Romney and Religion

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Posted By: magic823 @ 02/08/2008 10:31:22 AM

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  Posted By: djs444 @ 02/08/2008 11:11:51 AM

  Magic823: If you're going to making accusations or even loaded insinuations about the charitableness of the LDS Church, you should do your homework more thoroughly. As a registered religious organization, the LDS Church is tax-exempt in most, if not all, of the countries it operates in, including Great Britain. That tax-exempt status requires it to organize and conduct its affairs very carefully in each of those countries. As a result, the LDS Church has strict rules of operation and accounting practices that require it to keep most of the funds that it receives in that country. I don't know the exact numbers, but I do know that the LDS Church donated millions of dollars worth of humanitarian aid, mostly goods, directly to the Tsunami Victims, and tens of millions indirectly through the Red Cross. The vast majority of these funds would have come through the donations of its members in the U.S. Closer to home, the LDS Church was far and away the fastest, most active and most generous religious organization to mobilize and provide actual, tangible and financial assistance to victims of Hurricane Katrina, and there are dozens of news reports and thousands of victims' testimonies to prove it. I recall reading one quote from a victim who lost everything who said something to the effect of "No one else came or else they've already left, except the Mormons." Finally, the LDS Church provides hundreds of millions of dollars in money, goods and services, again sometimes directly and other times indirectly through the Red Cross, its preferred charitable donee. Most of those funds are spent in Africa, with one of the higher-profile programs being country-wide measles vaccinations that are having a huge impact in eradicating that disease over there.
  
  As you can probably tell, I'm LDS. I am not polemic, I respect others' religious views (which is, by the way, a fundamental tenet of LDS beliefs -- see the 11th Article of Faith) and like everyone else I have problems that I need to work out. However, I couldn't be more proud of my church, its members and leaders. This pride comes not just from our commitment to humanitarian causes, but our exemplary record in that regard plays a large part in why I feel as proud as I do. I hope that you can say the same about an organization -- religious or otherwise -- to which you give as much of your time, talents, energy and money as I and my family give to the LDS Church.

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    Posted By: magic823 @ 02/08/2008 12:10:04 PM

    Look at the accounting. Oh, you can't because the morg church doesn't publish it (like they have to in England where they have got caught for cheating).

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      Posted By: PMcAllister @ 02/08/2008 2:03:58 PM

      Magic823-
      How do you figure "they have got caught for cheating" in the UK? Where does it say in your data that the "Humanitarian Aid" donations collected were intended for Hurricane Katrina?
      
      As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who makes charitable donations to the church, I am aware that unless I specify a particular emergency fund that has been set up for a particular contemporary humanitarian crisis, that the donations I make on a regular basis are used in my local ward and stake (same as parish or diocese) to address humanitarian welfare needs among my neighbors first. If that money is not needed by those where I live, it is transferred to church headquarters where it is redistributed to other parts of the world where there are greater needs and inability or decreased ability by local members to make donations. For a worldwide church, only unfounded accusations can be made from your statistics, which only show charitable income and expenditure for a part of the world that has the most valuable currency in the world and a strong economy.
      
      If you could see the same statistics for third-world countries like those in Central America and Africa, you would see a counterbalance. The members in those countries are able to give very little, and they receive a great deal of humanitarian aid. That is the nature of Christianity. Members of the LDS church are taught that regardless of whether we are rich or poor, all that we have comes from God and we are all dependent on Him. That doctrine is found in the Book of Mormon (see below) as well as in the Bible.
      
      "16 And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish.
      17 Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just???
      18 But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent; and except he repenteth of that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God.
      19 For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind?" (Mosiah 4:16-19)"
      

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        Posted By: magic823 @ 02/08/2008 6:40:30 PM

        I put up the docs. Where is your proof? Where is the accounting from the US church? The morg church is a corporation masking as a religion.
        
        Your church is shrinking due to the Internet. Coverts are fleeing. As people find out about the lies they are quitting. The only places you are growing are third world nations were access to the Internet is hard to get and even there you lose over 75% of your converts.
        
        I was a morg for years, raised in it (BIC), Duty to God Award, 4 yr seminary, mission, married in the temple, and a Bishop. I was sicken my the lies I had been taught all my life. The mormon church was started by a pedophile that married and had sex with 14 year olds and other men's wifes. This is documented by people like Emma Smith (his wife) and Oliver Cowdry and by the church's own website (www.familyhistory.org)..

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          Posted By: PMcAllister @ 02/08/2008 11:10:26 PM

          magic823-Sincerely my heart goes out to you for the pain that you have in your heart. It is clear from the venom that drips from your indictment of the LDS Church that you may have left the church, but you can't leave the church alone. The truly sad thing is that you will find no solace in your efforts. Peace is contrary to the nature of anger and hate and will not be found in revenge.
          
          I have no desire to argue with you, nor do I feel the need to do so. You forget that by being the one who has made the claims that "the mormon church accepted donations for the tsunami and then kept them." and that the Mormon church has been "caught for cheating" in the UK, that the burden of proof is on you, not on me.
          
          Unfortunately, the "docs" you put up, are roughly equal to one of hundreds of footnotes to a single line of an income statement. You can't reasonably make assumptions about cheating without having the whole income statement in front of you. When you have evidence like that, and can illustrate that on a global scale, the revenues and expenditures of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints don't add up, then you will have a case. Until then, you are just trolling websites, looking for opportunities to spew angry rhetoric with a sparse smattering of patchwork "facts" that can be manipulated to suit your appetite for anti-Mormon polemic.