Eran of Arcadia said:
Mormonism is criticized by some (including Xanik) for having a set of beliefs that are unusual. Scientology is criticized for its actions, including telling its members to stay away from mental health providers and paying large amounts of money to learn doctrine. What is more "cult-like", unusual beliefs or actual practices?
For me, I dont realy find Mormonism attractive to me because of their dietary laws on saying that I cannot have tea, alcoholm chocolate, or anything caffinated. Also my beliefs also would come into conflict since I believe in the Holy Trinity (Oviously Mormonism is a non-Trinidarian Christian religion similar to JWs) as well as a belief in the spiritual infalibility of the pope, and dont realy believe that the Book of Mormon is actualy true and does not hold much value to me (much like how I view the Koran in Islam and how the Jews view the New Testiment).
When I looked in Wikipedia about the LDS themselves, I noticed that they are not particularly open to the public (IE, they dont allow non-Mormon visitors into the temples in contrast to Catholic Churches where we welcome non-Catholics interested in Catholicism. Though both churches do practace Closed Communion).
What I see that does not help mainstreem Mormonism is the practace of polgyamy and extrime excommunications that are practaced by fundamentalist Mormons such as the FLDS. The excommunication and disfellowshiping is the only criticism I have with Mormonism (Though Catholicism has it's share of criticism of excommunication, though Catholic Excommunication is imposed half the time
Latæ Sententiæ or automaticly excommunicated. And Catholic excommunications are usualy spiritualy medicinal in nature). It seams to me that Mormon Excommunication has a harsh penalty of losing their church membership and thus cannot enter a Mormon temple, even if the individual become sincere of his repentance would still have to wait a long time, get re-baptized, and judged in a series of interviews. Same with disfellowshiping, they to, even if they are sincere of their wrong doings, are placed on prohbation. In reading, I noticed that they also excommunicate apostates, even if the apostate has an interest in a different religion and does not believe in Mormonism. (Catholicism sees apostasy as an excommunicatable offense, but the excommunicant is still considered Christian, as the person's baptism is still in effect.)
Though I am speeking from a Catholic point of view where Excommunications can be terminated with confession in the Sacrament of Reconsilliation (Though excommunicatable offenses of Simony, Desecration of the Eucharist, Physical force against the Pope, Attempted sacramental absolution of a partner in adultery, & Ordination of a bishop without a Papal mandate are reserved for the Holy See, either personally by the Pope or through the Apostolic Penitentiary.) In the Catholic Church, there is no disfellowshiping (But we do have closed communion and ask that non-Catholics and Catholics in a state of mortal sin to not partake in communion) and that our mortal sins are removed by confession in the Sacrament of Reconsilliation.
I do apologise if I had offended you in anyway with my criticisms. Since I do not fully understand the mechanics of Mormon Doctrines and Procedures.
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