[FRIAM] Splatter was: the racist woo peddler

[Prof David West]

Trump has problems with Mormons in general. Romney's antipathy to trump epitomizes the "Mormon on the street."

Nevertheless, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Eastern Oregon, Western Montana, and Western Colorado where you will find large if not majority Mormon populations will vote decisively Republican.

Note, I said Republican, not Trump.

If you would like a long treatise on why this is the case, I would be happy to send directly and not inflict on rest of list. One key, but likely surprising to "outsiders," element is a very self conscious separation of church and state (with one or two exceptions like gay marriage) among both the populace and the church leadership.

davew


On Thu, Aug 20, 2020, at 2:54 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
>  Dave :

>> 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. 
> <begin threadSplatter>

> 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)...  
> 
>> The point is, only by immersion does it become possible that aspiring to godhood is irrelevant.
> 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"...
> 
>> 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.
> 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.

> 6254817

> 

>> "The truth is out there," and it is always more interesting, more complex, and more problematic that the "choir singers" naive beliefs.
> In the spirit of my never-ending tangents:  I call this "the choir singing to itself"...

> ThreadSplatteringFullyYours,

>     - SteveS

> 
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