Talk:Latter-day Saint

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Is anyone opposed to incorporating this page with Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and to making this a disambig page to differentiate between Latter-day Saint and Latter Day Saint? -- Kwekubo 12:23, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

This page was created after much discussion (you may want to look at some of the history from the History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints pages by COGDEN and others), and should remain, not be incorporated into another page. In other words at this point, there are a number of us who would oppose such action. -Visorstuff 22:01, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Proposed Merger

I have proposed that this article is merged with the Latter Day Saint article to avoid confusion. My points for this merger are as follows:

  1. Having two articles titled Latter Day Saint, albeit with slight grammatical variance is very confusing to the average user, and one who may be looking up information.
  2. The first paragraph of this article contains information on the reasons for this different spelling. This is a re-hash of information from the other article under Uses of the Term and from the article on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
  3. The terms do mean slightly different things, but this is much more coherantly explained in the other article(s).
  4. The second paragraph contains uncited statistics and vague membership and growth statements that are properly covered in the article Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with references, and are not apporopriately placed here.
  5. The whole article therefore contains no unique information, as I've covered in my last two points.
  6. This is a common link page from other articles referencing LDS because of this confusion. Those articles should properly be directed to the page Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
  7. This article should therefore properly be linked to a disambiguation page where the user can select from numerous articles including Latter Day Saint, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Latter Day Saint movement and possibly Mormon to avoid potential confusion and duplication of information.

Kristmace 16:56, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

If anything, "Latter Day Saint" should be merged into this article, in my opinion. The vast majority of members of the so-called "Latter Day Saint movement" are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Community of Christ, the largest break-off group, does not even refer to its members as "Latter Day Saints". The Strangite group refers to themselves as "Strangites". The term Latter Day Saint as a general term for any member of a church originating from Joseph Smith is not used outside Wikipedia. Try Googling it--it doesn't show up, and where it is used, it is used erroneously to refer to the LDS Church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).
My wish is that the Wikipedia articles on Mormonism would focus more on the LDS Church, because that is how society knows the term "Mormon" and "LDS". Treating the LDS Church as a break-off of some larger movement only confuses things. Today, the LDS Church has no affiliation with any of these other churches. Tom Stringham 16:47, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I find this somewhat persuasive - the constant efforts to be "fair" instead of neutral to the various groups descending from restoration as descibed by Joseph Smith - misrepresents their impact --Trödel 03:29, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some Innacuracies

I'm pretty certain the LDS Church is not "one of the fastest growing churches in the world" by any objective measure. Also, it is questionable whether "It is the most far reaching world religion originating in the United States". Numerically, the Assembly of God (starting in Topeka KS in 1914, I believe, headquartered in Springfield, MO today) is far larger at 35 million or so. The Seventh-Day Adventists are larger as well. If the statement means far-reaching doctrinally, then yes, I'd agree, but that's a matter for opinion and not for an encyclopedia.

OK to edit? -Novel-Technology, April 25 2005

PS: how do you get it to automatically sign with username and date like Visorstuff above?

Never mind, I got it.Novel-Technology 07:52, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)


While I understand that there may be some opposition to merging this with Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the only information that is not duplicated is about the term itself, and the different capitalisations. Can we cut the info about Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and put a 'see' to that article? DJ Clayworth 16:57, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree with novel-tech and further would argue that the claim "The most doctrinally accurate description of their beliefs can be found on the links listed on this page." is bizzare and should be removed. seannyob

  • I removed these sentences, because there's no sources noted for them and without verification, it sounds like ad copy hyperbole: "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is one of the fastest growing religions in the world today, having more than doubled in membership since 1982. It is the most far reaching world religion originating in the United States. The most doctrinally accurate description of their beliefs can be found on the links listed on this page." wikipediatrix 17:26, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Newsweek and Time both made these claims, as do other publications/websites including Adherents.com. Not sure why the question was not answered earlier. -Visorstuff 18:15, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
    • When did Newsweek and Time make these claims? What issues? What year? Even if the "fastest growing" statistic was true then, is it still true now? How do you know? These claims need sources. Big claims require big proof. Verifiable sources - recent ones - need to appear here very soon for these statements to remain. wikipediatrix 19:22, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
It's all covered in the full article on the church, and doesn't need to be rehashed here.Kristmace 16:35, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] LDS Style Guide

Links to a generic search page. Is that a legitamate link??Mikereichold

No. It actually linked to a 404 page within the LDS site. It was another "LSD" edit... har har har... at least they could make the vandalism funny. I mean, come on. On a related note, though, there are too many external links listed here. Links within www.lds.org can be trimmed, some of the non-official sites don't need to be listed (per WP:NOT, we're not Google), and is it really necessary to list the homepage for every different language/nation? I'm going to sift through the first two categories a little; input is welcome, as always. Deadsalmon 07:48, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Further reading"

In my understanding, books are only listed if they are used as references or are authored by the article's subject. Most of the books mentioned here don't fall under either category, and while the Book of Mormon is of obvious importance, we don't list versions of the Bible under Christianity or the Qu'ran at Islam. I've removed this section because of this. Tijuana Brass¡Épa! 23:38, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] completely confusing

Having two pages for the same thing is completely confusing and also hinders other languages links.

An example: from the howard hughes site ther eis a link to this wiki, and there is just a dansk link, no german,spanish or anything else.

If somebody wants to have two versions, of the same thing he(/she could create it on another wiki ...

I've suggested merging the articles together as this page contains no relevent information that isn't in the Latter Day Saint article. User:kristmace 16 August 2006
Oppose as they are not the same thing - however, we should edit the articles to more clearly establish the differences. --Trödel 15:00, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Thinking per my comment on User:Kristmace's talk page --Trödel 21:44, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I would firmly support a complete re-write if a merger is not agreeable as this is a vague and confusing article. The re-write should be short, and clearly linked to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint page, which is a proper article on church beliefs and facts. Kristmace 21:27, 16 August 2006 (UTC)