Bob Loblaw wrote:You are an absolute joy to watch. I've never seen anyone so skillfully turn banal and self-evident statements into bitter anti-Mormon rantings.
Banal, I agree. Self-evident? Not so much.
Although to those who know nothing at all about astronomy, it is "self-evident" that the sun revolves around the earth. So maybe to those who assume everything revolves around them, these paranoid accusations are equally "self-evident."
Bob Loblaw wrote:In tithing, we have a system by which people donate a fixed percentage of their income, which is then handled and transferred by volunteers. Most reasonable people would say that's a pretty efficient way of raising money with little overheard. But not you. You claim that the only people would conclude that raising money is a primary goal of such a system are evil reprobates who hate God and all that is good in the world.
That's a straw man, an obvious and clearly deliberate misrepresentation of what I said.
Of course tithing is a way of raising money. Nobody disputes that, and as a tithe payer I'm delighted that my money is going to the best of all possible causes.
But (and I see why you don't respond point-by-point as I do) I remind you of what I wrote:
Pahoran wrote:If the Church was only interested in making money (and even our most virulent enemies agree that it knows how to do that) then a lot of what goes on around tithing actually makes the process less efficient.
Now, would you care to respond to what I actually said, instead of what you ASSume I said?
And this:
Pahoran wrote:In particular, the two things that people have complained about most bitterly in this thread -- Tithing Settlement and the non-publication of online tithe payment facilities -- cannot possibly be explained in terms of either revenue generation or "control."
Note that, early in the thread, snarler #1 whinged long and loud that the Church made it harder for members to pay tithing online because "revenues must be down." I was commenting upon a claim that is absurd on its face -- making the donation process more time-consuming and less convenient is clearly
not calculated to increase revenues. I pointed out that I have paid tithing exlusively online for two years, and my donation statements always show the online donations. The notion that bishops personally monitor individual tithe payments is a
lunatic fringe fantasy, but even if it were true, online payments wouldn't hold them back.
Bob Loblaw wrote:Then we have tithing settlement, whereby these donors meet with an authority figure to assure him, in front of God no less, that they are paying what they should.
That doesn't resemble my experience of tithing settlment; in fact, I rather think that you know that you have misrepresented the facts. They meet with the bishop to (1) check whether the recorded amounts are correct, and (2) declare whether or not the amount represents a full tithe for the year. As to the first point, I have found errors in tithing settlement, and upon investigation, the record was corrected. As to the second, when for whatever reason I've told the bishop that the total was not a full tithe, he hasn't said anything about it, but simply made the notation without comment.
Bob Loblaw wrote:Most reasonable people would acknowledge that there is a strong element of control in that practice.
There are a couple of spelling mistakes in that, and an omission. Permit me to correct them for you.
Bob Loblaw wrote:Most completely uninformed people would assume, and all completely hostile ones would assert, that there is a strong element of control in that practice.
There; fixed.
Bob Loblaw wrote:But not you. You tell us that only virulent enemies of the church could reach such a hateful conclusion.
Only if they claim to know what they are talking about.
Bob Loblaw wrote:I can't wait to see what you come up with next. Perhaps you can claim that war does not involve violence, or the Olympics do not involve athletes.

Or that there are no anti-Mormons here in the sty?
Regards,
Pahoran