You Know You Went to Byu if

Disclaimer: I don't speak for BYU. I went to BYU. I'g lamentable to hear that your friend had that kind of feel. I believe that everyone I went to school with would accept considered that very intolerant and rude indeed. I hope that's far from the experience of all students there who aren't LDS. Some of the points in the blurb virtually BYU are authentic, but some are misleading and fake. BYU is a individual religious institution, and it therefore has stricter rules near bear, appearance, and beliefs. These rules, together called the "Honor Lawmaking", are accepted by every educatee before he/she attends. These standards are a big function of the reason for the students' desire to attend BYU. Abstaining from tea, coffee, tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs is already role of the LDS conventionalities system. The idea that students are required to abjure from flirting is ludicrous, and reveals that the writer(s) must either exist ignorant or must accept misinterpreted their information. There is no end to flirting at BYU, unless you define flirting to include crudity and lewdness. "Sexual comments" was an interesting improver to the list. Equally a pupil at BYU, you are expected to apply clean language and adhere to high moral standards, and and so I suppose if by "sexual comments" they mean "vulgar or crass sexual comments" and then this is true. These are all things that may perhaps be labeled as "intolerant" past some, but which I agree with. The facial hair rule I call back is old-fashioned and unnecessary. I and a lot of others call back that blocking YouTube on the campus network is disgusting and verging on communism (I tin can't stand up forced web filtering of any kind). Tunneling worked though, and the CS network didn't cake YouTube, so that was nice.

A cousin of mine explained the dietary restrictions to me. For the full effect, please indulge me as I enter a brief scrap of existent dialogue with the names stripped: Me: "Then how is BYU, _____? Enjoying your first semester away from home?" Her: "It's bully, I'm having a lot of fun. Just I don't think you'd like information technology very much." Me: "Why not? I went to college besides, y'all know. Is it because I'm non mormon?" Her: "There'south that." pauses to open up a can of Coke "But you're too required to abstain from things like tea and coffee. Y'all'd have to give up caffeine, and I know you'd hate that." Me: looking pointedly at her can of coke "Yous take to give up drinks with caffeine in it?" Her: pausing over again to potable her soda "Yes. The Honor Code says we tin't beverage tea, coffee or annihilation with alcohol in information technology." Me: "But soda is okay?" Her: "Yep, unless it has, similar, drugs in information technology or something." I checked the BYU website. Coffee and tea are verboten, Soda is not. I even constitute pictures of people drinking coke on campus. Way to become, BYU. Your dietary restrictions are super-skillful.

Information technology does get pretty light-headed sometimes. There are only a few things that are "outlawed", and therefore people retrieve that equally long as they abjure from those substances, they're in total compliance with what their religion expects of them. The root reason of the dietary restrictions is a principle of respecting the trunk and keeping it make clean, but people misapply it by interpreting information technology verbatim and so gorging themselves on junk nutrient, soda, or anything that isn't salubrious only isn't technically "forbidden". I remember it's a good thing that the church doesn't forcefully regulate which sodas we can or cannot drink, considering that would be decision-making and ridiculous. However, these slightly arbitrary rules can stop up encouraging a group of people who do the minimum required simply to remain in good social status. That will exist the instance anywhere. Another instance of this is R-rated movies. There was a church leader a long time ago who at one time at a general briefing warned confronting viewing R-rated movies. This seems perfectly adequate, except that information technology ended upwards creating an unwritten rule of sorts among LDS members. The principle is that we should avert movies that don't run across the standards we're expected to accept, but it inevitably created a group of people who were perfectly okay with seeing whatever moving-picture show regardless of the content as long equally the MPAA didn't put the magic 'R' on it. It's hard to know where to describe the line when you know that some people are just going to get every bit close to that line every bit possible. You only promise that most people are listening to the underlying principles rather than the base requirements. I occasionally potable caffeinated sodas if there isn't annihilation else bachelor. I don't consider this to be especially dissentious to my health. I recollect that whether or not I drink a caffeinated beverage has very little or naught to do with what I consider to be my spiritual standing.

> I occasionally drink caffeinated sodas if at that place isn't annihilation else available. I don't consider this to be particularly damaging to my health. I think that whether or non I drink a caffeinated beverage has very niggling or zilch to do with what I consider to be my spiritual continuing. The point of my story wasn't to say, "Haha. Here are these goofy mormonians." I recollect you can choice out goofballs from any religion. My indicate was, "Hither is someone going to higher that doesn't seem to be able to read the ingredients on their soda tin." Or more directly, "BYU is a school that seems to be failing at teaching students how to think and reason."

My point was, "Here is someone going to college that doesn't seem to exist able to read the ingredients on their soda can." Ahahahahahahaha. I knew several folks at BYU who could recite, in milligrams, the caffeine content of diverse soft drinks. Caffeinated sodas are left to the discretion of each individual. I went to both the University of Wisconsin and BYU, and honestly I much more prefer the atmosphere of "Dr. Pepper equally excess" to "Alcohol to excess."

Huh, I idea she just thought the rules were stupid, but was abiding with them out of respect. That is, the rules required her abstaining from tea and coffee, simply since they didn't mention Coke she drank information technology without guilt. And the bit of "abstaining from caffeine" sounds like she thinks your caffeine intake is purely from tea and coffee. Just I don't know you at all, so I'm probably misinterpreting her. :)

That'due south a mutual mistake. Most Mormon'due south aren't bothered by sodas, caffeinated or non. They are specifically opposed to tea and coffee which gets interpreted as caffeine. No, it doesn't make sense and a caffeine prohibition would at least seem to have some type of logic behind it (some of them practice that)... just it's religion it'southward meant to brand y'all at least a little stupid.

The rules are the kickoff derivative of the intent. This haunts all religions. You will always go a special group of people who follow the rules without because the intent, ordinarily with the goal of feeling superior to everyone else. Its called "legalism", and information technology leads to all kinds of nonsense.

blocking YouTube on the campus network is disgusting and verging on communism Blocking access to information is counter-revolutionary. I think the word you are looking for is totalitarianism.

-i This is similar proverb: "I heard from somebody who has never been to Tonga that Tongans are dumb." Second-paw tales ala "I heard from . . ." rarely relay facts. (artistic downmodding from someone who doesn't mail service plenty to have a downmodding pointer) p.s. how many points is it these days?

For what it's worth, I've heard the same matter from a Mormon who went there and didn't like how some of the other Mormons behaved.

I'm Mormon, I went there, and there were lots of people whose beliefs I didn't like. There were also a lot more whose behavior I did like. Mormons brand upward 95% of the 30K student torso, and then if at that place's anyone there you don't like, they're probably a Mormon. Mormons are a big enough group (specially at BYU) that standard statistical rules apply - some are jerks, some are racist, some are angels, some and the nicest people in the earth, and well-nigh are decent people with the usual grapheme flaws. At that place are over 5 million Mormons in America and 12 1000000 in the earth, so they're too large to stereotype every bit individuals, whatsoever more than Americans, Mexicans, Catholics, Muslims, left handers, computer programmers, etc.

I'm not claiming that the unmarried distinguishing feature of Mormons is that they're universally unkind to outsiders, but when you deal with an unusual group, it's the outliers who tin can really show you lot that there's something unusual going on. But for example, it would completely blow my mind if I found out that there was an motorcar mechanic who had the same curiosity, panache, explanatory talent, etc. as Richard Feynman. This isn't considering I think mechanics are all dumber than physicists, or that at that place aren't some smart mechanics or some dumb physicists (I know i person who I believe was a mechanic before becoming a physicist). But hearing about another Feynman-style physicist would not be such a big bargain. Similarly, the average Mormon is probably fairly indistinguishable from the average American, or the average resident of any land that Mormon lives in. Merely when you wait at the outliers -- the ones with really nasty in-group hostility, the ones who work eighty hours a week and do volunteer work on weekends, the ones to whom seven kids would be a 'skillful start' -- you figure Mormons might be half a standard deviation more than in-group centered, industrious, and fertile. And at that point, it's just Bayesian inference: you find out someone is a Mormon, you alter your estimates of the adventure that they have other characteristics, likewise. they're as well large to stereotype as individuals, any more than Americans, Mexicans, Catholics, Muslims, left handers, computer programmers, etc. I stereotype all of these groups in the aforementioned means. It may be misguided, but information technology'due south a good fashion to experience your surprises in majority and in advance. Always efficient.

You Know You Went to Byu if

Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=285385

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