I thought that the official word was, basically, that God changed the rules to adapt to the changing times. No, seriously.
So, God used to be okay with racism and now isn’t?
Yes, and it doesn’t matter to believers.
More accurately he was never all that into racism but mandated it to fit in with the times (so he clearly wasn’t all that opposed). Equivalently he still approves of polygamy, but has banned it on earth to similarly accomodate modern culture. God apparently places a rather high priority on the earthly reaction to his divine church, though in the polygamy case it was perilously close to adapt or there’d be no church.
Never fear though - he has been perfectly consistent on women being banned from the priesthood. Though admittedly the winds haven’t really changed on that subject yet…
I’m an atheist, so this should be taken with a whalloping huge chunk of salt but… how in the world could I worship a god like that?
The typical approach, based on my lifetime experience with Mormons, is to never think about that kind of stuff. Ever. They focus exclusively on the marketable bits: eternal families; a forgiving, loving, and interactive god; graduated heavens rather than sending everyone else to hell; steps that can be taken to, if not assure you a place in (the best) heaven, at least you know that non-mormons can’t get in; methods for getting the people you like in anyway; and the enticement of being quite literally gods if you make the cut. The distasteful bits aren’t so much as shuffled under the carpet because nobody even gives them that much thought.
I will add that this is common to many religions; how many theists really stress out over the POE, right?
Well, I did! And… it caused me to become an atheist. But for a while there, I was stressed out! 
Has anybody else seen the movie September Dawn? It’s a Romeo & Juliet love story set amidst the Mountain Meadows Massacre between the hot son (Trent Ford) of a local Mormon bigshot (Jon Voight) and a girl in the wagon train) and. I’m an atheist who has read a lot of Mormon history but has no belief in the religion, but I can say it’s generally about as historically accurate and fair to Mormons as Birth of a Nation was to blacks. Pure dreck.
I won’t go into all the historical inaccuracies and anachronisms but I will mention a couple. In the film it makes little doubt of the fact Brigham Young ordered the massacre; not only is this not historically valid but there’s far more reason to believe he had nothing to do with it. Young wasn’t without blemish by any means but his worst enemy couldn’t call him stupid and he had everything to lose and almost nothing to gain by that assault; he probably helped cover for those who did and much later he threw John D. Lee under the bus for it, but… cleaning up messes is one of the responsibilities of all powerful men as is choosing a fall guy when it’s needed.
Another great error in the film is that the male lead has flashbacks to his polygamist father (Jon Voight) delivering his mother to a Mormon bishop who commanded her to be his plural wife in exchange for which his father received power and office and wives. When his mother refused, his father murdered her as ‘blood atonement’. This is wrong and wronger for any number of reasons; the character is supposed to be in his early 20s and Mountain Meadows occurred in 1857, so Utah had only been settled for about a decade and assuming this happened early on after the settlers got there he’d have been in his late teens and the half-brother born after this, who is also a character, would have been less than 10 years old instead of the 20 (or so) year old in the movie. In addition, Blood Atonement- whatever happened during that period that went by that name (and the accounts vary) was a later period by far- one ongoing at Mountain Meadows time in fact (and not inseparable from), and while it’s true that Joseph Smith took wives from some of his congregation (most infamously Sarah Pratt from Orson) the other leaders just didn’t do this and certainly wouldn’t have murdered a woman who refused; there were in fact several men and women who left the church over far lesser matters and weren’t in fear of their lives.
In addition, Jon Voight’s character has 18 wives in the movie. This is actually far more common today among the Fundamentalists than it was then; in all of Deseret the number of men who had more than a dozen wives could probably have fit into one medium sized room with lots of empty chairs- Brigham Young, Heber Kimball, John Doyle Lee (though I don’t think he had anywhere that many at one time) and a couple of others- that was about it. Most Mormon men never practiced polygamy, those who did opted for more “moderate bigamy” for pure financial reasons; Young’s successors John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff had about five wives each, and Orson Pratt perhaps more at one time- but Pratt was also impoverished as a result of his enormous family and this is why most men didn’t do it. Voight’s character is just a cartoon of somebody who knows that “evil Mormon bigshots had lots and lots of wives”.
Anyway, the purpose of mentioning the movie was that I think things like this actually serve to strengthen Mormonism. I know that as a southerner I get sick and tired and defensive and in ways “more Southern” when I have to argue about everything from slavery to Jim Crow to the civil rights movement about southern culture from people who seem to have never heard of any such thing as historical context and view everything with the lens of the 21st century and everybody in the modern south as if they are themselves slaveholders, and I would guess- I speak as an outsider- that Mormons have a variant of this: external prejudice and ridiculous misconceptions and stupidity probably strengthen their Mormon identity more than they undermine it.
But whatever the case, the guy who played the lead was really cute and you got to see him naked when he was getting his Endowments.
Gee, Hollywood screws up history. I should tell you why I hate A Beautiful Mind some time.
But I really responded to say that I wonder if your last sentence means what it sounds like. 
[hijack]I’m familiar with a few. From everything I’ve read the real John Nash was- in addition to being mentally ill- a complete horse’s ass. (I’ve known many mentally ill people- worked with them professionally and, well, related to lots of them- and there is definitely a point at which mental illness ends and ‘just being a general horse’s ass’ begins, or vice versa- it’s not all due to the illness.) I’m familiar with the gay restroom scandal, the illegitimate child/deadbeat dad factor that wasn’t included, and the fact that the moving speech at the end never happened because there isn’t one. Any others?[/hijack]
The penalty for polygamy is severe.
Several, mother in laws. It is very scary.
emarkp: yeah, we understand where we both are coming from. That’s all I ever meant it to be/mean - never will I feel superior to another, not Dopers, no way!) 
well, there’s one or two that bear closer scrutiny - maybe, not this thread though
IMHO, there are some good points both ways - but most of all, may I say that I do highly appreciate the openness and the candidness from everyone for the most part? I’ve seen mention of religion of any flavor go so fast into totally worthless pointless drivel - this one is giving me decent insight (and I have learned a thing or two, thanks very much!). The ‘deny’ bit (and just not care about details) sure rings true to what I saw when living amongst a high-% LDS area, and I freely admit I don’t know enough to get deeper in it. My ~long-ago experience(s) are but a tiny tiny view through a peephole of the totality of the ‘whole’, no doubt.
Have a great day
Deny, deny, deny?? Like “wasn’t me, I promise!!” as you’re running away scared j/k
I’ve not met one person whom you would consider a normal Christian or Catholic who thinks Mormons are Christians. The tale and point of the story of Jesus is very different.
Protestants and Catholics have their arguments, but there are very core tenants that they agree on and in the more modern years here have them viewing each other as “the cousins across town”. That’s not the same for their views of Mormons.
I’m late to the thread, but have a few thoughts. I’ll stick to the OP.
First, I think it’s important to recall the process by which one is called to the faith. As I understand it, the potential initiate is told the story of the Book of Mormon and then told not to accept it as a matter of persuasion but rather to retreat to a quiet place and pray for guidance from God. Most, of course, get back no answer and so are lost. A few get back the answer it’s true. Well, if you believe God has told you the Book is true, that’s pretty compelling proof. The quibbling of skeptics won’t get much weight. It worked for Martin Hyde and has worked ever since.
Second, as has been mentioned, there’s a huge reservoir of Morman apologetics. As with all apologetics, the purpose of these writings isn’t to convince skeptics but to reassure believers. IMHO, Mormon apologetics tend to be very good. (Not persuaive to me, but I’m a skeptic.) Much better, for example, than the stuff on Answers In Genesis. Small wonder they work.
Third, IMHO, the process of going on missions is tremedously effective in cementing faith. One goes out and teaches. Most times, the response is negative. Time and again, the missionary runs down the talking points. Soon enough, he or she is inured to skepticism and with each encounter is only further confirmed in his or her faith. Realy, it’s a brilliant system.
Great post, but I must object to the bolded portion. I guess you could argue that some FARMS stuff is more sophisticated than many apologetics, couched in academic language as it is, but comparing it to Answers in Genesis is a pretty low bar. FARMS is funded and supported by one of the largest private universities in America. Plus, the FARMS authors resort to ad hominem attacks with embarrassing frequency for supposed academics. And once you leave FARMS, you get to the amateur hour dreck that is FAIR and Jeff Lindsay.
Basically the only contribution that Mormon apologetics have given us is that Book of Mormon peoples rode around on tapirs, wielding macuahuitls, speaking in chiasmus, and dying out without passing on any of their genes or language. In other words, a Mormonism that would be unrecognizable to 99% of Mormons.
Or did you get to see his endowments when he was getting naked?
Really interesting thread on many levels.
WRT the “goofy” things about Mormon, it really made me wonder how important that type of thing is to the “average” (if there is any such thing) believer in any religion.
It is common for nonbelievers to comment that during a discussion with a believer the believer appeared to know less about the history and underlying tenets of his church than the nonbeliever. While I will not say that most churchgoers actively reject or deny significant portions of their religion, I think they just don’t consider them too critically, focusing instead on the social and emotional benefits they derive.
Many of my family and friends are RCC, and I am no longer even surprised to hear them comment on how they simply “don’t believe” something that I perceived as an integral portion of their religion. My mind is such that if I rejected something major, I would leave my religion to find one that better suited my beliefs. But it seems as tho many (most?) folk are more comfortable retaining their belief identity, and either consciously coming up with a way to deal with what they reject, or simply developing blindspots.
That is not my recollection. Different how?
They believe in the Bible and it’s story of Jesus. They believe Jesus is the son of God who came to earth and was crucified and rose again that we might be forgiven of our sins and have eternal life. Isn’t that the point?
The fact that they believe Jesus also visited the Americans after his resurrection is a detail, but hardly the point of Jesus story.
When I was a member of the RLDS many years ago we had a little blue book titled Basic Beleifs, that we often passed at to curious people. A Baptist minister read it and said, “There’s very little in there I disagree with.”