Letters to the Editor
-
education
i love reading your pieces. though we're on opposite sides on many topics, your expressed thoughts are always challenging and engaging. one area of strong agreement is your riff on the VA tech shootings; i cannot convey how refreshing i found your thoughts on the broken education system in this country. i am the father of two boys (7 and 14) and can see the workings of your observation. i think that segregating the sexes would also be an appropriate remedy because of the different pace of development. i would like to know your thoughts on this. thanks.
-
Dee Dee, knetwerk and poet756
Did you just get out of your bible study/young Republican meeting? Was it held at the Creationist Museumem? Did you frolick with dinosaurs? How's that abstinence only thing working for you? Do mommy and daddy know your blogging on a LIBERAL web site? Did you know that Camille is a lesbian? Ewww!
-
Rosie
Seems like you motivated some people to defend the indefensible. Rosie is insane
-
Readers: Get Facts Straight On Mormonism!
There are a shocking number of people commenting on Mormonism without the slightest idea of what they are talking about. For full disclosure I will say that I am not now a Mormon but was one for over 25 years. I am a former missionary and taught gospel doctrine classes when I was active many years ago so I have a fairly good idea of what Mormon believe in.
I am now a secular humanist/atheist so I’m not hear to appologize for Mormonism. However,the level of religious illiteracy here is so staggering that I have to set a few things straight:
1. Mormons are a Christian sect that belive that God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are three separate intities (God the Father and Christ are corporeal and the Holy Ghost is spirit). Mormons believe that Jesus Christ is the literal son of God and his mediator here on earth. Despite the accusations of polytheism here I want to state that Molrmons do believe in a multiplicity of Gods (on other worlds) but also believe that they are only concerned with –and worship- ONE God; the Father through his son Jesus Christ.
2. Mormons are not against birth control as one person mentioned. I know many active Mormons in positions of authority in the Church and they all use birth control.
3. Mormons are not against stem cell research (all three mormon Senators—Bennett, Hatch and Reid are for it as well).
4. Mormons do not deny the ressurection as one reader stated.
5. Mormons do not worship Joseph Smith as one reader mentioned.
6. According to Mormons, Jesus Christ will judge mankind in the end (one reader suggested that Joseph Smith has this august distinction).
7. Mormons believe in the Old and New Testament (but also have the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price and The Doctrine and Covenents as ancilary scripture).
8. Shamefully so, Mormons did not give the preisthood to Blacks until 1978. However, one reader said that his Bishop told him that Blacks were evil and this is a boldface lie. Many Mormons, including ranking members of the heirarchy said that Blacks were cursed with dark skin because of the sin of Cain but this was not official church doctrine and has since been repudiated by many church leaders. Racism among Mormons is about on par with- and probably lower- than most Christian denominations.
Again, I don’t give a shit about the fate of Mormonism but I hate to see silly people spouting off about things they know little about.
-
split-or-embody (?)
Please. Don't trash your daughter when she starts expressing views that are not shared by you!
-
Just for the record...
... there was a "black soap"--not all black, of course, but the one of the two core families was African Americans. It was called "Generations" and it was the absolute bomb. NBC pulled the plug on it after two years--a criminal shame. It was smart, sexy, well-written and, because African Americans were half of those present on the screen, you actually got a full range of character types--good, bad, lovable, ridiculous. There's never been anything like it before or since in soap opera land--and that's a bad thing.
-
Hey there Anonymous Former Mormon
That was very helpful. thanks.
Mormons are super-extra-anti-gay though, right?
-
Long Live Camille
Dear Salon,
Please don't stop publishing Camille Paglia! What other author can generate 147 letters that are all more insightful and better written that the original article.
-
congratulations
I had always assumed that Salon readers were the "independent thinker" type. But then I read the screeching, howling reactions to Paglia, sometimes even vicious, personal attacks. Most of these letters seem to be complaints that Paglia has a Salon column. Get rid of her, she's out of date, I'm canceling my subscription, die, Camille, die, etc. This is Salon's readership. Congratulations, Salon.
-
Extra: Camille has finally jumped the shark and needs to retire....
You have to be kidding - is this a damn joke? You are condemning Rosie, lauding "The Donald" and telling us you adore soap operas all in one delusional pant?
Get a life lady, you are not only misguided and twisted, but so tired.
Turn in your credentials and please, give it up already.
-
A Mormon Reality Check
I could not agree more that the level of understanding about Mormonism on this thread is beyond embarrassing. As it happens, I am an actual, practicing Mormon, among other things, including 1) a humanities dean at a secular state university; 2) a liberal democrat with absolutely no intention of voting for Mitt Romney; and 3) an avid reader of history who is completely aware of inconsistencies involving Mormon origins and doctrines. That said, I would like to add a few points to the debate:
1)Mormons generally believe many of the things that others who claim to be Christians believe (the virgin birth, the Resurrection, the divinity of Jesus, the scriptural authority of the Bible) but they do not believe other things (the unity of the Trinity, the unique authority of the Bible, the completeness of the biblical canon). Whether or not that makes Mormons Christians depends entirely upon who gets to control the definition. Being a Christian is not like being, say, a Boy Scout, where there is a single controlling authority who gets to decide who does and doesn’t belong. Anyone who wants to can construct a definition, and some definitions will include Mormons and some won’t. I find it an extremely unimportant point, and I am quite happy to say that Mormons are an Abrahamic religion like Judiasm, Islam, and Christianity that claims, roughly, the same relationship to Christianity that Christianity claims to Judaism. More to the point, I find it to be simply a waste of energy to spend time debating whether or not X is Y when Y has no stable, objective definition.
2)Mormon beliefs are not inherently stranger than those of any other religion. Much seems to have been made of the Mormon belief that Jesus visited America. But, for heaven’s sake, once you have suspended rationality enough to accept that he was born to a virgin (who, in many traditions, was also born to a virgin), that he was resurrected from the dead, and that he is a single being who is also three separate beings, then you have given up all rights to call other beliefs about Jesus “illogical.” If he could appear to Paul on the Road to Damascus, he could certainly appear to people in America—probably in pretty much the same way. You can take pretty much any Mormon belief that you find weird and compare it to a similar Catholic or Protestant belief that, if seen from the point of view of someone who doesn’t believe it, would be every bit as weird. Religion is generally about believing weird things, and just because Christian weirdness is 1800 years older than Mormon weirdness doesn’t mean that it is somehow more rational.
3)Like any community of 13 million or so people, there are all kinds of different levels of belief and literalism among Mormons. We do not march in lock step, as recent comments between Mitt Romney and Harry Reid will demonstrate. Some Mormons believe the historic elements of the religious fact claims quite literally, others see them figuratively, and others still simply feel a connection to a culture. There is a very strong, very active community of progressive Mormon scholars who publish academic journals, magazines, and books examining, questioning, and debating every point about Mormonism that has been made on this list and many more that have not. The broad generalizations about Mormons, and the assumptions about how they all think and perceive issues, don’t even hold true at my dinner table, much less the entire population. People become, and people remain Mormons for a whole lot of different reasons, very few of which can be shoehorned into the pigeonholes articulated so far in this discussion.
4)Anyone who tries to define Mitt Romney primarily as a Mormon is missing the point. Because Mormonism is unfamiliar to many people, they tend to overidentify Mormons with their religion in a way that they would never do with, say, a Presbyterian (how DOES your view of predestination shape your willingness to send troops into Iraq—after all, the outcome has already been decided?) Mormonism has so far played a very small role in his political career so far. Romney is an entrepreneur, someone trained by the Harvard Business School to analyze markets and find niches that can be exploited. When he was running for governor of Massachusetts, the niche that he found was that of the fiscally conservative social moderate, so that is the product that he designed. Now, though, the niche for him to move into is “cultural conservative heir to Ronald Reagan,” and his new product will fill this niche. His religion is simply a side show for the press and the readers of articles in Salon.