I have been a lifelong member and always paid my tithing but have recently stopped believing. Is it possible to get back tithing I have paid? If not for my whole life, then for even just for the current year?

Nope. If we could there'd be a line longer than the line at Costco.

Absolutely:

On the second Tuesday of the ninth week of the 16th month of any year!

Not in most countries. Once it is donated, you can't get it back.

We have a poster here who is going to make such a plea to a civil court, in Britain.

That poster's first revelation to us here on RfM is at
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1833333


Then a second thread followed:

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1833754


A good time was had by all!!

Read them and tell me what you think...

Quote from Anon-4now in your link:

"The church has in its teachings has made it extremely clear that my life depends on me paying my tithing. That if i failed to give them 10% of my gross income, month on month, i would be at risk of being denied exaltation and thereby losing out on the only reason i came to this earth."

I see the same exact problem with this as I do with Tom Phillips suit, I do not see how you can prove they don't believe what they teach. You know it's a crock I know it's a crock, but it'll be a cold day on Kolob before the Big 15 admit it. No one forced you to join the church, no one stole a check from you and wrote it out for tithing. I paid tithing I regret, but it doesn't mean I expect to be paid back for something I did out of my own stupidity.

The reasoning that it's legal to make verbal threats if you believe them should only go so far. It's hard to draw a line, but if anyone can do it, the UK courts can.

Nope. Never. Nada. Nicht.

No buyer's remorse. It's considered donations, as mandatory as they made it when you attended. It was always voluntary on your part all along. Until you stopped believing there was some benefit you saw in donating or else you most likely wouldn't have.

Now you get to be more resourceful about where your money goes, and you'll make a better steward of your resources than the church did for you. What return did you actually get on your tithes anyway? It went straight up to the top, bishop's storehouse, salaries of the paid workforce, and running the monolithic church empire as we know it.

Be sure to claim your yearly donations on your tax returns. That's about the only real return I've yet to see for mine. I still believe in supporting my house of worship to the extent I'm able. It's no longer based on a tithe however, and I don't measure my stewardship by LDS measures because that's their yardstick, not most other churches I've attended (thank goodness for that.)

One of my brothers still tithes on his gross, rather than his net. It drives his wife bonkers, but he's a zealot so he does. Her dad was a former bishop and even he would say it's alright to tithe on the net. Not my brother. He tithes more than he pays in taxes. It comes out to more than 10% of his take home by tithing on his gross. It's more like 1/3 of his take home.

> Until you stopped believing there was some benefit you saw in donating or else you most likely wouldn't have.

Bullshit. Bull. Fucking. Shit.

God this comment makes me so angry.

Let's hope he doesn't tithe on any tax refunds then.

But what about all those blessings you got for paying it? Do you want to give those back? ;-)

No, but you can get back your soul. Isn't that worth a lot more?

On its face, the case has to fail, because of the usual arguments; this actually make sense when taking into account the history of jurisprudence relative to religion: Americans have freedom to practice belief in the deities who refuse to take the stand in their own defense.

Where the fun really comes in is in the knowledge that both sides surely have, that asking a jury to render a verdict is a crap shoot. This is in both criminal and civil trials. Maybe there are extreme cases where a jury will ALWAYS make a finding that is exactly the way the analysts predicted, but that has to be a rarity. And in my mind, these mostly lie in the criminal courts.

In CA, nine of the 12 civil jurors have to agree for a verdict. Obviously if we had 12 vehement atheists on the jury, the chances would be good for a favorable verdict in a case for refund of tithing. And it would probably be safe from a motion for a JNOV (wherein a judge overrules the jury and give the jury loser the verdict), because it's all based on beliefs. (Could a mormon sue ghawd and serve the S&C on Monson? And then ask the court to have Monson write the check to cover a verdict against ghawd?)

So while I'm not super confident that a jury would find for someone suing to get tithing money back based on the basis of coercion, I do believe that maybe three out of ten juries would side with the plaintiff. Such low level jury cases would NOT serve as dicta for future cases, even within the same venue.

I wonder if the upon losing a jury verdict, the church would take the chance of appealing, because the higher the level of the appellate court, the greater the coverage of resultant dicta would be.

But as I mentioned previously, I think all such filings are prey to pretrial motions. Courts don't like wasting their time on "frivolous" law suits. But then a sustained demur could be appealed by the plaintiff and we're off and running again. (But why expect an appellate court to encourage "frivolous" law suits?)

There's a suspense novel, a la John Grisham or Scott Turow, waiting to be written in which the mormon church is the big bad wolf.

I would think many of the atheist type jurors would be screened out during jury selection. And even those that get past the screening are not going to rule against voluntary donations to a religion.

Yeah, you'd think that, about the screening out. But potential jurors are known to fib a bit to tilt the scales towards getting on a jury when they know telling the truth would get them excused. And it works the other way, too, where a jury pool member will fib to make sure he/she is excused for cause.

The chance of people wanting to be on a jury because they want to influence the verdict in a certain direction is very slim, but it is real. And of course in this situation it works both ways, as TBMs might fib in order to get on the jury to protect the church.

As for the 'voluntary donations', that's the crux of the complaint, that they were NOT voluntary. It's a very imperfect comparison, but Volunteer Fire Departments have been known to sit and watch a home burn to the ground when the home belonged to someone who chose not to (or couldn't afford to) pay the voluntary fire department subscription.

Very few attorneys who take on a new civil client expect to or want to appear in front of a jury, and the 'uncertainess' is one of the reasons. Now I'm guessing that it's entirely different in contingency cases (which is all I've ever had to deal with) than in cases where the client is paying the attorney's hourly rate, no matter the outcome.

No contingency lawyer wants to risk losing, which is why 99% of law suits with an insurance company paying for the defense are settled pre-trial. And insurance companies are just as eager to settle, since they face the same crap shoot trial scenario.

So the problem with "voluntary donations" would have to apply to all religions who ask for and receive donations from their members. Most churches expect donations from their members even though they do call them voluntary.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but the point of the exmo's case is that he believes he can create a distinction, mostly in the case of the TR. This is quite distinctive; what other religion has buildings that require prepayments of a fixed sum before you are allowed entry?

I am saying that the law I am used to will not even allow this case to go to trial, but I wish this wasn't the case, and some day someone is going to bear the expense of appealing it up until a favorable outcome is achieved, and if it isn't the court of last resort, the church will then appeal it.

I wish it could be given to a jury to decide, because once that is allowed, then there will be some juries that find for the plaintiff and award him his tithing.

Of course anyone who actually wins something like that is going to set a precedence for any other religion that mostly survives on donations.
It's a hard thing to figure out. I mean at the time the person is paying tithing he is allowed to attend the temple and enjoy the so-called "blessings" of doing such. So is his tithing really wasted during that time?
As soon as he realizes that the church isn't what it says it is he can simply stop paying tithing and leave.

jojo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> As soon as he realizes that the church isn't what
> it says it is he can simply stop paying tithing
> and leave.
>

or he can say I want my money back.

You wouldn't, I didn't... But I want people so inclined to go for it! No skin off our noses, right?

If you were donating to a "charity" that said 100% of the money goes to cancer research, and you found out that only 2% of the money you donated went to cancer research and the other 98% when to salaries and expenses, would you think getting 98% of your money back from the principles was an unworthy endeavor? Or would you just shrug your shoulders and accept that you were made a fool of?

I suppose so but I think most members know 100% (or at least most) of their tithing was being used to pay for the costs of running the church. Now if you have proof that the church was using your tithing money to pay for building malls and buying land, etc. instead of using funds generated by other sources for such things, then one might have a case.

Isn't it way crappy that the church won't let us see where the money goes, what their balances are, assets and liabilities?

JS was big on By Common Consent. Well, that's out the window.

When and where was the revelation that the leadership could hide its fiscal activities from the membership? They have created an atmosphere in which mere mortals have clothed themselves in the divine. If the clarion call went out for TBMs to picket conference, demanding a fiscal accounting, the majority of the flock of Zion would clutch their pearls.

I've felt since leaving Moism that were I to still feel as strongly about paying a full tithe (which I don't, but if I did,) there are myriad ways, organizations, not-for-profits, and charities you can donate to that can easily gobble up your hard earned increase. Everyone wants a piece of your pie, it's up to you how you want to slice it.

Once you see there's only so much to go around you become a more effective steward IMO than giving to the LDS church that forced a blind obedience to cough up or else.

When they've gone to extremes to extort money from young adults, families, and old folks by telling them to pay tithe before rent & utilities, well that is taking things way too far and outright barbarism, preying on people's faith to that degree. Those henchmen make six figure salaries on the backs of the most faithful including the underemployed and impoverished. I find that deplorable they are draconian about tithing, but then if they weren't their house of cards would collapse.

"and old folks by telling them to pay tithe before rent & utilities, well that is taking things way too far and outright barbarism, preying on people's faith to that degree."

True but then they normally help pay rent and utilities with the fast offering money. I have been finance clerk and active tithe-paying members are always helped.

If you're going to pay a full tithe, it should go to support single moms. The kind who wear thongs and polycarbonate heels.

bradley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you're going to pay a full tithe, it should go
> to support single moms. The kind who wear thongs
> and polycarbonate heels.

I think the bishops personally take charge of "supporting" those single moms. :)

Why not renounce your tithing as ill gotten gains from something not worthy of a good reporting, like gambling, whoring about, drug running, you name it. Ask the church to return your money. Why would they want an apostates filthy money? Never hurts to ask...and ask again...and again..to infinity and beyond

Good luck

what a great idea!

Yeah, but I'm not sure that the church doesn't already get a substantial amount of income from gambling, whoring, drug running, and so forth. It would not surprise me in the least that they would do so, with their full knowledge. They might just think that you're one of their own kind.

They would only owe me $24

No. Sorry!

The good news is that you now have that 10%+ that you would otherwise have given away to spend, save, or invest as you see fit.

Wish my brother and I could get back what dad and mom gave. A couple hundred thou would come in handy.

RB

The sad thing, Ron, is how the Mormon church robs families of resources that could be used for the benefit of the family -- money for college, for a down payment for a kid's house or farm, money to start a business, fund a retirement, etc. Families *need* that money, especially in lean times, and the church just whisks it away.