LDS general conference - Fall 2013

[Stifle Tower]

How many Catholics are there in the world? Muslims? Lutherans?
I know a ton of Baptists in my area who have not set foot in a church in many, many years but they still consider and identify themselves as Baptists. Same with any other faith. And don't even get me started with Jewish people. I don't think the LDS Church has ever claimed to have 15 million ACTIVE members. I'd say the 30-50% estimate is probably accurate depending on the measurement. If you count people who regularly attend Sunday services (say 2x mth?), the figure is likely 30%. Count those who may go for a holiday meeting, some missionary farewell/homecoing or maybe even a ward or stake activity, then you might get up to 40-50%. My grandmother (before she passed) had not attended church in probably 30 years. But if you asked her, she would say quite adamantly that she was LDS.

 

[colton]

Today, little has changed as we now have the church touting, rather boastfully, 15 million members world-wide. Assuming a 30% activity rate (which is being incredibly generous as my estimates put it at closer to 8-10%)...

Wow, infection, there is so much wrong with your post its hard to even know where to start. But rather than do a point-by-point reply let me just ask you about this one, since I've talked about it a bit with kicky. My question is: where is your 30% activity rate number from? Kicky mentioned something like that also, and I haven't been able to track down a reliable source. And where is your own estimate of 8-10% from? And what do you think about my previous comment about the number of wards & stakes in the church?

Colton, on the other hand, isn't a Utah native and occasionally expresses things that are much less judgmental than what we get from the typical LDS ilk. This is really much more in line with a non-denominational world-view and isn't really LDS at all.

I appreciate the compliment, but the idea that somehow my worldview isn't LDS because it's not judgmental seems quite odd.

 

[bigb]

Because no inflated claim of the church need go unchallenged. It's important for those that believe these things know that they're wrong.

Important to whom? Based on this next statement of yours, it's obvious you don't exactly view the church with a lot of openness.

Then they obviously don't know enough. If they knew enough then they'd obviously not be members. They'd come to the same rational conclusion that anyone with any degree of sophistication and intellect would reach.

Saying something like that reflects WAY more about you than anyone else.

 

[Stoked]

Sure, but it's convenient he could count himself as his own follower to pad the numbers and make it look like he had six followers rather than just five (of which those five, as previously mentioned, are highly debatable in their own regard).




But you're only seeing the numbers you think you see. You're not seeing the tons on the "cannot find" list in SLC that must obviously be huge because it does not pass the eyeball test.



Because no inflated claim of the church need go unchallenged. It's important for those that believe these things know that they're wrong.



Then they obviously don't know enough. If they knew enough then they'd obviously not be members. They'd come to the same rational conclusion that anyone with any degree of sophistication and intellect would reach.



Excellent. And this further demonstrates the point that you could chalk up at least 10% of the membership to being members for ulterior motives, so right there that's another 1.5 million you can subtract from the "15 million" claim.



The church has something to gain in these claims. The church says it and then nobody questions. Surely it's better to turn to someone with less bias and who has no dog in the fight.

The church must obviously have a lot of motivation to continue to prop up and pad the numbers to make it appear more legitimate than it really is. They're only building temples to give the appearance of maintaining relevance in a world that's becoming less and less inclined to its archaic ways and is hemorrhaging members left and right. Why do you think they're clinging to members like a squirrel to a nut and not letting them out easy without the complicated process described above? Obviously because they're desperate to have those numbers keep going up so they can continue to announce them in conference.

As kicky demonstrated, it's a stagnating organization. It's DYING and they have nothing better to do than sit around and think of ways to manipulate the membership numbers because they really get off on wooing the world with the Jedi mind tricks. That's why it's really important to dig down deep on these issues to show everyone that the LDS church just can't be trusted with how they count members and really need to count members the same way Sam's Club or the Hell's Angel's do.

How? They are still members.

From the length and tone of your posts on the subject that does not appear to be you. It might just be me but you come off as that generalization that Bean was using.

 

[Stoked]

Wow, infection, there is so much wrong with your post its hard to even know where to start. But rather than do a point-by-point reply let me just ask you about this one, since I've talked about it a bit with kicky. My question is: where is your 30% activity rate number from? Kicky mentioned something like that also, and I haven't been able to track down a reliable source. And where is your own estimate of 8-10% from? And what do you think about my previous comment about the number of wards & stakes in the church?



I appreciate the compliment, but the idea that somehow my worldview isn't LDS because it's not judgmental seems quite odd.

It's projecting the very bias and judgemental attitude that he is accusing others of having.

Not to mention that if we only knew more and were smarter we would not be Mormons.

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

Important to whom? Based on this next statement of yours, it's obvious you don't exactly view the church with a lot of openness.


Saying something like that reflects WAY more about you than anyone else.

I thought he was referring to the fact that blacks couldn't hold the priesthood. Wasn't he specifically talking about African converts? If you had a physical trait that was beyond your control and discovered that an organization that was trying to recruit you was set up to permanently ban you from full membership because of that trait, would you join? I think it's fairly easy to argue that you lack either knowledge of the situation or the sophistication to understand the situation if you did. Of course, this argument could also be applied to women.

 

[Stoked]

I thought he was referring to the fact that blacks couldn't hold the priesthood. Wasn't he specifically talking about African converts? If you had a physical trait that was beyond your control and discovered that an organization that was trying to recruit you was set up to permanently ban you from full membership because of that trait, would you join? I think it's fairly easy to argue that you lack either knowledge of the situation or the sophistication to understand the situation if you did. Of course, this argument could also be applied to women.

I can assure that some of the active LDS women in my life are very smart and sophisticated. Are their those that are less intelligent and sophisticated? Of course there are. In any group with large membership numbers you will have that.

To assume that all members must be that way is foolish and to be honest a little bigotted. What that arguement is basically arguing is that Mormon women are unsophisticated and dumb. How is that different, in principle, from saying that all non Mormons are sinners and unelightened?

Edit: My response is targeted at the arguemernt and not you Joe.

 

[Jazz Spazz]

I thought he was referring to the fact that blacks couldn't hold the priesthood. Wasn't he specifically talking about African converts? If you had a physical trait that was beyond your control and discovered that an organization that was trying to recruit you was set up to permanently ban you from full membership because of that trait, would you join? I think it's fairly easy to argue that you lack either knowledge of the situation or the sophistication to understand the situation if you did. Of course, this argument could also be applied to women.

Not all Africans are black.

Not all black converts to the church are idiots.

Not all women are idiots.

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

I can assure that some of the active LDS women in my life are very smart and sophisticated. Are their those that are less intelligent and sophisticated? Of course there are. In any group with large membership numbers you will have that.

To assume that all members must be that way is foolish and to be honest a little bigotted. What that arguement is basically arguing is that Mormon women are unsophisticated and dumb. How is that different, in principle, from saying that all non Mormons are sinners and unelightened?

Edit: My response is targeted at the arguemernt and not you Joe.

Yeah, let me be clear. I was not making this argument. I was explaining the argument that I thought he was trying to make. Adding the part about women at the end might have made my post seem inflamatory or degrading to Mormon women (I see that now) but that was not at all the way I meant it. My point was that if we are to conclude that black people would only join the church if they either lacked knowledge of the situation or sophistication, we might also conclude the same thing about women.

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

Not all Africans are black.

Not all black converts to the church are idiots.

Not all women are idiots.

All of these statements are true, but I have been to Africa and (at least judging from the locations that I visited) it wouldn't make too much sense to go there to conduct missionary work if you were not interested in converting blacks.

 

[♪alt13]

I can assure that some of the active LDS women in my life are very smart and sophisticated. Are their those that are less intelligent and sophisticated? Of course there are. In any group with large membership numbers you will have that.

To assume that all members must be that way is foolish and to be honest a little bigotted. What that arguement is basically arguing is that Mormon women are unsophisticated and dumb. How is that different, in principle, from saying that all non Mormons are sinners and unelightened?

Edit: My response is targeted at the arguemernt and not you Joe.

I think a lot of mormons have this attitude. It is by far the number one thing that bugs secular people about the LDS church.

 

[Stoked]

Yeah, let me be clear. I was not making this argument. I was explaining the argument that I thought he was trying to make. Adding the part about women at the end might have made my post seem inflamatory or degrading to Mormon women (I see that now) but that was not at all the way I meant it. My point was that if we are to conclude that black people would only join the church if they either lacked knowledge of the situation or sophistication, we might also conclude the same thing about women.

That would stand to reason.