The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by darksaints » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

bensonn wrote: post #239

Is 100 billion really that much? The church has 16 million members. That is about $6,000 per member. The church has had 200 years of tithing and compound interest to get to this point. If used as an endowment to support 16 million people in 170+ countries that doesn't seem too crazy. A single human (not mentioning any names) having 100 billion seems crazy.

$100 billion in one fund. $32 billion accounted for in other funds [0]. Not to mention 2% of the land in Florida, several billion dollars in commercial and residential real estate. Who knows what else they're hiding.

And 16 million members is fools' accounting. It doesn't account for the millions of people like me who don't go to church and yet are still members because I don't want to pay money to hire a lawyer to force the church to take my name off the records.

[0] https://kutv.com/news/local/mormonleaks-says-new-documents-l...

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

#272

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

starskublue wrote: post #163

tomrod wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m pretty comfortable assuming he would have made more money in his life had he not accepted a calling to full-time ministry. Two comments. [1] The Mormon church is a corporation sole, meaning presently Nelson is the sole controller of all assets. He could reasonably set up his family for life with beneficial contacts and contracts. That is worth more than (now probably expired) intellectual property associated wi…

[1] Yet no one has alleged that anything like that has happened. Also if I was 90 years old and had plenty of money I would much rather live a comfortable retired life than work at the pace he works at.

[deleted]

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

#273

Post by darksaints » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 6:53 PM UTC

tomohawk wrote: post #231

xtracto wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Jesus makes several truth claims, that if true, are extremely compelling for why someone may want to pay attention today. One of these is His claim to be God. You can either dismiss Jesus as a lunatic, dismiss Jesus as a liar, or accept Jesus for who He claimed to be. If Jesus was merely a good man, He would not have claimed to be God. That is not something good people do.

We have no first hand accounts from Jesus himself. We have a couple of first hand accounts from followers. Most of them don't reconcile with each other very well. And even if they did, humans have a long history of collectively believing and participating in supernatural bullshit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbCzb_FWpi4

Lots of people have claimed to be god. Some are even widely recognized as good people. Do we need to give them all our attention? Cause I'm pretty content living my life without believing in wild fairy tales.

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

#274

Post by tomrod » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 6:54 PM UTC

godelski wrote: post #253

tomrod wrote: post #9

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…

> For the record I left several years ago, but have many family members still heavily involved. It's an organization which does not allow you to leave with your dignity intact. A lot of people are trying to counter this. As an ex-Mormon I do want to share my experience. Not for the people of Hacker News, but because I know this issue is hard to talk about and I want others to know that they aren't alone. I first off,…

Thank you for sharing. Your experience has similarities to mine.

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

#275

Post by curiousgeorgio » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 6:56 PM UTC

godelski wrote: post #266

curiousgeorgio wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...visiting an address given to them by the church" If that person is really an "ex-member" (meaning they had their name removed from the church's records), then this simply could not have happened, at least not in the name of the church. I've seen firsthand what happens to a congregation's records when someone removes their name (no surprise - their name, address, etc are removed from the list, and there's no consp…

> If that person is really an "ex-member" (meaning they had their name removed from the church's records), This is the issue. The names don't get removed. Everyone that leaves is just "inactive". Tell me you don't see that. Tell me you don't see people talking about how to get them active again. Because I've been to a lot of wards and seen that discussion in every single one. "They are just inactive". I've told membe…

> The names don't get removed. Everyone that leaves is just "inactive". Tell me you don't see that.

I don't see that. If they're removed, they're removed, at least from any lists that local leaders, members or missionaries could see.

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

#276

Post by lcall » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 7:02 PM UTC

darksaints wrote: post #215

sturgill wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Find me the executive team of a multimillion person company with hundreds of billions of assets making the living stipend of the (relatively few) ecclesiastical leaders of the Church and your argument will have more weight. IIRC, the living stipend for members of the Twelve was around $100k? Or less than the salary of an intern at Google...

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 career are not rich in any worldly sense beyond middle-class Americans, and the few I have met were kind and unselfish (and very bright & capable). I was a also Church employee for a time.

In contrast, I have no experiences or knowledge indicating abuse of power or influence by GAs, except very rarely where I read about it in the news and they quickly were not GAs any more.

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

#277

Post by godelski » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 7:03 PM UTC

tomrod wrote: post #274

godelski wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the record I left several years ago, but have many family members still heavily involved. It's an organization which does not allow you to leave with your dignity intact. A lot of people are trying to counter this. As an ex-Mormon I do want to share my experience. Not for the people of Hacker News, but because I know this issue is hard to talk about and I want others to know that they aren't alone. I first off,…

Thank you for sharing. Your experience has similarities to mine.

Seeing you share helped me share. It helps me feel less alone, so thank you.

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

#278

Post by maxlybbert » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 7:04 PM UTC

weare138 wrote: post #25

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?

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God." -Jesus Matthew 19:24

“All things (e.g., a camel’s journey through a needle’s eye) are possible, it’s true. But imagine how the camel feels, all squeezed our, in a long bloody thread from tail to snout.”

I’ve seen this attributed to C.S. Lewis, but I’ve never tracked it down.

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

#279

Post by tomrod » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 7:05 PM UTC

gigatexal wrote: post #247

How is this on HN? And on the front page no less?

Hackers have a natural affinity for the structure of systems, be they behavioral/political or technological.

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

#280

Post by lcall » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 7:08 PM UTC

innocentoldguy wrote: post #207

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…

Some differences between the Law of Consecration and Communism are: 1. Nobody is forced to live the Law of Consecration. It is a personal choice and not one forced down your throat under threat of death. 2. Under the Law of Consecration, as practiced under Joseph Smith, families would define their needs rather than have their needs dictated. 3. Communism is about power and control. The Law of Consecration is about in…

I wonder why this and those with similar comments were downvoted. I have spent some time studying both systems (at 2 universities) and observing over decades, and it looks accurate to me. The law of consecration, doctrinally, in all the source documents and major attempts to practice it, is voluntary, as is any true Christian behavior.

I learned some things about communism, read a number of books about individuals' experiences, from various countries, for a little while majored in Russian history at a university in the midwestern/central USA, reading, watched many Soviet films, etc., and my mother has a degree in Asian Studies and knows Mandarin, etc etc of various family studies & travel, and communism seems consistently, across time and place, to be a combination of attractive words with a murderous horror of physical and mental abuse and control over individuals and any group that might not be in favor with those in power.