I was at a service several years ago...I remember
several folks were openly discussing this Topic.

I COULD NOT believe until I "Googled" it. I was
like where do they come up with these DELUSIONAL
predictions?

I predict the Mormon Church is a distant memory
in another 10 years or LESS. Once the OLD Profits
are done then its OVER. PERIOD.

The supposed growth rate, birth and conversions, was such in the 60s that we were told in the mission field that we could brag about hittingh 100 million by 2000.

I love that the reality is that the church is not even keeping up with the population growth rate. The numbers are slooooowly growing by the percentage of the population continues to shrink!

I predict 26 and a half members by 2080.

Haha. Much more likely.

Unfortunately at lest 18 of them will be from my family.

OMG!!! Downtown Salt lake in the high building looking
out at the Capital. I wish I could see that...

I lived in Duluth, MN, in the mid-60s; a 'leader' (GA?) came up to visit, challenged us to be a stake with a few years...

That's was 54 years ago, No stake; 1 ward meets there, same as 54 yrs ago..


eta: but That's OK, because the lack of growth is the MEMBER'S FAULT!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2018 02:32PM by GNPE.

I think that they're going to continue to fudge the numbers to show minimal growth. Heck, they will continue to count ex-mormons and throw in some proxy members from the cemeteries too.

Talk about new stakes/wards not about closed ones. Talk about new temples, not about ones closed for remodeling or reduced hours. Never saying how many quit, not normalizing for the number of missionaries, not comparing their total membership growth to total population growth, etc. Spin, spin, spin.

That are exaggerating... by about 95%.

Their predictions are always wrong, their calculations always off and their wishes always bad. It's a gamble. A wishing game.

The 'church' will be fortunate to have 5 million active, believing members next week. Inflation? Fabrication (lying)? Wishful thinking.

TSCC has always been bad with numbers. BAD with EVERYTHING!

M@t

That is a lot of handcarts to pull to Missouri.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2018 06:26PM by mikemitchell.

One thing the church is terrible about when it comes to their own growth rate, is predicting the level of what I call the 'disgust index'. Today's members that leave the church aren't ambivalent. They're damned unhappy and don't plan to go back, ever. So instead of keeping their mouths shut after they leave, they talk about it after they leave. It's like going to a movie and then telling your friends later, how terrible the movie was, and why.

Through these means, the disgust index for the church increases. Instead of being ignorant when the missionaries approach someone or instead of the missionaries approaching someone who admires that nice mormon family next door, that prospect for the missionaries knows exactly why that neighbor's family all had their names removed from the church records. Everyone is a hardened target. And the church leaders in Salt Lake are clueless about it. As the church leaders in Salt Lake tell everyone that the church does not ask for apologies, nor do they give them, that disgust index goes up. When a General Authority promotes obediance, "even if your church leaders are wrong" the disgust index goes up.

Pretty soon, there will be no going back for the church. Society at large will be done with mormonism. There will be no ignorance about mormonism. Everyone will know it is bad. I believe that this effect is delayed and has not hit its peak yet. Even if the church were to clean up its act right now, it would take generations to fix the bad will against them. But the church leaders are too infected wity dysfunction to make significant changes anytime soon.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/2018 12:03AM by azsteve.

azsteve Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
(With some [extra-personal] changes, edits, additions, etc. - I like your 'DI' - disgusting index.)

> ... The church is terrible when it comes to their own growth rate... and predicting the level of what I call the 'disgust index' [DI].

Today's members that leave the church aren't ambivalent. They're damned unhappy and don't plan to go back, EVER. So instead of keeping their mouths shut after they leave, they talk about it...

Through these means, the DI for the church increases... As the church leaders in Salt Lake tell everyone that the church does not ask for apologies, no give them, and when a GA promotes obedience, "even when church [mis]leaders are wrong", the DI goes up.

There [is] no going back for the church. Society at large [is] done with mormonism. There [is not much] ignorance about [it]. Everyone knows it is bad.
>

It's the Lame Disgusting Sham
VERY Disgusting!

How any reasonable person could NOT respect all these
opinions and testimonies is beyond nuts???

The rolling rock hit an obstacle...the internet.

Awww...:)

but the hill is much steeper with the Internet. But, wait, Ghana doesn't have the Internet yet! Hurray!!

http://www.mythweb.com/encyc/entries/sisyphus.html

In 1968 I was told there was 7.5 million members and it was the fastest growing religion in the world.

Now in 2018, 50 years later, there's a reported 15 million members, or 100 percent increase.

So my prediction, in 2080 membership will again double to about 30 million.

Your being told it was the "fastest growing religion" in 1968 followed a fast growth rate in the early 60s.

There was another thread about the "peak of Mormonism", and consensus was that the growth rate peaked in the 70s to 80s. That can be seen in this chart of claimed membership growth:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints_membership_history

Whatever the rate of clamined membership, with increases in inactivity rates, the rate of gowth of number of active members is likely negative today.

I find that relatively difficult to swallow!!

This claim is based on an article by Rodney Stark in 1984, where he projected Mormonism's growth in the 1960s and 1970s ahead 100 years.

Two major problems with that. First, he picked a period of very high growth due to Baby Boomers (of which Mo families had many) were graduating college and starting families, the so-called Echo Boomers. Also, families joining LDS Inc because they were frightened by the Counterculture, sexual revolution, anti-war movement, etc. There was no reason to think that surge in growth during the 60s and 70s was going to continue for another century. In fact, it did not.

Second problem: the Internet.

I checked Amazon, and much to my surprise, Stark published a book collecting his writings on Mormonism, in 2005. The 1984 article is in the book, and no doubt this is why that ridiculous projection is still talked about in Mormon circles, because, like all good urban legends, it is something they desperately want to believe, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Mormonism-Rodney-Stark/dp/023113634X
Blech.

Mormonism has roughly 5 million actual participating members today. I personally doubt it will ***EVER*** hit 20 million participating members, much less 265 million in 2080.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/2018 04:38PM by Brother Of Jerry.

Right. Brother Of Jerry (Garcia?)

> ...

Two major problems with that. First, he picked a period of very high growth due to Baby Boomers were graduating college and starting families, the so-called Echo Boomers. Also, families joining LDS Inc because they were frightened by the Counterculture, sexual revolution, anti-war movement, etc. (all the true and beautiful things). There was no reason to think that surge in growth during the 60s and 70s was going to continue... >

You've got a point
Make that two points

Excellent points, BoJ.

Another problem was the assumption that significant exponential growth could occur over such a long period of time. Cases where it does are very rare, with Moore's Law being one of those exceptions.

Why doesn't exponential growth continue over long periods of time? Because it increases so rapidly that the growth eventually bumps into other (possibly competing) factors. In the case of Mormonism, those factors included other churches, outside sources of information, the inability to hold onto members outside the Utah "belief control bubble", etc.

Even Moores Law hit a limit WRT computer clock speeds. At three GHz, an electrical signal can only move about 3 inches, so the only way to make chips faster is to make them smaller, and then there are significant heat dissipation issues. We've more or less hit the wall on how fast CPU clocks can run. We now increase the number of CPUs on the chip.

Exponential growth always has limits.

I agree absolutely that Moore's Law is over. What is significant is that it lasted for so many decades -- a rare situation for exponential growth.

And here's a great quote from its Wikipedia page: "Moore's law is an observation or projection and not a physical or natural law. Although the rate held steady from 1975 until around 2012, the rate was faster during the first decade. In general, it is not logically sound to extrapolate from the historical growth rate into the indefinite future."

And a relevant passage on the limitations of exponential growth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth#Limitations_of_models

This would be the man:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Stark

"Stark has proposed in The Rise of Christianity that Christianity grew through gradual individual conversions via social networks of family, friends and colleagues. His main contribution, by comparing documented evidence of Christianity's spread in the Roman Empire with the history of the LDS church in the 19th and 20th centuries, was to illustrate that a sustained and continuous growth could lead to huge growth within 200 years. This use of exponential growth as a driver to explain the growth of the church without the need for mass conversions (deemed necessary by historians until then) is now widely accepted."

At the rate disintegration is occurring, the Jesus Christ Express will be derailed by the next big thing, an invented wonder thunk up by a soul-less android committee that makes the internet seem merciful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kymZR5FrTJY

It’s not growing due to conversions. It’s only growing because of people like my TBM neighbor...she has 7 kids. She is one of 12 and all of her siblings have anywhere from 5-8 kids. I am also one of 7. Ick.

I have a suggestion for the Mormon Church. Don't remove membership records until they reach the age of 200 years old. Then slowly introduce this concept over a period of 10 years. You might not reach your target predictions, but it would give an impression of growth.

Better yet, count the dead dunked. That should get you close to your goal.

I had about 10 baptisms on my mission...if you count the time in the MTC my district went to do baptisms for the dead.

That's the best laugh I've had all day.

When I joined in 1974, the conversion rate was high and optimism was exploding. I truly believed that Mormonism was going to be huge in the future, and I was going to live to see it become a major world religion. It might have happened, had the internet not been invented. In 1984 when Rodney Stark made his prediction, only a few people had access. In 1993 the World Wide Web was created, giving almost universal access to people in the developed world.

As the 20's moved along, more and more people started leaving the Church. Around 2008, YouTube videos started warning people about real church history and giving the sources. By 2012, people were leaving in droves. Now the CES Letter is circulating like nobody's business, prompting even more members to leave. I myself got much of my information on MormonThink. I left in 2015.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2018 12:12AM by brigidbarnes.

14.8 million Mormons today
In 2012, there were an estimated 14.8 million Mormons, with roughly 57 percent living outside the United States. It is estimated that approximately 4.5 million Mormons – roughly 30% of the total membership – regularly attend services. A majority of U.S. Mormons are white and non-Hispanic (84 percent).

That's easy, with mormon math: by 2080 265 million dead people have accepted baptism by proxy.


How TSCC will collect 10% from all those dead people is another question; "Herr Hitler, it's Celestial December--time for tithing settlement!"

I predict less than 15 million. Of course it will be inflated to and less than half will be active members.