Well Eduk, yes I am a Mormon. True blue and it is what I have faith in in. I'll stop there before I get preaching. First off, The LDS Church is not a cult. A cult is a religion that worships a specific person and their teachings. Like in Ancient Rome, there was the cult of the Emperor who claimed to be a god along with the rest of the Roman pantheon. We don't worship Joseph Smith Jr., we just honor him as the one who was the first prophet and leader of our church. We really talk about God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost more often and focus on Them rather than Joseph Smith. If there are Mormon cults, then they are not members of the original LDS church, but members of break-off sects such as the RLDS church. I have heard of some who believe that the descendants of Joseph Smith Jr. were supposed to be the ones to lead the LDS church and broke away because of that. If you want more facts, Eduk, then I advise you visit Mormon.org to check out the LDS church for yourself. I don't advise you to do an internet search on Mormons to learn about them because you will get a lot of anti-mormon websites that are really negative towards the Church.Eduk wrote:So I guess there are a number of issues.
1. As people have already pointed out they personally find the religious claims made to be unbelievable. This is a common complaint of everyone who isn't in whatever religion is being discussed. Personally I find the religious claims of LDS to be identical to Christianity or any religion. So it's in no way unique or particularly objectionable. Secularism basically deals with the problem, from both sides, and hopefully allows us all to live together in relative harmony.
2. To my mind the real problems with LDS, or any religion, are not so much the beliefs but the behaviours. When religion turns into a cult you have a real and genuine problem. Now I only know LDS through what I have read online and through some podcasts who have interviewed people who have left LDS. Those people certainly described cults. Now you can maybe say ok there are some LDS cults, in the same way there are some Christian cults, but you could argue it's the minority and not the majority. Personally I don't have any facts and figures to hand tp be sure one way or the other.
Lark Truth I assume you are in the LDS church? Can I ask you a question? If you today decided that you no longer believed in the teachings of the church and you wanted to leave. How would your friends/family and fellow church members react?
As to the question you asked me how my family and fellow church members would react if I left the LDS Church, they would probably ask my reasons as to why I would do that. I personally haven't met anyone who has deliberately left the church, so I really don't know how to answer a question like that. I would imagine that my family would be really sad, though.
Anyways, check out Mormon.org. Great site!