h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - A5214557
Author: carlbowler - U1087280

This is one I have had in mind for witing for a while. Thise who I am aquanted with have reviewed it and found it helpful to them

hi, just had a quick spin through witht he spell checker ...

was a prophet in ancent America --> ancient

This Extermination order --> extermination

becoming arrogant, clickish and so it feels ---> cliquish

They ware badges ---> wear

====


as a quick note, plese remove or repharse refereances to this resercher, editied guide entries shouldn't refer to peopel in the first person. Also there is one bit of opinion about the health laws, the EG doesn't like personal opinions

ta

tjm

Actually, referring to yourself the writer as "this researcher" is used pretty commonly throughout the EG, and can be entirely appropriate in places. And it's also inaccurate that "the EG doesn't like personal opinions" -- there are standards for how opinions should be presented, and a need to be well-balanced, but that doesn't mean that no opinions are allowed.

That said, I do think that the entry needs some work in how some of these issues are dealt with. This section reads a bit like a personal rant rather than a balanced look at an issue, and contains a major inaccuracy as well: "The researcher feels it is unfair that, when people talk about this law they have to find a reason (ie caffeine in coffee) but when it is brought to the attention of the individual that this law is similar to Halal and Kosher it is dismissed, because the Mormon religion is considered to be a Christian religion and other Christian sects do not have a health law."

First of all, the phrase 'Christian sects' is not generally used -- the most appropriate way to phrase this would be 'Christian churches'. More importantly, it's innacurate to say that no other Christian churches have rules for their members about health -- Christian Science being a glaring exception there, but there are others as well. The same thing for the sentence about 'temples' -- I would probably stay away from claiming anywhere in the entry that 'Mormons are the only ones who do XYZ', because it will virtually never be completely correct.

While I can tell that the author has made some attempts to keep the entry well-balanced, I do think it still needs some work in that regards. For example, the entry refers to LDS as a Christian church - and while I know that this is the belief of the LDS church, it is definitely not a universally shared conclusion. I guess what it comes down to is that much of the entry reads like it was written for the website of an LDS group, rather than written from a more objective perspective. Someone unfamiliar with the LDS church could read this entry and believe that the biggest controvery that has faced the LDS church has been the fact that some people disagree with the rules about alcohol and caffeine, and this is incredibly far from the case.

And I'm assuming that you didn't intend to refer to LDS members as 'Morons'.

Hi,

I agree with Mikey for the most part. I'm reminded of the joke about the monk and the nun that goes 'sects, sects, sects, is that all you men ever think about!?'

Sorry. More relevant stuff:

Having a few childhood friends who are Mormons, I've always wanted to hear a bit more about some of the more unique beliefs and practices of the Church but have been a little afraid to ask! An ideal Entry for me would answer some of the following, for instance:

- I know you mention polygamy, but I reckon you need to flesh out the details a bit more. For instance, when and why did it stop? I've read that it was in the 50's sometime and was something to do with public pressure from outside the Church, but if you could include that it would be good.

- I've also heard about temple garments; could you elaborate more on these?

- The other major stereotype of Mormons is their missionary work (particularly the door-knocking variety), yet you haven't mentioned that here. A friend of mine went on a year-long missionary placement to Papua New Guinea when he was still a teenager!

- All the Mormons I knew went to the same local high school, where they played predominantly American sports like American football (which, in New Zealand, makes them practically unique!). It gave me the impression that specifically Mormon schools, if they are very widespread, are kind of 'franchise' like with sets of common curricula etc. Is this true, or was that local school different from the norm?

- Some would say that Mormons are not Christians as such because they don't give the New Testament prime importance in their scripture. I'm not getting into that argument, but it's a good idea to mention that there IS one.

That'll do for now. I think you've made a really good start, but a bit more detail will leave interested bystanders like me a little more satisfied.

Matt

Actually, the reason many don't see the LDS as a Christian church has little to do with the degree of emphasis placed on the Bible -- it comes down to the fact that LDS is not a Trinitarian faith.

There's an entry on Mormons in the EG already that answers the question about polygamy quite well, so I don't know that there's a need to go into it deeply here.


Mikey

To me, the difference between the Trinity and the Godhead has always seemed like another incarnation (no pun intended) of the various Trinity-related debates throughout the centuries, and my untrained eye doesn't see much difference between this debate and those between some Christian sects.

But having said that, I don't claim to be an expert of any sort, and if that's the main beef with LDS's claims of Christianity, then it should be included in the Entry (and explained so a religious ignoramus like me can understand it!

Matt

1) the reason I din't go into poligamy is because whenever it is discussed it is missread by people who read it, however an addendeum into when it was finished will be added.

2) Becasue of the sacred nature of Temple Garments I will not go into Detail at this point

3)I will make an addendum on missionary work

4) there are no Mormon High Schools that I am aware of, the reasion for this is that it is genarally seen as being based in the US and American Culture does tend to permiate the people (ie I live in manchester and still use phrases like 'Dude')

5) there is no argument as to Mormons (Or LDS) being Christians, the Oxford Dictionary describs the group as such

Also some of the comments on the health Law are being considered.

Hi CarlBowler,

Thanks for responding to my comments. With regards to your first two points, I can see where you're coming from, but I think that this Entry is your chance to set a few things straight. I could read your reasoned account on the rationale originally used for polygamy and how the doctrine changed, or I could google it and read some misinformation written by a prejudiced member of another religion or sect. And if temple garments are sacred, tell me why that's so - all I know about them is via sneering and derogatory references from people who don't know much about the LDS. I'd much rather get the information from a well-argued piece written by somebody within the Church as to why they are so important, as opposed to the probably misinformed information I've seen so far.

I have no quarrel with your other points - my comment about the schooling was just an innocent enquiry. Maybe it was just that pretty much everybody in that community was a Mormon, and I just thought it had to be an official Mormon school, I dunno. And I don't know enough to get into the 'Is LDS a Christian sect or not?' debate - but I'd be interested to see what Mikey has to say about the matter.

Keep plugging away at the Entry, you've made a really good start.

Matt

I think an important issue to remember here, as I alluded to in an earlier post, is that the EG is not necessarily the place for "A Mormon's View - and only a Mormon's view - on the LDS Church" -- rather, it's a place for a well-balanced view, and that means acknowledging other points than your own, even if you don't agree with them.

The Trinitarian issue is nothing minor here. Someone who was baptized in a Methodist church, an Anglican church, a Lutheran church, a Roman Catholic church, a Greek orthodox church -- any of those could switch to any of the others and have their earlier baptism recognized, because they all view a Trinitarian baptism as one of the major cornerstones of Christian faith. This is not the case for someone who has been baptized as a Mormon -- their baptism would not be recognized by any of the Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant churches I'm aware of, because the baptism is not Trinitarian and is therefore not considered a Christian baptism by these churches.

Here's a loose analogy -- Messianic Jews consider themselves Jewish, but the main Jewish groups (Orthodox, Reform, Conservative) do not consider Messianic Jews to be Jewish. If I was to write an entry about Messianic Judaism, I'd need to mention this other perspective in order for it to be an accurate, well-balanced entry. Now, I could certainly write something like "While mainline Jewish groups may not consider Messianic Jews to be true members of Judaism, Messianic Jews believe that they are because of X, Y, and Z...." It's ok to present a counterargument, but it is important to not ignore the issue altogether, which the entry currently does.

indead, a number of the jewish communities on live jornal, who welcome anybody from othodox to lapsed, to non-jews do not allow Messianic Jews and Jews for Jesus, party cause they are not considered jewish, however mostly cause they don't stop preaching !

"but is one of the worlds fastest growing Christian Sects, although there are many christians who do not hold with this since they Church of Jesus Christ does not aggree with the Doctorine of the Trinity being one person. The belief among LDS is that there are 3 differing personages each of whom make the one God or God-head."

This has been added to the entery, is this sufficently balanced. The only reason I can remember for LDS not being Christian is that of the belief in a seperate god head and not accepting the complicated Nicien Creed (as do Weslian Methodists). I am not aware of any other arguments to LDS not being Christian and most offical litriture on the subject do refer to Mormom's or LDS being Christian.

BTW I am a member of the LDS Church, But I am trying to be as balanced as I can. I appriciate the comments

First off, as I said in my original posts, the term "Christian sects" is not normal usage, and can border on offensive for many people. This really needs to be changed throughout the entry. I'd also steer clear of addressing the LDS church as simply "Church of Jesus Christ", as there are other churches that use that same phrase. What I've heard most commonly has been "LDS church" and "Mormon church" -- and these from the missionaries on my block. But if you find these terms offensive or just not descriptive enough, is there another shortened title you could use throughout the entry that would be more specific and clear than "Church of Jesus Christ"?

While I think what you've added tries to get to the point, I don't think it is written clearly. Instead of "but is one of the worlds fastest growing Christian Sects, although there are many christians who do not hold with this since they Church of Jesus Christ does not aggree with the Doctorine of the Trinity being one person. The belief among LDS is that there are 3 differing personages each of whom make the one God or God-head."

how about something like:

"While the LDS Church sees itself as one of the world's fastest growing Christian churches, it's worth noting that many mainline Christian churches - including Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churches - do not view LDS as a truly Christian faith. The crux of the issue is the Christian doctrine regarding the Trinity, which is regarded by many as central to the Christian faith."

Rather than trying to explain all the details as to why this is, I would perhaps provide a good external link here. Words like "Christian", "Jewish", or "Muslim" simply don't have one universal definition -- within any of those groups, there will be those that argue that some of the other groups don't truly belong in that category. There are some fundamentalist protestant churches that don't believe that Catholics are truly Christian.

Also, I do think that claims such as "world's fastest growing" do call for some statistics to back them up -- not saying that I necessarily doubt *you*, but I just automatically doubt any such claims in the absence of actual numbers.

Also, the history section, while interesting, presents a very small slice of what was going on. Much of the anti-Mormon sentiment in those contexts was not motivated by religion so much as by politics -- the abolition movement had a big impact on the tensions, as did Mormon-Native American relations. On top of all of this, there was also some deliberate provocation from Smith -- the vandalism and destruction of the press outfit for the first 'ex-Mormon' group is one of the first to spring to my mind.

This sentence in the entry here -- "This Extermination order was only removed from state law recently, though the researcher cannot remember the exact date." -- is also problematic. You really either need to do the research and find out the date, or remove this bit from the entry.

I'd definitely add more about missionary work, and also about the relief work that the LDS church does -- I think this is often overshadowed by the other issues surrounding the church.


Mikey

Thanks for your comments, I am going to paraphrase you in the guide. Although I would like to stay clear of using 'Mormon' as a name of the Church, not be cause it is offencive to me (In fact the name means 'More Good' Acording to Joseph Smith) But because of Directives from the LDS Leadership would live people to get away from calling us such.
Since I am using the basis of you reply, would you mind being credited in the entery?
Also the Missionary work is one I'm working on off line for now, it is turning out to be more difficult and the line about the extermination order being removed does need to be changed, after speaking with someone more up to date in current political status in the US

"saints" is consistently not capitalized when in the church title. Is this an error?

aggree-> agree



accounts of the visions... My notes say I was gonna say insert a link here, but after reading your entire entry there are whole huge chunks of your subject that are elided. You direct the reader to look there or ask him or research that. Sorry, no, I will not. You can do this in Wikipedia, where other people can fill stuff in for you, but not here. The whole point of putting an Entry into the Guide is not to create a website ring hub, but to actually inform. I am reading this article here specifically to find out about the things you omit.

Now, I really like religions, and I personally like to learn new things about them! Such official sites or faith directed people tend to want to tell the story exactly as they are told to, in full complication, and part of the problem I have had understanding this particular religion is that it is too hard to understand in that manner.



john the baptist and peter ...apostles-> john the baptist and the apostles peter...

Unless you are saying something specific that you have left unstated, Grew->grew.

Narvoo; -> Narvoo,

sacrad-> sacred

I've never heard of the extermination order, so it seems too outrageous. I want to see an exact date.

I would really be interested in learning of the 13 articles of faith. It seems to me that they would be core to the subject you say you are writing about, and yet you gloss right over them.

centuary-> century

Aspect of health law.... This section reads oddly. Is the stuff in Words of Wisdom in the Book of Mormon for anyone to read, or is it somehow secret?



I am intrigued by the concept of continuing revelation. Who gets to say that God spoke to her, that all Mormons must then believe? Can it be anybody?

I know that the Mormon church was officially racist until just a few decades ago. Was the sudden realization that black people are real human beings one of these revelations?



I agree with previous Reviewers, the whole "pit hole and clickish" statement borders on libel. It might be very true, but we can't print stuff like that on the BBCi without serious factual substantiation and you need to remove/rewrite it post haste. This is the most serious criticism on your article in this whole post, please pay attention to this.

I also agree with Mikey that most Christians would not view Mormons as Christian. Mormons might like to think of themselves as such, and it's perfectly OK to say that they think that this is true, but you can't leave it at just that. You might find (what was called after the Nicean Creed) 'the Arian heresy' of little account but most people do not, and there's centuries full of history about it.



I've been told by Mormon friends that the importance of family is more specific than what you have written here. In particular, it is possible to harrow hell by collective prayer, or perhaps in the same way that Jesus did, and therefore to eternally save your apostate ancestors. Is this true, or were they having me on?

Given the disappearnce of the author, should we move this one to the flea market?

There's plenty of reasonable material there for someone who knows about these things to build upon.

The FM gets my vote

yep same here

You guys are focusing way too much on the trinity. The trinity doesn't define Christianity as much as believing in Jesus as God in the flesh. In fact there are 3 fundamental beliefs in Christianity. They are:

1. Know that Christ was physically resurrected

2. Know that we are saved by grace, and grace alone, and not by works so that any man may boast!

3. Know that Christ was God in the flesh!

All three of these can be proven quite easily from the Bible.

As you can see, the LDS church distorts 2 of these, therefore, are NOT christian. Lots of 'religions' claim to be Christian, including the jehova's false witnesses, but they distort some or all of these 3 fundamental beliefs.

I am indifferent to any particular tenet of Christianity, not being one myself. But I do call people by the names they call themselves, and if your definition excludes most of them (which I have no real idea about, but you did just say 'lots'), it isn't useful to an encyclopedia like the Edited Guide.

Not sure what you meant there, but I did catch the phrase 'which I have no real idea about'.

These Christian ideas are all biblical and can be shown the gospel writers believed them.

If one doesn't take the bible seriously, then that means nothing. I went on a search about 2 years ago to find if the Bible could be verified and was absolutely blown away by what I found. Proof to me it was inspired by an intelligence far beyone man out of our time realm. No other book that's ever graced planet Earth even comes close. Not the Qu'ran, not the book of mormon, not the Tripitaka (Buddhism), not Sylvia Brown, nothing!!!