When it can be demonstrated that the money which I donate is used for the purpose for which I donate it then it is possible that I will consider donating again
All comments about this will be welcomed
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2021 02:40PM by thedesertrat1.
I would respond that the church can operate just fine on the interest and dividends from the $100 billion investment portfolio -- not to mention all of the other church holdings. Right now, the church doesn't need anyone's donations. But that won't stop members from throwing money at the church, because they have been conditioned to do so.
Very nice scam the church has going there. Tell the members that God will be unhappy with them if they don't fork over their 10%. Brillant, really.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2021 07:30PM by summer.
In 1907 Joseph Fielding Smith said that there will come the time that the church will not need tithing anymore. The is a church song called "follow the prophet he knows the way".
Yes, I pay more than 10 percent. I give directly to causes and people that I have been inspired to help. I just don't give it to you Brother Bishop, or the church directly. I prayed about it. God confirmed that is how I should tithe.
I told my bishop that I was having doubts about the church. He suggested that I give equal time to the scriptures as to the material I had been reading. My response in so many words was that I would have to devote 40 years of study to the other side of the story. I was 47 then. By next year’s tithing settlement, he knew I was serious because he had to review my resignation in October. Back then the process involved sending a notarized letter to church records, who in turn contacted one’s local authority; it took about eight weeks for me to get the final response from SLC.
One of my daughters resigned six months after me and said that she didn’t believe long before I quit believing. She’s since rejoined TSSC but doesn’t attend. I don’t know if she did so for the social aspects of Mo’ism since she lives and works in SLC or if it was to reconnect with her TBM Gma or to support my still believing DW.
They got me for thousands. They will continue to push for every rotten cent they can trim. The nest egg it sufficiently large, the beast is self sustaining even if the trimmings dry up.
One time this is about 20 years ago I went to tithing settlement. The bishop has asked me if I had. Paid full tithing. I said "yes". Bishop started saying how his daughter who is also a nurse just like me had paid more tithing and so the bishop marked "partial tithing". Bishop said that I should pay tithing back if I wanted to attend baptism for the dead in the temple. I explained to the bishop that I need working dayshift while his daughter was working on the neonatal intensive care unit doing nightshift. NICU makes more money than regular nursing and so does working nights. Well, this bishop was not having it what I was saying and revoked the partial temple recommend that I had till I would pay the tithing back. As a normal person that should have made me think, but I saw it as God needed more money to build up his church. So for the next couple of months I saved every Penny and paid my tithing back. That bishop got released eventually. I have wondered since do bishops get more praise from the stake president if his Ward pays more tithing?
1)It seems to me you didn't "pay back" your tithing (interesting phrasing): you were (over?)PAYING IT UP, either to what you "owed," or what you thought the bishop thought you owed. 2)What if you brought in a couple of pay stubs to the bishop and showed him your typical earnings, then computed what a year's tithe would have been?
> I have wondered since do bishops get > more praise from the stake president if his Ward > pays more tithing?
How much tithing collected gets him the platinum double-diamond lapel pin?
I actually do tithe my religious (non-LDS) body. I can compute my year's income fairly accurately, and I take it out of my retirement IRA as a Charitable Distribution. This way, it doesn't show up on federal or state forms as income, which works better, tax-wise, then listing it on the charitable deduction line.
Boomer Ex-Mos: If you're 72.5 or older, and have Minimum Distribution Requirements from an IRA, look into the Charitable Distribution option. IMPORTANT: This can only be done ONCE each tax year, and it must be done BEFORE you received any distributions as personal income.
I also donate to specific requests (love offerings, urgent relief needs, etc.) and am confident that those collections are dedicated to the issue. These would be listed on my charitable deduction line.
Now looking back I think that the bishops daughter paid tithing on her gross income where as I paid tithing on my net income. I was never a really strict Mormon. For example I would drink diet coke. Before I had my endowment some of my shirts had shorts sleeves or my shorts were maybe not quite knee length? I did not see myself as a Rebel in anyway but I kind of did my own thing what I thought was acceptable to eat drink and wear. Same with movies if I really wanted to see a movie I would watch it even if it was rated R. The brochure "for the strength of you" or something like that it says to not listen to music where the spirit can't be there. I listened to the music that I liked I was not concerned about the spirit leaving me. My opinion was to try to be a good person. Now looking back that bishop wanted me to be more exact. Pay tithing on the gross income. Do not drink any coffeine. Do not ever watch an R rated movie.
LDS fosters legalistic thinking, and discourages spirituality of the heart. "Letter of the law," and all that.
I'm surprised they don't make you come in with last year's 1040, a calculator, and your checkbook! That would make a lot more legalistic, but not spiritual, sense.
Sorry, this will be another long post. The subject tithing has brought up some memories. The first story that I wrote was when I was single and about 22 years old. The next story that I am writing is me being married with 2 or 3 children in a different Ward with a different bishop. So here is goes I was in my early thirties maybe 32 years old or so. My husband worked as an engineer and I was a stay at home mom to 2 or 3 kids at the time. The bishop at the time was also an engineer and so was the Ward Clark (they all worked for NASA). Different contractors but they would see each other in the hallway or at meetings during work. So husband would pay $600 per month on tithing. Well I said to husband that we should decrease our tithing to $500 per month so that our oldest child could take a gymnastics class. our oldest was very good at climbing and without reducing our tithing no matter how we crunched the numbers we could not afford it. Yes, I could have went back to work but MY dream was to be a stay at home mom. Anyway so we decided to reduce tithing by $100 and put our child in gymnastics class. We paid $500 instead of $600. The next month I kid you not we get called into the bishops office. The bishops thanked us for paying tithing. With the bishops next breath he ask us if there was a way that we could increase our tithing. My husband was quiet. I said "No". Bishop did not like my answer and I proceeded to tell the bishop that we have many small children and that we are a one income family. Ofcourse bishops wife was also a stay at home mom and they had even more small children. Still even that experience we kept going to church but kept paying $500 tithing. In the year 2013 we finally resigned.
I had very recently been diagnosed with type II diabetes & it was tithing settlement. The bishop asked if we were paying a full tithe. DH said we weren't so he asked why. I tried to explain to him that our insurance had not kicked in, & I was paying $300 every 10 days for 1 vial of insulin. He looked at me, shook his finger then said, "You don't have enough faith." I stood up & left. That was the straw that broke the camel's back.
We had been been through a lot with church leaders. For insurance, DH was told once by the EQ prez that the reason our terminally ill son was dying was because we didn't have enough faith. Because I questioned the ward leaders, I was disfellowshipped that time.
After the last incident, we left. We are now free to donate as we please.
"We had been been through a lot with church leaders. For insurance, DH was told once by the EQ prez that the reason our terminally ill son was dying was because we didn't have enough faith. Because I questioned the ward leaders, I was disfellowshipped that time."
That is plain cruel what they did to you. I am very sorry.
I wish there was some way that the irs could go after these billion dollar hedge fund/non profits. Places like Harvard with its 47 billion dollar slush fund. They could afford to educate everyone for free for decades. And also Yale and Cambridge and the others that are almost as bad, but Harvard is certainly the worst in terms of hoarding cash.
In our increasingly complex world its getting harder and harder to trust any of these big bureaucracies and their armies of gestapos any more. Wealth corrupts corporations faster than anything else.
maca Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I wish there was some way that the irs could go > after these billion dollar hedge fund/non profits. > Places like Harvard with its 47 billion dollar > slush fund. They could afford to educate everyone > for free for decades...
> ...but Harvard > is certainly the worst in terms of hoarding cash.
The joke is that Harvard is a hedge fund masquerading as an educational institution. I see it as a recruiting, selection, and grooming academy for the elite, determining who gets admitted into Mammon's halls of prestige and power.