Finally came clean to my DW last night. I basically read her a "manifesto" of my unbelief (I had typed out a month ago)... with a focus on compromise (broken down by Church attendance, WOW, Tithing, etc., and what I would follow in order to "keep the peace").

It went better than expected since she said she was expecting this for the past month, but was avoiding it.

She only balked at my reasoning regarding tithing. When I said I thought that tithing funds are used to build up things that have very little to do with the Kingdom of God or helping our fellow man (e.g., the Mall, BYU, church business), she interjected, "The businesses and the Church funds are kept separate. They are separate entities."

This caught me off guard for a moment, but I replied, "How do you think these businessess got started? They came down from heaven like manna? They were started with church funds"

I think a lot of her thinking comes from my BIL who was well connected tax attorney working for the Church in the 90's.

Questions for all:

What other counter arguments can I make to this "separate financial entity" line of reasoning?

Is this a common argument among TBMs?

As a finance clerk I can say that there is a possible loophole TBM's could rely upon to justify that position. There are two corps in the "church": one is the Corp of Pres and the second is the Corp of Presiding Bishop. Technically, tithing funds are handled by the Presiding Bishop under direction of the Corp of Pres.

While it could be reasonably argued by a TBM that Corp of Pres oversees only investments etc. and Bishop oversees use of tithing funds, it is a fact that the Pres Bishop reports directly to the Corp Pres and can only disburse funds as the Corp pres sees fit.

Our ward has an annual budget of $9k, uses approx $750-$1.5k per month from fast offering to help needy members, $500 per month for utility bills (paid directly from SLC from tithing funds) and will send SLC approx $450k this year. It is not, repeat NOT, reasonable for a TBM to argue that the Pres Bishop is using all tithing funds for bldgs, temples, utilities, and disaster relief. The bulk of the money is going somewhere. I can see only one other place the funds could go.

What is the point of keeping the businesses? If you are a "church" why do you need tons of real estate and business interests? Do they use the profits to do humanitarian work in the world? No, they just generate more money

Where did the very FIRST investment money come from? Did they melt down the Golden Plates?

At some point it all has to start with DONATED money that is redirected to business purposes, and the returns from those funds are re-invested, and re-invested again.

There are no "non-religious roots" for all the businesses the church owns.

then you don't have to give them money. You could pick out a nice charity to donate to in which you do believe, something along the lines of mental health, feeding or housing the homeless, etc.

I like this idea, and it worked with my wife and I ten years ago.

I agreed that it is good to give 10% of our income to charity, but that now that I am no longer Mormon, I get to choose the charity.

She agreed, after consulting the Bishop; and, to my suprise, since I was the sole bread-winner, he couldn't help but agree, too.

If you don't have a financial accounting from the church (and no one does) then you don't know where the money goes. You, as a rational human being, have every right to refuse to give money to any organization that will not account for its finances. I'm sure she'll come up with "We can trust that it is used the way God wants it to be used." but I'm not that trusting of a person, myself. :)

Tell her you'll support tithing once the church provides financial statements showing where your money goes. Its absurd that the LDS church rakes in billions of donations each year and won't share with its contributors where it all goes.

The LDS church is one of the few profit and non-profit organizations that does NOT provide financial statements and keeps its records totally secret. Obviously they have something to hide. If they didn't then why they keep it secret?

Your wife can't say that they are separate entities because she doesn't know that. No one knows that, because they don't disclose where it all goes. Print this article out and let her read it-its from Time magazine article that was printed in the late 90's, and it is primarily about all the businesses that the church owns, and has estimates of their total income.

http://www.lds-mormon.com/time.shtml

To smooth things over, you can also take the money that you used to spend on tithing, and start using it to buy your wife nice things, go out to dinner with her more often, etc. That's what I did, and my TBM DW has not complained at all. She feels good about paying on her own income, and she figures whether I pay on my income is my choice to make and mine only.

Thanks Misfit. Printing it off now along with this entire thread. I'll just hand it off to her and let her read it if she wants.

It is going into hedge funds and other financials. These things generate money for the already very wealthy and do nothing, absolutely nothing, that is socially redeeming or beneficial to the individuals in this country or the morg.

Yeah, it's not hard to figure out. It's an A to B sort of trail. TBM's may not be able to follow the trail though.

I'd just ask her why it doesn't bother her she gets no financial statement of where their tithing money goes. I'm always curious as to why it doesn't seem to bother the faithful. It was one of my original "Hm?" moments.

And with an estimated 6B in yearly tithing oncome, it would be quite interesting to see how they can build a 4B mall and housing complex as well as money to fix that hotel joint over in Hawaii with just business revenues.

With the simultaneous job cuts, budget cuts, and calls for greater sacrifices in tithing and voluntary labor, that +4B can't just be funded by business venture income alone.

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As for the needed blessings of tithing, I suggest that you put all of the mopney you would have tithed in a seperate savings account and in six months, look how much financial security you will have accumulated. And I guarantee it is a whole lot more than the tax writeoff would have given you.

An interview with Gordon Hinckley at the time the Olympics came to Salt Lake is quite telling about how forthcoming TSCC is about their finances.

The interviewer asked why TSCC doesn't disclose as most other non-profits/churches do. Hinckley said (paraphrased but pretty close), "We believe that (financial) information belongs to those who make the contributions, not to the world."

Your wife knows that TSCC does no such thing as opening their books to their contributors, therefore Hinckley is caught in a out-right lie. Ask your wife WHY Hinckley would say that, if he didn't have anything to hide.

But, I gotta find the link first.........

Thanks Unindoctrinated. That would be a great help.