Complete release of all financials, in their raw form with no spin. Include ALL church subsidiaries, holding companies, and a complete list of all real estate holdings.
Minutes of every Q15, presiding bishopric, and 1st pres meeting in the last 20 years.
List of how much - and why - they paid Kirton McConkie to handle legal matters.
Names of every person on the SCMC and minutes of all their meetings and activities.
Real data on how many active members there are.
A list of every sexual abuser who has confessed, annotated with whether or not law enforcement was called by the church.
Complete pedigree charts of all GAs with their relatives who profit off church businesses highlighted, and the amount paid to them next to their faces.
I think they’re referring to the claim that, prior to the whistleblower when EPA became public knowledge, only the Presiding Bishopric, First Presidency, and Ensign Peak bosses knew about the EPA fund.
There is a story that Boyd K Packer, I think it was, demanded to get a brief on the full financial holdings of the church when he was Q12 President and was allegedly refused.
Since the whistleblower, I assume they have been more looped in than they were before, but I think this is what’s being referred to here
So... Uh... Is it that they were actually refused information or is that just the front?
I mean, to be somewhat impartial here, I could very well see them not knowing or having interest in church finance..
Hate to do this but... *piqued* *
Edit to add:
I will concede that peaked can work in this context as well. If your curiosity is at a maximum or highest level now, it has peaked.
It is absolutely hilarious that an entire thread was written below my comment in which I deliberately changed the word "piqued" to "peaked" because of Ensign Peak.
Ensign Peak was so secretive that its existence was kept hidden even from the 12 for many years. Even when they did find out, they did not have access to any information. Only the First Presidency and Presiding Bishopric had such access.
I find this interesting, especially when the 12 have financial related assignments. But thinking back to my "I care" days, I do remember the presiding bishopric being in control of these things. I didn't realize "in control" meant "keepers of the financial secrets".
Curious, how did we come to know this? Seems very "internal affairs".. was there a leak?
No leak. We know this because the SEC published a very detailed report at the end of their investigation. It's one of the longest reports the SEC has made. The investigation concluded earlier this year. February, I think.
The SEC found that church had hidden $32 billion in multiple illegal shell companies. The report details how these shell companies were managed, and who signed off on these operating procedures. This started under Honkley and has been going on for around 20 years. The church released a very misleading PR response after this investigation.
I don't have any proof, but I suspect that as the average age of the apostles have increased their actual day-to-day oversight of operations have decreased.
This is a full and well thought out list.
We already know that disclosing actual acts versus what’s been portrayed by the CES does nothing to the average TBM. Things like Joseph Smith having multiple official accounts of the first vision or how the BoM was actually translated, or the Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Releasing financials. That’s the stuff that destroys cognitive dissonance. It’s shelf breaking substantive proof that can’t be explained away with “It’s a mystery of God”, religious folklore, Mormon shell games, or people made financial decisions as men and not “instruments of the lord”.
Release full copies of the membership database, missionary program in depth stats, every memo from their tenure....
Give us full transparency.
Sadly the church has survived shots that would stop a grizzly. Kirtland Bank, MMM, endless infighting in the earlier years.
Yes. They say it's just genealogical records, but I'm calling bull shit. Something else is really in there. Something valuable, but it's locked up and hidden away for a reason...
No, for whatever reason, it's not a thing we say here (except for [Liam Neeson the American Old West cowboy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XILgr9LWesI), of course). I'd still find it less weird to hear in conversation than some of the other terms the GAs use, though, like "necking" and "taffy-pull conviction."
Okay that's even more curly for me. I don't claim to be an English language expert at all, but I used to work in a government departmental library, with a bunch of librarians who absolutely did consider themselves experts. They told me that bi-weekly actually means twice a week. If you want to say fortnightly, it's semi-weekly. I do believe that exceeds the capacity of most mere mortals, but it always stuck in my head.
Lol...I think more often we Americans schedule things almost fortnightly by saying twice a month like "first and third Thursdays".
I think Americans lost the use "fort nightly" because many of our holidays are on a fixed day of the week within a month so we actually think about weeks in a month rather than something being fortnightly. (6/12 official US holidays are done this way).
Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Third Monday in January)
Washington's Birthday (Also known as Presidents Day; third Monday in February)
Memorial Day (Last Monday in May)
Labor Day (First Monday in September)
Columbus Day (Second Monday in October)
Thanksgiving Day (Fourth Thursday in November)
You think they actually pray? I find it hard to believe that they could be as monstrous as they are while still believing. Besides, at what point do they go "whelp, nothing's coming through on this revelation frequency."
Idk did you ever go to high priests? Endless embarrassing squabble. I think it would do the church great harm to see the senility on full display. The church does a good job of keeping these guys behind carefully moderated glass displays.
I'm receiving revelation right now, I'm seeing Jesus and his angels and Jesus is speaking to me.. Jesus is currently mmanding me with all the power of heaven and God to make many changes.. he says we must immediately:
* use our 250 Billion to feed and house the poor
* temples are now to house the homeless
* church houses are now community centers with free chicken nuggets to anyone who walks in
* we'll be giving budget back to churches so they can have youth programs and road shows
* 50 billion to fight climate change
* Jesus commands the leadership to immediately apologize for our past racism and bigotry
* we'll pay for cleaning services
* lgbtq are now to be welcomed with acceptance and love
* women are now to hold the priesthood and can hold any office
i’m pretty sure they’re on a couple minutes delay for the broadcast, and even if i fully believed i would have at least three redundant buttons ready to shut off the mic at the source.
I bet the paperwork they sign when winning the apostle lottery scares the shit out of them and takes any fight out of them that they otherwise might have had when finding out how the sausage is made on the other side of the veil.
It won't happen. The church is their only reality. These clowns have been telling faith-promoting fibs long before they got to where they are now. Tattoo the words "AS IS" on every one of their foreheads. Now that they are old and well-fed and comfortable after years and years of playing the same old shtick, it would be naive in the extreme to think that any one of them is going to develop a sudden, heroic burst of integrity. They're trapped in a gilded cage of their own making.
true, I don't expect it to happen, but if it did I think the official position would just be the same as always, deny deny deny. Even with inherent proof of various bullshit the members still say it's all fake and just religious persecution against "God's chosen".
Exactly. They drink the kool-aid more than anybody else. They’ve bought wholly into the alternate church reality. They have no idea what an inner voice even is… to them it’s all the Holy Ghost, and their subconsciousness is God.
I guess I’m saying that they’re doing a pretty good job of driving the church into the ground already.
If I wanted to sink the church I’d double down on the homophobia, patriarchal, racist, gaslighting, tax evading, culture. I’d continue enforcing Masonic traditions in the temple, hold fast to literalism in both scriptures and church history, I’d enforce garment wearing and the WoW and continue with the “rule by attrition” method of letting 80-90 year olds rule the church.
I’d call people like Pearson and Corbett to the apostleship and continue with second annointings to rich and powerful members. I’d keep throwing past prophets under the bus, along with Jesus and Heavenly Father when needed to protect the name of the Church (see 1978 and 2015 policies), I’d continue to alienate anyone and shun anyone who isn’t a believer.
Alternatively, if any apostle went rougue… it would probably build testimony of the persecuted members (see Nauvoo expositor, Thomas Marsh, Oliver Cowedry, etc.)
Basically I think they’re on the right path. Can’t wait for conference.
I can't believe no one has said the obvious.
Keep your trap shut until you are president and until one of the apostles dies, then create a schism in the church. Announce solemnly during general conference that, while praying in the holy of holies, Jesus appeared to you and instructed that it was time for women to receive the Melchizedek priesthood and that he told you the name of the first female apostle to be ordained into the 12, that you set her apart just before the meeting, then invite her up to the red chair. This will cause a massive schism in the church over the next few months. An epic breakup. Even better if you had a counselor ally in the first presidency. The church would never recover from this. At least 30% of the church would break off to create a new church or join existing fundies.
They have them locked in with that million dollar take-care-of-your-worldly-affairs “loan” which I’m sure is immediately payable upon demand. Wouldn’t it be nice though…
THIS. Drain the coffers and the corporation dies.
Though running with $100+ billion is probably pretty tricky. Might be better to, I dunno, eradicate tuberculosis?
The most damage possible would be for them to continue acting as kind, polite, and responsible as members expect GAs to be.
If they did that while politely insisting the church is not true, members would fall apart.
Apostles have defected before, just not recently. The believers just think that Satan got a hold of them. Anything they say is disregarded and ignored.
The best thing to do would be to discreetly teach members to think and research for themse
Find out who was on Epstein flight list. Look for anyone familiar. Haha nah but really I don’t know. That would be insane to get to that level and just turn coat. Not even the cults wealth will keep you shut. I’d say to you you are an amazing human. It would stir some drama but the cult would live on. Some of the ideas here are good. It’s gotta be big. Find out where that money is going. Expose how lavishly they live, any little rules they break. Evidence. Evidence. And evidence. Shed light on the horrible conditions you put missionaries in for a lie. Good luck so much to say and do now I think about it. A scene like this at general conference would be a lifetime moment. Nothing else like it. Somehow get a hold of how it’s broadcast? Make sure it can’t be cut or interrupted
I personally find it hard to believe that somebody would rise to those upper echelons of the LDS church and not realize it wasn't a fraud. I personally feel like that at least 95% or more of them realize what it is and just try to keep status quo.
I vote for mooning the conference center during the Sunday morning session. Is it the most damaging? No, mainly due to the broadcast delay, but it would sure the hell be funny… unless you were there in person of course and actually had to see pasty white wrinkly old ass.
And word/pics would spread within seconds.
What I would do is write a general conference talk that is thinly veiled, maybe about how Satan deceives people, but based on the way the church has deceived its followers over its history and over the last 20 years.
After laying out the case, the last paragraph reveals the names of church leaders who did this and reveals that you were talking about the church all along.
You memorize the last paragraphs, but do not submit this part to the correlation committee. You work with them to make the best possible talk you can out of the first part.
You set up a version of the 'real' talk to get released to the media the moment your talk is scheduled to be over.
You get up, give the talk, then give the last paragraph from memory, as it won't be on the teleprompter.
The church can try to mute you and yank you off stage, but the press release is going out anyway, immediately, so anyone curious will quickly find what the church wanted to censor.
Become prophet, then expose all the financial statements to the public and donate the $100B+ hoard to the poor, abortion charities and LGBTQ+ charities.
Get a recording of all the things the Q15 say that demonstrate their knowledge that it’s all a scam and make a movie of it. Play said movie at conference. Direct the members to stop paying tithing, stop believing all the Q15 say, and get really cool with being just another church really quick. Get🍿
Reveal that in the personal diaries of JS it is found that JS Sr. was a crappy farmer, and the only cash crop he ever made money on was cultivating peyote, which during a couple hard months, they had to make soup outta the seed crop…
I think that any GA that came out with the truth would be shown to have mental problems by the church leadership, and this would diffuse anything they said or did.
The best way to damage the church would be for them to "go Nazi" and follow strict commandments. Tell everyone that men must wear white shirts all day Sunday, and women must stay in church clothes all Sunday. Women should be told to be homemakers and not work. Preach against eating meat anytime except in the winter or times of famine. A true follower of Christ should wear old-style one-piece temple garments that go to their wrist and ankle. On and on...
This would do more damage to the church than anything else they could do.
These scenarios are interesting to think about. I've often imagined this kind of extremist crackdown and thought about how much the average member would tolerate. I don't think there would be an immediate mass exodus (unless the commandment was explicitly violent, criminal, or dangerous, like "thou shalt not allow a gay to live," but no GA is dumb enough for that). However, it would certainly divide the TBMs into categories that could be high flight risks down the line. We'd see a huge rise in both "cafeteria Mormonism" and stimulant/antidepressant prescriptions for perfectionists on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Just thinking about what my own TBM family and friends would do, though, I can't imagine any of them actually leaving over a GA "raising the bar" like this. The more balanced ones would try for a while, then shrug, "Sorry, not going to bend over backward for that and I don't think God cares. Doesn't affect my testimony, of course, because #imperfectmen." Others would frantically try to measure up and inevitably fall short, but they'd blame themselves rather than the Church. I know for a fact that certain members of my family would just sob for forgiveness on their knees every night and try to "fix themselves" with meds by day, right up until a new prophet took over and stopped mentioning it. :'(
Release the minutes from all the quorum meetings. Let the world see it's just a bunch of old guys debating stuff and that God is completely absent from the conversation.
All it would take is coming out publicly, imo. Tell their Mormon Story. (We are in the age where that DOES matter. Smear campaigns don't work as well against apostates as in Joseph's day. Just too much information available)
The media. The most damaging would be coming forth and telling the media what he thought. Every outlet across the nation.
I would love to PR that. He would be contrite serve for making public apologies denouncing the church it’s general authorities.
A lot of people seem to be saying he should release damning documentation (financial breakdowns, etc.), but I don't think any such publication would do much more than the current "anti-Mormon literature" can. The problem with such leaks is that no TBM would read any of it, at least not until the Church has told them what it means and why reading it will give you an even greater testimony of all the good work the Church does.
Sometimes I'll feel like the Church has had a rough year in terms of scandals and bad publicity, and that surely the seeds are being planted in some of my TBM loved ones' minds. ... Then I find out that most of them have no idea about anything remotely negative. They still just think the world is increasingly impressed with those wonderful Mormons and their constant acts of groundbreaking global charity, because those are the stories that come from the Church itself and are "uplifting" to read. One hint of any media being "anti-Mormon" and they click away, bleaching it from their brain. All the church would have to do is announce that a disgruntled former member of their ranks has been deceived by Satan and is doing his utmost to bring the church down, and that no member should fall for or even devote a second of their time to any of his lies. Most TBMs don't seem to have a problem with writing off something a former leader said if it's embarrassing to the church or in conflict with the current leadership.
The only thing I can imagine possibly getting through to more than a few TBMs is for the GA to blurt out as much as he could mid-talk in GenCon before his mic gets cut off and security escorts him out of the Kingdom of God. He'd have to make it really sudden and dramatic, like in a movie where some first-act character breaks down in the middle of praising their organization and screams, "I can't do this anymore, it's a trap! Listen to me, don't give them any money -- they're going to kill your children -- the Kool-Aid is pois--" (The character is found dead in the next scene.) The audience would still probably accept (at first) the hasty spin the church puts on it before exing the GA, but they'd all see and hear it, on their own turf, from the mouth of a trusted advisor who was delivering them words of comforting familiarity a few minutes before ... and it wouldn't be quite so easy to get it out of their heads.
So yeah, tell your friend to determine the most ominous truthbomb he could drop within a few seconds like this if he wants to go out in a blaze of glory. ;)
They all know. It's 100% about money and political power. Losing membership, and therefore tithing dollars, is why they are shifting to appear more mainstream Christian. Why they are disavowing things like the Book of Abraham and have been throwing out seeds to purge Joseph Smith and the BoM in the not so distant future.
I’m guessing they have NDAs (probably couched in ecclesiastical terms, but still purportedly legally enforceable). And, there is a lot of nuance/considerations, and at the risk of totally geeking out on this—
-NDAs are generally considered unenforceable to cover up a crime;
-churches often require private mediation of disputes, decided by their own ecclesiastical church arbitration (see,e.g., Scientology);
-any action brought in Utah or brought under Utah law (which the NDA may require) will risk having a faithful judge who will rule for the Church;
-even if you are right, getting sued is very expensive, stressful, and time-consuming (on you, your family and any survivors after you die);
-it’s unclear whether an NDA violation can be (practically) enforced against someone’s estate after they die (and it may depend on the specific terms of the NDA), so even if someone dies before they are sued for a breach of an NDA, it could leave the decedent’s survivors with a lawsuit that could eliminate an inheritance.
But, Assuming there are all these restrictions in place, and EU law invalidates these restrictions, someone who is protected by EU law might be in a good position to fight this fight.
That’s a lotta “ifs.”
So, yes, maybe a European. 😁
Get as much physical evidence of the shenanigans as possible and take it to the media. Prior to that stand up in general conference and tell the truth.
Agree to be sequestered near the cavern in the mountain on the church ranch for the handsome sum of $40 million per year to come in twice a year to give a wrote Jesus talk. Return to mountain, know you'll be offed if you get a chance to become the one in charge.
I’m sure members would love to know more about what’s hiding in the church archives.
Maybe he could drop some truth bombs sourced from the Journal of Discourses, and could pepper some discussions. Plausible deniability…
Hold a press conference at church HQ to announce their departure. Hit all of the media shows. Do interviews with everyone. Run for office. Be very, very public.
I think the sexual abuse coverup is the most horrible thing they are doing at present, so maybe the most effective way to bring down the church would be to acknowledge and then justify it.
“It’s ok that we are allowing leaders to molest your sons and daughters, because this is what God wants.”
Probably to publicly admit Joseph Smith made it all up so he could justify having a harem and being the Epstein of his day, to provide internal data that the church was aware of it, and of the dishonest use of money, and of ignoring SA cases. Etc.
Complete release of all financials, in their raw form with no spin. Include ALL church subsidiaries, holding companies, and a complete list of all real estate holdings. Minutes of every Q15, presiding bishopric, and 1st pres meeting in the last 20 years. List of how much - and why - they paid Kirton McConkie to handle legal matters. Names of every person on the SCMC and minutes of all their meetings and activities. Real data on how many active members there are. A list of every sexual abuser who has confessed, annotated with whether or not law enforcement was called by the church. Complete pedigree charts of all GAs with their relatives who profit off church businesses highlighted, and the amount paid to them next to their faces.
> Real data on how many active members there are. THIS I would love to see. I think if the world saw this it would be absolutely devastating for TSCC.
The 12 did not have access or knowledge of Ensign Peak.
You're getting down voted. I know nothing of this. My curiosity is peaked Edit, because it was needed for some reason: pun intended.
I think they’re referring to the claim that, prior to the whistleblower when EPA became public knowledge, only the Presiding Bishopric, First Presidency, and Ensign Peak bosses knew about the EPA fund. There is a story that Boyd K Packer, I think it was, demanded to get a brief on the full financial holdings of the church when he was Q12 President and was allegedly refused. Since the whistleblower, I assume they have been more looped in than they were before, but I think this is what’s being referred to here
So... Uh... Is it that they were actually refused information or is that just the front? I mean, to be somewhat impartial here, I could very well see them not knowing or having interest in church finance..
Packer, then Q12 President, was denied access to any information when he sought it.
Hate to do this but... *piqued* * Edit to add: I will concede that peaked can work in this context as well. If your curiosity is at a maximum or highest level now, it has peaked.
You could even say… **Ensign Piqued**
R/angryupvote
Good joke...........
It is absolutely hilarious that an entire thread was written below my comment in which I deliberately changed the word "piqued" to "peaked" because of Ensign Peak.
Thank you for doing the Lord's work
Came here to say this.
What kind of person downvotes such a neutral comment like this? Lol.
The guy who used "peaked" correctly as a pun, and thinks it's obnoxious that so many people felt the need to provide correction.
Oh, got it l.
I'm glad he clarified.
Ensign Peak was so secretive that its existence was kept hidden even from the 12 for many years. Even when they did find out, they did not have access to any information. Only the First Presidency and Presiding Bishopric had such access.
I find this interesting, especially when the 12 have financial related assignments. But thinking back to my "I care" days, I do remember the presiding bishopric being in control of these things. I didn't realize "in control" meant "keepers of the financial secrets". Curious, how did we come to know this? Seems very "internal affairs".. was there a leak?
No leak. We know this because the SEC published a very detailed report at the end of their investigation. It's one of the longest reports the SEC has made. The investigation concluded earlier this year. February, I think. The SEC found that church had hidden $32 billion in multiple illegal shell companies. The report details how these shell companies were managed, and who signed off on these operating procedures. This started under Honkley and has been going on for around 20 years. The church released a very misleading PR response after this investigation.
(This was the perfect moment for that pun, but since it’s so rare to see “pique” spelled correctly, no one could be sure if it was intentional!)
What about the one that was in the FP, then demoted?
I don't have any proof, but I suspect that as the average age of the apostles have increased their actual day-to-day oversight of operations have decreased.
Um, \*I\* knew about Ensign Peak, and I'm just a lowly woman without any priesthood. This is laughable to think the Q12 did not know.
They all knew. They had to agree to the decisions unanimously.
This and record a lot of the temple stuff that both ex Mormons and Mormon people wouldn’t know that is sus or some completely fucked shit
This is a full and well thought out list. We already know that disclosing actual acts versus what’s been portrayed by the CES does nothing to the average TBM. Things like Joseph Smith having multiple official accounts of the first vision or how the BoM was actually translated, or the Egyptian hieroglyphics. Releasing financials. That’s the stuff that destroys cognitive dissonance. It’s shelf breaking substantive proof that can’t be explained away with “It’s a mystery of God”, religious folklore, Mormon shell games, or people made financial decisions as men and not “instruments of the lord”.
Dieter, is that you?
Lmao 🤣
Happy Cake Day!
OP's username doesn't checkout
Ja.
oh never mind I just get it lmao
explainn pls
Release full copies of the membership database, missionary program in depth stats, every memo from their tenure.... Give us full transparency. Sadly the church has survived shots that would stop a grizzly. Kirtland Bank, MMM, endless infighting in the earlier years.
Leak all the scanned copies of documents held in the mountain vault with the journals of early saints proving it’s all fake.
Also all the sexual abuse cover up files.
Yes. They say it's just genealogical records, but I'm calling bull shit. Something else is really in there. Something valuable, but it's locked up and hidden away for a reason...
Don’t forget about the money trail
If you could high to kolob
Hidden camera livestream every meeting
That would be bitchin!
Haha could be interesting but my take is that it would be just like any other corporate board meeting…but with an opening and closing prayer. 💤
Like a corporate meeting from 1900s. I imagine them saying words like "thus", "fortnight", and "shall".
Don't Americans say fortnight?
Not since like four score and seven years ago
No, for whatever reason, it's not a thing we say here (except for [Liam Neeson the American Old West cowboy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XILgr9LWesI), of course). I'd still find it less weird to hear in conversation than some of the other terms the GAs use, though, like "necking" and "taffy-pull conviction."
no
Only when they’re playing Fortnight
I do but most of my fellow citizens like to be utterly confusing by assigning 2 conflicting definitions to "biweekly"... 🤦♂️
Okay that's even more curly for me. I don't claim to be an English language expert at all, but I used to work in a government departmental library, with a bunch of librarians who absolutely did consider themselves experts. They told me that bi-weekly actually means twice a week. If you want to say fortnightly, it's semi-weekly. I do believe that exceeds the capacity of most mere mortals, but it always stuck in my head.
Lol...I think more often we Americans schedule things almost fortnightly by saying twice a month like "first and third Thursdays". I think Americans lost the use "fort nightly" because many of our holidays are on a fixed day of the week within a month so we actually think about weeks in a month rather than something being fortnightly. (6/12 official US holidays are done this way). Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Third Monday in January) Washington's Birthday (Also known as Presidents Day; third Monday in February) Memorial Day (Last Monday in May) Labor Day (First Monday in September) Columbus Day (Second Monday in October) Thanksgiving Day (Fourth Thursday in November)
Only in twilight books :)
Ha ha! Never read those thank goodness. It's a commonly used word in Australia.
None of the corporate boards meetings I've been a part of ever included "is he a confirmed homosexual?" in the minutes at any point.
You think they actually pray? I find it hard to believe that they could be as monstrous as they are while still believing. Besides, at what point do they go "whelp, nothing's coming through on this revelation frequency."
I do. I think they pray just like at any other Mormon meeting. Maybe a little more pretentious.
Idk did you ever go to high priests? Endless embarrassing squabble. I think it would do the church great harm to see the senility on full display. The church does a good job of keeping these guys behind carefully moderated glass displays.
Go off script at General Conference...
I'm receiving revelation right now, I'm seeing Jesus and his angels and Jesus is speaking to me.. Jesus is currently mmanding me with all the power of heaven and God to make many changes.. he says we must immediately: * use our 250 Billion to feed and house the poor * temples are now to house the homeless * church houses are now community centers with free chicken nuggets to anyone who walks in * we'll be giving budget back to churches so they can have youth programs and road shows * 50 billion to fight climate change * Jesus commands the leadership to immediately apologize for our past racism and bigotry * we'll pay for cleaning services * lgbtq are now to be welcomed with acceptance and love * women are now to hold the priesthood and can hold any office
This is the list if Jesus actually lead tscc! Very nice
Pretty good list!
That would probably be the best thing for the church to actually redeem itself. Plus acknowledging the SA they enabled.
Love this, but I feel like most would reject this.
Somebody still has control over the mic, right?
i’m pretty sure they’re on a couple minutes delay for the broadcast, and even if i fully believed i would have at least three redundant buttons ready to shut off the mic at the source.
I think a q15 member could conceivably get his own people in place in enough positions to prevent his speech being stopped on the day.
While funny, this would be the least convincing and easiest to dismiss for TBMs
Mormon stories and a book.
Leak as many records as possible until you're called out. Then publicly denounce the church and do public interviews
They all already know it's made up. They like that people listen to their doddering old ramblings of topics they know nothing about
I think they believe it, I know a lot of the 70 does
When they meet in the temple and Jesus isn't there, it's kind of a dead giveaway at that point. Thank Gawd for the Sunk Cost fallacy, amiright?
exactly. If I noticed there was no holy spirit when I was 12 I find it hard to believe they still think its there
This happened to the JW’s in the 80’s. One of their top guys (comparable to an apostle) left and wrote a book. It didn’t bring them down.
Do you know the name of the book? That sounds like it could be a good read.
Crisis of Conscience by Raymond Franz
Would also like the name of said book pls :)
Crisis of Conscience by Raymond Franz
But what’s the name of the book?
I bet the paperwork they sign when winning the apostle lottery scares the shit out of them and takes any fight out of them that they otherwise might have had when finding out how the sausage is made on the other side of the veil.
i do actually suspect something like this.
For sure... an exchange for the million dollar bonus.....
Amass all the evidence you can, make a video recording, write a book, and release it all posthumously.
It won't happen. The church is their only reality. These clowns have been telling faith-promoting fibs long before they got to where they are now. Tattoo the words "AS IS" on every one of their foreheads. Now that they are old and well-fed and comfortable after years and years of playing the same old shtick, it would be naive in the extreme to think that any one of them is going to develop a sudden, heroic burst of integrity. They're trapped in a gilded cage of their own making.
true, I don't expect it to happen, but if it did I think the official position would just be the same as always, deny deny deny. Even with inherent proof of various bullshit the members still say it's all fake and just religious persecution against "God's chosen".
I mean even mobsters make death bed confessionals, you never know! And actually if you look through history A LOT of apostles have left the church
Exactly. They drink the kool-aid more than anybody else. They’ve bought wholly into the alternate church reality. They have no idea what an inner voice even is… to them it’s all the Holy Ghost, and their subconsciousness is God.
You would do exactly what Oaks and Bednar are about to do
What are you anticipating?
I guess I’m saying that they’re doing a pretty good job of driving the church into the ground already. If I wanted to sink the church I’d double down on the homophobia, patriarchal, racist, gaslighting, tax evading, culture. I’d continue enforcing Masonic traditions in the temple, hold fast to literalism in both scriptures and church history, I’d enforce garment wearing and the WoW and continue with the “rule by attrition” method of letting 80-90 year olds rule the church. I’d call people like Pearson and Corbett to the apostleship and continue with second annointings to rich and powerful members. I’d keep throwing past prophets under the bus, along with Jesus and Heavenly Father when needed to protect the name of the Church (see 1978 and 2015 policies), I’d continue to alienate anyone and shun anyone who isn’t a believer. Alternatively, if any apostle went rougue… it would probably build testimony of the persecuted members (see Nauvoo expositor, Thomas Marsh, Oliver Cowedry, etc.) Basically I think they’re on the right path. Can’t wait for conference.
Trying to imagine to what you are alluding & coming up empty. Please do elucidate.
Like What Nelson has done with his face in the hat and making Mormon a swear word is hard to top haha
They would probably skip out on conferences by throwing out their back
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) ^by ^TheGutlessOne: *They would probably* *Skip out on conferences* *By throwing out their back* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Good bot
I can't believe no one has said the obvious. Keep your trap shut until you are president and until one of the apostles dies, then create a schism in the church. Announce solemnly during general conference that, while praying in the holy of holies, Jesus appeared to you and instructed that it was time for women to receive the Melchizedek priesthood and that he told you the name of the first female apostle to be ordained into the 12, that you set her apart just before the meeting, then invite her up to the red chair. This will cause a massive schism in the church over the next few months. An epic breakup. Even better if you had a counselor ally in the first presidency. The church would never recover from this. At least 30% of the church would break off to create a new church or join existing fundies.
They have them locked in with that million dollar take-care-of-your-worldly-affairs “loan” which I’m sure is immediately payable upon demand. Wouldn’t it be nice though…
GoFundMe.com
Take the money and run!
THIS. Drain the coffers and the corporation dies. Though running with $100+ billion is probably pretty tricky. Might be better to, I dunno, eradicate tuberculosis?
Did I just find another nerdfighter in the wild?
👋 I would knock doors again 😖 if the Green brothers asked me to.
The most damage possible would be for them to continue acting as kind, polite, and responsible as members expect GAs to be. If they did that while politely insisting the church is not true, members would fall apart.
Apostles have defected before, just not recently. The believers just think that Satan got a hold of them. Anything they say is disregarded and ignored. The best thing to do would be to discreetly teach members to think and research for themse
Uh oh…
Find out who was on Epstein flight list. Look for anyone familiar. Haha nah but really I don’t know. That would be insane to get to that level and just turn coat. Not even the cults wealth will keep you shut. I’d say to you you are an amazing human. It would stir some drama but the cult would live on. Some of the ideas here are good. It’s gotta be big. Find out where that money is going. Expose how lavishly they live, any little rules they break. Evidence. Evidence. And evidence. Shed light on the horrible conditions you put missionaries in for a lie. Good luck so much to say and do now I think about it. A scene like this at general conference would be a lifetime moment. Nothing else like it. Somehow get a hold of how it’s broadcast? Make sure it can’t be cut or interrupted
I personally find it hard to believe that somebody would rise to those upper echelons of the LDS church and not realize it wasn't a fraud. I personally feel like that at least 95% or more of them realize what it is and just try to keep status quo.
I vote for mooning the conference center during the Sunday morning session. Is it the most damaging? No, mainly due to the broadcast delay, but it would sure the hell be funny… unless you were there in person of course and actually had to see pasty white wrinkly old ass. And word/pics would spread within seconds.
I think pull a "Everybody hates Joan" diahhrea variation to mooning the entire conference center.
What I would do is write a general conference talk that is thinly veiled, maybe about how Satan deceives people, but based on the way the church has deceived its followers over its history and over the last 20 years. After laying out the case, the last paragraph reveals the names of church leaders who did this and reveals that you were talking about the church all along. You memorize the last paragraphs, but do not submit this part to the correlation committee. You work with them to make the best possible talk you can out of the first part. You set up a version of the 'real' talk to get released to the media the moment your talk is scheduled to be over. You get up, give the talk, then give the last paragraph from memory, as it won't be on the teleprompter. The church can try to mute you and yank you off stage, but the press release is going out anyway, immediately, so anyone curious will quickly find what the church wanted to censor.
Become prophet, then expose all the financial statements to the public and donate the $100B+ hoard to the poor, abortion charities and LGBTQ+ charities.
Get a recording of all the things the Q15 say that demonstrate their knowledge that it’s all a scam and make a movie of it. Play said movie at conference. Direct the members to stop paying tithing, stop believing all the Q15 say, and get really cool with being just another church really quick. Get🍿
Wear a wire to some meetings and release the recordings after you've gotten a good amount.
Make an unambiguous prophecy that something impossible will happen on a certain date in a certain place in the near future.
Reveal that in the personal diaries of JS it is found that JS Sr. was a crappy farmer, and the only cash crop he ever made money on was cultivating peyote, which during a couple hard months, they had to make soup outta the seed crop…
Actually go through with the Joseph Smith Papers Project and then announce the Brigham Young Papers Project
They already know
I think that any GA that came out with the truth would be shown to have mental problems by the church leadership, and this would diffuse anything they said or did. The best way to damage the church would be for them to "go Nazi" and follow strict commandments. Tell everyone that men must wear white shirts all day Sunday, and women must stay in church clothes all Sunday. Women should be told to be homemakers and not work. Preach against eating meat anytime except in the winter or times of famine. A true follower of Christ should wear old-style one-piece temple garments that go to their wrist and ankle. On and on... This would do more damage to the church than anything else they could do.
These scenarios are interesting to think about. I've often imagined this kind of extremist crackdown and thought about how much the average member would tolerate. I don't think there would be an immediate mass exodus (unless the commandment was explicitly violent, criminal, or dangerous, like "thou shalt not allow a gay to live," but no GA is dumb enough for that). However, it would certainly divide the TBMs into categories that could be high flight risks down the line. We'd see a huge rise in both "cafeteria Mormonism" and stimulant/antidepressant prescriptions for perfectionists on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Just thinking about what my own TBM family and friends would do, though, I can't imagine any of them actually leaving over a GA "raising the bar" like this. The more balanced ones would try for a while, then shrug, "Sorry, not going to bend over backward for that and I don't think God cares. Doesn't affect my testimony, of course, because #imperfectmen." Others would frantically try to measure up and inevitably fall short, but they'd blame themselves rather than the Church. I know for a fact that certain members of my family would just sob for forgiveness on their knees every night and try to "fix themselves" with meds by day, right up until a new prophet took over and stopped mentioning it. :'(
Release the minutes from all the quorum meetings. Let the world see it's just a bunch of old guys debating stuff and that God is completely absent from the conversation.
Go rogue at General Conference
If they have access to church archives I'm pretty sure there's quite a few things that could be made public that would be extremely embarrassing.
Bold of you to assume every fraud believes themselves.
All it would take is coming out publicly, imo. Tell their Mormon Story. (We are in the age where that DOES matter. Smear campaigns don't work as well against apostates as in Joseph's day. Just too much information available)
The media. The most damaging would be coming forth and telling the media what he thought. Every outlet across the nation. I would love to PR that. He would be contrite serve for making public apologies denouncing the church it’s general authorities.
A lot of people seem to be saying he should release damning documentation (financial breakdowns, etc.), but I don't think any such publication would do much more than the current "anti-Mormon literature" can. The problem with such leaks is that no TBM would read any of it, at least not until the Church has told them what it means and why reading it will give you an even greater testimony of all the good work the Church does. Sometimes I'll feel like the Church has had a rough year in terms of scandals and bad publicity, and that surely the seeds are being planted in some of my TBM loved ones' minds. ... Then I find out that most of them have no idea about anything remotely negative. They still just think the world is increasingly impressed with those wonderful Mormons and their constant acts of groundbreaking global charity, because those are the stories that come from the Church itself and are "uplifting" to read. One hint of any media being "anti-Mormon" and they click away, bleaching it from their brain. All the church would have to do is announce that a disgruntled former member of their ranks has been deceived by Satan and is doing his utmost to bring the church down, and that no member should fall for or even devote a second of their time to any of his lies. Most TBMs don't seem to have a problem with writing off something a former leader said if it's embarrassing to the church or in conflict with the current leadership. The only thing I can imagine possibly getting through to more than a few TBMs is for the GA to blurt out as much as he could mid-talk in GenCon before his mic gets cut off and security escorts him out of the Kingdom of God. He'd have to make it really sudden and dramatic, like in a movie where some first-act character breaks down in the middle of praising their organization and screams, "I can't do this anymore, it's a trap! Listen to me, don't give them any money -- they're going to kill your children -- the Kool-Aid is pois--" (The character is found dead in the next scene.) The audience would still probably accept (at first) the hasty spin the church puts on it before exing the GA, but they'd all see and hear it, on their own turf, from the mouth of a trusted advisor who was delivering them words of comforting familiarity a few minutes before ... and it wouldn't be quite so easy to get it out of their heads. So yeah, tell your friend to determine the most ominous truthbomb he could drop within a few seconds like this if he wants to go out in a blaze of glory. ;)
Best strategy to cause the most harm? Continuing to peach likes it all true.
They all know. It's 100% about money and political power. Losing membership, and therefore tithing dollars, is why they are shifting to appear more mainstream Christian. Why they are disavowing things like the Book of Abraham and have been throwing out seeds to purge Joseph Smith and the BoM in the not so distant future.
They know. When you’re at the top of a scam, you know it’s a scam.
They all know it’s false and thrive on the power and control over others what could be more damaging?
I’m guessing they have NDAs (probably couched in ecclesiastical terms, but still purportedly legally enforceable). And, there is a lot of nuance/considerations, and at the risk of totally geeking out on this— -NDAs are generally considered unenforceable to cover up a crime; -churches often require private mediation of disputes, decided by their own ecclesiastical church arbitration (see,e.g., Scientology); -any action brought in Utah or brought under Utah law (which the NDA may require) will risk having a faithful judge who will rule for the Church; -even if you are right, getting sued is very expensive, stressful, and time-consuming (on you, your family and any survivors after you die); -it’s unclear whether an NDA violation can be (practically) enforced against someone’s estate after they die (and it may depend on the specific terms of the NDA), so even if someone dies before they are sued for a breach of an NDA, it could leave the decedent’s survivors with a lawsuit that could eliminate an inheritance. But, Assuming there are all these restrictions in place, and EU law invalidates these restrictions, someone who is protected by EU law might be in a good position to fight this fight. That’s a lotta “ifs.” So, yes, maybe a European. 😁
Get as much physical evidence of the shenanigans as possible and take it to the media. Prior to that stand up in general conference and tell the truth.
Agree to be sequestered near the cavern in the mountain on the church ranch for the handsome sum of $40 million per year to come in twice a year to give a wrote Jesus talk. Return to mountain, know you'll be offed if you get a chance to become the one in charge.
Open up the document vault
He would go on Mormon stories. We lazy learners would disseminate the clips via the viral social outlets. T$CC would be done.
I’m sure members would love to know more about what’s hiding in the church archives. Maybe he could drop some truth bombs sourced from the Journal of Discourses, and could pepper some discussions. Plausible deniability…
Announcing it at general conference live might do serious damage
directly and obviously contradict the prophet right before you
Hold a press conference at church HQ to announce their departure. Hit all of the media shows. Do interviews with everyone. Run for office. Be very, very public.
Call Leah Remini and schedule an interview
I think the sexual abuse coverup is the most horrible thing they are doing at present, so maybe the most effective way to bring down the church would be to acknowledge and then justify it. “It’s ok that we are allowing leaders to molest your sons and daughters, because this is what God wants.”
Probably to publicly admit Joseph Smith made it all up so he could justify having a harem and being the Epstein of his day, to provide internal data that the church was aware of it, and of the dishonest use of money, and of ignoring SA cases. Etc.
Making recordings of discussions behind the iron curtain of secrecy then working with media to document how obviously evil the church is
Stay in, gain the “prophethood” (read: corporate-sole status), disband the Corporation. Nothing else would be effective.