Temple Prep - "These Things Are Sacred"

The following text is taken from the pamphlet "Preparing to Enter the Holy Temple" (2002) and annotated by me.

A careful reading of the scriptures reveals that the Lord did not tell all things to all people. No kidding! A handful of patriarchs, a few Israelite prophets here and there, early Christians and now Mormons. The rest of the world got totally screwed and didn't even hear from him. What kind of father would be so inconsistent with his children? "Hey, I have some rules you all better learn to follow, but I'm not telling most of you what they are. Good luck!" From what you've said in one sentence I can already tell I don't like the Lord. There were some qualifications set that were prerequisite to receiving sacred information. Like what? Do explain. Temple ceremonies fall within this category. Says who? Please cite some authority figure (preferably God).

We do not discuss the temple ordinances outside the temples. No one discusses about the temple in the temple either. Fortunately plenty of people feel free to talk about it online. It was never intended that knowledge of these temple ceremonies would be limited to a select few who would be obliged to ensure that others never learn of them. It is quite the opposite, in fact. With great effort we urge every soul to qualify and prepare for the temple experience. Riiiiiight, Mormons are just the gatekeepers who sit and unrighteously judge others to be unworthy. Those who have been to the temple have been taught an ideal: Someday every living soul and every soul who has ever lived shall have the opportunity to hear the gospel and to accept or reject what the temple offers. Too bad the LDS temple wasn't part of Christ's practice - the Jewish temple was. If this opportunity is rejected, the rejection must be on the part of the individual. Why would God set up a system where the VAST MAJORITY of human beings would only hear about Jesus and the LDS temple after they die? It makes no sense.

The ordinances and ceremonies of the temple are simple. They're Masonic and designed to test one's memory. They are beautiful. Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. They are sacred. Not to the vast majority of people living on earth... They are kept confidential lest they be given to those who are unprepared. No, they're kept confidential because that's the tradition of the Masonic fraternity they come from. Curiosity is not a preparation. Isn't it at least a start? A seed to experiment upon? Deep interest itself is not a preparation. What if that deep interest has led to lots and lots of study? Preparation for the ordinances includes preliminary steps: faith, repentance, baptism, confirmation, worthiness, a maturity and dignity worthy of one who comes invited as a guest into the house of the Lord. Actually faith and baptism are what Jesus asked for, well, and that we give all our money to the poor and love our neighbors like we love ourselves.

We must be prepared before we go to the temple. You said that already. We must be worthy before we go to the temple. You said that too. There are restrictions and conditions set. You said that as well. They were established by the Lord and not by man. Show us where he made these restrictions. Maybe in the Handbook of Instruction Vol. 1? And, the Lord has every right and authority to direct that matters relating to the temple be kept sacred and confidential. I suppose he does, but is this a matter of legal rights? Couldn't we also argue that every man, woman and child has a right to know what God has up his sleeve?

All who are worthy and qualify in every way may enter the temple, there to be introduced to the sacred rites and ordinances. If we can be introduced to baptism before being baptized (including the exact wording of the prayer, the white jumpsuits and practice plugging our nose), why can we not be introduced to other ordinances before we do them?

Mormon vs. secular - human origins

When it comes to the big questions, Latter-day Saints think they're particularly blessed with satisfactory answers, especially because (and we all agree on this) science doesn't have the answers to big the questions. So let's compare and answers a bit. Once again the questions are:

1. Who am I and where do I come from?
2. Why am I here?
3. Where am I going?

To the first question Mormons answer that you are a child of Heavenly Father - he begot your spirit the same way your parents here on earth begot you (sexual intercourse) - and as a child of a god, you have the potential to become a god. Actually, Mormons dig back even farther than that. They believe that before we were spiritually begotten of the Father we existed as intelligences. Intelligences are understood to be eternal and (obviously) capable of being organized into spirits and spirits into people and people into gods. In fact, God the Father, according to Mormon understanding, was once a mortal man, who was previously a mere spirit child (one of billions or trillions?) of another God, who had begotten him at some point through a very mysterious manipulation of intelligences (sex). What this all means is that we are all "gods in embryo", as we say in the Church. THAT'S WHO YOU ARE!

But saying you're a god is little more than a statement of fact with no sustaining evidence. It's equally logical to say we're all potential vampires waiting for our big bite. I have no evidence for vampires other than the numerous testimonies offered by others and I consequently have no material understanding of what vampires are either. A more sustainable claim made by scripture is that we are dust waiting to happen. This is a material fact. We make dust constantly by shedding skin cells and when we die our bodies will dry and crumble and be spread in part as dust. The knowledge that you are a future pile of dust is much more meaningful than imagining you might one day be a god because you actually have references for what death and dust are. We have little to no reference for understanding what a god is or where one comes from, only a few arcane verses from a very questionable book of scripture.

It's also important to note that most of what the LDS Church focuses on is not so much who you are as what you are. You are a child of God. Whatever that means exactly is essentially left up to you to decide. Science on the other hand is much more concrete. We are members of the only remaining hominid species on the planet, we're very closely related to great apes, but we likely share a common ancestor with all life on earth. Science connects us all with billions of years of genealogy, not a trite affirmation that God's your Daddy. It gives us something concrete to hold onto (DNA). But it still doesn't tell us who we are.

When it comes to discussing the question of who we might be, the Church prefers to state (without much by way of explanation) that we are all unique consciousnesses (a spirit) that will exist forever and ever. The secular world, instead of blowing off the question with a simple dogmatic sentence, has considered various possibilities for millennia and ask for more time to careful explore this complicated subject.

Which answers do we prefer? Which ones feel more genuine? Which ones most deserve serious contemplation? Religious conjectures? Or ideas based on material fact?

"My face? I was born like this. Or maybe Satan did it..."

Sex changes - a force for good

General authorities have a lot to say about the innate qualities of women and their divinely appointed role here on earth. What happens if we flip the sexes in what they have to say about the topic? Do we have a nonsensical statement because the logic is gender dependent, or do we end up with a statement that still agrees with LDS thought because gender is irrelevant?

"Every young man is a child of destiny and every adult man a powerful force for good." Jeffrey Holland, "To Young Women," Ensign, Nov. 2005, 28.

In this quote gender is entirely irrelevant. There is nothing in what Jeff has to say that relates exclusively to women. No doubt about it.

Heavenly fatherliness #42 - Feeling protected

According to popular wisdom, a good father makes his children feel protected.

Feeling protected means we experience peace of mind knowing that Heavenly Father protects us, loves us, comforts us, and will stand up for us. I think a good many believers do feel that protection and it gives them confidence and strength. But I also believe just as many believers constantly feel vulnerable and in need of protection. In fact, I would say that believers, the righteous as well as the wicked, even feel threatened by God himself and his ever-looming judgements against them.

It's a strange head game God is playing, one in which we're always left guessing whether or not we're still on his good list. How safe does that really make us feel?

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

Heavenly fatherliness #41 - Risking personal safety

According to popular wisdom, a good father will put his own safety on the line to keep children out of harm's way.

This is another attribute Heavenly Father doesn't get points for. How could he? His personal safety is never ever at risk. Ever. He's immortal and resides in the safety of perfection - he cannot in any way risk his safety, even should he want to.

However, he does let his children suffer every day and die horribly every day for no apparent reason. And he will let a good many of them live throughout the eternities alienated from him forever. The truth about the Gospel according to Mormonism is that we, God's children, are the ones risking everything. If we decide not to obey him for some reason, we're screwed.

For me, it's impossible not to doubt Heavenly Father's love and devotion to us.

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

Heavenly fatherliness #25 - Encouraging family members

According to popular belief, a good father encourages family members.

Does Heavenly Father do this? Does he encourage us? If you're like me, you were told that God is always pleading with us to live a righteous and holy life, and doesn't that sound a hell of a lot like encouragement? And think about all of his prophets who talk to us all the time at General Conference. They encourage the shit out of us!

The thing is that God's encouragement comes via a long list of appeals that any logical person would throw out as irrelevant to righteousness and holiness. He appeals to his authority (he's The Great I Am), to bad consequences (you'll be miserable if you think and do differently), to force (he will destroy us if we disobey or are found unclean), and appeals to wealth (you'll have treasures untold in Heaven, maybe even a harem!). Even should any of these appeals prove true, they do not make God an especially good motivator, just more of a manipulator.

Then again, God's not interested in teaching his children to think. God wants obedience above all - above service and kindness and tolerance. Ignorant faith and blind obedience are worth more than thoughtful disillusionment and disaffection. That sounds like an Asshole Father to me.

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

Heavenly fatherliness #1 - Sticking around

According to popular wisdom, a good father does not abandon his children.

Mormons like to think that God is always there watching and listening to you. He's never far away even though you might feel alone.

I say bullshit. We can make lists all day of people who claim to have seen god or to have been heard by God but let's be real here: there are no confirmed sightings in the history of humanity, just stories we have to accept on one's word.

Isn't it a little contradictory for us to say that God sent us here alone to test our faith and then claim that God's here too? We might not be banished eternally from Heaven like the evil third, but we are, according to the official story, not allowed back whenever we want. Is being banished all that different from being abandoned? God is very much out of the picture.

The evidence of abandonment is all too obvious if we look at the rampant suffering and chaotic nature of existence. Blame it on Satan if you want, but don't turn around and say God's in control. God's children suffer mercilessly and he is nowhere to be seen, heard, felt, tasted, or smelled.

If you were to walk onto some guys property and see his children starving, dying of sickness, naked, and killing each other, you'd think "holy shit, this jerk's the worst dad in the universe" and immediately call child services. 

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

Heavenly fatherliness - Is Heavenly Father a good father?

All of my life I was told that God, in addition to being Ruler of the Universe, was also my dad. I was not a mere creation God takes casual interest in, nor could I be compared to an abandoned puppy or a stranger taken under the wing a loving being - I was one of God’s spiritual sons who agreed to be born to earthly parents, live a life of absolute dedication to my Heavenly Father, and then hopefully return to live with him in complete Celestial Glory. I was taught that I could completely trust in God even more than I could trust my earthly father (who fortunately for me turned out to be a very caring and responsible guy) because, while my earthly father would be imperfect, have a limited knowledge and understanding of the Universe, and be only as powerful as your slightly above average human, my Heavenly Father is perfect, omniscient, and omnipotent. So in a nutshell, however much my biological dad wishes for my success and happiness, Heavenly Father wishes for it infinitely more and actually has the power to make me truly and totally happy. True and total happiness, this is the first thing Mormons will explain to you when you ask them what the meaning of life is, but millions of others have grown up viewing life under this same premise and billions more have heard similar conjectures. God is our father and he loves us. He is on our side and chooses to help us. God cares for us just as a father cares for his children. 

Viewing God as a father suggests that we can understand to some extent the thoughts and feelings that motivate his interactions with human beings. And when life gets hard and we start to feel picked on a little too much, viewing God as a knowing and loving father helps us reach the conclusion that everything will be alright and we just have keep trusting in him.

I used to cherish my “divine parentage” with only occasionally acknowledging the problems underlying the Heavenly Father narrative. Even after outgrowing the Mormon faith tradition I would at times revisit the idea that God is somehow the father of humanity and what that would mean for our expectations of God’s behavior toward us. As believers we impose expectations on God. Jesus, for example, taught that human fathers know how to give better gifts than stones, snakes, and scorpions and Heavenly Father knows how to give even better gifts (Matt. 7:9-11; Luke 11:11-13), and consequently we actually expect God to answer, open, and give when we seek, knock, and ask (Matt. 7:7-8; Luke 11:9-10).

This series will touch on a number of characteristics and behaviors of a good father. These attributes represent the popularized (and popularizing) thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father all distilled into the most concise bullet points possible. What makes these authors or their publishers reliable authorities on fatherhood has simply been decided by Google Search. 

Please share your thoughts, unless, of course, you're an asshole.

CTR rings

LDS children who attend Primary are given a very special gift: a ring designed to help remind them to make good choices.

The acronym stands for Choose the Right. You just crimp this beauty around your young finger and you'll be shielded from from the Devil and his evil angels. Primary doesn't get much cooler than that CTR ring. And it's awesome to get something tangible from the Church that isn't a paper you colored on.

Maybe that's why LDS teens and adults can't give up the CTR ring wearing thing. They're nostalgic for the days of physical gifts in the form of a magic-feeling ring instead of the adult situation of really boring talks and lessons and refreshments you have to prepare yourself. Nothing will make you feel better than a CTR ring with (fake) diamonds. It's like the awesomeness of Primary amped up by marriage-likeness and the joy of pretending you have some serious Disney princess bling! So good!

Vagueness of prophesy

I always loved how hard the Big Fifteen emphasized being "PROPHETS, SEERS, AND REVELATORS". The world needed to know it! God's hand-picked team was running our show! The problem is I began feeling uncomfortable when it came to understanding what they were prophesying, seeing, and revealing. I couldn't really pick out their prophecies, visions, and revelations. In the mid-'90s they gave us the "The Family: A Proclamation to the World", but I've already mentioned how unhelpful that piece of work was...

Maybe God has run out of things to say. Or maybe I'm just crazy. Tommy's always blasting God's children with details of the future, right?

"Let me tell you about when I was just a mere deacon - oh, you've heard that one!

How about a story about when I was in the military?..."

Brainwashing children

By the time I hit high school I started realizing how sickening the Primary songs were. Primary is the name of the Mormon Church's Sunday school program for children ages four to twelve a healthy chunk of which is dedicated to learning and singing songs. 

A few of the songs are about things like a tall snowman melting in the sun, apricot trees blossoming in the Spring, a spider crawling up a rain pipe (not included in the Songbook), and a kind of Simon Says-type number, but those sorts of songs are mostly for the youngest kids only. The older children get to enjoy an exclusive diet of songs that clearly classify as heavy-handed indoctrination efforts.

By far the most beloved of all Mormon songs for children young and old is "I am a Child of God", a little number with intimidating lyrics like "help me to understand His words / Before it grows too late" and carrot waving lyrics like "Celestial glory shall be mine / If I can but endure". This is where it all begins for Mormon children. Kids have to know that they have a Very Real Daddy in Heaven who's more awesome than the one hanging around the house and that if they behave themselves He'll give them a Very Big Treat. Kid's love this song. The music is so earnest. Parents love it too. It's a sure-fire tear jerker when the Primary kids sing it together in front of the whole congregation.

Other classic Mormon brainwashing songs included hits like "I Know My Father Lives" (they know no such thing), "I Hope They Call Me on a Mission" (they have no idea what a mission is or what it's like), the very spooky "Follow the Prophet", the similarly themed "Keep the Commandments", and a bizarre song about loving to see the temple (when they have only the vaguest idea of what goes on in the temple). There's even a song about happily giving money to the Church (little children don't make any money)! Browsing the Children's Songbook will quickly offer up a good many more examples of how Mormons hone passion and dedication for concepts and practices in children long before those concepts can be understood or the practices can be put in place. Mormon children never have a chance of formulating their own opinions or working through independent thoughts because they're taught to keep these songs on repeat in their head at all times.

My teenage self was the truest of true believers when it comes to True Believing Mormons. I was all in and pitied anyone who couldn't see just how clear and simple and perfect the Gospel and the Church were. But I was also considering not allowing any child of mine to go to Singing Time. I seriously doubted the ethics of placing a child inside the brainwashing machine. But, instead of exploring the implications of unethical treatment of children in the Church, I moved forward with faith, went to the temple, and served a mission just as the primary songs taught me to do.