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Curtis wrote:
I don’t think efficiency has anything to do with temple work.
Just saying.
🙂 Curtis,
You have done a great job playing ‘Devil’s Advocate’ here. It is easy to gang up on aspects of mormon life that are irritating or inconvenient and I appreciate some of the perspective you have brought to this thread. I especially like where you said something to the effect that temple work probably has less to do with the dead than it does with us (even though it really is about the dead). I think the whole process is terribly inefficient and quite frankly, impossible to accomplish, even considering the millennium (which is an aspect of mormonism and christianity that I have not really analyzed post faith crisis yet). With this task being seemingly impossible to accomplish, I am left to believe that temple work is really intended to benefit the living (and also the dead… kinda….
:think: ) and that I need to find a way to participate in a way that I can find that value.Curtis wrote:I don’t think the dead are concerned about 90 minutes – or even a day.
I don’t think efficiency has anything to do with temple work.
Just saying.
🙂 It certainly does for the living. It puts us off it. I have hundreds of names, and the thought of going down for a week and only managing to do a few dozen at most is offputting. I’ve heard of someone doing six a day, but even two in a row is a struggle.
I’ve gone and given most of them over to TempleFile – I don’t have that kind of time.
As for the old film, I now know every facial tic, voice modulation and cloud movement in it…
Seriously there has to be a more efficient way of doing this. The other temple work takes a reasonable time.
SamBee wrote:Curtis wrote:I don’t think the dead are concerned about 90 minutes – or even a day.
I don’t think efficiency has anything to do with temple work.
Just saying.
🙂 It certainly does for the living. It puts us off it. I have hundreds of names, and the thought of going down for a week and only managing to do a few dozen at most is offputting. I’ve heard of someone doing six a day, but even two in a row is a struggle.
I’ve gone and given most of them over to TempleFile – I don’t have that kind of time.
As for the old film, I now know every facial tic, voice modulation and cloud movement in it…
Seriously there has to be a more efficient way of doing this. The other temple work takes a reasonable time.
The best of concepts becomes over burdensome or very designing if taken super seriously.
It’s a be dutiful concept I think. It’s just the beauty gets sucked right out of it if taken to seriously with “so much work to do”. In that case the beauty completely vanishes. So try not to sweat it.
After all with 7 billion people in the world and over 120 billion that already lived and another 4-7 billion expected by 2050 people in heaving are going nowhere fast(if taken literally). If true and literal then there is many 10s of billions if people who are waiting and have waited 10s of thousands of years and could likely wait that much more or longer until in our own theology the second coming comes. So like Ray said, I don’t think a few years or decades or centuries would make little difference for people who if taken literally are and have waited 10s of thousands of years already and maybe just as many more who’s name will never be known by us until second coming. And there are 20s of billions who fit in that description.
I didn’t want to derail the thread, but I keep thinking of my primary image of the Temple when I see this title. As a child I thought of the temple as God’s house on earth, maybe vacation house because obviously He also lived in heaven and there were several temples on the earth …but I thought of it as the place you go to step into God’s world — to get a glimpse of what Heaven is really like.
I may have compared it to a visit to the North Pole to see Santa, how wonderful it would be to see the magic and get a bear-hug from the big man himself. I knew in the temple baptisms and other work for the dead was accomplished, but I most anticipated instruction about heaven, I wanted to get a better idea of where God lived and what he did so I could be fully motivated to keep all the commandments and magnify my callings. I was confident it would all feel familiar and comfortable.
You may imagine how puzzled I was when as I was getting into the car to drive to the temple before my mission a family member said: “don’t freak out!” I always thought it would feel like I was going home, why would anyone “freak out”?!
EuSouScott wrote:Going to the temple is as painful sometimes as sitting through a fast and testimony meeting. I wish it could be more like I imagined it would be when I was young. Instead, it’s just a really quiet church building where you get all dressed up in white, watch a really long and boring movie, and then miss out on the best part because you are stressed out about the babysitter and have to run home.
I didn’t have primary-influenced expectations. I converted to the church in college and went to the temple about a year later, before my mission. I remember 2 friends (other than missionaries) talking to me about the temple before I went and what to expect. (I had seen the Godmakers on video — way before the internet — so I had an idea of some of the temple mechanics).
One friend talked about it using words like “special” and “spiritual” and “wow” and all that. The other friend was more liberal on history/doctrine/etc even before the internet and what I remember him telling me was “Try not to laugh out loud when you think about how everyone is dressed and all the movements, OK? Especially when you are standing all together in a circle near the end.” Both of these friends were faithful LDS, with obviously different perspectives. My temple experiences have been both “special” and comical. And, I think about my friend’s advice not to laugh every time I have gone even all these years later. And, I don’t laugh (out loud).
I am very realistic about the temple with my kids — one has already gone to the temple pre-mission. My main message is — it’s almost all symbolic so don’t take it too literally, you won’t see angels walking around in the hallways as some people like to imply, it’s very different than Sundays at church, and you might like it and you might not — everyone has a different experience. And, you probably won’t have some revelation about some deep mystery every (or any) time you go. Most temple workers are nice, but a few are sometimes are grumpy! I am detailed about all the mechanics, only leaving out the very specific things I’ve promised not to discuss. (Cause it’s secret
andsacred). I also tell them it’s a great place to put “the world” aside and focus on eternity, the things that matter to you most, and to meditate. I tell them I’ve had good experiences there and I’ve had uneventful experiences (and even boring experiences when I wasn’t “feeling it”) — and they will probably have a range of experiences, too. My approach with my children has been to manage expectations to be more realistic than what they might hear from well-meaning teachers at church. I would rather them not be let down by the first visit and “grow” into the idea of what the temple experience is all about. It’s worked for the oldest child. We’ll see how it works with the others.
LDSThomas
I’ve been thinking about this post title a lot too. Yesterday I read through a website that was new to me, and it had a section on temples, mostly about changes over time and the possible origins and that sort of thing. There wasn’t anything new to me, and I don’t know how much of what I read was true, but it certainly reminded me of all the weird things about it and how I have felt there, especially my first time. The way people talk about the temple to children doesn’t seem to fit with what it really is. Like Orson said, no child would expect the warning of not freaking out at the thought of going. They seem to present the temple to children as the ultimate goal, and they are so pretty on the outside no one would suspect the really unusual things that go on in there.
As others have been mentioning, it seems totally inefficient, and frankly I don’t know what the point really is. I don’t like how the church limits God so much, I would think God would save who he will save and our little rituals can’t be the determining factor between who is saved and who isn’t. If Jesus is the one who saves souls, his atonement should be enough, there shouldn’t have to be all these other requirements. It honestly seems cultish to me when I see it from an outsiders perspective.
To be fair, journeygirl, what you said actually is our theology. God will make those decisions, and the work will be done for everyone who has lived. That’s one of the central paradoxes of our theology – that we need to do the work, but everyone will be equal regardless of whether we do it or not now, since it will be done eventually.
That is one reason I see it all as symbolic and, ultimately, about us and our hearts.
LDS Thomas, I have seen, and am not impressed by the Godmakers. My main gripe with it is distortion and inaccuracy. Even the Tanners were black-affronted by it, and came out and said it was a pack of lies. In one talk I’ve heard Ed Dekker gives he mentions there are lockers in the temple. Yes, there are, but I have never ever heard of thefts in the temple. People leave stuff in the canteen in our one, and no one else touches it. It’s the one public place I’ve been of late where I could turn my back on my belongings while strangers are around.
I don’t deny the Masonic influence on the temple. Or the appearance of Satan in the temple film (who is not portrayed positively). I do say though, that for all the potential criticisms, Jesus is mentioned in every stage, and members are conscious of that too. All prayers are offered in Jesus’ name in there too.
Curtis, But the church’s theology isn’t just about the atonement. The temple ordinances often seem to be more emphasized than the atonement is. I don’t see why we need extra ordinances when Jesus said all we need is to be baptized, repent and believe on him. And if it is symbolic, then I don’t know what the “secret/sacred” parts mean, because it seems it would make more sense to just teach what’s in the scriptures about getting into heaven rather than some extra, seemingly made up, steps. (But I know it is meaningful to you and many others, so maybe I just prefer straightforwardness rather than symbolism and that’s why it seems weird to me.)
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