There’s nothing like growing up in UT as an “apostate” non-Mormon (yes, it’s eerily like that word infidel). Mormonism, simply put: spiritual bubble-yum for the brainless.

Any religion who claims to hold the Truth with a capital “T” and whose followers don’t even know what a good glass of wine tastes like is, simply put, infantile.

Can’t wait for the play!

DarthMiffy: http://www.mormon-underwear.com should do it.

It just gets sillier and sillier, doesn’t it.

Sure is amazing how perverted the human mind can be made. What’s the saying: “Brigham Young and Train ‘Em” or was that the Catholics with their “Get ‘Em young and train ‘em?”

In any case “As the twig is bent the tree inclines.” (Virgil 70BC). Guess our gullibility has been known for some time.

What I think even more amazing is how some of us ESCAPE the brainwashing/conditioning, or, if we don’t escape it, we overcome it as we mature. How come some free themselves from the BS and others hold even tighter to their brand of mythology?

Mormons wear sacred undies? Do go on…

Thank you, Paolo, for “All are religious doctrines, and as such, are based on faith, rather than reason.”

I dislike getting tangled in a thousand words when such terse statements as yours convey the notion perfectly.

I’m so thankful my parents allowed me the choice between faith and reason. I remember once when I was in Sunday School I asked the pastor that most fearsome of questions… “but HOW do you know…”. I remember clearly his response: “You must have faith.”

That made no sense to me, so “reason” won by default. I just wish I was better at it.

Anyway, thanks again for your succinctness!

Mormonism is interesting because it is transparently silly, but continues to gain adherents more than a century after Joseph Smith was martyred.

There are lessons here about human nature, folks.

The willingness to give up a strongly held belief is extremely rare in our highly defective human species. This is true, even when the belief in question is proved to be preposterous.

In the case of Mormonism, Joseph Smith copied large sections of the book of Isaiah directly into his “Book of Mormon,” word for word. This “translation”, allegedly accomplished with miraculous seeing-stones provided by an angel, came out in King James English, and included the same translation errors.

Don’t you think God would have corrected these errors?

The parts old Joe wrote on his own contain some errors unique to him. For example, he made up English words that don’t exist, like “enduren” being the past tense of “endure.” The magic seeing stones obviously developed a hiccup at that point.

You can bring these up to true believers, but it matters not! It is a rare human being who can admit he or she was wrong at such a fundamental level.

Yes, the same human flaw exists in politics, too.

But really, Mormonism is no more true or false than standard Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. All are religious doctrines, and as such, are based on faith, rather than reason. They are the province of arbitrary assertion; that is, assertions that can neither be proved nor disproved.

Interestingly, our defective species often decides to kill over another group’s arbitrary assertions, feeling their own arbitrary assertions are superior.

It may be that our species is in big trouble.

The Mormons faced this hatred early on, when their prophet and many of their fellow believers were martyred. Martyring is the surest way to solidify beliefs in a following; rather than forcing them to give up their beliefs, this persecution had the effect of galvanizing and solidifying the Mormon church.

Another interesting aspect of Mormonism is (or was) their belief that the “mark of Cain” was black skin. That is, blacks were cursed by God! For this reason, blacks could not become priests in the Mormon church until late in the twentieth century, when this strange belief became so politically unacceptable that the church’s “prophet” announced he had had a “vision” that told him it was henceforth acceptable for blacks to be fully equal church members.

Not that they took back the “curse of Cain” stuff, of course. You can’t change doctrine at that fundamental level.

Anyway, the study of Mormonism is fascinating in terms of analysis of human nature.

“They’re really nice people. They’re so Disney.” (Trey Parker in the NY Post).

Exactly my impression after a week in Provo, Utah. I walked around the town and it reminded me of Disneyland. I expected such neatness and anal-retentive perfection when I was at Disneyland but in Provo and Orem?

It was the eeriest feeling I’ve ever had to see street after street of perfect little houses with perfect little lawns and perfect little gardens full of perfect little flowers. My CRAP DETECTOR went off and staying ringing until I left the state.

NOBODY is that “nice” without hiding something. There’s a surface phoneyness to such obvious control in spite of Trey’s observation that he “never met a Mormon he didn’t like.”

I suggest, Trey, you haven’t looked behind the closed doors to discover the “secrets” they so closely guard… that they’re exactly like everyone else only because of overbearing religious and psychological suppression of natural human behavior, they’re even less honest than everyone else about who they really are.

I feel so sorry for those two-by-two young fellas that get sent door-to-door like vacuum cleaner salesmen to “spread the word.” Their “product” has a lot in common with those abovementioned ubiquitous sucking devices… a whole lot of nothing but hot air (my opinion, obviously). I do hope it dawns on at least some of those guys that the required white shirts, black ties and sacred underwear are every bit as much a prison uniform as an orange jumpsuit.

Escape while there’s still time!