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It's important to note the historical context around this. The LDS church used to be constantly in extreme debt and close to having their religious buildings ta

It's important to note the historical context around this. The LDS church used to be constantly in extreme debt and close to having their religious buildings taken away due to it. Then in the early 1900s they instituted a simple financial policy that could also be an example for members. 1. Spend less than you take in. 2. Save/invest a portion of what you bring in for a rainy day. Thus over a hundred years that builds up. I'm a Mormon and personally don't have an issue with it as I know that wealth doesn't go to church leaders (they all get the same stipend which for many is less than they made in their professional lives) and is simply fund available to the Church for times of need.

annoyingnoob 7y ago
I think having your members tithe is a big part of it. I know some wealthy mormons that have always given their 10%, at least that's what they tell me. I also know a couple of really large mormon families, like 12 kids large - they all tithe.
- snuxoll 7y ago
  > at least that's what they tell me. Assuming the countless anecdotes on /r/exmormon are to be believed, nobody really gets a choice. Your local leaders will browbeat you and try to look over your financials if they don’t feel you are tithing appropriately.
  - mrosett 7y ago
    /r/exmormon has a very particular perspective, largely driven by the people who are active there are usually the ones who genuinely had the worst experience.
    - keiferski 7y ago
      This is pretty much true of any online community built around the opposition to something. People that had a positive or simply ‘meh’ experience don’t tend to spend time talking about it online.
      - darksaints 7y ago
        The r/exmormon subreddit has 155,000 members. The r/exchristian subreddit has 60,000 members. When you compare as a percentage of global population of members of their respective religions, it looks even larger. You're right that people who have had "meh" experiences don't tend to talk about it online. What is it about being mormon that makes exmormons so bitter, in comparison to more benign religions? Try reading the subreddit and you'll find out.
        keiferski 7y ago
        I'm not a Mormon, admittedly know very little about the religion, and don't want to make any statements criticizing or defending it. But it is a mistake to assume that the size of a subreddit is anything but a tiny representation of the real phenomenon. Reddit is not reality. The overwhelming majority of people don't use it or even know what it is. It may simply be the case that Mormons are more tech-savvy as a group than Christians as a whole and thus they gravitate to online communities.
        darksaints 7y ago
        That's true, it's very hard to conclude anything about a religion by subreddit size, but it is actually pretty simple to infer it. The largest ex religion communities online (former scientologists, mormons, JWs, adventists, and muslims, in my experience) all have a few things in common. They are from religions with significant control over your life when you are a member, and significant pain and anguish when you decide to leave. For some, that may mean losing your family and friends and professional colleagues (as I have). For others (such as scientologists), that may mean lots of harassment and legal difficulties. For others (such as muslims), that may mean being put to death. I have no qualms with calling /r/exmormon a very bitter community. We're bitter...with lots of reason to be so. This isn't anything like giving bad reviews on twitter...this is a very active community of thousands of people who have had very negative impacts on their lives due to their association with a religion that controlled large parts of it. They're trying to cope in the only way they know how, by commiserating. I would say that that should be a very valuable source of information to anybody who is investigating a religion. Sure, if you ask a question, you're going to get very biased answers. But they aren't one off problems, and they aren't dismissible simply because they're bitter.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - Osiris 7y ago
    > try to look over your financials If this happens it's against church policy. At the end of each year your Bishop asks if you are a full tithe payer or not. They record your answer and that's it.
    - darksaints 7y ago
      Also my experience that they won't try to dig into your financials. However, if they have any suspicion that you're lying about it, prepare for the guilt trip of the century. You do want to live with your family in the celestial kingdom, right? You wouldn't lie to god, would you? Effectively they take advantage of the beliefs they taught you. It doesn't matter that they don't subpoena your tax returns...its coercive all the same.
  - umvi 7y ago
    /r/exmormon is a distillation of disgruntled exmembers. It's extremely biased and not representative at all of nearly anything. Not all exmembers are disgruntled. The ones that aren't disgruntled don't hang out in /r/exmormon. It's like distilling all of the people in the world who had a bad experience with the police to /r/fthecops and then using anecdotes in there to make assumptions about all police. Or using anecdotes in /r/atheism to make assumptions about all religion.
    - sofal 7y ago
      It's always the term "disgruntled" that is used when attempting to discount the experiences related by people who left an organization. What exactly does "disgruntled" mean to you? Take me, for example. I've spent decades of my life as a true believing member of the organization, willingly giving an incredibly significant amount of income, time, and work toward it. And then I discover on my own decades later that I had been indoctrinated to believe in a lot of false stories. This discovery was a very slow process that involved a lot of time, energy, and research. The psychological toll of reframing your entire worldview is large. I benefited a lot from online communities where a lot of people were going through the same journey. I'll always be a person shaped by my previous decades of experience as an active believing Mormon. Did any church members personally treat me badly? No. I've always fit all the right demographics, had the right behavior, and am the correct sexual orientation. Outside of being quizzed and shamed for masturbation as a child, I generally had it pretty good in the church, and I loved it. Did any church members treat me badly after leaving the church? No. They've been respectful enough about it, and I've had some good conversations with some of them. And yet people like you constantly come along and want to categorize me as simply a "disgruntled exmember" with no opinion worth listening to, for the mere fact that I still participate in conversations about it online and in person with people who have had similar experiences as mine. This is a perfect characterization and example of what people who leave the church have to deal with. Even I, who never had it badly in the church, and was able to leave without too much drama from the local ward, will be labeled as an untrustworthy disgruntled apostate the moment I try to give a different perspective on this organization I was heavily invested in for decades. Online communities like /r/exmormon have a very large portion of people like me who have not had bad experiences in the church or leaving the church, but yet still have plenty to talk about for what should be obvious reasons. And who are the people whose opinions we should trust about the Mormon church? Why obviously the believing Mormons of course. Trust the people who have been taught and trained consistently their entire lives to be "member missionaries" and put the best possible spin on their church to outsiders. They're not disgruntled, so therefore their opinion matters more. Trust the used car dealer to make the most honest assessment of the car they're selling.
  - innocentoldguy 7y ago
    That has never been true in my experience. I’ve been a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for most of my life and I have always struggled with tithing and offerings and nobody has ever said much to me about it. In my now 50+ year experience, the ONLY time tithing has ever been brought up is at the end of the year when the bishop asks if I’ve been a full tithe payer. I say “No,” and he writes that down on the little paper and then we’re done. I’ve never been browbeaten or had anybody look over my financials. I’ve never been extorted or ridiculed. I’m not saying that some misguided bishop somewhere hasn’t done that to members of his congregation. I just know it isn’t church policy and isn’t something I’ve ever experienced.
    - henrikschroder 7y ago
      > I say “No,” and he writes that down on the little paper and then we’re done. ...and then he withdraws your temple recommendation, because that privilege is only reserved for full tithe payers. If he doesn't, he's going against church policy, and letting you off the hook nicely. Congrats, you won the local leader lottery.
  - FineTralfazz 7y ago
    Local leadership quality in the church varies wildly, since there's no formal training and they're unpaid positions. My bishops growing up were all great guys, but there are absolutely exceptions, and I'm sure that happens. Also, as other people have mentioned, /r/exmormon isn't exactly a representative sample of exmormons. It was useful to me as someone who was questioning my faith and later dealing with family as I was leaving the church, but now that I'm in a healthy place, there's no reason for me to spend time there and I haven't been on in years. That's pretty common, and the end result is that the majority of long-time active posters are people who've been out for years but are still bitter/angry/whatever and need that outlet.
trenning 7y ago
> they all get the same stipend which for many is less than they made in their professional lives It's weird how much this is being repeated in this thread. It's clear this opinion didn't form on an individual level but rather is directed by the church to their followers to repeat. It's an odd way of justifying position is all.
- jacurtis 7y ago
  Ex Mormon here. Yes, it is drilled down into our brains. The same exact phrases. And the stipend is 6-figures per year (most members don't know this though, it was leaked a few times now on paystubs). But all travel and room is also paid for. Plus most leaders of the church that receive this stipend are 70+ years old, so they are already living off healthy retirements in addition to now free housing and a healthy stipend. Church leaders are all successful businessman, doctors, and lawyers. Basically you pay your way to the top. So all of these people have incredible riches before they start taking these stipends. Church members like to pretend like our leaders are scraping by... but they are in top 1% of income earners. Further, you should hear those same leaders talk about tithing to members. Even encouraging their poor members to pay up because "they can't afford not to". It should also be noted that the church pays these top leaders, but chooses not to pay anyone at the congregation level. From the bishop (equivilant to a Pastor in most other religions), to the people teaching sunday school, the people cleaning the buildings, the bookkeepers, etc are all asked to do it for free. These are generally lower-income or middle-income members with full time jobs, asked to do this in addition to normal jobs... oh and they have to pay 10% of their pre-tax income to the church that they make from their job. > No bishop [aka 'Pastor'], no missionary should ever hesitate or lack the faith to teach the law of tithing to the poor. The sentiment of “They can’t afford to” needs to be replaced with “They can’t afford not to.” That quote is direct from their official prophet. Source: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2005/04/tithing-a-commandment-even-for-the-destitute?lang=eng https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference... Note: If you click that link you will see that the title is "Tithing - A commandment even for the destitute", this man had the hairy balls to stand up with a straight face and say that no one is too poor to pay his church. While he flies private jets everywhere from these poor family's sacrifices.
btown 7y ago
> available to the Church for times of need Or, perhaps, to finance a massive interstellar spaceship a few hundred years from now... [0] (In my ideal reality this should be the goal of _all_ investment funds. Also, everyone who enjoys the higher levels of the Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness [1] should watch The Expanse.) [0] https://observer.com/2015/12/the-expanse-recap-1x04-mormon-spaceship/ https://observer.com/2015/12/the-expanse-recap-1x04-mormon-s... [1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MohsScaleOfScien...

annoyingnoob 7y ago

I think having your members tithe is a big part of it. I know some wealthy mormons that have always given their 10%, at least that's what they tell me. I also know a couple of really large mormon families, like 12 kids large - they all tithe.

snuxoll 7y ago
> at least that's what they tell me. Assuming the countless anecdotes on /r/exmormon are to be believed, nobody really gets a choice. Your local leaders will browbeat you and try to look over your financials if they don’t feel you are tithing appropriately.
- mrosett 7y ago
  /r/exmormon has a very particular perspective, largely driven by the people who are active there are usually the ones who genuinely had the worst experience.
  - keiferski 7y ago
    This is pretty much true of any online community built around the opposition to something. People that had a positive or simply ‘meh’ experience don’t tend to spend time talking about it online.
    - darksaints 7y ago
      The r/exmormon subreddit has 155,000 members. The r/exchristian subreddit has 60,000 members. When you compare as a percentage of global population of members of their respective religions, it looks even larger. You're right that people who have had "meh" experiences don't tend to talk about it online. What is it about being mormon that makes exmormons so bitter, in comparison to more benign religions? Try reading the subreddit and you'll find out.
      - keiferski 7y ago
        I'm not a Mormon, admittedly know very little about the religion, and don't want to make any statements criticizing or defending it. But it is a mistake to assume that the size of a subreddit is anything but a tiny representation of the real phenomenon. Reddit is not reality. The overwhelming majority of people don't use it or even know what it is. It may simply be the case that Mormons are more tech-savvy as a group than Christians as a whole and thus they gravitate to online communities.
        darksaints 7y ago
        That's true, it's very hard to conclude anything about a religion by subreddit size, but it is actually pretty simple to infer it. The largest ex religion communities online (former scientologists, mormons, JWs, adventists, and muslims, in my experience) all have a few things in common. They are from religions with significant control over your life when you are a member, and significant pain and anguish when you decide to leave. For some, that may mean losing your family and friends and professional colleagues (as I have). For others (such as scientologists), that may mean lots of harassment and legal difficulties. For others (such as muslims), that may mean being put to death. I have no qualms with calling /r/exmormon a very bitter community. We're bitter...with lots of reason to be so. This isn't anything like giving bad reviews on twitter...this is a very active community of thousands of people who have had very negative impacts on their lives due to their association with a religion that controlled large parts of it. They're trying to cope in the only way they know how, by commiserating. I would say that that should be a very valuable source of information to anybody who is investigating a religion. Sure, if you ask a question, you're going to get very biased answers. But they aren't one off problems, and they aren't dismissible simply because they're bitter.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- Osiris 7y ago
  > try to look over your financials If this happens it's against church policy. At the end of each year your Bishop asks if you are a full tithe payer or not. They record your answer and that's it.
  - darksaints 7y ago
    Also my experience that they won't try to dig into your financials. However, if they have any suspicion that you're lying about it, prepare for the guilt trip of the century. You do want to live with your family in the celestial kingdom, right? You wouldn't lie to god, would you? Effectively they take advantage of the beliefs they taught you. It doesn't matter that they don't subpoena your tax returns...its coercive all the same.
- umvi 7y ago
  /r/exmormon is a distillation of disgruntled exmembers. It's extremely biased and not representative at all of nearly anything. Not all exmembers are disgruntled. The ones that aren't disgruntled don't hang out in /r/exmormon. It's like distilling all of the people in the world who had a bad experience with the police to /r/fthecops and then using anecdotes in there to make assumptions about all police. Or using anecdotes in /r/atheism to make assumptions about all religion.
  - sofal 7y ago
    It's always the term "disgruntled" that is used when attempting to discount the experiences related by people who left an organization. What exactly does "disgruntled" mean to you? Take me, for example. I've spent decades of my life as a true believing member of the organization, willingly giving an incredibly significant amount of income, time, and work toward it. And then I discover on my own decades later that I had been indoctrinated to believe in a lot of false stories. This discovery was a very slow process that involved a lot of time, energy, and research. The psychological toll of reframing your entire worldview is large. I benefited a lot from online communities where a lot of people were going through the same journey. I'll always be a person shaped by my previous decades of experience as an active believing Mormon. Did any church members personally treat me badly? No. I've always fit all the right demographics, had the right behavior, and am the correct sexual orientation. Outside of being quizzed and shamed for masturbation as a child, I generally had it pretty good in the church, and I loved it. Did any church members treat me badly after leaving the church? No. They've been respectful enough about it, and I've had some good conversations with some of them. And yet people like you constantly come along and want to categorize me as simply a "disgruntled exmember" with no opinion worth listening to, for the mere fact that I still participate in conversations about it online and in person with people who have had similar experiences as mine. This is a perfect characterization and example of what people who leave the church have to deal with. Even I, who never had it badly in the church, and was able to leave without too much drama from the local ward, will be labeled as an untrustworthy disgruntled apostate the moment I try to give a different perspective on this organization I was heavily invested in for decades. Online communities like /r/exmormon have a very large portion of people like me who have not had bad experiences in the church or leaving the church, but yet still have plenty to talk about for what should be obvious reasons. And who are the people whose opinions we should trust about the Mormon church? Why obviously the believing Mormons of course. Trust the people who have been taught and trained consistently their entire lives to be "member missionaries" and put the best possible spin on their church to outsiders. They're not disgruntled, so therefore their opinion matters more. Trust the used car dealer to make the most honest assessment of the car they're selling.
- innocentoldguy 7y ago
  That has never been true in my experience. I’ve been a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for most of my life and I have always struggled with tithing and offerings and nobody has ever said much to me about it. In my now 50+ year experience, the ONLY time tithing has ever been brought up is at the end of the year when the bishop asks if I’ve been a full tithe payer. I say “No,” and he writes that down on the little paper and then we’re done. I’ve never been browbeaten or had anybody look over my financials. I’ve never been extorted or ridiculed. I’m not saying that some misguided bishop somewhere hasn’t done that to members of his congregation. I just know it isn’t church policy and isn’t something I’ve ever experienced.
  - henrikschroder 7y ago
    > I say “No,” and he writes that down on the little paper and then we’re done. ...and then he withdraws your temple recommendation, because that privilege is only reserved for full tithe payers. If he doesn't, he's going against church policy, and letting you off the hook nicely. Congrats, you won the local leader lottery.
- FineTralfazz 7y ago
  Local leadership quality in the church varies wildly, since there's no formal training and they're unpaid positions. My bishops growing up were all great guys, but there are absolutely exceptions, and I'm sure that happens. Also, as other people have mentioned, /r/exmormon isn't exactly a representative sample of exmormons. It was useful to me as someone who was questioning my faith and later dealing with family as I was leaving the church, but now that I'm in a healthy place, there's no reason for me to spend time there and I haven't been on in years. That's pretty common, and the end result is that the majority of long-time active posters are people who've been out for years but are still bitter/angry/whatever and need that outlet.

trenning 7y ago

> they all get the same stipend which for many is less than they made in their professional lives It's weird how much this is being repeated in this thread. It's clear this opinion didn't form on an individual level but rather is directed by the church to their followers to repeat. It's an odd way of justifying position is all.

jacurtis 7y ago
Ex Mormon here. Yes, it is drilled down into our brains. The same exact phrases. And the stipend is 6-figures per year (most members don't know this though, it was leaked a few times now on paystubs). But all travel and room is also paid for. Plus most leaders of the church that receive this stipend are 70+ years old, so they are already living off healthy retirements in addition to now free housing and a healthy stipend. Church leaders are all successful businessman, doctors, and lawyers. Basically you pay your way to the top. So all of these people have incredible riches before they start taking these stipends. Church members like to pretend like our leaders are scraping by... but they are in top 1% of income earners. Further, you should hear those same leaders talk about tithing to members. Even encouraging their poor members to pay up because "they can't afford not to". It should also be noted that the church pays these top leaders, but chooses not to pay anyone at the congregation level. From the bishop (equivilant to a Pastor in most other religions), to the people teaching sunday school, the people cleaning the buildings, the bookkeepers, etc are all asked to do it for free. These are generally lower-income or middle-income members with full time jobs, asked to do this in addition to normal jobs... oh and they have to pay 10% of their pre-tax income to the church that they make from their job. > No bishop [aka 'Pastor'], no missionary should ever hesitate or lack the faith to teach the law of tithing to the poor. The sentiment of “They can’t afford to” needs to be replaced with “They can’t afford not to.” That quote is direct from their official prophet. Source: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2005/04/tithing-a-commandment-even-for-the-destitute?lang=eng https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference... Note: If you click that link you will see that the title is "Tithing - A commandment even for the destitute", this man had the hairy balls to stand up with a straight face and say that no one is too poor to pay his church. While he flies private jets everywhere from these poor family's sacrifices.

btown 7y ago

> available to the Church for times of need Or, perhaps, to finance a massive interstellar spaceship a few hundred years from now... [0] (In my ideal reality this should be the goal of _all_ investment funds. Also, everyone who enjoys the higher levels of the Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness [1] should watch The Expanse.) [0] https://observer.com/2015/12/the-expanse-recap-1x04-mormon-spaceship/ https://observer.com/2015/12/the-expanse-recap-1x04-mormon-s... [1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MohsScaleOfScien...