This is a great post. I wonder how true it is?

https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2169194,2169937#msg-2169937


Holland feels cheated that his time at the helm is such a frustrating one? That the previous apostles had smooth sailing and he doesn't?


Hasn't the LDS leadership always been at war with Eurasia?


I can't imagine there being a time when there wasn't something wrong in Zion. At one point it was money. Other points competing ideas in the fold. I don't believe there has ever been a time with Mormonism wasn't considered "weird." Scientology takes the preemptive strike approach and bullying. Mormonism defends itself with bullying but I doubt past leaders would ever have gotten cozy with Catholics to hate on gays.

Even before Google, Mormonism has had tenuous appeal to people who would want to know how factual their things they proclaim metaphysically were based upon. I've known a lot of people who respect and even admire Mormons and Mormonism but would never join.

The Mormon moments in the sun have never had much staying power. Those leaders who were able to bask in it didn't enjoy it for a lifetime. And their complete control over their flock has come and gone. Grant couldn't bully Utah into being prohibitionists. Several times Mormons have been hard to control. The only thing that could really give Holland cause to cry would be a severe reduction in membership to the point where he was only the leader of thousands instead of millions. I don't think Mormonism will shrink to 999,999 active members in his lifetime.

"I don't think Mormonism will shrink to 999,999 active members in his lifetime."

The corp(se) claims 16M but have at best a 1/3 activity rate. So there are perhaps 5M active members worldwide. However, this includes spouses and children. Given the mormonic tendency to have larger families than average (though still fewer than the good old days), we can reasonably estimate about 1M active households worldwide. So there may well already be fewer than 1M active faithful households in the US, which is the place they care about.

Not what you were saying, but a good start nonetheless.

logged out today Wrote:
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> So
> there may well already be fewer than 1M active
> faithful households in the US, which is the place
> they care about.

Wow! I have no idea how to fact check their activity rate but if this is true Holland has reason to flap his jowls and fling his tears from them.

Elder Berry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> logged out today Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > So
> > there may well already be fewer than 1M active
> > faithful households in the US, which is the
> place
> > they care about.
>
> Wow! I have no idea how to fact check their
> activity rate but if this is true Holland has
> reason to flap his jowls and fling his tears from
> them.


Having had a brief acquaintance with Holland, I bet he is a true believer and is suffering from severe cog dis. Part of him knows things don't add up, and his shelf is breaking, but his denial keeps him going.

I remember those days. The cog dis days. They were painful, and yes, full of anger and hostility

I worked for church office and your figures are about right.

You work at the COB for the GAs?

This is a report on the church admitting to a 36% rate back in 2014, before they deleted the relevant info.

http://brucefey.blogspot.com/2014/10/lds-spokesman-breaks-down-membership.html?m=1



And check out the detailed spreadsheet referenced in this RFM post from last month (cols. AV and AX are the money)

https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2149413,2149837#msg-2149837

Chances are that even those bleak statistics were heavily massaged to be less bleak than the underlying reality.

I know with every fiber of my bean that the total membership number is complete and utter nonsense.

The vast majority of missionary-induced baptisms quickly become inactive. Many of those "baptized" members don't really even feel like they have any particular connection to the church. It was just a social thing that they did because they liked the missionaries and/or some of the members for a short period. No commitment at all.

In many overseas missions, half or more of all baptisms are/were high-school kids who just tried it out and enjoyed hanging out with the missionaries. Once their favorite missionaries moved on, the "new members"...well, they were gone too.

Then, IIRC, the way the stats are kept, they count everyone up to the age of 100 (including all of those high-school kids who were active for about a month or two after getting baptized).

I wouldn't be surprised if fully committed, temple-going members are in the 1 ~ 2 million range in the United States. Optimistically add another 1.5 ~ 2 million outside of the United States and that's probably in the ballpark.

If the real numbers were anything close to the published numbers, you'd be running into Mormons all the time--outside of the Mormon corridor. But as someone who has spent most of my life outside of the Mormon corridor, I almost never run into Mormons by chance. It's just a once in a blue moon kind of thing.

For a company that requires this to work there...

"All arise. (All patrons stand.) Each of you bring your right arm to the square.
You and each of you covenant and promise before God, angels, and these witnesses at this altar, that you do accept the Law of Consecration as contained in the Doctrine and Covenants, in that you do consecrate yourselves, your time, talents, and everything with which the Lord has blessed you, or with which he may bless you, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for the building up of the Kingdom of God on the earth and for the establishment of Zion.
Each of you bow your head and say "yes." "
http://mit.irr.org/mormon-temple-endowment-ceremony

...this picture is awfully informative on how well they are doing.
https://www.glassdoor.co.in/Photos/The-Church-of-Jesus-Christ-of-Latter-day-Saints-Office-Photos-E122747.htm

that Holland has a special kind of holiness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CiyrZd-kB0

Based on the reporting here and on other internet venues, it would seem that a certain segment of MPs may not think they have to work harder, but that their missionaries do.

The guys in the Big 15 are ego maniacs. They are strongly motivated by status, prestige, adulation from others, respect for their authority and so on...and they like to picture themselves as being important historical figures that people will read about and admire and quote for many generations.

They don't feel like they have to work harder than their predecessors as a matter of duty. But they feel like they have to work harder to feed their egos and establish their future "legacy" as greatly respected religious leaders.

The Internet and the explosion of critical analysis available to everyone at their fingertips, makes it necessary for the top leader guys to work harder at selling the propaganda to the main flock. I think now anytime that they address a large crowd they have that anxiety in the back of their mind that comes from knowing that there are likely well-informed skeptics in the crowd who think the leaders are a bunch of blow-hard putzes.

There have always been critics and "anti-Mormons," but they often had limited reach, limited platforms and limited resources.

For example in the pre-Internet days, I remember that the Tanners would sometimes hand out mimeograph papers on things like the Adam-God teachings of Brigham Young. They had to do this by literally standing outside of big Mormon events. Most Mormons who got the handouts would throw them in the trash. Some would read about it, but then shrug it off as the mad ravings of anti-Mormons. Nobody would go home and get on the Internet to get the complete picture, complete with citations to official LDS sources and such.

That's why the past leaders were able to successfully keep the "Essay" topics out of the minds of the main flock for so long. They were only forced to publish the essays recently because the facts had become so easily available to everyone that it just made the Church look really bad to persist in pretending that it wasn't true or important enough to comment on.

Elder Berry Wrote:
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> Holland feels cheated that his time at the helm is
> such a frustrating one? That the previous apostles
> had smooth sailing and he doesn't?

Wow, I feel so sorry for Holland !!!! ....Thank God that Holland did not have his health trashed on his LDS Mission, while his finances were also completely depleted, to then,afterward, be dropped on his head to fend for himself in such compromised circumstances while trying to start his career. Instead, Holland has been coddled EVERY STEP of the MORmON way, right through Holland's ascension to hitting the MORmON jock pot of being made a MORmON ASSpostHOLE. Sure, Holland kissed ass to mega extent along his MORmON way, to pave the way for his MORmON suck-cess. That is what it takes to be a MORmON suck-cess.

....Now, ASSpostHOLE Holland wants to whine, because THE (MORmON) church's dream of virtually taking over the world is rapidly imploding. ......waaaa! ......WAAAAA! I sure do feel sorry for Holland!!!!


> Hasn't the LDS leadership always been at war with
> Eurasia?

......MORmONS hate EVERYONE !!!! including and ESPECIALLY OTHER MORmONS !!!!!


> I can't imagine there being a time when there
> wasn't something wrong in Zion.




> The Mormon moments in the sun have never had much
> staying power.

MORmON "moments in the sun" have never had any real substance outside of MORmONISM. MORmONS were hoping to break through on that deal by hosting the Olympics and then by having a MORmON elected as US President (Mitt Rmoney). Then, the rest of the world would finally have to take MORmONS seriously,MORmONS thought !!!!!!! THANK God that did NOT happen.


> Those leaders who were able to bask
> in it didn't enjoy it for a lifetime. And their
> complete control over their flock has come and
> gone. Grant couldn't bully Utah into being
> prohibitionists. Several times Mormons have been
> hard to control.

LD$ Inc has had particular aggravation recently, because MORmONISM is imploding. LD$ Inc is counting on south of the border conversions to maintain some semblance of ongoing rapid MORmON growth that really is NOT there. The current US President is poisoning that MORmON well to one extent or another. LD$ Inc. would have rather had the Democrat elected than the current US President, but there was so much conservative momentum among MORmON members that there was NO WAY that LDS Inc could have come out with an outright endorsement of the Democrat candidate with out losing tons of credibility, so LD$ Inc did what they could to derail the GOP front runner, which was send out their sock puppet Mitt Rmoney and their Media Shill Glenn Beck to do LD$ inc dirty work. It did not work.

LD$ inc executive leadership must be pulling their hair out with frustration right now. More and More, its becoming apparent that they are just re arranging the deck chairs on their sinking stinking ship of MORmONISM.



> The only thing that could really
> give Holland cause to cry would be a severe
> reduction in membership to the point where he was
> only the leader of thousands instead of millions.

That is happening right now. there is a big difference between the expectation of taking over the world with exponential growth and the bitter bitter reality of dealing with imploding.

> I don't think Mormonism will shrink to 999,999
> active members in his lifetime.

And there is no way that GM would ever go bankrupt ....since it is so big and so prominent !!!


Maybe Holland can just lie to himself to make himself feel better. That is what he did to his MORmON members !!!

Good call, Smirk.

Most Mormons (members of the Only True Restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) don't realize that ever since Kimball, immigration--legal and illegal--has been seen as the salvation of a dying church. If said immigrants happen to commit any crimes, including murder, along the way, it's no big deal to the Q15. After all, Kimball denounced the Adam-God doctrine, but he never said a word against blood atonement.

Historischer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> After all, Kimball denounced the Adam-God
> doctrine, but he never said a word against blood
> atonement.

Great point. Of the two Blood Atonement is the one to disavow. No one would care today if Adam was God. Satan and Jesus are brothers and that isn't disavowed.

Hinckley worked hard to make Mormonism less weird. He knew that had to happen if they were to survive.

Monson was basically a place holder. If anyone was calling the shots, it was Nelson, Oaks, Packer until he got too ill, then too dead, and maybe Bednar as a junior understudy.

Nelson was the hard-ass who was the primary driving force for The Exclusion Policy for children of gay parents. He clearly is picking up where Hinckley left off, because he too can see the house of cards will collapse unless things change, and fast.

BTW, I remember these changes being hinted at by BKP a decade or more ago, when he said member families would be more responsible for teaching the gospel within the family. This was a hint at dialing back Home/Visiting Teaching, and especially the 3 hour block. I believe his comment was in response to a question about the three hour block.

Anyway, yes, I think Nelson and Holland do feel an extra pressure to shore up the kingdom. I don't much care whether it is ego on their part, or a simple realization that the cards are collapsing. The end result is the same. Maybe they will slow down the collapse, maybe not. I give them zero chance of stopping it altogether.

Interesting assessment. So Nelson has been the man with the power for awhile?

Please indulge a bit of stream of consciousness cheeky ranting here:

Perhaps what is different now is that the General Authorities were presumed to have the answers. But faced with the intractable questions about the Book of Abraham, the nature of Joseph Smith's practice of plural marriage, Book of Mormon claims, the First Vision (or lack thereof) and on and on...they are just as lost as a deacons quorum president when it comes to this stuff.

Now that they are down in the trenches, we see that their supposed spiritual superpowers can't clean up this mess. How much have they berated missionaries and other members over their lack of worthiness being the reason that the message doesn't get through? Now they are being forced into the trenches in these various "rescue" operations and it has been revealed that they too must have secret...er I mean...sacred sins that have not been resolved by the proper priesthood authority. What else could it be?

Shouldn't worthy emissaries, who are doing their best, be able to draw on the powers of heaven (I'm looking at you Grant Von Harrison--whoever you are) and bring these formerly devout Mormons (or whatever) back into the fold? Aren't these dudes "so full of the spirit!"?

Their apron is off and they are naked before the world. They are no better than their spiritually deficient flock, to which they have given holy hell from that pulpit in the conference center for year after year.

Love it. I do like the idea that after an organizational institution of placing blame on lower down the priesthood chain people the shit has finally returned home to where the buck finally stops thanks to The Internet and a culture of fact checking.