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News & ArtsFriday, November 21, 2008
Religion / Books Want a Free Book o' Mormon?
Posted by Dominic Holden on Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 2:44 PM
"Wouldn't it be sad if the Mormons spent all their money sending out free copies of their book, and didn't have any more money to harass gay people?" writes Slog tipper Zoe. Yes, Zoe, that sounds marvelous.
So I can't guarantee this will work, but I just went and signed up for my free doorstop—err, Book o' Mormon—at Mormon.org, and my zip code wasn't a required field, but my address and phone number were (this suggests the Mormons don't plan to mail a package but they do want a gay dude's number). And when I finished filling out the form, it gave this message:
"Thank you for requesting the Book of Mormon from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You should be contacted by missionaries in a few days."
Oh, sweet Joseph Smith prancing about in body drawers: They are sending Mormons to my house! And if you sign up, they will probably send real, live, magical-underpanted Mormons to your house, too! So, if all goes well, I'll get to recycle a copy of god's word and have a couple strapping "elders" in my living room, where I can turn the tables for once—holding Mormons as a captive audience, attempting to convert them to secularism, lecturing them for their church's insufferable bigotry, pushing them to take shots of tequila, and reading them passages from The Stranger—instead of me being stuck listening to their drivel.
1
Let's go one step further... there are only a limited amount of Mormon missionaries in a specific area, so I say all of the gays in Seattle order up one of the Book O' Mormons and then what few delivery boys the Mormon church has will be spending all of their time delivering books to guys oggling them in strange living rooms... I'm gonna order mine now... who's with me?
5
I must have pulled this prank on at least a half-dozen people in college. Made all the better because the Elders had to tromp through the snows in beautiful upstate New York to visit some unsuspecting dolt who just wants to get back to their booze and bong. And if you think you can't get them off your doorstep when they show up unsolicited during Saturday morning cartoons, you cannot imagine trying to shoo Mormons thinking they have been called to save a soul in crisis.
6
Awesome! That is SO much better than getting 30 pizzas delivered to some random guy's house in the middle of the night.
7
ya know i love ya'll..... but this is getting to be a little much. I'm not sayin we should leave em alone, but this is borderline harassment and not effective to the cause.
8
Ugh, I tried this once in College: the Book of Mormon comes attached with two fat and ugly Mormom Missionaries named "elder"
9
This is great! Imagine sending Mormon missionaries to Babeland, the Center for Sex-Positive Culture, the Crypt, or Club Z. Or any manner of out-of-the-way places (like random metal shops down in SoDo). Or even the offices of Equal Rights Washington. The possibilities are endless.
10
This is _so_ not a cool idea. Not because I care if the missionaries are wasting their time or the church spends more on printing, or even that they'll kill more trees to print more books.
This is wrong because it's someone else's holy book, whether you agree with its contents or not. Treat it respectfully (that is, no flushing it, no burning it, no wiping with it).
I don't subscribe to the beliefs held in the Book of Mormon, the Koran, or Book of G'Quon, but I would no sooner thump the Book of Mormon than I would thump the Book of G'Quon -- it is disrespectful.
People get enormously upset when others degrade their holy objects. No, it's not rational, but it's valid. It's why I don't desecrate cemeteries.
However, I'd be happy to thump and desecrate a couple of strapping young elders.
This is wrong because it's someone else's holy book, whether you agree with its contents or not. Treat it respectfully (that is, no flushing it, no burning it, no wiping with it).
I don't subscribe to the beliefs held in the Book of Mormon, the Koran, or Book of G'Quon, but I would no sooner thump the Book of Mormon than I would thump the Book of G'Quon -- it is disrespectful.
People get enormously upset when others degrade their holy objects. No, it's not rational, but it's valid. It's why I don't desecrate cemeteries.
However, I'd be happy to thump and desecrate a couple of strapping young elders.
11
It's a shame nobody knows how to use reverse directories - found at every Public Library - to find the address of the people who gave Prop 8 tons of cash ... and then had them bugged by the LDS ...
12
One of the required fields is "Description". What are we to describe, the attributes we prefer in the two studs they dispatch to our door? This may actually require some introspection...
13
couple of points...
Question: is this environmentally responsible? The more books we order, the more get printed.
Statement: Good luck with the conversion, but remember, every mormon missionary spends several months at the Missionary Training Center to learn how to counter your arguments
Plea: If you're sending it to some "unsuspecting dolt", order it in a foreign language... BOMs are printed in damn near every language in the world. Make sure it's a language they don't know so they don't have the sligthest inclination to read it.
Question: is this environmentally responsible? The more books we order, the more get printed.
Statement: Good luck with the conversion, but remember, every mormon missionary spends several months at the Missionary Training Center to learn how to counter your arguments
Plea: If you're sending it to some "unsuspecting dolt", order it in a foreign language... BOMs are printed in damn near every language in the world. Make sure it's a language they don't know so they don't have the sligthest inclination to read it.
14
Much as I may dislike the LDS church - and philosophy - in general, I've found individual Mormons to be, for the most part, perfectly decent folks, and I'd rather win hearts and minds by convincing them that we're not evil horrible people. I'd feel guilty flipping too much shit to a couple of young guys.
Now, mailing the Chick tract on the Mormons en masse to various temples - that I could get behind. That Chick tract is actually very entertaining, albeit unintentionally so.
Now, mailing the Chick tract on the Mormons en masse to various temples - that I could get behind. That Chick tract is actually very entertaining, albeit unintentionally so.
15
They will share a good message many of you should take a moment to listen to after all despite you may not agree with their beliefs they'll at least respect YOU and YOUR time. Don't waste their time and resources with immature pranks.
16
My strategy is to purloin them (and the Gideon thing) from every hotel room I stay in. = No fat elders on my doorstep.
17
Careful, Dominic, this could backfire. If I see you riding a bicycle around Capitol Hill with a blank, vacant zombie-like expression on your face while babbling about the angel Moroni and the sacred golden plates, I'll know why.
18
Or the strappling elders in your fantasy might be smallish gremlin like guys like yourself Dom
arn't you getting in to some rather over the top fantasy land about now
the election is over, we lost
we are regrouping, for the better I hope, what does this still have with the other side, which consists of more Fundies, Catholics and hard shell Baptists than Mormon voters, duh
I wonder if our side bothered to do massive voter registration in Calif? bet not
this election cycle, did you see ERW doing any voter registration on C. Hill, I didn't
maybe we will continue to loose unless we get a grip on the basics of a winning campaign... oh ... forgot ... the Mormons kept us from registering voters. early money. get out the vote and better ads
the short list of our defeat
couple of Mormon families used to live next door to my family, while my mom was dying they were better to us in a thousand ways than her sisters or brothers ... almost strangers who cared a lot and acted ....
more walk than talk, maybe our campaign problem too ... all talk and no walk??
like a couple of uncles and aunts
arn't you getting in to some rather over the top fantasy land about now
the election is over, we lost
we are regrouping, for the better I hope, what does this still have with the other side, which consists of more Fundies, Catholics and hard shell Baptists than Mormon voters, duh
I wonder if our side bothered to do massive voter registration in Calif? bet not
this election cycle, did you see ERW doing any voter registration on C. Hill, I didn't
maybe we will continue to loose unless we get a grip on the basics of a winning campaign... oh ... forgot ... the Mormons kept us from registering voters. early money. get out the vote and better ads
the short list of our defeat
couple of Mormon families used to live next door to my family, while my mom was dying they were better to us in a thousand ways than her sisters or brothers ... almost strangers who cared a lot and acted ....
more walk than talk, maybe our campaign problem too ... all talk and no walk??
like a couple of uncles and aunts
20
What's with the required "Description" field? I put in that I would be shirtless, which is not unlikely. I hope that doesn't make them angry.
22
As a punishment, this falls under, "This hurts me more than you." As a student of religion, I ordered a Book of Mormon. It was free, I was curious, and I found it hilarious, at least until I started getting phone calls and visits from the fucking missionaries for months and months and months. I explained big, gay, happy Jew, but they kept coming. I explained in great detail why their book was an utter fabrication, provoking thought in someone at their missionary call center, and provoking great anger in another, but nonetheless, I was bombarded with Mormons for months. Save yourself the pain.
23
But Dominic, since you've already committed yourself to a future of "Elder" solicitors, you should get them to help you move the couch when they come by. A visit from the mormons is a great excuse to rearrange the living room.
24
I don't see why repeat visits from Mormon elders is a bad thing. It's their time that's being wasted so long as you don't take it too seriously, and it'll be nice to tell some Mormons that they better let gays marry, or else, every week for the next few months. It'll take out some of my frustration.
25
Somehow I don't think you're in for the fun you think you are. Sure it's funny now, but when they've come back for the 8th or 9th time you'll wish you'd never told fucking Mormons where you live. And all you're doing is wasting your time while you're letting them rack up their missionary hours so they can move higher up in their church of bigotry.
27
@10: Fuck holy books.
All books, "holy" or not, ought to stand on merit, and not on special pleading. If a "holy" book actually is divinely inspired, it'll stand on its own, right? An actual holy book written by actual gods would withstand human scrutiny in a way that no human-authored book ever could... unless, of course, you believe that humans are just as good at writing convincing non-fiction as actual gods are, even though most of their biographies claim omnipotence and omniscience (which would include the power and knowledge to write maximally convincing non-fiction).
And if a book crumbles under scrutiny like a Dan Brown novel... well, it's obviously not the work of one or more gods. And at that point, begging people not to insult obviously fraudulent "holy" books sounds rather similar to Stockholm syndrome, or to an abused spouse pleading for pity toward the abuser.
Note that saying a book is "partly" divine-inspired doesn't help, because now you need extra scrutiny just to separate the "divine" parts from the human-written parts. And to create an infallible "Word of God", as so many people believe in, you need infallible humans to spot and interpret the message.
The scary thing is: a lot of people believe they're infallible enough to succeed at this, which makes them fools, and a lot of them command followers, which makes them dangerous fools. Blindly praising religion drives more followers into the fold, which just throws gasoline on the fire.
All books, "holy" or not, ought to stand on merit, and not on special pleading. If a "holy" book actually is divinely inspired, it'll stand on its own, right? An actual holy book written by actual gods would withstand human scrutiny in a way that no human-authored book ever could... unless, of course, you believe that humans are just as good at writing convincing non-fiction as actual gods are, even though most of their biographies claim omnipotence and omniscience (which would include the power and knowledge to write maximally convincing non-fiction).
And if a book crumbles under scrutiny like a Dan Brown novel... well, it's obviously not the work of one or more gods. And at that point, begging people not to insult obviously fraudulent "holy" books sounds rather similar to Stockholm syndrome, or to an abused spouse pleading for pity toward the abuser.
Note that saying a book is "partly" divine-inspired doesn't help, because now you need extra scrutiny just to separate the "divine" parts from the human-written parts. And to create an infallible "Word of God", as so many people believe in, you need infallible humans to spot and interpret the message.
The scary thing is: a lot of people believe they're infallible enough to succeed at this, which makes them fools, and a lot of them command followers, which makes them dangerous fools. Blindly praising religion drives more followers into the fold, which just throws gasoline on the fire.
29
@10:
I buy 'holy books' at the dollar store to let my birds chew up. They're cheap and my parrots become more holy with every chomp.
What nonsense! It's a bunch of paper with ink on it.
I buy 'holy books' at the dollar store to let my birds chew up. They're cheap and my parrots become more holy with every chomp.
What nonsense! It's a bunch of paper with ink on it.
30
Dom naked - all Sranger staff naked - sell the pix for ERW fundraiser
walk no talk, action not reaction
walk no talk, action not reaction
31
#27 -- "Chronos"
That's the most insightful, well-written comment on any Slog post I've had the pleasure of reading in weeks!
Thanks for taking the time.
That's the most insightful, well-written comment on any Slog post I've had the pleasure of reading in weeks!
Thanks for taking the time.
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