Do Actual Mormons follow their own rules? If not, what happens?

[TokyoBayer]

@dangermom

To generally address this question, the WoW was indeed put in place as a recommendation. Over the years, obedience to it was patchy and sporadic, but it was generally recognized as a standard one should at least aspire to. Brigham Young’s challenge at a conference in 1851 to really start living it properly is, I think, widely considered to be the point at which it started to become a commandment, though it was still slow to be accepted. Mormons generally consider this to be gentleness while members got used to the idea.

(my bolding) This is cool. It’s almost like I was psychic and was guessing that this was going to be the answer given, since I specifically quoted that article showing why date couldn’t have been right. I’ll quote it again here for people too busy to read back up two posts.

@TokyoPlayer

Ask and yea shall receive.

Obedience to the Word of Wisdom, it is commonly known, was not always a requirement for entering the Temple or advancement in the Priesthood. What is less clear from the historical record is when this principle moved to become a requirement. President Joseph Fielding Smith believed the change occurred in 1851, but an excellent article by McCue has shown this cannot be the case [1]. Others have argued that it occurred under the Joseph F. Smith administration (he seems to have been the first to have said it was a commandment – but it was only made a test of fellowship in extreme cases and informally in a letter dated Dec 28 1915 [2]). Contrastingly Thomas Alexander argued that it happened under President Grant. I agree with Alexander, but there is even confusion about when it was made official, was it early 20′s or early 30′s and what led to these changes?

(my bolding). The article by McCue, (from a faithful Mormon in a pro Mormon publication) clearly demonstrates that that this was not in 1851. Very clearly.

The quote I gave from Brigham Young (the Lion of the Lord) from the Journal of Discourses, (the name of which should be familiar to those who are aware of Mormon history) again clearly showed that it was not a given as a commandment. It would have taken all of a few seconds to clink on the link to see that Young’s quote was from 1860, nine years after date of the supposed change of status.

I’ve generally found that Mormon apologists attempt to preserve ignorance at all costs, rather than fight it or even accept it. However, it can be stated unequivocally be stated that the 1851 date is clearly wrong, and attempts to backdate more recent changes are simply whitewash.

[QUOTE=dangermom]
Yes, not living the basics of the WoW will keep you out of the temple, which requires a higher standard, but we’re still not living it all that well what with all the meat and junk we eat.
[/QUOTE]
(my bolding, italics in the original) I just read an interesting article by Thomas G. Alexander, The Word of Wisdom: From Principle to Requirement in Dialog, A Journal of Mormon Thoughts, which, among other points, addresses why this is a common believe by Mormons, that coffee, tea, tobacco and alcohol are the “basics” of the Word of Wisdom, and that meat and the other provisions are not.

This was not the case, and even around the turn of the century (1900, that century), Mormon prophets Willford Woodruff and then Lorenzo Snow thought that the emphasis should be on not eating meat, where apostles (and later presidents of the church) Heber J. Grant and Joseph F. Smith thought that it should mean the four items given above.

From the article

The nationwide temperance movement of the 1830s and the prohibition movement of the early twentieth century were linked to Evangelical attitudes. Utahns in general and Mormons in particular were rather late additions to the prohibition movement rather than its early leaders. The influence of the attitudes of these groups is easiest to see when one contrasts insistence of abstinence from liquor and tobacco with the rather tolerant attitude toward eating meat.

The article demonstrates how the surrounding, secular attitudes were influential in the decision-making process of the Mormon leaders, including the politics of the day, with concerns about the formation of an anti-Mormon political party.

It’s in interesting article for people who are interested in knowing more about the background of this subject, and not simply the tales taught in Sunday School.

[No_Wikipedia_Cites]

If you eat too many big macs, you can’t get a temple recommend?

If an unmarried Mormon doesn’t have a temple recommend, will he have trouble finding a good wifey? Does it diminish his marriage prospects?

[EristicKallistic]

I believe you can’t get “really, truly, for eternity” married at all without temple recommend, because only the Temple marriage is the “real” one. So his marriage prospects would be essentially zero.

So how long do such sins as drinking coffee or not titheing stay on one’s record, as it were? If I am good next year, can I get a temple recommend? Do I have to go to some Mormon equivalent of confession to be forgiven?

[An_Arky]

@Morgenstern

If only this were the pit.

So?

[raspberry_hunter]

@sassyfras

If you eat too many big macs, you can’t get a temple recommend?

If an unmarried Mormon doesn’t have a temple recommend, will he have trouble finding a good wifey? Does it diminish his marriage prospects?

No. If you were asked if you were obeying the WoW and you said, “Yes, except for the whole meat thing, I’m having problems with that,” you’d probably be told that it would be good to work on that but there would be no other consequence to the best of my knowledge – the difference being that it’s much easier to quantify “no coffee” than it is to quantify “too much meat.” If I eat two big macs, is that too much? What about three? And who gets to say? What if I’m anorexic and think two grams of meat is too much?

Generally, not going on a mission will diminish a male Mormon’s marriage prospects within the LDS Church, though there are so many single women in the church that I don’t think it damages it much.

If you are unable to get a temple recommend, for whatever reason, it will hamper your marriage prospects to another Mormon no matter what gender you are. If you think about it you will see why this must be so. Why would a faithful believing Mormon want to marry someone who does not share his/her most deeply held, fundamental beliefs and a sense of how important they are? (You may think that drinking tea isn’t a deeply held fundamental belief, but as someone said earlier in the thread, it’s all one – it’s the difference between believing it’s the word of God and that it isn’t.) Correspondingly, though, I would think someone who was unable to get a temple recommend wouldn’t want to marry a faithful believing Mormon, for the same reason.

[No_Wikipedia_Cites]

@raspberry_hunter

No. If you were asked if you were obeying the WoW and you said, “Yes, except for the whole meat thing, I’m having problems with that,” you’d probably be told that it would be good to work on that but there would be no other consequence to the best of my knowledge – the difference being that it’s much easier to quantify “no coffee” than it is to quantify “too much meat.” If I eat two big macs, is that too much? What about three? And who gets to say? What if I’m anorexic and think two grams of meat is too much?

Generally, not going on a mission will diminish a male Mormon’s marriage prospects within the LDS Church, though there are so many single women in the church that I don’t think it damages it much.

If you are unable to get a temple recommend, for whatever reason, it will hamper your marriage prospects to another Mormon no matter what gender you are. If you think about it you will see why this must be so. Why would a faithful believing Mormon want to marry someone who does not share his/her most deeply held, fundamental beliefs and a sense of how important they are? (You may think that drinking tea isn’t a deeply held fundamental belief, but as someone said earlier in the thread, it’s all one – it’s the difference between believing it’s the word of God and that it isn’t.) Correspondingly, though, I would think someone who was unable to get a temple recommend wouldn’t want to marry a faithful believing Mormon, for the same reason.

Are there really more eligible Mormon women than men? Why?

And, you say that tea drinking is fundamental to Mormon faith. So drinking tea would be like an Hasidic boy offering pork rinds to a Hasidic girl (in lieu of an engagement ring?) That bad?

You have inadvertantly made me not want to join the Mormons, if only that I take a skeptical view on dietary and garment-related commandments and prohibitions. The missionairies are gonna be p.o.'d.

[Apollyon]

@dangermom

I’m pretty burned out these days on arguing LDS doctrine here, and I’m too busy anyway… I wouldn’t know anything whatsoever about African red tea or Argentinian mate or all those other things we could argue about endlessly.

Thanks dangermom… the red-tea thing was just random curiosity on my part. I’ve only recently come across “red-bush tea” (current project manager is originally South African), and your comments on tea vs. herb-tea intersected in my head with comments from him that (in SA at least) Rooibos is “tea”. (I think my unhealthy interest in edge cases and looking for patterns and logical consistency is an occupational hazard; I’m a software analyst IRL).

@raspberry_hunter

No. If you were asked if you were obeying the WoW and you said, “Yes, except for the whole meat thing, I’m having problems with that,” you’d probably be told that it would be good to work on that but there would be no other consequence to the best of my knowledge…

Interesting, I never knew that the LDS had any restrictions / recommendations on meat consumption. Cool. (Learn something new from the 'Dope every time…)

I’m thinking that, just perhaps, my coffee and Coke drinking, meat eating, gay, Mormon ex-flatmate might not have been an arch-typical LDS member… just like I shouldn’t base too many inferences about typical followers of Islam on my Muslim ex-flatmate who enjoyed his red-wine and bacon.

[raspberry_hunter]

@sassyfras

Are there really more eligible Mormon women than men? Why?

And, you say that tea drinking is fundamental to Mormon faith. So drinking tea would be like an Hasidic boy offering pork rinds to a Hasidic girl (in lieu of an engagement ring?) That bad?

You have inadvertantly made me not want to join the Mormons, if only that I take a skeptical view on dietary and garment-related commandments and prohibitions. The missionairies are gonna be p.o.'d.

There are a HUGE number more eligible single Mormon women than men. It’s a little disturbing. I think it’s a combination of women tending to be more religious/faithful than men in general (I’ve also seen this in my husband’s Lutheran church) and women tending to be more social, so that the (really quite excellent) social network of Mormonism is much better at retaining women.

Hm. I think I’m not being quite clear here. It’s not the tea that’s fundamental, it’s the whole mindset of “God speaks to us today,” coupled with “We are God’s people and as such it is laid upon us to follow certain ways of living.” A very little bit like your example of kosher-ness… I don’t know a huge amount about Judaism, so take this with a grain of salt, but I’d say that it’s not quite to the level of Hasidim, but more like… if a Jewish boy offered pork rinds to a Jewish kosher-keeping girl on a date, the girl might be questioning his commitment to his Jewishness. That kind of thing. (Of course, if both of them secretly believe that keeping kosher is kind of silly and pork is yummy, and they’re only into Judaism as a social-vaguely-spiritual thing, then I guess there’s no problem.)

The missionaries would probably say (and they’d be right, too) that getting hung up on dietary restrictions is a little premature at this point, anyway. (And definitely it’s too early to get hung up on garments. Heck, I’ve been a Mormon for more than 25 years and I still have yet to need to deal with it.) But whatever.

Apollyon, I’ve assumed red tea is not under the restriction because it’s not caffeinated (at least, so says the packet in my office) so I drink it on occasion. And I probably eat more meat than I should.

[TokyoBayer]

@sassyfras

If you eat too many big macs, you can’t get a temple recommend?

It’s was explained above, but I’ll get into some more detail. For Mormons, the “Word of Wisdom” as a requirement only means the Big Four, coffee, tea, alcohol and tobacco. This comes the the change in the early 1930s to include these, and only these, in the Church Handbook of Instructions, a guide given to all bishops (lay members who are the leaders of the local congregation, called a ward). No more, no less. Since meat is not mentioned in in the regulations, then you are fine. In fact in all the years I was a Mormon, I can’t remember any more than a passing mention of meat, if that, and none of the things. For me, while I was practicing it, and the vast majority of Mormons, the Word of Wisdom is the four items above.

There is a question of why does it warrant this degree of attention. In order to be allowed into the temple, you need permission from your bishop, and to pass the interview. The sins which will keep you out are murder, any sin of a sexual nature such as adultery or masturbation, petting (before being married, etc., not paying tithing, not agreeing with the church leaders, and the Word of Wisdom. It’s been more than two and a half decades since my last interview, so I don’t remember all of it, but there seemed to be a catch-all of and “other commandments” or being “honest with your fellow men”, or something like that, but is not probed with the same directness which the use of coffee or tea is.

An you can see, the Word of Wisdom receives a tremendous degree of importance, – perhaps greater weight than would seem understandable on a simple scale.

@EristicKallistic

So how long do such sins as drinking coffee or not titheing stay on one’s record, as it were? If I am good next year, can I get a temple recommend? Do I have to go to some Mormon equivalent of confession to be forgiven?

You need to be a “full tithe payer” to attend the church, and there is a settlement every year. I was always a full payer, so I never ran into this, but I would assume that you aren’t required to back back payments from previous years.

I also believe the sins such as drinking coffee are only a problem if they are on going. You are allowed to repent on your own for them. It’s only for sins of sexual nature which you are required to confess to your bishop. (Murder is not completely forgivable, and I’m not away of what steps you would need to do in order to get a partial forgiveness for it.) So, you can swindle hundreds of millions of dollars from others, beat people up, terrorize children and shoot dogs, and get God’s sign off on your own, but would need the bishop to OK the process for beating off. Just a quirk of the system, I guess.

@raspberry_hunter

Hm. I think I’m not being quite clear here. It’s not the tea that’s fundamental, it’s the whole mindset of “God speaks to us today,” coupled with “We are God’s people and as such it is laid upon us to follow certain ways of living.”

There seems to be this general sense of “God speaks to us today through prophets and apostles” while actively avoiding any of the difficult questions of specifics or the obvious contradictions within the religion.

[Alan_Smithee]

@TokyoPlayer

So, you can swindle hundreds of millions of dollars from others, beat people up, terrorize children and shoot dogs, and get God’s sign off on your own, but would need the bishop to OK the process for beating off. Just a quirk of the system, I guess.

@raspberry_hunter

There are a HUGE number more eligible single Mormon women than men. It’s a little disturbing. I think it’s a combination of women tending to be more religious/faithful than men in general (I’ve also seen this in my husband’s Lutheran church) and women tending to be more social, so that the (really quite excellent) social network of Mormonism is much better at retaining women.

Hmm…I think I might have an alternative theory…

[BigT]

@dangermom

Nothing in the commandment says “tea and coffee are heavily caffeinated and therefore bad for you.” The scripture says “hot drinks” and current leadership says “hot drinks = coffee and tea, everything else is up to you and we aren’t saying anything about caffeine in general.” It is not, in fact, a ban on caffeine–but many people think of it like that and since the stuff is habit-forming, it’s good to avoid. So: iced tea is out, energy drinks are widely considered to be really quite bad stuff, Coke and so on is perhaps not that great but you should make up your own mind, herbal tea is not actually tea, and everyone likes all forms of chocolate.

I am actually more curious why there doesn’t seem to be a movement within the Church to go back to the letter of the law like there is in Protestantism. The closest seems to be the FLDS, and they seem to focus mostly on the multiple wives thing.

I also don’t understand why people will say the prohibition is for “hot caffeinated drinks” rather than just naming the four restrictions. I’d say 10% of my friends in college were Mormon, and I still wound up being confused about all of this.

BTW, since you said you’d answer questions on Mormon theology, could you answer one that I’ve always wondered about? Is there a prohibition on seeing the naked female form? I’m pretty sure there’s one for pornography, but one of my Mormon friends in college would always invite me to her room to watch an anime that often showed frontal nudity.

I never had the guts to ask her about it while we were watching, and we fell out of contact after that. And I felt weird bringing it up with anyone else who would likely know her.

[installLSC]

I knew a lot of Mormons growing up in Eastern Washington, and knew plenty of Mormons who flouted the rules about alcohol and caffeine. They didn’t seem to be too worried about it either. Is the strong peer pressure a number of people mentioned upthread mainly a Utah thing? Or was it because as a gentile (their official term for non-Mormons) they worried a lot less about conforming to the rules?

[Broomstick]

@pepperlandgirl

Now clearly “hot chocolate” falls under the definition of “hot drinks” whereas diet Coke, being cold usually, would not. But since that makes very little sense, people are forced to conclude the prohibition is against caffeine. But if you’re sticking to the letter of the law, rather than the “how can we make sense of this” interpretation, anything warmed up above room temperature would be verboten.

What I’ve heard (and admittedly I’m a non-Mormon) was that “hot” did not refer to temperature but rather a sort of property of the stuff making up the drinks - traditional herbalism holds that some plants are “hot” and some “cold” and it’s that which makes the difference. Coffee beans are “hot” and thus coffee is hot even when served over ice. Cocoa beans are “cold” and chocolate is cold even when served hot.

I don’t know whether that’s the basis of all that or not, but it makes as much sense as anything else I suppose.

[raspberry_hunter]

@BigT

I am actually more curious why there doesn’t seem to be a movement within the Church to go back to the letter of the law like there is in Protestantism. The closest seems to be the FLDS, and they seem to focus mostly on the multiple wives thing.

I also don’t understand why people will say the prohibition is for “hot caffeinated drinks” rather than just naming the four restrictions. I’d say 10% of my friends in college were Mormon, and I still wound up being confused about all of this.

BTW, since you said you’d answer questions on Mormon theology, could you answer one that I’ve always wondered about? Is there a prohibition on seeing the naked female form? I’m pretty sure there’s one for pornography, but one of my Mormon friends in college would always invite me to her room to watch an anime that often showed frontal nudity.

I never had the guts to ask her about it while we were watching, and we fell out of contact after that. And I felt weird bringing it up with anyone else who would likely know her.

I don’t think dangermom wants to answer questions on Mormon theology right now, and I’m probably not the best source, but hey, I’m a practicing Mormon, so I’ll give it a stab, and if I get too far out presumably someone will correct me, as has been happening with the WoW Pornography is, indeed, right out. There is a fairly strong prophet-mandated taboo against R-rated movies (even moving down to PG-13 these days), so many Mormons won’t watch them, but it is considered to some extent to be left up to your own conscience (e.g., this will date me, but I remember when Schlindler’s List came out basically everyone I knew saw it, Mormon or not).

Presuming your friend was heterosexual, it seems to be a little more relaxed (in my experience only!) in terms of same-sex nudity. A girl looking at a program containing shots of full-frontal-nudity guys would be frowned upon, but a girl looking at a program containing shots of full-frontal-nudity women not so much.

I think people like me tend to say “hot caffeinated drinks” to avoid getting into these discussions of herbal tea vs. black tea and so on. (And because saying “no coffee or tea” naturally leads to the idea that it is the caffeine at issue, as dangermom said.) Obviously, this doesn’t always work

The “letter of the law” thing doesn’t happen in the LDS church the way it does in Protestantism because LDS believe there’s a prophet who’s currently getting current revelation which trumps old revelation. (See getting rid of polygamy and so on.) It’s more like Catholicism in this respect than like Protestantism.

[raspberry_hunter]

@TokyoPlayer

You need to be a “full tithe payer” to attend the church, and there is a settlement every year. I was always a full payer, so I never ran into this, but I would assume that you aren’t required to back back payments from previous years.

There seems to be this general sense of “God speaks to us today through prophets and apostles” while actively avoiding any of the difficult questions of specifics or the obvious contradictions within the religion.

You need to be a full tithe payer to attend the temple (I assume this is what you meant). I did not pay any tithing for several years, and (since I wasn’t going to be getting a recommend anyway, and probably never will) it didn’t have any effect on my church participation except that tithing settlement may have been a trifle uncomfortable. (And not really that uncomfortable, either – I had a pretty understanding bishop.) Right now I’m a full tithe payer, and have never been asked for “back payments.”

@Alan_Smithee

Hmm…I think I might have an alternative theory…

Heh. What, women don’t beat off? You have a point there, though. I guess my perspective on this is a little skewed, as my sister left the Church partly because she didn’t like its stance on sexual sins, so I never thought of this as a male-dominated thing.

[No_Wikipedia_Cites]

@raspberry_hunter

There are a HUGE number more eligible single Mormon women than men. . . . getting hung up on dietary restrictions is a little premature at this point, anyway. (And definitely it’s too early to get hung up on garments.

I don’t get it.

How could there be much of an imbalance, when 1) a majority of babies born are boys, and 2), most mormons in the US were born mormon? So there should be roughly the same.

I have heard that there are more women in the Christian Coalition (60%), and that churchs seem to have a lot of women, BUT, they look to me to be elderly widow types who grew up religious & conservative in the 1930’s and 40’s. For non-grey haired people, I dont see that much imbalance, if any. At churches (non mormon) i usually see couples, children, and old people (esp widows). But you said that there is a major imbalance of SINGLE women. Is this in Utah only or throughout the US in all LDS communities?

Also, why would it be too early to concentrate on crucial rules of dietary and clothing practices? Aren’t day to day things as important, if not far more so, than abstractly beliving in the Book of Mormon? (Hahah, Mormons criticizing others for planning ahead . . . )

[TokyoBayer]

@BigT

I am actually more curious why there doesn’t seem to be a movement within the Church to go back to the letter of the law like there is in Protestantism. The closest seems to be the FLDS, and they seem to focus mostly on the multiple wives thing.

I also don’t understand why people will say the prohibition is for “hot caffeinated drinks” rather than just naming the four restrictions. I’d say 10% of my friends in college were Mormon, and I still wound up being confused about all of this.

Unfortunately, this is the way it works in Mormondom. Because the world of God is clear, crystal clear, that the WoW is simply advice, they can’t go back to the letter of the law. No one else claimed a revelation to change this, but they tried to modify it on the sly. The Mormon church wants to have it both ways, to claim to be divinely inspired, but also to find a way to excuse its messy theology. So, they give coded messages which the faithful can take one way, but can still be plausibly denied when science or historians proves them wrong. They’ve managed to whitewash a good deal of their history, but you can’t get away with in the the Internet age.

BTW, since you said you’d answer questions on Mormon theology, could you answer one that I’ve always wondered about?

Dangermom won’t be back in this thread. She spins her little whitewashed、 sanitized version, and then when called on it, claims to be “busy.” We’ve seen it before and we’ll see it again. I’ve directly called her on the BS she’s giving about the dates of the WoW, so we’ll not see her again in this thread. Especially, since the date she claimed is so demonstratively wrong, and does not explain why the Big Four took the influence they did. The theory on the table is that Mormonism took the lead from the Protestants, which is embarrassment to a church which claims to receive direct guidance from the Gods.

@raspberry_hunter

I don’t think dangermom wants to answer questions on Mormon theology right now

I think so, too. As they say, when the going gets tough, it’s best to get going.

if I get too far out presumably someone will correct me, as has been happening with the WoW Pornography is, indeed, right out. There is a fairly strong prophet-mandated taboo against R-rated movies

(my bolding) This again is where plausible deniability comes into play. Here we have a practicing member who says that this is “prophet-mandated” but when things change, then we’ll get the apologists who say that the prophet was just acting as a man and not as a prophet. If they can flip-flop on the question if Adam was really God, (which was taught by Brigham Young,) and if black should not be allowed to hold the priesthood, then it makes no sense to ask if the policy of the day is “prophet-mandated” or if the secretary for a 90-year-old conservative white guy in Salt Lake City pencils it into the speech.

[TokyoBayer]

@Broomstick

What I’ve heard (and admittedly I’m a non-Mormon) was that “hot” did not refer to temperature but rather a sort of property of the stuff making up the drinks - traditional herbalism holds that some plants are “hot” and some “cold” and it’s that which makes the difference. Coffee beans are “hot” and thus coffee is hot even when served over ice. Cocoa beans are “cold” and chocolate is cold even when served hot.

Nope. Read the links I’ve quoted above. It was because of Protestant influence.

@sassyfras

I don’t get it.

How could there be much of an imbalance, when 1) a majority of babies born are boys, and 2), most mormons in the US were born mormon? So there should be roughly the same.

I have heard that there are more women in the Christian Coalition (60%), and that churchs seem to have a lot of women, BUT, they look to me to be elderly widow types who grew up religious & conservative in the 1930’s and 40’s. For non-grey haired people, I dont see that much imbalance, if any. At churches (non mormon) i usually see couples, children, and old people (esp widows). But you said that there is a major imbalance of SINGLE women. Is this in Utah only or throughout the US in all LDS communities?

Also, why would it be too early to concentrate on crucial rules of dietary and clothing practices? Aren’t day to day things as important, if not far more so, than abstractly beliving in the Book of Mormon? (Hahah, Mormons criticizing others for planning ahead . . . )

Nope. Day to day things, such as being kind to others are less important than the appearance of evil. Lest I be challenged on this, I’ll ask which of these come up in the temple recommend interview.

But I’ll certainly be happy to be proved wrong. Let someone provide evidence.

[MPB_in_Salt_Lake]

@TokyoPlayer

Nope. Day to day things, such as being kind to others are less important than the appearance of evil. Lest I be challenged on this, I’ll ask which of these come up in the temple recommend interview.

I don’t necc. agree with everything that has been said in this thread about the Mormon Church, but anyone who claims that outward appearances are not of paramount importance (MUCH more than a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, more than personal moral conduct, more than honest introspection) to 95% of active LDS members is either lying or deluded.

Mormons are more image conscious (especially with each other, but also in general) than any other religious or social group that I have ever encountered.

[raspberry_hunter]

@sassyfras

I don’t get it.

How could there be much of an imbalance, when 1) a majority of babies born are boys, and 2), most mormons in the US were born mormon? So there should be roughly the same.

I think there’s a much, much higher attrition rate for Mormon men born in the church (anecdotally, look at this thread… I think TokyoPlayer and Rhodes are both men, and I’m a woman who had similar issues but chose to remain, while they didn’t… but more generally I think men are more likely to just stop going to church even if they don’t have doctrinal issues) and a higher conversion rate for women as well.

I have heard that there are more women in the Christian Coalition (60%), and that churchs seem to have a lot of women, BUT, they look to me to be elderly widow types who grew up religious & conservative in the 1930’s and 40’s. For non-grey haired people, I dont see that much imbalance, if any. At churches (non mormon) i usually see couples, children, and old people (esp widows).

Admittedly, I don’t have as much experience with this as with the LDS church, but in my small sample size of young single groups within a Lutheran church (which as you say is dominated by elderly ladies and couples) there are also more women than men.

But you said that there is a major imbalance of SINGLE women. Is this in Utah only or throughout the US in all LDS communities?

All US LDS “young single” (age less than 30) communities I’m familiar with, which includes one in the South, one in the Northeast, and two in California. Plus which it’s almost like a joke in Mormon culture.

Also, why would it be too early to concentrate on crucial rules of dietary and clothing practices? Aren’t day to day things as important, if not far more so, than abstractly beliving in the Book of Mormon? (Hahah, Mormons criticizing others for planning ahead . . . )

Well, sure they’re important, but it’s sort of in the wrong order. If you believe Thomas S. Monson is a prophet, then you might be okay with doing the dietary practices even if you weren’t that excited about giving up smoking (or whatever). If you don’t, then it’s fine if you’re not excited about the day-to-day things. But to base your belief of the big things on what you think about the small things seems a little backwards to me. (Maybe it’s not – I started writing something about philosophical objections – but I’m in a hurry and I may have to think about this a little more later.)

@TokyoPlayer

This again is where plausible deniability comes into play. Here we have a practicing member who says that this is “prophet-mandated” but when things change, then we’ll get the apologists who say that the prophet was just acting as a man and not as a prophet. If they can flip-flop on the question if Adam was really God, (which was taught by Brigham Young,) and if black should not be allowed to hold the priesthood, then it makes no sense to ask if the policy of the day is “prophet-mandated” or if the secretary for a 90-year-old conservative white guy in Salt Lake City pencils it into the speech.

Actually, now that you mention it, I can’t remember if the R-rated thing was actually said in Conference (in which case it would definitely count as prophet-mandated, even if recanted later), or just in a fireside or something like that, which I’m not quite so sure counts as scripture, and probably does give wiggle room. Does anyone else know what the breakdown is?