The high cost of being Mormon

I am not too much into religion, and even less into Mormonism. It's probably because I live too close to its epicenter and am too familiar with some of its absurd tenets. What's more crazy though, is that Mormons have to pay 10% of their gross earnings all life long.

Take for example a household making $50,000 a year. In the course of their life they'll have paid more than $200,000 to their wealthy Church. This kind of amount compares with mortgage or student loan payments.

In a June 2011 article, Newsweek magazine estimated the net worth of the Mormon Church around $30 billion. It doesn't matter whether one is rich or poor, tithing is at 10% and that portion can be devastating on a household earning just $50,000 a year as it eats up right into their food budget, so no wonder why they only eat cereals at dinner!

Yet, the same percentage on a $300,000 yearly income my seem big, but has relatively no impact on the high-earner lifestyle, especially if one includes perks, like company car and expense accounts, that are not included into that household direct earnings.

Why do people stay in that Church? Probably because they are brainwashed into believing that they're doing the right thing and because of enormous and insidious peer pressure. I know skiing is expensive, but it's considerably cheaper than being LDS and I get to spend all my Sundays on the slopes...