Statistics compilation

[Nofear]

Many, perhaps most, have showed up on this forum over the years (some by yours truly). A couple were new to me (go lasers!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z8wJtNiJUA
 

 

[Calm]

I was disappointed he didn’t mention for 9/second given (Utahns take more antidepressants) that getting treatment for depression is not identical to having depression.  Maybe Utahns are more willing to get medical treatment, don’t try to self medicate with alcohol or illicit drugs as much, maybe they don’t have enough therapists and so rely more on meds, or something else that raises drug treatment rates while not affecting depression rates.  Utah may have a high depression rate, but that is something different.  He is confusing the two.

Very happy to hear a lot of the stats.  I bolded them below.

The sugary drink thing…glad to see we are not drowning in it after all….at least we aren’t drowning as fast as others might be, lol

Edited July 1, 2025 by Calm

[Calm]

Here is the transcript without timestamps (the description has each timestamp for each item), too lazy to include punctuation and capitalization 

all right buckle up because I guarantee you that some of the things on this list are going to blow your mind i've been data mining for weeks and we're about to look at the top 10 most shocking revealing surprising and counterintuitive statistics about Latter-day Saints let's do it

number 10 according to a 2022 Pew Research Survey Christian groups and non-religious groups generally have negative feelings about Latter-day Saints but the reverse is not true despite the negativity they receive Latter-day Saints feel overwhelmingly positive about members of other Christian and even non-religious groups in fact if you are Protestant Catholic Jewish or Muslim Latter-day Saints are your biggest fans and hang tight because we're going to circle back around to this when we talk about atheists later in this video

number nine strap yourself in utah residents use more anti-depressants than the national average now even though less than half of Utah residents identify as Latter-day Saints some still assert that the LDS faith causes depression there's just such an emphasis on perfectionism etc that said studies typically find Latter-day Saints lower in depression anxiety and suicidal thoughts when compared to other religious groups and those of no religion so a statistic about Utah is not necessarily a statistic about Latter-day Saints but still why is there so much depression in Utah well there are lots of factors at play but interestingly multiple studies have shown that there is actually a strong correlation between depression and living in states at higher elevations it's called chronic hypobaric hypoxia and it apparently can disrupt brain serotonin levels regarding toxic perfectionism a recent study found that Latter-day Saints generally struggle with perfectionism just as much as people from other religions do interestingly that same study found that atheists agnostics and former Latter-day Saints tend to struggle with toxic perfectionism at significantly higher rates than people affiliated with a religion

number eight demographically Latter-day Saints in the United States are mostly white big surprise there but that is quickly changing while there was hardly any change between 2007 and 2014 between 2014 and 2024 white membership dropped by 12% that's not to say that membership dropped by 12% but the ratio of white members versus non-white members dropped 12% and despite some of the fraught racial history of the church today Latter-day Saints score higher than any other Christian group in the belief that racial diversity strengthens our country

number seven this one was totally unexpected today Latter-day Saints believe that both men and women use priesthood power but only men are ordained to a priesthood office according to a 2011 survey the vast majority of both male and female members didn't have a problem with male only ordination but interestingly the minority view that women should be ordained to the priesthood was an opinion held mostly by men

number six in the same survey Latter-day Saints were asked to rank how important certain life goals were to them 50% of Americans only half of the general public said that being a good parent was one of the most important things in life among Latter-day Saints that number jumps to 81% only 35% of the general public considered having a successful marriage to be one of the most important things in life latter-day Saints more than doubled that percentage coming in at 73% latter-day Saints want to be good parents and they want successful marriages

number five it's been a hard decade for religion everywhere but check this out in 2017 church membership shrunk in nine states in 2018 it shrunk in 13 states at the height of COVID between 2020 and 2021 membership shrunk in 22 states in 2024 guess how many states experienced a net loss in membership only one get it together Wyoming all of that said while the Protestant US population has unfortunately declined by 11% over the last 17 years and the Catholic population by 5% which I don't like to see Latter-day Saint membership has held steady at about 2% of the population

number four how important is the Bible to Latter-day Saints really after all we don't believe in soloscripura we don't believe in biblical inherency and we do believe in scripture beyond the Bible that has given some people the impression that we don't take the Bible all that seriously the data says otherwise only about 46% of mainline Protestants Catholics and Orthodox Christians said the Bible was very or extremely important in their lives latter-day Saints 80% we're right up there with evangelicals and historically black Protestant churches in this category on top of that when a 2010 survey quizzed religious and non-religious groups on biblical knowledge Latter-day Saints scored higher than any other group not bringing that up to brag but rather to make the point that the Bible is not gathering dust in Latter-day Saint homes

number three I've actually got three separate data points here that I think are somewhat related and all fascinating according to Pew Research Latter-day Saints are the only Christian group who had net positive feelings towards atheists and even though Latter-day Saints are highly religious they believe more so than any Christian group surveyed that people who do not believe in God can still be moral and have good values they also believe more than any other religious or non-religious group surveyed that science and religion are compatible

number two as you know over a hundred years ago Latter-day Saints used to practice polygamy but how common was it some leaders had lots of wives and families in part because they could economically support lots of wives and families but this wasn't the norm as it turns out only about one out of every five men actually practiced plural marriage this map separates the practice out based on location in 1870 showing that even though polygamy was an accepted practice generally a little less than 25% of Utons actually lived in a polygamous household

number one Latter-day Saints don't drink coffee tea or alcohol so we have instead developed somewhat of a reputation for drinking a lot of soda but how much soda do Latter-day Saints actually drink well the best data I could find on this comes from a couple of CDC surveys on sugar sweetened beverage intake be advised that the data may be somewhat skewed because it includes all sugary drinks not just soda also again keep in mind that less than half of Utons identify as Latter-day Saints and also that most Latter-day Saints live outside of the United States altogether so this is a Mormon bubble issue but if we rank the states by sugary drink consumption Utah comes in 45th place utah's favorite soda they're doing the dew

also did you know the Latter-day Saints know more about lasers Moby **** Susan B anthony and Charles Darwin than any other Christian group in the country weird flex but we'll take it

now a lot of these statistics represent things that are changing over time and that is a major theme of this top 10 episode where we talk about Latter-day Saint teachings practices policies and perhaps even doctrines that could change in the future here

Edited July 1, 2025 by Calm