How the Mormons Make Money | BusinessWeek.com

[_RayAgostini]

So (outside of Fast Offering) the church has done little humanitarian aid comparatively to its overall income. But the real value is on the thousands of hours of service? Well did THE CHURCH really do the service? Nope. The members did and could do service without the church. Granted the church does encourage service but it does not do it. And how many of the hundreds of thousands of hours of service was serving in callings for the Church?

The members are "the Church". Aid is temporary, and could go on forever and a day without any lasting internal improvements being made by motivating people to plan and structure their own destiny.

Mormons in Africa: A Bright Land of Hope.

Church Aids in Eastern African Famine.

[Guest]

The U.S. Education Department reported that, for the first time, the number of homeless students in America topped one million by the end of the 2010-2011 school year. These kids live in shelters and on the streets, and increasingly in hotels and on the couches of friends and relatives. On one hotel-lined stretch of highway -- a road leading to Disney World -- Nilan heard of schools where there are as many as 25 homeless students in classes of 28. The government report said 1,065,794 homeless kids were enrolled in schools in the 2010-2011 school year, an increase of 13 percent from the previous year and 57 percent since the start of the recession in 2007.

"The number is horrifyingly high but it probably is half of what the number really could be if the kids could be counted," said Nilan. The count doesn't include homeless infants, children not enrolled in school, and homeless students that schools simply failed to identify.

According to the new data, 44 states overall saw the number of homeless students increase. Fifteen states' homeless student population increased by one fifth or more. The problem is particularly pronounced in recession-addled states like Michigan, where every single county reported homeless kids in their schools. In Kentucky, the number of homeless students increased by 47 percent over one year.

I'm assuming non of the vacant condo's at City Creek have been set aside to help the homeless...

[_Drifting]

So (outside of Fast Offering) the church has done little humanitarian aid comparatively to its overall income. But the real value is on the thousands of hours of service? Well did THE CHURCH really do the service? Nope. The members did and could do service without the church. Granted the church does encourage service but it does not do it. And how many of the hundreds of thousands of hours of service was serving in callings for the Church?

The members are "the Church". Aid is temporary, and could go on forever and a day without any lasting internal improvements being made by motivating people to plan and structure their own destiny.

Mormons in Africa: A Bright Land of Hope.

Church Aids in Eastern African Famine.

Ray,
How does spending more than the equivalent of 75 years worth of humanitarian aid on one isolated Salt Lake City Commercial project that has been planned with no expectation of turning a profit motivate the members of the Church to plan and structure their own destiny?

[_RayAgostini]

The U.S. Education Department reported that, for the first time, the number of homeless students in America topped one million by the end of the 2010-2011 school year. These kids live in shelters and on the streets, and increasingly in hotels and on the couches of friends and relatives. On one hotel-lined stretch of highway -- a road leading to Disney World -- Nilan heard of schools where there are as many as 25 homeless students in classes of 28. The government report said 1,065,794 homeless kids were enrolled in schools in the 2010-2011 school year, an increase of 13 percent from the previous year and 57 percent since the start of the recession in 2007.

"The number is horrifyingly high but it probably is half of what the number really could be if the kids could be counted," said Nilan. The count doesn't include homeless infants, children not enrolled in school, and homeless students that schools simply failed to identify.

According to the new data, 44 states overall saw the number of homeless students increase. Fifteen states' homeless student population increased by one fifth or more. The problem is particularly pronounced in recession-addled states like Michigan, where every single county reported homeless kids in their schools. In Kentucky, the number of homeless students increased by 47 percent over one year.

We all know the Mormons are to blame for this.

That goes without saying.

[_RayAgostini]

Ray,
How does spending more than the equivalent of 75 years worth of humanitarian aid on one isolated Salt Lake City Commercial project that has been planned with no expectation of turning a profit motivate the members of the Church to plan and structure their own destiny?

I wish they'd spend it here where I live. The city is economically dead, and riddled with increasing crime and lawlessness, and youth without a purpose in life who go about vandalising and wanton destruction.

God I wish they'd spend it here, and revitalise the place.

[_Drifting]

Ray,
How does spending more than the equivalent of 75 years worth of humanitarian aid on one isolated Salt Lake City Commercial project that has been planned with no expectation of turning a profit motivate the members of the Church to plan and structure their own destiny?

I wish they'd spend it here where I live. The city is economically dead, and riddled with increasing crime and lawlessness, and youth without a purpose in life who go about vandalising and wanton destruction.

God I wish they'd spend it here, and revitalise the place.

Ray, you are probably a more reasonable guy than I.
This article has made my blood boil. I find it disgusting that an organization claiming to be led by Christ spends $5 billion on a loss making commercial enterprise to tart up a small corner of a single city in the United States rather than spending it all on feeding the poor, sheltering the homeless etc.
When Christ saw the leper what did He do? He didn't look away and say he had far more important things to spend His time on like the new Jerusalem Mega Sandal Store.

I cannot equate Christ and the financial activities of the Church.
Do you expect people to believe that, with billions of dollars in his pocket, Christ would think the best thing to spend it right now on was a Shopping Mall and Condo complex? Do you believe that's what Christ would spend it on?

[_RayAgostini]

I cannot equate Christ and the financial activities of the Church.
Do you expect people to believe that, with billions of dollars in his pocket, Christ would think the best thing to spend it right now on was a Shopping Mall and Condo complex? Do you believe that's what Christ would spend it on?

I don't live there, so I obviously can't make judgements, but on the surface it does a bit self-centred. But if it contributes to economic revitalisation and prosperity and jobs for individuals, then I'm not going to argue against, speaking as one from an area that could do with serious economic revitalisation to compensate for the lack of vision on the part of politicians who seem to get pay rises in proportion to growing joblessness and poverty.

Nevertheless, let God be the final judge:

31 Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be great pollutions upon the face of the earth; there shall be murders, and robbing, and lying, and deceivings, and whoredoms, and all manner of abominations; when there shall be many who will say, Do this, or do that, and it mattereth not, for the Lord will uphold such at the last day. But wo unto such, for they are in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity.
32 Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be churches built up that shall say: Come unto me, and for your money you shall be forgiven of your sins.
33 O ye wicked and perverse and stiffnecked people, why have ye built up churches unto yourselves to get gain? Why have ye transfigured the holy word of God, that ye might bring damnation upon your souls? Behold, look ye unto the revelations of God; for behold, the time cometh at that day when all these things must be fulfilled.
34 Behold, the Lord hath shown unto me great and marvelous things concerning that which must shortly come, at that day when these things shall come forth among you.
35 Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing.
36 And I know that ye do walk in the pride of your hearts; and there are none save a few only who do not lift themselves up in the pride of their hearts, unto the wearing of very fine apparel, unto envying, and strifes, and malice, and persecutions, and all manner of iniquities; and your churches, yea, even every one, have become polluted because of the pride of your hearts.
37 For behold, ye do love money, and your substance, and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches, more than ye love the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted.
38 O ye pollutions, ye hypocrites, ye teachers, who sell yourselves for that which will canker, why have ye polluted the holy church of God? Why are ye ashamed to take upon you the name of Christ? Why do ye not think that greater is the value of an endless happiness than that misery which never dies—because of the praise of the world?
39 Why do ye adorn yourselves with that which hath no life, and yet suffer the hungry, and the needy, and the naked, and the sick and the afflicted to pass by you, and notice them not?
40 Yea, why do ye build up your secret abominations to get gain, and cause that widows should mourn before the Lord, and also orphans to mourn before the Lord, and also the blood of their fathers and their husbands to cry unto the Lord from the ground, for vengeance upon your heads?
41 Behold, the sword of vengeance hangeth over you; and the time soon cometh that he avengeth the blood of the saints upon you, for he will not suffer their cries any longer. (Mormon 8)

[_harmony]

Think of the hospitals, clinics, schools etc that could have been built throughout the world. Think about how many people could have been helped with that money

It is a crime against humanity!

Amen. It hurts my heart.

[_Drifting]

When the rich young man came to the Savior and asked what he needed to do to have eternal life, the Savior instructed him, “Sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me” ( Luke 18:22 ).

(Institute: Doctrine & Covenants and Church History - D&C 117)

One has to ask why Christ would be encouraging His representatives on earth today to build something costing billions of dollars, that encourages people to do the exact opposite of what He himself counsels in Luke....

[_brade]

Couldn't resist.