tsubotsubo

Well, I feel hurt when people ridicule my religion, as it is so important to me, but I think it's more about not retaliating. In mormon churches, it's largely discouraged to ridicule the religions of others, whilst I've witnessed a couple of occasions where mormonism has been 'attacked' somewhat by people of other religions (well, I've only seen 2 occasions, but I'm sure it happens quite regularly in some religions judging by the fact that I didn't have to go to the churches very long at all to hear that). I feel hurt by this, but I keep it to myself. I don't preach at church about the errors in the religions belonging to the people that offended me. I just keep it to myself and put it behind me.

Anyways... If you put yourself in your friend's perspective. She 'knows' the church is true and she feels it has made he life better. She wants to be good and share her joy with other people. Trust me, she probably isn't doing it to annoy you, although you should confront her about not asking for your permission, and tell her that you will ask her to bring the missionaries over when/if you actually are interested. Other things that may motivate a few mormons to do this, and make us seem quite forceful at times are that the 2nd coming comes when everybody (or nation) in the world has heard the gospel, the more converts we get the bigger the ward gets and you can look good infront of others if you convert a lot of your friends. However, the vast majority of people don't get motivated by this, but I don't know your roommates personality. Younger people don't seem to get motivated by this at all. If anything, a lot of them are shy about doing things like this, so I'll deduce that she genuinely likes you and wants you to share he joy in life. Just tell her you appreciate the gesture, but you're not interested.

Okay, sorry if my post has upset you, but I've had many, what I consider to be 'anti-mormons' question me, in real life, as to why I'm a mormon. When this all first started happening to me, I believed they were sincere, and interested in my religion, but it just spun out of control, and now, today, they clearly have found a list of facts that 'disprove' my religion, and expect me respond everytime, and there's just so much 'darkness' in my religion that they've gone on from years, and repeated themselves very little. Now I'm considered an absolute deluded idiot for being part of a religion that seems to discriminate against everyone except white, straight men. These people clearly are 'against mormonism (or maybe against me), but they're definately 'anti'. It never really occured to me that people can discuss these things with mormons and actually be genuinely interested rather than make a fool of them. It's just that, for me, everytime I respond to their evidence against mormonism, they just say that my replies are immature, or vague, or contradict myself, and it makes me very upset, as I have no one to help me. Now, I've just gotten to a point where I research everything in advance, using sites like FAIR and exmormon.org to be prepared (and it does quite annoy them when I am for some reason). And I know that most of what I've posted is true. I've had a LOT of proof for each of the, seemingly hundreds of facts, thrown in my face, but some of them actually are not true. For example, Joseph Smith did not prophesy that men live on the moon. I haven't found a first-hand account of him saying it yet, and, if the church is true, he wouldn't have prophesied incorrectly, and if the church isn't true, he wouldn't be able to prophesy at all. A more reasonable accusation to make would be 'Joseph Smith and Brigham Young said men live on the moon'. Anyways, sorry that I clearly upset you, and sorry in advance if my attempt at justifying myself has upset you further.

Thanks very, very much everyone. :) I really appreciate the help, although I was more concerned about the Holy Ghost not having a body, but being a deity, than I was about the definition of a polytheist. So the Holy Ghost will be getting a body in the future, but can't have one yet because he needs to be able to dwell within us?

Well, I have a few atheist friends, who are now pretty much anti-mormon (probably because I myself am a mormon, and they're interested in what is such a large part of my life). We often get into debates, and I feel I win most of these, but there's something that they asked me and I simply can't answer. What I'm about to do may sound patronizing, but I'm gonna break down some of the basic beliefs of our religion, and if I've got one of these wrong, you can correct me. We believe that God (Elohim), Jesus (Jehovah) and the Holy Ghost are not the same person. We believe that the three of them are gods, or deities, therefore we a polytheists (which people find strange, probably because they're not used to the concept or it reminds them of the Ancient Greeks or something). We also believe that us, as humans, can progress and become like our Heavenly Parents (again, people see this as blasphemy, probably because they're not familiar with it). We also believe that to become gods we need to come to Earth to get a body. Here's where the problem is. The Holy Ghost is a god, yet he hasn't got a body, and Jesus is a god (and THE god of the Old Testement), yet he didn't have a body until he was born (in the New Testement). How is this possible? Is one of my statements I wrote incorrect, and the cause of my misunderstanding, or is it some deep doctrine or something? Thanks for the help in advance. :)

If someone's an anti-mormon, they will generally talk about the murdering and adultery done by prophets, they often talk about sexism and racism in the church, they talk about specific events like the forgeries sold to GBH, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, Emma Smith and Brigham Young's hatred of each other, changing of the Book of Mormon, DNA evidence against the BoM, different accounts of the 1st vision, the apparent ruthlessness of the likes of George Q. Cannon and Brigham Young, the mormon funded brothels, the church leaders being polygamous after they stopped polygamy, Brigham Young's 11-year old as an apostle, changing of the temple ceremony, George Q. Cannon's order to kill sexual sinners, Boyd K. Packer recommending to physically harm gay people, Jospeph Smith marrying 14 year-olds and sending men on missions to marry their wives, mormon women being depressed, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young prophesying about moonmen and the date of the 2nd coming, and getting it wrong, people having their calling of election made sure leaving the church, the Book of Abraham not being translated correctly, etc. and the church apparently hiding this from its members. They don't realize that one or two of these 'facts' actually aren't true, and all the ones which are true may have been taken out of context, are a misunderstanding, a mistake, or, to be frank are nothing to do with the religion and do not disprove the religion (although they are unethical and bad). They don't seem to understand that if someone believes in a religion with all this 'darkness' in it so strongly there must be something more than appears on the cover.