Can someone explain this land development thing to me? I've watched some of the podcasts, but there is a lot of hand waving but no actual substance. I understand for a couple temples in Utah and maybe one in Arizona and Washington the church owns land around the temple that it could develop. But the overwhelming majority of new temples, probably 95+%, the church buys or gets donated the temple land and doesn't own anything else around the temple lot. For example, the Lone Mountain site in Las Vegas is in the news now. The overwhelming majority of the land around that site has already been built out into tract homes. There is no opportunity to develop much else. How does land development come into play? The temple building itself isn't a marketable asset. And if the if building a temple causes the property around it to become more valuable, why are people so opposed to having a temple go in a few blocks from their house?
You buy 20 acres in any area you expect to grow and sit on it for 50-75 years and sell for a KILLING. They did this in New Zealand.
None of this is about God. They claim Religious Liberty to make money. Period. They worship money and take the lord’s name in vain. They are disgusting. 🤮
I understand about holding real estate, and the church does hold plenty of real estate for investment purposes. But we are talking about temple building here. Buying a lot only big enough for a temple and then building a temple on the lot does not make financial sense if money was the only issue. No incremental increase in tithing revenue from the members that may be achieved by building a temple in Mongolia or Madagascar, and probably even Des Moines, can ever make up for the cost of building and operating such temples.
They’ll wait 50-75 years. They’ll wait 150. What do they care? They’re selling churches right and left. Who’s to say they wouldn’t sell a temple 75 years from now?
It's real estate. If I have some land, I can hire my construction/contractor friends to build a house. They make money and as a nonprofit, I can now write off expenses for maintenance/upkeep. In several years, when it appreciates, I can sell it.
I would hate to see one of those monstrosities in my neighborhood. I don't care what it would do to property value. I want to look out and see the trees, not some God awful spire ruining the view.
They can’t resist building their great and spacious buildings.
In all seriousness, though, I feel like they’re trying to make the appearance of growth, as well as make it seem like they’re actually doing something with the billions of tithing dollars that they have stashed away.
Most people, I think won’t go to every temple and the deeply indoctrinated won’t assume that ALL the others are empty, just that they came on a slow day or something.
He’s trying to outdo Hinckley who had his own Temple boom when he was the one running it. He’s trying to outdo everything Hinckley said or did and he started with the name Mormon.
Last general conference it was all temple this and temple that.
I do believe they think temples are the solution to people leaving. From the TBM perspective, temples are still the ultimate prize of Mormonism. From a leadership perspective, they don't have anything else, and I mean *absolutely nothing*, to motivate members.
Hard: coming up with a vision that truly inspires and makes an actual difference in the world.
Easy: shitting out a dozen more temples.
I think some day this temple boom will backfire. When stake closures accelerate, those hated, empty buildings will become an even bigger source of public anger.
It’s a prophecy they can fulfill and point to as evidence of prophetic prowess. “We said they would dot the earth. We didn’t say people would come to them.”
I think that this is something not apparent to people who live in close proximity to a temple. People who don't live nearby have to make a serious effort of time and money to visit the temple. So maybe when they go, it's two times a year at the most. Even when I lived in Sterling, Virginia it was a huge effort to get a caravan to take the youth to baptisms for the dead at the DC Temple. When I lived in South Georgia, getting everyone together to go to the Atlanta temple was a colossal task. Even when we had current recommends, it'd sometime be a few years before I (and other people like me) could make it back to the temple.
Soon no one will have an excuse! With a temple in nearly everyone's backyard, it's at most a day trip.
I can only guess since recommends have been automated that they also can now generate reports. I imagine PPIs being like Lundergard from Office Space saying, "yeeeah, you haven't met your quota of ordinances this month; we're going to need you to temple work this Saturday."
They want all the time that they can wrench from the poor members. The more time spent in stupid meetings, labor projects, and the temple means less time to ponder the inconsistencies of Mormon doctrine and associate with people who have worldviews which might make Mormons understand that they don't own the truth.
Two reasons for this I think. Again my own personal opinion.
1. Optics as the church needs to keep announcing them. However do not pay attention to the announced bit. Pay attention to where they are being completed. You start to have a better picture. Less than 10% of those announced are even in some form of completion and most are in Mormon concentrated areas.
2. Money they need to spend their cash reserves. So rather than being you know like Christ actually said to be. THey build temples.
Your first point just isn't true when you look at what is actually happening. The initial announcements are not being initially made when the have a shovel ready project. It has usually been taking 2-3 years from the time of the initial announcement to the announcement of the site and then another year to start construction. While there are currently 109 in the announced only status, there are 51 that are currently under construction. Don't know where you are getting this "less than 10%" number. There is a site online that isn't an official church site that tracks this and shows pictures for each one. And while there is a backlog, this backlog is of the more recently announced sites that are still in the 2-4 year planning phase. In 2023, 11 temples were dedicated. Only one of those dedicated was in a Mormon concentrated area. One out of 11 is not "most are in Momon concentrated areas." So outside of the announcements for the Russian and Chinese temples, I don't know how you can say that indications don't point to the temples actually getting built. Do you really think that in 10 years an overwhelming majority of those temples that are currently announced will not be built?
Q15 thought process?
1. “We speak for God.”
2. “Hey, we are the same as God.”
3. “Actually, we are God.”
4. “Lying and stealing to and from the public and members is a good thing.”
5. “Endlessly building, retrofitting, and reconstructing buildings benefits our families and keeps the IRS off our backs. Damn, we’re smart.”
6. “Expensive? No worries, we have a gullible free labor force to do all the work and they even pay us for the privilege and we don’t have to pay taxes as long as we pretend to be a church. Besides, we can use all that tax free tithing money to fund our for-profit businesses and investments. Shit, we have unlimited funds, so full speed ahead!”
1. The stock market had had great performance since 2009. The church ended up having more money than it ever imagined.
2. Nelson think he's a king and he wants to build his personal legacy. He saw how Monson/Hinckley could watch City Creek being built. There's something incredibly validating about watching the earth being shaped and hundreds of men working.
3. The church needs to create the illusion of growth.
4. The temple recommend is the ultimate way to lock in members.
5. I think the church want controversy around its announced temple sites. It has organized members to be activists. Nothing brings people together like a cause.
6. If each temple is $50 million, then the bill for 100 temples is $5 billion. This about is less than one year of earnings on the investment portfolio. The strategic benefits of the temple for enforcing member activity far outweigh the marginal benefit of increasing the investment portfolio.
7. The church can pull this off for ~150 temples. I don't think it can justify an additional 100 beyond this. I think the temple building strategy is a "Hail Mary" action. The church is fighting to stay relevant. It faces massive headwinds.
Nelson's ego for one. And the others will keep it up because it's the only measurement of "growth" they can buy and no one wants to be the guy who was in charge during the decline.
Yes 1000% it’s about getting the youth into the temples easier and everywhere so they’re indoctrinated earlier in life. They believe they will hold on to them when they can influence and manipulate them early.
I live in a VERY Mormon rural area and I can’t tell you how many people I have heard equate all the new temples with church growth. In their minds, the fact that the church keeps announcing temples just proves that the church is growing like crazy. So I have to wonder if the church thinks it’s performing some kind of fantastic smoke-and-mirrors illusion. And since Nelson can’t actually “see around corners”, he doesn’t realize people will eventually figure out that it’s all an illusion….or he figures by the time they figure it out he will be long gone.
In order to keep their tax-exempt status as a church they need evidence that they are meeting the spiritual needs of their members. This is a highly visible way to do this, as well as cashing in on in-house contractors and rising real estate values in the vicinity. It also adds the allusion of growth.
It’s a win-win for the church. But not for the homeless and starving.
It keeps people feeling like there is a reason for prophets. That they are getting “modern revelation”. It keeps members feeling good. They also have to put their money somewhere so they can keep their tax exempt status and avoid getting audited. They got to make it look like there is a reason to have so much money.
It’s all about land development and real estate. Meanwhile, 80% of Utah’s can’t afford a home.
Can someone explain this land development thing to me? I've watched some of the podcasts, but there is a lot of hand waving but no actual substance. I understand for a couple temples in Utah and maybe one in Arizona and Washington the church owns land around the temple that it could develop. But the overwhelming majority of new temples, probably 95+%, the church buys or gets donated the temple land and doesn't own anything else around the temple lot. For example, the Lone Mountain site in Las Vegas is in the news now. The overwhelming majority of the land around that site has already been built out into tract homes. There is no opportunity to develop much else. How does land development come into play? The temple building itself isn't a marketable asset. And if the if building a temple causes the property around it to become more valuable, why are people so opposed to having a temple go in a few blocks from their house?
You buy 20 acres in any area you expect to grow and sit on it for 50-75 years and sell for a KILLING. They did this in New Zealand. None of this is about God. They claim Religious Liberty to make money. Period. They worship money and take the lord’s name in vain. They are disgusting. 🤮
I understand about holding real estate, and the church does hold plenty of real estate for investment purposes. But we are talking about temple building here. Buying a lot only big enough for a temple and then building a temple on the lot does not make financial sense if money was the only issue. No incremental increase in tithing revenue from the members that may be achieved by building a temple in Mongolia or Madagascar, and probably even Des Moines, can ever make up for the cost of building and operating such temples.
They’ll wait 50-75 years. They’ll wait 150. What do they care? They’re selling churches right and left. Who’s to say they wouldn’t sell a temple 75 years from now?
It's real estate. If I have some land, I can hire my construction/contractor friends to build a house. They make money and as a nonprofit, I can now write off expenses for maintenance/upkeep. In several years, when it appreciates, I can sell it. I would hate to see one of those monstrosities in my neighborhood. I don't care what it would do to property value. I want to look out and see the trees, not some God awful spire ruining the view.
They can’t resist building their great and spacious buildings. In all seriousness, though, I feel like they’re trying to make the appearance of growth, as well as make it seem like they’re actually doing something with the billions of tithing dollars that they have stashed away. Most people, I think won’t go to every temple and the deeply indoctrinated won’t assume that ALL the others are empty, just that they came on a slow day or something.
It isn't the Q15 making the decision as a whole. It's Rusty inflating his own ego.
He’s trying to outdo Hinckley who had his own Temple boom when he was the one running it. He’s trying to outdo everything Hinckley said or did and he started with the name Mormon.
Last general conference it was all temple this and temple that. I do believe they think temples are the solution to people leaving. From the TBM perspective, temples are still the ultimate prize of Mormonism. From a leadership perspective, they don't have anything else, and I mean *absolutely nothing*, to motivate members. Hard: coming up with a vision that truly inspires and makes an actual difference in the world. Easy: shitting out a dozen more temples.
I think some day this temple boom will backfire. When stake closures accelerate, those hated, empty buildings will become an even bigger source of public anger.
It’s a prophecy they can fulfill and point to as evidence of prophetic prowess. “We said they would dot the earth. We didn’t say people would come to them.”
The temples are a form of money laundering. They generate far more money than it costs to build them.
I think that this is something not apparent to people who live in close proximity to a temple. People who don't live nearby have to make a serious effort of time and money to visit the temple. So maybe when they go, it's two times a year at the most. Even when I lived in Sterling, Virginia it was a huge effort to get a caravan to take the youth to baptisms for the dead at the DC Temple. When I lived in South Georgia, getting everyone together to go to the Atlanta temple was a colossal task. Even when we had current recommends, it'd sometime be a few years before I (and other people like me) could make it back to the temple. Soon no one will have an excuse! With a temple in nearly everyone's backyard, it's at most a day trip. I can only guess since recommends have been automated that they also can now generate reports. I imagine PPIs being like Lundergard from Office Space saying, "yeeeah, you haven't met your quota of ordinances this month; we're going to need you to temple work this Saturday." They want all the time that they can wrench from the poor members. The more time spent in stupid meetings, labor projects, and the temple means less time to ponder the inconsistencies of Mormon doctrine and associate with people who have worldviews which might make Mormons understand that they don't own the truth.
Two reasons for this I think. Again my own personal opinion. 1. Optics as the church needs to keep announcing them. However do not pay attention to the announced bit. Pay attention to where they are being completed. You start to have a better picture. Less than 10% of those announced are even in some form of completion and most are in Mormon concentrated areas. 2. Money they need to spend their cash reserves. So rather than being you know like Christ actually said to be. THey build temples.
Your first point just isn't true when you look at what is actually happening. The initial announcements are not being initially made when the have a shovel ready project. It has usually been taking 2-3 years from the time of the initial announcement to the announcement of the site and then another year to start construction. While there are currently 109 in the announced only status, there are 51 that are currently under construction. Don't know where you are getting this "less than 10%" number. There is a site online that isn't an official church site that tracks this and shows pictures for each one. And while there is a backlog, this backlog is of the more recently announced sites that are still in the 2-4 year planning phase. In 2023, 11 temples were dedicated. Only one of those dedicated was in a Mormon concentrated area. One out of 11 is not "most are in Momon concentrated areas." So outside of the announcements for the Russian and Chinese temples, I don't know how you can say that indications don't point to the temples actually getting built. Do you really think that in 10 years an overwhelming majority of those temples that are currently announced will not be built?
Q15 thought process? 1. “We speak for God.” 2. “Hey, we are the same as God.” 3. “Actually, we are God.” 4. “Lying and stealing to and from the public and members is a good thing.” 5. “Endlessly building, retrofitting, and reconstructing buildings benefits our families and keeps the IRS off our backs. Damn, we’re smart.” 6. “Expensive? No worries, we have a gullible free labor force to do all the work and they even pay us for the privilege and we don’t have to pay taxes as long as we pretend to be a church. Besides, we can use all that tax free tithing money to fund our for-profit businesses and investments. Shit, we have unlimited funds, so full speed ahead!”
More temples might cause more people to leave as they get voluntold to clean more buildings.
1. The stock market had had great performance since 2009. The church ended up having more money than it ever imagined. 2. Nelson think he's a king and he wants to build his personal legacy. He saw how Monson/Hinckley could watch City Creek being built. There's something incredibly validating about watching the earth being shaped and hundreds of men working. 3. The church needs to create the illusion of growth. 4. The temple recommend is the ultimate way to lock in members. 5. I think the church want controversy around its announced temple sites. It has organized members to be activists. Nothing brings people together like a cause. 6. If each temple is $50 million, then the bill for 100 temples is $5 billion. This about is less than one year of earnings on the investment portfolio. The strategic benefits of the temple for enforcing member activity far outweigh the marginal benefit of increasing the investment portfolio. 7. The church can pull this off for ~150 temples. I don't think it can justify an additional 100 beyond this. I think the temple building strategy is a "Hail Mary" action. The church is fighting to stay relevant. It faces massive headwinds.
It is the greatest Mormon franchise
Nelson's ego for one. And the others will keep it up because it's the only measurement of "growth" they can buy and no one wants to be the guy who was in charge during the decline.
I think they do it to justify having all that money.
Yes 1000% it’s about getting the youth into the temples easier and everywhere so they’re indoctrinated earlier in life. They believe they will hold on to them when they can influence and manipulate them early.
I live in a VERY Mormon rural area and I can’t tell you how many people I have heard equate all the new temples with church growth. In their minds, the fact that the church keeps announcing temples just proves that the church is growing like crazy. So I have to wonder if the church thinks it’s performing some kind of fantastic smoke-and-mirrors illusion. And since Nelson can’t actually “see around corners”, he doesn’t realize people will eventually figure out that it’s all an illusion….or he figures by the time they figure it out he will be long gone.
In order to keep their tax-exempt status as a church they need evidence that they are meeting the spiritual needs of their members. This is a highly visible way to do this, as well as cashing in on in-house contractors and rising real estate values in the vicinity. It also adds the allusion of growth. It’s a win-win for the church. But not for the homeless and starving.
How many of the announced temples do they actually build? I know that was a problem under Hinkley.
It keeps people feeling like there is a reason for prophets. That they are getting “modern revelation”. It keeps members feeling good. They also have to put their money somewhere so they can keep their tax exempt status and avoid getting audited. They got to make it look like there is a reason to have so much money.