The church knows it’s not growing. Rhe world opened up after the fall of the Soviet Union. The big benefactor was the Eastern Orthodox Church. The LDS did not baptize large numbers of people in these former communist countries.

Now the west is turning against Christianity. In Africa, the Middle East and Southern Asia, tens of millions of Christians have been killed in the last three decades.

The church follows these trends and knows it’s not going to grow and it’s more concerned about retaining what it has. How do you do this?

You put the focus on temple work. There are billions of names to be done. First you have to make temples easier to get to. Then you tell the members God gave us this technology to find our ancestors to do their temple work. You keep the members busy on that wild goose chase.

To get the temple work done and remain in good standing with the church one must pay, pray and obey to get a temple recommend. The cash continues to come in and those temples will pay for themselves.

Temples are a lot more profitable than mission training centers. No wonder the church is closing them down. The only reason the church sends missionaries out is their statistics prove missions keep more young adults in the church. The church is also offering more affordable education to young adults. BYU has kept many in the church.

You might see an expansion of the BYU system offering affordable education for young LDS members. The new mission of the church will be temple work mostly.

The church risks burning it’s members out on genealogy and temple work but they always can change things if need be. I think this is where they are headed. People will be so busy doing ordinances for the dead they won’t notice the church has stagnated. The money keeps coming in.

You could make temple work cheaper by no longer demanding an individual’s name be attached to an ordinance. If some Mormon wants to go in and do work for dear old grandpa let them use his name. But you could just do work for the dead person by saying the work is being done for an unidentified dead person who has already accepted the gospel in the spirit world. The work is hastening on in the spirit world! Those who have accepted the gospel there can no longer wait for us to identify them! Poor souls are waiting to get their work done and we cannot stand in their way by refusing to attend the temple!

name by name, instead of simply doing a one-time-does-all universal ordinance for all dead people that they can individually accept in the spirit world....

Then I have a modest proposal for the "Prophet, Seer and Revelator" that may help him and his colleagues solve the unavoidable problem of not having enough valid names in the pipeline to justify the number of dead-people ordinances they are urging the temple-worthy Mormons to do.

It's really simple and fool-proof.

The Prophet simply reasserts his claim to be a REAL seer and revelator by telling the members that he has given the keys of Elijah to members of a special committee called the "Committee in Communion with Spirits Desiring Sacred Ordinances" ("CIC" for short.)

The CIC has at their disposal 12 fully charged seer stones that have been activated by the Prophet, and they are working around the clock getting names and information from dead people for whom no records currently exist on planet earth.

Pursuant to this new CIC program, you will begin seeing in the temple an amazing increase in variety and originality of the names of dead people for whom ordinances are to be performed. Best of all each name will be unique. No repeats will be needed just to keep the temple drones busy. (But names that prove to be particularly popular will be recycled by simply changing birthdates--same name, different person.)

Here are a few samples of what will soon be coming down the pipeline from the CIC seer stones:

--> Batbutman: b. 1135 AD in Mongolia, d. 1178 AD

--> Og Og: b. 22,000 BC in Cave d. 21,975 BC (Yes, there will be some related revelations about pre-Adamic hominids.)

--> Sarah Snively: b. 1375 AD in Normandy d. 1425 (Arabia)

--> Griggle Sniggle (homo florosiensis): b. 1766 AD in Indonesia ; d. 1826 AD (Indonesia)

--> Marion Robert Morrison (aka John Wayne): b. 1907 AD (Iowa); d. 1979 AD (California) (Morrison's spirit is requesting a do-over because he noticed (while in spirit observing work done for him previously in the temple) that the 14-year old kid who was dunked for him kept his big toe out of the water at all times as a prank, thereby rendering the baptism invalid. Since the baptism was invalid, all subsequently performed ordinances were void. The Duke want's a do-over for the whole set of ordinances, and wants some form of disciplinary action taken against the kid who sabotaged the proxy baptism.)

This makes sense and is the most likely reason for all the temple building.
However, I still feel surprised that they are doing this. But they are business men so I guess we have to assume that these temples are not resulting in a net loss, right? I find it hard to believe even so. Perhaps they are going for the long term goal as you described it.

It make me wonder:

Will they stop bothering with missionary work so much?

Will they make being temple worthy a stricter commandment, and how will they enforce it? A double down on shaming and guilt tripping?

I think it’s been mentioned before, but the cut down on church meetings and chapel usage is to save money. What else will they do to cut back?

It also makes me think though, that maybe LDS.inc is so wealthy that it can throw money away regardless. Perhaps there is no clever thinking behind it at all....

The church has to make it’s finances public in Canada. It does not in the US. So someone looked up what the church is bringing in a year from tithing and it averages $6 billion.

The temples aren’t cheap but compared to $6 billion a year they are getting a return on their investment. Russell M Nelson said they were going to focus on building temples instead of meeting houses.

In many places the church will just rent a hall to have the two hour church in. I think it will stay two hours because they want to still have an Elders Quorum and Relief Society hour to follow up on the ministering program. They also want an hour of child indoctrination.

They will put focus on the temples and genealogy as never before and tell the members it’s part of gathering Israel. I think the church is dumping all the fun activities because they have discovered entertaining the members doesn’t necessarily retain the ones they want.

The church wants obedient tithing payers. They could care less about the people who stay in for fun activities and the social aspects and don’t pay any tithing. It’s tithing the church is after and temple going TBM’s pay it and all they have to do is make them feel they are doing something important like redeeming the dead.

Thanks. Excellent take on things, makes sense. I’d love it if they changed the name of Primary to ‘Child Indoctrination’.

for services/work relating to everything from managing real estate acquisitions, doing legal work/documentation for every important phase of temple construction and operations, construction contracts, maintenance contracts, security contracts, repair contracts, material supplies, grounds-keeping contracts...and so on.

It would be interesting to get some detailed background information on the corporations and owners of corporations who deal with the church and profit from temple-related business with the church. My guess is that a lot of them are very well connected and plugged in with the usual cast of suspects (i.e. elite families or "Mormon Royalty"). Others may be in a position to do favors for Mormon leaders and their families in exchange for special consideration when awarding contracts.

temple all that much, at least the people I knew. My aunts and uncles never went. My parents never went. My grandparents never went. Unless there was a wedding. It was important to get married in the temple, but I don't remember so much pressure to attend the temple. My mother also told me that my grandparents didn't pay tithing and were able to go to the temple. They were too poor.

So things have changed over the years. I'm sure there are people who go multiple times per week now. My daughter and her husband (I'm sure it is her idea) go to the temple once a week. Good thing she is going back to Alaska to work. They are a long ways from the temple and they won't be able to go every week.

And get this, my aunt (who wrote the wedding e-mail) and her husband (who I don't claim as family) were going on an Alaskan cruise and would have a day in Anchorage waiting to board the ship. I told them what I had seen near Anchorage. She called my daughter to ask her and my daughter said, "Definitely go to the temple." HUH? My daughter has worked 11 summers in Alaska and could name multiple things to go see, but she said the temple.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2019 10:27AM by cl2.

Yup. The church is focusing on the temple intently now. So much it’s programmed into the member’s brains. Sending the missionaries out hasn’t been all that successful. I think the church has finally realized it’s beating a dead horse there and the missions are a real burden to run. You have to call a bunch of mission presidents and there is none stop problems.

I think they will reduce the missionary efforts gradually. They already have consolidated missions and closed down missionary training centers. They are building more temples than ever.

They can do all sorts of things with the temples. They could start doing solemn assemblies again and all sorts of stuff. I think they will jazz it up to cure the repetitive boredom. Anything to keep people paying tithing to get a temple recommend.

Hocus pocus in the temples will replace endless door knocking. Maybe they will ad in some more ritualistic ceremonies for the valiant members. They can cook up all sorts on incentives.

My parents didn't go to the temple. There were many brothers/sisters in the ward who were active, but decided that they weren't worthy enough. In a way, I think the church wanted it this way. Only a few or an elite group should have access because the church made it hard for members to believe that they were perfect enough to go there. From time to time, members would share their guilt about not having the spirit and thus they chose not to enter. I think one 70's leader shared a story during f/t that he felt something was wrong as he led his group of 5 couples to the lobby of the temple. Then he felt the need to interrogate his little group. Finally, one sister broke down and tears and confessed that she had broken the WoW. She admitted that she had been drinking coffee earlier in the week. Stories like those kept a lot of members away.

Worried about little things like did I take a pen home from work (more than likely), was I honest with my fellowman. The bishop (my cousin) didn't know about my gay/straight situation and so he thought I was hiding something and he made me feel like a piece of shit. They make you believe that God will know or someone with discernment will know.

I think that people like the guy who had a group going to the temple and the woman confessed to having coffee (of all things--my dad drank it all my life and he got temple recommends when he went to our weddings and they KNEW he drank it).

My "husband" went on bishopric night and I didn't. I guess it happened once a month. I was worthy and he was cheating with men. Not once did anyone stop him and say he had something to confess. Hell. It is so ridiculous. He just told me recently how embarrassing it was to give excuses to the other women about why I didn't come. I said, "Why didn't you tell them I didn't want to go." I guess he told them I had a headache all the time.

I was a victim of abuse. I never confessed or told anybody in the church about it. I really wondered if some sort of priesthood discernment was going to cause me to die of embarrassment. I forever fretted; even as a missionary. And yes, my mission president gave me a lot of scares. "Elder Goop, I need to see you in my office, pronto!" It turned out that most of those impromptu interviews were the result of mission letters (written by tattle-tell elders) that accused me of breaking some asinine mission rule. And just to turn up the heat, the mission president once interviewed me 3 times at a zone conference. My problem was that I believed those stories of super-discernment and all-knowing.

Back to the temple. I expected some sort of unusual event regarding being "unclean". It happened, but not on the first visit. One time there was some technical difficulty during the film presentation of the endowment. Except the temple workers didn't make it obvious that there was a problem. Instead, they made it like there was an evil presence. We all sat around staring at every person as if he/she was the reason we had stopped the session. Eventually, a man got up and whispered something into one of the worker's ear. That man left the room and then the film proceeded as if there had been no trouble.

All the times that I attended the temple, I hated every minute of it. I couldn't stand the changing of clothes, the smells and the rudest people on earth. Yet, I blamed myself for not liking it. I couldn't tell a soul because the mormon way is to blame the person if he/she has an unpleasant experience.

I'm going to watch and see. I don't think it is why. Until they make temple attendance as mandatory as church attendance I wouldn't correlate the two - stagnation and temple building.

Sometimes the effects of church policies & actions that keep people 'worthy' aren't as blatantly directed at temple attendance.


ChurchCo excusing of my former wife's obviously false divorce was such a case, they fell all over themselves giving her a TR knowing she lied to get what she wanted...

The true reason was that they couldn't cope with my questions/doubts.

> The true reason was that
> they couldn't cope with
> my questions/doubts.


Which naturally meant that YOU had to be punished and your ex rewarded. When ghawd's laws are involved, the laws of man are so puny in comparison that they can be ignored.

Punishing you is part of the Higher Law.

causing an accelerating shrinkage, resulting in a fear of extinction and therefore this siege mentality, and so there is a turn away from the real and retreat inward into magical thinking - something that can be controlled and is protected, shielding from an ever encroaching reality.

Temples are a place of make-believe. A refuge from reality.

Think they're weird now?


Ain't seen nuthin' yet.

To me, it was "this is my life??? Oh my hell, get me out of here."

The problem is that when they delete the last bit of weird from it, they'll have nothing left.

They got rid of the weird "oath of vengeance" sometime early in the 20th century. Then they finally got rid of the throat-slitting and disembowelment death penalty gestures in the 1990s (which are so weird that younger Mormons don't believe they were ever a part of the temple ceremony).

They also got rid of the creepy hugging/groping thing ("Five Points of Fellowship") that you had to do with a mystery man behind a curtain as the climax of the ceremony. Hard to believe, but that was a central feature of the temple ceremony right up until the 1990s or thereabouts.

More recently, they've deleted the veiling on women and the oath of submission to husbands.

There's not much left to delete in reality. Just a few handshakes and the goofy costumes.

And they can't be deleted without losing the whole ceremony. The "tokens" ARE the endowment. The crappy movie is just a repackaging of Book of Abraham/Pearl of Great Price stuff.

The whole temple gimmick is just a real-life version of The Emperor's New Clothes.

There's nothing there really. Just fancy labels given to goofy things. "Robes of the Priesthood"...my ass!

-> The endowment is a bunch of secret society handshakes plagiarized from the Masons.

-> The "sealing" is just a guy telling a couple that they'll be married forever instead of until death. And that their kids will be with them too after they die. No detailed information is offered on how any of it is supposed to work. (When a daughter is sealed into her husband's family, is she simultaneously in both families? In heaven are there security guards and biometric devices that keep "unsealed" people from visiting and spending time with loved ones? It's imbecilic.) Hey, I'll give you a discount. Just pay only 5% of your annual income to me and I'll tell you that you'll be together forever...and I'll call that the "Sealing of Wally" and even give you some gold-star stickers to put on your forehead. And I'll throw in a parchment certificate signed by Elohim and Jehovah, confirming that they are bound forever to recognize and respect the "Sealing of Wally."


-> How about the "prayer circle"? Well, it is just a creepy zombie scene that belongs in a Stephen King novel/movie.

-> The "Celestial Room" is just a misplaced hotel lobby.

There literally is no there there in Mormon temples. Carpet, curtains, reasonably comfortable chairs... Those are real. But the rest is just bizarre childish "special club" playtime stuff.

But if you keep the suckers distracted by high-falutin' fancy words, you can hide the fact that they're getting nothing but a pile of bovine excrement that has been fraudulently labeled as "100% Pure Gold".

A kind of hypnosis...

Look at the label. Look at the label. Don't talk about the thing that has been mislabeled. Just look at the label. The label is the only thing that matters...repeat after me...the label is the only thing that matters...repeat after me...the label is the only thing that matters...your eyelids are getting heavy, you're feeling sleepy...repeat after me....

Wally Prince Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The problem is that when they delete the last bit
> of weird from it, they'll have nothing left. . . . . . repeat after me...the label is the only thing that matters...your
> eyelids are getting heavy, you're feeling
> sleepy...repeat after me....
================================

Wow.

Had no idea there were so many deletions and changes, have never seen them listed in one place like this.

This really is a shock.
Not a surprise, but still the very magnitude of it is shocking.

Imagine the fun that could be had with that ;-D

In the last two years, the leaders keep harping about misinformation spread through the media. Since Nelson is hell-bent on his "truth is truth" campaign, maybe it will be called truth finder. He now realizes (if he didn't already know) that members will give in to whims, no matter how lame they may be. It's not too hard to request members to use his family friendly truth finder when researching important gospel truths. :D

If there's One Thing the GAs / Q 15 aren't, it's dumb/stupid.

if this hypothesis is (somewhat) accurate, I'm wondering when (not exact) the stagnation became apparent to the top leaders, the actual people with their hands on the levers...

weren't the times thru the 70's (pun alert!) & 80's good times in terms of conversions AND of the Mormon birth rates?

(?) perhaps in the 90's things started to turn, but weren't yet obvious.

Then, another question is the general social environment: Viet Nam & anti-war, politics in general, economy, etc.
a lot of changes in Mormondumb were directly attributable to the extension of the Pacific Railroad, next common air travel, next the internet, etc.

All these things greatly shaped the way 'the gospel' is Presented & Received.

BYU wins the college football national championship.

Charlene Wells (Mormon) is crowned as Miss America.

The Osmonds are still a big thing.

Russell Nelson and Darling Orcs are ordained as Apostles.

Local congregations are still functioning well as centers of community activity and socializing for Mormons.

The whole silly misunderstanding about people of African descent being officially treated as second-class citizens by the church is starting to be forgotten by mainstream society. ("What? That little faux pas? It's been taken care of. Forget about it.")

All Lamanites are still present and accounted for throughout South America, Central America and North America and all throughout the Pacific Islands. "Of course they're all descendants of the Book of Mormon Lamanites! Of course!! That's why they are all represented in BYU's popular 'Lamanite Generation' song and dance group.")

The Internet doesn't yet exist as far as the general masses are concerned. You get your information at the library, at school, from the church or from the multi-billion dollar corporate media cartel. None of those institutions are particularly interested in doing in-depth studies of Mormon history and doctrinal analysis, so regular Mormons rarely encounter any challenging information.

If they're really interested, questioning Mormons can try to get some information from the Tanners, but such information is mostly spread by word of mouth. Easy to avoid...or miss. There are some evangelist groups who try to disseminate "anti-Mormon" literature, but Mormons don't trust representatives of false, apostate religious sects.

Fawn Brodie's book is out there, but Hugh Nibbles has pretended to "debunk" it and a pretend debunking is just as good as a real debunking as far as most incurious TBMs are concerned.

So, things were really going well for Mormons, their public image, their confidence and all in the mid-1980s. I still think that's when the church peaked, based on a complex combination of criteria and factors. Some things may have advanced a bit further subsequently based on momentum. But the mid-1980s was when it all seemed to be coming together quite nicely for the church and the members' self-esteem and prosperity.

Turns out that the mid-1980s was just the deceptive and pleasant, proverbial, calm before the storm.

Right around the corner was the Hoffman fiasco.

This was followed by wider dissemination of the truth about the falsity of the Book of Abraham.

Then the Internet really started to kick in.

Then, based on serious DNA testing, it turns out the Lamanites weren't really Lamanites after all. BYU's Lamanite Generation had to be renamed as the "Living Legends." The preface of the Book of Mormon had to be revised. The church still insists that they're out there somewhere, they just don't know where. Not the Navajos. Not the Polynesians. But there may be a guy in Schenectady who is a real Lamanite. Haven't been able to track him down to test him, but according to rumors....

BYU's college football program started to fade.

People started laughing at Mormons thanks to popular cartoons like South Park and thanks to Broadway musicals about the silliness of Mormon missionaries.

Professional salaried "debunkers" at BYU who used to be able to pretend to debunk "anti-Mormon" claims could no longer count on ordinary people accepting their conclusions just because it was too hard to do the research necessary to fact-check the apologists. Since the 1990s, the apologists began revealing themselves as buffoons in real time online, as one specious argument after another fell to superior facts and logic that were only a few mouse-clicks away.

The mystery of the temple was destroyed. Now anyone who is curious can get on the Internet and find out (and SEE) for themselves that it's nothing but a bunch of goofy costumes, goofy handshakes and creepy zombie-like chanting.

If current Mormon leaders and TBMs had a time machine, I bet they would just keep going back to the period of 1980~1985 over and over.

Wally Prince Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> BYU wins the college football national
> championship. . . . . . . . . .
> current Mormon leaders and TBMs had a time
> machine, I bet they would just keep going back to
> the period of 1980~1985 over and over.
================================

This summary really puts it in perspective. Fall of the would-be Roman Empire.

Pretty clear TSCC has passed its apogee and is headed into the dirt

My stake put on its own play about "the restoration" in a community theater. They advertised it with flyers and the members were encouraged to invite non-member friends. As we waited in line on the sidewalk, it was surprising to see a couple of my former teachers (non-members) waiting as well.

There were protesters that were determined to discourage people from seeing the mormon play. They were trying to hand people their own flyers with some sort of fake blood on it. Then they staged their own play by using a tree to create a makeshift crucifix. Some horribly foul smelling man was dragged by a group of men and then he was tied up like Jesus. They then hammered nails into his hands and he started to bleed. This was one cult protesting another cult. The protest only pushed me deeper into the cult.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/2019 12:22PM by messygoop.

>> "The church’s stagnation is why they build so many temples"

Could the opposite be true also?

Is the church stagnating because they build so many temples?

Meaning, if they actually focused on the here and now and the happiness of the members daily lives, they would probably not be stagnating.

Instead, its largely a cult of the dead as far as the temples go, which does nothing for the here and now or the happiness of the members daily lives.

Precisely, Roy!!

The Mormon appeal 'market' is segmented now, some parts appeal to part of the membership, other parts to others.


There seems to be no 'middle way' as a Buddhist would say.


I think more 'shake their heads' in dis-belief especially those who wish to have strong community ties, more time with family, but ChurchCo effectively denies this to them.

A stake president told me they won’t build a temple where the members in that area have poor temple attendance using the temples they already have.

So apparently members are using the temples. I think if temple attendance was down the church wouldn’t bother. Listen to the cheers at general conference when temples are announced. They generate a lot of excitement in many people.

I never particularly liked the temple but I didn’t like being initiated into my fraternity either. I have OCD and really don’t like rituals of any kind. I love to go into a beautiful quiet church and have my quiet time with nobody bothering me. I like to chill and meditate. The temple to me was a big weird game of Simon says.

That may have been true say 10 years ago under previous administrations, but some of the temple announcements made recently by Nelson truly boggle the mind. Yuba City California? REALLY? The Sacramento temple, not even an hour drive away, is hardly bursting at the seems in attendance overload.

Your SP was just parroting the party line.

The facts in the UK are that the Scottish Mormons did more temple work in the London temple than anyone else, except maybe those that lived very close.

Their reward for such outstanding temple work was to be ignored by Hinckley so he could build his ego temple in the North of England in Preston/Chorley.

I have no reason to believe what your SP said is vaguely accurate. He just thinks it sounds logical.

from the leaders.

They're really coasting and they like it. They can live comfortably, be treated like rock stars by TBM congregations around the world, fly on private jets, enjoy expense accounts and housing subsidies, free tuition for kids...and best of all...virtually zero accountability or risk of being fired.

They don't actually want to, you know, really work on stuff.

Think of how Nelson is being portrayed and perceived by the faithful Mormons. He's a go-getter. He's dynamic. He's working 100 times harder than just about anyone else, you need to take vitamins to keep up with it all....blah, blah, blah, dee, freakin' blah!

What has he really done? He told the people to reduce their Sunday meeting schedule from 3 hours to 2. He told people to stop using the word "Mormon" as a nickname for the church and its members.

Seriously. That's about it. Everything else is just traveling around the world meeting famous people and soaking up worship and adulation from the little Mormons.

I have a thesis that holds that the gospel of Jesus Christ is both fun and easy to live if you don't believe that Jesus Christ has any connection with the mormon church. So lying to the men whom you know have no connection with ghawd or ghawds is a piece of cake. Or as ghawd the father was wont to say, "Phuque'em if they can't take a joke!"

Living life under your terms for six and a half days a week makes living, even in Utah, a piece of cake. Of course, no one would convert to this plan; it's only for people born into the church, or whose parents joined before the kids were 10 years old.

The church is only a burden if you believe. If everyone stops believing, it could last indefinitely, but there would be shrinkage, as not everyone is comfortable with mild hypocrisy.

elderolddog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have a thesis that holds that the gospel of
> Jesus Christ is both fun and easy to live if you
> don't believe that Jesus Christ has any connection
> with the mormon church. So lying to the men whom
> you know have no connection with ghawd or ghawds
> is a piece of cake. Or as ghawd the father was
> wont to say, "Phuque'em if they can't take a
> joke!"
>
> Living life under your terms for six and a half
> days a week makes living, even in Utah, a piece of
> cake. Of course, no one would convert to this
> plan; it's only for people born into the church,
> or whose parents joined before the kids were 10
> years old.
>
> The church is only a burden if you believe. If
> everyone stops believing, it could last
> indefinitely, but there would be shrinkage, as not
> everyone is comfortable with mild hypocrisy.

I think so many members of the church know it’s BS. They stay to keep family and friends happy. The church is a social club. You are right. If you know the leaders have no discernment at all and it’s the land of make believe it’s easy to be in it.

I have found the exmormons with the most amount of post Mormon trauma we’re true believers or did their best to be good members. People who didn’t believe but put on the dog and pony show shrug the church off easy and move on.

He never seemed to take it seriously, but attended meetings, said prayers on refreshments, got married in the temple and eventually became bishop and all that stuff.

But I never saw him really being particularly concerned about things like understanding the scriptures. (He hardly ever read them except when called upon in Sunday school.) His talks were just folksy anecdotes about family experience with a loose tie-in to how the "gospel has enriched our lives" type of stuff.

Anything that didn't make sense, he just immediately put on a shelf...and he apparently has a 20-acre warehouse full of shelf space.

I would ponder the scriptures and try to figure things out. I would sometimes ask him what he thought about A being completely inconsistent with B and how are we to reconcile these contradictions... He would just shrug and say it probably wasn't important and if it was God would let us know.

He would drink coke and, if questioned, would say it was okay because his mom said it was okay. I would agonize over whether it was a violation of the word of wisdom.

Nothing seemed to bother him in church or about the history, because he didn't take it seriously. But he loved being part of it and socializing. Got married and checked off all the major things that you have to do to be a member in good standing.

I took it so seriously that I often spent sleepless nights praying and begging for more knowledge and a better understanding of the gospel.

I guess my prayers were answered. I discovered that it was all a crock started by a swindler, liar and big-time adulterer and sexual predator.

I'm out.

My ever-so-casual friend is still a member in good standing with a "forever family."

He's happy. So what can I say?

The church will be able to endure all scrutiny. This is because it is able to (like a magician) pull a new and everlasting surprise for the most faithful.

Imagine this. You would have probably remained in the church had you been offered to become a two-headed God.

You know it's true.

No one can pass up being a two-headed God.

Not in a trillion years.

I already am a two-headed ghawd!

Which one does the thinking?

Neither.

I am a victim of my impulses.

Normal/ REAL temples allow people to worship freely, and privately, and as they wish.

They aren't bothered to "WORK", but spend time in a "sacred", and personal, manner.

It's about giving NOTHING to the members, while expecting EVERYTHING in return.