Salt Lake City, Utah – “Mormon Vatican”…:-)
motto:“Chaque personne est responsable de sa religion.”(Gandhi)
l’Église des SDJ(temple mormon) ressemble au château de Cendrillon et il faut le voir pour le croire… 🙂 l’ange doré Moroni qui souffle dans sa trompette est accroché sur la pierre de faîte et il symbolise l’ange mentionné dans l’Apocalypse 14:06 qui viendra accueillir la 2e venue du Christ… je n’ai pas pu le visiter parce que je n’étais pas mormone et “assez pure”(what? hellooo!) j’ai demandé poliment à 2 jeunes mormones:”comment expliquez-vous que les mormons peuvent visiter les églises ou les cathédrales du monde entier?… alors que nous ne sommes pas autorisés à visiter votre temple!” – elles n’ont pas répondu à ma question… J’ai visité leur “dôme” sur-réaliste (tabernacle), où les photos n’étaient pas autorisées (évidemment!), et j’y ai vu des images bibliques avec un Jésus aux yeux bleus qui ressemblait plutôt à un scandinave qu’à un oriental… 🙂 ces gens croient fermement que Jésus et Jean-Baptiste ont débarqué en Amérique au début du 19e siècle afin de christianiser les américains – on y croit, tous: Jésus pouvait marcher sur l’eau et il a vite traversé l’Atlantique! 🙂 mais ce qui m’a vraiment marquée et laissé “bouche-bée”: la généalogie et les archives des mormons (pas de photos, non plus!) où il y plus de 35 millions de noms classifiés – par familles et origines. L’un des principes fondamentaux de leur foi est que les morts peuvent être baptisés mormons, car le baptême des morts a évolué à partir des croyances qui affirment qu’il est nécessaire au salut et que l’unité de la famille pourra continuer à exister au-delà du néant – si tous les membres sont baptisés. Ceux qui n’ont jamais été mormons peuvent être baptisés “post mortem”! De ce fait, il faut retrouver ses ancêtres et les faire baptiser par procuration… cela se passe en secret, à l’intérieur des temples mormons, dans de grands bassins.
Ainsi, la personne prend l’identité de son ancêtre pendant quelques minutes, le temps d’être entièrement immergée sous l’eau. Quand elle en ressort, son aïeul est devenu… mormon! 🙂 Pour “séduire” les touristes, de nombreux missionnaires de toutes langues arpentent le centre-ville, mais l’accès à leur temple est rigoureusement interdit aux non-mormons… le Livre de Mormon représente une sorte de 3e Testament qu’on retrouve dans les chambres des hôtels, régulièrement complété par les révélations ultérieures des prophètes et il présente le peuple américain comme étant le peuple élu de Dieu, envoyé dans la nouvelle terre promise. Pour eux, l’Eden se trouve dans le Missouri et Dieu vit sur la planète Kolob… 🙂 Il y a aussi des mormons fondamentalistes polygames. Ils vivent dans des familles composées de plusieurs femmes, de beaucoup d’enfants et d’un seul homme qui a eu du succès dans sa carrière. Leurs maisons sont très spacieuses, voire disproportionnées. Dans ces familles, il y a en moyenne 3-4 adultes et une quinzaine d’enfants. Le divorce n’est pas envisageable, les mormons s’opposent à toute forme de contraception, à l’avortement et à l’homosexualité. Des documents originaux – environ 2,4 millions de rouleaux de microfilm contenant les noms de 2 milliards qui ont été tracées – sont enfermés derrière des portes 14 tonnes dans le “Granite Mountain Records Vault”, un dépôt à température contrôlée conçu pour “survivre” à une explosion nucléaire, intégré dans la chaîne des montagnes Wasatch, à environ 20 miles au sud-est de SLC. Selon une sérieuse étude du journal “The Time”, la fortune de l’Église mormone s’élèverait à plus de 30 milliards US$. Dans la plupart des pays européens, la croyance mormone est considérée une secte, par rapport à la religion chrétienne et ses 3 confessions principales: catholique, protestante(réformée) et orthodoxe.
P.S. chaque mormon doit passer 2 ans à essayer de convertir le plus de gens et doit verser 10% de son salaire mensuel à la secte!
motto:“Each person is responsible for his/her religion.”(Gandhi)
LDS Church – the mormon temple looks like Cinderella’s castle and you have to see it, to believe it… 🙂 The golden Angel Moroni blowing his trumpet is placed on the capstone of the temple and it symbolizes the angel mentioned in Revelation 14:6 who will come to welcome in Christ’s 2nd arrival… I could NOT visit the temple because I wasn’t a mormon and “pure enough”(what? hellooo and dahhh!)… I politely asked 2 young women:”can you explain to me WHY you mormons are free and allowed to visit any churches or cathedrals all over the world and we’re not permitted to visit your temple?!” – they did NOT answer my question… I visited their sur-realistic “dome”(tabernacle), NO cameras(of course!) where I saw biblical images with a blue-eyed Jesus who looked more like a Scandinavian guy than an oriental one… 🙂 these folks strongly believe that Jesus and John the Baptist did land in America in the 19th century to christianize the Americans… no doubt, we all believe Jesus could walk on water and easily cross the Atlantic! 🙂 but what really marked and stunned me were Genealogy and the Mormon Archives(no cameras either!) where I saw more than 35 million names, classified into families and pedigrees. One of the core tenets of their faith is that the dead can be baptized into mormons! the baptism of the dead has evolved from the beliefs that it is necessary for salvation and that the family unit could continue to exist beyond nothingness – if all members have been baptized… Those who have never been Mormons may be baptized “post mortem”!
Therefore, they must find their ancestors to be able to baptize them by procuration; it occurs secretly, inside Mormon temples and within large bathtubs. Thus, the person takes over the identity of his/her ancestor for a few minutes while being fully submerged under water. When he/she comes out, his/her ancestor has become… a mormon! 🙂 to attract tourists, there are lots of missionaries speaking all languages, roaming all over downtown, but access to their temple is strictly forbidden to non-Mormons! the Book of Mormon is a sort of 3rd Testament that you find in all hotel rooms, supplemented periodically by subsequent revelations of the prophets and it presents the American people as “God’s chosen people”, sent to the new promised land. To them, Eden is in Missouri and God lives on the planet Kolob… 🙂 There are also fundamentalist mormon polygamists. They live in homes with several women, lots of children and only 1 man who’s had a successful career. Their houses are quite large or disproportionate. These families consist on average of 3 to 4 adults and about 15 kids. Divorce is not an option, mormons firmly and totally reject any form of contraception(birth control), abortion, homosexuality. Original records – about 2.4 million rolls of microfilms containing 2 billion names that have been traced – are locked behind 14-ton gates in the Granite Mountain Records Vault, a temperature-controlled repository designed “to survive” a nuclear impact that is built into the Wasatch mountain range, about 20 miles southeast of SLC. According to a serious study of the newspaper “The Time”, the fortune of the Mormon Church would be more than 30 billion US$. Most European countries reckon the Mormon belief as a cult, compared to the Christian religion and its 3 main confessions: catholic, protestant(reformed) and orthodox.
P.S. each mormon must spend 2 years trying to convert other people and has to pay 10% of his monthly salary to the cult!
Posted on 2 July 2014, in melanie. Bookmark the permalink. 84 Comments.
Thanks for that enlightening insight into the Mormon cult. Rather hypocritical not to permit non Mormons access to their temples. Ian
yep, you’re absolutely right and I did experience it on the very spot: bizarre, too – like all “cults”, brrr!!!
A childhood friend has two daughters who married inside the Mormon church. My friend was excluded from the weddings as she would not convert.
I’m not surprised, Léa… QED. Thanx for droppin’ by and have a sunny day! 🙂
I’m more than pink as I was at L’Art Cache in Albas for the post on 13 Juillet. This is the third year I have attended. A sunny day for you as well! 🙂
❤ merci, jolie Léa! il fait chaud et lourd… demain, la pluie reviendra! 🙂
🙂
Oh, really?… dois-je en déduire que tu es allé à SLC, aussi?…
Of all the whacked out religions, I put LDS second only to Scientology. And yes, I have always been an atheist, but I do respect those of faith, just as long as they leave me out of it. Cheers, Lance
welcome to the club, Lance! 🙂 don’t mess with Tejas and don’t mess with me! 😀 btw, scientology is banned in France – even though Tom Cruise did his best “to rehabilitate” it, no way: France and the European countries are laïque(secular?): religion and state are completely separated, there are no bibles to swear on – for the presidents or in court… to us all, it’s pure and simple common sense… 🙂
Thank God!(Hahahaha!) Mel, You make me smile. Out loud (once again!)
I’m supposed to be a funny gal… 🙂 I practice “self-deprecating”, I think that laughing at ourselves is quite healthy… 🙂
I laugh at me… everyday! Cheers!
yesss! cool, Raoul! 🙂
Hahahahha! Wait! Who the hell is Raoul? Did you just dis me? LOL!
“cool, Raoul!” is a French expression – just for the rhyme! 🙂
Je parle francais. Un peu (Did I say that right?) Hey! I had a GF from Casablanca. I know my shit. Hahahah.(She had me convinced she was from Paris) Yes, I was stupid at twenty-one.) Guess I still am. 😉
yep, it’s correct… did your gf from Casablanca(been there, too!) look like Ingrid Bergman?… 🙂
Naw! I am gonna write about her (Gladys–yeah–I know) as soon as I put Shonnie to bed.(Alas. Most of my stories revolve about women) They are good stories though, and all truth. Gladys was a liar, but I lived her. 😉 She spoke Hebrew, English, French, and some Arabic. What the hell was there not to love? I spoke Texican and some French…
hummm… was she a séfarade-Sephardi gal? – if so, I refrain and I stop myself from any further comment(s)… 😉
Oh no! Please don’t! It ain’t often I get to have real conversation. (I am a bit arrogant) and I can talk about Middle East for… ever! I have spent so much of my life there… And you know I Love Lenny Bruce, and Jewish culture… but I am more and more leaning left—Perhaps I need to shut up now… But… I almost got to shake Sadat’s Hand, back in ’77…
it’s O.K. 🙂 I visited Egypt several years ago… poor Sadat, RIP.
I loved Sadat. No one will ever convince me otherwise. 🙂
same here… we all know who did NOT like him and did NOT want him around… 😉
Here is a sad fun fact: When I was at SFM (not sure you have read of my time in Sinai back in the Seventies), but when I was at SFM and on R&R, Sadat came to our base there… I missed him. Shit! My first R&R, back in ’77 was when he flew to TA and then addressed the Knesset… Heady times. And I was there.
wow, I’m really impressed… whenever I have some spare time to read your articles, I do click on “like”, not like other bloggers(traffic hunters – read my mind and my lips…) who don’t even read the title(s), but they have the WP option of immediate and automatic (fake) “like”… 😉
My Friend, I always read before I ‘like.’ You know this. And I appreciate your knowing it.
yes, Sir! I’m thankful and grateful! 🙂
🙂 Mel, You are refreshing. I love ‘talking’ to you. If my comments have overrun your bandwidth, delete ’em. Just me, having conversation…
🙂 merci bcp, Lance! no problemo, I’m sociable and comunicative, patient and tolerant… good night and c u asap! 🙂
I do hope so. You have a mind. I love that. 😉
🙂 well, I’m just a simple Cappy gal: https://myvirtualplayground.wordpress.com/2014/02/21/i-am-what-i-am-a-simple-cappy-girl/
… and I like black: https://myvirtualplayground.wordpress.com/2013/08/24/lelegance-est-toujours-noire-elegance-is-always-black-francoise-giroud/
Yes. I did catch the ref:’Casablanca’ is one of my favorite films… right up there with Branagh’s ‘Hank Cinq’. Go figger! 😉
I’ve watched it lots of times and I’ve never been fed-up with it! 🙂 last but not least: my papa(RIP) was Bogie’s double(twin!), both “Cappies” born on Dec 25th… and Lauren Bacall’s mama was born in Romania, like me… very strange, indeed! 🙂 P.S. some “stuff” has no reasonable or common sense explanation(s)… 😉
I did a term paper (as a university senior–the prof was the head of the English Dept–my paper was on Bogart) I did not know at the time, he was writing a bio of Bogart which had already been accepted for publication. I wrote my ‘paper’ on ‘To Have and Have Not’. Took me about thirty minutes. (I am just lazy that way) Anyhow, I got an ‘A+’ on it! From the head of the English Department and a Bogey Biographer. And people wonder to this day why I used to hustle pool and blackjack…
bravo and congrats, Lance! Bogie & Lauren… a beautiful and legendary talented couple! she’s still pretty at 89(?)… 🙂
“You know how to whistle, don’t ya Steve? You just put your lips together… and blow…” I fell in love with L.B. back in the day. (And I read her autobiography) I am a film buff. Does it show badly?
OMG, legendary quotes… btw, Steve is the name of their son! I did read L.B.’s books…
I read one paragraph, and one from Bogart’s. One the strength of that, I go an A+ from the head of the English Dept. You have not yet read my post. “Lance, You Lie”, have you? Just kidding, but here it some link: http://wp.me/p2Yfgl-sS
merci, Fred! j’ai lu Voltaire au lycée et après à la fac… mon regard est plutôt lucide et réaliste, car j’y suis allée et j’ai tout vu/entendu sur place=on the very spot… amicalement, Mélanie – “la fille” de Guy Bedos… 😉
J’ai soif quand je lis le mot “Salt Lake”… 🙂
O.K., so?… whaz up, dude? 😉
J’ai trouvé que Joseph Smith avait une vie tourbillonnante… 🙂 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Smith
Quand j’étais jeune, j’aimais le ténor Joseph Schmidt… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Schmidt
Cheers, Michel 🙂
merci, Michel! je sais pour JS, je prépare tjs mes voyages à l’avance… 🙂 je ne connais pas le ténor, car l’opéra n’est pas mon “truc”, je suis fidèle au “rock’n roll” depuis mon adolescence… 😉
Oui, c’est mieux! 🙂
well, c’est logique et basic common sense… 🙂
Not one much for conventional religion, and especially (no offense intended toward any person, or belief system) this particular one. Have been to Salt Lake City several times — for skiing. One of the most interesting things to me is that, true, hard liquor is not sold in restaurants — but you can bring your own wine. And, they have these “private clubs” which are essentially regular bars with membership where you can go and get as S—-faced as you want. So, under cover is the watchword. That, and one of the largest red light districts in the country (or it used to be, don’t know anymore). 🙂
thanx, DR for your interesting input… btw, I did hear about those “private clubs” and I do believe you… 😉 I also visited Park City(Sundance film festival), but I didn’t meet Bob Redford! 🙂
Ah yes, well they have the “private clubs” in every city that’s large enough to have them. I’ve been to one, so can testify to their existence!
Un microcosmo che solo un grande Paese come l’America può tenere al suo interno. Bello. sheraunabbracciodaRoma
yep, only in America: un microcosme de… mor(m)ons! 😀 ciao e grazie per tua fermata al mio posto!
My pleasure! 🙂
Many of the faith and culture do not know? Moving forward and I would keep my fingers crossed and I support them, progress is so fast that it seems to me like runaway horse.
sorry, Anna, I don’t understand what you mean… is it google translation?… thanx for stopping by and have a nice evening! 🙂
I’m sorry, too! translations not working?!
I do understand all the words, but they are in a disorder and the sentence does not make sense, it’s confusing, impossible to decode…
The machine is a machine? I understand without words?
Je crois que cette religion est un mélange très terrestre entre christianisme, islam et les religions polygames de l’Ancien Testament. En fait, elle est plus proche de l’Ancien Testament que du christianisme. (Les parents du peuple juif étaient polygames avec la bénédiction du Dieu – voir Isaac, Jacob). Ils ont gardé également la coutume (très profitable pour les prêtres) de la dîme lévite. En total, c’est une religion-mélange qui a recueilli et rassemblé tous les éléments utiles terrestres-matériels des anciennes religions, et le mysoginisme (très convenable pour certains) le plus rétrograde, présenté sur la couverture de la religion. Ton résumé est intéressant, et encore plus le fait que tu as visité leur résidence! Merci pour la présentation, et une très bonne semaine! P.S. La foi n’a rien à voir avec les religions.
mille merci, Flo pour ton comment élaboré et ton temps précieux… ❤ ton P.S. résume parfaitement mon idée de base sur le sujet… 🙂 bonne soirée et pensées très ensoleillées… à+! 😉
J’aime bien ton article Mélanie. Il pose clairement les dérives de certaines croyances… La question de Dieu m’a toujours plongé dans la perplexité… Jamais dans l’angoisse. Ou il est bon, ou il n’existe pas. Il est distrait, aussi: combien de génocides il a toléré, ou pas vus? Les religions, elles, me font généralement fuir… Je suis trop libre pour m’aliéner, contraint par une discipline… Heureusement, je suis tolérant. Par passion et par raison. Bonne soirée! Amitiés, Hervé
Reblogged this on PARTAGER LA MAGIE – SHARING THE MAGIC.
Impressionnant ma chère Mélanie, j’ai trouvé ton post très intéressant, j’ai beaucoup appris! Je reblog mon amie, gros bisous, Gigi 🙂
❤ merci, Gigi! avec plaisir et avec joie… amicales pensées et à+! 🙂
They have missionaries here in Peru, usually a pair with a Peruvian and a USA citizen, I’m not Christian but I hear to them respectfully but I couldn’t convert to a religion that says that its god punished us changing our skin from white to brown/red/copper. I mean, I LOVE my skin, if there is possibility to change it I prefer to still be with the Mormon demon! 😉
LOL of the LOL, you’re too much, muy comico, amigo! 😀 I love my skin, too… so welcome to the club, olé! 🙂 con amistad y hasta proxima! 🙂
mille merci, Françoise pour ton comment détaillé… il y a certainement des mormons en Belgique, aussi, ils sont vraiment partout, just google it! 🙂 amitiés ensoleillées et poutous… à+! ❤
le soleil est bien présent! 😉 @+ avec mes amitiés, bisous! :-*
I laughed out loud on the last sentence. 😀
glad to hear you LOL, which does prove you’re NOT a “mor(m)on”! 🙂 😉
Oh! Spécial que tout cela, Mélanie! Agréable poursuite de ce jour à toi!
chère Colette, par chez nous “spécial” = particulier, étrange, bizarre, curieux, pas net… 🙂
Wow… wow… 🙂 I had no idea… Câte am adunat azi, aici la tine… plec cu “sacoşele” pline… 😉
🙂 wow total! cum se zice: on en apprend tous les jours… = omu'(oama) cât traieste, învata(afla) multe si marunte… 🙂
A temple opened in Calgary two years ago. Before it opened tours for the public were available. A very interesting experience.
what do you mean by “interesting”?… could you elaborate, please?… 🙂
So much I didn’t know perhaps. The change rooms where in future those who were allowed to attend would change into all white. The massive baptismal font, the various themed rooms including the wedding room. I guess I expected it to be like a massive open room like a typical church but it was many smaller rooms from very large to quite small, each with a purpose.
aha, O.K. thanx a bunch of lavender from my frontyard! 🙂 but then again: what do you think of proselytizing their weird belief?…
Melanie, although it doesn’t appeal to me, I am not one to judge. Each to their own is my motto. I am a no thanks to being converted.
Sue, I do see your point, but I also think that stating or expressing your own opinion on any topic(subject) doesn’t necessarily mean “to judge”…
I agree Melanie. Perhaps my wording to the answer of your question was not quite right. Let’s try that again. I admire their dedication to their faith but it’s not for me.
Thank you for this, Melanie. I must admit I found my visit there many years ago a ‘different’ experience…
you’re welcome, Sir! I do agree with you… that’s why I’ve mentioned in my first sentence:”you have to see it, to believe it…” and I did! 🙂
Must have been an intriguing place to visit.
quite bizarre, indeed… 🙂