Posted on 12/26/2010 8:41:08 AM PST by Colofornian
I have literally been told at tithing audit (ok I'll use your eupehmism, tithing settlement), that NOT PAYING 10% of GROSS IS STEALING FROM GOD. "HE MADE US FREE, AFTERALL, IT'S ONLY THROUGH OUR SIN THAT TAXES ARE SO HIGH."
I will publicly take issue with your assertion that you didn't even spend 30 hours a week on Bishopric duties. By the time you honestly add up the LDS required Monday night family home evening lesson and preparation time, tuesday night young women's supervision and do not contact list visits, wednesday night young men's supervision and regular home teaching visits, thursday night nursery supervision and Relief society function supervision and temple recommend interviews, friday night bishopric meeting and designated missionary dinner night and couples geneology library work night, saturday stake Bishopric training / young women's camp / scout camp supervision / primary activity, and a 12-15 hour marathon on Sunday starting with ward bishopric meeting, ward council meeting, high priest council meeting, sacrament meeting, two hours of assigned sunday school supervision, counting / accounting / depositing of tithes / fast offerings / missionary fund offerings / SEPARATE humanitarian fund offerings, followed by nearly endless calls from members in some kind of need, liek the ones who request food from the bishop's storehouse which require a "worthiness" interview in which they are told no if they haven't paid a FULL TITHING ON THIER GROSS INCOME. now let's not forget the Temple work, Baptisms for the dead, annointings and endowments for the dead, and now the new edict to organize and supervise a four hour cleaning session on the building by 20 people on saturday afternoon because the fortune 50 sized corporation of the president doesn't want to pay janitors, ETC, ETC, ETC.
Sir, I question your ability to add, honesty, or both. Of course I know there must be slackers in the LDS Bishoprics, but I can tell you of a certainty that 30-50 hours a week on top of full time work, college (in my case), and family is to be expected.
If it wasn't based on fraud it would be one thing, but some of us took that temple recommend interview question about fulfilling our "callings" seriously.
Maybe God has relaxed those requirements in the ~4 years I have been out, when Harry Reid calls Ezra Taft benson an extremist in front of the BYU faculty and staff then later brags about holding a temple recommend I do wonder...
My people do not believe that Jesus was the Messiah either. Do you hate us too?
So they don't believe in Jesus as Messiah. Isn't that their problem from your point of view. Why is it your problem?
ML/NJ
Thanks for your kind remarks about Mormons. Off the top of my head, I can think of one situation in the Book of Mormon in which the Lord commanded the prophet Nephi to slay a man. See 1 Nephi 4:7-18. Nephi did so by cutting off the man's head with his own sword.
In contrast, the Book of Mormon also gives an account of people who refused to take up arms, instead allowing themselves to be killed for their faith (See Alma 24.)
However, both of those are extreme and unusual cases. More generally, the Book of Mormon supports the right of self-defense. Indeed, it speaks of self-defense as a duty:
45 Nevertheless, the Nephites were inspired by a better cause, for they were not fighting for monarchy nor power but they were fighting for their homes and their liberties, their wives and their children, and their all, yea, for their rites of worship and their church.46 And they were doing that which they felt was the duty which they owed to their God; for the Lord had said unto them, and also unto their fathers, that: Inasmuch as ye are not guilty of the first offense, neither the second, ye shall not suffer yourselves to be slain by the hands of your enemies.
47 And again, the Lord has said that: Ye shall defend your families even unto bloodshed. Therefore for this cause were the Nephites contending with the Lamanites, to defend themselves, and their families, and their lands, their country, and their rights, and their religion. (Alma 43:45-47)
I take these words to heart. I believe in turning the other cheek, in not responding in kind to insults. However, I am no pacifist. I believe every person has the right to defend himself and his family and friends against those who would harm them.
My people do not believe that Jesus was the Messiah either. Do you hate us too?
- - - - -
Of course I don’t hate them (don’t hate Mormons either), but I will not let them go willingly to Hell either. I love them enough to tell them the truth. Not only is Yeshua THE Messiah, He is YOUR Messiah.
The problem is that Jews don’t claim to be Christians, Mormons do. As a Christian, it is my duty to defend my faith. If Mormons would just admit they aren’t really Christians, and quit trying to claim they are, we would back off, but as long as they slander my Lord and My God I am in this fight till the end.
I used to BE Mormon, I know their teaching and I know when they are lying to outsiders and why. That is what I am fighting. I don’t hate them, I love them enough to try to rescue them.
Why do you care?
Yes, and I pay one-tenth (10%) of my net income. That is what the Lord has given me. (The rest He allows the government to take.)
Now, if someone wants to give 10% of his gross income, that is his business. The bishop is not supposed to question how any member calculates his or her tithing.
I have literally been told at tithing audit (ok I'll use your eupehmism, tithing settlement) . . .
The proper terminology is "tithing settlement," not "tithing audit." (Have you been away from the LDS Church so long that you have forgotten?)
The difference between a settlement and an audit is no mere euphemism. Audits are mandatory. An tithing audit would be a careful, methodical examination of one's financial records to verify compliance.
Tithing settlement is entirely voluntary. If a member chooses to participate, he is not asked to show the bishop anything. The member declares whether he considers himself a full tithe payer; the bishop is not to question such a declaration.
I will publicly take issue with your assertion that you didn't even spend 30 hours a week on Bishopric duties.
A bishop who personally does all of the things you listed is doing it wrong. Perhaps you have forgotten, but the bishop is supposed to call others to do much of the work.
Sir, I question your ability to add, honesty, or both. Of course I know there must be slackers in the LDS Bishoprics, but I can tell you of a certainty that 30-50 hours a week on top of full time work, college (in my case), and family is to be expected.
I am not deficient in mathematics, and I try to tell the truth; so perhaps I was one of the slackers. Or perhaps you are not as knowledgeable as you claim about the workings of the LDS church.
Not every “Baptist” church is truly Baptist creed.
I have been to some that I couldnt even recognize, even though the sign out front said Baptist.
Thats why there are so many of them. Every time a congregation has some disagreement, half them go And form a new church with the “right” doctrine. Its happened
PD is the MORMON who wants us ALL to do 'research'.
MORMON church buildings say 'The Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-day Saints' but they STILL do not PRACTICE what D&C 132 preaches!
Not to my knowledge.
Now if you start posting PRO-Romney stuff; your FR half-life will be severely shortened!
I guess 'vapor between the ears' is acceptable.
I call hogwash, when I was LDS it was 10% of GROSS not net income and tithing settlements were not optional, well not if you wanted a temple recommend. And this was several wards and stakes, not just one bishop.
Sounds like you don’t follow your own religion very well, Logo.
ml/nj could use some research, having proven he/she doesn’t know more than a sprinkle about Momronism or the hisotry of that religion. Accusing folks of spewing hatred, while showing gross ignorance regarding this ‘fleeing persecution in fear for their lives’ shows the poster hasn’t a clue regarding Emma’s remaining in the East and holding together a sect of Mormonism, even holding the Joseph Smith translation of the King James Bible! With the ignorant it is best to not argue.
For your guidance in this matter, please be advised that we have uniformly replied that the simplest statement we know of is that statement of the Lord himself that the members of the Church should pay one-tenth of all their interest annually, which is understood to mean income. No one is justified in making any other statement than this. We feel that every member of the Church should be entitled to make his own decision as to what he thinks he owes the Lord, and to make payment accordingly. (Quoted by Vicor L. Brown, Ensign, April 1974)
So far as I know, this is still the official word on tithing.
Note that no one, not even a bishop, is authorized to go beyond what the First Presidency has written. How members calculate their tithing is between them and the Lord; the bishop has no say in the matter.
As for the temple recommend interview, the question is whether one is a full tithe payer, not whether one attended tithing settlement. And every member is entitled to decide what it means to be a full tithe payer.
(You may be right that I do not follow my religion very well. Fortunately, God is both just and merciful; and by His grace I may be perfect in Christ. )
NEVER!!!!........;^)
We don’t hate you. We envy you. /s LOL
God has made you his chosen people and seems kinda unlucky to attack those who are own traditions are built on. Hence, probably most of us support Israel unequivocally.
At least I do.
Oh, one more thing.
Without Jews I wouldn’t enjoy koogle, Potato Pancakes, Katz’s or Carnegie Deli.
My favorite are potato pancakes. Yum!
K, well I hope you told them to pound .....
They are frauds and good for you, walking away from them.
And yet in the VERY NEXT SENTENCE; he did!
We feel that every member of the Church should be entitled to make his own decision as to what he thinks he owes the Lord...
I didn’t tell them anything.
I just didn’t come back....ever.
I had been brought up a strict Southern Baptist, and still have that as my basis of faith, but as to “churches” I have none.
I have a singular, personal relationship with God, and I don’t need a “church” or preacher to improve upon that.
I have seen churches that have come apart over petty rivalries, gossiping, backstabbing and jealousy. I have seen a big Baptist church ask someone to leave because of the clothing a person wore, which in my mind and heart was directly at conflict with a Christian attitude and scripture.
It seems the bigger the “church” the smaller the Christian. All it takes is two............
.....In the published account of his life, Joseph Smith related that he became very disturbed when he was a youth because of the “strife among the different denominations,” and this “cry and tumult” led him to ask God “which of all the sects were right — and which I should join.” He was told that he must “join none of them, for they were all wrong...
Well, what Smith was told—by whoever—was correct, but NOT for the reason that Smith came to believe!
The Church established by our Lord and His Apostles—the holy Orthodox Church—was not present in upstate New York (”the burnt-over district”) where Smith was living. Thus all the sects that Smith knew were wrong.
Smith should have made inquiries and sought out the Church, NOT started a new religion. If he had succeeded in bringing Orthodoxy to America, he might have become a great saint.
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