I've already commented on the story in the appropriate thread, so this will just be regarding the intro.
I don't think that Dave's comments were over the line. He can call whatever he wants blasphemy, and his definition makes a lot of sense to me. I wouldn't say it's a common definition, but maybe it should be. It was clear to me that he was not bashing Mormonism in general, only complaining about the specifics of a single story by a famous author. He told us the facts and gave his opinion of them. No problem.
I can't say I agree at all with the commenter who said that the only way to be civil about religion in a mixed-religion environment is not to discuss it. I don't agree with that at all. For one thing, I as a single person could be described as a mixed-religion environment, and I'd hate to have to fight myself all the time. For another, I've known and co-existed well with people of various religions with very little friction, even if I don't agree with some aspects (i.e., original sin, forbidding birth control in an overcrowded world, saying that Harry Potter is morally wrong when Lord of the Rings somehow isn't, etc...)
So I can't say that I really disagree with Dave, and I enjoy the religious discussion. I keep forgetting Dave is a Quaker. I think he's the only Quaker I've met--which is evidenced by the fact that when I hear that I just think of the guy on the Quaker Oats packaging. I suspect it's not all that different from what I'm used to, though. I was raised Lutheran, but of what I've seen of other branches of Christianity the differences to me are trivial--just slightly different rites and rituals and traditions but with the same underlying morals and stories.
But to me, the intro was not a great place for this discussion. Although I think his reasoning for calling OSC's story blasphemous were well founded, and I don't have a problem with him saying it, I feel bad for the author of "The Parable of the Shower" having that in their intro. In a discussion of religion where someone is called blasphemous, there's likely to be tempers and opinions involved. Tempers and opinions are fine, as long as its kept from going into an all-out flame war, but in this case I suspect that it cost the author some listeners from their story, when the author wasn't even expressing an opinion but may have suffered a lower listenership because of it.
Just my 2 cents.