A reader writes:
When it comes to the delusion of one religion versus another, I’m usually loathe to compare the experiences of Christ’s resurrection, Mohammed’s ascention on a white horse, Moses’ burning bush with the experiences of Mormon’s "Christ in America" or Scientology’s doctrine. Why? Well, the former all happened and were chronicled long before the age of reason. The latter have been dreamed up only in recent history, and personnally I’m willing to cut some slack to the stories of antiquity which were written and passed down by societies that have not benefitted from the age of reason.
I’m not an atheist, but I’m also one who tends to take many of the stories found in the bible with a grain of salt. The wonderous details of the stories are, in my opinion, subject to some doubt after being passed through so many centuries by fallible human hands. What’s more important to me is the overall lessons that these stories hold, not the supernatural details within those stories. I feel I can attribute some of that to the authors and realize that those people did not live in the 21st century, but their message is still compelling. This is not so easy for me to do with these "latter day" religions.
This assumes that revelation ended in pre-modernity. But why should that be so? For God, our sense of time is meaningless. I think evidence of a serious scam in the founding of a religion is more pertinent. And on this, critics of Mormonism may be onto something. But I also thnk that a faith should be judged by the actions and life-choices of the people who follow it. Whatever people say is their faith is less pertinent to me than how they act according to their faith. And many, many Mormons seem to me to be exemplary Christians in the way they lead their lives in many ways.
(P.S. My apologies for the delay in my response to Sam Harris’s recent post. I’m over-worked right now – just finished a long review of Dinesh D’Souza’s remarkable book – and don’t want to rush it. Patience, please.)
The Dish 