The only reason I became Mormon was because I snuck a taste of "Funeral Potatoes!" 😁

[HankMoody316]

I am not allowed to link to Wikipedia yet (because of the 30/30 rule) but the following should be ample proof that "Funeral potatoes" are real:

• ...org/wiki/Funeral_potatoes (the ending of a wikipedia address)
  

And by "real", I mean really delicious! 😋

The current reason I am sent here is to spread 300 permanent personality changes to atheists to make them as profusely friendly/nice as Mormons have been described in RooshV's ex-Mormon thread (which I am not allowed to link to yet, per the 30/30 rule). Look at what other people on the internet have to say about Mormons:

1. I have a couple of friends who were Mormon, and one old boss who I assume still is. Best boss I ever had. ¶ Outside of their religion, I think the Mormons have some of the best social systems and cultures in the west. 💖 (from the internet commenter Max Roscoe) 
   
2. In principle, there is a lot to like about Mormons, and my experience with Mormons as friends has been very positive. I have one good friend who is now an ex-Mormon (one of those I mentioned in another thread who I could meet up with about once every two years for two to three hours of excellent conversation, etc). Same as you, I have one ex-boss who was (and is) a Mormon. He was an excellent boss, and I learned a lot by working for him. I keep in touch with him, and would be very comfortable calling him up for advice or to say hello. They are both very decent people, good men through and through. 💖 (from the internet commenter BasilSeal) 
   
3. My former neighbors are Mormon. Their youngest daughter is about 18 now, she was 3 when we first moved across the street from them. I consider the mother and father to be salt of the earth. 💖 (from the internet commenter Thomas More) 
   
4. I’ve rarely met a Mormon I didn’t like and get along with, but I’ve also been told by several people that the friendly-happy face Mormons show to the world isn’t always indicative of what’s really going on (as other posters have mentioned). I have a lot of respect for their zeal for their faith and desire to evangelize, which I hope many of them keep as they convert to Orthodoxy so they can point those activities in the right direction. 💖 (from the internet commenter MichaelWitcoff) 
   

I would like to make 300 atheists become permanently as profusely nice/friendly as those 4 comments portray Mormons! After all, Mormons do not hold a "monopoly" on kindness, empathy, and compassion. It's just what our religion teach us is "normal" so we just do it because everyone else is doing it also, and there seems no reason not to do it. 

Since this is an atheist forum, I would like to pay honor/tribute to three amazing atheists: 

1. Richard Feynman (a brilliant physicist and winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize 🏆)
   
2. Isaac Asimov (as a professional writer/artist/musician, I must opine that this man is a writing legend! ✍)
   
3. Carl Sagan (a scientific genius that gifted the world with his presence, and we are all worse without him 👩‍🚀)
   

I first discovered Carl Sagan when my curiosity compelled me to watch some physics lectures on MIT opencourseware with Walter Lewin. In the first or second lecture, he played the famous "Pale Blue Dot" video on YouTube. It literally "broke my mind" and made me realize how wrong my perspective had been my entire life! 😁

[LinuxGal]

I am not allowed to link to Wikipedia yet (because of the 30/30 rule) but the following should be ample proof that "Funeral potatoes" are real:

• ...org/wiki/Funeral_potatoes (the ending of a wikipedia address)
  

And by "real", I mean really delicious! 😋

The current reason I am sent here is to spread 300 permanent personality changes to atheists to make them as profusely friendly/nice as Mormons have been described in RooshV's ex-Mormon thread (which I am not allowed to link to yet, per the 30/30 rule). Look at what other people on the internet have to say about Mormons:

1. I have a couple of friends who were Mormon, and one old boss who I assume still is. Best boss I ever had. ¶ Outside of their religion, I think the Mormons have some of the best social systems and cultures in the west. 💖 (from the internet commenter Max Roscoe) 
   
2. In principle, there is a lot to like about Mormons, and my experience with Mormons as friends has been very positive. I have one good friend who is now an ex-Mormon (one of those I mentioned in another thread who I could meet up with about once every two years for two to three hours of excellent conversation, etc). Same as you, I have one ex-boss who was (and is) a Mormon. He was an excellent boss, and I learned a lot by working for him. I keep in touch with him, and would be very comfortable calling him up for advice or to say hello. They are both very decent people, good men through and through. 💖 (from the internet commenter BasilSeal) 
   
3. My former neighbors are Mormon. Their youngest daughter is about 18 now, she was 3 when we first moved across the street from them. I consider the mother and father to be salt of the earth. 💖 (from the internet commenter Thomas More) 
   
4. I’ve rarely met a Mormon I didn’t like and get along with, but I’ve also been told by several people that the friendly-happy face Mormons show to the world isn’t always indicative of what’s really going on (as other posters have mentioned). I have a lot of respect for their zeal for their faith and desire to evangelize, which I hope many of them keep as they convert to Orthodoxy so they can point those activities in the right direction. 💖 (from the internet commenter MichaelWitcoff) 
   

I would like to make 300 atheists become permanently as profusely nice/friendly as those 4 comments portray Mormons! After all, Mormons do not hold a "monopoly" on kindness, empathy, and compassion. It's just what our religion teach us is "normal" so we just do it because everyone else is doing it also, and there seems no reason not to do it. 

Since this is an atheist forum, I would like to pay honor/tribute to three amazing atheists: 

1. Richard Feynman (a brilliant physicist and winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize 🏆)
   
2. Isaac Asimov (as a professional writer/artist/musician, I must opine that this man is a writing legend! ✍)
   
3. Carl Sagan (a scientific genius that gifted the world with his presence, and we are all worse without him 👩‍🚀)
   

I first discovered Carl Sagan when my curiosity compelled me to watch some physics lectures on MIT opencourseware with Walter Lewin. In the first or second lecture, he played the famous "Pale Blue Dot" video on YouTube. It literally "broke my mind" and made me realize how wrong my perspective had been my entire life! 😁

 Me, I almost converted to the CoJCoLDS on account of the green Jello, with carrots.You could be worse than the Tanners and go after the Church worse than Korihor did in Alma chapter 30, and the elders would only bring you a bowl of green Jello as a peace offering.

[Ranjr]

If all I had to do to be nice was not mur. . . 

Oops, I'll wait for a thread in which an Arkansan can fully express his opinion of mormans.  Until then, welcome.

[Rev. Rye]

Honestly, I haven’t met any Mormons in the flesh (at least not to my knowledge), but, rather unfortunately, when Mormonism comes up in my readings, what I read tends to show it as… pretty dysfunctional. And not even in the sort of sensationalist “ooh, polygamy, magic underwear, and living in an afterlife on another planet” way, just in the same sort of mundane dysfunctions as everyone else. It’s rather telling that (outside of a mommy blogger/barefoot model whose faith doesn’t come up all that often, and is probably something of a dissenter due to being openly bisexual), the closest thing I’ve found to a real-life Mormon who really had it together was Travis Alexander.

[HankMoody316]

Re: Honestly, I haven’t met any Mormons in the flesh (at least not to my knowledge), but, rather unfortunately, when Mormonism comes up in my readings, what I read tends to show it as… pretty dysfunctional.

Words are just words. Actions speak louder than words. Words can all be dismissed as having no value. Realize words for what they are (words are shallow, meaningless, and empty) and once you realize this, you will realize that compared to observing someone's actions -- their words are about as valuable as a confederate $50 banknote from the pre-civil war era. (i.e. it is worth $0 now because the south lost the civil war) 😊

• Edit1: I kinda want to change the $50 banknote explanation to a screendoor on a battleship (from B2tF but Mormons are mercilessly forbidden from satisfying their own wants & desires... 😣)
  
• We are forbidden by ourselves (I just want to make sure no one believes that it is our religion which forbids us). 🙏
  

[Rev. Rye]

And so can the way people present themselves to the outside world. Remember the Duggars? How they were holding themselves up as some sort of moral exemplar, but it turned out that all this time, they were covering up that their oldest son Josh molested his own sisters and that all they did was call off a courtship, have a state trooper friend give him a “stern talking to”, and made him remodel a house for a family friend?

Maybe the Mormon friends you have actually are the real deal, but all I know for sure is it’s done a lot of harm.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Moderator Notice
Friendly reminder that an intro thread is not the place for discussion or debate.

Boru

[Mister Agenda]

Welcome, Hank! I almost married a Mormon. She was a nice lady, but she felt a lot of pressure to get married.

[HankMoody316]

Welcome, Hank! I almost married a Mormon. She was a nice lady, but she felt a lot of pressure to get married.

Hi and thank you Mister Agenda 👋

I've been married before and I wish I had listened to experts who look at marriage through a financial lens, such as Dave Ramsey. If you've ever picked up one of his books or listened to his show on youtube, he'll straight-up tell you that money is the number one issue married couples fight about, and it's the second leading cause of divorce.

I can confirm that money was the number one issue my exwife and I fought about. All I did was work, work, work so she could "spend, spend, spend!" Then I dated an Asian girl who treated me like a king but her parents would not let her marry outside her race (that was the "official reason" but the age-gap may have been the real reason). 

So if you're married, I'll say this: "Happy wife, happy life!" (put her #1 in your life, above yourself)

If you're single, don't settle. There is a perfect girl out there for you and here is how you will recognize her -- she is the woman you cannot imagine living the rest of your life without! 👍

[HankMoody316]

Honestly, I haven’t met any Mormons in the flesh (at least not to my knowledge), but, rather unfortunately, when Mormonism comes up in my readings, what I read tends to show it as… pretty dysfunctional. And not even in the sort of sensationalist “ooh, polygamy, magic underwear, and living in an afterlife on another planet” way, just in the same sort of mundane dysfunctions as everyone else. It’s rather telling that (outside of a mommy blogger/barefoot model whose faith doesn’t come up all that often, and is probably something of a dissenter due to being openly bisexual), the closest thing I’ve found to a real-life Mormon who really had it together was Travis Alexander.

Well, it's hard to find a good metric for "dysfunctional" but we are taught in church that we have the lowest divorce rate, lowest teen pregnancy rate, and spend the highest percentage of our life volunteering for philanthropic causes such as feeding the homeless or building homes from scratch through "Habitat for Humanity". At the end of the day though, we are only human and we share the same struggles as you do. (stress, addictions, depression, worry, fear, etc..) As far as what you've read goes:

• Believe nothing of what you hear, and only half of what you see.