lizzie

(According to the internet)

Comment Galatians 1:8 on all of their posts even if it's not related to the church cult. This needs no further explanation to make sense because mormons are wrong

Comment the heresy detected gif. This will make them leave instantly.

Simply say they're in a cult with no evidence. They have never heard this before.

Tell them they're in a cult using the most straw man arguments you can think of. Who needs actual facts when you can just repeat what your pastor/favorite anti mormon YouTuber says?

Tell them they worship Joseph Smith. This is true.

Tell them they're not Christian because they believe in a different Jesus and that they're actually atheist/pagan/devil worshippers. They may think they worship Jesus Christ the son of God but actually they don't.

Inform them of the priesthood ban. They definitely don't already know about this.

Say that their temple rituals are creepy and weird and that means they're in a cult. Only cults have rituals and nothing else.

Make fun of them for wearing magic underwear. It's not weird to talk about other people's underwear if they're in a cult.

Tell them Joseph Smith was a pedophile and deserved to die. This will not make them defensive it will make them listen to you and leave their cult.

Quote the banned mormon cartoon. This is a 100% accurate depiction of their faith and has not been criticized by anti hate speech groups.

Get their beliefs confused with another controversial religion. This always works.

If you're on tumblr make sure you tell them about the policies on queer people. A community of queer mormons have never heard this before this is the first time.

Point out bad things mormons have done and pretend that no other religion has done anything bad.

Tell them to read the Bible. If they tell you they do read the Bible tell them they're wrong because mormons don't read the Bible.

My friend posted this on Facebook, I thought it would do rounds on Tumblr.

I am genuinely, religiously offended by the ending of Good Omens. And not because I think it’s blasphemous or whatever

The way that free will/agency is treated, like it’s incompatible with the existence of God is crazy.

All the predestination stuff really grinded my gears. The whole show was built around the characters not following the script.

Also, like, what was up with Jesus being like “the last thing I remember is being nailed to a cross”? THE LITERAL MOST IMPORTANT PART, THE ULTIMATE CLIMAX OF THE BIBLE IS THAT HE COMES BACK AFTER HIS CRUCIFICATION!

Any loser can die on a cross, not everyone comes back from it.

Other highlights from the have-you-been-to-a-mormon-temple poll

The picture in question:

Mia Maid is three syllables, Beehive and Laurel are two syllables. Teacher and Deacon are two, Priest is one. It's easy. People use them.

In case you missed it, the new names of the Young Women's groups are: Builders of Faith, Messengers of Hope, Gatherers of Light, Slayers of Doubt, Dancers of The Void, Bees of The Hive, Maidens of Mia, Champions of Laurels, and of course KEEPERS OF THE FORBIDDEN OATH

HOWEVER

The new names are too long, too generic, and just don’t roll off the tongue. I am not a fan at all

+ my cousin’s commentary

I also understand now why even so many non-Mormons have been impressed with / terrified by the King Follett Discourse. It really is a uniquely American take on Christianity, but like in a spiritually cool way, instead of how we usually impact it (see MAGA). But that said, these ideas are also totally in line with pre-Orthodox schools of early Christianity, which came to similar conclusions using the same books of the Bible - namely because they, you know, ACTUALLY READ THEM.

(Compare this to Orthodoxy, which was basically taking folk religious traditions from the first 300 years of practice and twisting Scripture to fit it. Which you're not supposed to do.)

Also Smith was actually right about the early Hebrew Scriptures talking about God as but one of many who had agency in the narratives, and also Genesis absolutely does say Creation was just the Godhead applying order to preexisting primordial chaos-matter. Because most ancient creation myths are similarly about the creation of the CURRENT WORLD ORDER, they didn't need God to invent water specifically. And this seemingly minor difference with the orthodox view about God creating everything from nothing has HUGE spiritual implications, whether you take it literally or as a metaphor.

Smith recast Christianity as a universal family of eternal beings being reunited, as they learn to choose love over selfishness. Compare this to "Tell God you like Jesus or he'll get mad and torture you for all eternity," which is ABSOLUTELY what most orthodox / trinitarian denominations do with it, intentionally or not.

This really is what makes Mormonism a radical disruption of the dour, boring spiritual plodding that American Christianity had inherited from Anglicanism. At that time, and now. If you think of us all as in a family with God, it kind of makes you stop wasting time with nonsensical interpretations of Revelation that delight in Jesus murdering everyone you're allowed to hate.

It's clear now why so many people joined this movement so quickly back then, even those who never encountered Smith's implied charisma. On paper, it is a far nicer, more joyful take on the faith.

...On paper. If you follow through on things. Ideally. And don't spend the next almost 200 years meekly trying to minimize the "strange" stuff so Evangelicals and Catholics will hang out with you. For whatever reason you'd want that, blegh.

You have the coolest version of this! Stop ruining it!

Idk, man.