LDSToronto wrote: Well I'm not, so I'm not. I'm actually a poor African Mormon who has sent his sons away to earn a few thousand dollars so our family can travel to the temple and be exalted in the highest degree of glory. My boys will return in a few years from the diamond mines with a meagre amount. Unfortunately, I also have an E.coli infection due to the water quality in my village. The missionaries were by to assure me God gives me this blessing to make me stronger. I sure wish God had blessed me with a mall or a water filtration system instead.
H.
And your point is? If the church gave one billion to africa do you really think that it will any difference? How much has gone to africa and yet, the conditions are still the same. We just need to look at Bob Geldorf and band aid. Many band aids are still needed and all that money went into the garbage can. And look at haiti. Billions were collected for haiti and what has happened? Not much. True, this is unfortunate but such is corruption. However, to teach people skills to work and provide employment is definitely a good way to do charity.
" If the church gave one billion to africa do you really think that it will any difference?" I am sure it would make a difference to the people it reached. You make it sound like there is nothing positive going on in Africa which is just not true. I can't tell you how sad it makes me that you somehow think that the people of SLC deserve the money more.
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo
Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man. - The Dude
Don't you know there ain't no devil, there's just god when he's drunk - Tom Waits
"We urge all Latter-day Saints to be prudent in their planning, to be conservative in their living, and to avoid excessive or unnecessary debt. The financial affairs of the Church are being managed in this manner, for we are aware that your tithing and other contributions have not come without sacrifice and are sacred funds. " Thomas S. Monson, The Prophet, 2008
"One...Two...Three...LET'S GO SHOPPING" Thomas S. Monson, The Prophet, 2012
From the Provident Living counsel on family finances...
Successful family finances begin with the payment of an honest tithe and the giving of a generous fast offering. The Lord has promised to open the windows of heaven and pour out great blessings upon those who pay tithes and offerings faithfully (Malachi 3:10 and Isaiah 58: 6–12).
Tithing
If our tithing is the first obligation met, our commitment to this important gospel principle will be strengthened and the likelihood of financial mismanagement will be reduced.
“We look to not only the spiritual but also the temporal, and we believe that a person who is impoverished temporally cannot blossom spiritually.” Keith McMullin - Counsellor in Presiding Bishopric
"One, two, three...let's go shopping!" Thomas S Monson - Prophet, Seer, Revelator
I wish they would show where all the tithing money went. I have seen figures that a ward can bring in as much as a million dollars in a ward a year. Then the ward gets back around $6000 for an operating budget. Does any one know if these numbers are acurate? I know there is a lot of expence to up keep to buildings but I still think the church comes out way ahead. I know the church has employees that travel all over the world buying up farms. My wife told me that a guy she knows works in this position and was headed down to Peru to buy some kind of nut farm.