I recently finished Brandon Sanderson’s first Mistborn trilogy -The Final Empire through Heroes of Ages – and loved all three books. They’re incredible works of storytelling and some of the best fantasy out there. Sanderson is easily one of the best fantasy writers alive. He is also a devout Latter-day Saint. As I was reading his books again and again I kept coming across ways that Mormonism influenced his writing in crucial ways, but was shocked to find so little online exploring these influences. This article is my attempt to demonstrate some of the major ways that LDS scripture, history, theology, and culture deeply influence Sanderson’s writing and appear in these books.
Tag: religion
That Time When Brigham Young Absolutely Demolished Young Earth Creationism
In writing my last two articles refuting some erroneous ideas and false doctrines about the creation and age of the Earth, I cam across a rather fantastic address by President Brigham Young from 1871. In it he teaches that there is no antagonism between science and religion. This is especially true for “Mormonism” as our faith embraces all truth from wherever it comes as part of it. Science and religion are both ways that God makes known the truths that He wants His children to know. His specific comments on the Creation and Age of the Earth do a great deal to dismiss the idea that the Earth is only 7,000 years old and that it was created in six literal days. This address will be enlightening to everyone who reads it.
The Insidious Ways That Governments Use Propaganda To Control You
Over the last year I have written repeatedly on the different ways that governments utilize propaganda to manipulate the public into obeying those in power even when such obedience violates the individual’s basic humanity, his or her basic human rights. Yet, I am still left me lacking an explanation for how propaganda is used to manufacture the consent of the masses to taking part in a system that is built to profit the very few rich and powerful political and corporate leaders at the top at the cost of all the rest of us.
I couldn’t understand why people have fetishized democracy as if merely having a system of elections would protect people from those in power while ignoring the ideals and values that make democracy anything other than the choosing of a new dictator every four to six years. I could not understand how something like the Deep State/Double Government could develop in the most fervently democratic age in human history.
That changed once I was exposed to the book Propaganda by Edward Bernays. An experienced propagandist himself, having produced propaganda for the US government during World War I, Bernays literally wrote a book about how the government uses propaganda in times of peace to “engineer the consent” of the masses and to secure their obedience to those in power.
In this article I delve into his book and pull out some choice excerpts that can helps us to understand the ways that the masses are indoctrinated with government propaganda without realizing it, how the government uses propaganda to manipulate and control the masses, and what we can do about it. This one is an eye-opener for everyone, no matter what your political or religious beliefs.
The Origins of The God-State
There are many historical works on the rise of the modern State and the origins of its power. Many of them trace the development of the modern state from the end of the Medieval all the way up through the present day, drawing attention to how particular national and global crises – mostly wars and economic collapses – have resulted in the growth of the power of the centralized state as a solution to these problems.
As with all history, understanding these facts is very important to understanding how we got to where we are today. But in answering how they all too often neglect the why things are the way they are today.
Why is it that people have turned to the State for temporal and material salvation?
Why is it that men and women lavish religious levels of adoration and faith upon the State and its operatives?
Why is it that people have given it so much power?
What about humans and the way we think has convinced us, seemingly en masse, to turn to the State for salvation?
Using the writings of eminent psychologist Dr. Carl Jung, I try here to answer these questions; I answer not how the God-State came to be, but why humans have created the God-State in the first place.
Why The Governments of Men Are the Enemies of God
A few weeks back I wrote an article based on the writings of Dr. Carl Jung and his insights into the way that the very nature of human psychology makes the slide of the State , no matter how minimal or minarchist, into oligarchy and autocracy inevitable. This week I continue to use Dr. Jung’s observations and insights into the human psyche in order to explain why the above described operation of the State sets it at opposition to religion, to explain why religion and the State are always enemies to one another and why the State always seeks to control, corrupt, or eliminate religion. Dr. Jung explores how the State operates as religion in the lives of the people, promising salvation in the material world in exchange for the people surrendering their individuality and liberty to the politicians who run the State. Religion provides the ability of the people to have morality outside of the power of the State to control and therefore provides a challenge to the authority of the State which it cannot allow.
The Religious Nature of the Political Right
A few weeks back I wrote an exploration of the religious nature of the political Left, exploring the ways that Leftist ideology acts as a religion within the lives of Leftists themselves. Today’s article is about the religious nature of the political Right and about the ways that right wing ideology acts as the religious beliefs of Rightists. Unlike many people, who make the easily understood and common mistake of equating the religion of the political Right with some aberrant form of Christianity, I have relied upon the works of Dr. Carlton J.H. Hayes, an eminent historian who pioneered the historical study of Nationalism, to study the true religion of the political Right and the impact it has in the lives of Rightists. In doing so I also dig into what it means to be on the political Right in terms of conservatism, traditionalism, and nationalism, seeking to reach the true taproot of the political Right, that set of beliefs which defines it even when all its other ideas shift and change over time. Here I believe I have hit on the definitive truth of not only what motivates right wing politics but what also drives the faith of Rightists in their ideology and what motivates them to try and remake the world in its image.
The Religious Nature of the Political Left
Having just finished thoroughly discussing the ways that governments use secularized versions of religious symbolism and ritual to manipulate the public and generate a sense of loyalty and obedience to it from among the masses, I thought it worthwhile to explore how the different partisan denominations of the politics -the “Left” and the “Right”- function as secular religions as well. The value in this is in explaining why people adhere to their different political beliefs and parties even when all logic, science, and morality demonstrate the inherent flaws, errors, and failings of those political beliefs to either reflect reality or to reform reality and create the outcomes their adherents promise if people would but live them. In this article I address this in terms of the Left, exploring how and why Leftist beliefs act as religious dogmas in the lives of Leftists.