I certainly wouldn't trust the numbers released by a church founded by a convicted con-man. Not that Mormons are all that much more dishonest than other religions. Self-preservation is a key feature of all bureaucracies, and the Mormon bureaucracy is better at it than most. The thing I find gratifying is seeing the church's grip relaxed on the state, which is consistent with the diminishing power of religion in this country, generally. Mixing religion and government is the same terrible idea it has always been. This country has come a long way over the last fifty years, but we still have far to go.
Nevermind gutting the tax code and fucking up every remaining country in South or Central America we hadn't already screwed with by the 1980s... amongst other adventures in setting fire to the future.
Reagan presided over the greatest transference of wealth from the working and middle classes to the executive class in history. Working class wages flatlined, and have never really recovered. Some of his biggest supporters were the people his policies hurt worst.
You know who most modern Republicans would despise? Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, George H. W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney. And they’re none too sure about Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush (who, right after 9/11, was the most popular president since JFK got shot).
The thing that scared me most about W was after 9/11, even the comedians were afraid to make fun of him for several years. Before that he was on track to be the biggest joke since Dan Quayle took on Murphy Brown.
This is a bit surprising to me, though also very welcome. Mormonism has had such a stranglehold on Utah that one might wonder when or even if that grip could be loosened. Still, the secularization which has impacted the rest of the US clearly hasn't ignored the Salt Lake State.
What bothers me about this, though is that said secularization will very likely have the same impact as it has had on other religions: making those who stay in it more fundamentalist and radical. Combine that with the $100 billion socked away that Hemant mentioned and there remains a whole lot of trouble those Latter Day Saints can cause.
Yeah, I agree. Their multi-billion dollar “war chest” still has the potential to give them a lot of clout— that’s even more reason we need to get corporate/billionaire oligarchs and their money out of our government/elections.
While I do expect the amount of Mormons are declining overall, the lack of a majority in Utah may only mean the increase in Mormons in other states. Idaho has a large population of Mormons that has affected the way that state governs itself.
Of course, the LDS church is well known for padding its numbers. Most famously the conversion of Jewish people killed in the Holocaust decades after their deaths. But padding numbers is a game all religions practice, it’s nearly impossible for anyone to escape their churches, especially the Catholic Church.
Blast from the past when I brought up the baptizing after death;
"Anthony Loyal
Dec 21, 2021
Larry Parker, ex-Mormon here. No, the church's own doctrine states that every deceased person is free to either accept or reject the ordinances in the "hereafter" . "
Not quite. The Pew surveys of 2007 and 2014 found quite a few more people claimed to be Unitarian Universalists then were on the denomination's books. This might be because of a couple of reasons. First, claiming to be UU is a safety measure for the non-religious in heavily religious parts of the country; some might even go to an occasional UU event but not formally join. Second each UU church is expected to send a certain amount of money per member to the central organization which is a big incentive to have only active members on the books. UU members also have a voting voice in the denomination (contrast the LDS or the Catholic Church where the average member has almost no voice). There were a handful of denominations like that.
We now have six Mormon churches within 5 miles of us. In fact they are all closer than all of the other churches except for a ONE community church (one of those 'franchised' churches) and a mega church building with a sign out front that says "coming soon". But that sign has been up for over 10 years so I don't know what their definition of "coming soon" is. We also have one of the 335 temples only 10 miles from us. When we moved here 16 years ago, I didn't realize what an enclave of Mormoninity* this area had become. I don't know why either. Is it because we were kind of isolated from the rest of the Phoenix metro area? Is it because we are actually in a different county than the rest of the metro area? According to the Church website, 4 of those are in Maricopa county and only two are in Pinal county. (We live about 3/4 of a mile from the county line.) The Temple is in Gilbert. Which indicates that there is no advantage for the church itself to be in the next county.
It's good news to me that the Mormon population is declining in Utah but I fear most of them are now my neighbors.
"We now have six Mormon churches within 5 miles of us."
I had a conversation with a christian who claimed there was no such thing as denominations. I told him there is a spot not too far from my office where I could stand and literally see 4 different churches (Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Catholic) plus there are probably 3-4 others that would be in view if there weren't other buildings in the way.
Technically, we are not far from Mesa because it is the biggest city in the east valley. A quick search shows it is now the 3rd largest city in AZ and almost 2nd as it has over half a million people just behind Tucson with 540k. I know at one time the Mormon population of Mesa was actually a higher percentage than SLC and it is still difficult to get into elected office in Mesa without an affirmation of allegiance to the LDS church. Mesa now sprawls around and through other cities in the east valley as they had a sort of manifest destiny approach to annexing land a few years back and gobbled up some of the townships. The nearest section of Mesa is now an area they strip annexed years ago when it was still legal. That area was the GM Desert Proving Grounds. So while we are within 7 miles of Mesa, we are 21 miles from the Mesa Temple, as the crow flies.
I think what has happened in this century is that many of the young people could not afford a house in Mesa, especially one of the McMansions the Mormons love so much for their large families. So they moved down into this neighborhood because "drive till you qualify" is a real thing here in AZ. Mesa real estate took a really big leap in the 90s with many people moving here from CA after selling their million dollar homes and buying bigger houses here for a quarter of that. The 2007 bubble popped but did not seem to hit Mesa nearly as hard as it did in other parts of the Valley.
The LDS snapped up 370,000 acres of farmland in Nebraska that's worth $2 billion dollars and sparking a backlash by local farmers in the Cornhusker State.
For a Christian sect on the downswing in their own state, this seems audacious...and a bit suspect.
Yup, their influence loss in Utah only translates to increased influences in many other states, which translates to influence in the federal government. Their hoarded treasure is intended to influence our economy as well.
As an ex southern Baptist all the churches I attended in the area padded all their membership numbers like crazy. I remember being shocked to see members on the roll who hadn’t attended in decades.
Until you have your name removed from their records you ARE a member. This is why I ask that you have your name removed from church records. Everyone here is still a member of the church they were born in unless you have your name removed. This is why the local bishop needed the threat of legal action to get my name removed from kkkatlik records.
The fireworks display at the Space Needle started precisely at midnight (there was a lengthy drone display before it) and lasted for approx. 10 minutes (you could hear people counting down from a great distance away). People set off their own fireworks after that. Nothing too bad where I was. No gunfire that I know of.
The end velocity is far slower than muzzle velocity due to air friction - drag. Still, it's often still fast enough to have the kinetic energy needed to tap a person's off switch.
Once a bullet has lost its stabilizing spin imparted by the rifling in the gun barrel, it will also often tumble, further increasing drag.
What damage it remains capable of doing as it falls is also heavily dependent on the mass of the bullet- momentum matters. A dinky little .22LR falling back to Earth might not have enough energy on impact to do any major harm anymore (unless you're looking up and catch it with your eye, anyway), but a 7.62x39 (AK-47 ammo) most likely will, even if both had the same terminal velocity.
Here in North Carolina, we have a large Mormon church just down the road from us. On walks I often wander around their massive parking lot. Some see me but they leave me alone. On Sundays when I see all of the families gathering in the parking lot, it does my heart good to know that among all those children there will be a few future free thinkers among them!
Really, MAGAts? You truly don't know what Green Day have been about after all this time? The following (inspired by the film "They Live!") is from SIX YEARS AGO. See if you can figure which President they're talking about...
Think about how long they've been co-opting "Born in the USA" and "Rockin' in the Free World" for their little Nuremberg rallies and prime-time propaganda shows... if they haven't caught a clue about Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young yet, it isn't surprising that it took Green Day calling them out by name for them to get the point.
Maybe a 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 bit surprising that they got the point at all, though.
Elon Musk SpaceX rockets are being purchased by the Mormon Church to ship people back to Planet Kolob. Like the great murican plan for sending former slaves back to Liberia.
MAGAs think the Rapture will come when Trump defeats Biden this Nov 5 or loses the Rigged Election and then his Proud Boys start Civil War II in God's name.
All those kids who always wanted to be an astronaut are getting their dream fulfilled. They are being recruited with all the 10% tithings to pilot the rockets. The only hitch is that Planet Kolob doesn't exist and neither does God, but that shouldn't stop the Mormons or Musk.
Mormoninity?
Perfectly cromulent.
An expanded vocabulary embiggens all of us.
Bigly. It's unbelievable, folks.
LDS is full of Mormon ninnies.
My favorite writer of erotica is Anais Ninny. *smiles*
I certainly wouldn't trust the numbers released by a church founded by a convicted con-man. Not that Mormons are all that much more dishonest than other religions. Self-preservation is a key feature of all bureaucracies, and the Mormon bureaucracy is better at it than most. The thing I find gratifying is seeing the church's grip relaxed on the state, which is consistent with the diminishing power of religion in this country, generally. Mixing religion and government is the same terrible idea it has always been. This country has come a long way over the last fifty years, but we still have far to go.
This country would have come a lot farther without what Reagan did to it in the 80s— but that is a whole other conversation. Happy New Year!
Reagan, or mor likely his handlers, invited in the preachers with promises they never kept or intended to. We deal with that problem to this day.
Nevermind gutting the tax code and fucking up every remaining country in South or Central America we hadn't already screwed with by the 1980s... amongst other adventures in setting fire to the future.
Reagan presided over the greatest transference of wealth from the working and middle classes to the executive class in history. Working class wages flatlined, and have never really recovered. Some of his biggest supporters were the people his policies hurt worst.
"Some of his biggest supporters were the people his policies hurt worst". A trend that has not changed in 40 years.
And Ronnie got them to feel good about it. The mark of a true con-man. Of course, he's an amateur compared with Trump.
Ronnie Raygun was Republican Jesus until Trump emerged down the golden escalator.
You know who most modern Republicans would despise? Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, George H. W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney. And they’re none too sure about Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush (who, right after 9/11, was the most popular president since JFK got shot).
The thing that scared me most about W was after 9/11, even the comedians were afraid to make fun of him for several years. Before that he was on track to be the biggest joke since Dan Quayle took on Murphy Brown.
https://scontent-ord5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/415621546_1590635808389442_46349316167356944_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_p843x403&_nc_cat=106&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=3635dc&_nc_ohc=qzywuDsT3vQAX_42bUx&_nc_ht=scontent-ord5-1.xx&oh=00_AfC4DRF52Kz6pGDdVSLeq0B95C8FWX6HL27uVFFj08WLsQ&oe=659876A1
For sure.
This is a bit surprising to me, though also very welcome. Mormonism has had such a stranglehold on Utah that one might wonder when or even if that grip could be loosened. Still, the secularization which has impacted the rest of the US clearly hasn't ignored the Salt Lake State.
What bothers me about this, though is that said secularization will very likely have the same impact as it has had on other religions: making those who stay in it more fundamentalist and radical. Combine that with the $100 billion socked away that Hemant mentioned and there remains a whole lot of trouble those Latter Day Saints can cause.
Yeah, I agree. Their multi-billion dollar “war chest” still has the potential to give them a lot of clout— that’s even more reason we need to get corporate/billionaire oligarchs and their money out of our government/elections.
Pre-CISE-ly!!!
While I do expect the amount of Mormons are declining overall, the lack of a majority in Utah may only mean the increase in Mormons in other states. Idaho has a large population of Mormons that has affected the way that state governs itself.
Of course, the LDS church is well known for padding its numbers. Most famously the conversion of Jewish people killed in the Holocaust decades after their deaths. But padding numbers is a game all religions practice, it’s nearly impossible for anyone to escape their churches, especially the Catholic Church.
Blast from the past when I brought up the baptizing after death;
"Anthony Loyal
Dec 21, 2021
Larry Parker, ex-Mormon here. No, the church's own doctrine states that every deceased person is free to either accept or reject the ordinances in the "hereafter" . "
Anthony couldn't see the flaw in that logic.
Not quite. The Pew surveys of 2007 and 2014 found quite a few more people claimed to be Unitarian Universalists then were on the denomination's books. This might be because of a couple of reasons. First, claiming to be UU is a safety measure for the non-religious in heavily religious parts of the country; some might even go to an occasional UU event but not formally join. Second each UU church is expected to send a certain amount of money per member to the central organization which is a big incentive to have only active members on the books. UU members also have a voting voice in the denomination (contrast the LDS or the Catholic Church where the average member has almost no voice). There were a handful of denominations like that.
We now have six Mormon churches within 5 miles of us. In fact they are all closer than all of the other churches except for a ONE community church (one of those 'franchised' churches) and a mega church building with a sign out front that says "coming soon". But that sign has been up for over 10 years so I don't know what their definition of "coming soon" is. We also have one of the 335 temples only 10 miles from us. When we moved here 16 years ago, I didn't realize what an enclave of Mormoninity* this area had become. I don't know why either. Is it because we were kind of isolated from the rest of the Phoenix metro area? Is it because we are actually in a different county than the rest of the metro area? According to the Church website, 4 of those are in Maricopa county and only two are in Pinal county. (We live about 3/4 of a mile from the county line.) The Temple is in Gilbert. Which indicates that there is no advantage for the church itself to be in the next county.
It's good news to me that the Mormon population is declining in Utah but I fear most of them are now my neighbors.
* (eh why not)
"coming soon" - Christians (and yes, I'm including Mormons) have always been kind of vague on that.
"We now have six Mormon churches within 5 miles of us."
I had a conversation with a christian who claimed there was no such thing as denominations. I told him there is a spot not too far from my office where I could stand and literally see 4 different churches (Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Catholic) plus there are probably 3-4 others that would be in view if there weren't other buildings in the way.
How far are you from Mesa? Mesa was established and settled by Mormons in 1877, and has long been a Mormon stronghold.
Technically, we are not far from Mesa because it is the biggest city in the east valley. A quick search shows it is now the 3rd largest city in AZ and almost 2nd as it has over half a million people just behind Tucson with 540k. I know at one time the Mormon population of Mesa was actually a higher percentage than SLC and it is still difficult to get into elected office in Mesa without an affirmation of allegiance to the LDS church. Mesa now sprawls around and through other cities in the east valley as they had a sort of manifest destiny approach to annexing land a few years back and gobbled up some of the townships. The nearest section of Mesa is now an area they strip annexed years ago when it was still legal. That area was the GM Desert Proving Grounds. So while we are within 7 miles of Mesa, we are 21 miles from the Mesa Temple, as the crow flies.
I think what has happened in this century is that many of the young people could not afford a house in Mesa, especially one of the McMansions the Mormons love so much for their large families. So they moved down into this neighborhood because "drive till you qualify" is a real thing here in AZ. Mesa real estate took a really big leap in the 90s with many people moving here from CA after selling their million dollar homes and buying bigger houses here for a quarter of that. The 2007 bubble popped but did not seem to hit Mesa nearly as hard as it did in other parts of the Valley.
See my comment. Why do you think Arizona is the political Mississippi of the Southwest?
Wait, are we saying that a church is lying about membership numbers?!?!? *gasp*
/s
They must have figured out that truth is religion's Kryptonite or something.
The LDS snapped up 370,000 acres of farmland in Nebraska that's worth $2 billion dollars and sparking a backlash by local farmers in the Cornhusker State.
For a Christian sect on the downswing in their own state, this seems audacious...and a bit suspect.
Yup, their influence loss in Utah only translates to increased influences in many other states, which translates to influence in the federal government. Their hoarded treasure is intended to influence our economy as well.
As an ex southern Baptist all the churches I attended in the area padded all their membership numbers like crazy. I remember being shocked to see members on the roll who hadn’t attended in decades.
To be fair, keeping someone on the books who hasn't been around for ages in the vain hope they'll come back some day 𝘪𝘴 sort of their entire brand...
😂 you got me there 😂
Until you have your name removed from their records you ARE a member. This is why I ask that you have your name removed from church records. Everyone here is still a member of the church they were born in unless you have your name removed. This is why the local bishop needed the threat of legal action to get my name removed from kkkatlik records.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
― Upton Sinclair
His salary or his religion, if he's an active practitioner of it.
https://scontent-ord5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/414973187_3111112939022051_7326266653368610651_n.jpg?_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=3635dc&_nc_ohc=JzDzwCftJj8AX-oxYHb&_nc_ht=scontent-ord5-1.xx&oh=00_AfBUFaJcgLMZBaZlzXq9JCK8SpFBOc7MDjf7CzNg_sePtQ&oe=65985694
Because, by definition, some half of the population is below-average intelligence. 😉
Me, either! 😝
It's my deeply-held belief that the religious are delusional.
Starting off the new year with optimism, are we?
It's an election year. We need all the optimism we can get.
Unfortunately, some knuckleheads choose to ring in every new year with gunfire...
https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2024/01/01
No gunfire here. The fireworks started about 8 PM. I don't know how long they lasted, though. The football game put me to sleep at about 9:30.
The fireworks display at the Space Needle started precisely at midnight (there was a lengthy drone display before it) and lasted for approx. 10 minutes (you could hear people counting down from a great distance away). People set off their own fireworks after that. Nothing too bad where I was. No gunfire that I know of.
Yeah, it kinda sounded like the creepy neighbors up the road were going to war with their wood pile last night.
And thanks to the mathematics of gravity and parabolas, the bullet is traveling at about the same speed it was when it left the gun.
The end velocity is far slower than muzzle velocity due to air friction - drag. Still, it's often still fast enough to have the kinetic energy needed to tap a person's off switch.
https://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/homework/s95523.htm
Given the aerodynamics of bullets, I didn't expect drag to make that big a difference.
Once a bullet has lost its stabilizing spin imparted by the rifling in the gun barrel, it will also often tumble, further increasing drag.
What damage it remains capable of doing as it falls is also heavily dependent on the mass of the bullet- momentum matters. A dinky little .22LR falling back to Earth might not have enough energy on impact to do any major harm anymore (unless you're looking up and catch it with your eye, anyway), but a 7.62x39 (AK-47 ammo) most likely will, even if both had the same terminal velocity.
Here in North Carolina, we have a large Mormon church just down the road from us. On walks I often wander around their massive parking lot. Some see me but they leave me alone. On Sundays when I see all of the families gathering in the parking lot, it does my heart good to know that among all those children there will be a few future free thinkers among them!
MAGA meltdown
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/trump-supporters-meltdown-green-day-153605864.html
Really, MAGAts? You truly don't know what Green Day have been about after all this time? The following (inspired by the film "They Live!") is from SIX YEARS AGO. See if you can figure which President they're talking about...
https://youtu.be/i9GSF3ROa58
Think about how long they've been co-opting "Born in the USA" and "Rockin' in the Free World" for their little Nuremberg rallies and prime-time propaganda shows... if they haven't caught a clue about Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young yet, it isn't surprising that it took Green Day calling them out by name for them to get the point.
Maybe a 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 bit surprising that they got the point at all, though.
Seeing red over Green Day.
I love that song, even with the F****t word in it.
(I never could decide which bugged me more, when the radio bleeped it, or when XM didn't, but did other words)
And, of course, no discussion of "American Idiot" is complete without this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOK9tkE8Db0
Quick OT for us oldies:
Gifted comedian and improv master Shecky Greene died yesterday. He was the final celebrity to die in 2023.
The list of people that I recognize, that are still alive, is getting short.
Did the "Greene" last name proud, unlike a certain blond Congresswoman from Georgia.
The LDS inflates its numbers? You mean...Mormons lie? Ooooh, that's not good. Here's what the Book of Mormon says about lying and its consequences:
"Wo unto the liar, for he shall be thrust down into hell"
-- 2 Nephi 9:34
Elon Musk SpaceX rockets are being purchased by the Mormon Church to ship people back to Planet Kolob. Like the great murican plan for sending former slaves back to Liberia.
Between that and the rapture, the world will be a better place.
MAGAs think the Rapture will come when Trump defeats Biden this Nov 5 or loses the Rigged Election and then his Proud Boys start Civil War II in God's name.
All those kids who always wanted to be an astronaut are getting their dream fulfilled. They are being recruited with all the 10% tithings to pilot the rockets. The only hitch is that Planet Kolob doesn't exist and neither does God, but that shouldn't stop the Mormons or Musk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgHxFNFWlZc
Did Urim or Thummim say that?
Mormons are no match for Agnes Brown in Ireland...
https://youtu.be/QarofaycN3c
Fekking too right.
Can I get myself an Agnes? Are they expensive? :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4bc9UwZsYs
Dinosaurs too.
https://i.imgur.com/cfbTodn.jpeg