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Welcome to the site, Dway!

Welcome to the site, JoeJoe! Don't worry, you're definitely not the only non-LDS fella here. :)

Hello, Brendalyn, and welcome to the forums!

Welcome to the site, Russell!

Hello and welcome to the forums, Hana! You're a year younger than I am and considerably further north. Nice to meet you too!

That's a really good question. Ultimately, it's going to be every individual person's choice to think things through and study them out, or to avoid doing that. Beyond the individual level, all that can be done is to just encourage it. One way to do that is to challenge one another and keep each other sharp. The more people who do that, the better off we'll be. Also, encouraging a good religious education is key. And to the extent possible, intelligent religious programming on TV, radio, etc. might also be helpful. And we can all also try to emphasize those aspects of our traditions that give a push in the direction of thinking things through clearly - for example, Heber C. Kimball's declaration, "I can say, as one of the Apostles of old said, and it is my advice and instruction to you - prove all things, and try all things, and hold fast to that which is good. As he exhorted you to prove these things, to investigate them, and reflect upon them, and prove the truth of that which is called 'Mormonism,' let me tell you, gentlemen, the day will come, if you don't do it, you will be sorry" (Journal of Discourses 1:34). Ultimately I suspect that most individuals will remain largely unequipped, but hopefully with enough effort, some headway can be made. Maybe someone else has a few ideas as well?

Hello, Angelo, and welcome to the forums!

They make good mongoose food.

I'd say that most Christians are very poor at articulating why they believe what they do; that, and many of them would give fairly weak public reasons for believing what they do. In fact, in my opinion we can generalize that the same is true for most but not all people of every tradition - Protestant Christian, Catholic Christian, Eastern Orthodox Christian, LDS, Muslim, Jewish, Coptic Christian, Assyrian Church of the East, Buddhist, Hindu, metaphysical naturalist, Confucian, Taoist, Zoroastrian, deist, Sikh, Jain, Jehovah's Witness, Christadelphian, Shinto, etc., etc. It's a rather common problem.

Elphaba, et al., are right about this. It's impossible to generalize about the behavior of a diverse religious (or irreligious) group. I've met atheists who, at least under most circumstances, are honestly good people by most human standards; they're friendly, cordial, kind, honest folks. I've also met atheists who are aggressive, arrogant, intellectually dishonest jerks whose pride in their own putative omniscience is ludicrous in the highest degree. Sadly, I must grant that the latter are in somewhat of the majority so far. I've met Latter-day Saints who are wonderful, honest, kind-hearted, loving people; I've also met Latter-day Saints who are so distasteful, dishonest, vitriolic, spiteful, and malicious that I can scarcely fathom it. It would be wrong of me to assume that all Latter-day Saints are like the latter, just as I'd be setting myself up for disappointment if I expected them all to be like the former. I've met Evangelicals who are godly, honest people overflowing with love; I've met Evangelicals who are lazy, corrupt, dishonest, judgmental, and all the rest. I think we all need to remember that, whatever negative traits we see in the people we meet from other groups, there are members of those groups who aren't like that and plenty of people from within our own kind who are - which should give us pause when it comes to descriptive ethical generalizations.

Welcome, Argentinagirl!

Welcome to the site, Dr. Collins!

I agree with rameumptom and a number of the others here. Auryx, your classmate is - to put it bluntly - being a jerk, and I suspect that his self-proclaimed "critical thinking" skills are really the "bunch of nonsense" that he thinks your beliefs are. If I were in your shoes, I'd mention the points that rameumptom mentioned and then tell your classmate that there is a good point in being a person of faith: it means you don't have to yell at people who disagree with you. And then I'd tell the classmate that if he ever wants to have a civil conversation, that might be a different story - and from there on out, unless he changes, I'd follow anatess' suggestion of just smiling and ignoring his attempts to lure you into a fight. (But diplomacy ain't one of my strong suits.) And if you do want help dealing with the arguments he's using, I'm sure there are a few people here who can help you out; I'd be glad to take a look at them (the link doesn't have any anymore). But yeah, the main thing I'd say to him is that there's no point in a discussion if there isn't respect there.

Welcome!

Thanks! I've always wanted to visit Scandanavia. I have a few ancestors from Sweden. lol, now I'm almost envious; it's snowing here! How's the weather in Hawaii?

Welcome to the forum, DandD. :) Nice to meet you.

Welcome, Pahoran; it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance.

Welcome to the site, me1600! I think you'll find that this is a helpful and friendly community. I'm also non-LDS.

Congratulations on the sweet new ride!

Hello, everyone; it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance! And thank you all for welcoming me! Thank you very much! I'm always eager for feedback. Haha, not bad, not bad. I'm hoping to spend some time out there someday. Canada, eh? No comment.

I actually thought the old site looked pretty slick, personally. I haven't navigated it all that much so far on the new version, but I'm not very impressed with the aesthetics so far, and I agree with Pam about the new way the scriptures are available on there. The format of the URLs for those now seems just so... cumbersome... in comparison to the way they used to be. That's my opinion, at least.

Hi there, everyone. I'm new to this site, and I'm from the eastern United States. I'm not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I think that more or less covers the usual introductory points - I've never been all that good with introducing myself. So, er, hi!