/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15274364]

>Beautiful day in the Rocky Mountains today
>Wake up and kiss my wife and kids, we bless this beautiful day together
>Take a stroll through the woods nearby, clear my mind
>Study the Book of Mormon and contemplate its teachings with the pleasant scent of my frankincense and myrrh on my patio

Feel blessed today, /lit/? What books are inspiring you today?

[Anonymous No.15274373]

>>15274364
>mormon
>a single wife
Choose one LARPer

[Anonymous No.15274398]

Where do I start with Mormonism? Is there any theological nuance to it? Do people convert to Mormonism the way they often convert to Catholicism or Orthodox, out of genuine theological interest? Or is it mostly restricted to the Mormon ethnos?

[Anonymous No.15274400]

>>15274364
> wake up, take a shower, dress in my larpy dull military clothes, same as always
> 20 min walk, taking the long path through the woods, serbian turbofolk in my earphones
> sit through the mass
> afterwards, kiss the priest like it's the first time
> drug-amplified schizophrenia making it even more special
> kurwa mac

[Anonymous No.15274412]

>>15274373
based

[Anonymous No.15275708]

>>15274398
Read No Man Knows my History by Fawn Brodie. It's not a perfect or unbiased history but it's good enough to start off. After that it depends on what you want to learn about. The LDS church today basically doesn't really care about theology or having any kind of rigor but there are people like Ogden Kraut who try to make an internally consistent theology and praxis. You can read his works free here: http://ogdenkraut.com/?page_id=30

Mainsteam mormonism is pretty fucking dull, honestly. It's a social club. You couldn't walk into an LDS church and just start talking to people about Kolob or the Curse of Cain doctrine or anything controversial like that. Most of them don't even know about Adam-God doctrine, or how Brigham Young and Joseph Smith differed on theology, if you can call it that. The average mormon has probably never even read the King Follett sermon (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1971/04/the-king-follett-sermon?lang=eng)), which establishes that god was once a mortal man. All the "wacky" stuff in the LDS church history is really fascinating, especially when you start following the works of people that broke off from the main church.

[Anonymous No.15275730]

>>15275708
Here's a copy of No Man Knows my History https://archive.org/details/NoManKnowsMyHistory/page/n7/mode/2up

I think understanding who Joseph Smith was and the kind of life he led, and gaining some insight into his motivations and desires, is critical to understanding the really juicy stuff in LDS history and theology.

[Anonymous No.15275739]

>>15275708
Fascinating, thanks for the effortpost anon. I'll look into all these.

Do you think the wacky stuff has merit as well? Is it more mundane/praxis-oriented as well, or are there earnest attempts at some kind of philosophical christology? I am really interested in semi-heretical Christian speculations on god-manhood and I had no idea Mormons had a streak of this.

[Anonymous No.15275786]

>>15275739
>Do you think the wacky stuff has merit as well?
I can't give you a very good answer. What I can say with certainty is that I think it's really fun to read about. It's almost like syncretism in how it lifts ideas from Freemasonry, Kabbalah, and whatever else Joseph Smith was reading or learning about at the time. There is a very deep rabbit hole to plunge into in trying to sort LDS theology and how it has changed into some kind of consistent system. I know more about LDS history than probably 80% of LDS members but even I have barely even scratched the surface. You can attend sacrament meeting and sunday school and all that shit your whole life and never really encounter anything that isn't in the old and new testaments + the American adventures of Jesus Christ, which is really not even that exciting.

Regarding your other questions, I can't give you very good answers either. My interest in the LDS church has been personal and not very thorough. I have a very "swiss cheese" knowledge of their theology and history. Eternal progression and eternal family relationships are very important themes in pretty much every branch of mormon doctrine and theology. Once you get really deep into it, Jesus himself really isn't that important. He basically gets you through the door and then you are into a whole new world. Your relationship with god certainly doesn't end with Jesus. Of course, there is the eternal regression problem which goes with this but it basically is just ignored. As far as I have read.

I am somewhere in that valley of "willingness to opine on a topic as a function of how much knowledge the speaker has". I want to give you good, thorough answers but I just don't have them. There's an ocean of literature and history to read and contemplate and make connections between, mundane or otherwise, regarding praxis or doctrine or otherwise, etc.

[Anonymous No.15275831]

>>15275739
Some other good resources I just remembered:
The God Makers 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtguC5-I5EA

The God Makers 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3KkSI_fHJk

These were documentaries by Jeremiah Films made in order to "expose" the LDS church as not being "authentic Christians" (and they really aren't by any mainsteam definition) so they are very, very biased. However, they are pretty much on the money. Pretty much everything they report in these documentaries is true or distorted only minimally. The God Makers 1 is much more interesting than the second one, so if you are bored by God Makers 2, just skip it, it's not got much interesting stuff in it.

Another thing important to understand about the mormon psychology is their deeply and thoroughly felt need to be accepted by other christians. That's why the mainstream LDS church has dropped so much of their doctrine over the years. Allowing blacks to have participate in the priesthood, ending polygamy, etc is all done in order to play ball with the US government but also because they really want to be considered "real christians". It really keeps them up at night that Abraham Jedededidiah Josiah Ezekiel Johnson in Nowhereland, Kentucky doesn't think they are real christians.