Any LDS or Mormon?

I am LDS. This is one of the few boards where you'll get straight discussion of religion. It gets very condescending, but at least it's not ignorant anti-Mormonism. I try to focus my energy into my own board, but it's not as good as this board in any way...

I'm not Mormon but the lovely young woman who used to live next door to me, and who still babysits for young Mo, is.

To her family she is a troublesome girl. To anyone else with a 17 year old daughter she would be, by comparison, no trouble at all. Like most teenagers, she is testing limits and exporing her own beliefs. For her, tasting coffee is a walk on the wild side (and something she was grounded for doing).

She has five little brothers. She has confided in me that she feels marginalized in her family, not as "respected" as the boys.

I offer this only because you seem to see a crisis withing the young, female, Mormon population. For someone looking in from the outside, it is easy to understand why this might be.

I'm very curious as to what you think could be causing this.

I want Panama to reply, but I just have to throw in my two cents that it is always hard to be a part of any culture that's tightly knit enough that you're always self-conscious as to how other people will represent you. I know it shouldn't matter. But when someone in your family does something dumb, there comes a point where your first thought (albeit not the correct one) is "I hope people don't think my family is this way." The same goes for any religion, but especially the ones with stronger cultural aspects attached. I mean, people see me and they think, "the Mormon guy," so if there's some documentary on TV calling some backwoods polygamists "Mormons," I'm always afraid of how my friends will view that. I know, deep down, they know enough to know I've never met a polygamist, but still, the paranoia remains...

So yes, we end up harder on our experimenting kids. I tell people constantly (since I'm a high school teacher), "Feel free to question anything, just be willing to question it all the way, because it's the halfway researched conclusions that close doors on you." I could care less if they intellectually question sex and drugs, it's the questioning for 3 seconds and then defaulting to their basic instincts that messes kids up...

Anyway, I'm from San Francisco, was exposed to everything, but still have never had a sip of alcohol in my life and was a virgin when I got married. But I knew a lot of people who tried to dabble, and some of them survived, and some of them didn't.

"Mormonism: Nothing so hilarious could possibly be true. Or all bad." --Edward Abbey

I understand what you mean about the cultural paranoia, mrcolj. Mormonism is not well understood by outsiders (including me). The same can really be said of any religious culture.

I think the advice you are giving your students is great! While I'm not a religious person, I am interested in religions and I find that the people who have questioned their faith and remain devout are the most interesting to talk to. Blind adherence to any doctorine is difficult for me to understand. I know that for many people, questioning faith is just beside the point - its faith, for crying out loud.

I think Momonism may be harder for girls because, as I understand it (forgive my ignorance) girls don't "benefit" from believing in the same way men do. For example, isn't the highest realm of heaven reserved just for Momon men?

I know that men and women have different roles in the church. Maybe you can fill me in on what that entails.

No, there's no basis to your thought that the highest realm of heaven is reserved for just Mormon men. I don't know where such an idea would come from. But you are correct in understanding that we believe in more than one level of heaven, and more than one level of hell, and more than one level of everything between. That sure resolves a lot of concerns, since that's what a lot of people have against a lot of christian religions--that if there's only two places, everyone but X must be going to Y.

The other day I rented "The Devil's Playground" from Hollywood Video. It's a documentary of Amish kids on their rumspringa; and how Amish people encourage their kids to experiment with everything before deciding to be baptized. They're a bit extreme, but it's fascinating to watch. The kids are literally into drugs and sex and whatever when they return from their journey, and the Amish people just consider it part of the game... Anyway, a good documentary.

Mormonism is one of those cultures where men and women truly do have separate, but equal, roles. Whether that's mathematically possible is up to you. But religiously, the three classes at church include one which is everyone, one which is broken down by age, and one which is broken down by gender. Everyone's welcome to visit any class, but no one ever does. So each has its own organization and leadership. Yes, we only allow men to "have the priesthood," but the priesthood is not a rank in Mormonism, since we have no clergy.

Maybe the holistic answer is that we believe that spirits have gender, and consequently men are men and women are women and that's older than time itself. Of course, that has cultural rammifications, too. I mean, yes, most mothers are housewives, because we want to raise our children "correctly." Utah is a part of the country where men hunt, and women pass recipes down through the generations. But like I said, that's not a church thing explictly; being from San Francisco my mother was the financial breadwinner and my father was a blue-collar pressman.

No, I think what makes religion hard for teens is the lack of sex, pure and simple... well, maybe that's too simplified. The fear of lack of acceptance and the immature and unhoned catharses, leaving only the inefficient catharses like loud music and drugs and sex.

I had a Mormon friend in high school who had a hard time because all his friends were not Mormon. He slipped a lot but ended up going to a Mormon college. He changed there and found himself and his religion again.

I think the reason teens have such a hard time with religion (regardless which religion) is because religion tells you what to believe and what to do. Teens, by nature, want to strike out on their own, experience life for themselves, make their own decisions and develop their own lives. In a word: rebel.

Thanks for clearing that up, mrcolj. I never professed to be a religious scholar, thank goodness, because I would just embarras myself!

I knew that there were levels of heaven. One of the things I like about the Mormons that I know is that they are really less judgemental than the evangelical Christians (from many denominations) that I know. I guess they can accept that I'm not hellbound; and its the whole hellbound thing that really bothers me about Christianity: no matter what you do, no matter how you live your life, no matter how you help others, no matter what, if you don't accept Jesus as your saviour, you are going to hell no questions asked.

All of the Mormon women I know work -- and I do know quite a few Mormon women (for some reason at one time my block was made up of many, many, Mormon families). And they are good mothers - with all of those kids they'd have to be!

I find no fault with stay at home moms. I'm pretty much doing that myself these days.

"The fear of lack of acceptance and the immature and unhoned catharses..."

I think you put that very well. Good food for thought. Like Kristie says, rebellion is what teenhood is all about. Maybe the Amish are on to something.

I'm going to rent that movie!

Judging by your spelling and grammar, DJ, I can't imagine that your town cherishs intellectual acuity or tolerates anyone who ain't jes lik thim.

was DJ's post deleted or am I just not getting the joke...

His post must have been deleted.

As Martha Stewart might say: "It's a good thing."