Notatbm

The Mormon church regularly cites ~17million ish members, but many if not a majority of members are inactive and haven’t attended in decades or even a generation or two. I personally believe it is safe to say about 25% or less attend and probably an even smaller percentage pays a full tithe if any at all. So why keep people on the rolls if they by their own behavior demonstrate they don’t want to be? Some would say they should resign their membership and I may agree. Perhaps the church should do what I believe was done in England, Chile and the Philippines ( no proof but anecdotally I feel it happened) and purge the church of those who do not attend for whatever reason. Also, why not purge the rolls of those who are habitual criminals for example? Ex them and let them come back on their own terms if they decide to get it together. The reason I bring this up is this past week the church has had to face admitting the Charlie Kirk shooter is a member. Also in the same incident another guy (old man) is arrested at the scene for confessing to the shooting as a way of distracting law enforcement. He was hauled off and somehow his pants got pulled down and he was wearing his Gs. People got upset at another newspaper for an article mocking garments… isn’t this kinda the same thing? Allegedly this dude is a long time trouble maker in Utah and well known. Jim Bennet even knows of him. He has been arrested several times for stuff like bomb threats. And if that wasn’t bad enough the old man was found to have child porn on his phone and is now facing charges for that. I bet he has a current recommend. The temple film maker turned child molester is yet another. Why is the church holding on to these guys? it is tough enough for the church to have to parry away criticism over this stuff, why make it even more of a burden by keeping inactive and criminals on the rolls? It isn’t a good look. One would think it would be better to have a smaller number of members who are all-in as opposed to keeping no participants on the roster. Heck with this criteria just my non-attendance and non tithe paying would get me purged. anyway-discuss if you will.

Exactly…. Sooo dumb of a change it makes the Cracker Barrel sign thing look like a good idea.

Helen mar kimball is the 14 year old Joseph smith married.

Like my buddy said, $25 is an insult. my workplace would qualify as close friends and acquaintances. There are less than thirty of us and we all come out of the same pipeline in the military. thanks. Interesting numbers.

You may find the nieces and nephews are about 100% more accepting of your status than older family members. I know in my own family ( the boomer age group) some have made open condemnation of lgbtq folks. I have a few nieces and nephews who have come out as lgbtq and a couple have left the church. All have been treated poorly by some family about those circumstances . I am in touch with all of them and they say they feel free to open up to me because of my past. interestingly none of them came out or left the church till after both my parents died. I reached out to each of them when I found out their situation over the years. Mostly because I had no one with a sympathetic ear as a kid, especially from my parents. They are who probably would have been the most vocal in terms of giving them crap.”Hmmm I say give them a shot, the younger group isn’t so hateful of lgbtq as they all have gay friends and don’t regard lgbtq status as any kind of a threat or revolting like others may. most kids don’t have a whole lot of interaction with aunts/ uncles unless they live nearby or the family gets together a lot. I have very little contact with most of my nieces and nephews for whatever reason. We had a temple wedding in the family a year ago or so ago and several guests showed up to the reception who were quite clearly lgbtq. I mean not even a doubt. The looks they got from other attendees and some family was something to see, but the bride and groom were thrilled to see them show up. These folks are the friends of a straight couple.

Is more generally a sign of excessive debt and a stupid decision but I get your point.

Very wealthy is much different than someone making $100k / yr for example. Tithing functions just like a regressive tax. The more you make the less the burden. Tithing is a disproportionate burden on people of lesser incomes. someone making 100k per year has $90k left after tithing. someone who makes 250k per year has $225k left over after tithing. someone who makes makes $500k per year has $450k left after tithing. tithing becomes less and less of a “ sacrifice” the more you make. After a while it is just another ankle biter bill. of course your wealthy friend has disposable income. When it comes to regular earners that is often a very different story.

Don’t be so sure. After I stopped paying tithing I had about $12-15 k a year extra. Before that, a few thousand at best. you would be surprised how much “disposable income” people don’t have especially with those who take a ten percent haircut right out of the gate. As far as these “wealthy” people go.. it isn’t that wealthy when you consider my kids have to fork out over half million just to get into a home. If I hadn’t purchased this home when I did my payment would be nearly three times what i would pay if I financed it today. That would be about a $4k per month payment without taxes and insurance.

this item you quoted is the reference provided in the document that also had a link and a footnote number which you conveniently left out. My post stated the church cited the Nauvoo expositor and I provided the link where the reader could find it. The post is about the expositor. Not polygamy. The only reason polygamy was even mentioned is because it is in the referenced quote so the reader could find the footnote. you don’t need to lie about my post. If you feel you need to at least provide the link and footnote number just like I did instead of omitting it.

Formally? Publishing the essays. There would be no need to do that if the information was taught in the correlated curriculum starting from primary. Since they didn’t and the internet beat them to it, the church had to publish the essays. Steven snow offers good commentary on what went on with that, why they did it and why they rolled out the way they did. . I’m sure you have heard it all so I won’t post any links.

Yep in the context of his comment and my experience there, my experience showed me he wasn’t wrong. I had two kids get married while I worked there (I’m still there) and our ward /stake circle of friends are all six figure earners ( I mean all of em. That’s the area we live in. It isn’t rich, but $100k cars are a common site at the stake center) That said when helping the kids do their gift inventory and sending out thank you’s I have to say I was surprised to see lots of cheap gifts compared to my experience at work with people who make similar incomes you had people giving tickets to cruises, thousand dollar cash gifts etc. it made me look cheap. The last gift I gave was to a young couple who both have good first jobs and they are the kids of a co-worker. Since they were kinda set up and I knew they were scotch fans I got em a bottle of scotch and a gift card to Cheesecake Factory. The bottle of scotch was $400 (macallan sherry oak 18 year if you must know). I would never give a gift worth that much for a Mormon wedding, it isn’t expected and I’m pretty sure no one else is doing that either if the gift inventory in my own area is any indicator. The guy who told me not to be cheap is in my ward. He is the one who got me the connection for the job and the advice he offered was when we all got an invite to a wedding of a co-worker. My buddy wasn’t slamming Mormons, he offered advice that would prevent embarrassment later on.

you said the church didn’t have its own definition of lying. I proved to you it did. No dictionary has as a definition of lying what I have holder there. I never demanded anything in my post of anyone so I’m not sure how I should respond. Since you ask I do demand our leaders be honest …. Completely honest. Did I claim the church “always” denied polygamy? If so where? You need to provide a quote because I cannot find where I said that. I did say the church “formally “ acknowledged JS practiced polygamy in about 2014 with the publishing of the essays. Here’s what the news said: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/11/11/363324816/mormon-church-admits-founder-joseph-smith-had-up-to-40-wives

It had to cross his mind though like damn I knew it… ha Any knucklehead who would say some nonsense like that in conference has got to believe it.

from my post: “I grew up in a home that was all Mormon all the time” That was 40 + years ago and is not the home I have now nor will it ever be. as for you opinion about my perception of “proof enough,” well too bad. Works for me.

Since you replied to my post.. did I somewhere say that I gave people crap for not giving “enough” money for a gift?

I don’t think stuff needs to be force fed. Just doing the “feeding” would be sufficient. The rollout of the gospel topics essays was proof enough the church hid, obfuscated, avoided, denied etc tons of stuff. Tons of people were ambushed by the info in that doc dump. I grew up in a home that was all Mormon all the time and much of this was news to me. We had a library in my dad’s study with his own invented Dewey decimal system to track it. Mormon doctrine front and center. Anyway when the essays came out I read all of em. My takeaway after was what the heck is all this? I ran some concerns by my parents ( bishop, stake president, temple workers) and both thought I found a trove of anti Mormon propaganda. I had to show them online where it was. We never discussed it again so I have no idea what they thought of the whole thing.

This is also similar to the viscious lies mention in my earlier post. A significant difference is that it was in a correlated Sunday school manual which you stated you had taught from yourself. If the teacher does not catch it while prepping a lesson and teaching it, how is one supposed to expect the membership at large to catch a line in a magazine article from 1973? Many apologists like to point to the mention in either the friend or ensign in 1979?? Ish about the seer stone as if that amounts to the church “teaching” it. no one sees these articles, and of those who do they don’t remember it. I Was alive and could read and had both the friend and ensign in my home for these mentions and I don’t remember them. I have mentioned about other topics that I’d the church wanted us to know it, they would teach it. Whatever the topic it would be in the manual and it would be a talking point. It would also be taught in conference… whatever topic the leadership wants us to know about. Look how much they mention tithing, missions, covenant path, etc. now look how many mentions of polygamy. Probably very close to zero in conference.

Hmmm ok. It isn’t “baseless “ either or we wouldn’t hear in conference about people who pay tithing instead of buying food for their kids. So is a faithful member who is frugal with their money (and pays a full tithe which for everyone else would be “disposable income”) and has pretty much nothing left at the end of the month an idiot because they are now broke? we were like that for several years after getting married. Was I an idiot for sending my otherwise disposable income to the church instead of saving for retirement or some such productive thing? It was all we had left… well actually we paid it first as instructed … you know before feeding your kids and all that stuff we have heard in conference. there are many members out there who are very responsible with their money and pay a full tithe and at the end of the month broke as hell. No disposable income left unless one didn’t pay their fire insurance. Are they idiots?

The ensign article is a very brief mention. Similar to the 1978 article mentioning the seer stone. did the church teach it in correlated lesson material though? I taught Sunday school for years, attended for years, graduated seminary and was force fed church history at home too. I’m not the only one who didn’t know about Joseph smith practicing polygamy. Teaching it? yes, but no mention in my memory of him practicing it. I wonder why the “teachings of the prophet:Joseph smith” manual don’t mention anything about his many marriages. I could not find one single reference. They did write about the martyrdom but failed to explain what the expositor said about his practicing polygamy. anyway- I’m probably the only member who is in their fifties who never heard about it until the essay came out. Just goes to show no one listens in church lol.

WRONG: it is right here: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-principles/chapter-31-honesty?lang=ase “Lying is intentionally deceiving others. Bearing false witness is one form of lying. The Lord gave this commandment to the children of Israel: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour” (⁠Exodus 20:16⁠). Jesus also taught this when He was on earth (see Matthew 19:18⁠). There are many other forms of lying. When we speak untruths, we are guilty of lying. We can also intentionally deceive others by a gesture or a look, by silence, or by telling only part of the truth. Whenever we lead people in any way to believe something that is not true, we are not being honest.” I already did but here it is again just for you: https://archive.org/details/Primary5/page/n218/mode/1up lesson 37 “Some enemies of the Church believed that if they got rid of Joseph Smith, the Church would fall apart. These men started a newspaper in which they told many vicious lies about Joseph Smith. The members of the Church were angry about these lies. Joseph Smith, who was mayor of Nauvoo at the time, called a meeting of the city council, which was composed of both Church members and nonmembers. The city council declared the newspaper a "public nuisance" and ordered the town marshal to destroy the printing press used to print the newspaper.” It is page 228 of the pdf or page 211 of the document itself. The publishing date of this particular archived manual is 1997. I agree, but it wasn’t until about 2014 that the church formally acknowledged Joseph smith himself practiced polygamy with the publishing of the gospel topics essay on the subject. Many members were not aware JS himself practiced it apparently. I know I didn’t and my family is packed with polygamists. They are very proud of it.

There is an interesting episode of the “inside out” podcast with Jim Bennett , Ian Wilkes and Greg prince. The episode is called “Greg prince returns.” they propose changes to how missionary work is done and member retention among other things. Anyway it can be found on a few of the streaming providers. I can get it in apple and Spotify. If some of the changes they propose would have been available even I may have gone on a mission.

Why do I need to apologize for my opinion which informs how I give wedding gifts? I didn’t tell anyone how they should do it, we were asked what we do. I offered what I do and why I do it. Simple. If someone wants to take offense (and I don’t think bluebell was offended) and turn every single comment into some reason to be offended so be it.

Makes me wonder why exactly he called George p Lee to be a seventy?? Lee wasn’t white so how could he possibly be righteous? I mean kimball believed that he even said it in conference in 1960 ish. Navajo Indians’ skin turns white as they become more righteous or something to that effect. turns out kimball’ s racist belief would have proved him right if he had just stuck with his real beliefs . They had to excommunicate Lee later on.

Ok so it’s my opinion. Are you asking to engage in a multi page discussion on why you don’t agree with me or can you just accept that was my discussion making process and also my opinion?

My claim is that I agreed with my friend after experiencing the same thing. You really trying to “refute” my personal experience? Oh boy