Merry Christmas and Cheers to the Fall of Mormon Stories

[Notatbm]

On 1/21/2026 at 5:53 PM, Pyreaux said:

Always deflecting. Instead of responding to any point, you pivot to a new trope. It's a total Red Herring. If you move on, you concede, people are officially part of the record until they take the step to resign. That is agency. Whether the Church will purge lost people's records when they are 110 has nothing to do with your attempt to "speak for" everyone alive who hasn't bothered to remove their name from the records.

A person has 'absolutely' chosen to stay on the records, and whether or not some may simply not care enough to resign, you don't get to 'claim' them for your movement or speak for their experience. You don't own their narrative just because they stopped attending.

I’m not speaking for everyone alive who claims to be ex Mormon. I’m saying people should be able to declare themselves whatever without submitting paperwork to fake authority. If I say im ex-Mormon it doesn’t matter what the church thinks. They don’t pay me any mind (thankfully) anyway so obviously the only interest they have in my membership is a number. Sure they’d rather have the money too as I could fund several wards in Africa, but they gave up even inviting me to tithing settlement for the past few years now. My status as a member who has zero value to the ward and church does nothing but keep the attendance numbers suppressed if they are truthfully reporting them and we all know bishops routinely fudge that data to manipulate budget allocations for their wards. 

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, Notatbm said:

In Zimbabwe they have been instructed by the prophets wife to pay tithing on what they want to make. 
 

first off this talk pretty much teaches the opposite of giving with a happy heart. It teaches to be selfish and manipulate god into blessing you to make a desired income. Second- I wonder how many people have taken this “story” and tried it with success? 
lastly- it is obviously not true. 
 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9trEPUuN-0

2:25 mark for Wendy’s commentary of George q cannon tithing tale
 

Another exciting version of the Prosperity Gospel?

[Pyreaux]

2 hours ago, Notatbm said:

I’m not speaking for everyone alive who claims to be ex Mormon. I’m saying people should be able to declare themselves whatever without submitting paperwork to fake authority. If I say im ex-Mormon it doesn’t matter what the church thinks. They don’t pay me any mind (thankfully) anyway so obviously the only interest they have in my membership is a number. Sure they’d rather have the money too as I could fund several wards in Africa, but they gave up even inviting me to tithing settlement for the past few years now. My status as a member who has zero value to the ward and church does nothing but keep the attendance numbers suppressed if they are truthfully reporting them and we all know bishops routinely fudge that data to manipulate budget allocations for their wards. 

You keep throwing out irrelevant Ex-Mormon tropes, every fantasy guess about their motives is unverified. The idea that bishops manipulate data to get more money for their wards is harder than it sounds. Ward budgets are not calculated by membership numbers, its calculated based on Sacrament Meeting attendance and youth class attendance. The ward clerk submits a report every quarter. In theory, a Bishop could theoretically intercept it and round up the numbers, but the Church performs regular audits. Most wards only receive a few thousand dollars a year. If a Bishop "fudged" the attendance numbers by 20%, he might only gain an extra $400 for the year. To risk a disciplinary council for lying on a record far outweighs the tiny gain.

You think you have "zero value" to the ward, but as the proverbial temporarily separated spouse, they are indeed hoping you'll come back, baby. Which is a serious possibility because many in fact do. A formal excommunication is a significant spiritual and social action, they must be 100% certain you actually want it. They aren't holding your "identity" hostage, they are holding their own internal record until they are legally satisfied that you are asking to delete it. You've spent more time complaining about your identity than the time you could have taken to fix it.

Quit these tangents and stick to the obvious. Keeping inactives on the rolls allows the Church to claim a "total membership" of 17+ million, which projects strength and stability to the world, even if 60% of those people never show up. You simply hate it and wish they didn't for personal reasons. You aren't here to complain about the Baptist churches notorious for keeping zombie rolls. Nor the Catholic Church which officially reports roughly 1.3 billion members. No resignations allowed. To the Vatican you are a Catholic forever. 

Ex-Mormons are technically "fudging" their numbers. Self-declared Ex-Mormons narrative is nearly always statistically incomplete. In the US, about 54% of people raised LDS still identify as LDS, even though weekly attendance is estimated closer to 30%. That gap consists of millions of inactive Mormons who aren't Ex-Mormon. They might skip church, but they still believe in the "truth" of the Church and would be offended if you called them an "Ex-Mormon." Many people who leave in their 20s return in their 30s. A real Ex-Mormon is a very specific kind of loss, the only way to be certain about their identity is with a resignation.

[Calm]

52 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

Which is a serious possibility because many in fact do

I just learned three of our friends who stop attending (I know two didn’t resign, don’t know if the third did, but think it unlikely) not long after we left Canada are attending again. (Left in 40s, back in their 60s)

Edited January 23 by Calm

[Notatbm]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Another exciting version of the Prosperity Gospel?

I’d say so