Green Oasis

I’m filled with regret. Using numbers they reported for humanitarian aid and membership over the last 24 years, the LDS church has spent (approximately) a whopping $8 per member per year on their humanitarian efforts. (via reddit.com/r/exmormon/)

If we use more generous numbers (assuming that there was an average of only 2 million active members over that time period, only a million of whom lived in the US (an approximate surrogate for wealth), only 500,000 of whom were working adults with an income), then humanitarian aid from the church to to non-Mormons jumps to a ballpark figure of $25 $100 per wealthy member per year.

I hope that I’m missing something. This is pathetic, especially coming from a church which is building a $3 billion (or more) mall in the heart of Salt Lake City. All of that money spent on real estate, cattle ranches, malls, political campaigning, etc. Instead of hoarding and building up an financial and political empire, they could have done some actual good.

“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” I think the LDS church has forgotten what it is to go without purse or scrip. The institution has become entangled in seeking the riches of the world.

I was a full-tithe payer from the day I got my first allowance from Mom and Dad to the day I stopped attending the LDS church three years ago. I was happy to donate it because I trusted that it was in the best hands, that my money would do good in the world. This has, like nothing else, made me deeply regret all of that money that I donated, wasted.

Edit: Reworked the numbers and corrected.

Dale McGowan, the editor of the truly excellent Parenting Beyond Belief and Raising Freethinkers, has started a foundation to focus the generosity of humanists and non-theists and to educate and support non-theistic parents.

Religious folk get the chance every time they attend church to donate to charity. Those of us who are non-religious can often forget because we are not regularly faced with the figurative collection plate. The foundation will feature a rotation of charities that can come from any ideological background as long as they don’t proselytize.

I think it’s a promising idea and plan to participate. Please take a look.

stvltvs College Girls Give $2 Mormon Haircuts, a Rhett and Link local commercial. http://u.blakeclan.org/3o http://u.blakeclan.org/3p

It could use a lot more work before making its way into the bazaar, but it’s time.

I’ve been working on a project recently. I’m always full of crazy ideas, only some of which pan out. Succeed or fail, I have fun discovering how things turn out.

My latest overly ambitious, harebrained scheme is the Freethinker’s Book of Mormon, an effort to look objectively at the claims surrounding the Book of Mormon.

While some believers may immediately dismiss it as “anti-Mormon”, I think that label is undeserved. I plan to cover good and bad. If it seems biased against Mormonism, I hope it is because reality has an anti-Mormon bias. Ultimately, I want to reflect the reality of the situation, not build a case against Mormonism. I want to hear what the facts say.

I don’t think I could have done this objectively until very recently. I’m finally ready to take up the gauntlet that was laid at my feet almost three years ago. I’m sure Anonymous forgot about this long ago, but it has stuck in the back of my mind ever since, and its time has come due.

There’s not a lot there yet. Aside from designing and implementing the website, I’ve spent the most time on a challenge to Book of Mormon authenticity, an article on anachronistic animals that is still incomplete.

So, please take a look and tell me what you think.

We just got a voice message from the John Birch Society that explicitly mentions Ezra Taft Benson, a fervent admirer of the JBS. I wonder if they got our number from an LDS church phone directory. (702) 951-7242 if anyone wants to call and find out.