sock puppet wrote:I think there is more LDS apostates that go directly to non-belief, do not pass another religion 'and do not collect $200', than those that leave many other religions.
We can think anything we want, I suppose. Anyone one of us. But the facts are facts. There is [are] far more atheists who were never LDS than there are atheists who were LDS. In fact, there are far more atheists who were Protestant than there are atheists who were LDS. There are far more atheists who were Catholic....
Anyway, your wish here is just mere fantasy, SP.
I think this is due to how disapproving other Mormons (family, friends, neighbors) are when someone stops believing LDS teachings. They are ostracized and so that apostate starts re-evaluating from the bottom up, and takes a 'prove it to me' (evidentialist, reliabilist) approach before he or she is going to be snookered again. Before a Mormon takes that leap, he or she has pretty much been pulled and tugged for so long that he or she has clearly sorted out that this is not for him or her. Once finally extracted, he or she is emotionally spent in the belief area, he or she is downright skeptical of anything anyone else has suggested, even that there might be a god. So non-belief it is, until god's existence is proven, with evidence this time.
I think there are more former LDS who either have officially joined another religion or believe in God but no particular religion than there are atheists who were once LDS. Perhaps it would be interesting to see how it all breaks down. What percentage of former LDS are Hindu, or Baptist, or non-denominational, or whatever? Who knows maybe your arbitrary guess will come up registering some significant percentage--like 18% or something. I don't know.
Many that participate in other religions, less socially rigid than Mormonism, do not frown so much on their family, friends and neighbors that stop attending. The break is easier. And so before the entire belief construct has to be decimated to leave (as usually the social net of Mormonism demands; zeezrom is case in point), members of other religions that begin to question, feel uneasy, doubt the church they attend, they might try out another church for a month or two. Their neighbors are not banishing them, telling their children not to play with your children, etc. as is so frequent the case when a Mormon household apostatizes. So the break is not as severe with all held beliefs as the schism necessary for one to stop being actively Mormon.
You don't even seem to know if any of this is the case. Ah well...speculaton works sometimes.
Now I expect some TBM poster here will say this is all silly, but the proof is, as they say, in the pudding. Of course, that poster might say Mormonism is not unique in this regard, but he certainly won't venture an alternate hypothesis. But maybe there is one: Mormonism causes one not to believe in god.
That would be a ridiculous hypothesis since, for starters, there were those who did not believe in God pre-1830.