No licking!
I have family in Utah and there’s a pretty common joke in this vein.
Why do you always invite two Mormons to a party?
Because if you only invite one they will drink all your beer.
Every Mormon I’ve ever met is very serious about walking the talk, alone or not. They’re probably more serious about following the rules of their religion than any other religion. Well, them and Muslims, but Mormons seem happier doing it.
They’re serious about following the rules because their entire social and community structure stresses conformity. If you break the norms of the faith there are serious repercussions and you can lose your entire family, community, and support structure. When they’re alone with others who aren’t of the faith they are definitely far more lax. I’ve drank beer and even had chocolate with Mormons before lol.
“[…] even had chocolate with Mormons […]”?
Uh. There is absolutely nothing in the Mormon Word of Wisdom that says anything about chocolate. There isn’t even anything about caffeine. The phrase used is “hot drinks”, which has been interpreted by the Mor(m)on prophets to mean specifically coffee and tea (but not herbal tea). A particularly zealous bishop or stake president might counsel against caffeine consumption, but AFAIK they aren’t going to prevent you from going to a Mormon temple if you chug a case of Red Bull and Bawls every single day.
Source: raised Mormon, was active for 25-ish years, former missionary.
former missionary.
Bit of an aside but I love fucking with (ex)-you guys. I have a stack of pamphlets from The Church of the SubGenius by my door and am well practiced in the religious dogma contained within, I turn the tables on em real quick and talk about our great guru J. R. “Bob” Dobbs as long as I can hold them while they get visibly annoyed lmao. See how they like it for a change!
I used to have a problem with jehovas witnesses waking me up regularly because I kept a night schedule. Like, every week or two, I’d be woken up in the middle of my sleep cycle by them.
Politely informed them I was solidly not religious, nor did I have any interest in religion at all.
They came back.
Asked them to remove me from their circuit.
They came back.
Started getting mildly rude, cutting them off and asking them to not knock on my door again.
They came back.
I answered the door in nothing but boxers and told them I don’t care about their zombie Jesus.
Sweet uninterrupted sleep from then on.
Worked for a company that was entirely JWs, some of the most genuinely nice people I ever met, but knowing the whole process behind the scenes and how constrictive the lifestyle is, it was always off putting.
I was never witnessed to other than just general inquiry to get to know me in passing by coworkers. But their doctrine basically states that if I’m not a JW, I’m a non-person. I don’t know how many of them believe it, but still.
They all have designated zones to do their “service” so if you refuse they’ll still come back because they believe their ticket into heaven is to convince you what they say is true.
If anyone else who reads this ever has problems with them coming to their door, best way to get them to take you off their list is say “I’ve already been excommunicated from another kingdom hall in (insert town from 2hr+ away)”
“I’ve already been excommunicated from another kingdom hall in (insert town from 2hr+ away)”
Well, there’s the trick. I don’t think I could say those words without breaking. I’d be demanding a shrubbery before I could stop myself.
Hey, I totally get it. I was a complete douchebag when I was a missionary, nearly 30 years ago, and we def. deserved a lot of the shit that we got.
I’m never mean to them or anything, I just flip the script, just so much fun lol!
The way it was always explained to me was anything containing even a small amount of caffeine was problematic. I appreciate you correcting me on this.
TBH, this is one of the many, many things about Mormonism that makes no fucking sense at all to modern sensibilities. Some Mormons do interpret it to mean zero caffeine, but that’s not the official doctrine.
Honestly, the reason is very likely that, when Joe Smith Jr. was formulating his doctrine, there was a psuedo-science movement at the time that believed that hot beverages of any kind were bad for you. When you really start digging into the Mormon theology, it’s clear that the doctrine JS Jr. was teaching was strongly based off of new religious movements that existed in the area, at the time.
Yeah… unfortunately, confusion about this particular subject exists because members often look for the underlying justification on things and then extrapolate from there.
(I’m going to paraphrase and shorten things a lot here so we don’t have to dive into definitions and technicalities. Bear with me.)
The doctrine brought forth about this is what’s referred to as “The Word of Wisdom,” which was a short outline of what things were deemed as “harmful” or otherwise “unsuitable” for the body. The idea being that the Lord was promising to people that if they didn’t ingest these things, they would live a healthier life as a result. “Hot drinks” was mentioned and clarified a century later to mean “tea and coffee.” Furthermore, “tea” refers to black and green tea, and not necessarily herbal tea.
People, by nature, want to understand the “why” behind things. You also have people who want to understand where the line begins and ends so they can tiptoe it. Enter the rumor that since the “hot drinks” referred to “tea and coffee,” they both have not-so-insignificant amounts of caffeine in them. Obviously that must mean drinks like Coca-Cola and Pepsi, plus foods such as chocolate, must also be in violation of this, right?
Well, the issue with that is people think they’re applying “the spirit of the law” (meaning the larger picture behind it) when they’re actually applying “the word of the law” (taken at face value). The idea behind the Word of Wisdom is to take care of your body by having a balanced diet and not eating too much of a particular thing. Certain items were called out explicitly; if caffeine were the true issue, then it would’ve been called out instead. But it wasn’t, and there have been some clarifications to emphasize that caffeine itself is not the explicit reason behind it. (However the idea of “addiction” could extend to caffeine if someone were to consume large amounts of it regularly, but addiction or dependency can occur even to things like Tylenol when too much is consumed, so targeting it specifically is silly.)
So in short, it’s a mixture of misunderstanding and overzealous practice. Caffeine is perfectly fine. Just like anything else: make sure you’re not consuming too much of it.
I really cannot blame anyone for the confusion because a lot of this comes from the LDS Church itself and their often confusing clarifications of their positions. Like with caffeine specifically they have a long history of forbidding its use and then suddenly they reinterpreted it the way you’re suggesting. I’d say that’s fairly atypical for most religions nowadays and it’s a unique aspect of the LDS church that their interpretations are fluid like that.
The alternative for most other religions in the US is just that they never get specific and so most members hold conflicting views and interpretations. Both of the techniques I find very odd since you’d think that these differences would have faith based answers, but instead appear almost bureaucratic in nature
Like with caffeine specifically they have a long history of forbidding its use and then suddenly they reinterpreted it the way you’re suggesting.
I had to think about this. I can’t seem to find any articles in a quick search where church leaders (a Prophet or Apostle) explicitly forbade its use. I have, however, found many excerpts where leaders who do not sit at the head (Quorum of the Seventy, BIshop, etc) have made statements warning against it or even flat out saying that members should not ingest it.
Given the structure and lack of corrective statements coming from above, I would attribute the confusion to local and regional leaders being overzealous by including caffeine explicitly in their teachings. Some have worded things in a manner I would find accurate, such as “high-dose caffeinated energy drinks” or “excessive soda consumption which results in high caffeine and sugar intake.” Others though explicitly call out caffeine as an “evil,” describing experiences with caffeine withdrawals or members deciding to not ingest alcohol, nicotine, nor caffeine. These mentions seem to have drummed up confusion primarily in the 80s (a lot of “Letter to the Editor” publications from this period seem to have been back-and-forth arguments among members, lol).
Initially I didn’t think the history is as “long” as you claimed, but then I realized that the 80s was just forty years ago, and with some results of the topic dating as far back as the 70s, it would mean it’s been an intra-member debate for almost half a century. And half a century is practically a lifetime 😖
That is the apologetic version, yeah. But it begs the question: if it’s okay to drink caffeine, why is it that an occasional cup of coffee will keep you out of the temple, but a case of Red Bull every day won’t? If it’s about avoiding addiction, then surely any addiction would make you unworthy to go to the temple. If it’s hot drinks, then why isn’t cold brew coffee okay? Why is yerba mate fine, and ice tea is not? One assumes that a god would be able to formulate a standard that can be applied cleanly, to everything, and communicate that clearly to his prophet.
Honestly, the when you look at the circumstances that existed contemporaneously when JS Jr. was formulating his theology, it’s clear that the Word of Wisdom is essentially a slightly reformulated version of the temperance movement. It’s also interesting to note that it wasn’t a requirement until, IIRC, the 1920s or so; JS Jr. and Brigham Young were both pretty big drinkers of hard liquor, for instance. It’s easy to point to tobacco and say, see?, it’s prophetic! But there was a pretty strong temperance movement against tobacco at the time as well. (Meanwhile, the evidence we have right now seems to indicate that coffee and tea are probably good for you, and evidence regarding alcohol is leaning towards it probably not being healthy even in very moderate drinkers.)
One assumes that a god would be able to formulate a standard that can be applied cleanly, to everything, and communicate that clearly to his prophet.
The issue wouldn’t be the god in question, but instead the people.
Consider the fact that Moses was given the Ten Commandments for all the Israelites to follow. They’re incredibly simple and straightforward. Yet there still was a division in how these were observed, which was documented well in the New Testament.
The two most notable (outlined in the New Testament) are the Pharisees and Sadducees. The Pharisees can be summarized as a group which added man-made rules or guidelines on top of the established doctrines. Certain stories, such as Christ healing a man on the Sabbath, demonstrate that the intention of a commandment can be forgotten by people who choose to observe by the letter of the law. The Sadducees can be summarized as a group which chose to observe only doctrines that are written. Both groups, however, largely ignored the foundation behind the 10 Commandments.
Christ explains it as simply as can be. Love the Lord above all else, and love they neighbor as you do yourself. The 10 Commandments were already straightforward to begin with, but the two greater commandments set the standard you suggest such a deity should be capable of doing.
Even still, as simple as they can be, the issue often becomes that some people want to be told what exactly they can or cannot do, while others want to justify their actions on the basis of technicality.
All of this to say, the doctrine for the LDS church is based on the idea of obedience towards God. It doesn’t matter why He says to not drink coffee, just that He promises you’ll be blessed if you do. So by virtue of the two greater commandments, loving God means following His instructions. And that alone should be reason enough to do so.
(Mind you, I disagree with how this is often put into practice, as a lot of guilt-tripping occurs for those who choose not to follow these teachings. At its core, these actions are antithetical to Christ’s teachings and examples, which are to love all unconditionally as we are all sinners in the eyes of the Lord. But again, the issue lies with people, who aren’t perfect, rather than the doctrines put forth.)
Nah, if Mormons had an official drink, it’d be mountain dew
But also mate which is hot, caffeinated, leaf juice, is a-ok and totally not tea.
In my experience, a lot of “devoutly” religious people are like this.
I grew up Independent Fundamental Baptist (westboro, but less vocally homophobic) and my dad told me a few years ago he secretly kept a stash of alcohol in the garage while he was quite aggressively teaching that the Bible expressly forbade consumption of alcohol that could get you drunk because of a long argument that basically amounts to “Paul said so.” (The proper response to that is “fuck Paul”, obv. Paul was an asshat.)
You can twist anything into anything if you try hard enough, and they’re really good at it.
But do they talk the walk?
Most definitely. They even go on special years long missions to talk to everyone who will listen about the walk.
And, depending on where in the world they go, they may have to walk a lot to talk to people about the walk.
While there must certainly be some devout Muslims who try their best to keep the “rules”, as I’d expect in any group, a lot of Muslims are not so different frombthe rest of us non-Muslims.
My coworker is a former Muslim who had to leave his home country due to persecution when he became a Christian. Here, he’s made Muslim friends who regularly invite him over for dinner and they serve… Pork. They say because he is not a Muslim, they respect that and don’t force him to eat halal. But why does not forcing him to eat halal equate to them eating pork?
They are genuinely his friends, but he is also their “excuse” to break halal.
LOL, that’s funny. They’re definitely making an excuse to eat pork.
The Muslims I know are pretty strict about following the commandments. Of course nobody’s perfect, but they pray 5 times per day, take their prayer rug to work, and follow their dietary restrictions. Of course I’m not around them all the time though, that’s just what I’ve seen.
The person who is the most serious about it that I know isn’t Arabic or Persian. He’s an African American living in the American South, and he’s very serious about his religion. The Muslims I know that seem the most relaxed about it are immigrants from Iran. Several of their first generation American kids are atheists.
I live in Malaysia, and Islam is the dominant religion here. Yet every store has a “haram corner” where they sell alcohol and pork, and some smaller supermarkets are even completely non-halal by default.
And while I haven’t seen a muslim eating pork, I had a few beers with some on several occasions. And I haven’t seen or heard anyone praying, with the exception for Malacca city, which is apparently a bit of a stricter area.
I guess every religion old enough has such kind of loopholes. I know from Roman Catholic that there can be made up so many exceptions that the 40 days of lent before Easter books down to a few days of actually fasting. No lent if you’re travelling (commute to work counts), no lent if you have guests, and of course no lent if you are a guest somewhere else. And Sunday is exempt from lent anyways.
When I was in Dubai for work it was explained to me that while it is prohibited to drink alcohol for Muslims under normal situations, they are allowed to have alcohol as part of business meetings/dinners since they court an international audience for various business prospects which is crucial for their economic future as a county.
Supposedly, that’s why everyone has a “business”, and you always see 2 bros in white robes chillin at a restaurant having drinks for a “meeting”.
How many Mormons have you met?
It seemed we’d talk to a new pair every weekend when I was a kid. The visits got shorter when he was watering the garden.
The ones I met were upset I photographed their ID.
Not a lot. Probably 20 in my lifetime, and only 3 are my friends.
it can’t possibly be that you’re more exposed to Mormons, right
exposed to Mormons
That’ll get you on a list.
More exposed to them than who? Idk what you’re trying to imply.
than you are to Muslims
Ah, gotcha. No, I know more Muslims than Mormons.
sure buddy, like your old muslim girlfriend from canada in the 80s. we get ya.
K
ok… so where do you meet around 20 Mormons but even more Muslims?
Waiting in line at your mom’s house.
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Jews don’t recognize Jesus.
Protestants don’t recognize the Pope.
Mormons don’t recognize each other in wendover
That was the joke about Baptists in my hometown. It was impossible to only invite one since everyone knew everyone’s families.
They could also use the poophole loophole.
A tampon soaked in Vodka and inserted anally gets you drunk fast.
At least that’s what a friend told me.But then some alcohol might get on your magic underwear and then you’re just a run of the mill sinner again
I’ve heard it called God’s blind spot before but poophole loophole is a great phrase
The poophole loophole usually means something different. They say anal sex doesn’t count as “losing your virginity.” So they can have all the premarital sex they want, as long as it’s in the pooper.
Why not both?
JD Vance on the stump in Utah: “Tim Walz wants to get your kids drunk with ass tampons”
You could skip the tampon and just boof it.
I’ll bet you could even get a Supreme Court justice to help with that maneuver.
Okay. I can’t tell if you’re serious, but if that’s true, how does that work medically?
Don’t liquids get absorbed through the intestines? Can you even stick something up your butt far enough to reach your intestines?
It’s capillary action. It just rams straight into your bloodstream, no dilution or waiting to go through stomach. It’s fast and effective.
Plus the excitement of risking an overdose!
So, as it doesn’t go through the stomach, do you not puke if you’re experiencing alcohol poisoning?
I’m sure you’d still puke as it’s nausea that makes you vomit not alcohol sitting in your stomach.
This is mostly it. Though, you’re able to expel alcohol if it’s still in your stomach.
Alcohol gets absorbed by mucus membrane much faster than by going through your digestive tract. And your anus is lined with mucus membrane.
It was a craze a decade or so ago where I live, cause teenagers did that to get drunk without having their breath smell of alcohol, and some of them ended up in the ER.It was also a crazy in the US. They called it butt chugging. It was funny to hear politicians talk about how we needed to do something about butt chugging
Alcohol gets absorbed by mucus membrane
Cue Eyeball Paul
cause teenagers did that to get drunk without having their breath smell of alcohol
Did they ever realize that’s not how that works?
Oh but it is. Not familliar with the phrase “boofing,” are you? Works for more than just booze, too, all kinds of things can become a suppository and affect your brain if you ignore the doctors warning you it could kill you, or listen to the ones saying “here’s some butt pills.”
I’m very familiar. That’s why I know it won’t keep the smell of alcohol off your breath. The alcohol goes to the blood, and a byproduct goes to the lungs which is exhaled. You can’t defeat a breathalyzer by shoving booze up your ass.
Ooohhh I see what you mean, my mistake! I’m used to people saying buttchugging itself is a myth and doesn’t work, so I misunderstood!
Additionally to what others have said it’s also quite dangerous. You can drink a fatal amount of alcohol but your body will generally puke before it absorbs enough to kill you.
Using this method (boofing), you don’t have that defense, it’s absorbed too quickly and your body doesn’t generally shit itself to expel poison.
Colon is part of your large intestine.
you’ve never boofed ketamine?
This literally was a trend in alternative swiss youth a decade or so ago, it works well and fast, straight into the blood 😂
How gaped does your ass have to be to easily insert a soaked tampon.
Are your dumps really smaller than a tampon? If they aren’t, why do you think your hole would need to be especially gaped?
I looked it up and I get it now. I assumed O.B. style tampon with no applicator, which would be difficult to insert. The info I found shows the soaking of the tampon inside the applicator, which makes a lot more sense.
As soon as you asked your initial question I too was imagining someone trying to fit a fully expanded tampon inside them … which is a though I wish I hadn’t
Its called…soaking…don’t Google that
We know.
You need someone else to shake the glass
This is the type of thinking that could be the next soaking or jump jumping at BYU.
That’s the joke.
I see this so often now, I can’t tell if people are honestly that dense or they’re intentionally pretending to be. In the spirit of Fry and Andy Dwyer, I’m not sure I want to know the answer.
This is why voting is so important.
How long should they let it soak?
I wouldn’t want to be the guy standing in front of the Throne of God and saying “But technically…”
Don’t worry there are a whole lot of jewish people that live inside a fishing line perimeter that are going to have to explain that whole racket before you get your chance to talk about soaking.
For the downvoters:
Religion in general is crazy
Nah. It’s a useful tool to use useful tools.
Believing in it is crazy.
Fair point
Honestly, I kinda love the whole “lawyering with God” thing that Jewish folks have going on. For any religion with restrictive beliefs, there will be adherents who will try to find loopholes. I’ve been lucky enough to have an upbringing almost completely free from religion (except for a year drinking hot chocolate at a Unitarian Universalist church, which is almost not religion), but I also grew up in a super Mormon part of Utah. I’ve spent my whole life as a bit of an outsider, seeing people pick and choose which rules to follow and try to discretely find and exploit every little loophole there is. I’ve always found the hypocrisy a bit unsettling.
I think I’d really prefer it if the Mormons took the same argumentative stance with their god. It would make the picking and choosing a bit less hypocritical (which might lead to more Mormons ditching some of their religion’s shittiest and most regressive teachings), and there’d be a lot less shitty sneaking around.
It’s also ridiculous because God didn’t decree any of that, it’s past people who wrote the rules.
My relatively limited contact with Jewish culture has painted a picture in which this kind of technicality is, in fact, part of the culture itself. It’s great
More than 200 cities around the world are partially encircled by an eruv.
Partially?
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In which case the city is not “partially encircled”, but “parts of the city are encircled”. Makes much more sense now.
Yeah, they usually only put them up in neighborhoods with a large portion of jewish people since it has to be checked for contiguity before every sabbath. That alone limits how large a portion of the city you could enclose.
Apparently the God of the Old Testament is extremely pedantic.
TIL
They need a friend to jump on the bed
What I find mad about this is that the Jesus they claim to follow (and totally not Joseph Smith who they really follow) drank wine and commanded His followers to do so
Growing up Mormon in the 80s (I got better!), they insisted to us kids that it was just grape juice, and for adults they simply put a social stigma on asking too many questions, or any uncomfortable questions.
If there is a theological principal in play it’s that they view their prophets as still able to receive Bible-level revelations, and if their non-trinitarian God committee tells Joseph Smith that wine is bad now, then wine is bad now. If human nature then results in believers feeling like sinners who need to make it up to their community and their church leaders, then oh so sad, but it can result in the Lord’s work being done.
In general Mormon theology is rather literal and childlike, only getting complicated when trying to work around some established Christian doctrine that no new book overrides (yet!). It’s almost like some provincial huckster was making it up as he went along…
Yeah, just like how black people were bad and the “children of Ham” or whatever. After the Civil Rights Movement, Morman God mysteriously changed his mind and said “black people are ok now”.
That didn’t happen until the Department of Education in the Carter administration started talking about whether students at BYU should be getting federal grants and loans, and I believe the NCAA was making some noise as well.
Lol!
Paul even writes in his first epistle to Timothy (5:23)
No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments.
This was because people were getting sick from drinking plain water (as they didn’t have the same water purifying technology then) so it was common to add a bit of wine to cleanse it antibacterial. Grape juice in this context would make zero sense. Would also hark back to what Luke wrote in The Acts of the Apostles 10:9-16 regarding a vision Peter received:
The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.
Although, this doesn’t really work in regard to the Mormon thinking that some guy can override the Bible and that the book of Mormon overrides it. Reminds me of a video a mormon made reading through John’s gospel according to Joseph Smith or something where he adds in extra stuff through some claimed revelation/restoration. There were comments of people saying “okay but there are no evidence for these texts existing from the early church” and the guy just responded with “but Joseph smith said”
The Word of Wisdom, which outlines the health guidelines of not drinking alcohol and using tobacco, as well as eating less meat, eating more grains; was originally just as the name suggests, words of wisdom.
Joseph Smith drank wine, used tobacco, and drank coffee up to his death.
It wasn’t until the early 20th century when it started to be treated as a commandment. This is around the time when they started codifying a lot of doctrine, stopped practicing polygamy, and started to function more like a mainstream religion and less like a cult.
Source: raised Mormon, went on mission, took religion classes at BYU-Provo on church history.
Can they buttchug it?
Nah
it’s called soaking and they already know about it lol
