Do your homework and start reading!
Yeah, well funny you should mentioned that because as far as Mormonism and its origins goes I have done my homework and its history is a horror show of credulity and chicanery.
To take someone's "sacred texts" as "historical" ignores the very function of these texts which is to propagate belief systems and not historical facts. Also, as I've already mentioned, many if not most events recorded in "sacred texts" aren't mentioned anywhere else and are difficult or impossible to verify as having actually occurred.
Like much of what we see and hear about in the area of UFO and alien abduction phenomena, presuming that "sincerity" or "genuineness" on the part of proponents or authors of a sacred text equates with a true understanding of what has been experienced is dangerous and perhaps even foolish.
It can be argued that many sacred texts seem to point to one thing: The existence of a
reality beyond the one human being's casually experience. Science has shown this to us as well without the symbolic and psychological trappings. Don't misunderstand me, I don't discount sacred texts as worthless, there is a great deal of human wisdom as well as a great deal of human foolishness contained within them. I've been reading the Tao de Ching more recently and one of my favorite passages from it goes, "Not-knowing is true knowledge. Presuming to know is a disease." I understand that I actually "know" very little if nothing at all. Today's certain knowledge could be tomorrows discarded theory. Perhaps ancient texts do contain some real history in them but the ones I have examined didn't (that my apelike brain could tell) or it was lost in the translation from one culture to another.
One last thing, I do honestly think that if you want to see how religions and their texts are formed and propagated you should study modern religions like Scientology, Mormonism, or Billy Meirism (whatever they call it). I think the pattern shines through pretty strongly. "Scared texts" are manufactured in some way and then taught as "truth" no matter how outrageous or illogical. As the information is cast out there it will find those who readily accept it and those who don't. Those accepting it create a snow-ball effect where new believers are attracted by the number of people believing it. The New Testament contains a couple of parables describing this in fact. The new religions follow the pattern of the old ones. The old ones only seem to have some validity because of centuries of refinement and acceptance by other human beings. That's my thinking, take it or leave it. That and $2.20 will get you a large coffee at Starbucks.
---------- Post added at 01:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:13 PM ----------
One thing about this show (which was an excellent show) that struck me was Salisbury implying that Vallee was in the country actively investigating some paranormal activity. I hope you guys quizzed about that for the upcoming show.
show was excellent and shows science still has great individuals who are not scared to have a open mind investigating the paranormal and maybe a suggestion a guest science host?
