Why do mormons always build opulent temples? (marriages, God, sunday)
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You are misreading my reaction. Trust me on this one. I'm not the least bit upset about anything here.
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The question on this thread is why do Mormons build such excessive temples.
Well, kind of. The form of that question presupposes that there is "excess" in the building of temples. Not only that, but you went on to affirm or suggest that there IS excess, that the excess was based on a desire to attract new members in order to get more money, that such temples were built to "impress God," that building such temples was inherently disrespecting God, that building such temples ultimately hurt the poor through lost donations, etc.
The question on this thread was raised as much to criticize as to get information, if not more. I just called it for what it was. Just admit I was right. Your "question" was a criticism and a challenge, not really a request for information. I exposed your thinly veiled criticism and responded to it as the challenge it was.
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I never even mentioned most of the things you accused me of. First of all I never said "spending" is excessive. We all know that buildings cost at least some money. But you never told me why Mormons need golden angels and marble floors. I also never said churches need to be ugly. I have seen a lovely church that was built by hand by those who worship there.
I am sorry that you couldn't follow the argument. I figured you would understand how I was setting up the argument against your assertions and implications. I'll take it down a notch and explain it more slowly so that you maybe can understand how your position is self-defeating.
The minute you agree that buildings are justifiable and that they can justifiably be made lovely, you have admitted that utility and necessity are not the standard for buildings of worship. You have effectively admitted that it is okay for people to spend extra money to make beautiful buildings in which to worship.
So what you are saying is that you think that a certain level of excess spending is okay, but you can't see any benefit to spending more than some vague "excess limit" and that LDS Christians have crossed over your line when they built their temples. So that leads us to the next point.
You found a lovely church built by people who worshiped there. Fine. You probably realize (I hope) that LDS temples are not built to serve a congregation. Mormons build extremely utilitarian buildings for their congregations to worship in. They are clean and nice, but there is essential zero spent on "excessive" beauty components: no stain glass, no statues, only a few modestly framed prints for pictures, no fancy woodworking, simple durable carpets, etc.
Temples, however, are built to serve many tens of thousands of LDS Christians each. The big ones that you are probably thinking of are typically designed to serve 100,000 people or more. So the cost-per-person of the "excess" and "luxury" is probably no more than what was spent by that lovely little church that you seem to approve. And if you compare the cost of the "excess" for a temple to the amount spent by LDS Christians on the poor (I'm not talking about tithing here, I'm talking about spending to help poor people), you will find that it represents a very, very tiny percentage.
So LDS Christians build beautiful temples for little more than most churches spend for church buildings in terms of the per-capita expenses, and such expenses represent only a tiny fraction of what is spent on the poor by the LDS Christians.
So we get finally to the real issue. You don't understand why Mormons build such beautiful buildings. Maybe YOU wouldn't build such a thing unless it was to attract new members to get more revenue or else to buy off or appease God. YOU don't understand what positive and justifiable motives Mormons could have to build such things. YOU don't seem to be able to see what benefit comes to Mormons individually or what benefit comes to the rest of society or to the poor because of these "excessive" temples.
And finally, I'm not sure that I could convince you of the noble and good intentions of temple builders or the positive and important consequences of temple building. You clearly do not understand how LDS Christians view God or our relationship to Him, and that has to come before any discussions of temples.
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I also never said that wanting to share is somehow greed. Greed is church leaders who charge a life long fee in order to attend temple.
See? This really is about criticizing my faith. The more you post, the more you display your real reason for starting the thread and the real feelings you have. You have already decided that my religion is strongly motivated by greed (or at least you are willing to use that as a hollow insult). Everything about this thread is just a pretense for you to criticize my church and to promote your low opinion of it. So please stop pretending to be offended when someone strips away the facade and gets right to the real issue of the thread.
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"It is apparently beyond him to imagine that worship can take the form of giving and sacrificing time, talents, money, and other things."
The whole point of my post was that these and other things should be more important than a huge sparkling temple, so this statement is misleading. You obviously have no good argument because you completely ignore the point of my post.
WHY DO MORMONS SPEND SO MUCH ON WHAT IS OBVIOUSLY NOT NECESSARY: GOLDEN ANGELS, MARBLE FLOORS, LUXURIOUS FIXTURES and such.
Just fascinating! A criticism in the form of a question.
So tell me, why do you think it isn't necessary? Why do you think it is obvious? Why should what is "necessary" be the standard for a building?
And how is it that you missed that "giving and sacrificing time, talents, money, and other things" was a direct statement about building temples?
And how is it that you could have thought that "giving and sacrificing time, talents, money, and other things" was mutually exclusive with building temples.?
And how could you possibly think that temple building is more important to LDS Christians than being kind, giving, and self-sacrificing? That's just your ignorance and prejudice showing through.
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You typed a lot of words but they have little meaning. So aside from putting words in my mouth do you even have anything to say on this subject.
I'm sorry that you are slow to grasp a basic argument against your nasty assertions. The meaning is there if you will take the time to think about what has been written.
You are misreading my reaction. Trust me on this one. I'm not the least bit upset about anything here.
Well, kind of. The form of that question presupposes that there is "excess" in the building of temples. Not only that, but you went on to affirm or suggest that there IS excess, that the excess was based on a desire to attract new members in order to get more money, that such temples were built to "impress God," that building such temples was inherently disrespecting God, that building such temples ultimately hurt the poor through lost donations, etc.
The question on this thread was raised as much to criticize as to get information, if not more. I just called it for what it was. Just admit I was right. Your "question" was a criticism and a challenge, not really a request for information. I exposed your thinly veiled criticism and responded to it as the challenge it was.
I am sorry that you couldn't follow the argument. I figured you would understand how I was setting up the argument against your assertions and implications. I'll take it down a notch and explain it more slowly so that you maybe can understand how your position is self-defeating.
The minute you agree that buildings are justifiable and that they can justifiably be made lovely, you have admitted that utility and necessity are not the standard for buildings of worship. You have effectively admitted that it is okay for people to spend extra money to make beautiful buildings in which to worship.
So what you are saying is that you think that a certain level of excess spending is okay, but you can't see any benefit to spending more than some vague "excess limit" and that LDS Christians have crossed over your line when they built their temples. So that leads us to the next point.
You found a lovely church built by people who worshiped there. Fine. You probably realize (I hope) that LDS temples are not built to serve a congregation. Mormons build extremely utilitarian buildings for their congregations to worship in. They are clean and nice, but there is essential zero spent on "excessive" beauty components: no stain glass, no statues, only a few modestly framed prints for pictures, no fancy woodworking, simple durable carpets, etc.
Temples, however, are built to serve many tens of thousands of LDS Christians each. The big ones that you are probably thinking of are typically designed to serve 100,000 people or more. So the cost-per-person of the "excess" and "luxury" is probably no more than what was spent by that lovely little church that you seem to approve. And if you compare the cost of the "excess" for a temple to the amount spent by LDS Christians on the poor (I'm not talking about tithing here, I'm talking about spending to help poor people), you will find that it represents a very, very tiny percentage.
So LDS Christians build beautiful temples for little more than most churches spend for church buildings in terms of the per-capita expenses, and such expenses represent only a tiny fraction of what is spent on the poor by the LDS Christians.
So we get finally to the real issue. You don't understand why Mormons build such beautiful buildings. Maybe YOU wouldn't build such a thing unless it was to attract new members to get more revenue or else to buy off or appease God. YOU don't understand what positive and justifiable motives Mormons could have to build such things. YOU don't seem to be able to see what benefit comes to Mormons individually or what benefit comes to the rest of society or to the poor because of these "excessive" temples.
And finally, I'm not sure that I could convince you of the noble and good intentions of temple builders or the positive and important consequences of temple building. You clearly do not understand how LDS Christians view God or our relationship to Him, and that has to come before any discussions of temples.
See? This really is about criticizing my faith. The more you post, the more you display your real reason for starting the thread and the real feelings you have. You have already decided that my religion is strongly motivated by greed (or at least you are willing to use that as a hollow insult). Everything about this thread is just a pretense for you to criticize my church and to promote your low opinion of it. So please stop pretending to be offended when someone strips away the facade and gets right to the real issue of the thread.
Just fascinating! A criticism in the form of a question.
So tell me, why do you think it isn't necessary? Why do you think it is obvious? Why should what is "necessary" be the standard for a building?
And how is it that you missed that "giving and sacrificing time, talents, money, and other things" was a direct statement about building temples?
And how is it that you could have thought that "giving and sacrificing time, talents, money, and other things" was mutually exclusive with building temples.?
And how could you possibly think that temple building is more important to LDS Christians than being kind, giving, and self-sacrificing? That's just your ignorance and prejudice showing through.
I'm sorry that you are slow to grasp a basic argument against your nasty assertions. The meaning is there if you will take the time to think about what has been written.
Man you write a lot to say a little.
I'm still waiting to hear why golden angels, marble floors and luxurious fixtures are necessary. You do nothing but criticize me for not understanding your religion, without explaining it. Well I am assuming that you don't know why they are necessary either, or else you would have written it in the enormously long empty response you posted.
Until I hear why these things are not "excessive," I will assume they are.
And I'm not the one who started this thread, thank you.
Every first sunday of the Month, we abstain from food and drink for 24 hrs and the money we would have spent eating we donate to the Church and that money is specifically spent on the poor in our communities and around the world.
I'd be more impressed with that if the money didn't go through the church coffers first, but rather directly to someone who needed help.
I'd be more impressed with that if the money didn't go through the church coffers first, but rather directly to someone who needed help.
members give directly to outside charities as well. but the fast offerings that we give to are a church charity program, hence the reason it goes through the church. it is audited, by the way, and annual reports are available to see what has been done with the money.
paul could clarify this, but i think that even individual church units have to account for the fast offerings down to the penny. i don't know what system they use nowadays, but when i was a branch president in argentina, i always used to screw up the math when i was reporting fast offerings versus fast expenditures. even when i was off by less than a dollar, one of the official auditors of buenos aires would call me and make me go over it down to the penny.
so, even if i'd have wanted to steal the offerings, i'd have had to be a sneakier guy than i am/was.
as far as the argument going on with logic and a few others:
what it comes down to is the fact that opulence is not a need. i am not sure that mormon temples would qualify as opulent. for those that think that they do, i suppose that we just have a different idea of what opulence is. i've been to some of the palaces of the middle east and seen opulence. i have seen opulence in the extraordinary cathedrals of europe and even south america. while i don't care much for the idea of royalty and nobility, i don't see anything inherently wrong with the cathedrals. in order for me to decide that there is something wrong with them, then i would have to presume that the cathedrals were built at the involuntary expense of the poor people, at the expense of the workers.
i don't know enough abou the catholic church in its current state to say whether they are stealing from the people or not, but from what i have seen in my limited perspective, they do a good job of giving to the poor, of providing charity for those in need. i have very good impressions of the catholic church's charity from my time in south america.
we try very hard to take care of those around us. when i decide to give to the poor around me, i have a wealth of options to choose from. i can give through any of a sizable group of charities run by the church, or i can give to independent organizations.
or, i can give to both--i know, novel idea.
i choose both. i give to secular charities, baptist charities, catholic charities, and others. i also give to mormon charities. i also give to the temple funds. does that somehow negate everything that i have given to help others?
temples being built is a need, as far as my personal beliefs go. making the temples nice is a desire. but giving to charity is a desire as well. i have never seen benevolence on the base level of the hierarchy of needs.
in fact, almost as a whole, religion and charity fall into the self-actualization tier--the top tier. doesn't sound like a need to me as far as we normally think of needs. i believe that those things are needed just as much as air and water in an eternal sense, but that gets into subjective, impossible-to-prove grounds.
anyway, i don't see building a nice temple as being counterintuitive to the overall health of our communities. i see it as just one more pillar among thousands that can only help, so long as we do them all right, and for the right reasons.
so, even if i'd have wanted to steal the offerings, i'd have had to be a sneakier guy than i am/was.
.
Actually theft hadn't occurred to me and wasn't what I was thinking of...most charities spend a lot of their donations in "operating expenses" and very little actually sees the people in need. That's what I was getting at; I should have been more specific.
Why does it matter to anyone if LDS build opulent temples? As long as they aren't asking for Federal money to do it, or stealing land from the city or state, let them build whatever they want to.
I'd be more impressed with that if the money didn't go through the church coffers first, but rather directly to someone who needed help.
Then you need to find out more about how it all works...
Every penny---100%---of the fast offering fund goes directly to people who need it. Exactly 0% goes to any kind of overhead or program expenses. If you donate $100 to that fund, exactly $100 will be given to a family in need. You will be hard pressed to find another charity with a 0% overhead...
As a point of reference, several years ago our congregation was contributing on the order of $9,000-$10,000 per year to non-LDS in the local community. Most of this went to individuals who were identified by NGOs and other groups, such as the Salvation Army. This was in addition to the amount helping members of our church. Bishops are responsible for distributing this money as they feel inspired to do so. Some bishops will be more active in helping non-LDS than others, and a lot depends on how much is being collected and the needs of the poor within the congregation.
Oh, and by the way, just for LIYF's benefit, this was in addition to anything donated for the opulent and excessive temples...
Every mormon temple is found in an expensive part of town and on a big acreage. why is this? is it some sort of tenet of your religion? how come there appears to be no "modest" temples?
Every mormon temple is found in an expensive part of town and on a big acreage. why is this? is it some sort of tenet of your religion? how come there appears to be no "modest" temples?
Because they are pretty and the church needs an incentive to get their followers to better themselves.
I'm still waiting to hear why golden angels, marble floors and luxurious fixtures are necessary. You do nothing but criticize me for not understanding your religion, without explaining it. Well I am assuming that you don't know why they are necessary either, or else you would have written it in the enormously long empty response you posted.
All I've done so far is to show that your opinion is self-contradictory and that it is based on certain inconsistent assumptions about what is beneficial and what is excessive. (BTW, I wonder what temple has marble floors. I've only seen carpeting, wood, and tile that I can remember. And the only precious metal is a thin gold leaf over the statue and few spires on some temples. Nothing is made out of gold.)
But since you have indicated that you aren't capable of extracting the information from the earlier posts, I'll make it a bit plainer. The following are in no particular order.
(1) Beauty is justifiable for its own sake. For a person or people to spend part of their assets to create objects of beauty is generally considered intrinsically good. To argue that such funding should always first be "spent on the poor" simply doesn't hold up, either with what you've expressed as acceptable in your posts so far or by society in general. If you want to argue that the temples are excessively expensive beauty, then that has to be measured against some kind of standard. But I've pointed out that LDS Christians scrimp in other areas to build a single beautiful building that is shared by a very large community of believers. Not only that, but I've noted that because the temple community is large, the per-capita expense is in line with other buildings where the "excess" devoted to beauty produces buildings that are less opulent but still contain "useless" features that could have been forgone in order to "give to the poor."
(2) Temple features are religiously significant symbols. For LDS Christians, temples are highly symbolic, both in their architecture and in their ceremonies and rituals. Temples are built for specific purposes by LDS Christians, and the added features that may strike a non-believer as useless and therefore excessive actually have meaning for the believers. Believers are worshiping and expressing religious views through self-sacrifice and their donations. This aspect of their religious practice, however, represents a relatively small part of their overall sacrifice, and their donations directly to the poor (also a fundamental aspect of their religion) are overwhelmingly greater than what is spent on temples.
(3) As a corollary to the above, temples with their "excessive" (to the unbeliever) beauty have a significant positive effect on believers. These buildings are directly responsible for believers to become more committed to sacrificing their time and money to help other people, particularly the poor. From a purely "economic" view, the expense of the temple results in a many-fold return in terms of time and money being spent to help the poor.
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Until I hear why these things are not "excessive," I will assume they are.
I'm not sure why you don't get the fact that this isn't something to be "assumed." It is purely something you choose to believe. It is entirely subjective. And there is no way to prove that something is NOT excessive. That, too, is a matter of belief. If you look at the three "justifications" I gave above, you will either agree that they apply to Mormon temples or they do not, but that is just an opinion. Of course there is no standard for determining excess in this sort of thing, and you have given no indication of a personal standard you have created that could allow you to make that judgment.
All you've done so far is say that more money is spent on temples than you think should be. You've conceded that it is acceptable to erect buildings for worship and you've confessed that it is reasonable for those buildings to have non-utilitarian features. You've also ignored that the temples are not excessive in terms of the per-capita funding for the features you think are excessive.
So it really just boils down to the fact that you are okay will lots of small "excesses" but that you don't like it when these are combined into something larger, even if the larger building is overall less expensive than the sum of the all smaller buildings serving a similar function.
It seems that you just don't like certain kinds of buildings, Mormon temples in particular. Your lack of understanding about Mormon temples combined with your apparently superficial consideration of the issue seems to leave you with a vague feeling that something is excessive and wrong.
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And I'm not the one who started this thread, thank you.
You are correct.
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A criticism in the form of a question.
