The business side of the church seems to be doing well but the actual religious part seems to be struggling. A few policy changes and ew slogans isn’t going to solve the problem. It’s impossible to mainstream when you still continue to accept Joseph Smith and Brigham Young as inspired prophets of God. Even is the church kicked off it’s past and reinvented itself into a mainstream Christian church that doesn’t sell unless you become a mega church that has rock bands and you jump around.

I think it can survive indefinitely like a perpetual trust fund that never gets drained. They don't need people other than a few that run things. They just need to play like they are a religion and do the money thing.

The Corporation of Sole does not need the members but it’s hard to give up $7 billion of tax free donations a year. Huge amounts of free labor and most importantly a fan base of people who are star struck by you and view you as their leaders to salvation.

The 15 Elvises.

When you have lawyers, guns, and money, who needs God?

My mind goes back to the church's bulletproof Audi, the armed security, and GBH's last ditch survival efforts. Maybe their fear of death is really a fear of God. The "us vs them" mentality is a disease promoted by cults.

As long as *faith* can make your bosom burn, there is always a shot at you and ghawd going steady.

I believe it will slowly morph into a gentleman's club of sorts. When they figger out that they can dump the lowly members, liquidate the buildings, and thin their own ranks, the temples will become Club Med for the elite few who have connections.

Then, second annointings will be so common that they will sell third annointings, fourth annointings, etc. Eventually, Black Belt annointings will be the special annointing that the elites will seek after.

It’s already a country club church in the wealthier suburbs.

There are still Zoroastrians in the world. Old religions take a long time to die.

Mormonism has enough money and cultified members to coast for a very long time. Yes, the church will last another hundred years, short of a nuclear war, and even then, it might make it.

They have made the mistake of getting rid of the only part the hard core members wanted. No one was a Mormon to be like everyone else. Everything unique that set them apart and made them feel like the chosen, the insiders, is gone or leaving on the next train. They want their "peculiar" back. They want to be able to claim persecution. Generic is a dirty word and Russ should have known that if he even had an ounce of Seer in his whole body.

Never ever give up on finding Zarahemla!

Besides the business end, keeping the religious part comes down to one hope: Making the temple ceremony actually something really really special that leaves your jaw on the floor out of astonishment rather than boredom from the stupidity of the ceremony. With all their money, can you imagine what the "Endowment Ride" could be if they hired James Cameron for a re-imagining of the next dispensation?

Keep the initiatories but get some hotties to administer them.
Actually sacrifice something on the alter.
Open the ceiling for a glimpse into the heavens.
And start with some "brownies", for heaven' sake--it's why God made the stuff in the first place.
And let people actually sit down in the Celestial room because finally when they sat there dazed saying "WTF?" to each other it would be a good thing.

I disagree. One large segment of Mormons are Mormon because they were born into it. They may have liked the 'peculiar people' bit, but they are in because their entire family or neighborhood or both are Mormon lifers.

As for converts, I doubt they ever much cared about the 'peculiar people' thing. There were other aspects they liked, like hanging out with young, good looking American missionaries, or attending the best looking church building in the town, etc.

Mormons may like being peculiar, but they are getting tired of being weird.

My only point is really that generic isn't the way to go as Russ pushes the church further and further into OTC.

The rest of course was for fun, and, actually couldn't hurt. Anything to get rid of the boredom.

I’d have been 100% onboard with your version, and thus have pooh-poohed BoJ’s version, if you’d capitalized “brownies”. . .

Damn the capital B! Hopefully I can please you one day before I die. Last thing on my bucket list.

I just finished reading one of your poems from long ago. I will frame it soon. This from someone who hates poetry except for about four or five of them.

"A poem Judic West & I wrote when we were young ... or when we were Adele" Remember that one?

. . . I bought a very fancy frame for the portrait you did of my nonexistent soul, so aren’t we a pair!!





Edited for those who like to see,
or need to see, with their eyes:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-cNrmChWShr7ely11vgRcE0_gLLhj7Jf/view?usp=sharing


It's a larger painting, but I decided I only wanted to see what I needed to see... or needed to see what I wanted to see?


Words are easy, but meaning is hard.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/02/2024 02:45PM by elderolddog.

Quoth the raven, "nunca mas."

What keeps the church going is members fucking members. Missions and temples are tools to keep that going.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/04/2024 11:19AM by Maude.

The Mormon church I left more than 30 years ago is not what it has become now. Another 100 years? It stopped being the "only true church" of Joseph Smith years ago. It is trying to morph into becoming a mainstream Christian church. You know, with the "Jesus Saves" propaganda.

"Jesus Savers" would be a good slogan for a bank in Mexico.

Well, the TBMs apparently want temples, and they are getting temples by the bushel. The western church will be a greatly reduced but very devout entity. The real growth will come from the third world, chiefly Africa. It will be interesting to see how the generational Mormons react to that.

I wonder about Africa. Yes it appears to be a growing demographic but why don't we hear all that much about it ? In the 70s everybody was all over themselves about South America,why not Africa now?

Missions are about retaining the young people in the church. Yeah there will be third world baptisms to talk about but the church leadership are more concerned about retaining what’s closer to home.

Will the church last another 100 years?

Yes and Nelson is determined to stay for another 100 years. His vitamins are charged.

In the year 2124 we're likely still going to need Mormonism (expired wording), Scientology, Jehovah's Witnesses and obscure Christian Science, just like a gigantic roll of paper towels.

Soaking up any of the spilled human beings as if there were a mess in isle seven at the grocery store!

Who knows? Nelson doesn't even want a Mormon church.

It's like the ship of Theseus. Every plank will have been replaced.

I think it will continue to contract in first-world countries. The church just doesn't have much to offer to people who are already doing well. It will continue to grow in the third world, but it will be a very long slog for the church to extract any meaningful amount of money from those poor people. Hence the billion dollar trust fund. The church is playing the (very) long game in Africa.

The spacehsip with jesus will have come and taken the chruch to Kolob by then. So, no all that will be left are Terrestrail beings drinking beer and having fun on Sunday.

The church I knew as a youth, did not survive and I don't recognize the current version by comparison.

So, no.

Good point.

The LDS church has died several times. It keeps being reborn in different form.

But the original didn't last ten years.

Even slime molds display adaptive behaviors.

Sarony Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The church I knew as a youth, did not survive and
> I don't recognize the current version by
> comparison.
>
> So, no.

Yep, it's the Ship of Theseus problem.