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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

#501

Post by lcall »

arconis987 wrote: post #490
johnsonjo wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > and also of a people preparing/amassing the relative wealth/supplies (Noah, Joseph, etc). > Matthew 19:24, direct 'quote' from Jesus: "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." Seems pretty clear. Here’s the full passage from 19:24-26 > 24 And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a need…

I’m very curious about spiritual confirmations of truth. What was your spiritual witness of the Book of Mormon like? How do you know that the spiritual experience came from an external source and was not just generated by your brain? [Edit: Asking because I wonder often about the provenance my own spiritual experiences. I’m currently leaning toward “generated by the brain,” but I would love to be wrong about that.]

I can only speak for myself, not the earlier post, but I have written about this at length (I hope skimmably), at http://lukecall.net .

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

#502

Post by lcall »

dorian-graph wrote: post #49
x1oqw wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It always surprises me that wealthy churches pretend to take Christ seriously, when Jesus was not very fond of amassing money. I get why the churches do it (of course they don't believe in Christ), but why do the exploited masses believe them?

> 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…

I am just me, not a Church leader, but I think it is for several reasons: 1) prophetically-encouraged preparedness, like in the days of Noah (food storage, avoiding debt, save for a rainy day, etc), 2) to best be able, long-term, to fulfill the divinely appointed mission of the Church to spread the teachings and voluntary systems that bring peace in this life and eternal life in the world to come.

I have collected a bunch of links (official and not) w/ further info, at my personal site, such as at: http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854578831.html

and http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854589754.html

and my own thoughts on this and various subjects at http://lukecall.net , such as http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854587122.html .

ps: It strikes me after many years of general reading & observation that economic up/down cycles would be very reduced or different if we used savings instead of debt, more. And, being in debt leaves one under the control of others, to some degree, reducing independence of planning and action. I'm not saying it is never appropriate, but it also has some somewhat predictable effects.

Edit: I see that others have also posted these links that give some official responses:

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/church-fina...

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/first-presi...

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

#503

Post by daveFNbuck »

zmix wrote: post #485
daveFNbuck wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This also says that you should leave your family. Do you think of this when you hear about people who call themselves Christians but love their family?

Absolutely. And it does not hold true only for Christians. Christianity is just an expression of deep, basic virtues, that are valid for human being at a whole. Now, ask yourself: Do you need to abandon your family in order to leave it behind? Will you lose love to your family, if you free yourself from the bounds of it? Was his mother at his side, when he died? Was Jesus was aware of kin-keyness? Mankind's history i…

How do you leave your children behind without abandoning them?

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

#504

Post by lcall »

lcall wrote: post #276
darksaints wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you need to understand is that Thomas Monson, who was an employee of the church (notorious for their extremely low pay) for his entire career, had an estimated net worth of $14m. That is excluding the church owned property that he gets to use free of charge, including private jets, cars, and homes. This is excluding free income sources such as free university for all family and extended family members. Outside o…

When I was very young I worked at a non-Church-owned bank for a while. Thomas Monson sat on its board, or at least showed up to a nice employee dinner/dance I attended. He had a business career before he was a Church General Authority, was brilliant, and for a time continued serving on various corporate boards, until GAs all stopped doing that. The GAs I know of personally who did not obtain wealth in their private c…

Update: I found a page with links to their bios (fairly international, if you read down & click photos), that indicate education & prior careers: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/leaders .

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

#505

Post by lcall »

wl wrote: post #298
tomrod wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your example covers a large plurality of Christianity but does not define the umbrella of Christianity. For the record, Mormons consider themselves Christian, and are considered part of the Christian taxonomy. As an example, the first line of "Mormonism" wiki article says: > Mormonism is the predominant religious tradition of the Latter Day Saint movement of Restorationist Christianity started by Joseph Smith in West…

It's beyond dispute that Mormonism is derived from Christianity and considers itself to be the restored, correct form of it. Still, I think you'd find very few theologians who would consider them to be Christian. Their beliefs are largely based on the Christian scriptures but significantly depart from the traditional form of Christianity outlined in the early creeds. And that's the point of restorationism: Everyone e…

I think the key difference is that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints doesn't adopt the creeds (like Nicene ... in wikipedia) of the early centuries after Christ. We definitely do believe in the divinity and essential role of Jesus Christ as taught in the New Testament.

For actual teachings, the Book of Mormon (with the Bible) is all about Christ. I believe one can search by topics, at, for example, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/general-conference?lang=... . I have written more on what I know and how I know it, at my personal site: http://lukecall.net .

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

#506

Post by lcall »

tomrod wrote: post #362
alanwreath wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame they are expected to express belief in racist, sexist, or other bigoted beliefs in order to be fully acceptable to their in-group. It's a shame you feel that way. I've been to churches in Massachusetts, Utah, Missouri, Texas, Yucatan, and Guatemala. I'm not sure where you're getting that.

A few commentaries and examples. Remember these are not local congregations pushing this, but the central corporation. The item isn't "all Mormons do this" but rather there is a culture that encourages these divisions. Racism - https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/09/mormons... - https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/05/fake-apology-for-mo... - https://www.sltrib.com/news/2017/06/09/39-years-later-priest…

Maybe it depends on beliefs and definitions. But here is much that we are taught, centrally. We certainly hear a lot about being kind to others, and also that we are not authorized to change God's commandments with respect to the nature and purpose of individual and family, now and in eternity. I believe one can search by topics, etc: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/general-conference?lang=...

and about:

families: http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854587315.html

service to all others: http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854587314.html

And generally: http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854587122.html

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

#507

Post by lcall »

xtracto wrote: post #142
zippie wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this quoted a lot whenever there is discussion of wealth. However, as with all verses, the context is important as well as the follow up verses. This is not in defense of. 17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.” “Which ones?” he inquired. Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you…

As an atheist I love reading these passages.. it is amazing how people in this day and age are trying to find "meanings" from a book full of the stories of one person... who lived 2000+ years ago.. imagine if someone tried to find meaning in Beckhams biography 2000 years from now...

I have learned for myself that God is real. I tried to explain how I know, not that it is proof for someone else necessarily, but (no sales or javascript, hopefully skimmable), for what it may be worth: http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854587400.html .

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

#508

Post by mnm1 »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #494
mnm1 wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they literally believe they are the only church that has authority to act for God on earth Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, and I'm sure many others (especially Christian) believe the same. Seems like the one thing they have in common is their own narcissistic delusion about their importance. It also makes a great argument against the arrogance and stupidity of such teachings. After all, if only a subset of…

Neither Islam nor Judaism is monolithic and it makes me uncertain of the accuracy of the comment to see them each treated that way.

They both think, like Christianity, that their religion is the only path to god. Islam kills for it too.

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

#509

Post by nitrogen »

curiousgeorgio wrote: post #326
jacurtis wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually doesn't remove it from Missionary records. Missionary records are intentionally kept separate from church records. I was a missionary and we visited people who have left the church (and had their name removed) many, many times. We have left their records behind after we were told to fuck off for future missionaries to continue to contact. If the threats get violent enough a missionary might choose to remo…

What "missionary records" are you talking about? I'm not aware of any official, separate missionary records. I was also a missionary and the only records/lists we saw were those kept by local wards. Were they perhaps (unofficial) manually-stored paper records kept by previous missionaries or something?

Each mission area has an official notebook of paper records that are maintained by the two missionaries that cover that area. These records were never synchronized with other data sources.

Occasionally missionaries might receive a request to locate an inactive member whose active family doesn't know where to find them (I only saw this once in two years, and nobody involved seemed to take a moment to think about the bigger picture of what they were doing).

There are personal info data brokers e.g. Acxiom. Maybe the church is incorporating such sources when tracking down "lost" members.

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

#510

Post by fjp »

dragonwriter wrote: post #486
dmix wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you read the full bible? The Jesus stuff might be more on the liberal end but Christianity in general is very much socially conservative. Especially the old testament. In genesis whenever god made a covenant (like made Abraham the main dude) it always came with God giving them great wealth (sheep and an abundance of land) as well as leadership of entire areas. At least the early stuff, the leaders/prophets were…

> The Jesus stuff might be more on the liberal end but Christianity in general is very much socially conservative. “Christianity” is about Christ, not something else. > Especially the old testament. The old testament is context for the NT, but with a very small number of exceptions (and with the exceptions of potential general applicability to Jewish Christians, which were common in the first Christian communities bu…

Yes this is exactly it. And just like the circumstances we are discussing now, Jesus found himself and his following in conflict with existing leaders who had amassed wealth and power, and who tried to delegitimize him by saying that his teachings (of charity and anti-wealth gathering) were just an assault on the legitimate god-given power of the existing church.

Jesus was a radical hippie immigrant refugee, and his teachings are of course co opted now for the exact opposite effect.

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