Just Wanted to Give Reminder Of Mitt's Craziness: Kolob

[jpbollma]

Perhaps Mitt wants austerity on Earth in order to raise funds for a jobs program on Kolob??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolob


According to several LDS writers (such as Cleon Skousen in his book The First 2000 Years), the earth was created near Kolob over a period of 6000 years (six "days" in Kolob time), and then moved to its present position in our solar system.[31][32][33] This hypothesis is based on oral comments attributed to Joseph Smith, Jr.[28] The hypothesis is also based on a passage from the Book of Abraham stating that in the Garden of Eden, time was measured "after the Lord's time, which was after the time of Kolob; for as yet the Gods had not appointed to Adam his reckoning".[34] According to the hypothesis, the reason that Earth time was measured in Kolob time was because the earth was physically located near Kolob. As a corollary, some LDS writers argue that at the end times, the earth will be plucked from the solar system and returned to its original orbit near Kolob.[35]


hahaha this really does take the crazy to a whole new level.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

1. With my apologies to Mormans

(because I assume most of them are decent people who don't fire their workers with glee) I can't help it that when I hear that name Kolob that's sacred to Mr. Romney it sounds like something out of D.C. Comics in the 1930s: Kal-El from Krypton - Wil-ard from Kolob.

[Voice for Peace]

8. !! Kal-el

wil-lard from Kolob

brilliant

[Prophet 451]

22. Most followers of any faith are decent people

The way I see it, as I said downthread, everyone's beliefs look batshit from the outside but most followers of any faith are decent people, just trying to live their lives as best they can. I've known a few Mormons and they were all perfectly nice to me.

That said, I can entirely see Stan Lee writing "the planet of Kolob" into an early issue of Amazing Fantasy.

[Tikki]

36. I know of a mormon who won't advance an employee any higher in his company because...

the employee is not or won't become a mormon. This employee will still
vote for rmoney, not because he is a mormon, but because rmoney is from the party of nixon.


Tikki

[dimbear]

2. There is a town called Kolob in Utah. It is not a one-horse town at all. They are saving

up to buy a horse, tho.


In all honesty, Kolob Canyon is very beautiful and worth visiting, especially if you like colored sculptured rocks.

[SoutherDem]

3. Yeah who needs science class

When you have an authority such as Joseph Smith.

[JoeyT]

4. It's no sillier than anything else.

The majority religion in the country believes in a global flood, angels, creationism, and a guy that sacrificed himself to himself to satisfy a bunch of arbitrary rules he made up. And that's far from the silliest stuff in there, it's just the stuff most people take literally. If one is open for mockery then all of them are.

Besides, there's no need to attack Mitt on religion. He sucks on EVERY SINGLE issue.

[Bette Noir]

7. The nutballs make the headlines, but "most" Christians don't believe most of what you've mentioned.

[dsc]

23. actually I think most do

take Creationism as one example. It is up to around 45% in national polls of all people. To be there it would have to be at 50% of Christians.

[JoeyT]

37. It depends on your definition of most.

The number of people that believe in angels typically poll around half the population. Buddhists, atheists, non-religious, and the various religions that don't have anything like angels aren't going to believe in angels. To those you can add deists, and most of the people that insist they're "spiritual but not religious" whatever that means. It would take a solid majority of Christians to make those numbers. Ditto for demons, humans being created in their present form, etc. They all poll fairly similarly.

The crucifixion and resurrection are believed by virtually every single Christian, since it's pretty much the core of the religion itself.

Every religion has stuff that looks nuts to people that don't belong to it. Mitt is crazy independently of his religion, not because of it.

[Skittles]

17. the biggest fantasy is virgin birth

plenty of people believe that bit of nonsense

[SunSeeker]

46. Yes, all major religions are very much open to mockery.

And yes, Robme does suck on every single other issue. What's sad is the evangelicals don't care about all those other issues. All they care about is whether you accept Jeebus as your lord and savior. They won't vote for a President they think is going to hell.

[agent46]

5. I am so fracking sick

of religious nuttery being given respect and a wide berth in this country. These people shouldn't be given an ounce of credibility. They should be laughed off the stage.

[amuse bouche]

6. Exactly

This stuff is scary stupid

[boppers]

9. Catholics believe they're eating a dead god's flesh and blood... and still get elected.

Most Chistians believe a knocked-up teenager was knocked-up.... by God.

You want crazy? Look into a mirror.

[LeftyMom]

11. That stuff's crazy too.

But at least it's crazy somewhat shrouded in antiquity. Believing crazy nonsense that was made up by a known crank last Thursday takes a special sort of stupid.

[boppers]

12. And by "last thursday", you mean hundreds of years ago?

Thousands of years ago?

Does time make absurd beliefs more believable?

[LeftyMom]

24. How about recently enough to be well documented.

Mysterious origins might make believing in utter nonsense more understandable. The details about the originating cranks and charlatans get lost, for one thing. That's a real problem for recent religions, so they make up bullshit about how the founder wasn't really a sex addicted semi-literate con artist (to use one recent example,) but contemporary accounts in newspapers, court documents and such tend to be inconveniently irreverent.

By comparison time leaves a lot more gaps- there's only one written account that Jesus existed written within two generations of his supposed death, and there's legitimate reason to believe that's a later forgery. So people can believe whatever they want about him, we have no reliable evidence from anybody who ever met him that he existed at all. If he was a scam artist pulling the old water into wine trick and fleecing the gullible throughout Judea, contemporary denunciations and court documents to that effect don't survive. If they did, it would be a bit more of a trick to be faithful I would think, but perhaps it wouldn't stop people. It certainly doesn't stop Mormons, or Scientologists, or other followers of recent religions set up by known cranks.

[boppers]

38. Crazy burning-bush faiths still exist.

Oh, and the Christians *were* soundly mocked for a long time. Even, as the story goes, fed to lions.

[Rittermeister]

39. By those evil, religiously tolerant Romans

who were, one imagines, seriously freaked out by Jews and Christians with all their "chosen people" and "no Gods but mine" dogma.

[piratefish08]

20. religion shrouded in antiquity makes it more dangerous.

[Bluenorthwest]

28. In what way? Compare Greek Orthodox Christianity and Scienctology in such a way as to

highlight the ways age makes Greek Orthodox more dangerous than Scientology. Be specific.

[truebrit71]

34. Is that 'Last thursday' in Kolob time?

ALL religion is stupid, but at it's very core it is mostly just evil...

[boppers]

42. LOL, I think you might have to have studied it a bit to get that one.

[uponit7771]

31. That's not scriptual based either, the Mormon stuff is...

...there are Christians on Earth who believe George Bush is smart too..

Just because some people believe doesn't mean it's written

[boppers]

41. One: The Catholics believe it's the flesh and blood of christ.

That's their *interpretation* of scripture.

Same with Kolob.

[SunSeeker]

10. And what is up with their magic underwear?

It's supposed to protect them somehow, right? I once had a mormon neighbor and she would have racks of these weird white long-john type things hanging in her garage, along with shorter (summer) versions consisting of what looked like white bicycle shorts and tank tops. She said she started wearing them when she got married. They were always under her clothes, sort of like a burqa, but underneath instead of on top. And we're talking toastie Southern California. Blows my mind.

[boppers]

43. It's supposed to be a symbol, a reminder, of one's faith.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_garment

[SunSeeker]

44. Wow. Even crazier than I thought. nt

[boppers]

45. It's a common thing in religion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantilla
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_headcovering
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallit

My current personal favorite:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tefillin

People wear some very, very, weird things for religious reasons.

[Blue_In_AK]

13. It makes about as much sense

as many stories in the Judeo-Christian Bible. It's probably not meant to be taken literally. (Or at least I certainly hope not.)

[Egalitarian Thug]

14. Nope, that's one of the reasons Mormonism really is worse than the others.

It was invented out of the blue in recent and well documented times. It was thoroughly refuted as nothing but an outrageous confidence scheme created by a well-known con man. It was invented to separate some seriously screwed up people from their money and all of the crazy is to be taken literally. Here's another side effect of it's contemporary origin, no mis-translations. Mormons literally believe in the crazy shit in their book.

Now, Jewish/Christian/Muslim crazy stories have reason's for being. The most common being that it was included in order to make the religion more acceptable to people that were being converted since the alternative was usually to kill everybody. The virgin birth is one example of this. Bishop Shelby Spong has written quite a few books documenting the explanation and origins of this stuff as it relates to Christianity.

I don't buy any of them, but Mormonism is far more similar to Scientology than to any of the "mainstream" mythologies.

[Blue_In_AK]

15. I see your point.

I hadn't thought about that angle, the relative "newness" of the religion. Honestly, I don't know a whole lot about Mormonism, although, like you, I know quite a bit about the history of Christianity.


It's funny how people are always trying to find some kind of spiritual enlightenment, something more than reality, as if the fact that we even exist at all isn't miracle enough.

[Egalitarian Thug]

27. "as if the fact that we even exist at all isn't miracle enough."

That just might be the most enlightened thing I've read here.

[truebrit71]

35. Nothing miraculous about it actually...

...just some pretty bloody long odds...but still just boils down to boring, basic old miracle-free science..

[Blue_In_AK]

40. Whether or not science is miraculous depends on your point of view.

To me, it is -- so we agree.

[cali]

16. well said. and it was created by a known con man.

[JHB]

18. There are few things as ridiculous as the fine details of someone else's religion

And few things as potentially enraging as what those fine points say about yours.

[piratefish08]

19. Creation myths are hilarious, including this one!

[Prophet 451]

21. Everyone one's religion looks batshit from the outside

My own faith believes that God is a sociopathic sadist who toys with us for his own amusement and Lucifer is the justified rebel against him. To an atheist or someone in a more mainstream faith, I'm sure that sounds equally insane.

[siligut]

25. The LDS church controls member's lives

The church keeps people busy with church activities, it keeps them from thinking about the craziness.

Sunday for a three hour block
Sacrament
Sunday School & Primary
Priesthood/Relief Society (Men/Women)

During the week
Youth Activity Scouts
Visiting teachers

Each morning for High School
Seminary Either pullout of class or 6:00 AM in the morning

This is for Utah, I don't know about the other states.

This fits the definition of a cult.

[MineralMan]

26. Yeah, that's way weirder than

the traditional Judeo-Christian mythology. Talking serpents, global floods, guys rising from the dead (not a zombie, though), and a deity that can't make up its mind to either kill everyone on the planet or treat them all to a fish dinner.

And then, there's heaven and hell. That makes way more sense than the planet Kolob, for sure.

Uff da!

[Bluenorthwest]

29. All it takes is the words 'Prop H8' to know what I need to know of Mitt and his affinity group

It is interesting to me that the same folks who don't want to discuss that activist politicized religion are often the same people who said Prop H8 was a distraction from the election, often the defenders of Mitt's dogma have a strong anti gay and anti minority history themselves. Funny how that works. It is all affinity groups revolving around political goals, this is after all, politics, not church.

[MineralMan]

30. In that, the Mormons, the Roman Catholic Church, and countless

fundamentalist churches take the same approach. The Mormons are no worse than the others in that particular regard. It isn't really the individual religion that is the problem, I think. It's an inability to look at social issues without relying on some ancient (or not so ancient) faith teachings that are based on some sort of supernatural concepts. Religion in general is the problem, not a specific religion. Religion has fixed moral compasses in some areas. Believers believe, but don't really think about those fixed beliefs. It's too bad, in general.

Romney is a jerk. It's his upbringing. He shouldn't get anyone's vote, based simply on that fact.

[_ed_]

33. Don't forget that was Catholics and Mormons working together

Says a lot about Mormons when they choose to ally themselves with the Catholics.

[_ed_]

32. No Crazier than a talking snake or a man riding to heaven on a horse

All religions are false. Mormonism just happens to be newer and much easier to disprove since we know so much about Joseph Smith and his criminal record prior to his "founding" of the faith. It's like Scientology in this regard. A hundred years from now Scientology will be like Mormonism and there will be a new bullshit religion.