Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeWaters
We are a good church. We are good at organization, missionary work, and accomplishing tasks. But we are not a particularly thoughtful, philosophical church. We as a people don't produce art, and don't particularly appreciate art. We are a simple people, descended from uneducated pioneers. Ethics/Morality/Philosophy is the luxury of the gilded, not the task of the hand that plants the seeds and thrusts the sickle.
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Harold Bloom has said something like we have needed religion because we need poetry (this is an inartful paraphrase). How can a religion spiritually move if it lacks artistry? For me, it can't. Ultimately, the LDS Church has failed us aethetically. Within its heritage the old temples have the greatest claim to artistry. I assume they were created by immigrants from the old world. This is why I find American Protestantism, of which I consider Mormonism very much a part practically and culturally, unpalatable. No artistry.
I expect a religion to take ultra-conservative positions, to be behind the times. Before liberal democracy and science, religion was it. Religion generated all the codes, as well as all the poetry and art. Religion generated all the history. Religion is nothing if not rooted in the past. But a religion needs to express its archaic vision with unsurpassed eloquence and artistry. It needs to be a beautiful relic. Otherwise it's just crude and sadly unenlightened, even tawdry.