If the LDS church is against giving money in the hope of getting something in return. Then why do they accept money from millions of people by promising them passage to an afterlife that they cannot prove exists? Surely that is either a massive gamble or a con.

It is clearly a con. They have no clue what they are talking about when they say you can go to various kingdoms. It is like science, everything is a theory until proven otherwise. And I 100% guarantee, we will never find out about the afterlife while we are living. If there even is one, which I am starting to doubt there is an afterlife.

If the LDS church is against giving money in the hope of getting something in return, then why did the newest Mormon prophet tell the people of Africa that if they send their money to Salt Lake they will get out of poverty?

The abuse of Africa and south America by many organised religions is a disgrace. They are taking money from the poorest and most vulnerable people on the planet. That does not mean that everything they do is evil. I was very impressed by LDS and how they mobilised aid after hurricane Katrina. They had supplies and People on the ground faster than the government. Yes the cynic in me believes that they did it to get more followers but it still helped thousands of people in need.

I guess if you want to credit the Mormon's success in that hurricane to getting their own people out ahead of the disaster. Those who weren't LDS were left behind to experience it. And the feel good stories about it aren't all they are made out to be.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/petermoskowitz/how-one-of-katrinas-feel-good-stories-turned-bad?utm_term=.xeGVPR2Ba#.yfkEXYnmk

The more important perspective is that their performance in a natural disaster doesn't equal their performance in long term poverty like in Africa. And you don't even have to look to South America to get closer to home.

The Book of Mormon is allegedly for the Lamanites and the Mormons have understood them to be American Indians right in the United States. The highest poverty levels in the US are on reservations. The Mormons have turned their backs on them.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/24/2018 06:50AM by mikemitchell.

I use this definition of gambling

Noun
gambling

An activity characterised by a balance between winning and losing that is governed by a mixture of skill and chance, usually with money wagered on the outcome.



With that definition, I don't see LDS-ism or many other faiths fitting into your view

That is the literal definition of gambling. But not the one LDS supports. As a religion what they are selling their believers is something they are unable to prove. Therefore, the believers are gambling with their hard earned cash to enable them to be rewarded in an imaginary afterlife. Atleast if I bet on a horse that wins I will get something in return. All that happens with any organised religion is a gamble that the faith you believe in is either a passage to eternal life or a gamble that the religion you are buying into is the correct one and your route to God. So they just want to make sure the gambling you do puts money in their vaults. I just find it hypocritical that I cannot gamble on tangible things, but I can gamble on an acterlife. The LDS website states.“The Church has been and now is unalterably opposed to gambling in any form whatever. It is opposed to any game of chance, occupation, or so-called business, which takes money from the person who may be possessed of it without giving value received in return.
Where is the value in what they offer?

LDS have sunk a lot of money into their faith. They need it to be true so much that they’ll keep on sinking money into it rather than admit they’d been had.

A sucker bet is one where the long term average payout is far less than even. TSCC convinces the sucker that everyone who’s not LDS is actually the sucker. So the church is more like a carnival midway. It’s that kind of gambling.

Texas holdem is a game of skill. It’s very mental, like chess but a different game. Hardly an empty pursuit. Maybe Joseph always lost.

It is indeed a massive con.

And that goes for any religion. But without religion who would we have to mock? Apart from the flat earth brigade, homeopaths, reflexologists, faith healers, psychics, ghost hunters....... Shit, we have our work cut out.

They gambled with peoples lives and the results have been disastrous.

The not-so-secret allure of gaming is intermittent reinforcement—eventually you’ll get some payback. I’m still waiting for three bars or a cherry on my years of tithing.

BYU Boner Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The not-so-secret allure of gaming is intermittent
> reinforcement—eventually you’ll get some
> payback. I’m still waiting for three bars or a
> cherry on my years of tithing.


If you're still waiting then i definitely have no chance of getting a cherry.

I have always interpreted the mormon church's stance on gambling as a prohibition of games of chance. When you spin the wheel or throw the dice, no matter how skilled you are and even if you win, the odds are against you. It is a foolish endeavor if your goal is to do anything except to have some fun. You can't build a business plan around it or count ahead of time on winning through some skill or strategy. Since the church doesn't care about your fun, they call it sinful. As long as you plan ahead of time to write-off the money, like you would do to purchase admission tickets to an event, I have no problem with it. But like drinking (something else that is banned by the church), you need to do it responsibly.

The church probably has a lot of money in the stock market. That is a gamble. But the church doesn't prohibit it. They don't tell the church members not to do it.

When it comes to tithing, the church doesn't consider it to be gambling. They win every time, without exception. There is no risk for them. I think there is a different lesson for tithe payers than that they shouldn't gamble. It's wrong for the church to call it fire insurance, or to say that you will receive more back in tangible payback as a result of paying tithing. That is all fraud. It's not about not playing a game of chance either. It's about not being a willing victem of a fraud against you. Don't let others do your thinking for you. Make responsible choices.

The concept of paying tithing is not all bad. But paying any tithing to the mormon church should be a sin. Charity is a wonderful and valuable part of our society. But the mormon church is not accountable and is secretive about how they spend your donations. They give charities a bad name. They lie by claiming that you will see a return on your investment (either in this life or in the next) when you pay tithing. Tithing should go to real charity. When you pay it, you know in advance that you will receive nothing back, other than that you have done something good to benefit others who really need the help (as opposed to the mormon fatcat leaders who glut themselves on your dime).

I hadn't even thought about churches investments in stock markets. That is the biggest casino in the world and regularly bankrupts businesses and individuals. But it also makes billions for the people who know how to play the system or bend the rules to suit their needs. The church of England has stocks and shares in companies or affiliates that make weapons that are used around the world to oppress and kill the poor Pepe who contribute to their church. The poor lose either way and the church rubs it's hands all the way to the bank. Thank you all for your insightful words on my topic. It has certainly reinforced my opinion that religion has no moral compass and exploits people's fears with empty promises. The sad thing is it can never be stopped, despite the rise of atheism, there will always be people who feel they need something to fill a void in their life. It is nothing more than exploitation.

If you believe in capitalism as a necessary evil at its worst, then the stock market has a valid place in the betterment of our society. Calital investments fueled by stock market investments create jobs and consumer goods, and provide for private investments in homes and cars and other consumer goods. Some of these investments fail and when they do, the value of the stock that made the investment possible, drops. So stocks are more than a game of chance.

But I think that stock derivitives, derivitives of dirivitives, and derivitives of dirivitives of derivitives are unethical. They're basically used to allow anyone who wants to, to print money legally. If a stock won't sell based on its instrinsic value, why would it be worth more if you gather several similarly bad stocks up in to a bundle and then issue a new stock based on the perceived value of that bundle and then trade that bundle against other similar bundles? Then you bundle those bundles up and issue a new stock against the perceived value of those similarly useless bundles. As all of that useless crap is traded, the value of your money is diluted. I am all for free markets and honest stock transactions. But ninety percent of those guys who manipulate markets this way need to be kicked out in to the street, and told to get an honest job or else go to prison.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/24/2018 12:33PM by azsteve.

Of course, forwards and swaps on forwards have been around since the Sumerians and are a critical element of agricultural economy. Eliminate the derivatives and you eliminate the price predictability on which farmers depend.

More generally, stocks and bonds and commodities are specific contracts. Derivatives are simply the disaggregated pieces of those contracts. There are things that can be done with those disaggregations to shift types of risk, but in toto they are no different than the sum of the underlying instruments. To say that they are without value is incorrect; to a farmer forward markets are absolutely essential. To oil companies or commodities firms, they mean life or death. Can derivatives be used unwisely or as ways that increase social risk? Yes. But it is the leverage and concentration that is problematic and should be regulated, not the derivatives themselves.

If your principle against derivatives were applied uniformly, modern agriculture would cease to exist; P&C insurance would be disallowed (since it is a put option on a car or a house); and portfolio diversification would be illegal inasmuch as diversification is a way to adjust the risk characteristics of one's own holdings. It is, in other words, a way to adjust certain risk levels in one's own portfolio.

The problem is that there are many, many ways to adjust risk levels and to shift risks to others. Derivatives are a systematized way to do what people do in many areas every day. There isn't a consistent way to restrain the one without restraining the other.

Good post !

Thank you, Steve.

Mormonism is a form of mass hysteria.

I had a neighbor who manages a Casino.

He told me that while each individual game is 'chance', the overall % is closely monitored & managed.

His place was at (memory, about) 75 % to the bettors. The budget for expenses, wages, profits, etc. Is mostly around how many people attend & how much they bet.

They don't build fancy casinos by giving money away. They sell the illusion you may be the lucky one but it's all mathematical and the odds favor the house.

You can make a living as a professional poker player if you are good.

My statistics prof gave great advice on gambling. Set a limit on how much you’re willing to win and how much you’re willing to lose. Once you’re past a limit, quit.

If you win past your limit, walk away. The law of large numbers guarantees you will lose it if you keep playing.

You can only make a living as a professional gambler if you take actions that violate the house rules and find a way to get away with it. For example, if they catch you counting cards (a strategy to win using math in your head), they can kick you out of the casino. They have ways to know if you're counting cards.

Several years ago, several MIT math majors got together and found a way to work together in teams in Atlantic City casinos, to reliably win profits over time in ways that the house had difficulty figuring out. It took a long time and a lot of losses by the house before the house figured out how the scheme worked. All of them were banned from the casinos. Some of them were prosecuted.

Except that poker is a game where the players read and play each other. They’re not just playing the house. There are professional poker players.

Maybe you're right. But you've got to be really good because it is even worse than a zero-sum game. You have to make your living off of others losing, and yet still leave something for the house too.

The house doesn't care about who wins in Hold'em, because they make their money on a 'rake' from every pot. The bigger the pots, the bigger the 'rake'.

I got an assignment on a stolen car claim because the carrier just knew there had to be something fishy, because within a couple of days, the couple had purchased a replacement car, and only the wife worked, and it was not a big income job.

But while interviewing the couple, I was shown the husband's latest monthly check from the Soboba Band of Casino Indians: $8,440. He didn't need a job, thanks to the ghawds that govern the rate of return at the Soboba casino.

I've always been proud to be a Lamanite, but it's a shame I couldn't have been the right kind of monthly income Lamanite...

Does the LDS church still state that LDS cannot work on the casino floors due to the sin of gambling, but they can work in the business offices without being tainted?

God sent His only begotten son to this vile planet to die for the gullible. Heaven is filled with those blissful souls whose inferior relatives writhe forever in hell.

Why people mock this perfect logic defies me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2omDlZlO_s

Prove it!

Whether it's a casino or a temple--those fancy buildings don't build themselves.