Why don’t people like us?

[Bronco73idi]

In general, we are against LGBT+ and have taught that it is a sin. After prop 8 and Mitt Romney and now the billions in the stock market, we're seen like the rich jews, which were also very low on the survey.

Quite the opposite. The Jews were the most popular group on the survey, the Mormons the least popular.

There is a reason this world will not be saved from the destruction of the sun…. Only a few men left… Isaiah 24:6

[spiritMan]

believe or not we are the covenant people so far of this day and age. We are the covenant people. We are the Peters, Johns, Matthews, Moses, Pauls, Ruths, Daniels, ETC. of this day and age.

Most people in the church seem to be convinced that our trials consist of WofW, honesty, personal spirituality, time for scripture reading and temple attendance and family, not sinning, etc. BUT actually, our biggest test and tribulation and trial is that satan hates us.

He hates you and he will make sure that you feel it. Probably the worst thing on this earth is to be unloved or even disregarded. satan will make the covenant people feel his hate cuz that gets lots of people to turn away from this gospel and its covenants.

If every person in the church were lovable, kind, helpful, cheerful, talented, etc. then satan would still work his fiery butt off to make everyone he could to hate us.

those who get out of the kitchen can't feel the fire anymore . . but . . they also can not keep their salvation . . cuz this is christs true church . . . the COJCLDS is his true church designed to bring us all back

the Bible isn't his church . . .non christian religions are not his church . . . non preisthood christian churches are not his church

best example next to us for having hate thrown their way would be the old covenant people of another dispensation. . .the house of Israel . . other covenant people . . hmmmm . . go figure

To me sounds like a whole lot of pride talking.
We are the bestest ever and because we are the bestest ever Satan hates us and because we are the bestest well people hate us too.
I think we should get a little Rameumpton right here. "God thank you that we aren't like these other heathens and that we are the bestest and we know that no matter what Satan will try his best against us the bestest ever". . . .

SMH.

[Ebenezer]

We knock on your door during dinner time.

We are still believed to be polygamists.

That musical made us look like weirdos.

[layer8prob@gmail.com]

In general, we are against LGBT+ and have taught that it is a sin. After prop 8 and Mitt Romney and now the billions in the stock market, we're seen like the rich jews, which were also very low on the survey.

Quite the opposite. The Jews were the most popular group on the survey, the Mormons the least popular.

Of course the Jews were the most popular, you're not allowed to criticize them.

[Wolfwoman]

I didn’t know guests could comment on this forum.

[Niemand]

I don't actually believe Jews were the most popular. A significant section of the population hates them for various reasons. This forum includes some of them.

I would expect Scientologists or Devil Worshippers to be bottom on the list, although the latter is seen as cool by some people.

[endlessQuestions]

Babylon wants us to change in ways even our psr leaders don't want to.

So:

SEC fines.
Pew research.
More and more negative press, slowly turning the screws on men who care about nothing more than they care about the image of "THE CHURCH".

Beatings will continue

Until morale improves

And attitudes change

And doctrines, too.

Nothing new under the sun, I'd say.

Favoribility.png

I wonder what Russell M. Nelson's number would be, if they asked this question about him alone?

And I wonder if he would be happy or sad if his number was higher than the number for the Church he leads and represents?

[endlessQuestions]

The Atlantic taking a dig a couple years ago:

"All this posturing could be undignified, but I took pride in my ability to walk a certain line. Unlike my co-religionists in Utah—where kids went to seminary in the middle of the day, at Church-owned buildings next to the high schools—I was one of only a few Mormon kids in my town. If my classmates liked me, I reasoned, it was a win for Mormons everywhere. In the pantheon of minority-religion neuroses, this was not wholly original stuff. But I wouldn’t realize until later just how deeply rooted the Mormon craving for approval was."

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... on/617263/

[David13]

The truth is people honestly and sincerely overwhelmingly don’t like polygamy and cults. Debate over Joseph Smith’s involvement with it completely aside, people have made their assessment of early Mormonism and they reject it

The good Book of Mormon’s image was marred

Shouldn’t the Bible be marred then? From Abraham to 1100 AD the chosen people practice polygamy.

Jesus had an older brother named James. James the just had a mother named Mary.

Mark 16
1 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.

I think the big difference is that people in general in the US have always thought of the bible as a thing of the past. An ancient historical record.

The Mormons have always been known as a living and existing (cult?) living polygamy today, and associated with, and in Utah.

I think that was the general perception when I was a kid growing up in Michigan. Inevitably, some kid would say to me, hey Dave, when you grown up, are you going to move to Utah and have a bunch of wives? Ha ha ha. There were no Mormons in Michigan at that time. They came later, I think. Some other kid would then say "shut up, it's in the bible".

Premonition like. 50 years later I do find myself in Utah, but I'm far far far from having one wife, let alone more than one.
dc

[mudflap]

Why don't people like us?

Because we aren't "Saints".

And nobody likes a hypocrite.


I mean, imagine if we were "Saintly" - always forgiving, not cutting folks off on i-15, not the high divorce rate (is it still as high now as other places, or has it gone down slightly?), no MLM headquarters in Utah, not excluding or even labeling people as "non-members" for our "ward parties".

What if everyone was invited to our picnics - and were allowed to "BYOB" without getting disapproving looks from prudes? Or better - What if we were the kind of people that made everyone feel comfortable at our picnics?

What if we were actual Saints, instead of just bragging about having the title?

The gulf is wide on this one ^ : "What IS" compared to "What Should Be".

example:
I put the word out at church that I needed help unloading a 600 lb slab of soapstone and dragging it into my house. I got 1 volunteer. out of 600+ folks. Meanwhile, while we were fretting that it was going to show up the next day, we were at the cabin working, and our Christian neighbor (Baptist, if it matters, and yes - she knows we are Mormon), came over to say hi. She heard our troubles - we couldn't find anyone who could take off in the middle of the day to come help us - no set time from the shipper - anyway - she heard all that and said, "don't worry about a thing - I'll send my daughter over, and her son, my husband, and her husband. The day of, I called when the shipping company gave me the heads up that they were 30 minutes out - and within 20 minutes, I had 5 other guys there - in the middle of the day. Dropped everything, told their boss they are taking a late lunch, etc. One of them is a preacher at a local church. Oh, and the ward member from church also got there, so kudos to him. AND - my neighbor showed up about 15 minutes later - with BBQ pork sandwiches and water for everyone involved!

another example:
when I got the rafters up, I used a crane because winter was coming. The neighbors all came out to watch and when we set the last rafter, everyone cheered and the crane operator honked his horn! There were about 20 folks standing around, and more than a few cars parked in the road with folks cheering. Someone told me it was like attending an old-fashioned barn raising. Great feelings all around. But we were the only mormons there.

to be fair, my bishop has been excellent help and resource - he reviewed the plans and gave me an engineer's wet stamp (required by the city) - probably about $1200 worth of work. Also lent me a roofing nailer, and came out to set the lifting poles with 7 other LDS folks. That was the most we had help out. I've had 2 other folks come out once each to help from church (slinging 3/4" 4x8 subfloor panels, and setting floor joists), but that's it.

so yeah....mormons are doing a terrible job at being Saints, and that's why people hate us, IMO.

[MikeMaillet]

I live in eastern Ontario (Canada) and I can tell you that Mormons are not very much hated in my area any more than any other religious group. Some find the proselyting to be annoying and in that regard we get lumped in with the JWs. I live in a rural area about one hour between Montreal and Ottawa. The members in my area are good, humble people and maybe it's because of their influence that the Mormons are well regarded by many where I live.

Mike

[Atrasado]

Babylon wants us to change in ways even our psr leaders don't want to.

So:

SEC fines.
Pew research.
More and more negative press, slowly turning the screws on men who care about nothing more than they care about the image of "THE CHURCH".

Beatings will continue

Until morale improves

And attitudes change

And doctrines, too.

Nothing new under the sun, I'd say.

Favoribility.png

I wonder what Russell M. Nelson's number would be, if they asked this question about him alone?

And I wonder if he would be happy or sad if his number was higher than the number for the Church he leads and represents?

One thing that skews that research is demographics. There aren't nearly as many Mormons in heavily populated areas as there are Jews, Catholics, and Protestants. And overall, there aren't that many atheists or Muslims, either.

People like the people they know, as long as they don't feel threatened or treated poorly by them. In Utah and certain parts of Idaho and Arizona I could understand someone feeling threatened or being treated as less than although I always felt that accusation was overblown, at least I hope so.

On the East and West Coasts, we are rare and different so people go based on reputation.

____________

But sometimes we just can't win. A colleague told me today about being at a math conference a few years back. The speaker was talking about how he would ask a Mormon kid in his classroom to bring their "Y" (BYU) hat as a way to help the other students to remember a math term. (They were working on regressions and ŷ is the predicted value of a regression equation.) The other teachers wanted to know how to find a Mormon kid. He said, you know, they're the ones that always do their homework (that wasn't me), are nice to everyone (unfortunately, wasn't me), and probably play an instrument (I only play the radio).

But when my friend asked why he didn't just get a BYU hat the speaker said he didn't because he wouldn't want to be mistaken as a Mormon. Even though he thought all those good things about Mormons he still didn't really like them. He felt stupid when he found out that my friend was Mormon.

Sometimes that's the case and there's nothing that can be done about that and I think it makes things worse to worry about that or even try to "fix" it. Because if we worry too much what people think we either end up as a perfectionist or a groveler and neither trait really endears much.

[JSmith]

In a word...polygamy.

Took more crap from that than ALL OTHER THINGS combined on my mission.

Because they are believers of Paul.

"Believers in Paul" maybe because Paul wrote the majority of the New Testament? Maybe we could call them believers in the New Testament?

Paul did not write the New Testament. There was no advocation for a new cannon of scripture during Paul’s lifetime. The New Testament was compiled generations after any of those documents were written.

There was no New Testament church. There was no contemporary movement to compile new scripture. Early Christians made all the arguments they needed for scripture out of the Jewish texts. Because by and large up until about 70 A.D., they were all Jews.

The new testament is the result of a compilation that took place over generations of Orthodox debate over what would be canon and what would not be canon. We owe our entire can of scripture to the first three centuries of Christian movements.

[Dusty Wanderer]

Nelson has even tried to rid us of being called Mormons, for whatever reason.

Has this worked out for us? The numbers are a resounding “NO”.

This is what PR people, politicians, and "image makers" do. If they don't like the story, they simply try to change the narrative, rather than change the underlying issues.

[Silver Pie]

I didn’t know guests could comment on this forum.

It was a glitch. Apparently, it was a person who was banned to outer darkness (that's what it sounded like to me, when The Creator answered the person on Ed Goble's thread about hating this place). The site was down last night, so it was probably fixed and won't happen now.

[blitzinstripes]

Because they are believers of Paul.

"Believers in Paul" maybe because Paul wrote the majority of the New Testament? Maybe we could call them believers in the New Testament?

Paul did not write the New Testament. There was no advocation for a new cannon of scripture during Paul’s lifetime. The New Testament was compiled generations after any of those documents were written.

There was no New Testament church. There was no contemporary movement to compile new scripture. Early Christians made all the arguments they needed for scripture out of the Jewish texts. Because by and large up until about 70 A.D., they were all Jews.

The new testament is the result of a compilation that took place over generations of Orthodox debate over what would be canon and what would not be canon. We owe our entire can of scripture to the first three centuries of Christian movements.

You don't think Christ knew that the majority of the NT would eventually be constituted of Paul's letters to the churches?

Wow. He must have been utterly astonished.

[Silver Pie]

"Believers in Paul" maybe because Paul wrote the majority of the New Testament? Maybe we could call them believers in the New Testament?

Paul did not write the New Testament. There was no advocation for a new cannon of scripture during Paul’s lifetime. The New Testament was compiled generations after any of those documents were written.

There was no New Testament church. There was no contemporary movement to compile new scripture. Early Christians made all the arguments they needed for scripture out of the Jewish texts. Because by and large up until about 70 A.D., they were all Jews.

The new testament is the result of a compilation that took place over generations of Orthodox debate over what would be canon and what would not be canon. We owe our entire can of scripture to the first three centuries of Christian movements.

Now that you have that out of your system, consider the English language (American, for nit-pickers) and all the nuances it is capable of.

To say "so and so wrote the majority of the New Testament" can be taken literally (as if he had written a book and put a lot of his stuff in it, then circulated it), or it can be taken to mean that the bulk of the New Testament contains writings by Paul. Since it is common knowledge (or should be) that the New Testament didn't exist until after Paul's death, it seems obvious to me that blitzinstripes meant the latter.

[Shawn Henry]

The truth is people honestly and sincerely overwhelmingly don’t like polygamy and cults.

In a word...polygamy.

It's almost as if people have a natural aversion towards abominations. Who knew?

[Shawn Henry]

And nobody likes a hypocrite.

That could sum it up nicely.

Is it any wonder we were the only people given the warning of not preaching from our Rameumpton?

And yet we say; we thank thee oh God that we are the birthright tribe of Ephraim and that thou hast selected us to be the guardians of the saving ordinances whilst all those around us must come to us for salvation.

[tmac]

But through it all, and despite overwhelming dislike by others, in an effort to be loved and highly esteemed by the World, “the Mormons have a very high favorability rating of themselves.”

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2023/03 ... day-saint/

[BuriedTartaria]

But through it all, and despite overwhelming dislike by others, in an effort to be loved and highly esteemed by the World, “the Mormons have a very high favorability rating of themselves.”

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2023/03 ... day-saint/

[Wolfwoman]

But through it all, and despite overwhelming dislike by others, in an effort to be loved and highly esteemed by the World, “the Mormons have a very high favorability rating of themselves.”

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2023/03 ... day-saint/

To be fair, they also had high favorability for all the other religions. Also, why would you continue to belong to a church that you had a “low favorability” for? Seems like most members of churches would favor their own religion.

[tmac]

Good point. But it also seems to fit the whole pride thing. Mormons are very proud of themselves, because they believe TCOJCOLDS is the one and only “true” church in existence, and the only one that is personally directed by Jesus Christ, so why wouldn’t they give a very high favorability rating, right?

[gradles21]

I don't think it's polygamy, to me polygamy is just the low hanging fruit. I think it is because as a whole we are too materialistic, which makes us hypocrites.

[Christianlee]

People don’t like to be confronted about religion on their doorsteps. If the Baptists or the Catholics were sending their members door to door telling people their religion is wrong, they would have people against them as well. Jesus sent his disciples out and they weren’t received well either. It is not about being liked, but being faithful.

I suspect if the survey designated pro-life Catholics or pro-life Lutherans they would be as disliked as well.