The mormon temple is now finished and open. For a while, they are allowing the public to tour the building. Then they will have some kind of cleansing ceremony and only some mormons will be allowed in. Megan wants me to go see it with her on Saturday. I figure it will be fun! A lot of expense went into this building. I wonder if mormons are the only religion left who believe their places of worship should be the best and most beautiful buildings. Of course, not all mormon churches are exquisite. Their churches are generally better looking than some of the other religions' around here, but they do a fabulous job on their temples. In fact, the temple inspired me to tour Twin Falls and take pictures of all the churches (all I could find anyway), and post them here. Some are dumpy little buildings, and some are rather pretty. And some are warehouses that have been prettied up like cheap whores.
The temple is a heck of a lot better than the warehouses some of the churches around here started building. Calvary chapel and amazing grace fellowship come to mind there. They both have made some entrance detail that improves curb appeal, but they are still just warehouses. The lighthouse christian fellowship doesn't even bother to build. They move into abandoned stores. That is why I didn't bother to get a photo of them. (Not on purpose anyway, I think they are the folks picketing in front of the mormon temple).
The temple reminds me of the days of old when the catholic church spared no expense in the artistry of their churches. They employed the best artists of their time to adorn the walls with amazing beauty. I've never seen one in person, but I'd like to. Our catholic church was the most beautiful church in town until the temple was built - at least in my opinion. I still think it is beautiful, and if it had gargoyles instead of cherubs, it would still be in my mind. It would be even better if you could still see the stained glass windows from outside, and still had real bells in the bell tower. I can still remember hearing the bells ring on clear mornings.
The united methodist church is beautiful too. They built onto it, which spoiled the effect, but the stained glass is pretty. The first baptist church has pretty windows too. It isn't my favorite style of building, but it is also pretty. The one thing the catholic church, united methodist church and first baptist church have in common is their age. They were all built during the early years of Twin Falls's existence. Churches were still something people took pride in. The buildings celebrated what was beautiful in the hearts and minds of people. It's nice to see that some religious groups still see that as important.
I went to a lot of work to make these pictures into thumbnails! I still think blogger should add thumbnail to picture size. You can mouse over the thumbnail to see the name of the church, and click on the thumbnail to see the full sized image.
On the 4th of July I wrote about the whining taking place by Brandi Swindell and Bryan Fisher. Apparently, they have received enough donatons from their religious friends to take care of the matter.They are paying the fine! Hopefully that means I won't have to listen to the whining any more!
The catholic church has a ten commandments monument in front of their church. I didn't know it was there until I saw it in the picture. Very observant, aren't I? (My gaze always went to bell towers and windows).
I didn't intend to make this whole week about religion. It's just religion has been on my mind a lot lately. The nice thing about religions is, like standards, there are so many to choose from, or reject as you wish. I don't get picketing the temple, however. Mahatma Gandhi said "the various religions are like different roads converging on the same point. What difference does it make if we follow different routes, provided we arrive at the same destination.?" I guess what the protesters think is that the destinations are different. They don't know, though, do they? It's all faith. I guess that's the problem with faith - people keep hurting each other because they have different ideas about something there is no evidence for.
That and so many other ideas are being marinated in my mind, and hopefully it will culminate in another acquisition post. This one I am trying to do research on, but so far I'm not finding what I'm looking for. I still have a month before school starts to get it done, though - fingers crossed.
That does it for this weeks ex-communicated Scrutator. Enjoy the church pics!
Yeah, I've never quite understood that, either. Now, if it were a Scientology thing, that I'd understand!
ReplyDeleteI do encourage you to tour the temple. When I was a kid, there was a Morman temple built near my high-school and we toured it before it was dedicated. That was back in the early to mid eighties. The one thing I remember was all the computer terminals everywhere which were apparently all networked together. Very unusual for the time, not to mention expensive! Cool all the way around, though.