I'm currently listening to The Complete Heretic's Guide to Western Religion: The Mormons by David Fitzgerald and am thoroughly enjoying it (well, except for the chapter on Polygamy, that was incredibly depressing and angering).
What I am currently finding interesting is the similarities between the social/cultural conditions surrounding the founding of Mormonism and the social/cultural conditions surrounding the founding of "mainstream" Christianity, i.e. the Jesus story.
In both cases, as I understand it, you have a sort of religious craze taking place: in upstate New York it was referred to as the Burned Out district during the time of the Second Great Awakening because so many new religions/cults were being formed and dying out, in ancient Palestine it was the Hellenistic and/or Messianic religions that were popping up all over the place. In both cases proponents of the "surviving" religion (Christianity in the case of ancient Palestine and Mormonism in the case of the Burned Out district) at least to some extent claim that theirs is the true religion because it "survived" - in other words the very fact that those religions survived is some kind of testament to its truthiness. In the case of Mormonism, however, they cannot claim exclusive rights to truthiness based on the fact that it survived the Burned Out district or the Second Great Awakening because the Seventh Day Adventists also came from that same time, born of similar circumstances having survived to today from its formation as the Millerite movement.
Anyway, that's my thought for the day. I shall now commence the long wait until the weekend.
What I am currently finding interesting is the similarities between the social/cultural conditions surrounding the founding of Mormonism and the social/cultural conditions surrounding the founding of "mainstream" Christianity, i.e. the Jesus story.
In both cases, as I understand it, you have a sort of religious craze taking place: in upstate New York it was referred to as the Burned Out district during the time of the Second Great Awakening because so many new religions/cults were being formed and dying out, in ancient Palestine it was the Hellenistic and/or Messianic religions that were popping up all over the place. In both cases proponents of the "surviving" religion (Christianity in the case of ancient Palestine and Mormonism in the case of the Burned Out district) at least to some extent claim that theirs is the true religion because it "survived" - in other words the very fact that those religions survived is some kind of testament to its truthiness. In the case of Mormonism, however, they cannot claim exclusive rights to truthiness based on the fact that it survived the Burned Out district or the Second Great Awakening because the Seventh Day Adventists also came from that same time, born of similar circumstances having survived to today from its formation as the Millerite movement.
Anyway, that's my thought for the day. I shall now commence the long wait until the weekend.
Teenaged X-Files obsession + Bermuda Triangle episode + Self-led school research project = Atheist.
