How Bad Is the Exodus?

[bluebell]

24 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

To be clear, I never made anything up, but my choice of subjects was, as you said, dependent on coming up with stuff that fit a certain point of view. I'm glad I realized that before it became a habit. And, also, I should just mention I never made any money from my blog, and my reputation, such as it is, was pretty much destroyed long before I started writing. 🤣

Sorry, never meant to imply any of the bold was related to you.

[Calm]

2 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

 

Well, more of if you aren’t willing to back up your criticism with solid reasons and evidence, better not to go on and on about it…  

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, bluebell said:

So the class where she was exposed to and reading the "bad" stuff didn't cause her any spiritual heartburn? 

She said it was troubling, but the instructor couched things in terms of working things through and keeping things in perspective. Granted, I think the stuff they ran into after the second class was worse than what came up in the first class, but they didn't go into specifics.

[jkwilliams]

9 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Sorry, never meant to imply any of the bold was related to you.

I know. I just wanted to make sure no one carried the comparison too far. 

[jkwilliams]

19 minutes ago, Calm said:

Well, more of if you aren’t willing to back up your criticism with solid reasons and evidence, better not to go on and on about it…  

I'll just leave it with glass pole. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

10 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

Seems a little odd for a religious person to criticize a group for being too much like a … religion.

I'm amused that you assume my intent is criticism, not description!

[SeekingUnderstanding]

Nevermind

Edited August 30, 2022 by SeekingUnderstanding

[Hamba Tuhan]

3 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

I wasn’t aware the c word was allowed around here. 

Are you concerned about ttribe's use of the term or my use of the term in response to him? How else does one describe a 'cult of personality'?

[SeekingUnderstanding]

1 minute ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Are you concerned about ttribe's use of the term or my use of the term in response to him? How else does one describe a 'cult of personality'?

Just missed my edit. Carry on👍

[Scott Lloyd]

20 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

Seems a little odd for a religious person to criticize a group for being too much like a … religion.

Not if the group’s reason for being is disdainfulness of religion. It is pointing out irony, and it’s the irony that’s odd, not the pointing out of it. 

[Scott Lloyd]

On 8/26/2022 at 11:53 AM, jkwilliams said:

I guess it depends on how you define "sustaining a temple.

Yes, I guess it does. 
 

You appear to have jumped to the conclusion that I was referring to operational or “staff” roles such as presidency, recorder, sealers, set-apart ordinance workers, etc.

While those are unquestionably essential, what I had in mind (and what I thought was clear from context) was a critical mass in any given temple district of those who hold temple recommends and are inclined to attend the temple frequently as patrons to receive ordinances for themselves and in behalf of the dead. 

Edited August 30, 2022 by Scott Lloyd

[SeekingUnderstanding]

On 8/30/2022 at 5:43 AM, Scott Lloyd said:

what I had in mind (and what I thought was clear from context) was a critical mass in any given temple district of those who hold temple recommends and are inclined to attend the temple frequently as patrons to receive ordinances for themselves and in behalf of the dead. 

As a data point, my parents recently visited the Copenhagen Denmark on a week night. There was one session held that day with a handful of people in attendance. According to my parents over half the patrons were visiting from the states. 

[Scott Lloyd]

8 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

As a data point, my parents recently visited the Copenhagen Denmark on a week night. There was one session held that day with a handful of people in attendance. According to my parents over half the patrons were visiting from the states. 

“Data point” = hearsay anecdote

[SeekingUnderstanding]

4 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

“Data point” = hearsay anecdote

Sorry if that wasn’t obvious. You see when I said “my parents”, that meant it wasn’t my direct experience. And data point is the same as an anecdote. I’d love to hear other anecdotes. Have you visited a temple outside the United States in the last few years? What was your experience?

[Hamba Tuhan]

16 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Have you visited a temple outside the United States in the last few years? What was your experience?

I live outside the United States. A trip to our temple is a 24-to-28-hour commitment for me. Because I work full-time, I rarely visit the temple other than on a Saturday (which requires leaving home on Friday), but I worked in the temple pre-Covid and have some sense of its utilisation patterns. Very few people attend during the day on weekdays. Evenings are a bit busier but still thin, with Fridays being a busy exception. Saturdays are crazy busy until late morning, with sessions often completely full, but they tend to taper off after that, though less so lately.

Edited September 3, 2022 by Hamba Tuhan

[SeekingUnderstanding]

4 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

I live outside the United States. A trip to our temple is a 24-to-28-hour commitment for me. Because I work full-time, I rarely visit the temple other than on a Saturday (which requires leaving home on Friday), but I worked in the temple pre-Covid and have some sense of its utilisation patterns. Very few people attend during the day on weekdays. Evenings are a bit busier but still thin, with Fridays being a busy exception. Saturdays are crazy busy until late morning, with sessions often completely full, but they tend to taper off after that, though less so lately.

Thanks for sharing again. I also enjoyed your 10 year convert report upthread. You bring a unique perspective to the board and I appreciate your posts though I often disagree. 

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Sorry if that wasn’t obvious. You see when I said “my parents”, that meant it wasn’t my direct experience. And data point is the same as an anecdote. I’d love to hear other anecdotes. Have you visited a temple outside the United States in the last few years? What was your experience?

The point of my comment, if it wasn’t obvious, is that you can scarcely draw a sound conclusion from one second-hand anecdote. Most any temple will be less busy on weekdays during the day than in the evenings and on weekends, when temple patrons are more apt to have discretionary time for temple attendance.
 

By way of illustration, my wife and I honeymooned in the San Diego área in the mid ‘90s. While there, we attended the temple in La Jolla. It was mid-morning on a week day, and we were the only patron couple in the endowment session. They had to bring in ordinance workers serving in the temple that day to fill out the session. Now then, It would be foolish of me to conclude from that one isolated experience — or even to regard it as a very meaningful “data point” — that endowed Latter-day Saints in Southern California, which has one of the highest concentrations of Church members, rarely attend the temple. I would have to consider attendance patterns at other times, especially evenings and weekends, to draw a reasonable conclusion. 
 

Not that it’s anything more than another anecdote, but to respond to your question, I’ll say that I rarely travel abroad, but in 2001, while on a business trip in Scandinavia, I did attend the Stockholm Sweden Temple. I don’t recall the day of the week, but it was during the daytime hours, and the endowment session was quite busy. The temple in Stockholm at that time included what later became part of the Copenhagen temple district when a temple was dedicated in that city. 

[SeekingUnderstanding]

27 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

The point of my comment, if it wasn’t obvious, is that you can scarcely draw a sound conclusion from one second-hand anecdote

Then it might have been relevant if anyone anywhere actually did that…

[Scott Lloyd]

On 8/28/2022 at 12:15 AM, Calm said:

No, at least Snopes isn’t. They fact-check it because BB is one of the more common sources of false news out there (unintentionally) and explicitly state it is satire.

https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/08/16/readers-think-satire-is-real/
 

“Members of both parties failed to recognize that The Babylon Bee is satire, but Republicans were considerably more likely to do so. Of the 23 falsehoods that came from The Bee, eight were confidently believed by at least 15% of Republican respondents. One of the most widely believed falsehoods was based on a series of made-up quotes attributed to Rep. Ilhan Omar. A satirical article that suggested that Sen. Bernie Sanders had criticized the billionaire who paid off Morehouse College graduates’ student debt was another falsehood that Republicans fell for.

Our surveys also featured nine falsehoods that emerged from The Onion. Here, Democrats were more often fooled, though they weren’t quite as credulous. Nonetheless, almost 1 in 8 Democrats was certain that White House counselor Kellyanne Conway had questioned the value of the rule of law.”

“This suggests that clearly labeling satirical content as satire can help social media users navigate a complex and sometimes confusing news environment.

Despite French’s criticism of Snopes for fact-checking The Babylon Bee, he ends his essay by noting that “Snopes can serve a useful purpose. And there’s a space for it to remind readers that satire is satire.”

On this point, we couldn’t agree more.”

I still think it’s weird — and a bit sanctimonious — to “fact check” satire, which was never intended to be taken as fact. It’s like “fact checking” a purported work of fiction. 
 

If the problem is that some readers, due to their own naïveté,  are not grasping that it is satire, just point out that it’s in a satirical publication or website and be done with it. 

Edited September 4, 2022 by Scott Lloyd

[Hamba Tuhan]

On 8/27/2022 at 10:20 AM, Hamba Tuhan said:

Our temple is filled to overflowing in the evenings and on Saturdays because the vast majority of members have jobs.

I was able to make a trip to the temple this past weekend. Because of poor weather, it took 29 hours all up, but it was such a sweet experience! As a newly called elders quorum president, I went seeking revelation, and the Lord was very generous!

Some numbers:

We were in the 6pm session Friday evening. Attendance was 24 out of a possible 48: 14 men and 10 women. Staffing was fine for the patronage level.

Then we were in the 10am session Saturday morning. Attendance was 42 out of a possible 48: 23 men and 19 women. Staffing was not sufficient for the patronage level, and there was a long queue in the change room as well as a need to recruit several veil workers from amongst the patrons.

[Kenngo1969]

2 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

... Then we were in the 10am session Saturday morning. Attendance was 42 out of a possible 48: 23 men and 19 women. Staffing was not sufficient for the patronage level, and there was a long queue in the change room as well as a need to recruit several veil workers from amongst the patrons.

This might be asking for too much information: I'm not sure how comfortable I would be working the other side of the veil as a patron.  I think I remember how "that part" of the conversation is supposed to go, buuuut ... (I might need to ask for a "cheat sheet" ... and hope I could be accommodated!  )

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 hour ago, Kenngo1969 said:

I'm not sure how comfortable I would be working the other side of the veil as a patron.

People are trained for it. There's a special sticker on their recommends (for our temple, at least).

[Hamba Tuhan]

Post-temple lunch was pretty fantastic, too! Freshly cooked crispy egg noodles topped with tender beef and veg, a side of excellent chilli sauce (OK, I had three serves of chilli sauce ...), and a peach smoothie with passion fruit bubbles.

[Thinking]

Only the Church knows how many people have officially left, so anecdotal is pretty much what we have since the Church doesn't publish those numbers.

Anecdotes from my world:

My daughter married in the temple. She is active if you count attending 1 or 2 times per month as active. She also drinks cold coffee. My son has left the Church officially. He is gay.

My younger brother has left, though not officially. He doesn't think that part is necessary.

At least seven of my nieces or nephews have officially left or no longer attend. Some of them don't talk about it, but others have been vocal.

The three nephews who most recently graduated from high school chose not to serve missions.

[Hamba Tuhan]

5 hours ago, Thinking said:

Anecdotes from my world:

We live in very different worlds.