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Roy wrote:
I just watched this movie and came back here to re-read the comments.
I guess my problem is if the animal story was intentional embellishment or not. I am perfectly ok with Pi having delusions, visions, and nervous breakdowns so that the animal story was his actual experience. I would also be ok if he was somewhat confused and remembered parts of both stories (the animal story and the murder and cannibalism one) as disjointed flashbacks. But the older Pi seemed to be able to put his narrative together so cleanly and with so many details and then when challenged he is also able to deliver a very clear alternate explanation of events.
And so it is for me with JS. I need to believe that his experiences (as mystical, visionary, and hard to describe as they may have been) were genuine. If someone confronted JS about the incredible nature of his first vision account and he suddenly gave an alternate account as to how he one day decided to start a new religion – and then he asked which was the better story… I’d be upset.
Indeed. I create all these rationalisations for why Mormonism is still something other than a fraud. But I keep coming back to that last answer. Maybe well intentioned, but ultimately invented.
I believe everything in life is “invented” to one degree or another. Everything passes through our mortal filters in one way or another. Period. The issue is not the invention but the intention – and whether or not it really was a “fraud”. I just don’t see it as a fraud. I believe Joseph believed what he taught – and SO much of it still blows my mind in a very real way. Other parts, not so much – but the theology still stirs my soul.
Honestly I don’t think Joseph Smith knew or understood everything he had. Like Ray I think that he hit on a huge, beautiful idea about our individual relationships with God. I think he was inspired and wrote inspired things, but I also think he might have attributed things to the wrong places (BoA and papyrii for example…) I also have no problem accepting that whatever happened in the grove grew in grandiosity as time went on. We all tell fish stories. But no matter how big the fish in the story is it doesn’t take away from the fact that you caught a fish.
That fish Joseph caught was that we can all receive personal revelation, that the heavens were open, and oddly-enough, going to church wasn’t all that important.
The fact that the story has changed and grown and whatever might obscure the truth of what actually happened. But that doesn’t change the fact that great truths were revealed at that point in time. It’s just that we’ve all been taught in church about how perfect JS was and sing praises to him and put him right up there next to Jesus. Except that he was nowhere close to Jesus. He was soooo far from perfect.
As for the Life of Pi, I really like the book. So much more introspective spirituality that the movie that inspired me to start this thread. I still feel that whichever story is true, the lesson to be learned is the same. It’s just that one story is horrifying and the other makes an exciting movie. And even if the story with the animals was completely made up, it doesn’t change the fact that Pi survived one heck of an ordeal. The true story of his will to survive is at the core of it either way. And either way we learn about the good and bad of human nature. It’s basically all a huge metaphor for Pi’s internal struggle with his animal side. I already view plenty of scriptures as nothing more than metaphors and parables.
Jesus taught in parables all the time. Was the story of the good Samaritan real? Does it make the parable untrue if he didn’t? No, the lesson to be learned would be the same whether it really happened or not.
With the church, I think I have a hard time discounting all of it just because stories have changed. I guess it’s that, for me, at the core of mormonism are still the truths about my relationship with God. Other religions might have less crap surrounding their core, but is that core ultimately something I find more valuable to me than the core of mormonism? Well, if it was then I might be on another board besides StayLDS.
Not to say changing stories aren’t annoying. They are…But they just demonstrate even more how important it is to figure it out for yourself.
Old-Timer wrote:The issue is not the invention but the
intention– and whether or not it really was a “fraud”. I just don’t see it as a fraud. I believe Joseph believed what he taught. Ray has hit upon the heart of it for me. JS didn’t merely tell interesting stories containing moral nuggets. He used the world created by these stories to inspire people to do make all sorts of sacrifices (some of which were made for the benefit of JS).
I’m ok with JS lying sometimes. I can accept if he was just making stuff up about Zelph the white Lamanite, or if the plates were seen only by his spiritual eyes, or if Moroni was a metaphor for his desire to commune with God – but for me there must be sincerity at the core. For me there must be an actual mystical experience at the beginning (First Vision?) that seems to justify any and all means that Joseph might invent in a sincere attempt to bring his followers into similar commune with God (Wayfarer might term such inventions “Pious Fraud”). For me there is enough evidence that Joseph (though flawed) was sincere in his core to keep me fighting the good StayLDS fight.
With Pi the stakes of deciding the truth of his claims are much lower but the center of my exasperations is similar – what was his intent?
I also took it that Richard Parker was Pi himself. Is there another interpretation? In essence it is saying that the invented story is necessary at heart because Pi could not accept the darkness within himself, the ability to commit murder, even though it was under duress. And whenever it says “invented story” we can substitute the word “religion.” Ergo, religion is invented because we individually need to frame and control our savagery. mackay11 wrote:A couple of interesting quotes from the author:
Just as there are different ways of feeding the body, there are different ways of feeding the soul. Each religion is one group of people’s attempt to understand ultimate reality. I think in each one there is a portion of truth and a portion of error. So I see in all great religions the same frame of being, only seen from a different perspective
http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=124838 I really like that quote, I’ve been thinking about it the last few days. I saw the movie, but haven’t read the book. I liked that it was about religion, that isn’t so common for a movie theme. And not only that, but for the main point to be about faith and deciding what you believe, and choosing to believe something that is far fetched if that is where one gets his or her meaning. Lots of interesting ideas. It’s different for me to think this way, since I am usually drawn to facts and truth with evidence.
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