I was reading "Stunted's" post regarding non member or inactive member parents unable to attend temple weddings of their own children. Stop for just a moment and consider the greed and heinous intention of any organization that would do this to a family. Why would they do this to anyone? One word, MONEY.

This is entirely a money issue. At the end of the day, pretty much everything LDS Inc does is a money issue.

As a former Bishop, MP etc. I can only make an estimate, but my estimate given my own experience is that "event" tithe payers make up as much as 20% of the Church's tithing revenue in any given year.

Event tithe payers are those that have been remiss in the payment of tithes but for a period of time preceding an event, like a temple wedding, the "sinner" repents of his omission and begins to pay tithing. These payers quickly fall back into the status of non or partial tithe payer shortly after the event. I've seen individuals write checks for 10's of thousands of dollars on the spot to bring themselves current and "worthy" of a temple recommend.

LISTEN AND LISTEN GOOD,

THE MAIN PURPOSE OF THE TEMPLE IS AS A REVENUE GENERATOR.

I have personally seen the computer matrix analyzing increased revenues from temple districts where new temples are constructed. Even the grandeur of these temples is determined by a cost benefit analysis. It is evil genius. In areas where temples don't exist, tithing participation is very low. In areas were temple attendance and temple events such as weddings are common, tithing adherence is much higher. Tithing is the NUMBER ONE issue that keeps individuals from being able to get a temple recommend. IT'S ENTIRELY ABOUT THE MONEY.

This is exactly why there is such a build up to the dedication of a new temple, and why there are multiple dedication ceremonies, as if God didn't hear the prayer the first time. They are just selling more seats. The cost of admission? you guessed it, full tithe payer for a year prior.

In the case of temple weddings, many families began to cope with the issue by having a civil ceremony on the same day, even treating the temple version as a formality before the main event. As the Church realized this was happening they cracked down hard beginning the the 80's. This was not done for any spiritual reason, but in the realization that their manipulation had a flaw, it was a strategy that cut in to cash flow.

It's a racket, pure and simple, without regard for the hardship and heartbreak it causes.

It's a manipulation most vile.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2011 04:43PM by SLDrone.

This and a lot of other stuff tells me they don't give a poot for family!

The other reasonable assumption for their motivation is gross arrogance which is no better, and perhaps worse than the monetary motivation.

Any way you look at it it stinks...

outofutah

re: "gross arrogance"

What better illustrates that then baptism for the dead:

"Your religion is shit, but mine can get you into the Magic Kingdom - even if you've croaked without joining."

The local leadership, bishops, SP's do not benefit financially and are not so motivated. There's is only to follow the prophet without question, and in doing so "they and their house shall serve god". These men are not privy to money issues of the Church that extend beyond their own small organization.

It is not so with the authorities at the general level, who are very much aware of the cash flow issues and income requirements of the Corporation of the First Presidency.

I have personally seen the computer matrix analyzing increased revenues from temple districts where new temples are constructed. Even the grandeur of these temples is determined by a cost benefit analysis.

It's all about the money, every time, every day. It's the money.

There's a money angle to everything the cult does.

Started with horn-Dog Joe and hasn't missed a lick since.

I wont grant the cult ignorance as an excuse. The leaders know exactly what they're doing.

Timothy

as they are tiny.

It is an example of a failure to be inspired - it took a visit by Hinckley to realize when he flew 5 hours from Sydney to Perth that it's a long way for some Australians to travel to the temple. Only then did we get 4 more -one in each of the largest cities after Sydney.

If the leadership was inspired, or even had a basic concept of geography outside Nth America, they would have understood the distance problem in Australia a lot earlier.

From what I've heard, this rule is more relaxed in other countries, such as Brazil, which shouldn't come as a surprise since their tithes are much smaller in comparison to the Utah tithers.

I believe tithing requirment was instituted by N. Eldon Tanner, when he was brought in to the first prez due to his financial wizzardry. Other posters can correct me, but isn't this the brain child of Tanner?

It was Lorenzo Snow that moved tithing from voluntary to commanded, several decades ahead of N. Eldon Tanner.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2011 04:44PM by SLDrone.

I'm not surprised in the least that tithing goes up when temple marriages are planned. So does adherence to the Word of Wisdom in many cases. I saw it in my own case. I expected that to happen.

If people wish to participate in any organization, religious or not, they have to play by the rules. And, that is always about money: money to join, money to donate for causes, whether it's religious or political. Support is always about money. Volunteer time is a minor part of any organization. Without money none of them can survive.

I always thought that tithing and temple ordinances for the dead was very clever. That way the tithing continues on and on and on and the organization has a constant supply of incoming assets.
Other churches could learn something from the Mormons! hehe

SQ says:
"If people wish to participate in any organization, religious or not, they have to play by the rules. And, that is always about money: money to join, money to donate for causes, whether it's religious or political. Support is always about money. Volunteer time is a minor part of any organization. Without money none of them can survive.

"I always thought that tithing and temple ordinances for the dead was very clever. That way the tithing continues on and on and on and the organization has a constant supply of incoming assets.

"Other churches could learn something from the Mormons! hehe"

Yeah, but the BIG difference, SQ, is that people are born into Mormonism (or convert without full knowledge of history and practices). It's not like being free to choose to join a group or not. If I want to join a book club I know it will cost me money and I know when, what for, and how much. Also, I can quit any time without losing friends, family, and possibly my mental health. Being BIC especially, your only choice is to pay up or miss out. That is a far cry from being "the same" as all other human organizations.

Saying it's par for the course everywhere makes it sound like it's reasonable and understandable that the Mormon Church leaders do this to their people.

I think that as punitive as tithing can be to millions of Mormons, and as greedy, grasping and immoral as it is to demand money for favours (seeing children wed, for instance), it is even more loathsome to require people to pay "back tithing". And even more loathsome than that is the fact that these things are inconsistent across the church in that some bishops demand the back tithing and others don't, and the church leadership doesn't step in to make it a formal policy and therefore consistent and reasonable (i.e., nobody has to pay back tithing, they can just resume tithing if that is their choice but only from that day forward). It is totally ridiculous, scheming and merciless to perpetrate the myth that members owe God, like he's Loan Shark of the Eternities.

I **still** feel bad about my Mormon friend who paid his "back tithing" in order to go to the temple with me. He had a wife and four kids to support, with a big mortgage and huge business expenses, while trying to save for his oldest son to go on a mission (another expectation the Mormon Church imposes on its people). I had NO CLUE they had to pay this stupid ridiculous unholy back tithing and would surely have tried to discourage them from doing it if I'd known ahead of time. It cost him thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to get into the temple with me, his friend who converted. IT WASN'T WORTH IT! (Long story but end result is I'm not even a member any more, so what the heck was it all about for him? He needed that $$$ for his family and his business).

It is not justifiable to hold people to ransom if they want to witness their own family's rites of passage. Being born into a church that does that to its members is definitely NOT "the same as" other organizations that people can choose to join after they know the rules and the costs. Not joining the local photography club, or quitting after I do, doesn't cost me my family, friends, health or happiness.

Nightingale,I totally agree with you. With any other organization/religion,you know what you are signing up for. The mormon church is so deceiving and cruel to those they claim to care the most about-Family.

Great post SLDrone.

Let's say there are a ton of members in a lower income area, (let's for kicks & grins say bombed-out East St. Louis). Would the temple be built in a ritzier but not-so-many-members St. Louis area? Seems obvious, but I wonder.

I don't know about other temples, but the Indianapolis temple is being built in the richest neighborhood in the state. All the executives from Eli Lilly, Dow and Conseco live within 5 minutes. Colts owner Jim Irsay lives about a couple of blocks away. TSCC must have paid a lot of money for that property.

of mormon extortion.

She raised 4 kids all by herself
She is now in her mid seventies, retired and living on a fixed income
She lives very modestly, on a very small pension

Her bishop requires her to pay tithing on her pension to get a temple recommend. She has paid her entire life, but still the morg demands more.

I asked her why she pays, her response: "So I can see my grandkids get married".

It is an immoral practice, taking money from old retired ladies.

The church own billions and billions of dollars in real estate, businesses, stocks, bonds. It is spending 3 billion dollars on a shopping mall, it just got 500 million dollars for some radio stations it sold

Yet it has to extort the last few dollars from a retired woman in her 70's.

Sick and wrong

that it was all propaganda directing people to the temple, and to pay the $tithing$ required to get there. The recent Ensign offers this advice in an article "How We Broke the Chains of Debt":

#3 Tithe and Trust in the Lord

No one in their right mind would recommend someone in debt give away 10% to a cult. TSCC knows necessities, and debt payment should be priorities, and this advice shows money is the bottom line.

The mission of TSCC also revolves around the temple, and its tithing requirement:

Proclaim the Gospel - recommend needed for missionaries (endowment$)
Perfect the Saints - all roads lead to the temple (endowment$)
Redeem the Dead - recommend needed for endowment$

In return you get ugly underwear, and become 10% poorer.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2011 05:28PM by atheist&happy:-).

Excellent post. It is really interesting to know the "details" of how they determine where they build temples.

Does it surprise me? Not in the least.

Thanks for the excellent post, SLDRONE.

The church uses tithing tied to temple recommends as a form of spiritual extortion. They essentially tell the members "Do you love your family? Well then pay up or you won't be allowed in their wedding." and then later "Pay up, or you won't be with your family in heaven."

Guilt, Fear, and Money...

First they convince you they have the only real road to Heaven, then they set up toll booths all along the way. They keep adding tool booths while the road itself deteriorates. And the road doesn't lead anywhere, just around in circles.

Fantastic metaphor!

Reading this post, I realized that my blind adherence to mormonism meant that neither my family nor my wife's were permitted to attend our wedding. If Mom and Dad weren't dead I would want nothing more than to tell them how sorry I am for being such a sanctimoneous twit.

Oh well, it will be the first thing out of my mouth when I see them again because priesthood doesn't make families forever, love does.

Wow! It all makes sense. The whole d@mn temple scheme makes sense. Knowing everything that I know about the church and it's history, why do I still feel like I've been kicked in the gut after reading this? I literally feel sick.

I had a bishop who talked a lot only giving welfare to members in the most extreme cases because he had to protect "the widow's mite." That biblical story of the widow casting in her mite bothers me so much. It provides scriptural justification for taking money from old women and fatherless children.

I keep saying tithing will be the downfall of the church. Joe's pedophilia is a close second, but the tithing thing will discourage and make people fall away in larger numbers. This economy will restructure the thinking of the most faithful.

according to the New Year's letter we got from the bishopric is "The Temple is the Center of Our Worship." The one time we've made it to Sacrament meeting this year it was ALL about how important it is to go to the temple. I thought Christ was the center of our worship but besides that obvious misunderstanding on my part, the whole thing is such an obvious shakedown of the members by a bishop who almost certainly isn't collecting nearly the tithing as the previous bishop. So the current bishop looks bad. When I pointed this out to my TBM DH, he didn't even object to my "rude" comment and in fact said later "I wonder if a bishop's success is based on how much tithing money he produces." This is getting too obvious, even to the faithful. Great post - thanks.

CA girl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ... When I pointed this out
> to my TBM DH, he didn't even object to my "rude"
> comment and in fact said later "I wonder if a
> bishop's success is based on how much tithing
> money he produces."

Most Mormons today do not realize that in early Utah, into the 20th century, the bishop was allowed to keep as salary ten percent of all tithing he collected. The stake president also got a cut. And for a while they also got pensions when they left office.

"unpaid clergy" - hah!

Is this for real? Bishops used to get a cut of tithing? Incredible.

i WAS REFUSED HELP IN THE CHURCH, A TITHE PAYER YET MY DRUG ADDICT NON MEMBER BROTHER IN LAW, GOT $50 FROM THE BISHOP
HOPEING TO RE-ACTIVE HIM.

tHIS IS NOT GODS WORK BUT MANS AND WHO THE BISHOP FAVOURS TO HELP.

Brilliant post. It really makes sense when you put it how you have.
Agree back-tithing is ridiculous and it certainly does not feel like the spirit of Christ's teachings, at all.

This poor woman's husband is in jail for a complicated series of events that she is only beginning to grasp herself because he never explained them to her and she never asked. As a result, he's likely going to lose his job and they're going to lose a deposit on a place in Canada, where he is probably never going to be allowed again. They have three young children; she doesn't work. They are in a dire situation. And now this, from BBC:

<<I just don't know how long it's going to take. Our funds are running out. We have less than $2000 in the bank right now and probably no more coming in. I doubt the company up in Canada is going to continue paying him, but I'm not going to mention it.

I am paying my tithing though...it is the same amount that it will cost to get our car out. THAT'S hard...but I know we will be blessed..>>

it seems like these videos agree with you!

What is the business secret to Utahs largest and most suckCESS fool corporation? Holding families hostage in eternity!

Big Love based the garment code "a killer, Ya gotta have the temple!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LA_Eusla4o

Right from the pulpit in Gen Conf

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWF_yCOKMcI

what are the REAL blessings of the Temple ?
MOReMONey for LDS Inc !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWF_yCOKMcI