Why doesn’t the mormon church teach it’s members something useful?

For example; the principle of financial interest. Earning interest on money is an easy way of acquiring money. There are ways to use/increase those earnings that not everyone knows about. The mormon church has learned this and uses it all the time. Why not teach it’s members how it use interest wisely?

I know that not everyone has extra money laying around, but some simple things can turn a person’s perception of money into an asset instead of a liability. The use of credit card cash-back rewards, learning to avoid paying high interest on loans, learning which loans to repay before other loans, etc. Compound interest is another concept that could be taught.

Even on a smaller scale, earning $20 interest in a month is much better than paying $20 in interest.



Another example; Why doesn’t the mormon church rewrite the word of wisdom to include some actual wisdom. Rusty could have a revelation that this antiquated document has served it’s original purpose and now the time has come to pass when we are ready for further light & knowledge from Father concerning the word of wisdom as we have all come to know it by.

A few changes and the word of wisdom could now become useful. The mormon members embraced the new revelation to shorten meetings by an hour with unbridled enthusiasm, they would surely embrace a more user friendly version of section 89. And for gawd’s sake, clear up the misconception of what a hot drink is.

I’m sure that there are more things that could be revelated to Rusty that would be useful. Maybe something along the lines of greater tolerance to others, being less judgmental, a relaxed tone of garment wear-age, a wider selection of acceptable music?

Any thoughts?

You N E V E R want to encourage the mark to THINK!!!

Hey, Rusty, here's another couple of freebies from me:

1) pay-day loans and loansharking

2) mausoleums on temple grounds, tenancy ending upon the death of the last Mormon child. So if all the kids resign, mom and dad get temple mulched.

3) monthly 2nd anointing drawings, $25 per ticket, no limit to the number of tickets one can purchase and membership not required. People currently disfellowshipped or excommunicated, $50 per ticket.

”Taking the Sacrament left handed, with a beer chaser and the bishop smiles at you! Priceless!”

Boy, EOD is a tough act to follow.

This is a good question. There is no simple answer. I don't think a faith based organization can ever accomplish all the good things you envision like teaching financial literacy, personal responsibility for good health and many other things that could be added to the list.

Faith based organizations are good at drawing people in and promoting some good and perhaps some bad values. They are good at building community but mostly what they do is promote myth and dogma.

A humanitarian organization could accomplish those things except humanitarian movements don't seem to draw people in like faith based organizations do. I have often wished that I could find a humanitarian group with a goal to identifying and promoting good and true principles rather than religious dogma.

One of those principles would be to get everyone out of their bubbles, to open their minds and allow others to share information and opinions that differ from their own. To operate as a sort of a think tank where everyone has an opportunity to contribute information and insight for consideration.

There could be socials, service projects and other things that help strengthen the bonds of the group. Just a dream I have.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2019 09:57PM by felix.

Good schools and universities come close to that. (Except for BYU, BYU-HI and BYU). Maybe the Mormons have other than religious reasons to yank kids out of the university experience, and force them to go on missions, instead.

The Mormons must keep their minions down in subservience.

LOL! I love the idea of the second anointing lottery!

I like the financial literacy thought from sunbeep. If all young people stayed home when they are 18 and worked for two years in a factory job or warehouse making $18/hour and saved all that money. They could invest it in the SP500 spider fund that leverages the market at twice the return such as 'splx'. By the time the youth turns 65 they would be a millionaires. Poverty would end in one generation. Think of all the generosity that could be accomplished. They could even make it a mission calling. Call it something like:
1) Financial Salvation Missions,
2) Personal Seed Making Missions.
3) All-mighty dollar millionaire in the making mission.

I'm sure morgbots would go for it!

If everybody is a millionaire, nobody is.

A literal millionaire is still a millionaire. The term just wouldn't mean as much, nor would the literal millionaire have as much buying power.

In response to a earlier thread, I don't think it's a given that all the non-mishies can get, much less keep factory jobs paying $18 an hour, though I'm all for them finding something more productive to do with their time (job training or higher education both come to mind) than patronizing and annoying the locals of whatever region on which they would descend as missionaries.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/19/2019 07:06PM by scmd1.

Sure. Have them stay home and work from 18 to 20 rather than going to college and gain a higher education.

What could go wrong with that?

Someone may not have played Hasbro's "The Game of Life."

They used to.

Recently I went through a years worth of the Relief Society magazine from the 60s.

There were tips on homemaking, budgeting, lessons on literature, articles on history, a monthly section on professional women (scientists, doctors, athletes, politicians etc) and recipes.

Somewhere along the line that all shut down.

Yes, from stories shared on this board, the Relief Society used to share and teach many useful skills. At some point that changed, and all church lessons had to have a "gospel purpose."

Church has colleges and University! Don't forget that.

[I] posted an article yesterday on the recovery board about changes to the youth and scouting curriculum from Deseret News. The gist from the article is that the GAs are pushing for "home gospel instruction" meaning that they aren't in the business of teaching members helpful things like they might have done in the past but members are suppose to be learning crucial knowledge in the home.

The church is behaving different than they use to.

It was taught by a local CPA. I foolishly attended and it was all about setting aside 20,000 a year for your planned retirement and which ways to build your tax shelter.

Are they still stuck on the 3-fold Mission of ChurchCo?

that pretty much shut down lots of peripheral activities;

and, it makes a nice cliché which ChurchCo leaders LOVE !!

Why doesn’t the mormon church teach it’s members something useful?

Because what is useful isn't their Truthful.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/2019 03:06PM by Elder Berry.

Is it true that church on sundays is an hour shorter? I’m a bit behind on things. If so, why did they do that? I thought they wanted to drown members with ‘gospel’ knowledge so they didn’t have time for anything else...

I remember the thing that was pushed down my throat over and over again last decade, and that was having years food supply. I even did a family home evening on it with my daughter on their suggestion. And it frightened and traumatised her for ages. She was like “why?! What’s going to happen?!”
Yeah, that was really useful. I wonder what their thong is now?

lj12 Wrote:
---------------------
> I wonder what their
> thong is now?


Hahahahahaha! Rusty, Wendy & Sheri in their temple thongs doing the macarena!!

Some leader once said that some things that are useful are not useful.

Repetition of dogma (reading the same holy book over and over) and busy work (temple) keep people involved and not as exposed to other points of view.

Maybe generations of polygamous inbreeding finally caught up with them.

If it taught all its members useful financial information then who would be easy subjects for the General Authorities to scam? They need a fair percentage of members to be ignorant in order to prey on them.

Russ instructed some of his poorest members that paying tithing was the way out of poverty. That's his idea of useful information.

I get what you’re saying. But teaching people stuff doesn’t mean they’ll do it.

I often wonder how kids spend 12 years in public school and don’t have a clue. Where my wife taught, they forced kids to go through the breakfast line after entering the school. So apparently their educated parents did not know how to fry an egg or make toast for under a buck?

Food and ag corporations make big money off those programs. You want people dependent

I thought about self-reliance when you asked about anything "useful". So, I looked up the principles of self-reliance to see what the church held as the basics. I honestly thought they'd be more practical with all the emphasis church puts on food storage, etc.
Some seem pretty good and reasonable, but the others just seem like culty filler that wouldn't really benefit anyone.

Here they are.

Exercise Faith in Jesus Christ (D&C 104:15)

Use Time Wisely (Alma 34:32)

Be Obedient (D&C 130:20–21)

Manage Money (D&C 104:78)

Work: Take Responsibility (D&C 42:42; 2 Nephi 2:16, 26)

Solve Problems (Ether 2:18–19, 23; 3:1, 4)

Become One, Work Together (Moses 7:18; D&C 104:15–17)

Communicate: Petition and Listen (D&C 8:2)

Persevere (Hebrews 12:1; D&C 58:4)

Show Integrity (Mosiah 4:28; Job 27:5; Articles of Faith 1:13)

Seek Learning and Education (D&C 88:118–119)

Stay On Task, Receive Ordinances (D&C 84:20; D&C 136:4; 1 Nephi 18:2–3)