A nice new batch of aphorisms from Laeth - here's a few selected favourites:
philosophy is a superficial understanding of depths. creativity is a deep understanding of surfaces.
if your enlightenment doesn't allow you to see all the tragedy and horror that exists in the world and does not fill you with holy anger and disgust, then it's not really a light, it's just a pacifier you suck. excuse me, forgot a comma.
it's true, you didn't ask to be born. you answered.
i should have paid more attention in school. there were many times i was distracted and didn't notice how stupid it was.
mormon theology had a profound, life changing impact on me. i wouldn't go so far as to say it saved my life, but it definitely saved my creativity. so in a sense, it did something even better.
now there are only doctor disappointments and you don't even have to schedule them
Those are really excellent. Laeth seems to have taken up the mantle of Nicolás Gómez Dávila and added wit.
ReplyDelete@William - Indeed. I was personally pleased by the positive remark on Mormon theology - Laeth seems to be the only person other than myself to have been smitten in this way!
ReplyDeletehttps://treesandtriads.substack.com/p/by-the-waters-of-mormon-an-open-letter
@William,
ReplyDeletethat is a very flattering comparison. or perhaps unflattering to poor Nicolás! :D
@Bruce,
You will be pleased to know that a good friend of mine and avid reader of the romantic christian blogs has also been smitten in the same way and with the same intensity. I don't talk much about it anymore, but every once in a while I reflect on how deeply mormon theology affected me, probably forever - and I have you to thank for that.
thank you both!
Dr. Charlton - I'm always somewhat taken aback by the vehemence with which so many mainstream Christians denounce Mormonism. What are they so afraid of?
ReplyDelete@Stephen - Well, I distinguish Mormonism (i.e. the metaphysics and theology) from the Mormon church and its focus on issues of doctrine, church-order and lifestyle - i.e. the CJCLDS...
ReplyDeleteWhich has recently embarked on a top-down process of self-destruction (i.e. convergence with leftist totalitarianism) including repudiating some 180 years of their history by (virtually overnight!) making usage of the word "Mormon" a faux pas, almost a taboo.
But all this would probably make Mormons more acceptable to more mainstream Christians.
I think the fundamental reason why mainstream Christians denounce Mormonism so vehemently is discussed in my mini-book:
http://theoreticalmormon.blogspot.com/
It relates to a very deep and fundamental flaw in the conception of Christianity that goes right back to the early church fathers. For whatever reason, Christianity has become conceptualized *within" a set of philosophical assumptions that are pre-Christian (ie pagan) and also detachable from Christianity as described in the Bible.
Joseph Smith initially made a religion based on a fresh/ naïve reading of the Bible - without these framing assumptions, and the innumerable later accretions.
It was some while later that he discovered/ created a qualitatively different - indeed philosophically unprecedented - metaphysical basis for a Christianity that was not much different, on the surface, from other kinds.
It is this deep structure of radically original metaphysical assumptions that the mainstream hates.