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Seems everyone I have met that is not Mormon seems to have quite a negative opinion on the LDS Church. I remember even in a class once at my community college the girl sitting at my table was saying how much she hates Mormons. And yes, she even used the word hate. She then proceeded to ask us sitting at the table with her if we were Mormon. I really don’t understand? The same thing happens at my University. I’m not perfect myself, but I really don’t have any disdain towards any religious group. Sure, I think some are weird, but I would not really say I hate those said religions. What is it that causes so many to have such a negative opinion of the LDS Faith? I don’t generally encounter people with dislikes of the church as you describe. I don’t know where you live, but Mormons are few and far between where I live and perhaps that is part of it. I do recognize there are people who don’t agree with the church’s gay policies, and might venture a guess that this might fuel some of what you see. One thing to consider. In general terms people tend to fear or dislike people in out-groups. We don’t like people that are a different color… until we get to know more people that are a different color.
We don’t like people that are from a different country… until we get to know more people that are from a different country.
We don’t like people that are of a different sexual orientation… until we get to know more people that are of a different sexual orientation.
We don’t like people that are of a different religion… until we get to know more people that are of a different religion.
Provided, of course, that the experiences we have with people in out-groups are positive ones.
If the girl in your class hates Mormons there’s a good chance that she doesn’t know many Mormons… or has had a bad experience with the few Mormons she does know.
nibbler wrote:
One thing to consider. In general terms people tend to fear or dislike people in out-groups.We don’t like people that are a different color… until we get to know more people that are a different color.
We don’t like people that are from a different country… until we get to know more people that are from a different country.
We don’t like people that are of a different sexual orientation… until we get to know more people that are of a different sexual orientation.
We don’t like people that are of a different religion… until we get to know more people that are of a different religion.
Provided, of course, that the experiences we have with people in out-groups are positive ones.
If the girl in your class hates Mormons there’s a good chance that she doesn’t know many Mormons… or has had a bad experience with the few Mormons she does know.
This.
Also, cathoics, JWs, the FLDS Church, Islam, Judaism would all say the same thing about their own religion. It’s funny, a few years back I remember stumbling across an article which read “Why Catholics are not Christian”. When you belong to the one true religion, everything confirms that your religion is the correct one. “They hate us because we’re God’s true religion, and they’re just mad because they are decieved by the devil.” “They like us, because they were touched by the Spirit of God, which spoke to their valient premortal spirits, and confirmed the truthfulness of our religion.” The relatity is, there are plenty of people who love the LDS, and plenty of people who hate the LDS, and lots of people who don’t really care. There are a million different reasons why a certain person would feel a certain way.
Like Nibbler pointed out, a few bad experiences can really set you against a group. A few good encounters can really give you a good opinion. And with the LDS Church (like any group), with members a chaotic mess of good and bad, people’s perspectives are going to vary wildly from the truth.
As someone who served a mission in areas that were antagonistic to the church, I have the following reasons. 1. Pastors in other churches train their membership we are not Christian and are a cult. I believe our persistent and ever-present, expanding missionary force takes membership away from other mainstream churches. And these churches have responded with a lot of negative movies and propaganda about us to stem the flow of people leaving their churches.
2. Our values run very counter to the prevailing ideals of socialism and left wing politics. Our policies toward women and people with same sex attraction are a case in point. These things irk many people with those liberal values. Particularly when we excommunicate the outspoken ones like Kate Kelly.
3. There is a lot of what I will call “Bible worship” in other churches. They would disagree with that term, but it has seemed like that to me in the many convos I’ve had with them. “It’s only true if it’s in the Bible”, they say. Without recognizing that five people reading the same passage of scripture will have a different and often incompatible meaning for that very passage. So, when we show up with the book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and prophets who claim to speak to God and can add new revelation at any time, that offends the core logic of much of the Christian world.
4. Our history – the mix of plural marriage, blacks and the priesthood, and all the other “weird” stuff that is in our history marginalizes us to the rest of the world.
5. A small portion of the membership can be annoying and self-righteous. I heard that was a problem in the early history — we were claiming we were taking over with the advent of Zion and ticked off a lot of local people. So apparently antagonistic feelings continue to prevail in some of those areas.
6. I think our constant door approaches from the missionaries creates a negative impression and lumps us in with other door-to-foor religions that are on the fringe, as well as door to door salespeople.
SilentDawning wrote:
6. I think our constant door approaches from the missionaries creates a negative impression and lumps us in with other door-to-foor religions that are on the fringe, as well as door to door salespeople.
If I were a mission president, I would probably ban tracting, as I believe, overall, it does more harm than good. I got way more neutral responses than anything else, but there were still way more negative responses than positive ones. It would probably also motivate the membership to do more effective, non-threatening missionary work.I would say that we are disliked to about the same degree as the JW’s. I believe that it is a combination of:
A) That we have weird beliefs (Polygamy and the Priesthood ban are biggies – make us seem sexist and racist)
That we believe that we are the one true religion and make a point of coming to your house to tell you about it. I have noticed a trend among other Christian religions to be more ecumenical. The trappings of religion and “doing church” (rules, forms, legalism, and Judgment) are falling out of favor. Spirituality and personal relationships with the divine are on the upswing. One of my favorite quotes that represents this trend was told to me by a Baptist pastor, “You can be saved and be Mormon, but it won’t be the Mormonism that saves you.”C) Self righteousness. I imagine that people who dislike Mormons have had bad interactions with Mormons that seemed to think that they were better, more righteous, more favored by God than their non-Mormon peers and classmates.
Opinions of mormons may not be quite as bad as we sometimes think. My neighbor across the street posted some nasty mormon shots at us on Facebook (not sure she thought we could see those…but we called her out on it…she retracted…but we know now how she feels). That is one neighbor on a street full of neighbors. We don’t know how all of them feel about us or if they know us, but I am fairly certain it is not the common feeling towards our family. This topic came up during Romney’s political run, and if people would vote for a mormon. Their research showed:
Opinions of Religious Groups:
(Favorable Unfav No Opinion)
Jews (76 9 15)
Catholics (76 14 10)
Evang Christians (60 19 21)
Mormons (53 27 20)
Muslim American (53 29 18)
Muslims (43 35 22)
Atheists (35 53 12)
Quote:Overall, a slim majority of the public (53%) expresses a favorable view of Mormons, while 27% view Mormons unfavorably. By this measure, the public views Mormons more favorably than Muslims (43% favorable) and atheists (35%), but more negatively compared with evangelical Christians (60% favorable), Catholics or Jews (76% favorable for each group).
I also found it interesting that when surveyed people to describe mormonism in ONE WORD, the word “Polygamy” just barely edged out “Family” as top responses.
I would say that supports what Roy and others who wrote that our weird beliefs or past is still impacting our image by people who don’t know a whole lot about our religion. We are still relatively unknown, most people don’t think about mormons that much or know much about us. But many that know mormons usually have an opinion they are nice people, in general.
I wonder if people know any atheists…or if that is faceless group that is easy to pick out more negatively, moreso than mormons who neighbors mostly think are nice…except our one lady across the street.
Sometimes we have brought it on ourselves. Several people have brought up our policies as examples, but I think the dislikes also come from how we handle our own image.
We as a people are haughty. Even in our own setting we love to talk about how we have “the truth” and everyone else is deceived. If I was an outsider and heard those words – I would take a hugely dim view of our religion. Because my Jesus Christ doesn’t believe that we are ahead of the pack.
We also culturally judge everyone else. In the church and out of the church. People who dress like this. Or look like that. Have tattoo like such and such. Or water-ski on Sunday are bad. “From such turn away”. We all walk out the door with our judgmental list trailing beside us.
From our table the rest of the world is bad – like serious bad. In so doing we throw shade as equally toward them as those who throw it back at us.
Last of all, shows like Sister Wives don’t help either.
We have been hated since Joseph ever first opened his mouth. We have never been a quiet, keep to yourself church. I am firm believer in karma, and I think we are equally to blame for the perceptions others have of us.
Now to be fair – Evangelicals think the entire nation is against them. The media, the left, Obama, and on and on.
My goal is to be warm, friendly, kind, generous and human. I don’t proselyte, religiously debate, or wear LDS-ness on my sleeve. Not in fear, but out of courtesy. Jesus didn’t wear a badge announcing his name and mission. If he didn’t I won’t.
I agree with SD’s list. I grew up where most people didn’t know any Mormons. I was the only Mormon in my graduating class, and one of two in my high school. One of the few times the local congregations all got together was for a showing of the Godmakers. Some of my friends were suspicious that their congregations which were normally at odds would unite against ours. Plus, they knew me and knew I was pretty normal and not some kind of weirdo like the Godmakers portrays. So, my list based on my experiences in rural PA would be: 1) not knowing Mormons or not knowing them well enough to be friends with them.
2) their only experience being with missionaries who are tracting and look like the JWs (who like to argue and are often a bit more on the fringe).
3) relentless opposition from their own pastors to protect their flocks from #2, including using falsehoods to perpetuate fear.
On my mission, I’d add to #3 that the falsehoods perpetuated about us were even more outlandish. We had a priest on one island who told his congregation that we were there to kidnap children, and his parishioners absolutely believed it. They would rush out and grab their children off the doorstep if the missionaries were walking down the sidewalk. We were also often confused with the Amish from the movie Witness which had mistakenly translated “Amish” into “Mormons.”
Heber13 wrote:
I wonder if people know any atheists…or if that is faceless group that is easy to pick out more negatively, moreso than mormons who neighbors mostly think are nice…except our one lady across the street.
Athiesm is a weird catagory to group people in, because its based on not believing in something. There’s almost an infinite number of things I don’t believe in, but it wouldn’t make sense to catagorize myself by those disbeliefs. When most people think of athiests, they think of those who are constantly trying to show those belonging to other religions the error of their ways, and bring them unto the “Truth”… kind of like a few other religions I know. It can be a little bothersome. There’s also the stigma that those who are athiest have no morals, no concept of good and evil, and no motivation to act in an ethical manner. I think that is a very narrow-minded view.
Most actual athiests I know use a different term to describe their religious affiliation:
-Agnostic: I don’t believe in a god, but I don’t want to argue.
-Humanist: I believe in the goodness and inherent worth of all human beings, and that’s good enough for me.
-Buddhist: I don’t believe in a god, but I believe there is beauty and goodness in most religions.
-Open-minded: I’m willing to hear you out, and possibly change my mind, but I don’t think the evidence for religion is there.
There are also many people, who remain active in a religion, even though they don’t ascribe to those specific beliefs about God. And many more who idenify as “unaffiliated”.
In brief: * What we do do – knock on doors, complain about gays
* What we don’t do – polygamy, drink, fornication
And most folk know us by the missionaries and the wold stories of Joseph Smith.
There is a very toxic form of atheism which is taking form out there – so called New Atheism. It’s very aggressive and combative… A lot of people just hate religion and only see the negatives. They also think religion is just greed and starts wars.
Interesting the 2014 to 2017 and the Mormon and Atheist categories 
[img]http://religionnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/PF_17.02.15_feelingThermometer_GP200px.png [/img] SamBee wrote:
There is a very toxic form of atheism which is taking form out there – so called New Atheism. It’s very aggressive and combative…A lot of people just hate religion and only see the negatives. They also think religion is just greed and starts wars.
Unfortunately, there are radicals in every belief system; people like war. I don’t know why.
On the flip side, one of my favorite inspirational speakers, Alain de Botton, is Athiest. He is pro-religion, and really sees the value in it. While he strongly doesn’t believe in a god, he is very empathic towards it; understanding what religion says about humanity, and society, and our personal needs and desires. He’s developed what he terms
“Athiesm 2.0”
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