This question arose (as did most of these question) from a post to the soc.religion.mormon newsgroup. In the post, a person was complaining that Mormons do not take religion seriously, since there are not too many "you must believe this" doctrines in the church, (the Articles of Faith, and perhaps a handful of others) and that Mormons have many different opinions/interpretations on the other doctrines.

He wrote:

>I would be happy if Mormons would simply take religion seriously and not

>as a weapon with which to bonk non-Mormons over the head. In the end, I

>don't even believe there is such a thing as Mormonism or a Latter-day

>Saint religion. The beliefs of Mormons are just too variable and too

>mutually incompatible.

My reply to that is that I believe Mormons really do take *religion* seriously, but perhaps not *theology*.

As James said: "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." (James 1:27). I think those aspects of faith are precisely the ones Mormons take *extremely* seriously.