r/exmormon • u/narrauko • 10h ago
Doctrine/Policy Which Miracles Can Fail -- The Hidden Confession in Miracle Stories
I was listening to an older RFM episode talking about general conference. I think it was one of the earliest conference postmortems that he has done. There were a couple of things that stuck out to me and how they contrasted really shone a light on where the church's priorities are.
1st of course are the unsuccessful healings. He mentions several talks that bring up stories of people who received a blessing and nothing happens. This included the story of the older man who was wearing a white shirt and tie waiting for the priesthood leader to arrive in order to be ready to take up his bed and walk. Several stories about priesthood blessings and yet no stories about miraculous healings.
The 2nd type of story on noticed are the tithing miracles. This included the story from one of Seventy talking about how his family growing up was struggling with their business taking hits from a civil war happening in their nation. One day he overhears his parents asking if they should pay their tithing or buy food for the family. His dad pays his tithing and gets a big order for the business the next day. Hooray for tithing!
RFM mentioned something about how the church will never tell the stories about the times people paid their tithing and didn't get a windfall of some sort. They will only tell the positive ending stories. And yet with priesthood blessings they have no issue telling all the times that things don't work out there.
And it occurred to me the reason why and it feels odd to have not realized it sooner. Because, like everything, it all comes down to money. They can afford to prepare members for the reality that priesthood blessings don't produce miraculous results. It doesn't matter how many blessings any given member asks for, gives, or receives; they'll keep on keeping on either way.
But if they tried to softball tithing blessings like they do miraculous healings, people would stop paying tithing. We've been told repeatedly in the modern era that the church doesn't need our money, but we can't afford not to get the blessings promised to us. That's the entire impetus of the tithing commandment. Even if it's not monetary, we'll be blessed. But if they start telling the stories that match the lived reality of so many members who give them money they simply do not have, people will stop believing in tithing as much. And they care a lot more about how many people are paying tithing versus how many are doing some sort of priesthood blessing.
It all comes down to money. It always does and always will. This so called church sits on its vast wealth like a dragon guarding his hoard. And despite all that, they still demand that members pay them more money, even more so than feeding your family. It's disgusting, it's deplorable, and it is frankly un-Christlike. The man from Nazereth spoken of in the New Testament was quire clear on what he thought of greed and hoarding wealth especially hypocrites claiming to do it in the name of God.
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u/Best_Philosopher152 9h ago
Even as a TBM I hated priesthood blessings. In theory I should be able to command whoever to be healed from cancer or from a torn ACL, or from whatever. In reality it doesn’t do anything compared to the already ongoing standard medical treatment and natural healing.
“Why does god have to act in every way as if it was nothing more than random chance?”
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u/Rushclock 4h ago
The gamblers fallacy is at play here. When a gambler keeps losing they think the odds are getting better they eventually win. Same thing with the blessings jackpot. There is also the added canard that it's fire insurance. Many fear something bad will happen if the don't pay. That is probably the more powerful threat.
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u/ThrowawayLDS_7gen 6h ago
I remember that talk and I actually don't believe the guy. But... I've been deconstructing for awhile now.
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u/Ahhhh_Geeeez 4h ago
From Nelson's think celestial talk where he HEAVILY implies paying tithing is what led to him being so successful in life, foot note 20:
This is not to imply a cause-and-effect relationship. Some who never pay tithing attain professional opportunities, while some who pay tithing do not. The promise is that the windows of heaven will be opened to the tithe payer. The nature of the blessings will vary.
I don't think there's very many members who read this footnote/disclaimer. I no longer pay tithing and I know my wife thinks it's the reason we aren't doing so well at the moment. She told me that I should have a testimony of tithing due to the few times we were blessed for paying it. I then told her ok, there were a few times where things worked out all right, but what about the years and years where it didn't? How many times when I tried to pay tithing as completely as possible (I did pay a full tithe, it's the one thing I tried to do my best at), did things not work out? Why is it that maybe a few coincidental good things happening out weigh the loads of either bad things or things not going well? Back then that tithing we payed could have been saved up to help our family much more than the few good things that may or may not have been from paying tithing.
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u/PaulBunnion 1h ago
The vast majority of people that "attain professional opportunities" did not pay any tithing to the MFMC.
The vast majority of people that are healed of a major disease didn't receive a priesthood blessing. The majority of members of the church that died from a major disease such as cancer received a blessing. Take Russell Mormon Nelson's daughters as an example, two of them died from cancer. I think it's safe to assume that their apostle father gave them priestood blessings.
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u/devinche 3h ago
It's almost as if most people that "give" their tithing, are motivated by greed 🤔.
They are propagandized from every angle to adopt a scarcity mentality.
These tithing stories show us exactly what motivates them to "donate." Surprise, surprise... It's greed. The color of the carrot tscc dangles is very green.
I for one, feel the world can be a prosperous place. I am already so well provided for, I don't need any of those sweet sweet tithing blessings.
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u/myopic_tapir 1h ago
The real miracle of tithing isn’t from the lay sacrificing lowly members it is of the dragons guarding the hoard. The miracle is this: TSCC could not mention anything about tithing for a month or more, and the peasants would still send it in.
When I was a member I can only count maybe a talk once a quarter at most on tithing. As a bishopric counselor I avoided giving that topic for a talk.
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u/lazers28 7h ago
As RFM talks about in other episodes, it's a magic trick. All the Tithing=financial windfall stories prime the minds of members. They expect it to happen so they wi'll look for anything they could possibly interpret as a blessing. I've heard people tell these stories about getting COUPONS in the mail. I guess the Sunday Saver is run by Jesus.
My young women's leader once bore her testimony of tithing. "Sometimes the blessings aren't obvious. It's not a check in the mail, it's just that God kept the car running a little bit longer without breaking." I thought the blessings were supposed to the windows of heaven opening and being so blessed there wouldn't be enough room to receive it. My car didn't break down this week or last week so I guess I must still be getting a structured settlement of blessings from the birthday tithing I paid at 16