Quote:
Originally Posted by Requiem
Insightful post Pelagius - thank you. Chapter two of the Pew Survey is fascinating and subject to many interpretations. I agree with your comment that attrition among U.S. Mormons is a "non-trivial" number - a 5.6% decrease in one year is indeed significant and not a good trend.
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Careful, that is not what the survey measures. It doesn't measure a one year change. It is a single survey from this year that measures the change in affliation from childhood to adult. People are asked what is your religious affliation today and what was as a child. At best it measures net attrition over a about 20-30 year period on average.
Also, be careful about apply educational trends in general to the Mormon population. There is a fair amount of evidence that suggests the relation between religious activity and education is different for Mormonism than other faiths. I am often skeptical about the conclusion of theses studies but I think the evidence does point to some clear differences which should make someone wary about applying general population patterns in terms of religion and education to Mormons.
Also, finally this will unfairly stifle discussion but I do prefer that this thread try to deal with issues in 2 Nephi 26. So if you want to pursue your logic further I would ask that you try to wrap it back into 2 Nephi 26.