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[Dutchling]

Catholic? I thought the US was mostly protestant?

[Sheb]

Yes, but around a quarter of them are catholics.

[Zangi]

Catholic? I thought the US was mostly protestant?

So...  I should just stick with Christian?   It would cover Catholic, Protestant and most of them other offshoots?

[RedKing]

Catholic? I thought the US was mostly protestant?

Catholics are the largest single denomination. But broadly speaking, Protestants are the largest grouping. Of course, that's a pretty wide array of Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, etc.

Catholic? I thought the US was mostly protestant?

So...  I should just stick with Christian?   It would cover Catholic, Protestant and most of them other offshoots?

Heh....except that the hardcore Southern Baptists and Pentecostals don't consider Catholics Christian and the fact that nobody considers the Mormons Christian other than themselves.

[Leafsnail]

I think I'm prepared to accept Mormons as Christian.  They do believe in Jesus after all.  And I don't think they'd ever leave my doorstep if I told them they weren't.

[RedKing]

Yeah....but they also believe Jesus went to North America after the Resurrection and preached to the Native Americans (who were actually the Lost Tribes of Israel). They also believe God lives near a specific star called Kolob. That's just scratching the surface...not to slag on any Mormons among us, but IMHO it's 19th-century Scientology when it comes to the wackiness of the cosmology and doctrine.

Belief in Jesus doesn't make everyone a Christian in the eyes of the mainstream Christian community (example, the Taiping rebels in China, whose leader not only believed in Jesus but claimed to be his younger brother).

[nenjin]

I have a hard time siding with South Park on this one. I've known a few Mormons, all generally very nice, clean living people. But if you believe something that is totally absurd, I've got to ask: do you act on those beliefs? Otherwise what do your beliefs mean? What about supporting a religious corporation based around those beliefs?

I'm willing to accept Mormons as Christian (not like I ultimately care since I'm not one), but there are things in their belief system that don't even come close to squaring with reality. And that's an issue the church needs to address.

[Sowelu]

Yeah, I accept Mormons as Christian.  They are not all that much weirder than Catholics.  (Try to look at Catholicism from the viewpoint of a complete outsider--it's super bizarre.)  Actually, most religions are totally weird in some way or other, including more mainstream Christianity.

As for most Mormons being nice people, it seems to be very true if you don't live in Utah.

[GlyphGryph]

That's all belief systems, really. They tend to tone it down the older they get, and Mormonism is still really young.

Still seem pretty Christian to me, since they consider Jesus the Christ and all, which is like the most important attribute of being Christian. Maybe the only one, really.

[mainiac]

I don't think beliefs get tamer as they go.  1st century Christianity actually had a lot less arcane stuff in it then what we have today.  We just don't notice because the weird stuff is hidden away behind super boring religious trappings.  But in the 1st century is was basically "oh yeah, the prophets forgot to mention that souls totally are a real thing, now be good and your soul will make it into heaven."  It's since then that we've added in all the angels and spirits and daemons and divine-mortal paradoxes and purgatory (whoops! retracted!) and miracles and divine inspiration and predestination and whatnot.

Just consider Easter and Christmas.  Easter is the most holy day in Christianity although most people don't realize that and it's religious trappings have probably changed the least since the 1st century.  We dress up in nice clothes so we can be told that Jesus rose from the dead and we should all be happy now.  Simple, straightforward and not that bizarre.  Compare that to all the stuff we've built up around Christmas, just on the religious side of things.  None of that stuff existed in the 1st century except for the bare bones of the stories.  It's all been created since then.

[GlyphGryph]

Well, Easter isn't exactly a Christian holider, either. It was just sort of retconned into being so. And Christmas hasn't been Christian in a long time (same for halloween). Thats pretty much completely secular insanity with a religious origin.

Christianity is a bit weird because it would basically incorporate any belief it came across in an attempt to convert people by saying "see, you won't REALLY have to change that much, you can just add Jesus to whatever you have!" and that finding its way into core doctrine.

[RedKing]

Catholicism: Making religious expy since 33AD.

[Sirus]

I have a hard time siding with South Park on this one. I've known a few Mormons, all generally very nice, clean living people. But if you believe something that is totally absurd, I've got to ask: do you act on those beliefs? Otherwise what do your beliefs mean? What about supporting a religious corporation based around those beliefs?

I'm willing to accept Mormons as Christian (not like I ultimately care since I'm not one), but there are things in their belief system that don't even come close to squaring with reality. And that's an issue the church needs to address.

Sorry, but that's hardly unique to Mormonism. Every religion has some bizarre facets that don't agree with reality.

[nenjin]

While that's true, Mormons believe some stuff that is re-authoring history that's still contemporary to us. You can argue that Jesus/Mohammed/Buddha might have lived so long ago that any evidence of them would have been destroyed. That doesn't make me more likely to believe, but it does makes me less likely to demand an answer. Modern day saints (which is what the upper echelon of the Mormon church believes itself to be) have to stand up to modern day scrutiny. And I have to look sideways at someone who decides not to exercise that level of critical thinking about things they claim they believe in. I actually listened to about.....6 hours of a closed meeting among higher up Mormon church leaders, and some of the stuff they take on faith is a little hard to fathom, because it's vested in temporal authority.

[Leafsnail]

Election thread guys?  I guess Mitt Romney makes it tangentially relevant but really not relevant enough.