I had planned to write a review of this latest General Conference, but I couldn’t muster up the interest. This conference was particularly dull for me as a nonbeliever, and by that I mean it was controversy-free. Well, almost. Monson’s admonishment to young single men to get married received some attention, as did Packer’s statement that sexual sins are second only to murder and the denial of the Holy Ghost. Pretty unremarkable stuff, really.
Also during conference, the church reported having over 14 million members. The estimated number of active Mormons, however, is between 4 to 5 million, with 80% of them in the Western Hemisphere. The Deseret News reported recently that “[c]hurch growth has been falling for many years, and our current rate of missionary success is the lowest it’s been for decades.” At this rate, there will be more people leaving the church than converting to it by 2032. Richard Packham suggests that this may already be the case.
Speaking of exaggerated or inaccurate demographic statistics*: Kinsey’s oft-cited estimate that 10% of the population is gay is flawed. New research (with its own limitations) puts the number closer to 2%. (Correction: The research is new, but its findings aren’t; most studies have put the number between 2-5%.)
I appreciate dark humor more than most, but this BYU Bookstore treat is just tasteless. Our bookstore is also selling something provocative: poo paper.
In an address to the LDS International Society, University of Utah president Michael Young urged his fellow Mormons to join the ACLU.
A funny joke by Emo Phillips: “A Mormon told me that they don’t drink coffee. I said, ‘A cup of coffee every day gives you wonderful benefits.’ He said, ‘Like what?’ I said, ‘Well, it keeps you from being Mormon.”
The typical LDS chapel houses only a few wards, but a massive meetinghouse that is being constructed in Provo will be able to cater to an astounding 48 wards! Could this be the beginning of mega-church Mormonism?
Mormon sociologist and family friend Darron Smith writes that the BYU Honor Code adversely affects minority students and athletes.
If you’re interested in what’s new in the Mormon/ex-Mormon blogosphere, I’d recommend you read Main Street Plaza’s weekly “Sunday in Outer Blogness” posts. MSP has also created this phenomenal blog aggregator.
Does the universe need god? Physicist Sean Carroll thinks not.
A Mormon friend of mine finds the argument from consciousness the most compelling evidence for god’s existence. He made the case on his blog, and I left my rebuttal in the comments.
Earlier this month, Sam Harris debated Christian philosopher/apologist William Lane Craig about morality and god at Notre Dame. The entire debate can be viewed here. If you don’t have 2 hours to spare to watch it, here are a few summaries and reviews. The consensus seems to be that Craig won the debate, but not necessarily the argument.
Harris is among the better atheist debaters; the debate would have been an unmitigated disaster had this man represented the atheist position.
If patriarchy had an anthem, it’d be this: “I Need a Man”, sung by three single Mormon women to the tune of a Disney song. Maybe they’d have more success with the guys if they could sing it in Klingon.
A Quran is burned, and a violent riot ensues in Afghanistan. The Book of Mormon is satirized on Broadway, and Mormons just give a dismissive (if rather sanctimonious) shrug.
In the U.S., the LDS Church doesn’t have to disclose its finances. The church’s financials are public information in Canada, however. In 2009, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Canada gave $40,000,000 to BYU Provo—57.9% of the money received from the wards that year.
The 10 things everyone should know about science. To some degree, our scientific illiteracy has been evolutionarily programmed into our psychology.
This is how the Exodus from Egypt might have played out had Moses used Google, Facebook, and YouTube.
Backed by stunning illustrations, David Christian narrates a complete history of the universe, from the Big Bang to the internet, in a riveting TED talk.
Pastor Rob Bell has published a book that contends that everyone may go to Heaven, and it’s raising Hell within the evangelical community.
There was a bizarre and violent encounter at an “Ask an Atheist” event at Virginia Tech last week. One Christian student drew a cross on their hand and asked the atheists to stab it to supposedly demonstrate god’s existence. The atheists refused, so the Christian student began to repeatedly stab is hand until the cops restrained him.
Vote for Christopher Hitchens in the 2011 TIME 100 poll, which recognizes this year’s most influential thinkers.
An exhaustive study involving 32,000 high school students confirms that suicide attempts by gay teens are more common in politically conservative areas where schools don’t have programs supporting gay rights. The finding is hardly surprising, but I know that rural areas have higher rates of suicide generally. I wonder if they controlled for that.
This is one brave Bar Mitzvah speech.
Some recently discovered codices, perhaps the earliest Christian writings in existence, are being hailed as the biggest find in Christian history since the Dead Sea Scrolls. One reading of the text suggests that Jesus and his disciples formed a homosexual coterie. (Correction: Ruse’s interpretation may be totally fictitious; refer to the subtitle in the article. Second, there’s a growing suspicion that the codices themselves are forgeries.)
Another interesting historical discovery is a 5,000 year-old painting of the first gay caveman. (I worry, though, about applying terms such as “gay” to ancient or prehistoric peoples. That application could be anachronistic given that our understanding of human sexuality has changed over time.)
Eighteen years after Waco, I’m surprised to learn that David Koresh still has devotees that revere him as a god.
The LDS Church in Arizona is at the center of a sex abuse scandal for failing to report its (alleged) prior knowledge to the local authorities.
Texas Republican Louie Gohmert has introduced a bill to the House that would designate the first weekend of May as “Ten Commandments Weekend” to recognize their importance in our nation’s founding.
*This originally read: “Just as the LDS Church exaggerates its numbers, so too does the LGBT community.” I deleted this sentence because it was unfair. I didn’t mean to suggest that either Mormons or gays were being intentionally dishonest in citing inflated statistics (though that may sometimes be the case), only that the statistics themselves are inaccurate.
I don’t know that it’s fair to say that the LGBT community has been exaggerating its numbers in the same way that the LDS Church leadership has been. After all, Church leadership has the true numbers of active, semi-active, and inactive members of the Church in front of them, so if they purport to have a larger number it is deliberate. Mostly when the “10%” claim has been made, it has not been a deliberate lie or misdirection. Also, the study cited is only talking about self-proclaimed homosexuals. It doesn’t claim to account for the population of closeted homosexuals, nor does account for bisexuals, the B in the LGBT. When people say that “10% of the population are LGBT”, they are generally referring to the research done by Kinsey. They’re not only saying it because it makes them more powerful as a group, but also because, as far as they understand, it is based on some research.
“The prevalence of male homosexuality is debated. One widely reported early estimate was 10% (e.g., Marmor, 1980; Voeller, 1990). Some recent data provided support for this estimate (Bagley and Tremblay, 1998), but most recent large national samples suggest that the prevalence of male homosexuality in modern western societies, including the United States, is lower than this early estimate (e.g., 1–2% in Billy et al., 1993; 2–3% in Laumann et al., 1994; 6% in Sell et al., 1995; 1–3% in Wellings et al., 1994). It is of note, however, that homosexuality is defined in different ways in these studies. For example, some use same-sex behavior and not same-sex attraction as the operational definition of homosexuality (e.g., Billy et al., 1993); many sex researchers (e.g., Bailey et al., 2000; Bogaert, 2003; Money, 1988; Zucker and Bradley, 1995) now emphasize attraction over overt behavior in conceptualizing sexual orientation.” (p. 33) Also: “…the prevalence of male homosexuality (in particular, same-sex attraction) varies over time and across societies (and hence is a ‘‘moving target’’) in part because of two effects: (1) variations in fertility rate or family size; and (2) the fraternal birth order effect. Thus, even if accurately measured in one country at one time, the rate of male homosexuality is subject to change and is not generalizable over time or across societies.” (p. 33)
^ Bogaert AF (September 2004). “The prevalence of male homosexuality: the effect of fraternal birth order and variations in family size”. Journal of Theoretical Biology 230
tl;dr, The comparison between the deliberate exaggerating of size by the LDS Church and the LGBT community was unfair, because the LGBT community usually is basing their understanding of the statistic on some kind of research: not deliberate
I knew that comment of mine would spark debate. I’m not sure that the exaggeration is deliberate on the Mormon’s end. Just as the LGBT community bases their estimate of the gay population on a statistic (usually Kinsey’s), so too does the lay Mormon who hears the church announce it’s impressive-sounding growth at conference.
Thanks for plugging my weekly round-up and our new aggregator!!
I like yours too — and naturally we love it when you cross-post it on MSP, but I understand if you’d like to keep some of them for your own blog alone.
Regarding the new stats on gay people, I heard that the 2% statistic was of people who identify specifically as gay, and that if you include bisexuals it’s about that much again.
Also, I agree with Jack that it’s more a question of not having accurate data rather than of fudging data. The Kinsey report was ground-breaking, but it’s really, really old. It’s about time to get some more data.
I find it amusing that while we are ready and willing to believe that the LDS church manipulates their numbers, the suggestion that the data on the prevalence of homosexuality might be manipulated is “unfair.” If their numbers are inaccurate it is nothing intentional of course, just bad data. Right. It is just just inconceivable that there might be some “advocacy research” going on with those higher %s. This advocacy has been effective, by the way. A 2002 Gallup poll in the US showed that the average American thought that 21% of the population was gay. This sort of number inflation is an important part of creating the perception that things like bans on same-sex marriage are a “civil crisis.”
I recognize that there are limits to all of these studies. But it is not just “new research” that puts the number at 2%. For 20 years I’ve seen, and been told by psychologists and others in the social science fields, that the legitimate range is 2-5%.
Regarding Jesus being gay: That article was one of the most absurd bits of tabloid religious journalism I have seen in ages. Those of you interested in evidence might note that the piece provided absolutely no evidence for the claims. Jon says “one reading of the text suggests that Jesus and his disciples formed a homosexual coterie.” This really is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve heard Jon say. One reading of the text? Did you note the subtitle of the Michael Ruse piece? – “WHAT IF the newly found codices provide evidence of Jesus’s same-sex activity? Michael Ruse IMAGINES the implications.” In short, this is not a news piece. It is a piece of imaginative fiction. The few bits of the codices that Ruse cites gave no evidence of homosexuality and in fact added very little new to what we already know.
Are there some smoking gun passages that suggest he was “openly gay” and that the disciples were a “same-sex coterie”? If so, why does the more responsible BBC piece on them make no mention at all of homosexuality? If there is evidence of it, why would the BBC story have left it out? Wouldn’t that be front page news in every newspaper in the world? But, we may note, the NY Times didn’t even run a story on the codices, much less on them having evidence that Jesus and the apostles were in a same-sex coterie! You think the NY Times would have refrained from running that piece if it was legitimate? If nothing else, it would have given them an excuse to run another story on the Catholic sex abuse scandal (which they manage to mention in almost every article concerning either religion or sex).
Speaking of advocacy “research”, huh? I know, I know, it would be great if you could prove Jesus was gay. That would really show those nasty Christians, wouldn’t it? As such, the headline was just too titillating for Jon to ignore. So an article composed entirely of “imagining” and arm-chair psychology gets linked as “one reading of the text” (thus suggesting it as a legitimate reading). What a joke. I think a lot of this nonsense arises from the difficulty some have understanding intimate and close male friendships. Our over-sexed culture, not to mention our inflated statistics on the prevalence of homosexuality, always tends to read some homo-erotic nonsense into every intimate male relationship. It is sad, actually. What sort of understanding of maleness and friendship have we lost such that we can no longer conceive of a group of men (men, apostles, priests) as having a “platonic” intimacy?
“I find it amusing that while we are ready and willing to believe that the LDS church manipulates their numbers, the suggestion that the data on the prevalence of homosexuality might be manipulated is “unfair.””
For the record, I found my initial comment as unfair to Mormons and to the gay community. That’s why I removed it. I wasn’t admitting that the LDS Church fudges its numbers so as to deceive or anything.
“A 2002 Gallup poll in the US showed that the average American thought that 21% of the population was gay.”
Heh. My mom thought it was 25% ha ha.
“But it is not just “new research” that puts the number at 2%.”
You’re reading into my words way too much. The research IS new; I never said the findings were. I never agreed with Kinsey’s number, and always cited a 2-3% estimate in my discussions about homosexuality.
About Ruse’s piece: It was not at all clear from the text of the article that the work is a total fiction.The subtitle suggests that it is his mere speculation, but the text still suggests that he’s rendering an interpretation of the codices. In any case, I felt the text of the article was garbage–offering no evidence of the interpretation. I shared the link because my link bombs are for sharing interesting and popular links that are circulating among the atheist blogosphere. I don’t share things because I agree with them. And in sharing that link, I certainly didn’t think: “That would really show those nasty Christians, wouldn’t it?”
Those codices are likely forgeries.
http://danielomcclellan.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/peter-thonemann-on-the-lead-codices/
Thanks for these Jon – you always put a great list together.
I’m surprised you missed this one, Jon: http://deadspin.com/#!5791461/the-truth-about-race-religion-and-the-honor-code-at-byu.
My bad, I see it now. I didn’t recognize the author’s name.
Kleiner-
As far as I understand it, the 10% estimation is based on Kinsey’s study that counted anyone who had reported a homosexual encounter as gay. The 2% is based on someone who self-identifies as gay, which I do think is more accurate, but that’s not to say the 10% was deliberately manipulated just based on a standard that we now know doesn’t truly display the number of LGB members of the population. The LDS church leadership (not the lay membership, I find no fault with them) has access to this data, and continues to flaunt numbers that are grossly inaccurate. As an exmormon and LGBT advocate, I will wholly admit I have a bias, but the above reasons are why I think that the LDS church is manipulating their stats to make themselves look better than they do, and that the data about LGB people is simply out of date and needs to be updated.
Sidenote- I’ve never heard the 20% stat before, and though it could very well be that we as a community are inflating those numbers and thus influencing public perception, couldn’t it also be that people are making a guesstimate based on the visibility of gay people n their own experience?
Fair points, Kellie. By the way: I am with you – I think the LDS leadership is intentionally fudging the figures. I suspect this is common in some sense. I doubt that all 1.2 billion listed Catholics are active members. In fact, I’ve seen estimates that “only” 500 million of them or so are active. The difference, though, is that the LDS Church tends to use the membership figures as a “brag” or as a way of showing that they have graduated from “regional faith” status to full-blow “world religion” status. In short, the figure is plugged and there is considerable self-interest in having it be inflated.
On the statistics on homosexuality, the figures range depending on what question is asked. That is one reason why it is so difficult to get reliable figures. But the 10% figure is outmoded and outdated. My point (meant mostly in as a jest) was that the 10% figure keeps coming up even though most have recognized for some time that it is an inflated number. For that reason, I think certain advocacy groups and individual advocates have continued to use that figure in some bad faith.
As to the 20% figure from the early 2000s: Was that when that Queer Eye for the Straight Guy show was so popular? I remember South Park doing a funny episode on metrosexuality around that time. Maybe the prevalence and popularity of all things “gay” bumped the figures up? Perhaps people just have over-active “gaydars”.
LDS church has access to this data- ie membership records, lol, not number of gay people in the population. Rough transition there.
Jon— Sorry, I never meant to implicate Mormon members, only the Church leaders. I find it highly doubtful that Monson and the twelve do not know how many members they have. That’s all I meant when I said that I believed the Church leaders misrepresentation of Mormon numbers was deliberate.
Yeah, I think we’re on the same page then.
kleiner,
I think safety in numbers is always a factor, regardless of demographic. While I haven’t researched beyond Kinsey studies, I do know that bishops report the active and inactive members in their wards, so it seems clearer to me that the inflated number is for bragging purposes. No doubt selection bias is part of it, since I’m part of the obnoxious exmormon crowd, and not very involved in LGBT issues.
Either way, the greater numbers work in all cases. I don’t think its accidentally reported to have huge numbers of Catholics any more than larger numbers of the LGBT community. As long as numbers mean importance, which in many cases they do, the trend will probably continue. I may disagree with the editing of the article, because exaggerated numbers are what they are regardless of the motives. The gaydar certainly seems to take effect, especially when “safety in numbers” isn’t always a flattering concept.
Love this church’s approach to the Qur’an.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/51674758-78/church-book-presbyterian-jones.html.csp