Haves and have nots. The have nots serve the haves. For example, in my ex ward, it consisted of rich country dwellers who made millions of the backs of other fellow LDS members. My uncle is one of them. In the ward he employed several members. For Mutual activities, we would actually have service projects at my uncle's property. Same with the bishop and anyone else who owned a lot of stuff and didn't want to pay for maintenance. So on top of underpaying his employees, he used their kids for free labor. Pretty messed up group. Any stories of your own?

Kind of like when BY kept all the money the US govt paid him for the mormon brigade to go down south and kill some Lamanites.

Thank Geezus he got screwed when the railroads came through.

BY & the UPRR: Fascinating subject. I'll ask will about it.

BY co-mingled his 'personal' funds with church funds; I believe that was 'proven' when his will was "settled".

I think the workers got most of the torture; I wonder if LDS, Inc. didn't get UP stock in lieu b/c they couldn't afford to pay the wages as promised.

anyone?

The mormoney church is a social club with haves who, because they are blessed with money. must be the people who are being the most righteous because the righteous are blessed with money, soooo.....

the have nots listen to and follow them.

I witnessed this vicious cycle in the ward I was in. The most wealthy were the ones that the under dogs idolized whether they deserved it or not.

I was going to say "...with... no benefits."

high annual fees.

With a Joseph Smith problem

There are exceptions to the rule.
My ward had the most caring and compassionate man I have ever met, who happened to be the bishop. He did happen to be a reasonably wealthy man, as his profession was a well paid one. One of the first things he would do when people came in asking for assistance with rent, or access to food at the Bishop's Storehouse, is offer them part time work at his house for what he called "date money". I personally was one of those people. The women he would offer basic housekeeping, or babysitting, and to young men, we would basically move a pile of rocks. I didn't realize until much later that the pile of rocks moved from one side of his yard to the other, many, many, many times. At $15 an hour he was basically giving people some money to go out and enjoy themselves while they were scraping by otherwise. This is just one of many such things he did to help his members.

I had the opportunity to receive counselling from him a few times. He was not a professional, nor trained, but he cared. Not the superficial, get through the problem and off you go, but truly loved to help others.

The hardest conversation I had with him was when my wife and I were resigning. He had a hard time holding back his grief. He thought he personally had failed us(we were 3 year converts). After talking with him for a few hours, all parties were satisfied. He respected our decision and asked us to promise that wherever we went from there, we always kept our children at the forefront of our focus for truth. And we got the chance to ask him about some of the questions that bothered us so much about the faith. It turns out he knew. He knew a lot of it didn't make perfect sense, but for this man, he found himself a place where he could do the most good, to the most people(in his opinion of course) and he gave it his all. If every Mormon was like him, the church would be much different.
There are exceptions to the rule.

Sorry for the long post, just brought up memories of an old friend.

Hmmm, Texas, name starts with F. Wife name starts with J?

No, but good to know there's more out there.So Cal.

Ballzac, I like reading about that. There are some good people in the church. It's hard to know if they're really good until you leave; since this bishop acted decently to you when you left, he showed himself to be one of the good ones.

For me, the church was a social club that was addicted to sugar in lieu of alcohol. And it was a social club where I was not welcome.

I saw the free labor for the wealthy church on a year round basis when my father ran the church farm.

The poorest of the poor were there working with their small children. There was something to do every season. On a farm, the work is never done.

Small kids playing in the dirt while their parents labored all day for free. Parents who could have used the money an extra job provided. Instead, they were at the farm doing slave labor.

The church paid secretary who didn't make enough money to live off of. She would spend her time hitting on my father who loved the attention. You don't get much attention from a wife who has loads of kids she basically raised by herself.

The ripples of the pond go on and on. Never ending. Rich and poor, bond, and free, married, and single, gay and straight. The inequities ripple endlessly through our culture. The price is always paid by the ones who are at the bottom of the pond.

when it comes right down to it LD$ inc. is just lord of the flies.

Stbleaving made me think of another way to finish the thread. The mormon church is a social club with unwritten social rules that you must discover and follow. And, if you do not choose to follow these rules' you are not welcome through the doors.

This was the case for me. In my childhood I attended church, mostly the fun activities, with my friends. My home life sucked so these were fun outs that I was allowed to go to.

Because I found fun and a circle of friends at the church, when it came time to marry I thought the church would not be a bad way to go. I especially liked the idea that I would live forever along with my loved ones.

Soon, the veil was lifted, if you'll pardon the bad pun. I quickly discovered there was a he&% of a lot I had failed to pick up about the mormoney church.

What do you mean I mustn't let my pre-schooler play with a non-mormon? Then in relief society I dared voice my opinion, and I had no idea this opinion of mine went against the teachings of the church. I was taken aside and told that this was not appropriate. That is not right, the church is wrong and I can show you, I replied. After this, I dared turn down a calling to be a visiting teacher, telling them that I found it asking a lot of someone that had several small children to be expected to take on this assignment, along with already having another church calling.

My actions did not come because I was a brave person who was thinking outside of the box. It was because I had not grown-up being indoctrinated in the mormoney church, I did not know the unwritten rules.

It went on and on from there. I finally had to admit that the social club I thought would bring me eternal life and happiness was a club that I did not mesh with. And now I could say that I am glad this was the case. My curiosity and ability to think outside the box was not curtailed by my not wanting to leave, so I was open to what most members did not dare look at. I discovered that ole Joe was a con artist who was only interested in his own kingship surrounded by women, the younger the better, and wealth at ANY COST, and that the present mormoney church was willigly following in this person's evil footsteps, not caring what kind of a person he really was.

And then I was out the door of the mormoney social club, thanks to REASON.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/31/2013 10:04PM by presleynfactsrock.

Mormonism with a social club have never belonged to a social club. Mormonism is an organized, hierarchal religion. It does what organized, hierarchal religions do - it extorts money from its underclass to fund its overclass.