There are just two days left, including today, to take advantage of the opportunity to view the 2021 Interpreter Foundation dramatic film Witnesses at no charge, which you can do here: https://vimeo.com/824199556/ecefc622ed. On Thursday, 10 October, when Six Days in August opens in theaters, that window of opportunity closes. I would, frankly, love to make Witnesses freely available all the time. And, someday, we’ll do that. But not for quite a while. In the meantime, we’re bound by contractual obligations not to do so.
Not quite forty-eight hours ago as I write, President Russell M. Nelson announced plans for seventeen additional temples, including one for Dublin, the capital of the Republic of Ireland. The following article, written by Cian Ó Broin, appeared in the Irish Independent: “First Mormon temple to open in Ireland as part of major expansion.” Given the small Latter-day Saint population in Ireland — roughly the same as the membership in Norway, for which a temple was announced in April 2021 — I expect that the temple in Dublin will also be of modest size, like Norway’s. There’s nothing particularly unusual about the article in the Irish Independent, but the response to it in at least one sector of social media has been interesting:
The discussion there, such as it is, was launched by OperatorMaA, who, in the course of it, alluded to the “fraud, misogyny, racism, sexual predation, and general gaslighting” that characterize the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and described temples as “problematic.” I start, though, with his opening post. Then I’ve excerpted some portions of the exchanges that caught my attention:
OperatorMaA: “The Mormons are building a temple. Don’t let them if you have time. They’ve taken to announcing before permits are in place lately so you might be able to keep it from happening.”
YoureNotEvenWrong: “Freedom of religion. Why would we be against another bunch of weirdos with stupid beliefs building a temple.”
OperatorMaA: “Freedom of religion includes freedom /from/ religion. Let them worship, proselytize, sure. But building a temple can be actually damaging to the community, and the Mormons will bend the law for their benefit to put it there if they have to.”
AnCamcheachta: “Secularism is far more important than the nebulous concept of “religious freedom”. France has the right idea, and if I was in charge I would go full-on Enver Hoxha on the Religious Orders.”
I pause here to note AnCamcheachta’s endorsement of the policy toward religion that was pursued by Enver Hoxha, the former Communist leader of Albania. As a committed Stalinist, Hoxha implemented state atheism and ordered anti-religious persecution against Muslims and Christians. All 2169 mosques and churches in Albania were destroyed under his rule, while clergy who continued active and/or declined to profess Marxism-Leninism were either arrested or obliged to go into hiding. Not a few of them were executed. To admire Enver Hoxha’s policies toward religion and religious believers is a truly remarkable thing.
Irishsaus: “Is there a reason why we shouldn’t let them? Just read the article & don’t see what the problem is. Any Mormons I’ve ever met have been really nice folk. I live near one of their churches and they are always out doing stuff helping in the community. I don’t see what the problem is building another temple. They’ll probably do stuff in another community to help them too.”
OperatorMaA: “The individual congregational members are generally kind and helpful, doing their best to build community. But they are a calvanist meritocratic colonizing religious dogma, with the extra steps of free masonry. They fraudulently hoard their wealth for the benefit of their upper echelons, and leave leave next to nothing for their congregations. I could go on.”
Objective-Garlic-124: “What’s bad about them”
Original Ozlander: “They’re a dodgy religious sect. Their history is dubious and has been well debunked. Their beginnings are weird. They also have the benefit of having literally billions of dollars at their disposal. One could argue that their invented Sky Ghost /All Seeing Benevolent deity is no or more less plausible than the Catholic Church who owns much more land in this country.”
Operator MaA: “The salient issue, that’s pertinent for the topic at hand, is they’re soul stealers. The purpose of the temple is to perform what’s called “saving ordinances” for the deceased. Individuals act as a proxy for their ancestors and others. These saving ordinances include baptism, receiving the holy Ghost, and the free Masonic practices of washing and anointing, and endowment. I must be perfectly clear, The Mormon doctrine does not claim that these ordinances are final. The belief is that individuals that are dead are assembled in a sort of purgatory if they had not received these ordinances during their life. When these ordinances are completed for them by their living proxies, it is said that the deceased have the opportunity to accept those ordinances or not. But the get out of jail free card that the Mormons claim, is that these ordinances are not forced upon the deceased. That’s obviously not necessarily true for the deceased. Depending on their religious beliefs when they were alive, they may have lost their entry into whatever afterlife they chose if the ordinance for baptism was performed for them. That of course grants the Mormon church more power than they deserve, and so most people generally ignore it. It’s still gross and disrespectful, especially when they’ve been caught multiple times baptizing Holocaust victims as a specific example.”
OperatorMaA: “Instead of helping the homeless community and contributing to programs to help, they built an expensive mall with high rise apartments with collected funds from their congregation members. City Creek is pretty, but it’s ultimately a mall, and they own practically all the land in that city. Of course they’re going to put their best foot forward in their capital. Head a few blocks south though.”
Terrible_Way1091: “Freedom of religion is enshrined in our constitution though.”
OperatorMaA: “That protects their right to worship, it doesn’t protect their right to break the law to get what they want, which is categorically what they do.”
DontReportMe: “Why do you care?”
OperatorMaA: “Because I used to be a Mormon, and I’ve done my best to be quiet about it, but no more.”
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