This seems to be almost a variant on Pascal’s wager. Everyone agrees that it would be bad to believe in something false … but just think about how worth that risk it would be if you happen to be right. Another pointer to the Christian symbolism in the book is a very clear description of the concept of the trinity (suitably altered to fit the religions of the series):<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have come to see that each power has three aspects: a physical one, which can be seen in the creations made by Ruin and Preservation; a spiritual one in the unseen energy that permeates all of the world; and a cognitive one in the minds which controlled that energy.<\/p>
There is more to this. Much more that even I do not yet comprehend.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
There are even some LDS specific references. The most obvious one is that the only way to transport truth safely is if you write it on metal plates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was such an obvious reference to Joseph Smith finding the Book of Mormon on metal plates that I overlooked it for almost the entire series. Another is that the main obligator in book three (I again forgot to write the page down to quote it exactly) says something like, “Why choose to worship a dead God when a living one is right in front of you.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I took this to be a reference to the idea that Mormons believe there are currently living prophets, yet other Christians choose to ignore these and listen to the long-dead and outdated prophets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyway, there is so, so much more I could go on about as these books were just jam-packed full of Biblical topos. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The thing I found so odd about the Mistborn<\/em> trilogy is that if we take these parallels seriously, then the only way I can see to interpret them is as arguments against Christianity. <\/p>\n\n\n\nMy blog is “A Mind for Madness” and it has been five years, so maybe I’m finally going crazy but why would an LDS member write something so contrary to what he believes?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I recently finished reading Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy. Sometimes I wonder what is wrong with me. Why can’t I just read a book and enjoy it for once? Instead, I became obsessed with the religious symbolism of the books and what they meant. My theories distracted me. Partway through the last book, I got annoyed … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/amindformadness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/sanderson-mistborn.jpg?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10828"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10828"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11455,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10828\/revisions\/11455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}