Kishkumen wrote:mentalgymnast wrote:I find it interesting that in a 'restoration of all things' that these ideas which had been discussed were then encapsulated within the 'fullness of the gospel' framework. Yes, it is possible...and from the outside looking in... to simply shrug it off and say that there isn't any metaphysical connection and/or it's "boring". To me, however, it's these connections between the serious philosophical and even magical meanderings/searchings of Agrippa/Swedenborg and Joseph Smith's revelations that provide food for thought.
Your rhetoric is dripping with the Mormocentrism I am criticizing. What restoration of all things? Were *all things* restored? Really? Is there really a "fullness of the Gospel" in what Joseph Smith did? Can you say that Agrippa and Swedenborg did not receive revelation, whereas Joseph Smith's work is superior because it is revelation?
I think it would be more than likely that Agrippa/Swedenborg would have been primed and ready to receive revelation. It seems, at least from what I've read, that they paid the price to be susceptible/able to receive inspiration in their work. Joseph Smith may have been in the right place at the right time to receive that "stream of consciousness" that I referred to earlier.
Kishkumen wrote:Let's put aside the question of metaphysical connections and address the problem of using Mormonism as the stick whereby all else is measured. This is what is boring and meaningless.
I don't see any reason to set aside the possibilities of the metaphysical and a 'restoration' of lost/incomplete truths.
Kishkumen wrote:Again, you still see them as forerunners and you imagine that they only had a "taste of eternity," whereas (implicitly) Joseph Smith had a whole banquet of it.
It seems that God works line upon line and precept upon precept. Here a little and there a little. If Joseph Smith lived in the milieu of a "stream of consciousness" that had previously come to others, who's to say that this may not have become the 'template' that he and his associates had to work with as he/they developed/received further light and knowledge? Masonry was obviously a template that was used for temple worship/endowment. Why not "streamed consciousness" that had come down through great thinkers/philosophers?
As I've said before, Kish, I like to deal in plausibilities/possibilities. I don't like to throw them out as a consequence of having 'shot the messenger'.
mentalgymnast wrote:I look at the investigations/meanderings of great thinkers as potentially, and at least in some cases, being 'inspired' by the Great God of the Universe. Especially as those ideas pool together from one thinker to the next and rise to the top, so to speak. There is, obviously, the other side of the coin that some ideas pooled together by other 'leading lights' may lead away from religious and/or metaphysical belief.
Kishkumen wrote:Yes, potentially, but not affirmatively so as in the case of Joseph Smith, right?
The fact is, the ideas of Swedenborg/Agrippa would have remained just that. Ideas for folks to just talk about. With Joseph Smith these ideas became institutionalized within a religious community that has spread across the world. So there's something to say about the interaction/incarnation that may have occurred between Joseph and the "stream of consciousness" that had its start earlier through other folks.
Kishkumen wrote:OK, we get it. Joseph Smith is, in your eyes, the real McCoy. These other guys are forerunners, who philosophize (practically a dirty word in Mormonism) or "meander" in magic. I can't expect you to say anything different, I suppose. But it is, from my perspective, predictable, boring, and myopic.
As I look at a larger/global history and progression of cultures/religions and the myriad/types of trees and branches associated with the same, I can't help but look at the possibility that as part of His vineyard the Great God has planted truths through great minds. And that in some instances these truths become institutionalized and promulgated through religious organizations and/or other belief systems.
The LDS Church being one of those. With a certain authority/dispensation to do certain things and provide certain 'blessings'.
Different strokes for different folks...but all branches on the same tree of eternal Truth.
Along with possibility/plausibility I like to look at probabilities too. This is why I find these connections fascinating.
Regards,
MG