And they rake in these billions because their brainwashed victims...oops. I mean members, fork over a LOT of their money. They are told they will not get into the best Heaven if they don't. What a racket.
"We look to not only the spiritual but also the temporal, and we believe that a person who is impoverished temporally cannot blossom spiritually."
Ok, Keith, why don't you just use plain English to say how awesome the church is, and explain to us a little more. Kind of like this:
"We look not only to the spiritual but we're quite interested in money. I'd normally use a fancy word like "temporal" for it, but I'd be too embarrassed for trying to pompously appear all humble and service-minded. We believe that poor people don't know how to be generous, loving, kind or honest unless we spiritually blackmail them into thinking they might get a beemer and a mcmansion by obeying all of our rules. It's unfortunate after following our rules that they don't get that fancy house or beemer, but they usually feel guilty enough about being miserable failures in some unspecified commandment that they just keep blossoming spiritually and giving us 10%."
Thanks to Keith's inspiring vision, it now makes total sense to me that the temporally impoverished children suffering from AIDS in Africa should first be encouraged to finish school and get jobs, convert to LD$, give their tithing, so that they can finally start to blossom spiritually.
Moreover, it now seems pretty clear that my friend the neurosurgeon who is working for pennies at an Ethiopian hospital fixing aneurysms, removing tumors and otherwise providing free medical care to the neurologically temporally impoverished is not really doing them any favors. He needs to ensure they are converted to LDS first so that the Lord will bless them with more money, and then after they start paying tithing their spirits will get all flowery.
I'm so upset it's taken me this long to understand how to make my spirit blossom.
" The great irony here is the people who love money the least (and have faith in God) are blessed with money, and those in the world who love money the most ( which is the root of all evil according to Paul), become the most poor in this life."
The church's main goal is to avoid paying government taxes while requiring temple recommend holders to pay 10% of their government benefits (like social security, welfare or disability) to the church. And when members need help they should ask their families first, the government or other charities second and the lds church last. And the reason the church gets away with this? Because its members are too brainwashed to ask questions and demand answers from church leaders.
I had a bishop tell a college student to pay 10% on a student loan. That's not even income...it's a loan. The church is happy to suck money out of its members anyway it can and gives as little as possible back. What a scam. Old Joe would be proud.
"Asked about the $1.3 billion estimate of the church’s humanitarian efforts over the past quarter-century, LDS Church spokesman Michael Purdy said in an email: "Though the church’s monetary donations are significant, much of the ‘value’ of our service is not monetary, but in the hundreds of thousands of hours of service and the talent and expertise given by church members to help others around the world." "
I'd wager a significant bet that most of those 'hundreds of thousands of hours of service' are to the church itself and its members, part of which includes teaching from the manuals that god is displeased when you don't pay tithing. And let's not forget the bishops hours of service, which includes gathering more money from the members. It's a self-serving organization.
"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" is a registered trademark owned by the Corporation of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus of Latter-Day Saints. Not the other way around! It's a business with its fingers in the religion game. They could turn all the chapels into Taco Bells overnight if they wanted to, and no one could stop them.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/03/2012 12:07PM by mrtranquility.