadism is one who get sexual pleasure from their partners pain.

How can that be defined by a Christian as anything but filth?

[The Folk Prophet]

How do you know it is filth? It maybe, but how do you know this? Again, my question is not content based, but process.

 

Are you really this naive, or are you just being argumentative?

 

This conversation has, seriously, turned to the DUMBEST thing I have ever read in these forums.

[PolarVortex]

This debate pops up now and then in various forms.  I remember when the movie The Last Temptation of Christ came out and many Christians were bitterly criticized for opposing a movie they had never seen.  The contents of a movie or a book can become known to people who never see the movie or read the book.  Or, to stretch it a bit, it's not hypocritical to oppose smoking if you've never puffed a cigarette.

[Vort]

How do you know it is filth? It maybe, but how do you know this? Again, my question is not content based, but process.

 

RMGuy, there is a reasonable point to your argument -- that we should judge a thing for what it really is, and not for what everyone says it is. But in the case of the pornographic novel under discussion, I don't think anyone disputes that it's pornography. Rather, the justifications are of the forms: (1) Nothing wrong with pornography; (2) What people do in the privacy of their own homes is their own business, and we have no right to judge those actions; (3) It is an expression of a controversial idea, and thus is immune to criticism except by the narrow-minded. All three of those justifications are paper-thin and fail on even cursory examination.

 

Book of Mormon criticisms, on the other hand, are not that it is pornographic, but that it is factually false, bizarre, childish, a tissue of lies, and so forth. These are all disprovable by simply reading the book.

 

So the two issues, though perhaps superficially similar in some ways, are completely unalike. Refusing to read or see pornography before condemning it for being pornography cannot reasonably be compared to refusing to read a purported book of scripture before declaring it false.

[pam]

I feel like this is saying, "How could you know that a movie is a porn movie if you haven't seen it?"

[PolarVortex]

Or the undercover vice cop who consummates a transaction with a hooker just to make sure she is doing something unlawful? I actually read about a case like this... the cop was gently counseled to lower his threshold for deciding whether criminal activity had occurred.

[skalenfehl]

RMGuy, does drinking cyanide kill people? How do you know?

Edited February 15, 2015 by skalenfehl

[PolarVortex]

RMGuy, does drinking cyanide kill people? How do you know?

 

Ho ho... checkmate.

[Palerider]

Wow the Book of Mormon is now being compared to 50 Shades of Gray....wow

Based off what I have read here.....we should no longer tell our kids not to touch the hot stove....let them burn themselves so they find out for themselves it's hot.

[estradling75]

Lets put it another way...

 

If someone told me that they were not interesting in God/religion/spirituality/truth.  When I asked them about the Book of Mormon... I would not respond with "Well how can you know for sure until you read it?"  Because to me that response would make no sense whatsoever.   They are not even being in the ball park of being interested of what the over all subject matter of the Book of Mormon is.

 

The question how can you be sure until you read it... Only applies if you have an interest in the subject matter it supposedly covers.

 

I have no interest in BDSM, or explicit sex depictions.  Once it is pretty clearly established that is the subject of 50 shades then I can safely reject it.  On the other hand if I was rejecting 50 shades as being inaccurate in it portrayals of BDSM sex then the fact that I was judging before I read it would be relevant.  But that is simply not the case here