He knows a lot of the issues but still believes. When you have invested that much money plus your whole life into the church how could you ever even entertain the idea that maybe it's not true?

It's called integrity.

He honestly believes in it. Says he doesn't understand why God did things the way he did, but the Holy Ghost has witnessed to him that it's true and we'll find out in the next life why God did it this way (blah blah blah). He's an Eyring type, basically cries every time he talks about church stuff.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/02/2014 11:06PM by toast.

That's a convenient loop hole to not address thoughts which cause you pain... this is what people without integrity do. Also known as "the easy way out"

Only those of us who have believed the whole thing can understand that continuing to believe it's not a lack of integrity. It's indoctrination.

Now those who have believed and then have come to the knowledge that it is not true but knowingly and conveniently choose to stay and perpetuate the lies, those are the ones that lack integrity. Especially if there is something in it for them, but even then it's hard to leave.

Huntsman SR. said he considered it like paying club dues

That's some expensive club dues!!

Not really. He was right. If you are rich enough or receive such a membership as a legacy, then paying a monthly or yearly fee is a drop in a bucket.

The small golf club here, not even as good as the one a family member belonged to in Dublin, OH (Muirfield) costs at minimum, $750 per month. FULL membership fees cost much more, and then there's the matter of the up-front money you have to fork over to be a full member, at admittance. In some little clubs it is 50K, others well over 100K, in a good club they start at 500K and go way up. You're paying for limited or fractional ownership of the club itself with that buy-in.

The LDS people with the higher leadership positions and who wield the most church influence, probably have a membership scheme that is very similar within the church, with similar levels of buy ins and ownership of the whole thing.

This then entitles them to the glad handing, networking and privately offered business opportunities, social power and many other things the average member could not gain access to. It's how and why such private clubs exist to begin with. Well that, and to play golf, drink and eat with like minded people, and swim/play tennis in very nice surroundings--oh, and to keep out the so called poorer riff-raff and even rich non conformists.

Because a private club can and does deny membership to people other members don't like, or who cannot get nominated by at least 2-3 current club members, who first vet them and then put them up for membership, where a vote by current vested members takes place, to decide if they are in, or out.

College fraternity, redux.

And once you've gone through that and paid that kind of money to get in, knowing full well you cannot get all you put in back out or recoup the business losses which may result, who is going to just walk away and leave all of it and their money behind?

Nobody, except a person with extreme integrity who also happens to have a spare million bucks.

I've often times figured out roughly what my parents have paid in tithing and it makes me physically SICK.

My Dad paid my school lunch money, allowance money, money for adequate housing, and money for decent food plus college money to Salt Lake for tithing.

And it's stories like this that make me believe the church is a damaging, heartless organization. Far from the good church I thought it was.

Hearing about kids who went without because of the parents faithfullness makes me more than sick, it makes me angry and there is very very few things that make me angry.

I wish I could give 10-year-old-DonBagly a hug and good lunch.

The sad part is when you're still in the church you think that the money is actually being used for good, but once you leave the church you realize the money is only doing good for the mormon church.

My dad encouraged me to still pay tithing to the church even after I told him I had left the church and no longer believed in it. I asked him "why would I give money to a church I don't attend and think is a fraud?" He didn't say much to that other then to encourage me to find a charity I liked.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/02/2014 11:21PM by toast.

toast Wrote:
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> He knows a lot of the issues but still believes.


Sort of how we love people despite their flaws?

The Little People (everyday members) enable the Big People to do what they want... many times helping them yank around, hurt, lie to, swindle, extort, ignore, use and abuse many other average lovers of God and members of its own sect.

Many millions of people the world over notice the money that is being thrown away by people who are close to us, but closer to (not God, Jesus Christ or "the Spirit") TSCC.

A person with $10 million can live comfortably on $9 million. Not a real sacrifice. Just a major annoyance.

A person with $10 thousand can't live comfortably on the whole $10 thousand, much less $9 thousand.

That is the precise reason why "flat taxes" like tithing are regressive. The Utah legislature, in its effort to tax like God, came up with a 5% flat tax. Half of God's rate, what a bargain! After one year, they figured out that poor people were being clobbered by the tax, so, rather than come up with variable rates and a low income cutoff, they added a bunch of totally opaque questions to the lower half of page 1 of the Utah individual income tax form (TC-40) to lower the low income rate.

The questions are mildly confusing, and when you are done with the calculations, you just hope you got it right, because there is no way to be able to estimate what the correct answer ought to be. Fortunately, software can do all the calculation for you, and you only need to look up extra information if you itemized the previous year and had a state tax refund.

Of course, lots of Mormons itemize, and get a state tax refund, so they get one extra hoop to jump through, though everyone doing a Utah return has to jump through the "lower half of page 1" hoop.

Pet peeve of mine. I used to live in ND, whose state tax form was spectacularly simple compared to the Utah return, with its "simple" flat tax.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/2014 11:02AM by Brother Of Jerry.

Making $10 million and living on $9 million, that's like Bill Gates losing 99% of his wealth and still be worth more than 99% of the people in the world.