Cobalt-70 Posted April 20, 2012 Posted April 20, 2012 Why, again, do we not canonize The Jungle Book? Or, perhaps we could choose The Lord of the Rings, as it has a unifying mythology and moral examples?Simply because Kipling and Tolkein were not prophets. 1
Cobalt-70 Posted April 20, 2012 Posted April 20, 2012 (edited) Stories and examples that are fictional carry no weight in the real world, as they are not even false; just as the statement that "Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father" is true in a make-believe world of fantasy, but is not even falsein the real one. So much for the doctrines one might glean from this fantastic, anachronistic, racist tale written by a delusional backwoods farmer, which doctrines likewise are not even false; we'd have to have grounds to assert the ones we like independent of the fictional cocoon they come wrapped in, and if we could do that, what need would we have for the cocoon? Certainly we can have no grounds to view the Book of Mormon as having any traction on reality, nor any normative value in our lives, anymore than any other work of fiction.Fictional stories carry more weight in the real world than factual stories. Factual stories are boring and teach you nothing. Who wants to know what a real Native American did in his day-to-day life, circa 100 BC? It is editing, or in other words, the fictionalization of stories, that make them powerful and give them (religious) meaning. The most powerful stories are mixtures of fact and fiction, which is why politicians and advertising companies have such powerful influence. Edited April 20, 2012 by Cobalt-70
Log Posted April 20, 2012 Posted April 20, 2012 (edited) Yeah. Inception made me cry. That doesn't mean I should kill myself.And, to continue from above - what significant difference does it make who wrote the fictional story you feel like adopting for its unifying mythology and moral examples?Bluntly, is a fictional story written by a deluded "prophet" who thought he was writing an account of an actual history of an actual people somehow more valuable by virtue of having been written by this delusional "prophet" than these other stories written by men who knew they were writing fiction? Edited April 20, 2012 by Log
Deborah Posted April 20, 2012 Posted April 20, 2012 Well if you want a truly prophetic book read Atlas Shrugged. Many books are prophetic or uplifting in nature. The difference of course is that the message isn't centered on the gospel of Jesus Christ or preserved by God as was the BOM.A truly good book makes the characters real, as in LOTR. I believe Middle Earth could have existed somewhere. Yet somehow I know the difference between that great work and the Book of Mormon. It must have to do with the Spirit. I do find it telling that without the spirit the BOM is just another story of people whose lives can teach us about our own.
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