There’s a story on Slashdot today about some Mormon text being posted to WikiLeaks and some attempts to get that text taken down.

Now, the text itself is pretty boring…  It’s just basically an operating manual – how to hold meetings, how to distribute money, things like that.  No juicy secrets like you might see in a Scientology book, for example.  Nothing about aliens or volcanoes or anything like that.  So I’m not sure why the Mormons are trying to get the text taken down…

And, of course, now that they’re complaining it’ll never disappear from the Internet.  WikiLeaks isn’t known to back down or remove items…  And several people on Slashdot have already announced that they’re hosting torrents of it.  So that information is out in the wild now for better or for worse.

What I find most interesting about this whole thing is how the discussion has devolved on Slashdot.  Sure, there are some useful posts discussing copyright law and things like that…  But a number of the posts are from various non-Mormons who are criticizing the Mormons in various ways – claiming that it’s a cult, saying that Mormons aren’t Christians, questioning the origins of Mormonism, etc.  And it’s interesting when some of these people compare Mormonism to their preferred religion, because it sounds like two little kids arguing over who’s imaginary friend is better.

KutuluWare said it best…

Their origins are a bit flaky, but only because they happened in the 1800s and not 1800 BC. Just about every major, currently active religion started out with one guy who claimed some special knowledge that only he could know, and was tasked him with spreading that knowledge to the world. See: Moses, Jesus, Mohammad, Gautama Buddha. The fact that people thousands of years ago didn’t blink an eye when people made claims like this doesn’t make the claim any more or less crazy.

Posted on May 14 at 12:56 PM