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

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

#321

Post by jacurtis » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 8:37 PM UTC

trenning wrote: post #315

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…

> they all get the same stipend which for many is less than they made in their professional lives It's weird how much this is being repeated in this thread. It's clear this opinion didn't form on an individual level but rather is directed by the church to their followers to repeat. It's an odd way of justifying position is all.

Ex Mormon here. Yes, it is drilled down into our brains. The same exact phrases.

And the stipend is 6-figures per year (most members don't know this though, it was leaked a few times now on paystubs). But all travel and room is also paid for. Plus most leaders of the church that receive this stipend are 70+ years old, so they are already living off healthy retirements in addition to now free housing and a healthy stipend. Church leaders are all successful businessman, doctors, and lawyers. Basically you pay your way to the top. So all of these people have incredible riches before they start taking these stipends.

Church members like to pretend like our leaders are scraping by... but they are in top 1% of income earners. Further, you should hear those same leaders talk about tithing to members. Even encouraging their poor members to pay up because "they can't afford not to".

It should also be noted that the church pays these top leaders, but chooses not to pay anyone at the congregation level. From the bishop (equivilant to a Pastor in most other religions), to the people teaching sunday school, the people cleaning the buildings, the bookkeepers, etc are all asked to do it for free. These are generally lower-income or middle-income members with full time jobs, asked to do this in addition to normal jobs... oh and they have to pay 10% of their pre-tax income to the church that they make from their job.

> No bishop [aka 'Pastor'], no missionary should ever hesitate or lack the faith to teach the law of tithing to the poor. The sentiment of “They can’t afford to” needs to be replaced with “They can’t afford not to.”

That quote is direct from their official prophet.

Source: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference...

Note: If you click that link you will see that the title is "Tithing - A commandment even for the destitute", this man had the hairy balls to stand up with a straight face and say that no one is too poor to pay his church. While he flies private jets everywhere from these poor family's sacrifices.

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

#322

Post by darksaints » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 8:39 PM UTC

tomohawk wrote: post #319

darksaints wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

Does your belief system require you to be so disparaging to people who believe differently? If you don't want to pay any attention to the claims of Christianity, then by all means don't.

No, but I'm pretty happy with seeking its demise. Christianity, along with the rest of the abrahamic religions, are a corrupting plague on our planet and society. That which is good about it is not unique to it, and that which is unique to it is not good. We are stagnant in our progress as humans to the degree that we still believe in it.

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

#323

Post by patch_collector » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 8:39 PM UTC

codingdave wrote: post #52

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…

> It still sounds a lot like Communism, though. That is because it is, 100%. If your teacher freaked out over it, she is having trouble reconciling it with the American cultural meme of "Communism is pure evil.", which stems from the Cold War, not religious doctrine. And yes, something is off if a tithing LDS family is living on food stamps. I have had family who lost jobs and had no money, and the LDS church gave th…

Speaking as a member of the church, I've heard the position that, when in financial difficulty, first rely on family (where applicable), then rely on what's available through the government (which includes food stamps, unemployment benefits, etc), and finally rely on the church. I wouldn't see an issue with someone receiving aid from all three sources, even at the same exact time -- if a person qualifies for food stamps, then the church can spend an equivalent amount helping someone else, and perhaps help with other bills regardless.

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

#324

Post by rayiner » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 8:41 PM UTC

telmo wrote: post #320

rayiner wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is fine. Families have the right to criticize each other for how they raise their children and to enforce common norms, where they genuinely believe decisions to be harmful. If my brother was raising my nephews/nieces in a way that I felt was harmful you bet he’d get an earful. Families aren’t just federations of sovereign individuals. Kids are community property.

> Families aren’t just federations of sovereign individuals. Kids are community property. Kids are nobody's property, and parent absolutely have the right to ignore the rest of the family as long as they observe the laws of the land.

It’s a very liberal western viewpoint. The vast majority of humanity would disagree.

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

#325

Post by dkarl » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 8:41 PM UTC

curiousgeorgio wrote: post #311

dkarl wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they're removed, they're removed, at least from any lists that local leaders, members or missionaries could see. This is exactly the kind of dishonest bullshit line that local leaders use when people ask to be removed and not contacted again. I don't know how these "lists" work internally in the church, but local leaders can happily say, "Sure, we'll remove you from the list. Done! No more visits!" knowing that…

You're welcome to your own opinions, but I actually work with church records at a local level, and this is the truth. I have siblings and neighbors who have left, and there's absolutely no remaining evidence (that I or my local leaders can see) of their info or that they were ever members of the church. It comes down to what you're specifically asking. If you ask a local leader to remove you from a list, they may rem…

> On the other hand, if you want to remove your record from the church as a whole (the entire organization), you'd need to be clear about that with your bishop (local leader), and they are instructed to give you details about how to go about removing your record from church headquarters.

This is exactly how my friend was treated at every step of the way. They pretended that she hadn't actually asked for the right thing in the right way. It's shameful. She asked over and over not to be contacted ever again, by anyone, by any part of the church, in any locality. And to this day, people just like you pretend that it couldn't have happened that way, that she must have done something wrong.

"Gaslighting" is a word that I think is used way too lightly these days, but that's what the church did to her. It started before she left and was the reason she left. Every time she talked to people inside the church about the things that were happening to her, the reaction was, "Are you sure it didn't actually happen this other way?" They rejected her story of what happened and believed their own version instead.

> those kinds of mistakes are rare and local leaders will help however they can

I'm sorry, but I don't believe that even you can even pretend to believe that without it hurting a little bit.

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

#326

Post by curiousgeorgio » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 8:42 PM UTC

jacurtis wrote: post #310

curiousgeorgio wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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?

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

#327

Post by alanwreath » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 8:42 PM UTC

jacurtis wrote: post #316

sturgill wrote: post #107

Can you imagine the criticism if the investment arm was losing money? The Church does amazing work providing resources during crises. I’ve personally cut trees off of people’s houses with chainsaws provided by the Church and given buckets of sanitation supplies when hurricanes swept through Florida. There is always a tension in “what do you spend now and what do you invest for later” but I honesty feel like the Churc…

One part that was left out of the WSJ article but was released by the whistleblower was the source of these funds. When members asked to donate money to charity, the church said they would happily donate it on behalf of the members. It was then taken from the members and funneled into this investment fund instead of redirected to charity (as they promised). The church claims that since they are a non-profit that they…

If you want your assistance to go straight to those who need it - then walk right to that person and give it to them. If you want someone who is experienced in making said assistance stretch further than just to that one family, ask someone experienced. Complaining seems like you don't trust the person to whom you just put in charge of using your donation wisely. So why was the donation made again?

Obviously one would expect the charity to report yearly on their endeavors - since no aid may be going out at all - however, reporting on each dollar would be a tad difficult to track. So not sure what would be required here.

Emptying out said donations all in one go (to avoid the perception of hoarding say all 100 billion) may not be good either since problems today may be more bearable than problems tomorrow. So not sure what would be required here either.

Probably the best remedy of those who do not wish to trust the Lds charities, would be to stop donating to them.

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

#328

Post by klodolph » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 8:44 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #324

telmo wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Families aren’t just federations of sovereign individuals. Kids are community property. Kids are nobody's property, and parent absolutely have the right to ignore the rest of the family as long as they observe the laws of the land.

It’s a very liberal western viewpoint. The vast majority of humanity would disagree.

A belief about values cannot be called a "false belief". You should rephrase that.

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

#329

Post by ryanwaggoner » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 8:48 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #289

knicholes wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno. One has to deal with the random crying, the questions of "Why haven't you baptized your children? I want to spend eternity with my grandbabies!", "They need primary!", etc. Then there's the endless gossip at family activities when you're absent about how you're leading your family to hell.

Which is fine. Families have the right to criticize each other for how they raise their children and to enforce common norms, where they genuinely believe decisions to be harmful. If my brother was raising my nephews/nieces in a way that I felt was harmful you bet he’d get an earful. Families aren’t just federations of sovereign individuals. Kids are community property.

And if the earful consists of a bunch of toxic nonsense about how I’m not raising my kid according to your dogmatic interpretations of some fairy tale from the Bronze Age, you can fuck right off. Being related doesn’t give you some inviolable right to my time or attention, despite what you may think. You can spout off all you want about “western views” and what your rights are because we share parents, but at the end of the day, if you can’t actually make a cogent case for your views themselves and you insist on being a judgmental dick about it, you won’t be part of my life.

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

#330

Post by ryanwaggoner » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 8:49 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #324

telmo wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Families aren’t just federations of sovereign individuals. Kids are community property. Kids are nobody's property, and parent absolutely have the right to ignore the rest of the family as long as they observe the laws of the land.

It’s a very liberal western viewpoint. The vast majority of humanity would disagree.

So?