Over the past year the Mormon church has disintegrated faster than in any other year, from what I sense online and in talks with my family.

I wonder what the next decade holds.

Would you care to comment?

Like, will it pop like a balloon, or fizzle out like a long fuse that was made by a crooked company?

Will there be a massive Class Action Lawsuit to get back tithes?

Will the top officials be dragged into court and stand trial for conspiracy to defraud?

Will some cut and run, to avoid the disastrous public shame?

Tell me the future of Zion.

LOOK AND LEARN

A Bishop and his family explain why they are leaving, in great detail...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUmV9EGKK80

I'm glad I've hung around to see this...

At this point, the church is a tax shelter for a large yet financially opaque real estate holding company. As long as their properties have enough religious use for the tax write off, what do they care about growth? The church has enough wealth to cruise along for a very long time. They can consolidate wards as needed, sell buildings, etc. There will always be a segment of the population impervious to facts. As Stevie Nicks sang, “Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies”.

I think in the last decade or two it has dawned on more of the GAs that they’re taking the members for a ride. But for several reasons stopping the ride isn’t an option, so they play along and try to keep the charade going.

They’ve become victims of their own cynicism. Their prophet is driven around in a bulletproof car. If you can’t trust your God to stop a bullet, your faith is useless. They either worship or pretend to worship a false God because they’ve given up on the real one. Here’s the thing. You kill unconditional love, you kill true faith. You kill true faith, you’re left with an empty religion. Is that really what they want? Or are they so caught in the chains of their own Hell that they prefer to not know the true God?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/28/2019 10:38PM by babyloncansuckit.

More members are recognizing that their leaders are fallible. I think it's related to a greater online presence that leaders can't shake off when they put their own feet in their mouths. I think some have realized that people are leaving the church and leading very happy lives without the church.

The mormon church has caused so much harm and is so defiant about not taking responsibility for their own wrong-doing that there is only one ethical response. Keep the pressure on. Drag them and their members in to court every time they cause offenses. Don't assume that they deserve a break or that they should be forgiven as long as they refuse to assume responsibilities for their actions. Bring embaerrassment upon the church. Prosecute their crimes and civil offenses. Don't ever give them any of your money. Point out their lies and frauds at every turn. The church tries to project strength. They are vulnerable. All we have to do is keep turning up the pain level indefinitely until they start acting ethically.

'Like, will it pop like a balloon, or fizzle out like a long fuse that was made by a crooked company?'

There are, in my opinion, a number of reasons for it to fizzle out.

People who have been conned are often unable or unwilling to acknowledge they have been conned. The sunk cost is too much for them so they stay in a group such as Mormonism. They will linger on, though perhaps with less enthusiasm, for years to come.

The Mormon Church is irrelevant in improving people's lives. It is tough to be financially secure with high housing costs, cost of schooling, cost of food etc. To add to families or individual's burdens with tithing and meaningless activities, only makes life tougher. Fatigue steps in and with it a realization that there is no benefit to the tithing and time demands of the church.

The fraud is more clearly evident with the Internet. Open minded members continue to question and seek in privacy facts about the organization. Members are more aware of others who have left and are doing well.

The meetings and 'teachings' of the church are painfully boring. Changing to the 2 hour block will alleviate some of that pain, but the monotony drives folks out as well as they search for more meaningful information and interesting activities.

I have been to Europe twice in the past 12 months. The disdain of folks toward America seems to be increasing. Mormonism is viewed as an American religion, which is accurate. American culture does not fit in well with most other countries. The recent thread on Scotland is an excellent example.

There are many other reasons for a fizzle out instead of quickly dying. Back to cutting the grass in 90 deg heat. Sigh...

Eric K Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 'Like, will it pop like a balloon, or fizzle out
> like a long fuse that was made by a crooked
> company?'
>
> There are, in my opinion, a number of reasons for
> it to fizzle out.
>

go read Why Men Hate Going to Church by Brian Murrow. He writes mainly from an American Protestant perspective, but a lot of the book echoes what's happening in LDS inc. Most US Christian churches are fizzling out ... and they fizzle out strongest when men leave.

Mormon wards are about 60% female, and the men are bailing out in much higher numbers. the women are staying. this echoes most Christian denominations: male leadership, female congregations. the LDS church is supposedly so patriarchal but it's actually the women who are most active. Ex-mos tend to completely gloss over this fact, because their preconceptions about patriarchy etc clash with reality.

women fill the seats and pay most of the tithes, so Churches tend to cater to women in everything from the subject of sermons to the way buildings are decorated and meetings are organized. . this turns off men, who are less active or simply stop attending. when men stop attending, their sons stop attending.
After congregations are about 70% female, they tend to enter a death spiral that's hard to recover from. that's what dropping the missionary age to 18 was all about: an attempt at keeping young men active and engaged.

>I have been to Europe twice in the past 12 months. The disdain of folks toward America seems to be increasing.

"Strangely it is always America that is described as degenerate and 'fascist' but it is always in Europe that totalitarian regimes always spring up."

~~ Jean-Francois Revel, French philosopher

That's what I keep hearing here, and I keep not believing it. All my nieces have left, Utah County born and raised every one. We have a steady stream of new posters here who are women whose husbands are TBM, and they are seeking advice.

I suspect more men are leaving. I doubt it is terribly lopsided. There are certainly plenty of women on RFM

completely accept gays, gay marriage, etc. People tend to think there have been huge strides in this area. Nope. I've been watching for some 35+ years.

It shocks me how much money they are sinking into revamping the buildings, etc. There has to come a point where this isn't going to pay off???? If I were a member still, I'd be upset about this. My TBM daughter wouldn't even go to City Creek and won't discuss it, although she has been there now as my aunt took her there for lunch after my daughter scored her a ticket to general conference. My OLD aunt finally got to go to general conference.

There is money and tithing to be made in gay marriage. But they need to get them to adopt kids or use artsem to keep the generations going.

Mormonism cannot exist in the light.


They may try to create a suspension of reality and call it faith, they may denounce the internet, gas-light all day, and play the victim card.

But those cards are worn out and cannot exist in the reality of DNA evidence, historical facts and heck, their own doctrine that is easily found in the phone that we call carry in our pocket.

They will continue to writhe like a worm that has wondered too far from the dirt into a line of salt until they shrink and transform into a less noticeable fraud.

They have a lot of assets, all which require cool, fast, tax free cash to maintain, they do not have it. So they will diversify and close chapels and turn up the thermostat and squeeze missionaries, but the days of collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars out of each chapel monthly in tithing and donations are long gone.

It’s definitely not a growth business. Their two means of getting new members, birth and conversion, are dead ends. Millennials use the Internet as their go-to source of information.

Since the church doesn’t have outside accountability over its finances, there’s less pressure to reign in bad investments. It may be more reliant on cash flow than we think. We see their assets but their debts are well hidden. That would explain why they’re milking the wards and reducing mission subsidies. Desperation, not greed.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/29/2019 10:55AM by babyloncansuckit.

I had no idea a few new rabbit holes would appear when I typed in this post. Thank you for such intellectual material and seriously precise insights.