If someone had asked me yesterday to guess the number of temples in the state of Utah, and I could win a free meal if I got it within two either way, I would have guessed 15. My guess would have been ridiculously low. Unlike the church leadership I would have to go on paying for my own food.
Today president Nelson announced 8 new temples, and one of the eight is slated for Syracuse, Utah.
1. That makes 24 temples for a state of 3.2 million people. Now the PR department of the Corporation of the President of the LDS church is going to tell that the great majority of those 3.2 million are LDS. I am going to tell you that a slight majority are LDS. I will concede a figure of 1.8 million Mormons. The problem is not all 1.8 million are old enough to hold temple recommends (the real golden ticket), and not all the ones who could have one, actually have one. I would estimate that number at 1 million.
Even if every person who lived in Utah had a temple recommend there is no need for 24 temples. 21 of those temples are in an area the size of Maui.
2. Syracuse, Utah is 14 miles Southwest of the current Ogden temple.
3. Syracuse is 22 miles Northwest of the Bountiful temple.
Apparently there is a secret enclave of thousands of obsessed temple goers there, who love to do work for the dead, but do not own cars or bus passes.
What is really happening is that LDS INC is appeasing a few hundred rubes foolish enough to pay tithing, and unlucky enough to live a staggering 14 miles from their current temple.
4. The number of people who self-identify as Mormon in Utah is actually going down. The church would like the rest of the world, and its members, to believe that the Beehive state remains solidly in the column of "follow the prophet."
Nothing could be farther from the truth, except the claim that the LDS church is GOD's only true church on the face of the earth. Almost half the state of Utah already knows that. The rest are blind squirrels hoping to find an acorn on their way to their neighborhood temple.
