bluebell

I think you could say the same about a few jobs, but I don't think you could for most or any job or side hustle. Making money being anti-something (whether it's a religion or Mary Kay or capitalism or whatever) means the person is tied to other people's perceptions of that 'thing'. It's the same for anyone making money solely for being pro-something too. That's different than working at jiffy lube on the weekends. If the jiffy lube goes under, your skill set isn't tied to jiffy lube, or to people's opinions about jiffy lube. Your skill set retains its monetary value regardless of what is going on with jiffy lube, and you can go do it somewhere else without being connected to jiffy lube in any way. Being opposed to (or for) something isn't really a skill set though. It's an ideology. Unlike most jobs or side hustles, full time ideological podcasters and influencers are completely dependent upon whatever they are opposing and people's opinions about what they are opposing. If the donations stopped (either direct donations or time/view donations that other companies like youtube convert into money), then most full time ideologically based podcasters would probably stop creating content fairly quickly. Lose the donors and the ideology ceases to have monetary value, and therefore the podcaster/influencer ceases to have marketable value as well. There's no taking the skill set somewhere else because it wasn't a skill set that was making them money. Making money solely (and only) off of the popularity of their opinions (either pro or against something) means that fulltime ideological podcasters and influencers are highly highly motivated to cater to their audiences. Nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but it's a big bias, and one that is helpful for viewers and listeners to keep in mind (which is the point that I thought Why Me was trying to make, but I easily could have misunderstood him on that).

It sounds like you are certain that there is no need for ordained priesthood authority, temple ordinances and covenants, or a focus on the importance of doctrinal truth and becoming like Christ. I think it makes perfect sense that you haven't become a member as you don't believe the gospel as the church teaches it. You are a good man and I wish you the best in your spiritual beliefs.

I think that was Peaceful’s article? I can’t see the one Ken linked to (or are they the same one?)

It’s behind a paywall for me.

Remarkably Bright Creatures It's based on a book and is on Netflix. It stars Sally Fields and Bill Pullman's son, Lewis Pullman. (Bill Pullman was the president in Independence Day and the romantic lead in While You Were Sleeping, for context, but his son hasn't done all that much to make him a household name, despite having been an actor for a while). I haven't read the book (and so far online people are saying the movie holds up very well to it), but the movie was really good and very touching. It's narrated by an octopus who was born in the wild but lives in an aquarium, which is cleaned nightly by a woman that the octopus is very fond of (Sally Fields) and who has a tragic past. A young man shows up serendipitously who also has a tragic past and the octopus sets out to help them both heal before he dies (he's very old at this point and knows that his time is short). It sounds fanciful but it's really not. It's weirdly grounded and not a fantasy genre. It has a very heartfelt ending for everyone, even the octopus, which is refreshing. Anyone who wants to cry both sad and happy tears will love it.

Our ward rented out the city's only water park in North Dakota and it wasn't an issue. If the city allows organizations to rent it's facilities for private events then not allow it for a Muslim event seems like a slam dunk for that city getting sued and that group making a lot of money off of the tax payers because of a really dumb Govenor.

Prayers Rod. What a nightmare to have to deal with during an already hard time.

What a beautiful room. It's kind of shocking to see how frail Pres. Oaks and Pres. Eyring are.

I don't think bishops who do this have to be either ill informed or wicked, but I agree with everything else you've said.

This group isn't the smartest. About a year ago there was a city-wide power outage and someone from that group decided that it was because the city turned off the power so that the temple power grid could be hooked up. When the city had to publish a disclaimer explaining what had happened and that it had nothing to do with the temple (which was under construction at the time), people started accusing the city of a cover-up. The city that didn't want the temple with a mayor who openly fought against it. It grew into such a big issue that a state paper headquartered hundreds of miles away actually did a story about it. 6 months ago a Catholic church in a different town had to get special permission to build on their own land to extend the entryway of their church and people went to city council to try to stop it. When the city approved it, it got into the papers and the comments section was all about the corruption of the LDS church! These are not people you can reason with.

People are still mad about it. The local paper did a whole article just interviewing the group’s attorney about how the WY Supreme Court got it wrong.

With the way that these smaller temples are put together offsite and then assembled I don’t know if that would work. Maybe there could be design elements that could be added though. But, from the perspective of someone who is currently living in a smaller town that put up a lot of opposition to a temple because of “steeple height“, I don’t think it would matter. The majority of the people who don’t want a temple in their community don’t want the temple there because of how they feel about the church. They wrap it up in more politically correct language now than they used to, but you can tell how they really feel in the comment section of the local Facebook groups and newspapers. Places where they can hide behind usernames. Wasn’t this the town that easily approved a protestant church’s steeple height with no problems in the same area of town? @Amulek, am I thinking of the wrong place?

This kind of comes across as emotional blackmail to me. The mayor is essentially saying, I know what you’re doing is completely legal, but we don’t like it and if you don’t do what we want then it’s going to look bad and we might hate you forever. Maybe the church should give in and just let that temple be a monument to the religious bigotry that exists in Fairview, Texas.

Agreed. It’s why I post here and never cared to be a part of the faithful only-latter day saint message boards that have popped up. It’s boring. We all have biases and echo chambers are incredibly detrimental to reason.

It's an objective fact that the church doesn't provide members with financial statements, but it is your belief that members need financial statements from the church "in order to be good stewards of their resources". It is an objective fact that the church teaches that God commands us to pay tithing, but it is your personal interpretation that the church claims that God has commanded members "to donate blindly to them." You don't seem to be able to separate your personal beliefs and interpretations from objective facts (or at least, you don't seem to notice when you conflate the two), which is why it's hard to believe that your personal biases are not impacting your conclusions on this topic, despite you stating that they aren't.

All the bolded statements are statements of belief, right? They are subjective and are largely informed by your personal feelings about the church and interpretations of the doctrines it teaches rather than being supported by evidence. They seem like examples of belief bias, which are hard to square with your earlier statements about how your personal biases are not impacting your conclusions on this topic.

Same

It’s probably a holdover from Protestantism.

To clarify, I didn’t think you were doing that at all. It was Analytics response to my post and question to him that was most front in my mind. No apologies from anyone necessary.

I had a reply to this and lost it and haven't wanted to retype it again. But the gist was that I'm sure my thoughts and belief on this topic have changed some since 2012. I have more information than I did then, more wisdom, and have been exposed to posters ideas here. I don't remember what I thought about investing tithing back then but I wouldn't be at all surprised if I had a negative reaction to it. Now, understanding that all tithing is invested (whether by the bank or the church) unless it's being stored in a cave in cash, the idea makes good sense to me. But what hasn't changed is my opinion that the church was honest in its explanations of where the money for the mall was going to come from and that it wasn't coming from tithing back in 2012. As for motivated reasoning, I find it's a bit of a cop-out when applied to others because it comes across as a moral judgment rather than an explanation, but I know it's a real thing and so it's relevant for all of us. We're all invested in our opinions and beliefs about the church being right so in that way we are all motivated in our reasoning. It's a good thing to remember for ourselves, not the best thing to try to apply to other people.

It’s playing on both pro stereotype and anti stereotype ideas. So you get stuff like The Harmonites and then the Swords of Justice. A large part of me wishes it wasn’t a spoof because calling the deacons the Federation of Joy would be the best part of church. 😂

Agreed. It's definitely something both of our perspectives and beliefs are susceptible to. Bias is a very real thing.

I saw that last week and sent it to so many people, I thought it was hilarious and adorable!

In your opinion what changed so that the majority of members were not bothered by the whistleblower report about the tithing when it came out? If the majority of them would have been bothered before I mean.

Sorry for the confusion I just realized that you were quoting JAHS concerning the indirect tithing stuff. It's could be technically accurate to say that the church indirectly used tithing to build a mall, but from my perspective not very useful to this specific discussion. From my perspective, it would be more accurate to say that tithing could have helped make buying the mall possible, even though none was used to purchase it. "Indirectly used" doesn't make a lot of sense to me on this topic because it's like saying that farmers indirectly use poop to get milk. It could be technically accurate (milk comes from cows and cows eat grass and a farmer fertilizes his field with manure to grow the grass), but it's also pretty irrelevant in a discussion on whether or not poop created the milk. Unless you want people to doubt the safety of the milk and the morality of the farmer. If that is the goal then framing the discussion in terms of the "indirect use of poop in milk" does become more relevant. I think the same is true for trying to tie the mall purchase to the 'indirect use' of tithing. It doesn't answer the question of whether or not tithing was used to purchase the mall (which is the topic of discussion), but it can help muddy the waters and create some bias. (I don't honestly know if you are trying to tie the purchase of the mall to the indirect use of tithing or not. You might just be making a statement about how that could theoretically be argued, and in that case, I agree with you. If you are trying to make a statement about how that should be argued, or about how it is relevant to the discussion, then that is where we disagree, for the reasons I explained above).