Posted on 03/21/2009 8:22:38 AM PDT by greyfoxx39
Here is the response of a Utahn commenting on a Salt Lake Tribune online blog concerning HBO's attempt in its series "Big Love" to increase its revenues by publicly insulting the religious sensitivity of a minority religion: "Anything that gets the LDS "church's magical Mormon underwear in a twist is all right with me!!"
I write for a regional newspaper in Iowa. During the last election campaign, I suggested that Mitt Romney lost the Iowa caucus to Mike Huckabee primarily due to anti-Mormon bigotry. A reader argued that my opinion had no credence because I was a lay leader in the LDS Church.
The writer was either suggesting that I knew exactly what I was talking about and was therefore credible, or that I shouldn't be believed because I was a Mormon, which implies that the writer was a bigot.
-SNIP-
It is obvious to an outsider that Utah, or at least Salt Lake City, has within itself a deeply held culture of bigotry. A bigotry so ingrained in the cultural norm that the readers posting comments to the newspaper's blogs, apparently believing they are freethinking and ironic, are saying things online that would never be allowed into print if written about other groups.
(Excerpt) Read more at sltrib.com ...
You “conclusion” is faulty. I have not changed my position.
YOU: Nor would Jesus set someone up for failure... then you have to proclaim that Judas is in heaven this very moment.
Jesus did not “set anyone up for failure”, just becuase Jesus knew before Judas was even born what Judas would do, does not take away Judas’ choice in the matter. Judas’ betrayal is one more fulfillment of scripture. I do not have to proclaim Judas is in heaven at all.
But by your own logic, since Adam and Eve’s fall was a “fall up”, then you must agree that Judas was a true believer because without his actions, the atonement would never have happened.
Non-Martyr Death of a Criminal Placemarker
“Oh Lord, how long will these false accusations continue against thy Church?”
“The First Presidency issued an official declaration on the matter of killing apostates, as a form of blood atonement, in 1889. This declaration reads, in part:...”
It pains me not at all to say that I cannot find any good reason on any issue of major importance to place more than a meager level of trust in the first presidency of that era
After all, those were the same people (essentially, in philosophy/theology, if not in absolute terms of individual personalities) who issued the Utah statehood-ushering declaration “ending” polygamy - which provably continued to be practiced, performed, and sanctified by official representatives - Elders, ranking Apostles, etc - of the LDS cult, into the twentieth century well past the official agreed-upon date.
Not surprisingly, since it is of course,the self-same LDS church led years earlier by Joey-boy when he denied (while in more than one polygamous marriage/relationship) being married to any other than his first wife, denied that polygamy/polyandry were practiced or sanctioned among any in his cult - only to conveniently have a prophetic vision or mutterance or something months later.
This was a vision (or whatever) which not only allowed the detestable abomination of a satanic lie, but also codified it, and elevated it to the stature of LDS holy writ - the “Law of Abraham”, necessary for celestial glorification, if not salvation itself...
Now the claim is that it was a scattered practice; usually only in exceptional cases of necessity for provision when some of the pioneer women were made widows and their children orphans by the rugged push westward.
Except that the story is unadulterated BS, because many times the older cult leaders sent younger mormon missionaries “back east” to recruit new multiple wives, with the stern admonishment (after more than a few disappointing returns) NOT to selfishly select and keep the younger, good looking ones for themselves, but to give the senior men the first “choice of the chickens.”
Far from being an “exception” it was very widespread.
Of course these tales now come complete with a friendlier, more politically sanitized framework of terminology. It is no longer widely or popularly referenced within the LDS circles as “polygamy”, but rather “plural marriage”. It sounds so much more innocuous and all...
I was seated by my wife during “sacrament meeting” about a year ago when a speaker at the podium queried the people of that ward how many knew themselves to be direct descendents resulting from “plural marriage”...About 40% of the people raised their hands.
According to my wife, over half of the remainder in that ward were “newbies” - converted to the LDS church since the 1950s.)
Another time ar sacrament meeting, one of the ladies in the ward went up front to testify - and I have to give her credit with an effort to get the truth out.
The Bishops and all must not have known what she intended to say, because she testified about her family history - about a great-great grandfather and a great-great uncle who were both directly part of the Mountain Meadows Massacre (and had both left diaries/letters detailing their justification for, and satifaction over the action...)
One of those same two had also been a key member of the early “Danites” and had also proudly left carefully handwritten details of his many doings for the “cause”. These “heirlooms’” accounts had extremely upset and sickened her to the core.
She was still a staunch LDS adherent, but clearly felt that too many things had been, and were being covered over, truths were being denied or sanitized, and in her opinion it would be better for individuals who had family “heirlooms” and ties, knowledge...such as she had...to come forward. \
At the end of it all, she finished up with the usual “I testify that.... and I know that this church is true, and I say this in the name of Jesus Christ...”
She was “taken aside” soon thereafter and was not seen during the Sunday school lesson time...
That episode took me entirely by surprise. At that time I had never heard of either the Danites, or Mountain Meadows - those were chapters in the history of mormonism which were foreign to me. Rather a harsh awakening...
Since this is the same organization which took so long to change its own direction about black people in the church in general, and in the priesthood and the “celestial” kingdom in particular...
I am disinclined to place overmuch trust in mormon historians’ and the officially “approved” accounts of LDS church doings and history - given their clear historical conduct of revisionism.
I expect that at the current pace of scrubbing, within less than fifty years, within the LDS church, only the oldest people and the few black people in the church will recall how blacks were once relegated to third-class citizenship by bom scripture and 158 years of accepted canonical interpretation.
Outside the church, the official posture may morph into one of this [prejudice against blacks, indians etc...] having been promulgated in “unofficial writings” mostly written by “non-leadership” people who were “not spokesmen” for the church, and point out smugly that those earlier positions were superseded by “revelation”
It is ALL too convenient.
I mean by that, the WHOLE collective mass taken together.
Any single facet might be easily dismissed as incidental or anecdotal - attempts at sniping by anti-mormonism advocates (which often is a method mormon adherents utilize to dissipate or diffuse even well documented swaths of church history - along with dismissively referring to them as unreliable on the basis of not being sources from official church history, but coming from “antis”...)
For my part, I am not anti-mormon (as I am married to one, and therefore related as an in-law to many), but I am Christian of “another” theological stripe, and thusly I am anti-Arianism, anti-gnosticism, and anti-mormonISM.
A.A.C.
Let me try to alleviate your fears: caused no doubt by an ACTIVE campaign by Bitter Exer's and ANTI's (who are Hateful and Bigoted) to tear down our wonderful LDS Organization®.
First, our Wonderful founder was MURDERED by a Murderous Mob who Stormed the jail and Murdered him.
All because he EXPOSED the Corruption and Abomination of ALL the 'churches' (spit) that were then in existance.
It was dear Joseph that Valued Families SO much, that he wanted to have a VERY big family of his own (after GOD told him it was His COMMAND to take other mens wives.)
So now, after all these years of TRYING to destory the ONLY church that has AUTHORITY to administer the Temple Rites® that GOD instituted again on Earth (with a little help from the Masons), 'Christians' are ramping up their efforts of LIES, HALF-truths and outright SLANDER.
"How?" you may ask? By actually using things the our Publishing house has printed over the years!
Dastardly using things our Leaders and Prophets® have said over the years and actual historical documents!
These visious GENTILES do not realize (or know) that TRUTH comes by REVELATION: NOT by study of facts.
There is MUCH more to say, but MY time is limited.
However, we have an army of volunteers - young, eager (missionaries we call 'em) folks waiting to come to YOUR home to explain the Restored Gospel® to you.
--MormonDude(When would be a good time for YOU?)
Ah... THIS explains it!
Interesting fairy tales.
One of those same two had also been a key member of the early “Danites” and had also proudly left carefully handwritten details of his many doings for the “cause”. These “heirlooms’” accounts had extremely upset and sickened her to the core.
I wonder how many of these “heirlooms” have been destroyed.
I was in grad school with one guy who only wanted to do LDS ‘faith promoting’ history. Total TBM. We had a research class together one semester. We went at it constantly, mostly over selection of source material, and I felt sorry for the meek little prof who had no idea what we were talking about when we slipped into “mormonese”.
One time this TBM actually admitted he would destroy a document rather than have it damage “the church”. That is when the professor when off on him.
So now, after all these years of TRYING to destory the ONLY church that has AUTHORITY to administer the Temple Rites® that GOD instituted again on Earth (with a little help from the Masons), ‘Christians’ are ramping up their efforts of LIES, HALF-truths and outright SLANDER.
“How?” you may ask? By actually using things the our Publishing house has printed over the years!
You are scaring me elsie.
Let's define how the earliest Mormon apostates defined "see," shall we?
Like spiritual forefather, like spiritual son. Note: 2 of the 3 "witnesses" on the title page of the Book of Mormon both say they saw Joseph Smith's phantom "plates of gold" with eyes of faith: David Whitmer, one of the witnesses who was later ex-communicated by the LDS church, one whom Smith called a "dumb beast to ride" and "an ass to bray out cursings instead of blessings" (see History of the Church, vol. 3, p. 228) said he saw these gold plates "by the eye of faith." [Eye of faith quotation source: The Palmyra Reflector, March 19, 1831] (BTW, by 1847, Whitmer told Oliver Cowdery that he was the prophet of the New Church of Christ.)
Another original Book of Mormon "witness," Martin Harris, was a Quaker-turned-Universalist-turned-Restorationist-turned-Baptist-turned-Presbyterian-turned-Mormon (And that was only before his conversion to Mormonism). After his conversion (after the LDS Church kicked him out, that is), he changed religions 8 more times (including with the Shakers, where he said he had a stronger testimony there than with the Mormons) & then joined a Mormon break-off group, the Strangites. If you check out a book, Gleanings by the Way, Harris said he saw the gold plates with "eyes of faith and not with natural eyes."
All those people were excommunicated. Some became enemies of the Church. But not a single one ever recanted their testimony of seeing the plates. ["Stourme"]
Well, maybe that's where the word "spiritualize" came from -- Mormon apostates who saw things with "spiritual eyes." Who cares about recantation or not when the original testimony came from the likes of a Quaker-turned-Universalist-turned-Restorationist-turned-Baptist-turned-Presbyterian-turned-Mormon-turned-Shakers-turned-7-additional-religions...and I guess since you put so much weight on the testimonies of these apostates, then you must believe Shakerism is even more true than Mormonism--if you want to believe Martin Harris' testimony!
Same Martin Harris who testified that his testimony for Shakerism was greater than it was for Mormonism and that the Shaker’s “Sacred Roll and Book” was also delivered by an angel.
joyous placemarker
I like fairy tales told by protesters. Don’t you?
The Smoot agreement - a matter of Congressional record (vis-a-vis ending polygamy by agreement with the US government) being entered into, and violated repeatedly and with apparent impunity by the mainstream LDS hardly qualifies as a fairy tale: those things are known matters of historical fact.
There are two people in my wife’s stake that I know of whose grandparents’ “plural marriage” vows were solemnized in a ceremony where about a half dozen such “celestial” affairs were solemnized about ten months after the agreement was signed, sealed and delivered.
Though I am certain you would rather it were a fairy tale, it is not. Nor is it anecdotal.
The woman’s testimony which I referenced - also no fairy tale. Alas, though many who were there may have wished it so. Perhaps if they just covered their ears and chanted “La-la-la-la-la-la” it would be just like none of it ever happened.
If all the Roman Catholics call the stories of the Spanish Inquisition “fairy tales” and close their eyes and chant “La-la-la-la-la”, maybe that whole ‘episode’ will never have happened either...
Ditto the bad parts of the Crusades, and the few Popes over the centuries who were bad actors rather than men of G_d...
Summary dismissal/denial - an effective coping technique (especially for all those who held their breath until they turned blue as children in order to get their way).
OMm, I cannot help but laugh - and I’m not laughing with you, I am laughing at you in this instance.
The stubborn refusal by LDS to believe that Joey-boy and Brigham Young and the other key leaders were anything other than near-perfect paragons of leadership, truthfulness, and religious virtue... flies in the face of accounts too numerous and independently verified to constitute mere anecdotes.
The only churches/religious folk that come even close to such a historical claim in my mind would be the Amish and the Mennonites.
In the interest of disclosure, I will add to this that I am not of either of those latter two persuasions, nor have I ever been. I have nothing to lose or gain by identifying the two groups.
Mormons did not “cut the mustard” from the very outset. Joey Smith is the main reason, and “Brigham the brigand” right after him as the second “Joe-Bot” in chief...
A.A.C.
Sounds like more of the same fairy tale to me.
“I like fairy tales told by protesters. Don’t you?
Sure. But I’m just hanging around being joyous.
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.