"'The Avantists are particularly hard on [the Mormon] church. The claim is that its premises are antiscientific, but the truth is that its congregations object loudly to the molding of posthuman man.'" (p. 154)
Of course Mormonism is not scientific but will society be scientifically educated by a regime that denounces churches as "antiscientific" any more than by churches that denounce alternative worldviews as "heretical"?
Mormonism is an American frontier rewrite of Christianity so does it have some affinity with the American sf idea of an interstellar frontier? Maybe. Poul Anderson says it better than me:
"I hope my Mormon friends won't mind my saying that their church, like our country, has a grand science fiction flavor about it. That ecclesiastical division into stakes and wards is pure Heinlein, isn't it? And so, by the way, is the raw courage with which their pioneers entered the wilderness."
-Poul Anderson, "The Discovery of the Past" IN Anderson, Past Times (New York, 1984), pp. 182-206 AT p. 199.
5 comments:
Mormonism is to Christianity roughly as Islam is -- that is, it incorporates it but at the same time makes it something quite different. It's not really monotheistic, just for starters -- it's a sort of "strive and succeed", Horatio Alger vision of the supernatural, where you can become God, pretty much.
"Peculiar doctrines."
Mormon missionaries listen if you speak to them. Maybe it is their chance to hear something different. They might learn a lot during their missionary period.
They told me to ask God in the name of his Son for the truth about religious matters so I did.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: I agree. I don't consider the LDS Church to be even heretical Christians. Not when their doctrines so flatly contradict Nicene/Chalcedonian Christian orthodoxy. And the fact Mormons believe they can become gods is simply absurd.
Paul: Mormon missionaries are polite? Well, that's good of course.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: they are polite. Mormons in general tend to have a higher degree of general courtesy and rule-abidingness that other Americans of similar background, for a complex of historical reasons.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And that is good, of course, no matter what we might think of their beliefs. That "niceness" of Mormons does expose them to mockery by some, unfortunately.
Ad astra! Sean
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