Here is some math I did on tithing, being an engineer it seemed natural to run a few estimates. The first time I did this I kept asking myself why hadn’t I done this exercise before? Oh yeah, not my place to worry about where the money goes, you don’t need to know that. Just trust us we are spending it by inspiration….
Now I beg you to bear with me since this is a story problem. 🙂
Given an average family income in the US of 50K$/yr or 5000$/yr in tithing. That’s when the first alarm bell went off. I realized just my tithing alone in the ward covered all the yearly building maintenance a couple times over.
In the US there are about 6-7 million members, figure only 50% of them are active and paying tithing figure an ave family size of 3 active tithe payers. That means tithing collected is about 1 million times 5K$, or 5 Billion$ a year. Now before you say I am being overly optimistic in the money collected remember that I didn’t count anything from the members outside the US. (most estimates that are more detailed than this land about 6-8 billion a year) So call me conservative in my estimates, I am trying to give the church the benefit of the doubt as much as I can.
Now look at rate that the church is building temples, about 3/year, the cost of the DC temple was 15m, now the newer ones are smaller and more modest, in the 2-3m range. However lets use that higher number, 45m/ year in temple expenses of construction
The church has about 2900 stakes so figure at average of about 2 buildings per stake, so 6000 chapels total to maintain.
Figure 2000$ a year in maintenance (no building cleaning needed! the members do that!) That comes up to 12m/year maintenance, now just in case I am wrong lets double it and add a little make it 30m
Oh yeah church helps the needy too, they told us about tons of money given since 1985 1.4 billion dollars (including hours donated) to be exact or about about 54M/year.
Here is a 2009 sheet that shows the majority of that 1.4 billion is in donated time by members, the cash is significantly less. https://archive.org/details/LdsWelfareFactSheet2009
Did I miss anything? Lets see what Gordon B Hinckley said about it to Larry King:
I see I left out the universities. That would mean a lot but they do accept tuition makes it a little harder to swag at the subsides. Either way, lets throw them a bone and assume they are heavily subsided, figure 100m/yr, more than double what is spent on temples just to make sure it is covered.
He points out the missionary work too, maybe there are some poor kids that can’t pay their way like they are told to figure 1/2 of all missionaries are covered by tithing (instead of their families paying 400$ a month, that is about 120m/year. Turn’s out that the mission presidents get all their costs covered to the tune of 150K per year on average and there are about 350 of them. That is another 52m/year.
Then there are full time employees, there are about 4000 (that have to be paid directly out of tithing) that would be 200m. Don’t forget benefits, etc, lets double that to 400m to be safe. Now add it all up.
5000m (or 5billion)
-45m temples
-30m meeting houses
-54m donations
-120m missionaries
-52m mission presidents
-100m universities, etc
-400m full time employees
scribble scribble, carry the 1, mmm, scratch erase and fix, lets see that would be.
4.2 billion left over.
Tell me what would you do with 4.2 billion? President Hinckley is right, it is a money consuming enterprise! It freakin’ burns cash like no tomorrow. Even if the church does have assets of 30B$, think about it, just saving 4B$ a year it would only take 8 years to save that much and the church has been humming along much longer than that.
I sometimes have discussions on taxes with a friend of mine and like most die hard Mormon conservatives he always complains about how awful the government is at spending money. When I point out this simple math of his tithing he says it doesn’t matter, it’s not his money anymore. He is an accountant by trade, it flat out amazes me the ability for the human mind to eschew logic.1 He simply thinks its ok to waste if the funds are tithing because he gave it away willingly. Taxes on the other hand since those are required by law they deserve more scrutiny. While some how not recognizing in both cases we are giving money to those that govern us. I mean isn’t tithing Gods law? (see quote from a prophet up above) The illogic shorts out my brain…
The simple fact is 4 billion $$$$ in tithing every year goes somewhere and no one knows where. They don’t tell us, we are simply assured of our blessings. Personally I think the reason why is obvious. If they told the membership what was happening with the widows mite they would be very upset. Better to just tell them don’t worry about it, we are using your sacred funds wisely, I promise and oh yeah. Don’t do the math…
- I am less amazed now than when I originally wrote this after learning about cognitive dissonance. ↩
In my lifetime I have paid more than $200,000.00 in tithing. There was a period of time after we had been faithful tithe payers for decades, that my husband was unemployed. We went to the bishop to ask for help. We were grilled about any income we were getting. The bishop wanted to see receipts for rent, utilities and all expenses. He would only allow a very small amount of money to be given to us and only to cover rent and a utility. None for gas or anything else. It reminds me of the IRS. We have to give proof of everything, they have to give nothing.
Google government of Canada charities. They have to list all charitable donations per ward. It gives you a real picture of how much tithing is being paid. Unlike the states, Canada has to report financial statements on all charities.
Very interesting analysis. I’ve project church tithing income before and my numbers were online with yours. I based mine of my knowledge of annual tithing per ward, and then number of wards in the US.
I do think you are likely very low on the expense side. For instance the state of Utah provided 250m to the university of Utah in 2012. I would assume BYU is getting at least that much as well from the church, then add the other two church universities I wouldn’t be surprised if the number is north of 400m a year. I think you would find other expenses higher as well. I tried to do this analysis years ago and I gave up because the unknowns were too big to come up with meaningful numbers.
I still agree though the church needs to publish its finances. I would like to see the US government require the church to report like other non religious non profits. I think we would all be surprised at some of the data.
I have thought about the expense side a bit, and I think you may be right that my expense estimates are under represented, consider though I am off by 2 billion dollars (which would cover some tremendously huge mistakes) that would still leave billions un-accounted for. The real deception and issue at hand is when a Prophet gets up, announces a mall and then tells people no tithing money was used to build it. Really? The only money the church takes in is tithing and donations (even fast offerings are kept at a local level) Even if it was tithing money invested in external businesses from 100 years ago, it is still tithing money. That type of double speak is what Enron does on its tax returns, it’s not befitting a church representing and all loving god that cares for the needy and poor.
“That’s when the first alarm bell went off when I realized just my tithing alone in the ward covered all the building yearly building maintenance a couple times over.”
…especially when the ward I grew up in was cleaned by the members. Just sayin’!
My family also cleaned the church every Saturday when I was growing up. Without pay. About 20 years ago a new chapel was built but not before the congregation contributed 1/2 of the building costs. My ward was in a small town in alberta Canada. I was shocked to find out they collected $325,000.00 dollars in tithing from a small town of about 280 people. The ward services the whole county but I don’t think there are more than 300 members. Of the 325,000.00 collected $5000.00 was held back for building maintenance. The math shows $320,000.00 being sent to salt lake. Many wards in the city of calgary show collections of $825,000.00 with similar maintenance costs. As a Canadian I feel ripped off as there are plenty charity opportunities here in Canada who are not helped. The mormon church is not a real church. What are they doing with all the money? It makes me sick!
[…] home teaching? Or these dramatic teachings of Brigham Young? Or this amusing jargon? The church has how much money…? The Dutch Mormon keeps trying to convince his fellow LDS to care that global warming might […]
Well, you have obviously researched this quite a bit more than I have.
I still just feel that you should find as much frustration in the ambiguity of your figures as I do. There can be drawn no solid conclusions from this as it is all basically conspiracy theory. The fact still remains that it is not about the money. If the church were using my money to produce porn, or sell sell alcohol that would be different, but as an active mormon, and a capitalist, I am perfectly fine with them using my money to build a mall to make more money. It makes perfectly fiscal sense.
Apparently some people aren’t ok with that, which is probably why they don’t broadcast it.
Ensign Peak Advisors has been managing the churches funds for years. If they have as much money as we figure they do then it would be seemingly easy to earn 5b in extra capital off of a figure that size(I think that figure is pretty modest though). It isn’t tithing money. It’s money made from investing with tithing money. I really don’t see the problem.
The real problem here is that there is almost no logic in your article, because there is very very little fact in it, and it obviously savors of bitterness.
You can’t rail against logical fallacies and then base an entire argument on one. You sir, have created a straw man.
You rely on the same legal technicality to call it NOT tithing money, by the same type of argument Monica lewinski did NOT have sex with Bill Clinton, was he honest in his answer when he said as much?
Straw man, I think not.
There is a difference between complete guessing and well researched estimation. Typically the person that doesn’t like the thought of sacred funds being misused will declare loudly that if the church doesn’t publish the numbers we can never know the exact truth and thus any estimate at all must therefore be false. To those I say simply this, make your own estimates, use your own brain. Don’t trust my estimates, do your own, write them down, try to poke holes in them.
I too used to be fine with the idea that the church does things like owning 0.7% of Florida, use your money or lose it is my mantra as well. When I started to see the cracks I noticed that at the same time the church was building malls, it is begging for more money for missionaries, it is telling poor people that are barely surviving to pay tithing before buying food. Then to top it off by their own publication less than 2% of the sacred funds end up helping those in need made me wonder. The church donates to charity at about the same rate as Walmart. Call me cynical but I did expect more from gods one true church.
Just in case you don’t believe me about the 0.7% of florida.
Church has been spending your tithing in ways you never even realized, the great and spacious mall was just not so easy to hide so they announced it publicly.
http://mainstreetplaza.com/2009/07/18/lds-inc-owns-7-of-florida/
Also here are some numbers ran by investigative reporter you might have heard of the news company, NBC. (they used the legal disclosed numbers in canada as a basis for the US numbers, nice way to get more accurate!) Turns out according to them I was missing a few billion of income.
http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/13/13262285-mormon-church-earns-7-billion-a-year-from-tithing-analysis-indicates?lite
This doesn’t even address all the church owned businesses that, despite Pres Hinckley’s proclamation, DO make money. The money the church receives in tithing may be a big piece of their portfolio, but it isn’t it’s only revenue source. Apparently JC doesn’t have as much faith in members as they’re supposed to have in him. Capitalism is where the real Zion builders are found. All hail diversification.
One has to wonder about the for profit arms of the church, do they make money or drain it? for example this hunting reserve charges 1500$ a hunt and is staffed by voluntary missionaries.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/770568/Tending-the-flock.html?pg=all
I guess what I wonder is with a 4 Billion $$$$ surplus for some 25 years, there should be 100 billion investments at least, of course wisely invested in the stock market it should be around 200 billion. Does the church have that much wealth? This article with reporters far better skilled at research than me pegs the wealth of the church around 40 billion in assets.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-10/how-the-mormons-make-money#p1
That would say the church lost money rather than profited from the for profit businesses.
historically speaking some of the articles that turn up say the church didn’t want to reveal how the money was spent because in reality they were losing so much money. I am not really sure what the reason is, it could be equally damning that the money is badly managed or simply spent on things like great and spacious malls that will cause the average member consternation.
There is even a independent charity for LDS kids that don’t get enough to eat, the church can afford to build a mall and let 900 of its own kids starve to death?
http://bycommonconsent.com/2011/01/27/approaching-zion-solving-the-problem-of-malnutrition/
just doesn’t seem right.
LDS, Inc actually now owns 2% of Florida.
Thank you for putting up this website. Hopefully, through sites like this, we can help others come to know the Truth about the deception of the LDS Church.
Like yourself, I have a similar story to yours. Almost identical, actually.
Keep up the good work.
True that Mark, 2% of Florida and also a new high-rise apartment building in philly.
“You can’t rail against logical fallicies”
Seriously. …..?
Every last cent collected by the church comes from tithing. What are you missing
Well put my friend! It would be nice to see those financials be open to the public.
I enjoy a good analysis of anything that goes seemingly unquestioned. I did want to mention though that there were a few things that were kind of glazed over that make a big difference.
I didn’t see any mention in this article for disaster relief(which could be a substantial chunk), or building maintenance at church sponsored schools, or humanitarian projects(like digging wells in Africa), or the perpetual education fund, or production of church literature(such as scriptures, and magazines, pass-along cards. That doesn’t all come out of the missionary fund. Much is tithing.), and so many other things that the church does.
Your conclusion is that the church doesn’t produce it’s bank roll publicly because it doesn’t want you to know what it does with it. But the fact, upon which you based your argument, automatically makes your argument invalid. You don’t know what they are doing with the money, so the belief that they are doing something bad with it is just that, a belief. Not fact. Merely conjecture.
I would like to propose some possible theories as to why the church doesn’t produce these figures.
1. They would rather not open themselves up to “money seekers”
Let’s say that the church has about 100b in reserve. How many corporations, bankers, hedge fund managers, venture capitalists, start-ups, etc. would do anything to try to get a piece of that money, including perhaps a few who would try to with less than honorable means?
2. It doesn’t want to be braggadocios. The church has a lot of money. There’s no way around knowing that if you do the math. It seems to me that even if they published the figures quietly it would still seem like they were just trying to say “look at all the money we have. I know that by law we don’t have to show you how much money we have, but look anyway”
3. I wonder if the church producing such information would create a “they don’t need it mentality”, and honestly they probably don’t need a lot of the little denominations that most members give in faith. The fact is (and I realize that many people wouldn’t agree with this) the church doesn’t need it. We, the members do. God can build a church out of dirt, and he can do it in a day. He can find the money, or make the money anyway he wants. The Lord doesn’t need my money. He needs my devotion and my sacrifice. That is the point. If someone could look at the money the church has they might say: “meh, they’ve got x billion dollars, they don’t need my meesly xxx.75”. It’s not about the revenue, it’s about eternal view.
You are right that so many people don’t question where the money goes, and I don’t either. But that’s because it’s not about the money. It’s about the Lord making us give what is so important to this world, to him. To show that this world doesn’t matter to us, as much as He does.
One final thing. I bet that most of that money will never be spent. I bet most of it will remain in an “emergency” fund until the second coming when it will all be worthless. Wouldn’t it be nice if we all could see money that way now? Worthless, in comparison to the opportunity of eternal life?
Just my thoughts. Thank you again for your yours.
the welfare fact sheet listed includes relief efforts, if you go back and search the documents when they started publishing them in 2008 they specifically include the disaster numbers in the total.
later versions just lumped them all together in one number.
plus you will notice that the monetary number includes hours of service. (one has no idea what rate they impose on the hours of service, but it does mean the 1.5 billion spent since 1985 wasn’t all out of pocket money.)
here is a copy I kept of it, it used to be really easy to find right on lds org until nonbelievers started pointing out the math then it got lots harder to find.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/80mnhlrj6c67mye/2008%20Welfare%20Services%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf
You are right most members don’t question. You have to admit though you are taught to not question. So that is understandable. But in regards to your statement that there will be 100 billion useless dollars at the second coming. wouldn’t it be better to use that for the temporal welfare of the saints now than let it all go to waste? If the church has that much cash just sitting around then why the need to tell members to pay tithing before they pay rent or buy food?
Sure it is touted as a blessing if you give, if that is the case then why is Utah one of the highest states in personal bankruptcy? To me the facts just don’t back up the rhetoric.
Insiders in the church office building described the church channeling tithing money into an investment corp known as Ensign Peak. That corporation is where the money for the mall came from. Simple math shows that a 5 billion dollar mall isn’t gonna be funded by a few personal donations. The church president told us all that the mall was built without tithing funds. Technically that is true if the money was invested in an investment company that built the mall. Even if the insiders that spilled the beans are liars, the vast majority of the money the church has came from tithing even if it has been invested in a money making enterprise. So when I hear tithing money was not used I hear lawyer speak that gives a person a false impression intentionally. To me that is deceitful.
Here is another document worth reading, this is very well researched and documented.
https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/pdf/102-17-29.pdf
some interesting notes, The church policy used to be to discloses its finances.
Tithing wasn’t a requirement to enter the temple until 1910 (some 80 years after formed and some 60+ years after the law of tithing was revealed to Joseph Smith)
Food for thought
I think your analysis is interesting. I might volunteer the following, though … not to challenge your conclusions but to correct some assumptions and make the analysis more defensible.
I just measured our ward building (Ashburn Stake Center, VA) using Google Earth. It measured roughly 240′ x 120′ or 28,800 GSF. I’m guessing a typical ward building is slightly smaller? Maybe 20,000 GSF?
According to “The Whitestone Facility Maintenance And Repair Cost Reference 2011-2012” (the best source for such data that I know of, the annualized cost of maintenance & repair (based on 50 years) for a Community Center (closest they have to a Mormon Chapel), is $0.88/SF for preventive maintenance and minor repair, $0.83/SF for Unscheduled maintenance, and $2.75/SF for renewal & replacement (carpet every few years, roof every few years, HVAC, electrical, etc. This adds up to $4.46/SF. According to nationalgridus.com (I could probably find better sources if I tried harder), the cost for electricity and gas for a typical office building is $1.52/SF. If we reduce that by 75% to account for the fact that the building is only fully occupied for a couple of days each week, let’s use $0.40/SF. We won’t add costs for security or cleaning since that is all volunteer work.
So we are at $4.86/SF for the annual cost to operate and maintain the building. For our 20,000 SF building, that is $97,200 per year. If we add the annualized cost of the parking lot and landscaping, we are probably closer to $125k per year. I assume that the Church still pays property taxes (not sure).
I was the financial clerk for over 12 years in three wards and many more bishopric administrations. I have also audited many more wards. I have seen wards where they don’t bring in this much tithing all year. And I have seen individual tithing donations that exceeded $300k on a single slip. So it;s hard to guess what the average ward brings in.
Facilities are expensive to maintain and operate. As membership thins and tithing income declines, I think we will initially see buildings beginning to look and feel much older. They will have to sell some and consolidate wards to maintain what they have.
excellent work and proof that it is possible to estimate with increasing accuracy using data and research.
Given the fact that buildings come in various sizes your well made point could push the top end of the estimate for building service to a billion $, that would make a pretty big dent in the tithing income. Still leaves on the low end estimate 3 billion missing and if we look at the high end that accounts for the money coming in from the 7 million people outside of the US then you have about 5-6 billion missing.
I love that you took the time to dig up some facts to support your conclusion!
True it is an educated guess. Why is that? Because the church doesn’t disclose the numbers. That which fears the light of day isn’t good.
Plus it makes sense now how the church could afford the 5 billion $ mall project downtown.
I compare the church to a government because Joseph Smith set it up as one. Research the council of the fifty, look up the fact that the leaders expected the church government to become the world government.
The church used to be open with its finances. That changed, why?
If you are happy with the LDS church as the way to live your life I would never tell you to walk away. However if my ‘guesses’ didn’t make sense why would you bother to comment on them and try to pick them apart?
Why did you put quotations around guesses? You’re implying that they weren’t just that? I bothered to comment because in my opinion what you said was extremely presumptuous and unfair. That’s all. If you’re happy with being anti-Mormon and the way you live your life I would never ask you to walk away.
I am implying that you call them blatant ‘guesses’ while I would call them ‘estimations’. If you think I didn’t give the church enough of a benefit of the doubt, feel free to make your own estimates and add them up.
We estimate things all the time, you do it when you plan a date with your spouse and you are checking to make sure you have enough money on you. you don’t call the theatre or the restaurant and recheck the prices to figure it out. You ‘estimate’ you ‘guess’ in the terms you are defining it.
if you have a hundred bucks and you figure the date will cost 40, you aren’t gonna worry. but if you have 45, then you might dig a little deeper to make sure your estimate is accurate.
feel free to put up some of your own estimates for these operating costs. one reader already has and made a very good case for the cost of operating buildings being significantly higher that my estimate. I think he has made a very valid point.
In the case of the cost of temples for example I took the most expensive one ever built and used that cost. I often doubled my estimates to make sure I was accounting for the highest possible spend of tithing money. My income estimates are based on ave US salaries, activity rates that are reported.
If you would like I could also point you to information outside of the US where the church is required by law to disclose its finances (such as Canada and the UK) numbers there cause just as much dismay and questioning. I will be the first to admit my estimate in this case was a couple hours of work, others have gone far deeper and found out much more about the finances of the church. So if calling my estimate guesses and using that to make you feel better about how the funds are being used I have no problem with it. If you really want to get my attention though tell me how you add the numbers up. Put a couple hours of your own time into it. I’ll even publish it here on this blog for you. I have no problem hearing a pro mormon point of view, I had one for 40 years.
As for this article, the whole point I am trying to make is no matter how hard you try to give the church the benefit of the doubt there is a big missing chunk of money. In general I was taught tithing went primarily to meeting houses and temples. But start running the costs on that and you quickly see that just doesn’t add up. it isn’t even the majority. When you find the documents that the church has published on what money helps other people, you do a little math and discover it is a pittance of what you assumed it was.
If ‘anti’s really are making incorrect assumptions and the church doesn’t deserve this criticism it is really easy for the church to respond, simply open the books. What is there to be afraid of?
Another thing. It’s a commandment. We pay ten percent of our income. The law does not state that all of the money was going to be used at the same time it is taken in, nor would I even suggest that they do so.
You are right it is a commandment. Another reason there should be no shame in opening the books. If the membership really is fine with it being spent however the leaders desire, then why wouldn’t they simply open the books?
Makes sense, and I’ve done this numbers in my head a few times, but not as detailed. It’s worth multiple hundreds of billions. It’s a massive hedge fund. If they were smart they’d use that money to change the world for the better. So what the hell are they doing with the money that will basically be worthless when the 2nd coming occurs?
Oh you know, just 2-5 billion dollar malls to clean up the SLC downtown area… (ie City Creek Mall making it about one of the top 10 expensive buildings in the world…)
And tons of businesses:
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-10/how-the-mormons-make-money#p2
Here is an interesting article about the history of tithing and the definition “10 percent of our interest”:
http://puremormonism.blogspot.com/2012/12/are-we-paying-too-much-tithing.html
It doesn’t necessarily make someone an anti-Mormon to question what happens with the tithing money. I personally am an active member but would like to see where it is all going. Transparency makes organizations more accountable and responsible. It is the Church’s money, but the members are the church and they deserve an accounting. They used to publish some financial records until about 50 years ago. If the people speak out, perhaps the church leaders will re-evaluate church finances or at least make them more public.
A few notes.
A) You didn’t actually do the math you just put together a bunch of numbers that you made up.
B) Even if there is 4 Billion left over, I don’t see a problem with saving. This is an unstable world we live in, and that money could be put to extremely good use in a crisis.
C) How could you possibly compare the church to the government? 17 trillion in debt and counting versus a supposed surplus of 4 billion. That’s quite a difference.
D) We are not governed by church officials. I govern myself. I do what I believe to be right.
Bottom line here is you don’t have a leg to stand on here. Your entire post is one big guess with no factual evidence to back it up. You may as well have just posted, “I’m a bitter ex-Mormon that can’t move on with my life, so I’m just trying to rip on what gives others joy.”
How would you adjust the estimates he confessed were rough? How would your adjustments change his generalized conclusion about an unused surplus? It wouldn’t, would it?
There’s need for money for good causes right now. My strong faith says that God is capable pf picking up $$$ slack for whatever your imagined future crisis might be. Would God endorse not doing good right now, just to save up for doing good later? That’s ludicrous, right?
When spending rates were what was discussed about Mormonism and the US government, why do you incorrectly assert that dollar amounts are what he compared? Can you see how this appears to be the worst of the logic fallacies in what you said?
You are dictated by your church… period. Isn’t it true that if you don’t pay the church, you don’t gain the conditional salvation? Yes, it is. How would you stand, if your personal salvation instead hinged on logic fallacy and name calling?
Ouch! That one hurt!
I wasn’t trying to give any data to refute his guesses, all I was saying was that his guess were just that. Guesses. Like I said, if there is a lot of surplus it’s being saved. You and I save for the future don’t we? Isn’t it logical that an organization would do the same?
Were you ever a Mormon? If you were you would understand why he doesn’t fix everything himself all the time.
I choose to follow those laws. Choice. That’s a gift from God to all of us. I am a free man dictated by his own conscience.
On the government thing. This entire discussion has been about money. Naturally that’s what I figure he was referring to.
Ummm… it’s not like your response is full of any facts that rebut what he has wrote. Like most mindless Mormon sheeple, you’re just full of sour grapes because you don’t like it when your religion is criticized. Pathetic.
So hurtful! You cut me real deep on that one partner!
Why would I have to rebut what he said with facts when he presented no facts either?
I’m perfectly fine with criticism. I do my thing you do yours. That so hard? If you want to be anti-Mormon, it’s only fair that I can be pro-Mormon. If you don’t believe in it fine. You don’t have to create articles and such that are so against it.
To Bill Buttersnaps:
You said, ” I do my thing you do yours. That so hard? If you want to be anti-Mormon, it’s only fair that I can be pro-Mormon. If you don’t believe in it fine. You don’t have to create articles and such that are so against it.”
1. I applaud everyone that has the courage to speak out about the untruthfulness of the LDS Church. It takes a great deal of courage to evaluate a belief system that you have hard-core believed in for most or all of your life. It takes more courage to realize that it is False, and then not let that realization cause you to no longer trust in any religion. After all, if you can be suckered into believing something so blatantly fictitious, contribute your time, your financial resources, and support it blindly, then you come to the realization that you can pretty much be suckered again in the future if you are not more cautious and focusing more on thinking for yourself instead of just blindly following a religion. After all, that is why the Lord gave us the ability to think and reason. If he hadn’t, we would all still be believing the Earth is flat.
2. If you drank from a well whose water was sweet and was shrouded with cool shade and other people that made you feel good, then you discovered it was poisoned, would you not stop drinking from it, and would you not feel an absolute conviction and obligation to let others know it is poisoned? Or are you the kind of guy that would just discount the person that is warning you as bitter, and continue encouraging all of your friends and family to continue drinking from the well, as well as finding other people to drink from the well with you?
3. The LDS Church spends millions of dollars annually seeking out converts, going door to door, placing television and radio commercials, creating websites making ridiculous attempts to “explain away” all of its lies, attempting to get the unknowing to drink from its poisoned well, while fattening its wallet and telling its members to pay tithes before rent. How is that “you doing your thing and me doing mine”? If LDS Inc can go to such great lengths to advertise and recruit people to drink from its poisoned well, then how is it those that know the truth about the Church do not have the right, and obligation, to let others know that they are drinking from a poisoned well?
4. Anyone that would allow an organization to take their money and then not account for how it is spent is a fool. I know, because I was a fool like that at one time and blindly gave. Think of the literal Billions of Dollars that LDS Inc has left over that could be used to feed more of the poor and house more of the homeless. Instead it is being used to build mega malls, buy cattle ranches, acquire real estate, pay college educations for the elite’s children, pay for housekeepers, gardeners, mortgages, and even gifts for the elite of the Church, not to mention a $1,000,000+ armored Audi for good old Tommy Monson to be chauffeured around town in. Remind me, why does the “Modern Prophet” require 24/7 security and a one plus million dollar car? Other Churches give more of their surplus to charitable organizations than LDS Inc does. Does that sound like how the Lord would run His Church? Absolutely not.
Before you pull the “Poor Mormon is Being Picked On Card” you should take a step back and think about what type of organization you are working so hard to “protect”.
Why do I say all of this? It is simple: Because I was you. I was the same, hard-core, discount anything that sounds negative about the Church, don’t think and just follow the Prophet, Peter Priesthood sort of guy for nearly 40 years.
Then I found the Truth.
That said, now I have an obligation to share that Truth with those that are drinking from that poisoned well.