Blixa wrote:Zeez, there was a time Mormon culture wasn't as black and white as all this. I swear, the pre-correlation church had moments of neighborhood good feeling that included all neighbors! Even more, why there were times that utter non-believers in the divinity of the Book of Mormon and Jesus Christ were CES teachers held in high esteem! (I've been communing with the ghost of Sterling M. McMurrin these past few days). I'd love to introduce you to a whole host of stellar lights of Mormon/Utah history and culture beyond the limited frames of current reference...
I have heard tell of those times, and since hearing of them I have felt a kind of nostalgia for something I never experienced. I still recall fondly Hugh Nibley's candor about BYU and other sensitive topics. Didn't he and McMurrin have a debate?
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
Blixa wrote:Zeez, there was a time Mormon culture wasn't as black and white as all this. I swear, the pre-correlation church had moments of neighborhood good feeling that included all neighbors! Even more, why there were times that utter non-believers in the divinity of the Book of Mormon and Jesus Christ were CES teachers held in high esteem! (I've been communing with the ghost of Sterling M. McMurrin these past few days). I'd love to introduce you to a whole host of stellar lights of Mormon/Utah history and culture beyond the limited frames of current reference...
I have heard tell of those times, and since hearing of them I have felt a kind of nostalgia for something I never experienced. I still recall fondly Hugh Nibley's candor about BYU and other sensitive topics. Didn't he and McMurrin have a debate?
I don't know. I just know I miss Sterling and J.D. Williams (I went to Williams's funeral when I was home last). Also Bill Mulder.
It's up to us to keep their memory green. I will post more on such things in a week or so...
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."
Kishkumen wrote: I still recall fondly Hugh Nibley's candor about BYU and other sensitive topics. Didn't he and McMurrin have a debate?
They did.
On 23 March 1955, a crowd gathered in the Orson Spencer Hall at the University of Utah campus to hear a debate between two men who were polar opposites within the Mormon community in everything except their intellectual gifts and rich Mormon heritage. Sterling McMurrin, professor of philosophy at the University of Utah and ardent skeptic, met Hugh Nibley, professor of religion and history from Brigham Young University and ardent defender of the Mormon faith. Their topic was:
“Do History and Religion Conflict?” Sterling and Hugh unstintingly expressed their respect for each other. Sterling said he had “great admiration” for Hugh’s “superb intellectual talents and scholarly attainments” as well as for his “high degree of independence of thought and action,” while Hugh admired the fact that Sterling remained always charitable and “never lost his temper.”3 Despite their profound respect for each other as individuals, however, they saw the world from completely different perspectives.
For his entire life, Hugh was impatient with theology, which he saw as an attempt to replace revelation with philosophy, while McMurrin found Hugh’s work both anti-intellectual and antirational. This debate was no exception.
I have some fun correspondence between McMurrin and Nibley which McMurrin gave me one day while I was speaking with him in his office. If you desire to add it to your files, let me know. I will scan it and send it off to you.
I also have a talk he gave while still working at the Institute on the Atonement that is really good.
Anyway, let me know. I may also tell you, if we can find a moment to speak, what happened when I went to visit him one day at his home. I still wonder about that till this day. Maybe in chat sometime?
Happy holidays!
I detest my loose style and my libertine sentiments. I thank God, who has removed from my eyes the veil... Adrian Beverland
I never bought that non-mor.mons were somehow evil, and that included ex-mor.mons. One of the huge red flags for me growing up (which made it so hard to believe in the church) was the implicit idea that Mormons were somehow special. That was never my experience; some of the most interesting, kind, and giving people I'd ever met never had anything to do with the church.
I suppose I always had the perspective that mor.mons were the weird ones (which is to say, the kinds of people I didn't want to be). I started to call nonmembers "normal." So when I left the church, all that mattered to me was to be normal too. And I have to admit; it gave me great pleasure that I pissed off mor.mons with my apostasy (I was a teenager, after all).
I was never influenced by that tribe to treat nonmembers as suspect. The tribe didn't have what I wanted, which was to not be goofy strange, so I guess I just never really cared what they thought.
God belief is for people who don't want to live life on the universe's terms.
I have some fun correspondence between McMurrin and Nibley which McMurrin gave me one day while I was speaking with him in his office. If you desire to add it to your files, let me know. I will scan it and send it off to you.
I also have a talk he gave while still working at the Institute on the Atonement that is really good.
Anyway, let me know. I may also tell you, if we can find a moment to speak, what happened when I went to visit him one day at his home. I still wonder about that till this day. Maybe in chat sometime?
Happy holidays!
Oh YES!
I am kicking myself for not getting to know him better when I had the chance. I've become enamored with a whole host of Mormon/Utah writers and intellectuals of the 30's, 40's, and 50's lately. It's an amazing legacy and I'm sure entirely obscure to most of today's Mormons.
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."
'My initial feelings about apostates and doubters' is very interesting and candid OP. My apostate cred is beyond question, has been for more than 2 decades now. I barely remember the first time that I thought I was openly communicating with apostates, much less considered myself one.
I find amusing my TBM friends and family that treat me like the leper that I must be. They feel the need to interact with me, as if their charitable duty, but you can see the horror look in their eyes--'don't get too close, it might be contagious.'
I imagine in my eyes they perceive a soulless devil, one who lives out their private fantasies and is debased because of it. They keep their distance, while extending their invitations. What's more amusing is that it is so easy to discern, without the HG or a burning bosom mind you, which ones are only going through the motions and admire the courage of the open apostate.
Former bishop bcspace, that's the look in about 3:1 of the eyes of 'TBM's that I encounter. I dare say tithing receipts are rather low at the COB these days.
asbestosman wrote:Ultimately I think people are fine hanging around former Mormons so long as the former Mormon does not try to mock or destroy the faith of others and does not break commandments in your presence.
Even as a current Mormon with unorthodox ideas, I think it would be inappropriate of me to share those ideas or information that runs contrary to legend outside of a proper forum on which to do so. People should be unmolested in their beliefs. That said, I would never think we as Mormons should be demanding of nonbelievers around us to be constrained in their normal habits which are not normally constrained by society. When in Starbucks, let them have coffee (but not unhealthy cigarettes).
My personal feeling is that all are inexorably on their own spiritual path whether they realize it or not. Hopefully that will be of some use for Zeezrom.
Blixa wrote:I am kicking myself for not getting to know him better when I had the chance. I've become enamored with a whole host of Mormon/Utah writers and intellectuals of the 30's, 40's, and 50's lately. It's an amazing legacy and I'm sure entirely obscure to most of today's Mormons.
Can you imagine how exciting it would have been to attend those weekly discussions in the Student Union building at the U back when? It would certainly beat the meatloaf baking lessons down at BYU.