The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church

Re:The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church by WheelsAtLarge on Saturday February 08, 2020 @03:57PM (#22278288)

Just a note on leaving the church: when you leave you leave all the people you have known all your life. Since you spend so much time in church activities fellow members become your extended family. When you leave you understand that the only reason you had contact with your extended family is because of the church. You become the lone man out. It's extremely hard to rebuild relationships outside the church. I don't think most shun you but some will. The members don't work to reach out unless it's to ask you to return to the church. It's very hard to leave.

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Re:The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church by oyebenny on Saturday February 08, 2020 @06:14PM (#22279287)

Why do I feel like you just describe my after college graduation experience.

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Re:The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church by benatkin on Saturday February 08, 2020 @06:36PM (#22279382)

That's true, as someone who both quit the mormon church, and went was an undergrad for five years and got the full college experience. Right now I actually feel more connected to mormons I grew up with than the college friends, though I have more college friends on Facebook.

In case you're wondering if I really quit the mormon church: note that I'm still calling them mormons when the mormons stopped calling themselves mormons. https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/08/16/lds-church-wants-ever...

Edit: and if you're wondering if I really graduated college - I have no idea where my diploma is and if I've ever seen it. I owed the school a few hundred bucks and didn't get it when I walked, but perhaps I got it when I paid off my account - I don't remember.

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Re:The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church by BubRoss on Saturday February 08, 2020 @08:56PM (#22279901)

Organized religion is a great way to sell people their own family and community back to them.

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Re:The vast but little-known fund of the Mormon Church by wwweston on Saturday February 08, 2020 @10:26PM (#22280203)

There's a real point in that statement, but it's overstated, like saying a University sells you your own brain and community back to you. Sure, you can be an autodidact and get quite an education at the library, you might even be able to find one way or another to rub elbows with the members of a community if it didn't host a university, but a good University will facilitate both at a level

Of course, there's for-profit colleges which provide terrible value at an outrageous cost, and even among "legit" universities or courses of study have more value than others. And back at the topic there's real questions about a church that's acquired assets on the scale the LDS church has. What transparency obligations does it have to the membership that contributed those funds? Should there be dues/tithing, or show the assets function as an endowment to support the activities of the institution while mitigating what members are asked to contribute? If an institution claims divine authority and also reaches the point where it no longer requires contributions in order to sustain it, does that mean it can be more careless with the confidence of those members (and if not, what would prevent that)?

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