Mister Scratch wrote:This is slightly-off topic, but did anybody read the rather lengthy MAD thread dealing with all of this? I have to admit, I was struck by the sheer bloodthirstiness of the TBMs. Many of them were praying that HBO would suffer blows to its profits, and things like that. One could detect a real thirst for vengeance.
This whole thing has been really surprising to me. Now, the story is getting reported on TV, radio and all over the internet. The story isn't that HBO is showing the Temple, the story is that the Church members are getting upset over it. It even showed up in the imdb daily entertainment news:
HBO Battles MormonsI've had several people at my office mention it, and several who have never watched Big Love are planning on catching Sunday's episode to see what the big fuss is all about. I tried to explain to them that the Temple is like the Mormon secret formula for Coke, and that it is unethical for people to steal our secret formula, but that didn't seem to persuade them from watching it.
I also explained to them that
any of them could go to the Temple, it's not "secret" and they just had to spend 6 hours in discussions with the missionaries, make lifelong commitments to the Church, enact subtle and drastic lifestyle changes, attend weekly 3-hour church meetings, give 10% of their income/increase, pass an interview verifying that they really, really believe the claims of the Church and and aren't drinking coffee, and then they could go no problem. There's no need to see a unauthorized but probably very accurate representation of part of the ceremony from the comfort of their own sofa this Sunday night.
Ultimately, the Church will be proven right: the best thing to do would be to absolutely ignore it, just as they ignore all the violence, profanity and sex/nudity on pay-cable channels. But they can't.