<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<p> Dave :<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:eb0485db-5ffe-4ae6-8ffe-0d64324d01f3@www.fastmail.com">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">Very cool questions.
One of my best friends teaches Theology at the University of St. Thomas, a solidly Catholic institution where I also taught. He is a overt atheist — except in the classroom — and I once asked him if his atheism came naturally or was developed. His reply, "I earned it with six years of graduate study in theology."
His answer coupled with my own experiences, suggest that your two types of person are right on, especially type 2. In many cases, it is only by immersion that you can gain the knowledge and perspective to see past the superficial to some kind of "inner meaning."
For example: "Mormon apotheosis"— not even much of a 'thing' anymore in the contemporary church, but a big deal in Joseph's and Brigham's day. You engage with the actual theological/philosophical texts it rapidly becomes clear that "becoming God or God-like" is not the point of the teaching. "Life-long learning," "self-mastery," "individual responsibility," and "live in the now" are the essence of the teaching. All of the quotes because the labels are only partially correct. </pre>
</blockquote>
<p><begin threadSplatter></p>
Tangential question: What is your observation of the state of the
common Christian or more aptly the common Mormon, and maybe even the
common Mormon in rural Utah (as opposed to those in the
Logan-SLC-Provo mothership-strip or the St.George/LasVegas banana
belt area)? And how all that convolves with Trump populism? You
have opined on how Trump somehow broke the Evangelical chokehold on
the Republican Party (I still haven't been able to resolve those
opine-ions against my own observations)... <br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:eb0485db-5ffe-4ae6-8ffe-0d64324d01f3@www.fastmail.com">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">The point is, only by immersion does it become possible that aspiring to godhood is irrelevant.</pre>
</blockquote>
Reminds me acutely of an unattributed(able?) Buddhist phrase I
like: "The only difference between before and after enlightenment:
after enlightenment, you realize you have always been
enlightened"... <br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:eb0485db-5ffe-4ae6-8ffe-0d64324d01f3@www.fastmail.com">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">More interesting perhaps, is study of Hermetic philosophies - famous for their "hidden in plain sight, deep Truths." Take that stuff at face value and you miss insights that were and are important in modern science, e.g. Newtons ideas.. I am reading three books about the C.G. Jung and Wolfgang Pauli correspondence on synchronicity, that are far more 'meaningful' given other readings in both quantum mechanics and hermetic (alchemical) philosophies.</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>Your reference had me reach spasmodically to my bookshelf to
remind myself of what you might be speaking. Alas, as with my
Franklin biography, I have a copy of the Hull translation of
Jung/Pauli "Interpretation of Nature and Psyche" SOMEWHERE, but
not where I reached. I think I may even have sent you a picture
of the spine of this (w/o a jacket cover) shelved with related
books a few years ago to make some point or another. I'm now
wishing for (someone else to create or find for me) a tool to
OCR/recognize books/titles/authors/editions by a bookshelf full of
spines photograph. I would think bookstore pickers would already
have something like that to find uber-deals in independent/used
stores "automagically"...? For me, just to repair
(augment/replace?) my faulty associative memory that has been
(weakly) overwritten too many times.<br>
</p>
<p align="center"><img
src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1234600696l/6254817.jpg"
alt="6254817"></p>
<p align="left"><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:eb0485db-5ffe-4ae6-8ffe-0d64324d01f3@www.fastmail.com">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">"The truth is out there," and it is always more interesting, more complex, and more problematic that the "choir singers" naive beliefs.</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>In the spirit of my never-ending tangents: I call this "the
choir singing to itself"...</p>
<p>ThreadSplatteringFullyYours,<br>
</p>
<p> - SteveS<br>
</p>
<br>
</body>
</html>