“Since everyone knows rich people are bad, and being able to pay for something is evil, I’m sure that everyone that is critical of the preserve has looked at the fact they access high speed internet and has sworn off of it … ”

Say what?

“But seriously, in this particular case, the land management results in more animals, not fewer.”

Is that live or dead? I assume dead since that’s what they’re there for. And “no sacraficing princlpe for profit” since they’re ending up dead anyway? And the LDS church is making money off it. I don’t think this qualifies as one of your “wise posts” Stephen.

If you read the article, they are trying to engage in nature preservation, and part of making that alternative use financially stable is running a hunting preserve on it. That way they can create a multi-use zone.

The side effect is that rich people get to do something.

Since everyone knows rich people are bad, and being able to pay for something is evil, I’m sure that everyone that is critical of the preserve has looked at the fact they access high speed internet and has sworn off of it …

But seriously, in this particular case, the land management results in more animals, not fewer. The real question that comes up is whether or not people can tolerate a system that does so by means of a market economy basis. But there is no sacrificing of principle for profit in that no one is wasting animals and denuding the land of them.

As for finding out that land that you own is misused, that happens all the time (e.g. finding out that someone was using land owned by the Church in a REIT as a brothel). That is kind of like saying you bought into a stock index fund and it turns out that someone in a Dow Jones listed company has an employee who did something wrong.

Ray has the right of it.

There are times when killing is the prudent thing to do. For example, getting rid of ants. When I find a cricket in my house, I do no kill it but put it outside. I think that God respects this attitude.

I ask you, however, whether you would be troubled by any of the following purely hypothetical situations:

* The Church preaches against alcohol consumption, but purchases a vineyard in California and profits from the sale of the grapes being harvested to produce wine.
* The Church teaches that pornography is wrong, but has a stake in a popular fashion magazine featuring scantily-clothed women in sexual poses.
* The Church opposes abortion but owns property in Florida that an abortion clinic rents.

Ironically, I’m aware of the first two of these hypotheticals already happening. Brigham Young owned a brewery, and instructed the Saints in SW Utah to plant vineyards to make wine (acknowledged in a document linked on the FAIR website). According to D. Michael Quinn, it was discovered the Church owned a property in SLC that was used as a brothel. I’m not aware of the abortion clinic example yet, but hey, all is well in Zion, yea, Zion prospereth, so why are you trying to bring us all down?

Get off your high horse and let’s all just enjoy our Mormon Mammon together! We need less Mormons like you and more Mormons like Mitt $$$ Romney. And pretty soon you’ll be able to enjoy an evening shopping at high end department stores in the Church’s 1 Billion Dollar Mammon Mall renovation across the street from Temple Square, and then spend the rest of your evening doing a couple temple sessions!

“Isn’t it wonderful?”

That said, this strikes me as outrage for the sake of outrage. Are you as outraged over fishing as you are over hunting? Do fish matter less than birds or deer? Are you as outraged over the vast Church cattle holdings, since the D&C tells us to eat meat sparingly? Is that sacrificing “principle for profit” as well?

One could just as readily argue that these hunting preserves help train members to provide for themselves in the last days, or in times of famine. I may not like to hunt, but my bishop does, and he has a freezer full of elk as part of his food storage. He’s also one of the best men I know. Are you going to judge him, too? ..bruce..

Of all the many hypocrisies that people like to post about the Church, everyone has their hobby horse. I can understand an animal enthusiast objecting to this practice, but I have a hard time getting worked up about it. To make the venture worthwhile, presumably the natural population would have to remain healthy enough to guarantee the hunter shoots his prey. Logically, I’d have to assume, then, that the numbers being killed are in accordance with natural rates of death (whatever you’d call that metric). Many hunters take their sport seriously (I know several, though I am not one myself), and they kill humanely and eat the resulting meat.

I just don’t have much moral outrage on this one, and I’m sure the Lord will figure it out in the end.

When critics of the church find something they don’t like that has been said by past prophets, apologists come to the defense claiming these people speak as men. Yet, when it suits the needs of the critic, or apologist, they quote at will the prophets supporting their claim. It seems to be completely a function of whether or not we agree with the statement. If not, we condemn (or excuse in the case of an apologist), and if so we aggrandize (or condemn in the case of the critic).

I figure that if I am going to, in one case, condemn the words of the prophets because I don’t agree with them, then I better not use their words to try to prove a point. Hence, for me, I would look at this and say, “Yep, all those prophets said stuff about not killing animals. But since I believe, by definition, everything that comes out of the mouth of a prophet is the philosophies of men mingled with scripture, I don’t feel justified in condemning the actions of the church in this instance.”

1) While hunters enjoy many aspects of the hunt, that doesn’t mean they don’t eat what they kill, nor that they don’t respect what they kill. Most of us do. The morons who want to shoot everything that moves are the exception. You noted yourself that in the days when members of the church were more dependent on animals, they were more respectful of them. I find this is true with most hunters, as counterintuitive as it seems. Personally, my respect for ALL animals has grown exponentially since I began hunting a very few of them.

2) I’m sure it’s true that no one who pays to hunt at a preserve is going to starve if he/she doesn’t kill an animal that day. But I urge you to consider the alternative, which for most people is buying meat at a grocery store – meat that was raised in crowded conditions, fed unnatural food and pumped with hormones and antibiotics. Even if you can get free-range meat, it still lived its entire life as a slave destined to die at the hands of man, with not a single chance of escape. Is that somehow a more moral meat to eat than an animal a hunter has taken the time to kill and dress him/herself? Even at a preserve, an animal has a chance to use its wits to escape becoming a human hunter’s prey.