Re: In the News: Romney Elaborates on Evolution

In article <4su353l0khs2qui8r4p3mv38i7f1i0436j@xxxxxxx>,
"A.Carlson" <amcarls@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 21 May 2007 06:24:08 -0700, Peter Pan <peterpan55555@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On May 20, 5:22 pm, "A.Carlson" <amca...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 20 May 2007 10:48:35 -0700, Peter Pan <peterpan55...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:





On May 19, 2:01 pm, "A.Carlson" <amca...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 19 May 2007 07:25:30 -0700, Peter Pan <peterpan55...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On May 18, 2:20 pm, "A.Carlson" <amca...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 18 May 2007 06:28:23 -0700, Peter Pan <peterpan55...@xxxxxxxxx>

Those lists that include both Jews and Mormons
for example consistently indicated that there were more Jews than
Mormons in the U.S.!

Yeah, what religious body do the Jews belong to?

Judaism if you are talking about the religion, and this WAS a
religions survey after all.

Is that the number of people of the race jewsin the US, or the
religion judaism?

The polling was regarding 'R-E-L-I-G-I-O-N' and not ethnic background.
Due to somewhat peculiar religious doctrine regarding who may convert
most, but not all, people who adhere to the Jewish religion also just
happen to be ethnically Jewish as well and no, not everyone who is
ethnically Jewish subscribes to Judaism. Even those denominations
that do allow conversions do not appear to actively seek them. Jews
do not actively proselytize like so many other religions do so the
number of people who adhere to Judaism who are not also ethnically
Jewish is probably pretty small.

And what organization do they belong to?

What organization?? If you are talking about religious affiliation
the largest denomination of Judaism is Reform Judaism. As is true
with almost any religion that can be broadly described, Judaism comes
in a variety of flavors. In addition to Reform Judaism there is
Conservative, Orthodox, Modern Orthodox, Hassidic, etc. Many Jews
consider their religious beliefs 'transdenominational' as well.

So how many people adhere to judaism in the US?

Polls seem to vary somewhat but for self-identified religious
identification the 2000 Harris poll referenced by adherents.com listed
305 responses for 'Jewish' vs 186 for 'Latter-day Saints'

In Gallop polls taken every year between 1992 and 2001, which asked
specifically for religious preferences, Mormons were listed as being
representative of 1% of the population every year but one where they
were listed at 2% while Jews were listed as being representative of 2%
of the population every year but two, one where they were listed at 3%
and one where they were listed at 1%

Based on the ARIS self-described religious identification survey of
2001 the number of Mormons and Jews were neck-and-neck both at 1.3% of
the population with there being slightly more Jews. This source
specifically pointed out that "Only Jews by religion are included in
the analysis. This poll also had Mormons listed as 10th just among
the 'Christian Religions Groups' listed and 12th when 'Jewish' and 'NO
RELIGION' were included.

Sorry it looks like judaism is listed at just under 4 million.

Yes, using the same methodology that shows Mormonism to be about the
same. Most of those polls only reflected self-identifying adults
which explains the relatively lower numbers.

When you factor in the number of children in Mormon families the
number of Mormons might rise faster than Jews since Mormons on average
have more children than Jews but then it might also be relevant to
factor in the number of those children who would ultimately lose their
faith upon reaching adulthood.

There is also something inherently wrong when counting the stated
religious views (perhaps not even self-stated) of a captive audience
such as children particularly when trying to make certain points.

You can wiggle and squirm all you want but that doesn't change
the
fact that a religion that consists of a mere 2% or less of the
population of a country cannot be found to be the "fourth largest
religion in the US" without a lot of distorting and hiding
relevant
facts.

The .5% error rate in the poll would mean on a membership
base of 5,000,000 the error would be +/- 25,000. On a
6 million member base, the error would be +/- 30,000.
So the numbers are real and verified.

Yes, the number of Mormons in a country with a population of around
300 million is indeed around 5 million or so. Whether that number
is
5.2 million or 5.8 million you still need to round up just to get
to
2% and 2% is still a pretty piss-poor number to be considered the
"fourth largest" of anything.

The US is the third largest country in population
in the world. The fact that the US comprises just
under 5% of the worlds population doesn't
detract from that.

And what does the population of the U.S. as compared to world
population have to do with anything? The 2% refers to the percentage
of people in the U.S. who are Mormon.

Substitute LDS for US above:

The LDS is the fourth largest religion in membership
in the country. The fact that LDS comprises just 2%
of the US population doesn't detract from that.

It does when even the 'no religious preference', 'no comment',
'other', and 'non denominational' all beat that percentage and you
have to selectively organize the list into a specific grouping and
then limit that list only to 'Christian' groups to get that ranking.

What non christian groups are larger?

Atheists and agnostics for one. The number of people who are not
religious, who do not believe there is a god, is easily at least 30
million, some ten times more than the number of self-described
Mormons reflected in various polls.

Using the same methodologies, the number of self-described Christians
who do not associate with a specific denomination is about four to
five times greater than the number of self-described Mormons.

Both of these groups not only are significantly larger than Mormons
but their numbers also appear to be growing at a much faster rate.

FWIW, even a number of self-described Christians, people who follow
the 'teachings of Christ', don't believe in God, survival of the soul,
heaven, the resurrection, or the virgin birth. The number of
self-described Christians who believe in such apparent apostasies is
greater than the number of reported Mormons. The percentage of people
who believe in such things also drops as the level of education rises.

The number of people who refused to even participate in various polls
is about three times higher than the number of people who
self-identified as being Mormon.

Which brings up the old adage that figures can lie as long as liars
can figure.

You could just as easily state that Catholicism is the largest
religious group in the U.S. because it is the largest denomination or
that Protestants are the largest because as a group they easily
outnumber the Catholics by more than two-to-one.

Well, let's look at different ways of counting this:

Christianity is the largest.
Followed by LDS.
Then Judaism.
Then Islam.

So, going by this way, LDS is the second largest
religion in the US.

Or:

Catholic is the largest.
Protestant is second largest.
LDS is third largest.
Judaism is fourth largest.
Islam 5th largest.
Buddhist 6th largest.
Agnostic 7th largest.
Hindu 8th largest.

So, going this way, LDS is 3rd largest.

This is taken from here:
http://adherents.com/rel_USA.html#religions

Which proves my point about liars and figures!

Catholics may by and large lump themselves together in one single
group but Protestants clearly do not.

There are a several Protestant denominations which consider themselves
as being 'true Christians' while rejecting many if not all other
self-described Christian denominations as not being so - A lot like
what Mormons and Catholics typically contend.

A number of these denominations can pull the same shit as you are
trying to do here and lump all other self-described Christian
denominations together as one and, depending on whether or not they
list Catholics separately, claim that they are either the second or
third largest religion in the U.S. and a number of them would have a
more impressive claim than Mormons do.

Even the very site you chose to selectively quote (a typical
Creationist form of lying) clearly shows that when people
self-identify and their beliefs are grouped together under
denominational families Mormons end up much farther down on the list
than you are claiming here.

And besides all that, I thought that Mormons self-identify as being
Christians themselves, even to the point of taking great pains to
emphasize the 'Jesus Christ' in their official church name over the
use of 'Mormon'. Based on this one could just as easily and far more
accurately describe Mormons as being a relatively small subgroup of a
much larger Christian religion that has trouble even breaking into the
top ten in a majority of states.

I don't think LDS is welcome at the world council of churches.

And your point is? Somehow I don't think that the Mormons want
anything to do with ecumenical movement in the first place since their
entire religion is founded on the premise that all other Christian
churches are illegitimate. Perhaps for similar reasons the Catholic
Church only has limited dealings with the WCC.

For a variety of reasons there are a number of denominations that are
either not fully welcome at the WCC or are themselves against
participating in the WCC. Many conservative denominations feel that
the WCC is far too liberal.

In some states, LDS has significant percentages.

Yes, in a very few relatively sparsely populated states that just
happen to all be surrounding Utah.

Idaho it about one person out of 3 or 4,

And yet self-identifying polls of adults at least reveal a much lower
number, around 14 percent of the population. If the Mormon church's
claim of a membership of 393 thousand in a state with a population of
around 1.3 million people proved true that would certainly make it the
largest percentage of Mormons outside of Utah by far, but means little
in a country where Mormons represent less than one out of 100 people
in a majority of states.

though in some southern counties, it approaches 90%.

Except for communities along the major interstates the area appears to
be pretty sparsely populated so it really wouldn't be that hard for
any small Christian sect to achieve a relatively large percentage of
the population without much effort.

In nevada, one person out of 9 or 10 is LDS.
In wyoming, one person out of 9 or 10 is LDS.
In arizona, one person out of 15 is LDS.

Yes, about the only states where Mormonism is more than a small blip
on the radar are those relatively sparsely populated states
surrounding Utah.

I thought they had a major center in Hawai'i. Ah, about 3% significant,
no politician is going out of her way to offend them but far from
controlling.

.

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