I need help with this one

[OhioBlue]

interesting thoughts all. Thanks.

[Sleeping in EQ]

You might find this article interesting. I came across it some time ago:

"Sociology market share and Mormon church activity"

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articl...59/ai_20913874

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by nuclearunderpants

...an intellectually stimulating environment for its members.

The church has done a couple of things that help keep it out of trouble:

1. Avoiding the us -vs- them battle currently being waged by protestant Christians against scientests. The church allows biologist to believe in evolution without suffering too much. At church they may encounter anti-evolutionary comments, but the official stance of the church is that they're not sure.

When I went to the Arizona game with two of my high school friends from Arizona who are Baptist, we went to the wildlife museum. I ended up encountering their belief in a young earth. They completely dismissed all of the various dating methods that serve as evidence for a very old universe and earth. I'm not saying I've completely decided one way or another, but their religion demands that they ignore all scientific evidence and adhere to a strict literal interpretation of the Bible.

I could never attend a religion that demans me to put my head in the sand---not saying I'm intellectual though.

2. Produce massive amounts of scholarly material relating to the gospel. With FARMS and FAIR you get apologetics. You also have deep doctrine and historical scriptual work. It seems that most of the scholarly world outside of LDS circles are dedicated to tearing down faith and the myths that surround most religions.

LDS academics (yes I've read the argument here about if such a thing exists) and intellectuals have plenty of well thought out material to satisfy their need to study and think. The other churches have purposely fought academia and science, making it difficult to be both intellectual and faithful.

nup

Good thoughts but Catholics have plenty of intellectual material and still seem to suffer from they dynamics identified.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

You might find this article interesting. I came across it some time ago:

"Sociology market share and Mormon church activity"

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articl...59/ai_20913874

Fascinating article.

[Snowcat]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

look at the young men and young women in your wards.

I'm betting there is high correlation between going to college and continued activity.

Failure in the church (if you want to put it that way) seems to equate to overall failure (in terms of education and employment).

I have certainly observed this in my ward. The boys that didn't go on missions are pumping gas. The boys that did go are at college.

My experience agrees.

[tooblue]

Maybe it's simply genetics ... an intersting side effect of the early practice of polygamy

[Jeff Lebowski]

Good heavens. I can't believe SU has not commented on this thread yet.

[SeattleUte]

The LDS Church did or somehow sponsored the studies. One of the things it does well is develop and diseminate bullshit data. Regardless, the data is bullshit. This is like saying there are 11 million members. Right. I personally baptized hundreds of them, 99% of whom I'm sure are inactive. Let me ask you this: Where is there a 76% activity rate, or even a 41% activity rate? Nowhere. The activity rates certainly are not this high worldwide. That's prima facie evidence the data is cooked.

Another factor is that the Church does a good job of enmeshing talented people in its social structure and culture, so that after a point apostasy means economic and social catastrophe. That's the case in Utah and Southern Idaho, anyway, which is still where the back bone and nerve center of the Church resides.

[SeattleUte]

All the litigators here know that these types of statistics are always suspect, can easily be skewed, or sliced and diced in ways that serve various ends, and given time to conduct background investigation cross-exmaining the author of such stidies can be like shooting clay pigeon. It's like when NOW says most Americans support abortion rights. I still say the LDS Church is behind these "studies."

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

The LDS Church did or somehow sponsored the studies. One of the things it does well is develop and diseminate bullshit data. Regardless, the data is bullshit. This is like saying there are 11 million members. Right. I personally baptized hundreds of them, 99% of whom I'm sure are inactive. Let me ask you this: Where is there a 76% activity rate, or even a 41% activity rate? Nowhere. The activity rates certainly are not this high worldwide. That's prima facie evidence the data is cooked.

Another factor is that the Church does a good job of enmeshing talented people in its social structure and culture, so that after a point apostasy means economic and social catastrophe. That's the case in Utah and Southern Idaho, anyway, which is still where the back bone and nerve center of the Church resides.

There's the SeattleUte we all know and love.

You personally baptized hundreds? Now, that sounds like bullshit data.