Right now the church has more money than it knows what to do with. There’s an old saying. If you give most people too much money, they would destroy themselves with it. One example of this was a rockstar who before he got his fat advance from the record label had no money. Having little money kept his drug use in check but all a sudden he could buy all the drugs he wanted. Having the means to do that almost killed him.

The LDS church is similar. Brigham Young prophesied there would be thousands of temples. Of course Brigham and the church didn’t have the resources to make that happen. They built a few at great cost and sacrifice. The church leaders learned the temple help cement the church together. Later they learned where you have a temple tithing revenue goes up because there is more social pressure to attend the temple.

In the past temples were secret and mysterious places. The church controlled the narrative. People went to the temple due to a social dynamic more than actually enjoying the experience. Like drugs, people can handle a smaller dose of temple attendance. Some might even enjoy a hit now and then.

The problem when you saturate the landscape with temples is they become nothing special. They start to become a nuisance. Like ingesting too many drugs the members start to get sick of the whole experience. Instead of the enjoyable annual temple trip to a far off temple it’s constant guilt tripping to use the temple down the street. Also attending a temple too much makes the members get used to it to where there is nothing special about it. Much like how people build up a resistance to drugs. The high is gone.

Even TBM members look at the current temple building craze and see madness. An interesting observation I saw in my TBM family at a recent wedding in Utah is they have no excitement about Russell M Nelson. I kind of got the impression some think he’s a nut job. Utah has lost it’s temple high. The church is reduced to nothing more than a social club. The spirituality is gone.

Building all these temples may well be the biggest mistake the church ever made. They very well could become white elephants on the landscape.

I don't think LDS Inc needs to worry about destroying itself with too much money. They have a team of financial advisors, etc., who know what to do with it.

I think the temple building spree is to show members that LDS Inc is putting their tithing dollars to good use. What else can they do to show that tithing money is being spent for something worth while? Hire janitors? Feed the hungry? Build homeless shelters?

Temples are the gateway to eternal life in the celestial kingdom. They're reminders of eternal togetherness with family and loved ones. They're the reason members part with 10% of their income. Why not build as many as possible since they're the number one reason members pay tithing?

It's true that temples are becoming ubiquitous in places like Utah, but it's a sign that the end is near and lots of baptisms for the dead, etc., need to be done before the second coming! Tithing payers can pat themselves on the back whenever they see a temple.

heartbroken Wrote:
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> What else can they do to show
> that tithing money is being spent for something
> worth while? Hire janitors? Feed the hungry? Build
> homeless shelters?

From your lips to God's ears, so to speak.

I’m not talking about going broke. I’m talking about destroying the spiritual illusion by mass producing sacred things and treating them like they are a corporate product. A good example of this is the opening of the Mesa temple. It’s like a celebration of a new shopping center or something.

It's easier to spread and maintain a "spiritual illusion" if you have money than if you do not.

Not really. Money has made the LDS church the McDonald’s of religion. Building more temples will make it even more so. A spiritual experience requires artistic skill and vision. Money alone does not create that.

Rubicon Wrote:
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> Money has made the LDS church the
> McDonald’s of religion.

Exactly. No matter where you go, there's a McDonald's. That wouldn't have happened without money.


-------------------
> A spiritual experience
> requires artistic skill and vision.

"Spiritual experience?" You're changing the topic. We were discussing churches.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/2021 04:01AM by Lot's Wife.

If you think of a temple as a tithing factory, the church is already experiencing the law of diminishing returns. The newer temples are almost certainly bringing in less tithing than the earlier ones. Eventually, the cost of building and maintaining a temple will exceed the tithing revenue it generates, especially if they continue building in odd places like Cody, WY. We'll see what happens when temples operate as "loss leaders" then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminishing_returns

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/lawofdiminishingmarginalreturn.asp

Still, with the ungodly amount of money the church already has, it won't be destroyed any time soon. Not in our lifetimes anyway.

The church is more successful as a business than a religious institution. The money will still be there after it’s completely dead to the members in a spiritual sense.

I did "Temple Session" every week for about 3 months back in 2009. There were little and stupid things that really irritated me going that often. The blonde Eve's lipstick seemed to be not right and it irritated me. I would put my head down or try to fall asleep just because it was so repetitious.

It basically cured me of doing it when I hit it that hard. I have not had the urge to do any "Session". Maybe I gave myself a whole carton of Temple to smoke and I learned my lesson. Even in the court o'love ride, I asked for clarifying sake if I could go to the temple or do home teaching. The SP said nope... none of that for you. He misread my reaction and I think he thought no temple or home teach was a real gut punch for me. Inside, I was doing cartwheels and jumping for joy that those drugs we no longer in the house for me to dabble with. I've been clean for 11 years now.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/20/2021 03:20PM by cheezus.

My husband was the one who guilted me about going to the temple. I had to keep him from being tempted to have sex with men so I was supposed to be perfect. I couldn't tolerate it more than a few times. Doing sealings to a stranger was the final straw. I can't believe there are so many people who would keep going to the temple after they went once. It is RIDICULOUS.

You only can work on a assembly line for so long before it drives you crazy.

They could always start a space travel business, taking members to the edge of space of where God lives.
Maybe they could name it Kolob Spirit or something. I think they should use rockets shaped like a giant penis because that fits in to their patriarchy.

That seems to be the thing to do when someone has too much money.

dagny Wrote:
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> They could always start a space travel business,
> taking members to the edge of space of where God

Elon Musk is God.


---------------------
> That seems to be the thing to do when someone has
> too much money.

Precisely.

Here’s another take.

I once went to an atheist bible study group.

They proudly stated that actually reading the Bible is a common path to becoming an atheist.

It lifts the veil of mystique, and if you read the OT you will notice that a huge amount of the content is diety-mandated genocide.

Having followed RFM for 18 years, I’ve certainly heard a lot of variations on “I didn’t like the temple experience at all”. Weirded out the first time. Lousy experience as a bride. Bored silly. Disturbed by the culty circle of prayer. Not a fan of the naked touching. Etc.

So, higher expectations for temple attendance not only takes away the specialness it had when it was a journey, but also rubs in each and every unliked element of it.

Could be enough to break a few shelves. Or force an exit simply for sanity.

RG



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/20/2021 10:15PM by reinventinggrace.

That's a good point.

Rubicon wrote in part:

"The church is reduced to nothing more than a social club."

That's all Mormonism (or any other religion, for that matter) has ever been. As former Mormon bishop Bob McCue noted in one of his essays (I can't find it now), the whole thing about Mormonism was really to allow first Joseph Smith, then his buddies, to practice polygamy which was banned by U.S. (and, by the way, Christian) rules and laws. Since the days of polygamy, the LDS club has traded in dabbling with other people's wives to dabbling with other people's money. And the ever-expanding number of temples is proof that the tithing money continues to roll in.

Naw. People wouldn’t have pulled handcarts to Utah or built Nauvoo out of nothing in a few years if it was just a social club. Both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young had charisma and could create excitement and paint visions in people’s heads of this wonderful Zion they were to create.

Show me the excitement and vision in the church now. The church has more money than ever but it ain’t that exciting.