I sincerely wish I could understand this.

I struggle to understand what "faith" is to a member of the church. Even while I was faithfully attending, I asked questions. Not to try to shake the soda, but to legitimately understand issues that seemed to elude me. One example always seemed to come up, faith.

Whenever a question arose that someone could not answer, they would throw faith into the mix. My problem was that I was a pretty big reader at the time. I had so many books from Deseret Books that would clearly demonstrate, with "facts", that all other churches were false. "The Day of Defense" comes to mind. In the book, I can remember at least one chapter that two missionaries were all too eager to demonstrate to their audience of religious leaders of other faiths why they were wrong, and proceeded with their evidence.

My problem was, that in the book, telling other faiths that they were wrong because of evidence was perfectly acceptable; yet try that on a Mormon and they will, with a straight face, tell you that evidence doesn't matter, only faith.

By that reasoning, can't all faiths use that defense?

Confused....

Reasoning only applies if it HELPS further the religion.

Otherwise you are supposed to use faith and have the common decency not to shake the soda (I LOVE that expression! Thanks.). If reality is not faith promoting, then don't use it or at least distort it.

Facts and reason are only to be used to cherry pick and support preconceived conclusions. If they don't promote the faith, then they are obviously not all true or of the devil according to faith-think.

I recently had the bizarre experience of a Mormon and a born again discussing what will happen in the afterlife. I walked in on them talking at work. They both were parroting what they knew from "faith," pulling crap from their rears as fast as they could to support their own views. Yet an rare factoid would sneak out to discredit the other in the argument.

This is one of my main beefs against religion over all. The people who flip in and out of "faith" mode clearly do not have a working ability to use reason consistently across the spectrum of their lives. I think we do a great disservice in religion when we teach people that faith trumps facts in an argument.

(By the way I walked in to the discussion and since I am their superior they immediately stopped the conversation. I announced I am a son of perdition and left the room. The Mormon's face turned beet red and the born again was asking, "What's a son of perdition?" OK, so I did shake the can a little.

I always hated the Mormon cherry-picking, to include only the facts that support a premise, and to obliterate the facts which contradict it.

"Milk before meat," in regard to the secrets of the temple.

"Answer the question they SHOULD have asked," in regard to Mormon apologetics and missionary selling.

End every discussion by bearing your testimony.

You can't reason with Mormons. You can't get through to them.