Please. It was an organized campaign by the Church.
Truly a stirring argument for your side.
At the risk of taking this thread even more off-topic (although not more off-topic than gay marriage) I have to respond to this. Frankly, either you’ve completely misunderstood what your friends told you, or they were lying to you. Even though weird and non-standard things can happen in church of millions, these stories just don’t make sense.
As much as I dislike Mormonism, I dislike misinformation even more. So let’s start!
First off, as I mentioned upthread, they don’t need to bribe people to count them as members. As long as you were baptized once, you’re a member. You can be baptized and then launched into space and become Space Pope and you’ll still count as a Mormon. They don’t need to know where you live or if you’re even alive, you’ll still count. There’s no way they’d pay people to count them as members; it doesn’t make sense. They do it for free. Also, the Mormon church has almost 14 million members, some 7 million of whom don’t even consider themselves Mormon. Why would they spend good money to get a few more members in name only? They’ve got plenty.
Secondly, Mormonism does have a ton of money because they require you to give them 10% of your income (usually gross) for life. I shudder to think how much my parents have given to the Mormon church but it’s hundreds of thousands of dollars if not a million by now (they are in their sixties). However, the church does not spend this money freely on the members like you suggest. All this money (called tithing) goes to the central church and they use it to build buildings, buy land, etc., etc. The Mormon church also has massive business investments and they are currently developing and building a $2 billion mall in downtown Salt Lake City (yes, BILLION).
They didn’t get this rich by giving this money away to members or non-members. Does Not Happen. I think what your friends may have been referring to is something called “Fast Offerings.” On top of the 10% of your income that you turn over to the church, you also have to give money each month for a local fund called “Fast Offerings.” This money stays in the local congregation and is redistributed to families in need. However, you have to be a member of the church to get this and you have to continue paying 10% of your income, as meager as it may be. The point is that this local funding is often more generous than other churches offer. They will often pay your mortgage payment if you’ve lost your job and give you vouchers for food. However, this is all at the discretion of the local leaders and they can make you jump through whatever hoops they choose to discourage people from gaming the system and only going to church when they need money. They can also just outright deny you any help if they think you aren’t sincerely in need or sincere in your religious devotion. Also, it’s not like they’ll give you this help indefinitely. The local leaders are under tremendous pressure not to pay out more than they bring in in “Fast Offerings.” If they really need more money, they’ll take it from the Fast Offerings surplus in another congregation. NONE of this money comes from the 10% gross. Nothing touches that revenue stream.
As for the home loan your other friend had, that doesn’t happen. Maybe he had another Mormon give him a loan, but the church does not give out sweetheart loans. It just doesn’t happen. And they certainly don’t give you money for bringing in converts and they never give money to people before they convert. The Mormon church may do a lot of things, but giving away money is not one of them.
I have no idea what account the money was paid from, but having seen receipts for things LDS paid for (and for what), with the signature(s) of LDS authorities I was familiar with - well, does it matter what account it comes from when its LDS at the root end? Does calling it a different name make it non-LDS of origin? Especially when the missionaries were the point-of-contact for that stuff (iirc). Did. Too. Happen. For. Damn. Sure. 
Isn’t part of the LDS credo/mission statement to convert all that can be converted? Or is it the other way around - like everyone is flocking to them because its so nice having your kids ride around in suits on bicycles for a few years? Which is it? I forget, honestly. I really seem to remember that money is/was spent to convince people how ‘beneficent’ they are.
The loan to my co-worker may or may not have been from ‘official’ church coffers, but it was well-known by everyone it was LDS related since it was openly spoken about. Yep, either it was a pack of lies, or actual truth. I think it was truthful, but…may be lies to fool us non-members. He and I started work the same day and talked often of why we ended up there, etc. His building a house there, helped in finance by LDS (per him), was his reason for relocating from Provo. Perhaps he was full of crap and had reason to lie to me. Shrug. I moved there because Austin was too damn hot and knew practically nothing of LDS. Didn’t take long to see the gameplan being performed 
And I learned to hate those damn garments the devoted wear. Definitely not meant to help guys get into the single-ladies’ pants, so to speak. But that is a different topic there altogether.
According to the Church Handbook of Instructions (page 154), “Members who are entirely dependent on Church welfare assistance” are exempted from tithing. This bit from page 18 is also of interest:
All members of the church, though, are encouraged to donate generously to that fund so that’s not targeting those who received assistance from the Bishop’s Storehouse.
From page 20:
Here is an article in The Boston Globe about the Bishop’s Storehouse.
Well, I really have no idea what happened with these people you know. As I said, local leaders give money to members who are in dire straits. They aren’t in the habit of handing out money to non-members or prospective converts. They certainly aren’t in the home loan business. I’m sure there’s some misunderstanding, but I suppose that anything is possible.
I can only say that your account of their stories sounds completely foreign to me and my life-long experience with Mormonism. It’d be nice if the Mormons really were (figuratively) doling out money from garbage bags full of cash, but it I’ve never seen it happen. Let me know if you do; I want in! I paid too much into the system, I’d like some back.
Erdosain: I agree I might have slight misunderstanding/misinterpretation overall of what I saw/heard/was told of a number of times. I can say that when missionary(ies) came to a person that hinted at joining up but wanted something in return, it was arranged for a ‘meeting’ to be held and literally negotiations as to what would/could be given to interested person(s) became part of the attempt to ‘convert’/enroll 'em. I guess my point overall is that what I saw happen was that if a ‘prospect’ said they wanted something, there was not any “we don’t do that” or “get outta here - we are about God and do not have to give things to get you to join”…LDS stepped up to ‘bribe’ person to finish the process. I use word bribe loosely here, OK? It may be more appropriate to call it graft, or whatever word is used that means ‘grease the wheels’ that is of Arabic-origin, baksheesh maybe (?). I do not know of another ‘religion’ that will say “yeah, we’ll do this for you if you join up” (however ya wanna phrase it), but I do plead willful ignorance on being in-the-know about most religions and how they operate.
LDS does obviously send all the young adults it can to convert x-number of persons while on the missions. LDS parents spoke openly of where their kids were when on missions, etc, and also of how they knew future kids were expected to same thing(s). There is special training for this, iirc what paretns of missionaries told me. The objective is to convert everyone possible, in so many words, and I think there is a quota for each missionary but not sure of that.
I never intended to say these things as insults, derogatory, or to be seen as slamming LDS. I try to reserve personal opinions of others’ beliefs; to each their own kind of thing. I just wanted to point out how those mission-folk would promptly get a higher-up LDSer to come and start ‘negotiations’. The negotiations I saw firsthand were from a person intentionally gaming them, and they likely knew that. Did not seem to matter to the LDS folks (imho). They got strung along by a person who knew how to play to get the maximum amount she could (no honor in her whatsoever, for sure - no respect of her at all from me, fwiw). The folks that came and ‘negotiated’ seemed to have had training in what could be offered and what the expected result was, so I assume (not declare, just assume this part) that LDS sent out missionary with some details of “If asked for something, here’s who to call to start that aspect”. The endpoint was to enroll that person ‘officially’, and money could/would flow to that end. At least to some degree. Analogous to carrot on a stick thing. It wasn’t a secret. I have no idea if that is unique unto Mormonism. Getting 'em to join was more important than getting 'em to actually believe. I will point out that I am NOT intending to imply that LDS will outright pay for/buy members. That is certainly not what I mean, but that LDS seemed to purchase favor of potential joiner unashamedly if situation called for such from blatantly dishonest person(s). I’ve probably tried to clarify too many times, if so, sorry. Clarity is important to me (and the Dope!).
Not sure if I mentioned this before, but all this was around 12-16 yrs ago, too. May not be applicable now at all. Shrug.
Hope you’re having fun, Ionizer.
Well, she had a card - I saw it. Her friends might have expressed the rule that way, not the people who ran the dance. Sounds like a better way of saying it to me.
The purpose of the dance was a kind of mixer for Mormon kids - I assume you don’t deny the pressure to marry inside the church, do you? Given that, and given who was paying for it, why would they open it to everyone? Did the ones you went to have a lot of non-LDS kids?
In a very Stepford wives sort of way.
They are harder to disprove ancient miracles than current miracles.
Well, its a lot more palatable than saying that Mary had sex before she got married, that Jesus was bastard.
Is that why Travolta is so into airplanes?
cite (not because I don’t believe you but because I am morbidly curious).
Some people might say the same thing about people who support murdering unborn babies.
Ionizer, Erdosain actually served as one of those missionaries. As have I for that matter. But both of us consider ourselves former/non-members of the church today, having left as adults. Let me state it clearly there is no “official” bribe/negotiations for new-members.
But that said, there is a huge emphasis on new conversions. And all members are supposed to proselytize their non-member friends, co-workers, relatives, neighbors, etc. I can easily imagine that a local ward (congregation) could get a little out of hand and take it beyond where the general church leaders would approve of.
In fact on my mission I knew a man, who had been a potential convert, but who declined to join. The reason he gave? He had too large a porn collection and he wasn’t willing to just toss it away. As he put it he had too large a sunk cost and he wasn’t willing to part with it (this was back when porn actually needed to be purchased). So the local ward held a fundraiser and bought his porn. After a few months, he decided that he really didn’t really want to be a Mormon after all. In the end most of that money went to refreshing his porn collection. I met him a couple of years later… actually by doing door-to-door tracting. And he showed me the collection proudly displayed in a series of bookshelves in his TV room; I declined his offer to sample some of it. But I did later confirm the basics of his story with the local membership.
So yes that kind of thing can happen. And if you throw in an eccentric rich local member… yeah I can see some incentives thrown around to potential member. But this a- would be very atypical and b- would be abhorrent to the church leadership. People are supposed to join for the spiritual benefits. Not for a free toaster (so to speak).
My concern about the moral disapproval of a bunch of woman hating bigots is nonexistent. Should I also care that the KKK doesn’t like me treating blacks as equals?
I disagree. I see no reason to believe that the observable laws of the universe did not apply in ancient times. To claim ones religion has veracity simply because it’s “older” is absurd.
This is awesome! What did they do with the porn? I’m imagining a bonfire of boobies. You went to Brazil, right? You guys always have the coolest mission stories.
I knew a guy that was the handyman for the mission president. His wife was a member but he was not. Anyway, he and his wife have the mission president, his family, a bunch of people from the ward all over to dinner. After dinner, the MP says, “Well, how are we going to get you to convert?” And the guy’s wife says, “Oh, he’ll never convert. He just loves watching those red-light movies too much.” The mission president was like, “What’s a red-light movie?” “Oh, you know, porno.” Best after-dinner conversation. Ever.
I believe Mormonism is popular because of the desire for morally justifiable polyamorous relationships (at least for the men). Personally I feel free to be polyamorous as an atheist, but I think some people need some sort of ‘divine right.’
Second, it justifies racism and animosity towards black people. Christians really have no answer for slavery other than ‘we fucked up.’ Mormons believe black people were demons, and so it gives them a clean conscience when it comes to being racist and explaining the horrible suffering many black people go through in the world. Who needs to justify God’s actions towards the black people suffering all over the world when they were the descendent’s of followers of Satan.
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As far as Scientology goes… it’s just a pyramid scheme. I bet most people don’t even believe in any of the actual religion. It’s just a way to avoid paying taxes while making millions of dollars off naive and lonely people. Though I am sure some genuinely believe.
When people question the authenticity about Scientology or Mormonism, they probably cite the fact that detractors say negative things about all ‘legit’ religions. Of course they don’t take into account that there is no God and all religions are wrong).
Still, you would think that being a new religion would hurt its credibility, but all religions were new at some point. Just goes to show you how gullible/desperate people are.
Maybe you should learn of what you speak?
I have a lot of respect for the Mormans, they do take care of their poor and do a lot of good. I don’t believe what they believe though. When I was in Utah my roommate was kind of a lapsed Morman. We got into a financial crisis and the church helped us out in exchange for us working at the Bishops storehouse for a day. Awesome concept that. I helped fix their roof, unload boxes, sweep…and was glad to do it. They gave us a ton of jello and a bunch of trout they had too much of.
However, the comment about them not stalking former members is a bit off. My friend, after we both left Utah, disappeared off the map. he had a ton of bill collectors chasing him, and pretty well dissapeared. Some time later some representatives of the church showed up on my doorstep in Texas looking for him. They weren’t able to find him, but figured out that we had lived in the same address in utah. It was a bit creepy, really, but they were nice enough about it.
Actually this was in Alabama. I had to go there after the MTC while I waited for my Brazilian long term stay visa to be issued. I think they tossed it in the dumpster at the local wardhouse. And given how well known the story was, I have always imagined that a fair amount migrated to whatever hidden stashes the teenage members had. It amuses me somewhat to think that they spent thousands to ultimately purchase porn for their own kids and then provided a covert distribution channel.
I should’ve been more succinct. I did not mean to imply outright bribery (or free toaster, LOL) as a general rule or the like. My admittedly hugely-restricted ‘insight’ of both in-front-of-my-eyes and ‘hearsay’ of near-exactly what I saw cannot qualify whatsoever as overall ‘policy’ of such a huge church organization.
My point is how it seemed that that particular ‘stake’ was really quick to pull out the checkbook/carrots if it were deemed probable to hasten a person onto Membership ‘rolls’. Nothing more, nor less, and obviously my ‘interpretation’ of what happened. It just seemed so different of an approach than other religions’ approach to “We want you to visit Church on Sunday and/or sign up”. The sign-up bit carried more emphasis than going to a particular address to ‘pray’, so to speak. No cite, no ‘evidence’ other than one little blip of personal experience(s) some time ago in Southern/Central Idaho.
That may have been true back in the 1800s. But polygamy is an excommunicatable offense today. I really can’t think of anything you can do that would get you kicked out of the church quicker. There is absolutely no accepted polygamy in the main LDS church today.
…? Not sure where you got this. I have never once heard that before. I don’t think there is a current official position relating to blacks that is any different than whites. Of course there is a common belief that black skin is the “Mark of Cain” and reinforced in the “Curse of Ham.” Blacks are said to be descendants of Cain through Ham’s wife. And that they were given this unenviable position because they had been less faithful in their pre-mortal existence. This used to be official teaching, but I am fairly certain it has been quietly discouraged for some time. As has been mentioned the church has been known to shift their doctrines from time to time. But even at the time this wasn’t something that Mormons made up of whole cloth. It is simply a variant of what a lot of white churches were teaching. If you read any collection of old southern baptist sermons, you’ll see plenty of it there as well. The big problem on the Mormons’ part is that they held onto it for a decade or two longer than most other churches.
But even when this was official doctrine, blacks were human… not demonic. And as such they were always capable of full salvation. While they were not allowed to participate fully in the church functions, or to achieve leadership positions in the church, they were still viewed as able to become gods in the afterlife, just like any white person.
On both polygamy and racism, the church leadership is PR savvy. And they are working very hard to stamp both out within the church, as they are aware what they do to the image of the church. Does the church have some racists? Certainly without any doubt, just like any other large entity. Did it used to be systemically and officially racist? Again absolutely. But if you want to go a hatin’, hate the church for their current sins of sexism and homophobia, not for something that was ended over 30 years ago.
That may have been true back in the 1800s. But polygamy is an excommunicatable offense today. I really can’t think of anything you can do that would get you kicked out of the church quicker. There is absolutely no accepted polygamy in the main LDS church today.
…? Not sure where you got this. I have never once heard that before. I don’t think there is a current official position relating to blacks that is any different than whites. Of course there is a common belief that black skin is the “Mark of Cain” and reinforced in the “Curse of Ham.” Blacks are said to be descendants of Cain through Ham’s wife. And that they were given this unenviable position because they had been less faithful in their pre-mortal existence. This used to be official teaching, but I am fairly certain it has been quietly discouraged for some time. As has been mentioned the church has been known to shift their doctrines from time to time. But even at the time this wasn’t something that Mormons made up of whole cloth. It is simply a variant of what a lot of white churches were teaching. If you read any collection of old southern baptist sermons, you’ll see plenty of it there as well. The big problem on the Mormons’ part is that they held onto it for a decade or two longer than most other churches.
But even when this was official doctrine, blacks were human… not demonic. And as such they were always capable of full salvation. While they were not allowed to participate fully in the church functions, or to achieve leadership positions in the church, they were still viewed as able to become gods in the afterlife, just like any white person.
On both polygamy and racism, the church leadership is PR savvy. And they are working very hard to stamp both out within the church, as they are aware what they do to the image of the church. Does the church have some racists? Certainly without any doubt, just like any other large entity. Did it used to be systemically and officially racist? Again absolutely. But if you want to go a hatin’, hate the church for their current sins of sexism and homophobia, not for something that was ended over 30 years ago.