If this is really true, then some Mormons are WAAAAAAAAAY too anal-retentive! And it is shocking that their religion has succeeded in the USA, as we seem to be a nation of bad spellers, mispronouncers and the woefully grammar-ignorant!
“If this is really true?” How dare you impugn my integrity!
In my experience, many Mormons are way too anal-retentive, as are many non-Mormons.
You mean thye settled in Salt Lake so that strangers wouldn’t bang on their doors, trying to convert them to some other religion they weren’t interested in?
Hm. . . . interesting.
Sorry Blad Guy! Dyslexia strikes agian! ;>)
(Gaudere’s Law DISCLAIMER: Those two typos were intentional)
I don’t get it. Only the most fundie sects of Christianity take the book of Genesis as literal fact, and to whatever extent a Church believes in Adam and Eve, Noah lining up the animals two by two, etc., I don’t see why it’s not totally valid to criticize them for it.
I was hugely dissappointed in this report. The Straight Dope is supposed to get to the truth, not “present both sides of an issue.” Some people believe Uri Geller’s bullshit: does that somehow make it legitimate?
Bladder-day Saints? 
The question then becomes, do mainstream Mormons take the accounts of the pre-Columbian civilization as literal fact? I don’t know, myself, not being a Mormon, but my (uneducated) guess would be that about as many Mormons as other Christians take their prehistorical background stories literally.
Gaucho, allow me to respond as I was the one who wrote the report you were so disappointed with.
Any religion, when it comes to their sacred beliefs, can hit a hot button with both members and critics. I happen to fall in the critic camp, but when I was asked to write this report, I knew I had to be objective.
I can’t simply slap 11 million people (the church’s estimate of membership) upside the head with what I believe to be the truth. If I were to give my belief, that’s all it would be, is belief. And in so doing I would be discounting the beliefs of the members of this religion, and people such as Monty and emarkp would be all over my back with refutations of my evidence to the contrary. And I would be crapping all over their belief system, which is not acceptable in this or any forum not dedicated to such accusations.
In short, I could give you all the reasons why I left the LDS church. But if you were strong in the LDS faith, it wouldn’t matter. Religion is a personal issue. You asked for a definitive answer, right or wrong. There is no such answer when it comes to religion. You either believe or you don’t.
Like I said, 11 million people believe in the claims of the LDS church. But 1.1 billion people believe the Catholic version of religion. Which one is more right?
I presented both sides of the issue and left it to the reader to decide. All my sources were documented and unimpeachable. It’s very obvious which side of the issue that you and I are on, Gaucho. But it’s also obvious which side that emarkp and Monty are on, as well.
Oh yes, here is what I hope is the final word on the capitalization of the church’s name. My nephew received his call as a missionary last Thursday and sent us a scan of the envelope. Here is the whole envelope, and here is a close up of the return address (I intentionally blocked out my nephew’s name and address).
Who’s right? You really can’t tell. I hereby declare the whole capitalization point moot - that is, unless someone comes along and does a “haXXor” version of the church’s name - that one I’ll be the first in line to say it’s incorrect and wrong. 
It may be worth noting that the estimate of membership includes everybody who is officially on the roles, not necessarily people who believe the claims. This article, which was written by a Mormon trying to help keep people in the church, states:
It should be noted that the above link to the azcentral.com article doesn’t work anymore.
Mainstream Mormons most certainly believe the Book of Mormon to be historically true. In fact, you can be disfellowshipped or excommunicated for advocating the view that it is not.
Many Mormons, especially science-oriented types, now seem to privately believe that the Book of Mormon is best viewed as “inspired fiction,” a story that God gave to Joseph Smith in order to help people live better lives. A few have stated this opinion publically without getting in trouble; those who write books about it, however, are often disciplined. I would not call such a view “mainstream” at all.
I don’t understand, Rico – that return address is just the official “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” logo graphic, where all the letters are capitalized, isn’t it?
THE CHURCH OF
JESUS CHRIST
OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS
This site, http://www.mormon.org is the official information site for the LDS Church. Consistently throughout the call it “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
This is the only way I have ever seen it in my years in the church (except for the logo which uses the stylized “all caps” style.
BTW, if you really are interested in learning more about the Mormon Church, this may be a good place to start.
Two comments for your consideration:
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I already posted a link to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint’s website concerning how said church spells its English name. That’s from the source. As I also mentioned, there are languages (such as Korean and Chinese) in which the church’s name does not have either capital letters or a dash.
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As of December 31, 2004 there were , over twelve million membersaccording to the Church Statistical Report presented at this month’s General Conference.
Please pardon my misplaced apostrophe.
should read as:
12 million Thanks Monty. I missed Conference so wasn’t up on the latest news. 
Kathy
And while you’re about that pardoning, you can just ignore that superfluous comma in the other comment and just pretend that there’s actually a space between members and according.
I don’t know how accurate this is, but I’ve seen it estimated from the “children of record” numbers given at last weekend’s General Conference that only ~4,000,000 of the 12.25 million are active members. That roughly fits with the activity numbers reported in my last post on the topic, but who knows.
Honestly people, who gives a rat’s ass whether someone uses a big D or a little D? For Christ’s sake, it doesn’t change anything about the debate, it just makes the nitpickers look foolish.
Now, now, EJsGirl, let’s not forget that the split between the Anglicans and the Catholics was essentially over the Big D question (The Divorce). These differences in theology may seem pedagogical to you, but over the centuries, blood has been spilt and wars started over far more esoteric distinctions. One is reminded of the Big Endians and the Little Endians and the ensuing war in Lilliput.
Hmm…It’s interesting that you seem to equate someone knocking (not “banging”) on a door with murder, arson, and a few other unsavory crimes, not to mention a governmental extermination edict.