Apeleutheros: Anonymocoso: Apeleutheros: Also, The church has no paid clergy.

"No paid clergy". Comedy Gold!

So the prophet gets a living allowance and gets to stay in the apartment at Temple square that the church owns? He does church stuff morning, noon and night, he can't really work at McDonalds. Big deal.

Even prophets have to eat. - Comedy Gold!

Do you think that an invisible man is watching you and that he cares what kinds of food and drink you consume, who you have sex with and what kids of clothes you should wear?

Every other question I could possibly have about your religion is predicated on your answer to that one.

God's Favorite Sports Team

My wife joined The Church after we had been married for 7 years. That was 16 years ago, and yes, I'm still a little bitter about it.

I've had sort of a fascination for the Mormon religion and the culture around it. I've been to SLC a few times for business, and think SLC is probably one of the more unusual cities in the US due to the influence of the Church, Temple Square and all the Church offices downtown and its seemingly homogenous population.

To be honest, I kind of like its sort of Norman Rockwellesque appearance.... which may or may not be a facade. Everyone seems to walk around Temple Square and the LDS downtown complex looking all wholesome. And outside of my visits, most Mormons I've met are pretty nice folks. Even if they try to convert you it seems fairly polite and benign - like when I was on a plane from SF to SLC and I happened to be sitting next to the director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and he asked me if I was happy with my life. Heh.

However, the tenets of the religion are a bit too odd for my tastes. I also like coffee, masterbating, people of other races, boxer shorts and R rated movies... so there you have it. Still as religious folks go, they're okay.

Morpheses: Ok, explain to me every step of the sealing ceremony.

Well, I'm certainly not going to give the word-for-word narration of the sealing ceremony just because somebody on fark asks for it (if you feel compelled to know, there are plenty of places you can find it), but you'd find it far less interesting, far less scandalous and much shorter than you might expect. It's basically a standard wedding ceremony, except the bride and groom are facing each other, and the language used by the person doing the wedding/sealing is flowery and Biblical. And then it's done, in about 3 minutes or so.

How about Blood Oaths?

Don't do them anymore. I know of them, but I've never seen them.


It's funny to me that people have this idea of the inside of a temple as being scandalous and potentially seditious. My dad once said that the atmosphere inside of a temple reminds him more than anything of being in a funeral home, and I'm not sure I could argue with that.

Morpheses: Apeleutheros: 1nsanilicious: Killer Cars: Apeleutheros: I went to Oregon.

Serious question: Do you have a choice in where you go/serve?

One of my former coworkers served somewhere in South America (I think Venezuela) but he's a corn-fed cracka' from Idaho. I never asked him directly, but I sure can't fathom him at 18 or so and having never left Boise before saying he'd love to serve all the way down there.

Nope he doesnt get to pick

Good thing too, or else you'd have 250,000 mormon missionaries in Hawaii and Vegas. :)

They can't swim on missions, so I doubt Hawaii is big on the list. Maybe Vegas.

Vegas actually has a much higher Mormon population than you might expect.

Anonymocoso: LDS Apostle Bruce R. McConkie said:

Those who were less valiant in pre-existence and who thereby had certain spiritual restrictions impose on them during mortality are known to us as the negroes. Such spirits are sent to earth through the lineage of Cain, the mark put upon him for his rebellion against God, and his murder of Able being a black skin. . . . Noah's son married Egyptus, a descendant of Cain, thus preserving the negro lineage through the flood. . . . the negro are not equal with other races where the receipt of certain spiritual blessings are concern. . . . " (Mormon Doctrine, 527-28; 1966 orig. ed., changed in the current ed.;.

Quoting McConkie isn't as relevant as you might think; despite the name, "Mormon Doctrine" wasn't an officially church-sanctioned book. He developed the book without permission from higher-up church leaders, and after the book's publication, when a study and report of the book was comissioned, the report found over 1000 places where correction was needed. The church leaders decided not to officially condemn McConkie for the book, due to not wanting to embarrass or demean him, but the church also refused to make any claim on the book, even if it were corrected and reprinted (which it eventually was).