religion and "closed societies"

someone had gotten on the forum about 6 months ago. She complained of people shunning her, etc.

i figured she was in salt lake city.. whatever she was feeling - i'm totally understanding it, now.

The largest religion here in idaho, saltlakecity, provost utah is mormon. they look you over, ask questions, and in many cases, make assumptions.

they can tell by sight, (in most cases) if you're not one of them. They dress a certain way, look a certain way (beat down, in my opinion), and definitely have a problem with "outsiders"...

I'm having a hard time grasping, how this is going to pan out. My friend said her 14 year old daughter came home crying because she can't make friends at her high school. why?

because she's not mormon.

One 15 year kid, asked a young lady out to the prom. the parents don't approve - why? because he's not a moron - sorry mormon. he was in tears asking: "What have i done wrong?" this broke my heart..

wtf?

isn't gawd SUPPOSED to be a gawd of love? what's up with this division? this isn't teaching love - it's teaching bigotry..

I lived in that area and went through the same exact thing as your friend's daughter. Everyone had their clique, they all knew each other through their "wards". I didn't make a real friend until after I'd been in the area a year. In fact I went through a sort of depression in my senior year because I hated everything so much, the thought of going to school and facing it made me upset and literally sick. I think it had a lot to do with the religious undertone to everything, it was a natural division between me and probably 90% of my classmates.

I'm against religion in general but I have a certain loathing for Mormonism. And don't even get me started on FLDS.

Religion isn't the problem, it's the people who try to represent it.

I do think that is a major problem but I still dislike religion itself.

How is it that they have the opportunity to present it in a problematic way?

Freedom.

That would only work where freedom was applicable though wouldn't it?

Freedom is pretty much applicable around the world. I could be wrong, but I don't believe there's a spot on this planet where people aren't allowed to practice some form of religion.

I was thinking more on if freedom allows the opportunity to present religion in a problematic way, would that mean the opposite is also true.

Absolutely.

Of course they do. One would be hardpressed to find otherwise.