The Ancients

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_guy sajer
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Post by _guy sajer »

Fortigurn wrote:
harmony wrote:Why would you assume that the ancients I refered to were the ancient Jews?


I didn't. My answer applies to the ancient Eastern sages, the Native Americans, and the ancient Muslims. The key is the belief that the ancients were in connection with God in a way we are not.

What can ancient man tell modern man, that modern man needs to rely on the ancients for their wisdom?


A huge amount, from where I'm standing. Like 'How to raise a family without one parent running off with someone else, the kids being left to fend for themselves and becoming crack addicts, and the remaining parent indulging themselves while the kids run amok'. A few things like that. Like how to raise kids which don't shoot other kids in the face, or grow up to be serial stabbists. I think that's an important lesson modern man still hasn't mastered.

How about how to raise kids which treat teachers with respect? Who don't drift away from school and spend their lives under bridges sniffing glue? How to teach girls to respect their bodies instead of dragging them into anorexia and bulimia? How to create a society in which people aren't afraid of helping someone, in case they get hit, mugged, or sued?

How about how to grow food without destroying the soil you're using? Allegedly ignorant 'savages' managed that for 40,000 years. We somehow lost the knack after the industrial revolution. How about not soiling the water you're going to be drinking? Dogs know that, but apparently we don't. How about preserving wildlife and natural environments even if we think they don't have any intrinsic value, instead of almost wiping them out and then frantically scrabbling to preserve them when we realise we've just ruined the local ecosystem, and now crops are failing through an imbalance of natural pests, the water table has dropped 20 feet, the top soil has blown away because we knocked all the trees down, and local people are choking with respiratory diseases as a result of huge soot deposits caused by massive slash and burn operations?

Here's another good one, how to teach people that other people are more important than money. That enslaving thousands of native people in your offshore factories making US$300 shoes for US$.50 a day is unethical? That safety regulations should be obeyed even if it costs your company a lot of money? That corporate fraud is actually wrong, not 'creative accounting'? That people below a certain socio-economic status are not disposable, and that those suffering from debilitating mental illness should not be simply dumped in the streets just because the government doesn't want to spend money on healthcare?

Where do I start? Where do I stop? Modern Western society is such a mess of morally depraved, ethically deranged, selfish, snivelling misfits, that I wonder if there's any other society from any era which doesn't have something to teach us?

[quote]

Yes despite it all, I would argue that society today (at least Western Society) is far more "moral" that at any time in history, if one judges morality by respect for human rights, human freedoms, and human dignity.

Society is far from perfect; there exist many moral outrages big and small, but at the very least, we possess a moral framework in which to understand and judge these acts, and we are open to increasing moral understanding and development.

The ancients do have much to teach us about human experience, but little about human morality. Our understanding of the moral universe has increased geometrically since the ancient days making much of what ancient holy books have to tell us about morality quite irrelevant.

Fort, I seem to note in you a bit of nostalgia for the good old days when life was simpler, people lived in small, close knit communities, and society was governed by good old fashioned morals (I’ve perhaps misread you). You are highly critical of modern times, yet appear to have a critical blind spot for the halcyon days of yore.

Life in the traditional community had its advantages, but it also had its disadvantages, as does modern society. I think it perfectly acceptable to criticize the failings of modern society (which are legion), but in doing so, it helps to keep in mind, to quote the song, “the good old days weren’t always so good.”
God . . . "who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, . . . and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him ..."
_Yoda

Post by _Yoda »

Gazelam wrote:
Coggins7 wrote:
Why do we place such importance on the writings of the ancients? What do they have to say that could possibly have relevance to life today? Why does it matter what people who have been dead for thousands of years believed about anything, let alone God or a Savior or how weather patterns worked?

Why are ancient philosophers more important than the philosophers of today?





Nothing...nothing you have ever said tells me more about who you really are than this.



Loran



What baffles me is that she sits in the foyer of the temple contemplateing these things while her husband is going through ordinances for the dead.


Did you guys ever think that maybe she was simply posing this question as a catalyst for interesting discussion?

Why the snap judgement?
_Runtu
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Post by _Runtu »

The key is the belief that the ancients were in connection with God in a way we are not.


I agree with you, Guy. For me, it's healthier to view the ancients as part of a rich history of interwoven experience, so their perspective is valuable and enlightening. But when we assume that our relationship with the divine is lesser than theirs (or those of certain folks in the Intermountain West), we downplay our own spirituality and begin to believe that we need others to act as intermediaries between us and God.
_harmony
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Post by _harmony »

SatanWasSetUp wrote:I agree with your main point, Harmony. However, it is important to study the knowledge gained by our ancestors and build upon it. Ancient astronomers thought the sun rotated around the Earth. Obviously they were wrong about that, but we don't throw out all the knowledge they gained. We build upon it. Our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will learn from our successes and our mistakes.


Agreed.

As for religion, they also learn from the mistakes of their ancestors. The modern Mormon church has jettisoned many of the doctrines that Joseph Smith and Brigham Young implemented.


No, they just hide them more carefully now. Very little that Joseph and Brigham taught is actually gone.

They learned from their successes and from their mistakes. Polygamy is gone.


Not really. Sec 132 is still in the canon, and as long as it's in the canon, polygamy is alive and well.

The emphasis is now on the traditional American family of a one mom, one dad, and children.


Unless the mom dies, then it's two moms sealed to one dad and assorted children.

Churches like to claim that they follow scriptures, but every religion picks and chooses which things to follow, and which to ignore.


I can think of several in the quad I've like the church to officially ignore.

It's not a bad idea to learn from our ancestors, take the good things and ingore the bad. The biggest problem is when we take the words of our ancient ancestors as the inerrant gospel truth. That's when we stop learning.


That's what I don't understand. We say our prophets today are only speaking as prophets occasionally, not with every word that comes out of their mouths. Yet we take what is written about the ancients as if they spoke only as prophets, never as men, just because their words (maybe) were written down on a papyrus or a metal plate and buried.
_harmony
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Post by _harmony »

Coggins7 wrote:
Why do we place such importance on the writings of the ancients? What do they have to say that could possibly have relevance to life today? Why does it matter what people who have been dead for thousands of years believed about anything, let alone God or a Savior or how weather patterns worked?

Why are ancient philosophers more important than the philosophers of today?





Nothing...nothing you have ever said tells me more about who you really are than this.



Loran


Either get in the discussion or get off the thread, Loran. Your personal attacks are not welcome on this thread.
_harmony
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Post by _harmony »

Fortigurn wrote:
harmony wrote:Why would you assume that the ancients I refered to were the ancient Jews?


I didn't. My answer applies to the ancient Eastern sages, the Native Americans, and the ancient Muslims. The key is the belief that the ancients were in connection with God in a way we are not.

What can ancient man tell modern man, that modern man needs to rely on the ancients for their wisdom?


A huge amount, from where I'm standing. Like 'How to raise a family without one parent running off with someone else, the kids being left to fend for themselves and becoming crack addicts, and the remaining parent indulging themselves while the kids run amok'. A few things like that. Like how to raise kids which don't shoot other kids in the face, or grow up to be serial stabbists. I think that's an important lesson modern man still hasn't mastered.

How about how to raise kids which treat teachers with respect? Who don't drift away from school and spend their lives under bridges sniffing glue? How to teach girls to respect their bodies instead of dragging them into anorexia and bulimia? How to create a society in which people aren't afraid of helping someone, in case they get hit, mugged, or sued?

How about how to grow food without destroying the soil you're using? Allegedly ignorant 'savages' managed that for 40,000 years. We somehow lost the knack after the industrial revolution. How about not soiling the water you're going to be drinking? Dogs know that, but apparently we don't. How about preserving wildlife and natural environments even if we think they don't have any intrinsic value, instead of almost wiping them out and then frantically scrabbling to preserve them when we realise we've just ruined the local ecosystem, and now crops are failing through an imbalance of natural pests, the water table has dropped 20 feet, the top soil has blown away because we knocked all the trees down, and local people are choking with respiratory diseases as a result of huge soot deposits caused by massive slash and burn operations?

Here's another good one, how to teach people that other people are more important than money. That enslaving thousands of native people in your offshore factories making US$300 shoes for US$.50 a day is unethical? That safety regulations should be obeyed even if it costs your company a lot of money? That corporate fraud is actually wrong, not 'creative accounting'? That people below a certain socio-economic status are not disposable, and that those suffering from debilitating mental illness should not be simply dumped in the streets just because the government doesn't want to spend money on healthcare?

Where do I start? Where do I stop? Modern Western society is such a mess of morally depraved, ethically deranged, selfish, snivelling misfits, that I wonder if there's any other society from any era which doesn't have something to teach us?


No one ever asks the people who have actually accomplished these things. If you want to know how to raise children who reach adulthood without ever going to jail, skipping school, doing drugs, getting drunk, engaging in reckless sexual activity, wearing $300 shoes, wrecking the environment, or any other anti-social activity, ask someone who's done it.

We have a similiar situation where I work. We are a very large division of a national non-profit. Utah is one of our states. In Utah, we have a revolving door, actually more like a spinning door that tosses out employees right, left, and center. We have a terrible track record with employees in Utah. Our upper management doesn't understand Utah's dominant culture and keeps trying to approach the good citizens of Utah like they approach the citizens of other states. That won't work in Utah. Until they ask someone who knows the dominant culture in Utah, they are never going to solve their staffing problems. But they don't ask, so we continue to lose staff.
_harmony
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Post by _harmony »

guy sajer wrote:Yes despite it all, I would argue that society today (at least Western Society) is far more "moral" that at any time in history, if one judges morality by respect for human rights, human freedoms, and human dignity.

Society is far from perfect; there exist many moral outrages big and small, but at the very least, we possess a moral framework in which to understand and judge these acts, and we are open to increasing moral understanding and development.

The ancients do have much to teach us about human experience, but little about human morality.


That last sentence was very profound. I'll have to contemplate that a while, before I comment.
_harmony
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Post by _harmony »

Runtu wrote: But when we assume that our relationship with the divine is lesser than theirs (or those of certain folks in the Intermountain West), we downplay our own spirituality and begin to believe that we need others to act as intermediaries between us and God.


That is what I was getting at, Runtu. Thank you. When we assume that the ancients knew more about the divien or were closer to the divine than we are, we give away something of ourselves. And why would we do that?
_Yoda

Post by _Yoda »

Harmony wrote:When we assume that the ancients knew more about the divien or were closer to the divine than we are, we give away something of ourselves. And why would we do that?


So maybe the best way to approach reading the scriptures and other writings from ancient authors is to place these experiences in perspective. Take from them what can help us today, but still have confidence in our own ability to commune with God on behalf of ourselves and our family.

This seems to me, to be the core of what the gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is suppose to be teaching. Unfortunately, over the years, we have become caught up in practicing the "letter of the law" and focussing on "how things appear" to others.

In many ways, we suffer from the same ignorance the followers of the Law of Moses suffered. They refused to accept the new law of Christ because it messed up their idea of record keeping...their idea of keeping score on how close they were to reaching salvation. They couldn't see the forest through the trees.

Look at all of the documentation the Church is caught up in today. Do you see any similarities?

;)
_SatanWasSetUp
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Post by _SatanWasSetUp »

liz3564 wrote:
Gazelam wrote:
Coggins7 wrote:
Why do we place such importance on the writings of the ancients? What do they have to say that could possibly have relevance to life today? Why does it matter what people who have been dead for thousands of years believed about anything, let alone God or a Savior or how weather patterns worked?

Why are ancient philosophers more important than the philosophers of today?





Nothing...nothing you have ever said tells me more about who you really are than this.



Loran



What baffles me is that she sits in the foyer of the temple contemplateing these things while her husband is going through ordinances for the dead.


Did you guys ever think that maybe she was simply posing this question as a catalyst for interesting discussion?

Why the snap judgement?


Why the snap judgment? Is this a trick question? Because they're TBMs, or course. One of the main jobs of being a TBM is to judge others.
"We of this Church do not rely on any man-made statement concerning the nature of Deity. Our knowledge comes directly from the personal experience of Joseph Smith." - Gordon B. Hinckley

"It's wrong to criticize leaders of the Mormon Church even if the criticism is true." - Dallin H. Oaks
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