When it comes to blind obedience and personal responsibility, the church may claim to teach both, but they seem incompatible. Soliders in nazi death camps were only obeying orders. Should their actions be excused? The church says to pay tithing before bills and put the church before family, yet, legally it's just the opposite. And should women sleep with or follow every guy that claims to be a prophet?

One reason I didn't progress that far in the church is I learned some hard lessons before I joined. Mainly, people in postions of authority don't always have your best interests at heart, they can abuse their authority and will often blame you for their incompetency. I never went to a tithing settlement because the bishop worked in the same industry I did, and I didn't think my income was any of his business.

A friend from church would go to her bishop and then complain when she got bad advice or no help. I tried to explain about people in postions of authority. She would say these men are called by god. I finally got her to resign from the church, but deprogramming obedience to "men of god" was one of the hardest things to do, and I saw just how harmful the church could be.

So my question is -- where does blind obedience end and personal responsibility begin?

Yes, I'm the baddie of my family because I won't contribute to a fund to pay for my parents' housecleaning when they won't take personal responsibility and take care of themselves. Their totally blind obedience, i.e. gullibility, keeps them trying to buy their way into heaven instead. That would be very irresponsible on my part to just give money so my parents can throw theirs away.

The funny thing is that my siblings were big Rmoney supporters but are too ignorant to be able to see that the people who he accused of not taking personal responsibility and caring for their lives are many of the same people Mitty encouraged to be that way when he was a bishop. Extorting tithing from people who can't meet their basic needs teaches them to be as irresponsible as they think welfare recipients are.

Yeah sis, you're right. I posted that just to piss you off.

My extended family & in-laws all perpetually expect me to pay for family activities, and many have expressed a desire to live off of my generosity later in life (weird situation, we can talk about this another time), but all of them pay tithing.

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to give you all money when you are too dumb to not immediately lose 10% of your own money.
(granted, my wife usually does end up paying for the family activities, or "lend" [i.e. give] money to her destitute family members and I haven't made a stink about it).

I've gotten many of the job interviews, and one of them got one of those jobs. I've also gotten some of them odd-jobs (just 1-time payment things). And it is always infuriating that they give away 10% of it, and that when they say prayer at the next family dinner they make sure to thank god for getting them that job.

I know this topic is about Obedience vs Responsibility, but I'd like to add a 3rd piece in: Acknowledgement.

When something good/bad happens, TBMs don't attribute it to causal events, but to mystic forces. So they can't put 2 and 2 together to make good things continue to happen, and avoid bad ones.