As an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I was very surprised that overall we are below replacement level. I’m 24 with 1 six month old and another on the way. The majority of my active friends around my age have at least one kid. It goes to show how pervasive the childlessness issue is. Interesting discussion, I enjoy listening to you both!
Congrats on your six-month-old and the upcoming new arrival! Hoping all's going well with your pregnancy. Treasure that community of young parents you're in: Such social groups are becoming increasingly rare, though we'd love to see them make a comeback. :)
"this relationship isn't gonna work unless you drink alcohol with me..." just means "I can't fall in love with you unless you elect to reduce your executive functions and slowly poison your liver at the same time I choose to"
You should do a dive on Catholicism. It’d get a ton of views as there’s tons of them AND there’s a super dramatic feud between the Central Bureaucracy and it’s progressive reforms and radical traditionalists with 6+ TFRs, Latin only masses and a secretive subculture.
I joke about what would happen if the faction that wants all holy men to do the same time for sex crime took over. Maybe then the churches wouldn't be in some much danger. I'd love for the sex criminal holy men to rot in the same jail as the criminals handing out free candy from a van.
I'm a convert to the Chuch of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (we do in fact refer to ourselves as LDS, despite what Malcolm said). I'm also a 54 year old Autistic man. I came to the realization months ago that there were things in the church's teachings that didn't stand up to scrutiny but honestly that can be said of all religions. My fellow member are a great bunch of people who (in my opinion) put forth a great amount of effort to follow Christ. Do they always succeed? No of course not. But there is a very tight knit community of people who come together when needed. There are many perks to being a member versus not being one and I relaized that despite some differences of opinion it is a community that will benefit me greatly by continuing to be a member. There is a certain amount of "safety" (as it were) by belonging to a large group of people with a shared goal, namely continual improvement of themselves by facing and overcoming adversity. I've belonged to several other religions throughout my life (including various Christian denominations) and the majority of them are all talk but no action or accountability.
Thanks for sharing your experience. This is particularly relevant to me as we're reading 123 John in Come Follow Me. We abide with God by loving other believers, and helping each other when needed. "But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth."
41:00 maybe I just need to check out your books but when you say “your theology” what do you mean, and how well organized are you / how many of you are there? I think in some other video you were saying “neo-Calvinist” or something like this, but is there another label? I have anyways no idea what that means. I try to evaluate different churches or approaches in my area and one thing that discourages me is how churches did nothing to resist and/or offer alternatives for dating during the stupid pandemic restrictions. I’ve identified some churches which tended to be not hysterical or even against the pandemic measures. But these tend to be traditionalist, so for example the SSPX, who basically just want to keep doing the trad catholic thing, so on Malcolm’s axes would be conservative/traditionalist. I actually am not sure I have identified any organization or church in my region of Europe (German speaking part) who would fall under conservative/accelerationalist. So far it seems that young smart and conscientious (non-crazy/non-leftist) Europeans are using university as their dating pool, and this works alright, but there is still nothing that looks promising here in terms of birth rates. I think for now they still have large enough feeling families so they don’t feel lonely if they don’t even go to some mainstream church for the sake of community, because in Europe more of the extended family tends to stay living in the same general region (especially in German-speaking areas where there is not much economic/job incentive to move away, other than temporarily for advanced studies perhaps) and the local identity and cohesion is valued like this. But it’s not enough, because the families will no longer be so large after a couple generations.
Pausing to give Simone and Malcolm props. It is absolutely fine to be different and their children are lucky that they are being told that at a young age.
There is surprisingly little information on this Lutheran Pietist group. I searched the internet a while ago and it seems that they are largely* retaining the children born I to it and are maintaining high birthrates so we ought to start heading more and more Laestadians in Finland, Norway and the USA. I think there are about 8-10,000 in the USA and growing fast. * Obviously there will be some who leave but there numbers seem relatively low
@@gabingston3430 I'm hopeful as the high birthrates of Somlis/Afghans is just a first generation and welfare trash effect. Whereas the Laestadians have maintained their high birthrates for several generations within Finland and Scandinavia more broadly. Like the Amish I foresee them gradually retaining higher percentages of those born into the group.
@@albertito77 If they keep importing Somalis and Afghans the drop off among the Swedish born children and grandchildren won't matter. I've heard they're starting to come to their senses, so hopefully they can at least cut off the stream of new arrivals and have Muslims stabilize at around 10%, though I wouldn't bet my money on that unfortunately. It'd be funny if Finland and Sweden in 100 years were fundamentalist Lutheran theocracies, though.
Wow this is interesting. I'd like to ask this couple more questions. You don't think society's LGBTQ issues will destroy the LDS and other conservative churches?
Genuinely I would’ve probably converted to Mormonism if they weren’t homophobic. I pray daily already and want a conservative husband and 6 kids in the future. If they opened the Mormon church to LGB and maybe T people they could probably substantially increase their prevalence in American society. I’ll join the nutty church if it’s Christian and if it isn’t homophobic and has a good sense of community 🤷♂️.
In that those Non-Cis-Het people and those who love them will leave? The result to the LDS community that remains to be extra insular, thus less ingaged with the general economy, all the while the elements of the Woke Mind Virus that seem harmless are accelatated, thus they remain with a birthrate below replacement? Yeah, kinda already looking as the case.
Timestamp 12:11 Malcolm is speaking about "splinter groups." There have been groups of "Mormons" who are not a part of the main church in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Fundamentalist LDS Church is one (they still practice polygamy) and the Community of Christ (which is headquarted in Indepence, MO and own the property rights to the Temple lot). Neither of them have been a part of the main church for some time so they're technically not a splinter group. It's still very common for people in the church to marry in their early twenties BUT if you're over 30 and unmarried (not divorced but never married) then your chances of finding a spouse rapidly dwindle with each year. Feminism has made inroads into the church and many of the sisters pursue a career instead of being a wife and mother, only to find that when they are ready to settle down no man is interested in them. On the other hand men are expected to have high paying careers and be active in the church and if he is unable to check either of those boxes he may find himself single with no options (especially if he is disabled and his disability affects his ability to earn lots of money). One of my best friends (who holds a high position in the church) didn't get married until he was 34 years old (the owman who became his wife was 32 and had been pursuing her career as a nutritionist). He confessed that he was starting to lose hope as he had done "everything he was supposed to do" but it wasn't working out. He is now married and his wife is a stay at home mom (which is pretty normal in the church) and they have four kids. On the other hand there is this other married couple I know who are both lawyers, they both pursue their careers but still managed to have five kids. So what Malcolm is saying about progressivism is accurate. A lot of it seems to be about women's empowerment and since women are forbidden from holding the Priesthood they resort to things like tarot or astrology to gain a measure of self empowerment. It's quite common. Some feminists have pushed for women to be granted the Priesthood because some ex husbands seem to hold her and "her children" hostage when it comes to certain ordinances. There is this belief in the LDS church that if your perform certain rites in the Temple then a husband, wife and chioldren are bound together for eternity. But what happens in the case of divorce? The ex wife can be unbound from the husband (which is fair to both of them) but she still has to deal with her ex in the afterlife because they're both bound to the children. What feminists want to do is to be able to unbind the children from their father since the children belong exclusively to the mother (in their opinion). They also want single mothers to be able to bind their children to them so that they can be together in the afterlife. If this is allowed then it's possible that women would forego marriage altogether and have children out of wedlock and the children would grow up with no fathers. You can see what a disaster this would be for the family and the children. Timestamp 24:25 No. Absolutely not. Dressing like "everyone else" leads to unwanted attention from people "Mormons" might not otherwise associate with. I know of sisters in their twenties who dress like this and no brother will have anything to do with them because it's a blatant cry for attention. In the LDs church the things people look for in a spouse isn't what you look like but rather what you have accomplished. A sister who dresses provactively is saying " all I have to offer is my body, don't expect too much from me as a wife or mother." Likewise a man whogets tattoos or wears skinny pants, tight shirts or grows a beard (before he is married) is seen as a Jack Mormon (someone who follows the faith only just so). Sorry Malcolm I disgree wholeheartedly with your opinion on this. The LDS Church has survived as long as it has by not towing the lines that the fashion industry has thrown out. I've also learned as an Autistic man that you can never please society, they will always find something wrong with you. So the best choice is to be who you want to be and tell society to kick rocks (get lost). Timestamp 25:50 Simone nailed it. We're happy being thought of as weird. Oddly enough Autism is quite common amongst the LDS membership and so that feeling of "otherness" is embraced by a large section of the population. Timestamp 27:00 the LDS membership is also (in addition to all the things you mentioned) very patriotic and pro 2nd Amendment (I'm speaking of American Mormons), I cannot account for Mormons in other lands as I have no knowledge of them. Here in Arizona and Idaho and Utah there are LDS holdings known as The Bishop's Storehouse where anyone (LDS or not) can receive food at no cost to the recipient. The church also has Deseret Industries (which the the LDS version of the Good Will) where people (also non LDs people work there) who may have disabilities or criminal records can find temporary gainful employment, receive job skills and if they're interested the Church will pay for any outside training the employee may be interested in (such as nursing, a Commercial Driver's License, etc). The money earned by Deseret Industries goes directly back into the establishment and the church makes no profit whatsoever from any sales. Donated items that do not sell or are there after a season ends are shipped to other locations for redistribution so nothing is wasted. This is one of the ways the Church helps disabled members find employment in a world that ostracizes them not only for being disabled but for being LDS as well. I know of no other religion who comes even close to "loving thy neighbor as thyself." In regards to the Pioneer Trail experience Malcolm mentions there is another opportunity for young and retired LDS. That is the Missionary experience. Collge age LDS are encourage to go on a two year Missionary journey (they have to save up money beforehand to pay for their own essentials, though families in their assigned area will feed them and the local ward will supply them with a car or bicycles). This Missionary experience teaches self reliance. Missionaries at one time were forbidden from using social media during their terms but those rules have been relazed somewhat as the social isolation that often occurs is unbearable for many.
Regarding the push against nicknames for the church. It is more of refocusing on making Christ central to the name of the church. That includes for the memebers so even tho members used to use "mo" for short the The direction was for those people as well. Personally, I'll use "LDS Christian" if I want to say something shorter.
Those fervent believers who de-convert I would say, without trying to steamroll any given personal experience, is more a result of a fragile approach to acculturation in youth. There are many members who live unexamined religious lives and are fodder for malicious anti-Mormons. In the other side of that however, my personal experience was that my mission made me anti-fragile. But, I was also debating new atheists and evangelicals on Facebook when I was 14 😅
I would say this only true for those that "drift" away because they never had strong feelings about the church in the first place. Its much much more complicated for people like me that was a hardcore Book of Mormon wielding true-blood believer and my journey out was a horrible experience that I would only wish on those that are suffering as much as I was in the church. And i would say that most people i meet that identify as "ex-mos" have similar experiences to me. Its probably my own selection bias but it seems like a lot of people.
Just wanted to correct a misconception in this conversation about sex not being a selling point of eternal marriage… In my experience being raised Mormon, it was a big selling point - that sex in a celestial marriage was a pinnacle experience in life here on earth, but would be EVEN MORE AWESOME after this life: Sex with perfect bodies in the afterlife where you continue to procreate to generate spirit children and create your own worlds in order for them to have their own mortal experiences. Though I later left the church, I still think this was one of the most beautiful parts of the theology. While the religion has its faults, it is super sex positive for great *married* sex both in this life and the next.
The Mormon church has billions in untaxed asserts. They will be just fine… unless the IRS revokes their tax status, in which case, they might be screwed.
Mormons won’t inherit the earth? They almost going to own it all. Mormon Church is going to be the wealthiest institution that isn’t a country is my prediction.
@@bullethead1953 it is irrelevant as there will always be an amount of them to control their large amount of wealth and resources. There may not always be many Mormons but the core of Mormonism will always be very powerful and influential. Since the days of Brigham young Mormonism has been a force to reckon with.
The amount of professional academic research done on LDS history is astonishing. And almost all of it, including critical research, was done by faithful LDS members. It confuses me how you two feel like you can do roughly fifteen minutes of research on anit-mormon blogs that your friends run, after living "LDS Adjacent" and think you know enough to actually talk on these issues expertly. Yikes.
I don't think they made any inaccurate claims to be fair and they never claimed to be experts on the religion. There are other podcasts you can go to if you want "experts" on the topic. Also from my experience, and in my opinion, the most educated people and historians on this topic are usually Ex-Mormons or nuanced/progressive Mormons because its very hard to study Mormon history deeply and ignore the vast amounts of faith-challenging problems (i.e. Joseph Smith's sexual escapades, the astonishing lack of actual evidence for the historicity of the Book of Mormon, and the very questionable leadership succession after J.S.'s death just to name a few).
@@cossakman101 All the issues you mentioned, while problematic, can and have been addressed, not all to everybody's satisfaction. Sure, there's a lot of members that don't know much about the actual religion itself. However, you greatly misrepresent how much the ex-Mormons know. Many ex-mormons haven't dived deep enough to find an alternative conclusion to the issues other than just leaving the church. I am not saying that is the case with every ex-mormon, but many more than you seem to imply. Also, church scholarship is indeed rich and aware of these issues. I've seen countless time the plastering of the idea that Joseph Smith had a marriage with a 14 year old, but most can't name who the woman was (Helen Marr Kimball) and even less are aware that she actually has several first hand writings about the subject in which she says they weren't in the same room alone together before he died. The lack of historicity for the Book of Mormon can be addressed by understanding the nature of how it came to be as opposed to how people think it came to be. And even with the historical discrepancies in it, you also can't ignore the many things that JS or whoever is posited to have written the BOM had to get right as flukes to be able to have the Book of Mormon as we have it today. Those are the few things that I can fit into this comment, but I have dedicated a long time into researching this topic. I am not progressive, but I am definitely nuanced in many of my views, which might add to your point. But I strongly believe that anyone who is willing to overcome the trial of faith will reach a point resilient faith instead of just ditching it at the first or third controversy. No religion exists without one, and none ever will. dispel
@@carlosjosejimenezbermudez9255 It sounds like you have been able personally resolve a lot of the issues that can be brought up by studying mormon history and i'm happy your were able to. However, for me personally and for many many others like me, I spent almost 5 years delving into mormon history and trying to learn everything i could about it. I've heard/read almost everything, the good the bad and the ugly. And for me, unfortunately there are just way too many irreconcilable issues for me. Also, there is a reason why most professional historians, archeologists, linguists, aren't immediately converted upon encountering all the so-called evidences of the book of mormon.
Well how funny it is when alternate lifestyles can make excuses for themselves. Then again it always comes down to believing there is a God, or not. So easy to tell.
BTW... Judaism has a strong similarity point to your secular religion. The World to Come/The Days of the Mashiach is supposed to be brought on by the virtue of each generation. Many people like to treat that like heaven, but that is the result of Christianity being culturally dominant(I.E. They like to kill us.) But again, this is more among the secular/christian immersed people. Not actual orthodox Judaism(I think, Shapiro is supposedly Orthodox, so...) Either way. You being a good person will bring the days of the Mashiach faster. Which is very sumilar to, every generation is better than the last, untill that far enough in the future they are effectively gods...
Well let me know if there are any particular questions you have. I'm confident I can point you to the right sources for your answers. Keep up the great work!
Islam (Sunni at least) has the benefit of being a decentralized religion from the start, which has constantly provided it with renewal without the weaknesses that come from a centralized structure (i.e. Catholicism, Mormonism, Bahaism). Islam has this unique thing about it that it is able to keep renewing itself without ever damaging it's doctrines or deviating from it's sources (Qur'an, Sunnah and ijmah of the classical scholars).
Aaaah, sweet! We'd argue the best of friends hold different views/values. They have the best conversations, since they each have something to learn from each other, and through their debate, they often come closer to truth.
I'm an ex-mo and my theory on why the Church is dying is because it hasn't figured out how to update its doctrine to meet the needs of people living in modern society. The only thing that would bring me back is if the church adopted more "progressive" ideas. What I mean by that is being more accepting of LQBT people (i.e. giving them the same privileges that straight members have and not shaming them), allowing women to pursue more internal-political power (i.e. leadership roles), and adopting a more nuanced view on religious teachings and texts (i.e. not shaming others that have various interpretations of teachings/text that differ from the mainstream view). To be clear, I'm not saying they should adopt the so-called "urban monoculture". They should still encourage having lots of kids, being committed to one's partner for eternity, self-control of carnal desires, weird temple rituals, wearing weird clothes, summer handcart treks, mission trips etc., but it shouldn't be at the cost of causing a huge amount of cognitive-dissonance among its members and shaming them for not complying with outdated and even mentally harmful practices. And on a side note, the church seriously needs to distant themselves from Joseph Smith and stop deifying him as a near perfect person. That man had more skeletons in his closet than most serial killers do.
There's a very good reason past societies were homophobic. The LGBTSTD lifestyle is not conducive to human nor societal flourishing. Women are on average more conformist, more emotional, less likely to consider the merits of the argument but the personality of the arguer and do not have the genetically encoded desire to prevent systems and societies from breaking. In the past when societies were conquered the men were killed. They did not leave descendants whereas the females we kept as concubines or wives. Increased female influence over any institution leads to their decline. Joseph Smith is the founder. Good luck maintaining an identity while dissociating from the founder. Imagine if we did that in the US... Oh wait...
What you are proposing will cause the church to inevitably collapse. We already have complete irrefutable proof of this exact situation of a conservative church adopting ever more liberal and inclusive attitudes and then collapsing in membership, check out Mennonite church USA vs old colony Mennonites, or Reform Judaism vs ultra Orthodox Judaism. Progressive outlooks inevitably lead to a complete cultural shift and it is not a culture that is conductive to long term longevity.
The people who know Joseph Smith the best (i.e. Bushman, Bradley) believe he's sincere and an overall good guy. Sometimes members are tempted to engage in hero worship, but we don't pray to him or anything.
lol The churches that are adopting more progressive stances on issues like LGBTQ issues are the ones that are losing members the most. Also, comparing Joseph Smith to serial killer? Bro get over yourself. Non-lds historians like John Turner with no dog in this fight would never make statements like that 😂😂😂.
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As an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I was very surprised that overall we are below replacement level. I’m 24 with 1 six month old and another on the way. The majority of my active friends around my age have at least one kid.
It goes to show how pervasive the childlessness issue is. Interesting discussion, I enjoy listening to you both!
Congrats on your six-month-old and the upcoming new arrival! Hoping all's going well with your pregnancy. Treasure that community of young parents you're in: Such social groups are becoming increasingly rare, though we'd love to see them make a comeback. :)
"this relationship isn't gonna work unless you drink alcohol with me..."
just means "I can't fall in love with you unless you elect to reduce your executive functions and slowly poison your liver at the same time I choose to"
You should do a dive on Catholicism. It’d get a ton of views as there’s tons of them AND there’s a super dramatic feud between the Central Bureaucracy and it’s progressive reforms and radical traditionalists with 6+ TFRs, Latin only masses and a secretive subculture.
I joke about what would happen if the faction that wants all holy men to do the same time for sex crime took over. Maybe then the churches wouldn't be in some much danger. I'd love for the sex criminal holy men to rot in the same jail as the criminals handing out free candy from a van.
I'm a convert to the Chuch of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (we do in fact refer to ourselves as LDS, despite what Malcolm said). I'm also a 54 year old Autistic man. I came to the realization months ago that there were things in the church's teachings that didn't stand up to scrutiny but honestly that can be said of all religions. My fellow member are a great bunch of people who (in my opinion) put forth a great amount of effort to follow Christ. Do they always succeed? No of course not. But there is a very tight knit community of people who come together when needed. There are many perks to being a member versus not being one and I relaized that despite some differences of opinion it is a community that will benefit me greatly by continuing to be a member. There is a certain amount of "safety" (as it were) by belonging to a large group of people with a shared goal, namely continual improvement of themselves by facing and overcoming adversity. I've belonged to several other religions throughout my life (including various Christian denominations) and the majority of them are all talk but no action or accountability.
Thanks for sharing your experience. This is particularly relevant to me as we're reading 123 John in Come Follow Me. We abide with God by loving other believers, and helping each other when needed. "But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth."
41:00 maybe I just need to check out your books but when you say “your theology” what do you mean, and how well organized are you / how many of you are there? I think in some other video you were saying “neo-Calvinist” or something like this, but is there another label? I have anyways no idea what that means.
I try to evaluate different churches or approaches in my area and one thing that discourages me is how churches did nothing to resist and/or offer alternatives for dating during the stupid pandemic restrictions. I’ve identified some churches which tended to be not hysterical or even against the pandemic measures. But these tend to be traditionalist, so for example the SSPX, who basically just want to keep doing the trad catholic thing, so on Malcolm’s axes would be conservative/traditionalist. I actually am not sure I have identified any organization or church in my region of Europe (German speaking part) who would fall under conservative/accelerationalist.
So far it seems that young smart and conscientious (non-crazy/non-leftist) Europeans are using university as their dating pool, and this works alright, but there is still nothing that looks promising here in terms of birth rates. I think for now they still have large enough feeling families so they don’t feel lonely if they don’t even go to some mainstream church for the sake of community, because in Europe more of the extended family tends to stay living in the same general region (especially in German-speaking areas where there is not much economic/job incentive to move away, other than temporarily for advanced studies perhaps) and the local identity and cohesion is valued like this. But it’s not enough, because the families will no longer be so large after a couple generations.
Pausing to give Simone and Malcolm props. It is absolutely fine to be different and their children are lucky that they are being told that at a young age.
Thank you! We're excited to watch the different directions they take in life.
Do you have any experience with the Laestadians? I know they exist in America but they have their roots here in northern Sweden.
There is surprisingly little information on this Lutheran Pietist group. I searched the internet a while ago and it seems that they are largely* retaining the children born I to it and are maintaining high birthrates so we ought to start heading more and more Laestadians in Finland, Norway and the USA. I think there are about 8-10,000 in the USA and growing fast.
* Obviously there will be some who leave but there numbers seem relatively low
@@albertito77 The long term future of Scandinavia is either Laestadian or Muslim. Let's hope it's the former.
@@gabingston3430 I'm hopeful as the high birthrates of Somlis/Afghans is just a first generation and welfare trash effect. Whereas the Laestadians have maintained their high birthrates for several generations within Finland and Scandinavia more broadly. Like the Amish I foresee them gradually retaining higher percentages of those born into the group.
@@albertito77 If they keep importing Somalis and Afghans the drop off among the Swedish born children and grandchildren won't matter. I've heard they're starting to come to their senses, so hopefully they can at least cut off the stream of new arrivals and have Muslims stabilize at around 10%, though I wouldn't bet my money on that unfortunately. It'd be funny if Finland and Sweden in 100 years were fundamentalist Lutheran theocracies, though.
What is the next video about mormons about?
What's MLN around mark 7:00 - 9:00 ?
Malcolm how tall are you?
Wow this is interesting. I'd like to ask this couple more questions.
You don't think society's LGBTQ issues will destroy the LDS and other conservative churches?
Genuinely I would’ve probably converted to Mormonism if they weren’t homophobic. I pray daily already and want a conservative husband and 6 kids in the future. If they opened the Mormon church to LGB and maybe T people they could probably substantially increase their prevalence in American society. I’ll join the nutty church if it’s Christian and if it isn’t homophobic and has a good sense of community 🤷♂️.
In that those Non-Cis-Het people and those who love them will leave?
The result to the LDS community that remains to be extra insular, thus less ingaged with the general economy, all the while the elements of the Woke Mind Virus that seem harmless are accelatated, thus they remain with a birthrate below replacement?
Yeah, kinda already looking as the case.
I love the podcast, finally i find people as weird as me
We salute you, fellow weirdo!
Timestamp 12:11 Malcolm is speaking about "splinter groups." There have been groups of "Mormons" who are not a part of the main church in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Fundamentalist LDS Church is one (they still practice polygamy) and the Community of Christ (which is headquarted in Indepence, MO and own the property rights to the Temple lot). Neither of them have been a part of the main church for some time so they're technically not a splinter group.
It's still very common for people in the church to marry in their early twenties BUT if you're over 30 and unmarried (not divorced but never married) then your chances of finding a spouse rapidly dwindle with each year. Feminism has made inroads into the church and many of the sisters pursue a career instead of being a wife and mother, only to find that when they are ready to settle down no man is interested in them. On the other hand men are expected to have high paying careers and be active in the church and if he is unable to check either of those boxes he may find himself single with no options (especially if he is disabled and his disability affects his ability to earn lots of money).
One of my best friends (who holds a high position in the church) didn't get married until he was 34 years old (the owman who became his wife was 32 and had been pursuing her career as a nutritionist). He confessed that he was starting to lose hope as he had done "everything he was supposed to do" but it wasn't working out. He is now married and his wife is a stay at home mom (which is pretty normal in the church) and they have four kids.
On the other hand there is this other married couple I know who are both lawyers, they both pursue their careers but still managed to have five kids.
So what Malcolm is saying about progressivism is accurate. A lot of it seems to be about women's empowerment and since women are forbidden from holding the Priesthood they resort to things like tarot or astrology to gain a measure of self empowerment. It's quite common. Some feminists have pushed for women to be granted the Priesthood because some ex husbands seem to hold her and "her children" hostage when it comes to certain ordinances. There is this belief in the LDS church that if your perform certain rites in the Temple then a husband, wife and chioldren are bound together for eternity. But what happens in the case of divorce? The ex wife can be unbound from the husband (which is fair to both of them) but she still has to deal with her ex in the afterlife because they're both bound to the children. What feminists want to do is to be able to unbind the children from their father since the children belong exclusively to the mother (in their opinion). They also want single mothers to be able to bind their children to them so that they can be together in the afterlife. If this is allowed then it's possible that women would forego marriage altogether and have children out of wedlock and the children would grow up with no fathers. You can see what a disaster this would be for the family and the children.
Timestamp 24:25 No. Absolutely not. Dressing like "everyone else" leads to unwanted attention from people "Mormons" might not otherwise associate with. I know of sisters in their twenties who dress like this and no brother will have anything to do with them because it's a blatant cry for attention. In the LDs church the things people look for in a spouse isn't what you look like but rather what you have accomplished. A sister who dresses provactively is saying " all I have to offer is my body, don't expect too much from me as a wife or mother." Likewise a man whogets tattoos or wears skinny pants, tight shirts or grows a beard (before he is married) is seen as a Jack Mormon (someone who follows the faith only just so). Sorry Malcolm I disgree wholeheartedly with your opinion on this. The LDS Church has survived as long as it has by not towing the lines that the fashion industry has thrown out. I've also learned as an Autistic man that you can never please society, they will always find something wrong with you. So the best choice is to be who you want to be and tell society to kick rocks (get lost).
Timestamp 25:50 Simone nailed it. We're happy being thought of as weird. Oddly enough Autism is quite common amongst the LDS membership and so that feeling of "otherness" is embraced by a large section of the population.
Timestamp 27:00 the LDS membership is also (in addition to all the things you mentioned) very patriotic and pro 2nd Amendment (I'm speaking of American Mormons), I cannot account for Mormons in other lands as I have no knowledge of them.
Here in Arizona and Idaho and Utah there are LDS holdings known as The Bishop's Storehouse where anyone (LDS or not) can receive food at no cost to the recipient. The church also has Deseret Industries (which the the LDS version of the Good Will) where people (also non LDs people work there) who may have disabilities or criminal records can find temporary gainful employment, receive job skills and if they're interested the Church will pay for any outside training the employee may be interested in (such as nursing, a Commercial Driver's License, etc). The money earned by Deseret Industries goes directly back into the establishment and the church makes no profit whatsoever from any sales. Donated items that do not sell or are there after a season ends are shipped to other locations for redistribution so nothing is wasted. This is one of the ways the Church helps disabled members find employment in a world that ostracizes them not only for being disabled but for being LDS as well. I know of no other religion who comes even close to "loving thy neighbor as thyself."
In regards to the Pioneer Trail experience Malcolm mentions there is another opportunity for young and retired LDS. That is the Missionary experience. Collge age LDS are encourage to go on a two year Missionary journey (they have to save up money beforehand to pay for their own essentials, though families in their assigned area will feed them and the local ward will supply them with a car or bicycles). This Missionary experience teaches self reliance. Missionaries at one time were forbidden from using social media during their terms but those rules have been relazed somewhat as the social isolation that often occurs is unbearable for many.
the temple lot is not owned by Community of Christ. It's owned by a tiny splinter group called Church of Christ Temple Lot.
Regarding the push against nicknames for the church. It is more of refocusing on making Christ central to the name of the church. That includes for the memebers so even tho members used to use "mo" for short the The direction was for those people as well.
Personally, I'll use "LDS Christian" if I want to say something shorter.
Those fervent believers who de-convert I would say, without trying to steamroll any given personal experience, is more a result of a fragile approach to acculturation in youth. There are many members who live unexamined religious lives and are fodder for malicious anti-Mormons. In the other side of that however, my personal experience was that my mission made me anti-fragile. But, I was also debating new atheists and evangelicals on Facebook when I was 14 😅
I would say this only true for those that "drift" away because they never had strong feelings about the church in the first place. Its much much more complicated for people like me that was a hardcore Book of Mormon wielding true-blood believer and my journey out was a horrible experience that I would only wish on those that are suffering as much as I was in the church. And i would say that most people i meet that identify as "ex-mos" have similar experiences to me. Its probably my own selection bias but it seems like a lot of people.
Just wanted to correct a misconception in this conversation about sex not being a selling point of eternal marriage… In my experience being raised Mormon, it was a big selling point - that sex in a celestial marriage was a pinnacle experience in life here on earth, but would be EVEN MORE AWESOME after this life: Sex with perfect bodies in the afterlife where you continue to procreate to generate spirit children and create your own worlds in order for them to have their own mortal experiences. Though I later left the church, I still think this was one of the most beautiful parts of the theology. While the religion has its faults, it is super sex positive for great *married* sex both in this life and the next.
Is fascism self defence?
A lot of women go on missions now. They lowered the age from 21 to 19.
Oh interesting! Is there greater overall encouragement for women to go on missions now? What was the LDS church's reasoning behind the age adjustment?
@@SimoneandMalcolm yes. I assume they believe it'll keep them in the faith.
@@SimoneandMalcolmThe missionaries that have come to my house were women (with an adult chaperone of course).
Have you looked at some of the libral pri
Exactly what are the "problems" he's talking about? 16:10. So vague.
So its one thing to not want to be involved in the church, its another to work against it. Shameless
The Mormon church has billions in untaxed asserts. They will be just fine… unless the IRS revokes their tax status, in which case, they might be screwed.
Mormons won’t inherit the earth? They almost going to own it all. Mormon Church is going to be the wealthiest institution that isn’t a country is my prediction.
Jesus will return and send all of the Mormon leaders to hell and will reign the Earth. Mormons will inherit jack s#$t.
What’s the birthrate, attribution of deconverts, and new converts rate?
@@bullethead1953 it is irrelevant as there will always be an amount of them to control their large amount of wealth and resources. There may not always be many Mormons but the core of Mormonism will always be very powerful and influential. Since the days of Brigham young Mormonism has been a force to reckon with.
It's Harvard, not Stanford, and it's Mormons, military McKinsey.
The amount of professional academic research done on LDS history is astonishing. And almost all of it, including critical research, was done by faithful LDS members. It confuses me how you two feel like you can do roughly fifteen minutes of research on anit-mormon blogs that your friends run, after living "LDS Adjacent" and think you know enough to actually talk on these issues expertly. Yikes.
We're by no means experts and we would never pretend to be. This is a hot take and worth what you pay for it. :)
I don't think they made any inaccurate claims to be fair and they never claimed to be experts on the religion. There are other podcasts you can go to if you want "experts" on the topic. Also from my experience, and in my opinion, the most educated people and historians on this topic are usually Ex-Mormons or nuanced/progressive Mormons because its very hard to study Mormon history deeply and ignore the vast amounts of faith-challenging problems (i.e. Joseph Smith's sexual escapades, the astonishing lack of actual evidence for the historicity of the Book of Mormon, and the very questionable leadership succession after J.S.'s death just to name a few).
@@cossakman101 All the issues you mentioned, while problematic, can and have been addressed, not all to everybody's satisfaction. Sure, there's a lot of members that don't know much about the actual religion itself.
However, you greatly misrepresent how much the ex-Mormons know. Many ex-mormons haven't dived deep enough to find an alternative conclusion to the issues other than just leaving the church. I am not saying that is the case with every ex-mormon, but many more than you seem to imply. Also, church scholarship is indeed rich and aware of these issues.
I've seen countless time the plastering of the idea that Joseph Smith had a marriage with a 14 year old, but most can't name who the woman was (Helen Marr Kimball) and even less are aware that she actually has several first hand writings about the subject in which she says they weren't in the same room alone together before he died. The lack of historicity for the Book of Mormon can be addressed by understanding the nature of how it came to be as opposed to how people think it came to be. And even with the historical discrepancies in it, you also can't ignore the many things that JS or whoever is posited to have written the BOM had to get right as flukes to be able to have the Book of Mormon as we have it today.
Those are the few things that I can fit into this comment, but I have dedicated a long time into researching this topic. I am not progressive, but I am definitely nuanced in many of my views, which might add to your point. But I strongly believe that anyone who is willing to overcome the trial of faith will reach a point resilient faith instead of just ditching it at the first or third controversy. No religion exists without one, and none ever will.
dispel
@@carlosjosejimenezbermudez9255 It sounds like you have been able personally resolve a lot of the issues that can be brought up by studying mormon history and i'm happy your were able to. However, for me personally and for many many others like me, I spent almost 5 years delving into mormon history and trying to learn everything i could about it. I've heard/read almost everything, the good the bad and the ugly. And for me, unfortunately there are just way too many irreconcilable issues for me. Also, there is a reason why most professional historians, archeologists, linguists, aren't immediately converted upon encountering all the so-called evidences of the book of mormon.
You two are bizarre! clicks subscribe...
We tip our cringe fedoras in your general direction, good sir.
That's because jews have convinced you that up is down and left is right. Anything that's bizarre in transexual america must be wholesome and normal.
Well how funny it is when alternate lifestyles can make excuses for themselves. Then again it always comes down to believing there is a God, or not. So easy to tell.
BTW...
Judaism has a strong similarity point to your secular religion.
The World to Come/The Days of the Mashiach is supposed to be brought on by the virtue of each generation.
Many people like to treat that like heaven, but that is the result of Christianity being culturally dominant(I.E. They like to kill us.) But again, this is more among the secular/christian immersed people.
Not actual orthodox Judaism(I think, Shapiro is supposedly Orthodox, so...)
Either way. You being a good person will bring the days of the Mashiach faster.
Which is very sumilar to, every generation is better than the last, untill that far enough in the future they are effectively gods...
There definitely are similarities, though our base is a more Calvinistic in nature than Jewish f'sho.
More women watch this channel than men? 🤯
W
Do Muslims next please!!
Oh man, we'd love to, but we've had far less exposure to Muslim cultures, Islamic traditions and doctrine, etc.-we'll work up to it!!
Well let me know if there are any particular questions you have. I'm confident I can point you to the right sources for your answers. Keep up the great work!
Islam (Sunni at least) has the benefit of being a decentralized religion from the start, which has constantly provided it with renewal without the weaknesses that come from a centralized structure (i.e. Catholicism, Mormonism, Bahaism).
Islam has this unique thing about it that it is able to keep renewing itself without ever damaging it's doctrines or deviating from it's sources (Qur'an, Sunnah and ijmah of the classical scholars).
Yeah by making parallel societies.@@Hastenforthedawm
Y’all are the type of republicans I wouldn’t mind befriending. Interesting videos.
-a democratic socialist
Aaaah, sweet! We'd argue the best of friends hold different views/values. They have the best conversations, since they each have something to learn from each other, and through their debate, they often come closer to truth.
I love being politically homeless.
cute:3
I'm an ex-mo and my theory on why the Church is dying is because it hasn't figured out how to update its doctrine to meet the needs of people living in modern society. The only thing that would bring me back is if the church adopted more "progressive" ideas. What I mean by that is being more accepting of LQBT people (i.e. giving them the same privileges that straight members have and not shaming them), allowing women to pursue more internal-political power (i.e. leadership roles), and adopting a more nuanced view on religious teachings and texts (i.e. not shaming others that have various interpretations of teachings/text that differ from the mainstream view). To be clear, I'm not saying they should adopt the so-called "urban monoculture". They should still encourage having lots of kids, being committed to one's partner for eternity, self-control of carnal desires, weird temple rituals, wearing weird clothes, summer handcart treks, mission trips etc., but it shouldn't be at the cost of causing a huge amount of cognitive-dissonance among its members and shaming them for not complying with outdated and even mentally harmful practices. And on a side note, the church seriously needs to distant themselves from Joseph Smith and stop deifying him as a near perfect person. That man had more skeletons in his closet than most serial killers do.
There's a very good reason past societies were homophobic. The LGBTSTD lifestyle is not conducive to human nor societal flourishing.
Women are on average more conformist, more emotional, less likely to consider the merits of the argument but the personality of the arguer and do not have the genetically encoded desire to prevent systems and societies from breaking. In the past when societies were conquered the men were killed. They did not leave descendants whereas the females we kept as concubines or wives. Increased female influence over any institution leads to their decline.
Joseph Smith is the founder. Good luck maintaining an identity while dissociating from the founder. Imagine if we did that in the US... Oh wait...
What you are proposing will cause the church to inevitably collapse. We already have complete irrefutable proof of this exact situation of a conservative church adopting ever more liberal and inclusive attitudes and then collapsing in membership, check out Mennonite church USA vs old colony Mennonites, or Reform Judaism vs ultra Orthodox Judaism. Progressive outlooks inevitably lead to a complete cultural shift and it is not a culture that is conductive to long term longevity.
The people who know Joseph Smith the best (i.e. Bushman, Bradley) believe he's sincere and an overall good guy. Sometimes members are tempted to engage in hero worship, but we don't pray to him or anything.
He's just ranting. I don't think he gives a fig about the LDS church's welfare.@@derek4412
lol The churches that are adopting more progressive stances on issues like LGBTQ issues are the ones that are losing members the most.
Also, comparing Joseph Smith to serial killer? Bro get over yourself. Non-lds historians like John Turner with no dog in this fight would never make statements like that 😂😂😂.