https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/letters/2020/01/03/letter-no-tithing-no/

No baptizing your kid.
No attending a wedding.
No pass to do a "calling" as you will be judged for not paying as less worthy.
No end of being hassled to get that worthiness if you want to be actively engaged with members and church.

This is much like what the mormon church did when it institutionally had a policy of racial discrimination against the whole black race. To the outside world, they said that a lack of priesthood only meant that blacks at the time could not be in leadership of the church, while implying without saying so, that black families could still receive all of the benefits of associating with the church as all other regular members do, as just non-priesthood-holding members. To those outside of the church, this conjured up a picture where you had one preacher in a parish and that this one person who led the congregation on Sundays was the only one in priesthood leadership out of hundreds or parishioners who attended those services, none of who typically would hold any priesthood in that case. Most non-members who saw these reports in the media never knew that all black families at the time were all treated as pariahs in the mormon church, without the ability to participate in most of the most important parts of Mormonism that every other mormon family had full access to participate in at the time, because the man in the home could not hold the priesthood as every other male member above the age of twelve typically does in the mormon church. So with out such rites of passage, black men and their families were all prohibited from participating in the most important parts of Mormonism. So those reports were cunning and were meant to hide the fact that black families were treated terribly and were in fact ostracised, while all white families had the benefits of full participation.

It didn't matter how much tithing a black man paid at that time, nor how worthy he was, everything in Elder Berry's list above was prohibited to all black people (both men and women) in Mormonism, until 1978. Now the mormon church leaders pander in Africa, telling all of the impoverished blacks there that the only way for them to escape poverty is to give money to the mormon church. Shame on the mormon church leaders for taking advantage of these people after such glaring racism that the church practiced until 1978. What has the mormon church ever done for them?

But back to Elder Berry's point, the same thing applies to non-tithe players in Mormonism still today. How dare the church require a voluntary(?) contribution as a means of access to anything seen to bestow blessings on them. The current system of mormon tithing today is just as mid-evil as catholic indulgences were in the dark ages. If the church won't publish a full disclosure of a financial accounting of their income and expenses each year, then no one should be donating anything to the mormon church. With $100 Billion in the bank, let the mormon church live off of that. If christ comes as soon as they claim to expect him, they'll still have plenty of that $100B left when he gets here. I still have a hard time wrapping my head around what Jesus wants billions of dollars of cash for. But that's what mormon church leaders say their billions are for. They're saving up for the second coming. If times get tough between now and then, the mormon church isn't going to share that $100B with anyone then anymore than they do now. They'll toss out some small amount of pretty cash to a few people to help create the illusion that they are a charity. That's all they'll do.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 01/04/2020 12:38PM by azsteve.

Very succinctly and well put.

I think it can't bee (as in a hive) stressed enough that Mormons are bees and other religious people are sheep. Bee is the next level. A bee is in a hive. It serves royalty and not something individually. It isn't a sheep following someone but a worker putting their shoulder to the wheel of a creature just like it but "higher" in the sense of being in control and of more importance than the others of its kind.

In mundane Christianity Jesus is brains for getting feed to the others. He could be a brain in a vat, a floating ghost, that whisper inside your head.

In Mormonism Jesus is the beekeeper and the quorum of the queens provides the feeding and they are very real indeed. No amorphous creature in charge.

No one understand this like EXMormons do. They have escaped their hive mentality hopefully.

And anyone not "church broke" and endowed from on high is not a bee but a hornet or a drone.

I'm viewed as a drone because I haven't stung anyone in their hive badly enough to be seen as a threat.

But the other drones (not paying tithes but not stinging my corner of their hive) who would like to be worker bees but for whatever reason can't pay up or get a pass on tithing are just like you have detailed - like Black people were in the past.

My father was excommunicated and HATED being a drone yet he literally never stopped paying tithing. This example alone show me the truth of your post. LDS Corp is not like many religions where their focus is on their religious philosophy. This is why their hive has a hundred billion dollars of honey - other people's honey.