Those of you who are waiting for the final General Conference, when they close the doors to the LDS Conference Center, and open it up six weeks later as the new home of the Utah Jazz...are going to be very, very disappointed.

The Mormon Church...is here to stay, and will last probably as long as humanity will last. Yes, doctrines will change, history will be rewritten, things will be reinterpreted. The Church will "evolve" over time. The more liberal it becomes, the more conservative offshoots it will spawn. The Main Church will become more and more liberal, but conservative spin-offs will become homes for people who don't like the new changes. More and more 'Prophets' will arise with new Revelations, saying that the Church is gone into a new apostasy, and God has called them to 'restore' it to its primitive beauty.

For those of you who HOPE that the LDS Church is going to disappear some day, believe me, the Church will still be around a thousand years after man's first city on Mars. Changed! To be sure! Altered. Different. At that time, Mormons will be very different than they are today. But...it will remain. It's simply too big to fail. Sorry, but that's the truth. Get over it.


The Main Mormon Church will, by and by, begin to ignore the Book of Mormon more and more. It will become as relevant to young Mormons in the 22nd century as, the Torah is relevant to Reconstructionist Jews today (i.e. it isn't).

The RLDS Church (now called "Community of Christ") is shrinking, and how has barely over 150,000 members, and many of those inactive. Some are heading for the Restoration Branches, but even those are shrinking. The Restoration Branches has no charismatic LEADER. Why do you think 60 million Germans became SLAVES of Hitler? Because he had CHARISMA. None of the leaders of the Restoration Branches have any Charisma. None. The leaders of the CoC have about as much charisma as a boiled egg. Which means none. Even the CoC will continue for another hundred years or so, shrinking over time, and finally it will just be a few small congregations around Independence, and a few scattered people. They'll eventually have to sell their SeaShell New Age Temple, because they won't have the funds to keep up the maintenance. They'll probably sell it to the Catholic Church. It would make an excellent Cathedral. The Catholic Church is not shrinking, but maintaining.

BUT ... IF there's an afterlife, where all the truth can be seen by everyone -- then all the General Authorities, past and present, will have to hide their faces in total shame.

They will have all the respect of white collar thieves, and con men, and (in a few cases) mass murderers.

That image is the only thing that makes me hope that there might actually be a heaven.

Well I am glad you are a prophet yourself and know absolutely everything!! What an obnoxious know it all!!!!!

I'm only stating FACTS as far as the CoC and Restoration Branches. The Church will continue to grow and change. I understand human nature for 53 years of observing it, and I know the Church will not close its doors anytime in the next few thousand years, if that. I suspect the Church will continue as long as mankind does, just like the Catholic Church.

http://thefirendsofgod.webs.com

I'm pretty sure that isn't the ONLY thing you stated. You pulled a Nostradamus and it was annoying!

Will still exist, maybe... I still don't know where you've got the idea about TSCC "will continue to grow???

Paul the Apostle Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm only stating FACTS

Aside from your apparent age of 53 and the CoC membership number of 150,000 (wikipedia says 250,000 but whatever), you aren't stating any facts. You are stating a whole lot of opinion and supposition.

I don't have any problem with opinion and supposition. But, you can't predict the future any better than the rest of us. Don't present yourself as some kind of Nostradamus. It just makes you sound like you're full of shit.

If there is a Hell, and I believe there are three of them, then Joseph Smith is going there for being a lying womanizer and thief. He also tried to murder Lilburn W. Boggs, but I don't blame him for that one! Boggs deserved to be shot in the head!!!!

Brigham Young was a mass-murderer. He ordered the murder of horse thieves, counterfeiters, and really anyone he thought got into his way in seeking absolute wealth and power. He's in Hell now.

As far as the other Leaders of the Church. Most are sincere. Some as flaming assholes. A few are really nice guys. Most are your standard lawyer/business executive types. Just about all of them are deceived, because they refuse to look at the evidence. They dismiss it out of hand, or, in some cases, are afraid to look. I belong to the Friends of God now. I believe in what that teaches:
http://thefriendsofgod.webs.com

"The Friends of God International (FOGI) was founded by Jamshid Rohani of Iran, in 2010, in the State of Washington, USA. The teachings of FOGI are based upon the visions that Jamshid had, out of the body, in the Third Heaven where he communicated with many prophets, messengers, and saints. During these out-of-body experiences, he asked many questions, and received many answers."

good luck with that

It appears the OP traded one crazy belief for another. Not sure that counts as "recovery" from Mormonism...

Wait, let's see what the FOGI policies are on compulsory missions, exclusive temples, underwear control, etc. before we judge them.

Paul, I am not writing because of your opinion on the longevity of TSCC as you can read my thoughts on another thread, but simply because you still hold a grudge against Gov. Boggs. Do you know about the "Salt Sermon" by Rigdon? Didn't Boggs actually help the Mormons get out of Missouri, intentionally or not? Didn't JS actually get out of his charge of treason by paying off guards? Boggs issued his orders on the information in front of him. Up to that point he had done what he could to avoid a war. But a Mormon apostle, Patten, was attacking and Mormons had burned settlements, had stolen property and looted, and JS had led an attack in which one of the non-mormons was killed, and JS had ordered the legion to attack.

I agree that the church will still exist...only because it probably has 10's of billions in assets. Will it continue to grow? I'd argue that it's already stagnant...convert retention and births are just keeping pace with deaths and resignations. We may have already reached the tipping point where active participation is in decline. I'd bet that this trend will never reverse, but you're still probably right...the corporation will be around forever...unless the gov't steps in and seizes all their assets.

TSCC will still be around for the next century or two, but it will eventually fade and die out, forgotten.

I wonder if the Presbyterians and Methodists will be around in another hundred years and they had a big head start on the Mormons. The "nones" are quickly gaining ground in the Pew Reports!

A secular culture that is superior in every way to a top-down organization like Mormonism will emerge sometime during this century and will greatly reduce the already tiny target demographic of groups like Mormonism. That's what I hope at least.

But as long as the The Corporation owns billions, I agree it will be around in some form.

It's coasting for now, but bigger religions than Mormonism have faded into obscurity eventually. Mormonism is like all of them, it depends on keeping people from learning things other than what the official teachings are. Now that it's very easy to get the real dope without anyone catching you checking out "anti" books at the library, more will fall away. Mormonism has a disadvantage. The origins of the older ones are shrouded in the mists of time. But when Joe was cooking up this crazy cult there were newspapers.

wasn't the same thing said about the shakers ?

The Shakers went even further than the LDS in prohibiting sex. Not much natural growth for them!

Are you kidding me? It will shrink! If the church becomes more and more liberal over time, people will realize these drastic changes and know it is a hoax and that their Prophet is not really a prophet after all. These people will question the changes, look into church history on google, google will show them what a con-man joe smith was, and then before you know it, they'll be going to hooters bragging about how cool it is on this rfm message board. The easy accessibility to information is missing from your equation. This is what will exactly happen. It isn't easy to change the doctrines more than what they already have been changed. If a Prophet says gay marriage in the temple is now ok, it will go against teachings from ol' boyd k. don'ttouchyerpacker when he said that people aren't born gay. It will be the same with women and the priesthood. The church will dwindle into obscurity. I prophesy that in the name of Jebus Christo, Amen.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2014 12:52AM by johnstockton12.

If the Church SUDDENTLY became Liberal, yes, it would lose at least 50% of its Members, but that won't happen. It will very SLOWLY turn liberal. Mormon children born 100 years from now will think gay is good, will abort their children and even euthanize children before year one, and think NOTHING of it, because THAT will be "normal" in their world. They won't think the Church is liberal, when the Church seals gay men to men and women to woman. They won't, because that will be NORMAL in their world. Sex before marriage will be commonplace, and the leaders of the Church will never discuss it. They will still be preaching "Pray, Pay, and Obey". Missionaries will still be sent out, and things will change, attitudes will change, and the Members won't think anything of it by that time, because the world will change.

Since euthanizing children has never, in the history of the world, been normal behavior for parents, what makes you think it will suddenly be normal in 100 years? Do sick people murder babies, yes, but it has never been considered a normal thing to do.

You might be surprised. Please review your history more thoroughly.
It's all well and good to be outraged at bringing it back, but sadly used to be very common in MANY cultures.

"Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nonsense. Church will die like all organisations. There is a limitation to its direct evolution.

For example:

1. Jesus comes again and is Hindu. Result end of tscc.

2. History reveals some fundamental discovery that undermines tscc utterly.

3. Progress makes religion irrelevant.

Consider the orphic religions. Where are they now? As education increases, as information becomes more available people will make better choices. Therefore the perpetual survival of the church is unlikely. And the fa t that the sun has a limited lifespan makes it probably impossible.

What? Mormonism will survive because of its charismatic leaders?

Like Tom M?

An invoking Godwin's Law on the very first post on a thread is bad form. You should build up to throwing Hitler into the argument.

I agree with PtA in that the morg will survive as a social club. Many members see it that way now. In North America and Europe they will have to rely on making babies if they want new members. However, even Mormon families seem to be shrinking. You don't see 7, 8 or 9 kids anymore. The morg's vast wealth will keep them afloat, but PtA missed the mark. The morg will survive, but it will not grow.

That's great news. But old news. To this nevermo, the current mormon church looks nothing like the mormon church of the 80's I ran headlong into. I think that's great. It's not mormonism anymore. As time goes on, more and more mormonism gets wrung out of the old dried up religion. Isn't that what most ex-mormons enjoy seeing happen?

The Catholic Church is not shrinking, but maintaining.

I'm impressed (NOOOOT)......
hey are fucked....././///

Although the church may gain members through births, the number of EX-members being "born" each day is growing as well. And a LOT of ex-members are not afraid to talk to other people.

I agree, also, that the readily available historical data now available in the privacy of your own computer, is probably very instrumental in the greatest revelation about the church, that it is based on the efforts of a false and really pretty icky man, Joseph Smith.

I was just reading his own journals and found that he even skipped church pretty often during the height of his days as leader of the church. I was reading how he went to this one farm on a Saturday, then while there he went out to "help hoe potatoes" and then he'd stay home the next day on Sunday. The following Saturday, same story. Goes to farm, hoes potatoes, skips church. I starting to wonder if it was potatoes he was really "hoeing". Sorry, once you start reading about his sordid life, you just can't think of him decently again.

Some organizations (churches, corporations, governments) adapt, evolve, and change over time. Others figure that when they're in trouble, they need to go back to their roots, real or imagined. There's a certain ecological niche that they understand, so they decide not to compete for a different niche.

Which of these strategic decisions will the LDS church make? Or will they offer an uncertain sound, a vacillating image, and manage to drive away everyone? There's a huge risk for them of listening to some "talented" or "inspired" charlatan among them and going down faster than they ever imagined.

There is no way the morg will grow. It is as boring as shite. Plus it is so easy to prove false. It will hemorrhage members, particularly the young, and will get smaller and smaller and more impotent. The corp will survive but they won't have many members, just die hards in the moridor.

The church has learned how to follow the Nazi propaganda model; tell a lie long enough and it becomes truth. They've been playing this card for a long time, however it is still a lie.

That plan didn't work out well for the Nazis or the Mormons. Is your point that LDS Inc will continue to sink into irrelevance?

Facts:
1. People are leaving the church - not small..but HUGE!
2. The NEW generation wants NOTHING TO DO WITH THE CHURCH
3. It is a fraud and people when they find out will RUN - are running
4. The church will be a FRACTION of what it is today in another 20 -30 years max.
Get over it ..Too big to fail? Hardly