It would be only fair, after all. They frustrate me with their ridiculous beliefs all the time, and with their bigoted intrusions into national politics. A few Mormons are planning a youtube challenge, coordinated on FaceBook: on 3 May, they intend to all visit one particular pro-Mormon video, comment on it, uprate it, etc., and attempt to turn it into a notable event that will bring wonderful, uplifting exposure of the Mormon Church to the public.
That ain’t gonna happen.
Here is their complete plan. We’re going to start working against it already.
Dear friends,
On May 3, 2010 (perhaps as part of your Family Home Evening program) if all reachable members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints–and any non members interested– would follow the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkKblIMfmjI and watch the YouTube video of Jeffrey R. Holland bearing testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, we could potentially achieve promoting that video to the YouTube homepage, based on volume of views.
The repercussions of this could be great. YouTube reports:
YouTube Stats (US)
(comScore MediaMetrix April 2009)"The YouTube Homepage is the highest-profile placement on the site… eleven million unique visitors a day in the US [and] 89.7 Million unique monthly visitors."
The exposure that the Church–even the Book of Mormon–could receive in one day is astronomical. Please keep in mind though, while it is ideal that this video be promoted to the homepage, it is the spirit felt from the message wherein the success lies.
TIPS ON HOW TO ACHIEVE THIS:
1 views
2 comments (the more comments, the more valuable Youtube sees your video.) Comments almost carry as much weight as views.
3 favorites – everyone needs to "favorite" the video.
4 thumbs up
5 subscriptions – daily subscriptions have a major impact on popularity. This also has longterm impact on the future videos coming to the channel because they will get emails from Youtube letting them know when MormonMessages posts new stuff.
6 reshare. The more things are shared on Facebook and Twitter the better the video’s rankings will be.Please send this to anyone you think would be interested. Maybe you don’t have to invite them to be a part of the cause, but even just sharing the link with non-member friends on May 3 could achieve the same effects (multiple views by one viewer in a day bumps the view count as well.)
As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints blessed with the knowledge contained in the Book of Mormon I seek to share with the world what I know to be true; what I know to bring happiness and hope in the times of travail; what I know to be the word of God.
For this challenge May 3 is calculated from 12 am to 11:59:59 pm Eastern Standard Time (for those participating from different time zones), but viewing before and after the event is helpful as well. Please mark your calendars and gather round in your families, wards and stakes and join me, May 3.
All my best,
Erin Jakob
*** As the group has more than 5000 members I am not able to send out a reminder email for the event so I will update the event details a couple days before (so you can send out your last minute reminder emails) and the day off. These updates will appear in your notifications and serve as a reminder.
Also, I am deleting all links that are not the video itself, mormon.org or lds.org, and any disputes that may arise. If you would like to discuss something with someone please private message them.***
I’m sure you’re all itching to take a look at the video — and I’ll give you the link in a moment, so you can witness the dumbassery in all of its pompous inanity — but here’s the deal: when you go look at it, you must also click on the little “don’t like” button to downrate it (and yes, it’s true, you won’t like it), and ideally, leave a negative comment behind (if you can, it’s censored, as you might expect). Not one of the stupid profanity-laced misspelled ungrammatical comments so typical of youtube, but one that points out the absurdity of the video. And then ignore it. Don’t go back to look at it again, since that will just jack up the page views.
The second step is a more positive one. Leave some suggestions in the comments here for a great godless pro-science video that we can promote. I’ll pick one and announce it on the evening of 2 May, and we’ll send the horde there to uprate and promote it — so even if the Mormons do make a push for their video (and it’s entirely possible that, after we trash Holland’s idiocy, they’ll shift their target to a virgin Mormon message), we’ll still dilute their efforts.
Got all that? It’s a two-pronged attack: downrank their awful video now, then ignore it; and give me suggestions for a good atheist/science video that I’ll highlight before their big day. Easy.
As for the video they are promoting — it’s appallingly illogical. In case you don’t even want to watch it at all, I’ll summarize. It’s a well-produced video of a prophet, seer, and revelator of the Mormon Church, Jeffrey Holland, who is also a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, so he is quite highly ranked in the hierarchy. He’s telling a story — and actually, he’s a good speaker, if you discount the dead-eyed glaze of the true believer — of the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. Joseph Smith was the crazy leader of the cult who had led his people to Nauvoo, Illinois, where he started to build his theocratic polygamous empire. It’s a typical story for the beginnings of a major cult — think Jim Jones in Guyana, David Koresh in Waco, Elizabeth Clare Prophet and her Montana compound.
Unfortunately for the Smith brothers, they were still a batty minority, and outraged members of the community assaulted the Mormon leadership and managed to kill them both. This was a criminal act that also made a couple of martyrs for the cause.
Holland’s version of the story is supposed to be a testimony of the truth of the Book of Mormon, and his reasoning is sadly familiar. It’s a Mormon version of the Trilemma argument of CS Lewis! He claims that Hyrum and Joseph had been reading from the Book of Ether in the Book of Mormon before they were killed, and while in jail, Joseph Smith had written that the Book was true. That’s his starting premise.
From that, he concludes that well, if the Smiths knew they were under threat of death, they wouldn’t be turning to a book that they knew was false for comfort. Therefore, the book must be true!
Using this logic, of course, means that every cause for which someone has died — both sides in the American Civil War, communism, the Nazi party, the love of a woman, the Albigensian heresy, Al Qaeda’s cause, every shift of every border, every battle over religious dogma, the fight between the caves of Og and Thag for the local water hole, the cults of Jim Jones and David Koresh — has been absolutely true. Holland is assuming that no one ever dies for stupid causes, or for cherished delusions, or for greed…and we know that is false.
It’s not at all intellectually persuasive, but it pulls out all the standard Christian tropes: the self-sacrificing prophet, martyrdom as a substitute for reason, pious emotionalism, a self-serving twisting of the facts, overstatement, and the conclusion that does not follow from the premises, but still appeals to what they want to be true.
So somebody find a video that represents our cause without those flaws. Something by Sagan or Feynman, perhaps? Someone new, since we don’t rely on simple authority?
Oh the comments here should start to get interesting.
Now where is my fang sharpener?
Great plan, as for an alternate these videos are on youtube. http://www.symphonyofscience.com/, we’d just have to pick one.
How about something by Thunderf00t? Or the Cosmos Remixed music video?
Some Mormons are also likely to be in a frenzy over the South Park creators producing a Broadway musical on the Book of Mormon.
I vote for Tim Minchin’s Storm
Fuck the fucking Mormons.
I left a comment there (without profanity, don’t worry); I don’t expect it to be actually posted though.
I managed about one minute in of the video, voted it down, left a comment (not at all obscene .. even the tone trolls would approve), but my comment is awaiting moderation .. of course I won’t be holding my breath.
I vote for this video:
It has to be Mr. Deity Season 1 Episode 1!
First off, yes, Joe probably was deluded enough to believe that it was true. People receiving “revelations” and talking about it generally do believe their idiotic claims.
Secondly, of course he clings all the tighter to the object to which his ego is tied as that ego is threatened with extermination. It’s self-assertion, and he’d tend to assert himself ever more forcefully even were he intelligent enough to recognize his delusions.
It’s what we see all over the place, particularly in religions. Islam often gained adherents precisely because of the “faith” of its believers. That this chowderhead appeals directly to the herd thought rampant in “false religions” indicates what a fraud he is, knowingly or not.
After all, he could hardly be discussing the many ways in which the Book of Mormon has failed to agree with the evidence, especially the idiocy of Native Americans coming from the Mideast (no, I don’t care about the apologetic nonsense that tries to prevent its falsification).
Mob appeal is all that he has, since any sort of sober judicial judgment would always judge against Smith and his bullshit religion.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Gee, thanks, PZ. I’d prefer it if you just came out and said “Brownian, you go play in your room while the adults talk.”
I think Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot would be a good choice.
My comment:
“I will show this to all my wives. Thanks!”
I wonder if that one will slip through.
Our comments aren’t going to get through. They have it set up so that every single comment has to be approved before it can be posted. The only one who is going to see them is the person running the channel and he will definitely delete every single one of them. Best to just concentrate on the downvoting.
Done. Highly doubtful that my comment will be published, though.
That Sagan narrated “Pale Blue Dot” video is damn inspiring, but experience leads me to believe it isn’t explicit enough for believers. I showed it to a friend once, and all she said was, “Great video. But couldn’t God have created all of it?” Grr.
I kinda like “Grandpa’s Burning in Hell” as a testament to the Christian message.
There’s always the pale blue dot:
#2
God, GOOOOD no symphony of science please. It´s the fucking atheist equivalent of Christian Jesus loves me rock. Doubleplus uncool.
Comments on that have to be approved of course.
My comment.
Just to clarify, aren’t we supposed to wait until May 3 to do this? Do I have it wrong?
This one is good too
PZ, you’re tipping your hand too soon! You know a Mormon is going to go to that group and tell them of your plan, and they’re going to counter by downranking whatever video you decide to uprank on the 3rd. And since you’ve made it an issue, it will make it easier to recruit more Mormons. We don’t expect novice mistakes from the Tentacled Overlord!
You have the power to create one hell of a flash mob to do these things on short notice. Next time, wait until May 2nd/3rd and mobilize the Horde on short notice.
Are Mormons on a alternative time system where they don’t observe Daylight Savings Time? Because doing something on Eastern STANDARD Time on May 3 is going to be tough for the rest of us.
Speaking of Mormons, check out the Irreligiosophy podcast on itunes if you haven’t already. It is hosted by two ex-mormon atheists. Very entertaining and informative.
My boyfriend was asking me just the other night about what Mormons think about the hat thing (where Joe claimed to look into his hat to get visions and translations) and I explained to him that we weren’t given that version of history in church. That the version they give you is highly edited….I think I ended up on a whole tangent of things they don’t tell you about, including the bit where they don’t tell you one of the reasons Joe was in jail was because he had his Danites destroy a printing press, he declared martial law (and with his own legion, that probably left him open to the treason charges) and incited riots. And there’s at least one account that states that Joseph did NOT expect to die that night since he initially thought the mob was the Nauvoo Legion come to rescue him. He didn’t EXPECT to die that night, and the fact that he did doesn’t mean he was nobly sacrificing himself for a book. It merely means he miscalculated in making sure the Nauvoo Legion knew of his circumstances and was in the hands of somebody loyal to him. It means he miscalculated how much his actions (destruction of property, keeping a private army, using the Mormons to manipulate bloc voting in Illinois and the region) were going to rile up other people. Joe wasn’t a martyr–he was a guy who couldn’t foresee the consequences. The Book of Mormon wasn’t on trial in Carthage–Joe was, and for any number of reasons which didn’t have specifically to do with the Book of Mormon and its validity.
Anyway, blech. This little inanity is far from being the most toxic thing the Church puts out. It’s all hero-worship and sloppy thinking. Mormons are trained to think of Joe as being one step down from Jesus in terms of awesomeness, so of course, they don’t want to think he died because he was a fucknut.
Also, can we please please please use the Mormon Jesus video? Pretty please?
When other Christians try this, I tell them I am converting to become a member of Heaven’s Gate and that I hope to see them at the next punch social.
I second the idea of “Storm”, although it’s NSFW due to Tim Minchin’s mouth. I don’t know if that’s a problem or not.
On a more PG note, “Science is Real” by They Might be Giants is pretty darn fantastic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty33v7UYYbw
The “Symphony of Science” videos are of course amazing too.
The Book of Ether seems appropriate. If I knew some mob was about to be kill me, I would go for something mind-numbing. Make mine diethyl.
Or was it about something that alchemists thought to propagate light, but really doesn’t exist. That must be it.
Only one video I can think of fits the bill:
‘A Universe from Nothing’ by Lawrence Krauss
I nominate “A Universe From Nothing”, the RDF-sponsored talk of Lawrence Krauss at AAI 2009:
(I know, it’s an hour long, but truly, one doesn’t notice!)
I nominate Michael Specter’s video on science denialism:
I vote for something by youtuber QualiaSoup like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wV_REEdvxo
Calm, rational, clear, concise.
Richard Dawkins “Baloney Detection Kit.” The perfect choice of videos to counteract the irrationality of the Book of Mormon.
I’m not sure what would be more of a put-down: for their video to get out-ranked by a proper and inspiring science video like PZ is suggesting, or for it to get out-ranked by something typically inane and irrelivent, like a Spice Girls video, or LEEERRROY JEEEENNNNNKKKIIIINNNNSSSSS!!!!!
“Comment pending approval.”
I’m guessing that’s going to be a ‘no’.
I think perhaps they were reading from the Book of Esther but they may have been huffing Ether. LOL
There are so many good choices for an alternative video to promote here. We need a poll so we choose one.
Another good one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy6aO6Dshrs
I’ll nominate this clip from Cosmos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E-_DdX8Ke0
It’s not as in-your-face as Dawkins’ “Militant Atheism” TED talk, but you can’t beat Sagan for well reasoned argument against god.
Can I nominate my girlfriend’s films?
This one’s called “Shine a Light”
And this one is called “Laser”
-Jay
Pale Blue Dot
There is no more stinging indictment of The Book of Mormon than Mark Twain’s, in Roughing It, in which he dismisses it as “chloroform in print.”
Quite a boring bunch these Mormons … ALL the positive (if you can call it that) comments say EXACTLY the same thing, with hardly any variation:
a) I KNOW the book of Mormon is true.
b) Elder Holland is AMAZING.
As for a) A LOT of commentors justify their statement with a “I asked the Lord Himself if the book of Mormon was true, and he said it was”.
How delusional can one be?
There’s one problem in “countering” the Mormon video with a merely pro-science video (as opposed to a “Baloney Detection” video, or a nonsense eradication video).
Mormons (the modern official LDS churchies) don’t think that they’re anti-science. They don’t (at least not officially) believe in either a young or old earth creationism. Nor are they, at least as an organization, global-warming denialists, nor science-revisionists (at least not the ones who aren’t living in isolated fundamentalist compounds stockpiling wives and guns). Ok, the whole “Native Americans are actually Jews who came to America on boats built by Pheonicians” is pretty hard to say with a straight face, but many of them have been very good at changeing their goalposts and accomodating their version of the story to shoehorn anthropological and archaeological facts into their wacky Jewish Indian story. (Which of course, reminds me of Blazing Saddles, where Mel Brooks plays the Indian Chief speaking yiddish with the hebrew on his headdress.)
I think a “Baloney Detector” or some short quick dismantling of religion/the BoM would be prefereable to a merely “Yay, Science!” video.
I’m for the Pale Blue Dot too.
But “Storm” is pretty awesome too. Except there’s no live video to it.
You would think they would allow comments. I mean, clearly when there’s so many mormons watching this video, they could outargue a few select comments from this blog any day!
Fuck the fucking mormon cowards.
I definitely reccomend a symphony of science vid or the starter video to this series:
http://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54?blend=1&ob=4#p/c/DB23537556D7AADB/0/wg1fs6vp9Ok
irenedelse, yay!
I see. No wonder I couldn’t find any critical comments to upvote.
Quite a boring bunch these Mormons … ALL the positive (if you can call it that) comments say EXACTLY the same thing, with hardly any variation:
a) I KNOW the book of Mormon is true.
b) Elder Holland is AMAZING.
As for a) A LOT of commentors justify their statement with a “I asked the Lord Himself if the book of Mormon was true, and he said it was”.
How delusional can one be?
I think it helps to keep in mind that most mormons are essentially clones.
Or this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0Mg3naXu_o
“Ma’am, I regret to inform you that your son died because he was stupid”
I am absolutely amazed that a grown man smart enough to obtain a PhD still embodies such childish pettiness as to ask his readers to sabotage YouTube videos and internet polls.
How about Thunderf00t’s Invisible Beauty vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agTHok-W_PI
Or The Ride of a Lifetime: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrPYQraAcws
1370 up, 695 down. Has the Horde taken the day off?
Could you write a 500 page manuscript on the first try within 60 days, with no erasures or punctuation, and have it stay essentially in tact for 185 years? Could you incorporate ancient Jewish names and sentence structure (chiasm)? And make it consistent with New Testament theology?
Could you restore the lost First Century ordinances of baptism and temple worship, and re-institute correct Christian principles of the Godhead and deification? Could you re-institute the correct theology pertaining to faith and works as practiced during the First Century? Check out my blog (MormonsAreChristian.blogspot.com) for details.
Could you do all of the above without Divine help? If so, perhaps you should start a new Christian denomination.
I commented that he has better jowls than my basset hound…
Oh, I haven’t seen that poetry one before. It features PZ too!
Love it!
I’m also glad to help anything that will upset mormons. I’m still pissed about the prop 8 shit they pulled.
I suggest Julia Sweeney’s “Letting Go of God”, a TED talk.
Her encounter with a couple of young Mormon missionaries is in the second half.
I am absolutely amazed that a grown man smart enough to obtain a PhD still embodies such childish pettiness as to ask his readers to sabotage YouTube videos and internet polls.
Cry the fuck more. When the mormons stop trying to impose on my American neighbor’s rights, then I’ll leave the mormons alone.
I’m also glad to help anything that will upset mormons. I’m still pissed about the prop 8 shit they pulled.
Agreed.
It’s a rap about rationalism called “Off That (Rationalist Anthem)”.
I think if we use that Carl Sagan “God” and “gods” video, people will watch one minute of it and decide that we’re promoting Hinduism. Then again, people will misinterpret anything we say, so what the hell. Go for it.
Oh, and “Bot”, sure. That sounds awesome. I’ll get right to work.
Anything by any of the greats of youtube. Richard Dawkins “What if you’re wrong.” video is always a pleaser.
But my personal pick would be the first 15 minutes or so of Jim Jeffries “I Swear to God” where he refers to religious people as “Just fucking stupid” and compares Noah to “glorified chess piece” and comments on a groan he gets about child rapists in the church by saying “See that moan there? That’s because there are religious people in the room, and religious people don’t like facts.”
1374 up/ 774 down when I voted. Left a comment, we’ll see if it gets past the Censors or Mormon.
I’ve seen a lot of suggestions for Pale Blue Dot on here (specifically the version suggested at #17). I’d vote for that one, it always manages to both humble and uplift me.
Oh my non existent God, I forgot ‘Why Don’t Bees Go to Heaven?”. That is an incredibly catchy song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9bMi4s_yOE
If it’s a video meant to make mormons realize how silly they are, I would suggest anything that incorporates Occam’s +5 Vorpal Katana.
It got me to stop believing in catholicism in any case.
I’m amazed someone would go by the handle “ohlordbabyjesus”. Isn’t that blasphemous? At the very least, it’s excessively prideful.
You’re actually proud that God never intervened to get Mr. Smith to correct his horrid grammar and spelling? I know if I was a deity inspiring someone, I’d smite them with a lightning bolt if they refused to use proper words.
How do you verify that the practices are the same as were practiced in the first century? Which criteria do you use to determine “correct”?
Why should it be Christian? If all you need to do is make up theology out of whole cloth, there’s no need to tie it to ancient Jews. Hubbard did just fine making up an alien invasion theology. There are much more interesting policies than trying to create yet another branch of Christ-belief. There are too many of those already.
I vote for any piece of the “Why I am no longer a christian” series from YouTube user Evid3nc3, the one about the bible is a great one:
His videos ROCK and definitely deserve a spotlight.
Write 500 pages of bullshit in 60 days? I probably couldn’t but I can’t write worth a dman. But I am sure there are many writers who could. I am pretty sure Harlan Ellison or Asimov (when he was alive) could pour out thousands of pages a month and be entirely consistent with all manner of reference material (and also include punctuation).
And even if I was capable of doing so, why should my new cult be Christian, why not Thetan like Hubbard?
@#64
Ah, there we go. Our new chew toy.
I recommend because this series by the wonderful ProfMTH, because it directly addresses the “die for a lie” fallacy.
Write 500 pages of bullshit in 60 days?
“He writes fast, therefore God!”
They’ve set the comments on YouTube to be displayed upon “Approval”.
They won’t allow any real comments to be viewed on the page. Only the ones that they agree with.
Typical morons I mean Mormons… Hehe
I’m in between jobs right now and have been bored out of my mind for the last few weeks. Now I have tons of highly recommended science videos to watch!
As for a BoM refutation, The Accidental Terrorist podcast is about a Mormon missionary coming to Canada on a mission and eventually becoming disillusioned with mormonism, with lots of interesting side stories that debunk the BoM. Unfortunately it wouldn’t work here as it is just audio.
Here’s what I wrote, which will never be approved:
I had a conversation about this very topic on an IRC debate channel recently. A Christian was claiming that the fact that early Christian believers were willing to die for their beliefs was good evidence that what they believed (regarding the divinity of Jesus) is true.
I pointed out that history is full of people dying for their beliefs, and many of those people were on opposite sides of the conflict, so they can’t all be true. Does the fact that 19 intelligent, educated, well-to-do men were willing to fly planes into buildings make their beliefs about 72 virgins true? Are they on the right side of truth, and history, because they believed more fervently than Christians who failed to enlist for the subsequent war?
It would seem that the willingness to die for one’s beliefs is a very poor indicator of their veracity.
I was going to post some of the facts surrounding the death of Joseph Smith, but I see that pixelfish already did a good job of that in comment #26. I’ll just add that the printing press Joe and his cohorts destroyed was planning to expose the polygamy in which Joe was well-engaged.
A few ex-mormons have called Jeffrey Holland out for lying during the speech in question. See http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickleus/sets/72157623567278714/ for photos and text. Excerpt:
I have some more interesting facts about Holland, but posting it requires too many links for a single comment (The comment would end up in moderation). I’ll organize the info and post it later today.
Argh, it is so hard for me to keep from reporting this video as “Spam: Scam or fraud.” but that would probably get me banned or something, and I like my YouTube account. I also feel like hanging out on this post all day, watching science-y videos.
I went and voted the video down, and YouTube wanted me to sign in/register. Is it necessary to register for my thumb down to count?
I wonder what wouldn’t amaze someone who chooses the handle ohlordbabyjesus.
Here, this’ll blow your mind: Fucking magnets, how do they work? Once you’re done with that check these out. Godless scientists call them ‘paper clips’ but true believers know they’re just more proof of God’s miraculous love. *Squeeee!*
Carl Sagans Pale Blue Dot
Carl Sagan was 1000 times more poetic and wise.
I always preferred this version of the Pale Blue Dot (none of that I-know-that-scene distraction of the earlier links):
+1 for anything by QualiaSoup, the previously linked “Faith in its Place” being especially appropriate.
Angie the Antitheist has moving talk about “Sunday School”
Douglas Adams giving a speach about New Zealand Parrots and other quirky evolutionary adventures:
That is my top pick.
Second vote goes to Indian atheist who let a tantric try to kill him with black magic on TV:
I’m all in for Storm or Pale Blue Dot
I re-read PZ’s post and it appears he wants to downrank their video now (not on the 3rd) and uprank ours on the 3rd (so it won’t be a simultaneous downrank/uprank thing). Just in case anyone else was holding off like me, thinking both were supposed to happen on the 3rd.
It would seem that the willingness to die for one’s beliefs is a very poor indicator of their veracity.
And something people seem to forget about “lie detectors”. They don’t measure the actual truth or falsehood of the subjects statements, just whether he believes them to be true or is actively trying to deceive.
Christians (or anyone) willing to die for their beliefs only means that they honestly believe them to be true; it is not any kind of proof (or even evidence) that they are actually true.
And it came to pass that a Bot was sent forth, to lie about his religion. And it came to pass that he exceedingly misrepresented the early history of a religion, in his exceedingly moral bankrupt defence of the sexually abusive polygamous snake-oil salesman founder of what, it came to pass exceedingly, turned into yet another Christianish cult. And it all came to pass wearing his exceedingly magical underwear.
Pale Blue Dot, all that needs to be said, and has probably already been suggested a dozen times in this thread…
Of course the group did say
this one. or this one or this one.
Every should report it as spam for having misleading text. It is complete bulshit so surely it qualifies as spam.
Also I know somebody that was reading lord of the ring when they died, and they knew they were gonna die too, does that mean it’s true?
My favorite video.
Lawrence Krauss, A Universe from Nothing.
“Deconstructor”, an ex-mormon of note, has a website on which he notes the inconsistencies in the way the LDS Church presents the last days of Joe-the-scam-artist, and the way things actually went down.
Excerpts:
I nominate the underrated but breathtaking video:
The Indelible Stamp of Our Lowly Origin by UppruniTegundanna
It’s not a direct rational response, but amazing and beautiful on its own merit.
For a more direct response:
Open-mindedness by QualiaSoup.
No problem, dumbass. Actual first century Christian theology was centred on giving me money, and lots of it. Other ‘lost’ stuff I rediscovered through Divine Revelation was that Adam and Even were actually ejected from Eden for not giving me money. And Abraham? Motherfucker owes me a C-note—you won’t find that in your corrupted-by-men so-called holy texts. Oh, and looky what I found in my pocket: a ‘lost’ map to Atlantis. Unfortunately it’s on a magic gold tablet which I can’t show you or else you’ll die. But trust me. Oh, and you know what else is ‘lost’ that I’ve just restored? Jimmy Hoffa’s last words. They were “I regret that I’ll never live to see a Sbarro in every mall food court.” It’s true.
Anyway, you’d better start sending me cheques, lest you want to spend eternity in hellfier*. And so it came to pass.
*Typo proves I’m right.
Wait a minute. Didn’t Joseph Smith (Alayhis salaam) dictate the Book of Mormon? You’re not by any chance bearing false witness, are you, Bot?
And why take 60 days, when a month is enough.
@Bot: Nope.
Neither could Joe.
But hey, he managed to make a great insomnia cure, so… yeah!
The Shermer Baloney Detection Kit is great.
Now I’m torn.
I just want to point out that any time I hear someone refer to “Nauvoo” I think that they mean “Naboo” and the conversation becomes waaaaaay more interesting.
/OT
Just a thought, but it would be nice if we could make good on some of the noise around here about promoting female atheists. Not saying we should go out and pick something, anything random by a female atheist to show they exist, but if we’re going to YouTube bomb something might as well couple it with another cause we’d like to see some action in. I can’t contribute too much at the moment, though, since I can’t visit YouTube.
Hey PZ,
I second Sagan’s, “Pale Blue Dot”. Sagan’s almost lyrical ability to express his awe of the natural world around him tends to resonate with the spiritual crowd. Maybe we’ll actually reach a few.
T
1382 thumbs-up votes; and 1019 thumbs-down votes when I visited. This is out of over 100,000 views.
PZ, I think you may have underestimated the organizational skills of mormons — not to mention the profoundly mindless OBEDIENCE in which they wallow. Any prompting they receive from leaders will be followed to the letter. They also have both young and elderly “missionaries” assigned to Internet duty, and these missionaries will relentlessly comment on and up-rate that video.
If we want to truly frustrate them, we will have to expand this campaign beyond Pharyngula.
Of course the group did say
So whatever happens they will claim a great victory.
Hey, anyone who’s downrating it, tell us how it’s going so we don’t have to click on it again. Are any of our comments getting posted?
Here’s the comment I left, for what it’s worth. Doubtful it will make it through moderation, but we’ll see.
—–
Elder Holland commits nearly every logical fallacy in the book. Just because he says something emotionally or forcefully doesn’t make it literally true. Those who leave the church do not need to crawl over or under or around the Book of Mormon. It’s easy enough to go straight through. I wish Elder Holland would spend less energy being condescending to unbelievers and spend more energy extending a hand of understanding and empathy. Maybe he should read Elder Uchtdorf’s talk from two weeks ago.
@Paul #100
I agree with promoting female atheists…
I’m sure we could find a good ZOMGitsCriss video…I would look but I’m on my work computer so I can’t watch a bunch of videos right now.
Your prophet didn’t actually do any of that. In fact, archaeological and historical evidence indicates it was all bullshit.
He could if he was a con-artist out to get the moneys of fools. Hopefully, PZ has better morals than that.
Ah, crap. Thought I cancelled that first post submission, now I’ve repeated myself. Sorry.
I think our video should use the standard arguments – you know, the ones that tend to send religious people’s fingers into their ears. Russell’s teapot, the dangers of accepting any idea on ‘faith,’ and some good old fashion scientific information to refute religious claims. I’d love to see a video like that.
Cheques? CHEQUES?! What abomination is this?!
Gah. Someone linked UppruniTegundanna, and it wasn’t one of these…
Ultimate Rube Goldberg Machine
Reverse Engineering the Universe
They work best as a two-parter though.
I also vote for a Mr. Deity episode.
I suggest Julia Sweeney’s “Letting Go of God”, a TED talk.
This!
Compelling. Watched it and then watched to the entire performance.
I thumbs downed it and instead of leaving a message, reported it for disgusting content.
Don’t read the comments. I think I may vomit.
I recommend a comedy, because it’d be easier to get other people into watching it. Maybe some of Dara O’Briain’s stand up or Mr. Deity. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0123R6vjIoE
You know, I second the motion at #36 to reply with a similarly intelligent video. LEEEEEEEERRRROOOOOOYYYY JJJJJJJJJJJJJEEENNNNNKIIIIIINNNSSSS.
See terror management theory in social cognition–when people are confronted with thoughts of death, they tend to hold on more strongly to their values and close off towards other ideas.
Billy Geerhart’s letter to the Mormon church is HI-Larious. Check out the photos of the correspondence at the bottom of the page.
“Dear Mormans,…”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-geerhart/little-billys-letters-rea_b_504991.html
Hm, I actually watched the video and apparently they cut out all the parts where he is foaming at the mouth and screaming about how pathetic unbelievers are, and how they need to crawl around the Book of Mormon if they want to leave the church. Everyone who watched this, be thankful you didn’t have to sit through ten extra minutes of even more emotional and insulting logical blunders. I got to watch it live, at my wife’s True Believing Mormon family’s house. It was kind of comical. For anyone interested in putting yourself through it, here’s a link to the full talk.
I almost became a Mormon when I was younger. There was a really attractive Mormon woman in my class and I wanted to date her. After about 4 lab partner experiences with her I decided she had overdosed on crazy and found a more attractive baptist woman…but that is another story.
“Comment pending approval.”
Figures.
Good thing YouTube has an option to report a video as a spam/fraud.
The glucifixion – no more nails! It’s a miracle:
Lawrence Krauss A Universe From Nothing has my vote.
@LynnOM #102:
You can only up-rate or downrate a video once. So, they’ll get in their licks, but I’m sure that there are enough godless hoards here to force them to turn off the up-rate/downrate option on he vid.
We’ll see how successful we are if they choose to disable that feature.
Apparently my post got lost. I suggest Julia Sweeney’s “Letting Go of God”, a TED talk.
In the second half she talks of her encounter with a couple of young Mormon missionaries.
Nearly any video from QualiaSoup on youtube would work, they’re all very well done.
His video on evolution:
Comment on the youtube video anyway. You will flood the censors workload and the good comments will wait in queue as well, mixed in with ours.
Another vote for Pale Blue Dot and I now have three people who do not read Pharyngula who will join in on May 3rd.
I would vote for Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot first
but maybe even a bit more on topic would be this excellent Sagan clip:
OMG! Bot@57 brings up one of my favourite loony arguments from seminary courses: chiasmus.
Sez the Bot:Could you write a 500 page manuscript on the first try within 60 days, with no erasures or punctuation, and have it stay essentially in tact for 185 years? Could you incorporate ancient Jewish names and sentence structure (chiasm)? And make it consistent with New Testament theology?
Let’s see…the LDS church is VERY big on the fact that Joe was a Bible reader, and considering that he plagiarised parts of Isaiah all over the Book of Mormon….it’s not super surprising that he could have accidently picked up the form of chiasmus without knowing it for what it was.
Secondly, chiasmus-like structure appears in OTHER art forms, like Shakespearean sonnets. This isn’t like Joe inserted secret code for DNA or something nobody at the time knew. Chiasmus (for those who don’t know) is a sort of mirroring structure, where you build up to a point, and then rhetorically retrace your steps. It’s very common…and again, since it’s all over Joe’s sources of inspiration, it’s not surprising that we find the structure repeated.
As for staying intact, oh, PLEASE….the Book of Mormon has been through countlesss revisions, starting with grammatical errors and moving on up to changing “white and delightsome” to “pure and delightsome” after folks started calling racism. The original Book of Mormon is riddled with spelling errors, folksy English, consistency errors (Nephi being mistaken for Lehi, etc) and about a zillion double negatives. Believe me, that little turd has been polished and polished and sculpted to be whatever the current leaders of the church want it to be. The main narratives may remain roughly the same, but the artifacts of its creation by a VERY HUMAN con artist have been smoothed away by the magic of editing.
Could you restore the lost First Century ordinances of baptism and temple worship, and re-institute correct Christian principles of the Godhead and deification? Could you re-institute the correct theology pertaining to faith and works as practiced during the First Century?
*rolls eyes* Who decided these were “correct”? Incidentally, the baptism and temple worship rites haven’t remained the same EITHER. The garments worn upon receiving your endowment have changed over the years. And the temple vows….oh, in 1990ish, they took out the pesky bit about having to disembowel yourself if you revealed these secrets. I think they took the oath against the United States government (for spilling Joseph’s blood) out sometime in the 30s or 50s but I’d have to check on that. And wouldn’t the Correct Theology have not been a decade behind the Civil Rights Movement. You’d think a “correct” theology would be ahead of its time.
Could you do all of the above without Divine help?
Well, I can certainly write Biblical fan fic without divine help, which is what the Book of Mormon is. Bad Biblical fan-fic at that.
Joe certainly was writing without divine help. You can google early texts from the book of mormon and see that the book is pretty rough. Not only that but he was working with theories that were popular at the time, but have since been disproved by science. (See The Twelve Tribes of Israel theory–I used to think it was just Mormons that believed that, but actually it was one of the archaelogical hoaxes/bunk theories of the day that was very popular. When you start reading stuff like that, and you realise how popular some of Joe’s obsessions were at the time, and you see things like Joe attempting, laughably, to translate an Egyptian papyri….well, you get a pretty good context for Joe’s fan-fic habits. It’s not divine at all, but pretty human.)
@Ariel from Canada: I know Bill–the writer of The Accidental Terrorist–as he was friends with my cousin when they were at WhyBeYou. He’s an excellent writer. (Everybody, take a chance to listen to the Accidental Terrorist podcast….hilarious stuff. Bill’s got a great way of telling how his disillusionment with the LDS church came to be.)
Mr. Deity seems an obvious choice, or for something more serious, Thunderf00t’s “Why Do People Laugh At Creationists?” series would be a great choice.
Mrs. Betty Bowers: Less is Mormon!
One possibility would be to promote a video I did about the True Order of Prayer, which is a version of a Mormon ritual performed in LDS temples.
Almost all Mormons will recognize the words “True Order of Prayer” as another “testimony builder” just like the testimony of the Book of Mormon. They might ultimately not really care for my video, but they would recognize the reference.
Did my bit.
Oh, it appears that the facebook comments are not moderated.
And so it goes
~Will
This is plumberbob, and I haven’t read the thread, but as per request, here’s my favorite contributions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEpZFEIDHdc&feature=PlayList&p=664F2AE1160FF884&index=0&playnext=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nj587d5ies&annotation_id=annotation_586538&feature=iv
RAmen
Quite pathetic to showcase the alleged courage of the church’s leader while being so cowardly as to censor any critical comments.
Just as a random example of the unchanging nature of the book of Mormon and Joe’s infallibility:
“Another important change was made in 1 Nephi 11:18; this is page 25 of the 1830 edition. In the 1830 edition it read: “… Behold, the virgin which thou seest, is the mother of God, after the manner of the flesh.” In modern editions it has been changed to read, “… Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh.” The words, the Son of, were inserted in the middle of the sentence. Verse 21 of the same chapter originally read: “And the angel said unto me, behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Eternal Father!” It was changed to read: “And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father!” Verse 32 of the same chapter, which is on page 26 of the original edition, was also changed. In the 1830 edition it reads: “… the Everlasting God, was judged of the world; and I saw and bear record.” It was changed to read: “… the Son of the everlasting God, was judged of the world; and I saw and bear record.” Joseph Smith apparently made these changes to support his doctrine of a plurality of Gods.
From here.
The clown couldn’t even get the trinity straight.
potholer54 has some truly wonderful science videos that debunk the creatards.
I have shown this one to some fundies and it drives them mad, it is well produced and hard hitting. Freely Distributable.
Everyone should watch this. !
Your bidding is done my master.
Hmm… Is PZ Vader attempting to crush the annoyingly optimistic rebels? Or are we the rebels attempting to destroy the evil empire lead by someone claiming supernatural powers?
I rather like the idea of PZ as a robotic superman, but the rebellion gets all the girls. ‘Tis a dilemma…
LinzeeBinzee @105 wrote…
I ceased being a fan of hers when she went on her anti-feminist rant because, you know, feminism had nothing to do with her being able to get her voice out there to speak up or anything.
Why bother? The xian market is too crowded. Better to do as L. Ron Hubbard or Rev. Moon did and start a whole new religion. Try to avoid the David Koresh or Jim Jones Guyana paths. Mass suicide isn’t too fun or a good long range strategy.
Unlike Joseph Smith many of us are sane and have some sort of morality. While it is easy to con the gullible out of sex and money, we prefer to work at useful jobs.
Could you mistake the American Indians for Ancient Jews and have them riding horses around and waving swords long ago? Just about no one but the Mormons make that mistake.
Quite pathetic to showcase the alleged courage of the church’s leader while being so cowardly as to censor any critical comments.
Well, you know, what with Joe quite “courageously” attacking the First Amendment by destroying a printing press, it’s not surprising that his followers would exhibit a similar enthusiasm for squelching criticism. Joe took care of the Nauvoo Expositor, and the sixth generation Mormons will take care of YouTube!
Ah, now, if you haven’t expanded your mind by listening to and watching http://www.youtube.com/user/Evid3nc3 then you really should make the effort – yes, I know, there’s several episodes but that’s because he methodically goes through his own deconversion and explains how his mind opened to the universe once he’d thrown off the shackles of brain-poison called “religion”.
I suggest linking to the first, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12rP8ybp13s
poor mormons though, they still think Egyptian heiroglyphics on papyrus is really ancient hebrew dogma instead of, well, being Egyptian (and written several hundred/thousand years too late).
Book of Ether? Is that between the Pamphlet of Nitrous and the Tome of Shrooms?
Joseph Smith was as good a prophet as he was a fiction writer. Pretty terrible.
He made dozens of prophecies, most or all of which didn’t come true. According to Deuteronomy, this makes him a false prophet who is to be put to death. Wikipedia has a long list of them which I’m not going to bother to cut and paste.
He also claimed in his novel from Moroni that the American Indians were lost Jews who rode horses and fought battles with iron age weapons such as swords. None of which is true either.
Religions like Scientology and Mormonism just show that there is no requirement for a religion to intersect with the real world in any way, shape, or form. None whatsoever.
One other little comment about some basic dishonesty that is so obvious that people ignore it…
We know Jim Jones and David Koresh were nuts. We have videos of them looking like the crazies they were.
There are no videos of the Smith brothers.
Instead, we get actors playing them as noble martyrs ready to go to their deaths for the true religion. Wouldn’t it have been better if we saw Joe and Bro screaming for their lives as the crowd burst in? It seems more realistic to me.
Huh? I thought the good reverend was the second coming of Jesus. Does it get much more Christian than that?
First off, yes, Joe probably was deluded enough to believe that it was true.
Are you kidding? The guy was a con-man before he hit on the religion con. He used to play with magic stones that would supposedly help him find buried treasure – if he believed in that kind of woo woo he was conspicuously not wealthy.
Don’t forget to clear the cookie for just that site visit, and vote often!
pixelfish @129: Yeah, that chiasmus thing always irritated me. Here are some of my favorite examples of chiasmus, and none of them include Joseph-Smith-like spelling and grammar errors:
• “I flee who chases me, and chase who flees me.” (Ovid)
• “Fair is foul, and foul is fair.” (William Shakespeare, Macbeth I.i)
• “Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.” (Samuel Johnson)
• “Don’t sweat the petty things–and don’t pet the sweaty things.” (anonymous)
• “Never let a fool kiss you–or a kiss fool you.” (anonymous)
The quote from Samuel Johnson is especially apt in this case.
Agreed, but probably not in the way they were hoping.
One definitely doubts ol’ Joe’s abilities as a translator. Even if you thought he’d found a record of what happened in the Americas, and translated it, judging by his facility with these papyrii, you’d be advised to take the whole Book of Mormon as a fabrication.
Examples of Joe’s mad translation skills:
http://www.carm.org/religious-movements/mormonism/book-abraham-papyri-and-joseph-smith
Just so you can compare what the official church word is:
Facsimile 1: http://scriptures.lds.org/en/abr/fac_1
Facsimile 2: http://scriptures.lds.org/en/abr/fac_2
Facsimile 3: http://scriptures.lds.org/en/abr/fac_3
In facsimile 1: You can see what is a dead body lying on what was likely a funerary couch, with canopic jars beneath and a falcon rising on the right. Even if you somehow mistook the canopic jars for idols of gods, none of them seem to be attached to the known Egyptian gods (other than Pharaoh who was believed to be divinely connected). As far as I can tell, if you google the gods like “Elkenah” you only end up with pages either devoted to Mormon apologetics or disproving the horrible translation skills of ol’ Joe.
Joe never once refers to the jars as canopic jars as far as I know, so it’s amusing to see pages of apologetics working their knowledge of funerary customs into Joe’s. Here’s a prime example of the contortions an apologetic goes through to get Joe’s idiotic translation to jibe with what we now know the hieroglyphs to represent.
With such a track record as an ace translator, how can one doubt that Joe was anything other than divinely guided….she said with sarcasm.
Chiasmus never ceases to remind me of:
“Okay, am I the only one who finds these sayings just a little bit formulaic? “If you want to push something down, you have to pull it up. If you want to go left, you have to go right.” It’s…”
“Your temper is very quick, my friend. But until you learn to master your rage… ”
“…your rage will become your master? That’s what you were going to say. Right? Right? ”
“Not necessarily.”
Hm, no mention of Pat Condell yet? He’s my favorite youtuber (aside: that term sounds like a potato). He fights religion with the brutal truth. The more dangerous they are (radical Islam), the more he calls them out.
The Amazing Atheist can be entertaining too (though he annoys me sometimes), and I’ve actually seen his videos on the front page at least once.
Of course if we want to stick purely to “pro-science” vids, it’s really hard to top Sagan. He not only worked to present the universe accurately, but he was downright poetic about it.
For a video with real science content, I would vote for the Lawrence Krauss video about the origins of the universe.
For a video more appealing to the masses, I would say any one of the Symphony of Science videos. Of those, Glorious Dawn would have to be my favorite.
“Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.” – Carl Sagan
K-rina!
http://www.youtube.com/user/ZOMGitsCriss
Link for the Accidental Terrorist podcast, which was recommended several times up-thread:
http://www.shunn.net/podcast/
I think we should bump up the narwhal song
All you need to know when talking to a member of the Morg church and more!
What? I also accept cash, credit, debit, ingots, precious and semi-precious gems, beads, cowries, pogs, Pokémon, Burma shave signs, vinyl pressings of Pet Sounds, 80s Swatch watches with the protective little rubber bands, the toothpicks Dustin Hoffman counted in Rain Man, and better mousetraps, should one be built. Just like Jesus used for currency*.
* as discovered in the lost bankbook of Jesus which I have found, restored, and balanced all credits against debits within (though astute scholars of Brownianity will note that I unbalanced debits against credits on occasion just for the chiasmus. Or antimetabole. I’ll leave it to future theologians to justify their existence by sorting that out.)
Have I whipped you into a frenzy of worship yet, Bot? Are you squirming to confess your unworthiness of me while denouncing unbelievers? No? Well, just wait ’till you see the undies I’ll make you wear.
Though not exactly the message I think we are trying for here, jablair51’s suggestion of Mormon Jesus is hilarious.
I voted – comment pending:
“Logic fail. No one can know why Joe was doing whatever he was doing in the hours/minutes before his death. But I’ll bet he wasn’t wearing his magic underwear.”
Lynna OM @ 149: I heard it this way:
“Don’t sweat the petty stuff – PET the sweaty stuff.”
must. resist. 2nd grade level dirty underwear joke.
@Tabby Lavalamp #139
I must have missed that video, how unfortunate.
I think it’s pretty messed up that a YouTube search for ‘Mormon’, with the results sorted according to rating, has mostly pro-mormon videos!
We need to ‘like’ all the anti-mormon videos we can find on YouTube in my opinion! I like this one…
Ooooh!! On their facebook page they have a “Help Name the LDS Store” link.
I suggested Moroni’s Secret.
Hee hee!
“delete […] any disputes that may arise. If you would like to discuss something with someone please private message them.”
Par for the course.
Apparently, theists are fascists at heart. Start out with the concept that there is an invisible dictator in the sky, and the logical next step is to outlaw and censor and tyrannize thought wherever you find it.
I like the atheist commercials.
They are very slick, very profound, very short, very positive, and most importantly, not widely known in the YouTube Community. We have to think about how many more people will be exposed by the promotion of a certain video.
My video votes for Sagan, Thunderf00t, RDF.TV
But I do like this from Sam Harris makes a joke:
Down ranked.
Comment pending… I wonder if they’ll post it?!
“There’s deceit and self deceit.
Oh, and ether is an antiquated/outmoded concept (as is theism itself).”
@creating trons,
Wow, David Wolpe is such an ass.
Oh boy! There’s an ad up top for a chance to chat with the Mormon missionaries. (Sample inanity for anybody who isn’t seeing the ad: One person asks why the other became Mormon and person two says, “It’s because they answered questions nobody else would answer.”)
Fun questions to ask the Mormon missionaries:
1) What’s a curelom? (if they say its like a mastodon, like Orson Pratt says, mention that mastodons were extinct well before the time Jews were leaving Jerusalem. If they say it’s a tapir, ask why couldn’t God tell Joseph the correct word?)
2) Why are horses mentioned in the Book of Mormon when the Spanish brought the first modern horses to the Americas? (If they mention smaller prehistoric horses, point out the same point as the mastodons.)
3) Why is Joseph Smith’s translation of the three papyri in the Pearl of Great Price so awful and inaccurate? Why should I believe he could translate anything with that kind of track record?
4) Why did Joe insist on removing his garments the night he got shot?
5) Why did Joe think it was a good idea to destroy a printing press? Do Mormons not believe in the first amendment?
And so on…I could go on….but if anyone else wants to think up fun questions for the missionaries and make the LDS church spend money on ads and chatting with us, hey, go ahead. :)
@ Brownian
*snickers
Checks- The proper ‘Merikan spelling.
So well said. So well said…
If you don’t like the music, concentrate on the lyrics. :-)
“If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first… invent the universe.” :-)
:-D
I am absolutely amazed that so many grown people still embody such childish pettiness as mounting a YouTube challenge or Internet polls – and then complain when their childish pettiness is pointed out! :-D :-D :-D
By his logic, the 9/11 attackers must have been right all along. I have visited the video, disliked it, and now my brain is hurting from the stupid.
Offtopic but just saw this story on the web:
From AP: “BALTIMORE — A woman who starved her 1-year-old son to death at the behest of a religious cult leader has been given a sentence that won’t require her to serve any more jail time.
Ria Ramkissoon pleaded guilty to child abuse resulting in the death of her son, Javon Thompson. The plea agreement contained an extraordinary provision: If Javon is resurrected, the plea will be withdrawn.”
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gOp8D56OG9y62Wg_Sobm7oVR4d_wD9F7HG982
Longer article:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-ci-child-slain-cult-sentence-20100421,0,2610815.story
aww I thought it was gonna be the mormon jesus video!
I think Mormon Frustrating should be an event in the next Olympics.
za7ch84 @ 170
Sam takes him apart with such ease. I tried to look for a longer cut.
Per Hugo’s comment @164, here’s a good anti-mormon video for which to vote thumbs-up.
The title is “Bill Maher exposes Mormon religion” and it includes some pithy comments from Craig Ferguson.
That video is not good enough to be our retaliation for Jeffrey Holland’s Glenn-Beckish inanity, but I do think the Lawrence Krauss video is good enough for that purpose. I agree with another comment up-thread that the Sagan video will just let mormons continue on their merry way, thinking they are awesome and correct.
Mark Twain died 100 years ago today. This is a good time to honor his succinct literary criticism of the Book of Mormon with our thumbs-down campaign aimed at Jeffrey Holland.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/nyregion/19twain.html?hp
Hey I got that reference! Mystery Men FTW!
From the stories I hear from my coworker, an alumna, BYU’s honour code would win hands down.
Nothing like marrying your sweetheart of exactly one school term because you wanna bang.
@ Gyeong Hwa Pak:
You Yanks must hate Scrabble. “What the hell is this 10-point ‘O’-looking thing? Mabel, get me my gun.”
My comment which will never clear the lds.org censor:
Unfortunately, if a purported historical document is full of anachronisms, inconsistencies, and contradicts known facts, it is technically “untrue”. It doesn’t matter how it may burn in your bosom to want to believe it. You can add all the mayonnaise you want, but you can’t turn chicken shit into chicken salad.
(put “crap” in the actual version, not that it matters)
Anything by Qualia Soup! The open-mindedness video is a big favorite in our house.
So the challenge is to write 500 pages equal to the book of Mormon in 2 months?
I’m tempted to take up that task and write 500 pages of pure fantasy world building and history. Any other takers on this?
Our True Believing Mormon Robot (Bot) @57 repeats a common myth, that Joe Smith dictated the Book of Mormon within 60 days. Bullshit.
Here’s a similar quote from a TBM, a quote that was posted by on another forum:
Repeating bullshit ad infinitum does not make it true.
As ex-mormon “simon” noted:
So, yeah. There were no golden plates. And even if you did buy the golden plates story, even Joe Smith himself never claimed to have dictated the damned book within 60 days. It’s all crap piled on top of crap. It’s crap all the way down. Jeffrey Holland added his own layer of crap when he pretended to be holding the very copy of the Book of Mormon from which Hyrum Smith read. A thin polish of modern crap, designed to freshen the old crap.
My favorite youtube video about mormonism is this one:
Where Joseph is explaining to his first wife about how he was “forced” into polygamy by an angel visiting him in his room at night and threatening him with a flaming sword *ahem*.
awkward.
Remember: equal to the Book of Mormon. Engaging writing and historical accuracy will be penalized.
Although the video from Lawrence Krauss is simply amazing, I think it would be too long to be a suitable video for the intended purpose.
Instead I recommend the video from Philhellenes “Why Didn’t Anybody Tell Me?” which covers the awe inspiring explanatory power of science.
I’m personally a fan of anything from AronRa:
http://www.youtube.com/user/AronRa
You got takedowns of anti-evolutionists and critical thinking!
I know I could do it. I have four published books to my credit so far, and unlike the BoM, all of them are accurate. Throw out the requirement for accuracy, and for a reasonable relationship with history and geology, and, slam-bam, a book could be written in 60 days … especially if you chose a catch phrase like “and it came to pass” that you could repeat a few thousand times — oh, yes, and one gets to plagarize wholesale from established works, such as the Bible. But… I have to pay my bills and a Book of Lynna will not suffice. I think that much deception would make me ill.
But Joe Smith didn’t write the book in 60 days. He also didn’t have the golden plates idea when he was 14. Those are both pseudo-facts added to the story later, when an extra-special awesome factor was needed. If you go by the record of events, Joe saw the plates for the first time when he was approximately 17 years old. He pretended to have the plates in hand when he was 21 (actually, he had a load of sand inside a trunk). The Book of Mormon was published about three years later, when Joe was 24. From 17 to 24 is about seven years — plenty of time to spin one’s yarn. From 21 to 24 is plenty of time to dictate a bunch of rubbish.
Another telling detail is that Cowdery probably helped Joe Smith with the scam. And, the two, working together, used Rigdon’s ripoff of Spaulding’s book. A den of literary thieves, a murder of crows picking at a rotten carcass and making of it a different, but not a new, stew.
Will do! Also Facebook comments are not moderated but theres no way to dislike it =( Facebook comments are just as bad as well. I will also pass this on. I second the idea we should take this beyond Pharyngula.
Think we can, even being a stupid and even more obviously fake, state that its definitely using Christian logic in promoting this video. I.e., “Ignore what Jesus supposedly said on the subject, when your congregation needs more members, and find a ***bigger*** street corner.”
Just in case any visiting mormons need more proof that the authorship of the Book of Mormon is not what the LDS Church tells you it is, please see: http://llc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/23/4/465
Excerpt:
Lynna: When I was 12, I was obsessed with Greek myths and learned the Greek alphabet. I wrote a massive epic (very much in the style of Percy Jackson) about a girl named Gaia who was recruited by Athena and Artemis to fight Ares. My Greek history and myths were probably accurate on the order of Joe’s Biblical fan-fic, given that I was building my knowledge off of the common media of my time, stuff like Ray Harryhausen’s Clash of the Titans and the illustrated Greek myths in our bookshelf at school. You could, in theory, make all the same remarks about my crappy epic that the LDS make of Joe–ie, I was young, I was verbose, the verbiage is patterned off of my source material. It’s pretty damn easy for me to see Joe on one side of his blanket, bullshitting up the story to Oliver Cowdry. It’s not that far off from my own childhood ambitions. (Barring the bit about creating a church and running treasure hunting scams.)
The only comments on that video are from Mormon believers. So I tried to sneak one by in case the screener isn’t paying close attention. My comment:
“What truly beautiful and inspiring testimony. Further proof that the Book of Mormon is the revealed word of God can be seen in the fact that there is not a single dissenting comment on this video.”
I nominate the Door-to-door Atheist. He’s wickedly funny, knocking on mormons’ doors on a Saturday morning!
Update on Facebook, they will remove your comment. There was a polite but critical comment on there, I liked and commented on it. Much to my dislike but no surprise, it was gone when I refreshed the page.You will also get a pompous asshole Mormon comment on it before it goes. Ugh.
pixelfish @194: If you still have the manuscript, then we’re pretty much done here. The challenge of writing a religiously-inflected piece of fiction in a short amount of time, and all while one is very young — the challenge has been met. We should all worship pixelfish since she was only 12 when she wrote her masterpiece.
After watching Jeffrey Holland embarrass himself in that video, we may not need more proof of his perfidy, but here’s more anyway. This is Holland, in his own words, detailing his way of mind-fucking homosexuals (Holland was also a primary mover and shaker in the Prop 8 campaign):
You dislike this video. Thanks for the feedback!
Ratings for this video (3413 total)
1432 (Like)
1981 (Dislike)
Well, I’m off to clear my cookies so that I can add another thumbs-down vote.
I vote for Thunderf00t’s “Ride of a Lifetime”. It’s poetic and very neat.
OR if we want to be aggressive, we can pick anything by The Amazing Atheist, Pat Condell, or George Carlin(albeit some of his bits are licensed).
I agree with Rev BDC:
Cuz they are so awesome!
Watched the video, voted thumbs down, thumbs down, btw, way ahead….yet, I scrolled through all the comments did not see any negative comments all were very much in praise and support of Holland, the BOM and the truth and greatness of Mormonism. My comment which was civil but critical will never make it past the censors. Wow…if your testimony is so strong and powerful shouldn’t it be able to stand up to criticism?
Did anyone else flag as inappropriate?
I filed mine under: Scam/Fraud
@203
That is the same question I have. And since I can’t get my comment on the video, I took my anger out on a Facebook comment saying that you had to read the Book of Mormon “with a sincere heart and real intent” to get it. If not, you’re not trying hard enough and can’t criticize it.
Direct link to the comments.
So I can find them with out ‘looking’ at the video.
How about something by The Thinking Atheist? They have a lot of great videos for all kinds of things. Top 10 Creationist Claims, the divisiveness of organized religions, the story of Noah with rational commentary, and why praying is bollocks.
http://www.thethinkinatheist.com
PZ,
How about shining our anthem into their little dark corner?
Shermer, Bronowski, Sagan, deGrasse Tyson, Dawkins, Tarter, Krauss, Feynman, Greene, Hawking, Porco, …
Let’s see, did we miss anybody?
I see the dislikes are leading the likes! I tried to leave a nice comment with a link to the Pastafarian site, but youtube kept giving me errors. Sigh.
Hey, guys — just heard about this over at Recovery from Mormonism. Expect some awesome exmo input in a few.
Not ONE negative comment? It MUST be a miracle, proof of the ineffable power of GAWD.
Or, you know, fucking Mor(m)on assholes blackholing anybody who disagrees with them.
But I’m sure it’s the first!
I’m for the Pale Blue Dot by Sagan.
Symphony of Science – ‘The Poetry of Reality’ would be my second choice.
Another thing to do is to flag the video to YouTube for mass advertising.
Perhaps there could be links to a few videos,we’ve got so many great people on our side it seems a shame to just use one.
Apart from the famous scientists and you tubers mentioned here (which all deserve to be mentioned)i’d like to recommend ‘facts vs religion’ channel,unless i’ve missed it i don’t think she’s had a mention yet and i think she deserves a bit more recognition.
For some strange reason I picture PZ standing with his hands outstretched in front of him, as he commands, “Fly, my pretties, fly!”
Vote was 1438 for and 2134 against.
You have to log in to vote.
I also flagged it as inappropriate spam.
I suggest that if you’re reading this and have a YouTube account, log in and “like” all the videos mentioned in this blog. Well, maybe not the rap ones. ;-)
How about you make one?
I agree with SQB — you could give Kerry Shirts a run for the money. Heh.
I know this is late in the thread, but: Whatever you do, do not watch all the way through to the end. Last I checked, YouTube doesn’t count a “view” unless you watch the whole video. So, log in, watch some, pause it, and downrank.
Pretty much O/T, but has anybody else read The Book of Dave by English novelist Will Self?
Well, ya should. It’s awesome. Synopsis: unhinged London cabbie writes vitriolic screed (on metal plates!) that inspires a wacky religion hundreds of years later in post-global warming dystopian England.
(“The Book of Lynna” made me think of it.)
@Null: Yes — they have some sort of metric that measures interest and tells you when people stop the video if they don’t watch the whole thing. Well, they did before the overhaul, but I believe interest is still displayed in Insight.
There’s apparently a video post on youtube of why this isn’t going to end well for the morons and of course on Facebook they just deleted my comments. Well, actually they had to get rid of most of the whole post since they were responding to me =)
I really love being one of the horde!
Proposal 1: Thunderf00t’s The Internet: where religions come to die
Prposal 2: “gathering Storm” auditions with puppets (in memory of Prop 8)
Wait so how is that supposed to persuade anyone that the Book of Mormon is true? Literally all I got out of it was – two guys were on a horse to get martyred, one folded a page in his book, the preacher has the same book, cowboys came and shot them, now they have widows, so everything they say is true? (add awkward rise in pitch inflection
on true for best results lol)
That aside, I can’t help to think of the wonderful South Park episode on Mormons: link
——–
Along similar lines did anyone happen to catch the AC360 last night on CNN? Apparently a NYC based muslim group has already threatened/warned Trey Parker and Matt Stone that they are going to get murdered for their depiction of Muhammed being portrayed in a giant bear costume and speaking from inside a u-haul. Although I love how no one protested Buddah blowing coke in front of little kids. They also had Ayaan Hirsi Ali talking about the situation. Here’s the link if you missed it: link
For the link to the South Park episode its link, although it will probably be down after the 2nd part to the episode airs tonight as they have a month downtime after each episode airs.
Oh and the episode the terrorists forgot about, here is Muhammed uncensored in the Super Best Friends episode that aired 9 years ago without any problems. link
Can anyone tell I’m a South Park fan? haha
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! Now they’re bringing mathematics into the “proof” that the Book of Mormon is true. Naturally, they start with the pseudo-facts of the 60-day production period and so forth. Excerpt:
I’d like to second Thunderfoot’s “Where Religions Come To Die” recommendation.
I think also anything AronRa would be a worthy Candidate.
Finally, in the hopes of sucking up my way into the Molly Awards, I think the BEST candidate would be PZs talk at AAI09. It’s got science, it’s got religion bashing, it’s got humor and class. How can you top that?
[citation needed]
I don’t know of any other than the Copper Scroll from the DSS.
Hoo boy.
The cluelessness in the FB users page…so astounding.
In the FB comments, one user posits the question, after the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price, what book do you find inspiring, and this was one user’s answer: Gone with the Wind. (Followed by To Kill A Mockingbird.)
(I can see the second….but the first paired with the second, and listed as “inspiring” in the same sense that she regards the Book of Mormon? Ouch. Especially given the racial contexts of the Book of Mormon and Gone With The Wind. Poor Harper Lee, to be paired with a con artist writing a book where the bad guys’ skin turns dark and a book that romantically enshrines slavery and plantation life.)
Isn’t it telling that followers of strange beliefs always have comment moderation or votes being disabled? It’s as if they know they’re full of shit and don’t want to be told.
I would’ve recommended viewing and voting up the South Park parody of Mormonism, but it was taking down. I shouldn’t say parody, because they showed it from a strictly historical perspective which made it all the more funnier.
Here’s my comment that I posted and has no chance of getting published:
The church of Mormon is a prime example of how a single con artist can pull out of his ass, any dumb shit that he just made up and have millions of people believe uncritically.
Wow. Just…wow. Brownie smells an opportunity to make some dough.
I have a bridge valued at $20 million. This is either true, or it is not. There is no gray, in-between, or maybe. In mathematical or computer terminology, it is one or zero: true or false. I offer to sell it to a Mormon for $5,000…
on KSL.com there was some fluff story about how many views mormon youtube videos got (a week or so ago, iirc). That is all they are going to report upon defeat of this campaign. It isn’t like most mormons would look into it.
Holland’s talk was given to the LDS faithful. It rings false and hollow to virtually everyone else— so why do LDS insist on imposing it on the Internet?? Such a inclination,I think is the result of a a persecution complex as well as the insecurity Mormons have in their own scriptures. The march of actual evidence against the BoM and Joseph Smith has been relentless and unkind to LDS testimonies and Mormons are desperately to salvage faith.
As far as Holland’s talk goes…it’s laughable IMO. His red-faced rant may cheer up those already on board but it cannot erase the ever increasing evidence that the BoM is a 19th century document (not ancient) and man-made (not from any “divine” source).
I blogged about the talk here: http://www.ldsrevelations.com/blog/?p=56
@kennykjc24
Check out my post a about 5 up from you, I posted the link. Although it’s on their website instead of youtube :(
Perhaps Jen McCreight over at the Blag Hag would make a video of her upcoming experiment on April 26th that PZ pointed out here.
May not be the best video to counter the LDS with, but I’m sure it’d get a thumbs up from me.
Hey, Lynna! How you doin’? <3 and MWAH!
Agreed.
Whilst Krauss is awesome and the Baloney detection kit is sufficiently short to allow persons with limited interest to watch , Julia is funny which is even better.
Actually just stumbled onto this All About Mormons (South Park Commentary – Season 7).
It has Trey Parker and Matt Stone commenting on Mormonism. They take a semi-apolegetic approach but still completely tear apart the beliefs.
Posted a comment on the video,i mentioned that despite most of the feedback been negative there are no negative comments-still waiting approval though i’m not holding my breath.
@CJO #220 Book of dave,read it and recommend it.
@227: Joe Smith blatantly copied so much of the bible that one fact we can confirm is that he knew his bible well. So, as far as the golden plates are concerned, the chances are good that Joe was familiar with Exodus 39, verses 3 and 30.
And then there are Spaulding’s stories… fuck it, there’s so much wrong with that so-called mathematical proof that I don’t think even a mormon would buy it. Brownian may have to keep his bridge.
BTW, little proto-mormons are taught that “60 days” and “uneducated farm boy” crap in sunday school. Hell, Joe Smith wasn’t even a “boy” by the time he supposedly dictated the thing. There’s not a single fact on which one can hang one’s hat in that entire “proof.”
In a supremely petty and immature gesture, I posted my comment as:
“Awesome video!
Iyon ay uyam. Ano ang isang buntong-tae!”
The second bit is apparently Filipino for “That was sarcasm. What a pile of shit.”
Worth a shot.
As for our video… I second the QualiaSoup suggestion by sybrenb at #34. Awesome.
Dammit, I wish I’d read the comments here before my carefully crafted comment there was given the ‘Comment Pending Approval!’.
South Park is great at poking fun at all religions. I’m a huge fan. I especially love the Mormon and Scientology ones. I must admit they educated me on what Scientology actually preaches. They had it on there exactly as they believe and I had to google it to verify since it was so fucking ridiculous. Surprise, surprise when I find out that’s how it really is…
Personally I liked that “How I became an atheist” or “How I lost my faith” (sorry forgot what the title was) you posted the other month. It was the Occam’s Razor one where your mind realized that the simple answer “There is no god.” works better than the complicated answers for explaining things using religion. Just letting that little bit of doubt in when thinking about those questions was all it took to realize your faith was misplaced.
It seems my comment on YouTube is “pending approval.” I expect it will never be posted, as there is not a single negative comment on that page.
Hey, JNOV @235: I’ve been so busy squandering my time making money that I haven’t had time for the truly important stuff, like keeping up with Pharyngula. But I couldn’t give the mormons a pass on this one. Also meant to drop in on your blog more often, but…
Quick update on the current tally for the video for those who don’t want to up the video view count.
105,053 Total Views
1461 Like
2426 Dislike
@JustALurker #242
I completely agree. I did the same thing on the Scientology episode. It’s a shame that’s what caused Isaac Hayes to leave the show. Although I admit they gave him a really good and respectuful send off on the Season 10 premier.
I really wish South Park would be reconsidered by a lot of older people. I’m a student at Cornell University (24 years old) and have brought up South Park in numerous discussion sections. Depending on the Prof you either get the OMG how dare you bring that filth into my classroom or a genuine admiriation for the show. I would argue in the mainstream media today they are one of the only shows that is not afraid to call anyone out on what they do/think and done so in an actual intellectual manner. Plus given the longevity of the series, its almost difficult to find a situation they have not already discussed. Even the Atheist episodes (Cartoon Wars) were amazing. I have always wandered what Richard Dawkins has thought of his sex scenes with Mr./Mrs. Garrison. And everyone knows it is much more rational and logical that we eat on our bellies instead of tables!
@Lynna: Pfft. My blog is pretty much defunct unless I feel like whining about something. The Mormons stopped officially lurking me after a couple of weeks, and once I was ldschurch.org-free for a week, I took down “The Running Tally of ldschurch.org Lurking Asshattery.” And I stopped checking sitemeter like a crack-addicted hamster. I had Lamanite Day and GLBTQIA Day with some guest exmo posters, but otherwise, the lurking has officially stopped. Now I can go back to attacking my childhood religion — snake handlers. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but it doesn’t miss the mark by much.
Hm. I wrote a space opera about anthropomorphic wolf space cadets*, and it contains, oh, maybe a hundred original ideas. Moreover, I have a strong emotional attachment to the characters I created. So the chance of it being mere fiction is 0.5 ^ 100 ? I’d better go and finish it. That story needs about 40% more chapters, so that would make it .5 ^ 40 less fictional (more gooder), right?
* Well, of course! What else is Timberwoof going to write about? Just don’t you start a fucking religion based on it! Just a fan club with fanboys.
Dosn’t mention the LDS but Marcus Brigstocke’s rant cannot be overplayed.
Facebook is not moderated, but it will be deleted! They delete posts by Mormons if you “dispute” in a comment on their post. I say spam and add to all to get them ALL deleted. Hehehehehe.
A couple of simple, straightforward Pat Condell videos: This one against scriptures http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M114bK4qaiM
and Godless and Free
And here is ZOMGitsCriss on the problem of evil
I think simple god-bashing or religion-bashing like this might be more effective than something highminded like Sagan
GRRRRR. Stupid facebook comment
My reply to such disrespect to out tentacled overlord
Don’t expect it to be there long though.
I’m not going to bother commenting there, so here’s my reply:
“Because we- those who oppose the ideals and propaganda of your church- openly invite you to come to our sites when you have a complaint. Yet you, refuse to treat us in kind. You have the nerve to claim “oppression” when you so viciously shoot down any dissenting opinion. You attempt to monopolize the moral high ground, and yet fail to realize how immoral you’ve become.”
This isn’t right. Bashing the LDS church is an important and highly worthwhile activity. Cthulhu knowns how many lives they have warped, twisted, and/or destroyed.
Wherever Mormons rule, the nonMormons end up second class citizens. Good thing the US armed forces has a base in Utah keeping an eye on them, Fort Douglas right above SLC.
Clenched tentacle salute!
I left them a comment, which is pending approval. Will it receive it? I have no idea. Here is what I said:
I’ve heard the same sort of mathematics used to prove that the new testament is completely true. I saw a TV show (John Ankerberg) where the math department at a bible college(!) calculated the odds that all of the OT prophecies came true with Jeebus. The writers of the NT were not historians or theologians, they were propagandists.
(I am wearing a false mustache as I type this because Yahoo told me not to give you any personal information. Just try to come and find me.)
This is my favorite post/comment exchange ever!
Failblog should be covering this event. Too many uploads too little time..
And we are doing such a great job so far…
I can’t be stuffed to register with YouTube for just so I can vote.
Here’s an interesting tidbit about the mormons.
At there 2010 world conference of the Community of Christ.
It would seem that the church’s 8th prophet resident Stephen M. Veazey, has had his latest update from god.
Guess what, they got the whole gay bashing prop 8 thing wrong.
According to those in attendance, the community of christ will now unambiguously allow full participation for gay members (without discriminatory provisos).
This means, the Community of Christ’s leadership is fully in support of ending discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, the revelation means that unambiguous policies regarding priesthood ordination and marriage equality will follow soon in the church in the developed world.
Blog it was reported on:
http://bycommonconsent.com/2010/04/15/gay-rights-revelation-added-to-dc-world-conference-part-2-april-12%E2%80%9315/#more-17139
I guess there new conversion campaign is in high gear,
Current stats for that video:
1492 thumbs up
2672 thumbs down
I watched the whole thing. Then thumbsed it down then reported it as spam: scam/fraud.
-DU-
Latest stats on the vid:
1488 Likes
2651 Dislikes
The only thing I could think of to comment (which is of course pending approval):
“Never mind that their wives are about to be widowed…” And just how many women are we talking about here? Can someone tell me, is it true that Joseph Smith was a polygamist?
I’m wondering if they’ll allow questions about their less-than-shining points. Probably not, but it’s the only way I can think of that we might be able to get them even mentioned in the comments.
The Community of Christ is not the Mormon church. They split from the Mormons back in the 1800s and were called the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints until sometime in the last 15-20 years or so when they changed their name to the Community of Christ in an effort to get more acceptance from mainstream Christians.
I think that The Thinking Atheist’s “The One True God” would be appropriate:
*salute*
This pumping up a video on YouTube is a part of a larger attempt on Mormons to use the internet to missionize.
Check out this nice site for book lovers, started by two Stanford graduates, now being used by Mormons to proselytize their bullshit .
Mormons frankly discuss how going door-to-door wasn’t working, so their Bishops told them to get on the internet, with specific sites to target, to push their ideology.
This YouTube anti-protest is a good idea, but if we can identify and push back everywhere they are gaming the system to make their ideas seem mainstream, it would be better.
Or maybe my boss just needs to give me more work so I’m not so idle….
#264
Not only was Joseph Smith a polygamist, he married a 14 year old (Helen Mar Kimball), and polygamy is still officially part of the Doctrine and Covenants of LDS.
I got about a minute in before killing it with a thumbs down (2700 vs. 1400 or so).
“We maintained a document for less then 200 years, therefore God!” is pretty darn stupid.
This pumping up a video on YouTube is a part of a larger attempt on Mormons to use the internet to missionize.
Check out this nice site for book lovers, started by two Stanford graduates, now being used by Mormons to proselytize their bullshit .
Mormons frankly discuss how going door-to-door wasn’t working, so their Bishops told them to get on the internet, with specific sites to target, to push their ideology.
This YouTube anti-protest is a good idea, but if we can identify and push back everywhere they are gaming the system to make their ideas seem mainstream, it would be better.
Or maybe my boss just needs to give me more work so I’m not so idle….
#264
Not only was Joseph Smith a polygamist, he married a 14 year old (Helen Mar Kimball), and polygamy is still officially part of the Doctrine and Covenants of LDS.
eveedream: Joseph was indeed a polygamist, as was Brigham Young his immediate successor for the largest branch of the Mormons, the LDS. The Reorgs–the group Red John notes in his post @ 265–followed Emma Hale Smith and her son, Joseph Smith III. Emma swore up and down that Joe had always loved her alone and only been married to her alone after Joe’s death. (It’s pretty obvious that she knew, but it seems there was some fierce ret-conning once Joe got shot.)
The number of Joe’s wives is disputed with the most historically accurate lists ranging from 42-48.
Brigham Young outdid Joe by about ten or so wives, and even married some of Joe’s wives after Joe’s death.
Oh….here’s something they never told us in primary class: At least one of Joe’s wives (Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Young) was married to another Mormon man before being married off to Joe. During Joseph Smith’s life, she was allowed to live with her first husband, but after Joe’s death, Brigham Young claimed her as he said he was Joseph Smith’s proxy, and told Henry Jacobs to go get his own wife. Pretty skeevy, eh.
Especially since one of the justifications of polygamy was that there weren’t enough worthy husbands for all the poor Mormon women. Yet, here was a guy who had gone and served a mission for the church, came back, found his wife married to the “profit”, and had her snagged from him after said Profit’s death.
Did you guys hear about exmormon Ted Cox’s story about attending “Straight” camp? Great read.
http://www.youtube.com/user/qualiasoup?blend=1&ob=4#p/u/8/NPqerbz8KDc
JS was married to two 14 year olds, sent men on missions and married their wives while they were gone, told his first wife, Emma, that an angel with a flaming sword told him that if she didn’t go along to get along, she’d die. Here’s a video (fourth one) that shows the names and ages and husbands of JS wives. Most of the info comes from Mormon genealogy records.
Thank you so much PZ for this wonderful idea. We’ve been privileged to a host of wonderful videos on science out there on the net. Here’s my two pence.
I’m sorry but there are so many good videos out there that I really wonder how PZ would make up his mind.
Just by swamping the Mormon moderators with a tremendous waste of their time, at least we have achieved something useful.
I’d also vote for Pale Blue Dot or Storm.
lifeishard, you’ve not provided an URL in your link.
MonkeyMan @270, your link to the Stanford graduate’s website doesn’t work. Perhaps you could just paste it in?
I tried to embed the links in the text. Ah well. Here are the links explicitly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUB4j0n2UDU
What truely boggles my mind is how these people can willfully ignore the logical fallacies that this primative idiot is spewing forth. He is supposing that in order to prove the reality of his deity, reverence must exist for the deity. This is obviously a circular argument.
Also, the comment moderation is a typical example of these nuts and their tactics of ‘silence the opposition.’ This is stated and declared to the very people who believe this idiocy. Is this really so transparent to the ‘believers’ of this drivell devoid of logic and reason?
If this were a democracy I’d vote for something with broad appeal that doesn’t go too technical. A personal favourite is “Instruction manual for Life” by QualiaSoup and TheraminTrees. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAIpRRZvnJg
Both their channels are insightful and well produced, without the righteous anger that typifies a lot of youtube atheism / scepticism. (While I’m a big fan of righteous anger in it’s place, attempting to reach a broad audience is not the place).
As a couple of folks have already suggested, Evid3nc3’s series on his deconversion is extremely well produced and very powerful, but it may be a little too long for this sort of project. On the other hand, if we got the first episode onto the front page, it might be interesting enough that people follow the whole story.
–James
My comment on their site…
“Wow. 100% censorship. Cool!”
Just hoping that tired eyes will gloss over the word “censorship” and just spot “Wow”, “100%” and “Cool!” and that somehow the comment will get published.
Is there anything both gay and atheist? I’m still pissed at Mormons for the prop 8 nonsense.
Also, clear and concise, yet critical commenting is obviously not going to make it past the censor squad. What I suggest is to go for the subversive approach. Try to slip in comments like
“Thanks, this really inspired me and my wives.”
“This video helped me solidify my beliefs. Anyone wishing for further enlightenment should read/watch/listen [link to anti-mormon blog/video/podcast]”
“If only there was a way this message could be spread to every door in our communities”
“I was told this is true, so it must be true. Truly a divine revelation.”
“I was linked to this video, and it inspires many strong emotions in me. I myself have always treated Joseph Smith as my role model and have attempted to emulate his actions.”
+10 points for every time you include “and so it came to pass” in your comment.
I would suggest AronRa’s Second Foundational Falsehood of Creationism
It attends to the very topic of “the erroneous notion that the holy scriptures were written by God, rather than be subject to the errs of humanity”. This is the one that did it for me.
The whole series is fantastic.
Lots of good suggestions – AronRa, Pat Condell, Sagan, Thunderf00t, Bronowski…
But my vote is for Tim Minchin’s Tony the Fish – evolution, skepticism, a poke at religion, and especially humor.
Brad
Oh for the love of Missouri, that video is awful! I lasted only through the lectern coming up on screen, plus however many seconds it took to dislike it and end the travesty. Even so, I fear I may have glimpsed the
condescendingloving-kindness ray-of-damnation in the preacher’s eyes.Forsooth, tomorrow I shall be logging on anew. What fun’s afoot!
lifeishard, thanks. Those are rather good (seen the first one, loading the second now).
PS Check out the HTML below the comment box for to do an in-text link.
The Symphony of Science would be a great one!
Just a heads up, I’ve added PZ’s post to r/atheism over at Reddit, and it could use some upvotes to remain on the front page:
Take the Pharyngula/YouTube challenge: Suggest your fave atheist/science video
While you’re over at Reddit, you might consider also upvoting these links:
r/religion: Do Mormons understand that stunts like this make them look like the world’s preeminent astroturfing cult?
r/lgbt: This Saturday is Youth Pride Day in DC. The Mormons arrive that evening to honor Orson Scott Card with their homophobe-of-the-year award.
And of course, you’re all invited to join our x-mormon subreddit at r/exmormon/
Cheers!
You can watch Sagan’s entire “Cosmos” TV series.
http://www.hulu.com/cosmos (Not available outside the US)
It is also available on YouTube; however, I’m not sure if it is available outside the US.
—————-
In other news:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100420/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_saudi_religious_police
I like the idea of Pale Blue Dot, Also Tim Minchin’s Storm, but it has the double drawback of being long and NSFW. The Michael Schermer Baloney Detection Kit is good, but really much too long.
My choice would also be from Tim Minchin, but it would be If You Open Your Mind Too Much, Your Brain Will Fall Out”. It’s shorter, it’s funny, and it actually has video of Tim.
Well, of all the suggestions to date, I like QualiaSoup the best.
My favorite atheist/science video is from the Temperance Brennan character on Bones. Probably the best was in an episode from season 2 called The Priest in the Churchyard. Here’s a link to the episode summary from tv.com – http://www.tv.com/bones/the-priest-in-the-churchyard/episode/999069/summary.html?tag=ep_list;summary
I vote for “A Glorious Dawn featuring Stephen Hawking”
Does anybody remember this one? I can’t for the life of me find it back. It was made by a guy who’d written an essay for school about his beliefs and his teacher remarked something like “How do you know this to be true?”, which sent him in to a fit. He then went on thinking about it, explained Occam’s Razor with the example of a cat who had knocked books of a shelf in his closet and then disappeared. (The cat disappeared, not the guy.)
I remember it was quite good.
Dislikes outnumber likes 2 to 1 but funnily enough there are no negative comments. Funny that.
Slimey fuckbags are only posting the arse-licking comments. Not that mine wasn’t pleasant of course!
Too bad they didn’t save any of that “bravery” to not set the comments “by approval only.”
My post (which will never see the light of day):
Gee, good thing the church survived when their rights were being infringed so they can fund bills to stamp out the rights of others today.
“A Marriage is a sacred union between a man… and his 8 teenage wives.” Oh, and kudos on finally apologizing for the Mormon church’s doctrine that black people are cursed with dark pigment.
Glenn Beck is now claiming to be a messenger from god There’s video to go with the story. Excerpt:
And …. for your pleasure, here’s more from and about Glenn Beck, who may be on his way to being the weirdest mormon since Joseph Smith:
The story is by journalist Ryan Witt. See, there are intelligent people in Idaho … it’s just that they’re outweighed by assclowns. Witt needs to rethink his predilection to place his feelings within the “bounds of some kind of scripture, and some kind of Church authority,” but coming from a mormon community, this takedown of Glenn Beck is a good sign.
How is it that mormons get themselves into so much trouble, and yet remain so arrogantly self-righteous? One cause is the “living prophet” myth.
Ezra Taft Benson, “Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet,” Tambuli, June 1981. Address given Tuesday, February 26, 1980 at Brigham Young University — posted on lds.org.
First: The prophet is the only man who speaks for the Lord in everything.
Second: The living prophet is more vital to us than the Standard Works.
Third: The living prophet is more important to us than a dead prophet.
Fourth: The prophet will never lead the Church astray.
Fifth: The prophet is not required to have any particular earthly training or diplomas to speak on any subject or act on any matter at any time.
Sixth: The prophet does not have to say “Thus saith the Lord” to give us scripture.
Seventh: The prophet tells us what we need to know, not always what we want to know.
Eighth: The prophet is not limited by men’s reasoning.
Ninth: The prophet can receive revelation on any matter—temporal or spiritual.
Tenth: The prophet may well advise on civic matters.
Eleventh: The two groups who have the greatest difficulty in following the prophet are the proud who are learned and the proud who are rich.
Twelfth: The prophet will not necessarily be popular with the world or the worldly.
Thirteenth: The prophet and his counselors make up the First Presidency—The highest quorum in the Church.
Fourteenth: The prophet and the presidency—the living prophet and the First Presidency—follow them and be blessed—reject them and suffer.
Symphony of Science for the win!
Jacob Bronowski has to be the choice, specifically this clip from The Ascent of Man:
“When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of Gods”
Sagan FTW. I may not rely on authority, but I have the utmost awe and respect for this man. To be both a significant scientist and tantamount to a poet…wow.
I want to hear about the planet I will get if I am a good mormon! and tell us about the Egyptian funeral scrolls that god interpreted incorrectly by mistake, wait, wait, I want to hear about why your skin lightens in accordance with your righteousness!! ha! I mock you mormon! ha! mock! mock!
Lynna@303: That whole line of reasoning for the Profit (yes, the misspelling is deliberate) is also usually extended to men holding the priesthood as far as their families are concerned, which is the linchpin for the whole misogynist patriarchal crap that gets fed to Mormon families. Just like the Profit supposedly oversees the church, mormon men are supposed to get revelation for their families. I’ve seen this in action, when a friend of mine was flat out told by her father that she wouldn’t be marrying the guy she was dating and waiting for, despite his serving a mission. Her father told her he was telling her what she needed to hear, not what she wanted to hear. He told her that he knew better than she did because he had the priesthood, and that this was entirely in the scope of his revelatory powers. Friend ends up not marrying that guy….so talk about your self-fulfilling prophecy. Blech.
So you can see what happens when others besides the prophet start deciding that X is in the scope of their prophecy and they can make pronouncements on civil matters. You have LDS superintendents deciding that Gay and Lesbian clubs can’t be allowed on campuses or that Jewish kids shouldn’t be offended by being required to sing Christmas songs at the holiday concert. (Both of which happened while I was a high school student in Utah.) You have doctors advising you that birth control circumvents God’s plan for you. (Happened to a friend.) You have parents telling their daughters which of their boyfriends they don’t like or do like, by claiming divine guidance. You have grandparents telling you that you should become a teacher or nurse to help with your calling as a mother, instead of going to art school. (Me! Still not married, still no kids. Good thing I stuck with art.)
The arrogance is rampant.
Current results:
Up: 1661
Down: 3554
That includes my down vote.
Askewed from topic: What are people’s thoughts on Big Love? I personally think the show dredging up the ugliness from Utah is a good thing.
pixelfish @308: Agreed. The arrogance associated with the “living prophet” and with the priesthood (penishood) is highly annoying and destructive.
I know a mormon woman who believed the idiotic priesthood blessing she was given when younger. The fact that the blessing of “many children” did not come true (health problems — she can’t have kids) is not blamed on the priesthood holder being a doofus with no insight into the future, but on herself. She blames herself for not getting married in the temple. Yeah, like that’s the reason she has no children. The best she can do with this load of guilt and destroyed self-esteem is to tell herself that the priesthood blessing will come true after she dies and makes it to the Celestial Kingdom. Here on earth, she is one fucked up and fucked over female.
In the meantime, this fucked-over female is mounting her own little Facebook campaign to get thumbs-up votes for the Jeffrey Holland video. I’m receiving emails asking me to go to various mormon Facebook pages to join the campaign … “tell all your friends,” they say, and there are 60 other recipients in the email header. Sigh.
I made it thru about 20 seconds…
Ing@310: I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch Big Love yet. I was fairly…itchy…when it was announced, because it sounded like they were playing up the soap opera aspects of it and/or “glamourising” a highly abusive culture. (I say “glamourising” but that’s perhaps not the right word, since they don’t really glamourise it, AFAIK, but all the discussions I’ve seen all go for the soap opera aspects of things.)
Note: I have several other ex-Mormon friends who really dig the show and don’t find it problematic at all. So my choice not to watch is more in the nature of a personal one–certainly, if you enjoy it, I’m not going to think less of you.
I’m glad to see that people have already brought up the uncomfortably recent (1978) abandonment of descriminatory church policies against black people. Just stop and consider how many Mormons who are prominent on the national stage were already adults before that change took place. As far as I know, no official apology was given for the past statements of church leaders on the inferiority of blacks. They got a “revelation” that the policies were to be discontinued and that’s that…what more do you want?
From wikipedia:
So, whatever church leaders said in the past doesn’t matter now, but you are still supposed to believe what the current leaders say. Don’t question it, just obey. Nice.
Speaking of current leaders, according to the BoM/YT Challenge organizer, the event was LDS Apostle M. Russell Ballard’s idea.
Another recent inspired idea of Ballard’s was inviting Cardinal George to speak at BYU in the weeks just prior to all hell breaking loose for the Catholic church.
All chortling aside, admittedly, Elder Ballard hit a home run with his impressive coordination of LDS Yes on 8 campaign forces.
Elder Ballard hit a home run with his impressive coordination of LDS Yes on 8 campaign forces.
can’t argue with that.
hey, if the man WANTS to set himself up as a bastion of irrationality and hatred…
You want to upvote something that will piss off Mormons, especially Mormon leaders, this is it:
http://www.amazon.com/Book-Mammon-About-Corporation-Mormons/dp/1451553706/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272054185&sr=8-1
I think these 2 vids should be shown.
Joseph Smith Confesses
The 1st vision–Y no exact date???
Also, I forgot to add if we also vote thumbs down on every “positive” comment on the vid that would help too.
guys really i love how hate us all and i bet u have actually never talked or befriended one of us u just automatically assume we all are stupid bad people u visit all the anti mormon websites and don’t actually lokk at the true stuff or listen to us.. u know what thats fine with me if u want it like it but i love u all and i hope u guys figure out that god is real and we all are his children and he loves us very dearly.
1.) You need better sentance construction.
2.) There are many ex-mormons here,.and there are people who personally know mormons.
3.) We have every reason to be angry at your cult, especially after that stunt you pulled off in California.
4.) I’m willing to bet you’ve never even looked at those website.
5.) God loves us enough to send us to hell if we don’t believe in his book. How benevolent.
mormongirl13,
I hope you are aware that only women give birth, if your god is a ‘he’, he only contributed his godly sperm.
Who is the goddess mother, and why do you mob never mention Her? We are all Her children too, nah?
mormongirl13, I do not hate you. I just feel pity over the fact that you are barely literate. Also by the fact that you have no idea what you are talking about. You see, there are ex-mormons who are regulars at this site. Look up Lynna and pixelfish.
But, mormongirl13, I do hate your church. I hate the fact that your church spends money in order to make sure that people like me, I am a lesbian, do not have the same rights that you have.
And spare us your ‘god is real’ silliness. You have not provided proof. And just so does not make it real.
Now find yourself an English class. You are in dire need of it. Or is this the desired level of education that your church has for a woman like you.
Mormongirl13, you are almost illiterate. Why is that?
Take some classes or go to the library or something.
You are wrong about us not having any contact with Mormons. Some of my family has lived in Utah for a long, long time and I’ve been there many times myself.
As you probably know, it takes a mommy and a daddy to make babies. If god is your father, who is your spirit baby mommy? Doesn’t it strike you as odd that god gets all the credit and his harem of nameless goddesses are simply, totally ignored?
Well, it should be odd. OTOH, it is all just a lot of fairy tales made up by some weird guys a few hundred years ago. If you ever fight your way out of the mind control cult, you might even learn to read and write like an adult.
mormongirl13, you make too many assumptions.
I know and have known many Mormons. I also know a great deal about the church. I used to be a Mormom. Most of my family are still Mormons.
I consider most Mormons I’ve met to be good people. (Note: Mormons don’t have a lock on this one–most people I’ve met are good people.)
However, I don’t consider the Mormon church to be benign. It is a mysogynistic, racist, and homophobic church. It’s sad that it teaches these values to its adherents.
Take a careful look at how your church treats (and has treated) women, blacks, and gays. You may not like what you see.
look guys i’m not trying to start an argument or anything but shouldn’t everyone have the right to their own beliefs without everyone hating each other…look i know i’m young and i still have a lot to learn but i’m mormon i fully support gays the mormons aren’t a cult and we have a freedom to believe what we want…if u don’t beleve in god fine u don’t but i do and no i haven’t done all my research about the history but it isn’t about the past or anyone else its about now and how i fell about it.
Hello mormongirl13, you are confusing the rightful criticism of your cult with hate, not uncommon amongst religious folks.
If you are indeed 13, go to your local library and read some books, learn something about the world, and dont rely on your church members or parents for knowledge.
There is a world out there, and you seem to be unfamiliar with it.
Unfortunately how you feel about god or anything else is completely irrelevant as to the truth value of a given proposition, be that god, the flying teapot or the FSM.
but i’m mormon i fully support gays
You are in conflict with your church.
And for crying out long, use some freaking sentences. Your writing style is not cute.
And you came to a blog where arguments are common and liked. Do not expect people to take kindly to your fuzzy minded platitudes. You are right about one thing, you have a lot to learn and a lot of growing up to do. Do not take it seriously that no one takes you seriously.
Just keep in mind this, your church is one of the great sources of homophobia in the US.
in other words, you don’t give a fuck about whether the things you believe are even real; you just believe them because they make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. how dishonest.
mormongirl
Perhaps you should be – argument (and not mindless contradiction) is a good way of understanding the things that you believe – if someone else is wrong, prove them wrong, do the research, use your mind. No-one here minds argument, although they do find contradiction intensely annoying). Convince people, and if you can’t convince them listen to what they have to say. It may not change your beliefs, but it will enhance your understanding of others.
Why God? Why not Vishnu, Allah or Buddha? As long as you are secure in your beliefs, you shouldn’t be worried about challenges to them. Ask yourself questions, ask other people questions. Perhaps you should be asking why it is some of the commenters here are so much opposed to your beliefs. Question, listen and make up your own mind.
One more thing I would add – don’t be scared of what people say. Keep your beliefs if you need them, but listen to other viewpoints. Argue often, and if you find yourself unable to answer arguments ask yourself why.
I find it interesting that we Mormons can cause such a ruckus over such a trivial thing. Are you really worried that having our video on the Youtube homepage will help us with our plan to take over the world? (insert evil laughter)
I do enjoy your blog though, evolution is a conundrum for a lot of us religious folks. Very creative blog name, you get an extra star for that.
Can I ask a question though? How is it that our Cult can be so successful for all these years with fine upstanding people like you doing all you can to expose our slanderous message? (insert more evil laughter)
Creep.
“How is it that our Cult can be so successful for all these years with fine upstanding people like you doing all you can to expose our slanderous message?”
Because you are completely anesthetized to reason. (insert facepalm)
Easy now Rorschach and Magic Pants, I thought this post was all about humor and making fun of people. How come it can only go one way??
Magic Pants .. What does reason have to do with Religion?
My question is why do you really care what we as Mormons (Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints) believe and succumb too? We aren’t forcing any views on you, so why worry what we do. If we’re wrong, we’re wrong and in the end what will happen to us if we are?
The question “How is it that our Cult can be so successful for all these years with fine upstanding people like you doing all you can to expose our slanderous message?” I say maybe this “Cult” is a religion and is true. Maybe those who believe are being guided and protected? There are no facts just the hopes and faith that we as members are.
You can slander and smear all you want. And I do admit you have some very good points. But in the end those who believe will still believe and those who disagree still will disagree. So why worry about it?
This article is a wonderful example of anti-Mormon bigotry.
It’s not at all intellectually persuasive, but it pulls out all the standard atheist tropes: the self-righteous intellectual, rhetoric as a substitute for reason, impious narrowmindedness, a self-serving twisting of the facts, overstatement, and the conclusion that does not follow from the premises, but still appeals to what they want to be true.
For example:
Wow, talk about a non sequitur! Holland never even implied that dying for a cause meant it was true, and yet “dying for a cause” is the only similarity between your examples and his. His argument was that “in this hour of death these two men would [not] enter the presence of their Eternal Judge quoting from and finding solace in a book which, if not the very word of God, would brand them as imposters and charlatans until the end of time.” But you acknowledged that in your summation, so I really don’t understand how you went so far awry with your supposed parallels.
And also:
Every major religion started out as a cult. Consequently, one could also think Jesus in Jerusalem and Muhammad in Mecca, but of course that would completely throw off your twisted rhetoric, which would in turn almost give the appearance of intellectual honesty, and we wouldn’t want that.
There’s plenty more to criticize, but it’s late, and I’m tired. Night!
No surprise that the comments on the mor(m)on vid are screened.
I am astonished at the arrogance of an associate Professor of science and math at a state university in presuming that his expertise in math and science translates to the field of religion.
Was he hired to teach atheism?
Atheism is, in fact, itself a religion, one which, without any scientific evidence whatever, declares that there is no God.
Does Myers conduct his missionary endeavor on his own time? Does he use his university’s equipment and ISP to promote his religion? Does he proselyte his students?
I am weary of those who use their public or quasi-public positions to promote their personal religion as if it were that of their institution — or, as Myers would undoubtedly have it, as the religion of the state.
Tracy Hall Jr, a scientist and a believing Latter-day Saint.
Provo Canyon, Utah
hthalljr’gmail’com
I am astonished at the arrogance of anyone who claims that not only that God exists, but that they know the truth about God.
Wrong in every respect.
Atheism not believing that there is a God. That’s it.
How is that a religion?
What missionary endeavor?
Since he lacks a religion, he cannot possibly use any equipment to promote it.
Of course not.
You are weary of Mormon institutions?
Can you justify your belief with science?
Does it bother you at all that the “history” of America presented by Joseph Smith was obviously fraudulent, as proven by actual science?
To Various Religious Idiots:
Ahem. I don’t care what you believe inside your own damn home and mind. The problem comes in where religious people insist on forcing other people to follow their belief, like when you try to make laws to prohibit abortion or gay marriage. There’s no logical reason to deny these things except for religion, which harms others. That is not acceptable. Or when religious idiots protect their institution when it has been shown that there are pedophile priests harming children and the church spreads the pain around. Or when people protect cults that marry off and abuse children because of some inane religious beliefs. Or when people decide its okay to bomb buildings, abortion clinics and shot doctors because of some “holy” book. All of this is NOT acceptable. We fight against religion because people cannot keep it to themselves and insist on using it to help others under the guise of “the greater good” for their religion. I grew up in a very religious family, as many here have. I know how painful such indoctrination can be. You can spew your bullshit, and we can promote the evidence. Sorry, you (or someone else, if you don’t have the stomach for it) can’t burn use at the stake or stone us to death. Boo fucking hoo.
Atheism is NOT a religion. It is simply the lack of belief in deities. Here’s a definition of religion since you are so clearly lacking in comprehension of what it means:
Atheism does not fit this or any of the other 8 definitions listed for religion. Atheists do not believe because there is no scientific evidence or logical reason to. Alright, “scientist” you should know you cannot prove a negative, but you can test, retest and disprove a positive like all the “holy” texts. The evidence is mounting that religious claims are false. So logically, one can conclude there is no god. I, as an atheist do not stick to dogma, unlike religious followers.
Just because Professor Myer’s doesn’t have a degree in religion doesn’t mean he can’t have a fucking opinion on it. This is his personal blog, he’s not a spokesperson for the fucking university nitwit. He’s vocal about his beliefs and whether or not the university or you like it, he cannot be fired or prosecuted for such a thing. I don’t have a science degree but I research and think critically about religion and have come to the reasonable conclusion that no deity exists. Do you have a degree in religion since you’re here spouting off your beliefs? By you’re logic, if you don’t you have no right to do so.
If you are a scientist you must really suck at it since you are lacking in research abilities, critical thinking and logic. Whatever reason you still hold you’re inane belief has been debunked a million times here and elsewhere.
Also, the state is suppose to be secular. Since you obviously can’t research any of your stupid claims, theres a posting on the left side of the blog showing Professor Myers promotes and supports the separation of Church and State.
(sigh) So much, stupidity so little time. Sorry about the long post but these trolls annoy me. I will now go back to lurking so the regulars can sharpen their fangs and claws on them. It is very fun and educational to read. ;)
Perhaps you’re not intellectually capable of understanding it all.
This is splitting hairs. Holland implied that those men dying for the Mormon cause meant that they believed that the Mormon cause was true, and therefore that it was true.
The point being that Holland was a hypocrite, just like every other religious adherent who believes that those who die for their own religion is a witness (the literal meaning of the Greek “martyr”) to the religion’s truth, but not people of any other religion dying for their beliefs.
Actually, it was you who went awry in your understanding. Perhaps you are as much a hypocrite as Holland?
Actually, I don’t think it would.
After all, PZ thinks that both Christianity and Islam are exactly as false and made-up by liars and/or deluded people, as Mormonism.
Religion has no intellectual honesty whatsoever, and PZ is pointing that out.
It’s a pity that God can’t give you more energy to rant.
How can the lack of religion be religion? And because there is no evidence either way (agnosticism) why do you assume your posistion is better? Oh that’s right, cause God told you. *eyeroll
Yet you’ve no problem letting mormons dictating laws in California. Hypocrite.
BTW, nice try with trying to establish “authority”.
PS, Tracy
You’re free to believe whatever insanity you want. But you are not free to dictate those insanity on others. No where in this post did PZ say he’d surpress you’re idiotic cult. So stop playing the persecution card. Ridicule and social reprocussions are not oppression.
Gyeong at
[email protected].
Dear Owlmirror,
Thank you for strengthening my argument with your shoddy rebuttal.
Best Wishes,
Sterling
Sterling @344, if by ‘strengthening’ you mean ‘demolishing’, and by ‘shoddy rebuttal’ you mean ‘unassailable case’, then sure, your thanks are welcome.
If not (as is apparently the case), then you’re merely being snide and oblivious, thus exemplifying the vacuity and dishonesty your cult imbues in its sheeple.
Latter-Day Saints are so cute with their crazy.
But then they all get all Roman Catholic with their bigotry and just become tedious.
So stop playing the persecution card
Wouldn’t be Mormons if they didn’t play the persecution card.
One quick point about “religion”. If it were not for “religion” the world would be a much, much, much, more messed up place. Religion is what provides a moral compass, for some odd reason we cannot police ourselves strictly based upon human decency.
If it were not for the effect that religion has on the masses, meaning hell and damnation fears, then you would see a very sick and twisted society (worse than our current society). We cannot all just go around doing whatever we want without any concern for how it effects those around us.
It is true that there are a minority of religious fanatics that use religion to spread terror and hurt others, but they are such a small minority. Religion is mostly good and provides a reason for many to live lives of charity and service. You cannot look at the negative without also looking at the positive. People are people and you will see good people that do not have religion and you will see bad people that claim to have religion, but overall having a sense of purpose, a reason to do good, that is a good thing.
Religion is what provides a moral compass
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
One quick point about “religion”. If it were not for “religion” the world would be a much, much, much, more messed up place. Religion is what provides a moral compass, for some odd reason we cannot police ourselves strictly based upon human decency.
What a piss poor defense of religion. You do not sound like a True Believer, you sound like a Faithiest. Other people are so mean and stupid, they need to be lied to in order to get them to act with any ethics.
You, jjhanks, have a very low opinion of your fellow humans.
Visiting Mormons should visit http://ldshomosexuality.com/?p=168
LDS church leaders are lying to you.
Today’s winner for dumbest thing said on the internet.
Thank you for strengthening my argument with your nonexistent rebuttal.
(If you “thank” me again with even less coherence, this could go on for a while…)
Two words: Magic Underwear
Hi everyone!
Woof, there are a lot of comments on here. I have now finally read all of them, and while some of them are unfairly heated, many of them are extraordinarily insightful and respectful. My thanks and respect to those of you who can discuss matters of such significance without resorting to name-calling or below-the-belt arguments.
I thought I’d let all of you know that in response to some of the arguments on here, I have written a blog post about this whole Facebook/Youtube controversy. I find the crusade very interesting. My post is far from perfect, but hopefully I submit my two cents with at least some adequacy. Feel free to check it out, if you feel like reading a lot (it’s a bit longer than I’d planned):
http://weifood.blogspot.com/2010/05/defense-of-two-trilemmas.html
It’s entitled “A defense of two trilemmas,” and in it I attempt to examine and defend the logic of both C. S. Lewis (who’s been mentioned in several of these comments) and Jeffrey R. Holland.
– Chris
As a side note, I watched the Pale Blue Dot and I like it a lot. So thumbs up to you guys for showing me that :)
Every major religion started out as a cult. Consequently, one could also think Jesus in Jerusalem and Muhammad in Mecca, but of course that would completely throw off your twisted rhetoric, which would in turn almost give the appearance of intellectual honesty, and we wouldn’t want that
Why would that throw off anything? Christianity and Islam are also batshit insane. And the Roman Catholic Church, like the Church of Latter Day Saints, is an anti-gay hate group.
Don’t let your magic underwear get all bunched up!
Sorry. If any of you tried to get to the blog I linked to in comment #355, and saw jumbled or incomplete or weirdly-colored text, it’s fixed now.
I screwed it up trying to fix some formatting issues, but it’s all complete and pretty again.
madsquid, I for one am not going to check your blog.
Got something to say? Say it here, if it’s relevant (on-topic) or go to the Thread (see left sidebar).
???? Are you claiming the Moronism is equally as valid a religion as Xianity and Islam? Not too smart are you?
As No Religions, ex-Xians, and atheists, we would agree. They are all equally true which is to say fairy tales made up by humans sometime in the past. Mormonism is as true as Scientology, the ancient Greek gods, or The Flying Spaghetti Monster.
And don’t get too excited that your horrible batch of fairy tales has a following. New cults are born every day. Here on the coast, the New Agers of which there are millions seem to all have their own cult of one or a few. Mormonism isn’t the first cult and won’t be the last. Already it has spawned a bunch of schismatic cults of its own, some more benign, some more malevolent.
A point which you missed because you are dumb. Not all religions and cults are equally malevolent. I’d put Mormonism high on the list of destructive mind control cults that wreck people’s lives by the tens of thousands. The Jehovah’s Witless and Scientologists are probably worse but who knows really? There is a lot of competition for the bottom of the barrel. At least with The Flying Spaghetti Monster cult you get beer volcanoes and stripper factories.
I apologize, Owlmirror, my response was completely inadequate. That being said, please try to understand my situation for a moment. I put forth time and effort to create a well-reasoned argument under the assumption that logical people would read it and agree with what I was saying. At the very least I hoped there would be an intelligent person on the opposite side prepared for a rational argument. Then I got brilliant rebuttals like these:
When your rebuttals consist largely of baseless name-calling, I admit I have a hard time conjuring up an applicable retort. However, not all of your responses were equally substanceless. There were in fact a couple vain attempts at actually disproving what I had said. Here’s the first:
First of all, if you would like to insert ‘Mormon’ into what I said, go right ahead. It was not left out intentionally, and has no affect on my position. Second, let’s actually take Holland’s words into account when analyzing their meaning, shall we? Notice the portion of the quote I bolded, I did this to make it clear that it was the central idea.
The point was that, as PZ stated in summation of Holland’s argument, “if the Smiths knew they were under threat of death, they wouldn’t be turning to a book that they knew was false for comfort.” Holland’s message was exclusively that “they wouldn’t be turning to a book they knew was false for comfort.” Nowhere does he state, “because Joseph Smith became a martyr for his cause, he must have been a true prophet.” I don’t know how many other ways I can spell it out; if you still don’t understand, there’s nothing I can do. Now, granted, you may disagree with Holland’s position, but that’s a separate argument for another time. If you’ve forgotten (as I just about have), my original point was that PZ’s parallels did not match up with Holland’s argument.
My criticism was of his rhetoric. He intentionally used the word “cult” instead of “religion” and then proceeded to name Jim Jones, David Koresh, and Elizabeth Clare Prophet as people to imagine when thinking of Joseph Smith instead of founders of religion like Jesus and Muhammad. The reason being that the former three are universally abhorred and the latter two are respected by billions. This is what I was referring to with “twisted rhetoric.” I am aware that PZ as well as many others hold mainstream Christianity and Islam in equal regards with the cults of Jones, Koresh, and other radicals, but that does not excuse his deliberate mischaracterization of the Mormon Church.
I hope this clears things up and serves as a more complete rebuttal than my last post.
John Morales (and others), that’s fine if you don’t want to check out the blog. In response to your advice, I assure you that the material is relevant and on-topic. My reasons for not simply copy-pasting it here are twofold:
1) It’s quite long.
2) I want everyone to have the choice to click on it or not. That limits my audience to people who bother to click on it (which hopefully indicates they care somewhat about the subject and are prepared to say something intelligent about it). It also means that I’m not pretentiously pushing my thoughts onto other people’s computer screens.
You not only want to express your opinion, but you want everyone to agree with it as well?
You don’t ask for much, do you?
When you lead into your argument with snideness and baseless name-calling, you’re going to get what you dish out served back to you.
Are are you saying that only Mormons are allowed to be rude?
Yes, let us do that very thing.
Why do only your boldings “count” as to what the purported central idea was?
Their death being imminent.
The exclusiveness is obviously not actually exclusive, since he put that out as being directly connected to them being about to die.
“in this hour of death” : When they were about to die,
“enter the presence of their Eternal Judge” : and purportedly be judged,
“these two men would [not]” : these Mormons would not [have been],
“quoting from and finding solace in a book”
“which, if not the very word of God” : which, if it wasn’t 100% true,
“would brand them as imposters and charlatans until the end of time.” : would be evidence that they were liars.
An implication is something that is not stated directly.
The book would not have been called “the very word of God” if Smith was a false prophet. And he was discussing Smith’s imminent death — impending martyrdom, as Mormons no doubt like to think of it — as you keep ignoring.
Or do you not agree that Smith’s death was a martyrdom?
Since PZ has no respect for any of them, why should he acknowledge that argumentum ad populum as having any validity whatsoever?
You have not made it at all clear that it is a mischaracterization — only that you very much want it to be one, and want everyone to just agree with you.
To a degree. Let’s see how well you deal with counter-arguments.
madsquid:
Um.
John:
Oh please, you know what I mean. I just thought it would have been annoying of me to copy-paste the entire 2400 words I’d written as a comment. Then everyone would have had to either look at it, or scroll past it. Obnoxious. I’d much rather just post a link, and let people choose whether they’re interested enough to click on it.
Surely (since you seem to be annoyed with me anyway) you can understand and be grateful for that.