I predict with probably more prophesy than Joseph Smith that the mormon church will not exist in 50 years as we know it today.

As long as world events keep happening beyond their control (to which they are powerless to stop or even detect them) and the corporation continues to act like a corporation (which they don't know how to do any different), they will lose the majority of their entire member base which was roughly 25% actually of their reported numbers during good years.

The youth are getting too smart for their BS and the church broke veterans are getting tired of it.

I even think the church goes down to 10% of what their numbers are today maybe more if the world gets really tumultuous. Those events are clear evidence they have no power or revelation whatsoever.

Okay, so where do you see Exmormon(dot)org and RfM in 50 years?

I mean besides me, Don, Dave, Ziller and Gladys Lot remaining completely predictable?

I strongly doubt this board will be here in fifty years. But it has lasted over twenty, which is good going for any website.

How many fake names are you employing now, Jordan. Anon Code Yellow, Shanked. . .

Life would be so much easier if you just abode by the rules or alternatively emailed CZ.

assuming you five remain predictable then, lol

well if the church dwindles that could also make exmo org/RFM also dwindle, kinda twisted logic but the church being strong makes the need for RFM all that more important

As less people will need recovery from something that has largely been extinguished, then presumably the need will drop off too
However, this site has remained steady with less traffic over the years so maybe it will remain the same for those in need after its booming years as the church goes down the tubes

Sancho and I have discussed that offline.

The boards were at their height maybe ten years ago. Since then some have shut down, others have seen volume decrease. Why? Because the church has lost the power to overawe, which we all experienced but the young people of today rarely do. So they get bored, move away from home, and walk away from the church. Few of them are so messed up by the experience that they come our way.

'Tis good news, for sure, but sad for those of us who passed through the refiner's fire to get out and are still salving our wounds. Who knows, in 50 years' time maybe the only person left on RfM will be Jordan, and he can indulge his 1950s Marxist fantasies to his heart's content.

One hand clapping and all that.

lol you make it sound like we are all on the Island of Misfit Toys

Unfortunately, there is no uber we can only wait for Rudolph

I won't be here I will be long dead. I am already 84 1/2

I prophesy in the name of Joseph's Myth that you shall yet see the second coming of Covid and the church looking like an even greater bunch of idiots while you are yet in the flesh.

Sheesh MML...it hasn't existed in the last 25 years as I knew it from when I was a youngin'...where YOU been Bro???

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of8f7Kj1yiE

Or so it seems to me...

> ...it hasn't existed in the
> last 25 years as I knew it
> from when I was a youngin'


This is a very important statement!

The only thing we can probably count on with regard to the church is how much it will change in the next 50 years.

Could it change for the better? Weird thought, huh?

1830: a small, loosely-knit, peripatetic group of peripheral New Englanders under the spell of a mercurial sociopath.

1880: a polygamous theocracy under a stable sociopath whose regional power structure held sway over a large swathe of the American West.

1930: a post-polygamous temperance community based in SLC that sent a small number of missionaries to various places and would soon enter a relatively tolerant period under the leadership of Colonel Sanders.

1980: a post-polygamous, ostensibly post-racist organization that had abandoned tolerance and was streamlining its internal operations in order to facilitate massive growth around the world.

2030: We shall see. But the one thing church history unerringly teaches us is that the LDS church changes dramatically over 50-year stretches.

So yeah, what el perro viejo said.

Yes, very true!

From backwoods eccentricity to utopian commune to would-be country to all-Americans to temperance to corporate streamlining to online evangelical group to well, what we have today.

The church isn't even the same as it was twenty years ago.

Two things -

1880: I wouldn't characterize John Taylor as a "sociopath." To be sure, he was a liar and a weasel like all the others, and the church was still Brigham's creation; but Taylor himself wasn't Young just like Khrushchev wasn't Stalin.

2030: Since it's only ten years off, we can make some well-educated guesses as to what the church will be like. Barring an unexpected turn, Bednar will be president, and the church will mirror that. From what we know about Bednar (likely another true sociopath), we can reasonably anticipate that during his time on top, the church will become stricter and more paranoid and doctrinaire. Obedience will be emphasized even more. After 10 more years of Jesus not coming back, the bulk of the thoughtful, nuanced mormons will have left, leaving behind a concentrated demi-glace of tribal nuttery. Bednar's FP counselors and Q12 appointees will be similar to him. The church will get worse before it gets better.

Anonymous Muser Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 1880: I wouldn't characterize John Taylor as a
> "sociopath." To be sure, he was a liar and a
> weasel like all the others, and the church was
> still Brigham's creation; but Taylor himself
> wasn't Young just like Khrushchev wasn't Stalin.

Agreed. I overlooked the fact that BY died in 1877. Taylor was not a sociopath.


----------------
> 2030: Since it's only ten years off, we can make
> some well-educated guesses as to what the church
> will be like. Barring an unexpected turn, Bednar
> will be president, and the church will mirror
> that. From what we know about Bednar (likely
> another true sociopath), we can reasonably
> anticipate that during his time on top, the church
> will become stricter and more paranoid and
> doctrinaire. Obedience will be emphasized even
> more. After 10 more years of Jesus not coming
> back, the bulk of the thoughtful, nuanced mormons
> will have left, leaving behind a concentrated
> demi-glace of tribal nuttery. Bednar's FP
> counselors and Q12 appointees will be similar to
> him. The church will get worse before it gets
> better.

Very possible. I wonder, however, if Bednar could resist the pressure from more pragmatic Q15-ers. So thee possible outcomes: 1) Bednar rulz, 2) Bednar is persuaded to liberalize to save what's left of the church, or 3) the Q15 is paralyzed by conflict between the Bednarites and the realists.

I personally would guess that 2) or 3) are more likely than 1).

BeenThereDunnThatExMo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sheesh MML...it hasn't existed in the last 25
> years as I knew it from when I was a
> youngin'...where YOU been Bro???
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of8f7Kj1yiE
>
> Or so it seems to me...

So true. A Mormon frozen in 1990, and reanimated today would not recognize the church. Of course a Mormon from 1960 would not recognize the 1990 church. And so on...

To accurately predict the future of the Mormonn church, we need to look at its past. At one time in early history, the Mormon church was very much out of favor with the public. Like any corporation, the church is potentially immortal. People don't forget. They die and get replaced by people who have no memories of what occurred before their own time. There was a nexus of what society needed and what the Mormon church had to offer in the 1970s through the early 80s. People like myself never knew nor cared what the Mormon church had represented earlier in history (niavity of youth). The church may take its half a trillion dollar net worth and slink off in to a corner for fifty years or so to give our generation enough time to die-off before they resurface. But it'll be more like re-booting the Matrix than anything else. The church will return and try again. The youth of that time will be just as deceived as we once were. Nothing will change. The church will learn from their lessons from previous generations (versions of the Matrix - see link below).

The situation starts being described at about 0:45 in to the video linked below.

https://youtu.be/cHZl2naX1Xk



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/24/2020 10:18AM by azsteve.

>>They die and get replaced by people who have no memories of what occurred before their own time.

You don't even have institutional memory. I keep telling younger and newer teachers, this is how it used to be in the old days. And the old days are the 90s or early 2000s. They have no idea. When my generation retires, all of that institutional memory will be lost.

The Mormon church can reinvent itself periodically, and who will there be to protest, or remember differently? For the younger people, that will be how it's always been done.

Think Amana Colony. There is really no religion left, but they make awesome appliances. Long past the time when the church authorities are pushing religion, the church will be extremely wealthy just based on their system of "reserves"--Property Reserve, Agricultural Reserve, City Creek Reserve, Intellectual Reserve, etc., etc.--with very little religion behind it. People will recognize the church as being a booming and effective real estate development country, but no one will be converting to it.

Anyway, that's my personal prediction. I could still be wrong.

People 50 years ago would not know today's mormon church.

I just started watching a TV series called "The Expanse". In this science fiction series, it's the year 2300 something. There are large human populations living on Mars and at very large mining operations in the Asteroid belt, and a cold war going on between Earth, Mars, and the "belters" (the people living in the asteroid belt). Each has resources that the other two can't live without. But tensions are high as each extorts the other two by withholding the critical resources they need to survive. I am just starting on season one of several seasons already available.

In a recent episode, there was a Mormon missionary proselytizing (by himself, apparently no companion) to the people living in a large colony on Mars. In another scene at a very large space station in the asteroid belt, a man in a classic 'mormon looking' dark suit with a white shirt and tie, discusses with the station manager, exactly what "the General Authorities" want from a deal that the church is negotiating with the "belters". Apparently, the Mormonn church in that story is looking for passage to another star system they can settle. Some things never change.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/2020 08:34AM by azsteve.

The Mormon angle gets better.

In Starship Troopers, a Mormon space colony is mentioned in passing.

If you could transport back to a European city a thousand years ago, you would have no trouble identifying the church in town, or knowing that it was Catholic.

If you were transported to a Mormon ward of a hundred years ago, same thing. It would be clearly recognizable as Mormon.

Same thing fifty years from now. The metaphorical paint and furniture may change, but the basic structure of Mormonism will still there and easily identified.

The spire is to mormon church buildings, what the golden arches are to McDonald's.

The Mormon church doesn't exist today. At least according to Rusty.

I continue to refer to it as the mormon church and don't plan to do otherwise in the future. If TBMs want to correct me, that's great chance for me to give them a lesson on how the mormon church is trying to re-brand themselves to escape the negative images they've created and the bad things they've done in the past. There are a lot of scams that would like to change their names. Dallen Oakes says the church doesn't ask for apologies, nor does it make them. We'll see about that. In the meantime, it will always be the mormon church. Jesus Christ is little more than a mascot for the mormon church. They don't act like they believe in him.

Should exmormon.org change the website address to: exmemberofthechurchofjesuschristoflatterdaysaints.org ?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/29/2020 10:22AM by azsteve.

Perusal of Los Interwebz tells us (correctly or incorrectly, who really knows...) that you started out with Cedar Fort as publisher of an earlier work on Joseph Smith. Back in 1988 Cedar Fort was all about publishing things that build up the Utah kingdom of BY and ghawd.

Then you switched to Theological Think Tank for your two books on BY and his finances. I know nothing about TTT, and wasn't inclined towards fixing that.

And now a 606 page treatise (Kindle edition) on how the mormon church SHOULD be operating.

As a person of no faith, and even with my Kindle Free account so that I could read it for "free", you can probable understand why I won't.

I would like to see much more effort go into legitimizing ghawdless goodness.

I'm still in the middle of Brigham Young's United Order, Volume 2, Related Anomalies and Side Issues.

It's a real page turner, but at 1,023 pages I fear I'm developing carpal tunnel syndrome.

Try turning the pages with your toes.

My toes are permanently disabled from having turned the pages in the two volumes of Joseph Smith's United Order. I'm beginning to worry I will have no digits left when the time comes to attempt Creating the Millennium.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/29/2020 11:53PM by Lot's Wife.

I prefer shorter books, such as

"The Wit and Wisdom of Boyd K. Packer"

"The Comprehensive and Unabridged Prophecies of Thomas S. Monson"

"Discussions on Recent Nephite Chariot Discoveries in Upstate New York"

The Mormon church of 50 years ago no longer exists, so, yes, I think you have a good point.

50 years ago it was a fun thing, 50 years later? They have removed all the fun.

Mormons know nothing.
They only believe.

As long as Joe was honest... and he wasn't.