The data supporting increased membership of the Church of Latter Day Saints is a bit
ambiguous, considering its trends are centered around COVID and the pandemic's impact on society.
Scott tell us more about the unclear data and why we should care if
at all. Sure well as April Tulips bloom, the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter Day Saints unveils its annual statistics emit ferrent speculation. Two contrasting narratives
emerge, one suggesting that the churches inevitably declining, the others championing its unwavering
growth. Yet, amidst this seeming paradox, a plea for perspective arises,
emphasizing the neutrality of data and the complexity of religious dynamics. While twenty twenty
three showcased modest growth both globally and in the United States, deeper analysis reveals
nuanced challenges despite marginal increases in membership and missionary activity. Concerns linger over dwindling
birth rates and waning commitment. The juxtaposition of these narratives underscores the intricate landscape
of Latter Day Saint demographics, where optimism meets apprehension in the face of evolving
religious landscapes. The story is from the Salt Lake Tribune by Justin McClellan and
it was released on April thirteenth, twenty twenty four. So there's a lot
of data packed into this story where it could support potentially arise in Latter day
Saints church attendance. Excuse me, and then, but there are some nuances
that we're missing. Richard. You suggest that the world becoming more educated could
lead to a decline in the belief of the LDS dogma. But considering that
there is still so much religion out there in the world that exists, is
this a matter of education or could it be something else? Well, it's
a combination of two things, education and doctrination. As long as the religious
people that exist keep indoctrinating their kids and don't let them learn how to be
critical thinkers, we're going to continue to have some growth in religion because that's
where it comes from. That's where it's always come from. Myself, as
a permit, I was not indoctrinated into anything, and I grew up to
be a wonderful skeptical thinker. Well you know, probably, Well you can.
You can play with that all you want, but in any case,
the point is this, if you if I'll go back to one simple statistic,
the vast majority of people have the same religion as their parents or the
cultural group they grew up in. What does that tell you about where it
comes from? Yeah? Uh, well, Scott, people say that numbers
don't lie. So when we look at this data, is there really anything
wrong with reading these numbers that show there is actually an increase in church attendance
in the Olds Church? What are your thoughts on that one? Well,
I would say the numbers don't lie, but the interpretation of those numbers can.
That's that's where the confusion can come in. Or they even sometimes intentional
misleading can can happen there. And it's all about it's all the way that
that it's interpreted. Uh. Richard Feynman, the physicist, once said that
if you're if you're if your theory conflicts with observation, then you're wrong.
And so uh so, here the numbers are just a reflection of reality.
Okay, they gathered that, we're assuming that that it's uh, you know
that they used decent methodology and gathering this data. But the data just reflects
what they found, and so it's the interpretation that's the problem. And I
think in that regard, I think this data is really I mean, we've
just got we're still on the on the rebound from this massive, massive worldwide
pandemic. It's something that rarely happens, if ever, in the world,
and so our normal uh interpretation of data has to adjust. And I think
that if you look at the at the data that they're showing, they show
a drastic drop off in twenty twenty uh and then and then an increase,
even a slight increase to above where it was before of their new new baptisms
and their new children. And but we have to we have to consider the
fact that this pandemic can have more of an effect than just that one particular
year. For example, if somebody wants to baptize their child into the Mormon
Church and and a pandemic just hit, they're not going to just say,
oh, screw it, and then we're not going to do it right.
They're going to put it off for a year. So you would expect there
to be some kind of bounce back. Same thing if somebody wants to be
baptized into the church. They're not going to say, oh, well,
I guess I'm not going to be a Mormon because of COVID. No,
they're just gonna say, well, let's wait until things calm down and then
we're going to go back in. And so you can there's analysis that can
be done to show that that, yeah, numbers are increasing, and that's
fine. But interpreting those numbers to mean that enrollment is on the rise,
I think is way too soon, way way too soon. We need to
we need to re establish baselines in this new paradigm. Well, I want
to compare that to other baselines that we know exists. And Jonathan, I
have to turn again to you and your military experience, as I frequently do.
But when we look at years where the economy is down, things like
military recruitment go up, college enrollment goes up, and as the economy improves,
jobs tend to well be more available. And this correlation reverses. People
leave the military, people stop going to school, and they go to work.
But the opposite seems to be happening here. Okay, so the impact
that COVID had kind of having an opposite effect. So does Scott have a
point? Is this a bounce back or is there something else that we're missing.
Well, well, in the military we call those economic draftees. But
the church growth, well, growth and influence of any church is nonlinear,
so you're going to see fluctuations due to things like the pandemic. I agree
with Scott on that it's going to affect the numbers, but if you take
out the pandemic years, it's likely they picked up where they left off,
because the overall population of LDS adherents has risen over the ten year last ten
years, consistent growth of about one percent per year. So when you're looking
at these, you also have to take into account of what are the percentages
based on Is it just their thing or is that what's How does the percentage
of the growth of the US population as a whole affect that, You know,
how many of the group that they're drawing their new converts from is actually
available to them, and if that grows, then you might see some growth
also. So there's a lot of nuance to this that is very difficult to
parse out if you don't have the actual study and you don't have access to
the actual numbers and where they got them from, because there can be a
lot of distortion. Like like I agree with Scott, there can be a
lot of distortion in the analysis of it. And I'm not a statistician,
though I do have one in my family, and I can tell you that
I would love to get them to look at the study and see what they
think of it, because that would be an interesting conversation. However, we
don't have the actual study. We have reporting on the actuals. Yeah,
and so go ahead, finish up real quick, and then I want to
jump over to Richard. Well, it's just one of the things that happens
is that we need to get more into the weeds on that, and we
don't really have time here to do it. But you know, there's you
know, there is a few other points that could be made, but I
don't think they're you know, really relevant now that we've gone to this far.
Well, on that note, you know, I want to get back
to the point that that Richard made as far as education is concerned, you
know, is educating our our youth, is educating our society? Really whittling
this down, Richard, what do we have to do in order to ensure
that people are not just indoctrinated Generation after generation and allowing this kind of uh,
you know, I guess, perpetuity of these ridiculous beliefs. What are
the what are the steps we need to take as a society to ensure that
we can all that from happening. Broll. One of the things that we're
doing is the kind of programs we put on here because we get to young
adults hopefully and if their minds get opened and they start looking at things and
start questioning, and then when they have kids, they don't, you know,
send them off to be indoctrinated. I think that can really help.
It's you know, I mean, I'll just give you an example. When
I went to high school, we had a class on civics, taught us
all about how the government works. Most school districts don't have that anymore.
Kids grow up and they don't have an idea that there's three branches of government.
I mean, it's that crazy. But I would love and maybe Scott,
maybe your teacher, someday we should talk about this. I'm thinking I
got too many projects going on, but one of the projects is I'd like
to put together a class for how to teach people to be you know,
critical thinkers. How to look at things and analyze them as opposed to you
know, you know this probably better than I do. But I have a
lot of friends that are teachers, and these these standardized test stuff. You
know, all it does is how well do you memorize something and can spit
it back. That doesn't teach people how to think, you know, I
mean, that's you know, okay, So you know that Washington was the
first president. What were his politics? You know, what was going on
there? I mean the same thing about Jefferson and Madison. You know,
those are the two guys that were pushing hard for keeping religion out of government.
But you would never know that when you listen to some of these Christian
apologists talk about it. We're a Christian nation, you know that. I
mean, I mean there's so much there, and especially now with people trying
to ban books. They don't want people to learn about other cultures and just
they're trying to keep everything so tribal. So you know, I grew up
very luckily in a very mixed racial neighborhood and I had friends that were black,
brown, Asian, Native American. I played sports with them, I
had my advanced math classes with them. I saw some that were really bright,
some that were I mean, it was just a human panoply of things
that experience, you know, and learning with people. I had some really
good teachers in high school and college that forced you to think, not they
don't they don't want any spinning back stuff. They demanded that you come up
with some other ideas. And that's the kind of stuff that makes people look
at things and go, you know, that doesn't sound right. I think
I take a look at that, and so that's what's that's what we got
to move toward. You know, I want to ask Scott, you know,
because you bring up a good point. Scott's a teacher, and you
know, this education problem or or lack of education in these these corners could
definitely have an impact on the growth of these if on the growth of these
organizations, if the proper education is not given, Scott, what do you
see in your circles? Is education getting better over time? And if not,
is there is it helping along these this dogmatic thinking and allowing organizations like
the LDS to kind of a positive spin on some of these uh some of
these this data, well, I mean clearly I have a biased opinion here
being being a teacher and in in the industry, and so you know,
we need to you know, my take my words with a grain of salt.
First thing, though, I want to I want to clarify something.
When I was talking about bounce back. What I'm saying, I'm not saying
that I think that's what was happening. What I'm saying is that the data
can be used to create multiple narratives that are conflicting with each other. And
so based off of that, we need to we need to be concerned on
what Richard was saying about about skeptical thinking. Your question now is is can
we you know, is education improving? Yeah? I think I think education
the educational system I think is much better than when I was in school.
I think that, and again I have a biased opinion here. I think
the public attitude towards education, though, has changed quite a bit. Uh
parental attitudes, student attitudes, UH, administration attitudes, government attitudes. I
think that I think it's getting harder and harder to do things just in general,
and so H educating is one of those things that I think we're we're
coming up against bigger and bigger challenges we're having UH lesser administrative support. We're
having constant pressures on budgets and things like that, and we're being asked to
do more with less, uh and and so it's it's a complex uh miasma
there to to try to analyze. And so, you know, we talk
about on all of the ACA shows about how it's okay to say I don't
know, right if if you if you don't have enough information to make a
conclusion one way, other one way or the other. I think I think
it's okay to say we don't know. You know, we want to direct,
we want to direct the investigation and we want to direct our information gathering
so that we can get useful information to make improvements. But yeah, I
think I've I know, me personally, I've improved as a teacher every year
since I've started. And uh, you know, we we try new things,
we try changing things. Sometimes people like it, sometimes they don't.
But it's it's it's, uh, you know, the educational system doesn't live
in a vacuum. And so that's how you get to that skeptical that skeptical
thinking, you know, that's how you know by by making the improvements and
analyzing the way that we do things. We get to that skeptical thinking so
that we can say, I don't know. And to to counter back to
your point about the bounce back, what I was saying is, you know,
is this just a positive spin that that shows a bounce back from the
ld S? Right? And so I think I could agree with you there
where the the LDS takes this data and they say, oh, look at
us, look at our bounce back, right, But in reality it's not
necessarily what's happening, that's right, And actually I take you know, I'm
encouraged by the fact that I think, you know, the article itself did
caution against interpreting the data one way, the one way or the other,
and good on them, uh for doing that. But normally an organization like
this and this is again my this is just my opinion, and I'm I'm
an atheist activist, and so I'm biased against religion in general. But to
me, it seems like this would be exactly the kind of thing where the
church would want to pretty it up and would want to present it as being
nicer than it is. So the fact that they're cautioning, you know,
jumping to conclusions, to me makes me suspicious that well, maybe it's worse
than what they're presenting, right, maybe maybe when they pretty it up to
get it up to the point of of you know, of I don't know.
Then you know, to me, that's that's encouraging. Yeah, yeah,
and I want to we got to move to Jonathan. Jonathan, you
had some interesting points to make about all this data, and you know,
reading over kind of what your thoughts are here, you do you care to
expand on on some of these, uh, some of these numbers that the
ld S is championing. Yeah, Like I said, there's the growth is
interesting when you take a look at some of the numbers. If if you
take into account actual population growth in the US point four to nine percent,
so you're if you're taking the count births and deaths, it's it's it's almost
like zero point five percent, right, half a percent. And if they're
growing at one percent per year there as a percentage of the population, it's
kind of you know, it's not really that impressive. So you know,
the numbers include those of course who are still on the rolls but do not
practice or tithe or loosely or loosely affiliated. I mean, they only go
when they kind of have to, you know, and that is is something
that kind of shows that, Yeah, numbers can be deceptive when you don't
when you try and unspin them. You know, worldwide LDS growth was one
point four nine percent, you know, which is compared to the point four
nine of population growth worldwide of seventy three million a year. So it's like,
yeah, that with their birth rates and things like that doesn't seem to
be all that impressive. So again, big grain of salt with the report.
But again they did try and balance it a little bit, but that
can be just another you know, way to make it look presentable. Yeah,
absolutely, you know I have I haven't thought about something that that Scott
said earlier. Somebody else might have said it about, you know, the
statistics don't lie, and then it's about interpreting. But I would I would
go one step farther with a group like this. That's basic doctrines are so
far from reality that let's put it this way. People that report statistics can
lie, people that collect them can lie. You know, when I when
I look at polling, the first thing I want to know about a poll
is who asked the questions? What were the exact questions, and who were
they asked of, because otherwise a pole doesn't mean a damn thing. I
could create a poll and talk to a thousand people and get exact exactly what
I wanted by taking it to certain neighborhoods and posing the question, you know,
like that that that funny old question are you still being your wife?
You know, presupposes an answer. So, I mean, but they do
that in polls. They I get pulls all the time. I'm gonna you
know, all the time, and some of them are just so ridiculous that
they don't have good options in there they even want to vote on. So
I you know, I mean, I don't know how many of you folks
have read the Book of Mormon, but there's nothing in there that tells me
anybody's being rational and that they could maybe not even count right. I'm sorry,
but you know that goes to the larger point that I think everybody made
right. So we have we have Richard, you brought up the point of
education. We and when we had Jonathan and Scott talking about how data can
be used to kind of skew the truth. And you know, when you
have poor education or you have a way to kind of use data to your
advantage. We end up with this h repetuity of people just believing the wrong
thing, you know, because you can take really any information that you have,
whether it's through a really poor education system or a lack of complete data,
and spin your own message. And this is how we see this generational
this generational. I guess I don't know what the what the right term I'm
looking for is, but we're just stuck, you know, we're just stuck
in a position where we're not moving on. And so on that note,
I want to get everybody's opinion one last time, Scott. I'm going to
go to you first, Jonathan. I'm gonna come to you, and then
Richard will close out this segment with you. So Scott, go ahead.
Sure. I think this is a great example. One of the things that
I tell my students I teach an intro statistics class, and one of the
things that I tell them is that one of the best reasons to learn math
and to learn statistics is so that you can't be manipulated and tricked by other
people who know more math than you. And so knowledge is power, and
so it's right there for the taking. Take a statistics course, Jonathan and
yeah, and don't believe it that just because it's math, your eyes glaze
over and you shut down. Math is fun. Actually, so I I
enjoyed math all the way through school, and I think that, uh uh,
there's some really great teachers out there. But again, you have to
be aware of not just what your formal fallacies and your informal fallacies are and
how to think critically, but you also have to be able to use how
numbers can be used to model and that and how they can be used to
deceive. I think education is key what we've what we've come across here,
and I want to I want to pitch that to Richard since that was his
original thoughts, So go ahead and close out what your thoughts are on this
segment. Well, you know, just off the top of my head,
I think I would have rather had a discussion about their doctrine. But the
numbers here are are are interesting, but you know, they're so non differential
in one respect, I don't know if it makes much difference. There was
no big up off our big gain. You know, somebody wrote an article
and we picked it up. You know. I just think we have to
look carefully about these things and worry more about what's you know, what's happening.
I mean the fact that Scott is teaching a beginning statistics class. I
think that's fantastic because the more I'm a math guy I was. I was
like one of the top math kids in my school when I was in school,
and I loved it and I still love it, and it's funny.
I use it all the time in various funny little ways which I won't bore
you with. But there's just things that you run into in life where you
know, knowing how to do things like that and understand things mathematically makes life
easier and more understandable. Math certainly is fun. To quote the great Jonathan
wrote a bush and you know, we owe it to ourselves to be able
to interpret things. Honestly, we owe it to our generations that come after
us to give them the tools to be able to do that as well.