laughter is healthy:
http://women.webmd.com/guide/give-your-body-boost-with-laughter

thanks to "summer" for spurring this thought ( http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,373057,373152#msg-373152 ). i have never thought about this before and it is an extremely odd commandment!

Maybe instead of focusing on the stupid stuff like loud laughter, they should have promised not to fuck other men's wives.




Wait....

that defined what righteous behavior was. Loud laughter was probably associated with raucous undignified behavior for a saint. I also wonder if it was a way of preventing people from mocking the leadership.

+ 1

It was probably a personal dislike of Joe Smith, Super Adulterer.

...Just more Mormon voo-doo, you are under our control, mumbo-jumbo!

Once inside the temple it seems most people become robots even more than outside the temple...the atmosphere is very controlling. Even those that are struck at how it was NOT what they had signed on for, will quietly go through the motions so as to not call attention to themselves, as surely since everyone else is "getting it" there must be something wrong with "me" is what they are thinking.

It is only once outside and away that most thinking people come out of the "temple shock" and begin to analyze just what happened to them.

This I am just guessing from what I have read here as I was never "templed". How is that for a verb?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/24/2011 01:38AM by rowan.

It's included in the endowment, because there you are, dressed in holy clown costumes, doing silly handshakes and mumbling juvenile passwords and it's all so laughable.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/23/2011 09:23AM by Stray Mutt.

Its all so obvious to a nevermo but its the ridiculousness of everything about it so you are commanded to NOT LAUGH. Don't laugh when you see your family in silly costumes--hats aprons and all. I have always known Id have not made it through the embarrassingly silly temple stuff, esp after all the buildup of how special it was.

I KNOW this is true---because my mom had to warn me to NOT LAUGH when we attended some masonic event where my uncle was poobahed.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/23/2011 10:02AM by Stray Mutt.

http://freedomofmind.com/Media/blog.php?id=15&title=An_Expert_Responds_to_the_Cult_Controversy_re%3A_Mormonism

Not to mention the endowment is pretty darn silly, as Stray Mutt said.

In addition to a preventing you from laughing at the gawd awful outfits in the temple--it's just another control tactic. The morg controls your underwear, what calling you'll have, whether or not you'll be deemed worthy enough to participate in ordinances/temple ceremonies, and what to think. You SHOULD NOT be thinking anything is funny that the common rabble might find amusing--and if you do, you sure as hell better not be laughing loudly about it. You should be "In the world, but not OF the world." You should be on some higher plane of consciousness that the rest of humanity will see and want to know all about so that you can convert them. Gag. It's also why mormon humor is SO terrible--trite and folksy. It's also the same reason that no mormon can ever just say they like something. They have to first point out all the things that weren't up to morg standards--"Yeah the movie was good except for that one scene where they were in bed..." Seriously, no one else does that. It's all about being a "peculiar people" and they make themselves peculiar on purpose so that they can feel above everyone else.

..Can you imagine how loud a Fast & Testimony meeting would be if everyone were allowed to laugh at the people bearing their testimonies?

Heaven forbid you act like you are having a good time by laughing out loud. They might think you have had an alcoholic beverage and you are getting belligerent.

...don't laugh, but your crazy Uncle Philburt will be a God someday... I SAID DON"T LAUGH ... Whhyyy youuuu ...5c#^=/@!!!!

Have you ever seen those outfits?
How about the whole wash and anoint ritual?
Stand up sit down change this, change that, chant while at it.
stand in a circle, cover your face, hands in the air, chant.
At the veil repeat after me, knock knock knock. what is wanted?

Everyone was probably laughing so hard thy had to put them under oath to knock it off. It was probably hindering the ability for some to take it seriously. Then mormons lost their sense of humor.There isn't much they find funny these days. That covenant seems a little out of place. If the goings on in the temple aren't funny what is?

I always assumed that covenant implied an "at spiritual things" at the end of it, because everyone knows laughter is good for you. I don't think anybody ever really took it seriously, simply because it wasn't one of the recommend interview questions. What's in that interview is a lot more important to people than what's said with your arm at the square.

I think some other good questions would be:

-Why would Adam be concerned about Adam selling tokens for money? Did he and Eve create their own monetary system between the two of them? Was Satan trying to buy them? What was the currency?

-Why did Adam covenant to obey the commandments in the Holy Scriptures? What scriptures were there? Adam was the only person around who could have written them, so was God commanding him to obey his own diary?

-Why did Adam receive different tokens at different times, but we receive them all at once? Why didn't Adam receive them all at once?

-Are we really supposed to only have sexual relations with our husband or wife to whom we are legally and lawfully wedded? Where are the papers showing that Joseph Smith was legally and lawfully wedded to the women he had sex with? Wasn't polygamy in Illinois illegal at the time?

-Why would Adam have been left a lone man in the Garden of Eden after Eve had been cast out? Did he not have two legs that he couldn't have walked out after her? Or was Adam a prisoner in the garden? So much for choosing for yourself.

-What would God have done if Lucifer never gave them the fruit? Would he have been happy and content? Would everything have been right? If not, then why the harsh punishment for putting God's plan into action? I'm kind of siding with Lucifer on this one. Maybe it was Lucifer's attitude? What if Lucifer truly wanted to make God's plan work, and never went around putting evil choices in people's path? Would God have been perfectly happy and content for the descendants of earth to never be tempted to do evil?

-Why did God ever command people to do sacrifices? Jesus' sacrifice was for our measurable benefit. So, are our sacrifices for God's measurable benefit? Does he like getting little animals back into heaven? Or is it just so that they could remember something that they had no way of remembering had happened (because it hadn't yet). Did the blood of the animals somehow cleanse them of their sins? I thought the atonement did that. I get the whole "this is in similitude" thing, but what was the purpose? To learn what it was like to be God and kill things just because you were told to?

Since I'm still a fence-sitter and went to the temple this past Saturday (much to my chagrin), here's a question that came out of my session:

If God is omniscient, why did he have to ask Jehovah and Michael if Man was found on the earth? Was it because he handed over the keys to his son and let him do his thing? Or had he turned off his omniscience in that part of the universe that day?

And why do Adam and Satan break the fourth wall?

Satan is way cuter than Adam. He has that charming irresistible bad boy look about him. I think Eve went after that. Then she had to confess. All hell broke loose. She got thrown out of the house. Lucky for her Adam forgave her, and moved out with her. And they lived happily ever after.

Until Cain and Abel were born. They would have been on Jerry Springer to find out who the babies daddy (S) were. One for Adam, one for Satan. The evidence certainly points that way.

Would have made a great tabloid story.

You commit to it because they don't tell you what you're going to have to commit to it beforehand so you get stuck conforming.

If you had no sense of humor and never got any of the jokes, wouldn't you condemn loud laughter too?

I was under the impression that Joseph Smith's narcissism made it intolerable for him to be laughed at under any circumstances. The Smith family was not highly thought of and they were probably laughed at for being what today would be called white trash. So Joseph wanted to put an end to people mocking him, his family, anything he did etc.

This is from the Bible predominately. It's the notion that religious people are not raucous, rowdy, lewd, etc... or a6t the bar room engaging in riotous laughter at filth... and so on.

The idea of associating with apostates in the TR interview was designed to weed out those that are associated with the polygamous apostate groups as they didn't want them in the temples.

There is a lot of misunderstanding and conjecture and speculation because things are not explained. Very silly to leave things up to the imagination.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/23/2011 08:33PM by SusieQ#1.

SusieQ#1: I agree with you 100% that it’s “Very silly to leave things up to the imagination.” This describes the absurb idea of FAITH completely; especially when it comes to the well founded (lack of) character of Joseph Smith. I’m curious…can you please direct me to a Biblical reference of ‘Bar Rooms?’ Would you care to elaborate on "...and so on?"

While you're at it, please jusify your attacks of "misunderstanding," "conjecture," and "speculation."

It was probably something said in Joseph Smith's time that just carried over.

Because without that commitment people would be rolling around in hysterics when they saw those hats...

Because the church is run by unhappy old men?

Boring answer here but I believe it is the answer. In the book "Cosmos Crumbling: American Reform and the Religious Imagination" the author Robert Abzug explains that during the Temperance Movement of the 1830's, religious zealots across the United States pledged to avoid strong drink and tobacco. This pledge held more weight than joining a church. Part of the pledge also contained the injunction to "avoid loud laughter." Just one more thing Joseph lifted from the 19th century that remains with us today.

Very interesting. Just one more instance of the mormons copying someone else--in a very inspirational way of course.

Its just more mormon kill-joy.