So, Mormons are always saying "I learned SOOO much in the temple." Did any of them ever clarify to you WHAT EXACTLY they learned? When you were a TBM did YOU ever think you "learned" stuff in the temple? What WAS it??????

I learned that my parents would rather sit through that incredibly mind numbing, boring, useless session than spend time with their kids. Especially when on vacation.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/24/2012 12:39AM by Mia.

i always hated it from the get go, could not believe i was watching a film in the temple and lets not mention the oil rubbing. but i can see how a person/parents find their escapes, shamefully I do too in my own ways and it's not cool. It's funny that as I read your post I realized I'd never considered that my parent's temple time was something I might question. I've questioned a hell of a lot since leaving but that's not a place I've gone to personally.

Yeah, I have no idea.

I learned kids are really noisy in church.

I learned the difference between a good crystal chandelier and a POS one.

I learned a few snarky lines from a stupid movie.

I learned you CAN pick up a guy in the celestial room and get his number on a prayer slip.

I learned I don't like old men with their greasy fingers putting them under my sheet.

Oh, there has to be something else, right?

And you picked up another guy in the CR?

Wow...

Unless he was said guy who was being picked up...

I learned that I had to lock my locker so that theives in the temple would'nt steal my shit!

I learned that as a sexually repressed/inexperienced 18 year old, that it was dang hard not to have "inappropriate thoughts" when naked Eve is prancing around the screen carefully cropped.

And then they make you stand up...
Good thing they have "the packet." (notice how many men held it in front of them when standing?)

I know it sounds silly... but that always bothered me.
As a hard-core TBM, I never watched ANYTHING even sexually suggestive (I wrote a report rather than watching Zorro in HS).

So alluring Eve was a "big deal" for me.

+1

I thought getting to watch a hot, naked girl prance around a forest was the best part of the whole experience.

Did any girls feel the same way about Adam?

I always wondered why he didn't have any hair on his chest?
Wasn't he a real man????

Or did he shave it????

ewwww

Maybe he used duct tape???

And no, he looked like a normal guy, no distinguishing features, just a basic mannequin look, very boring. Kind of plastic like a Ken doll...no personality.

It just took me a few years more to realize what I had learned.

I didn't learn anything but I felt bad and kept going bc GBH said even he learned something everytime he went

Edit: I guess I did learn that the temple actually does NOT keep satan out.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/24/2012 01:26AM by ghost buster.

That it's impossible not to bow your head when the person assisting you slaps it every time you look up. Not a generic morg thing I know the woman personally nice on the outside snake in TSCC.

That if you daydream during the movie it sinks into the subconcious and gives odd dreams.

That mo boys knew if they ask out a girl when at the temple and claim they were inspired by the sprit the girl would get stick for being ungodly if she didn't go on at least one dead end pointless date. Gee thanks guys for thinking that one up. The sprit moved me to ask for the biggest popcorn, drink, ice cream and sweets. :D.

and it finally came..........I left the Church

+1, except for me it was 18 years.

+1 for me too.
14 years for me, and I discovered its a bunch of Masonry gang signs.

i learned that this holy experience i had beat myself up over time and time again was wierd oil rubbing and goofy ass, segregated crazy costumed wierdness that I never dreamed of when I fell in love and "got to" go to the temple with many tear filled admissions of my own awfulness. I had no idea at the time that I was on the tame side of normal. I think that the more you adhere, the more you take every mandate seriously, the more you are ripe for dropping out. I think it's the people that have found their loopholes that can more easily continue on.

I learned how to slit my throat, rip my heart out & disembowel myself.
Other than that zilch.

That I might be in the wrong place.

how people can go to the temple and sleep and find it restful--they "made" you stand up and sit down so often that I was forever concerned about my performance--having been nitpicked to death by the little old bitches watching every move.

What I learned was that "this" was not the church I was raised in.

I learned not to forget to drink my Ovaltine.

I learned beyond the shadow of a doubt that the church is this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC43SsJxweg&feature=related

0.

I learned how amazingly easy it is for humans to lie to themselves and others by putting meaning into something that is quite silly and mundane. Its like those books people write based on one line in the Bible, they take off with an idea and pretty soon have an entire narrative and even build their life around something that could be and likely is complete non-sense. The Emperor's clothes indeed. Even as a TBM this seemed crazy to me. At least I was honest enough to talk about it with other people and ask them what they really learned...the answer was either and acknowledgment that they didn't learn a thing or some esoteric rubish they would pull out of their hind end to try to impress you with their superior psuedo intelligence. I call bullshit on the temple ritual and the supposed higher meaning. The higher meaning is some people are easily deluded and willing or even eager to influence others to surrender their mind to absolute crap. IF JS were still alive he would probably be laughing his @ss off about what dopes his followers are.

Um, let's see:

-secret name
-I can become a king, if I give my money and life to build up the church.
-some hand signs, and hand shakes.
-that its bad to accidentally drop Gs on the floor, or to ever let them touch the floor.
-That everyone repeating a prayer by someone else, in unison, is the proper way to pray, but we can only pray that way in the temple.
-that a movie is central to my salvation.
-And, that I'm supposed to repeat these things in the temple as often as I can.

What a bunch of bull-sh*t!

That even my parents could not be trusted to be rational.

A sad life event.

I learned that Mormonsim was not being straight with me and that my parents were part of the fraud.

I learned my reservations needed to become concerns that had to be addressed. I have always been proud that I found the ritual death oaths as vulgar and not pleasing to my nature.

I was out when they changed them, but what I learns is that the church does market research. What a shame all the sheep that adhered to eternal doctrines and submitted to the "Will of God" only to have them altered by bureaucrats in order to address market resistance.

The Church is a fraud, hear the words of my iPhone.

Learned that the money changers are in the temple, renting temple clothing. Ever notice the cash registers making loud clunky noises in the otherwise quiet building?

I remember thinking that this just COULDN'T be the big deal people told me it was...that it was sort of silly. And the prayer circle pay lay ale crap was really cultie....but I repressed those thoughts because I really believed this was of God and any doubts must've just been me.

I mainly worried about HOW was I supposed to memorize all these signs and tokens and repetitions?? They tell you that to get into Heaven you have to have all this memorized...I think that is one of the main reasons people go over and over.

It was all a big WASTE OF TIME.

'I learned how to slit my throat, rip my heart out & disembowel myself.
Other than that zilch.'

Okay that was funny. I've never been but still have a hard time picturing my sweet TBM mother pantomiming her death in the "Holy" temple.

Thank you all for the descriptions of what goes on in the Mormon fun house.