LoudmouthMormon

Undeniably true for some, but hardly for all. I've had two faith crises. One from age 7-18, and the other from age 25-29. (I'm using the standard definition of 'crisis'. Something to the tune of "An impossible to maintain current status quo, increasingly demanding some sort of major crucial change." I am not defining it as something like a plain old traumatic or stressful event that knocks people off their center. That 2nd thing certainly exists, but you can have a lack of impending urgent immediacy and still have a crisis.) My first crisis started at my baptismal interview, when I lied about believing. It was resolved when I went inactive, the year I "got big enough that mom couldn't make me go to church any more". It was a period of self-examination and no shortage of doubt. And yes, it affected some friends and family, but usually the impact was an increase in love/sympathy/empathy. By people both in and out of the church. One or two churchy folks went out of their way to invite and love-bomb the crap out of me, or openly worry about my soul. My 2nd crisis was after I gained a testimony, returned to full activity, and began researching criticisms of my faith. It was a period of testing a very simple testimony (God and Christ are real, the BoM is true, the CoJCoLDS is true), against all the unimaginably interesting, eclectic, and sometimes quite challenging bits of history, theology, and doctrine. It also affected some friends and family, but again not too majorly. LDS friends/family/peers reacted with worry or immediate disinterest or they found a boost in my stories about finding successful resolutions to criticisms and problems. NonLDS friends/family/peers largely didn't care. One or two nonLDS folks heavy on the critical side did their version of inviting and love-bombing, or actively worry about my ability to think and reason. It was pretty much resolved when 3 things happened: - Dan Peterson called one of my points "salient", here on this very message board. - My most serious battling buddy at the Reachout Trust Countercult Board, admitted to me that I may very well be a saved Christian. - The bottom fell out of the zealous antimormon industry, people largely stopped selling antimormon books, people stopped making a living as a traveling antimormon preacher, and Owen and Mosser's paper came out talking about how the antimormon scholarship basically sucked. In other words "we" "won". Everyone's mileage varies. @Tacenda's story and mine are both valid.

Here is Peter Santello's second video: "Invited to Mormon Dinner". An hour long - I just started watching it.

@pogi I haven't discussed the issue in years, and nobody ever really budges in these discussions, but it's still good to discuss. There's a line, it seems to be a fuzzy line, between "alleviating suffering" and "enabling behavior that stunts growth". Personal story: My daughter had to have double foot surgery as a young child. 6 weeks in a wheelchair. She had to learn how to walk again. It was an incredibly slow, painful, and frustrating process. After the casts were off, she didn't want to stand up, because it hurt. She didn't want her crutches, because the wheelchair didn't hurt. She didn't want to put down her crutches, using them hurt less. My wife and I, barely holding back tears, had to force her to do these things many times. Many times she cried and begged us for help. Truly one of the five hardest things I've done in this life. But she gained her strength back and has been fine for a dozen years now, and will be fine for the rest of her life. Can you imagine what God would think of us, if we had sought to alleviate her suffering by not forcing her, against her will, to suffer? Can you imagine what her life would be like right now? A lifetime in a wheelchair, possible lifetime bone deformities, most likely all sorts of negative mental health impacts. Anyway, take that story and change some of the words to "starvation" or "poverty" or anything else you're thinking about on this issue. Yep. From your (and my) limited mortal perspective, so much is completely unnecessary. My daughter never in a million years deserved to be born with those ankle problems. But I don't know the change that early struggle in her life made. She remembers when the casts came off and the pins in her ankles were taken out. At age 7, she said "before the pins came out, I was a little kid. After, I was a big kid." The scales/balance of justice is indeed a symbol of fairness. I often bend my knee in prayer that God tempers that fairness with mercy. My scales don't balance - there's no way I can make the scales balance here in mortality. I am so thankful he is not a fair God, because then I'd get what's coming to me. Instead, I've got this atonement deal offered. It promises to right my past wrongs that I cannot right. Through some perfect and eternal application of both justice and mercy, that I as a mere mortal cannot fathom. I don't know what 'holistic' means, but I agree with everything else. My good explanation is taking my story about my daughter, and trusting in God that He allows similar things to happen to each of us, because He loves us.

Not at all. I'm saying God's children being unhappy lead us to strive and accomplish and grow and learn. Can you imagine the heavens filled with entitled immature brats who have never strived for anything in their mortal life? I witnessed enough of that in college - an eternity of it wouldn't be heaven. "fair" is overrated. I don't want a fair God, I want a merciful and just God. "There's a Man, goin' round, takin' names. And He decides who to free, and who to blame. Everybody won't be treated all the same. There'll be a golden ladder reaching down, when the Man comes around."

Because a life at 100% followed by a seamless and painless switching over to the other side of the veil, is not in anyone's best interests. Pain, suffering, and uncertainty. Without them, joy, ease, and certainty lose all meaning and relevance. Can you name a single human advancement that was innovated into existence by humans NOT filled with discontent at the status quo?

Such a mdless vapid response. Disagree. I figure it's just the response you don't like. But it's the church's and I'm guessing most of it's members' response nonetheless. And it's our same response to many things. Same sex marriage, with it's overwhelming cultural acceptance, the studies, the life stories, the global wave of acceptance? Meh. We're not bending on what we believe our God wants us to do. We're doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on the Proclamation on the Family. Neither you nor the rest of the world gets to tell us how to Mormon. Same with tithing. So every charitable org out there with their boards of directors and reporting to the govt and @Analytics's place of work all figure "Give 5% of your endowment to some other charity"? Meh. Scripture says a tenth of your increase, and common sense born through decades of near-bankruptcy tell us we're just gonna invest that money. We're laying up stores against the season. You can keep your world's best practices. Neither you nor the rest of the world gets to tell us how to Mormon. You can call it mindless and vapid if you like. From where I'm standing, it looks principled, dedicated, well-thought-out, good stewardship.

Sez you and lots of people, but at the end of the day, sez you. The church doesn't bow to other people's industry standards, or accepted best practices of secular thinking.

Heh. Just thinking about the concept of a “communist citizen”. Kind of like “damp fire” or “indigenous alien”. Closer would be “libertarian comrade”.

A little help for @longview. From one Coloradan to another.

True story: I was once a landlord in the '90's. I couldn't handle the level of disinterest in the human condition required to be a good one. Scrooge was right. People really do choose to do sentimental things like buy presents at Christmastime instead of pay the rent. I found that indeed, "I can't afford to make idle people merry", so it was basically a losing proposition for me. Being a finance clerk is the mirror image of being a landlord. I just got an urgent call from my bishop who is out of town: Some poor soul is one check away from getting his car repairs paid, so he can have his car back. I'll gladly head into church mid-week to write out a check, drive around to get a counselor to sign it, and I'll even hand deliver the check wherever it needs to go. The effort going into this stuff is so much better, much more sacred, much more holy, than the effort to get eviction proceedings going the day before Thanksgiving.

So, can we count on your no vote to the notion that the church should go into rental properties?

I'd note that there are already church buildings built with such things in mind. My ward building was built in the '80's, and doesn't have a sprinkler system or have any landscaping needs beyond occasional re-mulching some mulch. The rest is all native grasses and trees.

Here you go - you've earned the extra effort it takes to get it to ya: 👍

No it isn't. The story is about the Church deciding to invest in for-profit farms and ranches in Nebraska. It didn't increase its size, it made a decision on where to invest some of its existing size. Its size would remain roughly the same whether it owned farms, another downtown mall, or, as I suspect some unthinkingly assume, a big room full of gold into which the first presidency regularly dives and swims around. You get the distinction, right? You may not figure it's an important distinction, but I do see a difference in the kinds of assets being owned. Productive agricultural land feeds humans, whether done through corn or some other medium. Conflating food production with obese America's unhealthy diet problems is your choice. The decision to assume the church is lying when it explicitly states it made the purchase “to generate long-term value to support the Church’s religious, charitable, and humanitarian good works,” is also your choice. I guess it's nice to see you didn't sweat a single drop when deciding which button to push. I figure you're in good company - an awful lot of America are utterly clueless about the realities of feeding 9 billion people on earth. I'm numbering myself among them, although I suspect I might have read slightly more about it than you, what with your comment about corn syrup and Coke.

Does anyone else watched Peter Santello videos? Dude has a youtube channel with 3 million subscribers. He basically goes into different communities in the US, finds some folks willing to talk about those communities, and asks a million dumb questions and learns. Indian reservations, Chicago's most violent hood, Appalachia, Las Vegas sex workers, US border towns, Amish, Hasidic Jewish enclaves, etc. I've probably watched a dozen over the last few years. They are fascinating glimpses into worlds I know nothing about. Dude shows up with genuine interest, his only goal is to go, as an outsider, into a place and learn straight from the source. 3 days ago, he released the first of several promised videos on Mormons. Cool stuff. He found a BYU student history buff who walked him all around SLC and Provo. I look forward to his next LDSocentric videos.

EP is the charity. EP is a massive reserve fund used by a charitable organization. As for the notion of 0 dollars given, EP invests in businesses which employ people, allowing them to earn paychecks and support themselves. EP invests in productive farms which feed the world. How does EP serve the world? By being a reserve. Laying up stores against the season. The next painful negative economic downturn, (and yes, there's always the next painful negative economic downturn), we'll see the church able to use these funds to benefit it's members, and probably the communities in which we live, and probably the rest of humanity. While the rest of the world, who had been happily following the Analytics' of the world's mindset, was caught unprepared and all go bankrupt. We won't be part of that great depression blip, or the '80's blip: What kind of mindset writes that off as "NOTHING"? Melodramatic all-caps are melodramatic, but hardly as outrage producing as one might think.

Another random thought: Anyone else like the SciFi show The Expanse? High acclaims for being one of the more accurate sci-fi shows out there. In the future, the UN runs earth. There's a Universal Basic Income program covering everyone and everything. There is still a massive ongoing unemployment crisis. Illiteracy, poverty, drug dependency, and social violence are orders of magnitude higher than present day in reality. But nobody is starving because of the UBC. And everyone has a sci-fi cell phone. Interesting stuff. And they didn't stop global warming either:

Totally get the opinion. Totally valid opinion. For me and my house, we'll continue to contribute. Fully aware that the church doesn't need our money. I paid my tithing the other day. As usual, 10% of my increase to tithing, with a fixed sum split between FO and Humanitarian aid. Last month, I taught my daughter to pay tithing for the first time, now that she has a job. I told her the church is embarrassingly bloated with cash and wealth these years, but even if the world plunged into a decade long deep depression and economic collapse, that's still not why we pay tithing. She got it. She even told me why we pay tithing, before I could expound further.

Catholics rock at charity and doing right by the poor and needy. My ward has been doing regular service at various Catholic soup kitchens and food banks for decades. That said, remember, the challenge is to come up with a specific detailed option that the church can pour their billions per year into. And with financials like this, if we did so with Caritas, it would no longer be a Catholic organization, but an LDS organization run by the Catholics. (Note - It's possible these dollars are $k. I couldn't see anything to indicate one way or the other. Even if they are, the LDS church's donations would at least double the size of the organization, if Analytics' and others' estimates are accurate.)

Thank you for your good attempt at answering my questions, @Tacenda! Starving, in the church? Is there a source other than slogging through a half hour podcast? I'd like to know more. I'm the finance clerk. I've been involved in the fast offering check-writing end of things for a decade, with experience going back further than that. ~3 wards, ~5 stakes, 2 states. I've seen miracles and a tiny bit of fraud. I've seen endless gratitude, and much more than a tiny bit of entitled butthurt. I've seen bishops with the attitude of "I'll bend over backwards to pay your cell phone bill in support of your efforts to get a job, lazy teen", and the next bishop be all like "a sister in subsidized housing was here before I met with you, she legitimately goes without food twice a month so she can pay fast offerings. Do you think I should take her money and pay your cell phone bill?" For everything I do, the bishop's food orders are much more expansive. They can do food orders without involving the finance clerk. We clerks see the bishop's storehouse totals in the monthly finance report, and there's always activity there. I don't know what it's like to be a finance clerk in the 3rd world, but in my experience, if there's going to be starving children in the church, it's because the parents won't do what's required to feed them. And when it comes to the church feeding them, what's required amounts to "put individualized effort into this benefit, and work towards self-sufficiency". Even if your circumstances dictate that the absolute most you can do is "attend church". FYI, "help with the homeless" and "donate to world hunger", and "IDK, figure it out" = "throw money at it". As for your suggestion of World Food Program USA, can you tell me how much of your donation actually turns into food that hungry people actually consume? Is it 5%? 80%? These folks were unable to tell: https://www.charitywatch.org/charities/world-food-program-usa These folks like them: https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/133843435. Looks like >90% of their funds are "program funds", but again, there's no indication of how much it costs to run the program, and how much actually makes it to the people the program is intended to help. Isn't that information, sort of the basement, basic information you might want to know before contributing?

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Maybe this can help. HEY @Teancum AND @Analytics: Please tell us a little about your thoughts regarding how the church should engage in more charitable works. - To which charitable organizations should we donate? - To which existing relief teams should we partner, (or increase partnership)? - Every charity/relief org has financials. They can be looked at in terms of % of each donated dollar taken by admin costs/salaries/operations/etc, and % of each donated dollar that actually reaches the target. Do you have thoughts about, say, the church giving a billion dollars to a charitable organization that only spends perhaps 10% of it's income on it's target groups? Speaking as a member of the peanut gallery, without hearing good answers from you both on such matters, whenever you suggest the church give 5%, you might as well be saying "Throw money at it". Without some clear understanding about how you give a crap, I can't discern any substantial difference between the phrase, and what you are saying.

I'm reminded of Mother Theresa. A while ago, I wanted to learn more about her, and one of the ways I learn more about people or things, is find who is mad or critical of them, and look at their arguments. Sure enough, there were folks mad at Mother Theresa. Their criticisms seemed to amount to "she didn't use her power and influence in the way that I think she should have". If I remember correctly, her material possessions at the time of her death amounted to 2 pairs of shoes, 2 simple sets of clothing, and a bucket. And still people were mad at her. Envy, jealousy, lust for power. Nasty stuff, my friends.

Totally fair question, and the answer is yes, absolutely I do. Since you wanted to go the "let's school this guy with a history lesson" route, here's my response: Humans in the western world have been granting tax exempt status to religious organizations all the way back to Constantine granting the Christian church a complete exemption from all forms of taxation around 312ad. Churches were tax-exempt in medieval England, under the justification that the church relieved the state of some governmental functions, and therefore deserved a benefit in return. But the US justifications probably had it's beginning in The English Statute of Charitable Uses of 1601. Before the American Revolution, 9 of the 13 colonies were giving some form of tax relief to churches. They were unofficially exempt from the founding of the nation until 1894, when the tax exemption was officially codified in the federal tax code. The 1894 Tariff Act was declared unconstitutional in 1896, got replaced by the Revenue Act of 1913, and interpreted by the SCOTUS in 1924 who said “Evidently the exemption is made in recognition of the benefit which the public derives” from churches’ “corporate activities.” There wasn't even a ban on church intervention in political campaigns until 1954. There have always been a minority of people who didn't like it. Presidents Madison, Garfield, and Grant all opposed it, for example. And yet it stands, even through, as you point out, the greatest economic expansion the world has ever seen. President Grant's opposition is sort of like yours. Basically, pointing to the fact that churches have money, and getting outraged by the fact. Grant told Congress: It sounds like he's making an argument, but I only hear greed. Envy. Jealousy. Outrage fueled by nothing more than the childish noticing that someone has a cookie and they don't. When you see someone has a cookie and you don't, and you react with "They shouldn't have that cookie, that's not fair", that's what I mean by entitlement mentality. So in case there's any doubt to my position: - Throughout all of recorded history, humans have seen enough value in religious institutions, that they're often willing to grant tax exempt status to them. - The US has been doing so, with only a little in the way of opposition, since before it's founding. - Churches are entitled, but they don't have an entitlement mentality. You are not entitled, but you do have the mentality. Again, this is not a good look on you: p.s. You and everyone else are still wrong when you say a tax break is a subsidy.