The dog is fired.

[Lyric]

Fired. Terminated. He can clean out his desk and go home.

Just a little while ago, according to my darling ThinkBlue1966, a couple of nice young Mormon lads approached our home. Toby was outside on his run, though, and proceeded to bark his head off--I'm guessing that the white shirts gave him bad memories of the Vet. Anyway, said Mormons changed their minds and went on their way.

DAMMIT.

We were really hoping to have the pleasure of grilling them about their church's stance on gay marriage. ANY other time, Toby is just a bundle of fluffy Golden Retriever love, but ooooh no. Today he had to be all BARKY. Pffffft.

Stupid dog. I ought to give the cats a cheeseburger and make him WATCH them eat it.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

1. Don't be too hard on him...

He probably wanted to give them a well-deserved chomp.

[Rhythm]

2. More likely asking them (loudly) if they could spare a Slim Jim

He'd give away the family heirlooms for a BallPark hotdog, i swear.

[Oeditpus Rex]

3. Send him over here

I just took a pack out of the freezer. Bun-length. :D



Here, Toby! Bring me the swag! Atta boy!

[Lyric]

5. Swag.

:rofl:

We are, regrettably, swagless.
I'd like to see the reaction of a burglar breaking into our place.
He'd probably stick a twenty on the fridge door with a magnet out of pity.

:D

[GoddessOfGuinness]

4. Their Jims were probably too slim

:rofl:

[Lyric]

6. "Family Heirlooms?"

Is that what we're calling the cats now?

:hide:

[CreekDog]

7. having known a ton of former Mormon Missionaries

i'm not saying you shouldn't do that.

it's just that they are 19-21 years old, their preparation is all of like 6-8 weeks memorizing scripts basically. they've barely had time to figure out why they should go on a mission, much less been able to independently and maturely make a decision to actually go on one.

they are kids, basically. i have some sympathy.

[Lyric]

8. I've known plenty of them too. My Mom was a Mormon before she met my Dad

and she kept a couple of her "church friends" as we were growing up--mostly people who associated with her in hopes of bringing her back into the "fold," along with my Dad. She's still friends with one of them, actually. A very nice lady named Janet--she used to leave big boxes full of food on our porch at Christmas because we were so poor when I was little, but that's another story.

Anyway, because of Mom's associations, I had several Mormon friends of my own age as a kid, and even attended a few of the youth functions just for fun--they taught cutesy classes for girls, like ballet and cooking and stuff. In the process of all this, I became acquainted with quite a few of the traveling missionary boys, and learned a lot about the religion and their culture.

The one thing I always noticed is that, while many of them *are* very young, all of the ones I met understood "the deal"--that is, you don't tell people all of the weird, wacky stuff about Mormonism until they're Baptized. They called it "milk before meat," or some such nonsense. They were supposed to talk-up the Jesus stuff, and play down (or avoid) the "Hey! We actually believe that there are LOTS of gods, all of them used to be male humans, and YOU can be a god with your own planet someday too!" stuff. Assuming you were male, that is. Women aren't quite so lucky.

The point is that these "kids" were taught to deliberately manipulate other people in order to convert them, and they know full well what they're doing. So far as I'm concerned, that makes them fair game for being challenged about their religious tenets if they come knocking on my door--especially after that Proposition 8 outrageousness.

[CreekDog]

11. I'm all for challenging them

but depending on whether you want to satisfy yourself (not unreasonable) or perhaps actually get them to think (if possible), the approach you take would be different. having been in a class loaded with former Mormon missionaries, it was eye opening to have one of them blurt out in class, "why did I do that for two years" after we were discussing literature.

breakthroughs are possible.

you make a good point about what they are trained to do, however. for other Christians, they are taught to latch onto that person's faith in the Bible, then systematically undermine it only to replace that faith with faith in the Book of Mormon, or more specifically, faith in the Book of Mormon (which doesn't make a whole lot of sense anyway) which leads to faith in the Prophet. it's insidious, though i'm not so sure Mormon Missionaries all understand why this is wrong having been exposed to this stuff all their lives.

the milk before meat is a really key point too. saving all the objectionable stuff for after you sign on the dotted line so to speak is horrendous.

thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. brings back memories.

[Incitatus]

9. A dog that goes after Mormons? OMG! I'll take him.

[DeepBlueC]

10. love that pic

:)