One of my big moments of clarity was when I realized the church was a theocracy and I don't believe theocracies are good. Hey if a group of people want to try their best to live Christlike go knock yourselves out but my problem is when leadership of such groups start claiming they are THE authority and you must follow them unconditionally. This is what the LDS church is. Does it do some good? Sure. Do some members really try to be good people? Absolutely. The big problem with the church is it's a theocracy where one man is head of it and the rest of the church worship him like he's some kind of celebrity. If you have ever been to a church function where one of the top church leaders show up and see how the membership reacts it's not much different than being somewhere that a big name celebrity shows up and the fans are going crazy. It's the same thing. It's scary and creepy.

If you look at the history of the church the leadership have put it into financial trouble several times. The main culprit usually is building buildings the church can't afford. The church went bankrupt in Kirtland mainly due to building the Kirtland temple. The church again got into debt for finishing the Salt Lake temple. All those fancy light fixtures, hard woods, furniture and fixtures cost money. The church borrowed money to pay for them and then could not pay it back. To pay the debt the church went to a cash tithing system that has worked well for the church.

In 1959 the church again was in substantial debt. Again due to building buildings it could not afford. The church leadership figured if they built nicer modern meeting houses that would draw more people to the church. That really didn't happen to the level they had hoped and again the church found itself in debt.

If you look at the church in the 60's it didn't do much. The reason why is it didn't have the money to do much. Many credit N Eldon Tanner for restructuring the church's finances and making it solvent again. In the 70's the church started building temples again and building meeting houses again but it was cautious.

In the 80's the church built smaller cost savings temples. The first one built in Boise turned out to be a failure. That temple later had to be closed down and remodeled to make it work. The church started to realize it had to go back to building big temples in areas where there were a lot of church members.

When Gordon B Hinckley came in he went temple crazy. He went back to the failed mini temple concept. He built a ton of these little temples everywhere. Then of course he dumped a lot of church money into historical sites and downtown Salt Lake. Much of the church building is due to Gordon B Hinckley. He went completely nuts that way.

The church continues to build temples big and small. Almost 10 new ones are announced every general conference. I have a friend who works in the church finance department. He said there is a huge push under Nelson to modernize all church financial reporting using the latest technology. The reason why is Nelson wants to know how the church stands financially in real time. In the past the financial system was a bit slow and the church kept a cash cushion. Well now Nelson wants to spend the cash cushion and take the church to a just in time system. This means again building more temples.

There seems to be this engrained belief in the church leadership that if you build it. They will come. Nelson is obsessed with this gathering Israel concept. The fiscal caution of Spencer W Kimball and Ezra Taft Benson are gone. In those days the church feared insolvency. They would turn down requests for temples because having a cushion of cash was more important than building temples even where they might be needed.

The church went nuts under Hinckley and is really nuts under Nelson. Nelson believes technology will help the church gather Israel (whatever the hell that means). He wants to spend every penny available to take the church forward on his vitamin and sleep fueled quest. Of course historically this means the church gets into financial trouble building buildings it could not afford. It's build it and they will come.

What has kept the church going through all of this is the members. The members keep paying their tithing and donations and that cash flow has bailed the church out from the stupid decisions the leaders have made. The leadership would have driven the church into the ground a long time ago if the membership didn't keep bailing the church out.

It is my opinion (I am a bookkeeper and financial numbers nut) that the only way you can remain solvent is to spend less than you take in-- period-- period-- period.
My practice is if I can't pay cash I don't need it!
This means I don't have a big "modern" house, a new expensive car and various other "things"
The only three things that you or I actually "need" are

food

shelter

and clothing.


O K EVERYBODY JUMP ON MY SHOULDERS AND DO A TAP DANCE ON MY HEAD

It will not change my outlook.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2019 11:21AM by thedesertrat1.

thedesertrat1()…. I support you 100%


My wife use to complain when we didn't go out and buy the latest greatest gadget. Her words were, "we're the only ones I know that lives within our means."

She's changed her song now that we are retired and have enough to live comfortably and generally do what we want to do without worrying about the bill collectors knocking at the door.

I fully agree on living below your means. Paying tithing was living beyond our means for a few years. What a mistake. The past 25 years, without tithing and living frugally allows us peace of mind financially. We have had no house payment for many years. It is a modest home. I just bought a new car yesterday as I wanted the new safety features to assist me as an old fart. Paid cash. We could only do that by being reasonable with our life style.

We could not of obtained this minimal level of comfort if we had had paid tithing all those years. I would hate to face retirement with debt.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2019 05:21PM by Eric K.

thedesertrat1 I am right there with you. I always thought the whole keeping up with the Jones's thing was stupid. It really goes into overdrive when you add the "Prosperity Doctrine" crap. Utah is 9th in personal bankruptcy. The McMansions are just appalling. I think the church is the same. If they keep building it shows growth. Not. I also think there are a lot of top tier people who are making money off the building.

I am just happy we are now debt free except for our modest house and we should have it paid off in the next year.

Energetic temple building is also part of the campaign to normalize Mormonism: "We're not the weird polygamists you might have heard stories about - we're the Christian religion whose temples you see in cities all over the country and the world. We are your friendly neighbors."



Mormonism: it's so normal it's got vanilla icing ...

3X Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Energetic temple building is also part of the
> campaign to normalize Mormonism: "We're not the
> weird polygamists you might have heard stories
> about - we're the Christian religion whose temples

(where we do some really stupid weird crap that you would not believe and that we will NOT openly talk about in detail)


> you see in cities all over the country and the
> world. We are your friendly neighbors."

.....a great MORmON plan it was....... but there was still one small (GIANT) problem

Brigham Young and the Trans continental rail road is a perfect irrefutable example of what you are talking about. at 8:30 in the video excerpt Brigham Young suspends payment of tithing which is a dead give away that the MORmON leader KNEW that LDS Inc is a SCAM !!!!!!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwkFavjPsdE&t=303s

BY may have been crazy, but he wasn’t stupid.

While what you write is true, I also keep hearing, at least anecdotally, that meetinghouse construction has been sacrificed and scaled back substantially worldwide in favor of more and more temples. Hence the two hour block revelation in order to fit more units per meetinghouse.

Living without a financial cushion is all well and good as long as nothing goes wrong. Something always goes wrong, given enough time. Nelson’s Folly is not likely to end well IMHO.

Additional point about 1950s-1960s financial bind. Much of it had to do with Henry Moyle buying lots of Welfare Farm land, in particular the Deseret Ranch east of Orlando. I think that is still the largest ranch in the US.

That plus the extensive building program of the then brand new California ranch style ward houses about did LDS Inc in. They put Henry out to pasture and brought in Tanner to clean up the mess.

One of the problems with being an international business and real estate conglomerate is channeling money from one country to another.

International regulations, the financial laws of each country and currency fluctuations make it rather challenging.

Real Estate acquisitions make it easier to spend vast amounts of cash through construction companies and into private hands.

Cost over runs are no problem. Cash to a builder glows to contractors then sub contractors then suppliers then manufacturers making it hard to trace just where the money ends up.

When the Ogden temple was refurbished they used granite from Egypt. Why? There are several providers of granite from Utah that would have worked just fine. Unless you have overseas money you need to spend.

Well yeah, it’s a theocracy and the members like it that way. It has fragility built in because nobody pushes back against bad ideas. When the prophet has spoken, the thinking has been done. Sometimes incredibly bad thinking. Like the November policy that they had to re-think to cover for a God that keeps screwing up.

Tithes bolster belief, which may help those who have no shame, but for the rest of the members their imperfections program them for self-sabotage so they subconsciously stay at subsistence levels.

Part of the church's problems was that they actually believed their very own membership stats from the 1980s and 1990s. Those false projections gave the air bags the false hope that church growth was real and those McTemples would pay for themselves. They had no idea that a wave of truth would sweep through the church and lead members out. If they could have seen the coming of the internet, then they never would have built so many during the Hinkley years.

As long as the 15 have their financial cushion, that's all that matters.

(with a emphasis on the "former?")

DesertRat-One (above), I completely concur with your living withing your means. I've always been very conservative with credit, and put in additional principal with almost every mortgage and car payment. Now retired, no debt, especially no revolving debt.