Scriptures of Ten Tribes Found in Barn Loft Saturday

[_Blixa]

Just out of curiosity, how do you look at mythology? What definition or understanding do you have?

I'm not all that skilled in literature, etymology or languages and recently I've read a rather eye opening explanation of 'myth' that seemed infinitely more useful than its common conception among my 20 ish year old peers.

I ask because it never occurred to me that my understanding of the word was so limited. Would be nice to be on the same page because the OP is very interesting.

quaker could you say more about this? I'm curious what you read and why it differs from the 'commonsense' meaning.

[_Blixa]

Ok...I need to have a talk with you guys because this passage is important to some of my own work...

Sounds interesting. Please feel free to PM me any time!

It will take me a while. I'm trying to get back into my book project because I have to distill a portion of it for a conference this summer. The passage I quoted to you hangs over my head though, it's something that has haunted me for a long time.

[_mfbukowski]

There are those, like Rorty who see everything linguistically uttered from science to poetry as a vocabulary- as a way of speaking, nothing more nothing less.

In this sense all language use is a "myth" and some of these language uses may be more or less useful for a given task.

There are stories in the Bible for instance with moral themes- myths - did they "actually happen"? It is impossible to say and actually somewhat irrelevant- their function is to teach moral principles.

I personally believe they "did happen"- whatever that means, but certainly those words reflect a scenario I see as possible. I take that on faith and testimony.

Similarly the Book of Mormon for me is a similar set of stories which are highly useful to enable me to live better and make better sense of my life- to enable me to "organize a world" which is what humans do. We organize worlds our of our surroundings both in a mental sense- a vocabulary or world-view, and physically by building houses etc.

I see this as what it means for God to be human- is God inside me? In a sense- yes. So the story of God being human is very resonant with my larger philosophical understanding of how each of use organize worlds

But when one sees all as myth- as metaphor and poetry- including science- your world changes irrevocably. Is light a particle or a wave? Is Pluto a planet? Is taxonomy about anything but the way we see animals?

One begins to see the world as a place very much created- organized- by human minds.

So are stories of Zeus much different than stories of Noah? For me, not at all. But for me what defines me is the path that I believe God- my unconscious? who knows?- does it matter? -is it knowable?- has revealed for me, and I will follow it.

Now I know someone will turn this into a cartoon and say "ha ha- Bukowski thinks God is a myth! That's not what the church teaches!"

That person has no clue what I am talking about. It is larger than they can comprehend.

But it seems that no one wants to talk to me- but I wanted to say that.

[_MCB]

God the Father is so infinite that we have difficulty understanding Him. When we attempt to understand Him by applying our limited understanding of ourselves to Him, we act as gods, and blaspheme Him. That is why he sent His Son, fully human yet fully Divine to earth to teach us. When we can see Him suffering on the Cross, we can understand that He fully understands when we suffer.

Through identification with Jesus and His Suffering, we can become more like Him, and draw closer to God the Father.

If the Greeks saw the Jewish God as superior to their own anthropomorphized ones, can't you also find a better God than the Mormon one?

[Guest]

If the Greeks saw the Jewish God as superior to their own anthropomorphized ones, can't you also find a better God than the Mormon one?

God is the highest and best you can imagine. There IS no one "better". That is certainly what I mean by God.

If you don't like what you think the "Mormon God" is, make up your own.

He won't mind.

Edit: Not only is He the best we can imagine- if you need Him to be higher than that- into the realm of mystery- (and I think we all do in fact need that) that is precisely where He is. After all, it is you who are organizing your world, create it as you like.

[_MCB]

If you don't like what you think the "Mormon God" is, make up your own.

He won't mind.

Joseph Smith and friends made up their own, because they refused to accept the Judaeo-Christian one. All because of some supposed apostasy of the early church. No, the early church fathers tossed the speculative teachings of people like Joseph Smith and friends.

The consequences of such actions will happen in due time.

The sorting process, to us, was refinement. To you, it was apostasy. If we never agree, so be it.

[_mfbukowski]

If you don't like what you think the "Mormon God" is, make up your own.

He won't mind.

Joseph Smith and friends made up their own, because they refused to accept the Judaeo-Christian one. All because of some supposed apostasy of the early church. No, the early church fathers tossed the speculative teachings of people like Joseph Smith and friends.

The consequences of such actions will take course in due time.

The sorting process, to us, was refinement. To you, it was apostasy.

It was apostasy because it became Platonic. Plato killed off the gods.

It no longer saw the link between humanity and God and made Him less than human- some ideal "form" which cannot possibly exist, some abstract entity, some vague cloud of imagined "essences". He was no longer relevant to humanity and to each of us- we needed a priest selling indulgences- a middleman- to achieve union with Him. He was something "out there" beyond my personal subjective experience, someone I as a human could not possibly know or understand; He was after all a "mystery".

The loss of what you call "anthropomorphism" makes God irrelevant instead of an image of what an ideal human Father- and Mother- can and should be- or may, on faith, after an eternity or two, actually become.

That "story"- that way of seeing God- as an exalted human- is infinitely more powerful as an image to spur us to become the best we can be than seeing humans as depraved and degraded worshiping an unreachable Form of Perfection we cannot even really imagine.

And yet we all have a need for redemption. We have all done despicable things and have feelings of guilt we need to surrender- to give up and get rid of, and move on with life. That expresses the need for an Atonement. We cannot be the best possible beings without giving up our guilt for past mistakes, and that is the essence of the need for an Atonement.

But if you are a Platonist, just become a Catholic. Their story works for Platonists quite well.

And on Mormon theology, which is pretty Universalist, it will all work out fine in the end. Better for some than others, but hey isn't that the way life is?

[_MCB]

As I said before, I prefer not to argue over matters of belief. I can tell you what I believe, but I cannot make you believe it. And the converse.

Your post above, as always, contains some statements I agree with, and others I do not, and I refuse to go around in circles about it. I am sure you can sort them out for yourself.

[_mfbukowski]

As I said before, I prefer not to argue over matters of belief. I can tell you what I believe, but I cannot make you believe it. And the converse.

Your post above, as always, contains some statements I agree with, and others I do not, and I refuse to go around in circles about it. I am sure you can sort them out for yourself.

I think I just remembered that you are in fact Catholic.

I am sorry if I was offensive. It was and is not my intention to argue about belief either- as the saying goes God is not done with me yet, and I often come off as "half baked"- just another evidence for the need for the Atonement

Thanks for the conversation.

[_MCB]

I think I just remembered that you are in fact Catholic.

I am sorry if I was offensive. It was and is not my intention to argue about belief either- as the saying goes God is not done with me yet, and I often come off as "half baked"- just another evidence for the need for the Atonement

Thanks for the conversation.

Thanks for remembering. Calling me a Catholic is a compliment.