Church buying up more farms

[Tacenda]

 

12 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

That mischaracterizes my participation on this thread.

I have introduced the concept of hoarding as a moral problem. I have said several times that, without transparency, we cannot be sure where the church stands on that regard. I have said that, given what we do know, the investments suggest an issue with disproportionate investment, but I said this while again saying we can't be sure.

That's not necessarily true. A reasonable estimate of operating costs is known, and of annual tithing receipts producing an significant amount--about 2 billion--above operating costs. Add to that the 100 billion or so investment funding, and the church's own admission of spending 50 million or so in humanitarian aid over several years, and there is a strong argument that the church is probably hoarding wealth in every reasonable sense of the word. Of course we cannot be totally sure. But it is a fair assessment.

That probably explains the defensiveness by some on this topic. 

Saw the following, puts it into perspective.

Imagine someone gave you a million dollars and told you to spend $1,000 every day and come back when you ran out of money. You would return, with no money left, in three years. If someone then gave you a billion dollars and you spent $1,000 each day, you would be spending for about 2,740 years before you went broke.

 

Spending one million dollars in a year would require spending about $2739.73 per day. Question: This means that to spend one billion dollars in a year, you'd need to spend how much per day? Answer: Spending one billion dollars in a year would require spending about $2,739,726.03 per day.

Edited June 27, 2021 by Tacenda

[JAHS]

2 hours ago, Tacenda said:

 

Saw the following, puts it into perspective.

Imagine someone gave you a million dollars and told you to spend $1,000 every day and come back when you ran out of money. You would return, with no money left, in three years. If someone then gave you a billion dollars and you spent $1,000 each day, you would be spending for about 2,740 years before you went broke.

 

Spending one million dollars in a year would require spending about $2739.73 per day. Question: This means that to spend one billion dollars in a year, you'd need to spend how much per day? Answer: Spending one billion dollars in a year would require spending about $2,739,726.03 per day.

In 1948 the church had expenditures of about 27 million dollars.
When you factor in inflation plus all the other new worldwide projects, programs, and temples and church buildings 73 years later I wouldn't be too surprised if it got close to that now.

[Meadowchik]

18 hours ago, juliann said:

Again, you dodge. My measure of wealth is owning more than one pair of shoes. How many do you own as you lecture others about "hoarding?"

 

Yet you dodge the idea that individuals who demand others be held to a "high moral standard" (of your own definition that apparently doesn't include you) aren't hoarding. How many pairs of shoes do you own? How many articles of clothing are in your closet? How much do you spend on air conditioning? What did your car cost? 

I can do this forever. Just like you. The excess of defensiveness that you want this to be is an excess of weariness over this standards for you but not for me hobby horse of yours. I think that has been explained adequately. I also think it has been explained over and over and over and over and over and over that members on this board who choose to give their money to their church don't share your gripes about a church you don't give money to. Your derisive comments about tithe payers are insulting and belittling in case you haven't clued into that yet.

 

You said legitimate critics should follow their own counsel for the church. CFR where I ask how many shoes President Nelson has. Show me where I say the church should sell it's properties and give everything away. 

You can't show that because I didn't say that and furthermore I was pretty insistent that, generally, philanthropic infrastructure should be sought in order to properly manage the humanitarian investment of such vast wealth. 

18 hours ago, juliann said:

Seriously? You really think that a church with so few members compared to exponentially more of those "individual people" is a vast power differential? 

That's not what I said. 

But yes, try going up against any institution as large as the church, as an individual. The vast majority of individuals on the planet have next to no resources comparable to such institutions. Even with collectivised laws giving structure, the institution has the ability to hire lawyers, navigate the law, pay people to help form public opinion, buy influence of important actors, etc...

18 hours ago, juliann said:

Isn't a favored angry exMo talking point that the church is dwindling and flailing? Pick a story and stick with it. 

1) It's a fallacy to project any "exMo talking point" into this argument. 

2) The common exMo point is that church membership growth and/or activity is falling. That is not the same as the power and wealth of the church as an institution.

Edited June 27, 2021 by Meadowchik

[Meadowchik]

17 hours ago, Fether said:

Perhaps no one. Can you share with me why you feel the church should donate more to charity?

Feel free to hit the profile button and read my replies to this thread to get a pretty full view of my position.

[Meadowchik]

18 hours ago, JAHS said:

I have never felt that being the case, because the people are the church so that can't happen.
"For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.
For the body is not one member, but many." (1 Cor 12)

If you are referring to the church authorities I would not call that power but simply leadership. Someone has to do that or there would be confusion and a lack of clear direction.

"And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:" (Eph 4)

It's more than that, for sure. Maybe a hypothetical example would help.

Suppose some land becomes available and the church wants it to build a temple. An individual person with just enough means to purchase the land also wants it for reasons important to them. Generally speaking, who has a better chance of purchasing the land? The individual with just enough money to purchase, or the institution with more than enough to purchase many times over, and to pay lawyers to manage purchasing agreements?

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 hour ago, Meadowchik said:

But yes, try going up against any institution as large as the church, as an individual. The vast majority of individuals on the planet have next to no resources comparable to such institutions. Even with collectivised laws giving structure, the institution has the ability to hire lawyers, navigate the law, pay people to help form public opinion, buy influence of important actors, etc...

The common exMo point is that church membership growth and/or activity is falling. That is not the same as the power and wealth of the church as an institution.

 

1 hour ago, Meadowchik said:

Suppose some land becomes available and the church wants it to build a temple. An individual person with just enough means to purchase the land also wants it for reasons important to them. Generally speaking, who has a better chance of purchasing the land? The individual with just enough money to purchase, or the institution with more than enough to purchase many times over, and to pay lawyers to manage purchasing agreements?

I thought you might eventually get 'round to raising this point. You're scared of the Church's power.

Edited June 27, 2021 by Hamba Tuhan

[Meadowchik]

11 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

 

I thought you might eventually get 'round to raising this point. You're scared of the Church's power.

Maybe "scared" is not the right word, but I am concerned. I think all people should be concerned about concentrations of power. The church is one such concentration of power with which I have personal experience, as do most of us posting here.

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, Meadowchik said:

Maybe "scared" is not the right word, but I am concerned. I think all people should be concerned about concentrations of power. The church is one such concentration of power with which I have personal experience, as do most of us posting here.

I would be more concerned about abuses of that kind of power. There are much better entities and individuals to be concerned about how they are using their wealth that are causing genuine and often deliberate harm as opposed to ‘concern their charitable donations don’t meet an arbitrary standard’.

[Meadowchik]

16 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I would be more concerned about abuses of that kind of power. There are much better entities and individuals to be concerned about how they are using their wealth that are causing genuine and often deliberate harm as opposed to ‘concern their charitable donations don’t meet an arbitrary standard’.

I'm concerned about abuses of power, too.

[JAHS]

3 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

Maybe "scared" is not the right word, but I am concerned. I think all people should be concerned about concentrations of power. The church is one such concentration of power with which I have personal experience, as do most of us posting here.

How could the Church do what it is doing now and in the future to fulfil it's mission without this so-called concentration of power you are afraid of?
There are 15 Apostles and Prophets of God (including all the financial experts) who must all agree with what should be done with this power and money.

This # of church leaders ensures that no one church leader can start doing something illegal, immoral, or contrary to God's will.

[Stargazer]

On 6/25/2021 at 8:41 AM, Meadowchik said:

As I have already said, I don't know exactly how much is already invested in humanitarian causes. 

You don't know exactly how much is invested in humanitarian causes, yet you still insist that more must be done. With this as a standard, the church will never live up to your expectations in this area.

And has been remarked before in this thread, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not a charitable organization. It is a religious organization, though one that does charitable works as well. Most churches are organized in this way. Even the Salvation Army, whose public charitable works seem to overshadow its religious aspects, is primarily a religious organization, describing itself as "an evangelical part of the universal Christian Church" with the mission "to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in his name without discrimination." 

Prior to 2009, the official mission of the LDS church was threefold:

• Proclaiming the Gospel,
• Perfecting the Saints, and
• Redeeming the Dead.

Nothing in there about charitable works, but nevertheless the church was still engaged in them, and has been for a long time. This is natural, since James 1:27 proclaims this as a principle: "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction..." 

In 2009, President Monson broke out the James 1:27 principle of the Gospel into a new fourth fold: "Caring for the Poor and Needy". While that might be seen as new, it wasn't. 

 

On 6/25/2021 at 8:41 AM, Meadowchik said:

One's primary residence, especially one that is not extremely excessive, is really not comparable to the level of wealth of the church. 

It's not comparable to the wealth of Bill Gates, either, but my point concerned relative wealth.

I do like your use of the term "excessive," by the way. Do you have this well-defined? Is it absolute, or relative? Some, such as a Zulu tribesman, might consider that I am excessively wealthy. Although they tend to have respect for those with great wealth, as they see them as successful. 

A great deal of the wealth of the church is like my house, which costs me money and earns me nothing. Or, in other words, it is a financial burden. Every single meetinghouse and temple, which are individually worth quite a bit, from a market-value or tax-assessment point of view, is nevertheless a financial burden. If the Church put the London Temple up for sale, who would buy it? It's an extremely functional building, suited for its purpose, but for more general use it would require an enormous amount of money to convert into, say, an office building. It might re-coup its original building cost in a sale, but not the year-over-year costs of its maintenance since it was put into operation. 

Do you want the church to divest itself of its temples and meetinghouses? Sell them and give out the money to the poor?

On 6/25/2021 at 8:41 AM, Meadowchik said:

I would consider land put to good use including helping the poor and needy as one type of philanthropic infrastructure I was talking about. 

And the church doesn't do enough of that, in your opinion. But again, we come to how much philanthropic use the church is making of its land. I can understand your wanting to know the details, and possibly your disappointment at the reticence of the church to be forthcoming about them. Heck, I'd love to know! Just for the sake of knowing, being a glutton for information. When in the film "Short Circuit," the robot Johnny Five would grow ecstatic over new things to learn by saying the word "Input!" with obvious pleasure, this portrayed me perfectly. I can occupy myself very happily for hours digging through Wikipedia. But I digress...

Despite my desire for input, however, I do respect the right of privacy. I also trust that the church is functioning in its assigned missions as well as can be expected, given human imperfections and weaknesses. If I didn't trust it, I, too, might not feel inclined to participate in the church's mission through entrusting it with my tithing and fast offerings -- and might find more suitable candidates to make these contributions. But I would still respect the right of privacy, and wouldn't be visiting message boards to complain about how much closer the church needed to hew to my ideas of how to use its wealth.

In my past life, there were brief periods of unemployment when it got difficult to come up with living expenses. I remember one brief period when our Relief Society president came to visit a couple of times with a bishop's storehouse order form in hand, to assess our food needs. And I remember visiting said storehouse with my wife as we collected the commodities on that order form. I remember feeding our family from packages and cans with the "Deseret" brand label. Those commodities were not all produced from the output of church-owned farms and canning facilities, but most of them were. I don't know if it's still done that way. But when my late wife and I were our stake's family canning coordinators, we ran family canning sessions a few times per year at the bishop's storehouse in Kent, Washington, and that place was jam-packed with all kinds of food commodity items. Items that were intended for those in need.

On 6/25/2021 at 8:41 AM, Meadowchik said:

In this context, hoarding refers to wealth and plenty that is not being put to use, more than just a prudent savings for expected periods of scarcity.

What is prudence? Joseph of Egypt stored up enough surplus food to last for an entire seven-year famine. Regardless of whether you consider the story to be fictional, in objective terms one might consider a seven-year supply of food (wheat, mostly, I suppose) to be a hoard. Who expects a seven-year famine? Nobody. That hoard thus definitely constitutes excessive, one feels. At least, that is how those who are being "taxed" to fill it might think of it.

"wealth and plenty that is not being put to use" sounds like:

...which doesn't describe the Church at all. The Church doesn't own things for the sake of owning them: there is no money pit. I don't know if you've seen those shows where specialists come into a home in order to help unfortunate individuals who suffer from the inability to throw things out that are of no use to them. People who basically sleep, walk, and live on top of their possessions because their homes are chock full of extraneous possessions that they cannot bear to let go.

Does stock or land ownership constitute "hoarding"? Or is there a specific threshold where the ownership becomes "hoarding"? 

On 6/25/2021 at 8:41 AM, Meadowchik said:

Personally, I don't intentionally hoard. I try to avoid holding onto things that I have little chance of needing especially when they can serve the immediate need of another. My husband agrees. We have many children and have known little to no monetary excess in our lives. We have sometimes had opportunities to share what we have in a big way, like letting people live in the attached apartment intended for my mother-in-law, before she moved in with us. 

1) I am a bit struck by the need for an explanation of how hoarding can be a moral issue. But it is because there are human beings experiencing life-threatening and damaging scarcity in this world.

A couple days ago I was walking home from the grocery store in our city. On the pavement, there was a man who had been hurt somehow and was bleeding. There were several people with him, apparently strangers to him. One was supporting his head. As I approached, an emergency vehicle stopped and people got out to help. 

If I had come upon this man a few minutes earlier, and he had been alone and without help, I would consider it immoral if I had just walked by. Passersby who see the need and are able to do something or even just call for aid have a moral obligation to use their opportunity to help that person.

And so I think of that scenario, and the parable of the Good Samaritan, and I apply it to larger scales. Hoarding at the level of billions in wealth is indicative of the opportunity to know of urgent needs and the opportunity to help, but not using that opportunity. That is the crux of it as a moral issue.

That's a good explanation, actually! I agree with you.

But does the church hold onto things that it has little need of? I'm pretty sure it doesn't. Based on what I know of what the church owns, it only owns productive property. Things like land, stocks, bonds and so on, that produce goods or income that can be used for useful purposes.  For this reason, characterizing the church as a "hoarder" seems completely off-base. Getting down to brass tacks, I get the impression that you consider merely being rich as "hoarding".  

On 6/25/2021 at 8:41 AM, Meadowchik said:

2) It's about more than what I believe the church should do. The LDS Church already acknowledges the moral obligation to be like the Good Samaritan. Frankly I have found it weird to see posters here who seem to be arguing otherwise.

I don't think those posters are saying that the Church doesn't have a moral Good Samaritan obligation. I'm pretty sure they consider it to be a supplementary obligation as a religious organization to be a Good Samaritan, as do I. Did the Good Samaritan sell all his worldly possessions in order to assist the man robbed by thieves, or all poor people? Was he in the occupation or avocation of providing charity? Pretty sure he wasn't. He seems to have been a businessman of some sort, who, incidentally, stopped along his way to do what those you describe in your point #1 above for the man who was hurt and bleeding. He wasn't the church, nor was he a charitable organization. And I tend to feel that the Good Samaritan obligation that Christ taught about is an individual obligation that is intended to be left to the individual to carry out, not a kind of obligation that one self-righteously holds others responsible for.

You want the church to do more. While I do wonder why you make it a particular point of contention on this board to argue about what you may see as the church's greed, for this advances the cause of charitable giving not one whit, I do see that it concerns you. Perhaps you wish to be convinced that you're wrong about this matter, so that you can feel better about the church itself? And are hoping we can help you in this endeavor?

Naturally, I don't have any more information than you do about the church's charitable giving. But if one examines the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BAMGF), for which public information is available, we can get an idea of scale that we can perhaps measure the church against. Keep in mind, of course, that the BAMGF is a charitable and not a religious organization, and whose very purpose is to materially benefit mankind -- and I suppose it also helps to keep the IRS from savaging the Gates family fortune.

As of EOY 2020, it is reported that the BAMGF holds $49.9 billion in assets. In 2020 it paid out in grants and direct charity $4.9 billion. Looks oddly and probably just coincidentally like a "tithe", but whatever. The $4.9 billion is approximately the earnings from the various investments that the BAMGFTrust owns (the Trust is the actual owner of the various assets). So, they handed out "just" 10% of the value of their assets. They didn't so much as touch the assets themselves. In fact, their asset total increased.

Is that what you want the church to do? Hand out 10% of the value of its assets each year? I'm sure that would be a fine thing, but one must keep in mind that the purpose of the BAMGF is not the purpose of the LDS church. As stated, one is religious (with very different financial obligations) while the other is exclusively charitable. For another thing, the BAMGF has a 20-year self-destruct clause: its charter is to have given away all of its assets within 20 years of the death of its founders. Whereas the LDS church is an eternal organization.

I'm sure that you understand that if the BAMGF or the church were to sell off all their assets this year and give it to whatever beneficiaries, that would be great this year, but next year there'd be nothing more to give.

On 6/25/2021 at 8:41 AM, Meadowchik said:

This week we took in an LGBT youth who had been kicked out of her house. (After three days her father finally said she could return.) Next week we'll be welcoming a family into the extra apartment again because the house they rent has become uninhabitable and it will take several months to repair it. We already have heavy obligations weighing on us, but we also have some ways we can help others and we try to help when and if we can.

You've had good fortune in your personal charitable endeavors, then. My late wife and I did this kind of thing a number of times over the years, and in every single case the person so helped stole from us. In one case, the person returned a few days after stealing money from us, and attempted a daytime burglary because he thought no-one was home (he was wrong). I've become leery of letting people into my house. I've helped since then, but not invited into my house to stay. Once bitten, twice shy, and all that.

 

[JAHS]

6 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

It's more than that, for sure. Maybe a hypothetical example would help.

Suppose some land becomes available and the church wants it to build a temple. An individual person with just enough means to purchase the land also wants it for reasons important to them. Generally speaking, who has a better chance of purchasing the land? The individual with just enough money to purchase, or the institution with more than enough to purchase many times over, and to pay lawyers to manage purchasing agreements?

The church has on several occasions changed its plans for building a temple in a certain way or location because of the concerns of the local people, when it could have wielded this power you speak of to do what they wanted anyway.
A good example is the Tooele Temple that was going to be built at a certain site with the approval of the county commission, but the local residents were concerned about the location and started a petition to have the decision to build there reversed. Be fore they even got the required # of signatures (which they never reached) the church announced that they were going to choose a different site.
“We acknowledge the efforts of those who have raised questions and sincere concerns about the Tooele Valley temple project, including the residential development surrounding the temple. There is a sincere desire on the part of the church to avoid discord in the community,” the First Presidency said in a statement. “Therefore, regardless of the outcome of a pending signature-gathering effort, we have determined to withdraw our rezoning request for the residential portion of the temple project.”

[Megalodon]

I had quite a shock the other day. Across the street from us are long-time neighbors of my wife's family -- well over thirty years of neighborliness. As a recent add-on to my wife, I'm relatively unfamiliar with our neighbors. These particular neighbors live in a house a bit larger than ours, but still relatively moderate in size and value. The husband just passed away a few days ago, from cancer. Not long before, when I was expressing concern for their financial condition due to his illness, my wife said there was no reason to worry for them. Though as merely a retired electronics engineer and a nurse they are thus not plutocrats, through wise investing over the years they have a steady income of something like $40,000 per month. Upon hearing this, my well-toothed jaw dropped to the floor -- metaphorically speaking! This was followed by a very unaccustomed emotion: jealousy. And immediately thereafter came shame. I'm still marveling over this. I have sometimes wondered in the past if the worked-up state some people get into about some other person's supposed immense wealth has this same shameful root. I'm now thinking it might very well be the case.

[Stargazer]

58 minutes ago, JAHS said:

This # of church leaders ensures that no one church leader can start doing something illegal, immoral, or contrary to God's will.

I'm pretty sure she doesn't have a shred of confidence that God is leading them.

I understand her concern from that point of view -- though I don't share it.

[Meadowchik]

59 minutes ago, JAHS said:

How could the Church do what it is doing now and in the future to fulfil it's mission without this so-called concentration of power you are afraid of?
There are 15 Apostles and Prophets of God (including all the financial experts) who must all agree with what should be done with this power and money.

This # of church leaders ensures that no one church leader can start doing something illegal, immoral, or contrary to God's will.

Good question, and future scenarios are important to think about. 

I think transparency helps, then enforceable institutional bylaws. 

Tell me what power the Twelve have if the church president decides to do something they all disagree with? What could they do about it?

[Meadowchik]

3 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

I'm pretty sure she doesn't have a shred of confidence that God is leading them.

I understand her concern from that point of view -- though I don't share it.

I can appreciate that they believe God is leading them, though. But as we all know such belief can be good sometimes and dangerous other times.

[JAHS]

1 minute ago, Meadowchik said:

Good question, and future scenarios are important to think about. 

I think transparency helps, then enforceable institutional bylaws. 

Tell me what power the Twelve have if the church president decides to do something they all disagree with? What could they do about it?

That has never happened that I know of. By the time a church leader reaches the level of president of the church they are very well aware of the requirement for all to agree on something and have been conditioned to follow that protocol.

[Meadowchik]

12 minutes ago, Megalodon said:

I had quite a shock the other day. Across the street from us are long-time neighbors of my wife's family -- well over thirty years of neighborliness. As a recent add-on to my wife, I'm relatively unfamiliar with our neighbors. These particular neighbors live in a house a bit larger than ours, but still relatively moderate in size and value. The husband just passed away a few days ago, from cancer. Not long before, when I was expressing concern for their financial condition due to his illness, my wife said there was no reason to worry for them. Though as merely a retired electronics engineer and a nurse they are thus not plutocrats, through wise investing over the years they have a steady income of something like $40,000 per month. Upon hearing this, my well-toothed jaw dropped to the floor -- metaphorically speaking! This was followed by a very unaccustomed emotion: jealousy. And immediately thereafter came shame. I'm still marveling over this. I have sometimes wondered in the past if the worked-up state some people get into about some other person's supposed immense wealth has this same shameful root. I'm now thinking it might very well be the case.

I guess I have had more experience brushing shoulders with wealthy people and have long learned to deal with those feelings, which are pretty natural. 

This subject is about a very wealthy institution, meant to be a non-profit, and ostensibly intended to be a benefit to humankind. 

I wish the church culture had a better norm of accountability for its leadership. But there's no such norm, and apparently there's a rather ubiquitous belief that God will not allow the church to go astray. I think that this causes problems and will continue to in the future, even worse problems than those in the past.

[Meadowchik]

8 minutes ago, JAHS said:

That has never happened that I know of. By the time a church leader reaches the level of president of the church they are very well aware of the requirement for all to agree on something and have been conditioned to follow that protocol.

Times change and people change. What can the Twelve do to stop a president who is going against them all?

[Stargazer]

On 6/26/2021 at 12:46 PM, Meadowchik said:

There is a difference, though, between griping about Mormons or exMormons and griping about the church. The LDS church is a wealthy and powerful entity itself, much more than any one person and it is not a bad thing if people "gripe" about it, or offer scrutiny and criticism of it far surpassing scrutiny or criticism of individual people.

Let the critics criticize, I say. Doesn't hurt anything, even if some of the critics are full of it. If the church were perfect, though, there'd still be critics. It's a forlorn hope that any organization put into the hands of human beings will approach perfection in any full way. 

My problem with criticism is that so much of it sounds more like braying than anything substantive. I'm not labelling yours in that fashion, by the way. But too much of the criticism is based in ignorance and misunderstanding.

On 6/26/2021 at 12:46 PM, Meadowchik said:

Do you agree that there is a vast power differential between individual people and the LDS Church?

The LDS Church has no power over me. I follow its precepts to the best of my ability out of a conviction that its precepts come from God, and that I will get closer to God by doing so than by any other way. If ever I lost my conviction that its precepts come from God, I am pretty sure I would continue to follow those precepts, because in addition to a conviction that those precepts come from God, I have come to be convinced that those precepts, in and of themselves and without reference to their origin, are good and beneficial for me as an individual, for anyone who chooses to follow them, and would be so for all of humankind, if they were followed universally.

As to "power differentials", I do appreciate those. Here's where my fear of power differentials lie: with those individuals and organizations whose principles or whose members have been shown to be easily turned to despicable and evil acts, in the furtherance of power over others. Things such as governments, gangs, and criminals. For example, in the 20th century, the deaths of tens of millions of people, and the destruction of billions of dollars worth of property were not caused by churches, but by governments. 

You're welcome to fear a church, if you wish. To each his own. But I have no fear that the LDS church will buy a property that I want to buy instead. I'd love to have a temple next door to my house. Better than a theme park, any day. 

[JAHS]

2 minutes ago, Meadowchik said:

Times change and people change. What can the Twelve do to stop a president who is going against them all?

Chances are they will check him into a hospital and have a Doctor evaluate his mental condition. Why worry about something that is not likely to happen?

[Chum]

26 minutes ago, Megalodon said:

they have a steady income of something like $40,000 per month. Upon hearing this, my well-toothed jaw dropped to the floor -- metaphorically speaking! This was followed by a very unaccustomed emotion: jealousy.

Yeah I fight with that a bit. I don't feel ashamed tho; it's a fairly natural reaction. It's also harmful and corrosive so I'm motivated to be rid of it ASAP.

[Meadowchik]

22 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

To each his own. But I have no fear that the LDS church will buy a property that I want to buy instead. I'd love to have a temple next door to my house. Better than a theme park, any day. 

That was merely one example of power differential, which imo substantially expanded JAHS's reframing of it.

[Meadowchik]

1 hour ago, Stargazer said:

I do like your use of the term "excessive," by the way. Do you have this well-defined? Is it absolute, or relative? Some, such as a Zulu tribesman, might consider that I am excessively wealthy. Although they tend to have respect for those with great wealth, as they see them as successful. 

What is the annual increase from the 100 billion? How many times greater is that than 50 million, which is what the church has identified as an amount donated over several years. Just one percent is one billion, which is 20 times greater than 50 million. So the church, if only using one percent of the one hundred billion, could do in one year twenty times what it has said its done over many years. Every year, while still growing those assets. 

Does that put it into a bit of perspective?

Question for you: do have standards for how the church operates financially? Are there moral boundary violations that you would reject if the church crossed them? If so, what are they?

[Tacenda]

On 6/25/2021 at 8:48 PM, Calm said:

What is it you most want to know about?  

some ideas from your posts, I will add as they occur, so if you want to use them check back..maybe others can contribute as well.

Do church owned businesses pay anything like a tithe or maybe what happens to profit from church owned businesses?

One or two for me..

The Church pays for overhead of humanitarian costs, does this amount come from tithing or something else?  What percentage of expenses for the humanitarian projects does the Church cover (how much is the overhead in comparison to the rest of the work)?  I doubt he will be able to supply those numbers as likely if varies widely per project.

 

 

On 6/25/2021 at 9:01 PM, JustAnAustralian said:

Another possible one:

What process is used to allocate non-directed giving (i.e. if someone uses their will to leave money or property "to the church") to specific things.

 

On 6/25/2021 at 10:05 PM, JustAnAustralian said:

It could, but I was thinking more of the basic level of whether it just got dumped in a pot for later use, converted straight to investments, etc, rather than "old mother betty left us $50, should we buy some jars of tomatoes, or a sleeping bag"

 

On 6/25/2021 at 10:11 PM, Calm said:

Maybe better to say it like “if someone just gives money as a gift to the Church without directions, what happens to it; does it bet put into general funds, investments, or something else” so that he gets a general, but not too technical answer is acceptable and so has more chance of answering?

 

Just compiling these questions and will work on how I'm going to present them.