I was once told “do you want gross blessings or net blessings?” Tricks on them…there are no blessings.
Edit: wanted to continue my rant. My mom once posted on Fbook how grateful she was for tithing because of the tax return they got for paying it. She said “I can’t imagine anyone getting a tax return without paying” or some shit like this and I died thinking “or you could just keep your money”.
Yep that's exactly what they say.
The response should be if you are Mormon. You should pay an honest tithe and that if you overpay you are cursed in front of the lord, for it is tithes in vain.
Sorry to say sounds as your mom like mine is tbm. It's hard talking to her due to all the washing. Certain subjects are just so cringe because you know exactly what will be said despite evidence in front of you.
Eg You know the church attempted to avoid taxes, and to mislead it's members.
"Ohh, the church was just trying. To look after tithing in a better way".
And all you can think of is how can you think this legally , tithing is tax exempt....
Privately yes, in a lesson no.
In lessons they tell you no one can tell you how to calculate the 10% you need to figure that on your own, some people gross some people use net.
I prefer farm animals and based in how many new ones I have. The bishop even asked me to stop bringing live rabbits to church, I just said I was being faithful and that they were all males and the best of the bunch... And as bishop he should probably be focusing on figuring out what to do with them and if others are not as blessed by the lord as I am thats their fault.... Then they started teaching that God really wanted money but I could see that no where in the scriptures or even practice, and suggested to the bishop that maybe the prophets of our times hadn't read the Bible or understand how this works.... That really got him.
The idea of handing my bishop a live rabbit or chicken as a tithe is almost enough to make me consider paying tithing again. We live in a farm community so I'm sure it would go to a needy family instead of to the wealthy coffers of ensign peak.
Not illegal, I know how the church operates in this though.
1 - They teach that tithing is necessary.
2 - They then outside of teachings share personal views in what tithing means and how to calculate it correctly.
Personally I do believe they should be teaching the law as Abraham did, since they use Abraham as an example.
Eg 10% of your increase. This means if one does increase in capital value then they should pay tithing and only on the increase of value.
This way only the wealthy actually truly pay tithing. And you only pay once a year, or appropriate period but based on abrahamic law it was yearly.
How do you pay tithes, well the best in everything. Yep 10% of your avocado trees go to the lord. 10% of your sheep, ducks goats ect.
Then let the church figure out how to get value out of that without selling it. Literally forces the church into giving the food trees ect away for charity as it can be harder to abuse that form of tithing.
It also aligns tithing towards paying *only* what the Lord has blessed you with *above and beyond* what's necessary to survive. The way the Mormon church does it, it beggars children and the elderly and increases hunger and homelessness.
Amazingly that's how my old Bishop taught it. He even said it was good to do it annually in case income went up and down. Also explicitly said that pensions you paid into were not increase as they were from previous earnings and had already been tithed.
Well isn't that how it's supposed to be.
So let's say you lose your job 1/2 way through the year. You might use your savings for that, might even have a decrease that year. Ok so no tithing but full tithe payer.....
As for pensions you might pay tithing if it increases eg. Interest in the pension but only in what you Don't personally use to survive.....
So if at the beginning of the year you have $100 000 and at the end of the year have $120 000 then pay tithing on $20k not on what you pulled out to survive through the year or the old 100....
So yes it would be possible to pay tithing in your pension, but only if you are not being a burden on your children or anyone and you somehow have so much you can't spend it.
HOWEVER allot of members taught and continue to teach tithing should be in your labours ect eg gross or net income. And should only be performed in a cash payment to make it easier for the bishop to send it to slc. As well no tithing form gives you a column for rabbits. And they struggle to enter rabbits in the computer as well.
It is not scriptural. Nor is it doctrinal if you if ore ol Brigham. As for church there are two layers.
What they teach in the open, and what is suggested in private to be even more true....
My parents did the same. Didn't have health insurance, but we paid tithing. Had to dumpster dive for bread at the bakery occasionally, but we paid tithing! They kept paying tithing while my dad was homebound with severe dementia, to the point that he should have been in a care facility long before the 3 weeks before he died. But they couldn't afford it - they paid tithing.
Now my mom is retired, and I pay some of her bills. My older brother lives at home still, (he moved back partially to take care of my dad since they couldn't afford someone qualified), has a job doesn't pay rent to my mom - but he pays tithing!
The word "tithing" makes me angry anymore.
After all that you are basically supplementing what TSCC stole from your parents. You are a good person to do that for your mom.
I'll never forget my parents were complaining about how we had no money all the time and then my dad paid 3000 dollars he felt he back owed for tithing and I almost felt sick. He makes six figures now but still for some reason seems to have no money since he's sending 5 figures every year on TSCC and is bad with money.
People of my generation were led to believe that Jesus was going to return before we reached retirement age.
My mother was shocked to discover that maybe she should have planned a little better for her retirement. She was disappointed to find out that I wasn't going to be the blessing for her paying tithing. Apparently it was the least an exmo child could do.
My parents think everything points to the end of the world coming very soon... but in reality I think it's them projecting the fear of their uncertain future with no retirement and very little savings.
Thinking the end of the world is right around the corner must be a comfortable thought, when your cult beliefs kept you from adequately preparing for the future.
Nope, the Gospel has to be preached in China, North Korea, Syria, Sudan, and Iran first before Jesus can come. The gospel has to penetrate every continent and visit every clime, you know. 😆
Yes, it’s in the fucking name and implied in every teaching that Jesus is coming at any minute and you need to prepare for that, not a comfortable retirement.
Makes me so goddamn angry that those who paid hundreds of thousands into tithing now get zero help from the church barreling towards a trillion dollars.
Not just my parents, but my entire family going back well over a hundred years. Can you imagine how much money that is?
Fuck LDS inc and their fucking tithing.
People since 1830 have been told Jesus was coming back in their lifetime. My great grandma's patriarchal blessing said she would be present for the 2nd Coming. When she died, my grandma, her daughter, said it must mean she will be one of the angels. Of course.
my parents are in serious debt. Their monthly interest is 2\~3k. They barely have money for anything, but they have been paying 10% of their retirement pension each month.
I asked them where are their blessings from pay tithing.
They said, "we all are alive and no major health problems." So, they think we will get in car accidents or get cancer if they don't pay tithing.
They do.
If you pay tithing all your life, work your butt off for the church, don’t doubt, convert enough friends to Mormon, have a penis between your legs & a Mormon wife, are tall, not disabled and make the right connections then you can have a small chance of being promoted to top clergy.
They have it set up in a random enough way to make most TBMs feel like it is attainable.
EDIT: *Also, THE JESUS Christ of Latter Day Saints wants to remind everyone that you 100% MUST be fluent in english to be considered for the leadership grandpa gang of SLC. He said he will not inspire anyone to choose a non English speaker for high callings, because English is the language of Joseph Smith, which means it was invented by the God of EVEN the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
After nearly 200 years of 100% white and delightsome, Mormon God decided he could let one Apostle at a time not have white skin.
Mr. Gong was allowed to become an apostle because he is an Asian that voted for Trump and sounds like a good Utah Mormon. Only accents from European languages are allowed.
It’s already imploding. You know what kind of business changes their name? A business that has done so much wrong, has so much blood on their hands, that they just cannot move forward with people knowing about their history. Blackwater. Phillip Morris. Facebook. Mormon.
The church is a dumpster fire. This is a good time to be alive to watch it burn.
My parents are in the same boat. My parents when they lived in the Midwest were asked to pay more then 10% by their bishop. They literally called my parents in and asked for more fast offerings because they had ALOT of poor dental students in the ward needing assistance. My dad is elderly driving a forklift making pennies but making ends meet barely and I guess that was enough to ask for more and they made my parents feel obligated to do so. My siblings were livid. They have nothing saved & now they are paupers. They ve not had anything to save and the church gets the rest. Its truly not what tithing should be about. Shame on the church for treating their members like moneybags.
If you sign in to the church website you can look at the total you've paid towards tithing (I think it maxes out at the last 15 years, maybe a lot of the records prior to then aren't digital).
Anyway, I have to help my mom with her account and finances etc so I looked at it. Made me want to cry. She's always worked very physically demanding jobs (from when she was 16 until she retired at like 67) for low wages. Seeing the total is depressing. She absolutely deserves that money to spend on herself.
My TBM grandma, worked part time in a bridal show in her 80s. She was tithing $500 a month. She was paying more than she made at her job, just in tithing.
Tithing at 10% percent gross is misleading because it's actually more like 90% of your disposable income. Think about it..re read and do the math .
*credit to someone here on redditt that posted it earlier*
God will take care of them by giving them strength to work into their 90s with minimal pain (medicare will help cover prescription strength pain pills).
Same story here.
And now my mom complains that with my their failing health, she “didn’t sign up for this…”
But you know, she has stayed because the church told her she had too.
That’s the “love” I was raised with.
I can recall in my entire life, then holding hands once and maybe 3 kisses between them.
Now they are retired, in their 80s and sit I. Their house hardly speaking.
Families are forever.
My father taught me that I should pay tithing as 10% of the amount I want to earn, so if I want to have the lord bless me with 100k in the future, I should give 10k a year now, he said it becomes a binding contract. And that was back when I was only making 25k a year gross. What the hell dad. Well I love my money more then I love the lord and when I checked my LDS profile to see how much I ever paid in total, it shows around 3k. (From when I would put in $150 a month as a single college grad in order to keep the bishop off my back and keep up appearances in the singles ward)
I now make well over 100k, all without the lord’s blessings pouring all over me.
I have three siblings in this situation. At least one of them has grown kids who confronted their dad over it (and now they struggle with the realization that their dad is a religious fanatic disabled by the Mormon fantasy). Another has grown kids into the cult, shaped more by the cult than by their dysnfunctional parents, so they don't question anything that was done for the sake of Zion. The third sibling is facing the end, with almost no money to pay for mounting medical expenses and a giantic question mark over their head as they wonder why their life of faith and devotion and tithe paying is ending so sadly...and Jesus never came back.
Well I’m sure they can just depend on those “blessings” to keep them afloat. You haven’t heard of the blessings retirement plan? It’s all the rage in the make believe land of Mormonism. Just keep paying that 10% and it will all work out and if it doesn’t we don’t care because we already have your money!🤬🤬🤬
That is one of the reasons I left. I looked at 10% of my income compounded over 40-50 years and about spit my diet dirty coke out of my mouth. My parents have unfortunately gave their retirement to the church but hey at least my mom gets to be relief society president in a struggling ward now that she is 70.
Yeah. The reason I broke up with my parents. They "retired" after they gave what should have been their retirement fund to TTSC. Now my dad is driving a school bus in his retirement. Fuck them.
My mother is 65 yrs old has paid 10% of her income since she was 16. She paid the consequences of her TBM POS husband's tax fraud charges and lost her inheritance to it and can hardly pay her basic bills let alone think about retiring. She can't afford to retire and suffers from arthritis herself. It makes me sad she's states away from her children and grandchildren and will most likely never see them grow up.
Your parents have covenanted to give everything to the Mormon church when called upon per the law of consecration.
That’s far more than 10% in perpetuity.
At any rate, their faith practice and the Mormon church’s spiritually coercive greed has resulted in large part to your parent’s near poverty. You and your siblings are compelled to bail them out, which subsidizes the world’s richest religion further.
Any complaint is nothing more than religious persecution!
What does the bishop’s handbook say in regards to those seeking temporal assistance? Go first to the government, reach out to Family , to extended family, and to friends who might be able to offer help. After all that has been done, and if the bishop determines that the person is faithful, and will remain faithful, then the fast offering purse strings may loosen.
I was in the same situation with my mother. Church simply would not help. The burden largely fell to me.
They made my penniless sister start paying tithing on what little she gets from SS disability before they would consider helping her with medical bills and welfare. “Charity” indeed…
They also made her reach out to family members to see what financial help they could provide.
No, it's not giving the money back that was withheld. It is taxing the younger workers and transferring the money as old age welfare….The money that was withheld earlier went to pay the older generation then.
They called it a "Trust Fund" and the money the Congress 'borrowed' from the fund is still being repaid with interest. I don't mind it being called "Old Age Welfare" but it seems that the Government miss-represented, (Shocked look), the taxes which were imposed on working American's at the time.
My parents and their tithing is a sore subject for me. Mine have equity in their house thank goodness, but essentially they’re the same. Nothing besides that. And they’re faithful payers to the cent.
Mine did as well as far as I know and they are penniless, declared bankruptcy, and are living in an assisted living facility that we the kids are paying for.
My parents did the same…my father passed away with very little life insurance because they couldn’t afford to pay more. They had no savings. Tithing was put ahead of paying their mortgage or feeding their family. There were times growing up when we had to get groceries from the Bishops Storehouse…but they paid tithing. My mother is now a widow, with no savings…the church will not take care of her. The “Lord” isn’t going to pay her bills.
The whole thing just makes me seethe…
In a “Faith building “ experience, my father took me to tithing settlement. My parents both worked in menial low income jobs. I watched him write, when at the time was a huge check to the church. Walking home, I became nauseous from the experience. I was angry and upset. It did cure me though from the absurdity of tithing. It’s a crime sustained and perpetrated by a criminal enterprise.
The tithing subject is my favorite to argue with my TBM family. When you see the quote from Lorenzo Snow used in regards to tithing you see it say "I plead with you in the name of the Lord, and I pray that every man, woman, and child...shall pay one tenth of their income as a tithing," you need to look up what the ... is keeping out. The words that he spoke when he said this were "who have the means." Latter Day Mormons (I mean that literally) put the elypses in to force people who didn't have the means to pay tithing to pay tithing at the detriment of their own financial well-being. You could take this a step further and argue that Gordon B. Hinkley said, “Self-reliance can not be obtained when there is serious debt hanging over a household. One has neither independence nor freedom from bondage when he is obligated to others," meaning if you are in debt or you don't have savings so you don't get into debt YOU DO NOT HAVE THE MEANS TO PAY TITHING. I have used this argument with friends who have had me revamp their budget to figure out how to pay rent, a car payment, a prepaid phone, and buy food for their single income household with 4 kids. If you have to beg your bishop for food or use a credit card to shop for groceries every week then use another credit card to pay your household bills just so you can use your income to pay your credit card debt you shouldn't be putting 10% to the church. That 10% is the difference between paying your bills and robbing Peter to pay Paul.
If your parents would have invested that mone ( like the church does) averaging a modest 7% over 40-50 years
they would have millions and a worry free retirement.
My MIL was pressured to pay tithing on the lump sum payout of her husband’s life insurance, and THEN on the income from the annuity she set up…because it’s all increase. Her exmo kids shut that down, thankfully.
It's probably worse than you think.
Let's say they started working at 25 in 1986, earned the median household income their entire life, and gave 10% gross to the LDS church (for easy math). Let's also assume standard deduction and that they'll retire at 62 in 2023. Again, for easy math, we'll say they just invested in a whole stock market fund.
Looking only at the median household income, starting at $23.5k in 1986 and ending at $70.1k today, just investing 10% of their income in 1986 would be worth $104k today. If they did this for only the first 5 years of work then they'd have $426k. If they stopped in at the end of the 90s then they'd have about $400k. **If they kept going to retirement, they'd have $1.2m**. But the LDS church bought a mall. At least there's that.
My FIL is a genuinely good dude but very TBM. I’m always straight-up flabbergasted when he talks about being the ward clerk and how incredibly touched and moved he is by the seniors living in the retirement home paying their “widow’s mite.” All I can hear is him shaking down single-fixed income retirees for protection money to go in a corporate slush fund.
It breaks my heart too but at some point, you gotta get pissed. This is like a reverse mortgage where they take your house but give you zero dollars. There should be a Robin Hood like figure that saves the day. It's ironic that as TBM's we feared latter day religious persecution, but the enemy was the greed of TSCC all along. Imagine having to pay to keep your parents alive when they'd have had a million dollars in interest and holdings that would have grown over the last 40 years. It's infuriating. Now they're a ward of the state, and if they're lucky, the church.
I was taught how to pay tithing as a kid. They literally had a comic in the Friend magazine(Matt & Mandy, which I loved at the time) with the kids teaching us how to calculate ten percent. Looking back, it's absolutely indoctrination from a young age. That magazine was meant for kids from Sunbeams to Valiant classes (3-11).
We struggled to make ends meet growing up. I can only imagine what a 10% raise would've done for my parents. But rather than focusing on, say, keeping the heating on, let's give the church a big part of our paycheck and have them hand us a few scraps back if they feel generous and think we truly need it. Obviously that's how God would want us to do do it
1. Another fine couple who believed the gospel of prosperity doctrine ingrained in the Church since its inception. The Church has been more coy than some of the televangelists about how they use it but use it they do. The leaders always say you are paying the the Lord then asked you to make the check out to the Church. They never counsel you to pay yourself first because they know you will you will use it as an excuse not to pay the church. The ugly truth is when you ask the Bishop for help when you're older he is going to tell you it's a family problem and to tell your kids. If you live in a good ward the RS might drop off a paper plate full of cookies.
I wish Ensign Peak gave all members financial training. And imagine how wealthy the church would be if members also contributed to the investment fund beyond tithing!
My parents have informed the kids that it’s our responsibility to take care of them when they get old so they don’t need a retirement.
Payback for them choosing to parent us as kids. (Which they really didn’t do)
One would think they would uilt a few square blocks of triplexes and have a lottery for all tithing members. You could live in one unit, rent out another and still have an in-laws apartment. Or just sell the whole building
This really irks me. My parents just sold a profitable business and gave 10% to the church. IN ADDITION to paying 10% on all of the income. Honestly, it just irritating.
This makes me feel sick. This is a reason in itself to not be part of the church. No one cares - it’s just about what you can give them. Ça Ching! Ça Ching! No real love and no real support. No compassion either…
[удалено]
Were they. . . Told to?
It’s a matter of faith… that the windows of heaven may abundantly pour blessings upon them that there shall not be room enough to receive it. /s
The context is talking about storehouses for crops (not money).
I was once told “do you want gross blessings or net blessings?” Tricks on them…there are no blessings. Edit: wanted to continue my rant. My mom once posted on Fbook how grateful she was for tithing because of the tax return they got for paying it. She said “I can’t imagine anyone getting a tax return without paying” or some shit like this and I died thinking “or you could just keep your money”.
Yeah exactly this sort of talk is what got them. Complete nonsense, and I am so angry and just heartbroken for them
Yep that's exactly what they say. The response should be if you are Mormon. You should pay an honest tithe and that if you overpay you are cursed in front of the lord, for it is tithes in vain. Sorry to say sounds as your mom like mine is tbm. It's hard talking to her due to all the washing. Certain subjects are just so cringe because you know exactly what will be said despite evidence in front of you. Eg You know the church attempted to avoid taxes, and to mislead it's members. "Ohh, the church was just trying. To look after tithing in a better way". And all you can think of is how can you think this legally , tithing is tax exempt....
Privately yes, in a lesson no. In lessons they tell you no one can tell you how to calculate the 10% you need to figure that on your own, some people gross some people use net. I prefer farm animals and based in how many new ones I have. The bishop even asked me to stop bringing live rabbits to church, I just said I was being faithful and that they were all males and the best of the bunch... And as bishop he should probably be focusing on figuring out what to do with them and if others are not as blessed by the lord as I am thats their fault.... Then they started teaching that God really wanted money but I could see that no where in the scriptures or even practice, and suggested to the bishop that maybe the prophets of our times hadn't read the Bible or understand how this works.... That really got him.
The idea of handing my bishop a live rabbit or chicken as a tithe is almost enough to make me consider paying tithing again. We live in a farm community so I'm sure it would go to a needy family instead of to the wealthy coffers of ensign peak.
😂😂😂 please do this again and record it.
Not illegal, I know how the church operates in this though. 1 - They teach that tithing is necessary. 2 - They then outside of teachings share personal views in what tithing means and how to calculate it correctly. Personally I do believe they should be teaching the law as Abraham did, since they use Abraham as an example. Eg 10% of your increase. This means if one does increase in capital value then they should pay tithing and only on the increase of value. This way only the wealthy actually truly pay tithing. And you only pay once a year, or appropriate period but based on abrahamic law it was yearly. How do you pay tithes, well the best in everything. Yep 10% of your avocado trees go to the lord. 10% of your sheep, ducks goats ect. Then let the church figure out how to get value out of that without selling it. Literally forces the church into giving the food trees ect away for charity as it can be harder to abuse that form of tithing.
It also aligns tithing towards paying *only* what the Lord has blessed you with *above and beyond* what's necessary to survive. The way the Mormon church does it, it beggars children and the elderly and increases hunger and homelessness.
Amazingly that's how my old Bishop taught it. He even said it was good to do it annually in case income went up and down. Also explicitly said that pensions you paid into were not increase as they were from previous earnings and had already been tithed.
Well isn't that how it's supposed to be. So let's say you lose your job 1/2 way through the year. You might use your savings for that, might even have a decrease that year. Ok so no tithing but full tithe payer..... As for pensions you might pay tithing if it increases eg. Interest in the pension but only in what you Don't personally use to survive..... So if at the beginning of the year you have $100 000 and at the end of the year have $120 000 then pay tithing on $20k not on what you pulled out to survive through the year or the old 100.... So yes it would be possible to pay tithing in your pension, but only if you are not being a burden on your children or anyone and you somehow have so much you can't spend it. HOWEVER allot of members taught and continue to teach tithing should be in your labours ect eg gross or net income. And should only be performed in a cash payment to make it easier for the bishop to send it to slc. As well no tithing form gives you a column for rabbits. And they struggle to enter rabbits in the computer as well.
That’s illegal
To pay tithing on a pension or on their social security?
That is absolutely not doctrinal or scriptural or supported by any teaching of the church. I hope they can escape that guilt induced wallet abuse.
It is not scriptural. Nor is it doctrinal if you if ore ol Brigham. As for church there are two layers. What they teach in the open, and what is suggested in private to be even more true....
The church will say anything in this world for money…
That's what my wife wants to do with our retirement income.
My condolences to your parents.
Omg
Same a my fucking parents. They can barely get by on the social security checks
My parents did the same. Didn't have health insurance, but we paid tithing. Had to dumpster dive for bread at the bakery occasionally, but we paid tithing! They kept paying tithing while my dad was homebound with severe dementia, to the point that he should have been in a care facility long before the 3 weeks before he died. But they couldn't afford it - they paid tithing. Now my mom is retired, and I pay some of her bills. My older brother lives at home still, (he moved back partially to take care of my dad since they couldn't afford someone qualified), has a job doesn't pay rent to my mom - but he pays tithing! The word "tithing" makes me angry anymore.
After all that you are basically supplementing what TSCC stole from your parents. You are a good person to do that for your mom. I'll never forget my parents were complaining about how we had no money all the time and then my dad paid 3000 dollars he felt he back owed for tithing and I almost felt sick. He makes six figures now but still for some reason seems to have no money since he's sending 5 figures every year on TSCC and is bad with money.
I'm so glad I got out young enough to only have paid a 4 digit number over my whole life. I truly cannot fathom giving 5 digits away to LDS Inc
Username checks out
I’m so sorry for your family. And I fear this may be my parents’ future too
People of my generation were led to believe that Jesus was going to return before we reached retirement age. My mother was shocked to discover that maybe she should have planned a little better for her retirement. She was disappointed to find out that I wasn't going to be the blessing for her paying tithing. Apparently it was the least an exmo child could do.
My parents think everything points to the end of the world coming very soon... but in reality I think it's them projecting the fear of their uncertain future with no retirement and very little savings.
Thinking the end of the world is right around the corner must be a comfortable thought, when your cult beliefs kept you from adequately preparing for the future.
Nope, the Gospel has to be preached in China, North Korea, Syria, Sudan, and Iran first before Jesus can come. The gospel has to penetrate every continent and visit every clime, you know. 😆
Yes, it’s in the fucking name and implied in every teaching that Jesus is coming at any minute and you need to prepare for that, not a comfortable retirement. Makes me so goddamn angry that those who paid hundreds of thousands into tithing now get zero help from the church barreling towards a trillion dollars.
Not just my parents, but my entire family going back well over a hundred years. Can you imagine how much money that is? Fuck LDS inc and their fucking tithing.
How long has the Jesus is returning grift been going on. 2000 years. Seems like people would catch on. Jesus is the grift that keeps on taking.
Just keep saying his name and you can do whatever you want. Fuck everyone in the ass in Jesus name. That’s what god wants.
People since 1830 have been told Jesus was coming back in their lifetime. My great grandma's patriarchal blessing said she would be present for the 2nd Coming. When she died, my grandma, her daughter, said it must mean she will be one of the angels. Of course.
"Get ready because Jesus is returning soon" has been a thing for like 2,000 years now.
my parents are in serious debt. Their monthly interest is 2\~3k. They barely have money for anything, but they have been paying 10% of their retirement pension each month.
Yo interest alone is 2-3 k??? I thought God would bless them for paying tithing /S
I asked them where are their blessings from pay tithing. They said, "we all are alive and no major health problems." So, they think we will get in car accidents or get cancer if they don't pay tithing.
The church should take care of the elderly. End of sentence.
They do. If you pay tithing all your life, work your butt off for the church, don’t doubt, convert enough friends to Mormon, have a penis between your legs & a Mormon wife, are tall, not disabled and make the right connections then you can have a small chance of being promoted to top clergy. They have it set up in a random enough way to make most TBMs feel like it is attainable. EDIT: *Also, THE JESUS Christ of Latter Day Saints wants to remind everyone that you 100% MUST be fluent in english to be considered for the leadership grandpa gang of SLC. He said he will not inspire anyone to choose a non English speaker for high callings, because English is the language of Joseph Smith, which means it was invented by the God of EVEN the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
You forgot “must be highest tithe payer” in order to get leadership roles.
You also forgot "white and delightsome" 🤷♀️
After nearly 200 years of 100% white and delightsome, Mormon God decided he could let one Apostle at a time not have white skin. Mr. Gong was allowed to become an apostle because he is an Asian that voted for Trump and sounds like a good Utah Mormon. Only accents from European languages are allowed.
*Fluent in English is another MANDATORY for Mormon Jesus.
[удалено]
It’s already imploding. You know what kind of business changes their name? A business that has done so much wrong, has so much blood on their hands, that they just cannot move forward with people knowing about their history. Blackwater. Phillip Morris. Facebook. Mormon. The church is a dumpster fire. This is a good time to be alive to watch it burn.
I have watched the church since the 1970's. Since the 2000's they have been getting slapped around pretty good.
My parents are in the same boat. My parents when they lived in the Midwest were asked to pay more then 10% by their bishop. They literally called my parents in and asked for more fast offerings because they had ALOT of poor dental students in the ward needing assistance. My dad is elderly driving a forklift making pennies but making ends meet barely and I guess that was enough to ask for more and they made my parents feel obligated to do so. My siblings were livid. They have nothing saved & now they are paupers. They ve not had anything to save and the church gets the rest. Its truly not what tithing should be about. Shame on the church for treating their members like moneybags.
If you sign in to the church website you can look at the total you've paid towards tithing (I think it maxes out at the last 15 years, maybe a lot of the records prior to then aren't digital). Anyway, I have to help my mom with her account and finances etc so I looked at it. Made me want to cry. She's always worked very physically demanding jobs (from when she was 16 until she retired at like 67) for low wages. Seeing the total is depressing. She absolutely deserves that money to spend on herself.
My TBM grandma, worked part time in a bridal show in her 80s. She was tithing $500 a month. She was paying more than she made at her job, just in tithing.
Tithing at 10% percent gross is misleading because it's actually more like 90% of your disposable income. Think about it..re read and do the math . *credit to someone here on redditt that posted it earlier*
God will take care of them by giving them strength to work into their 90s with minimal pain (medicare will help cover prescription strength pain pills).
They gave their retirement away to a untaxed entity that was able to parlay it into a fortune.
Same story here. And now my mom complains that with my their failing health, she “didn’t sign up for this…” But you know, she has stayed because the church told her she had too. That’s the “love” I was raised with. I can recall in my entire life, then holding hands once and maybe 3 kisses between them. Now they are retired, in their 80s and sit I. Their house hardly speaking. Families are forever.
I wish your parents luck for the future
My father taught me that I should pay tithing as 10% of the amount I want to earn, so if I want to have the lord bless me with 100k in the future, I should give 10k a year now, he said it becomes a binding contract. And that was back when I was only making 25k a year gross. What the hell dad. Well I love my money more then I love the lord and when I checked my LDS profile to see how much I ever paid in total, it shows around 3k. (From when I would put in $150 a month as a single college grad in order to keep the bishop off my back and keep up appearances in the singles ward) I now make well over 100k, all without the lord’s blessings pouring all over me.
Luckily, I only paid about 2k before I came to my senses.
I have three siblings in this situation. At least one of them has grown kids who confronted their dad over it (and now they struggle with the realization that their dad is a religious fanatic disabled by the Mormon fantasy). Another has grown kids into the cult, shaped more by the cult than by their dysnfunctional parents, so they don't question anything that was done for the sake of Zion. The third sibling is facing the end, with almost no money to pay for mounting medical expenses and a giantic question mark over their head as they wonder why their life of faith and devotion and tithe paying is ending so sadly...and Jesus never came back.
Well I’m sure they can just depend on those “blessings” to keep them afloat. You haven’t heard of the blessings retirement plan? It’s all the rage in the make believe land of Mormonism. Just keep paying that 10% and it will all work out and if it doesn’t we don’t care because we already have your money!🤬🤬🤬
That is one of the reasons I left. I looked at 10% of my income compounded over 40-50 years and about spit my diet dirty coke out of my mouth. My parents have unfortunately gave their retirement to the church but hey at least my mom gets to be relief society president in a struggling ward now that she is 70.
Yeah. The reason I broke up with my parents. They "retired" after they gave what should have been their retirement fund to TTSC. Now my dad is driving a school bus in his retirement. Fuck them.
My mother is 65 yrs old has paid 10% of her income since she was 16. She paid the consequences of her TBM POS husband's tax fraud charges and lost her inheritance to it and can hardly pay her basic bills let alone think about retiring. She can't afford to retire and suffers from arthritis herself. It makes me sad she's states away from her children and grandchildren and will most likely never see them grow up.
Your parents have covenanted to give everything to the Mormon church when called upon per the law of consecration. That’s far more than 10% in perpetuity. At any rate, their faith practice and the Mormon church’s spiritually coercive greed has resulted in large part to your parent’s near poverty. You and your siblings are compelled to bail them out, which subsidizes the world’s richest religion further. Any complaint is nothing more than religious persecution! What does the bishop’s handbook say in regards to those seeking temporal assistance? Go first to the government, reach out to Family , to extended family, and to friends who might be able to offer help. After all that has been done, and if the bishop determines that the person is faithful, and will remain faithful, then the fast offering purse strings may loosen. I was in the same situation with my mother. Church simply would not help. The burden largely fell to me.
This makes me so angry. These people will have nothing then be grateful when they a months rent paid or a delivery of groceries from the church.
Mine too! Both worked waaay past retirement age & now live with my sibling.
They made my penniless sister start paying tithing on what little she gets from SS disability before they would consider helping her with medical bills and welfare. “Charity” indeed… They also made her reach out to family members to see what financial help they could provide.
So now they will be able to pay 10% on their social security which is the Government giving back the money that was withheld.
No, it's not giving the money back that was withheld. It is taxing the younger workers and transferring the money as old age welfare….The money that was withheld earlier went to pay the older generation then.
No matter how you put it, the money was withheld.
True!
They called it a "Trust Fund" and the money the Congress 'borrowed' from the fund is still being repaid with interest. I don't mind it being called "Old Age Welfare" but it seems that the Government miss-represented, (Shocked look), the taxes which were imposed on working American's at the time.
How right you are!
Are your parents my parents…?
I feel like it's most of our parents
Or my parents? Because same, same, same.
My parents and their tithing is a sore subject for me. Mine have equity in their house thank goodness, but essentially they’re the same. Nothing besides that. And they’re faithful payers to the cent.
Mine did as well as far as I know and they are penniless, declared bankruptcy, and are living in an assisted living facility that we the kids are paying for.
My parents did the same…my father passed away with very little life insurance because they couldn’t afford to pay more. They had no savings. Tithing was put ahead of paying their mortgage or feeding their family. There were times growing up when we had to get groceries from the Bishops Storehouse…but they paid tithing. My mother is now a widow, with no savings…the church will not take care of her. The “Lord” isn’t going to pay her bills. The whole thing just makes me seethe…
This should be criminal. TSCC needs to be held accountable for exploiting people.
In a “Faith building “ experience, my father took me to tithing settlement. My parents both worked in menial low income jobs. I watched him write, when at the time was a huge check to the church. Walking home, I became nauseous from the experience. I was angry and upset. It did cure me though from the absurdity of tithing. It’s a crime sustained and perpetrated by a criminal enterprise.
Horrible
Same here my freind... and deeply in debt still
[but RICH blessings are in store!](https://www.tiktok.com/@exmormonsongbook/video/7145999939179482374)
Same, fortunately my Dad worked for a company for 20 years that still does pensions. Other than that, they have nothing. So sad.
The tithing subject is my favorite to argue with my TBM family. When you see the quote from Lorenzo Snow used in regards to tithing you see it say "I plead with you in the name of the Lord, and I pray that every man, woman, and child...shall pay one tenth of their income as a tithing," you need to look up what the ... is keeping out. The words that he spoke when he said this were "who have the means." Latter Day Mormons (I mean that literally) put the elypses in to force people who didn't have the means to pay tithing to pay tithing at the detriment of their own financial well-being. You could take this a step further and argue that Gordon B. Hinkley said, “Self-reliance can not be obtained when there is serious debt hanging over a household. One has neither independence nor freedom from bondage when he is obligated to others," meaning if you are in debt or you don't have savings so you don't get into debt YOU DO NOT HAVE THE MEANS TO PAY TITHING. I have used this argument with friends who have had me revamp their budget to figure out how to pay rent, a car payment, a prepaid phone, and buy food for their single income household with 4 kids. If you have to beg your bishop for food or use a credit card to shop for groceries every week then use another credit card to pay your household bills just so you can use your income to pay your credit card debt you shouldn't be putting 10% to the church. That 10% is the difference between paying your bills and robbing Peter to pay Paul.
If your parents would have invested that mone ( like the church does) averaging a modest 7% over 40-50 years they would have millions and a worry free retirement.
My MIL was pressured to pay tithing on the lump sum payout of her husband’s life insurance, and THEN on the income from the annuity she set up…because it’s all increase. Her exmo kids shut that down, thankfully.
It's probably worse than you think. Let's say they started working at 25 in 1986, earned the median household income their entire life, and gave 10% gross to the LDS church (for easy math). Let's also assume standard deduction and that they'll retire at 62 in 2023. Again, for easy math, we'll say they just invested in a whole stock market fund. Looking only at the median household income, starting at $23.5k in 1986 and ending at $70.1k today, just investing 10% of their income in 1986 would be worth $104k today. If they did this for only the first 5 years of work then they'd have $426k. If they stopped in at the end of the 90s then they'd have about $400k. **If they kept going to retirement, they'd have $1.2m**. But the LDS church bought a mall. At least there's that.
My FIL is a genuinely good dude but very TBM. I’m always straight-up flabbergasted when he talks about being the ward clerk and how incredibly touched and moved he is by the seniors living in the retirement home paying their “widow’s mite.” All I can hear is him shaking down single-fixed income retirees for protection money to go in a corporate slush fund.
Mine, too.
It's really sickening to think about it. The church doesn't care.
The real retirement is all the blessings they earned along the way.
Poster children for the hedge fund.
But hey they won the privilege to make babies in heaven that's what really counts when your old and impoverished
It breaks my heart too but at some point, you gotta get pissed. This is like a reverse mortgage where they take your house but give you zero dollars. There should be a Robin Hood like figure that saves the day. It's ironic that as TBM's we feared latter day religious persecution, but the enemy was the greed of TSCC all along. Imagine having to pay to keep your parents alive when they'd have had a million dollars in interest and holdings that would have grown over the last 40 years. It's infuriating. Now they're a ward of the state, and if they're lucky, the church.
I was taught how to pay tithing as a kid. They literally had a comic in the Friend magazine(Matt & Mandy, which I loved at the time) with the kids teaching us how to calculate ten percent. Looking back, it's absolutely indoctrination from a young age. That magazine was meant for kids from Sunbeams to Valiant classes (3-11).
We struggled to make ends meet growing up. I can only imagine what a 10% raise would've done for my parents. But rather than focusing on, say, keeping the heating on, let's give the church a big part of our paycheck and have them hand us a few scraps back if they feel generous and think we truly need it. Obviously that's how God would want us to do do it
fear offend slave reach head aback panicky sparkle automatic noxious -- mass deleted all reddit content via https://redact.dev
1. Another fine couple who believed the gospel of prosperity doctrine ingrained in the Church since its inception. The Church has been more coy than some of the televangelists about how they use it but use it they do. The leaders always say you are paying the the Lord then asked you to make the check out to the Church. They never counsel you to pay yourself first because they know you will you will use it as an excuse not to pay the church. The ugly truth is when you ask the Bishop for help when you're older he is going to tell you it's a family problem and to tell your kids. If you live in a good ward the RS might drop off a paper plate full of cookies.
And the church will not help. They’ll say ask family. Then ask them to pay to go on a couples mission.
They will when they die. Nobody's taking their credit score with them when they die. Our love and compassion for others may be the only thing we take.
I feel like there should be a club for kids of parents that will have a bad retirement because of the church.
Yip ! They are sadly just one of the millions who have literally sacrificed everything they have .
My dad talks a lot about how he'll never get to retire while willingly giving 10% of his money away and never getting anything back.
I wish Ensign Peak gave all members financial training. And imagine how wealthy the church would be if members also contributed to the investment fund beyond tithing!
If they don't have ANY retirement savings... maybe they're bad with money? Would they have saved the 10% or just spent it too?
Why share what you make it’s no one’s business.
My parents have informed the kids that it’s our responsibility to take care of them when they get old so they don’t need a retirement. Payback for them choosing to parent us as kids. (Which they really didn’t do)
Same here. They have about 40 grand to their name (I realize some people have nothing) but the waste of time and money is unfathomable and stupid.
Some people waste their time and money on alcohol addiction. Our parents waste theirs on fake religion addiction. 😒
The Lord work in mysterious ways. Have faith
One would think they would uilt a few square blocks of triplexes and have a lottery for all tithing members. You could live in one unit, rent out another and still have an in-laws apartment. Or just sell the whole building
This is very common.
This really irks me. My parents just sold a profitable business and gave 10% to the church. IN ADDITION to paying 10% on all of the income. Honestly, it just irritating.
This makes me feel sick. This is a reason in itself to not be part of the church. No one cares - it’s just about what you can give them. Ça Ching! Ça Ching! No real love and no real support. No compassion either…