Church of Latter Day Saints

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Mormons will come off as nice to get you to join, after that, they hold you to their rules and expect you to perform some kind of church calling. My friend doesn't get off before 5pm on Sundays because of his calling.

They send a couple of men to your house once a month to check up on you, so if you we're hiding stuff from the church, you'll have to hide it from your home teachers too.

Their bishop will audit you once a year to make sure you pay 10% of your income to the church.

I personally hate saying "no" to nice people, but unless you're already volunteering your Sundays away, donating 10%, and living a squeaky clean existence, you'll have to change your life completely.

It does seem to be pretty controlling. I know in USA, it's not considered a "harmful cult" by the government, etc. As in, they don't do this:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HLH6jfA64I[/youtube]

I know for the missionaries I talked to, they weren't allowed TV or computers, and could only use an LDS email account to email their family like once a week. Also, they had a rigid schedule where they had to be up at 5 or 6AM, and couldn't be out past 9 or 10. Their missions weren't organized by their local LDS church, either, it was all centralized. Also, they were not allowed any romantic relationships with females at all during their mission.

My neighbors that were LDS, they would get "checked on" weekly by the LDS missionaries, because they were living together before being married. Then again, I live in New England and not Utah, so the general atmosphere is more secular and liberal here, so I'm assuming some economia, to use an Orthodox term, was used by the missionaries/church, as like, nobody goes to church or is very religious at all. I'm assuming less economia would be used in Utah, as everyone is Mormon, and its culture is Mormon. But in my state, most churches are pretty happy for people just showing up. I know for me, my old church before I became Orthodox was fairly controlling, too, and it was a nondenominational Charismatic/Pentecostal style church. So how controlling or culty a church is has pretty much zero bearing on theology of it's beliefs, I guess.

I know one Mormon who helped my neighbors move, he asked me if I went to a good church, I told him yes, and he didn't try to convert me to LDS. We had a perfectly normal conversation about Christian topics, the same as I'd have with any other Christian. It was only later I realized he was LDS. So in this regard, I'd consider this LDS man to be Christian, just heterodox.

One person at my old church was a lapsedish Mormon (still believed Mormon ideas, actually.) He also lived in the inner city in my state, he lived out in Utah before, though. He said Utah was totally wonderful. Very little crime, very friendly people, etc. Statistically, Utah has a pretty low incarceration rate, so I usually see that as a society "working" in some capacity. He said he liked being out in the desert, and he could leave his door unlocked, etc. So I wouldn't say the Mormon culture's fruits are all bad. Oddly enough, lots of Muslims are going to BYU now, because even though religiously their ideas are opposite (extreme monotheism vs henotheism) culturally, they like it. BYU doesn't allow drinking, makes people dress modestly, etc.

But, it is still a cult religion. How harmful or bad it is, is up to your perceptions.

any cult that outlives its founders by a few generations is a genuine religion or church. Look at Abraham's cult founded 3000 years ago in Canaan. It has lived long enough to become Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all major religions in either numbers or influence. Even though there are few Jews in the the world (about 0.02 percent of the worlds population) Judaism is still the benchmark of monotheism.

ruveyn

I mean more in structure and how members are controlled. For example, there's extreme Orthodox Jewish sects that are very cultlike in the way they follow their religion, and not allowing contact with outsiders, etc. Then there's "regular" Jews, so to speak. I guess Mormonism to Christianity is like weird Kabbalah sects to Judaism, if you want a parallel.

When ever I think of Mormons, I wonder what goes through their minds when they read Galatians Chapter 1:-

6 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, 7 which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.

Now hold on a second folks I was a true believing member for 30 years before I stopped believing in one less God, my point being is that I was as Mormon as a person could be and the only reason for my lack of belief is not due to a lack of faith but rather due to a sincere desire to know if my faith was actually true. My point being is that even though I am an atheist I have not stopped being a Mormon, I have no idea why I believed for so long and believe me the transition from belief to skepticism was hell but Mormons are not nutjobs or religious fanatics, somehow, and I don't really understand how, but there is a balance between healthy skepticism and religious fanaticism.
Mormons are very interesting people and a lot of very interesting people are Mormons, granted at church I am a closet atheist and I spend an awful lot of time with my palm to my face while at church but when I did believe no one at church ever conned me to pay tithing or go on a mission or get married in the temple. In fact I have been able to overcome so many of my aspie tendencies as a direct result of being a believing Mormon in fact I attribute a lot of my success in life as a direct result.
Utah Mormons on the other hand, well what can I say, my in-laws live in Utah (I like my in-laws better than my own family) but my wife and I have no intention of ever living in Utah, because of Utah Mormons. I am not sure if I can give you good advice but I say learn everything you can about Mormonism, it’s a pretty dang interesting religion, they build fantastic malls http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/2 ... 72695.html be sure to tour Temple Square during Christmas time, but most importantly, if they actually try sharing the “restored gospel of Jesus Christ” with you (trust me they probably won’t unless you open that door for them), give em hell by asking tough questions like why they think glorifying a human sacrifice is a good thing or if they plan on allowing all the bad s**t that happens in this universe to happen in their own universe, s**t like that.

Heres some links to get you started, let me know if you have any questions, I pretty much know everything there is to know about the LDS church from firsthand experience, but Mormons are pretty okay, for the most part.
http://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/
http://mormoncanon.com/
http://20truths.info/mormon.html

I was raised mormon, in utah, and became an atheist through a lot of introspection and a desire to be true to myself.

I think humans are born agnostic and then either go through the motions or convert to some faith or non-faith. I think i went through the motions and engaged in a lot of magical thinking but was never really truly a faithful mormon.

I stopped going to church about 16 years ago.

I would recommend against reddit/exmormon because it's a bit of an echo-chamber for embittered ex-mormons. Former members of any religion often feel some anger or as though they have been betrayed or used in some way. The mormon faith is fairly demanding in terms of time and what they expect you to feel and believe, so it's even worse for some mormons than it is with former members of many other faiths.

I know a guy who is going through that now - he spent the summer in los angeles smoking pot and screwing hot chicks and now he can't reconcile himself with his upbringing and is being a tremendous ass about it rather than just figuring out who he is and being that person. Unless maybe that person is an a**hole, you never know right?

@theuniverseman, I am disappointed that you didn't say what the problem with utah mormons is. As a former utah mormon myself, I figure the problem is conservatism and a belief in prosperity doctrine. The evidence seems to point to Bruce McConkie and Ernest Wilkinson being responsible for the lion's share of that horses**t. Before their time, mormons were secret communists.

actually, after looking at the other links, I'm pretty sure theuniverseman is an embittered ex-mormon himself.

Just out of curiosity, are there any practicing Mormons out there?

I once dated a Mormon girl. My mom liked her quite a bit. But when I wanted to warm things up, she shied away.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

"pretty sure theuniverseman is an embittered ex-mormon himself."

First of all emotions are very confusing to me, in addition to AS I also have alexithymia so I am not capable of feeling embittered. Second, discovering that everything you have spent your entire life believing was in reality nothing more then some gold diggers idea of the mother of all practical jokes takes some time to wrap ones brain around. Thirdly, as an aspie with extreme social anxiety my opinion regarding anything having to do with my interactions with other humans on any level ought to be taken with a grain of salt, I am not human compatible, but I can tolerate some Mormons, at least the ones who aren't full of s**t, or of themselves. Having said that I hold no malice towards anyone, unfortunately my aspie nature has caused a great deal of malice towards me due to my failed social interactions at college, which is why the only place I feel socially at ease is at an LDS gathering (a gathering of Mormons is within a familiar social framework, I know and understand the rules).

Please disregard anything I say which does not make any sense, which may well be everything I say At any rate I think that Cultural Mormon would be the most accurate description of who I am.

So I ended up visiting the Greater Salt Lake City region (I may study at the University of Utah), and what weirded me out was that the Church seemed to own so many interests in the area. They owned a broadcast TV station, a newspaper, prime Salt Lake City real estate (including the extravagant City Creek complex), a publishing company, and financial services. I am not aware of any other religious group that has so many earthly interests. The closest parallel I can think of is the Catholic Church and its massive property portfolio, but I have never known it to own anything not directly related to its own operations. A TV station has nothing to do with Church operation.

All in all, it seemed LDS was in the temporal sphere more than most religions I know of. Would anyone else say that's accurate?

You know what is even weirder than American Mormons? Non-American Mormons.

To me, a non-American Mormon is like a white Rasta. What is the point? I thought the whole appeal of Mormonism was that it is a more Americocentric version of Christianity.

Wow, that is a perfect analogy.

Personally, I much prefer churches to be smaller and less commercially and publicly influential than the LDS and Utah is like 63% LDS if I remember right.
Having said that, though, I'd take Utah to live in over just about any blue state.
Utah is in no danger of going blue any time soon.

The church basically owns and runs the entire state.

A Deacon at my church had told us how his son, while working in Utah, had had to insist that a 10% tithe to the Mormon church not be taken out of his paycheck along with his union dues.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer