The perfectionist streak is real. The manifestation in cosmetic surgery is somewhat odd considering it's not explicitly taught (and has even been explicitly been panned). My own theory is that it's a weird combo of taking ideals seriously, religiously magnified & concentrated conscientiousness, and finally, heavily emphasizing the importance of having a mate and tying status to it.

However, I'm not sure the most ready explanation for any outlying antidepressant is oppressive religious expectations, outside of either some extra zealous backgrounds or key demographics like gay/lesbian individuals who are presented with a dilemma by the church that usually can't be resolved living inside church direction.

Given the famous abstinence from most common forms of self-medication (alcohol, weed, and tobacco), and a bit of a bent for being directed by authority, seems to me a good chunk of the difference is likely to essentially be displaced system-approved substance use.

I could restate this positively as "highest rate of treated depression," so I'm wondering if it also has abnormally high rates of depression?

That said, I believe that there is other data showing there is other perscriptio drug abuse more prevelance than usual. If that's from increased depression, or merely from being an easier "bad" coping mechanism that's easier to hide, I'm not sure.

There are a lot of judgemental (self righteous?) Mormons in Utah. There are a lot of nice ones as well, though I think you'll find the ratio of nice to judgemental higher in other states.

My take on it? Being mormon has become somewhat cultural in Utah. It's not nearly so much elsewhere.

I won't dispute this, but I will mention some interesting hypotheses that indicate rates of depression are highly correlated with altitude.

I see that commonly mentioned.

What is not concurrently mentioned is that Utah is 48th for drug abuse [1], 48th for excessive drinking and 50th for alcohol-related driving deaths [2], and 50th for tobacco use [3].

Depression sucks, but anti-depressants are far, far safer (if not cheaper) than self-medicating with alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs.

[1] https://wallethub.com/edu/drug-use-by-state/35150/

[2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/03/08/these-america...

[3] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/wr/mm6539a1.htm#modalIdS...

Utahns love porn.

Also all the crap LGBT Mormon kids go through.

Council of Nicaea, 325 AD [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cult#Warning_signs_of_a_potent...

However, I'm sure if you asked an LGBTQ person of their experiences with Christianity, especially with the uniquely conservative U.S. evangelical variety, they would say that some of those qualities clearly fit the bill.

Edit: One could also argue that the Catholic Church and its system of cardinals electing the pope (and whose very presence is regarded as sacrosanct) would qualify as both absolute authority and leader-worship. Albeit, I know the pope's own cop out is that God is the absolute authority, but I digress before my interest in theology leads us all down a dull rabbit hole.

In the same way it's said that a language is "a dialect with an army", I'm claiming the difference between a cult and religion is the same.

Also:

> Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Love the person. The sin is still a sin, but love the person. It doesn't get any more simple than that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excommunication

https://www.etymonline.com/word/excommunication

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/resources/politics/politi...

https://www.catholicvote.org/bishop-deny-communion-to-border...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congregation_for_the_Doctrine_...

But GP's definition lacked significant nuance.

Pedantry aside, Christians are still human and thus succumb to sin and as such are not as charitable as they should be.

What? Do you mean Catholics? There are non-Catholic Christian churches, but they are still Christians.

On the flip side, there is no such distinct leadership/requirements in most other Christian organizations. Pretty much anyone call self a Christian.

Maybe Catholics are similar to LDS but I'm not too familiar with them.

I went on a mission to Peru for 2 years. It was amazing, I have no regrets, but I wouldn't do it again. It was incredibly hard.

In contrast, I've started two modestly successful companies (one bootstrapped, one backed by $16M in VC money) and I'm working on starting my third. Startups are grueling, but not as grueling as a mission IMO. :)

I.e. at times that are minimally disruptive to careers, families, etc.

(Your point about relative comfort at this fact may remain true independent of this observation.)

Just because some member of the Church believes or says something doesn't make it doctrine.

This is a problem for most religions these days. Some random person says something is part of their religion, and everyone on the internet and the media believe it.

It's like whenever some Catholic priest in some backwater says something that is not in line with Catholic teaching, the news picks up on it as if it came out of the Pope's mouth. Then it gets repeated ad nauseam across the internet by people who don't know, or can't be bothered to find out, if it's true or not.

The LDS church has an interesting tiered conception of doctrine, wherein some things that have been taught by LDS prophets are not in fact official doctrine. People tend to ignore the "space doctrine" most of the time too.

Well, it's got pre-medieval, medieval, and post-medieval elements.

> There is definitely set dogma

Depending on who you believe (yes, there are actually doctrinal disputes over which doctrinal pronouncements are in fact dogmatic, though there are a handful of cases which are dogmatic and not in dispute as to that) there is between very little and extremely little definitively set dogma, though.

How doctrinaire the Church is a pastoral question that (in terms of the central authority at least) changes considerably over time and especially with changes in Popes. Because, for all the accumulated history, tradition, and specialized language the Holy See had accumulated, it's still essentially an absolute monarchy, and the approach of the institutions reflects the personality of the person at the head of all of them.

It's like trying to maintain a codebase for 1,700 years with only one major revision.