One more passing comment that may be interesting to think. I was raised Mormon, which most people know about in passing or a more or less whole. I left the church years ago, it not good. Joseph Smith was a free mason, and the book he wrote, albeit very interesting for wisdom and it talks about some really high concept stuff about what happens to civilizations throughout time (though no evidence of these civilizations are really proven except for a known forgery that one prophet mistook as real called the Kinderhook plates) but I digress.
The point I wanted to make was that the study of humans and the rises and falls of societies is almost scientific. You see the warning signs along the way. When the populous starts to be so prosperous, it becomes corrupt within it's government. When it does that the government makes the people immoral. Once you lose morals, the wars, the corruption, the downfall of their society is brought to them. They go more into the politics of kings and leaders and all that, the Book of Mormon has a lot of stuff between nations and people but I would not have traded away my experience knowing the stories because they are laden with wisdom, even if the stories aren't true the wisdom prevails.
I mention this for two fold, one Joseph Smith being a free mason, may have done something on the radical end, almost revealing some sort of inner knowledge of view/scope of how to view government and society, which is what a secret society would have had a warm welcome with. The second, because the leadership now is corrupt as most religious leadership is now a days, and the abuse of the religion has perpetuated problems that religion has always exploited by evil people, the abuse of children by having a religious figure insert themselves and cause mayhem if they so choose.
Do I think that other religions piggyback off of others, sure. I think they are all trying to describe the same thing. That's what I think makes everything look and feel true in most religions. I think the powers that we try to connect to probably exist, and it's other beings from other dimensions or "beyond the vale" or what have you. This insider knowledge is hard to grasp, define, and share which is why they let wisdom do the talking. Here's what we know, we shall prove it right over time. This is where I would be looking to religion is these end times basically. Not because I need to flock to faith in fear, but because we are growing more desperate and our convictions are holding stronger than in a time where we were mostly "ok". But we may be moving again toward the age of miracles, because we are gonna need more than ever after the dust settles from whatever it is that's been happening to the world the last decade or so.
Interesting. I've heard some things about the Mormon hierarchy and those admitted to temples that definitely goes with what you say. I also don't doubt that a mason would externalize some of their teaching, as they do tend to do that in a encoded way usually, and there does seem to be layers of initiation within the Mormon hierarchy itself.
That cycle is interesting, isn't it? Happened to Ghengis Khan, all throughout the Israelite days of old, Rome, etc ... Now we see it firsthand. Hopefully it turns out better for us than it has for some of the others. In order for that to be the case we will definitely need to enter an age of miracles.
One more passing comment that may be interesting to think. I was raised Mormon, which most people know about in passing or a more or less whole. I left the church years ago, it not good. Joseph Smith was a free mason, and the book he wrote, albeit very interesting for wisdom and it talks about some really high concept stuff about what happens to civilizations throughout time (though no evidence of these civilizations are really proven except for a known forgery that one prophet mistook as real called the Kinderhook plates) but I digress.
The point I wanted to make was that the study of humans and the rises and falls of societies is almost scientific. You see the warning signs along the way. When the populous starts to be so prosperous, it becomes corrupt within it's government. When it does that the government makes the people immoral. Once you lose morals, the wars, the corruption, the downfall of their society is brought to them. They go more into the politics of kings and leaders and all that, the Book of Mormon has a lot of stuff between nations and people but I would not have traded away my experience knowing the stories because they are laden with wisdom, even if the stories aren't true the wisdom prevails.
I mention this for two fold, one Joseph Smith being a free mason, may have done something on the radical end, almost revealing some sort of inner knowledge of view/scope of how to view government and society, which is what a secret society would have had a warm welcome with. The second, because the leadership now is corrupt as most religious leadership is now a days, and the abuse of the religion has perpetuated problems that religion has always exploited by evil people, the abuse of children by having a religious figure insert themselves and cause mayhem if they so choose.
Do I think that other religions piggyback off of others, sure. I think they are all trying to describe the same thing. That's what I think makes everything look and feel true in most religions. I think the powers that we try to connect to probably exist, and it's other beings from other dimensions or "beyond the vale" or what have you. This insider knowledge is hard to grasp, define, and share which is why they let wisdom do the talking. Here's what we know, we shall prove it right over time. This is where I would be looking to religion is these end times basically. Not because I need to flock to faith in fear, but because we are growing more desperate and our convictions are holding stronger than in a time where we were mostly "ok". But we may be moving again toward the age of miracles, because we are gonna need more than ever after the dust settles from whatever it is that's been happening to the world the last decade or so.
Interesting. I've heard some things about the Mormon hierarchy and those admitted to temples that definitely goes with what you say. I also don't doubt that a mason would externalize some of their teaching, as they do tend to do that in a encoded way usually, and there does seem to be layers of initiation within the Mormon hierarchy itself.
That cycle is interesting, isn't it? Happened to Ghengis Khan, all throughout the Israelite days of old, Rome, etc ... Now we see it firsthand. Hopefully it turns out better for us than it has for some of the others. In order for that to be the case we will definitely need to enter an age of miracles.