Saturday, May 5, 2012

Missionary Mayhem

Today I got a visit from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (a.k.a. Mormon) missionaries. It was a very sweet elderly couple who started off trying to flatter me into submission. I invited them in and we all got comfortable at the dining room table before I started in on them. I am fairly familiar with LDS (their term for themselves) doctrine so I brought the conversation around to my main issue with the church, their treatment of the LGBT community. We spent the next hour going around in circles about this. I'll paraphrase the arguments for the sake of brevity:

Me:I support LGBT rights and the church doesn't
Missionaries: Gay people are more than welcome as full members as long as they don't act on their feelings
Me: I think there is nothing wrong with their feelings and they should be free to act on them
Missionaries: The Scriptures say it is a sin
Me: Scriptures can and have been altered and misinterpreted
Missionaries: Not that drastically
Me: The Council of Nicea had a serious debate over the divinity of Christ which is now commonly accepted by Christians. I'd say that's pretty drastic.
Missionaries: The Prophet says it's wrong
Me: A Prophet can misinterpret signs from God or just lie

Cycle and repeat those arguments in various combinations. They even had the gall to compare being gay to being a robber so I'd like to set the record straight:

The church, as a private organization, has every right to limit or exclude who they will from their activities. And it is my right, as an individual, to not associate with organizations that practice discrimination. The LDS Church is such a discriminatory organization and their logic for why doesn't hold water.

3 comments:

  1. Did it ever occur to them that the prophet or the scriptures could be wrong?

    -Ler

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Their entire belief system rests on trusting the prophet and scriptures, particularly the prophet's interpretation of scripture. This trust is meant to supersede all personal opinions/feelings and of course all scientific evidence.

      One of my key arguments was a belief in personal testimony, and heaven forbid that should contradict the prophet.

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    2. Kinda like the idea of Papal infallibility in the Catholic Church.

      -Ler

      Delete