DiscussMormonism.com

I visited a Mormon church three times. They are nice people, but realized after doing research I had no real chance of being a part of the congregation due to the impossible warding rules.

As I pointed out when I first started on this website, I am a veteran and cancer survivor, had two surgeries at the beginning of this year, was living in my van, then crashed my van. This year has been a epic stream of bad luck. I asked my two teenage missionaries if I was allowed to be baptized, given I was homeless, and showed them people on reddit saying missionaries absolutely were not allowed to, and I give them screen shots of the part of the missionary manual saying so (5.12) but it was rewritten since and that isn't in there. They never explicitly said no, and even gave me a call last night asking if I was coming in, and said yes, but it's been eating away at me that getting baptized and joining a ward was one and the same thing, and if I was part of the ward, I'd be expected to start putting 10% in. Now I completely understand the argument, 10% of $0 is $0, but other things would immediately trigger. Like, the Bishop would know I am homeless. In 99% of churches if you go without giving offerings, at worst people thing you cheap. Other Mormons would expect to visit my house every few months apparently.... I live along a stretch of railroad tracks in the woods where a illegalbMexican just had his dog cut in half by a train. I found it's top half last week there, gotta pass it everytime I pick up food. There is no way I'm letting anyone visit me.

There is also the fear they will try to help me, and it would be the most worthless kind of help, like a food card for $50. Is that bad? No, but that just prolongs the inevitable, I need a job, not a home cook meal. And that's all they talked about the last two Sundays was helping the poor during service, and I gotta get up super early in the morning and wash myself with cold water so they don't suspect something is off about me.

I was attracted to the Mormon Church because I'm a member of the prohibition party, Mormons embrace that, I really don't get the no coffee and tea stuff while everyone is binge drinking caffinatwd soda, it's a weird but very minor thing. I thought the Mormons were closer to classic Stoic and Peripetitic virtue philosophy, the kind the New Testiment embraced, but then it occurred to me.... I'm never going to he allowed to go to someone's wedding in the church. I'm a 42 Homeless, Unemployed cancer survivor, so getting married is almost certainly not on the table, but unless I'm baptizing someone off ancentry.com, I'll never be allowed into the temple. I mean, I really don't have a desire to go into a temple, I was in the first one in Kirkland, Ohio years back on a visit, but everyone puts that really high up in importance in the religion, and I am automatically excluded. I can save a schoolbus of kids from falling off a cliff into the ocean, and a exception is never going to be made for me to go sit and just contemplate life and my soul in the Temple if I so need it. That feels insulting.

So I'm going to have to opt out. I gotta wake up at 5:30 and walk a few hours just to get there.

I will say nobody outright told me no. Just.... it's not even the usual reasons people give for not wanting to be a Mormon, it's more the Warding issue. I wasn't seeking to be a parasite, but everyone in the men's group is apparently a businessman and I can't even find work repairing broken wood pallets together or cleaning human remains off a clinic floor for 5 hours a week (actually jobs I've been rejected from despite no criminal record). The lack of job wouldn't be a issue in most Christian congregations.

If there is ever a higher up Mormon decision to tackle the Wards in the church in the future, I'd recommend someone bring this up. Someone sincerely interested in the church but not wanting to be embarrassed about their situation is going to feel left out.

As to the two missionary boys, I feel sorry for them. If it was a simple matter of getting the dunk and that's it, I would let them have my baptism. But it doesn't end there. I would immediately be pulled into a ward with lots of very difficult to dodge questions, the kind most other churches wouldn't even occur to ask. Alot of embarrassment and shame is keeping me from joining.

You dodged a bullet. There are plenty of better Christian churches to join.

Vegetius wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 27, 2025 10:32 pm

In 99% of churches if you go without giving offerings, at worst people thing you cheap.

Don't think so. I most other churches they'd probably think you send in offering by sending a check in the mail or drop off at the church office every month or even drop a check in the plate monthly or whatever. I don't think people are even paying attention to it because there are multiple options for giving besides dropping cash in the offering plate every Sunday so don't worry about that at all. Ever.

FYI: I am not now nor have I ever been Mormon.

Other stuff if you feel like reading and answering...if not...just skip the whole post.

I don't know if any of this is possible for you.

Can you get yourself to a military base with a chapel? If so, you might check in to the services.

If you have a military ID (you do, right?) you can go shower at the base gym before services.Then you can get a warm shower at least once a week AND go to church in the same trip.

If you can yourself on a base with all of the above, you could talk to the Protestant Pastor or Catholic Priest and ask to use their shower in the chapel.

I don't exactly know how to help with a job. I'll think about that. One contact can lead to another though, you know.

With regard to food...some churches run their own food pantry. My spouse volunteers at the food pantry run by the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church he goes to. There are 2 in our area run by 2 different Missouri Synod churches. If you can get to a food pantry even once you might be able to meet someone you can buddy up a ride with, Maybe volunteer in the food pantry and get picked up by a church member...or talk to the church pastor about your circumstances...even the shower...most churches have a shower in the building and...good fellowship meals on Wednesday nights. You could get a meal. Make a friend. It would be a start!

I'll see if I can think up any other stuff up for you. I can be pretty good at it sometimes. Oh and...welcome to the Board!

Here's another question. I'm posting it by itself because it might generate it's own discussion. I didn't read all of your posts. I'm not being nosy. I want to understand where you're coming from about church attendance.

Why do you want to go to church?

Appearances are more important in the very judgmental, LDS wards than in many of the other denominations which I have attended, even on just one occasion. No doubt about that. Mormon God is a respecter of persons. It's a prosperity gospel. Mormon Jesus prefers rubbing elbows with the rich.

It's pointless going on to a military base just for the chapel. A chapel is a chapel, regardless. You will see nuances, like on my old base up in Anchorage, Alaska I remember there was a work detail where the military chaplain made a work detail move the displays for baby Christ and the three wise men out of storage and place it outside of the forts chapel. They didn't set up the display, they just left it outside, but in marching formation- the three wise men, the plastic camels, baby Jesus laying in the straw, all in marching formation. They even put on blue and yellow reflecting vests on everyone to make it look just like a troop procession. It was so funny, catching attention, the Chaplin left it that way for a few weeks. But outside of that, a military service is going to look alot like a normal service.... minus a priest usually cause it's rare you'll get a priest of the denomination you are a member of on post, so they are lay services.

Reason I wanted to return to church is because I don't expect to live much longer. I studied alot of philosophy from around the world, and wanted to see some church still upholding old stoic and peripatetic virtue ethics. It's smeared through the new testament like Jam. I'm heavily influenced by thinkers like Arius Didymus, the court philosopher to Emperor Augustus. It was his idea to kill Julius Caesar's child with Cleopatra to Emperor Augustus, and he appears to of been the think tank behind Rome adopting monogamous marriages, no cheating, estate management between husband and wife (regardless of class if free), etc.

That's the ethical foundations of Christianity. It was cemented just prior to Jesus being born, and Jesus was crucified during the reign of Augustus' successor, Tiberius, just in case someone wants to argue otherwise. Alot of Stoic vocabulary made it into the new testament, primarily via the school of Antioch.

When I walk around here, or visit churches, I see alot of Trans flags, pro gay, extremely woke. I have little doubt most are into the drug culture.

I'm a bit like Cicero- we are both trained skeptics, so whatever the system you present to me of facts the faithful are supposed to believe in, my brain starts deconstructing it. It is highly developed, in the end I am incapable of believing in anything on one level. Cicero struggled with this on the one hand being a priest in the priesthood to Gods he wasn't exactly convinced of, but went through the motions. He wasn't a atheist though. He still had a instinct for god and religion.

Basically whatever set of facts a church is going to put in front of me, my analytic mind is eventually going to break down into oblivion. I still believe in God in the end, because I have a instinct for God. What matters more is a community, whatever the psychobable they promote about their authentic origins and miracles, is that they are living authentic Christian lives of a sort. Esrly church Christian father's delved into the Greek classics and embraced Greek ethics and philosophy. I really don't see anyone doing that. Most Protestant churches are a wreck. Over 50% divorce rate. Mormons are half that. It was a pragmatic point I look into them.

What I find weird is the masonic hand shakes (saw yesterday some guy was risen in a priesthood, four guys actually doing the handshakes to one another while putting their hands on his head), but that is a incredibly minor thing. My question would be, does it work pragmatically in keeping him and the larger church in line?

Well.... no. Only a small portion of the 10% tithe goes to the needs of church members. Rest gets vacuumed into oblivion. You expect temple and ward building elsewhere, that's a obvious given (I've seen evidence of stake redistricting to make wards that already have a nearby temple build a closer one, so it might not work that way). You expect funds to be given out to help the poor. But what you actually see is just a $300 billion piggybank ran by the Mormon church. They make teenagers, a age group wholly inappropriate to talk to a war veteran twice their age who has read into just about every religion on the planet, pay for their own missionary services. Supposedly they get a free degree at a BYU branch- if they actually get it, that's not too bad, but I suspect many don't, much like the Military GI Bill. Attrition for whatever reason is going to think the ranks of actual receivers of their benefits.

If they were using the argument they built up those funds over a century, and are funding either projects off the dividends or interest, like ward building or helping elderly members pay for their cancer, that 10% would still be worth it. But I am riding 4th class on the titanic right now. I had a kidney removed due to cancer, brain surgury, homeless and unemployed, and have been applying to literally anything, and nobody seems remotely interested in hiring me. I have enough money just to buy one more month of three cheapest plan of Walmart's prepaid phone cards so I can get text messages for interviews. My food stamps end in September. I am wearing the shoes daily meant to be just work shoes (non slip) because my old shoes disintegrated. I am so desperate I am applying for jobs just 5-10 hours work a week to keep alive.

If I got baptised.... with one of those jobs, I would be expected to pay my 10%. I'm literally at the very bottom of the economic barrel.... and I know while some of that is possibly going to people who need help in the ward, I know all I am doing is funding more stock buying, with no Mormon masterplan revealed on what they plan on doing with that money. If I was let in on that plan, I might say it is worth the sacrifice. But that sacrifice is literally me deciding to give up buying propane to cook ramen noodles that paycheck.

They really need a opt out for the very impoverished. Like, no senior citizens only living off social security. That's default, obvious. Other groups can be carved out.

I'm happy in Utah, the church finally is starting prison outreach social services, getting homeless and felons job training, read about a forklift operator training. This is stuff they should've been doing from the beginning once the Mormons stopped living in the communes like in the TV show "Hell On Wheels". Christians have been doing this to various degrees since the 1st century. It's a Christian thing to do. Why it only started in the 21st century is beyond me. But better late than never. And that better be funded off that $300 billion piggy bank, not further fund raising from ward members.

So at this time, Mormons have issues. I would basically have to reject the 10% tithe until I could feed myself and get a minivan to live in. And the threats would ring remarkably hollow because threatening to deny me a temple recommend denies me nothing as I can't get married in my penniless, cancerous state. I don't think I have cancer right now, but can't even go into getting the scans I'm supposed to get every 6 months and annually, because if they detect I have cancer, I couldn't have surgury cause I am homeless. I did it living out of a van in the winter and it was hell. Having to do it out of a tent.... no. It will catch infection and I'll die in a fevor. Which should definitely qualify me for a exemption on the 10%.... cause I clearly have a greater need for that money than Salt Lake City does.

Also, almost every Mormon I knew prior were druggies. The core church is pristine and pure acting in behavior, but couldn't help notice they were all businessmen. Listen, I could probably fit in if I started dropping knowledge of the Keynesian, Chicago and Austrian economic models, or chit chat about various managerial and leadership models I know, my knowledge of Adam Smith, etc. But that's a evident contradiction to the people I see who still identify as Mormons but clearly not in church, F'd out of their minds on drugs. Mormons were a group you didn't associate with cause of their problem where I grew up. Somehow the Mormon church has a excellent rate of producing rotten wards and exile Mormons who more or less fail. It's a pandemic in places. I see no concerted evidence of a outreach. Instead of teenage missionaries paying their own way, they need drug counselors with training in medicine or social work or psychology tackling this issue. Person isn't interested in God at the moment, fine, how about some addiction therapy instead, talk about that other stuff later.

So I have a little over a month before starvation kicks in. I'll be dead some point after that. I can't find a job mopping up feces as a janitor, flipping burgers, washing dishes. I have no criminal record. I'm sitting around confused why I survived everything just a few months ago, only to end this way. While I am still rational, I really just want to see a ethical and well functioning church. Something to reassure me not everything is going to hell. I can care less about if they think this myth or that one is legit, or if history X is real but not Y. I just want to see actual Christianity somewhere still going. I just don't see it anywhere. We are turning into a Turd species, our society is going down the drain, and I really don't want to die seeing it this way. I want reassurances there is a light at the end of the tunnel for humanity, that we are still pushing forward somewhere. Instead I just see mouth breathers waving tranflags, and people crapping all over themselves on the streets because nobody cares anymore. This isn't the formula for a star trek style Utopia. I'm extremely depressed.

And even if I had a million dollars handed to me, I had two cancers. No sign, clue or reason given why. They have different long term survival rates for surgury. I just default don't expect to be 100 years old anymore someday. I sincerely just want to see a functioning society before I bow out. I'm really spooked I don't see it anywhere. It's all going down the crapchute now. It's not a comfort at all knowing I'm unlikely to see it get much worst. But I would like evidence people are changing things up to make it better. You have no idea what it is like to come to grips wkth your mortality, thinking at least it will go on for others, and seeing every indication people don't give a F and with trends going as they are, the places I sleep in the woods in will be inhabited by whole families some day when I am long gone. Either because illegals stole every last job, or AI mass flushes everyone else out. We are going to hit a point where everyone is suddenly going to feel as useless as I do. The very people we traditionally relied on to build our civilization.

Thank you for sharing all of this, Vegetius. I am impressed with your knowledge of things first century BCE. Very few people know of Arius Didymus or his role in advocating for the murder of Caesarion. Add to that the comments on Stoic ethics in the New Testament and Cicero's skepticism, and you strike me as someone who would have a wonderful time chatting with Prof. Mike Pope at BYU Classics. You should look him up and tell him that I suggested you guys grab a Coke at the Cougareat and chat.