It isn’t hard to tell that there is something wholesome and clean cut about Salt Lake City, Utah. After all, it is the epicenter of the Mormon religion, the mecca, if you will, for neatly dressed men and women with permanent smiles and helpful attitudes.
Founded on a dubious premise, by a man named Joseph Smith, the Mormon religion has been around for almost 200 years. After Smith and his brother Hyrum were murdered in 1844 by a mob who was accusing them of treason, the church was taken over by Brigham Young, and eventually, after locating in Illinois and Nebraska, they settled down in Salt Lake City, Utah, where they have basically taken over the joint.
Now, as a non religious person, I have noted many times that I still feel that churches, and their members, do wonderful works, and have a tremendously positive influence on young, and older people. And it certainly seems to be the case in Salt Lake City. As I ventured inside Temple Square, in the shadow of the great and masterful piece of architecture that is the Mormon temple, I was amazed at how clean, well-manicured and welcoming it was. And that was just the landscaping. The people were even more so. I spoke to several of them, including guys doing the lawnmowing and sidewalk sweeping, and they all seemed to be as knowledgeable about the history the church and were more than happy to share their knowledge. I listened with an open mind.
They told me that the church is based on the idea of family, and that marriage between a man and a woman is not just for “til death do them part”, but for all eternity. Im not going to get into all the technical aspects of the church here—plenty has been written about it already---but to the casual observer, it seems like a nice enough premise and a good way to live your life. That said, there coincidently happened to be a column in a local paper by a gay man who grew up a Mormon and was basically run out of town for his lifestyle, which, by the way, he did not choose, and fought for years, until he couldn’t help but accept the fact that he was indeed gay. The church considers homosexuality to be anathema, evidence of the devil’s work on earth, and an affront to God. Yet, as the man wrote in his piece, he learned growing up that there were certain codes that gays used, and he soon learned that many many of the churches members, the strict, diehard members, were closeted, and would often cruise the local mall and parks looking for the quick contact with other men. He got to know them and realized that there was a lot of hypocrisy there, just as in every other religion.
But Im not here to slam the Mormon church, or churches in general. I am here to say that I was treated very well, even allowed/encouraged to bring my cart up to the observation deck of the church’s office building, where I was given a first class view, and tour, of the city below, an oasis in the desert. People were quick to answer any questions I had and even more quick to tell me exactly which sites I should visit if time permitted. I got to see the 21000 seat conference center, the Tabernacle, where the famous Choir performs, and much more, in just a couple of hours, before I had to get back on the bus fo r a trip to that exact opposite of the Mormon Church, that den if skin and iniquity, Reno , Nevada.
This the comment that I mentioned on the blog of July 29, 2011 'A Madness to the Meth? Odd...'
ReplyDeleteSF, your blog told me that "Your HTML cannot be accepted: Must be at most 4,096 characters
So when I wasn't going to try to count 4,096 characters I thought I would try to condense it but it continually kept returning the following paragraphs.
Now see if U can figure out what I was trying to say with only about 1/3 rd of what I said.
STARTING NOW:
He spoke as nice as all of the crooked POLITICIANS and ALL crooked RELIGIOUS people do. These people screamed in a nice beautiful, nice tone of voice 2,000 years ago 'CRUCIFY HIM, CRUCIFY HIM', and they continue CRUCIFYING His WORDS today in the Holy Bible. That is why His words are printed in red letters of His blood today. They CRUCIFY His words in every church meeting they have. Just thought I would mention that but if you go to the CRAFTED TEMPLES to worship just CRUCIFY what I just said. I left the VAGUE part out of this paragraph.
Back to the event.
He pulled into an exit and drove into an open gate of a company that was closed for the night and he parked in front of a warehouse with overhead lights and started reading the RELIGIOUS book that he had gotten from the fast food place. He closed the book and told me that a paragraph in the book told him to do something but I wasn't interested in what it told him to do so I didn't ask him.
We returned to the highway again and in about 20 minutes later, the vehicle was drifting off the road again and I looked over at the steering wheel and I noticed that (here is the good part) HE WAS NOT IN THE TRUCK that was going about 80 to 90 miles per hour and there was no vehicles behind us.
Figure the other 2/3 rds out for yourself. I'm no counting my characters.
The other sites tell us how many characters we have printed.
PS: I continually tried to erase all of my comment so I would try to condense my comment but the above verses continually kept coming back up. The first 2 nor 3 were erased and the last 3 or 4 were erased but the ones that you see now continued to return after being erased.
ReplyDelete