Hmm. Read one chapter at a time, and therefore spread out the torment? There are resources available on the internet—pandering to Mormons—that map out a plan for reading the whole Book in one year. This has the added benefit of allowing each chapter to separately marinate in your mind, that you can decide for each individual one how it contributes to your worldview and/or your confidence level in the Book.
Find a friend to read and discuss it with? A Mormon friend would be easier to find, but would likely view the situation in a light that you’d be uncomfortable (annoyed?) with. A non-Mormon friend would be harder to find, but would be able to discuss the text with you in an areligious context. Ideally you’d want a Bayesian.
Which leads me to an idea which terrifies me: Why not make this an online thing? Day-by-day, or perhaps week-by-week, post (somewhere, not necessarily on Less Wrong, so as to not clutter the site; though perhaps Less Wrong would actually be the ideal locale, due to familiarity, extant population, etc?) a chapter of the Book of Mormon and allow discussion of it, separately from the rest of the Book, using terms common to Rationalists.
What do you think?
EDIT: My terror at this idea, I just realized, is evidence that it’s a good one, from a selfish perspective. This would be the strongest possible test of my belief system. xP
Hmm. Read one chapter at a time, and therefore spread out the torment? There are resources available on the internet—pandering to Mormons—that map out a plan for reading the whole Book in one year. This has the added benefit of allowing each chapter to separately marinate in your mind, that you can decide for each individual one how it contributes to your worldview and/or your confidence level in the Book.
Find a friend to read and discuss it with? A Mormon friend would be easier to find, but would likely view the situation in a light that you’d be uncomfortable (annoyed?) with. A non-Mormon friend would be harder to find, but would be able to discuss the text with you in an areligious context. Ideally you’d want a Bayesian.
Which leads me to an idea which terrifies me: Why not make this an online thing? Day-by-day, or perhaps week-by-week, post (somewhere, not necessarily on Less Wrong, so as to not clutter the site; though perhaps Less Wrong would actually be the ideal locale, due to familiarity, extant population, etc?) a chapter of the Book of Mormon and allow discussion of it, separately from the rest of the Book, using terms common to Rationalists.
What do you think?
EDIT: My terror at this idea, I just realized, is evidence that it’s a good one, from a selfish perspective. This would be the strongest possible test of my belief system. xP