It amazes me at how misunderstood
 

our church actually is. Are we a little weird or out there. Yes, but then which of the mainstream religions aren't? Maybe because they are so well known and people know their practices so well, they don't seem odd.

As an outsider the Temple and underclothes would be weird. However, that is all I can think of off the top of my head.

On the other hand most people have to know some "mormon" somewhere who is a pretty normal person. We don't drink or smoke, well neither does Donald Trump. There are the Osmonds, Steve Young, Senator Reid, Gov. Romney, Gladys Knight and many others that people would have to think are mainstream folks. I mean no horns or multiple wives or anything weirder than normal folks.

Of course it was CNN that reported this last night and although a lot of you on this board are CNN types, I am skeptical of their reporting. Anyway they reported that the respectibility as a religion, mormons ranked barely above Muslims. I don't get it.

lots of people are fans of Tom Cruise and John Travolta, but if asked about Scientology, give it the big thumbs down.

Which corresponds with the comment I made about CNN. It would be interesting to see how much higher the Catholics, Baptists, Ammish, Lutherans, etc. rank above Muslims as religions. To be honest I wouldn't rank the Baptists much higher than Muslims.

Yeah, not to hijack, but did you see they've actually banned Cruise from filming in Germany?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6240312.stm

I'm not surprised that we're misunderstood. Just talk to a Latter-day Saint about Jehovah Witness teachings or the differences among Protestant denominations and you'll get an incredible amount of bias and misinformation. When we're willfuly ignorant about the beliefs of others, we shouldn't be surprised that others follow suit.

I think the bigger question is why we should care? For the past ten years, we've heard quite a bit about the PR campaign of the church. After all of these efforts, it seems clear that it has met it's intended purpose. I think there is a lesson there. That is, we shouldn't care. We should proudly believe what we believe, no matter how bizarre it seems to others. Wordly acceptance is not now, nor has it ever been, the aim of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I'm not looking for people to agree with me, just to not look at me like I'm a freak.

If your real life persona is anything like your board persona, I wish you good luck.

I think we get lumped in with the JWs more then anybody else and I think they are a little strange.

I agree. Just about every Gospel Doctrine class across the church you have members of the church butchering Catholic, JW, Christian doctrine to make their point.

I'm glad you got my joke. :-P