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.
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.
Most definitely. They even go on special years long missions to talk to everyone who will listen 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.
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”.
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.
