This was a fun Twitter thread to read through. Someone posted the prompt to share any not-real LDS doctrine you were taught growing up that is not actually “sanctioned” or “official” church doctine. Here’s a recap of the laundry list of weird doctrines from that Twitter thread:
- When people get jail sentences that last longer than their natural life, they have to serve out the rest of the sentence in Spirit Prison before they can be preached to / saved.
- Every stitch I stitched on Sunday would have to be picked out by my nose in Heaven. (I swear I heard something like this, but I’m not much for needlework–maybe this is a non-LDS old wives’ tale).
- The twelve tribes were buried under the North Pole, so global warming is going to be a positive for them. (Is this like the plot of Encino Man?)
- In the afterlife, you have to reconstruct your body, so those who were cremated will have a much harder time doing that. (Out of luck if you died in a fire, I guess). Organ donation is also a bad idea by this logic (and has been called out by those who like to perpetuate this belief).
- That an ancient Nephite city was discovered under the ice in Antarctica. (Was this one of the theories about the Lost City of Atlantis that got Mormonized?)
- People born into abusive families had covenanted in the pre-existence to break the cycle of abuse, and if they fail, they don’t get their calling and election made sure. (Talk about blaming the victim!)
- Twins are more common now as a result of the legalization of abortion.
- The most important thing a woman can do is to get married in this life to avoid being a second wife in the eternities (I mean, this is kind of “real” doctrine, right?)
- Dinosaur bones were planted on earth because earth was made up of other planets, not because they actually roamed the earth. (I call this one God’s junkyard theory). Or conversely, that Satan put dinosaur bones in the earth to trick people into believing in evolution.
- Satan has control of the waters, which is why you can’t swim on Sunday. (I guess whoever is holding back Satan the other days of the week is resting that day?)
- Bigfoot is not Cain, but rather Judas Iscariot. (One Twitter comment calls this one “weird, harmless, exciting.” I agree!)
- When you have a miscarriage or stillborn baby, you get to raise it after the resurrection. (This is close to something Joseph Smith preached, but he said it about infants who died, not fetuses).
- Babies are speaking the Adamic language, and it takes a while for the veil of forgetfulness to kick in. (Lady Gaga indeed)
- We can’t talk about Heavenly Mother because there’s a different one for each race. (And yet the Church was still, disturbingly, preaching anti-miscegenation as recently as 2010).
- Although we still eat when we have a resurrected body, we don’t poop. Also, resurrected bodies have no blood, but instead pure spirit or “celestial fluid” flows through our veins.
- Vegetarians can’t go to the highest level of the Celestial Kingdom because it’s a commandment to eat meat.
- Having sex if you’ve been married in the temple allows you to remain a virgin.
- Using a tampon will mean you lose your virginity. (Just what are they doing with this tampon?)
- There’s a document deep in the Vatican admitting that Joseph Smith was a true prophet and the Catholic Church is the great and abominable church. (Hello, wishful thinking!)
- Fasting includes not having sex on fast Sunday.
- The Book of Mormon would eventually be scientifically proven to be true which would make it a trial for people to actually have faith.
- Missionaries who die go straight to Spirit Prison to continue missionary work. (Wow, that sounds like hell).
- Although God has populated many planets, earth was the lucky / best one because we got the Savior here.
- If you cry at a funeral, it’s because you feel regret that you didn’t serve the deceased well enough. Only those who are dry-eyed have a clear conscience. (Or are possibly sociopaths?)
- Judas’ mom did such a bad job as a parent that she’s going to outer darkness. (Oh, but Judas’ dad gets a pass, I’m sure. Also, this was apparently part of a Mother’s Day lesson! Happy Mother’s Day, everyone!)
- Only people in the Celestial Kingdom get to have sex in the eternities. (I mean, this one might be actual sorta doctrine because I for sure heard it).
- The fall is when Adam & Eve first got mitochondrial DNA in their cells. Before the fall, no mitochondria. (Is this a riff on the midichlorines theory from Star Wars?)
- If a child died, the mother gets to raise that child later, and the child remains at the age it died for that purpose. (This one is, I’m pretty sure, what Joseph Smith said to some grieving parents).
- This one is breathtakingly ableist and horrible: that those with Down’s Syndrome escorted Satan to earth after the war in heaven, and this was their punishment. (Whoever came up with that shiz is straight up going to hell).
- To counter that last terrible one, this is the version I have heard (and so have others in the Twitter thread), that those who are disabled were so perfect in the pre-existence that they didn’t need to be tested in this one, just to get a body. They are the best of all of us. Likewise, I heard that those who were born into wealth (or even into Church going families) were the “least valiant” because they got an easier test.
- When the earth receives its paradisaical glory, the continents will come together again as Pangea and will be flat. (Was there a flat earther seminary teacher out there?)
- In the afterlife, everyone will communicate through emotions because we won’t be able to see, hear, feel, etc.
- We will have to make our way to Missouri walking (even on our hands and knees) because the “rails will rust and highways will be bare.” (Is this part of the Stephen King novel The Stand?)
- Pepsi was made by aborted babies’ kidney juice. (What…Why…?)
- If you are addicted to something in this life, you will still feel addiction in the next, but you won’t be able to fulfill those cravings which will be your torture. (I definitely blame Nancy Reagan for this one).
- That everyone will be white in the resurrection. (I also blogged about someone who shared this white supremacist view in RS a few years back).
- That if you get a tattoo, it will remain on your for eternity, even in your spirit body and resurrected body.
- That after the second coming, the earth would be flat / no mountains. This is sourced from Revelation where it says the earth will be “as a scroll” (meaning flat).
- An institute teacher taught that babies born with AIDS / HIV were a punishment from God for their parents’ promiscuity. (Thank god, the person who shared this one also reported this person up the chain–but apparently, that complaint went nowhere).
- The Mount of Transfiguration was Jesus receiving the endowment. (I swear I also heard this one).
- That the Provo temple will roll like a wheel down the mountain in the big earthquake, then come to a rest undamaged. (I mean, except for being down the hill?)
- The “little factories” talk that means masturbation will mess up male fertility.
- That people start to look like their spouse because they are spiritually on the same page, and if you are righteous enough, you can eventually grow to look like the savior.
- That the angel Gabriel performed a sealing ceremony between God & the Virgin Mary so that he could impregnate her without breaking the law of chastity. (Someone claims this was in a 1958 BYU religion textbook!)
- That being buried in the East side of the cemetery would mean you didn’t have to wait in line as long at the resurrection. (Always thinking ahead!)
- That Marie Osmond had mental health issues because she didn’t wear her garments enough(!).
- That the lost tribes were in outer space and would return to earth at the second coming. (This is literally the original premise of Glen Larson’s Battlestar Galactica).
- That people who perform “superhuman” feats like lifting a car to rescue a child are actually one of the three Nephites. (This sounds like an offshoot of the Arnold Frieberg paintings).
- That nobody can find Montezuma’s treature because it includes the Book of Mormon plates and is guarded by the three Nephites.
- All food in the celestial kingdom is white. (I’m guessing that means a lot of starches?)
- That yoga / meditation / therapy can open you up to Satan or demonic possession. (This is for sure taken from Evangelicalism).
- The old “TK smoothie,” that only those in the Celestial Kingdom will have genitals. (Which is maybe why I always thought that priesthood keys = wedding tackle).
There were quite a few of these that I recognized as having their origin outside Mormonism (e.g. taken from Evangelicals or old wives’ tales). There were others that I think are just the product of someone speculating based on a nebulous church doctrine that they are trying to understand or justify.
All right, that’s enough for now, and you know what I’m about to ask.
- Did you hear some of these growing up?
- Are there some you’ve never heard before that have you scratching your head?
- What do you think is the origin of these types of beliefs?
- Are there any weird Mormon folklore beliefs you heard at home or church that weren’t included here?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
Definitely heard many of these! Cremation, Satan and water (which is why missionaries were prohibited from going in the ocean), miscarried children to raise, you can eat when resurrected but you don’t have blood, no sex on fast Sunday, earth got the only savior because all the other planets were more righteous and would believe, only the CK people get to have sex (or be married), we will be walking to Missouri, addictions will follow us, and we won’t need words in the next life because we can telepathically communicate. But the absolute worst was a variation of downs children. They were so evil in the pre-existence that they were punished by sending them into a body that would hamper their ability to continue to do evil.
Between all these nuggets and the quiet changes of so many doctrines (that were ALL apparently only policies!) I have no idea what the church actually holds as truth.
I’ve heard several. I believed the dinosaur one for a while in high school, that our earth was made up of pieces from other worlds. Also that faith in the resurrection meant you shouldn’t be sad at a life cut short. I’ll add:
Brigham Young refused to miraculously heal an amputee because then he’d have three legs in the resurrection.
The City of Enoch was in the Gulf of Mexico because when you put Pangea back together there is a hole there.
What’s interesting to me when reading this list is how close many of the folklore bits are to mainstream doctrine, as you note for example about the TK smoothie. It seems like we Mormons are enterprising at filling in the gaps by following general principles. For example, the priesthood/temple ban and the “mark of Cain” thinking is clearly alive and well in people coming up with explanations for babies born with Down’s Syndrome or HIV. You’ve got to have some account for why bad things happen to keep believing God is just! Or the second one on the list about sewing stitches on the Sabbath and having to pick them out (with your nose!) in the afterlife seems to be to be a clear application of the principle that God is vengeful, and just waiting eagerly to punish us for any tiny sin.
I think these types of things also illustrate how our doctrine on the whole is pretty much made up. I mean, these aren’t far from mainstream doctrine, and it seems like mainstream doctrine is just the loony things that Joseph Smith (and others) came up with that gained enough acceptance to stick. And the loony things that stuck came to feel natural and normal enough that now we don’t think of them as loony anymore.
I heard several of these in Mormondom growing up, but I can tell you that my nonmember mother, an Iowan Methodist, was taught the one about having to pick out with her nose any stitches sewn on the Sabbath–so that’s not exclusive to LDS lore.
re: addictions will follow us.
Read ‘Return from Tomorrow’ by George Ritchie. He talks extensively about his NDE and observing those who had died with addictions still intact. By his account, they do follow us. Even Pres. Oaks quoted the section on addictions from this book in a commencement address given to BYU Hawaii.
Recently heard variations on the folklore theme:
1. Jesus physically returns for 40 day periods just prior to and after GC. He attends all sessions dressed incognito and meets with the Q15 following the conclusion.
2. The gathering to Jackson County is in progress. Selected members are being called to build the New Jerusalem.
3. The 3 Nephites own primary residences in Utah County. They have married multiple times and are producing offspring with superhuman powers.
4. Registration in the Republican Party will soon become a litmus test for a temple recommend. Democrats need not apply.
5. CES is finally purging the lukewarm and apostate faculty from the BYU campuses.
6. RMN is being preserved as the final prophet prior to the millennium.
What about this one, that I mentioned a few days ago on this site:
– when you have an abortion, the “life” that you terminate will be given to another woman/family who wants this child to live
De Novo- I’m pretty sure I heard #6 about Hinkley.
I’ve heard a bunch of these, but way fewer than I expected.
So, what happens when one of the three wandering Nephites are sighted lifting off a car from someone, and they are not Caucasian?
I’ve discounted about everything I ever learned in 4 years of Seminary.
I’ve heard many of these, plus a few others:
• Only one DNA molecule is required for a body to be resurrected. I guess those whose bodies are completely destroyed at death for whatever reason are out of luck.
• We are resurrected in the same state we die, and we gradually become more and more perfect until we reach perfection at age 33, the age Jesus died.
• This opposite of one of Hawk’s bullets: if a missionary dies righteously (vs dying breaking a mission rule) they go straight to the Celestial Kingdom.
• Another opposite: our world is the most wicked of all of God’s creations because we crucified our own savior.
I heard the Pangea one for sure in seminary. I also remember saying the exact decibel level of music when the spirit was forced to flee the scene. It’s so interesting that we were so certain about things for so long that we became more certain about even more things. Now we are certain about a lot less and make up the gaps with “having faith” and being sure “it will be worked out in the next life.”
During my mission, an Elder in my district told me that it was impossible to have negative thoughts in the temple because God wouldn’t allow his children to feel awful in HIS house. As someone who struggled and continues to struggle with depression, I didn’t appreciate that at all. It was also ironic that he said that right after we did an endowment session, especially since one of the core teachings of the endowment is that we MUST experience negativity in this life in order to fully appreciate the good around us….
Like Elisa, I’ve heard less of these than I expected.
My dad told me these ones and he had a tendency to make things up so not sure if theses were his or part of the larger Mormon Zeitgeist:
That German is the language closest to the Adamic language and therefore we all learned German in high school
That my dead pets will be waiting for me but only if I get to the CK
That in order to become God I have to pass this earth test then go be a savior on another planet
Otherwise thanks for the laugh today!
Wow, I thought I’d heard all of the Mormon folklore, but I’ve heard less than 50% of those in the list.
I had early morning seminary growing up in “the mission field”. One hour every morning of every school day. I had 2 different instructors over my 4 years of high school, both of whom were very nice people who loved the kids. It must be a real challenge to prepare to teach an hour long lesson every school day when you hold another full time job. Because there was so much time that needed to be filled with content, they had plenty of time to pass along a lot of Mormon folklore to their students. I definitely heard the 12 tribes/North Pole, cremation, dinosaur bones, Satan controlling the waters, resurrected bodies have no blood, CK sex/genitals, raising children that died, and Pangea coming back together in seminary. A few of the others in the list, I heard from other sources.
My children attended release time seminary in high school, and I received a number of reports from them about some of the things on this being taught by one particular seminary teacher who was well-known for believing and teaching a lot of folklore. This seminary teacher taught my kids that references to dragons in the Old Testament proved that humans and dinosaurs coexisted in Old Testament days. She used this to explain why we have dinosaur fossils. Yes, dinosaurs are real and walked the earth, but they aren’t millions of years old like scientists say (carbon dating, geological data, etc. is all wrong). So year, don’t listen to the scientists–the earth is 7000 years old, and the dinosaur bones we dig up all fit into that 7000 year timeframe. My kids just graduated from high school, so this is still being taught in CES run seminary. I know that she’s a fringe seminary teacher, but still. I think she also taught my kids some other real crazy ones that I hadn’t heard before, but I can’t remember them right now.
Some folklore originates from the very top:
1. “it [masturbation] too often leads to grievous sin, even to that sin against nature, homosexuality.” (Oh, wait, that was Pres. Kimball)
2. “The inhabitants of the moon are more of a uniform size than the inhabitants of the earth, being about 6 feet in height. They dress very much like the Quaker style and are quite general in style or the one fashion of dress.” (Oh, wait, that was Joseph Smith.)
3. “So it is in regard to the inhabitants of the sun. Do you think it is inhabited? I rather think it is. Do you think there is any life there? No question of it” (Oh, wait, that was Brigham Young.)
4. “The arm of flesh may not approve nor understand why God has not bestowed the priesthood on women or the seed of Cain, but God’s ways are not man’s ways” (Oh, wait, that was Pres. Benson)
The “walking to Missouri” I heard in primary in Mesa (way back when–I’m 62). I think I was about 9 when the primary teacher told us that we should have shoes in our Year’s Supply because we will be walking back to Missouri. I guess this assumes that our shoes would wear out because we were so far away from Missouri.
Probably Cold War apocalyptic scare story–people commonly thought that was what the Year’s Supply was about. And since it was Mesa, you should have a shotgun to protect it! Back to Primary, I distinctly remember thinking how weird that was because my feet were still growing–how would I know what size to get? As for the Missouri stuff, is it just me or does it seem that the church in not emphasizing that anymore? Except for some vague story a few years back about the church trying to buy property there. Seems like a logistical nightmare to move Zion from UT to Missouri. Would UT get “decommissioned?” I’m pretty sure that the “two Zion” doctrine is still in place.
I have definitely also heard the Chadwick’s idea that everyone will have to be a savior on another planet. It was explained an extension of “As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be.” In other words, since Heavenly Father is Christ’s father, Heavenly Father must have been a savior on some other planet at some point. Likewise, since we are to be like Christ, we must be the savior to another planet.
Unlike those who were surprised that they had not heard that many of them, I was surprised that there were only two that I had not heard that particular version, but I had heard another version. Maybe I heard the one about Down’s syndrome but ignored it as too stupid to listen to, and besides, I had already heard that they were so righteous in the pre-existence that they didn’t need testing. So in my 70 years in the church, with experiencing church in the Bible Belt (more evangelical theories adopted there) growing up in Utah with release time seminary, being a child abuse survivor (more of the special selected to be savior to that family line by breaking the generational pattern of abuse, chainbreakers theory) anyway, I think I have heard even more that are not.
There is the one about John the beloved never tasting death and that he is also wandering around doing good deeds and saving people. I know there is at least one Mormon writer using this as a bases for Mor(m)on fiction.
There is a Mormon version of Rapture, adopted of course from evangelicals. Then there is the similar version that some of us will be “twinkled” into immortal beings at the second coming. I think this one has its base in official doctrine.
There is the one about the three Nephites converting Howard Hughes.
There is even a theory about Cain/Bigfoot having something about his DNA changed so that all of his children have black skin, thus still being alive, he is still producing black babies because he mates/rapes and you can tell his more recent children because some Africans are so much darker than others.
Then there was the 1978 change and because the *doctrine* had been that Cain’s children could not have the priesthood until all Able’s children had the priesthood, and since Able got killed before having children, that wasn’t going to happen till the second coming and Able being resurrected and producing children. So the folklore said that the second coming has actually happened secretly and Able is among the resurrected and is having children and so, NOW the children of Able have the priesthood, so blacks can also.
There is also the folklore that I think everybody has heard you forgot to mention about why we don’t know much about Heavenly Mother. Because she is so weak that she couldn’t stand for her children to take her name in vain. So, Heavenly Father protects her by hiding her from her children. Made up by some seminary teacher and spread through the church. Can’t be true because every Earthly mother gets her name taken in vain by teenaged children, and we survive and still talk to out children who are using our name as a swear word. If earthly mothers can stand teenagers, surely a Goddess could stand humans.
There are other folklore theories about why Heavenly Mother is so hidden, but that is the most popular.
And I would like to label a theory of Two Trees as folklore. Even if it is a relatively recently invented feminist theory. It is still a theory invented to explain the stuff our doctrine fails at, and it gets passed around in feminist circles, so feminist folklore.
So, when we have crazy doctrine, we get crazy theories to explain new changes. We can’t just accept that Brigham was wrong to invent the Cain/Bigfoot thing and the blacks cannot have the priesthood until Able is resurrected and has children. Nope, we have to make up more crap to explain the old crap. We refuse to admit we were just wrong because we don’t apologize. So, we leave it to the Seminary teachers to explain stuff.
Anyway, I loved your comments about some of the folklore. Your comments really made me laugh.
Scary.
I’ve heard about 50% of those exactly, with variations on another 10 to 20%. The rest surprised me.
A couple of those have fairly strong roots of plausibility in D&C, but the logistics could be argued multiple ways.
My Dad mentioned the lost tribes North Pole theory when I was younger. He mentioned either reading or hearing an account of a pilot who flew over the North Pole during one of the world wars. At one point his plane tilted at just the right angle with the sun to make the ice totally transparent. He claimed to see tall buildings and other structures beneath the ice. I think that kind of folklore also lends itself as fuel to hollow earthers.
I’ve heard the down syndrome one, but that it was protection, rather than punishment, since being an escort would put a larger target on them in the minds of Satan and his followers.
Something I didn’t see on the list or from others that I can recall being taught is that there are still a few Native Americans around that are indistinguishable from Caucasians, implying that there were either a number of righteous Lamanites remaining, or some Nephites that were not eradicated, and that they either formed their own tribe or managed to remain a pure subset of other tribes. I can recall one youth Sunday School teacher who said he had a buddy that looked like any other European American, but was 100% Native American. I couldn’t recall what tribe he said he was from, but I think I’ve heard Navajo, Hopi, or Cherokee mentioned by others.
If I were to take both my Sunday School teacher and his buddy at their word, and even with my belief in the Book of Mormon, I find it more plausible that these Native Americans were remnants of pre-Columbian colonization by Europeans than I do remnants of Nephites/Lamanites (I’ve heard rumors that Lewis and Clark and even some of the Mormon pioneers had Welsh translators to help them communicate with some of the tribes as they headed west, but I’ve never seen that in a mainstream history publication). Either way, it’s fascinating. If true, one would wonder why more study isn’t done on these Native Americans, but if they didn’t care to speak up, would any anthropologist think to ask them about it? I don’t know. I think it’s plausible, if still unlikely.
I had a Primary teacher tell us that not only was a rainbow a sign from God that He would not flood the earth again, but also a sign that the end of the world would not come for 40 more years. I spent time as a child adding 40 years to my age to determine how old I would be when the end came. Not a myth, but policy up into the 1980s that endowed members were highly discouraged from being organ donors. J.F. Smith wrote that man would never reach the moon (God would intervene first). Also a RS lesson from the 1980s taught that celibate men and women had a natural way to relieve sexual tension build up: wet dreams for men, periods for women. Yup, you read that right.
When Elder Jay Jensen of the 70 spoke at one of my mission conferences, he very clearly said that Mary is not sealed to Joseph, implying that she is sealed to Heavenly Father. He didn’t mention the angel Gabriel performing the sealing, though. That’s a fun one.
The seagulls didn’t eat the crickets, they dropped them in the Great Salt Lake and went back for more. A true miracle.
Polygamy was necessary because there was a surplus of unmarried women in the Church. It was a matter of necessity. Really?
I’ve heard many, but not all of these. I am still entertained even by the ones I’ve heard before! Here’s one that’s not on the list: the reason so many Mormons have trampolines in their yards is so their children can get their energy out instead of masturbating. This was presented as truth by a Sunday school teacher. I was not the only one rolling in the floor that day. The Spirit definitely left the room that day!
Another one I got from my mother: the Holy Ghost goes to bed at midnight so you can, too (explaining my curfew).
And for source material for some of the Mormon folklore, especially as it relates to the last days, Fred C. Collier’s “Unpublished Revelations” is hard to beat…
Don’t forget the missionary folklore. Missionary folklore could probably be its own post its so big. It’s been so long since I was a missionary that I can only think of a few of the stories. After returning from my mission, I was pretty disappointed to learn that pretty much every mission in the world seems to have its own variation of each story–I was so sure they were real! Facepalm.
1. This one was definitely a mission favorite in my mission–it kind of speaks to how hard 19-year-old missionaries have to resist their raging hormones for 2 whole years. There is one companionship of elders and one companionship of sisters serving in the most remote part of the mission, where there are hardly any members or other missionaries to see what they are up to. One elder falls in love with one sister, and the other elder falls in love with the other sister. One couple moves in to live in sin together in the elders apartment, and the other moves into the sisters apartment. This goes on for quite some time. They are eventually discovered, excommunicated, and sent home in shame.
2. The one speaks to the need for missionaries to believe that God is really directly intervening in their missionary work–because a lot of times it really doesn’t feel like He is as a missionary constantly facing rejection. A pair of missionaries are in some sort of desperate situation–close to death. This often involves some sort of automobile accident or breakdown. As the missionaries are preparing to die, a mystery person (or three) miraculously appears out of nowhere to rescue the missionaries. Once rescued, the one (or three) mystery rescuers vanish into thin air. The rescuers were, of course, the Three Nephites.
3. This one speaks to the lack of rest that missionaries get. Two missionaries decide to take a vacation out of the mission boundaries for a couple of weeks. They write their letters to the president that are required each week and arrange with a member fried/landlady/etc. to send each of the letters in at the end of each week they are gone. Unfortunately, the messenger sends the second letter before the first, and the mission president is on to them. When they arrive back at their apartment, they find that the mission president is waiting for them in their apartment. He hands them their suitcases (they he personally packed for them) and a one-way ticket home and tells them to leave immediately.
Nevermo here. Your religion is hilarious! I just wish that comic book artist Mike Allred would do a comic book based on this, like Jack Kirby did for Asgard. Just imagine the Three Nephites popping with Kirby crackle!
“That an ancient Nephite city was discovered under the ice in Antarctica.”
Oh, I know this one! “At the Mountains of Madness.”
“…because earth was made up of other planets,…”
Say what now? Like in Marvel Comics’ 2015 “Contest of Champions” crossover event? Which is why Peter Parker can interact with Miles Morales now?
“…Satan put dinosaur bones in the earth to trick people into believing in evolution…”
A belief known in theological circles as the “Omphalos Hypothesis” or “Last Thursdayism” (or Wednesdayism, or Tuesdayism, etc.):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos_hypothesis
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Last_Thursdayism
“…Babies are speaking the Adamic language…”
John Wilkins, call your office!
https://blog.emergingscholars.org/2015/09/communication-for-communion-part-2-the-quest-for-the-adamic-language-scholars-call/
As I recall, somebody back then even attempted to raise children without any exposure to language whatsoever, in order to see what language they would naturally speak. Apparently it sounded like Hebrew.
Some of you people are getting the Mark of Cain mixed up with the Curse of Ham. You fail Negro Genetics forever!
“That people start to look like their spouse …”
I heard the same thing, but about people and their dogs.
“This is literally the original premise of Glen Larson’s Battlestar Galactica”
Naw, the Galacticans believed in the Lords of Kobol. You guys believe in the Lords of Kolob. Not the same thing at all! Unless you have some kind of ceremony where you wear all-white clothes or something…
“When you have a miscarriage or stillborn baby, you get to raise it after the resurrection. ”
Meet evangelical prophetess Kat Kerr:
Elsewhere I remember her saying that aborted babies had giant tea-parties with Jesus in heaven. And ride floating bubbles through the air, stuff like that. It’s like Anne Geddes meets the Wizard of Oz.
“That the angel Gabriel performed a sealing ceremony between God & the Virgin Mary so that he could impregnate her without breaking the law of chastity.”
Oh, I know this one! It’s called the “Provo Soak.”
“Using a tampon will mean you lose your virginity.”
It’s worse than you think! Far worse:
https://www.landoverbaptist.org/news0999/cotton.html
(I’ll probably have to delete all my posts with my nose in the afterlife.)
Also, don’t forget the temple folklore…
1. I’ve heard variations of this story for a handful of different temples. Someone that lives near a temple notices that there is a light on in the top floor of the temple late at night. He calls the temple president to see if someone should go over to see if someone has broken in to the temple. The temple president’s speech immediately turns very solemn and reverent and says something like “Do not disturb the temple this evening. Christ is visiting His House tonight.”
2. Brigham Young left empty shafts in the Salt Lake City temple, and no one knew why at the time. It was only later when the temple was renovated, and the shafts were just the right size for an elevator. (Unfortunately, elevators were a known thing when the temple was constructed, so if the shafts were for an elevator it wouldn’t have been such a mystery.)
Anna,
I respectfully disagree with you about the “Two Trees” interpretation . It does not fit the definition of folklore. The story is not multi-generational or passed by word of mouth as folklore is defined. It is the work of Valerie Hudson Cassler, a political science professor at BYU. It is based in scripture and statements of LDS leaders. While I have heard others express similar thoughts, she was the first to formally connect the dots. Considering for what sometimes passes as doctrine and theology in the church, is a step above most interpretations. Also, it is widely disseminated on the web and she even describes it in her testimony on FAIR website. I don’t think we can make the case that FAIRlatterdaysaints is a feminist source.
I’ve been around the block a few times, and I HAVEN’T heard most of these. I don’t think some local idiot’s idea is folklore.
The rainbow thing I heard was that if you saw a rainbow, you would know that the second coming was at least a year away. Commonly repeated, including over the chapel pulpit, in Southern California in the late 1960s.
Also back in the 1960s, the story went that if you could trace your genealogy back to royalty, it was OK to hop, skip and jump back to Adam and Eve. The reason was because because Gen 49:10 says the scepter will not pass from Judah’s hand. So, the tale went, all royal families must be descended from Judah. So, you go, say, William the Conquerer, to Judah, and then follow the OT pedigrees back to Adam and Eve. All done!
It’s folklore all the way down.
Many years ago. From a friend that taught a quorum of priests, I was told that the lesson manual taught that Christ is the actual/ literal source of the light coming from the sun. I searched it on LDS.ORG and found…
Aaronic Priesthood Manual 3, 2002…
Lesson 16 title: Jesus Christ, the Life and Light of the World. OBJECTIVE– Each young man will come to understand that Jesus is *literally* the life and light of the world
…
Ask each group to summarize what they have learned from these scriptures. Place each of
the following numbered items on the chalkboard as the ideas are summarized, using the
questions as necessary to guide the discussion:
1. Jesus Christ is the light of the sun, moon, and stars.
• What does Doctrine and Covenants 88:7–10 say about the light of the sun, moon,
and stars?
Explain that although we do not understand how, *we know that Jesus is the source of the
light of the sun, moon, and stars.*
Discussion helps…
Ask: What is the source of physical and spiritual light and life?
If the young men suggest that the sun is the source of physical light, ask where the sun
gets its light.
Maybe the authors don’t understand the meaning of *literally?* and have never been exposed to science: “The Sun produces light by a nuclear reaction called fusion. As atoms of hydrogen combine to form helium, they produce vast amounts of heat and light.”
———————————————————–
Definition of literally
adverb
in the literal or strict sense: She failed to grasp the metaphor and interpreted the poem literally.What does the word mean literally?
in a literal manner; word for word: to translate literally.
actually; without exaggeration or inaccuracy: The city was literally destroyed.
in effect; in substance; very nearly; virtually: I literally died when she walked out on stage in that costume.
I am more than a little bit pedantic and strongly dislike the casual (and inaccurate) use of words like literally and actually.
Just as a sidebar, as good as Mormons are at coming up with apocryphal folklore, they really don’t hold a candle to ancient Jews and early Christians and Gnostics. There is a whole slug of literature written between the 3rd century B.C. and 4th century A.D. that can only be called “the scriptures meet pulp fiction”. It is part of literature referred to as pseudepigrapha and is filled with fanciful stories of past prophets and apostles in an attempt to fill-in-the-blanks. Particularly interesting are stories that tell us of Jesus’ life between 12 and 30. He was a bit of mischievous lad, killing animals and pushing kids off the roof, only to use his power to bring them back to life. I once read a book entirely filled with folklore written about the mysterious prophet Elijah, but I can’t recall the title. Very cool stuff.
The idea that God has only one authorized spokesman on earth seems like folklore to me…