Years ago when the Trafford Centre opened in Manchester, England, a lady bore witness in F & T meeting about how it was a temple to materialism, and that she was so blessed to be able to attend its polar opposite, the Preston LDS Temple.

Both places seemed extravagant and tacky, but at least at the Trafford Centre you had a fun time and got something for your money.

The City Creek Mall appears to be even more extravagant. Do members get extra blessings for spending their money at Joseph & Jesus's Mall?

In Seminary, they gave us each a cassette of church music. One of the pieces on it was called 'Price Tag Rag' to discourage us from being materialistic. I bet they won't be playing that in the Mormon Mall any time soon. Also, isn't the Mall the exact opposite of The Retrenchment Society.

Aren't they slandering Jesus' name by pretending that He is the owner of their shopping centre? If you want a refund on a purchase, are you telling Jesus that His goods are not good enough?

Good points. 1 Ne. Comes to mind when it describes the "Great and Abominable Church". (I also thought of Mormon Temples when I read those verses. Not exactly the most humble of buildings.)

I think the worst part about the City Creek Mall thing though is the TBM comeback I receive every time I bring it up.

"But the church didn't use any tithing money to build it!"

Their dumb little side-step to dodge the charging bull puts them right in the way of the speeding train. The train being, "A CHURCH SPENT 5 BILLION DOLLARS ON A SHOPPING MALL! Not a hospital, not schools, not on food to feed the millions of starving people in the world, etc. Of all things, The One True Church of God built a fcking Shopping Mall with its money (regardless of how the money was acquired.)

There is no excuse. It is just fundamentally wrong!"

Z Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There is no excuse. It is just fundamentally
> wrong!"

But, but, but, The Brethren, yeah, verily even The Lord's Anointed need a close convenient place to live next to The House of The Lord that caters to their upscale tastes dontcha think?

$5 billion was for the mall plus LUXURY condos.

Not affordable apartments for Mormon-style working-class or even middle-class families, but very expensive condos for the wealthiest TBMs, so they can look down on the mall and Temple Square.

Z - you are exactly right. I've found the one comeback that shuts up TBMs is:

It doesn't matter where the church got the money. What matters is the church HAD billions of dollars and decided to spend it on a mall. Not helping the homeless, not providing scholarships to the underprivileged, not feeding the hungry, not housing widows and orphans. They built a mall." They put moneychangers outside of the gates of the temple. That is all I ever need to know about what is really at the heart of Mormonism."

and so far I have managed to completely avoid those gilded gates. I live less than an hour away.

I was disappointed when Apple moved it's wildly successful store from the Gateway to City Creek. In the endowment movie the apple is evil but when it comes to Mormon Mall money, the apple is tantalizing.

I hear mixed reviews on the current states of success/failure of the Mall. Homes sales are really picking up in Utah but I don't know how their condos are selling.

The luster of Apple stores is also fading, if that helps.

cricket Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> and so far I have managed to completely avoid
> those gilded gates. I live less than an hour away.
>
>
> I was disappointed when Apple moved it's wildly
> successful store from the Gateway to City Creek.
> In the endowment movie the apple is evil but when
> it comes to Mormon Mall money, the apple is
> tantalizing.
>
> I hear mixed reviews on the current states of
> success/failure of the Mall. Homes sales are
> really picking up in Utah but I don't know how
> their condos are selling.


Home sales are picking up most everywhere.

anonforthis, how many members in England know about City Creek?

Stumbling Wrote:
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> anonforthis, how many members in England know
> about City Creek?

I read about it on here then did some online research.

It was a tad disappointing to visit. Very quiet, not as big as I was expecting and I was left wondering how they managed to spend so much money.

The ordinary members who don't have mormon royalty chummies in Utah have probably never heard of it.

A lot of them probably also don't know they can now drink cola (it was an absolute no no when I was growing up).

While in downtown Salt Lake two months ago, I decided to visit the Lard's mall and see what 5 or 6 million buys. I was there on a weekday just prior to lunchtime and the mall was pretty empty. I had the thought that I might get busted and booted out for my choice of clothing---the top I had on was scandalous by MORmON standards---sleeveless with a scoop neckline.

When you said "5 or 6 million" you meant "5 or 6 billion" right? Because that's what it cost when you include the condo blocks and office buildings.

I think we're all so jaded from hearing about the billions and trillions that government spends, that we no longer appreciate that 5 billions dollars is a sh!tload of money. There is just no way even the most glamorous luxurious mall on earth cost 5 BILLION. Maybe 100 million or even 500 million, but I think it's painfully clear that this was a money laundering event. TSCC filled the pockets of their friends involved in the project far beyond their cost, and what do you want to bet a ton of it flowed right back into the pockets of select GA's?

LDS Inc is a religion of opposites.

I am hard pressed to find teaching in mormondumb that is not the opposite in practice.

Imagine if everything taught in theoretical science were practiced in the opposite manner in applied science.

Mormonism is a practice of promoting slogans, catchphrases, and talking points rather than the practice of perceived christianity.

All clues point that it is a vast system designed or hijacked for wealth accumulation. The fact that we do not know the shareholders, or who is getting the spoils, who is embezzling, or who is borrowing against the lords coffers with the infamous signature machine is disturbing.

LDS Inc is a hedge fund with temples, that is the largest tax evasion scheme in the history of the country.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/08/2013 12:30PM by deco.

Two thumbs up on that one.

Divorce, Mormon style, is #1.

teach that it's Bad, but when it happens, comfort the TBM who initiated it against 'an apostate'

and a recurring event when anybody visits them is to go to CCC to have dinner. To them, it's something/somewhere to be proud of. The hypocrisy of Jesus's church owning a high-end mall and condos doesn't seem to affect them in the least. IMO, to a lot mormons it's all about belonging to a church that is allegedly growing leaps and bounds with the buildings to show for it. The Sermon on the Mount was replaced with capitalism.

I'd had issues with the church and Book of Mormon for a very long time, but the day I heard about City Creek Mall was the day I decided to stop paying tithing. Any church that is wealthy enough to have billions of extra dollars laying around to build a mall doesn't need my financial support.

"Ensign Peak Advisors [EPA] is an investment fund of the Mormon Church. According to profiles on LinkedIn, managers at Ensign Peak specialize in international equities, cash management, fixed income, quantitative investment, and emerging markets. One of Ensign Peak's vice presidents in 2006 told the Deseret News that 'billions of dollars change hands every day.'"

(Ref. http://images.businessweek.com/slideshows/2012-07-11/the-mormon-global-business-empire#slide11)

"'As we trade securities, all of the trading happens essentially with a handshake,' said Laurence R. Stay, vice president of Ensign Peak Advisors Inc., and a CFA charter holder. 'There's lots of protections around it, but billions of dollars change hands every day just based on the ethics of the group — that people know that they can trust each other.'"

(Ref. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/650207784/Investors-managers-urged-to-use-ethics.html?pg=all)

LD$ Inc.'s corporate structure is shown in the "Holy Holdings" graphic at http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-10/how-the-mormons-make-money#p2

"According to U.S. law, religions have no obligation to open their books to the public, and the LDS Church officially stopped reporting any finances in the early 1960s. In 1997 an investigation by Time used cross-religious comparisons and internal information to estimate the church’s total value at $30 billion. The magazine also produced an estimate that $5 billion worth of tithing flows into the church annually, and that it owned at least $6 billion in stocks and bonds. The Mormon Church at the time said the estimates were grossly exaggerated, but a recent investigation by Reuters in collaboration with sociology professor Cragun estimates that the LDS Church is likely worth $40 billion today and collects up to $8 billion in tithing each year.

"Quinn, a faithful Mormon who spent 12 years on the faculty at the LDS Church’s Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, before being excommunicated for apostasy related to research he published on Mormons, has been gathering financial information for years. Several high-ranking church insiders told him that the church’s finances are so compartmentalized that no single person, not even the president, knows the entirety of its holdings."

(Ref. - #p2 Businessweek link above)

"According to an official church Welfare Services fact sheet, the church gave $1.3 billion in humanitarian aid in more than 178 countries and territories during the 25 years between 1985 and 2010. A fact sheet from the previous year indicates that less than one-third of the sum was monetary assistance, while the rest was in the form of 'material assistance.' All in all, if one were to evenly distribute that $1.3 billion over a quarter-century, it would mean that the church gave $52 million annually. A study co-written by Cragun and recently published in Free Inquiry estimates that the Mormon Church donates only about 0.7 percent of its annual income to charity; the United Methodist Church gives about 29 percent."

(Ref. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-10/how-the-mormons-make-money#p5)

Gordon B Gekko can be the new President of the LDS Corporation, and instead of CTR rings, GIG (Greed Is Good) or LGS (Let's Go Shopping).

I remember when Mary Ellen Smoot was made general Relief Society president in 1997.

At that time she was bitching how she wanted the sisters to stay out of the malls and do work for the dead instead.

16 years later, the First Presidency says LET'S GO SHOPPING.

Hilarious and sad at the same time.
Especially since most of the faithful, on whose backs the $5 billion mall was built, can never afford to shop there.

+999,999,999,999



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/08/2013 01:24PM by guynoirprivateeye.

City Creek is one thing. Let's talk about what's happening in downtown Ogden since the rennovation of that ugly ass temple. Luxury condos, new shopping center...same TBM bullshit, different city. It's like a disease

Unless that pug fug temple was structurally unsafe, there was no reason for the rebuild. Ugly yes, necessary for "the work"? No.

I actually liked the way it looked before. I always thought the Ogden Temple was more of the unique ones architectually. Now it just looks like another McTemple

Yeah, both the Ogden and Provo temples used to be sort of unique in their design (kind of George Jetson on acid if you will). Now the Ogden temple looks like crap leaving only the Provo temple to remind us of George's 'experimental phase' in the late 60s and early 70s, coincidentally that was when both were originally built . Coincidence?

Does anyone know of any links to reliable, objective reviews of the various offerings of City Creek Living?

The other four temples built before that were built in Utah Territory.

I predict the effort at Mormonthink (considerable thanks to those trolling around in search of this material - you know who you are!!) to uncover the transfers of property, INCLUDING condos at Shitty Creek, to church leaders and their families will come back to bite the cult hard eventually, as this will end up as a section in a much longer and more detailed expose' about the disgusting financial cult underbelly.