Let's discuss Mormonism.

[RI]

I talked to a pair of Mormon missionaries in the town my mother lives in a year or two back (Sister Sarah and Sister...Whitney, if I remember correctly?). They were very nice and quite respectful and accepting when I told them that I'm already quite committed to the Episcopal Church and sincerely doubt that will change, and I took some literature from them as a courtesy.

Sorry, I don't really have much more to add to this conversation.

I had the same situation happen to me at school a couple quarters back.

While I don't care much for the content of their doctrine, and they seem rather paradoxical in the way they seem to be almost arbitrarily conservative on some social matters and not so much on others (from a Catholic's perspective), for example on birth control/condoms, I have never once had a bad experience with a Mormon. I have never met an unkind one, and Washington has a fair few of them. I admire a lot about them sociologically and find their geographic and historical attributes fascinating. I really like that they're generally anti-alcohol, etc (though I personally couldn't live without caffeine and won't be converting any time soon).

From what I've seen, a lot of Mormons tend to have a common physical and physiological appearance to them. They aren't the only smallish conservative religious group where this is the case, but I've noticed it most often with Mormons. I can't quite describe what it is, but my Mormon-dar is pretty strong.

[RI]

Actually, Mormons tend to frown on birth control unless it's between a married couple.

That's more liberal than the Catholic Church.

[RI]

There's no evidence (as far as I know) that he was medically-speaking a pedophile, but it's undeniable that he married and had sex with a number of underage girls, many of whom probably hadn't even finished puberty (while some, like Helen Mar Kimball, potentially hadn't even begun it!) and wouldn't have been considered old enough to marry by normal society (or even Mormon society) at the time. A term like "sexual predator" would be more accurate than pedophile.

My reply to that is that if he had sex with those girls, in an age where birth control methods were harder to find and use, wouldn't there be the possibility of children? And if there were no children, isn't that a fairly even indicator that Joseph Smith didn't do as you say (I don't deny the marriages, only that anything happened during them)

Women are only fertile about 72 hours a month. I don't have a dog in this fight, but people have a tendency not to realize that. It's relatively difficult to get a woman pregnant if you just have sex with a her on any given day. However, the times when she's most fertile are also the times when she's most likely to choose to have sex due to biological (hormonal) reasons.

[RI]

Eh, I'm pretty sure the most common Christian perception of hell is eternal separation from God, and really the only way for that to be possible on a spiritual level is to be erased from existence as God is omnipresent... I happen to agree with BRTD on this matter, believe it or not.

[RI]

...and atheists wonder why people don't like them.

[RI]

...and atheists wonder why people don't like them.

Yeah, caring about facts has never been a popular position to hold.

Eh, I fail to see how atheists are any less selective in their acceptance of "facts" than any other religiously-oriented group. Regardless, that overt, foundational smugness is one of the reasons, but not the one I was referring to.

[RI]

How common are "Jack Mormons," and do you consider yourself one as a fairly liberal person?

[RI]

BRTD always cuts straight to the important issues.