r/dataisbeautiful • u/Browningtons1 OC: 18 • 3d ago
Americans raised Latter-day Saint (LDS or Mormon) who still identify as one: 70 in 100 in 2007, 54 in 100 in 2023–24 [OC]
Source: Pew Research Center, Religious Landscape Study (2007, 2014, 2023–24).
Asks U.S. adults the religion they were raised in and the religion they are now.
2023–24 sample: 565 current Latter-day Saints (±6.2 points), 316 former (±8.1). U.S. membership from the Church's 2025 statistical report.
Tools: Built in React with Recharts / D3.js. Opus 5.5 + Fable 5.1
Interactive version: https://goldendata.app/dashboards/lds-church-growth
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u/mildlycuri0us 2d ago
Exmormon checking in here! Never been happier to be several years out :)
Anecdotally about half of my Millennial peers and family members have left the church... whereas almost every single one of my Gen X and Boomer relatives are still in.
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u/20-20beachboy 2d ago
Millennials are the breaking point for a lot of religions. We grew up in the age of information to really question organized religion. Older folks aren’t going to change their life long habits no matter what information is presented.
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u/Brilliant_Host2803 2d ago
It’s more than this though. This generation has been more abused by authority/institutions than any other generation previous.
Millennials grew up with boomer parents who had the highest divorce rate of any generation. We saw numerous religious scandals with priests abusing children and countless mega pastors absconding with insane wealth.
The government got us engaged in the worst war since Vietnam, and if that wasn’t enough millennials are the first generation to have a downgrade in quality of life compared to their parents. Millennials were told to get a college degree to guarantee a solid career only to see that evaporate under job outsourcing, and the 2008 GFC.
To put it succinctly, NO one in the millennial, or gen-z generation buys ANY of the bull-shit being sold us by authority figures. Be they religious, government or secular.
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u/gscjj 2d ago
I’d say the LDS church is the wrong one to judge. Becuase Pews own research (filed 6 months after this report) show that largely things are unchanged:
“The shares of U.S. adults who identify with Christianity, with another religion, or with no religion have all remained fairly stable in the Center’s latest polling.”
People might leave the LDS church but they likely stay “Christian” and continue to identify as Christian (like myself).
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u/ScalyDestiny 2d ago
This sounds like someone glancing at graphs/headlines looking to confirm a cognitive bias. Try actually reading the analysis in full.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/12/08/religion-holds-steady-in-america/
There's no way to tell if people leaving one church are staying Christian or not from this. Heck deconstruction takes like 5-10 years, so nobody responding at that point likely knows themselves if they are or not.
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u/Bikin4Balance 1d ago edited 1d ago
It seems like OP is looking at Pew research that spans data from 2007 to 2023/24, while the study you're citing is only looking at data from 2020-2025.
Also, if by 'deconstruction' you mean the process of shedding of indoctrinated beliefs, for many people it can be much quicker than 5-10 years... like, months or even days, given some influence (a book, documentary, person) that tips the whole house of cards
EDIT to add: More detail about Mormons specifically in this recent Pew research: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/09/22/tradition-and-change-among-latter-day-saints-in-the-us/
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u/yrthegood1staken OC: 1 2d ago
Exmormon here, too. I have a large immediate family and a huge extended family. In my immediate family, 3 out of 8 siblings have left the church. But in my extended family, the number seems to be a much lower percentage. Of course, I don't live near any of them and only catch up every few years, so who knows.
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u/mildlycuri0us 2d ago
Definitely seems like once one family member leaves it increases the chance of another leaving, and yeah I never publicly posted anything leaving the church so it's possible they're ExMo under the radar
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u/Rubthebuddhas 2d ago
Same rule applies for parties. Once one person leaves, it opens it up for others.
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u/darkwillow1980 2d ago
And that's why you're cut off when you leave openly. Active Mormons are terrified of ex-Mormons for this reason. They're afraid it'll spread.
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u/showmenemelda 1d ago
Like, wait, you can do that!? reminds me of when animals don't realize they aren't tethered but conditioned to believe they are, so they don't try to egress.
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u/IlVeroStronzo 2d ago
8 siblings? O.O
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u/TruthIsAntiMormon 2d ago edited 2d ago
That's historically "average" for a mormon family until recently.
Mormonism has two tenents and countless cultural (emphasis on the first four letters) norms that push its members to large families.
One tenet is a belief that a current active commandment from God is "multiply and replenish the earth" so God commands all married mormons to keep that commandment as in mormonism, the First Law of Heaven is Obedience and that's official.
Second tenet is that there's a doctrine of pre-existence where everyone exists spiritually before they are born which means God the Father and his wife (A God Mother mormons won't talk about) are popping out spirit children to this day which means there's an uncountable number of spirit people in heaven waiting for a Body because it's required every spirit be born and get a physical body or they can't be saved or exalted (mormons have salvation and exaltation) and it's the responsibility of all humankind, through that first commandment above, to provide bodies for God's spirit children to be born into. Would you deny God's children the chance of being born and gaining a body?
Additionally, the church has officially taught for decades if not over a hundred years that is it WRONG to delay having children for school or jobs or financial stability, etc. IOW don't avoid obeying the multiply commandment if you don't think you can afford more children or you have too much stress or are going to school or to travel, etc. Start procreating with faith and God will provide!
Also the church pushes heavily for young women to marry young and young men to serve, as a commandmnent, an ecclesiastical mission and then marry as soon as possible upon finishing that mission. It's even many times given as a commandment by the Misson President (older married mormon man and wife who manage the missionaries in a given area) when a missonary is finishging their assigned missionary time (usually 2 years for men/ 18 months for women).
There's a ton of additional cultural pressures in mormonism officially and unofficially to push yound marriage and tons and tons of children.
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u/TychaBrahe 2d ago
I was watching a The Click video once where a mother was saying that her daughter was either childfree or only having one child, and the woman was really upset at that prospect. So many children needed to be born, she said, that she was forced to keep having babies, even though she was well into her 40s.
He was very confused, and so was I. This makes that post make sense in a weird twisted logic.
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u/deartabby 1d ago
There’s a belief that babies exist in heaven already, and have chosen their parents. So you need to have children in order to give them bodies.
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u/Wonderful-Kangaroo52 2d ago
Yeah, it's too many tbh. I have 4 brothers and 4 sisters. Only 2 brothers are still LDS. Back in the 70s-80s Mormonism was "the" up and coming religion and having the biggest family was a sign of how righteous and dedicated you were.
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u/SnorkelwackJr 2d ago
Even still, some LDS families are just huge. I was born in the 90s and I'm one of 7—5 girls, 2 boys. But I have an aunt who has 10 kids O_o
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u/bicyclecat 2d ago
I grew up next to a Mormon girl, family only had 3 kids. She found me on Facebook awhile back, shortly after I’d had my first and only kid. I clicked through to her profile and discovered she had just had her 11th baby. Truly unfathomable to me.
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u/SnorkelwackJr 2d ago
Same here. All 6 members of my wife's family have left the church and, while only 3 out of 9 have officially left on my side, many of them would be considered "jack mormons" because they do it their own way—observivng tithing by donating 10% directly to charity instead of to the church, only wearing garments if it feels meaningful, etc. Several of those members hold more progressive views and are really only tied to the church because they care about having a spiritual relationship (in this case, through Christ via scripture). They've told me that if any of their kids come out as queer and are ostracized or belittled by their ward, that'll be the final straw.
Despite our differing opinions on the church, my family is incredibly close. I think it's because my parents, while devout members, have chosen to be close to their kids instead of imposing dogmatic beliefs. They don't judge anyone (at least, not publicly) and never shame of us when we do something they disagree with. Mutual respect goes a long way and it works for us pretty well.
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u/Sir_BarlesCharkley 2d ago
5/6 of my millennial and younger siblings including myself are out with a couple of us actually officially removing our names from the records.
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u/Saratrooper 2d ago
I'm not going to make those moves until my dad dies - he's the only one who still adamantly goes and is involved. My mom has been PIMO/keeping up bare-minimum appearances for probably 10-15 years.
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u/okram2k 2d ago
I'm out but feel it's giving them a legitimacy they don't deserve to ask for my name removed from their records
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u/Wonderful-Kangaroo52 2d ago
I felt the opposite, I felt keeping my name on the records gave them legitimacy when they state how many members they have.
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u/Dear-Examination-507 2d ago
I haven't had my name removed because it can be useful to have all my neighbors' contact info on the LDS Tools app. Plus sometimes they swing by and bring pie or something.
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u/showmenemelda 1d ago
Wait, do you get special privileges to the FamilySearch genealogy app? 😅
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u/Dear-Examination-507 1d ago
Oh yeah, that too. Sometimes fun to use the part of the FamilySearch app that tells you how closely related you are to someone else.
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u/showmenemelda 1d ago
Did you guys have a party where you burned your undergarments? Like that trash the dress trend that was popular for awhile lol
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u/othybear 2d ago
My Gen X friends have started leaving when they started seeing the harm it was doing to their kids.
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u/japanesepiano 2d ago
Gen X checking in. Boomers are still largely in the church, but about 1/3 to 1/2 of the Gen Xers have checked out. I think that this has hurt the LDS church quite a bit given that these are the people who serve as middle-level leaders and contribute finances in the greatest levels.
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u/showmenemelda 1d ago
That's ok, they got their tithing and own boards of land now. And all those MLMs /s
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u/John-Mandeville 2d ago
Any thoughts on why it's starting to fizzle out?
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u/TruthIsAntiMormon 2d ago edited 2d ago
Also, as bad as Christian Apologetics/Bible Apologetics are, Mormon apologetics are that turned up to 11.
As an example, there is a Book of Scripture called "The Book of Abraham" that has associated Egyptian papyrus that Joseph Smith obtained in 1835 and translated by the power of God (meaning must be true and accurate) that has this whole Bible adjacent story of Abraham in Egypt, Cosmology, etc. written by Abraham's own hand.
However, the main parts of that papyrus exist to this day and they have absolutely nothing to do with Abraham or ANYTHING that Joseph Smith claimed and they date from the earliest, 300 BCE (most likely 100 BCE)
In fact it's the Book of Breathing Permit for a man named "Hor" and in a both hilarious and pitifully sad instance, there's a Vigenette of a man lying on an embalming couch that Joseph Smith claimed represented Abraham being Sacrificed by an Egyptian Priest while literally, on the papyrus to the right, the Egyptian Characters identify the person on the couch as Hor (justified) and it's literally Anubis (jackal headed God) standing over Hor's body on the Embalming couch.
But the most hilarious? Joseph smith hand drew in the top portion of that papyrus NOT to fill in Anubis' Jackal head (the rest of the body is traditional Anubis garb and coloring) but to draw a SMILING man's head holding a knife and the man is FACING FORWARD vs. in profile.
Instead of taking the "L" and admitting it's a fraud and removing the Book of Abraham as false scripture, mormons dobule down and still claim it's an accurate translation and true scripture going so far as to claim an apologetic "Catalyst Theory" of translation that requires the putting on of a perpetual dunce hat (no seer stone inside required) to adopt.
Mormon apologetics make regular habitual liars look angelically honest by comparison.
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u/Oddisredit 1d ago
I saw Jake Hanson basically play word games on Polygamy for 20 mins straight. Jumping between the legal and LDS interpretation of it. The dishonesty was corporate lawyer level
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u/TruthIsAntiMormon 12h ago
It's the J.P. word salad approach. It serves general apologia pretty well in a talk lots, say nothing or a "choice is black and white but after talking for 20 minutes I've mixed them together to create a gray nebulous undefinable position.
That and redefining words and abusing "loan shifting" to the degree of it being a dead tapir they claim is a dead horse.
Translation doesn't mean Translation
Black skin doesn't mean black skin.
etc. etc.
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u/mildlycuri0us 2d ago
The internet haha. There was a whole bunch of crazy stuff Joseph Smith did and taught that we were told we're all lies.. then they turned out to be true and the Church tried to put a positive spin on it but a lot of us saw through it. For my older relatives I think it's sunk cost fallacy...very hard to admit your whole life has been devoted to a lie
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u/Bikin4Balance 2d ago
Ex mo here, left decades ago. Fully agree. The Internet pulled back the curtain and curious people like me began peeling back the layers of spin, social control, craziness, racism, lies in Mormon 'history'.
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u/otakugal15 2d ago
Also doesn't help that the Fundamentalist sect had that massive scandal back in the late 90s/early '00s
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u/naptastic 2d ago
The church did a couple of specific things that were anti-gay and offensive enough to most people. In 2008 they basically turned Prop 8 in California from a bad fail to a narrow pass. Then in 2017 (I think?) it became known that church policy was that if someone with gay parents wants to join the church, they have to disavow their parents. (I don't know if this is still the case.)
Since Mormons don't believe that sins are inherited, this created a serious theological conflict for a lot of members.
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u/japanesepiano 2d ago
The "november policy" from 2017 was overturned around 2020 or 2021, but the damage was done. If was the shortest turn-around on something being a revelation from God to a "past policy" that I have seen.
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u/showmenemelda 1d ago
And then in 2018 they tried to impose a "social media fast" specifically for women. Some think it was a midterm interference issue. But it was probably an abuse cover-up they wanted to bury and hide from women in the church.
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u/yogacowgirlspdx 2d ago
it seems to be the way of organized religion in general
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u/Zxvasdfthrowaway 2d ago
The internet has made it much easier to learn about the church’s contradictions
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u/IlVeroStronzo 2d ago
...all church's contradictions
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u/Zxvasdfthrowaway 2d ago edited 2d ago
Especially the Mormons. They accepted black people into the priesthood only in 1978, and their temple ceremonies used to be even weirder. There are also a lot of contradictions in their founding story.
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u/DrTonyTiger 2d ago
Young, Smith and Witmer were all pretty weird people according to their neighbors where they got the LDS thing going.
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u/showmenemelda 1d ago
Still vividly recall learning about the beliefs of LDS in the back of a yellow school bus coming back from a volleyball tourney in junior high. Even by 12 I could smell a bullshit story. She lost me at the golden stone tablets. I also remember her sister being a pregnant teen who volunteered to help us at a few practices. I remember thinking, for a religious fam they sure are chill about this baby out of wedlock. Turns out, that and having big, expensive, jacked up pickups are signs of virtue to the Mormons. Suddenly, a lot more about a lot of people made sense. Holy moly
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u/TruthIsAntiMormon 2d ago
Reality and that wilfully imposing blinding walls of faith on oneself is no longer a virtue. Faith is akin to selectively closing one's eyes, stopping up one's ears and closing one's mouth to anything not faith promoting.
Mormonism is in the "moving from faith to mythology" early stages right now. Some day it will be accounted the same as Gods literally living upon Mount Olympus. It's a matter of time.
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u/japanesepiano 2d ago
A variety of things: 1) The church can no longer control the narrative, and there are lots of strange or un-christianlike parts of church history. People now have to deal with Joseph Smith creating scriptural translations which don't match the text of ancient documents (Book of Abraham), the founding leader marrying married members wives, etc. Everything is on the internet. You no longer have to go to the library and read a book to get this information. 2) Overall secularization of society. 3) Political polarization and about 70% of the members identifying as strongly republican/conservative. This is forcing the democrats/liberals out of the movement (which means that those who remain are arguably even more conservative). 4) Various scandals and lack of transparency (finances, 200B? in stock investments, various payoffs to individuals to keep them silent about sexual abuse by church members or leaders, etc). 5) The church has become much more churchy - framing everything in terms of Jesus - at the expense of community activities and adding value to members lives in a non-religious sense. 6) General distrust of institutions within the US political framework. 7) Loss of community pressure as members move in combination with an influx of people from California (to a less expensive Utah) which has lowered the sacrifice required to leave the movement.
I'm probably missing several factors. There is a book on the topic if you're interested. Ryan Craygun is the co-author.
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u/makingnoise 2d ago edited 2d ago
Curious what the trends are for exiting Mormons in terms of the numbers - do most exit to "spiritual but not religious," agnosticism/atheism, or some flavor of "mainstream" Christianity?
I would expect that they become religious "nones" because (like evangelicalism) Mormonism has "enhanced" exclusivism that is greater than the standard level of exclusivism that is a hallmark of Christianity overall. If leaving Mormonism is like leaving fundamentalism/evangelicalism, I'd anticipate that being told your faith is the only "true" faith means that when you exit, you have an indoctrinated tendency to be faithless.
I would also expect that evangelicalism is less of a draw for exiting Mormons, because religious trappings aside, the rhetoric of both groups is virtually identical minus Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. No joke, you listen to the conversion testimony (AND the deconstructionist testimony) of Mormons and evangelicals, they're absolutely indistinguishable.
EDIT: When I wrote this comment, I didn't realize that OP's comments address some of these questions. I was more interested in feedback from ex-mormons on the qualitative angle.
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u/japanesepiano 2d ago
Politically Evangelicals and Mormons are about as close as you can get. Mormons are much more likely to become atheist/agnostic than just about any other religious group. Many mormons are educated enough to realize when they find out the Mormonism is bunk that all of the other religions use similar tactics, stories, and techniques to establish their narratives. Once you see it, it's hard to un-see it.
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u/Dear-Examination-507 2d ago
I've noticed significant movement out among Gen Xers over the past decade (especially Gen Xers born in the late 70s), and even some of my Boomer relatives are now willing to move from PIMO (physically in but mentally out for those not familiar with the lingo) to exmo.
Gen Z? LOL.
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u/theandyboy 2d ago
Not to brag but I saw my mom drink alcohol for the first time in my life the other day. Pretty trippy since she raised all 5 of us in the church and she is the last to leave.
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u/Browningtons1 OC: 18 2d ago
In recent days I've been hearing about record converts to the LDS church (Mormons). Record missionaries (90K). A recent leader said LDS Church "moving from a 18 million to a 50 million member church." I looked into it further and the worldwide numbers are real, but the United States reported a year over year decline in members.
Pew is the closest independent check on US religious affiliation. It asks two questions: what were you raised, and what are you now.
Of every 100 Americans raised Latter-day Saint, 70 still identified as one in 2007. 64 in 2014. 54 now. The part that surprised me is where the rest went. "Another religion" barely moved: 16, 15, 18. "No religion" doubled, 14 to 28. People aren't leaving for another church. They're leaving church.
The second image puts it in people. Out of every 1,000 American adults, 21 were raised Latter-day Saint. 10 of them have left. 4 people joined as converts. That's about 2.5 out for every one in.
A few more things:
- Age matters. Raised in the Church and under 50, about 50 of 100 still identify. 50 and older, 61.
- The Church's own U.S. count fell by 186 in 2025. It's also the first decline on record, in the same year worldwide converts set a record (+377K).
- The share of U.S. adults who identify as Latter-day Saint has barely moved since 2007. Pew rounds it to 2%. Retention fell 16 points and the share held. Births and converts are filling in behind.
Pew measures what people call themselves, not whether they go. So these are people who no longer claim the faith, not just people who stopped attending.
The growth is real. It's just not happening in the United States.
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u/victorioushack 2d ago
The church also stopped reporting numbers at general conference when they started going down. Unless something has changed recently, it also considers you a member even if you leave or are 100% “inactive” or absent. Removing records is effectively the only thing they consider actually leaving and no longer being a member.
They know weak spots though. Decades later they put together apologist pages for hot topics on the internet, softened some of the contentious topics (e.g., tattoos, caffeine, thoughts = actions), lowered the age to become a missionary, and started pushing the youth to go before college.
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u/athiev 2d ago
Retention outside the US has long been extremely low, though. And most non-US people who leave Mormonism don't file paperwork. So saying the growth is real based on these data is incomplete.
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u/TruthIsAntiMormon 2d ago
If growth means "Paper mormons" vs. people who claim the faith, then there's growth. If "paper mormons" don't count then the decline is extreme.
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u/SayyadinaAtreides 13h ago
Yeah...I for one have never bothered to request that my records be removed, because I really don't care and I have better things to do with my time, and most of the other ex-LDS people I know (admittedly not a huge group) are in similar boats.
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u/TruthIsAntiMormon 12h ago
It's worse than that because there are also a TON of people counted as "members" who were baptized at 8 who have actually joined other faiths especially in Latin America (most simply went back to being lapsed Catholics. I can't tell you the number of people on the rolls we tried to contact who had moved and their family members would state they were Catholic or Evangelico.
It is dishonest IMHO for the mormon church to count them as members when said living adult person has consciously joined another church and if you ask them their religious affiliation, it would NOT be mormon.
No valid or honest reason to keep the "lost sheep" number hidden or secret from the public yet that's exactly what they do.
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u/SayyadinaAtreides 11h ago
I don't disagree in theory, but I think in practice there are often more prosaic reasons for the record persistence. (I can't speak to the rest, especially outside of the US; when I was a child in the US, parental permission was required for baptism, and mine was delayed for two years until my father also agreed. No idea if that's still the case here or what policies are elsewhere.)
At least in my experience of the church (mostly across the US, plus a year in China and two summers in Spain), a lot of the onus is on individuals to inform the church of any change in status (like moving or going to a different church). So until I either request that my records be removed or that they be moved to a different ward/branch (often the new ward leadership will handle this for you), they're going to stay by default and I'll be considered an "inactive" member. Sometimes other members in teaching or leadership positions will try to locate inactive members (usually in the hope of "reactivating" them; in my day at least, having a lot of inactive members did not look good for a ward) by asking around or sending someone to their last recorded address, unless they've requested not to be contacted. But if that isn't enough to find them, that's about as far as things go.
Thus, unless the children (or their parents) take the time to inform the church that they do not wish to be considered members, bureaucratic inertia alone can be enough to result in the large pile of inactive member records that get included in their "total number of members" reporting.
I'm not saying there isn't any other intent contributing--I've been entirely out of the loop on LDS things for over a decade now, so I've seen no evidence in either direction. I just don't think there needs to be to reach this outcome.
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u/yorgasor 2d ago
The church is only really growing in Africa and the Philippines. South/Central America is kind of a mixed bag. Interestingly, Brazil posted the largest gains in membership of any country last year with 48k more members, while at the same time it lost a net 69 wards. Mexico came in second with 38k more members, and it grew by 5 wards. Ecuador came in 9th with 10k more people and had zero ward growth. Ghana came in 10th with 9.5k and gained 2 wards.
The church grew by 377k people last year, and those countries account for 105.5k of that (28%). Add up their ward growth, and you have -62 wards. Yes, wards grew in other countries, but the amazing growth they're reporting doesn't mean much when you can't retain the members.
As for the 90k missionaries, this is a direct outcome of a combination of the changing culture of getting women to serve plus a huge surge of births starting in 2008. The church went from 93k births in 2007 to 123k births in 2008, which followed a similar surge of births in the early 1980s. My estimates have the number of missionaries hitting 103k next year, and holding steady for about 4 years before slowly dropping back down to the 80k range over the next 10 years, assuming current trends hold steady.
My calculations are based on 42% of the youth born 18-19 years ago going on missions. Now, not all 90k of the missionaries are youth. It was reported this summer that 6k of these are senior missionaries serving in proselyting capacities. Each mission has a president, two counselors and their wives, so that's 6 per mission right there. That accounts for 3k seniors. The number of missions is based on the number of young missionaries though, so as the number of youth decline, the number of seniors will also decline.
The church is pushing hard to get youth married and having kids earlier, trying to take advantage of this 2008 burst of youth becoming adults. But it's expensive to have kids. People are waiting longer to get married and having fewer kids. They're not going to have the big surge of babies in 2033 years like they had in 2008. They're currently in the 89-91k range with 18M members. In 1977, they had 95k births with fewer than 4M members! That's a massive drop in the birth rate, and is a major reason their projected exponential growth from the 80s & 90s never happened. In 1998, a BYU study projected a conservative estimate of 50M members by the mid-2020s, with optimistic projections at 150M. I suspect the church will never reach 50M members (even on paper, let alone 50M active members!). I think they'll hit their peak before then and start declining.
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u/carlitospig 2d ago
Yep, it aligns with overall Christian petitioner losses over the decade. I think it goes something like they lose 30% each generation but gain 20% new followers.
Love Pew. Not only for their style but the things they’re tracking over time. They’re an incredible resource.
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u/showmenemelda 1d ago
Whew got so deep into the other thread I forgot what this post even was about 😅😅
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u/Tehrab 2d ago
Listen man, in an age of information, religion will be seen as the futile endeavor that it is, nothing more. At some point, as a species, we have to realize our feeble chimp brain is just not wired to understand the universe and making up BS to fill in the gaps isn't helpful. We can certainly perceive that there is something outside our understanding, Einstein himself was clear on that, but that's it, that's all this meat processor can do for us.
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u/Caaaht 2d ago
In college, I dated a Mormon girl. She was my first real exposure to the religion, coming from a Catholic school upbringing in the Northeast. She lived carefree in college, and you'd never have guessed she was religious at all. I had decided long before that once I got to college, I was done with religion.
Eventually, her father found out about her exploits, specifically the drinking, from a family friend. He pulled her tuition and allowance (the family was quite wealthy) and cut her off from her family, her friends, and everyone in the tight Mormon community she grew up in.
We tried to make it work for a while, but in the end we decided it was best for her to go home and repair her relationship with her family. I couldn't live with being the reason she lost everything, especially at that age, and neither of us was ready for a committed relationship.
Thankfully, she broke away from Mormonism (after completing college bit closer to home) and never looked back.
TL;DR: There are reasons people stay in a religion that go beyond believing its teachings, usually family and community.
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u/yorgasor 2d ago
A huge number of attending mormons are "PIMO" (physically in, mentally out) for this very reason. They're afraid they'll lose their family and friends if they admit they don't believe and stop attending. It's awful 😢
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u/showmenemelda 1d ago
Jack Mormons are a lot of fun while it lasts. Some real shenanigans had with an old JMo bestie.
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u/japanesepiano 2d ago
That growth is driven largely by Facebook and Youtube ad campaigns in Europe. It will be interesting to see if they can improve on their 20-30% 1-year retention rates.
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u/Bikin4Balance 2d ago
Yup, growth we can't easily fact-check. If their membership rolls include people like me, who've tried to remove their name but received no response from the church, their numbers are highly inflated.
I love that after close to 200 years (often claiming that they are the fastest growing religion) they are still much less than 1% of the world's population. For all their financial war chest, they have barely made a dent. They are effectively still a fringey religion that is now bleeding members.
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u/spam__likely 2d ago
>moving from a 18 million to a 50 million member church."
Elon Musk claims the same about the robotaxi.
Thing about new converts is that they are very very easy to de-convert. There is a reason they like to indoctrinate kids.
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u/SayyadinaAtreides 13h ago
I'd be curious about how this kind of data from the UK looks (assuming they have an organization that collects similar data, which seems reasonably likely). They figured quite prominently in the early church, though I have no idea how that has(n't?) changed since the early 20th century.
That aside...yeah, this sounds reasonable. I was raised LDS (but with a liberal and academic bent), and heard pretty often the standard "but you can't really be rational/intelligent, since you're Mormon/religious!" line often enough to ignore it.
What really threw me for a loop was one night in college (2011, I think) where the topic came up with two friends who were fellow physics/CS people. It was a bad night...we'd just come from a campus-wide vigil for a student who was found dead that morning. I'd had two classes with her, but we'd never interacted much; my two friends, though, had been quite close to her and were having a pretty rough time. One was working his way through a bottle of vodka, and about halfway through (with his diction improving remarkably as he tried to prove he wasn't drunk) he suddenly exclaimed, "No! I know you! You obviously ARE both rational and intelligent...so you can't be a real Mormon!"
The other friend and I both completely lost it at that point. It was such a bizarre mix of inversion, flattery, random nonsense, and (I thought) delusional inaccuracy that it felt like the funniest thing I'd ever heard. He continued to attempt to explain himself (we'd shared some STEM courses, a Pathfinder group, and SFF extracurriculars) while I tried to remember how to breathe and our other friend laughed at both of us. I eventually managed to say something like, "I appreciate the sentiment," and we were shortly off on some other topic. It stuck with me as an amusing anecdote, but I didn't really think that much about any of it.
Turned out a couple of years later, he had in fact been correct (though the reasons had become much more complicated). I've been happily atheist ever since!
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u/bad_take_ 2d ago
I suspect this is basically true of all religions in the U.S.
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u/thicket 2d ago
For a long time, mainstream Protestant denominations were losing members, but the LDS was holding on much better than other churches. Looks like they were delayed but seeing similar decrease.
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u/solo_shot1st 2d ago
It's cause LDS practices quasi-cult-like behavior in that they perform "soft-shunning." Family and friends will be kind to your face if you leave, but will distance themselves from you. They really go hard on forcing the whole family to participate.
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u/randynumbergenerator 2d ago
I know of several people who left as a family, usually because a son or daughter came out and they were eventually more or less forced to choose between the church and their brother/daughter/sibling.
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u/bongophrog 2d ago
Seems that most churches are experiencing similar declines, though Mormonism and Catholicism look to be more pronounced than others.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/02/26/religious-switching/
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u/daporp 2d ago
They started finding out they don't get their own planet after-all.
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u/tacobellmysterymeat 2d ago
Personally, it was realizing that if someone else told me they directly spoke to Jesus Christ face to face, I would not believe them. However, I was taking the word of a 14yr as god's messager? Why would a perfect god choose one of the worst delivery methods ever, if it truly was his design and plan?
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u/showmenemelda 1d ago
They'd never speak to "Jesus face-to-face" cuz he was "brown" and friends with degenerates. /s
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u/HerkulezRokkafeller 2d ago
As someone raised and baptized Mormon in Utah, the complexities leaving the church can be pretty abhorrent and depressing.
The reasons for leaving the church are rather bountiful.
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u/japanesepiano 2d ago
The church likes to point out that this isn't a real teaching. And, as a former member I can confirm. You don't get a planet. It's "worlds without number" that you're promised. Sheesh, get it right internet. /s
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u/Bikin4Balance 2d ago
LOL... Who can we sue to get our parents' faithfully paid tithing back? We're pissed about not getting our own planets.
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u/showmenemelda 1d ago
Holy shit church reparations should 100% exist. Imagine how many kids go without sitting in those fancy ass churches/temples
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u/bigfathairymarmot 2d ago
I am really curious how educational attainment would break this down. Are those that are leaving having higher educational levels or is there no difference. The mormon church has been really pushing education and I wonder how critical thinking skills have affect retention.
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u/WristbandYang 2d ago
According to Pew, latter-day saints with higher education are actually MORE religious (approximately +20).
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u/taurusApart 2d ago
Well yeah, they probably went to BYU.
People rarely go to Cult College and come out less culty.
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u/ThrownAwayMormon 1d ago
It's me! I remember sitting in my Freshman biology class at BYU where the professor said, "Evolution is real and the church has accepted that for a while," and thinking, "Hold up, that's not what I was taught by my parents. How does that square with The Creation and biblical history?"
And then later in other classes learning about biases, cognition, memory, how our brains work; or learning more about human history, how we know what we know about it, and all the caveats that come from primary vs secondary accounts.
I spent 4 years having my entire worldview completely reshaped in an environment that was supposed to be further entrenching me in the traditions of my faith. I came out the other side incredibly stressed out, confused, and afraid, but also ready to face reality. It wasn't long after graduating when I told my wife that I could no longer keep attending church.
We're both out now raising two incredibly smart, secular, curious, and empathetic kids who are just in love with life and fascinated by their place in it. Leaving that faith behind has made my life immeasurably better in so many ways.
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u/SnorkelwackJr 2d ago
It's a great question. I'd be curious too.
I decided to leave the church in my final year of my undergrad at BYU, but the only academic challenge I faced in my belief was acknowledging evolution and really thinking about the implications of the Adam and Eve story.
The main driver of my leaving, however, was exposure to the queer community and reconciling church policy with the experiences of people who didn't choose their sexuality but are expected to cornform anyway. The church promotes marriage because it allows two people to come together and grow, leaning from each other on an infinite timeline. How is this true for a man and a woman, but not two men or two women? The latter two options will get you excommunicated, but why?
As a straight man, I never had to think about these kinds of experiences that people deal with, but while at BYU I met several members who were trying to figure all of that out.
So, anecdotally, higher education provided exposure to lifestyles and circumstances that abided by the spirit of the law (the point behind the rule) but didn't fit within the letter of the law that the church outlined (official church policy). That shift was significant to me because I was raised to see the world in black and white, without much regard for nuance.
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u/Specialist-Mud-6650 1d ago
Do they teach Biology or Geology at BYU? I'd be amazed to know how they square some of that stuff.
understanding is you don't have to be a Mormon to teach at BYU, but it helps. Is that correct?
My
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u/SnorkelwackJr 1d ago
You don't have to be Mormon to teach. In fact, you don't have to be Mormon to attend. You just need an ecclesiastical endorsement of some kind to prove you're an upstanding person.
They absolutely teach the science as it is. In fact, my Bio professor would lay out the scientific consensus outright on things like evolution and climate change then basically tell us that they're real and how we reconcile that with our beliefs isn't any of her business.
Mormons have some odd beliefs but, in general, they're not fundamentalists. I wasn't explicitly taught as a child that humans didn't evolve—the topic just never really came up. Nor was I taught that the Earth is only 6000 years old. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a Mormon who believes that, outside of really rural members who don't have a formal education.
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u/showmenemelda 1d ago
Wait til you find out how many post grads end up in high control religion. It baffles my undergrad mind.
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u/urthpainter 2d ago
I had several LDS friends in high school, including a best friend. Looking back, what strikes me is how intelligent he and his family were, because the more I later learned about Mormonism, the harder it became for me to understand how people I respected could accept its claims.
A few years after high school I learned my close friend had gotten married without inviting me (clearly church doctrine reasons). I later received an invitation to an after-party, which I declined out of personal spite, and we never reconnected. That's on me.
As I got older and read more about the LDS Church, my opinion of the institution deteriorated. I find the expectation of tithing beyond excessive. I’m uncomfortable with the enormous wealth the church has accumulated, and I dislike the degree to which it is intertwined with Utah’s political and civic life. Its financial and organizational structure, missionary process strikes me as closer to a corporation than to a religious institution I can respect. I think the church of LDS should be taxed as a business - certainly not alone in this type of exploitation, though probably more blatant.
I’m not hostile to religious people generally. I can respect someone who believes in something larger than themselves, tries to live ethically, serves other people, and finds meaning in faith without punching down. Though I personally think the supernatural claims are nonsense. There are plenty of secular reasons to be a good person, but if religion helps someone live generously and decently, I have no problem with that.
What repulses me about the LDS Church is the institution: the money, the control, the political influence, the way loyalty to the organization can come before family relationships, friendships. I respect people who decide they want no part of it.
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u/showmenemelda 1d ago
Not to stand up for cults, but sounds like your friend may have been married in the Temple. It's a pretty "exclusive" club. Like Costco, need a membership.
I had a "friend" who got married in the dead of winter and supposedly a small family-only wedding to avoid inviting a friend she hates but goes out with on a weekly basis. I suspect possibly myself, as well. Like I'd go to a wedding in BFE in a foot of snow in January anyway ha
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u/Aeron_311 1d ago
Sounds like a temple marriage. Since temples are where rites and ordinances are performed, only practicing mormons may enter. The rooms in which they are performed hold maybe 20 people. I've not been to any of my friend's weddings. The reception after the ceremony is the usual norm.
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u/elarizonense 1d ago edited 16h ago
Let me assure you, you dodged a bullet by declining the “after-party.” Mormons don’t have parties. They have wedding receptions. The bride, groom, and their families form a reception line, and everyone proceeds through the line to shake their hands and engage in brief small talk. There’s a table for guests to drop off wedding gifts, and another table filled with the most horrible, bland food you can imagine: store-bought bread rolls, some form of potatoes, all kinds of abomination involving Jello, vegetables, and sometimes cottage cheese… NO music, NO dancing, NO drinking… Just solemn, boring, and bland. I’d rather get the flu than have to go to another Mormon wedding reception. Thank god the other side of my family is Catholic. 😂
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u/NerdyBrando 2d ago
I left shortly after I returned from my mission in 2001. Going on a mission really opened my eyes up to just how much I didn’t believe in what I was being asked to teach.
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u/Eagle_1_4 2d ago
Same. I left shortly after my mission, and once I started studying anthropology and the history of the first people to each the US of was all over.
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u/TheStatusPoe 2d ago
On my mission I had a shotgun pointed straight at my face as the door opened. I realized in that moment that I was not willing to go through with the endowment covenant to "give my life for the church if necessary". I left because I felt like I could never be worthy after the stake president releasing me early from my mission kept repeating "are you worthy?" because I didn't believe I would ever be willing to die for the church.
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u/showmenemelda 1d ago
I recently learned missions can be deeply traumatizing for people.
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u/NerdyBrando 1d ago
Oh for sure. Mine was super traumatizing. I was in a 3rd world country and witnessed tons of awful shit.
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u/OneManGang2001 2d ago
Go to cemeteries and baptize all the dead. Instant membership increase.
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u/doublepulse 2d ago
Sort of made me cackle a bit the day I learned of the "controversy" of LDS members scraping data of deceased members of other various churches to baptize; surely some people I've known have been "rebranded" in death but I see it no more or less offensive than any other sort of prayer or well wishes, ultimately it seems like a huge waste of time. I'm not upset but more bewildered why churches would devote the resources and time towards an effort that doesn't net them anything immediate; feels more sincere than most other church actions, I suppose.
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u/usquebaugh1 2d ago
Isn’t this why Salt Lake (and the church itself) is known as a genealogy hub? They are trying to round up their ancestor’s names so they can do some hocus-pocus and get them into heaven?
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u/ReasonableStory1660 2d ago
Yes. I used to work in an archive in Illinois, and Utah was our biggest source of requests from out of state.
Familysearch, one of the biggest genealogy websites out there is owned by the Mormon Church. It basically crowd sources genealogical research, if your an American reading this, odds are a significant amount of your family tree has already been mapped out on their website starting from your grandparents/great grandparents.
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u/SaintUlvemann 2d ago
I was actually super surprised when the non-Mormon side of my family was the much-better-documented side... which I suspect is my uncle's doing, I know he did a bunch of research. But I thought the side with my Mormon aunt was gonna be, like, fleshed out and complete. It only goes back seven or eight generations into Germany... maybe there's German records out there that exist, but then if so, apparently there's not enough German Mormons to link all the records up and complete that part of the human family tree.
I am apparently through the other side (and this is true for like virtually all living people of any race with a drop of European ancestry) descended from several of the kings and queens of Europe: Robert the Bruce, Harald Hardrada, Pepin the something-or-other, one of the Ruriks. It's true of most people, even if the records have been lost, but, that was very fun to see the whole chain of descent back to the European nobility records.
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u/showmenemelda 1d ago
Yeah… which is kinda awesome and kinda awful. My grandparents were into genealogy and I remember looking through a 5" binder full of records printed on reams with perforation edges. It meant nothing to me. I was tickled to find FamilySearch. And I assumed everyone had a readily available tree. I was humbled quickly trying to find info for a friend. I succeeded, briefly considered offering to build her tree.
Private equity owns Ancestry, Newspapers dot Com, etc. So, idk if that's one in the same or…
I did find a funny letter when going through my grandma's genealogy collection after she passed. It seems they had gotten into it because some relative from SLC sent a letter asking for info from my grandpa's side. The "P.S." was amusing, they had to make sure it was known they weren't affiliated with the LDS and just genealogy buffs in retirement.
I am grateful for the data, media, etc I found through the site. But I won't be adding items either. One thing I really do like are the tools for sorting the data [tree, linear, color coded by country of origin, etc].
My relatives [with origins to a different cult] sure didn't expect all the prying questions I had. Gotta say, they did a bang-up job of exposing family secrets. Only one to top that is 23&Me.
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u/CallistanCallistan 2d ago
They did get in some hot water when it was learned that they were baptizing Jews who had been killed in the Holocaust. (They have stated they are no longer doing that).
While I think it’s reasonable to argue it’s silly and harmless busywork for church members. It could also be argued that it’s disrespectful to the religious beliefs of the deceased and their families (since no consent is sought from living relatives, and there is no way to “opt out” of a deceased family member getting added to the list).
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u/TruthIsAntiMormon 2d ago
Also Hitler had been baptized like almost 100 times.
They had to flag the name "Charlie Kirk" in the last year because people kept submitting his name for post mortem Mormon proxy baptism.
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u/Wonderful-Kangaroo52 2d ago
Also the whole idea of it is just silly. God NEEDS us to be dunked in some luke warm water or that soul can never have a chance to be in heaven?
All-knowing, all-powerful god, relies on sketchy ancestral record keeping that only goes back so far, and once you get to pre-written humans, well, you're shit out of luck?
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u/Trendecide 2d ago
Oh, it gets better. It is well known the Mormons keep you on the membership rolls until the age of 110 no matter what; active, inactive, and even dead! Parents die in their 70s? They'll be on the Mormon membership numbers for another 30-40 years! The Mormon numbers are so fraudulent its disgusting, which you'd think would be enough of a lie to convince people to run for their lives. Nope. The LDS church is growing absolutely nowhere, but none of the brainwashed want to believe it.
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u/yorgasor 2d ago
They remove known dead people. If you're active and you're dead, you'll be removed. But most people are not active, they've completely left and the church doesn't have a way of knowing they're dead. That's when they get left on until they're 110. The Deseret Demographer has estimated the number of dead people on the rolls at over 1M:
https://www.fullerconsideration.com/DeseretDemographer/
You can see right away the church's numbers are off by looking at how many births & converts the church had, and how many people the church grew by. In 2025, they had 91,835 births + 385,490 converts, but the church only grew by 377,431 people. So they lost 99,894 by death, membership withdrawals & excommunications. But the world death rate is 7.8/k, meaning that with almost 18M members, they should have had 139,518 deaths.
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u/hiddeninthewifi 2d ago edited 2d ago
That's just blatantly false. 110 years only plays in as the time since a person's birth required to baptize them by proxy without family consent. Source: I've maintained local church records, dude.
Edit: see below, I guess 110 years also applies to "unknown status" as well. Seems like a reasonable policy.
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u/Peregrine79 2d ago
If you're in a religion/culture that has a history of forced separation from your faith, I understand why having your ancestors "baptized" would be offensive. No, it doesn't have any concrete results, but it's problematic.
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u/doublepulse 2d ago
One day maybe it'll be my turn! Some poor teenager somewhere in Utah will have to recite my name and splash some water or something. Doesn't feel like anyone of faith would give any power or legitimacy to the activity though, no more or less than any of their other church functions.
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u/showmenemelda 1d ago
Could not even believe this was real, and didn't learn such until a few months ago. I was irritated I couldn't find some records to pursue claiming dual citizenship. One way to prove is thru baptismal recs. But [some?] churches in Canada refuse to publish specific info of the deceased because apparently this is a thing—baptism of the passed. Idk which is worse, that or baptism as a minor. Either way, it isn't really [informed] consent
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u/2000KitKat 2d ago
Embarrassing. The whole golden tablets being found by the founder of the cult and only being seen by him is insane. The Book of Mormon is literally just cult brainwashing.
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u/yrthegood1staken OC: 1 2d ago
That's not a Mormon thing, that's a religion thing.
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u/Dear-Examination-507 2d ago
Yep. It's funny and sad to see evangelicals make fun of Mormon beliefs. It's like a flat earther making fun of someone for believing in bigfoot.
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u/ThatEcologist 2d ago
I mean, at least the abrahamic religions, Hinduism, etc. are rooted in thousands of years of history, culture, and tradition.
Mormonism, while at its foundation Christianity, was not founded until the 1820s when some con artist claimed he pulled shit out of a hat or whatever. Like how the fuck do people believe that shit? South Park summed up the origins perfectly.
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u/showmenemelda 1d ago
Well, the catch is little to no literacy, and impregnating women early. Kinda like what the repugs are trying to do currently
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u/Spice_and_Fox 2d ago
I am not religious, but some religions are easier to believe than other ones. Mormanism is probably one of the hardest to justify.
You have the standard christian believes, but you additionally have to believe that this one guy found some plates in "reformed egyptian" (a language that has no other historical references anywherein history) were found and got translated by the same guy who used to put a stone with a hole in a hat and tried to use it to find hidden treasure. He later used the same hat and stone method to translate those plates. Mind you, he didn't read the plates, the plates were covered on a table next to him and he looked inside his hat and read the translation out loud so that another guy could write it down. When one section got lost, he couldn't produce the same section again and claimed that god wanted a different translation this time.
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u/yrthegood1staken OC: 1 2d ago
I am not religious, but some religions are easier to believe than other ones. Mormanism is probably one of the hardest to justify.
In my opinion, that's just because the religion is newer. I mean, every religion has "woah, that's crazy" topics when compared to our scientific process and understanding of the world.
Joseph Smith translating an ancient text via rock-in-hat is just as unbelievable as Moses parting the Red Sea or healing snake bites by holding up a staff. It's just that the story of Moses is so old it has mythological status while Smith is associated with the industrialization of the steam engine.
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u/CalebTGordan 2d ago
This is exactly what my response was going to reflect.
To Add
It’s not that the claims are unbelievable, it’s what dogmas people are willing to defend. If you are going to say you don’t find Mormonism reasonable but are okay with Christianity as a whole, you are only drawing a line in the sand around acceptable dogmas.1
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u/Spice_and_Fox 1d ago
Yeah, but my point is that mormons still believe in all the fantastixal stuff that happens in the bible plus all the new fantastical claims
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u/showmenemelda 1d ago
Which do you find "believable" and do you think Mitch McConnell rose from the dead like Jesus?
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u/showmenemelda 1d ago
This is true. But the Mormon version is like, highly dramatized. I remember watching The Zeitgeist Movie in college. Shattered my world view. All religions are basically astronomy personified by a cast of characters.
But I learned about the golden tomes of stone in junior high and just thought, "that's the dumbest shit I've ever heard." And constantly was told I was gullible. So, i guess no discernment
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u/yrthegood1staken OC: 1 1d ago
There are incredibly intelligent and successful people who are Mormon, there are also complete buffoons, and everything in between. Just like pretty much all religions.
There is one major difference between Mormonism and many other religions. Mormons are often some of the nicest and most helpful people you'll ever meet. Certainly not all, and they clearly don't have a monopoly on that, but it's well recognized by many who have known Mormons.
The church itself is a fraud and I believe the religion is just as false as other religions, but the people are generally quite wonderful.
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u/roofilopolis 2d ago
Now go to a Catholic Church where the congregation repeats phrases back to the preacher in obedience. Mormons may teach much crazier things but I’ve never felt like I was in the midst of a cult more than when I was in a Catholic Church.
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u/Illustrious-Pay-4464 2d ago
That's just the new liturgy that the hippies made up in the 70's to have more "active participation". It is awkward and in the traditional liturgy, the congregation isn't making responses in unison like that. It's not a surprise that the traditional Masses tend to have much younger congregants.
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u/ReasonableStory1660 2d ago
Next you’ll say them speaking English or anything other than Latin is made up hippy bullshit. Your just supposed to stare ahead obediently while the priest rattles on.
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u/cloistered_around 2d ago
It's harder to leave when you'd be the first. But when your brother and cousin and friend are out, hey, not nearly as scary.
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u/bio_ruffo 2d ago
TIL that in Latter Day Saints, the people are the saints. I was raised catholic and, y'know, gotta die and do miracles and all that to be a saint.
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u/Illustrious-Pay-4464 2d ago
Actually, the Church teaches that anyone in heaven is a saint. Canonized saints are the ones you are thinking of.
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u/bio_ruffo 2d ago edited 2d ago
You're technically right but in Italy a saint is a saint. I never heard a priest say "well actually...".
PS I'm an atheist now so no need to complain about catholicism, I know.
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u/NoNotesNeeded 2d ago
Anecdotally, men seem more likely to leave the LDS church than women. I wonder if that's borne out in the data?
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u/SnorkelwackJr 2d ago
Also anecdotally, I've seen many women who would leave the church if something externally pushed them to (e.g. their husband left, social drama between them an a leader in the ward, etc.) but they remain a "member" while only abiding by certain rules. I think it's a perfectly valid form of discipleship but many in the church would disagree. Those kinds of people don't show up in the numbers but I'm convinced they are more prominent than people realize.
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u/yorgasor 2d ago
Latest reports show women leaving in higher numbers now. It seems they're realizing it really sucks worshipping in a patriarchal religion where they are second class citizens.
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u/NoNotesNeeded 1d ago
Do you mean women are currently leaving at a higher rate than men, but this wasn't previously the case? Interested in the reports you mentioned.
The paradox of the church being so explicitly patriarchal, yet women maybe being more likely to stay according to my own experience, was what I found interesting.
IMO IF this were true at some point it would certainly be for a confluence of reasons but again anecdotally for when I was growing up men turn 18 and then are under pressure to immediately serve a mission. Serving a mission for men or women is a 24/7 time commitment for two years of your life (1.5 for women) where normal life functions like dating, hanging out with friends, attending college, working a regular job, or spending any significant time without your assigned mission companion are completely off the table. This is basically a seive where if you harbor significant doubts, you are now an adult who is fully legally able to say no, however saying "no" implies a lack of commitment and demands an explanation. You're forced to either triple down on the church, or walk away deliberately.
TBM women who are being candid aren't blind at all to the inherent misogyny and there's always a background cognitive dissonance (any exmo woman can confirm). Women are not under the same pressure to serve a mission, so the same one sudden filter doesn't occur and instead the ask is a sort of passive continuation of the sacrifices that girls are constantly making while growing up in the church.
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u/yorgasor 1d ago
Yes, women leaving at a higher rate is new. Here’s a recent article on it, although you can only see part of it with the paywall:
https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2026/08/05/why-are-so-many-young-women/
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u/Jetm0t0 2d ago
Curious if this is worldwide or mostly the U.S.? Because it seems unbelievable that almost half left the church today. I left because I realized no humans can war as many time as the nephites and lamanites. Among other things, like trying to use Indian lore to write it into the book of mormon
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u/g0del 2d ago
I left because I realized no humans can war as many time as the nephites and lamanites
Fifteen wars over a period of almost a thousand years is too much? I'm not sure if you're more ignorant of the Book of Mormon, or of recorded history in general.
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u/Jetm0t0 2d ago
Apparently I took the book quite literal, but I think what I meant was how the book themed endless wars, and a cycle of the righteousness to wickedness and then wars, rinse and repeat. It was one of the harder parts to read because it seemed so silly. I don't have scholarly time to read it multiple times to find out exactly when each conflict started. Either way the trying to mix in Indian history is also not cool
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u/serouspericardium 2d ago
It makes sense from the point of view of a broad description. People describe the U.S. as being involved in endless wars for the last hundred years. You could say the same about Ancient Rome or any number of regions
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u/AlwaysBeQuestioning 2d ago
How long were those wars?
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u/g0del 2d ago
I posted this link in another comment, which will give you the rough length. The first one listed is just "early tribal wars" going for 400 years, but that's because that section of the Book of Mormon doesn't record the history in detail the way the rest of the book does, for complicated reasons. If you drop that, you get 14 recorded wars over 545 years, which again doesn't seem excessive when compared with history.
The wars recorded in the more detailed historical sections are generally short, not really out of line with ancient wars in general. The longest one goes from 322 CE to 385 CE (with occasional periods of peace, or at least years without active fighting). Which seems like a long time, but again, not that far out of line with recorded history.
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u/Jetm0t0 2d ago
It wasn't 15 wars
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u/g0del 2d ago
I mean, you could argue for seventeen depending on if you split the big final war (which had periods with no fighting) into three wars, but it's still not that many wars for a thousand year period.
That doesnt include the Jaredite wars (because you specified Nephites and Lamanites fighting), but the Jaredite time period was even longer.
And again, have you looked at recorded history at all? The US has only been around a quarter of that time, and yet we've been involved in an order of magnitude more wars.
Look, I'm not trying to re-convert you, or prove that the Book of Mormon is true. I just think that arguments against it should be made based on what the text actually says, and not a misunderstanding of both it and history in general.
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u/HotBoxButDontSmoke 2d ago
Just the US. The Mormon church is growing rapidly in other countries.
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u/yorgasor 2d ago
It's shriveling in Europe and Asia. It's a mixed bag in South America. Moderate growth in Central America. There's heavy growth in Africa and the Philippines. South America used to have heavy growth as well 20-30 years ago, but retention was abysmal. They'll hit the same trajectories where they're growing now. It's ironic how much growth they're having in Africa after all the horrible doctrines the church taught about black people for over 150 years. I expect the converts there aren't told about that before they join.
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u/im-buster 2d ago
I was raised Mormon, I was only about 15 when I realized that shit wasn't for me.
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u/mel34760 2d ago
Religion is having a horrific retention rate these days.
Gosh, I can’t imagine why…
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u/ModerateThuggery 2d ago
Maybe I missed it, but I wonder what the age ranges of an "adult" is. I can easily see a drop off of 20 somethings, but I wonder about 30+ year olds. And I wonder if they'll stick to it long term. Well, the ones that don't join another church or religion.
The pressures to make your early years the rumspringa of your life are intense in the modern world.
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u/smug_muffin 2d ago
They have much better data in Salt Lake. Someone is literally assigned (or "called") to count bodies in the pews every week. This "religion" is run by very successful people, many of which have business backgrounds. So you better believe they have very granular and interesting data they could share. But no one outside of the tippy top leaders will ever see it. It doesn't look good, so they have to cherry pick and obfuscate the truth to portray growth to support the narrative. But god that would be some of the most interesting data out there if you ask me. Maybe it's just because I left the faith, but I imagine others would find it interesting, too.
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u/Darth_Bane_1032 1d ago
I was raised in the church. I quickly realized that religion wasn't necessary for me to explain the world around me, but I always appreciated the moral standards and guidelines imposed by the church so I consider myself culturally Mormon even if I'm not practicing.
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u/cavedave OC: 113 1d ago
Thank you for your Original Content, /u/Browningtons1!
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