On May 24, 2005, at 11:05 AM, Dave Land wrote:
On May 24, 2005, at 10:47 AM, Warren Ockrassa wrote:
On May 24, 2005, at 10:07 AM, Dave Land wrote:
I think Mr. Card's main point was that Mormonism (as well as, I
suppose,
Islam, Christianity, et al) was at least intended to be taken
seriously
as a religion by Jos. Smith, while Jedism is just another sci-fi plot
device gone horribly, horribly wrong.
Um, well, how seriously it was meant to be taken is also in doubt, or
I
think it is anyway. I half suspect it was meant as seriously as
Scientology, FWIW.
Right after I decided that I wasn't going to choose my relationship
with
God based on my feelings for a cute blonde from New Jersey, I went
through
a fairly strong anti-Mormon period. I was kind of an ass, really. I
recall
seeing some suggestions that Joseph Smith's writings were more or less
science fiction, and that some others decided to turn it into a
religion,
but I had largely discounted it as just so much more Mormon-bashing.
That wasn't exactly what I was thinking of -- Harlan Ellison has stated
that he was around when Hubbard first came up with the idea of
Scientology, that the man wanted to come up with an SF-based church as
a kind of joke-cum-social experiment. Ellison apparently kept waiting
for the shoe to drop. It didn't. Hubbard either got sucked into his own
theology or became so enamored of the money and power that he refused
to admit the lie. Years later he stuck by his religion, for whatever
that might be worth.
My thinking is that Smith -- if he wasn't just fantasy prone and
charismatic enough to convince others to follow along -- did something
somewhat similar, inventing a religion, then loving the power of it. Of
course he was shot, which might suggest he wasn't actually planning
things to happen as they did, which might indicate it's the first
explanation that's more likely.
(I know there's another explanation, of course. I don't buy that one
either, even though it made perfect sense to me when I was twelve.)
Anyway, your pot-kettle comparison is apt. If Mr. Card was the Right
Rev.
Orson Scott Card of the Foursquare Gospel Church of the Five-Syllable
Je-hee-huh-sus-uh or Father Orson at Our Lady of Perpetual Emotion,
your
comments would be equally on the mark. It was in that spirit that I
rushed to the defense of Mr. Card's particular shade of Pink Unicorns
-- as a God-guy myself, I'm not in a position to ridicule others'
faiths.
Oh, he can have his unicorns, that's fine. Anyone can. It's when those
unicorns start trying to gnaw my patch of sward that I get huffy, or of
course when someone says someone else's unicorns is tha' wrong culla.
--
Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books
http://books.nightwares.com/
Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror"
http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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