Posted on 09/22/2019 4:04:02 PM PDT by robowombat
Affixing blame for the Mountain Meadows Massacre SEPTEMBER 21, 2019 BY DAN PETERSON
This is not a photo of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. We have none. So I went for a cheerier note. This is a photo (by James Jordan) of director Mark Goodman working just a few days ago with extras in Old Sturbridge Village, Massachusetts, for the “Witnesses” film project.
I note that I’m being accused by a small handful of people of blaming the Mountain Meadows Massacre on “anti-Mormons.”
First, two preliminary observations:
1) When I write anything for the public, at least some people will misread it in the most negative way that they possibly can.
2) The Mountain Meadows Massacre is, for quite manifest reasons, a controversial topic. And, accordingly, it’s one that some people are strongly inclined to exploit for ideological ends.
Of course, I don’t blame the Massacre on “anti-Mormons.” I blame it on the people who did it.
But the perpetrators interest me very particularly because, overwhelmingly, they do not seem to have been conventionally bad people – thugs, murderers, and the like – either before September 1857 or, for the most part, thereafter.
So the question that puzzles me (in this case as in more than a few others) is, What makes ordinary, decent people commit so extraordinarily horrific a crime?
Reading the Oxford book Massacre at Mountain Meadows, by Ron Walker and Rick Turley and Glen Leonard, when it first came out many years ago, I felt as if I were seeing a Greek tragedy unfold. There was a certain inexorable logic to what ultimately happened – a horrible logic, obviously, but one in which it made a certain degree of sense, after one bad step had been taken, to take the next one. I found myself wanting to scream “No! Stop!” while knowing what the outcome was inevitably going to be.
To me, if we see the people who committed the Mountain Meadows Massacre as utterly unlike ourselves, we’re not only falsifying history (and not merely in the sense that they, like me and many of my readers, claimed membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) but refusing to see a lesson (or, more aptly, lessons) in what happened. If they were something of a different species, their cautionary tale can have little if anything to teach us.
In order to understand what they did, we need to understand what factors acted upon them. And, beyond any reasonable dispute, one of the most important of those factors was a prior history of persecution and forced migration.
That doesn’t mean that the Missouri mobs bear legal and moral responsibility for the Mountain Meadows Massacre any more than an abusive father is responsible for the violent acts committed much later by a criminal son. But neither are the two unrelated. Human evils ramify. They do damage, among other things to human psyches.
The Mountain Meadows Massacre certainly isn’t the Restoration’s finest hour. It’s anything but faith-promoting. But it shouldn’t be exploited as a weapon against the Church or against religious belief, either. It’s too complex to be reducible to a self-serving slogan on a partisan bumper sticker.
You are historically illiterate! The Mormon Battalion went from Iowa to San Diego .... was disbanded and the members returned to Utah by themselves. ...and was 10 years earlier!
First Contact in Utah Valley War: September 1857.
Date of Mountain Meadows Massacre: September 7, 1857.
OK Genious,.... do you think there may have been a connection? Please put aside your religious bigotry for a moment.
Well .... I guess when I decend to Hell do to being LDS ... I’ll at last get a chance to meet you in person!
‘....as a man judgeth, so shall he be judged!’
Your too caught up in your religious bigotry to understand that others may be even closer to God than yourself.
Christ said’... as ye judgeth, so shall you be judged’
Be prepared for a tough interview when you have to explain to Christ why other worshipers of him are not in your view Christian .... just because they don’t believe in Constantines ‘Nicene Creed’ and think that God still speaks to mankind!
when religion changes a basic dogma , no matter what it is, because of political pressure, that religion loses credibility in my eyes.
Please .... your ability to find comparisons between different things rivals the abilities of my neighbors 6 year old!
Take a break from your religious bigotry and take a cup of coffee!
If you call yourself a Christian ... then please cat like one.
....and there isn’t such a thing as mohamedanism, Genious .... its called ‘Islam’
Wow .... if you are that naive, then I guess you believe that Trump stole the election from Hillary by having the Russians change vote tallies!
I guess, you’ve got a way to go before you become a Christian. True Christians deal with facts and understanding rather than bigotry and slander.
“do you think there may have been a connection? Please put aside your religious bigotry for a moment.”
You’d have to be morally blind to justify the murder of women and children.
It’s reprehensible teppe.
My faith lays with my Savior the Lord Yeshua, not in some fake golden plates. You should do some very serious study into the founding of the LDS and the life of Joseph Smith Jr. and how he conjured up the fake belief as Adam is your god and lives with Mary producing spirit children and how Lucifer is the spirit brother of Yeshua. You’re put your eternal existence into the hand of a false god.
Frankly I have a copy of the Brigham Youngs discoursse .... and the BS that you claim about ‘the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints’.... pretty much is a testimony that at best you’re a ‘pharasee in christians clothing’.
If you want to be a Christian .... start by acting like one.
Your bigotry blinds you.
What I said is that the LDS people were under attack by the US government. Yes, some people in desperation at the prospect of being attacked striked out and did unspeakable carnage.
Do you have any sympathy for the Mormons murdered in NY, Ohio, Missouri and Illinois?
Or is your sympathy for murdered innocent women and children only invested in your religious bigotry?
If so .... you are a Christian in name only.
Bullshit!
They chose to murder innocents.
It was no one’s fault but their own evil choice.
What those people did at Mtn Meadows Massacre was such an unspeakable horror that it will be a stain on people who profess LDS Christianity forever.
If there was a pattern or repeat of this horrendous-massacre then you may have a point; however, since there never has been .... the only way to describe it is that those people who committed this offense were in desperation to ward off what they believed as their probable destruction at the hands of the US Army.
The Massacre happened when the US Army was only 200 miles away from Utah!
Are you such a religiously bigoted jug-head that you actually can’t see a connection? If you can’t be that honest, the spirit of truth and Christ himself cannot be a resident in your heart.
I agree, ‘it was their own evil choice’. God will judge them.
I usually don’t believe in knee-jerk reactions, I usually want to understand the situation .... I actually think that is God’s preferred method as well.
What those people did at Mtn Meadows Massacre was such an unspeakable horror that it will be a stain on people who profess LDS Christianity forever.
If there was a pattern or repeat of this horrendous-massacre then you may have a point; however, since there never has been .... the only way to describe it is that those people who committed this offense were in desperation to ward off what they believed as their probable destruction at the hands of the US Army.
The Massacre happened when the US Army was only 200 miles away from Utah!
Are you such a religiously bigoted jug-head that you actually can’t see a connection? If you can’t be that honest, the spirit of truth and Christ himself cannot be a resident in your heart.
I think The Hawn’s Mill Massacre would be cheered here.
Mitt Romney’s teeth sparkle when he smiles, as he twists the knife into Trump’s back. I’m sure the fact that he’s mormon, has NOTHING to do with it./s
I am, pointing out your belief in a false prophet and a false god. I spent a week in a class studying the false teachings of Mormonism. Walter Martin and the Tanners were the instructional materials used. So being a Christian warning you of the belief in a false prophet I’m saving you from an eternity in the wrong place. The Apostle Paul said that you warn those who are in a false religion so that they can’t say at the Final Judgement that they hadn’t been warned. Your blood therefor is not on my hands. I respectfully suggest you really look into your belief in the Mormon church’s teachings and from where it came. God Bless you in the Name of Yeshua who died for your sins, not Joseph Smith Jr. who couldn’t save himself. I’ve been to the place where he was shot and visited his grave site and the town where he live. My Mormon friends say that I’m the more Mormon than they are in that I know more about what they believe than they do.
I, also recently finished ACD’s “A Study In Scarlet”. I’m guessing he was more than meticulous in his research. (Well, except for the “brain fever” fad that authors of his era believed). I tend to think his research findings in this particular subject were accurate. I’ve known some very nice mormons, but they’re all deranged when it comes to their beliefs.
It’s not too late for you to repent. You’ve believed a lie. If you believe in God, and sincerely ask Him to reveal Himself to you, He will. Through His WORD.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.