Last Days Envisioned at MD&D

[Alphus and Omegus]

Book of Mormon:

12 And it came to pass that I beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were few, because of the wickedness and abominations of the whore who sat upon many waters; nevertheless, I beheld that the church of the Lamb, who were the saints of God, were also upon all the face of the earth; and their dominions upon the face of the earth were small, because of the wickedness of the great whore whom I saw.

[snip]

Looks like they are spread across the earth and have relatively little influence. And the great powers of being nice to others, like accepting LGBTQ, are fighting hard against the small band of uninfluential Mormon folks who are taking on God's armor and bravely fighting windmills and the like.

Mormons have such grand viewpoints of their small numbers. Assuming there are 5.6 million believing LDS adults (a very generous assumption of the 14 million claimed members), that means they are 0.07% of the world's population. The numbers aren't much better if you believe there are 8 million believing Nelson-Brighamites, that total is 0.1% of the global population.

The truth is that Mormonism has become yet another fundamentalist white American sect which can only really gain converts in areas of the world where internet use isn't commonplace. And these converts don't stick around. Satan doesn't have to do anything to oppose Mormonism, it's already lost. The world population is increasing at a much greater rate than the LDS church is growing. The stone cut from the mountain has slowed to a crawl and is gathering moss.

[Philo Sofee]

Well, if we consider Utah as the whole world, then the prophecy looks a little bit better, so there is that. Since Mormonism is all about cherry picking stuff, more or less, then cherry picking Utah out of the rest of the world and ignoring that isn't too much of a disruption of context in order to magnify that important prophecy.

[dastardly stem]

Mormons have such grand viewpoints of their small numbers. Assuming there are 5.6 million believing LDS adults (a very generous assumption of the 14 million claimed members), that means they are 0.07% of the world's population. The numbers aren't much better if you believe there are 8 million believing Nelson-Brighamites, that total is 0.1% of the global population.

The truth is that Mormonism has become yet another fundamentalist white American sect which can only really gain converts in areas of the world where internet use isn't commonplace. And these converts don't stick around. Satan doesn't have to do anything to oppose Mormonism, it's already lost. The world population is increasing at a much greater rate than the LDS church is growing. The stone cut from the mountain has slowed to a crawl and is gathering moss.

I can appreciate this, Alphus, and I don't mean to be disagreeable for disagreeable's sake, but....If Joseph wrote the Book of Mormon and added this passage of there being few members in number that are spread across the world...that's a pretty good prediction all things considered. They are few in number, relatively speaking, and they are, to some extent or another, spread across the world. Mormons should be singing this type of stuff from the housetops along with Matthew's prediction of many elect will get deceived and run off. And I think some of them do. Certainly it gets a little less impressive when you poke into other things said, but it's something.

Something interesting about Church growth over the decades is it runs in spurts in different areas. While the Church was having successes in Latin America and much of the Pacific, gaining converts by the thousands, the Church was leveling off in Europe, with perhaps a steady growth in the US, and the rest of the Pacific (NZ and Australia). Asia might have always been kind a slow slog, but it appears to have largely followed Europe in recent years, showing signs of the Church dying in both of those regions. Once Latin America grew wise, as we may like to see it, or got bored, or the excitement grew old, it was learned that much of that growth, from previous decades or generations was fairly hollow. Those who converted quickly left and as that news was coming out Africa was showing signs of the same type of explosion of converts that Latin America had, perhaps at an even faster rate. The thing is, Africa could have taken off much like Latin America and the Pacific did in previous times, but the Church was absolutely hesitant due to it's own racism.

Granted we're not talking as if the Church is dominating in any particular area. It's still creeping underneath. largely unseen by the rest of the world. I don't know how long the Church will ride the wave of Africa conversion, but if it gets strung out as long as it seemed to have run in Latin America, we may have a couple of decades of the Church cheering its great successes. Although it may end sooner with the rate of information flow we have these days. ANd considering we have, perhaps, better tools to determine the degree of hollowness the reported growth represents Whenever the wave runs down I'm curious what the Church will do. It feels like it will just slowly peter out, over the next century or something. It has massive resources though, so that may be a little hard to imagine. But I don't know how it will find invigorating successes. In a way it's really lucky that Africa started coming on board a couple decades back. IIf Africa ran along with the excitement of Latin America, the Church may have run out of steam by now. Mormons could be like, "look God knows what he's doing. We'll always be small in number but the nations are being reached. He'll raise up the Arab world next...just wait and see. We got to cover the world." I mean if the Church finds a way to succeed in the Mulsim world, to a similar degree it has reached Latin America and south of Sahara Africa, well we might all have to head back to Church humbly seeking forgiveness.

[Philo Sofee]

Mormons have such grand viewpoints of their small numbers. Assuming there are 5.6 million believing LDS adults (a very generous assumption of the 14 million claimed members), that means they are 0.07% of the world's population. The numbers aren't much better if you believe there are 8 million believing Nelson-Brighamites, that total is 0.1% of the global population.

The truth is that Mormonism has become yet another fundamentalist white American sect which can only really gain converts in areas of the world where internet use isn't commonplace. And these converts don't stick around. Satan doesn't have to do anything to oppose Mormonism, it's already lost. The world population is increasing at a much greater rate than the LDS church is growing. The stone cut from the mountain has slowed to a crawl and is gathering moss.

I can appreciate this, Alphus, and I don't mean to be disagreeable for disagreeable's sake, but....If Joseph wrote the Book of Mormon and added this passage of there being few members in number that are spread across the world...that's a pretty good prediction all things considered. They are few in number, relatively speaking, and they are, to some extent or another, spread across the world. Mormons should be singing this type of stuff from the housetops along with Matthew's prediction of many elect will get deceived and run off. And I think some of them do. Certainly it gets a little less impressive when you poke into other things said, but it's something.

Something interesting about Church growth over the decades is it runs in spurts in different areas. While the Church was having successes in Latin America and much of the Pacific, gaining converts by the thousands, the Church was leveling off in Europe, with perhaps a steady growth in the US, and the rest of the Pacific (NZ and Australia). Asia might have always been kind a slow slog, but it appears to have largely followed Europe in recent years, showing signs of the Church dying in both of those regions. Once Latin America grew wise, as we may like to see it, or got bored, or the excitement grew old, it was learned that much of that growth, from previous decades or generations was fairly hollow. Those who converted quickly left and as that news was coming out Africa was showing signs of the same type of explosion of converts that Latin America had, perhaps at an even faster rate. The thing is, Africa could have taken off much like Latin America and the Pacific did in previous times, but the Church was absolutely hesitant due to it's own racism.

Granted we're not talking as if the Church is dominating in any particular area. It's still creeping underneath. largely unseen by the rest of the world. I don't know how long the Church will ride the wave of Africa conversion, but if it gets strung out as long as it seemed to have run in Latin America, we may have a couple of decades of the Church cheering its great successes. Although it may end sooner with the rate of information flow we have these days. ANd considering we have, perhaps, better tools to determine the degree of hollowness the reported growth represents Whenever the wave runs down I'm curious what the Church will do. It feels like it will just slowly peter out, over the next century or something. It has massive resources though, so that may be a little hard to imagine. But I don't know how it will find invigorating successes. In a way it's really lucky that Africa started coming on board a couple decades back. IIf Africa ran along with the excitement of Latin America, the Church may have run out of steam by now. Mormons could be like, "look God knows what he's doing. We'll always be small in number but the nations are being reached. He'll raise up the Arab world next...just wait and see. We got to cover the world." I mean if the Church finds a way to succeed in the Mulsim world, to a similar degree it has reached Latin America and south of Sahara Africa, well we might all have to head back to Church humbly seeking forgiveness.

If it starts to wane, Dallin Oaks can always reimplement electroshock therapy to them as he did when he ran BYU as President in order to straighten out their thinking and doubts. That's a long term spiritual effect that is bound to work just as it did with the BYU students in the 1970's. He can even teach the people that that special felling (getting the living crap shocked out of you when they flip the switch) they are having is our loving Heavenly Father filling their bosoms with faith in Christ, of who's special name Dallin is a credible and truthful witness.

[Morley]

Mormons could be like, "look God knows what he's doing. We'll always be small in number but the nations are being reached. He'll raise up the Arab world next...just wait and see. We got to cover the world." I mean if the Church finds a way to succeed in the Mulsim world, to a similar degree it has reached Latin America and south of Sahara Africa, well we might all have to head back to Church humbly seeking forgiveness.

I know Mormons who say, "Wow, we should set up missions in the Middle East! Muslims wouldn't have any problem with our history of polygamy, they already don't drink alcohol, and the culture is certainly conservative--so we're half the way there!" Even if the governments allowed it, Mormon proselytization in the Near East will never be very successful. Islam and Mormonism are entirely different cultures. The way they each look at the world and their respective concepts of God are grossly incompatible.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Mormons could be like, "look God knows what he's doing. We'll always be small in number but the nations are being reached. He'll raise up the Arab world next...just wait and see. We got to cover the world." I mean if the Church finds a way to succeed in the Mulsim world, to a similar degree it has reached Latin America and south of Sahara Africa, well we might all have to head back to Church humbly seeking forgiveness.

I know Mormons who say, "Wow, we should set up missions in the Middle East! Muslims wouldn't have any problem with our history of polygamy, they already don't drink alcohol, and the culture is certainly conservative--so we're half the way there!" Even if the governments allowed it, Mormon proselytization in the Near East will never be very successful. Islam and Mormonism are entirely different cultures. The way they each look at the world and their respective concepts of God are grossly incompatible.

Dudes would be getting their throats slashed, and you can forget about sister missionaries traipsing around without protection. Ironically, odds are over the long run ethnic Mormons will more likely convert to Islam than the other way around. This has more to do with social bonds and community that Islam offers instead of corporate board meetings you have to pay to attend.

- Doc

[MG 2.0]

I mean if the Church finds a way to succeed in the Mulsim world, to a similar degree it has reached Latin America and south of Sahara Africa, well we might all have to head back to Church humbly seeking forgiveness.

Yes, but will your lamps be trimmed sufficiently? It would be a radical change to suddenly hop on board the ‘faith train’ when you don’t believe in God. Be that as it may, there is the story of the prodigal son to counter balance the story of the ten virgins.

If you do make a return at a late date, however, I think you would be met with open arms. Seems as though those radical changes might be a pretty high hurdle though.

Regards,
MG

[Alphus and Omegus]

Ironically, odds are over the long run ethnic Mormons will more likely convert to Islam than the other way around. This has more to do with social bonds and community that Islam offers instead of corporate board meetings you have to pay to attend.

Seems like where a lot of African Mormon converts may end up, if they don't go for some other Christian sect.

[dastardly stem]

Yes, but will your lamps be trimmed sufficiently? It would be a radical change to suddenly hop on board the ‘faith train’ when you don’t believe in God. Be that as it may, there is the story of the prodigal son to counter balance the story of the ten virgins.

If you do make a return at a late date, however, I think you would be met with open arms. Seems as though those radical changes might be a pretty high hurdle though.

Regards,
MG

By "counter balance" do you mean contradict? I know they're vague fairly tale like stories, so the details are up for interpretation...but its either we can leave and live wildly for a spell returning late to the party and be accepted, or we do what's right, but a bit too late, and get rejected. To me it appears the authors of Luke and Matthew are playing their version of what a Jesus figure should say. Matthew a bit more harsh than Luke, or Luke trying to correct what he sees as Matthew's messed up teaching--"no", says Luke, "we can't just teach that this Jesus character hates everyone else. That gets us nowhere."

Anyway, go ahead and work on getting large swaths of Muslims to convert. Show us some of that magic you guys keep talking about. Finding lost keys has run it's course.

[dastardly stem]

If it starts to wane, Dallin Oaks can always reimplement electroshock therapy to them as he did when he ran BYU as President in order to straighten out their thinking and doubts. That's a long term spiritual effect that is bound to work just as it did with the BYU students in the 1970's. He can even teach the people that that special felling (getting the living crap shocked out of you when they flip the switch) they are having is our loving Heavenly Father filling their bosoms with faith in Christ, of who's special name Dallin is a credible and truthful witness.

That electroshock therapy was a magical event. What faith Dallin and Co had! God knew exactly what he was doing, leading his people on earth.