I'm a bit morose this evening...
I'm wondering
how long the morg will remain standing.
I'm wondering how long it will be before loved ones wake up?
Surely the apostate in their midst has raised questions, no matter what has been said publicly.

There is so much information available at our fingertips via the internet.
How much longer do you all think the morg will remain as it stands right now?

There's a sucker born every minute. And just to make sure, they brainwash the kids thoroughly.

"Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it."

Unfortunately, this works pretty well. I have my doubts that the COJCOLDS will implode in the near future, but the smarter people leave because they buck the trend and do their own thinking. More of those are becoming apparent.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2012 02:09AM by rationalguy.

My guess is that the Mormon church as it is right now will not be around long...it will change before the day I die (assuming I don't die a premature death). They will just adjust to the times like other religions have done in the past in order to keep afloat. So much for that same yesterday, today, and forever (or however it goes).

You ask: "How much longer do you all think the morg will remain as it stands right now?"

The answer is that, even now, the church is not what it was when it was founded in 1830 ... or even what it was when I was growing up in the 1970's. And with the universally available internet information you refer to, the transformation process will only accelerate as the church continues to downplay previous official teachings, reinterpret claims found in Mormon scriptures, and issue denials of statements made by previous church leaders.

While it may be very interesting (maybe even entertaining?) for those of us on the outside, for the many TBMs left in the church, who might have a modicum of rationality remaining in their tortured minds, cognitive dissonance can only increase.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2012 02:15AM by Fetal Deity.

It is NOT any intrinsic power of the lies and fairy tales of the church that keep it going.
In some ways, I think, any fairy tale will do.
The church exists because there is a psychological market for fairy tales. And, there are psychological mechanisms that favor fairy tales.

I don't know.
The church seems to be ramping up the chokehold on members.
The meetings, endless meetings,
pressure on the youth to conform,
the current state of the economy,
apocalyptic talk especially here in az,
is really starting to freak me out.

I'm wondering how long it will be
before people start snapping.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a bit of that going on, especially as we approach the "end" of the Mayan (Nephite!) calendar in December of this year.

I used to think it would fall. Now I think it will just change.

THe way I see it, TSCC has been in a long succession of losing its cojones. This has nothing to do with whether a person is kind or mean, right or wrong etc. It has to do with whether a person will stand up for his/her beliefs without pandering and lying about it. JS had cojones. He was a liar, was evil, cruel etc, but he did stand up for his beliefs. Take the tone of what he said as an example..."all of those other churches are evil and are an abomation in His sight." That is strong language, (made up by JS, but strong nonetheless). Now take that up against Hinckley in his interview...."well I'm not sure that we teach that exactly and I don't know if it is in the doctrine. I don't know much about it." I was paraphrasing but my point is the strength with which these GAs speak. From the JS years to now.............the cojones have been getting more and more wimpy. I can see JS standing on a pulput gesturing with both hands while saying the above. Maybe even slamming his hand down a time or two. I can also see Hinckley as he was during his interview. Wimpy......I'm surprised he wasn't hired to be on a float waving...... his wrist was so limp.
Now gays please don't go after me. I love you like anyone else. I just use this limp wrist thing for Hinckley as a visual because that is what it said to me.
TSCC doesn't have any cojones anymore and therefore they won't survive as long as JS wanted them to. My 2 cents.

The new generations of kids growing up in the Morg will be very conflicted in their minds. They will be more aware of the scam than ever, and will understand how brainwashing works. It will be interesting to see how things go, over the next couple of decades.

Personally, I'm thinking optimistic thoughts about the Morg self-destructing and just becoming another wacky cult only found in history books.

I am with you hellrazor. I think that exactly. Timeframe? Well, if we are lucky 50 yrs.

The TBM mindset is "my mind is already made up; don't confuse me with facts."

There are terms in psychology that describe this viewpoint:

*Willful ignorance* involves outright refusal to read, hear or study in any way anything that does not conform to the person's worldview.

*Confirmation bias* is the tendency for people to only seek out information that conforms to their pre-existing view points, and subsequently ignore information that goes against them.

It will be next to impossible for a large number of TBMs to change their opinions and learn anything new. This means that the CoJCoLDS will survive for a long time.

sucked back in for 5 years or so now--maybe 6. At first, I did everything I could to convince her she was wrong and it didn't work. Now I realize she has to make her own journey--just like I did.

I KNOW that she is wondering the same thing as you are--"How long can this go on?" How many mormons in your life are wondering how long it will take you to come back? How many prayers, how many temple prayer rolls, how perfect do they have to become before you will go back? We can't "change" anyone--all we can do is live our lives the best we know how and when/if they are ever ready, they will leave. Nobody could have convinced me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/28/2012 09:39AM by cl2.

I give all religions another 30 years but I hope a lot sooner... People that have left and saw the light need to help the ones stuck in dogma...highlight your main points. then there are those that won't listen or maybe it will take time to set in, find patience- that's what I am trying to do. Go for a hike and enjoy mother nature and be happy. Then there are those that feel some sort of oath/obligation cause they are indebted to their religion- That's sad... that's how they will bait you. My mom was saying when I needed money for this surgery... she has MS.. The church gave me this amount of money. Ugggg... how do we get around this? the ones that can't help themselves. Do we need universal health care?

Ultimately Mormonism will follow the Money. The Prophet will follow the Profits every time.

Lies, fraud, deception, hiding of facts, made-up history, and changing doctrine to be socially acceptable. It is amazing to me. I really think the main reason is that people could not give a damn about mormonism. Many naive people that join find out later what it is all about. This along with the low activity rate makes the influence of mormonism less than is made up in SLC and the cult followers.

Yeah, most people just don't give a damn about mormonism right now. Good thing is that Eurpean contries are rethinking LDS church' ability to check genology records. Im hoping that stuff like this will act like dominos that untimately lead to total downfall gradually over time. Mormons can no longer be trusted.

This will go on for a long time. There is no end in sight. Look at all the crazy crap the church has done over the last 150 years, and yet it survives. Better yet, look at the Catholic church and all the insanity associated with their doctrine and they have been around for almost 2000 years.

The good news is that 99.999999% of the world's population sees Mormonism for what is. We happen to be part of that small microcosm that was sucked into it most likely through birth or not having all of the information handy to make an informed decision. Still an even smaller percentage are blinded by it and will follow it in one form or another.

Trust me when I say Mormonism is a joke to rest of the world fortunate enough to grow up outside of Utah's influence.

I think the difference between the church surviving it's craziness in the past and it's current bad behavior is information. The world has tons more information at it's fingertips nowadays than it did 75 years ago. What chance did your average Utah Mormon farm family have back in the 1950s have to tap into the sort of information we have today about the church? My mom, in the 70s, read a large number of books about Mormonism but they were almost all by Mormons or recommended by Mormons. She only got one perspective.

Also, the church was more fun in the past. Now, they are slitting their own throats by taking all the fun and all the spirituality and all the specialness out of the church. One of the main reasons people are willing to listen to the truth when they hear the truth is because something has happened to break the "in love" spell of Mormonism. Making it about take-take-take with very little in return except the feeling of superiority that comes from being able to jump through higher and higher hoops ... I think that will cause people to feel "out of love" with their church. Just like when your fun, warm, welcoming boyfriend becomes a demanding, never pleased husband who is always asking more from you than you can give.

So I think what will happen is the church will squeeze the members until they are ready to crack, then something big will come along to crack them. However, I think the church will adjust and hang on to a number of their more fanatical members and carry on, reinventing themselves but not admitting it. What I wish would happen is something to take the unspeakable arrogance out of the members. Honestly, I wouldn't care if people wanted to believe in their wacko religion all day long, now that I'm free. I don't much care what they actually believe. What I can't stand is the way they treat others because of their beliefs.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/29/2012 12:36AM by CA girl.

Exactly! The judgmental arrogance is like a cancer and difficult to ignore.

It's kind of funny, but I think the Church's obsession with spreading will be its undoing--at least in its present form. It will become another church. The obsession with personal worthiness, unquestioning obedience, blindly rejecting science, facts, history, etc. will die off with this generation.

Soon, the overwhelming majority of its membership will be from foreign countries. Those people will be sick of the little Salt Lake cabal and will gain more influence and the ethnic composition, national origin, political viewpoint and general world-view of the GAs will change.

TSCC will moderate, and become just another quasi-mainstream church.

Even the Utah-Idaho baby making mor-ridor won't be able to keep up with the decline, especially when you consider a mormon family of four children now has one or two go inactive and possibly one parent. Not enough to keep growth.

Once the chruch figures out they are not getting a return on their 3rd world investments in tithing returns, they will stop putting money in and only keep a token population abroad supported with self funding missies who need somewhere to go to be brainwashed.

If they get hurt and see things going south they will just pull back then they will take the next 50-75 years to pull out money and put it into Church companies that will give generous stock options to church placed board members of the inner circle of elete families, redistributing the wealth. It has always been about the money. Even in the worst case membership decline senarios... they still keep the money.

As a member, I was totally in to conspiracy theories
thanks to my father, who was sure we
would all have to hike it to
Jackson county, Missouri
when the shiz hit the fan....
So I started researching
a ton of stuff on the internet.

I must say, l of the occupy wall street
stuff started me looking into
corporate/big business connections to politicians and further.
I'm wondering if a lot of the youth are coming to the same conclusions
I did.....

I.e, the morg is a giant, corrupt, evil corporation.
Perhaps this will speed along the morgs demise....

L Ron told people he created his religion to make money, and people STILL believe. Mormonism has enough people who don't Care about the truth & who are in it for social & business networks for the cult to live on, if only in Utah.

JS wrote in the Lectures on Faith that he made the members have to give so much because that was the way you made a strong religion! He knew damn well it was about money. Even WoW was about money - to keep members from spending it on tea and coffee etc.

I take some comfort from this site:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sects_in_the_Latter_Day_Saint_movement

There have been nearly 80 different sects of mormonism, some, such as the so-called Strangite sect

www.churchofjesuschristoflatterdaysaints.org

was a real contender for legitimacy with the Brigham Young group at the time. James J. Strang saw visions and translated ancient documents and produced modern scriptures.

The ONLY reason IMO that the Brigham Young sect survived is that they ran off to Utah and no one cared about them for decades, while they had absolute power over the poor fools who believed their lies and went there to find Zion. Mormonism's legacy is that it cannot stand the light of day and the proximity to other people and the plurality and scrutiny that proximity brings.

This scrutiny will only increase, and exponentially so if exmos can be motivated to be more vocal and critical publicly. I agree it will survive as a puny little self absorbed cult, but its bast days are way behind it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/29/2012 06:30PM by rodolfo.

As long as there are people who need to be told that there is a pot of gold available to them at the end of the rainbow --as long as there are gamblers frequenting Las Vegas -- as long as MLM schemes exist --

SO WILL THE MORMON CHURCH !!

JB

in other words, Mormonism will collapse as its victims rally against it. But I am disabused of that notion today. There will always be people who lack critical thinking skills and who believe in miracles and premonition.

Humans have some level of need for communal living and a larger level of individual living. There are strong mental rewards that can be triggered unter the communal living aspects of our psychology.

Religion has evolved to trigger and satisfy that urge in people.

As our understanding of that trigger and need grows, I would think we as humans would construct new and more useful communal institutions that meet that human need without the fraud, manipulation and evil that has happened in religion.

I hope I live long enough to see the rise of these social constructs.

and mormonism will become a quaint old artifact of americana. Then put out to pasture. Like the oldsters in charge.

It will not survive the internet age with anything but a bare bones following.