During the mid to late 70's I lived in one of the top 10 largest cities in the US and the ward I attended was VERY large and very active with about 850 members. Every Sunday the Chapel and Rec room were filled and over flowing with members. The talk was always about when would Salt Lake split us and make smaller wards.

Of course back then we taught and believed all the bat crazy stuff like we were each going to be a god over our own planets, God had a body, Jesus had a wife, blacks were cursed, drinking a cola drink would send you to hell and you could only have sex while wearing your garments.

40 years later the church pretends they never taught any of that and the ward has about 100 people that attend. Maybe less.

What can we learn from this? People like to belong to a different religion that believes and teaches bat shit crazy things. Maybe if the big 15 ever talk with a God, then they would know the bat crazy shit works better than lieing.

Let me make sure I understand something. Did they REALLY teach you could only have sex IN your garments? I wasn't around back then.

Yes - the year was 1972 and the bishop sent all the YM out of the room and told all of the men that they were to keep their garments on during sex. Any man that made his wife take her garments off for sex could expect a church court of love.

Even drinking Dr Pepper was a sin.

Verified that they used to demand that, although the church court threat is surprising to me. Probably just bluster from a bishop with no sexual outlet other than threats over sex.

As late as 1979, the bishop told my roommate, after his initial endowment, that he had to wear the garment during sex...with his future wife, of course. That's the last I ever heard of it.

I never heard this until my TBM MIL told me that this is what her parents did...they never saw each other naked in 50 years of marriage. I thought they were just goofy...didn't know that the church taught this. My in-laws were married in the 70's, and they didn't do this.

For the men it doesn't make a lot of difference. For the women, the "panty" no longer has an access slot. If you're going to do the deed, they have to come off.

It would've been interesting to sit in on the meeting when that administrative decision was made.

100 to 850 is an equivalent ratio of 2,647,058 to 15,000,000.

A little below my analyzed estimate 3 to 5 million living self-identified Mormons, but credible.

I get more like 1.8 million rather than 2.6 million, assuming the ratio is the same.

Yes, must have entered a number into the calculator wrong. I did not double check my work. I am sure the number of self-identified living Mormons is larger than that, but just using this as an example of how these numbers magnified do not support a number beyond 5 million self-identified living Mormons.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2014 02:56AM by gentlestrength.

people have pointed out here several times that there are only between 4 and 4 1/2 million who self identify as Mormons, but only some 2 1/2 to 3 million that attend and pay tithing and stuff. This matches up.

WAIT!

God 'doesn't' have a body... now?

I don't know that we teach that. No one really knows the meaning of D&C 130:22. I don't understand it, so no one else can understand it. Not only that, I'm well aware of what our doctrine is.

See? We're normal people, just like you. I don't know that we teach that we're a peculiar people. No one really knows the meaning of 1 Peter 2:9. I'm well aware of what our doctrine is...

+1 to the Hinkster!

I was an active Member from 1980 to 1989 (more or less). I was told...

*blacks were cursed, but God took pity on them because Spencer W. Kimball asked Him to, and gave them the priesthood long before they were supposed to get it (i.e. in the eternities)

*The Father stepped down from his throne and begot Jesus just like any man begets a son, with his spirit-daughter Mary, who is one of the Father's wives for all eternity.

*The Lamanites were dark because God cursed their skin, but they'll turn white after enough of them have joined the Church.

*Mormon women would never commit any sexual sin unless "forced to" by a man to do so (i.e. knife to throat, gun to head)

*All the continents were together until the days of Peleg then they split and formed the Atlantic ocean.

*Garden of Eden in Jackson County, Missouri.

*The Lost Tribes are lost somewhere in northern Scandinavia and the North Sea will divide like the REd Sea to allow them to come to the U.S. and help build the city of New Jerusalem.

*There is no Hell (the BOM teaches the Devil convinces men to say this...I heard this many times from active Mormons)

*Women don't have the priesthood because they're not smart enough to handle it (everybody laughed but me) (heard this in a priesthood meeting) It was said as a joke I'm sure.

*During the Millennium hospitals will be open so they can turn men into Eunuchs who did not inherit Celestial glory. What about women? No, there will be no single women. They will be given to men who have inherited Celestial glory? What about ugly or fat women? There won't be any of those because during the Millennium everyone will have perfect bodies (except for the lower glory men who have had their genitals removed in hospitals). This was actually taught by Joseph Fielding Smith in the 1950s, and many older Mormon men in the 80s still believed it.

*Those who get are exalted get their own planet and populate them with their spirit-children.

*Men who become Gods "have the privilege" of sending their most beautiful spirit-daughters to the worlds they create to beget saviors for that world, and the method is the same. Sure Mary was a 'virgin' (wink, wink) because the wedding bed is undefiled. All women who conceive on the wedding beds are virgins. YES...I was told this!!!

*The Living Prophet converses with Jesus as one man speaks to another in the Salt Lake Temple weekly.

*Whatever the Living Prophet says in General Conference is if as Jesus Himself said it, and we can trust whatever he says.

*The Millennium will probably start about the year 2,000, or if not then maybe a few years before or after, because that is the beginning of the Earth's 7th thousandth year.

*Before Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit there was no death anywhere on Earth.

*The dinosaur bones are remnants of other planets. There were never any dinosaurs on this planet.

*The book MORMON DOCTRINE is "the Lord's last word" on all the subjects it deals with.

*Joseph Smith was the greatest man who ever lived except for Jesus Christ. One old Mormon said in Priesthood he believed they were equal.

*I was never told that I had to make love to my wife through the garments, because I was never married, but I heard others say they were told this, but others said it was not official.


I STILL ASK MYSELF: "HOW THE HELL DID I EVER BELIEVE IN ANY OF THAT BULLSH*T?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

When I married in 1977, we were told that the it was NOT true that you had to wear your garments during sex. That that was personal choice. But that you DID have to put them back on right afterwards. Don't fall asleep naked. What idiots we were. Oh, and oral sex was perversion.

Obviously nothing. They are not fazed by mediocrity.
Otherwise how can anyone explain opening a temple in Payson?

It was easier to keep your bat-shit crazy beliefs to yourself and hidden in those days. I suspect a lot of people just ignored them and did all the mormon social stuff. Your friends probably didn't go looking in Christian bookstores for dirt on your religion. Now it's at their fingertips and a few mouse clicks.

I'm not sure the crazy stuff was the crazy glue that kept people church active. However, the Chosen Generation Saturday's Warrior Saved for the Last Days mentality probably appealed to some.

How about shifting demographics? Ward that were powerhouses when I was growing up now are gone or only slightly attended. People move.

From a nevermo perspective, there are several points here that are interesting.

1. What a sizeable load of church teaching that is being walked away from now.

"I don't know that we teach that" turns out to cover a huge body of doctrine, major differences. To walk away from anything that large and just pretend it isn't there, never happened, is amazing. There are people who know better.

2. Seems hardly likely that it was the crazy stuff that kept members active. The controlling, the cloistering, seem more likely.

3. Indeed one reason Hinckley tried to walk away from the crazy stuff is probably to stem losses. The larger reason is PR, how he presents to the outside world. But either way "we're not crazy" is an emphasis.

4. The vast majority of the public doesn't know or care. Even Romney's candidacy generated only brief and mild interest.

5. Always, always the inflation of the membership numbers. It's 15 million! When an accurate estimate is way less: say 5 million. Quite possibly as low as 3 or even lower: 1.8 perhaps. Certainly not more than 5 under any circumstances.

Of course TSCC has better numbers but I think we can count on it to continue to exaggerate. A church that routinely lies about its membership. And lies big: order of magnitude.

6. How demanding TSSC is of its members. Believe this. Believe all this. Do this. Don't do that. Stop believing this. We never taught that. Pay more money. Do not question. Give up 2 years of your life. Attend. Pay. Believe. Do as you are told. Get judged by this guy. Believe something different now.

Just wow!

Would it be accurate to say in many ways TSSC treats its members like small children?

<< Would it be accurate to say in many ways TSSC treats its members like small children? >>

Most definately. This is combined with the priesthood "voice of authority" -- a carefully measured and condescending voice, as if they are addressing idiot children.

They also make frequest use of phrases such as, "In other words", "To put it differently", "In explanation", all of which imply that the listener wasn't capable of understanding whatever was said the first time around so now it will be repeated in more simple terms. The vast majority of BYU and Conference speakers talk as if the audience is filled with childish simpletons.

That must be quite a drop in revenue...