Mormon Mathematics - The Algorithm Method

Number crunchers, mathemeticians, statisticians and computer software types are here by called of Lord to extrapolate, analyze, theorize and calculate how the LDS Church is going to perform temple work for all past, current and future inhabitants of planet Earth; How many mormons will actually make it to the Celestial Kingdom; How many resurrected people, plants and animals will be there be and where will they live; How long until the Second Coming; How about travel to and from Kolob;and more. Please email any data or questions on this issue and it will be posted here.

How many will be excluded from the Celestial Kingdom because of a shoddy baptism?

08/08/2005 - by U. Thummim

The bureaucratic Mormon God will be excluding a number of people who thought that they had checked off all the required boxes to enter the Celestial Kingdom - CK. As we all know, many ordinances require exact wordings and actions to be valid. Using probability analysis we can estimate the number of performed botched ordinances to find the number of people that will be eternally screwed because of a mistake by the performing priesthood holder, dooming those souls to lower kingdoms than they otherwise would have achieved.

For example, baptism can be checked off in heaven only if the prayer is recited verbatim with the correct hand gesture and the baptizee is entirely immersed in the water at some instant in time shortly thereafter (exposed toes, knuckles, or incompletely immersed hair requires a do-over). Two witnesses are required at each baptism to verify its suitability. Other ordinances such as confirmation, initiatory, and endowment also require exact standards, but are trickier and not always as thoroughly policed as baptism. So these ordinances likely have been botched even more often than for baptisms.

It is not uncommon for one or both of the witnesses to ask that the baptism be redone for the one or more of the following reasons (but not limited to): verbal deviation from the written standard, arm not fully to the square or fingers extended correctly, or the bapitzee not fully immersed. A little probability analysis can be illuminating regarding how reliable this process is. Whether or not false negatives are theologically significant or not (causing a properly performed ordinance to be re-performed) should probably also be explored as there are undoubtedly even more of those.

Suppose a slightly erratic priesthood holder performs baptisms correctly only 75% of the time, but has two witnesses that are each correct 90% of the time (wrong 10% of the time). With two witnesses the rate of false positives will be about 1 in 400 ((1-0.9) ´ (1-0.9) ´ (1-0.75)). Estimating from the number of baptisms attended by the author in the last decade and a half (~40) that needed to be re-performed (~4-7) I would guess that 80-90% accuracy for those doing the baptizing. For the sake of argument, suppose 95% accuracy on their behalf. For the witnesses, 98% accuracy seems sufficiently conservative. Assuming that witness fallibility is independent is a best-case scenario, although not entirely realistic (a mistake may be missed by both witnesses for the same reason such as an inopportune sneeze). These values suggest false positives with the chance of 1 in 50 thousand. For matlab reasons, let’s use an even more conservative estimate of 1 in 100 thousand.

The probability, f, of having at least one false positive (screw up) in a population of size s is given by f = 1 - (1-p)s, where p is the probability of a mistake not being noticed (e.g., 1/100,000). f ranges from 0 (impossible) to 1 (certain). As f becomes larger, the likelihood that more than one also increases. The probability, q (again ranging from 0 to 1), that there will be any particular number, g (0, 1, 2, …), of false positives in a given population is found by

q = k(1-p)(s-g)pg,

where

k = s!/(g!(s-g)!)

and ! means factorial.

With the current pool of 12 million members, f > 0.999999999999999999999, meaning that there is a greater than 99.9999999999999999999% chance that at least one soul is eternally screwed because their ordinance was botched. Just among the 4 million, or so, actually striving for the CK, there is probably between 30-50 screwed souls (figure). With a quick extrapolation to the roughly 20-50 million baptisms occurring in the church since 1830 (not counting all the dead dunking), there is a greater probability of someone winning the Missouri Mega Millions Powerball Lottery 10 times in row than in having everyone’s ordinances done to the bureaucratic standards of Kolob.

These problems could actually be even worse than shown above. What if an eternally screwed person baptizes someone else? Since the baptizer couldn’t have the proper authority, that baptizee is also screwed and the witnesses aren’t going to catch it. Since Joseph and Oliver didn’t have any witnesses to make sure they did it right, there is a good case that we are all screwed anyway, even if Joe’s crazy ass stories had any truth to them.

Mathematical difficulty with resurrection

03/11/2005 - from Curious exmo

Question: Once long ago I read about a mathematical difficulty with resurrection. It seems that there is a particular mineral that is essential to life in trace amounts, but is so scarce that it must constantly be recycled from dead organisms to living ones via the environment. According to the experts, there is not enough of this mineral for everyone to be resurrected simultaneously. Problem is, I can't remember the name of the mineral, much less the quantities involved. Do you or your math wizzes know anything about this. I'd love to see the numbers worked through again. BTW, I love your site. Thanks!

Answer: If I recall correctly. The molar percetage of phosphorous compared to other elements in biochemistry is greater than the percentage of phosphorous compared to those same elements in the earth. IOWs, if you started to magically create people out of the elements available on earth (including from all non-human life), you would first run out of phosphorus, and be left with excess carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, etc...

I doubt that the biomass of all humans in time could exceed the amount of phosphorous needed to resurect them all though. - by Pan of Recovery from Mormonism

Answer #2: Hey, we're talking about RESURRECTED bodies, so, just for the sake of argumentwho's to say that the trace element would even be needed. Maybe it would be replaced by the mineral Kolobium, which could be beamed down in adequate quantities from a planet orbiting Kolob.

When you're talking about these supernatural phenomena, it's always important to remember that they are, well, supernatural.

My problem with mass resurrection is the inevitable traffic jams that are going to result--especially if all of these super-sized Mormon families are expecting to drive around in resurrected Dodge minivans. - by Beaujolais Joe

Re-calculating Weight of the Gold Plates

03/08/2005 - from Backseater

Someone asked about the weight of the gold plates. I'm a nevermo, but was visited by the Missionaries in 1979 and got as far as the third or fourth discussion. Since I was a graduate student in chemistry at the time, I calculated an approximate minimum mass for the gold plates, based on information in the Book of Mormon 1977 Missionary edition--which I still have, and am looking at as I write this; it's the one that says "white and delightsome" in II Nephi 30:36.

The following is a reconstruction of the original calculation, with some latter-day refinements (sorry!) to make it even better. Warning: Calculations Ahead!

1. DENSITY OF GOLD: 19.3 grams per cubic centimeter (Merck Index, 13th edition, Whitehouse Station, NJ, Merck & Co., 2001, #4529, p 804). Gold is 1.7 times as dense as lead (11.34 g/cc). Iridium, the densest element at 22.65 g/cc, is only about 17 percent more dense than gold.

One inch equals 2.54 centimeters, and one avoirdupois pound equals 453.59 grams. Thus, after some preliminary calculations (not shown), we find that the density of gold is equal to 316 grams, or 0.697 pounds, per cubic inch.

2. PAGES OF TEXT IN THE BOOK OF MORMON, 1977 missionary edition (hereafter cited as BOM): 521.25 (page 522 is only about 1/4 full). This does not include the pictures in the front, the story of finding the plates, testimonies of the witnesses, pronounciation chart, or index, which presumably were not in the original; It also does not include the Friberg illustrations, which are on unnumbered pages. There are no gaps or major whitespaces in the entire printed text.

3. AREA OF TEXT PER PAGE IN THE BOM: 5.5 by 3.5 inches. The actual printed area is 6.0 inches high, but we subtract 0.5 inch from the text height as a (generous) estimate of the average footnote area per page, since the footnotes were probably not part of the original text.

It is not clear whether the book and chapter headings and introductions were written on the gold plates or were added during or after translation; perhaps some TBM scholar can help us out here. For this calculation, we shall assume that they are included. If they are not, the final answer should be reduced by some small amount, probably less than five percent. Anyone wishing to measure and add up the areas of all the book and chapter headings for a more precise figure, has my permission to do so.

4. TOTAL TEXT AREA OF THE BOM: 5.5 inches x 3.5 inches x 521.25 pages = 10,034 square inches of text area--including book and chapter headings but not including front matter, back matter, or footnotes. IMPORTANT: we assume the total text area of the gold plates was the same.

5. DIMENSIONS OF THE GOLD PLATES: according to the caption to an illustration of a Persian gold plate in the front of the BOM (page not numbered): "As described by Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon plates were about six inches wide, eight inches long, and about the thickness of common tin." This is very close to the size of a Franklin Planner page (8.5 x 5.5 inches), but that's probably just coincidence.

Perhaps an archeologist or Roadshow antique dealer could give us a reliable estimate for the thickness of "common tin" in upstate New York in the 1820s; but lacking such data, we asssume that it was not less than 1/16 inch. Gold can actually be beaten or rolled out much thinner than this, in fact into sheets only a few thousand atoms thick--but I digress. We shall base our estimate on Joseph Smith's description as quoted in the BOM.

6. WEIGHT OF EACH GOLD PLATE: If we take the "thickness of common tin" to be 1/16 inch (0.0625 inch), we have a volume for each plate of 6.0 inches x 8.0 inches x 0.0625 inches, or 3.00 cubic inches. Multiplying this by 0.697 pounds per cubic inch for the density of gold (see above), we have 2.09 pounds of gold per plate.

The illustrated Persian plate is stated to be "about" the size of the BOM plates, and appears to have narrow, but definite margins. Clearly, there had to be a margin on at least one edge of each plate, to allow room for the holes and the gold rings. If we assume margins of 1/8 inch on all sides of the writing, we have a text area of 5.75 inches by 7.75 inches, or 44.6 square inches per side. Further assuming that the plates were engraved on both sides, we multiply by 2 and get 89.1 square inches of text per plate. This is a generous estimate. If we are not so generous, assuming 1/4-inch margins all around would give 82.5 square inches per plate, a difference of about 7.5 percent.

7. MINIMUM NUMBER OF PLATES REQUIRED: 10,034 square inches of text in the BOM divided by 89.1 square inches of text per plate equals 112.58, or rounded up to the next whole number, 113 plates. With 1/4-inch margins, the minimum figure is 122 plates. Since each plate is 1/16 inch thick, the total thickness of the plates would be between 7.06 and 7.62 inches--which is certainly consistent with depictions of the plates in LDS paintings and artwork (see Friberg painting #8, described in more detail below), although a little greater than the six-inch total thickness estimate ascribed to Joseph Smith.

8. AND FINALLY--WEIGHT OF THE ENTIRE MASS OF GOLD PLATES: A minimum number of 113 gold plates (with 1/8-inch margins) times 2.09 pounds per plate gives 236 pounds of gold plates. If we assume 1/4-inch margins, we have 122 plates times 2.09 pounds per plate to give 255 pounds--again, a difference of about 8 percent.

9. RESTATEMENT OF ASSUMPTIONS USED. The key assumption in this calculation is that the information density of the text on the gold plates was the same as in the modern BOM. I believe this is quite reasonable, using the picture of the Persian plate thoughtfully provided in the BOM as an example; and considering that someone engraving holy scripture on gold would take great care in his or her work.

Other assumptions include excluding the front matter, back matter, and footnotes; including the book and chapter headings; and estimating the width of the margins. The first of these assumptions actually reduces the miniumum weight considerably, and the other two have an effect of only a few percent each, in opposite directions. Thus, we have been very fair to the LDS point of view, and still have a minimum weight for the gold plates of between 236 and 255 pounds.

My original figure in 1979 was around 385 pounds, but this was based on BOM total page area, not text area. This calculation is less dramatic, but is more precise because it takes more factors into account.

10. CONCLUDING REMARKS. I seem to remember reading somewhere--or perhaps hearing from the Missionaries--that a portion of the record was sealed (perhaps reserved for future revelations), and therefore was not translated by Joseph Smith. I do not know where to look to find out if this is true, and if so, how many plates were sealed--and of course, I'm not getting paid for this--so again, I appeal to TBM scholars (maybe at FARMS?) for details. The present calculation does not allow for any sealed, untranslated plates; but if there were any, they would only add to the minimum weight--at 2.09 pounds each.

Our estimate also does not allow anything for the weight of the gold rings holding the plates together (some but not all of which would be counterbalanced by loss of gold due to the holes), or for any sort of title page or cover. In Friberg painting #8 (BOM, facing p 483) Mormon himself is shown holding the gold plates. There definitely appears to be a cover of some kind, presumably also of gold, and clearly thicker than 1/16 inch. In fact, it is more than half the thickness of Mormon's little finger which is right next to it, and thus is probably close to 1/2 inch thick (characters in Friberg paintings have big hands). This would add even more weight. Estimating another 50 pounds for the sealed portion, the rings, and the cover all together certainly does not seem unreasonable, and gives us a total weight of about 300 pounds.

As a nevermo ex-Presbyterian and at present a Unitarian, I hesitate to get into the deeper theological implications of all this; but I will suggest that if the teenaged Joseph Smith lifted the plates out of the hole himself, and ran through the woods holding them (as I think is written somewhere), then he is not accurately depicted in LDS statues and paintings. Indeed, he must have been built like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

_______________________________

Don't forget the 116 pages

If calculating the weight based on the number of pages in the BOM, you also have to consider the 116 pages translated from the large plates of Nephi and allegedly lost. That would increase the weight by approximately another 22% - perhaps more if the "large plates" were significantly larger. This would give a weight of close to 300 lbs. without the sealed portion. Including the sealed portion is going to give a weight then of probably 350-400 lbs. (depending on assumptions as to how extensive the sealed portion is).

Ol' Joe must have been the original steroid user. - 03/09/2005 - D. P. Gumby

_________________________________

Sealed portion size

Seems to me from seminary classes that the "sealed portion" was 2/3 of the entire gold plates. Wow. Do the math on that one. - 03/09/2005 - Black Sheep

Holy McDonald's PlayPlace

12/18/2004 - by Rex

You know - if God weren't dead, you guys would be in deep trouble. But don't worry - the celestial kingdom was going to be ridiculously crowded anyway; Joseph Smith said all children who die before the age of 8 went straight to the highest heaven.

Well, damn if infant mortality worldwide is 50% from malnutrtion. 5 out of 10 kids born - boom, take the Great Glass Elevator right to Holy McDonald's PlayPlace.

I see heaven as an annoying place of too many screeching kids, dried up primary teachers and Allah-loving suicide bombers. I hope my heavenly mansion has thick friggin' walls to keep out the din.

What movies have been projected to more empty theater seats than the temple movie?

07/31/2004 - by Reinventing Grace

In "The American Religion", Harold Bloom states that the Book of Mormon "exists in more unread copies than any other work"--even the King James Bible. Meaning more copies of the BoM exist, unread, than any other book in the world (if I'm interpreting correctly). (p. 127).

So, has the temple movie been shown to more empty seats than any other movie in the world?

Suppose, 100 temples, average theater room seats 55, average temple has 2 theaters. Movie takes 2 hours, that's 10 showings/day/temple. Or, the movie is shown to 500 seats/temple/day, or 55,000 seats/day.

Suppose, to be generous, there's 10% occupancy of those seats. That's 50,000 empty seats that get to watch the temple movie each day. Shown 250 days/yr, that's 12.5M empty seats/yr., with the present flock of temples.

Suppose before the 1999 minitemple building spree there were half as many theaters total, with about 20,000 empty seats per day. That was 5M empty seats per year, or 100M empty seats over 20 years.

So, by the end of 2004 we should be up to 150,000,000 showings of the temple movie to empty seats...

Can any other movie top that?

The Practical Transmission of Prayer

07/12/2004 - by Rex

As we are told in LDS Sunday School - a thousand years on Earth is as a day unto the Lord. That makes, your life and mine, if we make it to a healthy 75 years old (a transparently Western hope), seem like about 1 hour and 42 minutes to God.

But where this math really gets kicking is when it comes to God personally answering prayer. If you figure there 6 billion folks on earth, and maybe a good third of them pray twice a day in some way or another, that's 4 billion prayers a day. Our days - not the Lord's. No, to figure out how many prayers He's pressed to answer in his Lordly day (this assumes he doesn't sleep, and how could he if he's all seeing?) - we need to do some multiplication.

We need to multiple by 365 to get a year's worth of prayer, then again by 1,000 to get a thousand year's worth of prayer.

That 4 billion per OUR day just became 1,460,000,000,000 human prayers (if animals have souls, this could get REALLY nasty, but we're sticking with humans for now) that God fields in a single one of HIS days.

Imagine what that would sound like to His ears which can't stop listening, by definition. Sometimes I get the phone call from a fax machine on my home phone and that shrill alien scream of the machine is what I imagine the burst transmission of 1.46 zillion prayers would sound like. Every day? No wonder Our Heavenly Father dropped a flood on our heads every now and again.

Of course, why would God answer all these prayers himself? He could ordain angels and subordinates to handle the bulk, obviously. I mean, if He let Jesus create the Earth and Heavens and Fauna - but you know, "in His name", then He could certainly set up a prayer "call center." It is said that Heaven is set up like the LDS Church, and that can only mean layers of hierarchy (run by men, while the women folk are laid up eternally in stirrups, squirting out millions of spirit children).

Simple prayers - prayers of thanks, prayers of grace over a meal - these need merely be logged. They don't require a response. Selfish request prayers - bring me a pony or soften Angela's heart so she'll pick me for the Sadie Hawkins' Dance - just work against you in the log and are probably deducted from your good deeds later (if you have any). Panicked request prayers, like let my brother live, or let me walk/talk/see/hear again, probably hit the call center, and are routed up to a supervisor - for a possible "yes" answer (rare). Let's face it a miracle healing is called a "miracle" because it only happens once every 10,000 times.

The big prayers - prayers from Popes or prophets or Jesus or the Dalai Lama or whatever - these are automatically routed to the supervisor for quick triage, and these probably go up to the seraphim, who check the big book of appointments for God or Jesus or whomever is available. God, maybe, hears a recording of this prayer and probably gives a Romanesque thumbs up or thumbs down, which is then routed back to the prayer-maker as a burning bosom of peace or maybe just a dark chest full of "uh-oh".

The best part is that no matter what the answer, or non-answer, is that it is the Will of God. Sweet deal. The cancer goes away or rots through your very viscera - yup, that's what God wanted. Because there's a Plan! A big Plan! So big that you won't understand why you need to have cancer in it. Sorry about that. But hang in there - come on, even if you suffer your whole long life - you can take 1 hour and 42 minutes of pain, right?

Mormon Supreme Beings - survey requested

We, The supreme being(s) of the Mormon universe, would like to thank you for your belief, tithes, offereings and patronage.

In order for Us to better serve your eternal needs, we ask that you take a moment to answer the following questions.

Your responses will be correlated by Gordon Hinckley and communicated directly to Us. This feeback process is called reverse revelation.

1. How did you find out about Us?
___ BYU Daily Universe
___ Desperate death-bed repentence
___ Book of Abraham or Kindhook Plates (since came from same source)
___ Lucid dreaming during General Conference
___ Tanner's book store
___ Sappy public service announcements on KSL radio
___ The Lamanite Student "Replacement" Program
___ BYU defeating Notre Dame in football
___ Epiphany during Primary sharing time
___ Burning shrubbery or bosoms at Youth Conference
___ Other (specify): _____________

2. Which Mormon God(s) did you establish a "close personal relationship" with?
___ The resurrected Bruce R McConkie
___ Mother-in-Heaven
___ Mother-in-law-in-Heaven
___ Jehova
___ Jesus
___ Jesus H Christ
___ Elohim
___ Grampa Elohim
___ Holy Ghost Buster
___ Lucifer
__ Other:_____________________

3. Did your God come to you undamaged, with all parts in good working order and with no obvious breakage or missing attributes? __ yes
__ no

If not, please describe here the problems you initially encountered. Please indicate all that apply:
___ holes in hands and feet
___ galactic size ego
___ takes advantage of virgins
___ lost directions to Kolob
___ hangups about oral sex
___ claims mistakes are mistakes of men
___ fails to collect prayer rolls from temple alters
___ can't decide if likes Blacks and Native Americans
___ doesn't wear garments under robes when appearing
___ plays dice with the universe __ Other:_____________________

4. What factors were relevant in your decision to worship one of US? Please check all that apply:
___ brainwashed by parents
___ needed a reason to live
____attended Seminary in order to get drivers license from parents
___ liked the idea of being a lemming
___ I believed I would be rewarded with virgins in the Celestial Kingdom
___ My other imaginary friend grew up
___ hate to think for myself
___ wanted to meet girls/boys/both
___ overwhelming fear of death
___ to piss off parents
___ enjoy organ music
___ needed to know whom I should despise in this world
___ needed to feel morally superior to others
___ graduated from the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny
__ Other:_____________________

5. Are you currently using any other source of inspiration in addition to Us? Please check all that apply:
__ exmormon.org
__ my own brain
__ Star Trek re-runs
__ Opra Winfrey
__ relaxing Sundays
__ Psychic Friends Network
__ Playboy and/or Playgirl
__ sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll
__ Touched by an Angel
__ attending Burning Man
__ Other:_____________________

6. Have you ever worshiped a false god(s) before? Is so, which false god(s) were you fooled by? Please check all that apply:
___ Gordon Hinckley
___ Bruce R McConkie
___ lottery
___ The Almighty Dollar
___ Sandra Tanner
___ Carl Sagan
___ Bill Gates
___ Mel Gibson
___ Julia Roberts
___ Other (please specify)

7. We employ a limited degree of divine intervention to preserve the balanced level of felt presence and blind faith. Which would you prefer (circle one)?
a. more divine intervention
b. less divine intervention
c. current level of divine intervention is just right
d. Dunno - what's divine intervention?
e. fore-ordination aleady determines everything

8. We strive to maintain a balanced level of disasters and miracles. Please rate on a scale of 1 to 5 Our handling of the following 1 = unsatisfactory, 5 = excellent):

Disaster:
1 2 3 4 5 BYU football season
1 2 3 4 5 lost car keys
1 2 3 4 5 earthquake
1 2 3 4 5 war
1 2 3 4 5 Mormon crickets
1 2 3 4 5 sick pet
1 2 3 4 5 decline in LDS membership converts
1 2 3 4 5 my last relationship which started at a singles dance

Miracles:
1 2 3 4 5 unanimous votes sustaining current GA's
1 2 3 4 5 Elizabeth Smart being re-abducted by her parents
1 2 3 4 5 Seagulls sparing crickets last few years
1 2 3 4 5 water changing to wine
1 2 3 4 5 finding a parking space at the ZCMI mall
1 2 3 4 5 my present relationship

9. Please rate the following on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = unsatisfactory, 5 = excellent):
1 2 3 4 5 Courtesy
1 2 3 4 5 answers to your prayers
1 2 3 4 5 Spared bodily harm while wearing garments
1 2 3 4 5 Money flowing in after tithing paid.

10. Do you have any additional comments or suggestions for improving the quality of Our divine service? (Attach additional sheet[s] if necessary. Those with Temple Recommends will be attended to first.) ------------ by TVLampboy and cricket who remind you that this earthly existence is merely a "focus group" for God

Proof that Mormonism is evil

First we state that Mormonism requires time and money.

Mormonism = times x money

And we all know "time is money."

Time = money

Therefore

Mormonism = money x money = (money)2

And because "money is the root of all evil."

Money = /evil

Therefore:

Mormonism = (/evil)2

And we are forced to conclude that:

Mormonism = evil.

.................................. I credit the fine folks at FARMS for teaching me the logic behind this irrefutable formula/equation. - 10/26/2003 - cricket

One hundred thousand temples

06/18/2003 - by m.grantz@hszigr.de

If one calculates 100 000 000 000 people, that have lived up to now on this earth, than you need about 100 000 temples to do the work in 1000 years, if the start will begin right away with this number of temples, 2 hours per name (baptism, initiatory, endowmwnet and sealings), 5 days a week, 200 persons per session.

This is logistically not much effort. It means that under today conditions every 65 000 inhabitants of the world a temple is placed.

Sincde the conversion after the second coming is based on knowledge and not on faith the numbers to fill the temples are available.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki vicarious temple work

05/30/2003 - by giordandelros

To do the proxy temple work for the victims of the U.S.-instigated nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (250,000 dead instantly in the two atomic blasts: Is the resurrection powerful enough to undo nuclear atomic destruction of entire cities?!) would take about 3 years, according to my calculations, if we devote about one hour to doing the proxy work for each individual atomic bomb victim: baptism, confirmation, endowments, marriage, sealing, etc., and that if the temple work is done in blocks of 10 proxies per hour, and goes on for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

However, there are only about 123,OOO Latter-Day Saints in Japan (much less than the number of A-bomb victims) so the LDS Church just gave the Japanese LDS members more than enough work to last each of them a lifetime. And that's just the proxy work for the atomic bomb victims. There are still the over-100 million other Japanese who haven't had the chance to really receive the missionaries, study the gospel and accept it, plus all the regular temple work for an ancient civilization that goes back to the sixth century. There are also 120 dead Japanese emperors and their Imperial Courts to do proxy work for, and there are also 2.2 million Japanese World War II dead.

I just shudder to think how much time it will take to do authentic proxy work for giant nations like China and India, each with over 1 billion people, and each with histories stretching far back into time? If God were really just, why didn't he send the Gospel of Jesus Christ to China and India anciently, and not just to an isolated branch of people called the Nephites? And we still need to obtain the records of the millions of black slaves shipped to the New World from Africa. Plus the fact that Africa doesn't have too many written historical records of its peoples before the twentieth century makes the realization of proxy work daunting and next to impossible.

________________________

You're projections on temple work seem to be a cracked shower they calculate a negative growth in terms of percent of earths total population, but don't include actual growth.

Also when considering the entire population of the world you would have to include all those who died before 8 yrs old and therefore when resurected are eligible to to temple work then having a body and being worthy, and as you have shown that number is quite formidable even at your estamate of 10 million a year for say just the last say just 5000 years that provides 50,000,000,000 people eligable to just do temple work if necessary.

That makes it something like everyone doing the work for 3 people each and then if we want to take into concideration the locations to do that kind of mass work we could have half that number building temples while the other half do the 6 sessions required of them, or maybe some of those will be busy elsewhere perhaps only 10% are availible then each one would have to do the work for 210 other people oh man and taking 3 hours out of each day for 1 whole year would just be unbearable. So if it's not rushed, I'd say it could be comfortably done in 1 millenium. That would mean you were off by 472,000 years.

I don't have time, but a true scientist doesn't rule anything out until proven impossible, and yet people built the piramids, Stone Henge, and many other things which we can only speculate about, but they aren't ruled out as impossible just mysterious, and if the Book of Mormon is true then that would mean that a God was helping with many of these things. All of these things don't seem all that impossible "if" that's the case. - 11/30/2002 - from nacnud_c

All of Humanity as a Lake

11/23/2002 by TBrown

An interesting story was related in a talk many years ago when I was a mish by Teddy Brewerton, then of the Quorum of the Seventy.

He stated that if you pictured all of humanity as a lake, 100 feet cubed, that all the work for the dead that had ever been done would account for only 1 foot of that depth. The present church membership would be less than one inch of that depth. Each year, there is work for the dead done for about half an inch....but yet in that year, the depth of the lake increases by 2 feet.

Even if the church was still growing at its fastest rate that it has reached (which seems to me it was about 250,000 a year) It still is pale to the population growth as a whole.

So much for 'the field is white and ready to harvest' talk.

Three Witnesses in the Shower - Book of Mormon Bathroom Basics

07/13/2002 by anon

Sunday night after the fireside a strange sequence of events involving three witnesses transpired in my shower giving me cause to contemplate the mysteries of the kingdom, resulting in new insights into the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. Normally I don't go for hefty women and I've never been in a threesome before, not even on my mission. But Sunday night...

The witnesses:

1. Nana is a tall Brazilian bisexual convert. She continually resists my ever nimble attempts to correct her perverse tendencies in meaningful ways that might lead to temple marriage, theoretically to someone else. We crash Mormon firesides together and if I don't find a suitable girl for Nana to take home, she takes another session of therapy with me instead. By now I'm growing quite bored with her and am no longer flattered, Nana would take anything from a dish of jello to a jackhammer home and find them all equally comforting.

2. Becki is my assigned mother in my family home evening group. She had the conventional revelation that I was the one who would take her to the temple. Her mouthy roommate told me so I phoned her immediately and proposed to her. No beating around the bush when it comes to revelation. After the initial shock, Becki accepted. However, I have managed to avoid actually taking her out on anything even remotely resembling a date and I have not spent one cent on her now for over a year. Seems like a reasonable arrangement given our relationship.

3. Me.

The Event:

Sunday night, after a most inspiring fireside presentation, Nana developed an intense yearning for Becki. In order to avoid a public spectacle between the two women currently in my life, I launched into a discussion on the ever useful topic of polygamy. Further exploration lead to some tentative experimentation on the subject at my 2nd floor apartment. A few non-alcoholic(?) Brazilian drinks, yoga and back rubs, tickling and wrestling. One thing lead quite naturally to another, until we found all three of ourselves together in an invigorating and yet intoxicating shower.

Nana always reminds me in these moments of an oak tree; strong, hard, and rough. Becki boom boom, I discovered has boobs resembling 80 lb sacks of cement mix and an ass the width of an ax handle, easily overflowing any reasonable size of a wheelbarrow. Both of these ladies reach close to 6 feet in height (Nana 6'4") and each must weigh in at over 250 lbs. One mostly adipose and the other muscle. I'll skip further anatomic detail.

Sufficient to report that we sort of slipped up and fell down hard all together at once. When we did the damn shower floor caved in and we painfully dropped some small but noticable distance. If the floor joists had been any further apart than the 24 required inches we would have fallen another 8 feet to the shower floor of the apartment beneath mine. As it was, various appendages of the three above designated Mormon witnesses were entangled, skewered and left poking between two apartment shower stalls.

Ramifictions:

1. Our Elder's Quorum President inconveniently lives in the unit below me. In spite of the lateness of the hour, his sweet wife sat enthroned on the commode with a nasty case of the barfs and the turkey squirts (too many cookies at the fireside, or is she pregnant?) when mortar, gypsum, and tile exploded into her shower and onto her. Immediately followed the agony and screams of three distinct and recognizeable ward members, all unmistakenly naked, bleeding and bruised. The poor useless woman ran retching and plopping at both ends from the bathroom, her own hair in a fashion not unlike the commode style of the 17th century. After a quick but excruciating extraction, I made Nana take Becki to the Emergency ward since she sustained a fracture of the ankle. The involvement of any two of us exclusively in this fiasco would have been so much less titillating to explain, both to the doctors and our landlord. But presumeably not to the Bishop, if I don't manage to give him the slip.

Second, I suppose the landlord doesn't really have to fix the small hole in my shower floor, small that is for an elephant. Our fellow ward members below, in the spirit of the United Order could tolerate a bit of partially used extra shower water and they could exercise some prudence when looking heavenward in their bath for whatever reason. I could develop skill as a gymnast on the parallel bars. Experiments in the field of polygamy do not of necessity have to be conducted in that particular shower stall, especially by such clumsy subjects. While repairs have been slow in coming I have had many opportunities to contemplate, while enthroned in that room myself the structure of a shower stall and why this one gave way at the most inopportune moment, after nearly a quarter of a century of faithful service. And to correlate these observations with the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, which was flung up through the whole at me by my railing Quorum president upon discovery that it too had been terminally damaged along with the shower. By the way, the Book of Mormon is cheaper per square of paper than some of the more extravagant toilet tissues.

Conclusions:

The reason my shower floor failed is quite simple. It leaked. The water escaped and quietly rotted the wood of the floor for many years until it could no longer support an estimated 700 lbs of fibrillating and gyrating bone, muscle, and blubber that bounced down from an average height of say 40 inches. Admittedly, better use of even one ounce of brain matter would have delayed the inevitable disaster to a more convenient point in the future. Yet the cancerous damage had been ongoing, longstanding, and extensive while it remained entirely hidden beneath and above solid tile for many years.

Our testimony of the Book of Mormon is like a shower floor. It may be difficult to tell upon causal inspection whether it is built on a solid structure that can withstand any reasonable stress, or whether it is built upon a rotting foundation that will give way on judgement day or perhaps sooner. It being the historicity Book of Mormon in this case, not my spiritual, or emotional, or existential opinion of it. Prior to Sunday, I was certain beyond any doubt that my shower floor was strong or I would never have ventured into it in such company and under such compromising conditions. My faith may have moved mountains of flesh around on two women but it did nothing to halt the destruction of the shower floor.

Faith not based in actual truth does not change reality. I can not pretend that no hole is in that shower no matter how much I want to or pray about it. And if there never really were any golden plates or Nephites in actual history, then wishing and praying it so won't make them appear.

Later: Since my landlord and his inspector have determined that the hole in the shower floor is due mostly to my carelessness, both immediate and chronic, I am required to fix it myself. Being a bit short of funds I have investigated the construction of showers and this sheds even further light and truth upon the subject of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.

1. The port-a-potty shower stall is one single box of fiberglass with a door. No seams to leak except around the pipes to the drain, valves, and head. It is either cracked (and leaks) or not. Almost the entire floor would have to rot out before it will fall through and quite possibly I could even now balance one over the current hole in my shower safely. Trouble with them is that most comfortable showers are wider than the bathroom door. So generally they need to be installed before the walls. (You've heard of the guy in Milwaukee who built a beautiful twenty foot sail boat in his basement one winter and then couldn't figure out how to get it up the basement steps?)

The port-a-potty shower is like the orthodox approach to the Book of Mormon, advocated by the apostles and missionaries. Its either true or not. You pray about it and if you think God told you it doesn't leak, then you can not be convinced otherwise. Until judgement day when all secrets will be exposed including whether your shower floor is rotten or not. You need a pretty big gapping hole for the port-a-potty testimony to fall through but when it does, it will be with a loud crash.

2. Some showers are made of large slabs of hard material, like cultured marble for instance. These come in sheets that are about 6-8 ft tall and 3-4 feet wide. You only need four of them; three for the walls, the fouth wall is the door, and one cut in half for the floor and the ceiling if you dare. They have only a few seams in the corners to keep water tight. They are extremely expensive and heavy and difficult to work with. One little mistake and you ruin an entire wall. They have the holes for the pipes already cut in them and you have to move your pipes which in my case involves cutting already compromised joists. They require a higher level of skill than I am capable of and are not for the dilettante.

This type of shower is like the scientific arguments about the Book of Mormon. Without years of training and experience, you just can not know for yourself the scientific truth (really an opinion of sorts) about most of these issues. For example, how do you know horse bones dating to before Columbus have never been found in America? You have to trust the fool archeologists, and sift through the BYU archeologist critics who can't seem to find horse bones in Mongolia. In the end you wonder if any of these horse's asses can tell their own from a gopher hole in the ground. Can the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon really be settled by an appeal to a few ponderous scientific questions? I think not.

3. Most showers are made of smaller pieces of ceramic tile. Tile comes in many sizes, from over 2 feet in length to fractions of an inch. Each square tile has four seams (or grout lines as they are called) but each tile shares them so it probably averages out to about two seams for each in a typical checkerboard pattern. More seams per tile if you use hexagons or more complex patterns. If any one of these seams fails then you get a leak. I happen to have 116 square feet to tile; ceiling, three walls, and floor. So I would need about 50 tiles of 16 X 16 inches, or about 120 tiles of 1 foot X 1 foot, or over 1000 of those common little 4 inch tiles, or about 10,000 of those tiny one inch tiles like in the bathroom I current use at work. This gives a corresponding number of opportunities for a seam to leak. Add in 10% for tithing and/or mistakes, same thing isn't it, tithing and mistakes? (See there is some math in this submission!) If any one of these seams leaks, then someone is going to be dropping through the shower floor again. One or two drops of water every day is enough to destroy a wooden floor. Tile is cheap, less per square foot than the cost of a gallon of gasoline.(Gasoline in Europe for nicer tile.) Tile requires some skill but not beyond the limits of an accident-prone amateur like myself. So after I learn enough about carpentry to fix the wooden strucure of the floor I will probably tile the shower stall.

For me the Book of Mormon is most like common tile. I think it has many seams and some hidden but crucial features. If it is inspected carefully, I think you will find that some of the seams have cracked. It is easy to find seams that are intact and to conclude that these seams are representative of the rest, so the shower is waterproof. Prof. Nibley has made a career of finding uncracked seams in the shower stall of Mormonism. It is easy to dismiss one little crack and say that it probably doesn't leak. Or if it does then to say it only leaks a little and not enough to do any serious damage. Besides water evaporates and there is water in the atmosphere all the time and you can't tell me that your apartment walls are air tight. And how much water does it take to actually rot wood? A common deck lasts a decade or more out in the weather. So don't worry they say with tears of sincerity in their eyes, the shower stall of Mormonism isn't in bad shape at all and will never rot.

Howeever, if the shower tile of Mormonism leaks, then it is rotting out the foundation of people's lives whether we see it or not, whether we want to see it or not. And Mormon people will descend into a place below eventually despite their best intentions, and it will hurt in ways you never imagined. Nana, Becki, and I witnessed this literally last Sunday night and we can bare testimony to it. And we were bare naked.

But cheer up, it could have been worse. At least I didn't have a rope around my neck when the floor caved in. Think about it. Mormonism, not ropes you dopes.

Bruce R. McKonkie on Animals in the Resurrection

06/05/2002 by DeafGuy of Recovery Bulletin Board

From Mormon Doctrine by Bruce R. McKonkie, deceased apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

ANIMALS.... Animals, birds, fowls, fishes, plants, and all forms of life occupy an assigned sphere and play an eternal role in the great plan of creation, redemption, and salvation. They were all created as spirit entities in preexistence. (Moses 3:1-9.) When first placed on earth in the Garden of Eden, they were immortal. ... Such would have been the continuing condition had there no fall of Adam, but Adam and all forms of life were subject to the fall and have been living on earth in their mortal states ever since... Then finally, all these forms of life will come up in the resurrection, "in their destined order or sphere of creation, in the enjoyment of their eternal felicity." (D. & C. 77:3.) (bold emphasis mine)

I believe there is also reference in the Book of Revelations or elsewhere in the bible that makes note of animals in heaven, so these and other scriptural references had me reassured that my cats will be with me again in heaven, back when I was TBM (True Believing Mormon).

But golly, I grew up in farm country...am I to be herding every cow my grandfather ever owned again? I mean, just one year's worth of cattle was quite enough, but a lifetime's worth?!? Eeeeek... And sure, I'd like to see my favorite cats again, but what about that annoying tomcat that skulked about and made a pest of himself. Do I get stuck with him anyway? If my grandma's dog lived most of his life happily with my grandma, but ended his years with us after she died, does he go with her or with my family in the afterlife?

The math doesn't work out.  So what?

03/06/2002 - Thomas O. Igettit

You're all right.  The math doesn't work out.  So what?  The exact same thing happens in other religions, too.  Noah and the flood?  Where did all that water come from, to cover every single mountaintop on the entire earth?  Studies on the resources of this planet, including all the water buried underground, and all the water frozen at the polar icecaps,  show that there is no possible way that much water could have ever covered the planet.

And yet.. this world is full of many more Christians and Jews who believe this story, than there are Mormons who believe in the metallurgy statistics problems of the Book of Mormon.  So why pick on the Mormons? 

Oh, because this is a Mormon lampoon site.  Ah, gotcha.  Well, then I guess I just gotta say that, while you're doing your lampooning, take the time to examine your own set of beliefs, and see if those don't include a couple of hypocrisies and implausibilities there, too.  And if you're fortunate enough to be atheist, and therefore without any of these hypocrisies?  Lucky you.

Heavenly Father Fails As A Parent!

10/21/2000 - Anne at bbs

Well, according to Hinckley He would be anyway.

Lets see according to Hinckley no success will matter as much as HOW OUR CHILDREN TURN OUT.

How have Heavenly Father's children turned out? 1/3 blew it before they even got to Earth.

Once on Earth less than 1% have actually accepted the "gospel". Fewer still among those are valient enough to make it back to the CK.

So in my opinion using the church's standards of a successful parent, Heavenly Father fails, big time!

But, y'know maybe its not all his fault. The Prophet has been telling us how important a Mother's influence is on her children. Well, when was the last time you heard anything from our dear Heavenly Mother/s?

Surely if earthly mothers are so important and can be used as scapegoats for the immoral behavior of youth than surely the abscence of our Heavenly Mother's influence must have a detrimenttal effect on us.

No wonder none of us, make it. Our mother abandoned us! Or maybe our Father has kept her from us. In either case the result is the same.

Both our Heavenly parents are doing a crappy job.(according to LDS theology that is!)

09/07/2000 - Rosemarie Taylor-Perry
I need to get some stats on exactly how many species of plants, fungi, slime-molds, algae, anthropods, arthropods, cephalopods, vertebrate and non-vertebrate animals, and other forms of life exist and have existed, and also answer pressing questions, such as: IS CATSUP STILL CONSIDERED A VEGETABLE?! before I can come close to approximating the answer to this question (the math necessary to come to such a conclusion is apt to segue into the realm of calculus: therefore, the answer I give you can only be an approximation.)

HOWEVER: there are some rather pressing questions of my own which I'd like to pose relative to the original question:

Will dinosaurs be resurrected along with the rest of us, or will they be relegated to some sort of alternate Ressurection Area (eg, Jurassic Kingdom?) And if this is indeed the case, does this mean that I will need special dispensation to visit my pet cockatiel and raven, since they are, for all intents and purposes, theropod dinosaurs? (do mormons who also believe in evolution lose sleep over questions like this, or is "mormons who also believe in evolution" an oxymoron -- pardon the pun.)

Where do the Neanderthals, Homo erectus, H. habilis, et al fit into this resurrection thing? And has temple work been planned for these people? (where would one find their records -- cave paintings??!)

The resurrection of such individuals as Charles Manson, Atilla the Hun, Richard Ramirez, Adolf Hitler, and Brigham Young along with the general populace of the planet alarms me. Or will they be resurrected in the same place as the dinosaurs? Though that might have great entertainment value (sort of a sheep-vs-the-goats kind of thing), I do worry about the smaller and herbivorous species of dinosaur in such a situation.

If, post-resurrection, all is peace and light and the lion lays down with the lamb...what does everybody/everything eat? Considering that the word "resurrection" assumes a physical body. Or have plans been made to send out to Kolob for pizza? (ElohimHut Delivers)

Again, considering that the word "resurrection" assumes a physical body... will the dinosaurs and others be allowed to masturbate? (Serious question: my cockatiel does, and the thought of being without for a thousand damn years makes him nippy.)

In what frigging enormous body of water will all these critters bathe?!

Which brings us to the second part of the original question:

Where will everything live? Now, I know that cheez-its...er, JESUS (sorry, keyboard error) is going to make a new heaven and a new earth. I don't think I'm incorrect in just spitting out the un- mathematical assumption that such a new earth will need to be substantially larger than the sun, and consist primarily of habitat. Again, we're left with a water dilemma.

Oh, geez, I'm sorry! I was just informed that all the CULLIGAN MEN would be resurrected, too.

10/13/1999 - Sweden

There is no way that from Lehi's little family could have sprung the thousands and thousands that died at Cumorah, or the similar story of the people of Ether. I often wondered about this. One of my BYU religion professors explained that the Lamanites became dark and grew so rapidly by marrying into an aboriginal tribe already in America. He made no attempt to explain who those people were. Frankly, I think that he was grasping at straws.

09/22/1999 - Kipro

Interestingly, I read yesterday the population of the world is now 6 billion, which means at 10 million members, church members only account for .16% of the world's population (someone please check my math :). Boy, don't you feel sorry for the 99.84% who won't go to the CK for lack of having the "true church."

08/31/1999 - Eric Kettunen

Metallurgy in the Book of Mormon

I explain in my story that metallurgy in the Book of Mormon was one of the reasons I no longer believe the Book of Mormon to be a story of real people. Here is an article about a portion of the Book of Mormon - metallurgy.

In 2Ne5:5 Nephi and his family and friends separate from the Lamanites 12 years after landing in the Americas. They quickly develop a complex metallurgical culture that other civilizations in history required centuries to create. Here are the cast of characters:

*Nephi and family - wife and possibly a possibly some children
*Zoram and his family - wife and possibly some children
*Sam and his family - again a family
*Jacob - a young man or boy
*Joseph - an even younger man or boy
*Others of Nephi's sisters - perhaps as many as 3-4 women.
*"and all those who would go with me". That could at best be a few of Ishmael's family. So let's give some credit here to 4 more men, 4 more women and a few more children even though these extra people are never mentioned in the Book of Mormon.

These total to (again these are HIGHER estimates than the story allows):

8 men
15 children
10 women

Mormons could argue for slightly different numbers of people, but for the sake of the story it really does not matter. The numbers are small, very small. A few Mormons have written me and the highest number given me is 500 people. That 500 people could already exist as Nephites is a great leap of faith in Nephite procreation.

Now from the Book of Mormon:

2Ne5:14-16 "14.) And I, Nephi, did take the sword of Laban, and after the manner of it did make many swords... 15.) And I did teach my people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance. 16.) And I, Nephi, did build a temple; and I did construct it after the temple of Solomon save it were not built of so many precious things; for they were not to be found upon the land, wherefore, it could not be built like unto Solomon's temple. But the manner of the construction was like unto the temple of Solomon..."

I have both a BS and MS in metallurgical engineering, so I think I can speak with some authority here.

How likely is it that 8 men, 15 children and 10 women, who just fled into the wilderness, would be able to do the following? Just for fun, is this any more plausible with a society of 500 people, most of them children?

Steel making - this is complex all by itself - mixing iron with carbon
Iron mining and manufacturing - the production of elemental iron from iron ore
Coal mining - coal is required in the production of iron and is refined into coke
Limestone mining - limestone is also required
Tin or zinc mining - depending on the definition of "brass"
Refining and manufacturing of tin or zinc since they do not occur in an elemental state in nature
Smelting
Fluxing
Grinding
Roasting - to eliminate sulfur in copper, silver and some iron ores
Copper mining
Complex furnaces - to have reduction atmospheres to produce the metals
Mining tools - where did the hardened tools come from to start with?
Prospecting - how did they know how to identify ores?
Gold mining
Silver mining
Complex wood working - a small replica of Solomon's temple

How could a few people run a complex metallurgical culture in the wilderness and at the same time make shelters, get food and just plain survive? This is only a few years after coming to the American continent by boat. Some LDS apologists refer to meteoric iron as the raw material Nephites had used. This is quite unlikely as there is no archeological evidence that meteoric iron fragments were used beyond simple ornamental items like crude mirrors or decorations. The meteoric iron would have to be melted then mixed with correct percentages of carbon to make steel. That is as a complex of a technology as producing elemental iron, so which ever way you look at it, the possibility is incredibly remote that steel was manufactured.

Let us look at more claims.

They were working with copper!!
This requires roasting (remove the sulfides with oxygen) and a completely different set of metallurgical processes than steel making. Native copper, which requires no processing, is quite rare. If Nephi were referring to native copper, there would have been no need to "train" in it as it is already in its elemental state and easily workable. Some LDS apologists have written me saying that the Nephites went all the way to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to get their copper. They traveled thousands of miles for some metal? Mormons can not have it both ways. LDS scholars claim Nephites lived in only a very small geographical area of South America. To also claim they traveled thousands of miles to do their mining is grossly straining credibility

They developed brass!! They had to learn how to make alloys with copper. They would have had to then develop zinc and/or tin mines with these metallic elements each requiring different metallurgical processes to extract the metals from the ore. How bizarre can the story get? It gets worse....

They were working with precious ores. This adds gold and silver mining to the list and different metallurgical methods again are required for processing the ore.

This was all done with 8 men, 10 women and 15 or so children. How could I have ever believed it? But it gets even worse yet....

They then went and built a temple like Solomon's. Solomon's Temple was built by, according to the Bible, 180,000 men over a period of 7 years. Since Nephi would have been familiar with what that temple was like. How could he possibly even imagine that 8 men and 10 women, along with running their mining and manufacturing industries, build a temple that could be compared to it?

I could go on about the self contradictory statements in the verses like precious ores being in abundance and then not being there in the very next verse. The story is so absurd that it alone should keep a rational person from believing in the Book of Mormon.

And to top it off, no archeological evidence supports mining activity, which leaves indestructible evidence, during the Book of Mormon period in Central America where nearly all LDS apologists claim the Book of Mormon peoples lived. What is more likely - a handful of people developed an unprecedented and "yet to be discovered" complex metallurgical society or that the Book of Mormon is a fairy tale?

<08/31/1999 - anon (see http://www.exmormon.org/stuff5.htm)

Can someone figure out approximately how much those plates weighed?

"These records were en graven on plates which had the appearance of gold, each plate was six inches wide and eight inches long and not quite, as thick as common tin. They were filled with engravings in Egyptian characters and bound together in a volume as the leaves of a book, with three rings running through the whole. The volume was something near six inches in thickness." (Hist. of the Ch. Vol. 4, p.537)

Some friends of ours did some research and found this information:

Gold weighs two and one half times more than regular tin. Gold weighs 1203.625 pounds per cubic foot, or 1728 cubic inches. So 6x8x6 eguals 288 cubic inches, or one-sixth of a cubic foot, and must have weighes some 200 pounds or more.

They told us they actually went and put together a set of plates out of tin and could not lift it off the ground.

Old Joe must have really been workin' out in his spare time. If he'd only been around for the Olympics.......what great PR for the church in 2002!

I'm just sick enough to get a set of lead plates made, spray them gold and dolly them over to temple square and deposit them in front of the temple. A nice engraving on the top saying "and we hefted them with our hands" might be appropriate.

Can you just see the poor security guys trying to pick up a 6 inch by 8 inch block off the ground that weighs 200 lbs. Now lifting 200 lbs isn't a superhuman feat of strength mind you, but without a handle it would be a VERY difficult task. And the only way Joseph could have run through the woods with them for two miles is if he were carrying the spiritual version of the plates with him. Imagine the disappointment of his pursuers if they caught him and wrested the plates from him, only to find they were the spiritual plates and couldnt be melted down. Spiritual gold isn't worth a damn.

Calculations Prove LDS Church Shoots Self In Foot On Gay Issue

08/05/1999 - John Q

Sexual orientation falls along a continuum, with the vast majority of people being strictly heterosexual. Though no one is 100% heterosexual, these people are 98% hetero and so do not for all practical purposes have homosexual desires, and indeed are repulsed by the thought of sex with the same sex. From there, we get people who are perhaps 75/25 or 65/35 and so forth. We don't know enough about what all contributes to sexual orientation to know what percentage of the population cluster around these differant points (98/2, 75/25) and since many homosexuals are closetted, we aren't able to generate accurate enough data to figure out what all of the percentages are.

The notion that people make a conscious decision on who to lust is so ridiculous that I find it hard to understand how such a thing can still be believed. No guy can state that they were looking at Mike and Suzy and consciously decided that they were going to get a hard-on for Suzy instead of Mike. It's all bio-chemistry and neurology. Evolution wired your brain and body to like the opposite sex, but it's such a complicated thing that sometimes it messes up and doesn't wire all the way, or gets the wires crossed. This is exactly what one would expect from such a complicated evolutionary process. Are homosexuals normal? No. But neither are people with blond hair.

Let's suppose that homosexuality is purely genetic (currently, studies indicate 50% genetics and 50% environment, which can mean anything from hormonal inbalances in-utero to vitamin deficiencies in breast milk). If we don't have an open society where gays are free to live their lives like the rest of us, to marry each other, to be unmolested in the streets, to be Boy Scouts, then what we are going to end up with are a bunch of homosexuals playing heterosexual (fanticizing about the neighbor as he does what is discusting to him and please his wife). And since everyone knows that homosexual males are more sensitive to feelings and therefore would probably be able to get more chicks than the rest of us Neanderthals (of course, they don't want to get chicks, so we are lucky in that respect), what we have, then, is the spreading of the genes that cause homosexuality! So, the people that want homosexuality destroyed and homosexuals banned from society are actually contributing to its spread genetically by not allowing homosexuals to be free. This hypothesis predicts that there will actually be a higher precent of the human population that is homosexual than what is found in other primate populations or what would naturally occur.

John Quinley --- in the 98/2 range

P.S. The above paragraph assumes the stereotype of the sensitive gay man and the insensitive straight man.

What are the projections for all that temple work?

07/27/1999 - Sue

Here's another "demographic" for you. According to an article about world population in BYU's Alumni Magazine (of all places) -- 95% of the people who have ever lived on the earth have never left any record of their existence. Just try to compute what that means in regards to the numbers baptized and endowed in the temples. Somewhere less than 1% (Probably much less, but I'm no mathmetician!), have had the honor. I'm sure they had no idea what they were REALLY saying when they printed THAT!

04/18/1999 - GErwin

Many people have wondered about the progress of the LDS Church in the third part of it's three fold mission - Redemption of the Dead. Great progress has been made, but there is much work to be done. The following is a projected timetable for completion of this great and marvelous work assigned to the Latter Day Saints.

Assumptions:

1. Immediate temporary freeze on pre-existent spirit world immigration.

2. Current and deceased spirit world immigrants - est. 105,000,000,000 (105 billion)

3. Current Temple Patrons available to usher souls back to Kolob:
Let a = current membership of 10,000,000 Members -
b = # of members requested and still waiting for name removal. = 20%
c = Growth rate = Converts (V) + Offspring (O=zero) minus deaths (G) minus name removals (X) = 0 to -10%: assume zero growth.
d = membership activity factor. = 30%
e = # of members who are adults.= 28%
f = # of active adult members worthy to hold a Temple Recommend.=25%
g = # of members living more than 500 miles from a Temple. = 45%
h = # of recommend holders who are Temple Workers. =40%
i = Average # of endowment per year = 4.

Let M = # of milleniums required to catch up on Temple work before new spirit immigration resumes.

then: M=105,000,000,000/((1+c)(a-ba)def(1-g)(1-h)i)

M = 473.47 MILLENIUM

If these assumptions are correct, NEW BABIES WILL BE DUE AROUND YEAR 475470. (which is only 473 milleniums from now) Hopefully, we will not find ourselves in this mess again as only live endowments will be permitted in the Temple from that point. Those who willfully refuse to take out their own endowments will be permanently assigned to ministerial duties without benefit of conjugal visits in heaven.

Please note that these calculation do not take into account the accelerated rate of Temple Building now under way. Neither does it allow for the possibility of future mobile Temples or drive-thru Temples which are now under consideration. There is also the possibility of mass conversion of Relief Society rooms to mini-endowment/sealing rooms. There are rumors that the Temple Committee has recommended to the First Presidency a new streamlined endowment, stripped of all handshakes, arm signals, chants and prayers and even elimination of the remaining two points of fellowship. With the video in fast forward mode, the complete endowment could be reduced to less than 55 minutes. As you can see, every effort is being made to hasten this important work.

When President Gordon B. Hinckley was asked about the feasibility of postponing immigration from Kolob for 473 millennia, he stated "We just don't know much about Elohim. We think He may have once been a mortal man, but we're not sure; we don't know how many spiritual wives He has; we don't know the birth rate on Kolob. There are just an awful lot of things that we don't know much about." Some of the Brethren expressed concern that such a backlog of emigration could produce serious overcrowding on Kolob. "If there is spiritual unrest in Kolob over this matter, we don't want to be responsible for triggering a second world war in Heaven," stated Elder Packer. "If we don't fix the problem soon, there could also be riots in the Spirit Prison. It's a real dilemma." He asked that we pray for the brethren to receive spiritual insight on accelerating the Temple Work to avoid a potential galactic meltdown.


What are the projections for LDS Church growth in the future?

04/16/1999 - Nolan

Actually Mormons (if you use the inflated estimate of 10 million members) accounts for about .2% (one fifth of one percent) of the world's population. And that proportion is losing ground rapidly. You are young. In a few years your world won't seem so predominately Mormon. Once you get out of their influence, you'll be in a world that is 99.8 percent non-Mormon.


What about all the little children who die before the age of accountability?

07/27/1999 - Ed

There seems to be a logical flaw in the basic Mormon motivation of achieving the Celestial Kingdom. Looking at demographics there seems to be around 10 million children under the age of eight who die each year. In earlier years with higher infant mortality rates, larger percentages of children died than die now. We can only assume that a kind and loving god would welcome all children from all ages immediately into the celestial kingdom. Moronism is not necessary. This would include all the children killed in the Noah's flood, wars, those murdered by Isrealite genocide, the plague, the hand cart companies, and the holocaust - just to name a few. I'm going out on a limb here and estimating that approximately 25% of all Mormons believe that they are headed for the Celestial Kingdom. If the average life span of a Word of Wisdom obeying True Believing Mormon is at least the national average (plus a few) 80 years, and assuming deaths are equally distributed, my arithmatic says only about 31K True Believing Mormons are going to the Celesital Kingdom each year based on the current 10M membership.

That means the True Believing Mormons make up only .31% (that is .0031) of the total marginal growth in the Celestial Kingdom each year. Wouldn't we all be statistically better off having manditory Celestial Kingdom send offs (kill them) for all of our children before they reach 8 years of age? I know it may strain our faith, but we must think of what is best for the children!!!

I hope nobody remotely thinks I am serious about my final solution mentality!!!!!!

Some True Believing Mormons are alarmed when they think that they will be a significant minority in the Celestial Kingdom. It can help to illustrate how ludicrous many of the Joseph Smith inspired doctrines are when you think about them and put some numbers to them.


What about all of the people, animals and plants that will be resurrected?


Are there a limited number of spirits in the Pre-existence waiting to come down?


How many apostles and prophets will there be in the Celestial Kingdom?


How far away is Kolob and how big is it?

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