5 million active (at least show up now and then)
5 million inactive but still believe
5 million who don't believe, but haven't bothered to remove their names.

If you whine about the 15 million membership claim, how many do YOU think are still officially members of the LDS church?

and I'm one of them *LOL*

Ex-CultMember Wrote:
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> If you whine about the 15 million membership
> claim, how many do YOU think are still officially
> members of the LDS church?

I whine about it quite a lot: http://www.mormonism101.com/search/label/Facts%20%26%20Stats

I think if you talk about regularly active members, that show up most of the time, it's about 3 million.

There are significant problems with your thread:

I doubt that you can say that the 5 million "inactives" are believers. Even if some inactives DO believe, the statement is still not true.

Neither are all the Actives "believers." Among those considered active, for instance, are all the New-Order Mormons, i.e., non-believing Mormons who feel compelled to attend for one of a number of reasons. And among the actives are those who perform minimal attendance to be considered active; to be lumped among the ranks of the "active," all you have to do is attend sacrament meeting at least once per month, which is a pretty low threshold, indeed, but the church will take what it can get.

You can't say that the third category constitutes "5 million who don't believe, but haven't bothered to remove their names." The third category includes all those WHO HAVE NO IDEA that the LDS church considers them members. Many of these were so-called "baseball converts." Another common, nearly correct, term for these is "Japanese," but it also includes Brits, Aussies, and various South Americans. It also includes people of LDS record who have since joined other churches.

Among this rough third of LDS membership are numerous names of people who have died unknown to the church. They're stiffs, bereft of life. They're resting in peace, pushing up the daisies. Their metabolic processes are now history. They're off the twig, kicked the bucket, shuffled off their mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible.

Sorry. I digress. Just saying that the 15 million supposed "members" do not fit that neatly into your theory of thirds.

Some figures suggest that among aaaaaall the Mormons in the world, there are roughly 2.5 to 3 million Mormons who pay tithing and hold temple recommends. That makes the church both unsuccessful and insignificant.

Most believers are active.
Some actives are believers.
Most inactives are non believers.

Based on these statements, which of the following is true.

A. All believers don't want to know the truth.
B. Most inactives don't want to bother with resigning.
C. The church is insignificant to 99% of the world.
D. All of the above.

Now you're just making my head hurt. And all I wanted was a cheeseburger.

And yet, one cannot deny that you are right.

The question still remains though. Do they change numbers when members resign? It's very possible that even those who have their names removed. (Or their file changed to say no longer a member. As they don't really remove the name) It's possible that those names are still counted in the 15Mil.

No, the 15 million includes all the people who did "remove their names" too. To say otherwise betrays a lack knowledge of the numbers involved.

5 million are vested in Mormonism, either active believers, active doubters, or inactive believers.

5 million were once vested in Mormonism in some way, but could now care less.

5 million aren't even aware they are Mormon, since they were baseball baptisms, fake baptisms, got baptized just to be polite, etc.

Ex-CultMember Wrote:
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> 5 million who don't believe, but haven't bothered
> to remove their names.

Me.

As Senior Drill at Fort Bliss would've said, "That's a lot of swingin' dicks."

The thing is, whether there are 15 million members or 15 billion or 15 doesn't matter. How many people believe something isn't in any way indicative of whether or not WHAT they believe is "True."

What determines whether something's "True" or not is evidence. And evidence clearly shows the mormon church's claims are NOT "True."

Apparently the church doesn't know about appeal to popularity fallacies. Not at all surprising.

ificouldhietokolob Wrote:
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> Apparently the church doesn't know about appeal to
> popularity fallacies. Not at all surprising.

They do know how to appeal to fallacies.


Appeal to their Religious Authority
Appeal to their and other Religious Beliefs
Appeal to Fears of losing family members after death
Appeal to Flattery of being special people
Appeal to Emotion: If it feels good, it must be true
Appeal to Trust: Trust me, I'm a prophet

5 million active believers is "kinda of stretching it" due to the fact that 3 million are children under the age of 18 who have to go because family forces them to.

Another 1 million are New Order or Cafeteria Mormons. They believe in Priesthood, but want women to be ordain and/or LGBT to be open and committed to church meaning Same-sex marriages?!?! They're tired and embarrassed by excommunications and disfellowships for being human and falling; or worse being exed for being intellectual or questioning. Those Mormons are the ones who love the church for social and fraternal reasons, possibly charity, but who can't accept the fact that plural marriage or denying the priesthood to a race was actually a commandment from God.

So really Mormonism is a nothing corporation whose teachings and disciplines are a joke. What happens? Tony award winning parodies, hundreds of Blogs, websites, T.V. shows, etc... All pointing out how ridiculous the whole corporation is. It exists only for those who WANT and/or NEED some sort of group to belong to. It certainly isn't a church anymore.

Generally, in the USA at least, religion is on the decline, including the LD$ church.

http://religiondispatches.org/u-s-christianity-is-dead-long-live-u-s-christianity/

To me, though, the key idea is expressed at the bottom and applies to TSCC especially, IMO.

"Religion is not going anywhere anytime soon, regardless how people may identify themselves. But business as usual among existing religious institutions will not stem the losses we are seeing."

The Quorum of Corpses and First Lividity should realize that "business as usual" needs to change or that esimated 5-5-5 membership ratio will favor the gone.