I have been listening very carefully to testimonies and I we had two brothers who bore their testimonies yesterday about God and Jesus Christ, but never mention the church, church prophets or the BOM in any way. I thought I am not alone!

Just curious, what percentage of adult members (those who are members for the past 3 years) in a ward are non-believers or are on their way to becoming non-believers. I thought I was the only one.

We had one guy (an attorney) study over Mormon Doctrine for over one year until the book fell apart. He rarely comes to church now.

Side note: I asked my wife what does it mean when the shepherd shears the sheep? She said it was like paying tithing. Ok, I then asked her what does it mean when the shepherd sells them to be slaughtered or wants lamb chops for dinner that night. She acted totally put out by it but I could see her crack a smile as she was looking away. Not my idea, inspiration from previous post.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/2011 03:15PM by Joe Laban.

Good question. When you think about it, lots of people "go inactive" all the time. I expect for most of these it wasn't a sudden decision but one they were working on over a period of time.

Then there are the NOMs or cultural Mormons, who have made a conscious decision to stay, despite not believing.

Then are simply those with what TBMs would call "weak testimonies" - those who *accept* that the church is true, but without any spiritual conviction. They might have doubts over certain doctrines, or not believe everything literally.

Only a quarter of most ward's *active* lists pay a full tithe. That's a lot of people who remain unconvinced of the "blessings of the tithe". If they had genuine testimonies, they would pay.

I believe the tithing statistic acts as a good proxy for "true believers" - around 25% of those who attend Sacrament Meetings. The other 75%, to a greater or lesser extent, disbelieve.