HelixDab2

I'm happy to explain, although it's a like drinking from a high-pressure firehose. So much of this isn't going to make sense to anyone that wasn't raised Mormon. There's so much cultural garbage going on in Mormonism that people outside of it simply don't have a frame of reference for to make sense of it. If you really want to get an idea, I'd suggest the Mormon Stories podcast, by Dr. John Dehlin, which is currently clocking in at 1951 (!!!) episodes, averaging a little over two hours each.

I'm not going to deal with their Truth (capitalization intentional) claims in depth; those have already been adequately covered by Jeremy Runnels, among many, many others. It's very, very clear, once you start digging, that all of the Mormon ~~church~~ cult Truth claims are complete hogwash, and rely on feelings rather than any factual basis at all.

Okay, but, lots of religions make bullshit claims, right? That, by itself, shouldn't necessarily make a religion awful, right?

Fair enough. So lets move on to the meat and potatoes of what really makes the Mormon ~~church~~ cult bad; they exert undue authoritarian control over their members. I'm going to use Steven Hassan's BITE model here, and go through each salient point. Again, this is a lot, so buckle up, buttercup. Keep in mind that a lot of this isn't doctrine, but it is dogmatic practice, and is supported and encouraged by leadership at the highest levels.

Preface all of this with the understanding that the Mormon ~~church~~ cult believes that attending Mormon temples is a requirement for salvation.

This is going to take me a few hours to get through, so I'm going to come back to it when I have time.

Imagine a ceiling made of concrete falling on you versus a wood one.

That's... Unlikely. How many high rises have come down during hurricanes? It you're building a home with reinforced concrete walls that are tied to a solid foundation, it's not going to come down on you in a hurricane. A tornado might take the house down, but you're pretty fucked if a tornado hits your home regardless. As far as fires go, well, a wood-framed house burns down around you, so is that really any better than being baked in an oven? (Depending on how fast a fire moves, you may not lose a concrete or stone building.)

The biggest issue in a hurricane isn't the wind damage, it's the storm surge. A house made with reinforced concrete panels is going to be able to recover from that more easily than one that has a wooden frame and gypsum board or plaster; you don't have to replace concrete that gets wet.

Cost is very nearly the only driver for constructing houses out of stone, brick, or reinforced concrete. Ever priced out a stacked stone construction? I did, for a retaining wall; it was something like 100x more expensive than a pressure-treated wooden retaining wall. The retaining wall would have cost more than my house, in materials alone, never mind labor.

Lots of insurers have left the Florida markets entirely, because they're spending more paying out claims than they can take in for premiums. The ones that remain have sky-high premiums, thousands of dollars each month in some cases, because they're pretty sure that they will have to pay out claims. The result is that many homeowners in Florida can no longer afford insurance. Since you need to have insurance on a home in order to get a mortgage, that makes buying a home in Florida really expensive, unless you can pay cash up front.

You DON'T GET the CO2 concentration in proper nitrogen suffocation. Most people that are in oxygen-free environments don't even realize that it's happened; they get lightheaded, short of breathe, then black out and die. Any gas that's heavier than air and isn't CO2 can cause that kind of suffocation in an enclosed space, which is why SCBA equipment gets used in a lot of industrial applications. For instance, welding in enclosed spaces? The argon or nitrogen can easily kill you before you realize you're in any danger.

If you, for instance, connected your CPAP mask to 50# nitrogen tank, and cracked it open, you'd be breathing in straight nitrogen, and exhaling CO2. There would be zero CO2 buildup. As a result, zero panic. The problem is when you try to displace oxygen, but not CO2; you need to be displacing both so that you're not rebreathing your own CO2.

And you don’t get to tell me what I do or don’t believe in.

I can tell you, and everyone else, that you're lying, because it's clear that you are. What you say, and what you do, is consistent with people that are religious conservatives, not with people that are actually leftists, or Satanists. I can say that what you say you believe is not what you actually believe, because you haven't yet acted in a way that's consistent with your claims.

None of my communities are racist

Uh huh. And I'm sure that your posting about transracialism and apparent support of it has nothing to do with white people raised in white families trying to erase ethnic and cultural identities by claiming them as their own, right? And I'm sure that you don't mean it as a very thinly veiled attempt to refute the existence of transgender and gender-queer people either, right?

Oh, and hey, you entirely failed to address your red-pill community.

And attacking someone’s religion, regardless of what it is, is wrong too.

Yeah, no. You choose whether or not you adhere to a religion. If you don't want to be Mormon, you can send a notarized letter to the records department in SLC and have your name removed from their records. Or you can choose to publicly do things that will get you excommunicated, like advocating for protecting children from sexual predators (like, say Sam Young did). If you don't want to be tarred with that brush, then stop being Mormon.

The entire Mormon religion is a rotten religion, and it was started by a con man. Anyone that knows this, or has the ability to learn it, and still follows the con deserves condemnation. The information is out there for anyone that truly has an open mind, which is why Mormon leaders keep telling members not to read any sources that aren't approved by the Mormon church. How's that quote from Dalin Oaks go? Something about how things that are true, but not faith-affirming, aren't useful?

No, you don't get to gaslight me by saying you believe one thing while acting in the opposite manner. Or, more correctly, you can try, but it's transparent to everyone.

You started are the sole moderator and poster of both a red-pill community, and a "transracial" community which is pretty clearly racist. You push candidates that are known to support the election odds of far-right candidates, and you push deeply socially regressive education institutions. These all add up to a person that is misogynistic, racist, and believes in far-right ideology. Or, in simpler terms, a typical Mormon.

You know everyone can see what you're posting, right? If you post, for instance, 20 things that are positive for Stein, 10 things critical of Harris, and 1 thing critical of Trump, what's the trend? That's a pretty strong pro-Trump trend, since Stein's own campaign has said that they're about blocking Harris, and they know they can't win.

And this? What you're doing right here? Sea lioning.

Nah, probably does it for free due to his (very poorly concealed) ideology.

And is almost certainly a cisgender, heterosexual male, and my bet is that they're actually Mormon.

The election is going to be tight. Right now, Harris leads very, very slightly, by about three points. FiveThirtyEight placed the odds at about 53-47 as of yesterday (and they're historically pretty good). Trump got his ass handed to him at the last debate, and he knows it. Unless he was able to git gud really fast, a 2nd debate would not improve his chances. Yes, he looks weak by not taking it on Fox of all places, but that's better than taking it an doing just as badly a 2nd time. There's almost no upside to him accepting an invitation to a debate.

But.

Trump is also incredibly egotistical. He wants to be on stage, and he thinks that he's good at debating. He wants to be seen; he needs to be seen. Turning down free publicity to present himself first--and his policies a distant second--on a national television program witnessed by millions of people, that's gotta hurt him.

Oh, I think I've seen this webcomic. Hold on, let me see if I can find it again...

I have been. I get contacted fairly regularly for polls.

Knowledge is something that can be prov

Does anyone else remember Halford's solo album, Fight?

Anyone...?

Was I the only one that bought that when it came out?