everybody knows them... but nobody hangs out with them it seems. it's really easy to point them out on the street, because they are always wearing the same thing as the other mormon they are hanging out with (which is usually fitted too loose), and they never look like they know where they are going, despite their convictions. oh, and yes, there's the book, too.
i was recently approached by two young what-i-would-call evangelists on the street. i was coming out of a coffee shop and was giving my dog some treats when they asked me what kind of dog i had. i told them. they quickly proceeded to the point by asking if i'd ever talked to "guys like us." they actually said that. i asked if they were mormons and they nodded their affirmations. i told them i had and that i was not interested. they asked if i needed help with anything. i pictured them trying to handle my dog as i sipped on coffee and smoked my cigarette while walking home from balzac's and ripping apart their indoctrinated state of mind. i thought against it being that my girlfriend would be rather displeased if i did this and our dog somehow made his way into traffic. as would i. i told them i was ok. i did decide however to stay and chat.
i asked them when their religion started. i should have known it was the beginning of time. that was really stupid of me. i then asked when it entered historical context and was quite surprised by the young man's answer of the early 1800s. of course, since the beginning of time all the way through to the early 1800s is a pretty notable gap for the words of god to be missing from the picture, for which i was assured there was a simple explanation: there were powerful people who didn't want people to know these things.
i'm going to stop this reliving-the-moment rant right here and just say what i want to say about mormons and whoever else thinks it's ok to try and spread the virus of their delusions (dubbed as such as the belief in a thing which has no scientific descriptors is a mind problem) on to unsuspecting passers-by.
(at this point, i'm checking out an unfinished draft several months after the fact, and no longer am with said girlfriend or said dog. i really miss the dog. just for clarity.)
(so it seems as though my job here is to finish this entry by saying what i want to say, and so forth... i'm definitely wondering if what comes to mind now even faintly resembles what i was thinking when i was probably interrupted by aforementioned "ex.")
these people who approached me were in their "formative years." it's interesting to me now that simple things like phrases play a key role in the development of a person's mind. repeated phrases work better, if your aim is to shape someone's perception of things, as evidenced by successful campaigns aimed at convincing the masses to inhale an obviously lethal substance called cigarette smoke. people can be driven to do and think things that are quite contrary to their best interest, en masse. it's as simple as that. and as far as mormons and any other person or religion who claim to kneel at the feet of a wrathful creator are concerned...
God. help them.