# Mormon proselytizing: does the LDS church really benefit? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 8, 2005, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-proselytizing-does-the-lds-church-really-benefit/307497 "2005-06-08T19:45:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2011, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-proselytizing-does-the-lds-church-really-benefit/307497/41 "2011-09-03T02:47:15Z")
> [@ethelbert](#): > > I have always considered that proselytizing is a device used as much to strengthen the proselytizer’s belief as it is used to produce converts. If you think you believe something now, wait until you have repeated it 300 times. > > People don’t say what they believe, they believe what they say. I thought something to this effect one of the few times I was approached by a missionary (it was right by the Temple in SLC so I can’t claim surprise). It was a very young girl and she was not at all subtle or confident, but she believed in what she was doing and I thought – at the end of a year or two of this, assuming she doesn’t burn out, all this experience with cold approaches may well make her a very confident advocate for the church for the rest of her life." Kind of a brutal way to gain confidence in your beliefs, but probably fairly effective for some. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2011, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-proselytizing-does-the-lds-church-really-benefit/307497/42 "2011-09-03T15:34:31Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > Are the baptized dead included in the converts? Only zombies. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2011, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-proselytizing-does-the-lds-church-really-benefit/307497/43 "2011-09-03T16:56:18Z")
> [@Sal\_Ammoniac](#): > > But I want to return to the point raised in my OP, which has to do with people who are actively turned off to the Mormon church by the proselytizing. Is there much reflection in the church about this? A person who is “actively turned off to the Mormon church by the proselytizing” is not going to be converted anyway, so that person’s response does not matter. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2011, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-proselytizing-does-the-lds-church-really-benefit/307497/44 "2011-09-03T17:11:04Z")
> [@Reloy3](#): > > ``` > I think the general consensus among those members I've talked to is that it is worth it. Although some people might be turned off, when someone is interested it's wonderful. > > ``` I like Mormons, and enjoy talking to Mormon missionaries. I have read The Book of Mormon, The Doctrines and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price. I have all three on one leather bound volume that I bring to the conversations. I treat the missionaries courteously, and have a friendly conversation that they terminate when they cannot respond to my objections to The Book of Mormon, and The Book of Abraham. I wonder if many Mormon missionaries lose their faith when they encounter non Mormons who know a great deal about their faith. Once I read an interesting essay by a convert to Mormonism who later left Mormonism. He said that conversion to Mormonism is like buying an elegant Victorian mansion without examining the foundations. However, when one goes into the basement and turns on the lights one sees things one wishes were not there. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Rhodes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rhodes/32/273_2.png) [@Rhodes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhodes)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2011, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-proselytizing-does-the-lds-church-really-benefit/307497/45 "2011-09-03T23:55:55Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > I wonder if many Mormon missionaries lose their faith when they encounter non Mormons who know a great deal about their faith. It happens, but not a lot. As others have said, the more a missionary repeats the same mantras to the infidels, the more he believes it. The only thing that caused me some cognitive dissonance was a brochure about whether Mormons were Christian enough. Most of the claims were easy to dismiss, but there was a quote from Joseph Smith’s History of the Church where he boasts that he is a more competent church leader than Moses or even Jesus. That bugged me, but it was still another 10 years before I realized what a fraud Brother Joseph was. I wonder if a brief analysis of the Book of Abraham would have gotten through to me if I’d seen it as a missionary. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-proselytizing-does-the-lds-church-really-benefit/307497/46 "2011-09-04T22:20:42Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > People come and go and come again and probably come and go yet again. Very few actually ask to be officially removed from the church. > > It’s really not that different with a typical protestant church, where people tend to choose a denomination based on how well they like a particular pastor. Once he moves on, so do many of the congregation. (I am a Protestant) Yes. I’ve seen people drift in an out of different Protestant denominations, and this is accepted to a significant degree - you can switch from a Presbyterian to a Lutheran church and most of your old Presbyterian friends won’t be afraid that you’re now going to Hell or have renounced Jesus Christ and accepted Satan. One of the fundamental tenets of Protestantism is that there isn’t one single visible and formal organization of the Body of Christ (the church), unlike the LDS, Catholics, and Orthodox who believe that there is a specific organized group with official leaders and official policies on Earth that represents the One True Church. Protestants believe that the “one true church” is composed of all true believers in all churches, and that each of the churches is contending with the quest for truth and the quest against heresy and error. The general sense that I get from Protestants (and that I, as a Protestant, agree with), is that the LDS are not only not a Protestant church, but a Non-Christian religion, and that converting to them, or from them, is an actual religious conversion experience. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mormon-proselytizing-does-the-lds-church-really-benefit/307497.md?page=2)