Consider the book Elantris again, and the description of the curse in it that is the foundation for the novel (i.e., a fair-skinned race turned dark and loathsome by a divine curse, and a city whose very walls were transformed in color from white to black to visibly mark the city's descent from purity into corruption), in light of this:
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2 Nephi 5:21-23:
"And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them."
"And thus saith the Lord God: I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people, save they shall repent of their iniquities."
"And cursed shall be the seed of him that mixeth with their seed; for they shall be cursed even with the same cursing. And the Lord spake it, and it was done."
"And because of their cursing which was upon them they did become an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety, and did seek in the wilderness for beasts of prey."
2 Nephi 30:6:
"...their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white and a delightsome people."
3 Nephi 2:15:
"And their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites."
The above was the basis for the Mormon church refusing to ordain blacks as ministers until after the year 1978, at which time the leaders of the Mormon church received a new "revelation" that God had apparently changed his mind about blacks, and they weren't spiritually inferior to whites after all (this change of heart was rather convenient for the extremely wealthy Mormon faith, as the IRS had been threatening to revoke its tax-exempt status because of the faith's racist teachings and practices).
I believe Sanderson's internal struggle with these passages and past practices of his church is revealed in Elantris. I am heartened by Sanderson's portrayal of the character Galladon in Elantris, a heroic character who was also a black man.
Skeptic,
I wonder why you hate Mormonism so much. As an anti-dote to what you've said, I've provided a bit of perspective on some of your statements (no, you don't know much about Mormonism, and you've made some pretty serious mistakes). I've run out of time to write more, so the following might come off a bit abrupt, but as far as I know, I haven't made any factual errors.
Firstly, the Book of Mormon curse. Yeah, you really don't know what you're talking about here. With the most literal reading of the Book of Mormon possible, the curse being described therein is placed on the Lamanites, which in most readings became the American Indians. It actually has no connection to the alleged curse of Cain that banned black people from holding the Priesthood in the Mormon church (that bit of theology was actually lifted whole and uninspected from the Protestant culture of the time). The only possible connection that the statements you quote could have would be with a ban on American Indians holding the priesthood, and as far as I know, that didn't exist. Quite the opposite. American Indians were actively proselyted. These "cursed" people were promptly and very quickly declared to be among the most blessed, if they would accept the gospel.
The less literal connections with racism are much more likely, but the Book of Mormon actually provides no basis for any such racism in practice. The people cursed with the curse in the Book of Mormon are, within the context of the book itself, entirely free to accept the Gospel, get baptized, receive the priesthood (Samuel the Lamanite for those of you who have any idea what I'm talking about), become members in full fellowship, and be saved. When they are so converted, the Book of Mormon also claims that they become more righteous than those who were not cursed. It does mention that in one particular interest, one group that converted became white, but this is the exception rather than the rule; in all other known cases, nothing changes but their behavior. Yet they are still considered righteous.
No, the Blacks and the Priesthood is another issue entirely. The connections to LDS scripture are weak.
Your connection with Scientology is pernicious and displays your ignorance, as well as your zealotry. The connection is ridiculously obscure. The notion of a pre-existence for all humans has floated around in various (admittedly non-mainstream) forms for a long time. That two groups have this in common (and completely different, essentially unrelated forms of it, I might add) is a worthless ad-hominen. You are trading off hate and distrust for one group with hate and distrust for another.
Let me frame this another way, and put the shoe on the other foot, so to speak.
There's a Muslim sci-fi book out there entitled Mosque Among the Stars.
http://ahmedakhan.livejournal.com/18904.html
Looks interesting; beautiful cover. I'd pick it up and give it a look-see if I encountered it in a bookstore. Although I have no pressing desire to learn anything more about the Mormon faith, I think it is urgent we better understand the Muslim faith. In a way, I'd be more comfortable with the religious underpinnings of this book than Elantris or Warbreaker since there'd be no attempt to disguise them.
But what if, prior to reading the book, you learned that the editors / authors Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmed & Ahmed Khan supported the 9/11 attacks as the righteous judgment of Allah delivered upon the wicked and/or regarded Osama bin Ladin as a hero? Would you be available to divorce yourself from this knowledge as you read the book, even if nothing of the sort was directly stated in the book?
(This is a purely hypothetical example. I expect these two gentlemen, both Muslims, hold no such beliefs regarding 9/11.)
You also, I note, use the example of Islam. Apparently, you would rather read a book by a Muslim than a Mormon. With a Muslim, you actually apparently would take some time to find out how they actually feel about the individual issues before judging the book. Mormons get no such slack; we are apparently so heinous by nature that any taint of the beliefs in original works by a new author kill the work. (And I see nothing actually heinous in the doctrines you actually get right; weird is not the same as bad; otherwise the universe is inherently evil, being quantum mechanical and relativistic).
I found it interesting that your complaints focused almost entirely on doctrine. Why? Why do you particularly care which "wrong doctrines" he believes? Surely the belief in God is sufficient to make all religions equally bad? (Incidentally, human theosis is something you should probably not want to cite evangelicals on if you are an atheist bashing Mormonism. The worst infighting, BTW, is usually between religions, but the reasons are often obscure and usually irrelevant to outsiders. What do you care about what we think happens well after this life? We don't think we are going to become gods in any way, shape or form while alive, and so the impact on practical morality, which is surely all you should care about, is almost nil. It certainly distinguishes us from, say, Calvinism, but what do you care? Also note that Brandon's conception of human gods is rather different from the mainstream Mormon one. The humans called gods in his works, even the shards, fall far short of the Mormon view of divinity.)
Oh, BTW, if this is how you respond, you probably want to avoid Orson Scott Card as well. He's a brilliant author, but his Mormonism shows through pretty darn clearly as well, if you know how to look.
So what's this have to do with Brandon Sanderson? Among other things, he's writing the last book in the Wheel of Time series. Although I thought the quality of Robert Jordan's books declined as the series grew longer in tooth, the first few are dear to my heart and precious to me. And an appropriate conclusion to Robert Jordan's life work is important to me. I don't want to find myself stumbling across artifacts of Mr. Sanderson's Mormon faith when I read the last book in that series, authored by him. I don't know if he can avoid doing so, as his religious faith is clearly deeply rooted and of the unquestioning, "It's in Scripture so it's settled" variety.
Frankly I wish Mr. Sanderson had kept his personal beliefs regarding religion private, as now I may see things that aren't even there when I read his next book.
Even more frankly, you've seen things that aren't there already. Among other things, where did you see the "It's in Scripture so it's settled" variety of faith? I haven't seen it in his work, and I'm Mormon. I can only assume that you assume that it is a prime feature of Mormonism. Sorry to burst your bubble, but I would have thought that Brandon's works themselves would have disabused you of this notion. None of his characters have this attitude. Sazed most definitely does not; when he has this type of attitude, it actually leads into a worse catastrophe (Ruin). The only scriptures they have in the corpus that we actually get a look at have been tainted by an evil god and are thus wrong on key points! In fact, in his works, some religions are right and some are wrong. Worse: some are more correct than others, but all of them have human aspects not represented in the core doctrines, and not really true. This is a subtle approach to religion. Unfortunately, it isn't active atheism, so a lot of atheists don't like it. Religious people, on the other hand, find it a breath of fresh air in a world in which even much fantasy is dominated by strictly anti-religious sentiment. It also matches real-world religions much more closely.
As for how I would feel reading literature by someone who supported the 9-11 Hijackers? Well, it would make me feel uncomfortable. I might not do it. I'm much more curious what public policies, programs and institutions you think Brandon supports that would make supporting him on par with such people. You have listed nothing nearly that heinous. Sorry, but racism institutionally almost thirty years dead which he apparently doesn't agree with shouldn't cut it.
I have read many books by people whom I disagree with. Most of them were not so over the top that I wasn't able to handle it. The only one that I would actively recommend against is "The Eternity Artifact," but that's as much because it is dead boring once you strip out the uninsightful, uninformed anti-religious sophistry as it is because of the sophistry. Oh, and he had absolutely no notion of how science actually works, either. Purely gratuitous science-and-humanism vs. gratuitous religion. Whoopee.
So, in closing, I hope this is a bit of a corrective. You may mean the questions honestly, but if so, I suggest you do a different type of research when you try to get answers.
Oh, yeah. Brandon's work rocks. I hope you don't miss out on that just because you don't like his religion.
