Senators from Utah being Southern

[Tim May]

On Monday, June 23, 2003, at 05:25  AM, Harmon Seaver wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 20, 2003 at 08:36:03AM -0500, Kevin S. Van Horn wrote:
>> Sorry, but you've got your facts completely wrong here.  Mormons very
>> much consider themselves a Christian church; in fact, they consider
>> their church to be the restoration of the church Christ originally
>> established.  Jesus is a divine figure in the LDS church. He's
>> considered the literal son of God the Father; he's also considered the
>> creator of the Earth, the Jehovah of the Old Testament, and a god in 
>> his
>> own right.
>
>    No, Tim is right. The Mormons might consider themselves to be 
> "christian",
> but are not recognized as such by any other denomination. In fact, 
> they are
> billed as a "dangerous cult" just like the Moonies, etc. by most 
> christians.

Let me remind folks that I am areligious...I no more believe in a god 
or goddess or afertlife or supernatural things than I believe in the 
Easter Bunny. I view all religions as cults of magical belief.

Having said this, all of the Mormons I have known have been unusually 
honest, forthright, and hard-working. I worked with a fair number of 
them at Intel, and they were solid contributors. And the Mormons are 
doing well financially, here in the U.S. and abroad.

All of my Christian friends who are students of religion characterize 
LDS as non-Christian. Which suprised me when I first heard the claim, 
but I now see the point. LDS is fundamentally an occult belief system.

>    If you really take a close look at Mormon, you'll also note that 
> Lucifer is
> considered the brother of Jesus and of equal, or even more important 
> standing.

He was a hell of a lot more interesting than JC, that's for sure. I 
recommend "The Prophecy," the wonderful movie with Christopher Walken 
as the angel Gabriel.
>

>    Bizarre group. Read their history -- fascinating stuff. So is the 
> history of
> Islam. A poor man, Muhammed married a rich widow old enough to be his 
> mother,
> got visited by angels, started Islam, decided men needed multiple 
> wives, etc.

Islam is interesting because of the self-consistency of a single vision 
written by Mohammed. I am astonished that one person could write that 
whole thing (not that I have read much of the Koran, but what I have 
looked at is self-consistent). I figure Mohammed had latent talents as 
a poet or writer and these came out during his desert cave stays, 
perhaps, one might speculate, assisted by various herbs and mushrooms.

I once asked a Muslim rug merchant I knew about this. He was adamant 
that Mohammed did not write the Koran...he kept saying "Ha-breel!" 
Which, it took me a few seconds to figure out, is Arabic for the angel 
Gabriel, which I vaguely recollected was supposed to have come down 
into Mohammed's cave and dictated the word of Allah to Mohammed.

As such beings and such deities are fanciful, I am more interested in 
the psychological state that allowed a 7th-century merchant to write 
such a book.

--Tim May, Occupied America
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary 
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759.