After reading another thread I have to ask, so what exactly is temple worship?
After a particularly inspiring session when I realized the Morg was a cult, I determined never to go back to the temple. The endowment seemed to be a combination of some screwed up Old Testament stories with Masonic handshakes and death penalties. So, how does one worship in the temple? The only time there is a prayer is toward the end.
It's the link to the CK. You can't get in the CK without doing the temple thing, therefore you're supposed to worship the temple and all its mysteries. However, those mysteries are unknown. I know because when I was an ordinance worker (briefly) I asked questions about the mysteries and the only answer I ever got was "I don't know."
Yeah, just as I thought. It's kind of like sacrament MEETING rather than sacrament worship service. I never thought I worshipped in SM just passively sat there trying not to get bored or fall asleep during the durges.
But, hey Tom, we do know the purpose of the temple, right! Control, fear, self-righteousness, signs, tokens, recommend interviews, etc. so we can get into the CK. The big question for normal guys like us, assuming you're normal :-) is how the fuck did we get sucked in so deep? Just thinking...I wonder if I would gave got sucked into Jim Jones, Charlie Manson...oh sh!t, now I know I'm the abnormal one. Oh no, must have been all that excessive masturbation at the Y.
For me, it was all family expectations. I didn't "know" the church was true, but I figured that my parents must've really known. I thought the temple was bizarre, but I was getting ready to go on my mission. I entered the celestial room and I could tell that my parents were nervous...slightly embarrassed...like they were thinking, "what is he going to say?". I didn't say anything, and I left for the MTC a week or so later. If I wasn't surrounded by family, I probably would have run out of there and never stepped foot in an LDS building again. Instead, I was stuck for another 15 years.
Boner, in the late 1960s I found my future wife and wanted to get married. I'd been active in the church throughout my teens, but never took it that seriously. I did not serve a mission. My wife was very active and wanted a temple marriage. Since my older brother and sister did the temple thing, I thought it was the right thing to do. The temple experience wasn't at all what I expected but my new wife and I found an apartment within the boundaries of my home ward. That meant I knew everyone and so we did temple excursions with the EQ. I stuffed my questions away because of the secrecy and the threatening penalties. Fast forward 40+ years (with several periods of doubt and inactivity) and we were asked to be ordinance workers. Since I was now officiating the ordinances I expected to learn the sacred secrets. That's when my questions came out. However, all my questions were dismissed with the answer "I don't know." That's when I found a whole new world of church history and the changing doctrine on the internet. I began reading many books heretofore considered off limits. And voila, enlightenment happened.
At least you got an honest, "I don't know". The few times that I asked a question in the temple I was told to pray about it and if I was prepared (good enough) the answer would be given to me as personal revelation. In other words, if you don't understand the mysteries it's your own darn fault.
The endowment is a combination of trying to stay awake during a movie you've seen a hundred times, a race to readjust your clothing and get your hands in the right position and a recitation of nonsensical sayings to an unseen old guy who keeps fumbling for your hand. At least they took out the pantomime of killing yourself and the groping at the veil.
When I did sealings, I always wondered if I was sealing some poor woman, for eternity, to a man who had beaten her in mortality. I'd been told that of course she would be given the choice, but I knew how those choices work for women in TSCC.
I only did initiatory once. Getting naked in the temple creeped me out so much that I never did it again. Even when they changed that part, I couldn't make myself go anywhere near that ceremony.
The Celestial room felt like competitive piety. I often wondered how many people were deep in prayer and how many were pretending to be deep in prayer, but secretly calculating how long they had to sit there in order to be convincing.
The only spiritual moments I had in the temple were in the chapel before a session. Some of the organists were very good.
"The Celestial room felt like competitive piety. I often wondered how many people were deep in prayer and how many were pretending to be deep in prayer, but secretly calculating how long they had to sit there in order to be convincing."
That's funny. I usually sat, head bowed, thinking, "hmmm, should we go to Five Guys or Cafe Rio? A burrito sounds so go right now, but maybe we should go to a place that has shakes..."
When I learned the truth about TSCC, I tried returning to the temple to see if I could get a confirmation. Everyone looked so depressed and embarassed in their goofy temple clothes. I watched people in the celestial room that were crying as they prayed. I don't know if they were seeking their own confirmations, or if they were there hoping that sick loved ones would benefit from their prayers offered in the temple, etc... Either way, there was nothing spiritual about the temple, and all I could think was, "you're wasting your time". Pointless temple work is one of the things that I hate most about the church. I don't care if my TBM parents enjoy the social aspects of the church, but it sickens me to think that my parents will waste half of their retirement doing pointless ordinances in the temple.
I have a very hard time staying awake during the endowment sessions. Just when you get in a good sleep, everybody's standing up and you just get frustrated with the interruptions. I'm sure I could take a serious nap if left to my own devices in an endowment.
The temple ceremony is for solidifying the hold that the church has over the members. By becoming part of the secret you essentially have been made special. It makes you a part of the elite. It plays on human nature. We all want to be better than others. We want to feel superior. Having been through the temple makes you one of the Mormon special drones. It is ultimate brainwashing.
The above is how I feel about what the temple is supposed to do in reality. It has nothing to do with the CK. Since I left the church I have joined a real Christian community. Through study and the love of God I am now aware of how the LDS church manipulates its members and the temple is a tool for this purpose.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2014 11:32AM by michaelc1945.
sit in the celestial room and meditate. I needed to be able to figure out what to do about my gay/straight marriage.
I never got to even sit down in the CR. I was so slow about doing the veil idiocy that by the time I got to the CR, the temple workers were making everyone leave.
The last time I went, I got done with the sealing stuff I had been pulled aside to do long before my husband got out of the session he was in. I sat in the foyer for 45 minutes, not only thinking about what I had just been through (being sealed over and over to some strange guy who was smiling weirdly at me the entire time) and my 4 other experiences doing endowments. I never went back. I had more time to meditate in the temple in the foyer than any other time. I got my answers there.
Michael above said that we are made special, a part of the elite. I felt more like I was part of the insanity. Even thinking about it all right now (I haven't been to the temple since just early 1990), I cannot believe that all these people go to the temple and think it makes them special. It is SO RIDICULOUS. I had an "old friend" post on facebook recently that she was there with her 6 children, taking her youngest through to serve a mission, and how special it was. Oh bullshit. As you take each new child through, is the new one going WTF?? the entire time.
I definitely was able to worship more in SM than I did in the temple EVER. I didn't mind SM actually, but I've been out for 20 years now (wow, can't believe it).
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2014 08:09AM by cl2.
There have been so many reports on this board over the years of church members being rushed out of the Celestial room (not everyone, of course, but enough to be noticeable.) I can't imagine why efforts aren't made by the church so that people can spend a reasonable amount of time in there.
time table and you are nitpicked to death by the temple workers to keep things running smoothly. When I went through the first time, my mother asked me to please bring someone else to help me as she was too nervous to help me. She actually did go to the temple more often than most people back in the 1970s and 1980s, but she was still not comfortable enough.
I experienced a lot of impatient temple workers in the few times I went. It was very unsettling.
I think you are supposed to go in there being reverent, praising God in your mind while the rituals are going on, and getting some kind of supercharged inspiration in the Celestial Room.
For me, I was mostly just profoundly thankful to be in an air-conditioned/heated place where there were no screaming kids running amok and smashed Cheerios underfoot. The endowment was a struggle to stay awake. Initiatory and sealings were just weird and awkward. I did sort of enjoy sitting in the Celestial Room for a few minutes of meditation and prayer, but by that time I was usually so hungry that I was fantasizing about food instead of the celestial afterlife.
After I quit going, I learned that I felt much more spiritual and reverent out in nature, attired in jeans and a t-shirt, with a mug of coffee or ale in my hand!
As a young Mormon, I was told countless times that the mysteries of the Gospel were something that could only be discussed in the Temple.
I really looked forward to finally being able to learn about and discuss the higher, esoteric aspect of Mormonism.
Once I and those who I went with were in the Celestial Room, where I assumed these conversations took place, everyone just stood around looking uncomfortable. Any attempt to whisper to another was quickly ssshhh-ed by the fake-nice old farts policing the most sacred spot in the southern half of California.
After an obscenely short amount of time considering the time investment made up to that point, we were ushered out of the Celestial realm down into the bowels of the temple where we quietly and quickly removed our absurd costumes so we could get to Juniors Deli in Westwood, which seemed to be the REAL reason for schlepping up to LA that evening.
The Temple is DESIGNED to prevent people from talking about what goes on in the temple.
The Fake-Prophets know that if people started talking about the ceremony, they would see through the bullshit very quickly.
So they forbid discussions about the temple outside of the temple, and prevent discussions about the temple while you're IN the temple.
Such an obvious fraud.
Also, the ceremonies in the temple are not spiritual or philosophical, they are jibberish. So there is no ancillary benefit from going.
Mormon Temples are an obscene waste of time and human energies.
It's one of the prime examples of the amorality of the Mormon Cult, and the corruption of its leaders.
It has become quite obvious during the last 30 years or so, that people actually worship the building itself. Pictures, embroidered pillow cases, lucky charms for key chains. That is about the only worship I've noticed. When my folks travel, they always have to schedule time to go to whatever temple is close by. Not that anything is different, and these days with the cookie cutter architecture really very little physical difference, but it seems to be a bragging point about going to this or that temple.
Temple worship is more like idol (the building) worship and that is mormonism.
Mormons worship
BOM D&C Temples Prophets-Joseph Smith Apostles Mission presidents Temple presidents Area 70 Stake presidents Bishops Emotional stories (lost car keys) "The church is true" (as a phrase) Christ on occasion Church wealth
What they hate
Callings- prep time Lost time Speaking Praying Ht Vt Scripture study Paying tithing 3 hour blocks Service projects Cleaning toilets