"You're not really a Mormon.", On the accuracy of labels. —Tsuzuki

An anti on another message board told me that I didn't really count as Mormon because of my penchant for embracing other religions and occult practices. My question is, how far can one push the envelope, while remaining faithful in the church, before the label of "Mormon" stops being descriptively accurate?

QUOTE (BMD @ Apr 30 2006, 01:09 PM)

A letter to the bishop, a letter to the stake president, a phone call to SLC, a letter to SLC, all over the past seven months now--and all I have to show for it is a form letter from SLC telling me my resignation is a "matter that must be handled by local priesthood leaders" which I received about three months ago. It's the complete lack of respect that gets to me. What's the matter with these people? Why won't they honor my request to have my name removed from the records?

QUOTE (tag @ Apr 30 2006, 12:39 PM)

Some times this action is complete respect, not lack of respect. Membeship is sacred to the active members and not only for this life, but for all life. I really don't want to be responsible for bloting out a recod in this life (Read here Matthew 16:19) for a member who in the next life comes to himself and realized he wants the membership after all. You have to work for it to get your name off, and be sure it is your decission. They may actually be honoring you in this (although this is not your perspective).

Huh? Tag, I assume this was a serious response? If so you have a seriously warped view of respect, and I hope it's not widely shared by others, LDS or not. You're also factually wrong about having "to work for it to get your name off." At least in the U.S., you're no longer a member upon notifying them of such.

Cureloms and Cumoms —Joseph Antley

It is generally believed that the elephants mentioned by Moroni were actually lingering North American mammoths or mastadons. Considering the clues in the text, the mammoths, cureloms, and cumoms were not domesticated or used in a manner like the oxen, sheep, swine, or goats, or like the horses and asses. The text doesn't say they had elephants, cureloms, and cumoms, but just that there were elephants, cureloms, and cumoms, and they were especially useful to man.

The reign of Emer, the only time elephants, cureloms, and cumoms are mentioned, was probably sometime between 2500 and 1500 BC.

Could either the cureloms or cumoms have been giant ground sloths, such as the mylodon? Some ground sloths living in Hispianola and Cuba didn't become extinct until the 16th century, and Indian oral legends of ground sloths suggest that they coexisted among Native Americans during some point. Some even speculate that they may exist today in the unexplored regions of Argentina.

And if the giant sloth was a curelom or cumom, perhaps it starts a pattern in the text. Going on this theory, verse 19 would group elephants (mammoths), cureloms (giant sloths), and cumoms together, giving rise to perhaps an etymological theory that the Jaredite or Nephite prefix cu- meant "large; huge".

Any ideas on other candidates for cureloms and cumoms?

Dinosaurs.