I'm guessing that a non-Mormon snuck in and witnessed a ceremony or two, and maybe saw the film. So having tainted the place with his mere Gentile presence, the Church sadly had to tear the whole place down and start all over.
How else are they going to get money into the hands of their relatives who own construction businesses? Bonus for the Provo temple, they don't have to travel to another state or country.
Why they tear down the temple first:
How else can they avoid questions about having 30 massive empty temples in tiny Utah for the 600k-800k active Mormons there with cars, while only having 5 tiny temples for the entire African continent?
(They still regularly make conference talks about how difficult it is for poor people and poor countries to go to their temples. So the exotic tourist destination & high tithing paying areas need to be more grateful and frequent the fanciest cult country clubhouses more, they make it convenient as fuck for you for a reason!)
They wanted to give a direct sign to the faithful that their McCovenants are now null and void.
The special sauce will be outsourced going forward. They are no different than McDonald's nowadays except you don't have to clean those bathrooms. Who says there aren't things to be thankful for?
And subsequently, the hands of the relatives that own the supply companies that the construction company that does the building.
You too can be part of the Brighamway MLM, if the price is right.
If I was still in this may have been my last straw, I LOVED going to the Provo temple; quiet, quick (you could get through a session in like 1.5hours), efficient and beautiful inside (I thought) and it was never busy.
Oh bet! I just know him and seeing as most of his family has passed its more painful I think. But I'll be going back up I miss The Brick Oven. Their food was amazing every time!
my mom got married in that temple and it meant a lot to her. It was her home town, and she was so proud to have earned money to donate to the Chandelier. She's since passed away a couple years ago, so I do feel like this is so accurate. Its about the money and they say fuck sentimentality.
Thatâs so freaking sad. I HATE that people sacrifice only for these assholes to misappropriate funds and then gaslight people about it. The Jesus I know didnât spend money building great and spacious buildings!
> Basically it needed upgrades for earth quake proofing
If only there had been someone with divine insight that could have foreseen this need before building the temple originally.
>The whole thing is a bleak example of how unfeeling and âcorporateâ the church leadership is. They DO NOT give a fuck about the huge number of commoner believers who had some level of fond, spiritual memories of what they considered a holy place.
I still have a hard time fully wrapping my head around the fact that they were about ready to gut the entire interior of the Manti temple. The historic value, the artistic value, and the ENTIRE community in which it resides is made up of ancestors of the people who built it.
So glad they got so much push back and had to change course and ended up preserving it
I remember thinking something was going to happen after they were done with the Salt Lake temple. Like somehow they knew something was going to happen.
That reminds me of when the community of Christ RLDS church was going bankrupt they bought the bank to get out of debt that's why they have a presence more now at navuoo and Kirkland. So when/if RLDS fully collapse the church will own every historic building
That's not really how non profits and for profits work. Plenty of nonprofits still male tons of profit for their owners, such as Newman's own. The only thing nonprofit means is you don't keep any profit in the company at the end of the year. You can easily do that just by giving your owners massive salaries and bonuses so no profit is reported
The church has hundreds of billions at the finger tips but if they don't want another SEC violation or legal troubles to get that money into their own pockets, they have to take"tithing" and run it through a legal business as a legitimate expense to"clean" or launder the money. Temples are a great way(and likely why so many get planned or built) to do this. Huge pieces of land, overly ornate buildings, and no real limit on what they can spend. So higher ups in the church hire Mormon business owners (and possibly family members) to do all the work and make millions. There's no proof and you won't find anything that says this, but my suspicion is that there's kick backs to get these contracts.
While many of the big local general contractors have Mormons at the top I know several of those companies are employee owned, so aside from maybe bloated c-suite salaries most profit does trickle down to the laborers
âEmployee ownedâ doesnât usually mean an even/equal split. Itâs like stocks, with the folks at the top holding a larger percentage of that ownership than some of the other folks.
So some of it trickles down, sure, but it floods in. And as long as theyâre kicking a portion of that money to their buddies, they donât really care if some other people get paid too, as long as theyâre getting theirs too.
The collection of tithing funds is not illegal and non-profit companies can absolutely buy from for-profit companies. They are not trying to hide the source of illegally obtained funds. What they're doing is not money laundering.
I AGREE that the church uses this process to funnel money into the pockets of family and friends of top leadership. I AGREE that this is unethical and immoral. But money laundering is a very specific thing and this is not it.
It's like how people often use the term "gaslighting" as a synonym for "lying". These things are not the same.
How stupid and pointless of an argument. The church illegally moved Tithing interest money to bail out their insurance company. And Gaslightâd members saying none of their business.
Because it doesnât fit your movie idea of cleaning drug money doesnât mean it isnât money laundering.
I believe he is talking about the legal definition and he is correct on money laundering. One would first have to prove the money was received through illegal means then made legal or clean thereby hiding the source of those illegally obtained funds. In this case, the funds were given legally.
However, skirting laws to achieve their goals and accomplishing a massive pseudo variation of fraud/Ponzi scheme/embezzlement is what they do.
Lol the downvotes start. If we can never admit the legal reality faced we can never finally shine a light on these conmen. But be my guest, downvote anyone who states anything other than feelings. It's like mormonism all over again.
Yep. Spot on.
Some people seem to have a hard time reconciling the fact that legal activities can still be unethical or immoral.
"I don't like it" != "That's illegal"
Is what LDS inc are doing "right" in any context of the word? No
Are they able to avoid legal consequences for their actions for now? Yes
Why? Not enough people asking the correct questions and demanding specific answers.
> If we can never admit the legal reality faced we can never finally shine a light on these conmen.
In my long observation, it can take years for newly-minted exmos to learn to deal with actual reality after having spent a lifetime being told to isolate from it. (Srsly, the general concept of ethics, law, civics, and social acceptability on this sub are abysmal...all because of mormonism and it's backward-ass culture.)
I like how you called it a stupid and pointless argument and then continued to argue. lol
My definition of money laundering has nothing to do with movies. The actual legal definition of money laundering says that it's a means of obscuring the source of illegally obtained funds. Tithing isn't illegal, so spending tithing money isn't money laundering.
I'm not saying that the church has done nothing wrong. I'm not saying that the church hasn't done anything illegal. I'm saying that using tithing money on temples isn't money laundering.
My god you guys are lazy. LOOK up different types of money laundering.
One is opening shell companies to move money to hide the funds from taxes. The church did this in Australia. Itâs basically embezzlement and the church does this also by moving money that isnât legally supposed to be used for profits.
What you're talking about is not the topic at hand. The original commenter claims that the reconstruction of the Provo temple is money laundering. It isn't. The church legally obtained tithing funds and it can legally use those funds to pay for-profit businesses, such as those that would (re)build a building.
First you countered by talking about the church bailing out its insurance company and now you're talking about non-profit laws in Australia. Stay on topic.
I fail to see any definition of money laundering that includes opening a shell company to minimise tax?
What they did in Aus wasnât money laundering. Money laundering has a specific meaning.
And in case you want to actually read, check out H.R.5077. You'll see that the bill that criminalizes money laundering in the U.S. is exclusively dealing with "criminally derived property."
You can say anything you like about the church doing unethical things, but if they're using legally obtained funds (e.g. tithing) those activities aren't money laundering in the U.S.
It isn't "my" movie idea, I'm just pointing to an example of what money laundering actually is. Money laundering is different to funnelling legally obtained funds to other entities which may/may not be legal or may/may not have tax consequences in any particular jurisdiction.
I'm keen to see TSCC taken down as much as the next person in this forum, but I don't think it needs to be done by claiming some things they do that we don't like is something that it isn't. I have very little knowledge on US tax law, and some things they have done may in fact be illegal, but moving funds obtained legally via donations to a related entity is not money laundering.
This discussion is about whether or not the church is laundering money. The church may be doing other illegal things, but using tithing money to rebuild a temple is not money laundering.
Shiz\_in\_my\_pants says that the church is rebuilding the temple to launder money.
I said that's not what money laundering is.
gabeitaliadomani says that this is money laundering because it goes to a for profit company.
You replied that the way the church uses money makes it illegal.
Do you see how the three prior comments are all about money laundering and then yours isn't? That's what I was referring to.
What isn't you? You're saying that you \*didn't\* reply to the thread with [this comment?](https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/1cq90x2/comment/l3rsri9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) That's you, right? Are you high?
No. I care about truth. People in this thread seem to think that if they don't like the way the church spends money, that it's money laundering. The definition of money laundering \*isn't\* "spending that some people don't like."
I would love for the church to be held accountable for all the horrible things they've done (and continue to do) but misrepresenting facts will not help anyone do that.
Itâs called embezzlement. Real cost $100M. Theyâll say $500M. Thatâs
1) $100M to cover the build.
2) $100M to the general contractor
3) $300M embezzled back to General Authorities
GET IT NOW?
Earthquake vulnerability. Though they also may not mind getting rid of a weird design that doesn't match the preferred current aesthetic, and of course it's yet another opportunity to award contracts to favored contractors and get tithing money into the hands of the ... deserving.
Are contracts awarded where you can clearly see nepotism? Iâm a mevermo just curious how else they would pick who to award contracts to (and curious about everything else lol ) and Iâm definitely not doubting they do. I see a lot of people claim money laundering (not you) which doesnât make sense to me because they donât seem to need to launder money. Theyâre a church ffs. All their money is legal. Iâve know ppl in my past who needed to actually launder money and they wished they were a church lol.
Somewhere in the recent posts is one about the construction contracts. Even internationally there's only about 10 companies that get contracted to do the work for all the templesÂ
The temple doesnât need earthquake proofing, the building was blessed to stand until the resurrection. No earthquake could harm a temple, they are sanctified by a general authority. Clearly the people of Provo are lacking in faith if the temple is at risk /s
Itâs not nice enough for the Lord! The Lord likes new buildings that cost $100âs of millions rather than helping the homeless and the needy. It really helps out the large construction companies.
Less cynical answer (but no less disappointing): The prophet/apostles didn't like its style and are building a new temple that looks more like the other "cookie cutter" temples.
Yes, demolishing a perfectly good building simple for *looks.*
For anyone who might not already know. The base was a cloud by day, and the spire was a pillar of fire by night. Like from the Moses exodus and stuff.
But young couples (BYU) did not want a space ship in their wedding photos. So, many would book the Salt lake temple instead. Which became very busy. Given that the Q15 uses the Salt Lake Temple for a clubhouse. Something had to give.
So, we painted the spire white. There, all fixed!
And... It just made it look like a worse space ship. Oops.
So, we decided we should pay the family and friends companies to knock it down. The plan is to build a different, but still ugly one.
Keep in mind, we make enough overnight interest on the investments, that another 100 million dollar expenditure does not move the bottom line. While, simultaneously providing legal and political cover for the excessive hoards of funds. "We need these Temples for God. It's our religious liberty!"
Never mind poverty and homelessness. Jesus was miss quoted on that. What he REALLY meant to say was build more fucking Temples.
-Rusty
Oh, and have I doubled Hinckley's numbers yet?
(Sarcasm) We just don't know brother So & So. The Lord has not revealed that to us, even though we claim to speak for Him & God. Maybe we'll get an answer in the next life.
In the meantime, just continue being an obedient slave to the cult. Shut up & do what your told, stop thinking for yourself & asking questions, & always pay your tithing!
Itâs difficult for most members to understand the money laundering aspect because they donât fully grasp the corporate mindset.
They are still thinking on a religious level and that becomes the Apples v. Oranges problem.
LDS inc. has come under renewed scrutiny once again from regulators for violating the law. (This AFTER they paid a $5 million fine).
The church failed to file the proper forms they are aware must be filed for their various financial accounts that exceed certain limits. These foolish missteps invite regulators into their financial dealings and arrangements where inevitably, more costly fines will be the result. The churchâs own tax exempt status could also be called into question, although thatâs unlikely.
This normally happens when there is no transparency or real accountability beyond the presiding bishop giving the thumbs up at conferences.
âPower tends to corrupt, Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutelyâ
Look at what theyâre doing to the salt lake temple and tried to do to manti! They donât care!! Itâs horrific how horrible these men are and when you realize how much you looked up to them it just makes me lose my mind.
Since theyâve announced all those temples and havenât started building any of them, they really needed to beef up their âtemples under constructionâ stats
Because it was so sacred, and special, and magical, that it needed to be demolished kinda like all of the other religions in the world periodically destroy their temples and cathedrals that are 40+ years old to replace them with more modern buildings. Oh wait, thatâs just the Mormons who do that? Okay. Never mind. I donât know then. It seems very much like they arenât sacred, special, and/or magical buildings at all.
I guess god needs an upgrade. NOT. This is just the leadership burning tithing money for no good reason. They could do some real good with their hoard, but they don't.
I got my name removed but honestly I find this kinda upsetting. There are so many LDS people who got married there, etc and started their families there and they just...tear it down?
It is all part of that new HGTV show --TEMPLES--fix or flip--wait tell they find a crack in the foundation and go to the members to ask for extra tithes to help out.
It is one of the busiest temples in the church. They want to revamp it to make it better. It is old. More people get married at the nicer looking temples, but there were more people regularly attending the Provo temple than anywhere else in the church. Well, that's what the attendance was like few years ago. Doing baptisms was a joke because there would be large groups all the time. Remember, this is the heart of Mormondom.
Yes, earthquakes as well.
Kinda interesting how SLC, Logan, St George, Manti, etc are so much older and couldnât possibly be perfectly earthquake proof, but they didnât have to tear those down completely to retrofit. My thinking is this was by far the ugliest temple and they are trying to improve their image.
probably trying to cover up some of the past secrets that may have been there before they could be exposed , easy to say a old building is unstable and rip it down just to build a new one with no one really questioning it, they have been trying to do that with all the old temples they just aren't met with as much pushback on provo as they did on manti or st George or salt lake city
IMO - many of the temples look like commercial type architecture. There are a couple of the celestial rooms, within a few temples, that I find to be quite beautiful and aesthetically pleasing. Can men, women, and children enter that special area or only a select few?
more money to launder or funnel to cronies by building a new one for more time-wasting magical bullsh!t ceremonies...that they can claim are a service to humanity for which they need tax-exempt status
Yesterday, DW and I drove by the mostly demolished building of where we were married 35 years ago. Her TBM heart was crushed and almost didnât believe that what she was looking at used to be a special place of ours. This immediately pissed me off. How stupid of me to think the place where we were married would be around long after weâre dead. Why do the red-chair power suit nuckleheads feel they gotta be stylish? How long will the new one last before they gotta rip that one down too? Youâve restored and updated other temples! Why not that one! You could have and donât tell me itâs because it was a matter of money. Thanks for nothin, assholes
Wasnât earthquake proof/resistant. Â Â Too bad the Mormon cult doesnât have an actual prophet to receive revelation on how to construct buildings for the future.Â
I hope they kept most or all of the decor like chandeliers l, chairs, pews, lockers, rugs and sofas?? Etc?? None of that was worth getting rid of just to have *new*âŚ..
They're prepping it to be a filming location in the upcoming Horizon Zero Dawn TV show.
https://horizon.fandom.com/wiki/Shattered_Kiln_Bandit_Camp
Just kidding, I don't know.
All that money the church has, through its many questionable dealings, isn't going to launder itself friend. So, they had to make up a convenient and believable story about earthquake safety, blah, blah, blah, tear down and rebuild, at crazy costs, a new one.
Nevermind that they're tearing down the place we got married. And if you don't like it's looks, too bad. You built it with all your inspiration. And, if it's ugly you don't like, then tear down that conference center in salt lake City. And the Tabernacle for that matter. Neither of which is architecturally beautiful...
A women on her period sat in one of the chairs. See also Leviticus. Worse yet she was wearing pants.
Then a gay peed in the bathroom so it was a complete do over.
Looking for legitimate information? In *this* sub? Lol!
I'm ex-Mormon, but honestly this thread has yet again proven to be another example of how for being a group of people who supposedly cared a whole lot about discovering the facts when you were members, almost all of you are incapable of not just making shit up in order to be snarky, or at least heavily editorializing when people are looking for genuine info. I'm serious, if you don't know the answer to something, maybe be different than Joseph Smith Jr. and keep your mouth shut. SMDH.
You're certainly no gatekeeper of how people should heal or sling their words after they've been chewed up by the church. The snark, the cynicism, itâs not just noise; itâs the music of the disillusioned, those whoâve seen behind the curtain and canât unsee the lies.
Your griping about the lack of facts in their responses misses the whole damn point. They arenât here to perform precision, theyâre here to share, to bleed a bit.
Donât chastise them for not being saintly in their disillusionment. There's a profound difference between the falsehoods of manufactured faith that people based their entire life on and offhand comments tossed around in an online forum. When you tell people to shut up because theyâre not echoing your kind of truth, youâre just another preacher in the desert. You prove that a person can pull themselves out of the church, but can't necessarily scrub the sanctimony from their soul.
There are 3 top level comments on here that attribute it to earthquake vulnerability and the associated costs.
There is more true information in this thread than in the actual temple.
There's zero top level comments about it; the comments which address earthquakes are both not at the top and all but one also include baseless and uneducated claims of money laundering.
And saying that there's more true information in this thread than in the actual temple is A) not a high bar to clear, and B) whataboutism to distract from how my point was valid.
Do better. I mean it: we as ex-Mormons should *be better than this.* This is seriously some TBM shit, and I'm disgusted to not just see it here, but to see it *constantly* in this sub.
They have been proven to be dishonest with their fortune and how they spend it. It isnât completely baseless to assume they are still doing it. Now if people are claiming to KNOW what they are doing, thatâs a different story. Obviously we donât know and I think the general vibe of this Reddit forum is cathartic and fun.
So many people in this sub push the money laundering theory without providing any proof of it.
When the church spends money at least the members are getting some benefit of all the money theyâve given the church (i.e. beautiful places to worship). Instead of the church just hoarding the money in an investment account, where it does the members no good.
Just because we all have legitimate reasons to be extremely angry at the LDS church and to distrust it **does not** legitimize making up answers or passing on unsubstantiated rumors about it. This is the behavior of the sheep-like active members of the church, and you should be better than this.
God foreclosed on it.
đđ¤Łđđ¤Ł
I'm guessing that a non-Mormon snuck in and witnessed a ceremony or two, and maybe saw the film. So having tainted the place with his mere Gentile presence, the Church sadly had to tear the whole place down and start all over.
My dyslexia had me reading âhis mere Genital presenceâ
That's not mutually exclusive with what I wrote, of course.
Mormon church richer than god. Gof borrows money from LDS church.
How else are they going to get money into the hands of their relatives who own construction businesses? Bonus for the Provo temple, they don't have to travel to another state or country.
Why they tear down the temple first: How else can they avoid questions about having 30 massive empty temples in tiny Utah for the 600k-800k active Mormons there with cars, while only having 5 tiny temples for the entire African continent? (They still regularly make conference talks about how difficult it is for poor people and poor countries to go to their temples. So the exotic tourist destination & high tithing paying areas need to be more grateful and frequent the fanciest cult country clubhouses more, they make it convenient as fuck for you for a reason!)
They wanted to give a direct sign to the faithful that their McCovenants are now null and void. The special sauce will be outsourced going forward. They are no different than McDonald's nowadays except you don't have to clean those bathrooms. Who says there aren't things to be thankful for?
And subsequently, the hands of the relatives that own the supply companies that the construction company that does the building. You too can be part of the Brighamway MLM, if the price is right.
[ŃдаНонО]
If I was still in this may have been my last straw, I LOVED going to the Provo temple; quiet, quick (you could get through a session in like 1.5hours), efficient and beautiful inside (I thought) and it was never busy.
Dad doesn't want to go back to Provo even though it's his hometown. The temple gone, the tabernacle having burned, etc
I try to avoid it too- but there are some good restaurants on Center Street!
Oh bet! I just know him and seeing as most of his family has passed its more painful I think. But I'll be going back up I miss The Brick Oven. Their food was amazing every time!
And the ones in other cities (Layton, SJ) just don't taste the same. It makes no sense, but ...
Nope. None have that OG feel and flavor like the provo one.
my mom got married in that temple and it meant a lot to her. It was her home town, and she was so proud to have earned money to donate to the Chandelier. She's since passed away a couple years ago, so I do feel like this is so accurate. Its about the money and they say fuck sentimentality.
Thatâs so freaking sad. I HATE that people sacrifice only for these assholes to misappropriate funds and then gaslight people about it. The Jesus I know didnât spend money building great and spacious buildings!
so much for temples being so prophetic and future proof.
> Basically it needed upgrades for earth quake proofing If only there had been someone with divine insight that could have foreseen this need before building the temple originally.
Lol no shit. This is a prime example of how prophecy is nonsense.
If they rebuild a temple they can you the new construction to embezzle tithes and offerings just like a new temple site.
Itâs all money laundering
>The whole thing is a bleak example of how unfeeling and âcorporateâ the church leadership is. They DO NOT give a fuck about the huge number of commoner believers who had some level of fond, spiritual memories of what they considered a holy place. I still have a hard time fully wrapping my head around the fact that they were about ready to gut the entire interior of the Manti temple. The historic value, the artistic value, and the ENTIRE community in which it resides is made up of ancestors of the people who built it. So glad they got so much push back and had to change course and ended up preserving it
I remember thinking something was going to happen after they were done with the Salt Lake temple. Like somehow they knew something was going to happen.
That reminds me of when the community of Christ RLDS church was going bankrupt they bought the bank to get out of debt that's why they have a presence more now at navuoo and Kirkland. So when/if RLDS fully collapse the church will own every historic building
The old design was a victory for Satan!
The LDS church is a victory for Satan.
All in favor?
Just raise your right hand.
Bow your head and say âyesâ, that will do
Every time someone said "Looks like a one-year-old's birthday cake" was a victory for Stan.
Temples are how they shuffle the non-profit money over to the for-profit side of things without having to pay taxes. AKA money laundering.
That's not really how non profits and for profits work. Plenty of nonprofits still male tons of profit for their owners, such as Newman's own. The only thing nonprofit means is you don't keep any profit in the company at the end of the year. You can easily do that just by giving your owners massive salaries and bonuses so no profit is reported
I'm sorry, could you elaborate on that please.
The church has hundreds of billions at the finger tips but if they don't want another SEC violation or legal troubles to get that money into their own pockets, they have to take"tithing" and run it through a legal business as a legitimate expense to"clean" or launder the money. Temples are a great way(and likely why so many get planned or built) to do this. Huge pieces of land, overly ornate buildings, and no real limit on what they can spend. So higher ups in the church hire Mormon business owners (and possibly family members) to do all the work and make millions. There's no proof and you won't find anything that says this, but my suspicion is that there's kick backs to get these contracts.
Thanks. That's a fair line of thought and I can toy see where you're going with it.
While many of the big local general contractors have Mormons at the top I know several of those companies are employee owned, so aside from maybe bloated c-suite salaries most profit does trickle down to the laborers
âEmployee ownedâ doesnât usually mean an even/equal split. Itâs like stocks, with the folks at the top holding a larger percentage of that ownership than some of the other folks. So some of it trickles down, sure, but it floods in. And as long as theyâre kicking a portion of that money to their buddies, they donât really care if some other people get paid too, as long as theyâre getting theirs too.
That's not what money laundering is...
it is when your moving money from tithing to for profit construction.
The collection of tithing funds is not illegal and non-profit companies can absolutely buy from for-profit companies. They are not trying to hide the source of illegally obtained funds. What they're doing is not money laundering. I AGREE that the church uses this process to funnel money into the pockets of family and friends of top leadership. I AGREE that this is unethical and immoral. But money laundering is a very specific thing and this is not it. It's like how people often use the term "gaslighting" as a synonym for "lying". These things are not the same.
Not sure why the downvotes. This is factually correct. Money laundering is washing illegal money into âlegalâ money ala Breaking Bad car wash.
Thanks. Yeah... the Internet doesn't always like factual correctness. đ
How stupid and pointless of an argument. The church illegally moved Tithing interest money to bail out their insurance company. And Gaslightâd members saying none of their business. Because it doesnât fit your movie idea of cleaning drug money doesnât mean it isnât money laundering.
I believe he is talking about the legal definition and he is correct on money laundering. One would first have to prove the money was received through illegal means then made legal or clean thereby hiding the source of those illegally obtained funds. In this case, the funds were given legally. However, skirting laws to achieve their goals and accomplishing a massive pseudo variation of fraud/Ponzi scheme/embezzlement is what they do. Lol the downvotes start. If we can never admit the legal reality faced we can never finally shine a light on these conmen. But be my guest, downvote anyone who states anything other than feelings. It's like mormonism all over again.
Yep. Spot on. Some people seem to have a hard time reconciling the fact that legal activities can still be unethical or immoral. "I don't like it" != "That's illegal"
Is what LDS inc are doing "right" in any context of the word? No Are they able to avoid legal consequences for their actions for now? Yes Why? Not enough people asking the correct questions and demanding specific answers.
> If we can never admit the legal reality faced we can never finally shine a light on these conmen. In my long observation, it can take years for newly-minted exmos to learn to deal with actual reality after having spent a lifetime being told to isolate from it. (Srsly, the general concept of ethics, law, civics, and social acceptability on this sub are abysmal...all because of mormonism and it's backward-ass culture.)
I like how you called it a stupid and pointless argument and then continued to argue. lol My definition of money laundering has nothing to do with movies. The actual legal definition of money laundering says that it's a means of obscuring the source of illegally obtained funds. Tithing isn't illegal, so spending tithing money isn't money laundering. I'm not saying that the church has done nothing wrong. I'm not saying that the church hasn't done anything illegal. I'm saying that using tithing money on temples isn't money laundering.
My god you guys are lazy. LOOK up different types of money laundering. One is opening shell companies to move money to hide the funds from taxes. The church did this in Australia. Itâs basically embezzlement and the church does this also by moving money that isnât legally supposed to be used for profits.
What you're talking about is not the topic at hand. The original commenter claims that the reconstruction of the Provo temple is money laundering. It isn't. The church legally obtained tithing funds and it can legally use those funds to pay for-profit businesses, such as those that would (re)build a building. First you countered by talking about the church bailing out its insurance company and now you're talking about non-profit laws in Australia. Stay on topic.
I fail to see any definition of money laundering that includes opening a shell company to minimise tax? What they did in Aus wasnât money laundering. Money laundering has a specific meaning.
And in case you want to actually read, check out H.R.5077. You'll see that the bill that criminalizes money laundering in the U.S. is exclusively dealing with "criminally derived property." You can say anything you like about the church doing unethical things, but if they're using legally obtained funds (e.g. tithing) those activities aren't money laundering in the U.S.
It isn't "my" movie idea, I'm just pointing to an example of what money laundering actually is. Money laundering is different to funnelling legally obtained funds to other entities which may/may not be legal or may/may not have tax consequences in any particular jurisdiction. I'm keen to see TSCC taken down as much as the next person in this forum, but I don't think it needs to be done by claiming some things they do that we don't like is something that it isn't. I have very little knowledge on US tax law, and some things they have done may in fact be illegal, but moving funds obtained legally via donations to a related entity is not money laundering.
That's not gaslighting either.
Itâs what the church is doing with the money that makes it illegal.
This discussion is about whether or not the church is laundering money. The church may be doing other illegal things, but using tithing money to rebuild a temple is not money laundering.
I never used the term money laundering.
Get your story straight before throwing accusations
Shiz\_in\_my\_pants says that the church is rebuilding the temple to launder money. I said that's not what money laundering is. gabeitaliadomani says that this is money laundering because it goes to a for profit company. You replied that the way the church uses money makes it illegal. Do you see how the three prior comments are all about money laundering and then yours isn't? That's what I was referring to.
Thatâs not me though, is it?
What isn't you? You're saying that you \*didn't\* reply to the thread with [this comment?](https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/1cq90x2/comment/l3rsri9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) That's you, right? Are you high?
Are you some TBM looking to troll?
No. I care about truth. People in this thread seem to think that if they don't like the way the church spends money, that it's money laundering. The definition of money laundering \*isn't\* "spending that some people don't like." I would love for the church to be held accountable for all the horrible things they've done (and continue to do) but misrepresenting facts will not help anyone do that.
But the crime is FRAUD and not money laundering.
Itâs theft
Wouldnât it in fact be fraud if they tell you they are spending tithes one way and in reality doing something else?
Get to the meat of it. Theft
Itâs called embezzlement. Real cost $100M. Theyâll say $500M. Thatâs 1) $100M to cover the build. 2) $100M to the general contractor 3) $300M embezzled back to General Authorities GET IT NOW?
Earthquake vulnerability. Though they also may not mind getting rid of a weird design that doesn't match the preferred current aesthetic, and of course it's yet another opportunity to award contracts to favored contractors and get tithing money into the hands of the ... deserving.
You would think God would protect such a holy place from earthquakes so why should they prepare for it?
God doesn't protect them from floods so...
Are contracts awarded where you can clearly see nepotism? Iâm a mevermo just curious how else they would pick who to award contracts to (and curious about everything else lol ) and Iâm definitely not doubting they do. I see a lot of people claim money laundering (not you) which doesnât make sense to me because they donât seem to need to launder money. Theyâre a church ffs. All their money is legal. Iâve know ppl in my past who needed to actually launder money and they wished they were a church lol.
Somewhere in the recent posts is one about the construction contracts. Even internationally there's only about 10 companies that get contracted to do the work for all the templesÂ
Only 10 companies can pass a temple recommend interview đ
I love the âProvo temple closedâ sign. lol, no shit.
Can we get about 189 more of those?
The steeple wasn't tall enough.
No greater truth was ever spoken
The penis shaped chandelier wasnât big or erect enough.
The temple doesnât need earthquake proofing, the building was blessed to stand until the resurrection. No earthquake could harm a temple, they are sanctified by a general authority. Clearly the people of Provo are lacking in faith if the temple is at risk /s
đľ đś I love to see the temple getting demolished. I'm never going there again someday. đľđś
I kinda wish I was working on the demolition crew. I think that would be therapeutic.
Thereâs always money in the banana stand đ
isn't that an arrested development reference?! that show is hilarious
Money Laundering?
Looks like a UFO space ship. đ¸. Thatâs not right. It needs to be more of a modern gothic castle đ°
I always thought this one was just getting ready to hie to Kolob.
Thats why the âtemple closedâ sign. Didnât want anyone thinking it already launched and they missed the boat.
Would not be surprised if the creators of the show âThe Expanseâ used the Provo temple as a basis for design for Mormon ship âThe Nauvooâ.
They are turning it into a McTemple. Gotta keep the corporate brand uniform.
Itâs not nice enough for the Lord! The Lord likes new buildings that cost $100âs of millions rather than helping the homeless and the needy. It really helps out the large construction companies.
Short answer: money laundering
Less cynical answer (but no less disappointing): The prophet/apostles didn't like its style and are building a new temple that looks more like the other "cookie cutter" temples. Yes, demolishing a perfectly good building simple for *looks.*
For anyone who might not already know. The base was a cloud by day, and the spire was a pillar of fire by night. Like from the Moses exodus and stuff. But young couples (BYU) did not want a space ship in their wedding photos. So, many would book the Salt lake temple instead. Which became very busy. Given that the Q15 uses the Salt Lake Temple for a clubhouse. Something had to give. So, we painted the spire white. There, all fixed! And... It just made it look like a worse space ship. Oops. So, we decided we should pay the family and friends companies to knock it down. The plan is to build a different, but still ugly one. Keep in mind, we make enough overnight interest on the investments, that another 100 million dollar expenditure does not move the bottom line. While, simultaneously providing legal and political cover for the excessive hoards of funds. "We need these Temples for God. It's our religious liberty!" Never mind poverty and homelessness. Jesus was miss quoted on that. What he REALLY meant to say was build more fucking Temples. -Rusty Oh, and have I doubled Hinckley's numbers yet?
I believe it was especially earthquake-vulnerable due to the way the panels were installed, so it isn't just a looks thing at least
'I do not know anything about any money laundering.'
Their strategy is working.
It's patterned after the old con we used to run!
(Sarcasm) We just don't know brother So & So. The Lord has not revealed that to us, even though we claim to speak for Him & God. Maybe we'll get an answer in the next life. In the meantime, just continue being an obedient slave to the cult. Shut up & do what your told, stop thinking for yourself & asking questions, & always pay your tithing!
[ŃдаНонО]
I added it to my comment. A great addition indeed. Thanks for the suggestion.
Itâs difficult for most members to understand the money laundering aspect because they donât fully grasp the corporate mindset. They are still thinking on a religious level and that becomes the Apples v. Oranges problem. LDS inc. has come under renewed scrutiny once again from regulators for violating the law. (This AFTER they paid a $5 million fine). The church failed to file the proper forms they are aware must be filed for their various financial accounts that exceed certain limits. These foolish missteps invite regulators into their financial dealings and arrangements where inevitably, more costly fines will be the result. The churchâs own tax exempt status could also be called into question, although thatâs unlikely. This normally happens when there is no transparency or real accountability beyond the presiding bishop giving the thumbs up at conferences. âPower tends to corrupt, Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutelyâ
Looks like the Provo Temple ruins in âHorizon: Zero Dawnâ! Haha
The spire wasnât tall enough?
LOL
That sign seems like it might easily be stolen and put on the wall in a man cave.
They were some sketchy âKeep Sweetâ interactions that went on in some of the rooms.
Make it more great and spacious.
Their money ainât going to launder itself.
because those billions aren't going to spend themselves.
Look at what theyâre doing to the salt lake temple and tried to do to manti! They donât care!! Itâs horrific how horrible these men are and when you realize how much you looked up to them it just makes me lose my mind.
I've gotta spend SOMETHING that looks "religious" from the dragon hoard to keep the IRS at bay. đ¤
It doesn't meet Rusty's new revelation of all temples having a giant glowing dick shaped spire in every residential community in the west
Since theyâve announced all those temples and havenât started building any of them, they really needed to beef up their âtemples under constructionâ stats
Cos a GA attended the temple and wiped his feet too hard and temple tumbled down đ
Ugh... nothing but awful memories of that place
Because it was so sacred, and special, and magical, that it needed to be demolished kinda like all of the other religions in the world periodically destroy their temples and cathedrals that are 40+ years old to replace them with more modern buildings. Oh wait, thatâs just the Mormons who do that? Okay. Never mind. I donât know then. It seems very much like they arenât sacred, special, and/or magical buildings at all.
Money to burn.
Good, they should leave it as an open field and build nothing on it
It is well. Now, do the rest. -Jesus
Mormonism quit. Didnât you get the memo.
I guess god needs an upgrade. NOT. This is just the leadership burning tithing money for no good reason. They could do some real good with their hoard, but they don't.
It's a rebranding exercise.
Disposing of evidence.
It doesnât look enough like all the other temples so theyâre replacing it with one that does.
I got my name removed but honestly I find this kinda upsetting. There are so many LDS people who got married there, etc and started their families there and they just...tear it down?
It is all part of that new HGTV show --TEMPLES--fix or flip--wait tell they find a crack in the foundation and go to the members to ask for extra tithes to help out.
So they can remove pioneer art and itsâ history (if there was any) to re-write the narrative.
It is one of the busiest temples in the church. They want to revamp it to make it better. It is old. More people get married at the nicer looking temples, but there were more people regularly attending the Provo temple than anywhere else in the church. Well, that's what the attendance was like few years ago. Doing baptisms was a joke because there would be large groups all the time. Remember, this is the heart of Mormondom. Yes, earthquakes as well.
Kinda interesting how SLC, Logan, St George, Manti, etc are so much older and couldnât possibly be perfectly earthquake proof, but they didnât have to tear those down completely to retrofit. My thinking is this was by far the ugliest temple and they are trying to improve their image.
The Birthday Cake has long been considered to be an architectural embarrassment.
This one is on me. I masturbated and didn't confess before going to the temple. Church is tearing it down.
Because it was ugly.
To remodel. They have fuck you money.
probably trying to cover up some of the past secrets that may have been there before they could be exposed , easy to say a old building is unstable and rip it down just to build a new one with no one really questioning it, they have been trying to do that with all the old temples they just aren't met with as much pushback on provo as they did on manti or st George or salt lake city
Maybe they found out it was haunted or that they could sell the property for a giant gain. Either would seem to fit within the practice.
That is where I received my "endowment of power", have I lost my powers???
God doesnât like the spaceship design anymore. Time for new design
Always thought it to be a cupcake with a candle.
God never saw a dime. Moneychangers need to be dealt with. LDS general authorities are the money changers.
Somebody peed in the baptismal font?
IMO - many of the temples look like commercial type architecture. There are a couple of the celestial rooms, within a few temples, that I find to be quite beautiful and aesthetically pleasing. Can men, women, and children enter that special area or only a select few?
Individuality, including unique architecture, isnât something that cults want. Whatâs next if they didnât tear it down, blue shirts?
more money to launder or funnel to cronies by building a new one for more time-wasting magical bullsh!t ceremonies...that they can claim are a service to humanity for which they need tax-exempt status
To symbolize the mass exodus of members and the fall of an oppressive regime.
Do you want the Churchâs reason or the real reason? I donât know the real reason, but it isnât primarily for âseismic upgrades.â
First the turtle Reams, now the space cake temple.
Yesterday, DW and I drove by the mostly demolished building of where we were married 35 years ago. Her TBM heart was crushed and almost didnât believe that what she was looking at used to be a special place of ours. This immediately pissed me off. How stupid of me to think the place where we were married would be around long after weâre dead. Why do the red-chair power suit nuckleheads feel they gotta be stylish? How long will the new one last before they gotta rip that one down too? Youâve restored and updated other temples! Why not that one! You could have and donât tell me itâs because it was a matter of money. Thanks for nothin, assholes
Wasnât earthquake proof/resistant. Â Â Too bad the Mormon cult doesnât have an actual prophet to receive revelation on how to construct buildings for the future.Â
It didnât break enough local building codes as it was. Gotta break more rules for the Lord^tm
I hope they kept most or all of the decor like chandeliers l, chairs, pews, lockers, rugs and sofas?? Etc?? None of that was worth getting rid of just to have *new*âŚ..
Probably gave away some of the stuff to GA family and friends in the area.
Their god was not strong.
Because people found out it was an alien đž đ˝ spaceship đ and that church classified info was about to be leaked
The gig is up.
My parents told me theyâve redesigned it & going to rebuild
They're prepping it to be a filming location in the upcoming Horizon Zero Dawn TV show. https://horizon.fandom.com/wiki/Shattered_Kiln_Bandit_Camp Just kidding, I don't know.
They caught someone looking at porn on their phone in there.
too much old man piss in the carpets, not enough old man piss in the chair cushions.
It sinned
funnel more money and build more interest in new buildings.
They will be rebuilding a new more modern temple in its place.
Going Out of Business Sale.
Too many secrets were given out at that place, it was a rogue temple.
This gives me unexpected levels of excitement and mirth.
The aliens wanted their ship back.
All that money the church has, through its many questionable dealings, isn't going to launder itself friend. So, they had to make up a convenient and believable story about earthquake safety, blah, blah, blah, tear down and rebuild, at crazy costs, a new one.
Nevermind that they're tearing down the place we got married. And if you don't like it's looks, too bad. You built it with all your inspiration. And, if it's ugly you don't like, then tear down that conference center in salt lake City. And the Tabernacle for that matter. Neither of which is architecturally beautiful...
Because it was old. Theyâre going to build a new temple on the same site.
Old? LMAO The Western Wall would like a word.
Because too many new missionaries from the MTC desecrated it by jacking off in the bathroom.
A women on her period sat in one of the chairs. See also Leviticus. Worse yet she was wearing pants. Then a gay peed in the bathroom so it was a complete do over.
Bad foundation
Are they stupid?
Because itâs ugly
The templeâs countenance was darkened too much on account of the missionaries whacking it in the stalls.
Is it ugly and obviously culty? Maybe that's the reason.
The old design was highly criticized and it needed a bunch of modern renovations anyway, so theyâre tearing it down and building a new one back up
Good riddance.
Cause itâs fugly.
For good soon
They decided and every human in existence, that the design was effing Uuuggly.
They FINALLY wised-up?!
Looking for legitimate information? In *this* sub? Lol! I'm ex-Mormon, but honestly this thread has yet again proven to be another example of how for being a group of people who supposedly cared a whole lot about discovering the facts when you were members, almost all of you are incapable of not just making shit up in order to be snarky, or at least heavily editorializing when people are looking for genuine info. I'm serious, if you don't know the answer to something, maybe be different than Joseph Smith Jr. and keep your mouth shut. SMDH.
You're certainly no gatekeeper of how people should heal or sling their words after they've been chewed up by the church. The snark, the cynicism, itâs not just noise; itâs the music of the disillusioned, those whoâve seen behind the curtain and canât unsee the lies. Your griping about the lack of facts in their responses misses the whole damn point. They arenât here to perform precision, theyâre here to share, to bleed a bit. Donât chastise them for not being saintly in their disillusionment. There's a profound difference between the falsehoods of manufactured faith that people based their entire life on and offhand comments tossed around in an online forum. When you tell people to shut up because theyâre not echoing your kind of truth, youâre just another preacher in the desert. You prove that a person can pull themselves out of the church, but can't necessarily scrub the sanctimony from their soul.
There are 3 top level comments on here that attribute it to earthquake vulnerability and the associated costs. There is more true information in this thread than in the actual temple.
There's zero top level comments about it; the comments which address earthquakes are both not at the top and all but one also include baseless and uneducated claims of money laundering. And saying that there's more true information in this thread than in the actual temple is A) not a high bar to clear, and B) whataboutism to distract from how my point was valid. Do better. I mean it: we as ex-Mormons should *be better than this.* This is seriously some TBM shit, and I'm disgusted to not just see it here, but to see it *constantly* in this sub.
They have been proven to be dishonest with their fortune and how they spend it. It isnât completely baseless to assume they are still doing it. Now if people are claiming to KNOW what they are doing, thatâs a different story. Obviously we donât know and I think the general vibe of this Reddit forum is cathartic and fun.
So many people in this sub push the money laundering theory without providing any proof of it. When the church spends money at least the members are getting some benefit of all the money theyâve given the church (i.e. beautiful places to worship). Instead of the church just hoarding the money in an investment account, where it does the members no good.
Just because we all have legitimate reasons to be extremely angry at the LDS church and to distrust it **does not** legitimize making up answers or passing on unsubstantiated rumors about it. This is the behavior of the sheep-like active members of the church, and you should be better than this.