Neither abandoning Mormonism, nor abandoning OT, nor avoiding posting in this thread seem like satisfactory answers to me.
Then what about the final solution? Kill all potential question-makers!
Well, I think they look nice, but hardly breathtaking I suppose. Typically, before a temple is dedicated for use, it will have an open house for a few weeks before where anyone who wants can go through the building and take a look at it.
Bing! See there? I just need to find a newly constructed temple and I might be able to look around! So now I'm not really that interested anymore! You just fixed the problem!
Also, the Church has put pictures of rooms in the temple online, I don't know where (and I am sure that Google Image Search would mostly show pictures that disgruntled soon-to-be-ex-Mormons posted).
Huh. Are there any way disgruntled ex-members could show pictures that would make any of it look bad?
Forbidden fruit, I understand. In real life I suspect you would find it dreadfully boring.
Yeah, especially now that you told me that there are actually possibilities of going into a temple. So what's the point?
Well, the basic stuff - we perform baptisms on behalf of the deceased, they are probably similar to any baptism by immersion that anyone does. We also perform other ordinances, both for ourselves and for the deceased. Now, here is the tricky part - it is full of symbolism, that we consider too sacred to discuss outside of the temple, even among ourselves, so that I cannot answer directly.
Which will no doubt only compound the problem.
...
Okay, now you broke it again. And I feel that this time it's going to be even harder to come up with a solution.
Well, yes we consider ourselves Christian, but a very specific kind of Christian - and among all other denominations there is a wide diversity of rituals and practices. So yeah, there are things that we do that no one else does, but that is true of, say, the Catholics as well (I think).
I'm not sure if you completely understood what I was asking. Wasn't a very well formulated question either I suppose.
If I, as a non-Mormon, talk about something relating to Mormonism, and describing it as Christian-like, would you then, as a Mormon, get the understanding that I know that Mormons think of themselves as Christian, or that I consider Mormons to not be Christians?
Actually, do you ever describe yourselves as Christian, either internally or externally, or just as Mormons?
Sort of. "Unworthy" in a particularly narrow sense, that there are certain things that you haven't done (and no doubt, you aren't following all of our rules and commandments, because why would you?) I mean, I at least wouldn't consider you a less morally upright person.
Well, I know neither you nor any other Mormon actually hold it against me, but, and I feel I'm getting a bit philosophically sidetracked here,
if access to the temple is seen as a good,
and only certain people have the property of necessary qualities that allow them access to that good,
then by not being granted access to the good,
it is implicitly stated that one does not have the necessary qualities,
and to lack certain qualities that allows access to a good must then be a negative property of a person,
and a person with a negative property must by necessity be less valued than a person with a positive property,
thus it can be said that a person not granted access to the temple is less worthy than a person who is granted access.
... If this just looks like rambling from a tired student at 3 am, then just ignore it.
"Guards" is a strong word, but . . . there is a front desk. Those who hold a temple recommend show it to the people at the front desk (they recently computerized the process) and enter the temple itself. The recommend is a Church-wide thing, so someone who has one could enter any temple in the world.
A front desk is included in what I thought of while writing "guard", so it wasn't meant that strong actually.
Sure. Offer me anything. It doesn't matter, the answer will be the same.
Oh, don't be so worried about the rules. Even Adam ate of the apple, and look how well that turned out!
Well, temples are different from our regular meetinghouses or chapels, and people often feel differently about them. When a temple was built near where I live, some people (presumably fundamentalist/evangelical Christians) were at the front gates passing out literature.
Hm. So you have temples, chapels and meetinghouses? You have something between temples and chapels/meetinghouses though, right? I visited one during a project in high school, but that was a church I believe.
