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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025

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Mormon cosmology might have something to do with it.

Mormon cosmology definitely has something to do with it, but the "Banned Mormon Cartoon" doesn't have much in common with Mormon cosmology.

If you don't believe me (a Mormon), here are a bunch of bitter ex-Mormons saying the same thing.

As for the substance, it is largely accurate, in the sense that, for most things it says, you can find some quote where something like that was taught by a Mormon leader at some point. There are a few just plain misstatements like “Star Base Kolob.” No church authority has ever called Kolob a star base, as far as I can find anywhere.

But it is wildly inaccurate in the way it characterizes and connects things. If they were giving the Catholic Church the same kind of treatment, they would say that Communion is “Catholic ritualized zombie cannibalism.” And one could argue that they are technically correct. After all, Catholics believe that Jesus rose from the dead. And another word for a person who came back from the dead is a zombie. And Catholics believe that in a sense the Host is transformed into the literal body of this Christ. And another word for eating someone’s literal body is cannibalism. But calling it that communicates a wild caricature, that no Catholic would actually identify with. No Mormon would identify with the caricatures in the cartoon, despite the fact that you could find a seed of truth in most of the particulars.

Early Christians were put to death partly because they were said to be practicing cannibalism. This statement is much more true of Christians than most of the claims in that cartoon are of Mormons.