Some of you may have heard all the commentary and slurs directed at the church yesterday in the news. "Cult" was the word being slammed about. Huffington News dedicated a whole page to it, which is unusual for them. Here's the link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/lds-church

The morg has an amazing PR firm! Lots of positive press defending what is clearly a cult and attacking those who tell the truth.

I say tell it like you see it. The Baptist pastor is only doing that. YOU don't like it, then don't believe it. Freedom of Speech people. Many do believe what he said and many know so much more about Mormonism than those defending Mitt.

I was shocked by what some on Fox said....shouldn't judge on faith. WHAT???? Some guy is going to take orders from his "church" as President of MY country and I am not to judge? Would Mitt judge when picking cabinet people, staff, etc. BEt he would even hire on Mormon maids, cooks, drivers, etc. I would say YES he will be judging, but we can't????? A White House filled with Mormons. Just what we need.

I'll say it again - romney will gain about 2 million votes b/c he's mormon, and he'll lose about 20 million votes for the same reason.

+1

that MORmONS are so stupid that they cant see that the exposure of their cult due to Romney's (LDS INC encouraged) campaigning is detrimental to LDS Inc image, cause & growth.
Thats what happens when a shady group is STUPID enough to believe their own shoddy PR spins!

A cult that is dependent on blindsiding / suckering ppl can only progress & promote themselves at a certain rate.
self Proclaimed MORmON PR genius Gordon Hinckley seems to have lost track of this fact, even though it was nearly pounded into his head.

As an administrative PR operative for LDS Inc, Gordon tried to enthusiastically present unique MORmON concepts in public forums. They were shocked when the feed back came in. The Public found MORmON teachings to be "weird". "WEIRD" was the foremost descriptive term that the public used to describe MORmON doctrines & presentations of LDS doctrines that were made to them under HInckley's direction.


This really hurt Gordons feelings and LDS media was forced to retool many LDS presentations to skirt keystone LDS BS. its also what prompted Gordons nasty comeback to Mike Wallace in the Ap 96 CBS 60 Minutes interview when that all went south for LDS INC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xphnhNopWUo

Even so Gordon refused to learn this lesson
and went on his MORmON way of trying to boldly proclaim the creepy crap that makes up the highly offensive to the mainstream public MORmON gospel. Gordon's next big move was to Bribe the olympics to Utah. That really went well!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E22FNolOyhQ

Now MORmONS think having Romney in the whitehouse will finally give them their Hinckley style growth windfall. The only problem for LDS is that it probably will!

Gordon was insistent on blowing the lid off promotionally for LDS Inc. Guess what happen when the lid is blown off of a scam? - its easier for ppl to see that its a scam !

You are right. Hinckley, a media man himself, thought he could PR his church into people's lives. How could he not anticipate the backlash? The cult doesn't have a TV show like Catholics or the myriad mega churches precisely because they don't wish to capitalize on the "meat". I learned about this unwritten policy when I was assigned this stupid public relations calling in our stake. Several of us in the area got together to brainstorm, someone suggested a public service style TV show and it was shot down immediately by the big shots. A member of the 'inner circle' told me why they didn't like it.

nailed it.

and, they think they're 'smart people' b/c of their mormonness.
incredible.

My problem with Mormonism has very little to do with ward members. Many were decent and honest friends. I don't think of them as being members of a cult.

I had many "Born Again" Christians tell me that I was in a cult. I still think they are full of shit. Their brand of Christianity is sick in its own way.

I have been sickened by the so-called Christians in America. From Pat Robertson's words about Haiti to the birthers demanding proof of citizenship for the first U.S. Black President and emails of President Obama's face on a chimpanzee.

I find no joy in the political media calling Mormonism a cult. Those doing it are nobody I would want representing me.

Is there any place I could move to to get away from this bullshit? Lately I have been very fond of this song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pyfqTRZcTs

anon for this Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My problem with Mormonism has very little to do
> with ward members. Many were decent and honest
> friends. I don't think of them as being members of
> a cult.

Do they know that you don't believe? Would these decent people all treat you the same way?

The morg promotes shunning of those who leave the crotch. They don't want their members to be contaminated by those who speak the truth about the lies that are the church.

Some people are decent despite the church but I don't think that it promotes people being decent.

"Some people are decent despite the church". I love that!

in the media describing TSCC as a cult. They're spot on for once.

Oh, don't take me too literally or get me wrong. I love seeing valid criticism against Mormonism. But Christian politicians doing it for political gain is quite disturbing to me. They are not anyone I would want representing me.

Like others have mentioned about one fairy tale against another, it doesn't fill me with joy. It seems that some of those calling Mormonism a cult would put creationism into schools. I have seen Christians argue a pretend history of the earth just as silly as the Book of Mormon is.

Religion in America bothers me when it gets into the political media.

"Honest and decent" people can be snookered into believing cult messages.

LDS Inc fits the criteria to be labeled a cult. The origins of the church fit the behavioral characteristics of a cult and LDS Inc still has behavioral characteristics of a cult.
Just because LDS talk about Jesus and have mainstreamed themselves, it doesn't mean they get a free pass from being called what they are.


LDS Inc walks like a cult and quacks like a cult. Read what has been said by past and present LDS prophets/apostles... it's quackery!

Sigh. I know. I'm not saying it isn't a cult by my grievance was not with the ward members. I have a bigger issue with Christian politics. And having been LDS until recently, I was called a cult member by obnoxious Born Agains many times through the years.

Now I find myself in a divided position of thinking about decent and honest friends being smeared by this cult rhetoric.

I have a bigger concern with Christianity. When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross.

Your last sentence especially.

I do want to say that there are decent, loving people who are in a cult. It is not them--it is not their fault anymore than the victim of theft is a thief. Their trust was broken and they bought in out of a desire to be the best possible follower of Christ. Many still don't know they've been duped into giving up their time and money for a religion that DOES NOT follow the teachings of Christ.

Objectively, not as a name-calling fest, here is the abbreviated list of attributes of a cult from www.cultwatch.org. If the shoe fits (and it fits plenty of Evangelicals imho)
-------

MIND CONTROL - Threats: if you leave us, you will suffer....ruin

Identification - do not identify themselves until the end
Leadership - one charismatic leader who is always obeyed
Deception - PR front, happy, lie re history or hide/distort real doctrines
Exclusivism - they are only truth, only way to salvation, exaltation,
Fear/Intimidation - character assassination, guilt, leadership feared
Love bombing - people who you just met who were sent to "love" you
Recruiting - high pressure to join even if you are unsure
Information - control what you read, ban info source or internet research
Associations - tell you who to see/not see
Reporting - members report one another to leadership; fake smiles
Time - keep members busy and tired, no time for outside family/friends

Anagrammy

All this "Christian love" looks very much like divisiveness to me. My Jesus fairy tale interpretation is better than your Jesus fairy tale interpretation.

Me too. Very few things irritate my posterior more than evangelicals behaving as though they are superior to mormons.

I so agree with you. It fits the definition. Anyone who doesn't like that label can dismiss it but it doesn't mean it is not true. The Mormons may think they have mainstreamed themselves but no one else thinks that.

From the Webster's online dictionary:

cult noun, often attributive \ˈkəlt\

Definition of CULT
1: formal religious veneration : worship
2: a system of religious beliefs and ritual; also : its body of adherents
3: a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also : its body of adherents
4: a system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator <health cults>
5a : great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book); especially : such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad b : the object of such devotion c : a usually small group of people characterized by such.

Mormonisim fits nicely into this definition. So does Christianity. Instead of being dedicated to Joseph Smith or the current prophet Christians are dedicated to Jesus in a very similar if not more dedicated way. If for a Christian Jesus appeared and said to do something crazy a "true" Christian wouldn't hesitate, same for a Mormon. And for any Mormon or Christian cult member why is being labled part of a cult so offensive? So what if you meet this definition? If in the end you're right who cares?

they don't want to be labeled a "cult."

They have already been labeled one of two subcultures in America, the other being the Amish. They never minded this, as you know, they proudly boasted to the world that they were a "peculiar" (arrogant) people.

Only when they need votes do they care if they are called a cult. Only if it stops people from joining, or makes people leave. The more interesting thing than the labeling is the actual shuffling of doctrine to make the Church seem more like the abominations that God told Joseph Smith he hated: the Churches of his day (Methodist, Presbyterian, etc).

If God had the authority to restore a proper church, wasn't he a little cruel to declare these groups of his sincere children abominations? And if he is the same yesterday, today and forever, like he says he is in the Bible, he didn't change his mind.

People do crazy things under mind control, which involves a whole cluster of techniques which are not used by mainstream churches. It's not the name "cult" that we object to, it is the deception perpetrated by organizations who use mind control, whether they be religious, political, commercial or self-help.

Anagrammy

Seneca you can't be serious. There is no pressure to join in MOST Christian churches....no recruiting like cult grps. do. Most Christian churches do NOT lovebomb....cults do. Most Christian churches do not control what one is able to read. Christian churches do not tell people who they can see and not see. And they do not in most cases(a few weirdo churches may) ever say THEY and only they have the truth. You must not know much about the mainstream churches if you think they are cults. FAR from it.

"And for any Mormon or Christian cult member why is being labeled part of a cult so offensive?"


The Webster's definition you provide doesn't begin to capture the nuance (I would suggest predominant nuance) of the word "cult" as it has been used mid-20th century to date. Even the strongest variant from Webster:

"a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also : its body of adherents"


is relatively wimpy. Unmentioned is the entrapment, enmeshment, loss of identity, hopelessness, psychological injury, rigid control-oriented environment, etc that are implied anytime the word "cult" is mentioned. And as we all know too well, in extreme cases that list will also include physical injury and even death.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

When someone characterizes mormonism as a cult, they are certainly not trying to place it squarely within an historical Christian tradition. They are placing it in another tradition, one that at its very best is "merely" harmful and dehumanizing.


"And for any Mormon or Christian cult member why is being labeled part of a cult so offensive?"

Ergo, the reason is simple: both the speaker and the listener will be quite familiar with the nuance in play.

As Seneca nicely points out, one man's religion is another man's cult. And as I see it, today's mainstream religion was yesterday's cult; today's cult is tomorrow's mainstream.

When Christianity was being invented 2,000 or so years ago IT WAS the cult. In fact, it was many cults all looking for an identity. The Romans, Greeks and various pagan religions of the day all thought the various varieties of Christianity were a bit weird. Just like Fundageligcals and others today think Mormonism is weird.

We think of Mormonism as being destructive and, indeed, it has been but so has all the rest of Christianity at one time or another. Remember, those venerated Pilgrims who came to America to escape persecution for being a cult could not wait to persecute everyone else who landed on these shores. Wars have been fought between Catholics and Protestants, Protestants and other Protestants and on and on.

Eventually, Mormonism will be just another bland flavor of the day, as unremarkable as Methodists or Presbyterians.

nebularry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As Seneca nicely points out, one man's religion is
> another man's cult.

This is not necessarily true. One can define a cult sociologically, in which case it just refers to the origin of any breakaway group that practices religious ritual. One can also define a cult in the pejorative sense as a group practicing deceptive recruiting and mind control techniques that are unknowingly undergone or are not recognized.

And as I see it, today's
> mainstream religion was yesterday's cult; today's
> cult is tomorrow's mainstream.\

You are working only with the sociological definition of a cult.

>
> When Christianity was being invented 2,000 or so
> years ago IT WAS the cult. In fact, it was many
> cults all looking for an identity. The Romans,
> Greeks and various pagan religions of the day all
> thought the various varieties of Christianity were
> a bit weird. Just like Fundageligcals and others
> today think Mormonism is weird.

Any group is a destructive cult if it practices deceptive recruiting and denies its history and tries to control its practitioners' access to information and interpretation of its history and doctrine, and especially if the group uses a lot of fear induction or phobia formation on its members as a way to deny them freedom to ever question the group or to leave the group in mutual peace ("tea is of the devil"; "if you leave the church you will fall away into drug abuse and lose everyone you love"; "all other churches are abominations in the eyes of God"; "Satan is working on you all the time"; "Your body, the natural man, is an enemy of God"; etc.)

> We think of Mormonism as being destructive and,
> indeed, it has been but so has all the rest of
> Christianity at one time or another. Remember,
> those venerated Pilgrims who came to America to
> escape persecution for being a cult could not wait
> to persecute everyone else who landed on these
> shores. Wars have been fought between Catholics
> and Protestants, Protestants and other Protestants
> and on and on.

This argument is inapplicable b/c if the indictment is to have fought a war over something, then you've implicated just about every human belief system that ever was: Buddhists, vegans, capitalists, communists, Native American spiritual beliefs; Iatmul New Guinea tribal beliefs, Yanomami Amazonian tribal beliefs; etc. They can all be implicated in conducting "war" or organized violence against others. This point that if Mormonism is a destructive cult then all groups that have ever waged war are destructive groups is false logic: A group doesn't have to wage war to be destructive of individual rights and freedoms; not all groups that have fought wars were destructive mind control groups that used deception and phobia indoctrination to control their members/citizens. Unless you argue that any cultural or political system is thus a destructive cult (and so the Mormons are no more or no less destructive than any other human group), but then you are back to absurdly arguing that it's night and all the cows are black. I.e., all human beliefs are equally destructive, and at that point you are making blanket equations that no one would buy. E.g., Pol Pot and George Washington; Jonestown and papal Rome.

So again, you are only observing "cults" as sociologically enacted; you aren't paying any attention to any sort of scale of what constitutes destructive mind control groups or organizations (aka "cults").

I suppose if you want to demolish Steve Hassan's work you can have at it, but that's the level of argument you need to engage in--you have to disprove Hassan's claims about destructive cults, and you would help your case immeasurably if you involved yourself in some discussion of relative destructiveness of different organized, ritual organizations, aka "religious groups." They aren't all the same on some scale of destructiveness or respect of individual freedom and rights.

> Eventually, Mormonism will be just another bland
> flavor of the day, as unremarkable as Methodists
> or Presbyterians.

Maybe, but then it won't be a destructive cult anymore either.

Well stated derrida. Excellent.

Of course, Derrida is correct. It all depends on one's definition of "cult" and what adjectives one attaches to it. I tip my hat to Derrida.

(But I still like my answer!)

Romney is taking a beating b/c of Mormonism; he won't jump ship to be POTUS (and, people would ridicule it if he did).

Oi Vei.

You can go round and round about the definition of the word 'cult' and just end up chasing your tails.

The problem is, cult is a vague word and what everyone should be looking at is the term, "destructive cult".

The LDS church is a destructive cult. It destroys families, at best separates families, indoctrinates their people, traps people in the cult because if they leave, they can lose their family, friends and jobs...people have died on missions due to the LDS providing less than adequate housing when the LDS church can afford housing.

I would not vote for someone who is a Mormon because of the blind obedience promoted by and insisted upon by the church. I would not vote for a Mormon because of the insistence of the LDS church that its minions sustain them as leaders at all times. I would not vote for a Mormon because of their racist beliefs and because of their superior attitude that no one has the Holy
Ghost or truth but them. I would hardly expect any Mormon to make rational, fair, just decisions based on those integral Mormon beliefs.

My family and I have never been as hurt by people as we have by the Mormon church. They take the cake, they take the prize in having some of the most vicious women in their ward, in the position of primary president and other visible callings in the ward. If that wasn't bad enough, they tried to justify the bad behavior by first blaming us. When that backfired, they moved to other mind numbing games. None of it worked because we weren't buying it.

The truth is the organization of the LDS church rots to high heaven. It is dysfunctional, it is destructive and it will push any member under the bus in order to maintain its illusion of what it pretends to be.

I would never vote for anyone who is a Mormon, especially if he grew up in the church because of said behavior is firmly ingrained in him.

So one of Rick Perry's pet pastors says mormonism is a cult.

And this Pastor, Robert Jeffress, is one of many religious nutters so far out on the ragged edge of sanity that some of them have blamed the tsunami in Japan on the Japanese Emperor having once slept with the Sun Goddess (read "demon" for "goddess"), and who recently labeled Tim Minchin as a demon.

NPR also carried the story about Jeffress and his arrogant, cult-like remarks -- there's one problem everyone is having here, and that's how to tell one cult from another. Or better yet, how to the rank these cults in terms of cultishness.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2011/10/07/141167374/mormonism-back-on-gop-media-radar-with-pastors-cult-remark

For more on the Apostolic Reformation:
http://www.npr.org/2011/10/03/140946482/apostolic-leader-weighs-religions-role-in-politics?ps=cprs

Rick Perry's allies in the Apostolic Reformation movement (Pastor Posse of Poseurs) have also advised burning books, Native American art, and any scripture that is not their own. One of them said outright that the second amendment is meant to provide protections and freedoms only for Christians like themselves.

"On August 6th, 2011 Texas governor Rick Perry appeared onstage at a nationally broadcast prayer rally teeming with apostles from C. Peter Wagner’s New Apostolic Reformation, a radically sectarian religious tendency whose top leaders encourage their followers to burn books and scripture (including Books of Mormon), religious relics (such as statues of Catholic saints), and native art (such as Hopi Kachina dolls, and totem polls), and whose political initiatives (such as the Oak Initiative) demonize Muslim-Americans and promote the claim that, through fine-print clauses in Barack Obama’s health care reform legislation, President Obama is secretly gathering a left-wing brownshirt army to impose Marxism on America."
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2011/10/03/rick-perry’s-new-apostolic-reformation-allies-advocate-burning-books-native-art-and-scripture/

This is not politics, it's theocratic nutterism with political aspirations that should be easily dismissed.

Unfortunately, all this blather makes Mitt Romney look sane by comparison. Where are the adults with working brains?