I came away after listening to his talk that for welfare needs members should not contact SLC (Church Headquarters), but rely upon each other. Members at the local level were to help each other out using their talents, assets, etc. for the benefit of each other. My question: why do members send 10% of their income to SLC if SLC will not help them out anyway? Another question: How are people living in abject poverty suppose to help each other get out of poverty without help from the outside?

My summary: Keep paying 10% of your income so we can continue to expand our businesses like the City Creek Development. Don't expect SLC to use a fraction of its billions to help you out. That money is for business purposes only. You are expected to expend additional income to help your fellow members out in your ward. It seems as the world sinks deeper into recession, the Church's response is to increase the responsibility of its members to help each other out.

Question: How in the world will a TBM ever be able to retire (virtually all or more than all of their disposable income is given to the Church)?

yah well guess what! when LDS Inc has a need it wants MONEY and it wants it right DAMN NOW!

when Members have a need they need to exercise faith and wait until the need goes away, if that means dying thats just too bad. the only reason LDS INC is sad is because dead ppl dont pay offerings very well, but that kind of fading person was already headed down that terminally non productive road when they had to ask THE church for something return any way.
At that point all LDS Inc really wants to know is if the person is going to have some real estate to donate to LDS INC when they finally drop dead. If they recover then great, give all the credit to MORmON Jesus and fork out some more offering money to LDS Inc.

sharing! MORmON STYLE!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJQqLKIR2Xk

did you have a sense of urgency?
well it doesnt mean much if its *only* personal concerns
LDS INC has tons of dead ppl to save, you know !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzMMCA3mmGk

Uchtdorf would never have been able to become a pilot and advance in his career had he not benefited from the free education system in postwar West Germany.

It goes without saying that his parents also received socialized healthcare and housing aid after fleeing to the West.

Always quite amusing to see people like him turn around and deny the same privileges to others.

Ditto for top morg leaders. Apparently they feel that tithes are for funding their pet projects and their own "stipends" - but not for helping church members.

And no man is self-made. If you can read, walk on a sidewalk, send an email, or fly on a plane, it's because of tax dollars put to good use.

Greed created the LDS Church. It would be so ironic if greed finally destroyed it.

This would work if the ratio of local money to SLC money were flipped. SLC should only get a small commission, instead they take the entire wad and then dribble some back.

If SLC can't help, what are they doing with all the money?

The LDS church is done in America, but the GAs can still live like kings on what they rake in from undereducated, superstitious millions in third world countries.

Even if the retention rate is terrible, it works. They join thinking they will learn English and the quality of their lives will improve. Then they discover that the LDS want one of their ten beans for dinner AND there is no help to get clean water and schools going... but by then the church will have gotten some of their money from Golden Contacts.

It's obvious what they are doing with the money. They are corporate raiders and they have several huge PR companies to pay, along with airtime in major cities and internet ads...Those I am a Mormon ads aren't free and neither are advertising agencies. Also, they regularly settle child abuse and molestation lawsuits, theft, assault, etc. on the courthouse steps as anyone in Salt Lake legal community will tell you. Those plaintiffs and their gag orders ain't cheap.

And imagine the money laundering bribes they have to pay. Lordie! We all know bribe money comes from their "businesses" right? And where do the businesses comes from? Some of their businesses help other businesses. And where do those businesses get their money?

And if your child needs a life-saving operation? Contact your local charities or the community at large (but don't let on that you are Mormon, now you wouldn't want to embarrass the Church and lose the blessings you worked so hard to get, would you?)

From the same ward titty that everybody is feeding off. Keep those tithes and offerings coming in!

When you are old and exhausted, keep working as an "adviser" on your own nickel in a foreign country (tithing isn't enough by this time because you might actually have an estate). Then please--have the decency to leave your assets to the church. Your children can go to their siblings for help. If they are starving, they can wait for someone to appear at the door with a half-gallon of milk. We know that happens when people have paid their tithing, don't we?


Anagrammy

The reason all the tithes go to HQ and only a small portion of it goes back to the wards is that 1st world members are subsidizing 3rd world members. Americans (for example) pay for Guatemalan chapels. And there are all the administrative costs. Gotta maintain the kingdom/corporation or else the Everlasting Gospel will disappear.

Stray Mutt Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The reason all the tithes go to HQ and only a
> small portion of it goes back to the wards is that
> 1st world members are subsidizing 3rd world
> members. Americans (for example) pay for
> Guatemalan chapels.

I don't think that's the real reason all the tithes go to HQ, but that is what the Church claims, so if we pretend that is the case - why are they spending the money on CHAPELS in Guatemala instead of actually feeding people who are starving? The member in a third-world country goes to the Church asking for food for their family, and is denied any assistance because there isn't any money in the fast offering fund. And why is there no money in the fast offering fund? Because fast offering donations from the US can only be used to feed the people in the local ward. Fast offerings are NOT sent back to HQ and redistributed. But those starving people in third-world countries should be grateful that we subsidized their chapel.

Stray Mutt Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And there are all the administrative costs. Gotta maintain the kingdom/corporation or else the Everlasting Gospel will disappear.

It still doesn't add up, though. From what ward clerks have posted here, local wards only get about 5% of their tithing money returned to them for activities. That means that 95% or better of donated funds go to SLC. Even if the Mormon church is paying for maintenance on the chapels, that still leaves lots of money unaccounted for. Other Christian churches might send about 10% or so of their donated funds to headquarters for administrative fees. All of the rest of their money stays local, and a lot of that money pays the salaries for church staff.

The COB is one big money pit.

Yes, you already have a difference of 5% in that most national churches send around 10% to the national organization, and everything else stays at the local level.

Most churches spend *roughly* 30-50% on salaries. I just looked at the budget for a church in the SLC area, and they have about 47% going to salaries. Maintenance/utilities/insurance/mortgage is about 25%.

So, SLC between the 5% difference that they take as compared to "regular" churches, plus salaries, they are taking in *roughly* 50% more than a "regular" church. Figure in that the Morg DEMANDS 10%, while "regular" churches are happy to get 2-3%, and the above percentages become even more insightful.

Until a significant percentage of the sheeple wake up and say "no more tithing until the church opens their books" and make it known to SLC that is WHY they are not giving one penny, the LDS Cult will continue to rob them.

Tithing goes to running the church, BYU, advertising, etc. Only your Fast Offerings are used for humanitarian aid and welfare.

And FYI, Fast Offerings account for about 1/2 of 1% of total donations to the church. In other words, for every two dollars donated to the church one cent goes to welfare and humanitarian aid.

Socrates2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tithing goes to running the church, BYU,
> advertising, etc. Only your Fast Offerings are
> used for humanitarian aid and welfare.
>
> And FYI, Fast Offerings account for about 1/2 of
> 1% of total donations to the church. In other
> words, for every two dollars donated to the church
> one cent goes to welfare and humanitarian aid.

And the humanitarian aid goes to help pay the mortgage of the guy in your ward who just lost his job. Which is a nice thing to help out with, but the truth is that even if he lost his house, his kids wouldn't starve. The Church humanitarian aid is more of an insurance policy that members pay into, not actually intended to help the impoverished people who desperately need it.

"I came away after listening to his talk that for welfare needs members should not contact SLC (Church Headquarters), but rely upon each other. Members at the local level were to help each other out using their talents, assets, etc. for the benefit of each other."

I thought if you were a strong, devout, temple-going, temple-endowed member that all those things you mentioned: talents, assets, etc...belonged to the church anyway....

From the article:

"In 1941 the Gila River overflowed and flooded the Duncan Valley in Arizona. A young stake president by the name of Spencer W. Kimball met with his counselors, assessed the damage, and sent a telegram to Salt Lake City asking for a large sum of money.

Instead of sending money, President Heber J. Grant sent three men: Henry D. Moyle, Marion G. Romney, and Harold B. Lee. They visited with President Kimball and taught him an important lesson: “This isn’t a program of ‘give me,’” they said. “This is a program of ‘self-help.’”

If this is not a program of "give me", why is the church always asking members to "give" to it?

D

"To implement divine welfare principles, you need not look always to Salt Lake City. Instead you need to look into the handbooks, into your heart, and into heaven. Trust the Lord’s inspiration and follow His way."

Well, if there is no need to look to SLC for assistance, why is there a need to send our money to SLC? Wouldn't it be more effective to keep that money at local stakes and wards and use it to help the poor and needy in the area, rather and sending money to SLC and take additional resources from members to assist each other?

D

This is the final blot on the one good thing people used to say about Mormons, "They take care of their own."

Change that to "They take from their own."

Anagrammy

This is my main beef with the LDS church. I gave them about $185,000 over the course of my life, and God-dammit I need that money now! Then I found out I was donating to a real-estate development corporation!

Oh, things were going OK until I started thinking about this again...

I'm with you elcid, to think of all the money I gave in good nature for what I thought was a good and true cause, only to find out it is a greedy corporation, really bothers me. But I try to comfort myself by thinking of all the money I will not give them for the rest of my life.

D

Tithes SHOULD be used for helping the poor and needy, plus for any other justified church expenses.

Fast Offering is an additional tax the morg implemented because they used tithes to fund their business operations.

The whole thing is a ridiculous scheme to fleece the members. TBMs are insane not to see this.

Perhaps TBM's need to network their way up the greasy Church pole. As I understand it, becoming a General Authority is a great way of making more money than the average.

Apostles also fly First Class - paid for with tithing funds.

SLC nor my mormon neighbors. Eff em.

1. Get your followers to pay 10% of their income to you, no questions asked;

2. Buy farms and factories from that money;

3. Make your followers work for free on/in the farms and factories you purchased with their donations;

4. Tell your followers to be "prepared"'.

5. Sell your followers the products they voluntarily produced on/in the farms and factories that you bought with their donations;

6. When sales are down, do a sermon in a religious setting (this gets you tax exemption) to explicitly promote the internet outlet where your followers can buy these products with Visa, Mastercard, American Express or PayPal.

If you don't have a conscience, you can make them religious folk pay three times for the same useless commodity. Isn't it marvelous?

And for a parting thought: did anyone notice that the Mormon Cult was in perpetual debt until they developed their welfare program?

Food for thought...

The membership numbers of the church are hemoraging. A decline in tithing will follow and cause a hemoraging in funds. The church is hemoraging because members are leaving due to the church history problems and lies. Uchtdorf is basically telling us to f...-off, SLC is broke.

That is why they have this "one time trip to the temple" perpetual fund so that they can stop/slow the building of temples because we are running out of f-ing money.

Just like having the members clean the toilets and having older adult missionaries take over paid church positions in the COB.

They are downsizing...

If the church comes clean about it's past, then they stand to lose 1/3 to 2/3 of the active members. Just look what happend to the RLDS church. Look how long they fought over the blacks and the PH issue. They finally did something over 100 years after Lincoln freed the slaves. 1978 for Christ's sake. I heard there was talk about having a second PH for blacks (OMG if that is true)

They won't come clean anytime soon until it means that the slow money drain is economically worse than fessing up. They will screw-up the fessing-up part.

The chapels in Guatemala suck too. I had to live in them. We asked the First Presidency to build a small two room place for the missionaries next to a chapel in Guatemala and they refused. Right now, the missionaries are still living in a cinderblock shack that isn't even sealed. It was pretty gay.

Monson talks about how much he loves the missionaries in conference, but they were constantly cutting our food and medicine budget and refusing to pay even small, necessary costs. It was ridiculous. Even the TBM missionaries were frustrated with the LDS church. They knew they were getting screwed, but they thought that they were getting "screwed for the Lord" so they dealt with it.