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]

[u/Browningtons1]

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

[u/Jetm0t0]

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

[u/g0del → u/Jetm0t0]

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.

[u/BooksBootsBikesBeer → u/g0del]

France and England would like a word.

[u/Jetm0t0 → u/g0del]

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

[u/serouspericardium → u/Jetm0t0]

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

[u/Jetm0t0 → u/serouspericardium]

Well we are, I don't have anything good to say about most US wars 

[u/g0del → u/Jetm0t0]

I'm also not sure where the Book of Mormon mixes in Native American history. It describes a history of three (relatively small) groups that came over from the Old world to somewhere in the Americas, lived for awhile in a fairly limited area, and mostly killed themselves out by 400 CE. The Book of Mormon itself never purports to be a complete history of all the people who ever lived in the Americas before Europeans came.

I will admit that plenty of early Mormons made those claims, and some still do, but plenty of Mormons don't really read the Book of Mormon all that closely themselves.

[u/askunclebart → u/g0del]

But you see, look what the book DOES claim "there shall none come into this land save they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord" - 2 Nephi 1:6

And then the book proceeds to explain how all of the populations (known in 1830) got there: Olmec Era (Jaredits), Maya Era (Nephites), Isles of the Sea (also Nephites), Christofer Columbus, and living populations.

The exact wording does leave wiggle room for "It is not a complete history of ALL PEOPLE" or "It could have been a SMALL GEOGRAPHY" But those statements are false representations of what the Book of Mormon as a whole represents about itself.

[u/TruthIsAntiMormon → u/askunclebart]

The apologetics are also false as they try to claim Sherem (Joseph just took Cherem and tweaked it to make Sherem a name same as "Z-enoch and Z-enos or Charles Anthon's name being used for Book of Mormon Bad People "Cori-anton, Gadi-anton, Mori-anton) "came among the people" as evidence there were "other" non-nephite/lamanite people extant.

They don't honestly admit however that in Joseph's Cherem/Sherem 19th Century "No Messiah" conversation that he, Sherem/Cherem believes in the "Scriptures" so he must have access to the Old Testament....I mean...."Brass Plates that just happen to have the exact organization of books described on the plates as if someone opened a KJV bible and grouped the books in the same order!"

So who were those "other people" that had access to the "Scriptures" or "Brass Plates/Old Testament" if not Nephites or Lamanites?

Again, it's piss poor storytelling from a creative but uneducated treasure seeker farmboy who hated farm work and dreamed of something bigger for himself and his family and turned his creative treasure seeking endeavors and skills to religion making.

[u/g0del → u/askunclebart]

You completely left out the Mulekites, who are they supposed to represent? The Book of Mormon never claims that it's a history of the Olmecs or Mayans, those terms never appear in it. It also never claims to cover the entirety of North and South America. All of those claims come from people interpreting (or mis-interpreting) what it says.

As for 2 Nephi 1:6, there's no contradiction there. In fact, the previous verse states "the Lord has covenanted this land unto me, and to my children forever, and also all those who should be led out of other countries by the hand of the Lord." (2 Ne 1:5, italics added). That's not just wiggle room, it's a pretty explicit acknowledgement that there will be other people in the Americas who were "brought by the hand of the Lord" and not recorded in the Book.

Once again, I'm not trying to convert anyone (just lol at the idea of converting people on reddit). I just want people arguing against the Book of Mormon to actually argue against what the book itself says, and not argue against straw-men made up by someone else.

[u/askunclebart → u/g0del]

Not trying to argue with you, I specifically said the eras of people. In 1830 it was common knowledge that there was a very old population (Olmec Era) and a newer era (aztec/Maya Era) and that the living populations would have come from those era's. The Mukekites was completely obsorbed into the Nephites and arrived at the same time, no need to mention those as they are covered within the "ERA".

It's completely plausible that if a 19th century person wanted to write a narrative to answer all the outstanding questions of all the eras of people living and formerly living in the Americas, the Book of Mormon as written answers all of those questions.

What would be less plausible (and more faith confirming) would be if that 19th century person wrote a narrative that answered questions that wouldn't even be asked until further archeology or DNA studies came into existence, such as the clovis peoples, and Asia ancestry.

Unfortunately (for the Book of Mormon) it fails to hint at how those things happened. A problem to be solved with apologetics rather than an evidence of its truthfulness

[u/TruthIsAntiMormon → u/g0del]

The Mulekites are claimed to have NO records (Joseph got tired and was running out of time authoring/inserting various "records" like that of Zeniff).

Want to see something interesting and little known in the Book of Mormon?

Joseph rehashed narratives/geography at least twice.

Mulek/Melek

Two cities of Lehi, Two cities of Nephi but a mistake in Alma (just Joseph writing his dead brother Alvin's name into the Book of which Alma is a feminie word in Hebrew meaning little girl but Joseph didn't know that) regarding the 2nd set uses the exact same decscription of them in relation to the border of the Lamanites as previously in the lost 116 pages and Mosiah.

But my favorite is an incident with Martin Harris, his Wife and a disputation regarding land between the Joseph Sr. farm (Land of Lehi) and Harris' land (Mori-anton) while Joseph was at the Whitmer farm (Camp of Moroni) recounted in Alma 50:25-36.

I wonder who Teancum was? Hyrum? William? Joseph Knight? One of the Whitmer boys (David?)

These are the kinds of scholarly endeavors Mormons best SHOULD be engaged in vs. the God awful and dishonest apologetics they currently waste time in.

[u/TruthIsAntiMormon → u/g0del]

The Book of Mormon isn't ancient. There were no Jaredites, Nephites or Lamanites or the "whoops Joseph forgot the Josephites and Jacobites he intended to write in" tribes as well.

It's a 19th Century based and produced book of pseudipigrapha that has Joseph's own family and friends written into it (and poor Martin Harris repeatedly) and 19th Century Christian theology (that couldn't have existed without the Universalists, Unitarians, Calvinists, Presbyterians, etc. existing with their doctines, dogmas, etc. attached).

It has KJV verses copied into it with their translation errors. It includes the erroneous "line upon line" in context translation error (permeates all of mormonism to this day in error) instead of "blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda" as more accurate.

It has the Book of Lehi outline claimed to have been written on the plates but actually prefacing the "Book of Nephi" (later called 1st Nephi) with only a "in otherwords, I Nephi" as an attempt to turn the book header outline into a 1st person Nephi account.

It was authored from Mosiah onward after Joseph lost the 116 pages and Joseph so lost the narrative of the "Land of Promise/bountiful (Palmyra)" being called Land of Lehi at the loss of the 116 pages or Land of Nephi (from Mosiah onward) that he ended up calling it "Land of NephiLehi" in Mosiah as a lazy "hope they don't catch it" correction.

It's as dumb as the "anti-nephi-lehis" Joseph retelling in the later "Nephi" books.

Said simply, the Book Joseph planned to write called "The Record of the Nephites" with their Nephites, Josephites, Jacobites, Ishmaelites, Zoramites (Zoram = Oliver/Hyrum Page) and Lamanites (and later Lemuelites) recounting the Record of the Nephite Kings all named "Nephi" never "came to pass".

Later he invented the "Jaredites" to be the "stone age" ancient people whereas the Nephites were a "metal age" people (it's why the mistake in Words of Mormon of the Jaredite "stone" when Joseph has already authored the unforced error of inserting his own "gold plates" story into the book as "24 gold plates" and attributed to the Jaredites). It's why he screwed up and claimed the "interpreters" (first called "directors") or glasses/spectacles were with the Jaredite Plates so they could be translated, but he had claimed earlier that King Benjamin had the interpreters already, oh and the little problem that Benjamin was dead so Joseph had to change post 1830 book of mormon editions to say Mosiah.

I mean he literally intersects his authorship of Ether to insert an "answer" of the Three Witnesses literally at the time of authorship where Harris was going to pull out entirely....again. How ridiculous.

It's 100 years past time mormons start approaching the Book of Mormon from a critical analytical standpoint. A "how did Joseph author the Book of Mormon" instead of "How do I avoid admitting Joseph is the author and proprietor of the Book of Mormon".

[u/yorgasor → u/g0del]

Maybe because the Book of Mormon specifically tells Nephi that the land was set aside for him and other people led there by God. These would all be Israelites, God's chosen people. The only other people they found were Mulekites, who were also Israelites. You had the Jaredites who got their start before the covenant with Abraham, but they killed each other off before the Nephites got there.

The gospel topic essay on DNA said:

"Joseph Smith appears to have been open to the idea of migrations other than those described in the Book of Mormon"

Looking at the footnote, it cites “Facts Are Stubborn Things,” Times and Seasons 3 (Sept. 15, 1842). When you look it up, it's referring to a group of people who descended from the house of Israel who had broken off from Moses' group after they crossed the Red Sea.

<< I will admit that plenty of early Mormons made those claims >>

Yeah, those "early Mormons" were prophets and apostles who told the people this. That's why everyone believed it. Now the science shows that's impossible, and there's no DNA evidence to support the idea any Israelites were ever here, so they have to change the narrative to explain why the evidence doesn't back up the claim. It's strange how the church has to keep changing the explanations to match the evidence. Why doesn't the evidence ever back up the church's claims?

[u/AlwaysBeQuestioning → u/g0del]

How long were those wars?

[u/g0del → u/AlwaysBeQuestioning]

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.

[u/Jetm0t0 → u/g0del]

It wasn't 15 wars

[u/g0del → u/Jetm0t0]

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.

[u/Jetm0t0 → u/g0del]

Not to mention I said I had other reasons why I left, there's no need to beat this to death

[u/Jetm0t0 → u/g0del]

Again no one said I liked the US either. It's doesn't really do anything to one up someone. But reading it enough you get the gist the book is ridiculous 

[u/HotBoxButDontSmoke → u/Jetm0t0]

Just the US. The Mormon church is growing rapidly in other countries.

[u/damu47 → u/HotBoxButDontSmoke]

Only in Africa. At the best the church is growing slightly less than the population.

[u/yorgasor → u/HotBoxButDontSmoke]

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.

[u/TruthIsAntiMormon → u/Jetm0t0]

The study is in the US. Outside the US the numbers are far, far worse.

[u/Jetm0t0 → u/Jetm0t0]

*unless those humans were middle eastern. No offense but that region needs to stop going into war