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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) is notoriously secretive about the inner workings of its ruling hierarchy, the First Presidency and Quorum of Twelve Apostles. With an estimated annual income in the billions and assets in the tens of billions, the church does not release financial statements to its members or the general public. The meetings and decision-making processes of the Mormon leaders are similarly undisclosed.
That changed Sunday when a group called Mormon Leaks posted more than a dozen videos to YouTube, containing briefing sessions with the hierarchy. The briefings were apparently recorded "live" and include candid comments and discussion from the apostles in attendance. The leak appeared to be timed to coincide with the church's semi-annual conference that took place over the weekend.
Ironically, one of the briefings discusses WikiLeaks and the possibility of a similar leak targeting the church, but the apostles shown in the video appear to more concerned about Chelsea (nee Bradley) Manning's sexuality than they are about threats to their own secrets.
One briefing that is particularly troubling was given by a former U.S. senator from Oregon, Gordon H. Smith. Smith, a member of the church, admits that he values obedience to the hierarchy and loyalty to the church more than he does his office. He also describes using his office and staff to gain political favors for the church, and justifies the Iraq War by claiming that it will allow Mormon missionaries access to Middle Eastern nations. At one point (around the 26 minute mark), Smith possibly reveals classified information to the group, or at least his willingness to do so.
The videos appear to come from the same whistle blower who leaked a trove of church documents on-line about a week ago. Those documents are here and the leaker has announced that many more are coming.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Tuesday October 04 2016, @03:58PM
This. You will find that every religion wants to keep their members in the dark. Otherwise, they might accidentally wake up and realize that there is no such thing as "god", and that everything they have been told is a lie created so the powerful can rake in money, molest anyone they want, and sell magic underwear.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @04:10PM
As a lifelong member, it's nothing like this. If you looked really closely at the internals by getting acquainted, you'd find out differently too. There is much information provided by the Church, or you can ask members yourself easily enough. Get to know some instead of making such awful claims.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @04:12PM
ps: of course, any organization with 16 million members is going to have some oddballs.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 06 2016, @03:02AM
ps: of course, any organization with 16 million members is going to have some oddballs.
Granted, it is just that usually it is not 16 million oddballs.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by melikamp on Tuesday October 04 2016, @04:55PM
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:14PM
My church regularly makes this information available, both for the church itself and the elementary school it's associated w/. I'm not sure if it's online but anyone can get it just by calling the church office. Additionally, when they have events (like a steak fry) they always let everyone know how much was brought in. All Mass collections are posted in the bulletin the following week.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:35PM
Meanwhile, other (and quite possibly the same) churches (as in religious base, rather than individual building) were found to have numbered Swiss bank accounts with millions in them.
Just because your single church might be upfront, it doesn't mean your RELIGION or the rest of the churches associated with that same organisation are.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:40PM
If your church is specifically associated with precisely one elementary school, then it is clearly not the kind of "large, well-established, religion" that is being discussed, and your protest makes me wonder about either your reading skills, or what you are hiding. (The wonder is just that, "a pause for contemplation of", so don't take it too seriously except as a criticism of your rhetoric style.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday October 04 2016, @04:59PM
Awful claims? As someone who was raised a member and became a non-believer, I can comfortably say that the church is an awful closed-minded fraternity with nothing to offer. Same goes for every other religious fairy tale nonsense.
It's 2016. Religion has run its course. It's time to get our heads out of the proverbial clouds of heaven and realize that there are more important things going on in the world. Stop worrying about the afterlife because for all we know, it doesn't exist unlike the here and now. We would do so much better by focusing our energies and do-good attitude on helping the various problems that plague humanity.
Maybe then we wouldn't have disgusting sub human garbage like Gordon H. Smith who approves of a war and all the destruction, death, pain and suffering it brings because it will allow you to convert more people.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:17PM
My experience has been (a lot of work but) wonderful really, in the literal sense. I'm sorry for whatever happened, and wish you all the best in everything.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @06:48PM
"Give me a boy until the age of seven and I will give you the man."
IOW, get them drinking the kool-aid early and they're yours for life.
Seems to apply to you.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @09:49PM
Sounds like a paedophile quote to me.
You pass me the boy, when I'm done with him you can have the 'man' (who probably crossdresses and cries like a little girl in bed when he things nobody can hear him... unless he's perpetrating what was done to him unto others.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @02:07AM
Studies show that those with the strongest anti-LGBT attitudes are the folks who are most aroused by gay porn.
ISTM that is a strong chance that your response reflects your own proclivities.
...and you can always Google something whose veracity you doubt.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by fliptop on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:04PM
Amen (no pun intended). Both my adult daughters went to Catholic school. I don't give my church any money now, but I volunteer when they have events, plus I sing in the choir. The "brainwashing" the OP mentioned - I really don't see the issue w/ teaching kids to be honest, respectful Christians and to love your fellow man. Just b/c we choose to follow the teachings of someone who died 2000 years ago and participate in the Sacraments we're mindless automatrons?
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @06:55PM
...and that anyone who doesn't live his life by the Nicene Creed[1] will burn in Hell for all eternity.
[1] Fabricated by the Romans, BTW, in order to use the Christian religion as a unifying construct for the empire.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org] (who spent 4th grade in Catholic school--a surreal experience--and had religion figured out as a total scam by age 13.)
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday October 04 2016, @08:13PM
There is a lot of good stuff in the teachings of Christ. Love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek, the Golden Rule, Christian charity, etc. The Jefferson Bible is a good distillation of the best of Christianity.
But, there is also a lot of wrong, mean, and just plain stupid stuff perverted into even meaner and stupider stuff by trolls who loudly proclaim their faith in Jesus while in fact practicing authoritarian control over their fellow humans, all too pleased to use God and Jesus as their whip hand, and resort to whatever tales the rubes will eat up to reinforce their status. If ordinary people are prone to seeing miracles, then these religious leaders would of course hoke up some miracles to wow them with. All that garbage about miracles worked great on the uneducated and illiterate of the times, and still works scarily well on them today.
For an example of the downright cruel, consider church teachings on sex, in which merely being homosexual is unnatural and a sin, sex outside of marriage is a sin, masturbation is a sin, having a wet dream is a sin, using a contraceptive is a sin, and heck even divorce is very naughty. Prince Charles may never become King Of England because he and Diana divorced, that's how negative they are about it. And today, we now know that homosexuality is natural, if not why it exists. As in, if evolution is so great at selecting, why hasn't homosexuality been selected out? Could it be that a low percentage of homosexuality is beneficial to the species as a whole?
Another example is government. We know that monarchy is not a good form of government, yet monotheists everywhere eat it up. God is King and Jesus is Lord. That appeals mightily to the authoritarian. Can't Jesus be President or Senator or Speaker of the House?
A big problem with religion is that it is all too prone to such evil perversions. Perhaps morality would be better couched in an Eastern style philosophy rather than a Western style church and religion and all the bad baggage it brings. Organized religion concentrates power. And as the saying goes, power corrupts. It's no surprise at all that the Mormon leadership is dictatorial and corrupt, and holds dear some profoundly wrong ideas about how life works.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @08:51PM
You say many things about religion that are very foreign to my experience. I realize there are bad people in the world, but it almost sounds like you're describing something from another planet, when I compare it with what I have seen and known personally in my religious experience.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Tuesday October 04 2016, @09:05PM
but it almost sounds like you're describing something from another planet,
Could it be, Kolob? Just asking. . .
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday October 04 2016, @10:28PM
I've spent most of my life in the Bible Belt, where I've seen a lot of that sort of hypocrisy first hand. Perhaps the Bible Belt is another planet.
Do you not get out much? Check out the Prosperity Gospel. Maybe you've never heard of it. The basic idea is really worship of money, in Christian clothing. They preach that prosperity is a sign of divine favor. God loves you and will bless you with prosperity if you are virtuous enough. You can earn virtue through charitable donations. They boil it down to a real simple chant, which I've seen preached, "give and you shall receive". Give money and it will be given back to you and more, at some unspecified future date. Sound like karma with money. That this line of preaching can so easily be totally self-serving for the preachers somehow goes unmentioned. Naturally, the preachers not only aren't poor, they are expected to flaunt their prosperity, to show that God has smiled upon them. Just have to flaunt it delicately. Instead if it being crass and greedy to drive around in an expensive luxury automobile purchased on the backs of poverty stricken followers, they've managed to pervert such acts into virtues. It's brilliantly evil. One of the biggest names in this is Joel Osteen. I don't know about his car, but his home is a $10.5 million mansion. I've watched a few of his sermons. The guy is all charm and smarm.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @11:11PM
Hmm. I wouldn't dare claim that what every religionist does is always good. I don't want to slam others. But I can say what I've seen and experienced in the Christianity that I am regularly taught (a very unofficial name; remembering that out of almost 17 million there are going to be oddballs, and we all are humans, have faults and should keep trying to improve), not to worship leaders of course, but seen & experienced enough that I want to learn to live the teachings better every day, because of peace in this life and eternal life in the world to come. I've got health problems. Family challenges. Financial uncertainties. But I'm learning, going forward, and it will be OK and life is good. I'm not giving up, because I'm happy and I believe it and I see real progress in the things that matter most to me, and will keep working on all of it.
I understand that others in other churches have seen or heard things that turn them off. But Christ is not an individual flawed person, nor a God of confusion. We believe he has restored the authority that was lost when the original apostles died, to act in His name, and that He directs His Church today, in preparation for His 2nd coming, and that it will not fail. There's the "stone cut out of the mountain" metaphor in Daniel that eventually filled the whole earth, which represents His kingdom in the last days. Small now, and there will be challenges, but I'm really glad, because things are good. Hard sometimes, but good.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @11:19PM
(oops: I had used the word Mormonism which is what I meant by "unofficial name", but then edited it out.)
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @12:13AM
the Christianity that I am regularly taught
Sorry, but if you are Mormon, none of what you are taught is really Christianity. It actually is a custom fork of the Temple of the Golden Dawn religion that Joe Smith dabbled in when he was young. The Jesus stuff was crufted on in a failed attempt to get people to stop hating mormons so much.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Wednesday October 05 2016, @12:24AM
We believe in following Jesus Christ, according to the teachings of the Bible, Book of Mormon, and authoritative living prophets. But not the Nicene creed. From there, people disagree on terminology. Sometimes others say that to be Christian you have to agree with the Nicene creed etc., but we think the creed disagrees with biblical Christianity. We believe that ancient prophets brought teachings very specific to their times (like Isaiah advising the king about alliances, or Noah telling the people to board the ark), and that the living ones similarly bring counsel specific to our times, which counsel we very much need, just as the ancients did.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Wednesday October 05 2016, @05:12PM
Fwiw I finally tried to answer this a little better as far as Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' businesses go, might not be adequate for you but is in 4 bullets at this part of the discussion:
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=15830&threshold=0&commentsort=0&mode=improvedthreaded&pid=410465#410618 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday October 06 2016, @05:49PM
Trust not in princes. Psalm 146:3.
Organized religions can have a great deal of power and influence. What do they do with it? Some of their activities are self-perpetuation, and that's okay. Some of it is good charitable work, and some is wasted on corruption of course. And then there is activity performed out of sincerely meant but wrong ideas and beliefs. Those range from the morals and ethics being doubtful and murky, possibly not wrong after all, to things we have hard science to tell us are definitely wrong. We know the Earth is far older than 10,000 years. We know Climate Change is real, caused by our CO2 emissions, and bad for everyone. We know the Earth is not flat nor the center of the solar system, galaxy, or the universe.
Of shameful and telling episodes in Church history, the persecution of Galileo is one of the most prominent. That they were such fools as to want to try force to make the universe conform to their preconceived preferences that turned out to be utterly unimportant as well as wrong, stooping to censorship to muzzle all dissent, speaks very badly not just of the occupants of the church hierarchy at that time, but the whole idea of how the church operates. They were members of an organization that professed to know the ultimate truth, had such faith in their interpretations of writings they insisted were the Word of God, and no tradition of the sort of tolerance in the principle of Freedom of Speech, that it would have taken some extraordinary leaders to buck their ingrained tendencies and not persecute Galileo.
Keep on asking whether the good that organization does outweighs the bad. We need some means of deciding what to do. Churches can provide guidance. However, it should be plain that they could benefit from guidance themselves, from listening better to outsiders. They're arrogant. They give guidance but won't take it. They ought to stop fighting Evolution and science. I've listened to Mormon missionaries heatedly tell me that we are not descended from monkeys. What does that matter to Jesus' messages of love, tolerance, charity, and humility? It doesn't, yet they got so wrapped up in that side issue. Clearly, they need better education and training. They made utter fools of themselves, and it was a sad sight. (I eventually realized that Evolution is not the whole of Creationists' problem, it's science itself.) Stop trying to cherry pick the science they like while dismissing the science they don't like. If they don't stop making asses of themselves, they may kill off their religion. Certainly Christianity is in decline, and I don't doubt that hard ass dogma is behind a lot of it, driving people away. One of the most baffling moves they've made is adopting climate change denial, pinning their religious belief on denying that we can affect the climate, insisting that it is in God's hands.
Trust not in princes. Especially do not trust self-appointed princes like Jim Jones and David Koresh of Branch Davidian infamy. You can't ever check your critical thinking at the door.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Friday October 07 2016, @01:09PM
You said: "You can't ever check your critical thinking at the door."
We agree on that and much more.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday October 05 2016, @07:51PM
This is why I say don't join a religion: just believe what you think is right and don't let others tell you what is right...thanks way, if they are wrong or the become corrupt, you don't have to reaffirm your beliefs etc.
Just be a good person, commune with God by yourself and HE will tell you what to believe. Not others: God Himself.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday October 04 2016, @06:47PM
“There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.”
― Fulton J. Sheen
To be fair from what I've read the Popes got a bit out of control back in the middle ages, but the world in general was pretty messy back then, too.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:45PM
I can accept that the quote is an accurate quote, but I've known enough ex-catholics to disbelieve it's accuracy. But most of the people I knew who hated the Roman Catholic Church were ex-catholics. And I will accept that they knew what they were leaving.
I, personally, don't hate them, but I do consider them a net social evil...as I do all other tax exempt churches. They have not lived up to their end of the deal under which they were given tax exempt status.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday October 05 2016, @08:00PM
Which pope? :)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Schism [wikipedia.org]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Interesting) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:18PM
you can ask members yourself easily enough
Yes, you can. And you can nearly die of laughter when they deny that the Church is in any way homophobic or transphobic. I don't have a problem with a group of kind, well-mannered, polite crazies pooling their money however they wish (not that I've ever claimed not to be crazy, myself), but it's not very nice to pretend there's a place for anybody who doesn't fit on the side of the aisle they were assigned at birth.
Does make me wonder. Now, it would be rude of me to use my advanced infiltrator woman suit to actually find out, but how dramatic is the excommunication when a trans woman fools ya'll for long enough about her gender at birth? Do they go full roid rage physical violence like some fundamentalist Christians?
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:26PM
As members, we are repeatedly reminded to be kind to all, regardless. The Golden Rule is a big deal. At the same time, membership requires that we maintain certain behaviors, because we believe God gives commandments and the integrity of those is important, and the organization has to protect its own integrity or lose its nature, and could put individuals in danger. Some behaviors, if universal, would end the race in a single generation.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:50PM
I'm sorry, but nearly all Christian Churches make that a part of their spiel, but in my observation the church members are actually slightly LESS kind to non-members than are non-Church members. It's not *usually* dramatic, but there's a definite shift in the mean.
That said, I suspect that this is true of every club where the members get to know each other, so it's not a direct mark against the Christian churches, so much as a claim that their propaganda about how decent they are is just propaganda. Perhaps it's mainly directed at the members, too, as I don't hear it very much as an outsider, but I hear it reported frequently by those who are members of some Christian church or another.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @08:06PM
No apology needed. So...I can only really say how we are taught to be. What we actually do is individual. In forums like our General Conference (lots of talks from leadership), this is often pointed out that we need to be better neighbors, all the time. We are all individually a work in progress (sounds a lot like "piece of work" I know...and some as individuals might agree, especially when one has really blundered at something). So true...
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:27AM
As an igtheist (yes, I'm in that extremist cult that makes Dawkins look moderate!), I'm generally more friendly towards other atheists than the religious of any flavour, simply because they have demonstrated an ability to critically analyse the world around them, and not base their views and attitudes upon unfounded woo-woo. (I include buddhism as a religion, as I don't believe wording everything in the passive and not naming the agent of the woo-woo processes as being superior to pinning a label on and defining it/them explicitly. In some ways it's weaker - it's a "we don't (and cannot) know" - but for a religion, perhaps that's a more honourable stance.)
Tons of atheists are arseholes, of course. Same as most groups.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday October 04 2016, @08:52PM
Some behaviors, if universal, would end the race in a single generation.
Thank you for at least being honest about the brand of hysteria present in the Church. I'll need to assume that discovering you've been invaded by an advanced infiltrator would elicit about the same response as John Conner's unit discovering a T-900 loose in the barracks. Anyway, blessed be~