Coincidence or?

Most MORMON States and the SUICIDE belt almost look the same
Who would of thought.. an for the nay sayers the suicide belt is not the sash worn in the Temple. :)

It has long been recognized that the inter mountain United States — Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico — has a higher suicide rate than the rest of the country, in what has been labeled the "suicide belt."[2] The reasons for this are not entirely clear, though numerous theories have been advanced.[3]


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/21/most-and-least-mormon-states_n_1533973.html

http://en.fairmormon.org/Utah/Statistical_claims/Suicide_rate_among_Mormons

Antidepressants don't appear to work for most Utahns
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=1010&sid=15849609

When you spend every waking moment trying to be good enough, only to be told you're not, it's enough to make people suicidal and depressed.

I don't know if the high sucide rate is caused by mormons or the culture in those states. I'm not mormon but i live in utah. I try not to but i feel like i have the crippling effects of trying to be perfect. In utah you are expected to have the perfect family, ideal weight, nice house, car, clothes, ect. I do however think that the high sucide rate amongst gays is directly caused by mormonism

I think Mormonism has it's finger in many of these negative statistics. To ignore the culture and the finding and not look for a link would be negligent as a social scientist. Now there are probably other causes as well. Wages tend to be depressed in Utah and probably in some of these other right to work states. This makes for more family stress, marital stress, etc. Drinking tends to help many people relax, which is discouraged among Mormons. So there could be many causes.

I do believe that Mormonism has a number of things that could push someone towards suicide.

However, I think the correlation of the suicide belt and Mormonism coinciding is fairly weak.

The problem is that the states with the highest suicide rates within those 5 states have the lowest percentage of Mormons.

bc Wrote:
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> The problem is that the states with the highest
> suicide rates within those 5 states have the
> lowest percentage of Mormons.

Uhh.. did you read the same articles I did?

You trying to tell me Utah, Arizona, New Mexico have the lowest
percentage of Mormons?... you work for fair?

Wow, nice personal attack there.

Did you read what I wrote? Let me spell it out for you.

I said that WITHIN those states in the suicide belt those with the highest suicide rates have the lowest percent Mormons.

State Suicide Rate % Mormon
Montana 21 .8
Wyoming 20 1
New Mexico 19 .9
Arizona 16 5
Utah 14 38

Now look closely at the graph (I'm being a little patronizing here with your inability to read and going personal attack.) Notice that those with the highest suicide percentages have lower percentages of Mormons

Get it?

http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/datasets/mormon-population-and-percentage-b/versions/1

If you still don't understand let me know and I'll try using smaller words or maybe make a bar graph for you or something.

There is a high percentage of alcohol\drug abuse, poverty, sexual assault/abuse, domestic and child abuse....It's #3 in the rankings for suicide with AK being the highest.

http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/go/state-ranking

I've been here for two years now, and I can tell you, the people here are miserable.

bc Wrote:
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> If you still don't understand let me know and I'll
> try using smaller words or maybe make a bar graph
> for you or something.


you have 24 opinions and apologies posted just today..

Debating you would be a waste of time in smaller words

that I would understand.


get out much?

It's a slow day over here at fair. Steve is spending all his time arguing about Santa and not writing any good material we need to apologeticize