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I thought they were mandatory too. The ward clerk didn’t really give me an option at all lol. Not if I wanted an appointment but when I wanted my appointment. Just one mans perspective here. I’ve thought about the “increase” issue and I think it was morphed to 10% of your gross because frankly that’s the maximum that the church could turn that request into monetarily. Not to be the anti church guy but it’s pretty apparent that turning 10% increase into 10% of all of your income was done to maximize profit. No? This was a hot button in my home recently. I Am a convert and about two years old in the church. My wife is born and raised LDS and is blindly obedient to the church and church leaders. I paid 10% gross for a while and even though I’m a skeptic I readily admit that our life financially did get better while we were paying the full 10% gross tithe. I did this for about a year. Neither one of us were making much so the tithe wasn’t too large between $100-$200/ week. In that time I got the opportunity to quit my job in order to work on my own. My immediate income took a severe hit. It ended up working out though and 8 months later I’m now making double what I was, while working from home on my own schedule. The gas and daycare savings make my income closer to a 125% increase. While my income suffered at first however I cut my tithing down to what we could afford with three kids in the house and one full income and one very low income. Needless to say it wasn’t much. I felt it was reasonable however for what we could afford and what we used in resources at the church. After my income rebounded I continued to pay the same smaller amount. Frankly because there wasn’t a difference in blessings or anything like that. There was really no discernible difference except we had an extra several hundred dollars per moth in disposable income for car repairs, new appliances that were desperately needed etc. Not only that but the position has been brought to me a few times by church members that those that are the most righteous are the ones that prosper the most financially. This is obviously laughable and couldn’t possibly be true. There are plenty of a holes out there with much more money than good folks. That’s a ridiculous concept that I can’t stand. So when that belief was expose to me, along with the time paying a “full” tithe and the time paying a lesser tithe and not seeing really any difference convinced me that the 10% gross tithing rule in the church is an invention from the people collecting the money. So I do pay a tithe but I pay because I feel we should all pay something to help maintain the space we use. Not because I feel I owe it to god or because it’s in scripture or because the church says so. I refuse to pay a 10% gross tithe. It’s too much and I couldn’t in good conscience cut a 5 figure check to the church every year. I know people that pay 15-20k a year to the church. That to me is not justifiable and I wouldn’t do it. I feel that my offering of money weekly along with the volunteer work I do in the church in a young men’s leadership position is a lot and I’m proud of my contribution. My wife gets scared that we won’t be taken care of by god without paying a full 10% but I have convinced her to trust me for a while and she will see that it’s not all that she thinks it is. P.s. In my tithing settlement meeting a few weeks ago I was asked if I was a full tithe payer and said yes. My wife asked not to go to the settlement meeting. She said she didn’t feel well but I know she felt like I wasn’t being honest with the bishop. I feel that I was. My meeting though felt more like a shakedown than a meeting and I know he was skeptical of my claim of a full tithe payer. He didn’t question me directly, but he took more than 1 look at my statement while we talked. Lol. I feel I pay a full an fair tithe though. The shakedown image I got from my meeting was the final nail in my tithing coffin. It’ll never ever ever for any reason go back to paying what they want me to pay.
mackay11 wrote:Shawn wrote:On Own Now wrote:Specifics, as I understand them:
– The beginning of tithing is to give all your surplus to the church, retaining only what you need for your operating expenses.
– The ‘standing law’, then comes into effect which is that for the rest of their lives, they are to give one-tenth of their “interest” annually.
Based on that, I don’t believe that tithing is a ‘standing law’ to the church, but rather that after giving all surplus, a standing law goes into effect for ‘them’, that is the people referenced in the revelation… the people of the early church gathering to Zion.
The law has already been changed, in that we no longer (thankfully) give all our surplus. I believe it is also changed because we now use ‘income’ as our basis, rather than ‘interest’, which I would take to be ‘growth’. It’s an OK trade-off, because the surplus thing would be tough.
You make a very good point. Since we no longer hand over all our surplus stuff initially, I have been skipping that part of D&C 119 but still using the “pay one-tenth of all their interest annually” part. I now suppose none of D&C 119 is applicable to me. What an interesting concept.So if we’ve shown that 119 is redundant and given we don’t believe in ‘the church of Joseph Smith’ then the 1970 letter (now in CH1) should be the only definition that matters.
Problem is, 1970 is ambiguous.
I’m trying to feel ok with income/interest as the ‘net after essential costs’ – but it still doesn’t. I’m fine with ‘money into bank’ (salary after deductions by company at source… Tax etc). This is a new attitude. I used to tithe on what my contract said (pre-tax).
Maybe it’ll change in future to another perspective.
In the end, as long as I make a willing donation that I feel is acceptable to God, it doesn’t make a jot of difference what church policy is. I give it to God, not the corporation. If I am and He are happy with the contribution I make to Him then we’re all square and I’m a full tithe payer.
This is going to be my new attitude towards tithing. My wife and all of her church friends all say that anything less than 10% of gross is not acceptable, but I don’t feel that 10% of every gross dollar I make is fair really. I paid that for about a year (which admittedly isn’t a ton of money unfortunately)
AngryMormon wrote:rebeccad wrote:The problem is that what people are told is up to the whim of the temple worker who talks to them that day.
I would really like if what was written stayed the same, and nothing was added to it.
What we really need is consistency!
I think the problem is that we are willing to accept and open ourselves up to what the temple worker is telling us in first place. I think if we make decesions on how to wear our underwear based on what some random stranger tells us, we are setting ourselves up for some difficulty. I think what we really need is not to ask the temple worker in the first place.
In my case I didn’t ask the temple workers, the temple president sat down with me and told me how the garments were expected to be worn, and treated. So all the information I received on them I took to be the the “company line” on the subject. Not just one mans interpretation.
Kipper wrote:The handbook and temple interview both said specifically to wear the garments when doing yard work. They also say to put them back on after swimming and not to lounge around the yard or house without them. This annoys me to no end. Is it immoral to feel the sun and wind on your body and skin? Close your eye, put headphones in and lounge on the patio? Spend Saturday morning working in the garden in shorts and no shirt?
I agree. I hate wearing them when I sleep. I’m getting used to it, but that was a major adjustment. I live in Florida and when the heat index is 105 and I’m out cutting the grass the shirt comes off!
When My twins recently got married, the thing that surprised me, was that they told them they shouldn’t be hung out on a clothes line where people could see—-i had never been told that when i got married. I used to love to hang my garments on the line when I had one—because they smelled so good—at least my back yard was relatively private. If I should ever have a clothes line again, I willhave to find a way to hang them on the line and still be respectful of not letting them be out in public view—Maybe hand them between 2 rows of sheets?
I think there are many Garment do’s and don’ts that are entirely made up. Ever heard that they shouldn’t touch the floor, or that they should be washed seperately, or that they should be washed by hand? Have you heard that they shouldn’t be seen by people who wouldn’t understand their meaning, but that they shouldn’t be removed just to avoid curious questions from others? Have you heard that the garment top and the garment bottom must always be worn together and you must never pin or otherwise modify the garment, but that the garments shouldn’t be removed for activities that could reasonably be done with them on.
I think the garment should be respected both as a reminder of sacred promises and out of deference to all the individuals that view the garment itself as sacred. I believe how you choose to go about showing that respect should be up to you.
A lot of those things you have in the first paragraph are true. My endowment ceremony is pretty recent so I know y info was fresh. My garments are growing on me. I hated them at first but they are slowly becoming more comfortable. I can’t wear them though if I know I’m about to sweat. Yard work, lifting etc they get wet and really uncomfortable.
What do you think the male porn watching % in the church is? I’ve heard people throw around numbers like 70%, but I go to church and I look around and I’m like nahhh. Not these guys. There’s no way 7/10 of these guys are really watching porn on occasion. Tell me I’m naive Cadence wrote:Most questions could be put to rest if we had those gold plates to examine. Until then it is fiction from the get go to me. I just no longer can give religion a pass on supporting evidence when I can not do it in the rest of my life.
The fact that the Angels came back for the plates that were originally buried in a hill is the part of that whole story that is maybe the most unbelievable to me. I mean, those plates sat in upstate New York for all that time and angels were concerned about others examining them? That’s very fishy to me.
Cadence wrote:Sorry I am in the same boat. There is no way I can believe like I once did. To much evidence to the contrary. Maybe you are trying to gain a testimony of something that does not exist. I believe things that are true tend to be self evident. I do not need to gain a testimony of gravity. I can not see it but it is obvious that it exists and effects my life. I do not have wake up each day praying for gravity to remain a part of my life.
If I have to work so hard to believe something that is so elusive As a real testimony of the church I have determined it is not worth the effort.This is about where I’m at too. I just said this to myself the other day. If I have to continually convince myself that this is true, can it possibly be true? I know the truth when I see it in this world and the things I know are true I never question at all. The people I know in the church say that thoughts of doubt are created by satan and things like that, but really it’s starting to sound a whole lot like my conscience telling me…..dude, you better think about all this.
Brown wrote:Old-Timer wrote:
I believe in the principle of prospering in the land by keeping the commandments –at the communal level; I do NOT believe in it at the individual level. Life has taught me that – clearly and undeniably. I think there is some truth to that, but not because God will bless the society. If the majority of people are honest, charitable, forgiving, non-violent, respectful of property, etc, then that makes for a happy and safe society. It’s kind of like we all bless ourselves and others by living the commandments.
I really like this, and I agree. Being obedient to the words of wisdom can’t help but to improve your life. No body is better off for drinking alcohol or coffee, and no one is better off for having a crappy diet. That doesn’t necessarily mean that god has blessed you for being obedient, it means you’re putting good things in your body, therefore you are probably healthier and more alert day to day than you would be otherwise. Living the commandments and being loving to your family and friends, not lying, cheating and stealing, etc can’t help but to improve your life.
Roy wrote:Orson wrote:On the other hand physical fruits can be obvious, but personally I think in our culture the signals have gotten crossed and people have attributed physical fruits to spiritual efforts in error.
This was
thebig false assumption that caused my faith crisis. Yes, I knew that bad things happen to good people. I just felt that being a member of the true church, and paying an honest tithe, and wearing the temple garment properly, and honoring my priesthood would A) mitigate the bad that must happen and 
would outright prevent bad that was preventable. I felt that I had heard a million stories with just that theme. Wasn’t the whole message of the BOM that righteous people will prosper in the land? What is the quantifiable benefit of doing these things?My introduction had this same title: When bad things happen to good people –
http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1937 I also have belatedly come to the worldview where God doesn’t or can’t intervene in daily life. This does cause me to disbelieve many divine intervention stories. When I hear people saying that fortuitous coincidences where put in motion by God for their personal benefit, then I tell myself that their interpretation helps them to be happy and see the world as a comfortable and safe place. I am genuinely happy for them in their interpretation; it just doesn’t work for me.
The one exception in my worldview of the “divine non-interference clause” is to send a general sense of peace and wellbeing. I want to believe that God sends these “love taps” to remind us that he cares – so I do.
Thank you for this. I mean, it just doesn’t make any sense to think that god intervene in peoples lives when you see things like that. How is it possible? Does god really love Donald Trump more than me? Is he really that much more obedient? Etc. Of course not….so isn’t it kind of silly to pray for help finding your wallet or pray that your big order will come in at work? If that doesn’t make any sense to do, what sense does it make to fast? What sense does it make to pay tithing? The church is running out of places to hide money evidently, what’s the point of paying my hard earned few bucks? If I fast, is god really going to grant me with what I pray for? What if I pray for a better job opportunity, will that really be granted? …? I’m glad I’m not the only one that struggles with questions like that.
