121–130 of 537 posts
Question as a member. Would today be a good day to request that janitorial services be restored? Do I really need to clean the church's toilets once a year to get to heaven?
A prior discussion of Clay Christianson mentioned how he wouldn't play basketball on Sunday because it was the first small step that leads to larger steps (of sinning). This is a massive amount of money. I'm struggling to understand if this money was gathered under the tax exempt status of churches in the US. And if this isn't a bigger sin than playing basketball on Sunday, if you believe in sinning. Remember, downvo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would be happy if churches had exactly the same status as any other business. Nothing less, nothing more.
It is often the case that they do. For example, the church that I attend bought adjacent property to keep as vacant open space.. but since there is no church on the land, the church pays property tax on it just like any other non tax exempt entity would. Kind of ironic since if it were farmland deemed open space it would be a different story in most places. Our tax code is not perfect but the path forward is to look…
Not really. Remove all exemption, deductions, credits, and special treatments.
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I find a lot of people invoke Christ, but have little to do with his teachings. Amusingly, his ideas align more with beliefs held by “the young left” than by “the old right”. (Yesyes, bad terms but you know what I mean) And yet the real-world allegiances are inverted.
You're missing the role of agency (or choice) in your evaluation. Forcing someone to do something vs someone choosing to do it of their own accord is quite different.
Churches should go back to being churches. No reason a religious organization needs a 100 billion warchest. What they are planning to eventually do with it? Buy off my local pol? Buy Utah and secede? Never mind the advantageous tax treatment enjoyed. This disturbs me.
They’re preparing for the end of the world. They call themselves “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints”, and take that moniker seriously.
That is just what is uncovered in the investment market with one subsidiary. They also own 2% of Florida[0], huge land tracts in Argentina, Oklahoma and elsewhere, and attractive urban real estate in most major metropolises including apartment complexes in PA. They centralize donation collection of tithes and good will offerings such that about 8% stays back at congregations (based on personal observation as the fina…
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?
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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.
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Given that we haven't met, dorian-graph, this starts with the assumption that what people like me went through is trivial. For decency sake I ask you to reconsider this as a default position. In order to get my records at least flagged as no longer a Mormon, thus to keep random visits from local congregations from occurring, I had to get a lawyer involved. In order for my children to not be repeatedly hounded by some…
> this starts with the assumption that what people like me went through is trivial. I did not read it as that, and don't believe that is what his statement conveys.
What information could the poster have been conveying, then, if not nothing? In context, I think it's clear that the intended update for readers was to raise the possibility that tomrod's indignities were self-inflicted.
It could be that the poster was trying to smear tomrod, or that they were baiting tomrod into responding at length (if so, success!), or that they genuinely didn't consider the implications of their comment, or something else entirely that was too subtle for me to catch. Probably only they will ever know. :)
Many have been asking what the Church does with the money it has. The official response can be found here https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/church-of-j... In addition this is the official response of the Church in reply to an almost identical story that ran not too long ago https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/first-presi...