My Anecdotal Experience with the $100B Revelation
Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2020 4:53 pm
I was discussing the $100B with my TBM wife and we were talking about why it angers some people so much. I had the thought that it is just another permutation of the Problem of Evil. She hadn't heard of that so I explained it like this: some feel that if God has the power to stop some horrible event, like the rape of a child for instance, and he fails to intervene to stop the event from occurring, he gains some complicity in the act itself. That's the standard I would hold myself to if I were witnessing such an act, were in total power to stop it, and failed to do so. Presumably, an all-powerful and all-knowing God is all three of those things in every case of a horrible event like a child rape. OK, Problem of Evil covered.
I explained that there is a great deal of evil and suffering in the world that a common man such as myself is aware of, but I really lack the power to make any real dent in them, so I try to find ways to better the world on a small scale and I have to just accept that the vast majority of the world is outside of my influence. This is very different than the situation with the church. Your sphere of influence gets quite large when you possess $100B; at that point you have enough to make very real and very measurable differences in the world's problems if you choose to. Bill and Melinda Gates seem to be taking this path and I admire them a lot for it. $40M out of $100B (.04%) per year does not represent a serious effort to do good in the world with your money. It is similar to me sacrificing $50 per year to better the world. (Actually, that's not really a good comparison, since I have mandatory expenses and taxes that need to come out of my salary; the church's fund is 100% gravy.) So what makes people like me mad is that the church now has immense power to do great good on a global scale, but doesn't seem to be doing much except promoting itself.
My wife indicated that she understood that line of reasoning and why it would bother people (I sensed maybe some reluctance to empathize too deeply with the Problem of Evil as applied to God). She then shared with me that she has essentially lost confidence in nontransparent LDS church processes and would no longer tithe to the church. I felt my jaw really wanting to drop to the floor but somehow managed to keep it up through sheer strength of will. I mean, she earns no income so doesn't currently pay anything but hearing that she wouldn't even if she did really kind of shocked me.
I think a lot of mistrust of the leadership hierarchy was sown in her mind a year or so earlier by the fact that she wrote several letters to church leaders and the church legal department informing them of her knowledge that a currently-serving bishop sexually abused someone as a teen to which the church took no action (he still serves to this day and presumably talks sex details with children one-on-one).
She is noticing that church leaders aren't denying anything about the $100B sum or the transfers to for-profit businesses, and that there are weasel-words and misdirection in their statements. I think she knows deep down that the church would immediately deny if the allegations were false. The church leaders have lost her trust. She claims to still be a believing Mormon but this all leaves me wondering what the nature of her belief really is. I guess that's what the next conversation will be...or not. Years ago I decided that I would support her as a Mormon until the day I died if she would support me as an ex-Mormon and not treat me as some kind of misguided fool. She has held her end of the bargain so I feel zero desire to influence her relationship with the church. I just genuinely have trouble understanding how anyone could want to maintain any kind of relationship with such a controlling organization once trust in the leadership is lost. It baffles me.
Anyway, I think that while the revelation of the $100B sum maybe doesn't do that much with the TBMest of the TBMs, its effect is yet to be felt fully. It really smashes the perception that the church is using its means to do great good in the world, which is something I believed strongly back in my TBM days, despite the complete lack of supporting evidence. Today's TBMs don't get to feel that anymore, instead they get to feel proud that the church is doing everything it can to build a power fund to achieve financial dominance. Certain personalities will love that; others may not.
And most gratifyingly, I don't think the church will ever receive another dollar from my household and for that I am very grateful for this information to have been made public.
Anyone else have any stories/thoughts to share?
I explained that there is a great deal of evil and suffering in the world that a common man such as myself is aware of, but I really lack the power to make any real dent in them, so I try to find ways to better the world on a small scale and I have to just accept that the vast majority of the world is outside of my influence. This is very different than the situation with the church. Your sphere of influence gets quite large when you possess $100B; at that point you have enough to make very real and very measurable differences in the world's problems if you choose to. Bill and Melinda Gates seem to be taking this path and I admire them a lot for it. $40M out of $100B (.04%) per year does not represent a serious effort to do good in the world with your money. It is similar to me sacrificing $50 per year to better the world. (Actually, that's not really a good comparison, since I have mandatory expenses and taxes that need to come out of my salary; the church's fund is 100% gravy.) So what makes people like me mad is that the church now has immense power to do great good on a global scale, but doesn't seem to be doing much except promoting itself.
My wife indicated that she understood that line of reasoning and why it would bother people (I sensed maybe some reluctance to empathize too deeply with the Problem of Evil as applied to God). She then shared with me that she has essentially lost confidence in nontransparent LDS church processes and would no longer tithe to the church. I felt my jaw really wanting to drop to the floor but somehow managed to keep it up through sheer strength of will. I mean, she earns no income so doesn't currently pay anything but hearing that she wouldn't even if she did really kind of shocked me.
I think a lot of mistrust of the leadership hierarchy was sown in her mind a year or so earlier by the fact that she wrote several letters to church leaders and the church legal department informing them of her knowledge that a currently-serving bishop sexually abused someone as a teen to which the church took no action (he still serves to this day and presumably talks sex details with children one-on-one).
She is noticing that church leaders aren't denying anything about the $100B sum or the transfers to for-profit businesses, and that there are weasel-words and misdirection in their statements. I think she knows deep down that the church would immediately deny if the allegations were false. The church leaders have lost her trust. She claims to still be a believing Mormon but this all leaves me wondering what the nature of her belief really is. I guess that's what the next conversation will be...or not. Years ago I decided that I would support her as a Mormon until the day I died if she would support me as an ex-Mormon and not treat me as some kind of misguided fool. She has held her end of the bargain so I feel zero desire to influence her relationship with the church. I just genuinely have trouble understanding how anyone could want to maintain any kind of relationship with such a controlling organization once trust in the leadership is lost. It baffles me.
Anyway, I think that while the revelation of the $100B sum maybe doesn't do that much with the TBMest of the TBMs, its effect is yet to be felt fully. It really smashes the perception that the church is using its means to do great good in the world, which is something I believed strongly back in my TBM days, despite the complete lack of supporting evidence. Today's TBMs don't get to feel that anymore, instead they get to feel proud that the church is doing everything it can to build a power fund to achieve financial dominance. Certain personalities will love that; others may not.
And most gratifyingly, I don't think the church will ever receive another dollar from my household and for that I am very grateful for this information to have been made public.
Anyone else have any stories/thoughts to share?