I guess I need to talk about tithing since it is an important issue that I haven't really touched upon yet. Some of it you may have already heard, but I think I have a few interesting twists to take.
We all know about the churches law of tithing. Pay 10% of your gross income to the church before you pay for anything else. If you have to choose between paying tithing and buying groceries, you pay tithing. God doesn't care if your family starves just as long as that tithing is paid. It doesn't matter if you have to foreclose your home or declare bankruptsy. Tithing is the most important thing. Remember, if you think you can't afford to pay it, you really can't afford NOT to pay it!
My first real problem with tithing is that the LDS make it a requirement for salvation. If you don't pay tithing, you can't go to the temple. If you don't go to the temple, you can't go to the Celestial Kingdom. Therefore, tithing is indirectly related to your personal salvation.
However, this teaching contradicts scriptures found in both the Bible and the Book of Mormon:
Isaiah 55:1
Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
It is obvious here that Isaiah is using an analogy of food and water to represent the gospel. In other words, the gospel is FREE.
Nephi quotes Isaiah:
2 Nephi 9:50
50 Come, my brethren, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; and he that hath no money, come buy and eat; yea, come buy wine and milk without money and without price.
And again:
2 Nephi 26:25
25 Behold, doth he cry unto any, saying: Depart from me? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; but he saith: Come unto me all ye ends of the earth, buy milk and honey, without money and without price.
Jesus even said the gospel is free:
John 4:14
14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
False churches will forgive your sins for money:
Mormon 8:32
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.
And finally, gospel teachers should not charge because if they do, they have their reward:
1 Cor. 9:18
18 What is my reward then? Verily that, when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power in the gospel.
Sadly, the Mormons contradict their own scriptures with the tithing. In fact, tithing was not so strict once upon a time. There were talks given from the pulpit in the tabernacle that said things to the effect of "take care of your personal needs first, and then pay tithing on the remaining" and "the poor and the destitute are exempt from tithing".
Nowadays, however, it doesn't matter if a hurricane just ripped your house out of the ground. You'd still better pay! Clearly, the church really doesn't care about it's members. Those tithing dollars are the most important. The Mormon Jesus loves your money more than your soul.
Let's talk about the fear factor that keeps many people faithfully paying: fire. If you don't pay, you will burn. I have jokingly heard tithing referred to as "fire insurance". It is a teaching of the church that those who do not pay their tithing will literally burn in a fire at the second coming of Jesus Christ. This is the cleansing fire that will destroy all wickedness off the earth. Apparently, those who do not pay tithing are quite evil and wicked. No other sin is threatened with a punishment of literal fire. Even though this fire is supposed to destroy all evil, the only specific sin that is threatened with fire is... you guessed it.... Tithing. If a person commits adultry, they will be punished, but not with fire. It seems that the Mormon church has almost created this fire EXCLUSIVELY FOR NON-TITHE PAYERS.
Yes, in Mal. 3:10 it talks about tithes, and it does promise great blessings but it DOES NOT threaten burning to those who do not pay. Yes, the Bible talks about burning evil, but it DOES NOT specify non-tithe payers! I dare say, the Bible almost makes it sound like paying tithing is optional: if you pay you will be blessed, and if you don't pay, then you simply won't be blessed. The Mormon church has taken it far beyond that and made the paying of tithes an absolute requirement for heaven. This is unbiblical! In fact, it is ONLY Mormon scripture that connects tithing with burning. D&C 64:23, D&C 85:3. Even D&C 119:5 talks about how a non-tithe payer is unworthy. Again, it is only Mormon scripture that condemns the non-payment of tithes.
It is remarkable how members continue to believe and pay tithing even after they do not receive the promised blessings. I have never seen anyone so blessed that they had to go get a storage unit to make room for all the blessings. This has never happened. I was asking a certain person one time if he could point out to me ONE THING that he had received because of paying tithing that he would not have received otherwise. He threw out a few answers like "house" or "job" but I reminded him that those things would have come anyway. After a lengthy discussion, he had to admit that he couldn't think of anything! The Mormon God is a liar; not only because this person has not been showered with blessings, he hasn't even received one stinking thing! Talk about a poor return on his investment!
LDS, Inc. ultimately exists for one reason: money. It's why Joseph Smith started it and it's why it's alive and well today.
The church proudly boasts 13 million members. Let's assume that only one million have a $30,000 income per year. One million members paying $3,000 each is a total of $3,000,000,000 per year ($3 billion)! That is over $8 million per day!!!! And that is a very low estimate. A more accurate figure is around $7 billion per year! The LDS church is swimming in money and yet they still demand every penny their brainwashed members are willing to fork over.
To the crazed member, tithing means blessings and salvation. To an enlightened apostate, tithing screams of cult and fraud.
Free yourself from the Mormon lies and discover a whole new world!
Just another evil apostate...
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