Study Shows That Latter-day Saints Know Very Little About Other Religions


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Just now, MormonGator said:

That's where we disagree. I think gaining knowledge doesn't always stop people from being hypocritical/being cruel but it helps. The more we know about a religion, race, political opponent the harder it is to demonize them. I've seen this happen in my own life. 

So you think that "Doing unto others as you would have them do unto you"  is a hypocritical/being cruel thing to do?  While I agree that knowledge can help.  My point is "Doing" is generally more effective.  If you truly disagree with me.. then you need to point our how "Doing unto others" is more like to be hypocritical/cruel then knowledge could be

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Guest MormonGator
1 minute ago, estradling75 said:

So you think that "Doing unto others as you would have them do unto you"  is a hypocritical/being cruel thing to do? 

Where did I say that? 

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Just now, MormonGator said:

Where did I say that? 

When you said you disagreed.

I am saying that "Doing unto others" is the least hypocritical and cruel path to take.  That it is better then "Knowledge"

You disagree...   Therefore you think that "Knowledge" is the better path (aka less hypocritical and cruel then "Doing").  You are entitled to your opinion, but I do not understand it so I am asking your to clarify your logic and reasoning on how you see it.

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Guest MormonGator

This is where I disagree, like I said, in part. 

46 minutes ago, estradling75 said:

 Gaining knowledge does not stop people from being hypocrites... or making jokes... or having fun at others expenses....

Edited by MormonGator
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5 minutes ago, estradling75 said:

Ahh so do think  "Doing" is the better option?

Speaking of "doing", I'm not sure what you are "doing" right now. 😉

Edited by MormonGator
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Just now, MormonGator said:

Speaking of "doing", I'm not sure what you are "doing" right now. 

I am trying to understand you.

I have met too many people would fall into the scriptural warning of "When they are learned they think they are wise" for me to think that "Learning" is a standalone answer.   But rather as the scriptures go on to say.  "But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the councils of God."  This places learning as a supplemental/secondary activity that gives benefit.  Thus following the councils of God first and best... then learning about others second.  

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5 hours ago, MormonGator said:

Yeah, I still don't get it. If you don't want to share your faith with someone, that's fine. At least that doesn't make you a hypocrite. But if you ask someone to read the BOM or go to church with you and you refuse to do the same for their them, well, no wonder they won't listen to you. 

I don't understand the hypocrisy. If I see someone in a snake pit and throw him a rope, offering to pull him out, am I a hypocrite when I decline his invitation into the snake pit?

I have no problem accepting an invitation to another worship service, so long as it doesn't prevent me from fulfilling my own duties. But not everyone feels that way. I hardly see how it's hypocritical to issue an invitation to come to church when you won't accept a reciprocal invitation. That's like saying if you don't go to someone else's party, you're hypocritical for inviting them to your party. That is not what hypocrisy means.

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Guest MormonGator
16 minutes ago, Vort said:

I don't understand the hypocrisy.

You are asking someone to do something that you won't personally do. 

25 minutes ago, Vort said:

I hardly see how it's hypocritical to issue an invitation to come to church when you won't accept a reciprocal invitation. 

I don't understand how you can not see it. I really don't. Not an insult, I seriously don't understand it. 

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7 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

You are asking someone to do something that you won't personally do.

I do that all the time. So do you. I personally will never fly an airplane across the Atlantic.

Quote

I don't understand how you can not see it. I really don't. Not an insult, I seriously don't understand it. 

What does "hypocrisy" mean? That's really the issue here.

The fundamental root of the word "hypocrite" is a Greek term meaning a theatrical actor in a play. That is the idea of a hypocrite: Someone who pretends to be something that he absolutely is not, someone who tries to fake other people out into believing he's a better, more virtuous person than he really is. Consider the Lord's excoriation of the Pharisees as hypocrites. He said that they were "whited sepulchres"—beautiful on the outside, but inside full of dead men's bones. (Which is awesome imagery, by the way, suggesting as it does not merely that the the hypocritical Pharisees were unclean like dead bodies, but that they themselves—the bones inside their bodies—were dead men, spiritually dead to God.)

That's hypocrisy. "Praying" to God by thanking him how much better you are than everyone else is a hypocrisy so deep that the hypocrite becomes unaware that he's playing a part. He forgot that he's not really the person he's pretending to be. He believes his own press, and thinks that his clothing or beauty or money or social status really does make him better than others. It's the vomitous hypocrisy of Hollywood, of the English caste system, of those who pervert the so-called American Dream into the idea that you can make a lot of money.

I do not understand how inviting someone to come to Church when you yourself wouldn't go to their church is in any possible way hypocritical. You're not pretending. You're not trying to deceive. You're not lying behind their backs. You're inviting them to Church.

Edited by Vort
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Guest MormonGator
12 minutes ago, Vort said:

What does "hypocrisy" mean? That's really the issue here.

Every Christmas break I spend a week at a resort near Sarasota. About three years ago, I gave a copy of the Book of Mormon to another regular in exchange to attend church with him. I asked him to read it, of course. He did so (or, at least he told me he did), so I agreed to go to church with him. See? Basic human interaction. I would be a hypocrite (or, just a jerk) if I asked him to learn about my church without offering to do the same to his. 

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Guest Scott

Personally, I have found it really useful to know the differences between our religions and others.    It helps when discussing our religion with people of other faiths.   

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2 hours ago, MormonGator said:

Every Christmas break I spend a week at a resort near Sarasota. About three years ago, I gave a copy of the Book of Mormon to another regular in exchange to attend church with him. I asked him to read it, of course. He did so (or, at least he told me he did), so I agreed to go to church with him. See? Basic human interaction. I would be a hypocrite (or, just a jerk) if I asked him to learn about my church without offering to do the same to his. 

Hmmmm.  When I first crossed paths with the Church, it was presented to me as something I really needed, and it came wrapped in a warning to resist complacency (about my current denomination) and to find the courage to explore alternate paths to God's true church. 

Later, when I swiveled the argument around 180 degrees, my Latter-day Saint friends dismissed the entire idea of their visiting my church as nonsense.  I throught their intransigence was at least mildy hypocritical, although I think I described it as a "double standard" that exposed their unwillingness to practice what they preached.

"No," they replied.  "The moral imperative we gave you was not to explore random things, but to explore the path to God's true church.  We've already found the true church [in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] and we have a testimony of its truth.  So we're done.  The standard we recommended for you was the very same standard for us.  No hypocrisy.  We just got there one step ahead of you."

I don't know how fiercely this line of reasoning is still used inside the Church, but to an outside observer it felt like a sophistry.  I don't disagree with Vort on much, but I agree with MormonGator on this one.  That and $1 will get you a Snickers bar at your nearest convenience store.

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11 minutes ago, Texan said:

Later, when I swiveled the argument around 180 degrees, my Latter-day Saint friends dismissed the entire idea of their visiting my church as nonsense.  I throught their intransigence was at least mildy hypocritical, although I think I described it as a "double standard" that exposed their unwillingness to practice what they preached.

It absolutely is a double standard, but it is not necessarily hypocritical. That is my point. A perfectly virtuous and honest Latter-day Saint might well invite his friend to Church while still declining his friend's reciprocal invitation. That's not hypocrisy.

Now, if someone said something like, "A REAL friend would accept a good-faith invitation to go to church with a friend," and then acted as described above, then that's dishonest, manipulative, and transparently hypocritical.

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1 hour ago, Texan said:

I agree with MormonGator on this one.  That and $1 will get you a Snickers bar at your nearest convenience store.

Thanks bud. 

And I love Snickers bars. 

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49 minutes ago, Vort said:

It absolutely is a double standard, but it is not necessarily hypocritical. That is my point. A perfectly virtuous and honest Latter-day Saint might well invite his friend to Church while still declining his friend's reciprocal invitation. That's not hypocrisy.

True, but I'm not claiming that merely refusing an invitation can be hypocritical.  I'm claiming that the combination of the invitation with an implied moral imperative can be seen as hypocritical if the moral imperative isn't applied equally to everyone.

Suppose I invite a friend to visit my church.  When he resists, I badger him to visit because everyone should be constantly questioning their long-held beliefs, testing their boundaries, moving outside their comfort zones, and opening themselves to the possibility that other faith systems might be as good or better than their own.  So he comes and visits, and then he invites me to visit his church on the very same grounds that I used with him.  But I decline because I don't think I should be doing any of those things.  Does that satisfy my definition of hypocrisy?  Yes, it does.  At a minimum, it drops me somewhere on the continuum between hypocrisy and inconsistency.  And I read MormonGator's comments as saying that anything that even gives this appearance should be avoided.  I certainly agree with that.

This is rather like the experience I described in my previous post.  But I think we've entered the tomato-tomahto zone.  And I certainly am not claiming that the Church is hypocritical... I view this as a fun debate over the meanings of words.  In high school we all had to write an essay on the exact meaning of one word, and I chose "hypocrisy."  I got a C.

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Guest MormonGator
40 minutes ago, Texan said:

Suppose I invite a friend to visit my church.  When he resists, I badger him to visit because everyone should be constantly questioning their long-held beliefs, testing their boundaries, moving outside their comfort zones, and opening themselves to the possibility that other faith systems might be as good or better than their own.  So he comes and visits, and then he invites me to visit his church on the very same grounds that I used with him.  But I decline because I don't think I should be doing any of those things.  Does that satisfy my definition of hypocrisy?  Yes, it does.  At a minimum, it drops me somewhere on the continuum between hypocrisy and inconsistency.  And I read MormonGator's comments as saying that anything that even gives this appearance should be avoided.  I certainly agree with that.

 

That's exactly what I was trying to get at. Thanks for explaining it better than I did. 

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I think it is good to learn about other faiths. I think it is better to learn about our faith. I think it is best to live our faith.

Seeing that most saints don’t participate in ministering, read scriptures every day, have home study, or attend the temple regularly, I would suggest we focus on best before focusing on good

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Guest Mores
19 hours ago, MormonGator said:

That's where we disagree. I think gaining knowledge doesn't always stop people from being hypocritical/being cruel but it helps. The more we know about a religion, race, political opponent the harder it is to demonize them. I've seen this happen in my own life. 

19 hours ago, estradling75 said:

"Do unto Others as you would have them do unto you." 

In a strange way, you're both talking about opposite sides of the same coin.  You're both talking about compassion towards others.

  • Learn more about them and you will tend to be more compassionate and understanding of them.
  • Keep the golden rule in mind and you will tend to be more compassionate and understanding of them.

Those are both true statements.  But both fall short in one characteristic.  They presuppose that hypocrisy necessarily starts with the lack of compassion.  Certainly in politics today, it does.  But that is not always so.

With religion, some "double standards" (as @Texanindicated) are not out of hatred or lack of compassion.  Instead, it is because of compassion.  Then we need to understand that (as @Vort noted) hypocrisy is not just about a double standard.  It involves a false sense of holiness.  A double standard can be free of hypocrisy if it is simply based on truth. 

I set myself up as one who can teach my children math.  But I wouldn't trust them to teach me math.  That would be ridiculous. 

But with religion it is a tougher animal.  Both sides think they're the ones with the degree in math, while the other side is the spiritual child (the little lamb).  So, it becomes more a matter of "appearances" and opinion than reality.

Edited by Mores
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18 hours ago, Texan said:

Suppose I invite a friend to visit my church.  When he resists, I badger him to visit because everyone should be constantly questioning their long-held beliefs, testing their boundaries, moving outside their comfort zones, and opening themselves to the possibility that other faith systems might be as good or better than their own.  So he comes and visits, and then he invites me to visit his church on the very same grounds that I used with him.  But I decline because I don't think I should be doing any of those things.  Does that satisfy my definition of hypocrisy?  Yes, it does.  At a minimum, it drops me somewhere on the continuum between hypocrisy and inconsistency.  And I read MormonGator's comments as saying that anything that even gives this appearance should be avoided.  I certainly agree with that.

This goes along with what I wrote:

20 hours ago, Vort said:

Now, if someone said something like, "A REAL friend would accept a good-faith invitation to go to church with a friend," and then acted as described above, then that's dishonest, manipulative, and transparently hypocritical.

I'm not advocating double standards, though as Mores pointed out, they are sometimes inevitable. My point is, has been, and will continue to be that we shouldn't throw around a weighty charge like "hypocrisy" unless we really mean it (and we're confident that we are right). Even if I agree with you that it's poor form to invite others to your church while utterly refusing their reciprocal invitation, THAT'S NOT (necessarily) HYPOCRISY. Let's save the charges of hypocrisy for the actual hypocrites.

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On 8/7/2019 at 1:24 PM, Vort said:

I don't understand the hypocrisy. If I see someone in a snake pit and throw him a rope, offering to pull him out, am I a hypocrite when I decline his invitation into the snake pit?

I have no problem accepting an invitation to another worship service, so long as it doesn't prevent me from fulfilling my own duties. But not everyone feels that way. I hardly see how it's hypocritical to issue an invitation to come to church when you won't accept a reciprocal invitation. That's like saying if you don't go to someone else's party, you're hypocritical for inviting them to your party. That is not what hypocrisy means.

For this to be hypocrisy you'd have to publicly preach that everyone should accept all invitations to other churches while secretly not doing so yourself.

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23 hours ago, Texan said:

an implied moral imperative can be seen as hypocritical if the moral imperative isn't applied equally to everyone.

This isn't hypocrisy. If I openly state that I think something is wrong but also openly admit that I do it anyway that isn't hypocrisy. In order for it to be hypocrisy I have to pretend to others I don't do it. There has to be a lie in there.

The idea that someone openly states that they believe others should attend their church but have no interest in other's churches has no relationship to hypocrisy at all.

Edited by The Folk Prophet
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13 hours ago, Mores said:

Both sides think they're the ones with the degree in math, while the other side is the spiritual child (the little lamb).  So, it becomes more a matter of "appearances" and opinion than reality.

This isn't accurate, per se. One side claims they know the truth because they have it figured out right. The other side claims that God has revealed truth to them. That is not apples to apples.

There's no double standard. I, for example, openly admit, as should all, that if God revealed the truth to me of some other religion that I should follow. I'm asking others to do the same.

Edited by The Folk Prophet
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