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The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church

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Re: The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church

#111

Post by darksaints »

darkerside wrote: post #91
dorian-graph wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when Jesus was not very fond of amassing money I'm guessing you're talking about the moneychangers being thrown out of the temple ? There are examples recorded in the scriptures of tithes and offerings, and also of a people preparing/amassing the relative wealth/supplies (Noah, Joseph, etc). There are multiple levels of preparedness taught in the LDS church. The lowest, the family, being to only have necessary debt…

The moneymakers in the temple were making money for themselves, profiting off of the nominally faithful. This is very different from saying the church shouldn't acquire wealth.

The Mormon church tried for years to pretend that their leaders don't make money from the church. That too was confirmed as a lie not too long ago.

Re: The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church

#112

Post by snuxoll »

annoyingnoob wrote: post #89
starskublue wrote: post #79

It's important to note the historical context around this. The LDS church used to be constantly in extreme debt and close to having their religious buildings taken away due to it. Then in the early 1900s they instituted a simple financial policy that could also be an example for members. 1. Spend less than you take in. 2. Save/invest a portion of what you bring in for a rainy day. Thus over a hundred years that build…

I think having your members tithe is a big part of it. I know some wealthy mormons that have always given their 10%, at least that's what they tell me. I also know a couple of really large mormon families, like 12 kids large - they all tithe.

> at least that's what they tell me.

Assuming the countless anecdotes on /r/exmormon are to be believed, nobody really gets a choice. Your local leaders will browbeat you and try to look over your financials if they don’t feel you are tithing appropriately.

Re: The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church

#113

Post by shemnon42 »

cultus wrote: post #39

I cannot fathom why churches are automatically tax exempt. Regular nonprofits have to jump through all kinds of hoops to prevent these kind of shenanigans. We are supposed to have a secular government. How is it that we single out this one class of institution for special treatment?

It's the first amendment and separation of church and state. The IRS is fairly certain that if they tried to tax the land chapels are on that the supreme court (even the liberal judges) would say it violates church and state separation. Shutting down a church for failure to pay taxes is the end game the courts won't allow, and so where we are basically falls out from that.

Now if you run a for-profit child care center out of your chapel and don't pay taxes, that is something the IRS has seized a church for.

Re: The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church

#114

Post by zozbot234 »

tasogare wrote: post #95
squarefoot wrote: post #70

"You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion".

You can do both at the same time like Raël (Claude Vorilhon) did.

> You can do both at the same time

Of course you can. Do you know whom that quote came from?

Re: The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church

#115

Post by Iwillgetby »

tomrod wrote: post #104
themodelplumber wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cleaning is part of the church's treasured psychology of self-reliance, not just a money thing. In fact the money could be argued to have emerged from that self-reliance psychology, even if it's also true that a psychology can be emphasized within an organization or individual to a relatively pornographic degree (detached from current/realistic context). Plus they've been selling off buildings since they are such…

This seems like a post-hoc justification. The LDS facility services had several lifetime career workers they fired after implementing this policy, and the congregants rarely kept it as clean.

I thought the same thing. I played basketball on 100s of Saturdays in the 80s/90s and still think about the kind janitors that cleaned multiple buildings on Saturday. Many lost their jobs due to that policy change and it seemed like nobody realized the people lost their job because of it.

Re: The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church

#116

Post by Osiris »

wincy wrote: post #12

So I’m officially a Mormon but am not a tithing member or active at all. I’ve asked some of my Mormon friends about this and their response is basically “well of course they are, how else would they build Zion in the city of Independence, Missouri?”. They’ve said that’s where the latter days will be spent a long time ago, and they’re preparing to make that a reality “when the time comes”. They have a form of socialis…

> they’re barely getting by, tithing their 10%, but the Mormon church is amassing such wealth yet my friend’s family of five is on food stamps. Something feels off there.

The church has welfare programs to help members and non-members that are need. I've personally recommended such food and rent assistance from the church at a point in my life. I've even had the church cover expenses for mental health counseling.

I've also personally witnessed and helped to deliver food and provide service to those in need. Sometimes people in need receive in aid more than they tithe.

There's also a huge social network of people helping each other out not directly related to church funds.

There is also the Helping Hands program that provides labor and food and other support when there are natural disasters all over the world, including some big ones here in the US.

This is not a situation that's all take and no give. Not only does the church provide a lot of welfare support, but actively encourages members to be Christ-like and serve everyone in need.

Re: The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church

#117

Post by seanmcdirmid »

fiblye wrote: post #58
camhart wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept of tithing is absolutely taught in the Bible. If you believe Christ to be the God of the Old Testament then He absolutely taught it. You seem to be under the impression all religious people who give tithing are merely being exploited. I can promise you are wrong there. The mentality of "I've had no such experience with God so everyone who claims they have is a kook" is quite ignorant. Perhaps you could le…

I won't address your other points since that's not what HN is about, but the person you responded to didn't say tithing. He said amassing money. 100 billion is an absolutely massive amount of cash to keep on hand for any purpose, and I imagine a good number of people think the money would mostly be going towards charitable causes or something of the sort. Tithing doesn't necessarily entail stockpiles that can buy out…

I thought it was $100B in assets and investments, not cash on hand. Did I understand wrong?

Re: The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church

#118

Post by chrispeel »

tomrod wrote: post #85
jshevek wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your suggestion that " this starts with the assumption that what people like me went through is trivial" is a non- sequitur. You made a generalization, the response above simply suggests a more nuanced view. They did not suggest anything about your specific situation. Edit: Specifically "It's an organization which does not allow you to leave with your dignity intact" was the generalization. When I read this I also th…

That's a fair critique, because I did not qualify the statement. Let me explain the rationale: - The Mormon church doctrine is that people who leave have fallen away, and are apostates - Several messages from the central authority (called General Authorities) have disseminated over the last several decades telling congregants to shun apostates (soft), not listen to them (direct), and similar - Wealthy parents have be…

I was raised Mormon, no longer believe a bit of it, yet find your characterization does not match my experience at all. I have never felt characterized as "apostate" by family or friends after leaving, and while in the church I never recall any leader or anyone else encouraging not leaving money to family who left the church. I'm sure these things happen to some, just not me.

I found the problems in the church to be more subtle and less obviously cult-like. For example, encouraging you to pay 10% tithing, then squirreling it away in a $100B hedge fund. Propagation of the idea of Joseph Smith as a prophet. Sexism. Belief in God.

Re: The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church

#119

Post by mythrwy »

mattrp wrote: post #92
mythrwy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course the sentiment is here! Because it's reasonable! Look, I got no problem with what people believe or how they pray. But 100 billion isn't needed for that so the purpose is??? Will it involve me? And the tax treatment complaint is also perfectly reasonable. None of this is hatred for private property nor religion.

In my view I think you would say this also about Bill gates... who are you to define what is a reasonable amount? I think a tax policy based on “reasonable” confiscation is not very sound or sustainable and probably worse policy than allowing churches to collect money tax free. At the same time there are laws in the US at least about how charities must use their cash and if they’ve broken these laws it would be a ver…

Let's leave off the hostilities and spurious accusations please.

Your confiscation point is valid. I don't know that is an equitable solution because private people did pay into the program at one point.

I suppose what I'd like to see is religions limited to some multiple of working annual budget in assets. This avoids an entire set of perverse negative incentives.

Grandfather it in and prevent further investment or collections until the assets come back to the level specified.

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