Statistics are clear enough that even the favorite anti suicide myth has self-destructed. Active LDS have less suicides than inactive or non-LDS in Utah. So if they are feeling so very guilty it at least keeps them from killing themselves where others do.
I think I've already mentioned the study she's probably referring to in another thread here, but here it is once again:
Sterling C. Hilton, Gilbert W. Fellingham and Joseph L. Lyon. Suicide Rates and Religious Commitment in Young Adult Males in Utah. American Journal of Epidemiology Vol. 155, No. 5 : 413-419. Read it here.
Wait, but this is only talking about young adult males, not "active LDS" per se! Do I need to spell out the reasons why LDS males have much, much more opportunity to be fulfilled and self-actualize in the LDS church than women? Even a complete loser can get an ego boost when told how special he is for having the imaginary magical power non-LDS don't have. I strongly suspect that there has not been a similar study on women done, and it will soon become obvious why. Not just because those guys realize their findings probably wouldn't be so satisfactory, but because the same way to measure religiosity cannot be applied to women.
These guys are using data from the Utah State Department of Health, the LDS church, and the US Census Bureau. Thankfully, they realize that there may be some physical conditions that may prevent one from attending services, so church attendance cannot be used to determine the level of religiosity. So they are using age-appropriate priesthood advancement to measure it. So how would a study like this go about females, I wonder. There is no need for a worthiness interview to move from a Beehive to a Mia Maid.
It's all making much more sense now, isn't it? But it only gets better. In discussing the limitations of the study, they bring up a few points. They admit that less active members can be missclassified as active based on their measure of religiosity, but not vice versa. Not vice versa? Are you freaking kidding me? The honorable researchers write: "this type of misclassification would underestimate the relative risk of suicide for the less active LDS compared with the active LDS". Ahem. If someone can have age-appropriate priesthood advancement but then become inactive and kill themselves, then why won't those morons acknowledge the possibility that someone can be less active as a teenager but then get more active as an adult and still kill themselves? There is no way to account for people like that at all using their measure of religiosity, yet they did not include it as a limitation. Their measure only [somewhat] works for teenagers, but they drag it out to age 34! Interestingly, among teenagers, the only group that their measure is even remotely appropriate for, the suicide rates between "less active members" and non-members are almost exactly the same. Apparently, the angry, bitter apostates are not any worse off for having apostacized than those who never joined in the first place. In fact, the rate is lower for "less active" members than non-members. For older age groups, suicide rates go all over the place, being higher for the "less active" than for non-members from age 25 to 34 and lower from 20 to 24; but I have already noted above that the priesthood advancement measure cannot be adequately applied to those groups.
Furthermore, they acknowledge that what they are really measuring might be the correlation between substance abuse and suicide rates, not between the level of activity/religiosity and suicide rates, given the WoW etc. They admit there is a possibility that "our measure of religiosity is simply a surrogate for substance abuse".
They have missed a few limitations, but I'll try to fix that. They talk about how "social support and integration" the Church supposedly provides can help someone who is experiencing depression or downward occupational mobility. I've got a reverse scenario for you, geniuses: a boy doesn't lie about masturbating, unlike most of his peers. The boy then does not advance in the priesthood age-appropriately and is ostracized by his peer group since he is obviously "unworthy". He gets depressed and does himself in. One only has to look at all our masturbation threads to get an idea what enormous amounts of guilt were spoon-fed to young boys.
And since the whole study was done in Utah, where most of the population are LDS, where there is a real social hierarchy based on whether or not a guy has served a mission (there was a thread on MAD about whether or not RMs get preferential treatment and seen as mor desirable mates; does anyone actually doubt that it is true, especially in Utah?), that could explain why the suicide rates among the "less active" LDS between 25 and 34 are higher than among non-members, even if the measure of religious commitment used by the researchers is valid. Talk about downward mobility.
It may shock many, but this fine piece of research comes from no other place than the Lord's university. We all know how scrupulous they are, especially when it comes to defending the Church. It wouldn't surprise me if they messed with the data a bit, but I don't even feel like entertaining the idea since their study is so obviously flawed on so many other levels. And because I don't care about their possible agenda and prefer to look at the issues they raise instead (this is just for charity).
This is the only study relevant to suicide among Mormons that I have been able to find. Is anyone aware of any other studies on it? If so, share the information and let's take a look. But it seems that juliann finds this piece of BS sufficient to make misleading claims. Way to go, juliann! I wonder if she has even read the article. Statistics are clear, my ass!
To paraphrase her, "why does anyone even entertain this offensive folklore disguised as scholarship just because someone (in this case, American Journal of Epidemiology) prints it?"