Responding to Anti-Church Crap
Ok, I saw this tweet, but I didn't want to respond directly to it, as I don't want to drive up "engagements" for someone who obvoiously wants to start fights online.
note: if you are on mobile and the image with the tweet doesn't show up, see it here.
There is nothing new here, this is just another person who hates the church and wants to destabilize as many people's faith as possible. This tweet is fairly representative of it's kind. It is a bunch of rhetoric and manipulation packed into one blurb. Let's take a look at some of the techniques used, whether the author knowingly or unknowingly used them.
A misleading start
Not part of just this message, but every message this account sends out is the account name itself. Naming the account "LDS Discussions" is clearly meant to fool some people into thinking it might be for faithfull discussion of topics important to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The account/podcast "Mormon Stories" is named in a similar fashion. Sure, people who start to scroll the account soon see who's side it is on, but it draws more eyeballs this way. What is a more honest way to act? Use your real name. Or, if you want to remain anonymous (which I understand), use an account name that more accurately discloses your antagonistic position. If you can't bring yourself to be that honest, at least something that is off-the-subject ambiguous.
What is Charity?
MacKenzie Scott donated a enormous pile of money to charity.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is a charity.
If she had donated 100% of that money to the church, then the line would have read exactly the same. In reality, she donated a ton of money to a wide variety of schools, museums, and other organizations that she believes do good in the world. I think it's great she did that.
LDS Discussions, however, seems to operate from the position that all Ms. Scott's charities are doing good for the people, and that the church does not do anyone any good. That's an odd position, as the church very clearly does good for a lot of people, and is primarily staffed by volunteers.
Exaggeration
LDS Discussions uses the number $140 Billion. That is an exaggeration of the $100 Billion dollar number that was claimed by the "leaker" a while back. This may seem like a nit pick, but it shows that the author is willing to lie to try to make their point.
Assumptions
The implied and stated false assumptions are in bold.
- That not a single dollar was "donated." I doubt LDS Discussions is in a position to know how much money has been spent and where. There is no proof to back this up.
- "...has yet to donate a single dollar..." Even if true. just because one part of the overall church organization didn't spend money in a certain way, does not mean that no money was spent for charity from anywhere in the church.
- The money should be donated. This may just be bad phrasing on LDS Discussion's part. But, it is not an apples-to-apples comparison unless "has yet to donate" means donate to a charitable organization. Why would the church do a lot of donating to other charities? It already does a lot of charity work. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints teaches free self-reliance classes, hosts addiction recovery programs, cleans up after disasters, runs employment centers, on and on and on. Again, lots of volunteers are doing a lot of that work. The church donates money and resources all the time to individuals. And that's not even mentioning the spiritual side of things.
- Any true church must donate this specific money in the way LDS Discussions thinks is best. The assumption here is that LDS Discussions knows better what should be done with that money than God.
tl;dr
The tweet was a tightly packed nugget of empty propaganda. It skews the casual, uninformed reader toward believing the church is bad without making any solid points.
I happen to believe otherwise, that the church is true. I also believe that Christ lives and took my sins upon him.