Category: scriptures

Is the Truth Really Found “Within”?

Bryce Haymond5 Comments

Some Mormons, other Christians, and perhaps people generally, are uncomfortable with the idea that the truth is found within us. They might consider this to be incompatible with the gospel, navel-gazing, narcissism, and selfishness. But I think the whole purpose and goal of the Christian gospel, and of spirituality more generally, is to help us discover that Truth is at the core of our being, which is our divine nature in God, in Reality. This is beyond all that is "selfish" in us, reaching the ground of who and what we really are.

Resurrecting the Resurrection in Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris

Bryce Haymond4 Comments

I listened to a conversation between Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris in Vancouver on June 23, 2018, where Harris asked this seemingly simple question (which had been previously asked of Peterson): "Was Jesus literally resurrected?" Peterson said it would take him 40 hours to answer that question. Harris offered his own succinct answer: "Almost certainly not."

The "Hidden Treasure" of God in Mormonism and Buddhism

Bryce HaymondLeave a comment

In my paper "The Book of Mormon as Literary Alchemy: Joseph’s Magnum Opus and the Philosopher’s Stone," I suggested that the "gold plates" that Joseph Smith had in his possession were not actually made of gold, and did not actually contain ancient historical records like Mormons traditionally think. But that doesn't mean that there were not "gold plates" which were a kind of "hidden treasure" that Joseph really did discover within himself, which was the source of real divine wisdom, "ancient wisdom," and which he taught could be found within all people as well.

Four Types or Stages of Resurrection

Bryce HaymondLeave a comment

It seems to me that there are at least four types of resurrection, or at least four stages of the process of being resurrected, or events that could be considered resurrection.

Does Seeing God Cause Death to the Person?

Bryce HaymondLeave a comment

Many ancient texts, including the Bible, note that seeing God brings death to the person. But then we also read of some who claim they saw God and lived to tell about it. What's going on? Which is it?

Margaret Barker on the Radical Original Understanding of Resurrection

Bryce HaymondLeave a comment

The Methodist biblical scholar, Margaret Barker, wrote a book published in 1996 titled The Risen Lord in which she proposed that "the original understanding of resurrection may in fact be Jesus’ mystical experience at his baptism, when he was raised up and transformed into the divine Son."

The Evolution of Ego in the Allegory of Adam & Eve

Bryce Haymond5 Comments

I think the nature of the development of the ego-self in our consciousness, both in the evolution of humanity at large, and within each of us in our childhood, is what is being symbolized in the mythology of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic story of the Garden of Eden and Adam & Eve.