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Extraordinary Claims => Religion General Discussion => Other Religions => Topic started by: stromboli on April 28, 2014, 12:47:53 PM

Title: More Evidence the Mormon Church is a Bust
Post by: stromboli on April 28, 2014, 12:47:53 PM
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57862203-78/missionaries-church-converts-lds.html.csp

In the year and a half since the LDS Church lowered the minimum age for full-time missionary service, the Utah-based faith has seen its proselytizing force swell from 58,500 to more than 83,000. That’s a 42 percent leap.

The number of convert baptisms last year grew to 282,945, up from 272,330 in 2012. That’s an increase of â€" less than 4 percent.

How can that be? Why would a surge of 25,000 additional eager and earnest suit- and dress-wearing, scripture-packing, pamphlet-peddling young "elders" and "sisters" not translate into a similarly dramatic jump in the number of Mormons on membership rolls?

The main problem, says independent researcher Matt Martinich, who closely watches LDS growth patterns and statistics, is that the new missionaries were largely assigned to areas such as the United States and Latin America, where Mormons are well-established and the "market" for the religion may be saturated.

"Most of the surplus in missionary manpower was allocated to less-productive areas, where the church has more developed infrastructure that could accommodate such a sudden, massive increase in missionaries serving," says Martinich, who lives in Colorado Springs. "In U.S. missions outside of the Intermountain West, every congregation had a companionship [pair of missionaries]. It was hard to keep even one busy. Now they have two or three [pairs]."

It is understandable why The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints placed the new missionaries in these areas, he says. Opening new countries or regions can be difficult and time-consuming, especially in terms of getting visas, guaranteeing safety, overcoming health concerns and assessing political stability.

The LDS Church eventually added 58 missions (there are now 405 around the world) after the missionary ages fell to 18, down from 19, for young men, and to 19, down from 21, for young women. But most of those nations had already seen a Mormon missionary presence of some kind.


And so on. The purpose of a mission is twofold: it is actually to indoctrinate the people who go on missions to keep them in the fold, because when they return they are expected to marry and have a family and produce offspring to add to church numbers.

Unfortunately, it also pairs young men and women in rooms together, often for the first time in their lives. And gay members have had to reconcile their sexuality because of it. There is a high suicide rate among gay mormons, and this is a contributing factor.

The 4% growth doesn't factor in the members leaving, which the church seldom mentions. So the "growth" numbers are actually static, and little real growth had been attained since I left in 1992. There is also an ever growing presence of ex-mormons on the internet, and some significant people in that number.

Simon Southerton, a former bishop and Microbiologist in Australia wrote a book (Losing a Lost Tribe) showing that DNA disproves the Book of Mormon

Steve Benson, grandson of late LDS president Ezra Taft Benson, who is a Pulitzer prize winning political cartoonist and frequent anti Mormon blogger.

Michael Coe, prominent Canadian tax lawyer and former Mormon Bishop, and anti Mormon blogger

This is why every time I see someone like Cliven Bundy on the news it makes me happy. the more exposure the better.

Title: Re: More Evidence the Mormon Church is a Bust
Post by: Solitary on April 28, 2014, 12:55:59 PM
Steve Benson is my favorite cartoonist. He goes after the political right proponents also.  He lives here in Arizona I believe, because he is in our newspaper. Solitary
Title: Re: More Evidence the Mormon Church is a Bust
Post by: stromboli on April 28, 2014, 01:34:47 PM
Yeah, Steve is a special guy. He has a degree from BYU and was on a church council and left the church after his grandfather, Ezra Taft Benson, was essentially used by the church who rubber stamped "decrees" made by the mentally incompetent Benson.

A quote:

"If, as the true believers claim, the word 'gospel' means good news, then the good news for me is that there is no gospel, other than what I can define for myself, by observation and conscience. As a freethinking human being, I have come not to favor or fear religion, but to face and fight it as an impediment to civilized advancement."

My kinda guy.  :clap:
Title: Re: More Evidence the Mormon Church is a Bust
Post by: Solitary on April 28, 2014, 01:43:42 PM
Every friend I have had here that was an atheist was formally Mormon. They have to be doing something right. He! He!   :shhh: Slitary
Title: Re: More Evidence the Mormon Church is a Bust
Post by: stromboli on April 28, 2014, 07:51:21 PM
Doesn't surprise me. The church won't reveal the numbers of how many leave, but it has to be on the order of 2 million or more. And the rate of inactivity is close to 50%. Ironically the church leadership is virtually all white,  but numerically the church itself is becoming a highly mixed group, since the "prophecy" that endowed blacks with the priesthood, opened up a plethora of heretofore untouched racially diverse missionary fields. But that has largely been exploited, and now the countries remaining are too dangerous or too secular to produce any results.  The church is stagnating and becoming more elderly. All of which makes me very happy.