Just want to vent

[_Hoops]

There are certainly differences in Protestant worship, but the concept of not being unequally yoked is a distinct New Testament concept that EV's rely upon to offer faithful wives the option to leave if they want.

You are simply wrong. EV's are counselled to make sure they are not unequally yoked before marriage. Once married, they are counselled to do everything morally and ethically possible to make the marriage work. A spouse who chooses to not attend church, or one who is anti-church or God or whatever, is not enough.

I'm sure that concept does not apply to Episcopalians or Methodists or most Lutherans whose pastors don't give a hoot in hell as to whom you're married.

Your assertions are laughable. To their credit, these pastors are probably the least denominationally aware. If you think Christ lives in a denomination then I feel sorry for you. You are missing so much.

If you want a faithless,

Faith in what?

religion-free marriage

Yes, please.

with no commitments to God, just get married by an Episcopalian. Don't go Catholic or EV.

The more you write, the more you show your ignorance. Tha

t's death to a degenerate apostate such as yourself.

I'm a degenerate appostate? I don't recall going to any of the meetings.

[_DrW]

As far as your comments about the LDS Church are concerned, and its fraudulent nature and so forth, I only remark that you possess no credentials to say such and are anonymous. I would suspect you still go to Church and admit home teachers and hold a calling.

Yahoo Bot,

Why use the Catholic Church in your response? We are not talking about the Catholic Church. They have their own problems.

Anyway, turns out that several of your assumptions are wrong.

1- I do not attend Church.

2- We do not receive home teachers in our home.

3- The GED insult was not appropriate (I would wager that my level of formal education is somewhat greater than yours).

4- While I do not posses legal credientials (my Ph.D. is not in law), my business partner and I do retain several good attorneys, and we use them when needed. Both of us, having contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Church before finding it fraudulent, have asked one of these attorneys what it would take to sue the LDS Church. He stated that such a suit would not be successful because of the legal protection afforded the Church as a "not for profit" religious organization. As he (quite rightly) point out, were the Church a simple commercial corporate entity that had solicited and received money under false pretense (as it has), it could be successfully sued.

In fact, right now one of these attorneys is doing just that to a commercial corporate entity that misrepresented themselves to us, to our detriment. The facts of the case are such that we are going for a summary judgment. Considering the ethics and behavior of the LDS Church, I doubt that it would be much more difficult to be successfull against it, were it a simple commercial corporate entity.

[_Yahoo Bot]

3- The GED insult was not appropriate (I would wager that my level of formal education is somewhat greater than yours).

You're offering a wager? I'll take it. Prove it in your next post. You're demonstrating a lot of foolishness; letting yourself be goaded in the first place about your credentials and then boasting about them in the second place with no willingness to back up your boasts. Foolish and weak. You'd never be able to go toe-to-toe on the other board the best of them there.

4- While I do not posses legal credientials (my Ph.D. is not in law), my business partner and I do retain several good attorneys, and we use them when needed. Both of us, having contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Church before finding it fraudulent, have asked one of these attorneys what it would take to sue the LDS Church. He stated that such a suit would not be successful because of the legal protection afforded the Church as a "not for profit" religious organization. As he (quite rightly) point out, were the Church a simple commercial corporate entity that had solicited and received money under false pretense (as it has), it could be successfully sued.

In fact, right now one of these attorneys is doing just that to a commercial corporate entity that misrepresented themselves to us, to our detriment. The facts of the case are such that we are going for a summary judgment. Considering the ethics and behavior of the LDS Church, I doubt that it would be much more difficult to be successfull against it, were it a simple commercial corporate entity.

What you describe is idiocy. Religions are not protected because they are "not for profit." They are protected because of the First Amendment. Moreover, in other countries where there is no First Amendment, religions are protected from suit for return of contribution because matters of faith and promises of faith are not actionable. You're just making things up.

And, of course, most religions are "simple commercial corporate entities." My gosh. So much could be said about your posts; you certainly believe in leading with your chin.

[_LDSToronto]

This pisses me off. Whatever happened to marrying a person, loving a person? I told my wife, when I started having doubts, that I married *her*, not a religion, not an ordinance, I married *her* because I loved *her*, not because I loved Mormonism.

Leaving a person because they have lost faith is morally wrong in my books.

H.

I'd agree with you if you got married by the justice of the peace.

But marriage is usually a religious sacrament. If you were married in an LDS Temple or by a Catholic priest, you committed not only to your marriage but to your God and your faith. Your wife signed onto that concept and it wasn't good enough for her to just be married by a justice of the peace.

So you can be pissed off all you want but once you became faithless that was all she wrote for some women. If you wife came to me and asked my advice, and so long as you weren't beating her or gone gay, I'd told her to stick with you.

The problem with the LDS perspective on marriage is that it treats people, men and women, as a means to an end. The LDS church teaches that one needs to be sealed to gain the highest glory in the Celestial Kingdom. Thus, LDS marriage objectifies human beings - it doesn't matter to whom you are married, so long as you are married so that *you* can gain your eternal reward.

If one spouse loses faith, the spouse who remains faithful may see this as a threat to their eternal reward. Thus, out with the unfaithful spouse, and the ensuing jeopardy, and in with a faithful spouse, the eternal ticket.

Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end. - Kant.

H.

[_Yahoo Bot]

This is the wife's fault.

The CHI tells bishops not to counsel divorce.

Maybe the husband(s) in this cases above went gay.

[Guest]

Getting married by the parish priest is a statement and a commitment that you are bound to the Catholic faith.

No it isn't.

Before you are married by the priest,

Two Catholics marry each other. A priest doesn't marry them, he is a witness, and blesses their message as Sacramental in nature.

you actually commit to the priest and the future wife that you will raise your children as Catholics.

It can be devastating to the believing spouse, but this does not mean the believing AND now non-believing spouse cannot raise their children as Catholics. There are many mixed marriages in Catholicism where this is the case, exactly.

Now, you may think Catholicism (or any religion, for that matter) is a perverse fraud, but unless the wife goes along with your thinking she is entitled to hold you to your commitment to the Church. If, having failed to convince your wife of the frauds of Catholicism, you break your promise, your stop supporting the faith, you denounce it, you become addicted to porn and go gay -- well, you've done exactly what you've said you would not. Your wife has every right in the faith to denounce you to the priest and kick you out (although, if she divorces you in the Catholic faith, she cannot remarry).

Nope. My husband is not Catholic (he's atheist). Catholic teaching is that he must work out his own salvation. His salvation is not tied to mine and mine is not tied to his. Second, St. Paul taught that the unbelieving spouse is sanctified by the believing spouse, so, what you have going here is erroneous.

Two Catholics who were married as Catholics have made vows to each other, until death. There is nothing in the Catholic Church that indicates a spouse who has left Catholicism gives the other spouse a valid reason for divorce. Their marriage is valid as long as they both entered it freely (no coercion or threats involved).

It is very difficult to obtain an annulment of a valid marriage (whether married in a Catholic church or not). Adultery or abuse are about the only two reasons that I am aware of (outside of the "entering freely" aspect).

That, and Pauline Privilege, which could never be invoked by two Catholics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_privilege

[_Yahoo Bot]

you actually commit to the priest and the future wife that you will raise your children as Catholics.

Yes, however, I once read that the divorce rate for LDS couples is 80% when one of them leaves the faith. This is not the case for Catholics.

[quote]

And, with that, I have made my point at least with respect to Catholicism. You make a commitment with the priest (or Christ, actually) that your children will be raised in Catholicism.

In Catholicism, marriage is a sacrament, meaning it is both a contract between spouses and a covenant with Christ. One spouse breaks that, he breaks his covenant with the faith and the spouse. You might refresh yourself with the statements of the Second Vatican Council on this point.

As to the remedy, and as I have pointed out above which you might have missed, divorce is not usually an option in Catholic households for a faithless spouse. And, perhaps you have missed as well, the LDS Church does not recommend or endorse divorce on account of faithlessness and counsels its bishops accordingly. And, any wife with children who leaves her husband on account of faithlessness alone is in the wrong, as I have pointed out. But I sympathize completely with the wife in this situation and declare anathema upon the faithless husband.

[_DrW]

3- The GED insult was not appropriate (I would wager that my level of formal education is somewhat greater than yours).

You're offering a wager? I'll take it. Prove it in your next post. You're demonstrating a lot of foolishness; letting yourself be goaded in the first place about your credentials and then boasting about them in the second place with no willingness to back up your boasts. Foolish and weak. You'd never be able to go toe-to-toe on the other board the best of them there.

4- While I do not posses legal credientials (my Ph.D. is not in law), my business partner and I do retain several good attorneys, and we use them when needed. Both of us, having contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Church before finding it fraudulent, have asked one of these attorneys what it would take to sue the LDS Church. He stated that such a suit would not be successful because of the legal protection afforded the Church as a "not for profit" religious organization. As he (quite rightly) point out, were the Church a simple commercial corporate entity that had solicited and received money under false pretense (as it has), it could be successfully sued.

In fact, right now one of these attorneys is doing just that to a commercial corporate entity that misrepresented themselves to us, to our detriment. The facts of the case are such that we are going for a summary judgment. Considering the ethics and behavior of the LDS Church, I doubt that it would be much more difficult to be successfull against it, were it a simple commercial corporate entity.

What you describe is idiocy. Religions are not protected because they are "not for profit." They are protected because of the First Amendment. Moreover, in other countries where there is no First Amendment, religions are protected from suit for return of contribution because matters of faith and promises of faith are not actionable. You're just making things up.

And, of course, most religions are "simple commercial corporate entities." My gosh. So much could be said about your posts; you certainly believe in leading with your chin.

Are you saying that the differences between the protection of not for profit religious organizations and for profit commercial entities from detrimental reliance claims is based on the First Amendment?

Really?

First of all, if you think that a Church is an ordinary commercial corporation perhaps you are not aware that for profit corporations are normally organized as "C", "LLC" or "S" corporations, whereas tax exempt organizations are normally organized as 501c(3) corporations. So if a church is operating as tax exempt, it is not a simple commercial corporate entity. It has special tax privileges under the law. And while you are at it, perhaps you should also look up the term "charitable immunity".

While the Catholic Church has been successfully sued, it was for the criminal actions of individuals representing, and paid by, the Church, not for misrepresentation of its history.

It seems that while for profit corporations can be sued for misrepresenting their products and use of funds, successfully suing a religious organization for the same ethics violations is much more difficult. However, the Church of Scientology has been successfully sued for mental distress to the tune of more than 8 million dollars. So there is some hope, I guess.

As to my educational and professional background, including degrees, patents, books, published papers and executive and board positions in publicly traded companies, I have already made proof of these available to Dr. Scratch by PM, and he has verified as much. I would be happy to also provide the same information to one or more of the moderators, if you feel the urgent need to bother them in this way.

[Guest]

Don't claim credentials and then refuse to provide them.

You set yourself up for this by claiming them in the first place.

501(c)(3) organizations can be sued just like anybody else for false and fraudulent behavior. The fact they are non-profit is meaningless and you've got it plainly wrong. Charities and non-profits are sued successfully all the time.

The Church corporations are indeed 501(c)(3)s but that is only a tax convention. Section 501(c)(3) is in title 26, the Tax Code. The tax code does not confer civil immunity from anything except taxes.

The charitable immunity doctrine only protects "charities" from suits for the benefits the charities provide. That doctrine does not apply to religions and their spiritual benefits. And, the doctrine of charitable immunity is so riddled with exceptions; a bus operated by St Vincent de Paul transporting children in a school bus negligently has no protection.

You're just boneheadedly wrong, but I tire of arguing the law on a religious board.

[_madeleine]

you actually commit to the priest and the future wife that you will raise your children as Catholics.

Yes, however, I once read that the divorce rate for LDS couples is 80% when one of them leaves the faith. This is not the case for Catholics.

And, with that, I have made my point at least with respect to Catholicism. You make a commitment with the priest (or Christ, actually) that your children will be raised in Catholicism.

Yes, this commitment can be maintained even if one spouse leaves the faith. There are many mixed marriages in Catholicism where this is the case.

In Catholicism, marriage is a sacrament, meaning it is both a contract between spouses and a covenant with Christ. One spouse breaks that, he breaks his covenant with the faith and the spouse. You might refresh yourself with the statements of the Second Vatican Council on this point.

The covenant is broken but the marriage is not. The marriage remains valid.

As to the remedy, and as I have pointed out above which you might have missed, divorce is not usually an option in Catholic households for a faithless spouse.

It is never an option.

And, perhaps you have missed as well, the LDS Church does not recommend or endorse divorce on account of faithlessness and counsels its bishops accordingly.

This may be so, but the problem is LDS teaching itself. The believing spouse is left to worry over eternal consequences of their spouse's choice, FOR THEMSELVES. There is not an equivalent to this in Catholicism. There are possibly grave consequences for the spouse who left, in the eternal thought of things, but not for the believing spouse. Their eternal fate is not tied to their spouse's.

And, any wife with children who leaves her husband on account of faithlessness alone is in the wrong, as I have pointed out. But I sympathize completely with the wife in this situation and declare anathema upon the faithless husband.

Well, then, stop sending Mormon missionaries out to convert Catholics, as this can cause one or both to become faithless.