Western Civilization's apostasy from deep insights into existence through human eyes was great. It was a return to a darkness of ignorance and it might be a pattern of the world. A human pattern that repeats itself. We might reach a critical mass of humanity and fracture ourselves back into an apostasy from the possibilities of the human mind played out in human culture.

We might have to trade Google for a much smaller number of information at human hands in our future.

And looking at Mormonism with this perspective it seems to me to be not a restoration of some fantasy righteousness in humanity's past but a gasp from the darkness of ignorance reaching out in another form to combat human potential.

I was raised to believe it was wonderful and marvelous and now I realize it was more like just the desire to believe past ages were better, more enlightened, and had more truth.

The irony here is that the Mormon narrative doesn't support this from an enlightenment perspective. It supports a hearkening back to a dark age and thinking it was full of light and truth.

Who here wants to go back to a time of chariots? The Book of Mormon is fiction with only "curious workmanship" and no computers. It goes back to fictional great works of "cement" yet no skyscrapers.

It recreates a time of little information for fictional millions and adds a patina of prophets to make up for it.

It is going backwards and calling to progress. That is an aspect of Mormonism more than any other belief system involving the Hebrew Messiah Jesus.

Despite the advances of 200 years it has captured religious folk beliefs, Masonic necromancy, and a human "prophet" information path to the heavens and placed these things as paramount in human existence.

Interesting. A little too much sermonizing for me.

I find it ironic that and Jesus believing system doesn't really have much to say about advancements in human life and living. Mormonism tries to be the only one that I know of in tying their restoration to Post-Enlightenment advances in human knowledge and know how.

I think many Mormon scientists, industrialists, and engineers think their religion supports their efforts to advance human science and understanding.

Funny thing is that now it is by the machines and genetic engineering "man doeth eat" more than the sweat of his brow because trying to feed the world today the way humans were fed in Joseph Smith's days would mean 100s of millions of people wouldn't exist today.

When morality is more important than mortality to a human, it is a slippery slope down to darkness. In Mormonism (and others) you can please your god just as easy living a pre-Enlightenment, pre-Modern way as any other. Just ask The Amish. They might claim you can please a Christian god better that way.

The "Restored Gospel" is such a fallacy and fabrication. The early Church after Christ's death was fragmented, scattered and in the process of developing new doctrines and codes of conduct apart from the Jewish law.

IOW, there was nothing to restore because the early Church was in a state of flux, even confusion.

The "Restored Gospel" is nothing more than a promotional sound byte and marketing cliche.

No Rest(oration) Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> IOW, there was nothing to restore because the
> early Church was in a state of flux, even
> confusion.

Obviously because Mormonism can attempt to sell Campbellite Protestantism in their Book of Mormon alongside Free Masonic Eden drama for the dead as what Jesus himself organized in Palestine thousands of years ago.

<<...the desire to believe past ages were better, more enlightened, and had more truth.>>

I think the whole the-past-was-better thing is rooted in our memories of infancy and early childhood, before we were old enough to understand the reality of life and had to deal with shit. Life was good and easy and then it sucked. It became the paradise lost, the fall of humanity, something to be saved from. It's reality's failure to live up to our infantile delusions. What we really want — consciously or not — is to go back to the womb.

Interesting thought. Eden as a woman's womb invaded by a snake.

I have to admit that childhood was great. Not a worry in the world. However, I have never looked back at any past age with jealousy. I think I like my modern tech too much.

You can't blame Joseph. Every huckster needs something to huck. Brigham became Utah's Caesar by re-packaging it and doing whatever it took to defeat his enemies. The BoM was debunked almost as soon as it came out. It continued to be debunked for the next 150 years. The BoA has been definitively shown to not be a translation of any sort, nor to be historically plausible. Either the modern church is in a state of denial or they are pushing a scam. More than likely, it's denial. If your religion needs denial and obfuscation to survive, it's a cult. They're not apostles, they're cult leaders.