I lived in a Utah city with one of the highest concentrations of Mormons and on the whole people were incredibly gracious. Surely not all experiences are equal, but for over three years my wife and I were made to feel welcome in the community.
There were little inconveniences like no coffee provided at a lot of workplaces and liquor restrictions, but if you love outdoor stuff that alone can make it a pretty nice place to live.
So what? Three years is plenty of time to form an opinion and thirty doesn’t necessarily make for a better opinion.
And your view is uninformed, because it’s anecdotal, one data point, based on your microcosm of experience, just like mine.
There’s not enough information here to generalize, but I still have real friends from having lived there, and I think it’s appropriate to offer a counterpoint, lest anyone interpret a one off comment as a truism.
I agree, but the thing is all religions have weird things. Moreover weird people can be cool and make the world a more interesting place.
The real problem is when a religion becomes oppressive, dangerous, or...well I’m sure you know the pitfalls we’ve learned of over 5000 years.
A fair number of people here are almost militantly against religion in all forms. I happen to take the opinion that it’s not inherently evil, that some good comes from it, and we should judge every situation on its own ethics rather than alienate such a large class of people.
