It took about two months
to copy The Mormons, doing a few pages each day or so during the
summer of this year 2002. I enjoyed the task, I love books, especially
old books, and it delights me to copy a nice book like this that I was
so pleased to acquire and make it freely available. I have plenty
of other books it would be nice to do the same with, but there are other
things I am occupied with having just launched my web site a couple of
weeks ago and feeling the urge to add more ideas to it. The original
document seemed too large for one web page so I have quickly sort natural
breaks to split it into four, there is no real thinking behind the divisions
and really the four constitute one whole without any natural breaks.
I got the idea
to copy a book from a web site The Gutenberg Project that makes
copies of books in the public domain, that is over seventy five years old,
freely available. I would have to do a far better job than they did
with a team of volunteers, and I had no intention of destroying the book
in the process! So what book was it to be? I knew I had the
right one immediately I thought of it and it occurred to me this was a
great opportunity to use this book as the basis for the case study of the
evolution of a religious entity. This book was a kind of naturalist's
record of how Mormonism came into being by way of the biology of corporate
physiology, it was the first historical account of this religion, and the
first ever historical account of the origins of any religion I imagine.
Had we such an account of Christian origins how different would the history
of Christianity of been? Perhaps not too much, Mormonism is alive
and kicking, but then it is merely a form of Christianity.
As the job progressed
I was naturally stimulated to make comments on what I read from the point
of view I wished to address in making this effort, and so I created the
document here. I have not looked at it since I wrote it, I fear I
may of engaged in some loose expression that I allowed myself to indulge
in as part of the creative process when I did not think I was going to
present this work to the public as it was, I thought I was making notes.
But I think I half realised things might not quite go that way and now
I have uploaded the entire book I just do not want to bother reading my
commentary on it because my attention is drawn to other things. But
without directing your thoughts to the idea of this book as a case study
it can only be either a fine work for the religious, God forbid, or an
interesting work for those who like social history. And I cannot
have that, so I am going to dump this document on my web site with the
same kind of precaution I offered when presenting The Nail. This
is in the raw, seen by none other than myself and not reviewed or edited
even by me. I would like any readers therefore to consider themselves
to be in some sense my proof readers and to let the ideas here act as a
guide to my thinking intended to guide your thinking. This is not
a refined document or a careful statement of my views, it is creative and
intended to inspire a new way of looking at life.
Therefore,
having so warned you, it is up to you if you choose to read on and I accept
no responsibility for any expressions that may cause offence by error.
Causing offence is no concern to me at all in principle, but I agree with
the concept of distinguishing between gratuitous offence caused irresponsibly
and, far worse offence, caused purely for the sake of causing offence.
But distinguishing between the various interpretations of offence opens
can of worms if ever anything did.
Enjoy.
