Religious expression: a fundamental right

DARLING_AILIE (March 7, 2010 11:02 PM),

Your story illustrates a point that highlights a typical difference between the religious zealots and their hapless (and in your case, captive) targets. Though the blue-haired old lady may have been inexcusably overbearing, her intentions were probably not mean. However, your response, though initially restrained, was ultimately intentionally cruel.

The meanness usually flows from those not wanting to hear what the missionary is saying, not the other way around as many would have us believe.

That same dynamic is also easily observed in the comments on this board. If words were steel implements, there would be blood all over these discussions and it would be easy to tell from which side the violence is coming. Are we wielding knives or spoons?

This should call into question the oft repeated claim that more atrocities have been perpetrated in the name of god than for any other reason. A review of atrocities in the last century is instructive. WWI and WWII were primarily nationalistic wars. Episodes of violence involving groups of different religions during those conflicts were ethnic (nationalistic) in nature and had nothing to do with religious conversion or proselyting. In fact, consider any major conflict of the last century, if there was a religious component, it was most likely to be of atheists trying to destroy religion (exemplified in large by the rise of the Bolsheviks in the Soviet Bloc and the Cultural Revolution in China). Even when certain offenders invoked god as they set out to destroy and murder, it was only a flimsy facade attempting to cover contemptuous ambitions.

Religious expression and proselyting are not the problem.

I served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was a wonderful experience. Most of the people I spoke to were not interested in the message of joy and hope I offered to share, but many people were interested.

Some of the interested folks found peace and happiness as they came to know their Savior, and their lives took on new meaning. Others merely satisfied a curiosity about "mormonism" and moved on.

From my perspective, Mormon missionaries perform good works that quitely benefit communities in ways that are hard to measure or describe.

I am grateful for thier time and commitment.

The main source of the need to "share" or proselytize is the feeling unique to Christians and Muslims that they have the only right answer, right prophet, right book, right truth, or right way.

Isn't this fundamentally irrational?

Contrast this with the Rig Veda, the oldest spiritual text in the world and the basis of Hinduism and secondarily Buddhism.
Rig Veda: "Truth is One, but sages call it by various names".
This attitude towards Truth seems much more rational, decent, & tolerant. No claims of monopoly of the Truth or God; no supremacism or exclusion. No need for proselytization, violence, or conflict.

Saying that Moroni delivers the goods is just as embarrassing/outdated as saying Gabriel is delivering whatever from the realms of heaven and earth.

Of course mormons don't value free speech in their BYU where profs are censored for proposing that the mormon's might be wrong. Like the islamists, their idea of free speech is what they want it to be, just not for anyone else in their neighborhood.

The idea of a happy community loses ground when you realize Utah has one of the highest uses of prozac, oxycontin drug use, suicide rates, naturaceuticals, and certainly though the mormons talk of family values the rates of divorce are similar to other christians (really poor compared to Hindus and Buddhists) and still have a substantial abuse of their wives. I suppose if you take prozac you don't mind if you're being abused as a second class citizen.

hariaum

Darling,

Great story. And exactly the right response.

One of the Mormons on this thread said that "when you join our community, we become committed to you." Imagine that kind of annoyance on a daily basis! I'd end up keeping a pitcher of cold coffee in my vestibule.

asburyjer wrote: "I always find it a strange hypocrisy when secularists want the service and ministry that missionaries bring to people who are in need around the globe, but then get mad when those missionaries dare to share about the faith that leads them into the mission field."

The hypocrisy is the demands that many, perhaps most, Christian missionaries make of desperate people as a condition to supplying the aid these people so badly need.

If you don't believe me, look up the term 'Rice Christians'.

This is the part I liked: "Everyone is and should be entitled to speak his or her mind on such matters, and everyone else has the right to listen, or not, as they choose. Because of the central importance of these rights, no person or government is justified in interfering with them."

I travel a lot, and these trips are often between continents. On a flight to Sydney - do you have any idea how long it takes to fly to Australia from the East Coast of the US? - the blue-haired old woman from somewhere in the South who was sitting in the seat next to mine refused to stop talking in her attempts to make a convert out of me. I asked her politely a number of times to please leave me alone, before becoming less polite.

Nothing I said helped. I put on my Bose noise-cancelling headset and closed my eyes, at which point she proceeded to tap me on the hand.

This torment went on for hours. There was nothing that the cabin crew could do, and I could not be moved to another seat because the plane was full.

I finally succeeded in shutting her up by pouring an entire cup of coffee into her lap.

Don't worry - I made certain the coffee was good and cold before I dumped it into her lap. It wasn't my intention to injure the women but to make her wet and miserable as she sat in that seat. I very much doubt that she was able to salvage her beautiful (and expensive, by the look of it) lavender boucle woollen suit.

Like Mr Otterson, this woman too believed that she was entitled to ‘speak her mind’. The way I saw it, my right to be left alone, even in shared public spaces, supersedes some busybody's perceived 'right' to bother me. Remember: I repeatedly asked her to please leave me alone before resorting to a more extreme solution.

CLEARTHINKING1 (March 2, 2010 7:34 PM and included in many other comment sets),

I cannot speak for all proselytizing religions but...

Having served as a proselyting missionary in a foreign country, I must say that your comments betray a certain amount of either ignorance or deceit. Assuming the former, I suggest the following exercise to remedy the deficiency of understanding.

Find a congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints attending to Sunday services. Best if it is in a third world country like Nigeria, Haiti or the Philippines, but any inner city of America will do as well. Choose from among them the most feeble minded person you can find and ask him or her why they fell for the coercive manipulations of the missionaries. Then ask how joining the church has made their lives more impoverished and miserable. Try to ignore the atmosphere of happiness and fellowship among the members and pay no regard to the light of love shining bright in their eyes. Those things would certainly tarnish the cold hard facts that you seek.

After the exercise, if you feel like repeating your comments unmodified, at least you will be making them with the surety of personal experience. And I will know they are of deceit, though I cannot understand why anyone would despise another persons happiness.

@haveaheart

I served a mission for this church, and we were always careful to respect the feelings of those we taught. If they were done listening to us (which often happened after the first visit), we left. But if they kept rescheduling appointments, we would come back. Just say no - we don't get offended :)

The last thing we want to do is just baptize converts for the sake of adding new members. If there is no commitment, they later become a heavy burden for the entire membership (the congregation), because when you join our community, we become committed to you.

"Normal" members continue to regularly visit the houses of other members to teach and help them. These activities are very similar to the efforts of the full-time missionaries, except they are performed be people who do this in their precious spare time.

So, we don't want to baptize you if you don't want to be a part of our community. This religion demands a lot of its members, but I find it very spiritually and emotionally rewarding.

I continue to visit other members because I sincerely feel that every person is a literal child of God, and as such, whatever I can offer (time, skills, etc.) to help them feel and experience for themselves what I feel and experience is worth the personal cost.

A glaring example of why we can't trust Mormons to respect the separation of church and state:

The president of Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming, says he'll keep religion out of his recruitment efforts after a recent mailing to Mormon high school students raised ire on campus.

Paul Prestwich wrote an e-mail to students and faculty members on Tuesday saying religion won't be the focus of the school's formal recruitment efforts in the future.

Prestwich, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, sent about 1,000 letters to LDS teens last month touting the benefits that the school and community offer students of that faith. The letters were written on school letterhead and were accompanied by a letter on church letterhead from Fred Hopkin, president of the Mormon church's Cody Wyoming Stake.

As a free speech advocate, I do think that Mormons are just as entitled to free speech as any other persons.

If it is legal to try to sell vacuum cleaners by knocking on someone's door, it should be legal to try to sell Mormonism as the only way to the highest level of eternal salvation.

You can argue about its tastefulness, but not its legality. I mean, where do we live, the Soviet Union???? (my niece was a Mormon Missionary in Siberia - I'm not kidding - though I am an apostate Mormon myself).

Jason
Marriage is a civil institution, governed by civil laws.

Mormon scripture says that "We do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil government".

Mormon religion DID influence civil government in California (and elsewhere) by lobbying against the egual legal, civil right of individuals to marriage.

JSmith4:

Is being gay a religion? If not, how does the quoted scripture apply? Forgive me, but I fail to see the connection.

Mormons have grossly violated their (our, I was baptized) own scripture below with their highly organized and funded campaign advocating *denial* of "equal individual rights" to gay people in California and across the US.

As Brother Otterson quoted:
"We do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil government, whereby one religious society is fostered and another proscribed in its spiritual privileges, and the individual rights of its members, as citizens, denied."

Live up to your values, fellow Mormons.

Having Moroni deliver the goods is just as embarrassing as Gabriel doing it. Coming to grips with reality is not mocking someone.

coloradodog

I ware racing boots (motorcycle).

Mark
Always seek the truth.

@ Coloradodog and Yeal9:

I just do not understand your fascination with mocking someone for his beliefs. Under what morality do you find justification for this? Supposedly “enlightened” critics of Mormonism are above this, why aren’t you? If you want to debate points of doctrine or other substantive matters, fine, but childish retorts do nothing to further your cause.

@ Brother Ottersen - i very much enjoyed the post and agree with your points.

Volkmare,

Close your eyes, click the heels of your ruby slippers together twice and repeat,

"Yes, I know this is true"

"Yes, I know this is true"

Embarrassed regarding our misinformation about Joe Smith and his hallucinations? Please inform us!!

You guys are SO wrong that I won’t bother to embarrass you and call out the misinformed points of your platform.

Only know this: Brother Otterson is absolutely accurate in his statements.

You all, on the other hand are dead wrong.

But, it is your God given right to remain ignorant if you so choose to.

Far be it from me to “Argue with Idiots”.

Mark
Always seek the truth.

"So, Mormons eschew any tactic that smacks of coercion, high pressure salesmanship, argumentation, or economic incentive."

Perhaps Mormons are SUPPOSED TO eschew heavy-handed sales tactics. But, in fact, they train their missionaries not to accept "no" for an answer.

Once a "conversion couple" (missionaries always travel in pairs) gets into a subject's home, it becomes very difficult to get them to leave. They have a prescribed set of speeches, and they thwart dismissal by blurring the beginnings and endings of the speeches so that there is no convenient break during which they can be asked to leave.

Proselytizing is only OK if other Americans are not paying for it through taxes or through fraudulent tax exemptions for "Churches" that use their saved money to finance influencing elections or political issues like the Mormon Church donating directly to anti-gay campaigns in Alaska and Hawaii and forming a huge multi-state PAC to support Proposition 8 in California.

The subject of proselytism relates directly to the subject of the foundations of religion.

And what has history, scriptural text reviews and archeology taught us about these foundations?

Some examples:

1. Abraham is the reported founder of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Based on all we know now, Abraham was at best a combination of three separate individuals with 1.5 million Conservative Jews no longer believing he existed at all. (ditto for most of the characters in the OT/Torah).

references: National Georgraphic review on Abraham and http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20E1EFE35540C7A8CDDAA0894DA404482

2. The founders of Christianity and Islam were both illiterate. i.e. neither one proof read or approved the NT or the Koran so we are taking the word of scribes and embellishers with their own agendas.

references: NT exegetes from the last two hundred years, Karen Armstrong et al's reviews of Islam and http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html

3. Christianity is based on the whim of Pilate, the false prophesy of the imminent second coming, and the sword of Constantine.

4. Mormonism is a business/religious cult based on Joseph Smith's hallucinations which has bought respectability with a $30 billion business empire, the BYU "mission matured" football team and a great choir.

lds-mormon.com/time.shtml

These are some of the facts about religions that need to be promulgated/ proselytized around the world and it should be supported by USA taxpayers and should be the only thing about religion we support.

PROSELYTIZATION is a manifestation of the SUPREMACIST foundation of Christianity & Islam.

No one else has this serious flaw that Christians and Muslims have in their "religions" or spiritual systems. Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Jews, Wiccans, Animists, etc.. are all trying to make themselves better, not trying to undermine others.

Conversion has caused some of the biggest problems in third world countries.
The "charity" and "kind deeds" are insincere and deceptive actions, and therefore, are acts of evil.

Muslims & Christians don't seem to get the basics of goodness and spirituality. Pretending to be good while having and ulterior motive fools no one and is an act of evil. This can lead to crusades and suicide terrorism.

REMEMBER: Almost all religious conflicts in the world involve Muslims or Christians on one side or both.
Sneakiness, deception, conversion, undermining other cultures, etc... is offensive and nonspiritual.

You really feel the urge to do charity? Go to the inner city in America and help those in need. Look in your own family and help those who are depressed or drunk or angry.
Stop going to 3rd world countries and causing problems & hurting others.

I always find it a strange hypocrisy when secularists want the service and ministry that missionaries bring to people who are in need around the globe, but then get mad when those missionaries dare to share about the faith that leads them into the mission field.