Recent Stories Re: Church's Humanitarian Efforts

[Calm]

6 hours ago, Tacenda said:

My name sounds exotic sounding, and I'm far from that. Or it reminds me of a Russia name for some reason. But somehow it came up either a search or what not to how I was feeling back in 2012 because it was exactly how I felt during my crisis of faith and keeping it to myself. 

 

 

tacenda pl (plural only) things that are not to be spoken about or made public. things that are best left unsaid.

I have always thought it was a great alias.

[Calm]

5 hours ago, Teancum said:

From 2003 to 2009 while serving as a bishop we could give $500 2x times per year to a food bank.  The $500 was in food from our bishop's storehouse.

Our stake rotates monthly through the wards in supporting a local food bank (the stake being one of three in our town of 13,000 or so).  Not sure how long it has been happening.

Edited November 19 by Calm

[Analytics]

On 11/17/2023 at 3:20 PM, smac97 said:

Teancum, Analytics, and a fair number of other (notably anonymous) critics constantly disparage and impugn the basic decency of the Church and its leaders, and often even go further than that and attribute to it malignant motives and actions that are unfair, inaccurate, and so on.... 

CFR. Give me one example of me disparaging and impugning "the basic decency of the Church and its leaders." Just give me one example of attributing malignant motives and actions. Just one. 

As a reminder, this forum explicitly bans the behavior of "Refusing to provide appropriate references to support your statements."

[Analytics]

On 11/18/2023 at 11:19 AM, teddyaware said:

I’m wondering if it’s ever dawned on any of the critics that the leaders of the church believe the dire prophesies in the scriptures regarding the coming tribulations of the last days are actually going to come to pass, and that their main purpose in accumulating significant funds and capital is in preparation for those soon to arrive days when humanitarian efforts are going to be needed even more desperately than they are today?

Could you go into more detail? When people prepare for biblical-scale tribulations, they typically stock up on food and ammo, not stocks and bonds. What is the apocalyptic scenario you are envisioning where holding bonds and stock certificates will do you any good? 

[Tacenda]

On 11/18/2023 at 6:46 PM, Calm said:

I have always thought it was a great alias.

Thanks Calm, I liked Cal but Calm more.

[Calm]

2 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Thanks Calm, I liked Cal but Calm more.

[Analytics]

On 11/17/2023 at 12:24 PM, smac97 said:

For the Teancum Memorial "Relieving Human Suffering is Pretty Low on {the Church's} List" and/or Analytics Memorial "The Church's Leaders are Bunch of 'Miserly' 'Ebenezer Scrooge' Clones and the Church is 'Primarily a Giant Hedge Fund that Happens to also have a Religious Operation'" files...

While I'm waiting for Smac to respond to my CFR, I thought I'd respond to the main topic of the thread.

As some background, Christopher Hitchens wrote a book entitled god Is Not Great: How Religious Poisons Everything. Although Daniel C. Peterson claims he read the book, it's not clear to me that he has, because he interprets the phrase "religion poisons everything" as meaning, "religious people and organizations never do anything that is good or praiseworthy." Now whenever Professor Peterson finds a news article about a religious person or organization actually doing something good, he links to it on his blog and says he's putting it into his Christopher Hitchens' Memorial "Religious Poisons Everything" file. The implication is that just one item in that file proves that religion doesn't literally poison everything, and that if he can find multiple counterexamples, then he's somehow refuted the subtitle of the book. 

Smac consistently misrepresents my position on this topic. For the record, I'll summarize my actual position in the following bullet points:

• In very rough numbers that are on the right order of magnitude, the Church takes in about $15 billion a year. Of that $15 billion, about $6 or $7 billion is used to fund the Church's religious, educational, and charitable missions, and the remaining $8 or $9 billion is used to increase the size of the Church's "rainy day fund" which includes stocks, bonds, for-profit businesses, and real estate.
• If you get an MBA in Nonprofit Management, one of the things you'll learn is that "nonprofits should aim to maintain a balance between having enough reserve funds to cover unexpected expenses or revenue shortfalls and using their resources to advance their mission."
• Using any set of circumstances, goals, and objectives I can conceive of, the result is always the same: the Church already has way too much in saving, yet it still uses the majority of its annual income to increase the size of its savings and uses the minority of its annual income on everything else. 
• Some people here have suggested that the reason the Church has so much money is because they are planning for the long term. I think the reason is the exact opposite. I believe they do not have a long-term plan, and instead have a "fixed principle" that declares "a fixed percentage of the income will be set aside to build reserves against what might be called a possible 'rainy day.'" Accumulating too much money is an artifact of this "fixed principle," not something that was planned for based on a strategic future need.
• Most of the members of the Council on the Disposition of Tithes aren't authorized to know how much money the Church has saved up, nor are they authorized to know its investment income. They decide how the Church will dispose of tithes, but not of the investment income, which now eclipses tithes.
• When President Hinckley said the "fixed percentage of income would be set aside," what he really mean is that a fixed percentage of tithing will be set aside. The mathematical result is that every year, a larger and larger amount of total income (i.e. including investment income) is set aside for a "rainy day," which results in the current situation where a majority of total income is being set aside, and that that percentage is growing. 
• I do not believe that in the heart of the Church's leaders, they lust after money and that is why the reserves are too high. Rather, I believe that they just don't have the vision or the courage to change paths, so they kick the can down the road.
• But regarding the institution of the Church itself, it values how it chooses to allocate its resources. This isn't a moral indictment on the leaders of the Church, much less on the members. Rather, it is a manifestation of groupthink and related psychological phenomena. 
• Effectively deploying large amounts of charitable money is superlatively difficult. However, that isn't the reason the Church isn't trying. The Church is hoarding money because of Hinckley's "fixed principle" of saving a fixed-percentage of tithing and not touching the savings or the investment income.
• The Church should be congratulated for all of the good it does in the world. But that doesn't change the fact that it systematically uses the majority of its annual income to grow the size of its already-too-big savings, and uses the minority to fund all of its religious, educational, and charitable initiatives. 
• The Church should be congratulated for only directing money to causes and organizations that effectively deploy their resources. The Church does its due diligence and only partners with organizations that verify they are effective, such as Catholic Charities. The reason they can confidently work with Catholic Charities is because, in their own words, "We take seriously our responsibility to be efficient, accountable and transparent with our financial information." Links to Catholic Charities  financial statements are here.
• If a potential donors to the Church used the the same due-diligence standards that the Church uses when evaluating partners, they wouldn't donate to the Church. That is because unlike Catholic Charities, the Church is not transparent. And if it was, it would reveal that donations to the Church aren't used effectively--too much is directed towards already bloated savings accounts.

[JAHS]

Here's a fairly up to date list of reported humanitarian aid events in the news. That's reported and not actual.
LDS Charity (latterdaysainthaven.com)

[Stormin' Mormon]

On 11/17/2023 at 6:55 PM, MiserereNobis said:

On the other hand, I remember when Calmoriah disappeared and Calm appeared. I seemed to weather that storm decently enough  

Wait a minute, wait a minute....

Is there a way to change our usernames?  I made this account nearly 20 years ago, and have mellowed out quite a bit in my old age, such that the name doesn't really fit me anymore.  If there's a way to change our usernames without creating a whole new account, I'd love to shorten my name to just "Stormin'" or "Storman" or "Storm."  Just something less in-your-face but still identifiably "me."  

[SeekingUnderstanding]

42 minutes ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

Wait a minute, wait a minute....

Is there a way to change our usernames?  I made this account nearly 20 years ago, and have mellowed out quite a bit in my old age, such that the name doesn't really fit me anymore.  If there's a way to change our usernames without creating a whole new account, I'd love to shorten my name to just "Stormin'" or "Storman" or "Storm."  Just something less in-your-face but still identifiably "me."  

I tried and was unsuccessful in my attempts to catch the moderators attn. but in theory it’s possible. 

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

Wait a minute, wait a minute....

Is there a way to change our usernames?  I made this account nearly 20 years ago, and have mellowed out quite a bit in my old age, such that the name doesn't really fit me anymore.  If there's a way to change our usernames without creating a whole new account, I'd love to shorten my name to just "Stormin'" or "Storman" or "Storm."  Just something less in-your-face but still identifiably "me."  

 

1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

I tried and was unsuccessful in my attempts to catch the moderators attn. but in theory it’s possible. 

I probably played the sympathy move, I can’t remember what I said, but I was in the hospital at the time recovering from surgery and it felt too much work to type in more than 4 letters, lol, to sign in.

[blackstrap]

On 11/17/2023 at 12:21 PM, BlueDreams said:

It's hard to measure what came first.

" I ordered a chicken and an egg from Amazon.... I will let you know " 

My name is a type of molasses .... dark and slightly bitter . 

[teddyaware]

On 11/19/2023 at 9:00 PM, Analytics said:

Could you go into more detail? When people prepare for biblical-scale tribulations, they typically stock up on food and ammo, not stocks and bonds. What is the apocalyptic scenario you are envisioning where holding bonds and stock certificates will do you any good? 

Very simple. According to the many prophecies of scripture that pertain to the coming tribulations of the last days (terrible events that are going occur as a consequence of the world descending in ungodliness and ripening iniquity) there are going to be an abundance of cataclysmic natural disasters, pestilences, droughts, famines, plagues, economic failures, armed conflicts, civil strife, population dislocations, pervasive lawlessness, etc., in preparation for these days of unprecedented turmoil which the Savior testified will be more terrible and widespread than any other time in world history, the leaders of the church are wisely saving money, funds which will be transitioned from bookkeeping entries into the hard, tangible capital at the right moment to acquire what will be needed to built the new holy nation state called Zion; and this Zion will arise like a mighty phoenix from the ashes of the former world that God is going to sweep off the face of the earth.

The emergence of Zion will mostly be accomplished by means of God’s miraculous intervention, but he expects the Church do what it can in preparation for the days when the earth will begin to tremble and God’s judgements will bring widespread destruction. Because the church has been willing and able to do its part in preparing for the days of tribulation that are surely going to come to pass (only those who are spiritually blind fail can to see these prophesied days of judgement are, even now,  at the doors), the Lord will take our little handful of temporal “loaves and fishes” and multiply them into an abundant outpouring of spiritual and temporal blessings that will enable the saints to usher in the glorious millennial kingdom of God on earth! But until the apostate critics obtain the illuminating influence of the Spirit of God through faith in Christ and sincere repentance, they will be doomed to continue to kick against the pricks in futile ignorance until the day comes when it becomes too obvious for them to deny that wicked men and the fallen nature deceived them.

 

[Analytics]

2 minutes ago, teddyaware said:

Very simple. According to the many prophecies of scripture that pertain to the coming tribulations of the last days (terrible events that are going occur as a consequence of the world descending in ungodliness and ripening iniquity) there are going to be an abundance of cataclysmic natural disasters, pestilences, droughts, famines, plagues, economic failures, armed conflicts, civil strife, population dislocations, pervasive lawlessness, etc., in preparation for these days of unprecedented turmoil which the Savior testified will be more terrible and widespread than any other time in world history, the leaders of the church are wisely saving money, funds which will be transitioned from bookkeeping entries into the hard, tangible capital at the right moment to acquire what will be needed to built the new holy nation state called Zion; and this Zion will arise like a mighty phoenix from the ashes of the former world that God is going to sweep off the face of the earth.

The emergence of Zion will mostly be accomplished by means of God’s miraculous intervention, but he expects the Church do what it can in preparation for the days when the earth will begin to tremble and God’s judgements will bring widespread destruction. Because the church has been willing and able to do its part in preparing for the days of tribulation that are surely going to come to pass (only those who are spiritually blind fail can to see these prophesied days of judgement are, even now,  at the doors), the Lord will take our little handful of temporal “loaves and fishes” and multiply them into an abundant outpouring of spiritual and temporal blessings that will enable the saints to usher in the glorious millennial kingdom of God on earth! But until the apostate critics obtain the illuminating influence of the Spirit of God through faith in Christ and sincere repentance, they will be doomed to continue to kick against the pricks in futile ignorance until the day comes when it becomes too obvious for them to deny that wicked men and the fallen nature deceived them.

 

But if no one knows the day or hour, how will they know when to sell the stocks and bonds and start purchasing silver and gold?

[blackstrap]

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

how will they know when to sell the stocks and bonds and start purchasing silver and gold?

That is when ongoing revelation kicks in. 

[MiserereNobis]

4 hours ago, teddyaware said:

to built the new holy nation state called Zion;

Is this LDS doctrine, that the LDS church will create its own nation state? Will the prophet be an absolute monarch, like the Pope for the Holy See?

What fun Olympics! I bet you Mormons could beat us at basketball, but we’d totally whip you at, um, halberd combat!

[Calm]

37 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

Is this LDS doctrine, that the LDS church will create its own nation state? Will the prophet be an absolute monarch, like the Pope for the Holy See?

What fun Olympics! I bet you Mormons could beat us at basketball, but we’d totally whip you at, um, halberd combat!

Not really what you are thinking of if I understand correctly, when Christ comes he will be Lord and King and all the earth will be his nation.

[mfbukowski]

On 11/17/2023 at 10:24 AM, smac97 said:

For the Teancum Memorial "Relieving Human Suffering is Pretty Low on {the Church's} List" and/or Analytics Memorial "The Church's Leaders are Bunch of 'Miserly' 'Ebenezer Scrooge' Clones and the Church is 'Primarily a Giant Hedge Fund that Happens to also have a Religious Operation'" files:

Help rolls in: Church donates 900 wheelchairs

The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints Launch Light the World Giving Machines

LDS church doubles its Christmas season ‘Light the World’ giving machines

Mormon Church delivers 40,000 pounds of food to SLO County

Trees, water, equipment and other humanitarian aid throughout Africa

Thanks,

-Smac

Did you mention this one?

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/church-of-jesus-christ-new-york-interfaith-children-christmas

Edited Wednesday at 03:24 PM by mfbukowski