Guidelines on Hatred and the Religion Forum

Religion Moderator | June 22, 2012 | Religion Moderator

[Religion Moderator]

It is within the bounds of “open” Religion Forum town square style debate for a Freeper to express his hatred of a belief. But such posts are never allowed on RF threads labeled “prayer” “devotional” “caucus” or “ecumenical.”

It is never within the bounds on the Religion Forum for a Freeper to express his hatred of people who hold a particular belief when any Freeper is part of the belief group.

For example:

It is ok to express hatred towards MormonISM on “open” Religion Forum threads. It is never ok to express hatred towards Mormons because some Freepers are Mormon.

It is ok to express hatred towards CatholicISM on “open” Religion Forum threads. It is never ok to express hatred towards Catholics because some Freepers are Catholic.

It is ok to express hatred towards ProtestantISM on “open” Religion Forum threads. It is never ok to express hatred towards Protestants because some Freepers are Protestant.

It is ok to express hatred towards SatanISM and Satanists both because no Freeper is Satanist.

Some political posters are now venturing onto the Religion Forum probably because Romney’s beliefs are at issue in this election.

If you don’t know whether you are on the Religion Forum, look at the top of your internet browser window. If the current address (URL) begins with http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/ then you are on the Religion Forum.

If you do not wish to see RF posts, do NOT use the "everything" option on the Free Republic browse option list. Instead, browse by "News/Activism." When you log back in, the browse will reset to "everything" - so be sure to set it back to "News/Activism."

Finally, whereas posters may argue vigorously for and against beliefs on “open” Religion Forum threads it is never tolerable to use ad hominems in religious debate because they invariably lead to flame wars when the subject is one’s deeply held religious beliefs.

For something to be "making it personal" it must be speaking to another Freeper, personally.

"Protestants are heretics" is not making it personal. "You are a heretic" is making it personal. "Catholics worship Mary" is not making it personal. "You worship Mary" is making it personal. "Mormons worship many gods" is not making it personal. "You worship many gods" is making it personal.

However, when a poster paints with a brush that accuses an entire religion of criminal behavior - his post will be pulled as flame bait. For example, posts that say "Protestants kill babies" or "Catholics molest children" or "Mormons kill non-Mormons" will be pulled. However, if the post is specific about a non-Freeper, I will not pull it. For example "Rev. Doe says abortion and infanticide are not sin" or "Father Doe was convicted for molesting those kids" or "Mormons killed non-Mormons at Mountain Meadows" would not be pulled.

Statements formed as questions are rarely "making it personal."

"Are you a heretic" is not making it personal. "You are a heretic" is making it personal.

Forms of "making it personal" include mind reading, attributing motive, accusing another Freeper of telling a lie (because it attributes motive, the intent to deceive) - making the thread "about" individual Freeper(s), following a Freeper from thread to thread and badgering a Freeper over-and-again with the same question.

When in doubt, avoid the use of the pronoun "you" and Freeper's names - or put yourself in the other guy's shoes.

Despite all these efforts to eliminate ad hominems, there is nothing I can do to keep you from "taking it personally."

If you keep getting your feelings hurt because other posters ridicule or disapprove or hate what you hold dear, then you are too thin-skinned to be involved in “open” RF debate. You should IGNORE “open” RF threads altogether and instead post to RF threads labeled “prayer” “devotional” “caucus” or “ecumenical.”

[Notwithstanding]

Mr. Z won’t reveal his religion.

Mr. X clearly states his religion (whatever it is).

Mr. Z tries to hide behind his refusal to reveal his own religion (just as Harry Reid refuses to offer a budget, yet criticizes the budgets offered by the GOP).

[Elsie]

That's why I now call on ALL the Inmans and anyone else posting facts about mormons to substitute the term "mormonism teaches" for the term "mormons believe".

But even THAT is not adequate at times, for a LOT of what SLC 'teaches' is not spread evenly throughout the membership.

I prefer: "MORMONism has WRITTEN" myself.

---

But then you get MORMONs who will claim that they don't "teach" that (usually inferring 'any more').

Oh well...

[Elsie]

I’m not interested in saving Mormons from Mormonism.

You sly dog!

[Elsie]

But perhaps you should count the number of freepers who left FR because of the Mormon data deluge.

I'll bet you that MOST of them were MORMONs!

[Elsie]

That is from their set-in-stone LDS writings.

Speaking of STONES...

MORMONism makes a claim, in plain view in it's top tourist spot...

...that the FULLNESS of the gospel can be found in the Book of MORMON (BoM)

I've yet to see any MORMON be able to show just where to find it.

[Elsie]

That is from their set-in-stone LDS writings.

Speaking of STONES...

MORMONism makes a claim, in plain view in it's top tourist spot...

...that the FULLNESS of the gospel can be found in the Book of MORMON (BoM)

I've yet to see any MORMON be able to show just where to find it.

[netmilsmom]

>>Mr. X clearly states his religion (whatever it is).<<

If it’s Mormon or Catholic, warning or zot. AND a locked thread with just enough information from the other posters to make the OP look foolish.

While any thread about how bad or Mr. X’s religion is, is left up with mob tossing around their dogma and insults for all to see while anyone who comes to the defense has his/her posts removed.
I’ve seen it happen.

[BipolarBob]

Protestants treat it like a sacrament.

Indeed it is!

The true Church is in Heaven. The place you go to worship is a building. The theology they teach is not 100% correct (with all of the different denominations teaching different things what are the odds your pastor/rabbi/priest teaches a 100% doctrinal truth?). Those things don't really matter though. Obedience to God is all that matters. To love God is the highest act you can ever do. The second is to love your fellow man as yourself. Nothing else really matters.

[Notwithstanding]

Your argument that doctrine does not matter is of the devil.

[Notwithstanding]

Let me rephrase:

Your argument that doctrine does not matter is pure evil.

[Elsie]

Sadly........

Most would rather be praised into Hell,
than be rebuked into Heaven.

[Elsie]

The use of the term is deliberate.

Ya THINK???

---

---

Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 119).

Joseph Smith: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from Pearl of Great Price 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.270).

 

 

 

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" (Journal of Discourses 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" (Journal of Discourses 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" (Journal of Discourses 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

 

 

 

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).

 

 

 

Orson Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (Journal of Discourses

, vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (Journal of Discourses , 18:172).

 

 

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (Journal of Discourses , vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (Journal of Discourses , 10:127).

 

 

 

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (A Study of the Articles of Faith, p.182).

 

 

 

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (Doctrines of Salvation, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 3, p.282).

 

 

 

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (Doctrines of Salvation, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (Mormon Doctrine, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (Mormon Doctrine, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (Mormon Doctrine, p.316).

 

 

 

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

 

 

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (Journal of Discourses , vol. 2, p.196).

[Quix]

I realize you have a full plate.

However, if you had time to read Shoebat and Richardson’s

GOD’S WAR ON TERROR, I think it would be VERY educational.

[Quix]

I could offer a LIST of such folks. LOL.

[Quix]

Are you trying to be

REASONABLE

on the Rel Forum??? LOL.

For many, it’s NOT

!!!TRADITIONAL!!!

to be reasonable in religious debate or reading.

Some seem to get a dopamine high just from the emotionality of blowing their corks.

[Quix]

Can I hate my own church? Buncha tree-hugging Methodists.

---

Just think of all the sap they have to clean off after every tree-hugging episode. LOL.

[Quix]

The difference between Mormons and Protestants is that Mormons don’t feel comfortable criticizing their church (or any church publicly). Protestants treat it like a sacrament.

It's mostly a sacrament on the FR Rel Forum. LOL.

[Religion Moderator]

Thank you.

[Religion Moderator]

You’re welcome.

[Religion Moderator]

Thank you for your support.