"If only they knew the deep and all abiding weirdness that lurks under the surface of much of Mormon culture." --Eric Samuelson, AML List, September 25, 2002
I just now got to reading the beginning of the Pratt thread, and I ran across this sentence in Samuelson's post. I love it. Most Latter-day Saints cannot imagine how weird the LDS doctrines are to an outsider. Buying into it requires a major paradigm shift. The reason that Mormons don't talk like the rest of the world is because they don't think like the rest of the world. From the perspective of the typical, traditional Christian, Mormonism is truly bizarre. God is a man? You've got to be kidding. There are people just like us on other planets? Surely you jest. Even thought I am merely an intelligent animal I am going to become a god? Weird. Life before birth? Where did that come from? A drug induced dream? What do you mean, "God lives on a planet near Kolob?" Just the thought that the Father and the Son appeared to a 14 year old farm boy in the early 19th century on the American frontier is utterly... fantastical, something that only the most imaginative SF writer could come up with. And yet, the investigator is left with only two options. Either it is true. Or it is false. And those few who can make the leap in deciding it is true, will never look at the world the same again. Everything is changed for them. They have bought into something... major, unthinkable, beyond wonder. Mormons are as unlike traditional Christians as the SLC temple is unlike anything else you ever saw on this earth. It is alien. It couldn't possibly have started here. It is too strange. When we say that we a peculiar people we should capitalize the word Peculiar. Some may like to think we are just like everyone else, but we most definitely are not. I think we need to remember how strange we really are, and luxuriate in it basking in the life giving light of that strangeness. "For the LORD shall rise up as [in] mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as [in] the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act." (Isaiah 28:21) John W. Redelfs [EMAIL PROTECTED] ********************************************************************* For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high [places]. (Ephesians 6:12) ********************************************************************* "All my opinions are tentative pending further data." --JWR ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// /// ZION LIST CHARTER: Please read it at /// /// http://www.zionsbest.com/charter.html /// ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?aaP9AU.bWix1n Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
