Mormons believe pride is not the worst sin, it is the universal sin, the sin that afflicts everyone. It is the gateway sin — the sin that fosters most other sins. Pride is also the primary source of contention, family fracture, social disunity and unhappiness. Pride is the chief obstacle to Zion.

(Because pride must compare and compete to survive, when we set aside our pride — refuse to compete or compare — we help others do the same thing. It’s a virtuous cycle.)

My favorite the past few years has definitely been Elder Oaks’ “Scripture Reading and Revelation”
http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/1995.htm/ensign%20january%201995.htm/scripture%20reading%20and%20revelation.htm

I’ve also really loved his talk “The Power to Become” which is rather relevant to several of the threads here.
http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/2000.htm/ensign%20november%202000.htm/the%20challenge%20to%20become.htm

I’d have to say that the overall essays that influenced by worldview the most would be Richard Feynman’s _Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman_.

Other’s would be Kimball’s “The False Gods We Worship” and then a talk by Elder Ashton’s I can’t seem to locate on how what appears a blessing may be a curse and vice versa.

BTW – I wonder how influenced by this essay of Lewis’ President Benson was when he gave his fantastic talk on pride.

I can’t identify a favorite C.S. Lewis essay, because his entire book The Great Divorce overshadows everything else he wrote, in my mind. To be honest, I’m not how much I agree with Lewis’s vision in that book. But it is much a powerful, comprehensive, and striking take on the whole issue of salvation, and I read it at such a crucial moment in my life (when I was about two months into the mission field), that I adore it regardless of my theological quibbles with it. I cannot help but think that, overall, it might be the truest, most important thing Lewis ever wrote.

Though, if we’re talking as Clark said about “overall essays that influenced [our] worldview,” Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origins of Inequality would have to take first place for me.

I have also enjoyed Elder McConkie’s “Open Letter to Honest Truth Seekers”, available here: http://www.geocities.com/cumorah/talks/mcc.html

Numerous others spring to mind, though for the most part they are ‘behaviour shaping’ as opposed to ‘worldview shaping’.

Finally, thanks to Lyle for reminding me of President Bensons “Cleansing the Inner Vessel” here: http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/1986.htm/ensign%20may%201986%20.htm/cleansing%20the%20inner%20vessel.htm
and “Flooding the Earth With the Book of Mormon” which really shaped my attitude towards the Book of Mormon in missionary work. http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/1988.htm/ensign%20november%201988.htm/flooding%20the%20earth%20with%20the%20book%20of%20mormon.htm

There are, of course, some really great Mormon essays–Gene England’s for instance, and I’m wondering if they haven’t been mentioned because the initial comments got us started down a fairly “official” track, or because essays (more strictly defined) don’t offer certain conclusions or obvious prescriptions, and as a group we Mormons tend to like our lessons neatly packaged. What say ye?

For my part, I’d cite Eugene England’s “Why the Church is as True as the Gospel,” Laurel Ulrich’s “Lusterware,” the Lectures on Faith (essays? sermons?), Wollstonecraft’s “Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” Mills’ “On Liberty,” Eloise Bell’s satiric “The Meeting,” Truman Madsen’s “Joseph Smith and the Sources of Divine Love” from _Four Essays on Love_ (good grief, this could go on a long time!) as central to the formation of my worldview. And, lest the clucking of orthodox tongues become deafening, I’ll note also President Kimball’s sermons on idol worship and the one on Mormon arts, Chieko Okazaki’s “Opening the Door to Christ,” and Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews.

If you held a gun to my head and made me pick just one, it would probably be “Why the Church is as True as the Gospel.”

My dad’s a physics professor. He used to read us bedtime stories from “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman” (!)

Not really an essay but more of a demonstration, but Derrida’s short work “Tympan” still is one of the most influential works of literature/philosophy I’ve read. (It’s definitely a work that’s hard to pin into a category)

As for Kristine’s technical point about essays, I don’t know if I can think of any essays that fit that category. I must admit that the best conference talks to me do raise more questions than answers. But perhaps they are more “applied questions” as I immediately think about all sorts of questions after reading them. That’s why I mentioned the talks I did. I reread Kimball’s “The False Gods We Worship” and it still raises tons of questions – especially in light of the never ending discussion on consecration elsewhere here.

One point I have often pondered on wealth is what are they chasing? The pride of being first is certainly the big draw. But I also think that somewhere in the chase for wealth it becomes a replacement for the truth. What the grossly over rich person is seeking is that feeling of completeness not found in material wealth. Are they accepting a quasi-substitute from Satan while still feeling the inner yearnings for the real thing? Why does one gain ultimate success and then “cash out” only to do the same thing again? Is it just busy work, the pride – gotta be first at everything drive – or the replacement theory?

By the real thing I mean the truth of the atonement/gospel. Does the spirit continually try to draw them to the completeness of the truth and they keep missing the mark through misunderstanding? We are all born with the light of Christ. Kind of like a beacon calling us to “remember”. Is it that quest that gets confused or manipulated by the adversary so well?
Has anyone else out there pondered this as a possibility?

Frédérick Bastiat, “The Law,” which despite being hyped by reactionary groups like IHS/Heritage fndtn/LI, etc (untrue, but somewhat funny in a michael moore way)[which is itself only somewhat funny], and being overly simplistic, was a Pres. Benson favorite (cheap appeal to authority).

I think you’re right that murder, and many other sins, are ultimately species of pride. But I’ve taken my cue from the Book of Mormon, where Jacob taught that pride is a lesser sin. In Jacob 2:20-21 he ascribes the evils of wealth he outlined in verses 12-19 to “abominable” pride. Then in verse 22 he says he’d “rejoice” were pride their only sin. Alas, he could not rejoice because they were guilty of a “grosser crime,” whoredoms. It seems to me that this perspective emasculates Lewis’s ideas about pride’s role in the heirarchy of concerns.

Thinking you’re better than others is ugly; acting on that thought is worse.